The Wild One

by Gemma Burgess

  Tears streak down her face as she turns to face me. “But what if I don’t believe in me?”

  “That’s okay,” I say. “I believe in you enough for the two of us.”

  She leans over and hugs me, the first real hug we’ve ever shared.

  “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll sing tonight. You know, Joe is lucky to have you.”

  “Actually, he doesn’t have me,” I say. “But I hope he will. With your help.”

  CHAPTER 37

  “Potstill Prom is perfect.”

  Pia, Julia, Madeleine, and I pause, just after we walk in the doorway, and survey the crowded, already buzzing bar. Joe and I worked so hard for the last few weeks to get the prom decorations just right, and it paid off.

  Pompom bubble garlands are strung across the ceiling. Blue fairy lights give the whole place an underwater glow. Seashells are scattered over every surface. Paper fish and coral and jellyfish stud the walls. There’s a papier-mâché shark smiling happily from his vantage point above the bar. And Joe even managed to find a guy to deliver a load of perfect white sand.

  The whole bar looks charmingly beachy, homemade and real, in this kind of smart-ass, funny way. It’s very Brooklyn. And so as we walk in, at dusk on the night of the Potstill Prom, I just want to smile.

  But I have to talk to Joe.

  And I’m terrified.

  The bar is already full of people—sorry, prom attendees. A few locals, people I recognize from their evenings in here over the summer. But this time, they’ve brought groups of friends. They’ve been part of the turnaround of Potstill, and they seem to have real pride in the bar.

  There’s a large group of girls I half remember from that night I got really drunk, and then a few couples on dates, and Julia’s boyfriend—if that’s what he is—Peter the Magnificent, and some of his friends.

  Aidan is here too: he just flew in for the weekend and is waiting for Pia, along with Jonah, her old friend from the Italian restaurant she used to work at.

  Madeleine goes straight to the stage, where the band is setting up. She kisses Amy hello quickly and then whispers to her band mates. Telling them about Ian James, I guess. They all look shocked. It’s their big chance.

  Then I look over to the bar, where Joe is serving drinks. My heart practically stops at the sight of him.

  He’s not alone. He hired someone else to help out for the night: a scruffy bearded guy that I think works at one of Gary’s other bars. It’s like I was never even here.

  I timidly walk over and stand at one end, hoping Joe will notice me. But he doesn’t look up. He’s concentrating hard on making cocktails, but frowning so intensely that I can tell his mind is elsewhere. My stomach twists with nerves.

  I feel like I’m seeing Joe for the first time. I had become so accustomed to looking at him, it’s like I didn’t even see him. And now that I can … he’s so … handsome. He’s perfect. And more than that—this will sound lame, so bear with me—I can see that he’s just as perfect on the inside. Or, maybe he’s not perfect, because none of us are. But he’s perfect for me.

  “Um … Joe?”

  Joe looks up at me briefly, then turns away. “Hey.”

  He walks over to the other end of the bar where the cash register is. Then he turns around and serves some people there.

  I wait for him to come back down to this side. But he doesn’t. He just keeps serving people as far away from me as possible, refusing to look in my direction, refusing to even acknowledge that I’m still here.

  “Joe, can we talk?”

  He hates me. Joe really hates me. And I deserve it.

  “Joe…” My voice is barely more than a whisper.

  He’s still ignoring me.

  I don’t know what to do. I feel like crying.

  So I just stand here, at the end of the bar, waiting. Then I hear the crowd cheering and whistling, and turn to see Madeleine at the microphone. She’s gazing around the bar with a sexy half smile, surveying the crowd like a pro.

  “Welcome to Potstill Prom, you guys…”

  The crowd—already well primed with Whiskey Smashes and Rob Roys—cheers rowdily.

  “Okay, easy, tiger. Don’t peak too soon. We’re here all night.”

  Madeleine looks so confident standing behind a microphone now. Not like she used to be. A few months ago, she acted like she didn’t want anyone to even look at her. Now no one can take their eyes off her. She glances back at Amy, who winks at her encouragingly, then turns back to the crowd.

