by Helen Ellis
chapter nine
It’s close to midnight, and Marjorie and Mags have returned from their mother’s room, where Kathryn Ann made them clean up the mess the cats made. Tasks included sweeping wood shavings off the floor, stripping the shredded bedspread and underlying sheets, bringing those sheets to the building’s basement incinerator, remaking the bed, wiping cat pee off the walls, picking up knickknacks the boys had knocked off her vanity table, and super-gluing heads back onto two porcelain penguins from her collection.
Kathryn Ann hadn’t analyzed the cats’ behavior. She’d said to her daughters, “Animals are animals. It’s not for us to reason why. But don’t you dare shut them up like that again. You’re lucky I’m not calling Mary and Octavia’s parents.”
Then, she’d sedated the boys. Kathryn Ann’s antidrug campaign does not include prescribed medications because she can’t get her nerve up to fly without generic Xanax or go to sleep without generic Ambien. She crushed half a pill of each and then mixed the powder in with the brothers’ Fancy Feast. Currently, her darlings are conked out, curled head to toe, yin and yang, on top of her Eddie Bauer carry-on that’s parked in the back of her walk-in closet. Kathryn Ann is laid out on top of her covers. The twins said she didn’t bother to change into her pajamas; she just shed her skirt and suit jacket, then timbered onto the bed in her control tops. Thanks to her own regular nightly dosage, she’ll sleep like a mummy.
The girls and I nuke Hot Pockets and play Truth or Dare. Hey, if I don’t go along, they’ll know something is wrong. As long as I don’t touch my legs, I might be able to make it through the night without panicking. I can do it. I am not going home.
The Hot Pockets stink, so we stay in Mags’s room. Marjorie won’t allow food in hers because, to her nose, every odor lingers. I’ve seen her use a toothbrush to scrub spilled hot chocolate out of hairline cracks in the hardwood floor. She saved up her allowance to order a $49 broom off QVC. Mags encourages us to make a mess in her room because it drives her sister nuts.
Mags jokes, “Stains are proof that our friends love me best!”
Marjorie was given the bigger room because of her sleepwalking, but Mags got the terrace. The terrace wraps around the north and west sides of the penthouse. The twins’ dad loves it. He’s Eastern European and marvels at the sun like a Neanderthal. Although I’ve never seen him out there, evidence of his presence remains: Speedos slung over a cheap lounge chair; a hardback spy novel, pages warped from rain; and a fold-out aluminum face-tanner. The terrace is what makes this apartment worth tens of millions of dollars, but Kathryn Ann never sets foot onto it. What rich people on Fifth Avenue will never tell you is that their terraces are covered in pigeon poop.
Mags aims the water gun she uses to shoot the gray rats with wings at me. “Mary, truth or dare?”
Octavia has already been dared to go out on the icy terrace and pull the frosty, neon orange, banana hammock over her sweats. Marjorie was dared to take one of her mother’s muscle relaxers but wouldn’t unless her sister did too. Mags popped a pill but didn’t have to be dared—so she opted for truth and revealed she’d been felt up by my neighborhood deli owner’s son behind the potato chip rack.
This is scandalous on many fronts. None of us know the deli owner’s son’s name, he’s nineteen, and he’s opting out of college. He is constantly cleaning the deli and thus never seen without yellow rubber gloves, which most likely means he touched her boobs while wearing them.
I don’t want to be asked why I’ve still got my school socks on under my flannel Hello Kitty pajamas, so I choose dare.
Mags says, “I dare you to call your boyfriend.”
I shoot her a withering stare. “Nick’s not my boyfriend. In case you forgot, he’s Ling Ling’s boyfriend.”
Octavia says, “If he was her boyfriend, he’s not anymore.”
“Yeah,” says Marjorie. “Turning your boyfriend over to the principal for drug possession is definitely grounds for a breakup.”
Mags says, “I can’t believe Nick and her were together.”
“Nick and she,” corrects her sister.
“Nick and she,” mocks Mags. “And you wonder why you’ve never been kissed.”
