Gabby had resolved within herself, before JC even arrived, that she was not going to complain about New York. She had a great job that paid okay money. She would never be rich, but no one went into the arts or writing or editing even, for the money. It was mostly about prestige, of being able to say you worked for a well known name and let that clout carry you. If she played her cards right, she could work up the chain at Pearson pretty quickly and that was worth more than a high salary. At least, it used to be.

Now that she was used to it, she did like the hustle and bustle of New York. Add to that the beautiful architecture, the city steeped with history, the exposure to so much art and culture that felt like it was straight from the source and not watered down and “treated” by the time it reached Hollywood. Her first few months had been spent tooling around with stars in her eyes, driving from borough to borough, Westchester County to New Jersey, all over Manhattan and back. The highlight of a bitter cold, snowy winter was being able to wear boots and sweaters and long coats. Spring was a beautiful, welcome arrival and though she sometimes felt she was cooking in a soup of humidity and taxi fumes, the heat of summer was never more eagerly anticipated.

So, New York wasn’t all bad. Except that she missed LA so much her teeth hurt. She couldn’t talk to her friends anymore—they were always on the way to something warm and fun at someplace familiar to her. The mere mention of the Standard Hotel would bring her to tears. Hearing that the girls were getting together at the same yogurt shop in Beverly Center where Gabby spent so much time was like ripping her heart out. She just couldn’t take it anymore. She stopped calling and, after so many calls went unanswered, they simply stopped coming.

Gabby’s mother was encouraging, in her own annoyingly prying motherly way, insisting that she get out and experience culture and meet new people. It just wasn’t as easy as all that. It took months of visiting bars and trying out gyms before she realized that she wasn’t looking with an open mind. She was trying to replicate LA. And it wasn’t working. Times Square would never be the Grove. Madison Avenue would never be Rodeo Drive. And there was nothing anywhere like Sunset Boulevard.

But the night before she was supposed to leave town, right after her going away party where she was so looking forward to the move to the big city, she’d bragged to JC about how life was going to be so much better. Her writing would be taken seriously and she would have a foot in the door of a respected organization with worldwide presence. And she would be a New Yorker. She felt like she’d be more of a woman in New York.

To be sitting across from him a year later, on the verge of admitting that maybe it was all a mistake felt like a fall from grace.

One pitcher of beer, two hamburgers and two gelatos later…

“I feel sick.”

“You should. You’re drunk and you’ve eaten like shit all day.”

“I felt fine till I had that gelato.” Gabby moaned and rubbed her belly. “Do you feel sick?”

“Nope. But see…” He leaned over, brushing his shoulder against hers. “I’m pacing myself. I figure someone has to walk you home and since I’m the only one who knows where you live…”

“I think I need to slow down.”

“Good thinking.”

Gabby took a deep breath. Here goes nothing. “So… about that question you asked me.” Her eyes lifted to his face. Hopefully she didn’t have to spell out what she was talking about. It was hard enough to bring it up.

“What about it?”

“Well…I mean…I don’t hate New York. I really don’t.”

“Okay. I feel a ‘but’ coming…”

Gabby squirmed. “It’s just… I hate living here. And working here.”

JC squinted, his eyebrows nearly knit together. “What do you mean, you hate it? Have you even lived here long enough to hate it?”

“A year is plenty of time to hate someplace, JC.”

“If you say so. Have you even given it much of a chance?”

She hung her head, picking at the flaking paint in the table, watching the chips fly in every direction. “It’s been a long year.”

“What are you going to do about it? Are you stuck here?” Gabby shrugged. “That’s not an answer, Miss Moreno.”

When still no answer came, JC leaned in close and tipped his head toward hers. “Gabby,” he said. “What do you want to do? Don’t think about it, just—off the top of your head, tell me.”

“Go back to LA,” she admitted, but so quietly that JC just barely heard her. He didn’t make her repeat it, thankfully.

“So… why can’t you just do that?”

“Because I couldn’t wait to leave LA. Because I was an asshole about LA when I lived there.”

“So? You were a happy asshole.”

She glared, giving him her most evil eye before continuing. “And I moved here for a reason! I thought I would be more worldly, a big east coast city girl, working for a serious publication.”

“And you’re not that?”

