I wake up to the sound of thunder, rain against my dirty windows. Lightning cracks somewhere far off; the telling beats too many counted seconds away to be close.
One…two…three…four…five…six…
A thunderous boom rings out over someone else’s borough. I get up quickly, remembering that my windows are wide open – a pitiful attempt at getting air to circulate through my apartment. Spring has passed within a matter of days and summer is dauntingly upon us. Just one month ago I felt the bitter cold. Now, my room is filled with stagnant air, warm as bathwater.
I meet my friends for coffee in Brooklyn. Blue Bottle. We stand at a wooden table, drinking our drinks, having a pastry or two. Jo gets something with rhubarb inside, a pistachio crumble on top. Justin gets a savory shortbread.
When we are finished I follow them on their bicycles through industrial streets, down to the water’s edge. We lay out on plastic benches until our bodies overheat. I feel the sweat develop between my skin and the synthetic surface, hot and unbreathing.
We ride our bikes again, our small little posse, to a park with grass and pea gravel. Jo puts down a Mexican blanket in the space between tall weeds and a modest tree. Families have picnics. Girls sit reading books. I lie down and stare up at month-old leaves, their veins still fresh, their color still vibrant. Though it’s far away, I’m already dreading winter.
By 4 p.m. the day seems no less hot. The early morning rain had burned off by 10 a.m., leaving only a regrettable humid stickiness in its wake. Jo and I walk down Canal Street, over concrete and cobblestone, until we reach the party. Someone called it a BBQ but it’s less a BBQ and more a place where people can try to sit and look good, in spite of the sweltering heat.
The punk kids are still wearing their punk clothes. Everything in black and white. Jeans and heavy shoes. Cigarettes dangle out of bored mouths, just beneath damp upper lips. A girl walks by in a sheer neck-to-ankle bodysuit. Hot Topic red. Her blonde hair fried to a deathly crisp. Her ankles wobble in her teetering high heels. A New Yorker’s dedication to her individuality can be – and is most often – impractical.
A man in a white polo shirt and slim-cut seersucker trousers generously provides us with a giant pitcher of margaritas. He pours us each a cup while talking about backpacking through Great Britain. I watch as my square ice cubes melt, quickly disappearing in my atomic green beverage.
Jo and I take the subway to Bushwick and talk about people we shouldn’t love anymore. Punch-to-the-gut emails. Self-fulfilling prophecies. The air conditioning cools my face and legs for fifteen minutes, until we emerge back into the hotness of the city streets.
Olivier and Jake are in the backyard, sitting around a table drinking beers out of big bottles. Heaps of grilled vegetables sit on a plate. Guacamole oxidizes in a silver bowl. I eat until I am full, and then eat a little bit more.
From the adjacent building, a man appears. He hangs over the second-story ledge and asks us if we want some plants. “Sure, dude,” says Olivier, and we walk over to their building and into their house until we are in a rooftop backyard filled with plants.
A man named Marcus shows me which little things are basil and which are tarragon. He gives Olivier a pot of strawberries and me some fresh lettuce with sprigs of dill. Jo gets an indoor plant. Jake gets one for outside. “It’s all about getting the community involved,” Thomas says, and then we leave.
Plants in hand, we walk out of their building, strangers now friends, and onto the sidewalk. And then Jo says what we all are thinking:
“I love New York.”
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