An hour later, there was a knock on my door. Wondering if it would be the four-eyed, kissing Pagnes monster, or maybe Feb in tears after a blowout with Kelly, or possibly one of my parents checking in on my lonely evening, I opened up the door.
“Guess who?” Alex was standing in the hall outside my bedroom wearing his Hermès navy peacoat and a big grin.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Kidnapping you,” he said. “Come on.”
I glanced back at the chemistry notebook on my bed, and took it as a sign that Noodles had crawled on top of it and fallen asleep. “I’ll grab my coat,” I said.
Outside my brownstone, Alex’s driver was waiting in a town car. He opened the door for me and I slid in.
“Where are we going?” I asked—praying for Scoops, my favorite ice cream store in the city. But then, we wouldn’t need the driver to go to Scoops. It was just down the block on Bleecker Street. …
“You’ll see,” Alex said, raising an eyebrow.
The car hurtled south, through the West Village and into Chinatown, before taking a left on Canal Street. The streets were damp with slushy rain, and red and gold flags hung from storefronts, announcing the Chinese New Year. Even through the windows, the air was heavy with the scent of seafood shops lining Canal.
When the car pulled to a stop on a quiet street below Canal, Alex said, “I felt bad about missing Chinese food with your family, so I thought I’d make it up to you with Chinese dessert.”
Ooh, he was good. He was very good.
“You mentioned once that you were on a quest for the best mocha chip ice cream in the city,” Alex continued. “I know you think you’ve found it at Scoops, but you’d be cheating yourself if you didn’t try this version.”
We stepped off the damp street into the old-fashioned ice cream shop, loud with a surprisingly large crowd. All the flavors were written in Chinese on a huge whiteboard. I stood on tiptoe to kiss Alex on the lips. “This is so cool and authentic,” I said. “I love it.”
When I first met Alex, I thought he was your typical, partying bad boy. He wore designer motorcycle boots and played punk rock gigs at Hamptons parties. At first, I was impressed by the way he didn’t care about the social rules that everyone else in our scene was so obsessed with—oh, and I was also super attracted to him. But mostly, I was intimidated.
But ever since our first date at Wollman Rink last month, I’d realized that for every thing about Alex that might paint him as a certain type of guy, he broke the rule by also being something completely opposite. Like, he wasn’t just the captain of the Dalton lacrosse team—he was also an alternate on the math team. And his goal in life was to become a screenwriter, even though his dad assumed he’d go to law school and take over the family firm. And there was a really good chance he’d do all of those things. By now I knew that I should never assume I knew everything about Alex, because he always had a surprise up his sleeve. Kinda like how I shouldn’t have assumed I knew all the good ice cream places in the city. …
Alex took care of ordering and handed me the bowl with tidy scoops of mocha chocolate chip. I grinned and took a bite.
“Omigod,” I said with my mouth full of perfectly soft ice cream. “Scoops just got some serious competition.”
“Save room,” he said, snagging a spoonful. “This is not the last stop.”
I took my to-go cup and followed Alex back to the car, excited to see what else he had planned.
“So how was dinner?” he said as we continued west along Canal Street. “What’d I miss?”
I thought about divulging how crazy my siblings were acting over their new S.O.’s but I didn’t want to scare my still-new boyfriend, so I just said, “Oh, you know, the usual. Mom dressed in theme; Dad oversaw the passing of food; kids fought over the extra fortune cookie.”
“I’m sorry I missed it,” Alex said before telling the driver to take the Brooklyn Bridge. “I hope you got your hands on that last cookie.”
As we drove over the bridge, taking in arguably the very best view of the glittery city, I thought back to my lonely moment at the dining room table. “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I did.”
“And?” Alex prompted. “What’d the fortune say?”
I laughed and started blushing for no reason. “It said, ‘Have a wonderful night.’ “
“Well,” Alex said, as we stepped out of the car for the second time, on an equally dark street corner in Dumbo, “no one can say we didn’t try.”
The Brooklyn Ice Cream Company is legendary for its no-frills flavors and amazing ingredients. It used to be a favorite of mine, but I realized I hadn’t been back here since I was a kid—and I’d definitely never tried their mocha chocolate chip.
Alex and I strolled along the promenade and sampled the second contender’s ice cream. “Hmm … It is chocolatier,” I said thoughtfully. “And meltier … Hard to pick a favorite!”
“Don’t pick a favorite yet,” Alex said, steering me back toward the moonlit car. “If you think you can handle it, I’ve got one more place for us to hit.”
“I think you underestimate my ice cream–eating capabilities,” I joked.
We crossed the bridge back into the hustle of Manhattan and headed north again toward SoHo.
“This next place isn’t technically ice cream—but the mocha chocolate chip is good enough that I think we should make an allowance.”
“Ooh, I think I know where we’re going,” I squealed when the car stopped on Spring Street. We got out in front of the neon circular sign of Rice to Riches, a funny little café that serves dozens of crazy flavors of rice pudding.
By then, I was getting pretty full, so we decided to walk off all the mocha chocolate chip with a stroll around the neighborhood. Alex had his arm around me and I fed him spoonfuls of rice pudding—and only occasionally wondered whether this type of PDA would make Feb roll her eyes and vow not to rent a houseboat with Alex and me. I’d gotten as far as picturing the six of us, all hanging out on a boat for a week of island-hopping in the Mediterranean, when Alex came to a sudden halt.
“Look who it is,” I heard a guy’s voice say and looked up to see Alex’s friends from Dalton—Remy Wise, Troy Fishman, and Xander. I thought Camille had said this morning that she and Xander had a study date tonight. …
“Oh, hey guys,” Alex said.
“Hey Alex,” Troy said, a twinge of annoyance on his face. “You know, your grandmother looks an awful lot like your girlfriend.”
“Yeah,” Remy said, crossing his arms. “You say you’re having dinner with Grandma and then ditch us for Flan? Nice.”
Alex looked flustered and shook his head. “Guys, I didn’t ditch you. I did have dinner with my grandmother. I just picked Flan up a little while ago. What’s the big deal?”
It didn’t make any sense that the guys would think Alex ditched them. Had I done something to make them so cold?
“Whatever, man,” Xander said, barely looking at me. “Seems like you’re busy, or whatever.”
Why was this black cloud hanging over the group? And why was it so easy for me to imagine this exact scene happening between me and my friends?
Alex looked stressed. He was running his hands through his hair. I put my hand on his arm. “Hey,” I whispered, “I hope you didn’t feel guilted into hanging out with me tonight. I didn’t mean to—”
“No,” he said quickly. “I wanted to hang out with you. I definitely didn’t expect to piss anyone off by hanging out with you.” He looked up at Xander. “Just because Camille …” He trailed off.
“Just because Camille what?” I asked. “Xander, where’s Camille?”
Troy scoffed. “Like you don’t know, Flan.”
Xander was looking at his feet.
“Know what?” I asked. “What’s going on?”
“I figured she would have told you,” Xander admitted finally. “We broke up. A few hours ago.”
I looked down at the remaining rice pudding in my bowl, which looked anything but appetizing. Alex’s friends were all pissed at him for hanging out with me. Now Alex was squirming and clearly weirded out about missing post-breakup dude time. Worst of all, my best friend was probably sitting at home alone, heartbroken and miserable. And right before Valentine’s Day! Poor Camille.
And did this mean I was now the only one in my circle of friends to have a boyfriend? That definitely wasn’t going to make my balancing act any easier.