Page 49

“I hope you’ve enjoyed your time here, Josephine.” She paces backward effortlessly despite the height of her heels. “Keep an eye on your phone, okay? I’ll be in touch soon.”

I nod. Even after she disappears back into the elevators, I stand still in the lobby, watching as people dressed in smart suits and dark skirts flow in a current around me.

As soon as she’s off the train she comes running at me, and then I’m enveloped in a near-painful hug that’s all elbows, wild gray-blond curls, laughter, and a cloud of cucumber melon body spray.

“Oh, Sadiebug,” she sings right into my ear. “It’s been too long!”

“Just a few months, Mom,” I say sheepishly. But when I hang on to our hug for a touch longer than I need to, she doesn’t pull away.

“I am just so happy to see you, honey.” She threads her arm through mine and tugs me along.

Despite the dozens of times I’ve seen it, I spare a glance for Grand Central’s iconic turquoise-and-gold celestial mural as we walk toward the street. I try to picture what Noah would think of it, imagine him elbowing me and grinning as he says, I bet you could manage something like that, huh?

As my mom squeezes my arm, I drift back down to earth. “We have so much to catch up on,” she says, beaming.

Mom and I cut across Manhattan all the way to Times Square, where she pauses to take a few pics to share with her book club before we begin a long, meandering walk down Broadway.

Inspired, I snap a shot of the Hadestown marquee for Jules and text Is this where Kain’s dad lives?

?? She responds with a string of laughing and heart-eye emojis.

My mom had insisted on coming to spend my last day in the city—for now, at least—with me, and as we traipse down the crowded streets, I update her on the events of my week.

After the interview, I’d spent the next day and a half revisiting all of my old haunts.

Experimentally, I’d mapped out my commute to Paragon twice, to see which subway line made for the quickest trip.

Yesterday, I’d optimistically taken a run through a couple of Manhattan’s neighborhoods, daydreaming about leaving Queens and finding a new spot in the city.

I vastly prefer to run in a park rather than down long avenues—I hate the way I have to bounce on my toes as I wait for cars or pedestrians to pass—but it helped me note which streets have the shadiest trees, the closest grocery stores, the cutest corner wine bars and breweries.

I’d wondered, for a moment, how Noah was filling his time at Alchemist without me there to keep him company as I finished the mural. But then the crosswalk turned green, and I’d turned my mind back to my jog.

“When will you accept?” Mom asks as we peruse the bookshelves in the basement of the Strand.

I can’t help but feel that it doesn’t have the same warmth and cozy quiet as Bluebonnet, but my mom loves the store nearly as much as Liam does.

Their love of reading is something they share more closely than we do; to this day, they still regularly exchange recommendations.

“I don’t know,” I answer, running my finger along the cracked spine of an old fantasy book. Paragon’s formal offer had come in this morning.

“Best not to keep them waiting, though, right?”

“Addison told me to take the weekend to think about it.”

Mom laughs. “What is there to think about, honey? You made it sound so wonderful.”

I had, hadn’t I? I suck on the inside of my cheek bitterly. If anything, I suppose I do know how to make a good pitch. Noting my silence, Mom pokes her head around the bookshelf. Her brows draw into a puzzled cluster above her wire glasses. “Are you still on the fence?”

All of the air in my lungs comes out in a rush. “Is it crazy that I am?”

She doesn’t answer immediately and pauses with her mouth open.

Her lips press together after a moment, resolute.

“No,” she says slowly. “But I do think I’m missing some part of the story here, dear.

” Her dark eyes, made wider by the thick lenses of her glasses, touch on the other shoppers weaving through the shelves.

“Why don’t we get some coffee and chat?”

After we pay for our purchases—Mom’s four romance novels and a memoir, and my tote bag of souvenir gifts for Morgan and Liam—we duck into the nearest coffee shop and fight for a small table in the corner.

The first sip of my iced latte has me wincing.

“No good?” Mom pouts as she sips blissfully at her tea.

“A little too sweet.” I swirl the ice with a straw as I’m unexpectedly hit with a pang of longing for my regular order from Busy Bean.

I’ve gotten to the point where the baristas recognize me on sight, prepping my coffee before I even make it to the register.

I smile to myself, and Mom tilts her head to the side, curious.

“There’s this coffee shop I like, back at Liam’s. I think they’ve perfected my order,” I explain, laughing. “I go every morning and get coffee for me and—and a, ah…friend.”

That earns me a stare charged with curious intensity.

“…I get us coffee before I work on the mural,” I finish.

“You keep on promising to show me more pictures.”

“I keep on getting distracted.”

“Mm.”

I ignore her pointedly raised eyebrow and turn my phone screen toward her, where I’ve pulled up a photo of my latest progress. I’m rewarded with a quiet, awed inhale of surprise. “So lovely, Sadie. I’m so glad you’ve gotten back into it. You’ve always loved painting.”

“It’s been incredible, Mom. The man who hired me seems to love it, and I’ve learned so much about the process. I really think I’ve outdone—” I pause, then swallow. I laugh a little and turn my phone face down on the table. “…Sorry. We were going to talk about Paragon?”

There’s a tiny shift in my mother’s features that I would have missed if I’d blinked—a slight lean forward, a loosening of the lines on her forehead. She smiles gently, and her warm fingers wrap around my wrist.

“No, go on,” she says. “I want to hear more about Texas.”