She cranes her neck, stopping so abruptly in front of a Barnes & Noble that a man in a sharply tailored navy suit and camel coat walking briskly behind her almost steps on the heels of her ballet flats (cerise suede from J.Crew, a pair she ogled for weeks in the window of the Fifth Avenue store before finally buying).
“Anna!” she hisses, grabbing her sister by the arm. “Stop, stop!” Her sister stops and looks around. “What? We’re still two blocks away, I just checked.”
She’s staring now, peering into the crowd of people crossing the street at the corner of 74th and Madison. She’s forgotten all about the store they’re walking towards, which they planned on visiting before wandering over to St. Ambroeus for an overpriced breakfast (even in crisp fall weather, she loves sitting outside and ordering the shakerato: a deeply bitter shot of espresso poured over ice with sugar). Her sister will order a foamy latte in a bowl and they’ll split the smoked salmon eggs Benedict.
“I think that’s Jess Katz.” Her sister is craning her neck now too, trying to pick out the same face.
“It is! You’re right!” They both stand rooted to the sidewalk, watching as the girl in question steps into the street to hail a cab. She’s wearing dark jeans and heeled leather boots—they look like the Frye ones her sister coveted all of last winter. Her neck is covered with a silky scarf in a navy and white windowpane check; she has on no coat, but a long cashmere tunic sweater. She looks…confident and interesting, like any smart, well-dressed New Yorker they might pass on any given day. Her hair is still as wild as ever, but instead of the tangled, messy ringlets of her youth, it falls in loose, bouncy curls that some women would pay hundreds of dollars for.
Nothing about her would stand out more than any other sharp professional woman on her way to work, except that this is Jess Katz. Jess Katz who would wear the same stained polo shirt to seventh grade for days on end. Jess Katz who had an unfortunate lisp and wore oversized horn-rimmed glasses and drank cabbage soup directly from a thermos every day at lunch.
Jess had gone to school with them from fourth grade all the way through graduation. She’d gained some social skills over the years but remained frumpy in an almost angry way, like she refused to even acknowledge anyone who’d judge her for it.
It’s not just the shock of seeing Jess Katz moving through the world looking like she’d stepped out of a Pantene Pro-V ad—it’s also seeing her here at all.
What if she and her sister had stopped to look at the candy-colored stand mixers in the window at Williams-Sonoma for another 30 seconds? Or if she’d had to lean down to re-tie her shoelace during her run around the reservoir early this morning? Any one of a million things could have prevented her from crossing paths with Jess Katz.
What felt more strange was imagining how often she did just miss someone: If they were all little red dots moving around the map of the city, one pausing here and the other moving more swiftly there, she could be on parallel blocks with all sorts of people she knew. The first boy she’d kissed in college—a tall, lanky swimmer with a shock of shiny blond hair—could be seconds away. Her kindergarten violin teacher. The guy she sat next to on a ferry to Orcas Island last summer who taught her the different between chinook and coho salmon and whose recommendation was the reason she ended up one night, after a long day of kayaking, eating the best pizza she could remember tasting (summer squash with pickled fennel and creamy Ladysmith cheese).
This whole week had felt so off. She felt off. The news was relentless in its hopelessness: Politics were a mess, there were hurricanes in the Hamptons (climate change), earthquakes in Haiti (ditto), social unrest across Greece, and those were just the headlines. A creeping sense of instability seemed to underpin the world; could everything just fall apart and topple over? People were angry, despondent, maligned, underserved.
Last night her mother had called to say that they couldn’t go outside because swarms of strange wasps (oddly called a velvet ants) had blanketed their street and no one knew why.
Jesus, she thought. This is getting biblical.
But then she saw Jess Katz. And she thought, Okay, life carries on. Jess Katz is out there making movies and dating men and ordering lasagna and living. People have dealt with the ebbs and flows of being alive for centuries. We have been afraid before—we have thought the world was ending before.
She looked at her sister—her familiar face, the hair pulling out of her ponytail just like it always has, the faint scent of her Jo Malone freesia perfume clinging to her clothes—and she felt steadied again. Buoyed against it all. Optimistic even.
She didn’t need the big things to go right (although, frankly, she’d really like them to so that she could start reading the Times again without breaking into a cold sweat)—so long as she could surround herself by the little ones. Centered, comforted, held in their sway.
A phone call from her father where he starts by clearing his throat then saying Sweet potato? It’s dad, as if he is genuinely not sure someone is on the other end. Watching old episodes of Fawlty Towers with her sister on their couch, their hair wet from showers, their bodies curled up at separate ends but their toes touching. The thrill of the first snowfall in the city, the streets hushed under a blanket of white. Family dinners. Sending her best friend from college an Easter basket every year because she never got one growing up. Reading at night before bed. The jammy berry squares at Butterfield Market, each one topped with a generous layer of streusel. She thinks they’re made with almond paste, perhaps, and makes a mental note to ask the next time she wanders in looking to pick up fancy cheese (St. Andre) and water crackers (Carr’s) for a picnic in the park. Crackers for dinner always seem so much more acceptable when eaten on the soft, grassy lawn in the spring breeze in Central Park.
Blueberry Almond Crumb Bars
Makes 12 bars
1 1/2 cups (300 grams) sugar, divided
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups (360 grams) all-purpose flour, divided
1/2 cup (48 grams) almond flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (226 grams) cold unsalted butter
4 ounces almond paste
1 egg
3 cups blueberries (I used a few raspberries too!)
juice of 1 lemon
1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 9" × 13" baking pan (I like to line mine with parchment as well).
In a large bowl, whisk together 1 cup of the sugar, baking powder, 2 1/2 cups of the all-purpose flour, almond flour, and salt.
Stir in the egg, then cut in the butter with a fork or pastry cutter until the dough is crumbly and the butter is in small, pea-sized chunks. Press half of the dough into your prepared pan.
In a small bowl, toss together the remaining 1/2 cup sugar with the lemon juice, cornstarch, and berries. Spread the berry mixture on top of the dough in an even layer.
Add the remaining 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour and the almond paste to the remaining dough, and crumble it all together. You want the almond paste to be in small chunks.
Spread the remaining dough over the berry layer and press gently down with your fingers.
Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the top begins to brown and the berries bubble up with juice. Remove from the oven and let cool fully before slicing.