You Were Meant For Me by Yona Zeldis McDonough Read Free Book Online Page B

something. “How about a piece of apple cake?” she said. “Just baked this morning. Wait here.” And without waiting for a reply, she darted up the stairs to her kitchen, cut a generous slice, and eased it onto a plate before returning to the hallway.
    Mrs. Castiglione looked down at the cake and back up at Miranda. “You’re a nice girl,” Mrs. Castiglione declared, as if she’d been pondering the issue for some time and had only just now come to her conclusion. “And nice things should happen to nice girls.” Then she turned and went back into her own apartment.
    Miranda watched her go, a slight, stooped figure with an impeccably shellacked silver beehive. Did becoming a mother to an abandoned infant found on a subway platform fall into Mrs. Castiglione’s rubric of
nice things
?

FOUR
    M iranda stood outside the Swedish coffee bar, looking through the big window. Evan Zuckerbrot—she recognized him from his online photo—was sitting at a small wooden table, waiting for her. Or maybe the table wasn’t small; it was that Evan was so
big.
The photo had managed to conceal that he was a beanpole of a guy, tall and somewhat gangly; his hands, wrapped around the white mug he held, were enormous. Other than that, he seemed attractive enough, at least from here. Was it his height that was somehow off-putting, or was she still not over Luke? She had an urge to turn and head for home; it would be easy enough to text him with some excuse. But she simply couldn’t be that unkind to someone whose only fault, thus far, was being excessively tall. Forcing herself to smile like she meant it, she walked through the door.
    â€œMiranda.” He stood. “So nice to meet you in person.” Hewas easily six foot three. Or maybe four. In his huge hands, he held a bunch of daffodils and offered them to her.
    â€œThey’re lovely; thank you,” she said. She took them and tilted her head to look up at him. He had nice eyes, she decided—large and an unusual shade of deep bluish green. Nice smile too. “And thanks for coming to Park Slope.”
    â€œNo problem.” He sat down and she did the same; then he politely asked the waitress if he could have an extra glass of water for the flowers. “So they don’t wilt before you get home.” The waitress, no doubt charmed by his request, produced a vase rather than a glass, and as Miranda slipped the daffodils in, it occurred to her that in all their time together, Luke had
never
brought her flowers; he’d always assumed the cosseted role in their relationship—the sensitive artist whose talent needed nurturing and whose ego, bolstering. But Luke also had a lean, sinewy body that fit so perfectly against her own and a slow, maddening way of kissing that had left her breathless every time.
    â€œYou’re even prettier than the picture you posted,” Evan said after they had ordered.
    What could she say to that?
You’re even taller than yours?
She glanced across the room, and fortunately their coffees arrived at that very moment so she could occupy herself with depositing a couple of sugar cubes—brown, grainy, and oh so rustic, as was the trend these days—in her cup. “I don’t take very good pictures,” she finally said.
    â€œThat’s because you haven’t had the right photographer. The lighting in that photo was all wrong; it created shadows just where you don’t want them.”
    â€œMaybe I should have hired you,” she quipped.
    â€œOr maybe not. If too many other guys had seen how attractive you are, I might not have gotten a chance.”
    For the next few minutes, they embarked on the obligatory fact-checking requisite to first dates: Evan was an only child, raised in East Meadow, Long Island. He’d been obsessed with cameras and taking pictures since childhood, and he’d gone to Pratt Institute, where he’d studied photography