Page 90 of Break the Ice

‘Oh, bullcrap. It’s just a bit of snow. I’ve got a membership here so I’ve got rights to be here. Plus, this place is warm and I get to save on my heat,’ she tells me, smiling. I love the angles of her silver bob, the red furry beret on her head. I like that tenacity about her, how a touch of snow was never going to stop her from being here. ‘So what you think of the Guggenheim? You here on vacation?’

‘Yeah, visiting a friend.’

‘Your friend let you come here alone?’ she asks.

‘Oh, I’m just having a morning to myself. I’ll see him later.’

‘Him. Oh, it’s like that, is it?’ she jokes.

‘Greta. Calm down,’ I say and she cackles loudly.

‘You’re very pretty. You got Italian in you?’

‘Spanish, actually. My mum was Spanish,’ I tell her.

‘And what do you do, Phoebe? For work?’

‘Oh, I’m in some crappy events job now but I did my masters in psychology.’

‘No frigging way, that was what I did many moons ago. I was a lecturer at Cornell and a psychotherapist for many years.’

‘No way!’ I say, nudging her shoulder slightly. ‘Well, that’s the plan. Somewhere down the line, I’d like to go into educational psych, work with kids. That feels right, like a potential calling.’

She breaks open a bag of sunflower seeds and shakes some into my hand.

‘Tell me about this boy who’s not here,’ she says. ‘I’m old, indulge me.’

I smile as I bring him to mind. ‘He’s called Joshua.’

‘Is he cute? I bet he’s cute.’

I get out my phone and show her a selfie of the two of us in the snow last night, under a lamppost, and she stamps her feet with excitement. ‘Look at his hair, look at your hair. Your kids will have such good hair.’

‘Greta, calm down, babe. We’ve literally just met. I just don’t know…’

‘What’s wrong with him?’ she asks.

‘Nothing really. I’m just not a relationship girly. I like options,’ I explain.

‘Oh, she likes to try out the different flavours.’

‘Greta! I’m young and single. I’m allowed,’ I say, defending my honour.

‘Oh, no judgement here, but you’ve met a boy who’s making you change course, rethinking your life, am I right or am I right?’ she jests.

I side-eye her. ‘He’s making me think something. I just don’t know how he fits into my life. I think we’re quite different. I don’t know why I feel like this about him,’ I say.

She looks down at the selfie again. ‘Usually, it’s because that person fills a gap in your life. They are what we need.’ She leaves a gap for me to process that and I think about the last person who cared for me so authentically. The same person who also challenged me in lots of ways, who grounded me to this life with such unerring encouragement. Mum. I try to contain the pangs of grief that ring through my body. ‘He’s kind, I can tell, you can see it in the eyes. Probably different gravy to the boys you been with.’

I smile because there are hints of truth in that.

I let her scroll through the photos, watching her grin as they get goofier. My face creases up with confusion. ‘I just never thought this was the plan, Greta. You know?’

She scrunches her face up at me. ‘No. I don’t know. Missy, how old are you?’

‘Twenty-five.’

‘Geez, you’re just a baby,’ she says, grinning. ‘I wasn’t a therapist my whole life, you know. I followed a boy to Berlin in 1972, I joined the Peace Corps, I had twins and lost a toe to gangrene. I also lived on a boat. Like a pirate.’