“Mom, you know I love you even if I don’t want to be your roommate,” Sam replied with a bashful grin. Wes grabbed him by the shoulder and they headed in the direction of the bar. Miriam turned back toward me and Cleo.

“Franny is an interior designer who just launched her own business,” she announced to the group. “And she’s incredibly talented.”

Miriam offered me a proud smile, and my posture straightened under her gaze. She’d always treated Lola and me like daughters, welcoming us into the Kim family and home as awkward new-to-New-York college kids. The Kims lived just north of the city, in Rye, and we’d escaped to her house numerous times over the years.

Cleo had filled her in on my new business, and my need for clients, and she now began pointing around the group, ticking off names and job titles, which I tried to retain.

A woman named Ellen, with crystal-studded glasses and a martini in one hand, leaned in for a handshake with the other. “I saw you on New York News,” she said knowingly. “I met my husband when I was getting on the A train on Forty-Second Street. He accidentally stepped on the heel of my shoe—some atrocious loafer; it was the seventies, after all—and he kicked it onto the subway tracks. He tied his sweater around my foot so I could get home, and the rest is history.”

“Oh my goodness!” The silver-haired woman next to her who had introduced herself as “Catherine Ratcliffe but everyone calls me Duffy” laughed. “I had no idea Bobby was that romantic.”

Duffy then leaned in toward the group, her face ready to gossip. “My first husband and I met in high school.” This was said with an eye roll, and the group tittered in response. “But Ray—number four—and I met on a double date. We were both set up with other people and went home with each other.”

The story swapping continued—tales of first glances, drunken kisses, and lackluster anniversaries—until suddenly Ellen pushed her glasses up her nose and reached to grab my arm across the group. “Your man is here,” she said, her mouth rounded in gleeful shock. “From the subway.”

Cleo turned her head and then whipped back toward me. “Oh my god, Franny,” she murmured in my ear. “Hayes is here. Like, right behind you.”

I swiveled out of her reach to look, and, sure enough, Hayes was walking toward us.

“Hello again,” he said, offering me a small smile as he fiddled with the sleeve of his jacket.

“Hi,” I said, feeling the same nervous giddiness bubble up in my stomach that had appeared when I laid eyes on him earlier.

He turned to Cleo. “I don’t believe we’ve met yet. Hayes Montgomery.”