Cobble Hill

by Cecily von Ziegesar

  “Why don’t we go out and celebrate?” he suggested. “It’s unusually warm for this time of year. We can go to that upstairs bar outside in the park.”

  “All right,” she agreed. “I just need to wash my feet.”

  * * *

  It was Friday afternoon and the bar was packed.

  “Get vodka,” Elizabeth commanded, choosing a grubby, newly vacated table in the corner. “A whole bottle.” She was still wearing her orange prison jumpsuit. People stared. One man gave her a thumbs-up.

  Halfway to the bar, Tupper turned around to make sure she was still there. Elizabeth had turned away to take in the view. Ferries crisscrossed the harbor from Manhattan to Brooklyn and Staten Island and beyond, leaving frothy white wakes. In the far distance, the Statue of Liberty towered greenly, symbolically. The sun was low, bathing the silvery buildings and dark water in golden light.

  Tupper’s nervousness made her restless. The boats made her restless.

  It wouldn’t be long now.

  Tupper brought the vodka back to their table with two shot glasses.

  “Icelandic.” Elizabeth admired the bottle. “Perfect.”

  Tupper had noticed the letter from Iceland on top of her stack of mail and the particular interest the rich Icelandic art collector had taken in freeing Elizabeth. He poured them both shots, reminding himself to say what he had to say while his head was still clear and he wasn’t about to throw up everywhere.

  “I’m guessing that’s where you’re headed next—Iceland?”

  Elizabeth’s downturned mouth turned down even further. She tossed back her shot.

  Tupper knew he was cornering her, but he was tired of her performative antics and complete self-involvement. She hadn’t asked about The Hunt. She didn’t seem interested in the Money Pit. She didn’t care that Monte was closed, even though their neighbors liked it there. She hadn’t even noticed that he’d joined Full Plate so that they could dine on delicious meals for two. It was possible to be an artist and a nice person, but Elizabeth didn’t even try. If she wanted to go, she could go.

  He threw back his shot and poured himself another.

  “I was awarded a MacArthur,” he said, finally delivering his news. “They called last night.”

  Elizabeth gray eyes widened. “For The Hunt? That was a collaboration.”

  Tupper grunted. Of course she’d believe the award was somehow meant for her.

  “They said it was for my promise as a designer. They can’t wait to see what I’ll make next.”

  Elizabeth drank two shots in a row and poured herself another. Out on the harbor the Staten Island ferry blasted its horn. She’d underestimated him. She was always underestimating him.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” she said, deciding it on the spot.

  Tupper pushed his glass away. “But I want you to go. I want to make things, you want to make different things. It’s better if you go.”

  “No.” Elizabeth gritted her yellow teeth determinedly and folded her arms across her chest. At last, it was back: the frisson. At least for now. “No.”

  * * *

  Her mum was probably right. Shy should have dropped the idea of table tennis and signed up for a pottery class instead. Mr. Streko was so different now that the season had started. He took table tennis far too seriously, as if they were training for the Olympics. Practices were every day, and only Mr. Streko and the senior captains were allowed to speak. Table tennis was a game of concentration, like chess, he said. Talking distracted the players. Sometimes Shy would forget and ask him a question or giggle and make a self-deprecating remark about her own clumsiness. Mr. Streko would just shake his head and turn away.

  It carried over into Latin class too, as if he was intent on training her in and out of the gym. He never called on her anymore. He never even smiled. Shy was worried about him. He seemed preoccupied. Maybe someone in his family had died. Maybe his cat was sick. But the last thing she wanted was to let him down. So she dug in and practiced hard. She did squats and bench-pressed the weighted bar. She learned to serve backhand and forehand and tried to be quick on her feet. To her surprise, she enjoyed table tennis. She liked the rigor of it, the concentration, and how it was exercise without too much exercise.

  Today was their first away match, against the Berkeley Carroll girls’ team. Sun Kim, one of the captains, always warmed them up. Sun was tiny and never stopped smiling. She also had the quickest volley on the team. She was an inspiration. Mr. Streko was always saying, “Watch Sun. Watch Sun.” Shy kind of hated her.

