Together at Midnight

by Jennifer Castle

  The line’s long. A second after we take our spot, a guy steps in behind us, a baby in a carrier strapped to his chest. He’s holding a little girl by one hand and in the other, a shopping bag overstuffed with a down comforter.

  The guy sighs, like he’s annoyed we got there first, and I’m annoyed that he’s annoyed.

  “Ow,” yells the girl. “You’re holding too tight!” She squirms out of his grip and shakes her hand.

  “Okay,” says the guy. “If you can be a big girl and stay with Daddy, you don’t have to hold my hand.”

  The girl nods, and we all stand there for ten seconds in silence.

  Then the kid turns and walks away.

  “Goddammit, Sophie!” the dad yells.

  Sophie slowly turns around and circles back to the line, then sticks her finger in her ear and starts digging for gold. Seconds later, she’s drifting again. It’s like I’m watching my own self from ten years ago.

  “You are going to be in so much trouble when I tell Mommy,” says the dad. The girl stamps one foot and marches back to the line.

  Emerson gives me a look. “Andrew wants kids someday,” he whispers. “I’d rather get a dog.”

  I glance at the dad and am mortified to see he’s staring at us. Clearly, he’s heard what Emerson said, but instead of being offended he just seems terribly sad.

  “Good call,” he says to Emerson. We all laugh, including the baby.

  The guy’s dad-radar must go off, because he snaps his head around and sure enough, his daughter is gone again.

  “I’m going to kill her!” he mutters, then looks at us, embarrassed. “Not really. Be right back . . .”

  When the dad returns a minute later with his daughter, she’s crying. “But I’m SO BORED!”

  “Sorry, sweetie. As soon as we’re done here, we’ll get you a treat. I promise.”

  The line moves forward and Emerson hangs back, motioning for them to go in front of us.

  “Thank you,” says the dad.

  I grab Emerson’s arm. “Hey! That was an RAK!”

  It takes Emerson a second to figure out that stands for Random Act of Kindness. He laughs. “You’re right.”

  “That wasn’t hard at all.”

  “Would you have thought of it?” he asks.

  “Yes!” I say. “I think. Pretty much.”

  Now we’re waiting again, and the little girl looks at me with these big, pleading eyes. Oh my God, I totally know how she feels because being the baby sister of three much older brothers, I was toted around a lot. I waited, a lot. When Mom took us all shopping, I’d climb inside the racks of boys’ clothing, feeling the stiff denim-like walls on either side of me. I made forts out of the folding seats of basketball gyms and collected flowers in the outfield of every baseball diamond in the county.

  Suddenly, I’m doing something without thinking: I’m pulling my phone from my coat pocket and turning on the camera. “Here,” I say to the girl. “Why don’t you take some pictures of us? I’m Kendall, and this is my brother Emerson.”

  Sophie takes the phone and points to the baby. “That’s my brother Aidan. But he’s asleep and boring.”

  I catch her father’s eye. “Is that okay?” I ask him, indicating the phone, and he nods.

  I put my arm around Emerson and make a goofy face while Emerson does bunny ears over my head. Sophie thinks this is the funniest thing she’s ever seen and takes about twenty-seven pictures.

  “Okay, now we need to do one like this,” I say, and grab Emerson in a headlock.

  More little-girl cackles as other people in the line turn around to watch. Sophie points the cell phone at her dad and snaps a picture of him smiling at her.

  “Take another,” he says. “I wasn’t ready.”

  He takes off the baby’s little wool cap and sticks it on top of his own head. This officially sends Sophie into hysteria.

  A customer service clerk waves over Sophie’s dad. When he steps up to the counter, Sophie doesn’t go with him and instead lingers with me. I show her an app on my phone that lets her distort the photos she just took. While her dad’s busy returning the mammoth comforter, she makes my features swirl around like water in a toilet bowl.

  Finally, the guy steps away from the counter and toward us.

  “Thank you again,” he says.

  “No problem,” I say. It really wasn’t.

