Lost in Love by Susane Colasanti Page A

him down in Jersey City. Oooh, maybe his wife would even be there!”
    â€œLike I would want to see her. Think I’ll pass on finding out how gorgeous she is.”
    â€œHow do you know she’s gorgeous?”
    â€œBecause Austin is gorgeous. Why wouldn’t his wife be?” Sadie washes down the word wife with a few gulps of her drink.
    Sadie doesn’t have to tell me how gorgeous that boy was. I remember running into Sadie and Austin on the stoop one time when I was leaving for a date. They had a vibe like they’d been together for a while. Like they were already boyfriend and girlfriend. But then I found out they had just met.
    I scope out the scene. Two guys at the bar have been looking at us since we got here. They’re cute in a frat boy way.
    â€œSee those guys at the bar?” I tilt my head slightly in their direction. “They’ve been staring at you this whole time.”
    â€œWhich guys?” Sadie turns to look. The guys notice her looking. One of them raises his glass.
    â€œThe ones who just saw you gawking at them.”
    â€œWho cares if they saw?”
    â€œIt’s better to play it cool. They might lose interest if you seem desperate.”
    â€œAre you seriously trying to hook me up with some random bar dudes?”
    â€œToo soon?”
    Sadie takes another look at the glass raiser, surreptitiously this time. “He’s not even half as cute as Austin.”
    â€œOkay, rule number one for moving on? You need to get over how cute Austin was. His cuteness factor is entirely irrelevant. The boy broke your heart. He’s an asshole.”
    â€œBut that’s the thing. He’s not an asshole. He’s actually a good person.”
    â€œName one good thing he’s doing.”
    â€œHe’s dedicating his life to green design for urban environments.”
    â€œI’m sorry, but just because a guy is environmentally aware doesn’t exempt him from being an asshole. A person can be a prick and still advocate wind turbines.”
    â€œYou know that’s not the only good thing about him. He’s caring. And protective. And a dreamer like me. Being with him felt the way I’d always wanted to feel with a boyfriend. Being with him was . . . everything.”
    We sit in silence with dancehall pounding and club lights pulsing and hundreds of trendy twentysomethings getting hammered. Normally I’d love a place like this. Here you can escape for the night. You can be anyone. You can turn a stranger into your next boy adventure. You can be completely anonymous or spill your life story. Whatever you want to be, whomever you want to be, however you want to be are all within your reach.
    But Sadie is not having a good time. I need to step up my support system game. Time for a subject change.
    â€œCan you believe Rosanna is in South Beach?” I say. “With a man ?”
    â€œI know!”
    â€œHow have we not talked about this?”
    â€œI’m really happy for her.”
    â€œRosanna is radical on the DL. That’s hot. I was hoping she had a wild side that was going to emerge. There’s nothing like dating a trust-fund kid with the world at his disposal to yank you out of your shell.”
    â€œThis is her first vacation anywhere.”
    â€œSeriously?”
    â€œThat’s what she said.”
    My mouth drops open. “She never went on any family vacays?”
    â€œHer family isn’t . . . they don’t have a lot of money. You know Rosanna is one of five kids, right?”
    That I knew. But I didn’t know money was so tight in her family. I just thought she needed a style hack. That’s why I treated her to some new clothes and accessories. She didn’t want to accept them, but I insisted. I even ripped the tags off and destroyed the receipts so she couldn’t return anything. I wanted her to feel good about herself. Now that she’s with D, I bet she appreciates not