“I guess. I just… I’ve figured out, kind of really late, that I don’t necessarily want that. I just feel so… conflicted. I want to be taken seriously as a writer, but I’d rather roll my eyes every day than be so far away from people and places I love.”

“Well. It would be a big step, to move back. Even bigger than moving away.”

Gabby sighed, her head sinking until it hit the table. “I gave up my apartment. It was so cute and so cheap and so close to the beach. I quit my job, a good job that sometimes really sucked, but it was a good job.  I don’t even know if I can go back to LA Magazine.”

“I think the world is better off not reading an expose’ on Cameron Diaz’s ass dimples.”

She giggled. “We both know that story will be written. If not by me, then someone else. But I’m better off not having to pitch it. Or write it. Or edit and submit it and call it journalism.”

JC had such a way of diffusing a stressful situation. Once she figured out that he wasn’t going to lecture her for being so pompous about leaving LA, it was easier to talk about. Even easier to consider leaving New York.

“Well, if you want…” JC paused, gripped his empty glass and filled it from the pitcher, took a few gulps of beer and set it down again, but didn’t continue.

“If I want, what?”

He shrugged. She smacked his arm, her forehead wrinkled in confusion.

“Well. I was just thinking, if you need a place to stay, I have room. A lot of room. And I know people. I could help. You wouldn’t have to work for a smut rag. Not that I think LA Magazine is a smut rag, but…”

She opened her mouth to respond, but no words came. Yes? No? Yes, but I want to try harder to make New York work? No, I’m going to manage this myself?

“I don’t really…that’s…I mean…” She paused, reaching for a complete sentence. “I don’t know what to say, JC. But thank you. Your offer is really generous.”

“And genuine,” he said, elbowing her. “I feel like I owe you, a little.”

“Why, because I’m letting you stay with me for way cheap instead of making you get a hotel room?”

He laughed. “That, and… I don’t know. I want to do something for you, something to help. The offer is always open. Let me know, okay?”

Gabby picked up her glass, drained it of the last of the beer and plunked it back on the wooden surface. She plastered a grin on her face and perked herself up.

‘He didn’t come to New York for this melancholy bullshit,’ she lectured herself. ‘Figure out your life on your own time.’

“You’re helping right now. I really appreciate you listening to me whine.” She gave his hand a few friendly pats and stood up, lifting her leg over the bench. “I’ve got to cleanse myself of that gelato. Let’s get a hot dog.”

Two bottles of water and two hotdogs later…

“You look better,” JC said, glancing at her over a table draped in a black velvet cloth. Laid across it were chains of various sizes with colorful stones strung on them. Gabby was debating between two of them, though she couldn’t afford either.

“Thanks,” she answered, smiling up at him. “I feel better. Which one of these do you like more?”

He looked at one, and then the other. “Well, they’re both a little long for me and neither of them are my color. I’m a winter, but you’re a summer, I think.”

He picked one bearing a pendant the shade of cool violet, unhooked it and fastened it around her neck. It fell perfectly, landing just above her cleavage. He gave her the sexiest half smile and then a shy shrug.

“That one,” he said. “It’s going in the right direction.”

Gabby blushed. And bought the pendant.

The sun was dropping quickly toward the horizon. Shadows grew longer, corners became darker. A band was setting up on stage, tuning instruments and sending test vocals out over the speakers hung in each corner of the room and over the grounds outside. As the rosy glow of evening spread across the pavilion, people were taking seats around the stage and waiting for the show to begin.

Gabby and JC joined them, choosing to sit on the floor in the pit area. JC was so close, she could feel his body heat radiating. Or at least she imagined she could. Maybe she was just drunk. Or horny. Or both. Either way, JC and his proximity was creating a warm, welcome feeling in the pit of her stomach. And it was spreading.

The music was a 90s grunge and indie rock cover band, playing everything from Weezer and Alice in Chains to Beastie Boys and Beck. The longer they played, the more competitive JC and Gabby were, trying to remember the lyrics to decades old music.

“You oughta smack yourself for not being able to remember Nirvana lyrics,” JC teased.

“Look, it’s been a long time since I was a repressed teenager,” she joked back. “And I’m sorry who could  ever understand Kurt Cobain? He was such a mumbler.”