  “Fifty laps, fifty crunches, then fifty jumping jacks!” Sun shouted gleefully, and the team took off, running around the Berkeley Carroll gym in their matching white Under Armour quick-dry polo shirts and black mesh shorts.

  Shy trailed behind them. She hated running. Bruises dotted her bony shins. Her skin looked gray. She’d almost invited Liam to the match but then decided to wait until she improved her game. Liam was being weird anyway. He’d gotten a bad grade on that calculus test—which for him meant an 89 instead of a 100—and she felt certain he blamed her.

  The girls circled the gym, jogging in a silently determined clump. Mr. Streko and the Berkeley Carroll coach, a wiry woman in a red tracksuit with a smoker’s voice and a dyed-red pixie cut, volleyed back and forth at one of the two tables set up in the center of the gym, the ping and pong of the ball echoing loudly.

  “Your point,” the woman growled at Mr. Streko in a Russian accent as Shy staggered by.

  “Non vincere omnes,” Mr. Streko called back.

  To win is not all. Was he flirting? Shy wondered.

  The girls finished their warm-up and collapsed on the bench to sip water from matching water bottles and receive the lineup from the coaches.

  “Sun and Suraya, you’re first,” Mr. Streko called, making notes on his clipboard. “Jill and Danielle go second. Then Amy and Kylie. Then Sun again and Tati. Suraya and Jill are last. Go team!”

  He hadn’t said Shy’s name. And Suraya was a freshman. Why did she get to play twice?

  “Mr. Streko?” Shy asked, breaking the code of silence.

  He ignored her, already standing at the ready beside the table, clipboard in hand, bushy black eyebrows furrowed deep in concentration.

  Beep, beep! The other coach blew her whistle. “First match.”

  Shy jumped to her feet. “Go Phinney!” she shouted. If she couldn’t play, she could at least show some enthusiasm.

  Immediately, Mr. Streko pointed at her, shook his head, and then pointed at the bench. She sat down again and kicked off her black team Nikes, which made her hideously pale legs look even paler. No playing, no cheering. This was so much fun.

  Ping, pong. Ping, pong. Tic, toc. Tic, toc. Table tennis was the most boring game in the world to watch. More boring than regular tennis, or American football, or golf.

  Kylie nudged Shy’s arm with her elbow. “Hey, your grandfather is here.”

  “Hello, darling.” Roy sat down next to his daughter, marveling at how a school gymnasium in Brooklyn could smell exactly the same as a school gymnasium in the middle of England. Sweaty socks, sticky floorboards, and exhausted fluorescent lightbulbs.

  “We’re not allowed to talk, Dad,” Shy said through her teeth. “What are you doing here anyway?”

  “I was curious.” Roy had never mentioned his altercation with Mr. Streko at Monte. “Just offering a bit of moral support.”

  Beep, beep! Mr. Streko blew his whistle and pointed at them to be quiet.

  “They’re good, aren’t they?” Roy went on, ignoring Mr. Streko completely. “And I like their red tops. It’s a good, deep red. I do like a good red,” he mused.

  “The reds are the other team. Shush, Dad. You’re going to get kicked out.”

  “Go girl!” Berkeley Carroll’s coach shouted after a particularly brutal serve. Why was she allowed to yell?

  Berkeley Carroll won all four of the first matches. Then the next one was called.

  B
eep, beep! Mr. Streko blew his whistle. “Sun, you sit out. Shy, you’re up,” he shouted without even looking at her.

  Shy almost peed her pants. She slid her feet into her shoes and hurried to tie them.

  “Exciting.” Her dad rubbed his hands together the same way he did when he watched Wimbledon or the Tour de France on TV. “Show us how it’s done.”

  “Don’t get too excited, Dad.” It occurred to Shy that Mr. Streko was only letting her play because her father was there and they were losing the entire match. “I think I kind of suck.”

  Beep, beep! Mr. Streko pointed at her and then at the table where Tati, a senior from Berkeley Carroll, was holding her red paddle and shifting impatiently from foot to foot, her hair pulled up in a tight ponytail with a matching red scrunchie. She looked scarily competitive and mean.

