When Savannah lived in Kentucky, she’d cook dinner for her roommate-slash-best-friend, Cricket, every other night. Chicken tacos or mac and cheese eaten in front of the TV while they caught up on the always-depressing news or a ridiculous reality dating show. It was one of the best parts of her day; homey, but also more fun than being home with her family. So it came as a shock to realize at the beginning of her fifth month in New York City she’d not once prepared a home-cooked meal for her Brooklyn roommates. Savannah and Cricket lived parallel lives, privy to each other’s every waking thought. But Arj, the grumpy bartender; Cool Leonie, who she only ever saw leaving for or returning from an online date; and Yuli, the hippie with anxiety, ranked only a notch above strangers. Her three roommates’ daily activities, relationships, and yes, meals, were a complete mystery. Living with them was like watching a scene from an unfamiliar TV show: things were happening, but it was unclear what it all meant.
It was a hot, sunny Sunday. A full day before she’d have to throw herself back into the challenge of Vanessa and her misguided father and the business of weddings. She’d cleaned her room, a precisely organized shoebox decorated with the cheerful, aspirational women she admired so much: Michelle Obama, Reese Witherspoon, Ellen DeGeneres. She’d caught up on a few text chains, gone for a run, and gone to church, a hipster Christian event in Williamsburg. It was more like a concert than a service. There was a VIP section, and the pastor wore edgy streetwear that wouldn’t be out of place at New York Fashion Week. But connecting with God in the company of other Christians still felt comforting. God was real. He had a plan for her. With life changing all around her, this could still be her one constant.
She called her loving, absentminded father, Terry, which descended, as always, into an IT tutorial. “Dad, you have to flip the screen so I can see you.”
“I’m making quesadillas!”
All she could see was a sliver of ceiling. “Dad, flip the screen.”
Her father’s bespectacled face filled the small screen. “We miss you, Pookie Bear. Look, I made salsa!” He tasted a mouthful and gagged. “Must’ve used sugar instead of salt. Okay, that’s no good.”
“Miss you too, Dad.” She loved talking to her parents, even if it was disorienting. The life she’d left was still happening without her. Her dad’s bad cooking, her mom’s endless knitting, Pickles, the ancient cockapoo, perennially underfoot.
“This is great!” Terry wandered into the living room, away from the meat sizzling on the stove. “What’s this called?”
“FaceTime, Daddy.”
“FaceTime! How much is it?”
A dog yelped.
“Well, I didn’t see you, Pickles, I’m talking to Savannah. C’mon, outside.”
“Free, Dad. It comes with the phone.”
“Free? How about that! So, what else, honey? You booked your flight back yet?”
“Back where?”
“Home! You said you’d be home by Christmas!”
Technically, her parents had said she’d be moving home by Christmas, and at the time, she hadn’t disagreed. But the first half of the year had flown by and she was still finding her feet. What would her life even look like back home? An easy job somewhere on Main Street, drinks with Cricket and the girls at the same three bars, seeing her parents every weekend for countless hours doing who-knows-what. New York was challenging, but it wasn’t predictable.
“Here’s Mom, knitting a—what is that, honey? A hat?”
“I’m making you a scarf for fall, Pookie!” Sherry sang out. “Do you like the color?”
“I can’t see you, I can only see Dad.”
His giant forehead filled the screen. “How do I flip it? Ah, here we—” He hung up on her.
Savannah decided to make pan-fried chicken for her roommates. Her grandmother’s recipe. Nothing brought people together like fried chicken. Maybe she’d bring Honey a piece. She twirled her keys as she skipped out the door.
The L train, her straight shot from Bushwick into Manhattan, wasn’t running: weekend repairs. The subway, while noisy and crowded, was fast and efficient: thoroughbreds at the top of their game. Which made the rumbling city buses dispatched to cover for the train seem like slow-footed Clydesdales one misstep from the glue factory. The trip to the Trader Joe’s by Union Square should’ve taken twenty minutes but instead took a staggering hour and a half. Oh well: onward. Savannah marched to the sliding doors, only to be stopped by an acne-sprayed employee. “There’s a line,” he said, pointing to it.
Mildly confused why the line for the register started outside the building, Savannah explained she didn’t have anything yet.
“It’s a line to get in,” he clarified. Savannah almost laughed out loud. A line to get in? What, was Billy Joel playing a free concert in the frozen food section? Billy Joel was not. Instead, it seemed every New Yorker on the island of Manhattan had decided to get their groceries at the exact same time. Savannah almost had the last bunch of collard greens snatched out of her hands by a salty grandmother in a T-shirt reading Not Your Bitch! Savannah waded through the crowds, finally procuring everything on her list… only to join another impossibly long line that snaked up and down all the aisles she’d just combed through. The heavily tattooed girl in front of her was simply shopping as she waited, tossing groceries into her basket as the line shuffled forward. That would’ve saved me half an hour.
“All in one bag?” asked the unnaturally jolly employee.
Savannah nodded. She did not need wasted paper on her conscience. But as soon as she had stepped off the shuttle and taken the first of approximately one thousand steps home—centrally located, her apartment was not—the bag handle ripped clean off. Like the contents of a popped piñata, groceries bounced over the sidewalk and onto the street, where all three pink plucked chickens were unceremoniously crushed by the departing Clydesdale. A genderqueer hipster stopped to take a Polaroid of the massacred birds. They did not offer to help.
Savannah carried everything that hadn’t touched the sidewalk in the remnants of the busted bag. Her arms ached. Her feet throbbed (why had she worn heeled sandals? Stupid!). Two blocks from the loft, a wild summer storm her weather app hadn’t predicted unleashed. By the time she limped back into the apartment, she was soaked and sore and on the brink of tears. The only thing that stopped her was seeing, miraculously, that all three roommates were home at the same time. A sign! Yuli, Arj, and Leonie were slumped on the two beat-up sofas in the common space, scrolling through their phones in companionable silence. She didn’t even wait for them to inquire as to her groceries, before announcing her intention. Fried chicken for all. “Which I’ll have to buy again, somehow,” she added, trying not to sound pissed. “But I will, and it’s happening. Dinner. Eight sharp.”
Arj didn’t look up from his phone. “I’m working.”
Cool Leonie examined a new Pikachu tattoo. “I have a date.”
“I’m a vegan,” Yuli informed her, eyes darting around the groceries. “You’re not planning on using my Pyrex, are you?” He dribbled a nervous laugh. “Not, like, cool.”
It was too much.
New York was exhausting and demanding and expensive, and for what? A poky little room in a noisy loft populated by people who didn’t give two shits about her. Savannah wanted so badly to walk into her family home, scoop up the dog, and eat ice cream on the couch. But she couldn’t. She was stuck in Bushwick. With Leonie and Arj and Yuli, who was still listing the kitchen utensils she couldn’t use to make dinner for everyone.
Savannah slipped off her sandals and walked into her bedroom. She picked up her pillow, buried her face in it, and screamed.