time we got to the car it was warmed up, seats heated and ready to go as we drove home across the bridge to Connecticut.
As I headed in what I now knew was the right way, I passed a fruit vendor on the corner—BANANAS 75 CENTS—and wished I hadn’t used all my change to call home. But just seeing the fruit was enough to make my stomach rumble, and I realized how hungry I was. I remembered there was a bodega I’d passed on this street, and suddenly a soda and a bag of chips sounded not just good but necessary. And surely they would take my hundred. Because at some point, it wasn’t even like your change would be so much that it would be a problem to take it. Like if I was buying eighty dollars’ worth of stuff, they wouldn’t have an issue with it then, right? I also wasn’t entirely sure it was possible to spend that much at a bodega—it wasn’t like it was a Target. But surely it would be okay.
* * *
“No hundreds,” the bored-looking guy behind the counter said. He looked like he was a few years older than me, maybe in college. He had been highlighting a textbook and only set down his highlighter with real reluctance when I’d approached with my armful of stuff.
“Oh,” I said, looking at what I’d set down—a bottle of Diet Dr Pepper, Cool Ranch Doritos, peanut butter M&Ms, and a pack of gum. “Um, this is all I have,” I said, nudging the hundred a little closer to him. If I never saw Ben Franklin’s face again after tonight, I would honestly not be upset about it. “Can you make an exception?” I smiled at him, trying my best not to look like a counterfeiter.
“No. Hundreds,” he said more slowly this time, tapping on a paper underneath the glass counter: NO BILLS OVER $20 ACCEPTED.
“Right,” I said, nodding. I pulled the bill back, looking with real reluctance at my snacks. “Would it help if I bought more stuff?”
“How would that help?” the guy asked, and I took a breath to answer with my Target-change theory.
“Causing trouble?” I turned around, annoyed, ready to glare at whoever had said this—but then stopped when I saw, to my surprise, that it was Cary. He was standing behind me, leaning on the ATM, one eyebrow raised. “Of all the bodegas in all of Manhattan.”
I rolled my eyes at that even as I held back a smile. I put my gum back, took my armful of stuff off the counter, and walked toward him. I was thrilled to see Cary—not only because he was still very cute, but because surely he wouldn’t mind googling an address for me. I wouldn’t have to ask a stranger after all—and I wasn’t sure the bodega guy would have googled it for me, since he visibly brightened as I departed. “What are you doing here?” I asked, trying not to smile too wide at him. After everything that had happened, I hadn’t realized how nice it would be to see a familiar face, even if it was only someone I’d only met an hour earlier. He was still wearing his jeans and brown leather jacket, his thick dark-brown hair standing up a little bit more, like it had gotten windblown. Again, the outfit was ringing some faint bell, I just couldn’t bring it to mind at the moment.
“Getting a grape soda,” he said, holding up the bottle in his hand.
“Who drinks grape soda?”
He brandished it at me. “Excuse me, grape soda is delicious.”
“I don’t think I’ve drunk grape soda since I was ten.”
“Well, it hasn’t changed,” he said, and I had to press my lips together not to laugh at his outraged expression. “Why do people see a benefit in disowning the things we loved when we were little? Why are we always casting everything aside?”
I just looked at him for a moment, then walked over to put back my candy. “That’s very deep.”
He laughed. “Well, I also really like grape soda, and everyone is always giving me shit about it.”
“Fair enough.”
A jazzy song started, one that sounded familiar. I realized why when Cary pulled out his phone—it was the same ringtone I’d heard in the lobby. He frowned at the screen, then pressed a button to silence his phone.
“Paradise Cruises?” I guessed.
“Calling from South Dakota this time,” he said. “But I am much too intelligent to be fooled by them changing location. Wait,