Cobble Hill

by Cecily von Ziegesar

  She rose to her full, monumental height and addressed him. “You’re Roy Clarke.”

  “Hello.” Roy nodded at her because she hadn’t offered him her hand. “Thank you for having us. It’s quite grand of you. Oh, and Tupper and I are old chums. He showed me round his studio.” When Roy was nervous, he became more British.

  “Bully for you,” Elizabeth replied.

  “Smashing,” Roy said.

  “Love shack, love shack, love shack!” Peaches squealed.

  Roy stood on tiptoe to search for Wendy. She was nibbling on something, offering plates of food around. Roy waved at her over the sea of drinking heads. He waved again, with both arms.

  She held up what looked like a mini hot dog. “Hungry?” she mouthed.

  He nodded vigorously, counting on the fact that she would march straight over with a plate of food.

  “Any chance I could pick the song?” he asked Peaches and Elizabeth together, because it was now unclear which of them was in charge.

  “Not feeling the shack?” Peaches asked. She was beginning to get on his nerves. “Come on—”

  “Course you can,” Elizabeth interrupted her. “Isn’t that the point? Or don’t sing at all.”

  “Do you sing?” Roy asked curiously. She didn’t look like she sang.

  “Darling. I brought you some snacks. Are we singing?” Wendy pushed a plate filled with disgusting-looking mini meats and corn chips beneath Roy’s nose, knowing full well he wouldn’t want them. She was a bit peeved with Roy. He’d made all these friends and seemed to enjoy flirting with the school nurse. Meanwhile, she’d been working at Fleurt all year—or at least pretending to—in a boring office all by herself. Enjoy! was better. She was actually starting to enjoy it. But she still hadn’t told Roy. It just seemed so demeaning. Was she really that much of a snob?

  “We could do our song,” Roy said.

  Roy and Wendy’s song was “Candle in the Wind” by Elton John. They were both completely tone-deaf. Shy shouted at them whenever they tried to sing.

  Roy glanced at Peaches. “Do you mind?”

  Peaches shrugged her shoulders. She did seem a little disappointed.

  “Aren’t you going to introduce us?” A tall, androgynous person with glowing tan skin, a shaved head, and the most perfectly symmetrical eyebrows Roy had ever seen was hovering near Wendy, holding a glass of clear stuff. “I’ve been wanting to meet your husband since the day I picked up Purple in the bookstore a million years ago.”

  “It’s all right if you didn’t finish it.” Roy held out his hand. Male or female? Not that it mattered. He was a modern person. “It’s my longest book. No one ever finishes.”

  “Sorry, sorry,” Wendy cut in. “This is Manfred.”

  Roy shook Manfred’s hand. Masculine or feminine didn’t matter. Manfred was Manfred. “You’re from the magazine?” he guessed.

  “Fleurt,” Manfred said. “We were comrades in armed, ergonomic swivel chairs.”

  “Manfred keeps me on deadline,” Wendy said breezily, shooting Manfred a look.

  Manfred blew her a kiss, as if to say, “It’s not my business what you choose to tell or not tell your husband, I love you anyway,” and Wendy blew them a grateful kiss back.

  Roy smiled grimly at the disgusting plate of greasy game-night snacks. All he really wanted was to go home to his laptop. “You wouldn’t happen to know the words to ‘Love Shack,’ would you?”

  But a new song had already begun, and it was Elizabeth who took the mic. It wasn’t “Love Shack,” either. She was moaning, and the music was slow.

  “Oooooh,” Elizabeth crooned. “Love to love you, baby.” She licked her downturned lips and waggled her eyebrows suggestively across the room at Tupper, who had tucked himself back in behind the bar.

  Tupper’s face turned pink and then gray.

  “Oh!” Elizabeth shrieked.

  Tupper ducked down, pretending to search for something beneath the bar.

  Elizabeth continued to growl and moan. She put the microphone between her teeth, got down on her hands and knees, and crawled across the floor. The crowd parted ways to make room for her. There was a lot of cheering and whooping. Tupper reappeared with a full pint of Guinness in his hand.

  “Oooh,” Elizabeth cooed on all fours. She seemed to enjoy the spotlight.

