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By the radiator: two pairs of boots, three pairs of socks. Six shirts, two sweaters, three pairs of jeans, two skirts. One pair of white Vans—those are special, a reward she bought herself last year, buzzed off adrenaline and mozzarella sticks from the Applebee’s where she came out to her mom.
By the wall with the crack down the middle: the one physical book she owns—a vintage crime novel—beside her tablet containing her hundreds of other books. Maybe thousands. She’s not sure. It stresses her out to think about having that many of anything.
In the corner that smells of sage and maybe, faintly, a hundred frogs she’s been assured died of natural causes: one framed photo of an old washateria on Chartres, one Bic lighter, and an accompanying candle. She folds her knife up, sets it down, and places a sign that says PERSONAL EFFECTS over it in her head.
She’s shaking out her air mattress when she hears someone unsticking the front door from the jamb, a violent skittering following like somebody’s bowled an enormous furry spider down the hallway. It crashes into a wall, and then what can only be described as a soot sprite from Spirited Away comes shooting into August’s room.
“Noodles!” calls Niko, and then he’s in the doorway. There’s a leash hanging from his hand and an apologetic expression from his angular features.
“I thought you said he was a ghost in the night,” August says. Noodles is snuffling through her socks, tail a blur, until he realizes there’s a new person and launches himself at her.
“He is,” Niko says with a wince. “I mean, kind of. Sometimes, I feel bad and take him to work with me at the shop during the day. I guess we didn’t mention his, uh—” Noodles takes this moment to place both paws on August’s shoulders and try to force his tongue into her mouth. “Personality.”
Myla appears behind Niko, a skateboard under one arm. “Oh, you met Noodles!”
“Oh yeah,” August says. “Intimately.”
“You need help with the rest of your stuff?”
She blinks. “This is it.”
“That’s… that’s it?” Myla says. “That’s everything?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t, uh.” Myla’s giving her this look, like she’s realizing she didn’t actually know anything about August before agreeing to let her store her veggies alongside theirs in the crisper. It’s a look August gives herself in the mirror a lot. “You don’t have any furniture.”
“I’m kind of a minimalist,” August tells her. If she tried, August could get her five boxes down to four. Maybe something to do over the weekend.
“Oh, I wish I could be more like you. Niko’s gonna start throwing my yarn out the window while I’m sleeping.” Myla smiles, reassured that August is not, in fact, in the Witness Protection Program. “Anyway, we’re gonna go get dinner pancakes. You in?”
August would rather let Niko throw her out the window than split shortstacks with people she barely knows.
“I can’t really afford to eat out,” she says. “I don’t have a job yet.”
“I got you. Call it a welcome home dinner,” Myla says.
“Oh,” August says. That’s… generous. A warning light flashes somewhere in August’s brain. Her mental field guide to making friends is a two-page pamphlet that just says: DON’T.
“Pancake Billy’s House of Pancakes,” Myla says. “It’s a Flatbush institution.”
“Open since 1976,” Niko chimes in.
August arches a brow. “Forty-four years and nobody wanted to take another run at that name?”
“It’s part of the charm,” Myla says. “It’s like, our place. You’re from the South, right? You’ll like it. Very unpretentious.”
They hover there, staring at one another. A pancake standoff.
August wants to stay in the safety of her crappy bedroom with the comfortable misery of a Pop-Tarts dinner and a silent truce with her brain. But she looks at Niko and realizes, even if he was faking it when he touched her, he saw something in her. And that’s more than anyone’s done in a long time.
Ugh.
“Okay,” she says, clambering to her feet, and Myla’s smile bursts across her face like starlight.
Ten minutes later, August is tucked into a corner booth of Pancake Billy’s House of Pancakes, where every waiter seems to know Niko and Myla by name. The server is a man with a beard, a broad smile, and a faded name tag that says WINFIELD pinned to his red Pancake Billy’s T-shirt. He doesn’t even ask Niko or Myla’s order—just sets down a mug of coffee and a pink lemonade.
She can see what they meant about Pancake Billy’s legendary status. It has a particular type of New Yorkness to it, something she’s seen in an Edward Hopper painting or the diner from Seinfeld, but with a lot more seasoning. It’s a corner unit, big windows facing the street on both sides, dinged-up Formica tables and red vinyl seats slowly being rotated out of the busiest sections as they crack. There’s a soda shop bar down the length of one wall, old photos and Mets front pages from floor to ceiling.