  “Come on, kiddo.” He grabs Sophie’s hand and tugs her away. He’s holding so tight, I can see how much it probably hurts.

  When I look at my phone, it’s covered in dirty, sticky fingerprints, but I can’t help but smile.

  I find Max’s number in my purse and start typing a message to him.

  Guess what? I’m going to do Erica’s dare. Already one down.

  A few seconds later, he replies. For real?

  Was it for real? So I kept a kid entertained for a few minutes when she needed it most. Still, I could have stood there and continued to let her irritate the hell out of everyone. I’m going to count it.

  I have photographic proof and an eyewitness, I type to Max.

  I’m about to ask him to join me when another message comes in. This one’s from Andrew.

  Ken, I got some information on that girl. Call me.

  Brian Cheng

  I’M A GOOD HUSBAND AND THAT’S WHY I’VE VOLUNTEERED to take the kids out for the day. Stephanie needs to sleep. She needs to sleep in our bed with the comforter that’s been peed on a hundred times by cats as well as humans. I bought her another but it was the wrong size because I’m an idiot who doesn’t know the difference between a queen and a California king. She needs to sleep because she ran herself ragged making a perfect Christmas for the kids and I’m the one who got her a gift that has to be returned. Good job, douche bag.

  I need to sleep, too. What I wouldn’t give for a day of binge-watching Breaking Bad in my underwear. Sometimes, I wish I was seriously ill so I could get checked into a hospital for a little while.

  My problems aren’t unique. There are five billion families in New York City and we’re all just trying to make it work. “Move up to the suburbs,” some people say. “It’s better up here!” But Stephanie won’t. She can’t. She grew up in Manhattan and believes her kids should, too.

  Right now, fatherhood is basically this: the baby sleeps and cries and this carrier kills my back. Sophie adores me until she hates me and says, “Screw you, Daddy!” which is apparently something she learned from the doorman.

  And I am so tired. All the time. The kind of tired where you feel like you’re being tugged down into the earth’s core.

  Still. I look for moments of joy. When I see my children laughing. When I see something through their eyes, something I’ve seen a thousand times before and thought was stupid but now it’s awesome. I think kids exist mostly to remind us that not everything is stupid. That there’s still discovery in the world.

  But even with those moments, most of the time I’m looking for the village that’s supposed to be out there, willing to help me raise my family. I haven’t found it. Or maybe I have, but the villagers are chasing me down with torches. Because I’ve done nothing right. Every call has been a bad one and my kids are terrible, irreversible brats.

  Every once in a while, someone puts down the torch and holds out their hand. Like that brother and sister on line at Macy’s.

  That’s the world I want my kids to inherit.

  At which point, I’m getting into bed and watching Breaking Bad for about five weeks straight.

  Max

  ELIZA IS SCREAMING MY NAME. I CAN’T SEE HER. I can only hear her.

  She’s scared. She’s in pain. Truly in pain, and not just pretending. I’ve learned the difference.

  I can’t tell if someone’s hurting her. I can’t tell where she is, exactly. I’m on the playground at school and first, I hear her in front of me. Then, behind me. Then from somewhere above.

  Just to make things interesting and maybe a little cliché, a huge snake lo
ops itself around one of my ankles. It begins to squeeze tight.

  I wake up covered in sweat. The radiator by the window hissing. Late afternoon sun pours through the window, filtered by the glass into a million visible dust particles. And I am, in fact, hearing my name being called. Not by Eliza, but my grandfather.

  I didn’t mean to fall asleep. When I came back to the apartment after coffee with Kendall, Big E was out cold. I lay down in my dad’s bedroom to read. Must have crashed when the coffee wore off.

  “Max!”

  I sit up and shake the remaining fragments of the dream out of my head. Even though I couldn’t see her in the dream, Eliza’s face lingers. Her long black hair, so straight it always reminded me of a curtain. There were always streaks of blue where the light hit it the right way. Her dark eyes that always seemed to be pleading for something. When she was acting like she didn’t need anything, those eyes gave her away. I noticed it. Every time.

