Goldie showed up fifteen minutes before the store closed, when they'd already started their closing procedures and cashing out the registers and all that. Nina saw her stop just short of the glass door and take a deep breath before pushing it open.

Nina's heart thudded in her ribcage. "Hey," she said, casually.

"Hi!" Goldie beamed at her. She looked, like always, like she had stepped off the cover of a lifestyle magazine and decided to grace Nina with her presence. Nina was pretty sure she saw her outfit, or at least something similar, in the window of the Ralph Lauren store down the street. A knee length dark green skirt with a sweater and a light blue Oxford shirt tucked into a belt over it, hair up in a bun with a few tendrils sneaking out. "I thought something collegiate and preppy would be appropriate," she explained with a twirl. "I've never been here before, so I didn't know what the local style is."

"Well, you'd fit in just fine at the alumni clubs, I'm sure," Nina said. Her own black jumpsuit with funky pins and patches and plunging neckline suddenly seemed like an outfit from a very different magazine. Like she was the goth teenager getting dragged along on a normal family's outing. Great for working at an art supply store, though.

Goldie smiled, but there was something anxious about it. Nina wondered if they should hug or something, but she was far too conscious of her coworkers in the same room.

"This your friend, Nina?" Paul asked. 

Nina nodded. "Goldie, these are my coworkers. Paul, Kate, Roni." She pointed at each of them in turn. "This is Goldie."

"Nice to meet you," Goldie said. Everyone else nodded politely.

"We still have to close out this register," Paul said, tapping the counter in front of him.

"I can wait outside while you finish closing up," Goldie offered.

"Thanks," said Nina. "I'll meet you outside, then."

Paul was in charge of closing out due to seniority, so Nina was out of there the moment the last straggling customer left. She went through the back to grab her stuff first, and walked up to Goldie from one side.

Goldie was illuminated by the orange street lamp overhead. The early spring sun was in the process of setting, and the gold and orange lights and shadows bounced off her shining hair and careful clothes, changing the colors of everything it touched. Goldie herself was watching the darkened glass window like Audrey Hepburn in the opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany's, peaceful, wondering. Looking at the darkened displays of paintbrushes like they were jewels.

Nina walked quietly to her side and said, "Boo."

Goldie shrieked. "Oh my God, you scared me!" She laughed a little, sounding nervous.

Nina shrugged. "Sorry," she said, not sounding sorry at all. "Shall we go?"

"Yes, let's go," Goldie said, like she was quoting something Nina didn't immediately recognize.

Nina looked down the street in one direction, then the other. "There's a lot of options for dinner around here. What're you in the mood for?" 

"Hmm..." Goldie imitated the motion Nina had made, craning her neck from side to side like her head was balanced on a long spring. "What's the most famous restaurant in town?"

"A sandwich shop and a pizza place, and you're too well dressed for either of those," Nina responded instantly. 

They ended up at Bradbury's, a university-themed vaguely Brittanic "pub" where the walls were covered in portraits of past Middlewater University presidents and framed covers of the quarterly alumni magazine. The wood paneling was trimmed with the school colors of Middlewater Blue and gold. 

The host directed them to a warmly-lit corner booth between the 1987 and 1989 issues of The Middlewater Paddler. As Nina took a seat opposite Goldie, it occurred to her that this felt a lot like a first date. Probably looked like one too, from the outside. 

When she looked up at Goldie, the other girl appeared to have been thinking the same thing. She grinned, flipped open her menu and said, "So... What do you like to do for fun?"

Nina laughed, knot of nerves loosening slightly. "Oh you know, the usual. Long walks on the beach or whatever."

"Is there even a beach near here?"

"This is New Jersey, we have a whole coastline like an hour away. Famously so."

"Fair enough." Goldie's foot caught Nina's under the table. "Do you go to the beach a lot, then?"

"Not really," Nina admitted. "It's kind of a hassle to coordinate, with people..." Everyone she hung out with in high school would travel or do internships during summer vacation time while they were all still in college, so it was hard to find a window where at least a few people were all in town and up for a beach trip for even a day. "Do you? I know there's beaches in New York too."

"Sometimes," Goldie said, flipping a page in her menu. "They're not really nice though. My family usually travels during the summer, and we have a house in the Hamptons..." Goldie cringed as she said it. "God, I sound like such a stereotype, don't I. A summer house in the Hamptons." 

"I mean, you didn't buy the house, did you? Not like you can do much about whatever decisions your parents or grandparents— or great grandparents— made to get you that house." 

Nina's dad sometimes talked about the dacha his dad had built with his own two hands in a tiny village an hour out of Moscow, an idyllic wonderland with a river perfect for swimming and all the fresh fruit and vegetables a kid could want. Nina had only the vaguest memories of it, memories that might've been invented from her dad's stories. As far as she knew it was owned by her great-uncle now. He and her dad sometimes argued on Skype about selling it. Nina's father would end the call and then start looking up property listings in the Poconos, or Belmar, or the Hudson Valley, while musing out loud about having a real proper dacha in America. It just never seemed to come together, financially.

"Nina?" 

She snapped back to attention. The waiter had come by to ask if they wanted anything to drink. Nina got a specialty cocktail named after some university building, and Goldie got a cocktail named after a different university building. "You can try mine when it gets here," she said. 

"You can try mine too. Sorry I zoned out for a bit there."

"No worries." Goldie hesitated. "It doesn't, like, bother you, right? The house in the Hamptons?"

Nina rolled her eyes. "When I say something's fine, I mean it. I hope I get to see it someday, at least." 

"Of course!" Goldie smiled then, soft and warm, and reached out to grab Nina's hand across the table. Nina's could feel Goldie's pulse in her wrist as she held Nina's hand. It made Nina's face heat up, and she wondered how long this moment would last before she could have her hand back to herself.

Their drinks arrived. They ordered food, Goldie again insisting they each get something different so they could share. Nina picked a pasta dish nearly at random, only checking to make sure it was neither the most or least expensive item on the menu. Her cocktail was a clear orange color with a skewer of fruit lying across the rim. Goldie's was purple and foamy. She let Nina have the first sip: sweet, bitter, berry-flavored.

"How is it?" Goldie asked.

"Good," Nina said. She pushed her glass across the table for Goldie to try hers first, too. 

Goldie's eyes lit up. "Oh, I like this! Orangey!" She tried the drink she ordered. "And this one's good too!" She looked at the two glasses, clearly conflicted.

"You can take whichever you like more," Nina said. "Or order another one. I'll switch to water after this since I'm driving, though."

Goldie frowned. "That wouldn't be fair. And no fun for you, if I'm the only one getting drunk." She pushed the orange drink back towards Nina.

"At any rate, there's alcohol at my place, if you really need to take the edge off." Nina's parents probably wouldn't mind, or even really notice. 

The reminder of what they were planning to do after they went over to Nina's place sent a shiver through her, and she finally tried the orange drink Goldie had pushed towards her. 

It did taste like citrus.

The food was fine. It probably couldn't hold a candle to Goldie's sister's cooking, but Goldie took pictures of the two plates and dug in with evident enjoyment. A tangle of nerves seemed to have replaced Nina's appetite, however. 

She pushed the shrimp around her plate. "Um, do you want to walk around town after we're done eating, or—"

"I'd love to walk around a bit." Goldie smiled. "Give the food a chance to digest and all."

"Okay, yeah." Nina nodded. "We can do that."

Nina insisted on splitting the check.