Sam and Ilsa's Last Hurrah

by David Levithan

  “Could you give me a better one when we get these back?” Johan asks, dropping his in. “Mine’s about five years old.”

  “Jason will volunteer to give you his, I’m sure,” I say.

  I glare at Jason. He return-glares at me, but deposits the latest iPhone into the box. Jason is the kind of guy who lines up at the Apple store the night before the tech behemoth puts its latest phone on the market, and then posts about it all night and morning like he’s competing in a triathlon instead of slumping down on pavement literally doing nothing.

  When I reach Caspian, he says, “I don’t have a phone.”

  “Because you don’t have the finger dexterity to type texts?” Jason asks. Such a snob. As a child, Jason once won the Fastest Text Typer at a county fair. Because that’s the kind of county fair he asked to be taken to as a kid.

  “Because I prefer to communicate in person!” says Caspian. Freddie tosses his phone into the box, though.

  After I’ve collected the remaining phones, I lock the box and return it to the foyer.

  “Time for dessert?” Sam asks.

  “Time for Czarina’s champagne collection,” says KK.

  “Seconded,” says Parker.

  Sam goes toward the kitchen, while I lead the group into the living room as thunder rumbles outside like God is juggling boulders in the sky and threatening to slam them down onto Manhattan in one apocalyptic seizure.

  Li Zhang pales as the rumble gets louder. “Thunder terrifies me.”

  I sit her down on Czarina’s most comfortable chair not facing the window. “Sam will play piano for us after dessert. That will drown out the noise.” I’m remembering a birthday dinner at Czarina’s when Sam and I turned ten. He was just starting to get good on the piano. There was a terrifying thunderstorm going on outside. Sam sat down at the piano to soothe everyone’s nerves. I couldn’t stand the attention his music playing was getting, so I started doing cartwheels and handsprings around the piano. I had a poor landing on one, shaking the floor so hard, it caused the fallboard—which covers the keys when the piano isn’t in use—to come down hard onto Sam’s fingers. He honestly was not that hurt—maybe there was a bruised fingernail—but I got sent to Czarina’s room as punishment for the duration of the party. No cake for Ilsa.

  I’ll behave better this time.

  Parker says, “The sweetest sound ever; you’ll love it.” I give him a look, to test if our psychic connection still works. It does! He sits down on the floor by Li Zhang, to make her feel reassured in the storm, which I’d like all my guests except Jason to feel.

  “Who wants coffee? Who wants tea?” Jason asks the group. He turns to me. “You’re supposed to offer these to your guests, Ilsa.”

  KK reaches over to Czarina’s lacquer china cabinet. “Nobody cares about tea, Jason.”

  “I wouldn’t mind some tea,” says Johan.

  I say, “Find Sam in the kitchen. He’ll show you where the tea is.” I should bring him the tea myself, of course. I’m a terrible hostess, I know. I hope Johan doesn’t post Yelp reviews. But I’m fickle. Johan’s lost his status as my favorite guest (hello, Caspian). Johan can get his own damn tea.

  KK pulls out the one full bottle of brandy that we haven’t topped off with water since previous dinner parties. “Now we have a party,” says KK. She takes out Czarina’s brandy glasses and places them on the coffee table in front of the long sofa, where Jason and Freddie have sat down, Jason on one end, and Caspian idling upright over Freddie’s elbow on the sofa’s arm at the other end. “Who’s in?” she asks, about to pour.

  My hand goes up, along with those of Parker, Li Zhang, and Caspian, who bobs up and down. “Single shot or double shot?” KK asks Freddie/Caspian.

  “Double,” says Caspian.

  While she’s pouring, Sam enters the living room. “Ta-da!” he announces. He places the lemon tart on the other end of the coffee table for everyone to admire. “Lemon tart for dessert.”

  “It’s green!” cries out Caspian. “Are you sure it’s not a lime tart?”

  Sam appears crestfallen. “The lemons at Fairway weren’t that great when I went shopping this morning. But I didn’t think it looked that bad.”

  “It looks amazing,” says Parker, giving everyone else The Look.

