for the Times—we could recognize him because his shirt read Eat my Shortz.
“Now,” she said, pointing out a table with snacks, “please eat! Mingle! Passed apps coming around soon… and Stevie, come with me. I need you to meet Allison, and before all her terrible finance friends arrive and you get the wrong impression.”
She steered Stevie away, and I looked around to make sure Leo was okay, but it soon became very clear he didn’t need any help. He was in the corner with a bottle of water, talking to Kaya, a model I’d seen in countless ads.
I smiled and had just started to investigate my snack options when someone said quietly behind me, “Of all the lofts in all of Dumbo…”
I whirled around, not able to believe it—but there was Cary, dressed in a white shirt and black pants and a bow tie. He was holding a tray of canapés, and he was grinning at me. “What are you doing here?” I shrieked happily, not even bothering to mask my delight.
He gestured at his silver tray. “Sixth job!”
“Oh my god.” I started to laugh.
“So,” he said gravely, holding out the tray to me. “Miss, do you see anything you’d like?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, and I stepped forward and kissed him. He kissed me back, holding the tray deftly to the side and then dipping me backward slightly with one arm.
After that, what had been the best party of my life suddenly became even more fun. Cary had to work, of course—though maybe not for much longer if what Stevie had said in the car was true—but he always swung by me first with trays, lingering as long as he could, and he told me he was negotiating to try and be the first one cut.
Stevie and I navigated the party together, occasionally breaking apart to talk to people, but always finding our way back together again. Not because we couldn’t be apart—the night we’d had had proved that we could. But because we wanted to be together, which somehow made it that much better.
We even got to chat a little more with Amy, which, I decided, would never stop being amazing. She thanked me for the invite, and I just took a moment to relish it—the movie star thanking me for getting her into a party. “Lucien’s in heaven,” she said, pointing across the loft to where he was talking to an older woman, gesturing big as he talked. “That’s the head landscaper for the Botanical Garden—he’s been obsessed with her for years. I’m never getting him out of here.” Stevie and I took the opportunity to ask her all about acting, and her dogs, and what the supercute guy in the Ghost Robot movies was really like.
Matty wandered over at that point—he had big opinions on that franchise, it turned out. He started to ask Amy a question as a girl with a tray of champagne glasses approached. We all took one, and I was very grateful that nobody felt the need to point out that three of us were underage. If someone had, it might have broken the spell that seemed to have been conjured in the loft—where none of the normal lines that held people apart mattered. And maybe that was why Margaux had this party—and that was why everyone wanted to come.
“So what are you studying at Columbia?” Amy asked Matty once we’d moved on from haunted robots, and robot ghosts (both were present in the GR universe, and were almost always at odds). He reeled off a truly impressive course load, even if I couldn’t seem to figure out what any of the subjects had to do with each other, or what he was going to do with any of it. I was about to ask something along those lines when Amy sighed and took a sip of champagne. “God, that sounds fun,” she said, shaking her head. “School. I think it’s the reason Lucien has two master’s degrees. He says it’s just because he has an irrepressible love for binders, but…” She laughed.
“So how did you guys meet?” Matty asked, and Amy just smiled.
“That’s a whole other story,” she said. “We certainly don’t have time for it now. But I’ve gotta say, I think you’re doing college right. I went in LA, and so I was auditioning a lot when I was in school, really focused on the industry right out of the gate. I kind of wish I would have done what you’re