They looked to be closing up the entry to the boat so she took off running and Eli did the same and she said, “Wait! Please wait!” and the man at the dock turned and they arrived at the ticket machine.

“So sorry,” she said. “Thanks for waiting.”

She got out a credit card and bought two tickets, then turned and handed Eli one. They boarded—she thanked the man again—and went inside and took seats. She looked out the window and studied the people who’d missed the boat, but no one stood out as conspicuous and why would they?

She checked her phone.

A text from Julian said: Thinking about you.

Her breath caught. She wrote back, Thinking what?

Wish I had a fun pic of you.

He couldn’t possibly mean what she thought he meant?

She wrote back, You’re crazy.

No pic?

She wrote, Everything better IRL.

God, who was she? It was a dumb thing to say.

Pleassssse? he wrote.

Maybe later, she wrote. Or maybe never, she thought.

“Everything okay?” Eli asked after she put her phone away.

“Yeah, fine.” She exhaled. Had she breathed at all during that exchange?

He’d finally texted her. But …

She knew people did that kind of thing, but …

Her hands shook, and she got her phone out again, but he didn’t text again so she put it away. In a minute she probably wouldn’t have a signal anyway, and it was just as well.

They were already passing Roosevelt Island, which she’d only ever been to once, to apply for her passport at the post office there. But from the water you could see the island had a crazy park with a big lawn and this concrete slab with a ten-foot drop-off to the river. There was no railing, and even though Eden had never been there, she felt the fear. Because you could stand and just look at the whole skyline and the bridges cutting across the river and the cars slinking over them and you could get so distracted that you’d forget where you were and you’d fall in.

Someone was standing there now—a man with a camera—and Eden watched him until he finally took a step back from the edge and turned to go and she could breathe again.

Marwan

MARWAN

The on-screen headline read: “Queens Restaurant Suffers Hate Crime Attack.” Marwan didn’t actually want to watch the segment again—the story was part of a ten-minute local news recap at the top of every hour now—so he went out to the dining room to make sure everything was in order. He saw out the front windows that a line had started to form on the sidewalk. Friday nights were usually busy but not like this.

“Dad?” he called out.

His father came and looked and nodded. “Well, don’t keep them waiting.”