Dan gave me a beatific smile, then turned away. After he shut the door, I stared out the window, even though it was just a view of an airshaft, until my vision blurred. My mind felt thick, deep, and soundless. An airless vacuum in deep space.
When Phineas came out of the room, he seemed refreshed, as if he’d just stepped out of a hot shower. I ushered him out of the apartment quickly, lest Dan accost me again. “I’m sorry about that guy,” I said when we were back on the street. “He was a last-minute suggestion from a friend.”
“Are you kidding? He was totally on point.” Phineas’s eyes gleamed. “Everything he told me was eerily accurate. He was the best psychic ever.”
“So what did you talk about?”
He looked at me square. His eyes were copper-colored, like shiny coins, and they made something inside me shimmer. For a moment, it looked like he was about to say something serious, perhaps about what Dan had said to me.
If it was about me, I decided, I would leave. Right then. Screw V. I didn’t care.
But then he said, “I asked for all the upcoming lottery numbers for next year. And which stocks are going to hit. And which team I should bet on in cricket. I’m sick of this songwriting shit. I want to make money the easy way.”
My mouth fell open. “Psychics can do that?”
He dissolved into laughter. “Of course not. We talked about my goals for the coming year.” He hooted some more. “But wouldn’t that be nice?” Then he looped his arm through my elbow. “Come on. How about we check out Central Park?”
I blinked. I thought about saying that I needed to go back to work, but then I thought of the stares, my blinking computer screen, and hours of nothing to do. Phineas’s coppery eyes met mine, and it was decided. If Phineas wanted to see the park, we’d see the park.
I pointed toward the avenue to the left. “It’s that way. Let’s go.”
— — — —
On Seventy-Second Street, Phineas paused in front of the Dakota and remarked that he couldn’t believe John Lennon had been shot outside a structure so beautiful. Inside the park, I led him to Strawberry Fields and pointed out the Imagine mosaic. There were a few rose petals strewn over the words. I shuddered, remembering the last time I’d seen flowers strewn over a cold, gray slab.
“You all right?” Phineas asked.
“Want to go see the big fountain that overlooks the pond?” I asked brightly, pretending not to hear. “It’s been in a million movies.”
I walked hurriedly there, avoiding bikers and joggers and an NYPD cop on a Segway. Phineas matched my pace, his arms swinging. “You’re a fast walker.”
“Everyone in New York walks this fast.” I pointed past the fountain to the sun-dappled water, my voice overly loud. “I think I’ve seen at least ten people tip their rowboats into that lake. So embarrassing, right?”
Phineas’s gaze remained on me for a beat, but then he dutifully looked at the boats. Across the water, waiters scurried to and fro at the boathouse restaurant. My mother used to take me there every summer before Shakespeare in the Park. We’d order oysters, which I loved but she hated. I could still picture her face when she drank one down—her scrunched-up eyes and puckered mouth. Sometimes she pretended to choke to make me laugh.
I flinched, pushing the memory away. When I looked over, Phineas was tapping on his phone. Then his gaze fell to a girl across the fountain who was playing a game on a handheld tablet. She kept swearing under her breath and kicking out her legs kung-fu style. “She’s really getting into that,” I muttered.
“If my mom were doing her family tree,” Phineas mused, “that lady would be known as Addicted to Candy Crush.”
I looked up at him. “Huh?”
He pushed his hair out of his eyes. “My mother is really into our family tree, especially our various traits. But not like, how I got my blue eyes from Uncle Derrick or whatever—more random stuff. She writes it all down. Thinks she’s an anthropologist. Has a little book on us and everything. Anyway, it’s how I assess everyone these days. And that girl on the bench? Her genealogical marker would be Addicted to Candy Crush. Or whatever it is she’s playing.”
I cocked my head. “What were some other traits?”
“Let’s see. Mean streak. That’s one. Apparently that flourished in Aunt Sadie and passed on to my brother. Can’t stay away from pretzels is another gem. And Incredible lung capacity. I had a great-grandfather who could remain underwater for three and a half minutes, and he passed that on to me. I’m gifted at underwater swimming.”
