All you have to do is be witty.

Just have a sit,

And answer me this,

Make the words pretty, not sh*tty.

And then it’s followed by an honest-to-God essay question. So maybe it’s just some rich, eccentric leprechaun who wants to fill his building up with a certain type of person. That actually makes the price slightly more plausible.

Then I read the question: “If you had to pick one fictional character to be for the rest of your life, who would it be? And why?”

I let out a snort that actually shakes the pen display behind me.

Well, that’s easy. Harry from When Harry Met Sally. For one, he’s not too far off the mark from myself: snarky, slightly embittered, thirty-something New York guy. But with the added bonus that my beautiful, smart best friend eventually realizes she’s madly in love with me. Plus I’d get to read as a white dude for once. Win/win.

Look, I don’t really know if this ad is legit. But if there’s one thing I can do, it’s write, especially this essay. So might as well, right?

I stand up, grab one of the pens from behind me, and a notebook from one aisle over. I pay for them, and then head right back to the Post-it aisle where I settle in to wax poetic about eating at Katz’s, singing electronic-store karaoke, and delivering zingers about the dance of the white man’s overbite.

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 12

ZOEY

It’s been raining on and off all morning. The air outside Café Crudité is thick with humidity, as though the streets and buildings have Saran Wrap stretched around them, trapping a layer of heat and garbage and smoke over our heads. By ducking under canopies on my walk over, I managed to arrive in a relatively dry state, with zero competition for the big table.

It’s only nine a.m., but when the downpour starts, and a slash of lightning crackles through the air, it looks and feels like midnight. Unsurprisingly, the place fills up with people who appear mildly traumatized.

Despite Clifford’s assurance that he’s “killin’ it” at depositions, his e-mail has me feeling mildly traumatized myself. If Bree and Jude work out—and I’m torn between wanting that and not wanting that—the Sweet Nothings’s check better not bounce. I’m not as panicked about this as I might have been a few days ago, though. For one thing, Clifford’s e-mails all tend to blow over, and for another, I’m still buzzing from the hike Jude sent me on and all the wonderful things I saw along the High Line.

Thunder rumbles overhead, the door flies open again, and about eight more people shove their way inside, huddled and shivering.