I spend a good two minutes staring at the doors. This is a terrible idea.
Then I steel myself. Do it for the closure.
My tiny neutral-colored heels clack up the stairs. I fumble a little as I take the last two steps at once, before striding into a large, high-ceilinged, empty lobby. Gold elevators line the wall a little way in to the left, and a man with gray hair sits behind a desk to my right.
“Good morning!” I greet him.
“How can I help you?” he responds blandly.
I clear my throat. “I’m looking for Pilot Penn. I believe he works at FJ Golf. Could you tell me what floor I could find him on, please?”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No, but it’s all right. I’m a friend of his,” I lie. I mean, we’re kind of friends.
The security man stares at me for a second, contemplating whether or not I should be allowed up without an appointment. He seems to decide I’m not a threat to the building.
His face falls, and he mumbles, “You’re going to need a visitor’s badge. Name.”
“Shane Primaveri. P-R-I-M-A-V-E-R-I,” I respond automatically. He scribbles my name on a small white sticker, slaps it on a badge that says VISITOR, and hands it over the counter.
“Put it on and head up to the sixteenth floor.”
I carefully clip it to my silver cross-body purse before ambling over to the elevators on the balls of my feet in attempt to be less conspicuous. Why is the urge to be stealth overwhelming? I don’t need to be stealth! This isn’t weird. This is fine!
Inhale. Hold. Exhale. I punch the up button with my index finger.
The arrow over the elevator all the way to the left glows yellow. I nervously float up to the crack in the gold doors until I’m right up on them. There’s a muted ding as they slide out. There’s already a guy inside, holding a bunch of paper. When he looks up my eyelids snap back.
“Shit,” I breathe, stiffening as insecurities I banished years ago materialize instantaneously. It’s him. I was counting on having a few more seconds to prepare and he’s just here.
He’s sporting khakis and a white button-up shirt today, carrying two big stacks of paper. He stares at me blankly for a half a second before actually registering that I’m me. I know when he does because his eyes widen like he’s seen a ghost, and the paper slips from his hand. It flops to the floor of the elevator with a hard thud.
“SHANE?” he spurts.
I inhale sharply. You are a grown lady who’s been successfully networking her ass off at medical conferences the last four years. You can and will confront Pilot Penn.
I take the step forward into the elevator. “Hey, Pies.”
The doors start to close. He gathers the paper off the floor before snapping back to a normal, standing-with-two-packs-of-paper stance.
“What are you doing here?” His voice is still laced with shock, but he’s trying to regain his composure.
“I’m actually here to talk to you…”
His forehead crinkles up. “To talk to me?” He’s loud and confused again.
My instinct is to laugh, but his eyes catch mine and instinct drowns real fast in my ever-growing pool of anxiety.
I suck up some air. “Yeah, I’m sorry to disturb you at work, but I kind of really needed to talk. To you … Can we go grab a coffee or something?” I resist the urge to fiddle with the zipper of my purse.
The doors slide open to reveal floor sixteen: a large, bright open room lined with windows and divided into gray cubicles. Pilot steps out, and I follow as he strides along the edge of the room.
“I haven’t seen you in”—he pauses, turning to look at me—“six years?” He takes on a higher pitch with those last two words.
He rounds into one of the cubicles, drops the two packages of paper on his desk, and collapses into a desk chair. He closes his eyes and takes a breath before looking back up at me.
I hesitantly smile and wave. “Hi, cup of coffee?” I repeat.
He glances around and scratches his neck. He looks almost the same—different haircut, maybe broader shoulders?
“Why are you here?” he repeats, calmer this time.
“I had an interview at NYU earlier, and I have one at Columbia later.” I pause. “I mean, that’s not why I’m here, here. I’m here, here because I need to talk to you and I’d like to get a cup of coffee,” I repeat, leaning a little against the thin gray divider entrance to his cubicle.
“For?”
