One week later, I stood in front of a badly warped full-length mirror in an Airbnb in Washington Heights—chili mango pops!—that Max had insisted on paying for. I’d picked it out myself—the location across town from Gray Moose, the neighbors didn’t speak English, and the maximum water pressure was equivalent to the dribble from a very old public water fountain. Yet it was quiet, clean, they allowed cats, and it was cheap, which was what made it bearable for me to let him foot the bill. The whole setup was adorably miniature—the stove was half-sized, the fridge just as small. European Lilliput chic. Even the mugs were tiny. The only thing that wasn’t miniature was the window, and the long red curtains that Julia swung from like King Kong, or like one of those guys on those extreme obstacle course game shows who get stuck halfway up the Velcro wall and can’t get down.

Even though it was morning, it was dim in there. My view was of a brick wall barely two feet away, and as far as I could tell, actual sunlight never touched the window panes. I turned on a lamp, and a cockroach skittered under the bed.

I resisted the very real urge to scream like a ninny and took a steadying breath. To the ever-growing list of things I needed to get, I added cockroach traps. Was that a thing? God, I hoped that was a thing.

I touched up my lipstick and tried to look confident, chic, and perfectly convinced that I deserved this job. I was exactly none of those things. I was nervous, petrified, and missing home and Max so much that it made my heart ache, burn, tighten up in my chest and stay that way for minutes on end. Like a charley horse from love.

Julia paused her endless attack of the drapes to study the radiator, which sounded like there was some industrious little mouse living inside it, knocking on the pipes from time to time. I checked my phone and saw a text from Max, wishing me good luck, followed by a selfie he’d taken with Cupcake.

Cue the heart pain. I actually had to press my hand to my chest.

But I lifted my chin and grabbed my umbrella and rain jacket. I debated whether or not to wear my galoshes—though they’d be good for this weather, they were dark green, smudged with Maine mud, and not exactly snappy, so I decided to stick with my heels. Sensible, black, profesh. To complete the illusion that I had any idea at all what I was doing, I rummaged through one of my suitcases and found an old shoulder bag I hadn’t used in years and years—it was a fancy thing, shiny patent leather with silver accents, far too fancy for Truelove. A Marshalls purchase, in fact. From my gram. The last time I’d used it was for a job interview at a different publisher’s, two years ago, which I didn’t get. I dusted off the edges, put my things inside it, and gave myself the final once-over. Then I gave Julia a pat, a treat, and a scratch between her ears and headed out the door.

I hit the down button at the elevator and waited. I tried to make a mental map of the city—I needed to go uptown, maybe. I thought—but it all meshed together in my mind. Streets became avenues, and I never knew if I was heading for higher numbers or lower ones. Everybody else seemed to know, like salmon with an instinctive understanding of a river, but not me. Put me on a street corner in Manhattan, and I was as confused as a dizzy hamster. Put me underground, and I was absolutely confounded.

The elevator door rumbled open. I took my spot in the back corner and checked my phone to decide how best to get to the train. Up? Down? Over? And why did Sixth Avenue have another name, why? One floor down, a tiny lady with a huge rolling shopping basket joined me. She didn’t look up, and she didn’t smile, and we both looked at the plastic floor with its raised circles as we rode down to the slightly grimy old lobby.

Out on the street, I dodged some muddy spray from a passing bus and headed for a corner deli to get at least something small to eat. The last thing I needed on my first day at work was my stomach growling so loud that it stopped conversation. But inside the deli, just like outside on the street, everybody else seemed to know what to do except for me. They all knew what counter to use, when to order, when to pay. For a while, I just hung back and tried to learn the ropes. As far as I could tell, there were no ropes, so I bit the bullet, stepped forward, and ordered a breakfast sandwich.

“You pay yet?” the guy behind the register asked. He had brown hair and a blond hairnet and a teardrop tattoo under his eye.

Lost salmon. Completely lost salmon. “No. Should I?”