  In my mind, I see Eliza’s pale skin. Then I feel it. Soft and always a little cold. Her fingertips on my arm. Her mouth on my neck. All the blood in my body rushing toward her.

  And now I have a boner. Fantastic.

  No, I tell the Eliza-in-my-head. You don’t have this kind of power over me anymore.

  I’m just horny and lonely and lost. Anything would do it. Anyone.

  I get out of bed and pull on an extra sweatshirt. The last thing I need is Big E noticing my pants-tent. Although he would probably enjoy it. Tell me some stories I would be fascinated and horrified to hear.

  “Maxie!”

  “Just a sec!”

  I find Big E standing in the kitchen. As in on his feet and upright.

  “Big E!” I exclaim, and rush to his side. There’s really no reason for that. He’s bracing himself against the counter.

  “I was going to pour myself some coffee, but there’s none made.”

  “I fell asleep. Sorry. Had kind of a rough night.”

  I pull out one of the stools and he lowers himself onto it. For a moment, I wonder if the thing might break. It’s been around. Big E has always been tall. Like my dad, and like me. But now he’s wide, too. Which he has totally earned. I can’t wait to be allowed to get fat.

  “You and your friend up late?” he asks.

  “Yeah. Something happened on the street that shook us pretty hard.”

  As soon as I say them, I wish I could inhale the words back in. Big E is not the guy you pour your soul out to. He won’t have any words of wisdom. Not even something that sounds cryptic at first, but makes sense later. Only TV and movie grandpas do that.

  I start making his coffee. Despite everything I know about the universe, I find myself hoping he’ll ask me to elaborate. Tell me what happened, Maxie. This guy has lived in Manhattan most of his life. He’s seen some stuff, for sure. He might have some perspective stored away.

  Instead, he says, “I should have given you boys money to go to Shea O’Malley’s, so you could have a few for me.”

  I start to say the obvious. We’re underage. I don’t like bars. But that’s against the policy of Yes that I’ve been asked to stick to.

  “Yes, that would have been fun,” I say.

  “I once met Mickey Mantle at that place,” says Big E.

  I’m sure this is bullshit. “That must have been amazing.”

  “It was.” Big E proceeds to tell me the details of the night he met Mickey Mantle at Shea O’Malley’s, and I act as interested as I can. My eyes throw darts of Yes Yes Yes back at him. This is the respectful thing to do. I repeat that in my head like a mantra.

  When the coffee’s done, I do up his cup the way he likes it: black, with a cane field’s worth of sugar. I push the cup toward him and he wraps his huge palms around it. This makes me think of Kendall. Of sitting across from her earlier, watching her obliterate that poor coffee with creamer. And I get this sensation of better. I feel better about what happened between her and me that night last summer. The regret, the mortification, the need to make things okay with Eliza even though at the time I knew in my heart we were over.

  So, what about this Random Acts of Kindness dare?

  I know why it’s so tempting. I feel the need to pay someone, or something, back for being a bystander. Maybe that was why I had the Eliza dream.

  I will never, ever not be worried about her.

  My damn fingers. There they go again, straight for her damn number on my damn phone. I go into the bathroom and shut the door.

  “Hey,” says Eliza when she picks up. It’s her baseline voice. She could be doing anything and her voice wouldn’t tip me off. Riding a horse, or reading the paper, or in the middle of sex.

  “Just calling to see . . . how was your Christmas?” I can’t tell her I had a dream that she was in trouble.

  “Boring. The way I like it.”

  She doesn’t have to explain to me. Boring means her parents aren’t fighting. It means that her mom is still in AA.

  “Did you see Eileen this week?” Eileen is her therapist. I feel like I need to ask. Like she still needs me to.

  “Yes, sir,” says Eliza. “I hear you’re grandpa-sitting.”

  “You talked to Jamie?”

  “Yeah, yesterday. He said he was headed into the city to hang out with you.”

  So he didn’t tell her about Kendall. Thank God for some common sense.