  The tart doesn’t look green, in all fairness. But it doesn’t look exactly lemony, either, in all honesty.

  “So good,” Li Zhang affirms.

  “Yummy,” I say.

  “Can’t wait,” says Jason.

  “Allergic,” pipes in Caspian.

  “Nah,” says KK.

  All of a sudden, a bloodcurdling bolt of lightning cracks across the sky. Caspian lets out his signature shriek. Li Zhang looks terrified. “That was nothing,” says Parker, trying to keep the mood calm.

  But it wasn’t nothing. Because then the power goes out. We’re left sitting in the living room with no light—and no light coming from the street or other buildings, either. I look out the window: darkness, except for car lights. It’s not just our building that’s lost power. In that darkness I have a flash vision of what later tonight could be like, if I go downtown with Parker to compete in a dance contest. It’s funny; I can’t see me going. Not because I don’t want to dance with Parker. Because I don’t feel the need to prove I can.

  Sam immediately goes into Boy Scout mode. “Everyone stay seated till I find Czarina’s emergency supply box in the coat closet.” I hear him walking toward the foyer, and it’s true that he could probably find his way across Czarina’s apartment blindfolded—there are no sounds of him bumping any furniture or knocking over glasses or other trinkets. He reaches the foyer and calls out, “Ilsa, what’s the combination for Czarina’s lockbox? I found a small flashlight, but it’s flickering—I think the battery is just about dead. But I can use it to open the lockbox, and then we can use the flashlights on our phones.”

  “Zero-one-one-eight!” I call out. I see the faintest flicker of light coming from the foyer.

  “Our birthday—of course!” Sam calls out. January eighteenth. “Are you sure that’s the number, Ilsa? It’s not working.”

  “I’m sure. Unless Czarina changed it after that dinner where Dad stole his phone back to check the basketball score.” “She must have changed it. Stupid Dad! Why couldn’t he just have ignored the game for an hour?”

  “It was the March Madness Final Four game!” I remind Sam. “Syracuse was playing.”

  “You don’t mess with a man’s phone during that time,” Parker intones.

  “Agreed,” says Caspian or Freddie, I’m not sure which.

  “Shit, the flashlight’s burned out,” says Sam.

  “I’m scared,” says Li Zhang.

  I sit down on the carpet and use the smell of delicious Parker to crawl my way to her other side, my knee knocking against Parker’s, making me truly weak in the knees.

  “It’s okay,” I tell Li Zhang. “I’m sure the power will be back on any minute.”

  The vengeful deity in the sky has other plans. Another lightning bolt flashes, making the previous one look like a practice run, and in that moment of light, I see the abject terror on Li Zhang’s face. Parker must see it, too, because he assures Li Zhang, “Don’t worry. Ilsa and me, we’re right here. We’ve got you. We’re your lifeboats.”

  Caspian says, “Mother Nature is just letting out some energy. It’s like a low-grade earthquake. You know those are good, right? Because they settle the ground enough to hold off the big ones.”

  “Where are those chocolates?” she asks. “I need a distraction.”

  “I’ll find the chocolates,” says Sam. “I think I put them on the side table. Yes, here they are. Jason, could you please pass this box over to Li Zhang?”

  Jason “passes” by way of lobbing it in my direction. He actually has good aim. The box hits my ear before falling in my lap. I give it to Li Zhang.

  Sam feels his way across the living room to arrive back at the window. “Lady Stanwyck wo
n’t let anything happen to us. We’re safe here.”

  “How do you know?” Li Zhang asks.

  “Not the tag-team ghost story again,” Jason whines.

  Sam and I love to tell this story. I say, “Lady Stanwyck is what the original residents of this building called the woman it was named for. She lived in the penthouse, where KK lives now.”

  “She protects the building,” says Sam.

  I’m about to tell Li Zhang how generations of residents have sworn that Lady Stanwyck’s ghost has protected the building from fires, tornadoes, and hurricanes, but KK has other ideas. KK says, “She farts in her sleep. I’m telling you, it’s true. I sleep in her old room.”