“Their internal medicine program,” I say. His eyebrows pull together. He looks down, propping his elbows up against his knees.
“So, you just randomly decided to come to the building where I work and ask me to go get a coffee?” He meets my eyes.
“I mean, kind of, yeah,” I say with a strained expression.
He tilts his head. “Who does that?” Amusement creeps into the question.
“Crazies,” I answer sardonically.
“I’m not really supposed to leave right now,” he says quietly.
“Oh, um.” I glance around uncomfortably.
Pilot stands. He swings his head around, taking stock of the room until he finds who he’s looking for: a heavyset man in his late thirties walking along the opposite wall.
He locks eyes with him. “Hey, Tom, I’m going to have to step out for an hour. Family emergency.” I straighten abruptly and try to look solemn as Tom’s eyes dart from Pilot to me and back to Pilot again.
“Okay,” he responds slowly.
“Okay!” Pilot replies, hopping out of the cubicle. He puts a hand on my back and silently leads me from the room.
He drops it as we load back onto an elevator. We’re quiet until the doors slide closed.
“Okay, let’s do it. Coffee,” his says with small smile, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He studies me for a moment. “It’s weird to see you.”
“Weird to see to you too.”
“Sorry about”—he shakes his head—“that minor freak-out; don’t know what happened there.” He leans against the wall of the elevator.
“I know. That’s out of character for you.” I cross one foot in front of the other and bobble slightly in my heels.
Pilot huffs a laugh and purses his lips. We’re both quiet for a moment before he says, “So are you a doctor now?”
I nod. “Almost. Interviewing for residency programs, working toward becoming a gastroenterologist. What have you been up to? What do you do here?”
“Oh, you know, computer programming, writing code, solving IT issues, exciting stuff.” He crosses his arms, inspecting me like a riddle he’s trying to crack. I turn away to glance at the doors.
That’s when I realize—we’re not moving. The buttons are on Pilot’s side. I grin and mirror him, leaning against the opposite wall.
“Hey, Pies.”
He tilts his head. “Yeah?”
“You never pressed any buttons, so we’re just chilling in a metal box.”
Surprise dawns on his face. He releases a quick laugh before jabbing the lobby button.
“You know, I usually travel the building with an assistant. He does all the button pressing when I elevator,” he relays in a haughty voice.
A laugh busts out of me. The doors ding open, and we emerge into the lobby.
“You have a coffee place in mind?” he asks.
My heels clack onto the tile. “Um, I’m haven’t really—”
“You’re looking for a coffee place?” The guy at the front desk casually interrupts me. He grins at Pilot.
“Hey, Jack,” Pilot greets him. “You know a place?”
“Somebody dropped off flyers for some new place just ten minutes ago.” Lobby Jack waves us over and pulls a stack of lavender paper from behind the desk. “I was like: lady, this isn’t the grocery store, we don’t hand out flyers, but she left ’em anyway. After reading the thing, I mean, it actually sounds like a pretty cool coffee joint. Take a look.” He pushes the stack toward us.
�
�Interesting.” Pilot picks one up and holds it upright so we can both read it. Quirky hidden coffee place, complete with secret elevator?
I raise my eyebrows, catching Pilot’s eye as we head for the exit. This place on the flyer is at least a ten-minute walk.
“You up for this? We could just hit a Starbucks if you want,” I tell him.
He pushes the door open and gestures for me to go first. “Hey, I’m always game for an adventure.”
A smile pulls at my lips as I lead us out. “Okay. Let’s go for it.”
Pilot folds the flyer and sticks it in his back pocket as we fall into step on the sidewalk.
“So,” he starts, “how did you hunt me down?” A sideways grin kicks up his cheek.
I shrug. “You know, had to call in favors, get a background check.”
His eyes grow.
Another laugh bursts out of me. “Pilot. I looked at your Facebook. It says where you work. I Google-mapped it.”
