“Yikes,” she says, gesturing at August’s shirt, where the coffee stain has soaked in and spread, which is the last possible reason August wants this girl to be looking at her boobs.

The hottest girl August has ever seen just took one look at her and said, “Yikes.”

Before she can think of anything to say, the girl swings her backpack around, and August watches dumbly as she unfurls a red scarf, shoving down a pack of gum and some vintage-looking headphones.

August can’t believe she thought this motorcycle jacket model was a subway pervert. She can’t believe a tall butch subway angel saw her crying into her coffee tits.

“Here,” the girl says, handing the scarf over. “You seem like you’re going somewhere important, so.” She gestures vaguely at her neck. “Keep it.”

August blinks up at her, standing there looking like the guitarist of an all-girl punk rock band called Time to Give August an Aneurysm.

“You—oh my God, I can’t take your scarf.”

The girl shrugs. “I’ll get another one.”

“But it’s cold.”

“Yeah,” she says, and her smirk tugs into something unreadable, a dimple popping out on one side of her mouth. August wants to die in that dimple. “But I don’t go outside much.”

August stares.

“Look,” the subway angel says. “You can take it, or I can leave it on the seat next to you, and it can get absorbed into the subway ecosystem forever.”

Her eyes are bright and teasing and warm, warm forever-and-ever brown, and August doesn’t know how she could possibly do anything but whatever this girl says.

The knit of the scarf is loose and soft, and when August’s fingertips brush against it, there’s a pop of static electricity. She jumps, and the girl laughs under her breath.

“Anybody ever tell you that you smell like pancakes?”

The train plunges into a tunnel, shuddering on the tracks, and the girl makes a soft “whoa” sound and reaches for the handrail above August’s head. The last thing August catches is the slightly crooked cut of her jaw and a flash of skin where her shirt pulls loose before the fluorescents flicker out.

It’s only a second or two of darkness, but when the lights come back on, the girl is gone.

2

What’s Wrong with the Q?

By Andrew Gould and Natasha Brown

December 29, 2019

New Yorkers know better than to expect perfection or promptness from our subway system. But this week, there’s a new factor to the Q train’s spotty service: electrical surges have blown out lights, glitched announcement boards, and caused numerous stalled trains.

On Monday, the Manhattan Transit Authority alerted commuters to expect an hour delay on the Q train in both directions as they investigated the cause of the electrical malfunctions. Service resumed its normal schedule that afternoon, but reports of sudden stops have persisted.

[Photo depicts commuters on a Brooklyn-bound Q train on the Manhattan Bridge. In the foreground is a mid-twenties Chinese American woman with short hair and a leather jacket, frowning up at a flickering light fixture.]

Brooklyn resident Jane Su takes the Q to Manhattan and back every day.

Tyler Martin for the New York Times

“I’ve decided to dunk Detective Primeaux’s balls in peanut butter and push him in the Pontchartrain,” August’s mom says. “Let the fish castrate him for me.”

“That’s a new one,” August notes, crouching behind a cart of dirty dishes, the only spot inside Billy’s where her phone gets more than one anemic bar. Her face is two inches from someone’s half-eaten Denver omelet. Life in New York is deeply glamorous. “What’d he do this time?”

“He told the receptionist to screen my calls.”

“They told you that?”

“I mean,” she says, “she didn’t have to. I can tell.”

August chews on the inside of her cheek. “Well. He’s a shit.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. August can hear her fussing with the five locks on her door as she gets home from work. “Anyway, how was your first day of class?”

“Same as always. A bunch of people who already know one another, and me, the extra in a college movie.”

“Well, they’re probably all shits.”

“Probably.”

August can picture her mom shrugging.

“Do you remember when you stole that tape of Say Anything from our neighbors?” she asks.

Despite herself, August laughs. “You were so mad at me.”

“And you made a copy. Seven years old, and you figured out how to pirate a movie. How many times did I catch you watching it in the middle of the night?”

“Like a million.”

“You were always crying your eyes out to that Peter Gabriel song. You got a soft heart, kid. I used to worry that’d get you hurt. But you surprised me. You grew out of it. You’re like me—you don’t need anyone. Remember that.”

“Yeah.” For half an embarrassing second, August’s mind flits back to the subway and the girl with the leather jacket. She swallows. “Yeah, you’re right. It’ll be fine.”

She pulls her phone away from her face to check the time. Shit. Break’s almost over.

She’s lucky she got the job at all, but not lucky enough to be good at it. She was maybe too convincing when Lucie the manager called her fake reference number and got August’s burner phone. The result: straight onto the floor, no training, picking things up as she goes.

“Side of bacon?” the guy at table nineteen asks August when she drops off his plate. He’s one of the regulars Winfield pointed out on her first day—a retired firefighter who’s come in for breakfast every day for the last twenty years. At least he likes Billy’s enough not to care about terrible service.

“Shit, I’m sorry.” August cringes. “Sorry for saying ‘shit.’”

“Forgot this,” says a voice behind her, thick with a Czech accent. Lucie swoops in with a side of bacon out of nowhere and snatches August by the arm toward the kitchen.

“Thank you,” August says, wincing at the nails digging into her elbow. “How’d you know?”

“I know everything,” Lucie says, bright red ponytail bobbing under the grimy lights. She releases August at the bar and returns to her fried egg sandwich and a draft of next week’s schedule. “You should remember that.”

“Sorry,” August says. “You’re a lifesaver. My pork product savior.”

Lucie pulls a face that makes her look like a bird of prey in liquid eyeliner. “You like jokes. I don’t.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t like apologies either.”

August bites down another sorry and turns back to the register, trying to remember how to put in a rush order. She definitely forgot the side of hashbrowns for table seventeen and—

“Jerry!” Lucie shouts through the kitchen window. “Side of hashbrowns, on the fly!”

“Fuck you, Lucie!”

She yells something back in Czech.

“You know I don’t know what that means!”

“Behind,” Winfield warns as he brushes past with a full stack in each hand, blueberry on the left, butter pecan on the right. He inclines his head toward the kitchen, braids swinging, and says, “She called you an ugly cock, Jerry.”