“I can’t remember the last time I went to the zoo!” Cassie declares as she waits in line with Joel to buy tickets to get into the Central Park Zoo. It’s a beautiful day, the kind that makes you happy to be alive, even though the families in front and behind them in line both have shrieking kids, and one of those kids is holding a balloon that keeps smacking Cassie in the face.
“Me either.” He gives her hand a squeeze. “It’s going to be fun.”
Yes, they’re holding hands. They hold hands all the time now. Even when they’re just walking down the street, he reaches for her hand, and they lace their fingers together. She hates to admit how much she loves it. And Joel looks so good today, in his jeans and hoodie sweatshirt, with his chestnut hair adorably tousled by the wind.
The tickets for the zoo are obscenely expensive, which probably partially explains why Cassie can’t remember the last time she’s been to the zoo. She’s stopped offering to pay for things. He always waves her off, and she can’t afford any of the things they do together anyway.
“What animal do you want to see first?” Joel asks her.
She taps a finger against her chin as she inhales the distinctive odor of animals. “I’ve always been partial to the penguins. How about you?”
“I like the polar bear.”
She’s got a book on penguins at the store. It’s in the children’s section, and it just arrived a week earlier. She flipped through it, like she often does with new arrivals. The baby penguins were so cute. She wanted to scoop them up and keep one as a pet.
“Joel? Joel!”
Joel jerks his head around, and his eyes widen. A smile spreads across his lips, but she knows him well enough to know when his smile is forced.
She follows his gaze to the source of the voice. There are two couples striding toward them, flanking a blonde child of about five years old. One of the men waves enthusiastically at them, and Joel winces.
“Friends of yours?” Cassie murmurs.
“That’s Pete who called my name,” Joel murmurs back. “He’s my best friend, actually.”
Oh, lovely. She’s about to meet The Friends, without any preparation whatsoever. She looks down at her skinny jeans and
sweatshirt. These aren’t the clothes she’d want to wear for a first impression, but there isn’t much to do about it now.
Joel handles introductions. The tall guy in the NYU hoodie with messy dirty blond hair is his best friend Pete, and the gorgeous blonde with the porcelain skin is his wife Lydia. The little girl is their daughter, Violet, who is wearing an impractical velvet dress and shiny black shoes that look like they cost as much as everything in Cassie’s closet put together. The other attractive couple is Anna and Con. Anna has a visible baby bump poking out of her stylish black-and-white striped top. Both women look like they’ve leapt out of the pages of a fashion magazine.
Cassie feels uneasy about the fact that Joel’s best friend has a daughter and his other close friend has a pregnant wife. He’s thirty-six— he must be thinking about marriage and children in the near future. The thought of being pregnant any time soon makes Cassie queasy. Her life isn’t in any kind of shape to bring a child into it. But then again, Joel hasn’t hinted at marriage yet or gone any faster than she’s comfortable with. So maybe she shouldn’t overreact.
After Joel finishes introducing his friends to her, it’s Cassie’s turn.
He slings an arm around her shoulders and says, “This is Cassie.” “Mommy.” Violet tugs on Lydia’s arm. “She looks like Francesca.”
The color drains out of Joel’s face. Since that first night, they’ve somehow managed to go the whole month without the topic of Joel’s ex- girlfriend coming up. Cassie has tried to hint at it, but Joel always deftly changes the subject. It’s clear Francesca is the last thing he wants to talk about, which makes Cassie increasingly curious.
And now out it comes. In the worst possible way.
“Don’t be silly, Violet,” Lydia says. “She’s much younger than Francesca.”
Oh God.
“She’s not…” The color has returned to Joel’s face and now he’s turning red. “I mean, she doesn’t look like…”
Lydia looks amused. “It’s fine to have a type, Joel. Just own it.”
Joel glances at Cassie, then back down at his sneakers. Cassie had yet to see a photo of the infamous Francesca, although God knows, she’d tried when she was at his apartment. She did a quick search of the photos on his bookcase, but they were just his parents and his brother.
But when Cassie went to the bathroom, she was certain she could smell a hint of an unfamiliar perfume. Was that the lingering scent of Francesca? It wasn’t like she could ask.
“Are you coming or going?” Joel asks his friends. It’s obvious he’s hoping they’re going so he and Cassie can be alone.
“Just arrived,” Pete says.
Joel’s face falls, which seems to amuse Lydia. “Poor you,” she says.
Pete elbows his wife. “You’re going to join us, right, Joel? We’ve been dying to meet this new woman of yours.”
“Girl,” Lydia corrects him under her breath. They all pretend not to have heard her.
“Uh,” Joel says.
