“No, thanks,” she said, wrapping her arm around her stomach and pushing the bottle away.
“I know, right?” Gen muttered, hurling the bottle into the bushes. She lit another cigarette and started to sift through the few other pieces of junk the “richies” seemed to have left behind. A crumpled-up bag of chips, a few more wine coolers, and the box to a Dave Matthews CD. “Now there’s a good time,” she said. “Wine coolers and Dave Matthews. Can rich kids party or what?”
Gaia huffed out a little laugh as she found another rock to sit on. Something about Gen’s joke sparked a little memory in the back of Gaia’s mind. It had an oddly endearing ring to it….
Mary. That’s who Gen reminded her of. It was the exact kind of joke Mary would have made. With just the same ironic inflection.
Gaia watched as Gen made sure she’d found everything the kids had left behind. When she was through searching, she picked up the crumpled Dorito bag and peeked inside, pulling out the few chips that were left and munching on them. She extended the bag to Gaia, who once again declined, fighting off another wave of nausea.
Gaia wasn’t sure if Gen would be offended by the question that kept running through her head, but she had to ask it. “Do you… live here?” she asked cautiously. “I mean… in the park…?”
Gen took her time before answering the question. Which was just about all the answer Gaia needed. Now she felt even worse about asking. Gen popped open another wine cooler to wash down the chips. “I live lots of places,” she said, pretty successfully avoiding the question. “Ugh, disgusting.” She threw yet another wine cooler into the bushes.
Gaia was admittedly a little thrown. If Gen did live in the park, then she didn’t fit the description of a homeless person that Gaia was accustomed to. She was far too pretty and far too young to not have someplace to go.
“So…,” Gen began, looking Gaia in the eye for pretty much the first time, “are we asking questions now?”
“Whatever,” Gaia replied with a shrug.
Gen let out a loud and massive belch.
“Was that your question?”
“No.” Gen laughed Ugh, that was spooky. She even had Mary’s laugh. “My question,” she went on, “as long as we’re asking questions… How long have you been using?”
“Using what?” Gaia asked.
“Yeah, right” Gen laughed. “That’s my line, too. ‘Using what, Officer?’”
Gaia was still drawing a blank.
“Drugs” Gen laughed again. “How long have you been using drugs? And don’t even bother trying to tell me you’re not a junkie.”
Gaia didn’t even know how to respond to such a ridiculous accusation.
“Oh, come on” Gen jabbed. “You’re gonna try to tell me that’s not why you came up here tonight? To buy from Casper?”
“Casper? Who the hell is Casper?”
“Casper,” Gen said, as if it were obvious. “Casper, the dude you flipped on his ass, Casper?”
“You know him?” Gaia squawked.
“Yeah, I know him,” she replied with a look of disdain. “I know that asshole. He thinks he’s such hot shit with his leather jacket and his Sugar Ray *NSync ass. That was just beautiful when you kung fu’d him and his meatheads. Beautiful. You know, he’s not so tough when you take away that knife and his thugs. Then he’s just another punk dealer, you know? But he so deserved what you gave him. He so deserved it.”
Gaia had never in her life thought of herself as unintelligent, but as she put all the pieces together, she couldn’t believe how blind she’d been to the abundantly obvious. She hadn’t saved Gen from getting raped in Central Park. She’d just saved her from her pissed-off dealer. Ugh. Her dealer. Now she was too much like Mary.
Gaia took a much closer look at Gen and realized how completely strung out she was. How could she have missed it? This girl was, without question, a full-blown junkie. She was thin as a rail, pale and gaunt, with dark circles under her eyes, chain smoking, and digging around Central Park for leftover junk food. So how could a homeless junkie living in Central Park afford to pay for that pager? Who knew? Maybe Casper paid for it. Keep those customers coming back. That was probably why he’d gone off on her. Probably just pissed about some money she owed him or something. Jesus. Casper was just Mary’s dealer Skizz come back to life. All dealers were Skizz. Greedy, pathetic assholes with nothing better to do than prey on helpless addicts.
