“I haven’t had time to think about it.”

“With all your training.” He said it flatly, no sarcasm, but her face went cartoon red.

“Yes, with my training and my life, which you are barely a part of.”

“Whoa.” He raised his hands.

“Anyway, I’m staying in the city, so you need to come to terms with that. I’m not moving out of my apartment until they forcibly evict me.”

I squinted at her. “Why would you get kicked out of your apartment? You’re not, like, squatting—”

“It’s rent controlled,” she said. “How else do you think we could afford it? Grandma’s a social worker, but she’s been there since the Dutch bought Manhattan, and she’s the only name on the lease. As soon as she dies, the rent goes nuclear, I’m out on my ass.”

“Is she sick?” I asked. “I didn’t—”

“No, Jesus, we are out of touch, aren’t we? She’s fine! Everything’s fine.”

Everyone in the booth was frowning at Jules and me now, queasy with confusion. They snapped out of it long enough for us to all order dinner, then Joey asked, “How do you and Jules know each other?”

“We’re neighbors,” I started, sipping from my water as Jules cut in—

“We don’t. We used to be best friends, awww, but then Ruby here went off to Exton and I stayed in public school and she pretended not to know me anymore.”

“Excuse me?” My mouth fell open, the straw sticking to my lip. “That is not what happened at all.”

“Okay, cool, I’d love to hear your version. After all these years.”

“We just . . . didn’t have the same interests anymore.”

“Oh, this is classic. Go on.”

“I started to get serious about my practice schedule.”

“She plays the piano,” she explained to the table. “Or is it ‘played’ now that you’ve quit?”

I jabbed my straw into the bottom of my cup. “And you weren’t serious about anything, so we drifted apart.”

“I wasn’t . . . ?” She sputtered soundlessly. “Newsflash, Chertok, you’re not supposed to be serious about anything when you’re ten. I was a kid. You were a robot.”

“What?”

“A robot.” She jerked her arms. “‘Must not hang out, must do scales.’”

“Only in the afternoons,” I snapped. “You could have hung out after that. We could have had sleepovers.”

“I’d made new friends,” she said snootily.

I had too. But I still hit the table. “So you admit it.”

“Admit what?”

“You dropped me.”

She blinked. “Let’s call it mutual.”

I fumed a breath. Everybody was staring.

Jules reached across the booth and grabbed my hands. “But now we’re friends again, yay!”

I wasn’t sure how offended to be, but she squeezed one more time and her face relaxed into a real smile and I realized . . . she was being sincere.

I laughed. “Yay.”