Rachel taps her throat and hums like a singer warming up her voice. “Okay, ready. Hit me.”
“There’s this guy on the app I really like talking to. But… we haven’t met.”
“Hmm.” She purses her lips. “No lecture yet. But why not just meet him and see if you have chemistry?”
I bite my lip. “He’s not really available.”
“Then what’s he doing on a dating app?”
“He didn’t actually sign up for the app. He was at a friend’s bachelor party, and I guess one of them got drunk and thought it would be hilarious to steal his phone and set up a profile on his behalf.”
“Okay, but if you guys hit it off—”
“He has a girlfriend,” I interrupt.
“Ohhhhhhhh,” Rachel says, eyes widening. “That’s tricky. Wait. You’re having a cyber affair! With a cheater!”
“I’m not. I’m really not!” I repeat at her look. “And he’s not a cheater. After we matched, I messaged him, and he explained right away what had happened and that he wasn’t looking for a relationship. If he were looking for some sort of weird Internet affair, would he have told me about his girlfriend right away?”
“No,” she admits. “But then why are you two still talking?”
“We’re just friends,” I say, shrugging. “After he replied to my message, I replied saying no problem, and then he replied, and then I replied. Somewhere along the line we discovered both of our first crushes are from Empire Records—”
“I’d forgotten about that! You loved A.J.”
“Still do,” I say with a nod. “He had a thing for Corey. We both live in Manhattan, we’re both highly suspicious of oatmeal, we both lost our dads to lung cancer four years ago, we both put mustard on our scrambled eggs—”
“So gross.”
“We don’t, however, like the same ice cream, apparently.”
“You’re smiling that smile again,” Rachel says. “Sweetie. I’m not buying this just friends thing. You’re in love with this guy.”
“I’ve never met him!”
Rachel’s lips purse as she shifts Matteo to her other shoulder. “Does Lily know about this?”
“That I sometimes message a male friend? Why would I bring it up?”
I don’t add that I might have mentioned it, if the last time we had dinner Lily had not been going on and on about a documentary she’d just watched about online predators.
“Caleb?”
“Yes,” I say sarcastically. “My younger brother loves to hear all about his sister’s love life.”
“Ah-ha! So it is a love life.”
Whoops. I definitely walked right into that one.
“Did I tell you Caleb moved to New Hampshire?” I ask in an admittedly lame attempt to change the subject.
“Yes, and I still don’t fully comprehend moving out of a rent-controlled loft in SoHo to a barn in New Hampshire, but quit trying to distract me. Does anyone know about this? I need backup that this is nuts.”
“Keva knows,” I say, referring to my friend and upstairs neighbor.
Rachel looks away with just the slightest flinch, and I feel instant regret. She and Keva have met a couple of times and get along, but I sense she’s sometimes jealous of the friendship.
“Hey,” I say gently, pushing my finger into her forearm. “You’re still First Bestie.”
“I know,” Rachel says with a sigh. “It’s just another reminder that living out in freaking Queens means I don’t get to see you as often or get to know the daily details of your life anymore.”
“But you have a yard,” I point out.
“It’s more like a patch of dirt, but…” Rachel grins. “Yeah, I have a yard. My mother is scandalized. I swear, half the reason she wanted me to bring the kids into Manhattan today was because she’s worried they’re not getting enough concrete.”
Amy and Sammy, Rachel’s other two kids, are spending the day with her mom in Morningside Heights, which is the only reason I’m not fussing more that I don’t get to see my de facto niece and nephew. Grandma trumps best friend, and though I’m careful not to mention it, Rachel’s fears about Astoria being too far away from her old life aren’t totally unfounded. It’s at least an hour by train, which means I don’t get to see her or her family as much as I’d like.
Rachel gives me a sly look. “What do you think he looks like?”
Medium height. Wiry build. Longish brown hair, warm brown eyes. Big smile.
“I haven’t thought about it,” I say casually.
“Uh-huh. Liar. In these fantasies of yours, is he by any chance a musician and a Sagittarius?”
“Okay, that’s impressive,” I admit.
“I know,” she says, looking mollified to have best-friend status restored. “But you forget that we spent all of middle school and most of high school discussing our future husbands in very specific detail.” She pauses. “Damn, I was far off.”
“You mean your hot Puerto Rican husband isn’t a blond surfer named Dustin? Get out.”
“Oh, Dusty. What might have been,” she says dreamily before turning back to me. “Aren’t you worried your mystery guy could be, like, a hundred? With gout and gingivitis? What if his girlfriend is a caretaker at his nursing home, and the most action he gets is a sponge bath?”
“That would be fine,” I say primly. “I can be friends with someone of a different generation.”
I send out a silent plea to SirNYC. Please don’t get sponge baths.
Rachel takes a last bite of her sandwich, then scrunches the paper wrapping into a ball with a sigh. “I want to warn you about catfishing, but honestly this is too adorable, assuming you don’t do anything dumb. Like agree to meet him in a back alley.”
I let my eyes go wide. “Wait, so I shouldn’t have wired my life’s savings to his overseas account and then given him my home address when he asked to see my panty drawer?”
“Aren’t you funny. Here, want to give my arms another break?”
“Absolutely,” I say, taking the baby and kissing his head. “How’d you manage to escape with this one? Grandma Becca would have snatched him right up.”
“Oh, she tried. But though she’d die for her grandkids, she’s not big on diapers, so all it took was a casual mention of eruptive poops to secure some Auntie Gracie time.” She gives a slight sniff. “Joke’s on me though. I think he’s just backed up my lie with a very real diaper situation that needs to be addressed.”
“You want to change him at the shop?” I ask, gathering up the remnants of our lunch as she straps Matteo to her chest in some fancy-looking sling thing.
One of the best things about the champagne shop I own and run is that it’s just across the street from Central Park.
Rachel gives me an apologetic look, and I shake my head before she can speak. “You need to get back. Don’t worry about it.
“I do. Ugh. I’ve become one of those moms, huh? Can’t be apart from her Littles for more than two hours.”