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Piano Man

WHEN the subway finally screeched into the Franklin Street station, Brooke was nearly sick with anxiety She checked her watch for the tenth time in as many minutes and tried to remind herself that it wasn’t the end of the world; her best friend, Nola, would forgive her, had to forgive her, even if she was inexcusably late She s of co her breath in the midst of so many bodies, and allowed herself to be pushed toward the stairwell On autopilot now, Brooke and her fellow riders each pulled their cell phones from their purses and jacket pockets, filed silently into a straight line and, zoht side of the ce blankly at the tiny screens in their palms

“Shit!” she heard an overweight woman up ahead call out, and in a moment she knehy The rain hit her forcefully and without warning the instant she eed froh March evening only twentymisery, where the winds whipped the rain down and made it utterly impossible to stay dry

“Dammit!” she added to the cacophony of expletives people were shouting all around her as they struggled to pull ue newspapers over their heads Since she’d run ho but a tiny (and admittedly cute) silver clutch to shield herself froan to sprint the three blocks to the restaurant I’ll eous new suede boots that ate up half my weekly salary

Brooke was drenched by the tihborhood joint where she and Nola met two or three times a month The pasta wasn’t the best in the city—probably not even the best on the block—and the space wasn’t anything all that special, but Sotto had other charms, more important ones: reasonably priced wine by the full carafe, a killer tiraht hot Italian , always saved Brooke and Nola the most private table in the back

“Hey, Luca” Brooke greeted the owner as she shrugged off her wool peacoat, trying not to shake water everywhere “Is she here yet?”

Luca immediately put his hand over the phone receiver and pointed with a pencil over his shoulder “The usual What’s the occasion for the sexy dress, cara mia? You want to dry off first?”

She smoothed her fitted, short-sleeved black jersey dress with both palht, that the dress was sexy and she looked okay She’d co Unifor on the weather, she wore it to nearly every one of Julian’s performances

“I’m so late already Is she all whiny andhandfuls of her hair in a desperate attempt to save it from the imminent frizz attack

“She’s a half carafe in and hasn’t put the et back there”

They exchanged a triple cheek-kiss—Brooke had protested the full three kisses in the beginning but Luca insisted—before Brooke took a deep breath and walked back to their table Nola was tucked neatly into the banquette, her suit jacket flung across the back bench and her navy cash nicely with her gorgeous olive skin Her shoulder-length layered cut was stylish and sexy, her blond highlights glowed under the restaurant’s soft lights, and her makeup looked dewy and fresh No one would ever know fro at her that Nola had just clocked in twelve hours on a trading desk screa into a headset

Brooke and Nola didn’t h Brooke—like the rest of the student body—recognized Nola and was equal parts terrified of and fascinated by her Co fellow students, the h-heeled boots and blazers and never, ever tied her hair in a ponytail She’d grown up in elite prep schools in New York, London, Hong Kong, and Dubai, places her investment banker father worked, and had enjoyed the requisite freedo the only child of extremely busy parents

How she ended up at Cornell instead of Cauess, but it didn’t take a lot of iination to see she wasn’t particularly i sororities,drunk at various Collegetown bars, Nola kept to herself There were gliy professor, the frequent appearances of sexy, mysterious men on campus who vanished soon thereafter—but for theshe took, and hightailed it back to Manhattan the irls found thened to workshop each other’s short stories in a creative writing elective their senior year, Brooke was so intimidated she could barely speak Nola, as usual, didn’t appear particularly pleased or upset, but when she returned Brooke’s first subling to adapt to her Peace Corps assignhtful coe, after scrawling out her lengthy and serious feedback, Nola had written, “PS Consider sex scene in Congo?” and Brooke had laughed so hard she had to excuse herself from class to calm down

After class Nola invited Brooke to a little coffee place in the bases, a place none of Brooke’s friends ever hung out, and within a couple weeks Brooke was going to New York with Nola on weekends Even after all these years, Nola was too fabulous for words, but it helped Brooke knowing that her friend sobbed during news seg ho a perfect white picket fence in the suburbs despite being openly derisive about it, and had a pathological fear of s, not included)

“Perfect, perfect No, I think sitting at the bar is just fine,” Nola said into the phone, rolling her eyes at Brooke “No, no need to make a reservation for dinner, let’s just play it by ear Okay, sounds good See you then” She clicked her phone shut and ilass before re hers too