I thought for a moment. “My father has this thing about loading the dishwasher. If our housekeeper hasn’t put the forks in just right, he’ll do it all over. That’s the first thing he goes to when he gets home—the dishwasher, to make sure those forks are all facing the same way. So that could be his. Forks must all point a certain way.”
He nodded. “My father is like that, except with plants. He won’t pull up anything, not even a weed. Lover of plants, not people.”
I held up a finger. “How about Hates the sound of chewing?”
“Ah, yes, very much a thing.” Phineas tilted his head toward the sky and thought for a moment. “And then there’s Won’t go out in the rain. Terrible with children. Thinks dinosaurs existed at the time of Jesus.”
“Has trouble with map-reading,” I threw in, laughing a little. At least, I think it was a laugh. It was an unfamiliar sound, coming from me.
“Picks nose and rolls it into a little ball.”
I giggled. “Cleans fingernails with edge of paper.”
“Can’t remember birthdays.”
“Still obsessed with Christmas,” I said, and then added, “That would be mine.” Or, well, that had been mine. Before. All at once, I wished it were still mine. I wished loving Christmas still defined me.
He leaned against the railing. Our eyes met, and I felt chills down my spine. There was something so inviting about his gaze. “What’s the best Christmas present you’ve ever received?” he asked.
“A book about Easter Island.” My answer was automatic.
He smiled. “Ah, yes. Those heads. Who gave you that?”
“My mother.” I averted my eyes.
“Ah.” Phineas nodded. “She must be good at picking out gifts. Maybe that’s her trait.”
“She . . .” I stopped before I gave the new, knee-jerk answer. “Yes. That is her trait,” I finished. I smiled. It felt like a new light had come into the room. It was nice putting my mother in the present tense again. I liked bringing her back to life.
— — — —
We went into Belvedere Castle and looked at the papier-mâché birds. We walked through the sports fields and watched a game of kiddie T-ball. We raced to the reservoir. I won. We stood at the gate, staring at the tranquil water. The city sparkled over the tufted tops of the trees. The air felt fresher here, and it was almost like I could breathe a little easier, too.
Suddenly, Phineas turned to me. Ran his eyes over my face. I felt a thrill, like I was in a roller-coaster car that had just descended a huge hill. “Have dinner with me tonight,” he said.
I was so stunned that I laughed. “What?”
“At my hotel. I’m so sick of restaurants. I’ll make you macaroni and cheese,” he answered.
“From the box?” I asked.
“Well, yes, because that’s probably all I could manage in a microwave. If that’s okay.”
There was a lump in my throat. “O-okay.”
He touched my hand. I stared at it, not knowing what to do, and then there was a flicker of . . . something. A jolt. “But before that, I have to do something first,” he said.
He started down the steps and led me to the little stone area across from Ninetieth Street and Fifth Avenue. Someone standing next to a water fountain waved at him, and I did a double take. Had Grayson followed us here?
“Here you go, man,” Grayson said, handing Phineas an instrument case. Phineas grabbed it, slapping him on the back
. As I whirled around, a crowd had gathered by the statue of Fred Lebow, the famous runner. Someone was setting up a microphone and several amplifiers. People were talking on their phones. I saw a few girls from the V office gathered by the road, texting and talking. A fan shrieked when she saw Phineas, and others started cheering.
Phineas broke away from Grayson and trotted back to me, registering my confusion. “I’m doing a pop-up concert. I thought of it as we were walking, and Grayson was on board. We leaked details on Instagram and Snapchat an hour ago.” He spread out his arms. “Surprise!”
“Oh,” I said weakly. I wasn’t upset he hadn’t told me before—it wasn’t like anyone told me anything—but I was disappointed that my time with Phineas had ended. Now I had to share him with all these people.
“You’ll stay, right?” Phineas’s hand was on my arm again. He looked hopeful and almost scared, like he’d done something wrong. “Please stay.”
“Sure,” I said, managing a smile. Phineas beamed, and after patting me on the shoulder, he ambled to a roadie fiddling with a microphone. A girl passed in front of me wearing a Phineas Cleary T-shirt. Phineas’s face was on the front, his brow furrowed in concentration. His eyes looked bottomless.
