I Have Lost My Way(30)

But she doesn’t want Nathaniel coming into the shoe store, because she has no intention of spending the fifty-dollar bill he’s thrust into her hand. So she softens her voice and says: “Girls and shoes can take a while.”

It’s the first time Freya sees Nathaniel smile.

“Take all the time you need,” he says, and he looks like he means it, which must be a first among the ranks of young men.

“Yes, no rush at all,” Harun adds.

A second.

She leaves them there and goes inside, surveying the inventory, inhaling the smell of new leather.

“See anything you like?” the clerk asks.

Before Freya goes out for an event, she and her mother consult a series of photographs a stylist has shot for them, different outfit combinations for different occasions. Never the same thing twice. Sometimes she likes the clothes, sometimes she doesn’t, but she always feels as though she’s playing dress-up. “That’s the point,” says her mother, who sounds more like Hayden every day.

Freya scans the shoes and stops at a pair of orange flats with thick rubber soles. She flips them over. Eighty dollars but half off. When Nathaniel pressed the fifty into her hand, she took it, but only to placate him, figuring she’d find a way to give it back later. Still, it feels right to stay within Nathaniel’s budget. “I’ll take these in a size eight,” she calls to the clerk.

While she waits for the shoes, she pulls out her phone, but before she looks at it, her gaze is drawn to the window. Outside, Harun and Nathaniel sit side by side, hands folded into their laps, like obedient children waiting for their mother. Looking at the pair of them, she feels another lurch in her chest.

She puts her phone away. The clerk brings the shoes, and Freya slips them on. They fit perfectly. Freya pays with her credit card and returns to the boys.

“I’m famished,” Freya announces when she returns to the boys, even though she’s not remotely hungry. “Where should we eat?”

She uses her imperious voice in the hope that it makes it sound like lunch has been on the books for weeks. She’s trying to hide the fact that if these two strangers say no, Freya, who has millions of friends, won’t have a single soul to keep her company today.

She looks at Harun. He’s been her ally so far today. Will he come along?

“There’s a diner nearby,” he says, and Freya wants to hug him. “I’ve been there before. It’s not too expensive, not that you . . .” He stumbles and reddens. “The food’s good, and they don’t care if you stay a while.”

“Perfect,” Freya says. Harun stands up. Nathaniel remains seated.

“Are you coming?” Freya asks. Part of being a good vocalist is making your voice project feelings you don’t necessarily possess, so Freya makes her voice sound authoritative even though she is sick at the prospect that Nathaniel will say no and her whole flimsy plan will collapse and they’ll go their separate ways, leaving Freya all alone.

“Unless you’re not hungry?” Harun says when Nathaniel doesn’t answer. Freya wants to smack him for even giving Nathaniel the opening of an out. Doesn’t he see how hard she’s trying? How much she needs this?

“No, I’m hungry,” Nathaniel admits.



* * *



— — —

Nathaniel is not hungry. He is ravenous. He hasn’t eaten a hot meal in more than two weeks. More than that, he hasn’t shared a meal with another person in two weeks.

But that’s not the kind of thing you say. Not out loud. Not when the going is, at least temporarily, good.



* * *



— — —

Nathaniel is hungry. Freya is ridiculously relieved. “Cool,” she says, toning down her enthusiasm now that agreement has been reached. “Let’s go eat.”



* * *



— — —

The waiter at the diner is a crabby old Greek whose rudeness never wavers, whether you order a cup of tea or a steak dinner (which James did one time for them to share—a mistake, in retrospect—it had the consistency of rope), who administers a fish eye whether you eat and go within a half hour or stay for hours. For this reason, it was one of their favorite spots.

James would flirt with the waiter, even though it never made a dent. Still, he was determined. “I can win anyone over,” he said, giving Harun a look to show just which anyone he was referring to.

There’s no reason to think he might be here. Even though it’s a Thursday. James probably didn’t come downtown today. Why would he? But if he had, if he were here . . . Harun imagines it. Walking in with Freya. Delivering James this gift. He would not be able to refuse it. They would kiss. The crabby waiter would finally smile.

James isn’t here. The waiter is frowning.

The place is mostly empty. One old guy who’s always at the counter. A booth full of girls. The table in the corner—the one they sat at because it was next to the bathroom and seemed the least desirable and therefore the least objectionable to commandeer for whole afternoons of ordering only soup—is empty.

They sit down in a booth. The cranky waiter delivers the menus with a long-suffering sigh and slaps down three waters, sloshing them all over the Manhattan-map placemats.

The menu is a species typical of New York diners, which is to say pages and pages long with laminated pictures of food that are always much more appetizing than the real-life offerings. Harun normally gets the soup. There is only so wrong you can go with soup. Also, a bowl of soup costs five dollars and the cranky waiter is oddly generous with the crackers.