The Museum of Heartbreak - Meg Leder Page 0,54

all romantic. Total nuclear disaster.”

“Oh no,” I said, immediately thinking of my encounter with the dirty hot guy at Grey Dog. “Maybe he was nervous?”

“Exactly what I suggested. I don’t think he’s giving him enough of a chance,” Grace said under her breath.

“What kind of romantic story is that?” Miles practically yelled. “ ‘When your dad and I met, he couldn’t stop talking about pork chops’? That’s terrible!”

May made a harsh “shhhh” noise, and Miles gave her the finger.

“Classy,” she muttered.

“I want sweeping romance; I want a kiss that takes me to other worlds. Is that asking for too much?” Miles asked.

“Settle for nothing less,” I murmured, thinking of Vivien and Delphine’s vow, worrying faintly for the first time that maybe it was impossible to keep. But this wasn’t me and Keats we were talking about.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Grace said to Miles patiently. “I just think you should give him another chance. When I first met Kieran, I thought he was so boring, but—”

“That’s because he is boring!” Miles said.

Grace’s face froze.

Oscar raised his head from the manuscript, watching Miles, and May started twisting a ring on and off her finger.

“You think Kieran is boring?” Grace asked, her voice cracking.

“The only thing he can talk about for an extended period of time is Game of Thrones,” Miles said.

“I like Game of Thrones,” Oscar offered.

“He never wants to go out,” Miles said, ignoring Oscar. “He only eats hamburgers.”

Grace’s eyes were watering up, but Miles was on a tear, not even looking at her.

“He likes college basketball, for God’s sake!”

“Hey,” Oscar said to Miles, tapping him on the shoulder.

Miles shrugged him off. “What did he give you for your birthday this year again? A Best Buy gift card?” He wrinkled his nose. “If that’s real romance, no thank you.”

Grace was crying now, her face red and stricken. She grabbed her bag and headed toward the door, looking back at us before she left. “Screw you, Miles,” she said, the door slamming behind her.

Miles flinched, the color draining from his face, his furious energy disappearing with it.

Oscar stood up then, his chair screeching across the linoleum, and pointed firmly at Miles, then at the door. “Out.”

May shot me a panicked glance.

Miles looked at Oscar, confused. “You’re kidding again, right?”

Oscar continued to point at the door.

Miles turned toward May and me. “You guys know I didn’t mean it. I’m just stressed. I’ll find Grace and apologize, okay?”

“You need to go,” Oscar said firmly.

Miles waited for one of us to say something, but I couldn’t stop thinking of the look on Grace’s face, how we shouldn’t have seen it, how we were trespassing on the secret parts of her heart.

Miles snatched his bag, furious again, and stormed out.

Oscar and May and I sat in silence for a few minutes, until she stood suddenly. “I’m going to look for Grace. You guys should keep reading—we need to find something by tomorrow if the issue’s coming out on time.”

Oscar sighed and handed me the next submission on the stack, grabbing one for himself too, as May left.

The short story I was reading—“Wonder Wheel”—started with a guy riding the Coney Island Wonder Wheel at night, making out with a girl named Jena.

Even though I wasn’t very hungry, I leaned over for a slice of pizza, blotted the grease off with a paper-thin napkin, and folded the thin triangle in half.

The narrator was angsty, spending a lot of time moodily staring at the rain through cafe windows, drinking his coffee black while he lamented the fact that he was attracted to Jena—that even though he found her “mean and shallow as a teenage girl’s eye shadow dreams” (sexist much?), he kept returning to her “like a hardened moth to a passionate and cruel flame” (clichéd much?).

Irritated, I flipped to the last page.

The final scene featured the narrator riding the Wonder Wheel, alone this time, smoking a cigarette and staring poignantly out over the sea. He had broken things off with Jena, her cruelty “a dark blot of cancer seeping into him like mold,” but once he’d lost her, he realized that he loved her.

I was ready to check “nope” on the reader report when my brain caught up with my eyes and finally processed the last sentence: As the Wonder Wheel jerked to a halt at the top, he stretched his legs onto the aluminum seat and studied his mismatched socks, the weariness of life beating ceaselessly into him like a drum.

No.

No.

No mismatched socks.

I dropped my half-eaten pizza