by JB Dutton
Chapter 4
Dream #23: I’m in a crowd of people, trying to push past them, but I don’t even know which way I’m supposed to be going. The more I push, the tighter the crowd gets. Then I realize that everyone is looking at me and closing in on me. I’m suffocating as they press against me and no amount of struggling can help me escape. I feel hotter and hotter and I’m losing control of my body and mind. I wake up in a sweat.
That Saturday with Mom was so amazing and certainly helped take our minds off of Flash’s non-return. We did a whole bunch of touristy stuff, but all the while I was thinking, This is my city – I actually live here! Mom had booked a twenty-minute helicopter ride that was taking off from the Wall Street heliport at 4 p.m., so we had time to catch the ferry out to Liberty Island and visit the statue before that.
It was a beautiful fall morning and the passengers packed the deck to look back at the receding skyscrapers glinting in the sun. Mom and I were pressed against the railing, hair blowing in the breeze. A tall, sandy-blond-haired man wearing a brown suede jacket was standing to the other side of Mom. He raised his voice to be heard above the wind and the noise of the engines. “I still find it incredible.”
Mom took a couple of seconds to realize that he was talking to her. “Oh, I know – what a city!”
“No, I mean, I still find it incredible that the twin towers aren’t there anymore.”
“Oh...” was all Mom could say, clearly feeling uneasy to be discussing the tragic events of 9/11 with a genuine New Yorker.
“They weren’t the most beautiful buildings in Manhattan, but they were so beautifully symmetrical.”
She nodded, unsure about where the conversation with this good-looking stranger was heading. I decided to take matters into my own hands. Because he was about Mom’s age, was very friendly, and... okay, fine – he was a total hottie.
“We just went to check out the Ground Zero memorial,” I chimed in.
Mom laughed. “Kari, you make it sound like we dropped in at a new store in the mall!”
The man laughed too. “I’m Bob. Is it your first time in New York?”
“No, no,’ answered Mom.
Bob tilted his head, confused.
“I mean, yes,” she went on, flustered. “It’s our first time, but we’re not tourists – we just moved here.”
“She’s Emily,” I said, giving Mom a little kick on her boot heel. WTF, do I have to do everything?
Mom gave me a fake-stern look, then held out her hand to the attractive stranger.
“Bob – I’m Emily.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
He took her hand and instead of shaking it, held onto it for a few seconds. I couldn’t see Mom’s expression because she was facing away from me, but I think even I was blushing, so she must have been too. Bob broke off the handshake and gazed back at the mass of skyscrapers.
“Welcome to the greatest city in the world, ladies.”
This guy was perfect for Mom! I was praying that they’d chat some more and exchange phone numbers, but the ferry docked and we got separated from him as we joined the river of tourists filing onto Liberty Island.
I elbowed her in the ribs. “Mom – that guy!”
“What?” she feigned ignorance.
“He’s smoking hot! Ask him out.”
She laughed. “Are you kidding? I could never do that and you darn well know it!”
Yeah, I guess that was stretching it a bit. She’d probably never asked a guy out on a date in her whole life. I stood on tippy-toes, peering over the crowd to find Bob. I could see his head bobbing along (how appropriate with a name like that!) near the front. Good thing he was tall. If this was to have any chance of success, I’d need to take matters into my own hands.
The crowd begin to thin out. This was my chance. Before Mom knew what was happening, I’d managed to squirm past a tightly-packed gang of Japanese tourists and sidled up to Bob. He turned around before I even reached him and smiled at me.
“Hey again, Kari!”
“Listen – you have to ask my mom out,” I said, conspiratorially. “Don’t tell her I spoke to you, she’ll kill me!”
He threw his head back and laughed loudly as I pushed my way back to Mom. I don’t think she even realized that I’d gone.
Twenty minutes later we’d made the slow climb up the inside of the statue. Bob was there waiting at the upper level. I was impressed – good strategy! As soon as Mom saw him she was caught in the charm of his twinkly eyes.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” he joked, and she broke into a grin. “In fact,” he continued, moving closer to her but never dropping his gaze, “I’d love to meet up with you somewhere else. Maybe dinner tomorrow night?”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, totally unprepared to deal with his forwardness, “but it’s Sunday tomorrow.”
This was lame.
“Yes it is! You’ll have the whole day to relax and work up an appetite,” he said.
She wanted to say yes, I could feel it. But she just couldn’t do it.
“That would be perfect, Mom,” I interjected. “I wanted to rent a bunch of movies this weekend. You know, the kind that have vampires in them and make you roll your eyes and sigh a lot when I watch them.”
Bob kept looking at her and I could tell Mom was of two minds. She found him cute, but she was scared. And who could blame her? No boyfriend in ten years, and now, within a couple of months of moving to the Big Apple, she was being hit on by a blond version of George Clooney!
“Can I call you?” he asked. “Please?”
He actually raised his clasped hands in mock pleading as he said this. I felt Mom soften – her resistance had crumbled.
“Sure.”
She fished a business card out of her purse and handed it to him.
“My cell number is on there.”
“Thank you – I’ll call you later. And... I’ll get out of here now so we don’t stand around awkwardly not knowing what to say to each other.”
Mom laughed and covered her mouth with her hand out of shyness. She’s so adorable sometimes. Bob winked at me surreptitiously as he walked past us and headed for the exit.
Mom was in a great mood during the helicopter ride. I’d only ever been on a plane a handful of times and this was way more fun. It was kind of bumpy and Mom squeezed my hand a bit too tight when we took off, but man, what a buzz! We were in the front rubbing shoulders with the pilot. There were four other tourists in the back, looking envious at our incredible view out the rounded glass front of the helicopter. For twenty minutes I felt like I was a seagull, swooping around the statue where we’d met Bob only an hour before, then gliding up the Hudson River, across Harlem and the new Yankee Stadium. Manhattan is insane – the skyscrapers packed so tight and the park in the middle of it all, with its woods, paths and ponds.
As we headed south again, back along the edge of the park, Mom suddenly shouted to me, “Hey – I think that’s my building!”
I looked down to where she was pointing.
“What do you mean?”
“Just north of Columbus Circle – that’s where I work! How cool is that?”
I really wasn’t sure which building she was talking about.
“Can you take me there later?”
“What do you mean?” she frowned.
“I’d like to see your office.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
“Because what?”
“Duh! Because it’s, like, super exciting that you’re working in the center of the universe!”
She laughed. “It’s just an office with a bunch of cubicles and computers.”
“I don’t care, I just want to know what to picture when I’m imagining you sitting at your desk.”
That was the best I could come up with, and it wasn’t very good. My real motive was that I thought maybe I could unearth some information about the Temple of Truth while I was there. Noon was in my thoughts like you wouldn'
t believe, and I had to find out more about his sketchy religion.
“Would you rather take me on a workday?” I asked. “I could come after school.”
She thought about this for a second as the pilot put on that cheesy Frank Sinatra song over our headphones.
“No, best not, honey. Look, I’m kind of bushed now, but we’ll go tomorrow morning.”
“Perfect! It’ll keep your mind off the date with Bob.”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes at me, smiling. I could tell that she was excited about this potential man in her life and it made me really happy to see her acting a bit like a teenager for a change, rather than a responsible bread-winner and parent. We were so caught up in the romance of it all that neither Mom nor I thought to ask ourselves this question: if Bob had lived in New York for years, what was he doing visiting the Statue of Liberty?