“There used to be these things inside CD covers called lyrics.”

“Smartass. I don’t think Nirvana ever printed their lyrics.”

“They did. But just so you know, because it’s killing me that you don’t…It’s with the lights out, I’m less dangerous—“

“Here we are now, entertain us. I remember.” She nodded, humming along to the tune in her head. “I remember now.”

The band took a break for intermission, giving them an opportunity to stand and stretch their legs.

“That’s so not fair,” Gabby whined. “You’re a musician. You know all this stuff.”

“Not inherently. I wasn’t born knowing things like that; I just like music.  And I like learning. I teach myself things all the time. You know things I don’t because you have a passion for it.”

“I guess I never paid that much attention. You still know way more than I do.”

“I feel like I shouldn’t argue with you about that.”

The crowd grew louder and busier as people gathered around the entrance to the pavilion and started lining up for more pitchers of beer. Gabby watched them swarm, suddenly hot and claustrophobic. It had been a long day and all she really wanted, right there and then, was to be with one person.

JC must have been reading her mind. Either that or he felt the same way. “You wanna get out of here?” he asked.

She smiled, knowing her relief was written all over her face. “Yeah. I do.”

He dropped an arm around her shoulder, guiding her out of the building and onto the street. “Let’s walk back to your place, get that pizza, watch that movie. Just like you planned.”

“You can still eat pizza after all the crap we ate today?”

“I told you, I can always eat.”

They walked the streets slowly, savoring the early evening air.

“So,” JC said, “We’ve slept together. A few times now. I should know more about you. You know a lot about me.”

“Yeah, that’s what happens when you grow up on MTV and the cover of Teen Beat. What do you want to know?”

“What do you want to tell me?”

“I don’t have any secrets. Ask away.”

“Okay.” He paused for a beat and then said, “Well, you mention your mom a lot. How supportive—or pushy she is. No dad?”

“Yep,” she said, head bobbing as she nodded deeply. “He… uhm…he left when I was ten to marry the chick he was having an affair with. I think they were divorced within a few years. And now he’s married again. I think his new wife might be younger than me.”

JC laughed. “I wish I were kidding. He and… Jillian? Judy? Something with a J—they send me a Christmas card every year.”

“That sucks that he’s not involved. But your mom, she’s okay?”

“More than okay. It was just me and her for a long time, you know? She put herself through nursing school, put me through school. She made it work.”

“She must have given you your spunk.”

“If that’s what you want to call it, yeah. I’m proud of her. When I graduated, she went back for another degree. And then she married one of her doctors, so…” Gabby stopped to laugh.

A knowing smile broke across his face. He nodded. “So she’s doing just fine, huh?”

“Just fine,” she said, nodding back.

“So your... stepdad? Is he a good guy?”

“He’s the best thing to ever happen to her. He’s why she’s always after me to date and meet new guys. She wants me to be as happy as she is.”  Gabby snorted a laugh. Like she could ever subscribe to the fairytale her mother tried to plant in her head, that some poor sap out there was her perfect match or her soul mate.

“You sound like you don’t think that’s possible. People find love everywhere. Anywhere. You never know.”

Even on the Sunset Strip. Wait. What?

“I just know that it would make her really happy to be right about something in my life.”

“Of course,” he agreed with a laugh. “My mom loves it when she can say I told you, Joshua.”

“See?” Gabby spread her hands in front of her. “Replace Joshua with Gabrielle and you have my mother.”

“Well. I hope, if your mom gets to be right about one thing in your life, that she’s right about that. You’re too cool of a chick to not have someone to be happy with.”

Gabby dipped her head in a bout of sudden, blushing shyness. “Thanks, JC. That means a lot coming from you.”

“I mean that,” he said softly. “I’m glad I met you. By accident. When I stumbled into you.”

Gabby walked ahead, flashing her key fob in front of the sensor at the front door to her building. A buzz sounded and with a loud click, the front door opened. She stepped inside and JC followed closely behind her. His scent, baked in by the sun, wafted ahead and tickled her nose.

His last statement to her—that he was glad he’d met her—was echoing inside her brain. Bouncing around in there.

What did that mean?

Did it mean what she thought—or hoped— it meant?