After a moment, Grayson sidled over. “Going all right?” He’d changed into a Buzzcocks T-shirt, a pair of black skinny jeans, and worn Dr. Martens. There was a cigarette tucked behind one ear, a Bluetooth earpiece in the other.
“It’s fine,” I said, suddenly noticing that the bottom of my dress was muddy from all the walking.
“I’m shocked Phineas was up for this,” Grayson mused. “Usually when he’s in town, he keeps to himself. Stays in his room. What did you say to get him to do a pop-up concert?”
I shrugged. “Nothing. Just showed him around the park.”
Grayson was about to say something when Phineas tapped the microphone. All heads swiveled his way, including mine. He strummed a chord, then launched into a song. At the very first note, my breath froze in my chest. His voice was molten. The guitar was angelic. Chills danced up my spine; goose bumps prickled my arms.
Everyone else was transfixed, too, staring at Phineas as though he were a newly discovered species. Girls in Phineas T-shirts swayed and mouthed the words. And I found myself mouthing the words, too, even though that made no sense—I’d never heard his songs before now. Suddenly, I realized why: This was an old song from the eighties, “Bizarre Love Triangle.” One of my mother’s favorites.
I felt a walnut-size lump in my throat. I cupped my hand over my mouth and dove through the crowd, staggering across the street out of the park and coming to a stop in front of a Fifth Avenue high-rise.
I placed my hands over my face, trying to blot out the world, but the sickness and the spinning and the clenching feeling inside me was still there. “Oh God,” I whispered, because that cold, airless space in my mind didn’t feel so airless anymore. I couldn’t stop picturing my aunt Rosie shaking me awake that awful morning. Clara, she’d whispered, her voice urgent. I’d known what she was going to say even before I opened my eyes. I’d tried to stay awake through my mother’s last night on earth, but I’d failed. My mother was still lying in the hospital bed when Rosie brought me in, but it wasn’t her anymore. Her skin was gray. Her lips were blue. There was something so empty about her that I’d stalled in the doorway, afraid, my whole being freezing hard and solid.
“Clara?”
I shot up, peering through blurry, teary vision. Phineas stood on the sidewalk, his guitar still slung across his chest. He was out of breath. He looked so tall all of a sudden. So singularly big in a city of tiny people.
“Wh-what are you doing?” I demanded. “I-is your concert over?” He shook his head. “I walked out right in the middle of a song. I saw you run off. I was worried.”
I turned stiffly away from him, noticing the Metropolitan Museum in the distance, stretching a full city block like an aircraft carrier. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
Phineas flung the guitar to one side so that it hung purselike on his hip. “Someone needs to worry about you.”
I turned on him, ready to lash out. Everyone was already worried about me, I wanted to say. Everyone stared at me like I was a freak, mostly because I didn’t want to talk, mostly because I didn’t cry, mostly because I was numb. But didn’t they realize I was trying to spare them from my pain?
But when I opened my mouth to tell Phineas this, a sob came out instead. It was weak, not much more than a kitten’s cry. I pressed my lips together, mortified, and my angry spell was broken. “Go back to your concert,” I begged. “Everyone loves you. Everyone wants to hear you. Just go.”
“Clara,” Phineas said softly, touching my hands. “Listen. The concert doesn’t matter. I just . . .” He paused, collecting himself. “I’ve been wandering around this country, on this fucking tour, for weeks. It’s lonely. People talk around you, there’s always someone there, but it’s fucking lonely. And I think you understand that.”
A gust of wind pressed against my side. I did understand. The day my mother died, I was immediately surrounded. It was like people thought if I was left alone, I might slip away, too. Even now, whenever I came home, there was a housekeeper there, or a tutor, or the dog walker. Cars waited for me at the curb to take me to friends’ houses, activities, volunteer opportunities.
But the company felt lonelier than being alone did. At least if I was alone, I could be myself. I could make my own choices. I could grieve. With people, I was always in this smiling in-between, wanting to cry but feeling I had to put up a front that I was healing.