Along with Marjorie, both Octavia and I squirm at this remark. Besides Mags, none of us in this room has been kissed. We’re not even sure Mags is telling the truth about the deli owner’s son, but we want to believe her. Our lack of “experience” is ridiculous. We’re sixteen. According to Gossip Girl, we should be on the pill.
Mags says, “You have to call him, Mary. It’s a dare!”
I say, “I’m not getting star-sixty-nined.”
“Nice try,” Marjorie says, “You know very well you can’t star-sixty-nine an unlisted number.”
Mags passes me the portable and holds her water gun to my temple. “Put it on speaker.”
I stare at the buttons “I don’t know his number by heart.”
This doesn’t stop Mags. She scrolls through the digital redial listings. Last weekend, I accepted this same exact dare. We’d found Nick’s home number in the Purser-Lilley sophomore class phone tree, and I’d called and listened to Nick’s yiayia try to coax me into talking.
“Ela! Speak!” she had said.
I called back twice, hoping Nick would answer so I could listen to him say hello, breathe, then say hello one more time before hanging up. But every time, it was his yiayia.
“Nai?” The old woman had found the whole thing hilarious. “Oh, you again! ‘Private Caller.’ Ela! Speak!”
Mags shoves the phone in my face.
Tonight, Nick answers before the first ring finishes. This late, his grandparents must be in bed. “Yeah?” he says. Not Hello, as I’d imagined. Not like every other person in the world answers the phone.
I don’t say anything. The dare was to call, not to talk. The phone lies face-up on the PB Teen pink and purple floral rug. We’re sitting around it like a campfire. The speaker makes Nick’s steady breath sound obscene.
Nick says, “I know it’s you, Mary.”
Blood drains out of my face. I reach to poke off the phone, but Octavia grabs my elbow. Her fingers dig into the sensitive flesh above my funny bone. I can’t bend my arm. Tilting toward each other, we struggle. I wonder if Octavia will forever be grabbing my elbow to stop me from doing what she thinks that I shouldn’t.
She mouths the word: Talk.
I stop struggling. My sister lets go of me. I dare myself to say: “How did you know it was me?”
Nick says, “I figured you’d call to apologize.”
“Oh, my gosh, you’re right. Detention! I’m so sorry. If I’d known it was yours, I’d never have gone in her locker.”
I can’t bring myself to say marijuana or Ling Ling, but the girls are doing their best impressions. Octavia’s smoking an imaginary roach. Marjorie’s made a makeshift bong with a can of her mother’s Mississippi-imported Mello Yello. She’s got a box of Goo Goo Clusters in her lap in preparation for the munchies. Mags has rolled her pajama bottoms up to her thighs, emptied a yellow shower caddy, and donned it upside down on her head. She’s prancing around the same way our arch-nemesis did her laps in gym.
Nick says to me, “Yes, you would too have gone after it. You couldn’t help yourself.”
“What do you mean? I’ve never smoked in my life.”
“You didn’t find what you think you found.”
“What do you mean? I saw it. Why would your grandparents say what they said? How could you let yourself get detention for nothing? Was it really just oregano?”
Octavia’s lips freeze, pressed together; her thumb and first two fingers still pinch the figment of her imagination. Marjorie’s make-believe lighter remains lit in front of the toxic green can. Mags removes the shower caddy, flips it, and holds it upright as if to collect information.
“It’s not oregan
o,” says Nick. “Or what my grandparents call oregano. But it is herbal. From Greece. My grandparents were covering for me with Principal Sheldon. If the government finds out about what it really is, they’ll make it illegal.”
“What is it?”
“Tell me first, how did it make you feel?”
“I didn’t feel anything.”
“You wouldn’t have gone after it if it didn’t make you feel good.”
It’s true. Before I knew what it was or where it was coming from, I knew I’d do anything for it. I’d imagined spreading it on the floor and rolling around on it like people in movies do on $100 bills. But who does that in real life? Money is filthy. To throw yourself at wrinkled, dirty paper, think of the kind of addict you’d have to be. Me. I don’t want to admit this in front of the girls. I don’t want to tell Nick he’s right. Whatever is wrong with me can’t be good.