  Sam ignores her. “Lady Stanwyck’s name was Ethel Mae Stanwyck. Her lover would never marry her because he already had a wife.”

  I say, “Mr. Philanderer owned a construction company. He built this building and named it for Ethel Mae Stanwyck. She was a silent-screen actress when the movie industry was just starting out in New York City, before it moved to California. She always played British high-society ladies.”

  Sam says, “Although, apparently in real life she had a thick Brooklyn accent. Grew up in Sheepshead Bay.”

  “That part’s true,” says KK. “She haunts the hallways crooning”—and here KK uses an old-time Brooklyn accent—“ ‘Who died and made YOU boss, wisenheimer?’ ”

  “Help!” cries out a voice from the kitchen.

  “Johan!” says Sam. “I forgot he was in the kitchen. Someone needs to rescue him.”

  “You do that, Sam the Man,” says Parker. And I feel Parker’s hand give mine a squeeze. This thing we share. It’s either psychic or psychotic, or both. It leaves me breathless.

  “Please can we be quiet?” Li Zhang asks. “Until this is over.”

  “Our voices don’t calm you?” Parker asks.

  “No. And as much as the thunder noise stresses me, I also like focusing my attention on it. Makes me feel like I am conquering it, rather than the other way around.”

  “So we will be quiet, then,” comes Caspian’s voice.

  As quiet settles, I understand why she prefers it. The rhythm of the hard-falling rain is almost hypnotic, with none of the usual city noise, like honking horns and yelling people, coming up from below. The power outage and the tenacity of the rain seem to have cleared the street—and the air. Such quiet is a stranger to me—exactly the guest I didn’t know we needed. I feel like I can finally think. Assess.

  Our quiet is broken by Jason’s grating voice. “Why are Sam and Johan so quiet in the kitchen?”

  Just then the lamps come back on.

  KK is now seated on the sofa, next to Freddie, her mouth attached to his, and Caspian is in a place on her body where few socks have reached, I’d wager.

  ten

  SAM

  I am jealous of my eyes.

  I am jealous of the way they know how to adjust without me having to tell them to adjust.

  I am jealous that the moment after it turns dark, they know how to make the darkness easier to navigate.

  I am making my way back to the kitchen to find Johan. I am following the sound of his voice. I am taking step after careful step, and as I do, the darkness seems to second-guess itself. It retreats from completeness and lets a grayness in. I feel a little better, a little more in control.

  I am not afraid of the dark. I am afraid of knocking things over in the dark, of hurting myself in the dark, of getting lost in the dark, of being attacked in the dark.

  “Hello?” Johan calls out.

  “I’ll be there in a second,” I call back. “Stand away from the door.”

  I swing it inward. I don’t hit him.

  “Sam?”

  The clock on the oven has gone out. The refrigerator is just another piece of furniture. I remember I left the knives out, but don’t remember where.

  “I see you,” I say. He is the dark patch at the counter. He is the object of my attention even when I can’t make out where his clothes end and his skin begins. “I’m here. I’m sorry. You were drowned out in all the hysterics.”

  There’s a pause as still as the darkness. Then he says, “I have a confession to make.”

  I come closer. “Yes?”

  “I may have stayed in here to avoid the hysterics.”

  “Oh.”

  “And I may have called for help because I knew you’d be the one to respond.”

  He is now close enough to be more than an outline. It’s like a fairy tale, and we’re the shadows who are turning back into boys.

  “Of course I’d be the one to respond,” I say. “I’m always the one who responds.”

  I’m surprised by how bitter I sound, especially in front of him.

  “That does seem to be the dynamic,” he says. “From what I’ve observed.”

  He’s moved his leg out so it’s touching the side of my leg. I am trying not to notice this. Instead, I am noticing that he’s known me for all of two hours and he already thinks he knows everything about me, and Ilsa, and our lives.

  I am also noticing that he’s probably right.

  “It’s just the way we are,” I explain. Which isn’t an explanation at all, really.

  “That’s okay. She isn’t the one I wanted to walk through the door.”

