Finally, Gregory shook his head and said, “Déjà vu,” then plodded to the phone booth on the corner to call a cab.

All the lines in Mimi’s face had shifted downward into a scowl. But Ezra knew she didn’t understand Gregory’s reference, the “déjà vu” of it all; Ezra knew that whatever she was peeved about, it couldn’t have been the full truth. Because he had never told her, he’d barely told anyone beside his mom, Henry, and Gregory, that he’d gotten on bended knee right here, outside Burton Library, and asked Frankie Harriman to marry him. And that his proposal would be one of the last things he’d say to her, because from there, it all went to shit. At least until last night. Possibly including last night too.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Frankie

Gregory sat up front with the driver, so the three of them—Frankie, Ezra, and Mimi—were squished in the back. Frankie wondered if she were expected to make small talk, but Ezra glared and then blinked furiously at her when she asked if Mimi’s flight had gone smoothly, so now she just fidgeted with her hands and listened to the radio, which was playing the top songs of the year, counting down to number one. Frankie knew that Night Vixen’s summer banger would be somewhere in the top five, and strikingly, this brought her no joy.

She tried not to think about what had just happened—that she and Ezra Jones had kissed, no, they had made out—made out!—smack in the center of Middie Walk. She hadn’t been planning on doing it; she certainly didn’t think it through, and even if she had, she wasn’t expecting Ezra to reciprocate with such heady commitment. But she supposed that she’d been curious if it would feel like it used to, if he would taste like he used to. It did. He did. And then she found that she didn’t want to stop, so she didn’t. She pulled back only because he pushed her away. Frankie wanted to talk to him about all of this, she needed to talk to him about all of this. But now, here was Mimi.

Ezra’s leg was bouncing beside her, jittery and taking on a life of its own. A decade ago, she’d have placed her hand on his thigh, a weight to remind him that she was there, that he should breathe. Now, she waited for Mimi to do the same, but she never did. Instead, she regaled them with calamities of her trip: the canceled flight, the night at the airport Holiday Inn, the middle seat by the toilet this morning.

Ezra, Frankie could tell, was trying to be engaged, but he kept turning his head toward her window, his attention elsewhere. Maybe it was because of the kiss. Maybe it was because of the ring that was still stuck on Frankie’s finger. Maybe it was because of his hangover. Maybe he was nervous because now he had to pull off the turn-of-the-century proposal, and after last night’s shit show, he was beginning to doubt that he could pull off anything smoothly. Frankie thought it might be any one of those things—but she reminded herself that Ezra’s problems weren’t her problems anymore. She again tried to quell the instinct to palm his thigh.