“Really? You tasted it?” asks Li, eyeing Freddie.
KK licks her lips. “Ah, much better than that cheap Trader Joe’s crap that Ilsa swipes from her parents’ fridge.”
“Those are wine coolers our parents keep in the fridge,” Sam tells KK.
KK says, “I drank wine coolers with Ilsa?” I nod at her. KK gasps. She glares at Sam. “You could have allowed me my ignorance.”
“And spared my joy at your horror?” Sam asks. “I think not.”
The champagne is indeed delicious, but I can’t relax enough to enjoy it. Neither can Sam, apparently. He puts his glass down and asks me, “So what makes you think I can’t survive California?”
I say, “I guess you could if a precise plan was set out for you. But just going there on a whim? No way. Not only would you never survive…you’d never go. So no big deal, right?”
“It is a big deal,” says Sam.
“I’m not stopping you from this fantasy,” I tell my brother. “Go, if it’s that important to you.”
“Where I go isn’t the big deal,” says Sam. “It’s that you know me so little you think I can’t get there.”
“Whoomp, there it is,” sings Parker.
No one knows Sam better than me. What’s he PMSing about?
“Of course you can get there,” I say. “There’s planes, trains, cars, whatever. I’m not talking about transportation.”
“Neither am I,” says Sam. “I’m saying you have me nestled so comfortingly in your idea of who I am, you have no idea who I actually am. I might be capable of moving to California for no good reason other than it’s not here and I have no idea what I’d find there.”
“This California idea is very reverse Felicity,” says Johan.
“Who?” everyone else at the table says.
Johan says, “Do you Americans not even know your own pop culture? Felicity was a TV show about a girl from Palo Alto, California, who had a crush on a guy from her high school. So she followed him to New York for college.”
“Stalker-y,” says KK. “I like it.”
Johan says, “That show was one of the reasons I wanted to go to college in New York.”
“To stalk a guy?” Parker asks.
“To stalk an experience completely foreign to anything I’d known before!” exults Johan, who is very red-faced from all his alcohol consumption. He places his index finger and thumb together like he’s holding a maestro’s baton, and calls out, “And for the music! The nightlife! The danger!”
“The pizza!” says Caspian.
“Don’t talk about carbs or no more noogie noogie for you,” KK says, not seeming to understand that the double use of words like noogie nixes sarcastic intent.
“Speaking of carbs, where’s those cookies your little friend brought over earlier?” asks Li. I retrieve the tin of Junk in da Trunk cookies, place it in the middle of the table, open it, take one for myself, and hand the tin to Li. She takes out a cookie and has a bite. “These are, like, the definition of disgusting. And possibly the best cookie I’ve ever had.”
She passes the tin to Parker, who takes one and has a bite. “I’ll pay for this later. For now, hurts so good.”
He passes the tin to Sam, who passes it on to Johan. “I’m trying not to go into a diabetic coma tonight,” says Sam.
Johan has no such qualms. He takes a bite of a cookie. “Is that potato chips I taste in here?”
I say, “Yeah, and chocolate chips and butterscotch morsels and malted milk balls and peanuts and pretz—”
“Stop,” says Johan. “Allow me the illusion my teeth aren’t going to fall out after I finish this cookie.”
“I wish Jason wasn’t passed out in Sam’s room,” I say. “Cuz these cookies would certainly be the end of him.”
“JUST STOP!”
There’s a moment of silence after Sam’s outburst. Sweet Sam never behaves so rudely.
“Stop what?” I ask him.
“Stop being mean about Jason. Stop interfering.”
“Interfering?” I ask, taken aback. “You do what you do with Jason no matter what I say.”
“So maybe don’t say anything? Maybe keep your opinions to yourself and let me live my life? If a guy I like is a jerk, let me find out on my own. I don’t need your help, Ilsa.”
Of course he needs my help. I’m eight minutes older. I think I know a little bit more about the world than naïve Sam.
“Fine,” I say.
Not fine.