  “So, for those of you who know us, you’re probably expecting us to play covers. And maybe we will, later. But for now…” Madeleine grins, totally in control. “It’s time for something new.”

  Amy tears in with a guitar riff that sends a surge of excitement through the crowd. Then Madeleine starts to sing. Her voice is raspy and raw and full of emotion. Everyone in the bar falls totally silent and stares at the stage, rapt.

  When the song finishes, the crowd goes wild with applause. I clap and cheer as loud as I can. The room vibrates with how much everyone in here loves her. Everyone is mesmerized, whistling and smiling and cheering with joy. I look out and see Julia, Peter the Magnificent, Pia, Aidan, Ian James …

  Holy shit. Ian James.

  He came. He’s standing alone, wearing that same little hat, leaning against the wall in the darkest corner of the bar.

  “Joe!” I hiss, just as the band starts their second song. “He’s here. Ian James is here.”

  Joe’s head snaps up and he looks over the crowd until he sees him.

  “Go,” I say. “Go talk to him. I’ll cover the bar.”

  Joe walks to the end of the bar, where I’m standing, and pauses. He seems unable to actually leave the bar. Paralyzed by fear, nerves, something …

  “Go talk to him!” I whisper urgently. “This is it! This is the chance you’ve been waiting for!”

  “I … I can’t…” He shakes his head. “I can’t do it.”

  “You can,” I say, impulsively squeezing his arm. “I know you can.”

  Joe glances at me, then takes a deep breath, and walks over.

  I quickly start serving people, looking over to Ian James and Joe whenever I get the chance. They talk for a minute and then just watch the band together. After four songs, the band takes a break, and Ian James and Joe are deep in conversation.

  My God, he’s really doing it.

  The bar is busier than I’ve ever seen it before. Prom is a hit. People are dancing, and drinking, and messing around. Julia is high-fiving everything with a pulse, and Pia and Aidan are making out.

  “Woo! Best prom ever!” calls out a voice, and I turn around to see Angie walk in with Sam by her side. Both of them so happy, they’re actually glowing. (Or maybe that’s a postsex glow.)

  Then, behind Angie, I see Gary walk in. Gary, the owner of Potstill, who is supposed to be in Nantucket. Who wants to sell Potstill. And who never approved this prom party.

  Shit.

  Gary takes in the decorations, the fairy lights, the pompom bubbles, the sand, and his face hardens. He walks straight up to the bar, shoving patrons out of the way.

  “Where the fuck is Joe?”

  “He’s just stepped out,” I say. “Can I get you a drink? Um, seltzer, right?”

  “Get Joe,” Gary says. “Now.”

  I push through the crowd to where Joe and Ian James are standing, talking to Madeleine and Amy, and overhear the last of their conversation.

  “So it’s set. Showcase at the studio, first thing Monday morning.”

  “You got it.” Joe shakes his hand. “Thank you so much.”

  Ian James nods and drains his beer. “I’ve gotta go. But I’m looking forward to it. And Joe … good job.”

  He leaves, and Amy and Madeleine look at each other and grin ecstatically, trying not to scream until Ian James has left the bar.

  “Um, Joe? Gary is here,” I say under my breath.

  Joe looks over toward the bar. “Shit.”
r />   He walks over to Gary. I follow him, leaving the band hugging and whooping behind me.

  “I’m going to fucking kill you,” says Gary. “What the fuck is going on?”

  Joe looks him straight in the eye. “I was trying to save your bar.”

  “Save it? By turning it into some mermaid Disneyland?”

  “It’s an Under the Sea prom-themed event,” I interject. “And Joe has saved this bar. We’re busy every night now. Two months ago there were only about three customers a night. Now there are thirty, maybe more!”

  Gary glances at me. “Fuck off.”

  “Don’t talk to her that way.” Joe steps closer to Gary. He’s taller than him, but Gary is about fifteen years older, fifty pounds heavier, and a hell of a lot meaner.

  “I’ll do whatever I like. It’s my bar,” says Gary. “Until Monday, anyway. I sold it. They’re shutting this shithole down. Opening a 7-Eleven.”

  Joe exhales sharply, like someone just punched him in the gut.

  Gary looks briefly around the bar. “I’ll be back in the morning to look over the books and get the keys.”

