“Please stop saying lettuce,” Lore said. “You could take a break from dating, you know.”
“You could try,” he pointed out. He shifted a little in his seat. “I’ve never asked you this before, because I didn’t want to pry.”
“But . . . ?” she filled in.
“But,” he began. “It’s just that one guy, and the way you reacted to him . . .”
Her hand tightened around her backpack strap.
“How was I supposed to act when he came at me like that?” Lore asked. “He deserved to have his face rearranged. Maybe he’ll think twice about doing that to girls.”
“Oh, no, he definitely deserved it,” Miles said quickly. “He probably deserved at least another solid thirty seconds of it. I was actually talking about the other one.”
“The other one,” she repeated. Her heart gave a hard kick.
“The guy who looked like he’d been molded out of every single one of my boyhood fantasies,” Miles clarified helpfully.
Castor’s voice was warm in her mind. You still fight like a Fury.
“What about him?” Lore asked.
“You seemed to know him,” Miles said.
“I don’t,” she said sharply. Not anymore.
To stop any other questions, she leaned her head against Miles’s shoulder, letting the rocking of the train soothe her until she was able to take her first deep breath of the night.
The train barreled on to 125th Street, falling into its usual rhythm of jerking starts and stops in each station. But she was too afraid to close her eyes on the chance Castor’s face, bright and hopeful, would be there to lead her into the memories of the world she’d left behind.
It was quiet uptown when they finally emerged from the subway and turned toward Martha’s Diner.
Harlem had felt like a foreign land when Lore moved into Gil’s cozy brownstone on 120th Street; her family had always lived in Hell’s Kitchen, and she’d never had a reason to go north of 96th. But at that point, her family had been dead for four years, and she’d spent much of that time living abroad. Coming back to the city had felt like being handed old clothes she’d given away to someone else. Nothing fit. Everything was the same, and yet somehow different.
But Lore had treasured the three years that followed, right up until that fateful moment six months ago, when Gil died—hit by a car as he crossed the street, of all things. After, her first instinct had been to pack up and go, only to find that it wasn’t that simple. Gil had left her the brownstone and everything inside it.
Lore could have sold the house in a heartbeat and gone anywhere. Miles would have been fine, even if finding a new place in the city was a headache. But each time she thought seriously about it, the streets seemed to wrap around her. The familiar storefronts, the kids playing out on the stoop two doors down, Mrs. Marks hosing down the sidewalk every Monday morning at ten o’clock . . . it calmed her. It stopped the feeling that her chest might cave in on itself from the weight of the shock and grief.
So Lore had stayed. For all its exhausting complications and crowding, the city had always been her home. She understood its difficult personality and was grateful it had given her one of her own, because in the darkest moments of her life, that resilience alone had saved her.
In a way, she felt that her new neighborhood had chosen her and not the other way around, and she’d wanted to be claimed by something. And, really, that was New York for you. It always got a say, and, if you were patient enough, it led you where you needed to go.
It was four o’clock in the morning, but Lore wasn’t surprised to see another person enjoying an early meal at Martha’s, even in a month as quiet as August.
“Hey, Mr. Herrera,” she called, wiping her feet on the old mat.
“Hey yourself, Lauren Pertho,” he said, around a mouthful of his breakfast sandwich.
Lore had used that name for years, but it still had the tendency to catch her off guard. “How are you, Mel?”
“Dry, at least,” Mel said from behind the diner’s counter. She looked up from where she’d been counting out the register. “You both want your usuals to go?”
“Creatures of habit,” Miles confirmed. “Do you have any decaf brewing?”
“I’ll put a pot on for you,” she said. “Whipped cream?”
Miles had the palate of a kid who ate dessert for every meal. “Chocolate sprinkles?”
“You got it, sweetheart,” Mel said, ducking into the kitchen to start on their order. One Triple Lumberjack platter for Lore, and chocolate chip Mickey Mouse pancakes with extra whipped cream and maple syrup for Miles.
“What?” Miles said. “No comment? No joke about my sugar intake?”
It took a moment for Lore to realize he was talking to her. She looked up from where her gaze had fallen to the floor.
“I’m going to get a stomachache just from watching you,” Lore said, leaning back against the side of one of the vinyl-covered booths. Her pulse had jumped, as if she’d been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to.
Miles stared at her for a moment, but kept his voice light. “Rich coming from someone who eats a meal meant for three people.”
“Healthy appetite,” Mr. Herrera said as he paid his bill, “healthy girl.”
“Exactly,” Lore said, fighting to focus on him. “How’s my Handsome Bo doing?”
Bo the Bodega Cat had shown up two years ago, claimed Mr. Herrera’s shop for its kingdom, and never left. The first time she’d seen him, Lore had mistaken him for an extremely large rat, and seriously wondered if he hadn’t clawed up from the Underworld. Now, her favorite late-Sunday-morning activity was sitting on the bench outside the store and sharing the lox from her bagel with her foul-tempered buddy.
“He ate twelve chocolate bars, vomited on the produce, and destroyed a shelf of paper towels,” Mr. Herrera said, heading toward the door. “And now I have to take the demon to the vet.”
“Do you need me to watch the shop for you?” Lore asked. She enjoyed doing it, especially after the morning rush-hour customers came for their coffee, and she could sit and read a book until the lunchers arrived to decimate the stock of premade sandwiches and sushi.
“Not this time,” Mr. Herrera said. “My nephew is here. Maybe you’d like to meet him? He’s a year younger than you, smart boy—”
“Can he do laundry?” Miles asked seriously. “Or cook? She needs someone to fill the gaps in her important life skills.”
Mr. Herrera laughed, waving him off as he left to open his store.
Lore wasn’t sure why she had offered, knowing that she was more than likely leaving town today. Castor’s presence, never mind his warning, should have sent her running immediately, with or without supplies.
She rubbed her arms at the place he had gripped them, and was surprised to find her skin was warm despite the chill passing through her. She just hadn’t expected . . . him. The whole of him. Those familiar soft eyes. His height. The strength of his body.
The way he had smiled at her.
“Lore—Lore,” Miles said again, this time with more force.
She looked up again. “What?”