“But does she like me enough?”
“You’ll do fine. You’re like that.”
Coming from Laurel, that was the highest of compliments. Fine. I could handle fine, if it encompassed friends and music and Ryan and laughter. Just like Laurel, all I wanted was to figure life out, and I finally felt as though, in some small way, I had.
Chapter Twenty
“Stop him! Stop him! No!”
“Rachael. You realize this all took place last week, right? Also, I wish you’d stop cheering for the Patriots.”
It was a week after Eva’s show had opened, and we were watching the Buffalo Bills’ last game tapes in preparation for Sunday’s match. Well, Ryan was. I alternated between filling out online job applications and glancing up to see people I sort of recognized tackle each other.
The nights were lengthening, and the sun fell faster and earlier each night. Now, at half past six, I could see red and orange spreading out behind the skyline. It was much more interesting to watch that than formulate a convincing argument for why I should be given an assistant editor position despite lacking three years of experience. I’d almost hammered out the perfect sentence when Ryan’s phone rang.
He paused the tape and answered with a mix of familiarity and affection that meant a family member was on the other end. I didn’t have to guess which one, because his grandmother’s loud tones pierced straight through the cell and echoed across the room.
“I saw the picture. You went out to dinner with a young lady.”
He rolled his eyes. “I often go out to dinner.”
“But,” his grandmother said, as I opened a new tab and searched for Ryan Carter dating. “You were smiling at this one.”
My stomach swooped and my lips curved up.
Ryan’s grandmother hammered him with questions as I pulled up the article in question. Only two hours old. Wow. Was his grandma tech-savvy enough to have Google alerts set up? Or did she just search his name on a regular basis? Or maybe she had a network of other old ladies who kept tabs on each other’s grandchildren and...
Anyway.
The picture showed us at a rooftop bar on 5th. Three of the tables around us spoke French—I suspected I had the same guidebook half the tourists had—and the drinks were expensive even for New York. But it had a view of the skyline and the bar supplied thick red cloaks to keep off the chill, and I liked doing touristy stuff.
Still, it wasn’t a surprise we’d been caught out by a photographer there, rather than when we went for divey pizza.
At least it was a nice picture. He was smiling at me, and I was laughing, wine glass lifted halfway to my lips.
Now, I listened to Ryan answer his grandmother’s assault of questions, gaining my age, profession, reputation, and religion. “Is she a nice Catholic girl?”
I rolled over on my stomach so I could stare at him across the wide living room, to where he paced in the kitchen. I raised a brow at his furrowed face, and waited as he cleared his throat. “Ah... No, no, Mimi, not really.”
“She’s not another one of those atheist types, is she? Ryan, surely there’s someone in that city who isn’t without the Lord.”
I watched Ryan squirm uncomfortably, peeking at me from under his long golden lashes. “Uh, you know...I’m not really sure...”
“Well, go ahead then,” she said querulously. “Ask her. I’ll wait.”
Ryan gave me an absolutely helpless look. “Um...my grandma wants to know if you believe in God.”
What a question. I transferred my gaze to the window, where the pollution of this godless city had turned the sunset into a riot of softening colors. “That is a very long, complicated conversation.”
He narrowed his eyes at me, and I could read his mind perfectly: Yes-or-no would have been just fine. “She’s spiritual, Mimi.”
“Hmm. Well. Is she a Protestant?” She pronounced the denomination with slight mistrust.
I raised my brows. “You might as well bite the bullet.”
“Actually...” He was irritatingly hesitant. “She’s Jewish.”
“I suppose I am technically Catholic,” I mused into the long silence that followed. “In that I have a wide, all-embracing worldview. You know. If we’re using the word as an adjective.”