The Mary connection suddenly made Gaia far more ill than it had at first. She couldn’t help thinking… what if Mary hadn’t had money? What if she’d had the same drug problem minus the incredible supportive family and the beautiful apartment on Central Park West? She’d probably be living the exact same life as Gen. And she probably would have died even sooner.
“So, come on,” Gen said. “How long have you been hooked?”
“No, no” Gaia began, shaking her head.
“It’s okay.” Gen laughed. “I’m not a narc. Don’t even try to lie.”
“No, listen—”
“You’re coming up here behind the Met all alone in the middle of the night. You were here to buy….”
“No—”
“You’re nodding out on me for twenty minutes. You’re all pale and nauseous and shit. You’re a freakin’ junkie.”
“No!” Gaia hollered finally. “No, I’m not a junkie and I don’t do drugs! I’m not that stupid!”
The smile immediately dropped from Gen’s face. She began to shoot hollow-tipped bullets at Gaia with her eyes.
Oh, no. All Gaia had wanted to do was set the record straight for herself. But she’d done a little more than that. Maybe, just for a second there, she’d kind of started yelling at Mary by accident. Now she’d ended up deeply offending this girl she didn’t even know.
Gen took a long, slow drag from her cigarette. “Relax,” she spat coldly. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to call you a junkie. A pretty girl like you? Little Kung Fu Barbie? A pretty girl like you could never be a junkie.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” But it was obviously too late.
“Are you rich, Gaia?” Gen suddenly asked, looking her over with a piercing stare.
“No, I’m not rich.” Gaia sighed, wishing there were some way to take back her stupid outburst.
“No? ’Cause I’m thinking you might be rich. I’m thinking you might be one of those wine cooler kids who really ought to be getting her ass home to Mommy and Daddy right now.”
Gaia dropped her head and scoffed at that suggestion. Gen didn’t even know just how ludicrous it was.
“No,” Gaia said with a smile that was so bitter, she could almost taste it, “there’s no Mommy, and there’s no Daddy. Mommy died. And Daddy disappeared. In fact, if you’re really interested, there’s nobody. No boyfriend. No friend. No polite acquaintance. Not even a dealer who beats me up. Just me, myself, and yours truly… and I guess you at the present moment…. Do I qualify for pity now?”
Gen went silent. Her eyes softened as a modicum of sincerity returned to her voice. “You don’t know where your dad is?”
“No clue,” Gaia said.
“Well, when’s the last time you saw him?” she asked. Not the question Gaia would have expected.
“I don’t remember.”
“You don’t remember the last time you saw your father?”
Gaia then remembered that she’d sort of seen him yesterday… or the day before or was it the day before that? But she’d been in such a feverish, hallucinogenic state that it had barely even counted. Gaia assumed Gen meant seeing him while conscious. “No,” she replied. “I don’t remember.”
“Well, is he in New York City?” Gen pressed.
“I don’t know.” Gaia, groaned, baffled by Gen’s sudden weirdness. “Why are you asking me all these questions about my father?”
“Whoa, there, buddy.” Gen threw her hands out defensively. “I was just trying to be friendly. God knows where my pops is at. Maybe they’re hanging together i
n deadbeat daddy day care.”
“Sorry,” Gaia mumbled. “Yeah, maybe they are.”
Gen gave Gaia a once-over again with her eyes and then took another long drag, blowing it off to the side so as not to blow smoke in Gaia’s face. “Hmmm,” she uttered. “An orphan but not an addict” She stood up from her rock, flipped the red streak of hair off her pale, angular face, and stomped out her cigarette on the ground “Well… I guess one out of two ain’t bad Are you hungry?”
Gaia looked up at her suspiciously. “Not for chips and wine coolers, I’m not.”
“No, we can probably do a little better than that.”
“Then yes, I’m starving.”
“Do you have any money?” Gen asked.
Gaia sighed and shook her head. “Actually, no.”