“Ohhh! Dang.” He grins. “I’m impressed! You had me there for a second.”
We cross to the next block.
“So you wanted to talk about…?”
I blow out a breath. “Let’s save it for this quirky-ass café.”
He chuckles. “So, you’re gonna be a—what is it, a gastroenterologist?”
“Yup, working on it.”
“Why gastroenterologist, may I ask?” he asks curiously.
I purse my lips for a moment. “Well, I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do, so I just kinda picked gastroenterology.”
“Just picked it?” He chuckles. “Isn’t it, like, a really giant life commitment?”
“Yeah, I’ve got six years of residency coming my way…” I trail off like a wind-up toy running out of steam. I decided I was working toward gastro somewhere between my first year of med school and now. Melvin was so passionate about it.
“Wow, that’s a lot of years.”
I shrug and pull a small smile. “Yeah, I don’t know. I’m graduating top of my class, though. It’s going well.”
He nods and drops his gaze. “How are things um, with your family? Better? I still think from time to time about that night they showed up.”
I pause. “Things are still kinda shitty, but in a more boring way. We don’t really talk. I’m out in San Diego—I kind of needed to get away—but I’m doing well in school, and they’re happy with my progress.”
He’s quiet for a beat. The blare of New York swells in the silence.
“Wow,” he finally breathes.
“Wow what?” I ask as we make our way across another block. I grip my purse, one hand on the chain and one on the actual bag.
“I can’t believe you’re an almost doctor.” He raises his shoulders in a shrug-smile. God, it’s really cute. “You still writing all the time?”
I shake my head. “Nah, not really. Things are so busy, and I haven’t really had the time to write for fun … Do you keep in touch with anyone from London?” I ask, changing the subject.
“No, I’m completely out of the loop.” He speaks slowly. “Do you?”
“Well, yeah. Sahra graduated from Harvard a year back and she’s, like, a real lawyer. I track her success via Facebook. Atticus and I grab lunch in LA every few months—he’s producing a play there right now—and Babe and I still talk all the time! She just got engaged, actually.”
Pilot’s quiet as we cross to another block.
After a minute, I meet his eyes again. “Have you been back since we left?”
He shakes his head. “Um, no, haven’t been back, but I want to someday. Have you?”
“No—there have been times where I’ve really, really wanted to.” I even spoke to Melvin about maybe going during one of our breaks the first year we were together. He didn’t want to spend the money, which is understandable. “But like I said, things have been so busy with school and working, and I haven’t been able to take the time off.”
I heave a breath. “In my head the whole place has taken on this almost magical quality.”
A fresh wave of nostalgia washes over me. I catch a wistful glimmer in Pilot’s eye before he looks away.
Two more blocks and the café should be up on the right. Traffic roars down the street as we weave through a light crowd of midday walkers: middle-aged women, couples, and businessmen speed by.
Pilot’s studying me again. It lights me up with nerves.
“Are you still making music?” I ask suddenly. We’ve come to the edge of another sidewalk. I stare at the walk–don’t walk sign across the way. It feels so important that he’s still making music. Please say you’re still making music.
“Um, nah, not too much.”
I turn to catch his eye. “What? Not even, like, on the side?”
He shakes his head, passes me a small smile.
I blow out a breath and refocus. “I think it’s up here, on the right.” I point to a shiny silver business building up ahead of us. The number 5184 glimmers along its edge.
Pilot smiles, pulling out the flyer to check the address and looking back at me. “You think when they said quirky coffee place they meant corporate block of cement?”
I smother a laugh. “Maybe it’s camouflage. It says hidden café, Pies. There’s gonna be”—I hold up air quotes—“a ‘secret elevator.’”
He snorts as we climb the steps. I throw the fancy glass doors open, a little excited now. There’s a lobby desk much like the one in Pilot’s building. This one’s unmanned. A string of silver elevators line the wall to our left. Straight ahead at the far, far end of the room, a hallway stretches off the left and right corners.
