Together at Midnight

by Jennifer Castle

  “Count me out,” says Eliza. “One of my cosplay friends is playing in a band at a bar in Chelsea, so Max and I will make our way over there.”

  “We will?” I ask her.

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Which friend?”

  “Captain America.” I know Captain America. Who happens to be a girl.

  “But that’s not until later, I’m sure,” I tell Eliza. “Why don’t we hang out with these guys until then?”

  I’d like to watch how Jamie is with Kendall. Holy shit, I am a helicopter parent.

  “I have a list of places I want to go,” says Eliza. “Easier if it’s just the two of us.”

  She still seems uncharacteristically happy. Then I look at the others. My eyes meet Kendall’s. She’s studying my face.

  The waiter comes to collect the check.

  “You guys head outside,” I suggest. “I’ll wait for the change.”

  “Me, too,” says Kendall.

  After they leave, Kendall turns to me.

  “If you don’t want to spend the day with Eliza, don’t spend the day with Eliza.”

  “I invited her.”

  “You regret it.”

  “Yes, I do. I was relieved when she showed up with other people.”

  “Then stay with us! Besides, we have three kindnesses left.” Kendall smiles playfully. I wish so hard that we could be back where we were two days ago. With nothing but a city and a dare. Hours of pavement and conversation. Kendall’s face framed by her blue stocking cap and auburn hair.

  The restaurant door opens. Eliza peeks her head in. “Come on, Maxie!” she barks. Saying only my name, to make it obvious she’s not saying Kendall’s. She pauses for a moment, then closes the door again.

  “I should go,” I say.

  Kendall shakes her head. “You’re sad.”

  I slip on my coat. “I know.”

  She turns and leaves the restaurant. I hang back. Through the window, I see her step into the middle of Jamie, Camden, and Ari. Watch them move off together, leaving Eliza standing alone.

  Then I go out to fulfill my duty.

  “So,” I say when I get out onto the sidewalk. “Where to?”

  “Can we go to Times Square? So I can say I was there on New Year’s Eve. Nobody has to know it was at two in the afternoon.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “It’ll be our secret shame.” We start walking, and as we maneuver around a snowbank I ask, “So, tell me more about your Christmas.”

  “Max, you don’t have to ask me these questions. Like you have a list of what’s safe territory for your ex-girlfriend.”

  “What if I actually, truly want to know the truth. How was it, really?”

  Eliza sighs. “Of course, it was shitty.”

  “Your mom?”

  “My mom, my dad, the whole stupid holiday. If it weren’t for all the money I get, I would skip the whole thing.”

  “I thought your mom had been going to meetings.”

  “She has been. But she hasn’t been completely sober, either.”

  I stop so suddenly that Eliza bumps into me. “Has she been, you know?”

  “She slapped me once,” says Eliza. “I slapped her back.”

  “You did not.”

  “I did.”

  Eliza’s mother is an alcoholic. When Eliza’s mother drinks, she hits Eliza. Her father knows about the drunk part, but not about the hitting. Eliza’s never told him, because she knows he would leave her mom. Which would pretty much kill her. Despite the hitting, Eliza doesn’t want a dead mom. She’s always said she can handle it. I’m not so sure.

  The light changes and we continue on.

  Eliza takes my hand and asks lightly, “Are you seeing anyone?”

  “When would I have an opportunity to date? I’m living at home and working as many hours as I can to earn money for school.” I don’t mention that this is a situation indirectly caused by her.

  “Maybe you should stay at your grandfather’s,” she says. “Get a job in the city until the fall.”

  “I think that would hurt my dad’s feelings. He likes having me around to help out with stuff.”

  She’s silent for a moment, then says, “Is that really true? Or is that just an excuse?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re eighteen and you seem scared to death about starting your life.”

  “I’m not scared. My life starts in September. At Brown.”

  “How about sooner than that?”

  “I didn’t think you wanted to get rid of me so quickly.”

  Eliza freezes and pushes me, with both hands, sideways. “Enough of that! Max, I never asked you to defer college!”

  “I know.”

  “Then stop blaming it on me!”

  In a tumble of clarity, I see I’ve been completely wrong. Wrong to invite Eliza here, wrong to think she needed to see me, wrong to think I had anything to offer her. Maybe this is why she seems so different. She’s grown up a bit. Evolved, while I’ve stayed the same.

