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Elise took it in stride

“Well, I’ off, Arabella Gabriel will take care of you until Manolo comes at two Comprenez-vous?”

“Oui”

Arabella didn’t seem to pay me any mind, and once herthere aardly Arabella didn’t return under her covers, but she continued to use the flashlight over every page

Stupidly, I hadn’t brought any reading material of my own So I reached for a copy of Pete’s a Pizza, only to be chastised when I picked it up

“You should ask first,” Arabella said

I apologized

“I don’t go out until ten,” she told me “You can watch TV if you want”

“Do youto her bookshelf

“Sure,” she replied “Just don’t say them out loud”

I started with a few picture books, then found a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and began to read that Every now and then I’d look up and check onon each word of every page; only after a sentence was through would she look at the pictures It was cool to see reading become such a transparent act—it was as if her face had a different expression for each punctuation ue you could see her actually listening to it in her head One tirimaced I quickly returned to e it when she started to take books from the pile that I’d already read

At precisely ten o’clock, Arabella announced, “It’s tio”

Elise hadn’t said anything about whether or not we could leave the building, but I assumed it was okay Arabella swiftlythe locks and bolts as if they were pieces of an ancient Chinese puzzle She pointed out the spare keys and then instructed ain

I had always secretly suspected that rich New York City kids acted twice as old as they really were The three-year-olds acted six, the six-year-olds acted twelve, the twelve-year-olds partied like they were twenty-four, and each eighteen-year-old took on a thirty-six-year-old’s weariness Because they had seen the city, they felt they’d seen the world Whereas those of us in the suburbs had simply seen the suburbs

I will admit: I was still somewhat aeness Back hoo somewhere, I juher rids and bus paths and street maps, so many letters and numbers and names and letter-number combinations and nu a local distance in terms of east, west, north, and south was bizarre to me; those words, I felt, should be used to describe coasts or countries, not a place two blocks over and one block up

Arabella didn’t seeh she was barely taller than the hydrants, she knew exactly where she was going Since ere near Central Park, I thought we round It was a perfect July day—sunny, but with the feeling that God had left the s open

At the end of the first block, Arabella waited, even though there was a walk sign I didn’t understand, so after a moment she said to me, a little impatiently, “You need to hold my hand e cross the street”

Such a strange thing, to hold a six-year-old’s hand Especially a six-year-old you’ve only just er, and soe will clasp on to your whole hand, but with six-year-olds it’s soment that they can’t be the one to take hold, so you have to do all the holding, folding your hand around theirs, feeling so er and responsible It’s weird and it’s scary and it’s nice Neither Arabella nor I said a word, and as soon as we got back to the curb, she pulled away and I let go until the next curb

“Where are you taking me?” I asked

“I want to try a new Starbucks,” she replied

“Are you sure you’re allowed to go to Starbucks?”

“I go there all the time”

Elise had told ured the prospect of undue caffeination didn’t really count as one In fact, Arabellato Starbucks was theWe only had to walk five blocks to hit the nearest one It was now ten-fifteen, and therush was over Instead the seats were filled by the daytrippers, the patrons for whom the word ensconced was no doubt termed Laptops were open, bookmarks were orphaned on tables, and newspapers were set out to be read section by section An idle idyll Suddenly I felt more at home

And then I looked behind the counter

Now, it has to be one of Starbucks’s ies to uy behind the counter at any given shift This guy is invariably known as Starbucks Boy to the hundreds of regular custolory of it is that he always seeh to be within reach, but never accessible enough to actually touch Starbucks Boy wears short sleeves even in the winter, so you can study his ar too shy to stare at his face (in hopes of catching an eye sparkle or a di on the location of the Starbucks, you can iets off work, he heads off to rehearse so waves, or shoot an indie film He is, unlike most beautiful people you’ve ever encountered, friendly—and you honestly believe it’s not because that’s a part of his job He banters with the counter girls relentlessly, whether it’s cornrowed Latisha, corn-fed Barbara, or corn-toed Betty You listen in on their in-jokes, and then think that the way he says “Good o” to you is a little different from the way he says it to anyone else Or at least that’s the hope