Pete grins at Cassie—his dopey smile is a stark contrast to his wife’s icy gaze. “Come on, Cassie. We promise we won’t bite.”
Cassie and Joel exchange looks. “Of course,” she says. “We’d love to join you.”
As if she had a choice.”
If Cassie and Joel had been alone, they would have gone through the park in a leisurely way with their hands linked. But now Joel is staying a respectable two feet away from her at all times, standing only just close enough that she can hear him when he speaks loudly. He’s really freaked out by his friends showing up. Is he ashamed of her? Ashamed that he’s dating a girl ten years younger than him? One who doesn’t look like she’s walked out of the pages of Vogue for a day at the zoo?
Or is he embarrassed that his new girlfriend is apparently a dead ringer for his old girlfriend?
Or maybe she doesn’t want to know.
Violet is remarkably well-behaved. Lydia barks commands at her every minute. Violet, haven’t you been riding that turtle statue long enough? Violet, if you’re going to touch the glass, please hold out your hands for me to sanitize. Violet, please walk at a faster pace—you’re with adults. Cassie doesn’t see Lydia as the sort of person she could ever be friendly with. Anna, on the other hand, sticks close to Lydia at all times, observing her as if for cues on how to be a proper mother. Every few minutes, the two of them whisper secrets to one another.
Cassie would bet every cent she doesn’t have that they’re talking about her.
After an hour has passed, Cassie is more than ready to leave. She’s trying to send cues to Joel that she wants to go home. She glances at her watch no fewer than five times and yawns loudly twice. She’s sure he’s going to suggest going home at one point, but then instead, he says, “Hey, how about lunch?”
How can she refuse?
They find a café that sells horribly overpriced zoo concession food. Cassie has no appetite, but she grudgingly tells Joel to get her a hotdog. The three men take Violet with them to get the food while the three women stay behind to hold the table. Cassie would have liked to get in the line with the men, but Lydia links arms with her and practically drags her to the table.
She has a bad feeling Lydia wants to get her alone.
As Anna settles down at the table, she places a hand on her stomach and her brown eyes widen. “Ooh, that was a big kick!”
Lydia laughs. “It only gets worse, my dear.”
“How far along are you?” Cassie asks, happy to talk about something besides herself.
Anna beams. “Five months.”
“How about you, Cassie?” Lydia focuses on her like a laser beam. “Do you see children in your future?”
“I, uh…” Cassie swallows hard. “I’m not sure…”
“Joel wants kids,” Lydia says. “That’s for sure. Lots of ’em.”
Anna smiles. “Oh, yes. I would have thought he’d have a few by now.”
Cassie’s brain is spinning. If Joel wants kids so badly, why didn’t he marry Francesca and have some? Did she not want kids? Is that what broke them up? Why won’t Joel ever talk about her?
“Anyway.” Lydia waves her hand. “You have plenty of time to decide. You’re so young.” She narrows her eyes. “How old are you, anyway? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Twenty… seven.” It’s not entirely a lie. Her birthday is in… well, nine months. Right around the corner.
But there was no point in lying. Lydia laughs and exchanges looks with Anna. God, she’s not that young. It’s not like she’s sixteen, for crying out loud.
Cassie glances over at the line for food, willing it to move faster. “I wonder what’s taking so long…” She forces a smile. “I could have cooked my own hotdogs by now.”
Lydia arches an eyebrow. “Oh, do you cook?”
The answer to that is a hard no. Cassie cooks, but only stuff that comes out of a box. “Not… really.”
Lydia lets out a sigh. “I’d kill for one of Francesca’s meatballs right now.”
Cassie thinks back to her first date with Joel, when he’d reacted so strangely to her request for Italian food. Maybe that was why. “Oh,
she… cooked a lot?”
Lydia gives her a look of disbelief. “You have to when you own a restaurant, don’t you?”
Francesca owns a restaurant?
The question pops up on Cassie’s lips, unbidden: “Where is the restaurant?”
Lydia and Anna exchange looks. Immediately, Cassie wishes she could take back the question. She doesn’t need to know where Francesca works. It’s better if she doesn’t.
But at the same time, she’s dying for some details about the wonderful Francesca. And Joel won’t say a word about her.
“It’s in the Village,” Anna says. She glances at Lydia. “It’s called Angela’s Ristorante.”
“The food is incredible,” Lydia says. “I’ve been to Italy three times, so I can tell you how authentic it is. It’s like being transported to a restaurant in Naples.”
Lydia’s been to Italy three times? Cassie’s only left the country once.
And that was to go to Canada.
She wonders how many times the wonderful Francesca has traveled out of the country. Or maybe she doesn’t want to know.