  “Okay,” I say. Like a moron. Like a child.

  We’re here now. Times Square. It’s already packed. The barricades are up. The cops are plentiful. Eliza raises her face to the nearest video billboard and squints at it like it’s a new version of the sun.

  “Ah!” she says. “The beating heart!” She loops her arm in mine. We wander around a bit, letting the river of people push us one way, then another.

  Someone’s built a family of snowmen in the street. These are high-end snowmen. Expertly carved figures that almost look fake. I wonder how early someone had to get out here after the blizzard, to build these before the snow turned black and useless. It was a strange act of grace to create the snow sculpture and then leave it for people to discover.

  Eliza goes over and gives one a hug.

  Something is up, for sure.

  Kendall

  CAMDEN LEADS US TO A BUS SHELTER, CONFIDENT that if we hop on the next one it’ll take us where we want to go, but I hang back.

  “Do they know about what happened?” I ask Jamie.

  “I told them, yeah.”

  “Would I seem like a total freak if I refused to get on a bus?”

  Jamie looks squarely at me. “No, of course not. But I think you should tackle this particular issue right now. If I can get on, so can you.”

  He’s right and I know it. I look to Ari and she just nods, and then here comes a bus, so there’s that added pressure.

  “Okay,” I say, and take a deep breath.

  The bus squeals to a stop and I focus on keeping my eyes straight ahead of me, because if I do that I can’t see the street and picture Luna there. Still, I hesitate before taking that first step on. Then another, and another, and suddenly I’m on the bus and it’s moving.

  It’s crowded, so we stand. Jamie gets stuck a few people away from me, but Camden and Ari hang on to the same pole. They lean into each other, he circles her waist with his arm, and they both shoot me an identical concerned look. Ari offers a questioning thumbs-up.

  I answer with my own thumbs-up, which will stay up as long as I don’t imagine all the things in front of the bus that can be hit by the bus.

  An older woman gets on, laden down with shopping bags. A guy wearing headphones gets up for her, offers her his seat. She nods once in a really businesslike manner, then sits. I know this gesture is part of an unwritten code of easy-peasy kindness, but still. There’s something simple and beautiful about it, like a reliable miracle.

  At the next stop, a seat opens up and Jamie motions for me to take it. I do, then he drops his messenger bag onto my lap.

  “Just for a second,” he says, smiling mischievously. He reaches into the bag and this feels intimate, awkward, until he pulls out a camera. It’s not his big one with the expensive lens. This one is small and funky looking and could totally be a toy.

  “My Holga.” Jamie adds, “Lightweight and perfect for the city, in more ways than one.”

  He s
tarts taking pictures through the bus window and I can’t tell what’s catching his eye. Maybe nothing, maybe just the city itself. I think back to all the photos we exchanged over the last few months, and it suddenly occurs to me: almost all of my photos were of people, while almost all of his were of buildings, signs, or landscapes. At the time, it felt like a conversation . . . but what if we were simply talking at each other without listening?

  To pass the ride, I look around the bus at the faces of the passengers and begin assigning names in my head, starting with the guy across from me, who is positively, definitely Norman.

  Eventually, Camden shouts, “We should get off at the next stop!”

  We do, and when the bus pulls away, there’s the arch of Washington Square Park. Jamie aims the Holga at the arch and starts snapping. Camden waits for him, but Ari tucks her arm into mine and we start crossing the street.

  “Between his photos and your characters, you guys make quite the team,” says Ari.

  “At least we don’t run around the county fair wearing costumes,” I reply, and Ari smiles knowingly. She and Camden were into cosplaying an old sci-fi series last summer, and I wonder if that’s still a thing for them. I’ve been so out of the loop, I don’t know anything about their relationship now. How often do they see each other? Where do they spend time? Have they had sex?

  “Have you and Camden had sex?” I blurt out.

  Ari laughs, nervous. “Uh, sort of.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Not really.”

  “Okay. Well, I did.”

  “Did what?”

  “Had sex.”

  Ari grabs my elbow and we freeze. “First of all, why are you bringing this up right now? And second of all, WHAT?”

  “I guess I was eager to tell you,” I say.

  “Where did this happen? With who?”