Even more than the pain I feel that Sam apparently thinks I don’t get him is the betrayal I felt that Sam never trusted me enough to tell me he was hurting so badly. His silence made me feel like a failure as a sister. And I was a failure, because I never had the courage to just ask him if he wanted my help. Czarina probably didn’t ask him, either—she just went ahead and helped. Sam and Czarina have always been the Dynamic Duo, not Sam and his twin. Sam and I have no twin telepathy, no twin identical moves. We’re just people who came from the same womb and were raised in the same apartment(s). He got the better room—in our grandmother’s apartment, and in her heart.
“Someone’s been secretly harboring some resentment,” Dr. Caspian informs us.
“What’s your secret?” Johan asks Caspian. I think he’s trying to take the attention off Sam, who looks frustrated. “You know what I’d like to know, Casp? When you and your conquests go at it”—here Johan eyes KK—“how do you, you know, complete the transaction? Do you have a special—”
“Handler?” Parker asks, using finger quotes.
Everyone laughs except for Freddie and Caspian, whose stitched mouth is not capable of such an expression. Freddie’s look, however, falls somewhere between murderous and mutinous. But KK saves his pride. “Believe me, Casp ’n’ Freddie have all their parts in order.” She looks to me. I know that look. It’s KK’s I need to throw someone under the bus expression. “You know who has secrets, Sam? Ilsa. Ask her where she’ll be living when you think you’ll be in some part of California you have yet to determine because you don’t understand the state at all.”
Sam says, “You mean Ilsa’s intention to become Maddy’s nanny and move into my room when the Hogues take over this apartment?”
“You knew?” I say. And finally, after all these years, he acknowledges what the family knows but never says aloud. Czarina’s spare room is essentially Sam’s room. The favorite’s, and no one else’s.
Sam says, “Of course I knew! I was just waiting for you to tell me. Typically reckless Ilsa, thinking she can rock the boat with secrecy and then offer a grand reveal that will send everyone spinning.”
“You becoming a nanny is absurd…,” says Li. “Why would you squander your time in a job you probably don’t even want, if you really thought about it, in a place you already know?”
“What else should I do?” I ask her.
Parker offers, “Go to college. Wander the world. But don’t stay here for no reason other than you wanting Sam’s room for your own finally.”
It’s so much more than that.
Is it?
Why am I doing it?
KK says, “I’m with the rest of these dummies on this one. Don’t be a fuckup because that’s what’s expected of you, Ilsa.”
“But that’s the very definition of reckless,” says Sam. “And that’s our Ilsa.”
“SHUT UP!” This time the outburst comes from me. “Being a nanny is hardly a reckless job.”
Li says, “Agreed. But there’s also no point to it, for you, at this stage of your life.”
Johan says, “And you’re probably taking the job from someone who really needs it.”
I feel ganged up on. Quietly, Li says, “Don’t give up on yourself so easily.”
“I don’t know what else to do,” I confess.
I meant about myself, but Li is thinking about the bigger world. Li says, “These are scary times. Do something. Rise up. Protest. Participate. Believe in something bigger than the silly goings-on of rich p
eople at the Stanwyck.”
“Hey!” says KK. “I’m one of those people.”
“Exactly,” says Li. “Who are you going to be, Ilsa?”
“Maybe you should go to California with Parker and Sam,” Johan suggests.
“No,” Parker and Sam both say.
“But hey,” Parker adds, looking at me. “I have you to thank for my five-thousand-dollar scholarship toward expenses at Stanford.”
“How so?” I ask.
“Our best dance?” he says.
“The merengue,” I say.
“That’s the one. You know how college financial-aid guidebooks always mention obscure scholarships no one’s heard of because it’s hard to believe they exist?”
“I guess?” I say. I never cracked a single guidebook for college. I left all the problem-solving aspects of my potential college future to my parents.
Not okay, Ilsa.
Parker says, “There’s a Merengue Society of New York City that sponsors an annual scholarship. They picked me.”
“Based on what?” I ask. “An essay about the merengue?” Parker says, “Yes, I did write an essay about the merengue.”
I was kidding about that.
