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“I’m sure we’d love to come see it,” he replied. “How’s tomorrow?”

After they made plans for Giancarlo and his daughter to come by in the morning, Ryan said, “Where would you move to?”

“Brooklyn?” Colette suggested.

At the same time, Ryan and Lola said, “Not Brooklyn.”

Jess snorted.

“I was thinking maybe Alphabet City,” Lola said.

“What about Dimes Square?” Jess asked.

“Oh, I amsonot hip enough for Dimes Square,” Lola replied, shoveling a forkful of cake into her mouth.

“I don’t know about that,” Colette replied. “You’re about to be an up-and-coming fashion designer. You’re cool, Lola. Get used to it.”

Lola shrugged, quietly thrilled. She liked the idea that she was cool enough for Manhattan’s hippest downtown neighborhood, but she still didn’t want to live there. She didn’t want to be in an area where she was constantly trying to prove herself.

Her parents insisted on paying for dinner, despite the fact that every single other person at the table offered to handle the bill.

Afterward, everyone hugged goodbye, and Lola felt an old pang watching all the other couples break off and go into the night together. She shook it off quickly. This was what she’d wanted. And she didn’t feel bad for herself, not really. She loved herself. And until she found someone who would love this new version of her too, that was enough.

***

When Lola got to her building, Hector was not at his usual post by the front door. She yanked it open herself, and when she got inside, she saw him, the super, and a few of her neighbors gathered around the front desk, looking at something she couldn’t see.

She approached them. “What’s that?” she asked, and someone moved over to let her into the circle.

On the desk was a cardboard box. It was lined with a rumpled plaid shirt.

And full of kittens.

“Oh my god.” Lola’s heart swelled.

There were six of them, each a different color. Black, gray, calico, tabby, orange, white. A couple were sleeping in little balls, but the rest were wiggling around, meowing at each other and the people who gazed down at them.

“I found them in the basement,” the super told Lola. “Mama Cat nowhere in sight.”

“Animal control is on its way,” Hector said.

“Animal control?” Lola gasped. “They’re not going to kill them, are they?”

“No, no,” Hector reassured her. “They’re taking them to a shelter.”

Lola leaned her face closer to the kittens and made eye contact with the calico one. And then, out of nowhere, it pounced on her, landing on her chest.

“Oh,” she exclaimed. “Hello, little friend.”

The kitten rubbed its face under her chin and began to vibrate.

“I think you just got claimed,” one of the neighbors, a younger woman in yoga pants and a ponytail, said.

“Well, shit,” Lola laughed. The kitten continued to burrow into her, purring. “I think you might be right.” She rested her hands on itswarm, little body. She was overcome by the affection. By how small it was. By how much it seemed to need her and how good that felt.

She could not imagine putting the kitten back in the box and walking away.

She knew, in no uncertain terms, that she would be going through the next fifteen to twenty years of her life with this kitten—well, cat soon—curled up next to her. The cat would see her go through life’s ups and downs, experience things she couldn’t even yet imagine. The decision made itself.