They went to Central Park and sat on a slope. The weather was beginning to warm, and the trees were blooming with tiny flowers. Goldie brought a thick plaid blanket with her, so they didn’t have to sit on the cold ground. The park was full of people, mothers and nannies shepherding children, joggers and rec teams training, couples and friends picnicking together on the grass.

Goldie talked the whole time, about her job at the gallery and her coworkers’ different quirks, her freelance work, the friend she was meeting that afternoon, but she asked questions and listened to Nina too. Even though the back of Nina’s mind kept wondering what the hell someone like Goldie was seeing in her, most of the time, Nina could forget about that.

“My family traveled a lot when I was growing up,” Goldie explained. “But we’re city people at our core. George and Delany actually lived with our grandparents on the East side for a while, so they could go to Dalton like my dad did. I went to boarding school in New England instead, but didn’t love how quiet it was over there so I came back here for college. Do you like Middlewater?”

“No,” Nina said, making Goldie snort. “I mean, it’s fine. I can live with it. It’s just a pain, sometimes. Hour and a half on the train up here and all that.” She sipped the lavender latte Goldie had insisted she try from a cafe they’d passed on their way to the park, a drink that cost more than half an hour's wages. Goldie had opted for a honey matcha drink instead, and Nina wondered what it would taste like if she kissed her. She could do that last night, but could she do that now? In the middle of a sundrenched park, surrounded by strangers?

A flock of sparrows settled on a pile of still-bare branches in her line of sight. Nina pulled out her pocket sketchbook and a pen and tried to sketch the scene.

Goldie watched her pen move, silent, barely breathing. “That’s really good.”

“Do you wish you could draw?”

“No,” Goldie said, as decisively and suddenly as Nina saying she didn’t like Middlewater earlier. “I don’t really think in pictures. I like looking at them, but it just doesn’t... call to me. Maybe I know too much about art to start drawing now, too. I make a shape and just see how bad it is right away.”

“I mean, it’s all subjective, isn’t it? There’s beauty in immature, crude drawings too.” Nina added contour lines to the pile of branches forming on the page. “My drawing style means I take a long time to finish stuff, which isn’t great for an illustrator.” She tapped the page with the tip of her pen, scattering random dots of ink among the sketch. “I need to get faster.”

She drew a sparrow, and then tried drawing the sparrow again. “When do you have to meet your friend?” 

Goldie checked the watch on her wrist, a wide red-strapped thing that seemed more fashionable than practical. “In another half an hour. We’re meeting at a park exit nearby, actually. You can meet him if you want.”

Besides the watch, Goldie’s entire outfit seemed like she was expecting to get stopped by NYC-looks at any minute: tailored vintage T-shirt, high-waisted black shorts with a red belt that matched her watch and Keds, black bucket hat with a few enamel pins on it from local artists. Nina, still in last night’s getup, felt simultaneously over and underdressed next to her. “Okay, I feel kind of silly for asking this, but are you an influencer?”

Goldie burst out laughing. "You think I look like an influencer? I mean, I make content online, but I'm not popular enough for brand deals or anything about it.  I have a blog and do fashion, arts and lifestyle content on there and my Instagram, but my numbers are nowhere near influencer level. I’m at like fifty-K followers at most. That's nothing.”

Nina stared at her. "I have like 500 followers on my art Insta, tops." The population of Middlewater was around 25,000. Her entire hometown was half the size of this girl's Instagram following, and she didn't count as an influencer?

"If you're just doing it for fun, it doesn't matter how many followers you have." Goldie told her, leaning back against the rock. "I'm not super interested in doing a lot of sponcon or building a personal brand or anything. I just want to write what I like and have other people like it too, you know?"

"And I can usually get into the exclusive events people invite influencers to through other people I know," she added after a moment. "Like from work or college or whatever."

"That's... Cool," Nina said. She was looking at Goldie like the girl she was talking to had suddenly turned into a rock on the moon, cold and unreachably far away.

Goldie's phone vibrated. "Oh, my friend's here early. Do you want to meet him? He's cool."

"Actually, I think I should probably get home," Nina said. "My parents might be worried I'm still out and about." The moment the words were out of her mouth she winced, feeling like a child for even admitting to still living with her parents. But Goldie didn't even blink.

"Parents can be like that," she said. "My family has a weekly Sunday brunch thing even though we don't all live together anymore. My mom still texts me to check in sometimes during the week."

Nina tried to think of the last time they did a family brunch thing. Possibly for her mom's birthday last year.

"Do you want me to walk you to the subway so you don't get lost? The park can be confusing if you're not used to it."

Nina held back a laugh. "That's really sweet of you to offer, but I don't want to make your friend wait."

"He can deal with it," Goldie declared. "Come on."

Nina shrugged and let Goldie lead her through the park gates and to a subway station. Goldie hugged her at the turnstile, enveloping Nina in warmth and perfume.

"It was so nice to meet you this weekend!" she said. "Text me when you get home." Like they were long-separated childhood friends and not two people who met less than 24 hours earlier.

"I will," said Nina. She wasn't sure she would.

Goldie turned and walked back to the street, and as Nina watched her go, she felt like the fairytale was ending. Whatever strange magic had connected them dissolved, not at midnight, but at the arrival of the train. They didn't have much in common, besides incredible chemistry and a general appreciation for the arts. Surely Goldie would realize this was never meant to be more than a momentary fling, a brief burst of passion. Maybe she'd tell that friend she was meeting about it. Maybe the friend would tell her this was a waste of her time.

Nina texted her parents when she got on the NJ transit train home. She thought about texting Goldie too, but Goldie as a New Yorker wouldn't have a frame of reference for what taking the NJ transit meant. 

She texted Cory instead.

Cory Ko was one of the few people from high school who was both still in town and someone Nina was still friends with. Nina gave them a summarized version of the past two days' events.

Cory: girl WHAT

Cory: are you off tomorrow we need to get brunch about this

Nina: I'm not scheduled for it but I might be working tomorrow actually since I took off today I'll have to check with my manager

She messaged Graham and Desiree to figure out the schedule thing. The store was small enough that they could be pretty flexible with it, but they still preferred to plan more than a day in advance. Since she'd started working there Nina had developed a sense of guilt for taking two weekend days off, even when it was unavoidable. The store was busy on weekends! They needed her! Even though she was just a cog in a capitalist machine, the capitalist machine had tricked her into feeling invested in its well-being.

She was told she didn't have to work tomorrow if she came in Saturday and Sunday the following week. She relayed this to Cory and they made plans to meet at Lou's Diner.

The chat with Goldie hovered near the top of her recent conversations, tempting her to try opening it.

What did they really have in common? What could they really talk about?

She stared out the window as the suburban New Jersey landscape raced by.

Nina's mom picked her up from the train station. "Who did you stay with overnight?"

"Just a friend. No one you know." 

"What'd you do today?"

"Went to Central Park. Drew some birds."

"Do you mind if we stop by Trader Joe's on the way back? You can get whatever you want."

"Sure." If Nina tried to live by herself in New York, she wouldn't be able to get whatever she wanted from Trader Joe's every time she went there without thinking about the price. She'd probably need roommates to make rent work at all. There's no way working at an art store in the city could actually cover the cost of living there. But at home, she had two parents working full time, and a house to live in. 

But what if she could live by herself in an apartment overlooking Central Park?

These thoughts occupied her mind as they pulled into the store parking lot. Nina grabbed a handful of frozen lunches to bring to work next week.