“No shame! But the deciding factor was the video I submitted from our competition days. So, my parents also say thanks. For shining me so bright you saved them five K a year.”
“That’s amazing, Parker. You deserve it.” I mean it.
The breakup still hurts, but much less so. Sam was so embarrassed and caught between a rock and a hard place right after. He blamed me, of course. I’m the reckless bitch who always gets blamed. Sam doesn’t need to know about the part of the breakup that Parker and I kept to ourselves.
It started when I was a week late. I told Parker. He was supportive, as always. He went to the pharmacy and brought over a test for me to take. I peed on the stick. But during the few minutes we were supposed to wait for the result, I freaked out. I asked Parker if we could go ice-skating in Central Park. We did. It was winter, and snowy, and magical, and I wanted to stay snuggled in Parker’s arms forever.
When we got back to my bedroom and looked at the result, it was positive. It was strange. I felt relief rather than panic. My worst fear was confirmed, but somehow I felt like it wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened to me. Maybe it was the best. It would give me a future. I’d never want to trap Parker, or keep him from going to college and achieving his dreams. But I knew that no matter what happened in our lives, I’d always have this piece of him.
For a black guy, Parker certainly turned pale that afternoon. “It’s your choice,” he said. But I knew which choice he wanted.
We sat on the secret for three days. I didn’t want to make an announcement until I knew for sure. We went to Planned Parenthood. We wanted to show how responsible we were by going there before talking to our families.
This time, the test came out negative. The doctor explained I’d probably had a false positive on the store-bought test. I was supposed to read the test results within the time frame specified on the box. We went ice-skating instead. The doctor said that it wasn’t unusual for evaporation lines to appear on the test strip as the urine dried. That people who read the results after the recommended time had elapsed often confused the appearance of urine evaporation lines with a faintly positive test line.
Parker broke up with me a week later. He wasn’t ready to be in a relationship that serious. I wasn’t, either—but I would have done it anyway.
Sam raises his glass. “A toast to Parker and his merengue scholarship!” he says.
The group raises their glasses to Parker and downs another sip. Except for KK, who abstains from the declaration of “Cheers” but double-downs the champagne.
And then, Sam lifts his empty glass.
I see his signature—
—hesitation.
I—
Er, universe, what should I do—
But—
—I am scared and frustrated and confused.
Sam takes aim—
—and smashes Czarina’s precious handblown crystal heirloom champagne flute against the wall.
sixteen
SAM
Because I am tired of her seeing me as the favorite. Because I am tired of both of them—Czarina and Ilsa—seeing me as the favorite. Because this is goodbye, because this is done. Because I’m so tired of worshipping breakable things. Because I wanted to see the impulse through. Because I wanted to see the look on all their faces. Because I wanted to do something that I’ve kept inside of me so they could see what’s been inside me all this time. Because it’s not like Czarina is going to take them to Paris, anyway. Because Czarina told me not to tell Ilsa about Paris and because I actually followed her orders. Because I’m not sure whether I want to go to California or whether I just want everyone to be able to believe that I’ll go to California. Because it’s almost festive to throw the glass against the wall when you’re done with the drink, like there’s no going back from the toast you’ve raised. Because I am tired of Ilsa looking at me like I’m an emotional invalid. Because I am twisted enough to think that if I become the one who doesn’t care, then she’ll become the one who cares, that we exist to achieve balance as a pair because we are so deeply imbalanced as individuals. Because I know that’s not how it works. Because why bother smuggling something around the globe and across the decades if you’re only going to keep it under glass? Because I think it’ll make Parker laugh. Because I might as well scare off Johan now instead of later. Because when Ilsa says she’s happy for me, she never sounds like she means it.
The moment after it happens, I should be terrified. The moment after it happens, I should feel remorse. I should run to pick up the pieces.
But instead, now that I have everyone’s attention, I decide to pose a question.
“How do you leave?” I ask. “How do you get out of the fortress?”
Ilsa is still looking at me in shock, so I know she’s not going to start. It’s Johan who takes the first shot.
