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“May?”
“Hi!” she said. “How did you know it was me?”
“Nobody calls me. Where are you?”
“I’m actually close to your place. At the Starbucks near the Fiftieth Street subway?”
“I’m not there.”
“Oh.”
“You know where Union Square is?”
“I don’t know where anything is.”
“You still have some cash?”
“Sure. I only spent a few dollars on coffee.”
“Take a cab to Union Square. I’m working at the farmer’s market.”
A pause. “I can’t bother you if you’re working.”
“You won’t be bothering me. You’ll be keeping me company.”
“I don’t know, Ben. I feel bad calling you at all. I was thinking I can go to the Public Library, maybe. If I get online—”
“May-Belle, get your ass in a cab, or I’m coming to get you.”
A longer pause. Shit. He sucked at this. “I’ll feed you honey white-bean soup with ham when you get here,” he offered.
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“See you in a few minutes, I guess.”
“Yeah. See you.”
When he hung up, the wind was whipping the flap of the tent around, and the sky had turned darker. Downright ominous.
But Ben felt a lot better.
* * *
She turned up at noon, looking like a drowned rat.
He was talking to a customer when he spotted her, and he shoved the jar of honey into the woman’s hand. “Just take it,” he said. “On the house. If you like it, you can buy some more next weekend.”
“Thank you,” the woman said, delighted. “How wonderful of you …”
But Ben didn’t hear the rest, because he’d already walked out of the tent and wrapped a protective arm around May.
“Your shoes are soaked.”
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“I know. I wasn’t sure where to stop the cab, and it dropped me off over there.” She pointed to the far side of the market, over the top of hundreds of tents arrayed in long rows that wrapped around the outside of Union Square. Three blocks long and two blocks wide. He’d stranded her at the far end of a football field in the rain.