  Tupper chugged his Guinness.

  Elizabeth was aware of the fact that she was dominating the room. She reminded herself that tonight was not meant to be exclusively about her; it was meant to be about the neighborhood. She pointed at Peaches, signaling her to change the music.

  “Say what?” Peaches screeched into the extra microphone.

  Roy was relieved to hear “Love Shack” begin without him.

  Manfred danced around Peaches with a tambourine while Peaches banged on the bongos and sang.

  “Funky little shack!”

  Then Stuart Little joined in. He rolled up his T-shirt sleeves and grabbed a mic, his mouse tattoos in full force.

  “Glitter on the mattress,” he sang, waggling his shoulders a little too enthusiastically at the school nurse.

  An extremely handsome silver-haired gentleman wearing a crisp white shirt, dark denim jeans, and expensive-looking brown suede loafers danced groovily nearby, flashing his Rolex watch.

  Roy glanced at Stuart’s wife. She sat alone in a chair, eating a plate of Wendy’s snacks and staring at her phone.

  “Gabby, my other friend from work, is here somewhere,” Wendy shouted at Roy through the din. She felt ridiculous for not telling him about Enjoy!. “There’ve been some staff changes recently,” she began, but she could tell he couldn’t hear her.

  Roy didn’t know why Wendy was even attempting to hold a normal conversation. The bar was far too noisy. Besides, he’d drunk too much lager.

  “Would you excuse me for a minute?” he said, and slipped away.

  * * *

  Greg pulled off his headphones and observed silently from the door as Peaches sang and banged on the bongos, her voice slightly out of tune, her drumming slightly behind the beat. His sensitive ears rang with the feedback from the speakers. “Love Shack” was Peaches’ favorite song. Hearing her sing it, karaoke style, with Stuart Little from the Blind Mice, in a bar full of strangers was perplexing though. It felt like a display of dissatisfaction, restlessness, and ennui. She was showing off, flirting outrageously, overcompensating for being nervous, getting louder by the minute.

  Greg thought things were better now that she’d chosen a career and was out of the house, away from her notebooks full of unfinished short stories, broken drumsticks, and partial to-do lists. He thought she was past this—whatever this was.

  “Bang bang, on the door baby!” Peaches and Stuart Little shouted gleefully into the same mic. When had she gotten so chummy with Stuart Little?

  A silver-haired dude in dark denim shimmied over and bumped his butt against Peaches’ hip. Peaches bumped him back, grinning as she continued to sing. Stuart Little wrapped his arm around her shoulders and bumped his bony ass against her other hip.

  “Bang bang!” Peaches sang ecstatically.

  She wasn’t acting out or making a point, Greg realized. She was having the time of her life—without him. Greg was shy around new people, sensitive to loud sounds, and generally awkward. It seemed to get worse with age. He would never be as successful or rich as Stuart Little. He would never have the groovy savoir faire of the handsome silver-haired dude with the Rolex. Instead of joining in, he backed out the door and into the night.

  * * *

  Mandy was not sad. She was surreptitiously videoing Stuart for his fan site, which she was supposed to be in charge of and hadn’t even checked since last spring. Stuart was singing and that was a good thing. He needed to sing. She, on the other hand, was trying to keep a low profile. How many boxes of these people’s food had she stolen? The guy who’d literally taken his box out of her hands out on the sidewalk was right there behind the bar. She felt both morti
fied and smug. No one suspected the lumpy lady in the chair.

  But the people here were nice—in a weird, unexpected way. She felt bad about stealing from them. The older English writer was on his way over to her now, bearing yet another plate of snack food.

  “Quite a party this is turning out to be,” he observed, offering her the plate.

  “Yup.” Mandy slid her phone beneath the plastic plate and nudged a piece of turkey pepperoni away from a smoked mozzarella stick. The game-night snacks from Full Plate were a more gourmet version of the food she used to eat when the Blind Mice were on tour. “It’s great.”

  “I don’t enjoy singing,” Roy said.

  Mandy gazed up at him, wondering if he was only paying attention to her because he’d heard she had MS. “Me neither,” she agreed.

  “But maybe we could pretend to dance?” Roy held out his hand.

