It Was Crazy, I Know

It was crazy, I know. But sometimes the crazy is what gives way to the meaningful.

July 3. The end of my first year living in New York City. And I was going stark crazy.

Sure, there were good things about NYC. Take the little coffee shop on the street corner next to my apartment. Flowers on every table. Chalkboard menus. The friendly barista who knew my order by heart. Lavender latte, oatmeal milk, small. And I always chose the same table, too. The one by the window, the one bathed in sunlight in the morning. The barista had started saving it for me, making sure no one sat there after 7:45 a.m., fifteen minutes before I got there.

That’s also where she got the idea. The crazy idea that changed my idea of the NYC night sky forever.

See, my eyes may not have been completely dry when I stumbled into the coffee shop that Tuesday morning. The barista noticed I wasn’t okay even before I choked out my order.

“Oh, honey, you just go sit down. I’ll bring you your latte.”

I thanked her blankly and went to my favorite seat. Two minutes later, she was there.

“Um . . . I think you got my order wrong this time,” I said as my bleary eyes focused on the large lavender latte she set down.

“Not a chance,” she smiled, sliding into the seat opposite mine. She was holding a cup of her own. “I thought you might need some extra today.” She winked.

I sighed.

“I’m sorry, honey. What’s wrong?”

I laughed. I didn’t even know why. All that emotion had to go somewhere.

“Wait.” She pulled up a calendar on her smart watch. “July 3 . . . honey, today marks one year since you’ve been coming here.”

“Every day.”

“Every day.” She smiled. “Doesn’t seem like something you should be crying about, honey.” Her eyes twinkled.

“Nope.” I realized I’d never given her my name. “By the way, I’m Cynthia.”

“I thought you’d never get the hint.” Laughter danced in her eyes. “I’ve been calling you honey forever.”

I laughed. “I guess I figured it’s the way you operate.”

We laughed together, then her eyes turned serious.

“No, really. What’s wrong?”

I sighed. “I don’t know, really. Well yes, I do know. Today’s a year since I came to New York.”

“Ahh.” Understanding flashed in her eyes. “You miss your home, huh?”

“It’s not just home, it’s . . .” I shrugged. “Something’s been missing ever since I came here, and I’ve never been able to figure out what.”

“Family?”

“Never had one.”

“Friends?”

“Why do you think I never told you my name?”

Her eyes were full of sad disbelief now. “Where did you live before you came here?”

“Small town. Off the map. Really, you wouldn’t care.”

“Hmmm.” She looked at me thoughtfully. “Do you miss the space?”

“What?”

“The wide open spaces.”

I bit my lip. “Maybe.” I thought a bit. “No. I miss that, but there’s something else.”

There was silence for a while.

“So . . . if you didn’t have any friends, what did you do with yourself?”

I started to smile. “Nothing.” I shook my head and laughed a little. “Well, not nothing. Days, I worked. Evenings, I walked.”

“Walked?”

“Yeah. I walked. I’d just walk out the front door of my miserable matchbox of a house and walk.”

“What’d you do when you got tired?”

My eyes must’ve been dancing now. “I lay down on a patch of grass and looked up.”

“Looked up?”

“Yes!” I was almost jumping out of my seat. “I looked up at the stars. They were so beautiful! I imagined myself on the bottom of the world, looking down into the stars. Sometimes I’d close my eyes for just a second and wake up the next morning.” I giggled. “I was always late for work.” I closed my eyes and felt the cool evening breeze across my face, saw the brilliant sprinkle of stars across the black of the night sky. “And you know . . . sometimes it made me think . . . somebody had to make them. They can't have gotten there by chance. And maybe, if they're not here by chance, maybe neither am I.”

When I opened my eyes again, she was looking at me like she suddenly knew something I didn’t. “It’s the stars you miss, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“The stars!” she squealed. She clapped her hands together, almost spilling her chai. “That’s what you’ve been missing!”

I stared. My eyes closed again. The almost imperceptible evening mist. The soft grass beneath my head. Over everything else, the stars. Twinkling like diamonds. Whispering like they knew something I didn’t. Some nights I’d almost been able to hear what they were saying. And then I felt a tear splash over my nose and land on my chin.