“You made me feel less lonely today,” Phineas said. “You made me feel less lost.”
A single bead of sweat dripped down his forehead, dampening his hair. I wanted to be angry, I wanted to be tough, but suddenly I felt dough-soft. “You really left the concert for me?” I asked in a small voice.
“I really did.”
“My father runs the parent company that owns this label. You knew that, yes?” I blurted out.
“Yes.” He lowered his eyes. “But I only just found out. I asked Grayson who you were before I went on.”
“And my mother. Grayson told you that, too?”
His throat bobbed. “I’m really sorry, Clara. I wish I’d known.”
The look on his face had shifted into something so heartbreakingly sad, I actually wanted to hug him. But then I shrugged. “Well, it’s probably better she isn’t here to see me working at V. She always kind of hated that my dad had a record label. She thought record labels stole artists’ souls.”
Phineas just looked at me. A taxi swished by, letting out a loud honk.
“And I’m so much better off, really,” I heard myself go on, as though my mouth had separated from my body. “She was always telling me to fix my hair and look nice for company and not to eat with my fingers. Now I can eat with my fingers whenever I want.” I grimaced. It sounded so absurd. “Except . . . I don’t want to eat with my fingers.” My voice cracked. “And I want someone to tell me to fix my hair. I want her to tell me. Except I’m supposed to be strong. I’m not strong, though. And it’s crap. It’s. All. Crap.”
I stared at him, challengingly. I waited for him to say something pitying or to ignore my outburst, like my father did, or suggest I needed to visit my shrink, like my father also did.
Phineas’s eyes flicked back and forth, as if he was slowly processing every inch of the moment: the smell of the sewer, the sound of the traffic, the glinting crystal collar on the dog passing by. Then he tipped his mouth to my ear. “Before I left school, we were studying volcanoes. Not the way they work, but the cultural stories behind them. I know every volcano myth known to man, not just the ones about sacrifice. There was this one about Pele, Hawaii’s volcano goddess. She got angry a lot, and whenever she did, she could make volcanoes erupt. She stomped her feet and caused earthquakes and created other fiery devastations by slamming her walking stick into the ground. You just look
at Pele the wrong way and she’d wreak a natural disaster on you. I thought she was awesome. A real warrior, you know? A strong woman. She could make shit happen.”
“Huh,” I said, laughing unconvincingly, because I didn’t know where this was going.
“I look at you, and I see Pele,” Phineas said to me, taking both of my hands in his and shaking them. “You are Pele. You just don’t know it.”
I stared back at him, wanting to laugh. It sounded like more mumbo jumbo, like his devotion to psychics. And I so wasn’t Pele. I was about as far from Pele as one could get. Was there a mealy-mouthed goddess? A scared, defeated goddess? That’s who I’d be.
But when he said it again—you are Pele—I shut my eyes and tried to imagine it. I tried to picture myself conjuring up high winds, driving rain, even a tsunami.
As I made myself Pele, the wind around us began to blow. And then, like magic, it started to rain. I opened my eyes and stared at the wet drops hitting the sidewalk. “Holy shit,” I whispered.
Phineas gaped at me. “Holy shit,” he echoed. Then I noticed. A man was hosing off the sidewalk in front of a luxury high-rise, and some of the spray had hit our backs. It wasn’t rain at all, just hose water. But still. For those moments, I’d felt like Pele. I’d created rain.
I looked at Phineas and started to laugh. And cry, too. Phineas pulled me toward him. My hip hit his guitar, and the strings made a dissonant clang, but I barely noticed because his lips were suddenly touching mine. I closed my eyes, my heart thudding so hard it was making me tremble, and I felt him pull me closer, closer, until we were stuck together, until we were melded into one. Then we pulled back and laughed. His eyes crinkled, and the tears ran down my cheeks, and he pressed his forehead to mine and then kissed my temples, my nose, my lips. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s really okay. It’s like what Dan said. Someday, you’ll be yourself again. But you know what? That doesn’t have to be today.”
Meet Cute Page 9