  This should be exactly what I want to hear. I should be leaning into this moment, leaning into this boy in the darkness.

  But I—

  I—

  He can’t point out what’s wrong and then say it’s okay, just because he wants to kiss me.

  I pull away a little. I become a little less clear in his eyes.

  “I wanted to respond,” I tell him.

  “I know. That’s sweet.” He stops resting against the counter. He moves closer to me. “You’re very sweet.”

  “No, no—you don’t get it. I mean, I wanted to respond. It’s not that I respond because she won’t. It’s not like I’m ruled by the dynamic you’re talking about. I’d want to do it anyway, even if she weren’t there to not do it. Does that make sense? Does it make any sense at all? Because I want it to make sense. It feels really important that it make sense, that my caring can be separate from her not caring. If that’s even true—because I think she does care about a lot of things. I’m just more honest in expressing it.”

  Oh God, listen to yourself. He doesn’t want to hear this!

  His hand touches me right below my shoulder. Supportive, or at least attempting to be.

  “It’s okay,” he tells me.

  “No,” I reply. “That’s too easy. It’s not helpful.”

  He puts his hand down. “Give me a chance to talk, okay?”

  He hates you, I think. He totally hates you.

  He goes on. “I understand what you mean—I just dated this guy for almost a year, and it was like he felt we had to be exact complements; if he was bitchy, I had to be a saint; if he was the life of the party, I had to be the death of the party; if he was Mr. Public, I had to be Mr. Private. The stupid thing is, I went along with it. Because I thought, fine, if I was going to be those things anyway, there were plenty of other areas where being complementary was…beneficial.”

  I don’t want to hear this. I don’t like it when other people are brought into the room. Because then you can’t ignore them.

  But I can’t just stand here, either. He’s telling me something. I have to respond.

  “So what happened?” I ask. It’s the safest thing I can think to say.

  “It’s so ridiculous.”

  “It can’t be any more ridiculous than our dinner party,” I point out.

  “True. But this is that mundane ridiculousness where something way too small becomes something way too big. Do you really want to know why we broke up?”

  “Yes,” I say. With some hesitation, of course. I know it’s a bad sign when a guy spends too much time talking about his ex.

  Johan sighs. “It was over his phone.”

  Then he stops. It is
unclear to me whether they broke up while talking over the phone, or whether the phone played a more important role. “Go on,” I tell him.

  I can see Johan reach behind him to find the counter again. Once he finds it, he leans. But we still feel close.

  “So, I was at his apartment, hanging out after rehearsal. We were on the couch, watching Drag Race. Anyway, we’re there, side by side, and it’s feeling comfortable. Then he says, ‘I need my phone.’ And I ask him where it is, and he says it’s in his bedroom. Then he asks me to get it. I tell him he can get it himself, and his response is that, no, that’s my job. He’s joking, but he’s not really joking, and I can see that this is a game to him—can he make me do it? And I realize that usually the answer is yes, I will do it, so the game can be over quickly. But this time I refuse—and he’s hurt by it. Genuinely hurt. Why would I refuse such a simple request? ‘You like helping me!’ he tells me—or something like that. And I say, ‘Stan, clearly I don’t like it right now.’ ”

  “Stan,” I say.

  “Yes—and first I thought he was going to make everything right, say he was sorry and get his own damn phone so he could text or tweet or whatever it is he does. But no. Here’s the beautiful part. He calls me selfish. And I say, ‘You, of all people, are not allowed to deploy that adjective.’ It goes from there.”

  It’s in the middle of that sentence that the lights come back on. For a moment, we are blinded. Then our eyes adjust.

  “A tweeter named Stan,” I say.

  Johan nods. “Stan Ball. He goes to your school, right?”

  “But he…he never tweeted about you.”

  “The only selfless thing he ever did! I said if he made me part of his running commentary, I’d be the one running. And he heeded that. Until we broke up.”

  The kitchen has come back to life, and is adding its own commentary, blinking and groaning and ticking its way back to reality.

  Johan goes on. “I guess he talked about coming here. I didn’t make the connection until I showed up.”