The flyer says the elevator’s down that hallway on the right. I power walk toward it, and Pilot strolls behind me.
I clack around the corner into the hall and skid to a stop. Holy wow.
The entire corridor is painted black. Fifty feet away at the end of the hall is an elevator. This one’s covered in words. It looks like someone ripped a page from a giant book and plastered it onto the wall.
“Whaaat!” Pilot exclaims behind me. “That’s pretty sick.”
“It really is.”
I suck in a breath as we start toward it. I wasn’t expecting to go somewhere this cool—I can’t let myself get too distracted. We’re now moments away from sitting down and getting deep in uncharted conversational waters. I reach out and jab the up button, or the button; there’s only one button next to this elevator. It’s a tad sketchy, but the bookish decor on the doors has sort of put me at ease. They slide open a moment later to reveal a shiny black interior.
We step in silently. There’s one button inside as well. It’s labeled REWRITE, the name of the cafe.
“Check this out.” I point, before pushing it. We lurch upward.
“This is kind of creepy,” he notes.
“Me or the elevator?” I half joke.
“Oh, definitely you, but the elevator too.” He grins.
I hesitate. “I’m sorry if I am actually creeping you out with this surprise visit. I didn’t mean to—”
He interrupts, “Shane, that was a joke. You’re way too … you to be creepy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I can be creepy,” I protest.
“No, not really, no, you can’t.”
“I can creep if I want to—” The ding of arrival interrupts my argument. We spin around as a second set of doors behind us slides open.
“Whoa.” Pilot’s jaw drops. I echo the sentiment.
We must be at least twenty stories up. Before us is a quaint rectangular space. One full wall is just window, providing a fabulous view of the city. The other three walls are plastered in the aged, browning pages of books. The ceiling is covered in words. Lanterns hang off long chains hovering over delicate-looking French tables and chairs scattered throughout the room. Even the floor is in theme. It looks as if it’s been littered with thousands of discarded book pages.
There’s one other customer: a middle-aged man in a business
suit reading a paper and having a cup of coffee in the corner. A barista stands behind a large counter on our left. I stumble forward, gawking at everything.
“Welcome to Rewrite!” the barista greets us.
“Thanks, good morning!” I reply automatically as I make my way to a table near the far wall (aka the giant window). Pilot follows closely behind me.
The metal chair scrapes lightly against the floor as I pull it out and sit. Pilot sits across from me, still glancing around at the decor.
“This place is really cool.” He nods, impressed.
I’m smitten with the ambiance, but nerves chase away further comment from me. The barista comes over and places two small Rewrite menus in front of us. I glance up at her. She looks familiar.
“Thanks.” Pilot shoots her a smile before she leaves us be.
The menu’s typed in Courier New so it looks like a movie script. I put it aside and bring my attention back to Pilot. He’s watching me, waiting.
He raises a brow. “So this mysterious meeting we’re having?” he prompts.
My eyes travel up from the raised brow to his unfamiliar haircut. The sides of his head are shaved, and the top is long, flopping over his forehead.
I blow out a breath. “So—”
I’m cut off as the barista steps up to our table. “Can I take your orders?”
I look up at the woman again. She’s maybe in her late forties, pale and freckled, with a nest of bright red hair tied up on her head.
“I’ll have a cup of English Breakfast tea with milk and sugar please.” I hand over my menu, studying her features.
“I’ll have a cappuccino,” Pilot says, handing her his menu as well. The woman retreats.
Our gazes fall back to each other. I press my lips together, trying to gather how best to start this conversation. “So…”
Pilot scoots a little closer. “So, I was trying to crack this visit open…”
I gaze out at the view of New York, take in a deep breath, and—the woman’s face snaps into place.
“Oh my god.” I jump up out of my seat and whip around. My hair smacks me in the face before resettling over my shoulders. The woman’s moving around behind the bar.
Again, But Better Page 19