  Mandy giggled and tossed the plate onto the table beside her. She took his hand and stood up.

  “We don’t have to do any twirls or lifts,” he joked. “I’m heavier than I look.”

  “I’m supposed to be sick anyway,” Mandy said, because she was pretty sure Roy Clarke didn’t care either way. “So I probably shouldn’t overdo it.”

  “Love shack, baby, love shack!” Stuart chorused as he watched Mandy sway from side to side with Roy Clarke, throwing her head back and arching her pale, supple neck. She looked healthier and sexier than she ever had in her life, healthier and sexier even than during her modeling days in high school. The pot, the good food they’d been eating, the vitamins she was taking, the sleep she was getting—it was working.

  * * *

  “Damn. Our school MetroCards are no good after eight p.m.”

  The walk back to the subway was kind of a comedown. Sublime had let Liam and Ryan keep the clothing, but they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves by actually wearing it. Instead, they turned the hoodie and parka inside out and tied them around their waists.

  “I have a twenty,” Liam offered.

  “You should be rich now,” Ryan said. “You’re a famous model.”

  But since they weren’t real models, they would never be paid.

  “At least we could maybe put it on our college applications,” Ryan said. “I saved a picture of my tattoo on my phone. So if there’s a college question like ‘What did you do for whatever cause?’ I can show the picture and say I was, like, an activist.”

  Liam hadn’t thought about this. “That’s pretty genius.”

  “Maybe we’ll be in the news,” Ryan added. “Which would be somewhat cool, but also sort of embarrassing. I’m sure my mom will have something rude to say about it.”

  “Mine too.” Liam wondered if his mom would be impressed or angry. Either way, she would definitely have something to say.

  “What a fucking waste,” a boy their age complained as he pushed his way past them.

  The sidewalks of Houston Street were teeming with boys. The drop had never happened. It was like the anti-drop.

  “I don’t even want this anymore,” Ryan said, tugging on the sleeves of the expensive parka at they walked. “I think I’m over Sublime. It’s too commercial.”

  “Yeah,” Liam said, disappointed. He’d finally scored a Sublime hoodie only to find out that it was too commercial?

  “Whatever. I can probably sell it for twice what they’re asking,” Ryan said.

  Someone grabbed Liam by the shoulders and shook him hard. It was Bruce. He tugged on the hoodie tied around Liam’s waist. “Hey, did you losers actually get stuff? That’s totally unfair.”

  “Hey.” Liam pulled the hoodie out of Bruce’s hands.

  Ryan tightened the knot on the baby-blue Sublime parka. “That was lame,” he said. Liam knew he’d said it just so Bruce would stop bothering them. “We came all this way for nothing.”

  “But I saw you guys go in,” Bruce said. “I was standing there for like five hours, and you guys just walked right in.”

  “No,” Ryan said. He glanced at Liam.

  “We tried. They knew we were full of shit,” Liam said vaguely.

  “Yeah,” Ryan agreed.

  Bruce yanked Liam’s hoodie from around his waist and reversed it. “What the fuck is this, then? I fucking saw you guys. I don’t know how you did it, but this thing is worth like seven hundred bucks or more and I don’t even know how much that jacket costs—probably as much as a car. I waited five fucking hours and I’m fucking keeping this fucking hoodie.”

  Liam could feel his face getting red. Before the schoolyard fire he’d felt sort of ambivalent toward Bruce, but he hated him now, especially after having to wipe five-year-old-boy pee off the seats of the bathroom at the elementary school.

  The thing was, he really didn’t want the hoodie anymore.

  “Eight hundred bucks,” Ryan said flatly, as if reading Liam’s mind. “For sixteen hundred we’ll let you have both.”

  Bruce glared at Ryan, probably thinking something racist, because he was the worst kind of asshole. “Look at Black Ryan, acting like he’s in charge.”

  Ryan straightened up to his full, significantly taller-than-Bruce stature. “You saw us, we were in the store, and these parkas are selling for over a thousand dollars each. We’re giving you a deal. You want this shit or not?”

  “Let me see it?” Bruce asked, and Liam could tell he was caving.