  I can’t contain myself any longer. “You’re an asshole!”

  Gary shoots me a look of contempt, then turns and walks out, pushing his way through the crowd. Joe stares after him, and then, looks around at the crowded bar, the people drinking and whooping and partying like they really are at prom.

  And he starts to laugh. Manically.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “It’s okay, Joe, we can fix this, we can—”

  Joe stops laughing. “We can’t. It’s over, Coco. Thanks for getting Ian James here to see the band. I appreciate it.”

  He turns around and starts to walk away.

  “Wait!” I grab Joe’s arm, and he wrenches it away, but turns to face me.

  “What do you want, Coco? I said thank you.”

  “I’m sorry, Joe, I’m so sorry—”

  He nods curtly. “You said sorry this morning.”

  “No, no, I’m sorry because, um, because when I said I didn’t love you, I … I was wrong.”

  “Right.” He won’t even meet my eyes.

  “I didn’t know—” I can hardly get the words out. “I didn’t know that I was falling for you. But I know now—”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because you make me so happy,” I say. “And because … because I want to make you happy.”

  I can’t read his expression at all. The blue fairy lights are casting a weird gleam over everything, and the crowd is growing noisier and rowdier.

  This wasn’t how I pictured this. I never saw myself confessing love in a noisy bar surrounded by blue fairy lights and drunk strangers in prom dresses.

  “I know I love you, because every time I think of you, I smile. Because you’ve become my best friend, and because … because I just know.”

  At that moment, the band starts playing again, and I hear Madeleine’s voice. It’s a cover that I can’t quite place for a moment. She’s whispering the words, making them sound urgent and sexy and serious.

  “Imagine me and you … I do…”

  I take a deep breath. “Joe, I read this thing in a book once that said, when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be. And that’s how I feel about you. I know now that it’s how I’ve always felt, but I, um, I didn’t realize it until today … I used to have this list of things I thought I needed. I don’t need any of that stuff, Joe.” I take a deep breath. “But I do need you.”

  Joe hasn’t moved. He’s just staring at me. And then, just as Madeleine hits the chorus, he grabs me and kisses me so hard that I feel like I’m going to explode.

  At that moment I feel it.

  Perfect happiness.

  That stupid Happy List was never the answer. In order to be happy, all I needed to do was choose my life for myself. I needed to be honest about my feelings, to put someone else’s happiness ahead of my own. I needed to speak out about what I wanted. I’m the only one who can do those things. No one else can do them for me.

  And now I have everything. I’m in love, I’m going back to college, and I’m starting adult life the way I want to. It’s the best feeling in the world.

  “I love you,” Joe murmurs between kisses.

  I smile at him, feeling my insides explode with joy. “I love you too. Kiss me again.”

  “Always.”

  Life doesn’t always work out the way you think it will. But it always works out the way it should.

  And I can’t wait to see what happens next.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks.

  Thank you for reading this book. I truly hope you enjoyed it.

  Eternal thanks to Jill Grinberg, Laura Longrigg, Vicki Lame, Dan Weiss, Fiona Barrows, Katelyn Detweiler, Cheryl Pientka, Sarah Lambert, Niamh Mulvey, and everyone else at St. Martin’s Press who helped the birth of the Brooklyn Girls book series, and particularly this little book.

  Thanks to all the people who e-mail me telling me that these books make them feel better about everything, and to all young women who are starting adult life without a master plan, but who have the courage and hope to keep going anyway. You are doing a great job.

  Thanks to my friends, old and new, for being endlessly hilarious, encouraging, and inspiring.

  Thanks to my lovely, loving parents and sister. (And my brother-in-law. And all my Irish in-laws.)

  And most of all, thanks to my perfect boys: my husband, Fox, and our little ginger army, Errol and Ned. I love you.

  CHAPTER 1

  I was really going to be somebody by the time I was twenty-three.

  Have a career. Be good at something. Be happy.

  But here I am, less than two months before my twenty-third birthday, “catching up” with my mother, Annabel, over waffles and fruit juice in a tiny café called Rock Dog, because I am unemployed and have nothing better to do on a random weekday morning.

