Page 8 of Until the Last Star Fades

“It’s been nice meeting you, Benjamin. Welcome to New York.” She joined the cluster of people waiting by the doors.

“It’s been awesome meeting you, Riley. Welcome home.”

With a quick wave, she was gone.

Four

Crossing Third Avenue to St. Mark’s Place, Riley checked her phone one more time. New texts had arrived since her last peek ten minutes earlier.

Her boyfriend, Josh King: Babe, missing you! with a photo of two pugs dressed as leprechauns.

Piper: Are you close? This weather’s aggravating my asthma. Hurry!

Josh again: Everyone’s buying me drinks! #MVPperks

But still nothing from cute Ben. Riley hoped he wasn’t lost somewhere, wandering solo through the slush and noisy packs of shamrock-wearing partiers, his mother’s pink case in tow. New York City could feel so lonely when you were on your own. Maybe he was downing pints in a Soho bar and fighting off women who loved his accent; she hoped it was the latter.

Hood up and head down, Riley weaved through the boisterous Saturday night crowd, their phones glowing bright in the night and their heightened sense of anticipation electrifying the air with a primal, youthful energy. Their laughter, imbued with a carefree spiritedness, triggered Riley’s FOMO. An ache squeezed her chest. The excitement of a fun evening out, of no worries weighing you down—what’s that like? I wish I could remember.

She hid her frown, replacing it with a more weekend-appropriate grin. Smiley Riley, her classmates called her thanks to her sunny, upbeat personality and her fun social media feeds, which told a happy tale of walking shelter dogs, her job at Sephora and internship at BBC Studios, and life in New York City. She had achieved excellent grades in college, had three ride-or-die friendships in Piper, Casey, and Erika, and a mom who made Lorelai Gilmore look like a parenting slacker.

But Riley’s put-together persona and outer cheeriness had become a well-rehearsed act, honed to near perfection. Underneath the happy-go-lucky façade, the real Riley was hurting and treading water, struggling to stay afloat amid tumultuous waves of sadness and despair.

Riley’s feelings weren’t new. Her mom, Maggie, first noticed something wasn’t right during Riley’s junior year of high school. Hanging out with Erika and their friends, her fun-loving daughter was happy and energetic, but when they weren’t around, Riley seemed adrift, slipping into a downward spiral of hopelessness. She lost interest in things she loved like reading, playing board games, and researching family trees with her mom, her indifference leading to hours spent alone behind her bedroom door. Every time Maggie asked what was bothering her, Riley denied anything was wrong, but she eventually agreed to see a psychologist if her mother would stop nagging. The diagnosis was a surprise: smiling depression. “That’s a thing?” Riley had asked the therapist. The strange dichotomy fit her perfectly, though: smiling on the outside, hiding her dark feelings inside. That was the thing—Riley never looked depressed. Always neatly dressed, always encouraging and thoughtful toward others; none of her friends had a clue.

After a dozen therapy sessions, Riley said she felt better and stopped going. Favorite activities resumed with her mom and she spent less time alone, but she still experienced crushing bouts of feeling lost, sad, and lonely. Riley vowed to control her emotions without therapy or involving Maggie—she refused to become a burden for her mom—so she pledged to be shiny and smiley even if she was hurting and battling a nagging emptiness inside. Her illness would remain invisible. No one likes a Debbie Downer. Keep it together, girl.

Faking it, Riley believed she had fooled everyone and wanted to keep it that way. Her mask never slipped, but today on the bus, had Ben—somehow—seen through her façade? ‘You’re really bummed. Something’s bothering you. Let me cheer you up.’

Her eyes left her phone, landing on her four-storey building and its zigzagging fire escapes a few doors away. Located above the blindingly bright yellow awning of Funky Town, an East Village shop with an extensive selection of heavy metal t-shirts, her apartment—lovingly labeled ‘the shoebox’ by Piper—offered a cramped yet convenient home on the fringes of NYU’s campus. It also placed Riley in the midst of what had arguably been New York City’s hippest street, once upon a time. Today, its quirky glory was faded and grimy, its rebellious counter-culture vibe relegated to its remaining hold-outs—vintage clothing stores, piercing places, and bong shops—but there was no debating the street’s illustrious pedigree. In its heyday, hippies, punks, and famous trail blazers like artist Andy Warhol and singer Debbie Harry had guaranteed St. Mark’s place in pop culture history.

In the midst of the karaoke bars and tattoo parlors, Riley spotted Piper Paisley scrolling through her phone, its screen lending a harsh glow to her pretty face. Wrapped in her pink faux-fur coat and wearing a sparkly silver mini-dress and oversized plastic sunglasses—at 8:15 P.M.—Piper looked like 1960s New York it girl, Edie Sedgwick. Her bleached blonde pixie cut and pointy-toed three-inch heels left no doubt that she was channeling Andy Warhol’s famed muse from head to toe, but on her own terms. She accessorized her outfit with a devil-may-care joie de vivre few college seniors could pull off. Eyes closed, lost in her favorite Japanese pop—Pizzicato Five—trilling through her headphones, Piper was oblivious to the merrymakers spilling out of an Irish pub, lobbing offers of drinks from across the street.

“Piper.” Riley’s mitten nudged her friend’s fluffy shoulder.

Piper bucked to attention. “What the f—?” Her glossy sneer stretched into a crooked smile. “Yay! Finally!” She yanked away her music and sunglasses, revealing heavily kohl-lined eyes, another Edie signature.

“It’s your fault. You sent me on a wild goose chase for gingerbread spread and cheesy crackers.”

“Did you get them?”

“Sold out.”

Piper sighed.

“How’s your asthma—” Riley’s phone broke out into Sia’s “Chandelier”. Her eyes dipped down to the lit screen. Josh.

“Yo, Pink Lady!” Across the street, a tall guy wearing an oversized felt St. Patrick’s Day hat flicked his cigarette to the curb and hollered over the passing cars. “Looking at you, I feel like the Republic of Ireland—you know why?”

“God, where’s this going?” Snapping her gum, Piper jutted out a sparkly hip.

Riley searched her tote for her puffin keychain. “No clue.”

The guy pointed at his khakis. “Looking at you, my dick is Dublin!” His friends howled with dirty laughter.

Riley grimaced. “Nice to see your future husband decided to join us, Pip.”

“Ugh.” Piper groaned, following Riley to her building’s brown metal door. “How do I attract these losers?”