  “Come on, black and white!” her father yelled like an ardent Premier League soccer fan.

  Shy approached the table. She picked up the black paddle and the Berkeley Carroll coach rolled her the ball. She took a deep breath and tried to remember everything she’d learned about serving. She was pretty crap at it, but she’d do her best.

  Toc! The ball flew sideways, just skimming the net. Tati assumed it was out, but it hit the table in-bounds, and she lunged for it at the last minute. It ricocheted off the edge of her paddle and flew straight into the air. Tati lay across her side of the table, moaning dramatically. Shy had scored the first point.

  “Get up, girl!” Berkeley Carroll’s coach yelled hoarsely. She didn’t seem to know any of her team members’ names; she just called them all “girl.” “Play, play, play!”

  Roy had expected Shy to be gangly and clumsy, but she was rather good. Of course the Latin teacher git Streko offered no words of encouragement whatsoever.

  Roy had wasted the entire morning searching the bookshelves in the library for a poem he’d read long ago, something about “a new planet.” The poem was by Byron, or Keats, or Shelley. He’d texted Peaches, but she’d yelled at him grumpily, via text, that he was the one who’d read English at Oxford. Then she’d found it for him anyway. It took her about ten seconds to google it. The poem was by Keats.

  Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

  When a new planet swims into his ken

  Now that Roy had it, he had no idea what to do with it. He’d written a paragraph comparing Isabel and Bettina to the women in The Handmaid’s Tale, and then deleted it. He’d read and reread the previous paragraphs he’d written, and then deleted them too. He’d written the bulk of the story—he was in the homestretch. But why this absurd plot and not some other? Why these characters? Why these sentences? Why these words?

  Because, he’d told himself. It’s what you do. If Shy could suffer the indignities of high school and Wendy could take a crowded subway to run a magazine in Manhattan every day, then he could stop asking so many stupid questions and just get on with it. But instead of getting on with it, he’d come to the match.

  “Go, girl! Pick up your feet!”

  Roy stood up. Shy had scored again with her impossible serve. It looked like she was holding the racket completely wrong and the ball was going to hit the floor, but miraculously it landed on the table, just barely in.

  “Come on, black and white!” he yelled again, delighted that he’d made the effort to come and cheer her on. Shy’s smarmy Latin teacher refused to even look at him, even though he was the loudest person in the gym.

  The girls took a water break. Shy jogged in place as she sipped from a bottle of Poland Spring. She flashed Roy a smile and he winked at her. His other daughters had played field hockey and tennis, but he’d never watched them. Perhaps that’s why they hated him.

  The girls in his book could be sporty, he thought as he sat down again. And table tennis would work perfectly on Mars, if they could fit the table in a spacecraft. The girls would request one and be super excited when it came. Ceran would be hopeless, but the girls would play constantly. That’s how they’d keep fit during their pregnancies.

  Beep, beep!

  Mr. Streko blew his whistle and pointed at Shy, his orange-and-blue neck tattoo bulging. He carried himself differently at table tennis than he did in Latin, she noticed, more upright and bossy. His black Phinney T-shirt stretched tight across his sturdy, muscular chest. It was kind of hot.

  “Eye of the tiger,” Roy said, redirecting his daughter’s attention.

  Shy picked up her paddle and bit the inside of her cheek in concentration.

  “Go, girl!”

  Chapter 22

  WE HAVE RABBIT said the handwritten sign taped to the window. A little bell jingled when Peaches opened the old shop door.

  Hasslachers was the oldest butcher in New York State. It was famous for its always-been-here, low-key vibe and its unfussy presentation. The head butcher was the grandson of the original Hasslacher and had trained his young assistants since they were teenagers. The maleness of the place always intimidated Peaches and so did the meats. What was the difference between a sirloin tip and a Newport strip? But it was Friday, the school week was over. She wanted to drink a bottle of wine and cook something delicious for dinner—part of her pact with herself to make the best of what she had, which was a lot.

  She squinted at the display case and eavesdropped on the butchers’ conversation behind the counter.

  “She’s a great actress though, Nicole Kidman. You ever see that one where she plays the newscaster with Matt Dillon? She’s hilarious. And the one where she plays Virginia Woolf? She wore a prosthetic nose. You forget it’s her. She’s brilliant.”

