Michael held a small bouquet of yellow roses. “Hey, you guys.” He wiped a drip of sweat from the side of his face, and transferred the roses to the other hand, which he then whipped behind his back.

“Aww, you brought flowers? What a guy!” Leave it to Doug to create more awkwardness than there already was.

“Oh, uh . . . yeah. The flowers. These are for Trista, if I can ever find her.” Michael scratched his head. “No matter how many times I come down here, I always seem to get the theaters confused.”

“Trista?” Zoe’s voice squeaked. I don’t blame her throat for getting a little tight talking about Michael’s girlfriend.

“Yeah. She got a call back, and today she finds out if she got the part. Can you believe it? She may end up in a musical on Broadway!”

Doug laughed. “That’s ironic! All kinds of people are trying to get on Broadway. And we’re trying to get off!” He slapped his knee. “Do you know the way off Broadway?” Doug looked at Michael, but there was no interrupting whatever he and Zoe had going on.

“Wow. That’s, um, quite an achievement. When you see Trista, will you tell her I said congratulations?”

Michael nodded. “Will do. I haven’t actually seen her in a few weeks. She’s been really busy. Her parents are the ones who told me about the callbacks.”

One side of Zoe’s mouth turned up in a grin. “Well, at least school starts soon. You’ll see her every day then.”

Michael fiddled with the roses, switching them from hand to hand, wiping his palms on his shorts. “Not if she gets the part. She’ll be working every day and getting her schooling on breaks.”

The other side of Zoe’s mouth turned up. “I never thought about that. Well, I hope she gets the part. Oh—but not so that you can’t see her . . . I mean . . . I’m really happy for her. And you. Well, I’m sure you guys will work something out.”

This is torture. Save us, Doug!

“Hey, Michael! Can we bum some money off you for the subway? We’re sorta stranded with all this shrimp.”

NOT THAT WAY, DOUG!

Michael broke eye contact with Zoe and looked down at the Empire Fish Market bags that Doug and I were holding.

“Shrimp, huh?” Michael came a little closer. “Why do you have so much?”

“We’ve got a friend from out of town who’s shrimp crazy. We’re gonna surprise him.”

DOUG!

“And we sorta spent all our money on the shrimp, so now we gotta walk all the way home.”

Michael’s eyes widened. “All the way to 88th?” He dug in his front pocket and turned back to Zoe. “You shouldn’t have to walk all that way.”