It's Different This Time

by Joss Richard

“I’m curious how you described me to him,” I say with a laugh. “You’re like Michelle Pfeiffer in Grease 2,” Zach interjects, and I appreciate the inside baseball reference. “You’re a Cool Rider, ya know? Mellow, sarcastic, but fun.” “Michelle Pfeiffer wasn’t a Cool Rider, she was looking for a Cool Rider,” I correct him. “What the fuck are you both talking about?” Shivani shakes her head. “Grease 2,” Zach repeats. “You two are literally the only people who have seen that movie…We just want to see you happy, June.”

But sitting on the subway, I remember the way people are so exposed to one another here, how you can feel a sense of community.

“June,” he says, looking at the name card I drew myself with a small sunflower on the top right instead of at the book. “Is that short for anything?” “Just June.” I humbly shrug. “It’s my favorite month.” “No it’s not,” I say, a laugh escaping me. “It is,” he says, giving a single nod. “The end of school, the start of summer. What’s not to love?” “No, see, this is why October is the best month.” I shake my head. “Nothing beats the autumn weather, and from October on, you have Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas to look forward to. It’s like the Friday of months.”

There’s something gratifying about how life on the West Coast is slower, but the electricity that flows through Manhattan is unmatched.

A chef is someone who makes a recipe, a cook is someone who follows it,

Once, I read an article in The New York Times describing the West Village as low-key with a small-scale charm, which is spot-on. Sprinkled on every corner are mom-and-pop coffee shops, and in Washington Square Park you’re guaranteed to find regulars playing chess. The streets are narrow, with curved corners full of undeniably charming architecture, making it a true village within a concrete jungle. Between the dogs, big and small, being walked along Bleecker and the crisp September air combating steam rising from the construction chimneys, it’s difficult to not romanticize my life while being here.

“A theater group like that—Off-Broadway, Broadway, whatever—they’re a business. They need money, they need talent. You do this because you love the art. You don’t need them, they need you.”

“I don’t know how many times I have to say it, but setting it on high doesn’t cook food any faster. It just burns it,”

“You know, when I was a kid, I would see this in the movies and always thought that’s what I’m going to do when I grow up.” “Sit in the middle of Bryant Park drinking hot chocolate?” “All of it.” I wave my arms around. “Just being and doing whatever I want…What is it about this city?” “I know what you mean. It’s like anything is possible,” he says.

There’s always been a deep connection between the two of us, the ability to have a conversation with a mere look across the room. Sometimes the most intimate things we’ve said were in silence.

Isn’t this what your twenties is all about? Doing stupid shit so you have stories to tell in your thirties?”

Audrey and Ford have been married for twenty-seven years. They bicker like an old married couple and look at each other like teenagers in love. People like to use the word soulmates when describing people like the Harpers. Love like theirs was meant to be; they found their way to each other, and it just works.

“Perry is home,” Adam says intently, and it knocks the wind out of me. “And I’ve always been most comfortable with you. Maybe I thought you’d feel the same way.”

Every day we lived together, we were both working in tandem toward our dreams.

“It’s in the chorus, but I get a solo part in the ‘Cell Block Tango,’ ” I say like he has any idea what that means. “Fuck yeah, you do.” Adam is the only person who has never said they’re proud of me, like being proud means he somehow doubted my achievements. It’s one of the many things I appreciate about him.

Family. It’s a word that most people take for granted. To say you have a family is a privilege, a birthright. For the first time, I finally know what it feels like to be wanted, to be loved…and it’s the best feeling in the world.

Marie’s Crisis Café.

“There’s no way to preserve anything forever. Trust me, I know. You win, you lose…but you can’t do either unless you take a chance.”

Maybe that’s how life is—we do things because it’s the best decision we can make in the moment, and there’s no way of knowing if we made the right choice. There’s no way to gauge if all of it’s for nothing, or if it’s so we can have everything.