  Peaches was startled. It was not the sort of conversation she imagined butchers would have. Why was she such a snob? Just because you were a butcher didn’t mean you thought about meat all the time.

  “Can I help you, miss?” The youngest butcher offered. He wore a mustache and had elaborate arm tattoos.

  Peaches shook her head. “Sorry, I’m not ready.” She wished they would keep talking. What other movies had they seen? Maybe she should forget about dinner and go to the movies. Liam and Greg could order in.

  Today had been a weird day. It was warm, so warm it felt like September, not the first Friday in November. The morning had begun with two kindergarten girls scratching their heads with such frequency during circle time that their teacher sent them down to Peaches’ office. Sure enough, the girls were infested with lice. Half the kindergarten was infested with lice, including three of the teachers, plus the art teacher, the gym teacher, and the parent coordinator, who even had nits in his beard. She’d been so busy combing through hair and sending children home she’d only eaten Cheez-Its for lunch and she felt rotten. Several times during the day Roy Clarke had texted questions pertaining to his book. “What’s another name for ‘anus’?” “Do people get the clap anymore?” And finally, “Do Russian dogs get the rabies vaccine?” Peaches was too busy to respond. At two o’clock Stuart Little’s son came in with a rash and threw up on her floor. Mandy came to pick him up.

  “I made clams last night,” she said by way of explanation. “They were in the box, out on the stoop in the sun. Teddy loved them so much Stu and I barely ate any. Guess they were bad?” She looked different. She’d done something to her eyebrows and trimmed her hair and her outfit looked current. Was she still sick? Was she taking new meds?

  “You look amazing,” Peaches said jealously while Ted retched on the little cot. “It might be the clams. Or it could be fifth disease. It’s a virus with a fever and a rash. But who knows? I was an English major.”

  The two women stared down at Ted.

  “Should I take him to the pediatrician?”

  Peaches shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe? Or just wait it out.”

  Mandy nodded. “It’s Friday anyway.”

  She seemed so relaxed, Peaches was envious. After they’d gone, she tried to clean up her office so she wouldn’t come back to a mess of lice combs and vomity paper towels Monday morning. Then Stuart Little himse
lf showed up, skateboard clenched against his side, mouse tattoos stretched tight against his knuckle bones. He looked totally stressed out.

  “Ted’s home. Your wife came to get him. He needs rest and rehydration. He’ll be fine very soon.”

  Stuart sat on the cot and ran his hands through his hair. This was not the reaction she’d expected.

  He blinked wearily at the dirty linoleum floor. “I got all inspired. I started writing kids’ music. Some of it is pretty good, maybe. I started writing a song based on that famous Shel Silverstein poem, ‘Sick.’ You know, the one where the kid lists all these things wrong with him that are totally preposterous?” He looked up. “I think Mandy’s faking. I don’t think she has MS.”

  Peaches spent the next half hour trying to talk him down, or up. He had all these theories, but Peaches found it difficult to care. Somehow it didn’t matter to her one way or the other. Everyone had their foibles. What if Mandy had lied? Maybe she needed to lie. At least she was creative. Pretending to have MS was sort of badass when you thought about it.

  She could hear the children leaving for the day and then the teachers. She didn’t want to talk to Stuart Little about his wife anymore. Clearly they needed boundaries. If he wasn’t there to sweep her off her feet and elope with her to Mexico, she wasn’t interested.

  “I think you need to talk to her,” she said finally and stood up. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

  She didn’t really have to go anywhere, but she did need some protein and some wine. As soon as Stuart left, she headed to the butcher.

  “She is by far my favorite actress. By far,” the older butcher said now as he wrapped up a pile of pork sausages. His horn-rimmed glasses looked expensive. His hair was cut expensively too.

  “The Newport steak is great,” the younger butcher told her. “How many people you cooking for?”

  Peaches looked into the case at the Newport steak. It was thick and lean, except for a strip of fat on one side. Greg hated steak. He wasn’t a vegetarian, but he ate like one. Liam was almost a vegetarian out of laziness.