“Good,” Gen said. “It’s more fun that way. Tonight we eat like queens!” she pronounced as if a chorus of trumpets would follow. “Come.” She beckoned with a grand sweep of her hand. Follow me, Kung Fu Barbie. Let’s be friends”
Well, I’ve mulled it over for the past twenty-four hours. In fact, that’s all I’ve done for the past twenty-four hours. That is to say, I haven’t eaten. I haven’t slept. I haven’t exercised, spoken, taken a walk or a shower. I haven’t done a thing but pace my room and try to understand what went wrong. Try pacing on crutches in a relatively small bedroom, and you’ll begin to understand the extent of my twenty-four-hour purgatory.
* * *
ED
* * *
You know, I’d honestly seen our whole future while I was looking for butter at the A&P. It’s true. I had it all planned out. Right after breakfast, I was going to take Gaia to the street fair on Avenue A. I’d pictured us doing that New York couple slow walk down the street. We’d look at imitation designer sunglasses, and horrible club-music mix tapes, and giant collections of copper farm animals. I don’t know…. I’d just pictured us as a couple. A real couple with this big, long future.
So I grabbed the butter, a gallon of milk, some maple syrup, a fresh box of Bisquick, and, of course, the quintessential breakfast-in-bed rose. And then…
I don’t know…. I don’t understand it. Somewhere between my getting shot at and walking through my door, Gaia just decided to rip out my heart and eat it for breakfast instead of the pancakes.
The question is, do I believe everything she said to me or not? Do I believe that she really thinks what we did was a mistake? Do I believe that she really doesn’t feel “that way” about me? I mean, honestly, could my life be such a miserable confounding joke that five or six hours into our relationship, Gaia would end the relationship? After all the things she’d said to me? After all the time I’d waited for this to happen?
See, if I did believe everything she’d said to me, then I wouldn’t be in purgatory right now, I’d be in hell. Plain old hell. And then I could officially begin my new life as the most depressed son of a bitch in the entire Village School. I’d no longer be known as “Shred,” but rather something more along the lines of “Bed,” because I’d hardly ever leave mine. Or maybe they’d just call me “Dead,” because, for all intents and purposes, that’s what I’d be. Maybe I’d even get back into the chair just because walking required too much energy. At least that’s a pathetic existence I could understand. Something I could learn to live with.
But like I said, I’ve been mulling it over, and the problem is, I still don’t believe her. I still think there’s some kind of hidden agenda here that she’s keeping from me. Something about seeing me almost get shot or something I know absolutely nothing about that’s making her lie.
To tell the truth, I think I’m pissed. I mean as pissed as I can be at someone I’m madly in love with. I’m pissed at her for not trusting me with whatever is really on her mind. For kicking my feelings around like a soccer ball just because she’s too afraid to tell me something. For leaving me here in purgatory.
So after twenty-four hours of doing nothing but pacing, I’ve made a decision: It’s confrontation time. I need the truth. If I have to squeeze it out of her, then so be it, but I need to know. Because she owes it to me. Just based on our friendship alone, she owes it to me. And even if it turns out that all those horrible things she said were true, I’d still like to know that for sure. Because if I’m going to be living in hell… I’d at least like to plan ahead.
She might as well have had the phrase “I have a crush on Ed” embroidered on all her perfect little Calvin Klein outfits.
* * *
urban not—so—chic
* * *
ED COULDN’T REMEMBER SITTING IN a room so somber and silent since his accident. That’s what Gaia’s apartment felt like. A hospital waiting room. A place where all the family gathered and prayed that their loved ones had lived through the night. Of course all they were waiting for this morning was a simple phone call from Gaia Moore. But when Gaia was involved, the possibility of sudden death never seemed that far-fetched.
* * *
Unadulterated Agony
* * *
He couldn’t even believe this was his second morning vigil with Gaia’s phony family in just the last few days. The last time, Natasha had been a tad more relaxed about it. At least she’d pretended to be. She’d even served Ed cookies while they waited. But this morning she wasn’t even bothering to fake a smile. This morning she looked downright anxious.