  Ryan untied the parka and dangled it in front of Bruce. “Limited edition. Already sold out in preorders online. It’s a collector’s item.” He glanced at Liam. “Or we could just hold on to them and sell them in a year for double what we’re offering you.”

  Bruce took hold of Ryan’s parka, licking his lips greedily as he turned it inside out and examined the washing instructions for authenticity. Typos meant it was a fake. He was all theirs now.

  “I take Venmo,” Ryan said. “You can transfer directly into my bank account.”

  “Huh?”

  “Give me your phone and your credit card,” Ryan said impatiently.

  It was all Liam could do to keep from snickering. Ryan was treating Bruce like a child. It was classic.

  When he was done with the transaction, Ryan handed over Bruce’s phone and credit card along with the hoodie and parka. “There. You just paid me.” He nodded at Liam. “I owe you half. I know you don’t have a credit card. Don’t worry, I’m good for it.”

  Liam nodded coolly. “Thanks man.”

  “Yeah, thanks.” Bruce hugged the clothing that probably wouldn’t even fit over his ugly, stocky body, like an obnoxious asshole version of Linus from Peanuts with his blanket.

  Finally, Ryan smiled. So did Liam. They couldn’t help it. They’d just copped a shit-ton of money from Bruce. “No problem,” they said in unison, knowing they were going to be laughing about this for the rest of their lives.

  Chapter 17

  “Shut your mouth,” Elizabeth crooned into the microphone, impersonating David Bowie at his most removed and sultry. She’d drawn lightning bolts on her cheeks and forehead with the type of blue pen surgeons use to mark up a body.

  A drunk guy with a beard and an ugly orange neck tattoo danced lazily in front of her. There was black cat hair all over his gray sweater.

  Wendy and Roy stood side by side, holding their drinks, watching and not talking.

  “That’s Shy’s Latin teacher,” Wendy observed finally. “The one she has a crush on. I ought to go have a word, tell him not to encourage her. She never had the slightest interest in table tennis before now.”

  “I think I’m off,” Roy said. “Best get home to my laptop. I’ve made all sorts of notes tonight.”

  Wendy didn’t seem to have heard him. “The tattoos. The beard. The cat hair. He’s so unclean. I’m going to say something.”

  Roy grasped her elbow. “Better not. Have fun with your new friends. Shy is babysitting. She’s fine.”

  They continued to watch Elizabeth, and the crowd watching Elizabeth. It was impossible to look away, but no
thing about her invited you in. As far as Roy could tell, Elizabeth had been too busy performing to properly greet her husband. What an odd marriage. But of course, all marriages were odd. Even he and Wendy were a bit off lately.

  “Anyway, Shy has a crush on the nurse’s boy,” he reminded her. “Remember?”

  “That’s not a crush,” Wendy corrected him. “If the person reciprocates, it’s not a crush. That boy is so awkward, he needs Shy just to cross the street.”

  Roy didn’t respond. Wendy was being cruel. It was the wine. After a few glasses, the hospitable hostess always turned on her guests.

  “You have a crush on the nurse,” she added. “It seems all the men do.”

  Peaches did seem to be enjoying the company of the famous singer who’d been in a band once. They were both wearing black jeans. She kept smiling, showing off her dimples, and he kept grinning back at her and tousling his hair with those ridiculous tattooed hands, the twit.

  “Yes,” Roy agreed, because what Wendy said was true.

  She looked up at him searchingly and then looked away.

  “I’ll give you eyes of blue…” Elizabeth crooned deeply into the microphone.

  Roy peered over the crowd, looking for Tupper. He was still behind the bar, leaning on his elbows and nursing another Guinness. He looked like he might be coming down with flu.

  “And then there’s the fat wife of the musician,” Wendy went on mercilessly, still voicing her tipsily cruel thoughts. “She’s so beautiful. If she didn’t have MS I’d send her to an agency for plus-size modeling. Even with the MS. She’s probably always played second fiddle to his music career, and then she got fat having a child, and then she fell ill,” she mused. “I’m going to help her.”

  Roy wasn’t sure Mandy required any help, but Wendy had always needed to feel needed. At least she wasn’t focused on the Latin teacher anymore. Tupper was more worrisome. His eyes were slits. His face glistened with a grayish-green sheen.