  The waffles are organic, by the way, and the juice is organic lingonberry, a ridiculous Scandinavian fruit famed for its antioxidants. This is Brooklyn, where the higher the obscurity, the higher the cred. Personally, I haven’t got a problem with SunnyD or good old full-fat Coca-Cola, but whatever fries your burger, right?

  And of course the waiter—whom Annabel has already quasi-yelled at twice—rushes up with the jug for a refill, trips, and boom. Lingonberry juice all over me. So now I’m soaked. The punch line to an already (not so) delightful morning.

  He’s mortified. “Oh my! I am so sorry, let me clean that up—”

  “You can forget about the tip!” My mother is furious.

  “Don’t overreact,” I interrupt her. “It was an accident.”

  “But your top is ruined!”

  “I was sick of it anyway.”

  “I don’t know why you insist on coming to these ridiculous places.” God, she’s in a bad mood. Her phone rings. “Bethany!… No, darling, I’m still with Angelique. Somewhere in Brooklyn. I know, I know—”

  The waiter has tears in his eyes, he’s blotting frantically and whispering, “I’m so sorry. I keep spilling things because I’m so nervous. This is my first job waiting tables.”

  “Dude, it’s not a problem,” I whisper back. “Never cry over anything that won’t cry over you.”

  He brightens. “That is such a good life philosophy! Can I take that?”

  “It’s yours. Get some T-shirts printed. Or a bumper sticker. Knock yourself out.”

  He starts giggling. “You are hilarious, girl! I’m Adrian.”

  “Angie.”

  Annabel hangs up and blinks at me till Adrian leaves. She blinks when she’s annoyed. Making friends with the waiter is just the kind of thing that would irritate her. “Well. I have some news. Your father and I are divorcing.”

  What?

  That’s why she came all the way from Boston to see me? I’m so shocked that I can’t actually say anything. I just stare at her, a h
alf-chewed bite of waffle in my mouth.

  “It’s been arranged.” She examines her glass for kiss marks. “The papers are signed, everything is done.”

  I finally swallow. “You’re … divorcing?”

  “It’s not a huge surprise, is it? Given what he’s been up to over the years? And you’re too old to be Daddy’s little girl anymore, so I don’t see why you’d be upset.”

  “Right on.” I take out a cigarette and place it, unlit, in the corner of my mouth. I find cigarettes comforting. (Yes, I know, they’re bad for you.) “You’re divorcing. Gnarly.”

  My mother blinks at me again. Princess Diana had a formative influence on her maquillage philosophy: heavy on the navy eyeliner. They’re divorcing is playing on a loop in my head. Why didn’t my father tell me?

  Annabel clears her throat. “You broke up with Mani, I take it? Single again?”

  I don’t answer. Last year I told her about the guy I thought I was in love with in an unguarded moment of total fucking stupidity. Just before he dumped me.

  “Unlucky in love, that’s you and me,” she continues blithely. “Perhaps we can go on the prowl, hmm? How’s darling Pia? Why don’t we all get together and have a girls’ night out?”

  I stare at her for several long seconds. She’s out of her fucking mind.

  The minute she goes to the bathroom I make eye contact with Adrian and mime the international pen-scribble sign for “Check, please.”

  He hurries over. “I am so sorry again! It’s on me, I really—”

  “Don’t be crazy,” I say, handing over a fifty-dollar bill as I stand up and put my coat on. “No change. The tip is all for you.”

  “Oh, Angie, thank you!” Adrian looks like he’s about to cry again, but then stares at me in concern. “Wait, are you okay?”

  I nod, but I can’t even look at him, or I swear to God I’ll lose it. I need to be alone.

  While my mother is still in the bathroom, I leave. She’ll find her way back to her hotel in Manhattan somehow. My mother is British, she lives in Boston most of the time, and her only experience in New York was the year they lived here, on the Upper East Side, when she gave birth to me. She got so fat during pregnancy that she wouldn’t leave the apartment after I was born in case she saw someone she knew. So apparently I didn’t see the sun till I was five months old and she’d lost the weight. And that, my friends, sums up Annabel’s whole approach to motherhood.