  I hear her draw in a breath. “I’d love to do that, too. Come in and see you. I miss your stupid face.”

  I miss her stupid face, too. Her enraging, bitchy, luminous face.

  “Let’s talk in a few days,” I say. “If they can’t find a new aide right away, I’ll still be here.”

  Because where else will I go? I have nine months until Brown. A giant empty basin to fill with something besides wasted time and possibilities.

  “What about New Year’s?” she asks. “If you’re there, I should be there, too.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Too much baggage?”

  “Uh, just a bit.”

  “Max, you don’t own New York. You can’t ban me from the city.”

  No, I can’t ban her. I don’t want to. What I want to do is spend New Year’s Eve with her and not eating pickled herring and crackers in front of the TV, saying yes over and over again.

  “I gotta go,” I whisper, because it takes all my strength to resist her like this. “Talk to you soon.”

  We say good-bye. I take a deep breath. Then it comes, an understanding that glimmers in the growing light.

  You idiot, says a voice inside me. The dream was about Luna.

  Big E is ready to move back to his chair. I watch him walk, slowly and steadily. He doesn’t want people putting their hands on him if not mortally necessary. I’m supposed to just watch him and be ready to . . . I don’t know, call 911 if he falls? I have never felt so completely useless.

  Once he’s settled in, I hand him the remote. Fill up his water bottle.

  “I’m going out for a walk,” I say. “Call me if you need anything.”

  He doesn’t answer because he’s already focused on the TV. I stuff my feet into my boots, grab my coat. Fly out of there faster than ever.

  I’m halfway through the lobby when my phone rings. Kendall’s name glows on the screen.

  “Max?” she says when I answer.

  “Hey!” I sound way, way too excited to hear from her. “Did you really score a kindness?”

  She laughs. “I did.” She proceeds to tell me about it. I wish I’d been there. I would have done the same. I think. I hope.

  “Nice,” I say. “One down, for sure.”

  “Listen, I have some news about Luna. She’s alive.”

  “How do you know?”

  “My brother’s boyfriend is a journalist. He called the publicity people for all the nearby hospitals and cashed in a favor. But that’s all they could tell him. Critical, but stable.”

  “That’s great,” I say.

  “She could be in re
ally bad shape.”

  “Let’s focus on the positive.”

  “We may never know more than that.”

  “Not ideal, sure,” I say. “But better than nothing.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Kendall sighs.

  “Did you tell Jamie this news, too?” I ask. “He’ll want to know.”

  “I left him a message.”

  Another silence. Ugh.

  The next thing comes out of my mouth on its own, without my permission. I swear. “What are you doing right now?”

  “Getting ready for dinner and a show with my mom. Why?”

  “Do you have plans tomorrow?”

  Kendall pauses. “No.”

  “Let’s meet up.”

  Another pause. “Will you do this dare thing with me?”

  “Sure.” If it gets me out of the apartment, absolutely.

  Kendall’s quiet for a moment. I really want her to say yes. I don’t want another day of hanging out by myself, because I suck at it.

  “Okay,” she finally says. “I know exactly where to go. Want to meet me on the corner of Park and Fiftieth Street?”

  We figure out a time to meet, then hang up. This is good. I feel better.

  Then I see a flash of Kendall’s face from this morning. Freckles on her nose, auburn hair twirled around a finger, green eyes blinking slowly closed, then open.

  I feel the blood flowing again.

  God, I’m disturbed.

  Kendall

  “IT’S A CLOSET,” SAYS MY MOTHER.

  “It’s a guest room and a closet,” chirps Emerson. “A Groset. Hey, Andrew! I just came up with a new word!”

  My brother moves off toward the kitchen, leaving Mom and me alone in the closet doorway. She gives me a dubious look, then steps all the way into the small space and sits on the bed. I can tell she’s still angry with me from the way the corners of her mouth keep twitching.

  “How is this better than being at home?” she asks, her voice a flat line.

  “Uh, because it’s in a city full of fun stuff to do? And I get to spend some time with Emerson. I won’t see him much after I go back to school.”