Angela’s Ristorante. Cassie imagines checkered tablecloths and a candle on every table. She imagines a leather menu written in elaborate script. Dishes with Italian names that the waiters must translate for the customers. A list of specials that changes every night.
“Of course,” Lydia adds, “Angela’s Ristorante isn’t the same anymore, now that—”
“What are you talking about?”
Joel is suddenly standing over them, balancing two hot dogs, a hamburger, and a soft drink in his arms. There’s a smile on his lips that doesn’t touch his eyes. It’s clear he knows exactly what they were talking about, and he’s not thrilled about them gossiping about his ex- girlfriend.
“Nothing,” Lydia says vaguely. “Just getting to know your lovely
new girlfriend, Joel. Nothing more.”
“Glad to hear it,” he says, lowering the food onto the table.
Cassie looks down at the plump hot dog in a bun in front of her and her stomach churns. Her appetite is gone. She’ll have to force herself to take a bite.
“I told them to keep the hotdog separate from Violet’s peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” Joel says. “So it’s safe for you to eat.”
“You’ve got a peanut allergy?” Pete asks as he slides in next to Violet.
Before Cassie can answer, Joel says, “Yeah, she does. And when I asked to see her epi-pen a few weeks ago, she couldn’t find it.”
Pete winces. “Ouch.”
Cassie feels her cheeks burn. When Joel asked to see her pen a couple of weeks ago, she was mortified to discover it wasn’t in her purse. She must have taken it out at some point and forgotten to replace it. He nagged her until she called her doctor to get a replacement pen. She didn’t even tell him the part where when she found out how much the pen would cost, she almost left the drug store without it.
“You’ve got the new one, right?” he asks her.
“I do,” she says defensively. And even though he doesn’t ask, she rifles through her purse until her fingers close around the syringe. She pulls it out and holds it triumphantly in the air. “Here it is.”
But when she looks up, she sees the judgment in the faces of Joel’s friends. Lydia especially is shaking her head like she can’t believe anyone with a life-threatening peanut allergy would be so dumb as to not carry around their epi-pen. And yes, it was dumb. But Joel didn’t have to bring it up in front of his friends. I’m sure they were all thinking that the perfect Francesca would never have done anything so stupid.
Cassie feels almost painfully stifled by the presence of Joel’s friends. She wishes she could leave. But if she took off suddenly, that wouldn’t make them like her better. She has no choice but to stick it out.
Hang in there. This will be over soon. Eventually, the sun will go down and the zoo will close.
She’s desperate to talk to Joel, but she doesn’t manage to get him alone until after lunch. They’re headed to the monkey exhibit, and she grabs him by the arm to hold him back. Everyone else heads inside, while they stay behind.
Finally—alone.
“Joel,” Cassie says. “I think… I’m going to head out.”
His eyes fly open. “What? Why? I thought we were having fun.” “I’m just… I’m not feeling great.”
His brow furrows. “What’s wrong?” She shakes her head.
He looks to the monkey exhibit then back at her. “Was Lydia giving you a hard time?”
He figured it out. He must know Lydia very well. “Do I really look just like Francesca?” she blurts out.
He sucks in a breath. “Christ, no! Not at all. I mean, yes, you both have dark hair and eyes, but… that’s like eighty percent of the women in the city.”
Cassie isn’t sure if she believes him. After all, Violet thought she looked like Francesca. Little kids are brutally honest. “Do you have a picture of Francesca?”
“Are you asking me if I carry around a photo of my ex-girlfriend?” He snorts. “The answer is no. I don’t have a picture of Francesca. Lydia might have one.” He rolls his eyes. “The two of them used to take a lot of selfies.”
She can’t imagine going up to Lydia and asking to see a photo of Joel’s ex-girlfriend. But there must be a way to see what Francesca looks like. Especially now that she knows where Francesca works…
No. She shouldn’t go to the restaurant. That’s surely a mistake. “Also,” Cassie adds, “Lydia was telling me how much you want
kids… and… well, it freaked me out a little.”
Joel starts choking. He coughs for a good minute, despite not being in the middle of consuming any food or drink. “Jesus. She said that?”
She nods.
“Cassie.” He shakes his head. “We’ve been going out for one month. I’m sure as hell not thinking about kids.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “Someday? Well, yes. I’d like kids someday. But I promise you, it’s not at the forefront of my mind when I’m spending time with you.”
He reaches out to take her hand, and she allows him to take it. The anger and anxiety she’d been feeling minutes earlier slips away. He’s right—he’s never mentioned kids before or made her feel pressured in any way.
“Now,” he says, “can we please go see the monkeys?”
She nods. She’s going to do her best to enjoy the day and make the best possible impression on Joe’s friends. She’s not going to think about Francesca anymore, that’s for sure.
