In a New York Minute(21)

Cleo turned a stern eye in her direction. “Lo…”

“I’m sorry. But it was. Your mom?” She grimaced, mouth tight.

Cleo begrudgingly nodded in agreement. “Okay, yeah. Lola’s right. That was rough.”

“You’re lucky FrannyDoyleDesign.com was available,” Lola added.

“We bought you the URL,” Cleo said, sitting down next to me.

“You two are amazing.” I paused for a breath, letting the madness of the morning register in my brain. “I am trying not to freak out, but I am freaking out.”

“How the hell did that even come out of your mouth?” Lola looked like she was trying not to laugh.

“I don’t know!” I pressed my palms to my forehead. “I just wanted to sound like I had my shit together.”

“I can’t believe they made you sit there for fifteen minutes and fake-date,” Cleo said, incredulous.

“Trust me, it was even more awkward than it looked on TV.” I smooshed my face into a pillow. “I told Hayes it was the worst first date I’d ever been on. Turns out he’s sort of an asshole.”

“Ouch,” Lola said with a grimace. “But seriously, how can he be so attractive and also so awkward? He was such a dick.”

“He’s shy? Or he was just as nervous as I was?” I guessed. “Or maybe he was raised in a fancy mansion by wolves.”

“Bingo,” Cleo declared with a wave of her finger. “They did say his parents were on a cruise. Seems like a cover-up.”

“In his defense, I did make a very dumb sex joke and then spilled coffee all over myself,” I said as I sat up and straightened out my dress. “It’s not like I brought my A game to our fake coffee date.”

“Well, luckily you never have to see him again,” Cleo said, wrapping an arm around my shoulder.

I felt a strange twinge of disappointment as she said this but brushed it off quickly. “Thank god,” I said with a groan. “Because my track record with the guy is terrible.”

Lola bent over the table and smeared cream cheese on a sesame bagel. “You did great, Fran,” she said, taking a huge bite as she walked back to the chair she’d been sitting in. “He was terrible.”

“Finish that, and then let’s go,” I begged. “And let us never speak of this morning again.”

“Oh, we’re gonna speak about it again,” Cleo said with a laugh. “Like, every day for the rest of your life.”

“We are. Sorry.” Lola nodded with an exaggerated apologetic bob of her head. “I am literally going to bring it up every chance I get.” She stood a bit taller, puffing out her chest, pretending to chat with a stranger. “What was that? You love watching New York News? Have I told you about the time some dumb guy told my amazing friend she wasn’t his type on their morning show?”

“You’re hilarious,” I deadpanned back.

Cleo stood up and leaned over me, planting a kiss on the top of my head. “You’re definitely our type, though.”

“Like, you’re my type exactly,” Lola chimed in reassuringly. “And, hey, you didn’t have a booger on your face this time. That’s definitely an improvement.”

“I told you, it wasn’t a booger!” I said with a laugh. “It was a crumb.”

I rose from the couch, grabbing my purse and throwing it over my shoulder. “Okay, let’s do this.”

Lola snaked her arm through mine. “Time to toast Franny Doyle Design!”

Cleo grabbed another bagel from the table and tossed it in her tote bag. “Smart,” I said, unlocking from Lola for a second to do the same.

Cleo tucked in close to my other side, and we walked out arm in arm, taking up as much space as we could as we made our way down the long hallway. As we emerged into the chaos of Midtown in the middle of morning rush hour, Lola stretched her arms to the sky, then landed one over my neck as we walked, pulling me in close. “Hey, Fran, have we ever told you we love you?”

Cleo, already on her cell phone dealing with work, looked up in agreement. “Big-time. Who needs a Subway QT when you have us?”

I felt awash in love for them, my chosen people, my unrelated family.

“I love you too, you jerks.”





Chapter Four

Hayes



“Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

Eleanor somehow managed to get the words out through a mouthful of oatmeal. I was snipping at a hot-sauce packet with a pair of scissors. We normally did our weekly check-in meeting around 4 p.m., but it was the Friday before a long weekend, and so we’d pushed it to the morning.

“What kind of question is that?” I asked, dumping the hot sauce onto my egg-white wrap. “You know I’m a bad news first sort of person, always.”

You were better off assuming the glass was half-empty, I liked to reason, because then it was a nice surprise if you find out it might just be half-full. This logic had driven Angie nuts. “Where’s the joy in that?” she said to me once, exasperated on a car ride out to Montauk for a long weekend with my parents. I had been complaining prematurely, assuming it was already a wash of a vacation. “That way,” I’d explained matter-of-factly, “I’ll appreciate it more if it doesn’t suck.”