I ask him, “How does it make Ling Ling feel?”
“Ling Ling never feels anything.”
“So, why did you give it to her?”
“Honestly,” his voice softens as if Ling Ling is listening in, “to get to you. To find out if you are what I think you are.”
The girls’ lips form Os. They bring their hands to their cheeks, and their fingers flutter as if they had a three-way tie for Miss Teen USA. They don’t care if Nick is a drug pusher or another girl’s boyfriend. He is talking on the phone with me, and he is saying what boys in our class never say.
I whisper, “What’s so special about me all of a sudden?”
Nick says, “The turning.”
The girls look confused.
He says confidential-like, “I know what you’re going through.”
Could Nick be talking about what’s under my socks? Should I show the girls the fur? I can’t. They’ll shun me. Who wants to split Hot Pockets and share a comforter cover with someone who’s turning? Turning must mean spoiling like milk does when it curdles. Milk gets fuzzy when it’s old. Have I reached some sort of expiration date? Am I going bad? Is it written in my closed adoption papers that I have some rare Mediterranean genetic disorder? Does Nick mean to tell me that he’s had encounters with cats that have left him with patches of fur that snap razors? But he did fall asleep under the parachute. Maybe he does know. Maybe he has the cure.
He says, “Tell me where you are. I’ll help you.”
“You want to help me right now in the middle of the night?”
No response. Not a further word out of him. I hear him breathing. I imagine being close enough to see that breath come out of his lips on a cold night like tonight. I wish we were together, but I’m deluding myself that he’s got my same problems.
Nick asks, “Is it orange?”
I say, “I’m at Marjorie and Mags’s apartment.”
“Shush!” says Mags. Hold up, did she not hear what he said about me being orange? Has she also forgotten we’re trying to hide that he’s on speaker phone? She screams, “Nick, don’t come!” Nope. She wants him to hear. “Nick, it’s too late at night!”
“Our mom will kill us!” Marjorie joins in. “The doorman will call when you get here, and the phone will wake her up! She’ll go ballistic!”
Octavia shouts, “Nick, listen to us, we’re screaming! Come on over! Their mom’s comatose!”
“But what if tomorrow, the doorman tells Mom that Nick was here?”
“Oh, my God, Mags, he’ll totally tell her! Nick, you can’t come. Don’t!”
“Nick, don’t you dare!”
“Nick? Nick?”
“Nick? Say something!”
The phone is dead. He’s coming. He lives on 93rd and Fifth. At a fast clip, he’ll be here in five minutes.
Mags flings her comforter back on her bed and plops two pillows at the headboard. She tosses the box of Goo Goo Clusters on her nightstand and tucks the water gun in the drawer.
Marjorie says, “Stop straightening—you’re awful at it! You can’t have him in your room. He’s not coming into this apartment. Mary, go down to the lobby and wait for him. Act like you’re going home.”
Octavia says, “At this hour? In those clothes?”
I’m still in my Hello Kitty pajamas. I grab my book bag, with my school uniform stashed inside, and head for the bathroom.
Mags says, “What, Mary, you’re Octavia—too embarrassed to change in front of us?”
I say, “Close your curtains.”
“For what? We’re too high up for anyone to see us from the street. Nobody on the other side of the park has their binoculars out.”
Octavia says, “Let Gypsy Rose Lee change where she wants.”
“It’s fine,” I say. “I’m fine.” The sooner I get changed, the sooner I can go downstairs and meet Nick.
I take out my skirt and pull it over my pajama bottoms. The flannel against flannel has a clingy effect. The plaid pleats bunch up. I have to suck in my stomach to button the skirt over the pajamas’ thick elastic waistband. I notice my reflection in the dark terrace windows. I look like a circus bear wearing a tutu.
Nick looks like the last time I saw him.
In the same athletic shorts and Purser-Lilley T-shirt he wore in the principal’s office, Nick is standing barefoot on the terrace in front of Mag’s glass door.
chapter ten
You’d think we’d scream, and we do.