“As you know,” he says, “this is something I have some experience in. And I’m not saying there’s a right way or a wrong way to do it. But if you’re asking how I did it…well, let me see.
“I always had the destination in mind—the question was, how would I pay for the ticket? I don’t mean that literally—although I guess it’s there literally, too. But I mean it more like, what’s the thing that’s going to get you from where you’re stuck to where you want to be? And don’t get me wrong—when I say stuck, I don’t mean that my parents were mean or my friends were lame. I loved them all. But I loved the idea of setting off, the idea of New York even more. And I realized my ticket was music. Even when I was twelve, thirteen, I knew it was my ticket. Not that I loved it more than my family or my friends—but I knew that of all the things I loved in my life, it was the one that could travel with me.”
I remember feeling that way about music. I loved losing myself to it—but then I guess I felt that was a dodge, that I wasn’t supposed to lose myself. Which I’m realizing was as unfair to me as it was to the music.
Johan continues. “I also told myself that leaving doesn’t mean what it used to mean. I’m half a world away from my home, right? But I can still call them every day and see them every day, if I want. And that’s the key part: if I want. I get to control it. I haven’t left entirely, just by leaving.” Johan stops. “I know I’m not answering your question. How do you leave? You tell yourself you can go home whenever you need to. You tell yourself you’re trying something out. And you find something you love to take with you. You give yourself a chance to be someone else, but you don’t turn against the person you were. You give yourself room to breathe, and then you breathe. Did I have to go all the way from Cape Town to New York City to find that? Probably not. This is just one of the many ways it could have worked. But it has worked. I followed my dream. And here I am. So you need to follow your dream.”
“I love that,�
�� Li says. “Follow your dream. It’s such a great way to trick yourself!”
“What do you mean?” Johan asks, before I get a chance to.
“Well, think about it. We always talk about our dreams as if they come from somewhere else. Follow what you think—no, that’s too straightforward. We don’t trust ourselves enough to do that. But follow your dream—there’s a beautiful lack of acknowledgment in there that, guess what, dreams are ours. They’re not being beamed to us from some cosmic cable station—they’re coming entirely from our minds. Saying you’re following your dream is just a way of giving yourself permission to follow your mind. And I’m all for that. Here—let me give you an example.”
She turns to Ilsa. “When I say that I’ve dreamed about you, Ilsa, what I’m really saying is that I want us to be together in a way that’s even greater than what we’ve been before. When I tell myself that following my dream led me to kiss you, what I’m really saying is there’s always been a part of me wanting to kiss you, and I finally let it take control. Opportunities are the openings that appear without our control, but what we do with those opportunities—that’s up to us.” She turns back to me. “So how do you leave? You let yourself leave. It’s as simple as that.”
She goes back to looking at Ilsa. So do I. They were kissing? Part of me wants to cheer. And part of me, honestly, wants to tell her to stop stepping on my territory.
“I’m not sure simple is the right word,” Caspian says. “Maybe change is simple for some people, but not for everyone.”
“Did you just call yourself a person?” KK asks. “That’s priceless.”
Caspian ignores her and leaves his button eyes on me.
“You must find your allies, because sometimes leaving is…hard. People believe you are a certain thing, and if you’re not who they want you to be, they can get confused, like my mother, or they can get angry, like my father. It’s hard for me to explain to you where I come from. It’s not an apartment like this.”
“Is it more like a drawer?” KK can’t help herself.
“JUST SHUT YOUR UGLY MOUTH!” Caspian screams at her. Then he turns to the rest of us. “I apologize. It was a mistake to engage with her, on all levels. What I mean is that our home is much more…modest. My father is a janitor. My mother works at a dollar store. Their expectation was that I would work, so I have worked. Contributed. But when I understood my…situation, they were not understanding. My father mocked me. I don’t mean once or twice. I mean for years. But leaving wasn’t an option, because in order to leave, you need money, and at age twelve, I didn’t have any money. Even now, I don’t have much.
Sam and Ilsa's Last Hurrah Page 12
