“Hayes,” she said, annoyed but smiling. “Come on. I’ll give you Grease, but this is a New York City classic.”

“Um…” I actually tried to come up with something. “Home Alone Two?”

“Dear god, Hayes!” She let go of my arm and dashed into the middle of the street. “Who am I?”

She started pacing back and forth, kicking the air with her right foot.

“A Rockette?” I asked, genuinely perplexed. “That’s literally my best guess.”

She dashed back toward me, getting up in my face. “Hayes,” she said, her grin wicked. “Snap out of it!”

I shrugged. “I’m seriously trying, but now I am just very confused.”

“Oh my god, Hayes, I need you to come with me.”

She grabbed my hand and dragged me toward a light-blue wooden town house with a white gate lining the street, and steps dotted with flowerpots that ended at a bright-red door.

“Is this your place?” I asked, marveling at how downright sweet it looked.

“Yup.”

“You might live in the only house in New York City with a white picket fence.”

She looked up from her purse, where she was digging for what I assumed were her keys. “I know. It’s absurdly perfect, and I can never move, even though I should not be paying this much in rent right now,” she said, clicking the keys into the lock of the basement apartment, the door swinging open.

“Come on,” she said, ushering me in.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t imagined Franny’s apartment many times over in my head. For weeks now, I’d watched her delicately caress plants, sigh over lighting fixtures, and stare for what seemed like hours at empty walls, her brain churning in ways mine could never comprehend. I saw everything in lists and columns, numbers and equations. But Franny saw the world in shapes and colors.

Still, I wasn’t expecting how light a space could feel, especially one so tiny and filled with color. Her apartment was about the same size as my new personal office. I followed behind her as she walked in and dropped her purse on a plush couch that seemed to take up the entire wall. In the bay window, a table stacked with books was surrounded by plants that surely clamored for all the light that must pour in every morning. I moved a few steps closer and could see the titles: Rothko, Kahlo, one simply titled Uffizi Gallery. Of course she’d devour art books.

A faded leather chair sat regal but unassuming in the corner, next to a mantel covered in soft twinkle lights and small pots of succulents. I bent to examine her fireplace, only to discover a small flat-screen TV inside, hidden behind a gold screen.

“You put your TV in your fireplace?” I said, marveling at her ingenuity.