Madly (New York 2)

“Nah, I’m good out here.”

Allie looked at the door. May was visible through the glass, her mouth small and hard, her posture perfectly correct.

She didn’t want to go back in there.

She sat on a bench by the door in the sun and popped open her cold sugar-coffee-beverage with a sigh. From deep in her pocket, weighted down with leftover quarters, her phone chimed. Winston.

What did your sister think of your plan for the restaurant?

Allie responded, She hated it.

Little blinking dots for a moment, and then, Bugger.

More blinking dots.

May hadn’t been ready—that was the thing. She’d given Allie her bank account number readily enough, shaky but smiling as Allie transferred an infusion of cash into her and Ben’s mutual account, which May promised to pay back with interest on whatever terms Allie wanted, even as Allie bit back the comment that the whole point was there were no terms for giving money to your sister, you just gave it to her and wished her well because she was your fucking sister.

But as soon as Allie started talking about Ben’s restaurant and what she thought it needed—including expanding into the next building from the lunch-counter-size space it was crammed into, in order to triple capacity—turning hiring over to an agency and bringing on a crapload more staff, and getting Ben to step back from absolute dictatorial management over the kitchen into a management and advisory role that would make it possible for the place to continue functioning when he wasn’t around—May had started asking unfocused questions, shaking her head and saying I’m not sure, and That’s a big step, and Ben isn’t going to like that, and Wow.

A great deal of wow, until wow started to sound a hell of a lot like, You don’t know what you’re doing, Allie, and Possibly you’re kind of nuts, and This is not what I want.

So she’d stopped trying. She hadn’t even mentioned her thoughts about getting May a studio space, maybe investing in a place in some up-and-coming neighborhood where they could rent studios to artists and offer gallery walls, possibly with a coffee shop so there could be art and poetry events, music.

What was the point? She had these ideas but there was nowhere to put them, and no one who wanted to hear them.

Winston’s next text finally popped up with a little zoop noise.

Give her time. With these sorts of investment projects, clients always think they want to move big and move fast, but when presented with the reality of what that would mean, they balk. She’ll come around eventually. She only needs to make room emotionally and mentally for what the change will mean.

After a brief pause, a second text popped up.

And it will mean only good things for your sister, and Ben, and for you. So she has nothing truly to object to.

Allie typed back, Thanks. I was starting to feel crazy.

You’re not crazy.

Perhaps a bit mad.

But in a good way.

She smiled and drank her oversugared caffeine drink. What are you up to?

Work. Deathly dull. Are you at the airport?

Yes. Waiting a few more minutes on the flight.

I’d rather be with you.

She’d like to have him next to her right now, though she’d turned him down this morning when he volunteered to come along. Her dad and Ben had never met Winston, her father hadn’t even heard of him, and it would only complicate things to introduce them. Better to keep it simple.

The dots blinked, and then, I miss you.

Allie typed, I miss you, too. Then deleted it.

She tried again. I have an idea.

?