City Love

City Love by Susane Colasanti



DEDICATION


For Matt,

the love of my life




ONE

SADIE


THE ENORMITY OF THE SITUATION hits me at the most random time. Setting up my teapot in my new room, I’m suddenly so excited I actually bust out a dorky happy dance. I am not above busting out a dorky happy dance, particularly at random times.

I have officially left for college.

This is my new apartment for the summer. I might even stay here freshman year with the same two roommates. I’m stoked to get to know them. Rosanna moved in today. Darcy moves in tomorrow. My older brother is cool, but I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have a sister. Now I sort of get to find out . . . without the irritations of living at home.

No parents constantly hovering with their relentless interrogations and antiquated opinions and when-I-was-your-age rants.

No curfew. No boundaries.

No rules except for the ones I want to make.

How awesome is that?

I cannot freaking wait for college to start. High school wasn’t that bad for me, but it made me sad to see how horrible it was for a lot of other kids. I did what I could to reach out to the kids who needed it the most. Random acts of kindness is my jam.

Rosanna appears in my open doorway. Actually I hear her before I see her. The light snap-snap-snapping sound I heard when we met this morning is back. Now I see that her fingernails are snapping together as she flicks her thumb against her middle finger. She seemed nervous when we met. Maybe she’s still nervous? But she said she was okay when I asked before. I think she just needs some time to adjust.

“Hey,” I say. “All unpacked?”

“For now.”

“Are you hungry?”

She nods.

“I’m not going to have the energy to unpack kitchen stuff after I tackle this suitcase. Do you want to go out for dinner? I know a place nearby that’s good and cheap.”

“Perfect,” Rosanna says.

I unzip my ginormous suitcase. How I’m going to figure out where everything goes in my new tiny closet is beyond me. And I thought our closets back home were small. How weird is it that I went away to college and I’m less than a mile from home? I even stayed in the same neighborhood. The thing is, I’ll probably never see my parents until I intentionally go back home to see them. That’s the thing about New York City. Each neighborhood is like its own town. The West Village isn’t that big, but you can pretty much avoid anyone else who lives here for as long as you want. Thank you, population density.

I couldn’t wait to leave home. So when this housing opportunity came up with the University of New York, I jumped on it. They offer summer housing for students enrolled in the fall semester who are doing summer internships on campus or at companies affiliated with UNY. Rosanna has one of those summer jobs. The same opportunity is offered to students who are taking summer session classes, like Darcy. Darcy hooked us up with a video chat right after we got our housing assignments a few weeks ago. So the three of us have virtually met already. Darcy said she couldn’t wait to see our beautiful faces. I can already tell she’s going to be a lot of fun.

Even more fun? My internship at the Department of City Planning. Urban design is something I became passionate about a few months ago. My best friend, Brooke, wants to be an urban planner. The ironic thing is that I helped her figure that out. The more Brooke realized urban planning was perfect for her, the more I realized urban design is a career that fits in perfectly with who I am. New York City is my boyfriend. I’m constantly geeking out over his architecture and parks. Spaces specifically designed for people to gather in positive ways that inspire relaxation, happiness, and connection have always intrigued me. New green spaces and repurposed streets (like Summer Streets, when major avenues are closed to cars for a few hours, or these little plazas in Times Square with lounge chairs) make me giddy. But I never really gave much thought to the planning behind these spaces until I took a guided tour of the High Line with this couple from Seattle who were visiting my parents. That’s when enlightenment struck in the form of a career goal. I was like, Dude. I could be one of the designers behind the coolest new structures in New York City. Designing the spaces in which people rejuvenate and connect with one another would be like the hugest warm fuzzy ever.

Urban design wasn’t always my future career choice. I wanted to be an elementary school teacher before. Peer tutoring in high school was awesome. I loved challenging myself to explain things in the simplest ways I could without disrespecting the kids I was tutoring. The best days were when they laughed at my corny jokes. A lot of the kids I tutored were failing English. They just didn’t get what all those authors from back in the day were talking about. Schools should update their required reading lists with books that students from this century can relate to. Then maybe more kids would actually like to read. I loved tutoring and I loved the internship I had last semester at Hunter College. Their School of Education is launching an antibullying program this fall called Starting Now that was inspired by initiatives like It Gets Better and Born This Way. Everyone at my internship worked with elementary education majors to develop activities that focused on increasing awareness of the consequences of bullying. Kids who understand how strongly their words and actions can affect others are the ones who will be more likely to take action against bullying when they see it. Starting Now will be run in twenty-three schools. It makes me happy to imagine kids doing activities that I designed when they go back to school.