Sarabeth’s is packed to the damn rafters. I don’t know why we keep coming here, except that Dani loves the lemon ricotta pancakes enough to commit multiple felonies for them, and I love Dani enough to sit through a forty-minute wait in a cramped waiting area chock-full of yap-happy stroller moms and tourists in matching I <3 NY hoodies.
“You look good,” Dani says once we’re seated and eating, poking her fork at me from across the little two-top. “Is that a new serum?”
“It’s called ‘My Husband Hasn’t Hit Me In Two Weeks.’ It’s sold exclusively at Duane Reade, you wouldn’t know it.”
Dani sets the fork down. “I hate when you do the joke thing.”
“I know. That’s why I do it.”
She sighs and goes back to her pancakes. The bruise on my cheek has simmered down to a faint yellow crescent, no