Her eyes were sad like a puppy’s now. “I’m so sorry, Cynthia. I can give you a lavender oatmeal milk latte and a place to sit mornings, but I’m afraid I have no idea how to give you stars.”

I pressed my hand to my chest. Now that I knew it was I’d been missing, I couldn’t bear it. “How could I forget about the stars?” I moaned.

“What made them so special to you?” She was whispering now. Like the stars.

“I don’t know.” I tried to think. “There’s so many.”

“They’re never alone, huh?”

“No. They’re never alone. They’re always surrounded by a million others who are just like them.”

“And when you look at them, you don’t feel so alone, do you?”

“No.” I closed my eyes again. “I can almost imagine that I’m one of them.”

She tipped back her cup, swallowing the last of her chai. She set down her cup and looked at me again, inspiration sparkling in her eyes. “But Cynthia, you’re not alone.” She was laughing now. “Every day you’re surrounded by a million people who are just as lonely as you are.”

I looked at her in disbelief. “What makes the stars so different? Why aren’t they lonely?”

“They stick together.” She was dead serious now. “Not one of the stars ever goes off on its own course. It always stays in its place, surrounded by so many others, and they’re always together.”

“You mean . . .” Something started stirring in me. “You mean, they make friends with the ones closest to them, and then they never leave.”

She nodded.

I sipped my latte. It was cold. I set it down again. “So . . .” I traced the grain of the wood table with my finger. “How do I make friends?”

She smiled, and her eyes were dancing again. “First, you go to the coffee shop on the corner.”

I felt a smile forming on my own face.

“You meet a friendly barista, and you say hi.”

“And introduce yourself, preferably before a year passes.” I felt myself smirking.

“Preferably.”

We both laughed.

“And then when she asks you to spend the evening at her house on the second story of the coffee shop with her tonight–”

“Aren’t you working?”

She shook her head. “I only work mornings.” She smiled. “Won’t you please?”

I looked at her thoughtfully.

“I’m not a million stars, but you might as well start with one.”

I smiled. “I will.” I looked at my watch. “But I need to go to work now.”

We both rose from our seats.

“Thanks for listening.” As the words left my mouth, I realized how I’d been craving just that.

She didn’t reply. Instead, she folded me in a hug.

Suddenly, my broken heart started healing again.

“I’ll see you tonight,” I said, smiling.

“I’ll have a surprise for you,” she replied, winking.

I laughed.

It was evening. As I walked to the coffee shop, I found myself staring up at the sky. But alas, the lights that had beckoned me to New York in the first place now cruelly outshone the stars.

I climbed the stairs outside the coffee shop to a small door in the wall and knocked.  

She was there, smiling. But she didn’t invite me in. Instead, she stepped onto the landing with me. “Here.” She pointed to a ladder I hadn’t seen. “Up on the roof.”

I followed her up, again aware of how the broken pieces of my heart seemed to fall into place in the presence of a friend.

We reached the flat roof. Blankets and pillows were piled in a heap in the middle of her flower pots.

“It’s not grass, but it’s the best I can do on short notice.”

I stared. “What do you mean?”

She just laughed. “You’ll see.”

We spent hours on the roof, wrapped in blankets even though the night was warm. We talked about everything. I hadn't known what I was missing by shutting everyone out of my life.

Suddenly, she touched my arm. “Cynthia, I want you to meet New York City’s stars,” she whispered, beaming.

“What?”

Suddenly just as a clock somewhere struck ten, the city was plunged into darkness.

I fumbled in the dark for a flashlight. “What happened!?”

“Cynthia, up!”

“What?”

“Look up!” She was trembling with excitement.

I didn’t understand, but I looked up.

And I understood.

I stared at the stars like one starved. They danced and twinkled and whispered. And this time, I heard what they said. “You can’t always see us, but we’re always there.”

“You can’t always see us, but we’re always there.” It was a silvery refrain, shimmering through the night air. “You can’t always see us, but we’re always there.”

“Just like friends,” I whispered. The lights came back on.

I looked at her and realized what she’d done. “How?” I demanded.

She didn't flinch. “I have my connections,” she said smugly.

I stared. “You’re crazy.”

She giggled. “Thanks.”