Nick’s arms are crossed to ward off the cold. His head is tucked into his throat. His curly black hair blows toward us. His curls cover his eyes. The winter wind is so fast and so strong that it rattles the glass terrace door in the frame. When I push the door open, Nick weaves out of the way, but he doesn’t come in.
He lifts his head.
His eyes are deepened and darkened by pupils dilated by the night to leave only an outline of brown. His lips are crimsoned but not cracked by the cold. He extends a hand, the palm of which is as dirty as I imagine the soles of his bare feet to be.
Mags says to him, “Are you crazy? Nobody’s coming out there with you!”
Octavia says, “He wants Mary.”
“I know, but it’s freezing outside. And now it’s freezing in here! Nick, get in so we can shut the door.”
I ask him, “How did you get up here? The fire escape? Why?”
Nick doesn’t answer me, so why ask him about his clothes—or lack thereof? He knows what he’s got on: a whole lot of nothing. His bare arm remains stretched toward me. He looks right at me as if my sister and the twins are not here.
The room is flushed with icy air. Marjorie’s teeth chatter, and she buzzes to make the chattering more pronounced. She wants me to hurry and make a choice. Am I in, or am I going out? I’m too frigid to budge. I’m stunned: at the temperature, at Nick’s strange tolerance of it, his unorthodox arrival, his intensity. I’m embarrassed. Even though I’m wearing my pajama bottoms, my skirt is whipping around my hips in the wind.
Nick speaks, and I see the clouds of his warm breath I’d imagined being close to. “Come out. I’ll explain everything.”
I’ll explain everything is what guilty people say in the movies. Usually, they are standing over a dead body or are with someone other than their spouse in their marital bed. You say it to someone you don’t want to disappoint. You have a history with that person and you don’t want that history to end. But Nick and I have never spoken until today. As Kathryn Ann would say about Nick, I don’t know him from Adam. Nobody else in Mags’s room knows Nick that well either.
Behind him, the warped pages of the spy novel flap on the lounge chair. A gust of wind swoops the open book up and off the roof like a bird. The Speedo is swept into a neon orange ball in the corner. What if the wind takes me too? The terrace lights aren’t lit. What if I step on something sharp, cut my foot wide open, and have to get stitches? What if a pigeon flies into my hair? What if there is a blanket of mice? What if?
What if? What if! What if a boy never again scales the side of a building to see me? I take Nick’s dirty hand and follow him into the night.
None of the girls stops me.
Octavia takes hold of the terrace doorknob to close it. As she struggles with the door’s heft against a rush of wind, Mags flicks off her bedroom lights as if she’s giving us privacy—but I know it’s really so they can spy on us without being seen. Marjorie yanks Mags’s comforter off the bed, squeezes past Octavia, and tosses it over my shoulders. As the terrace door shuts, I hear Mags shout at her sister through the glass.
“Hey! That’s my comforter! It’s gross out there. It’s gonna get stained. What am I going to sleep under?”
“What do you care, slob? We’ll sleep in my room.”
Marjorie and Octavia drag Mags through the twins’ shared bathroom to Marjorie’s side. I don’t overhear anything else from them. Mags’s bedroom lights remain out.
I can’t read Nick’s face because my eyes haven’t adjusted to the loss of light from the apartment. I’m floating with him again—but this time in blackness. Despite the comforter, pajamas, wool skirt, and socks, the spot where his hand is connected to mine is the warmest part of my body. He lets go. My hand is instantly colder.
The wind shoves me, and I worry I might tip over. I hug the comforter around my chest. I sense Nick move behind me. He lays his hands on my shoulders. He guides me to the lounge chair, where he sits and sinks into the plastic weave. Then, he pulls me into the cavern of his spread arms and legs.
Nick doesn’t get under the comforter with me. He holds me like I’m sitting upright in a sleeping bag. There is a fat, fluffy layer of feathers sewn into squares between my back and his chest. I am swaddled to my neck. Nick’s arms keep the comforter closed in front of my body. I hold my own hands.
I ask, “How are you not freezing to death?”
Nick presses his palms into the comforter. My belly grows warm under the pressure. He says, “That’s part of what I have to explain.”
“The turning?”