“That’ll be ten.”

Somehow, I restrained myself from shrieking, Ten dollars for a sandwich! I tried to keep the outrage off my face, and I dug through my wallet for the money. Even this made me feel like I was awkward—everybody else was so quick with everything, and I felt people getting impatient behind me. And of course, I only had $9.10 to give him. Of course.

“Sorry…I’ve only got…” My blush was coming, and it was coming hot, fast, and embarrassing.

The man behind the counter glared at me and scratched his hairnet impatiently. My heart sank. “You just visiting?”

“No,” I said, “Job. New job. Today.” Oh, good job, Rosie. Very good. Single-word answers. So sophisticated. “Sorry.”

Slowly, his face transformed from stern and hard-set to soft-eyed and grinning. “I gotcha covered,” he said and reached right into the tip jar, grabbing a dollar. “You keep that dime for luck, sweetheart.”

“Thank you,” I told him as I took my sandwich from him, warm and delicious-smelling, wrapped in waxed paper. “So much.”

“Good luck at the job,” he added softly and warmly, and then turned his head away and bellowed a ferocious, “Next!”

I wolfed down the sandwich as I walked—it was amazing. The bagel itself was a religious experience, and whatever was happening with the eggs and the bacon, my God. I swam along with the business-casual salmon and wiped the crumbs from my mouth and the front of my blouse. I pulled out of the stream and stood by an abandoned shopfront, which, oddly, had an enormous display of dusty pool noodles in the window. I looked at my phone. Downtown. I needed to go downtown. I stared at the subway entrance. 168th Street Station, it said, followed by a blue A, a blue C and a red 1.

The subway was yet another undeniable reminder that I didn’t belong here and that everybody else was playing by a rule book I still hadn’t gotten to see. Not once in the few days I’d been in town had I actually put my subway card into the slot the right way on the first try. So again, I hung back and watched. They were like finely tuned machines, these New Yorkers. I watched a guy go through the turnstile as he put in his earbuds while drinking a smoothie, and he didn’t even look at the slot where he had to put it in. I watched a woman pushing a stroller of twins and FaceTiming at the same time zoom right on through. It was like driving to Boston. Everybody else knew all knew about the E-ZPass, and there I was in the cash only lane, counting my dimes and nickels.

But I could do this. I knew I could. I just knew it.

Chin up, I approached the turnstile. I took my card out. I put it in like I was positive it should be, took a step…and proceeded to slam my thighs into the locked bar.

I tried to back out, but there was a line forming behind me. I tried again and again and got nothing but sore thighs for all my attempts. Coming in the opposite direction, a smartly dressed guy in horn-rim glasses looked me in the eye. For an instant, I felt cowed and embarrassed. Just a small-town girl way out of her depth. Except, instead of brushing past me, though, he stopped. And smiled. And reached over the turnstile, flipped my card around—strip down and to the left!—and said, “That’s the way.”

I was so relieved that I took a moment to myself by the wall, next to a homeless man sitting on the ground with a clean, empty tuna can in front of him. He smiled at me, and I smiled at him, and I gave him the dime that I had in my pocket. “That’s honestly all I have.”

“Appreciate it,” he said and grinned.

Yes. I could do this. I was figuring it out. I might not be a Manhattan salmon yet, but I was learning to swim.

But I wouldn’t make the mistake of putting my subway card in my wallet, definitely not. It needed to be somewhere that I wouldn’t lose it and that I could get to it quickly. And so I opened up my bag to put my MTA card somewhere within easy reach—in the built-in coin pocket. I undid the tiny zipper, looked inside…and there it was.

The other half of the broken heart necklace.

I turned it over in my palm, and I was filled with butterflies again. All this time, all these years, that was where it had been. I ran my thumb over the smooth edges of the break with its hard corners. I grabbed my phone from my pocket and took a picture for Max.

I fell in line with all the native Manhattan salmon, clutching the necklace in my fingers, feeling like maybe I really could do this after all.