Tatiana didn’t exactly seem all that concerned. She was sitting quietly at the dining table with her books in her lap, looking over one of her papers for school. But Ed and Natasha were sitting on the living-room couch, quite literally waiting by the phone, which Natasha had brought over to the coffee table so that it might be grabbed within the first ring.
“I don’t understand it,” Natasha said, staring at the phone. “I don’t understand why she must do this.”
Ed shook his head slowly, keeping his eyes pinned to the phone as well. “I think I’ve understood about ten to twelve percent of anything she’s ever done.”
“Yes, this is exactly right,” Natasha agreed. “Why do you think she is like this, Ed? Why do you think she runs from people this way? Does she not understand that there are people in her life who love her more than anything in the world? More than they care for themselves? Who make all the choices in their life only so that she might be happy?”
Amen. Ed couldn’t have possibly said it better himself. Natasha probably wasn’t even referring to him, but boy, did that nail it on the head. Gaia seemed so utterly lonely so much of the time. But whenever she was alone with Ed, all her darkest thoughts seemed to drift away. Didn’t they? Was he just making that up in his head? It had to be at least partially true. So, given that she always seemed less lonely when she was with him, why did she always end up running away? It was totally counterintuitive. And these little morning gatherings had made it quite clear that her surrogate family was suffering the same fate.
Ed was baffled as to why Gaia would run from Natasha and Tatiana, who were, as far as he could tell, two of the nicest people he’d ever met. Again, it just made no sense. What could she possibly see in them that was so threatening?
Of course, the whole time Ed had watched Gaia deal with Natasha… There was that to consider. Ed had thought that Gaia’s being in a State of paranoid dementia might have had something to do with her desperate need to stay away from Natasha. But now that Gaia had regained her sanity…
Well. Maybe that was the real question. Was Gaia back to normal or not? Because judging from the way she was dealing with Ed… at least as far as Ed was concerned, the sanity question was still way up in the air.
Natasha turned to Ed and breathed out a long sigh. “Ed…”
“Yeah?”
“Ed, if she were to ever return again—”
“Hold up, now,” Ed said, forging a half smile. “I don’t think she’s gone for good.” Do I?
“Well, no,” Natasha said. “I don’t want to believe this, either. This is why I want to ask you… Whe
n she returns… maybe, you might tell her…”
“Tell her what?” Ed asked.
“Tell her that Tatiana and I are good,” she said, widening her large brown eyes. “We are good, loving people, Ed. Tell her that she needs to trust me so that I might take care of her. And Tatiana also. So that Tatiana might look after her as well.”
Ed’s eyes darted over to Tatiana just in time to see her rolling her eyes with an inaudible huff.
“Well… sure,” Ed said with a kind but useless shrug. “I’ll tell her.” What Natasha didn’t seem to understand was that Gaia would need to trust him before he could convince her to trust someone else. And her trust in Ed was yet another issue that seemed to be flying somewhere way up in the air.
“Thank you, Ed,” Natasha said, turning her attention back to the phone. “You are a good person.”
“Yeah, well…” Ed thought they were going back into stare-at-the-phone mode, but Natasha suddenly turned to him again.
“Ed… as long as we are becoming friends waiting by the phone here, perhaps I might ask you a question that is too honest?”
Ed didn’t exactly understand what she meant, but he couldn’t see the harm in it. “Sure.”
“Okay.” She smiled, shifting her whole body in his direction and meeting his eyes. “I have heard that you and Gaia are good friends. That is what you have been called. ‘Good friends.’”
“By whom?”
“I think you avoid the upcoming question.” She smiled again.
“Oh…,” Ed replied, not sure if that’s what he was doing.
“So, yes,” Natasha went on, “you are ‘good friends,’ yet the other morning I saw Gaia when she came from your house. I was sure you two had been quarreling because she was so upset. More upset than any girl would be after quarreling with a ‘good friend.’ And the last time I saw you here… that very, very horrible afternoon… I distinctly remember Gaia referring to you as her ‘boyfriend.’ This is very different. So, perhaps you will tell me, honestly now… which is it? Is she your friend? Or your girlfriend?”
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