  “Ireland. His name was Declan.”

  “Okay.” She pauses. “Go, Ireland.”

  “I wasn’t ready to tell anyone. It seemed weird to email you to announce the evaporation of my virginity.”

  “Evaporation of my virginity. Nice. That would make a good album title,” says Ari.

  “Or a book,” I add. “God, I missed you.”

  I pull her aside and we sit on a park bench. Jamie and Camden have walked through the arch now and we watch them. Jamie stops, positions his camera to get a shot of a tree. I tilt my head sideways to figure out what might be special about it but it’s just a tree, spindly and naked and bored.

  Ari’s staring at me, studying my face, and I wonder what she sees. I wonder what looks different (hopefully something looks different).

  “It was great, right?” she asks. “Your trip?”

  “I can’t really use single adjectives to describe it.” I also feel like the more I talk about it, the more sparkle it loses. “But basically, being able to learn stuff without being stressed out about papers and tests, well, that was everything.”

  “I got that from your blog.”

  “You read the blog?”

  “Duh. Why wouldn’t I?” Ari smiles. “Although I was worried when you stopped posting. I had to check with your mom to make sure you were still alive.”

  “I got busy,” I say. But Ari knows me, which means she knows I stopped posting because I simply stopped. Because I stop everything, after a while. If my best friend, who gets mostly As and works in her family’s art supply store and babysits her little half sister, judges me for this, she never lets on. I have always fit in with her, even though on paper we shouldn’t click together so easily. God, I’m so happy to see her right now, today, tonight, and at the beginning of next year.

  Camden and Jamie crack up about something, and Ari and I watch them some more, because we can’t not watch two boys laughing, especially if they’re two boys we’ve kissed.

  Then I ask Ari, “What happens to you guys after graduation?”

  She winces and takes a deep breath. “Don’t know. Camden’s not interested in any of the colleges I am, except for one. Some are near each other, some aren’t. We’ve decided to apply to whatever we’re going to apply to and see how it shakes out.”

  They’re on the edge of everything changing, and this may be a selfish thought but I don’t care—I’m relieved that I’m not the only one who doesn’t know what happens next.

  Here comes Jamie.

  “Wanna walk with me?” he asks.

  I nod and stand up, and he flashes me this delicious grin before I follow him deeper into the park.

  He’s one thing that will happen next. That’s way more than enough.

  Max

  I SPOT THE COUPLE WHILE ELIZA AND I ARE WAITING for a light to change. They’re youngish, in their twenties maybe. Wearing similar parkas and gigantic backpacks. He’s got a guidebook, she’s got a phone. Arguing at an empanada truck in a language that sounds like it hurts your throat.

  Arguing, like Luna and the guy. The kind of arguing that makes you smile at first, because let’s face it, it’s funny. Funny to get a peek at how couples talk to each other when they’re mad. Funny because, oh phew, you’re not alone. It’s a universal truth: sometimes people in a relationship act shitty to each other.

  In this case, though, it’s not serious. Not scary. I can see it in the way she rolls her eyes at him. The way he lets out a long, frustrated sigh. I step closer to them and hold my hand up in a half wave.

  “Excuse me,” I say. “Are you two okay? Do you need help?”

  Eliza’s confused. I feel her tug questioningly at my coat sleeve, then let go. I know this isn’t fair. She doesn’t have any context about the dare with Kendall. But I make a split-second decision not to tell her.

  The guy frowns, shakes his head. Motions with his hand. A be gone type of gesture that should be enough to make me exit the scene, swearing at them under my breath. But the woman nods eagerly.

  “I speak English,” she says. “He doesn’t. We need help, yes.”

  “What’s the problem?” I ask.

  “We are trying to go to the High Line. My husband says, we must go all the way down here.” She shows me a map on her phone. Points to a dot labeled Whitney Museum. “But I say no, we can walk across and find it here, yes?” Her finger travels up to Thirty-Fourth Street.

  “Well,” I say. “You can start from either end. But personally, I like the north end. You can’t see it on the map but it goes out onto an old pier. Nice view of the river.”

  I only know this because three months before my grandmother died, when she’d started a new drug that made her feel great for about a day, she took me to that pier. We leaned against the railing and watched a cruise ship head out to the ocean. We didn’t talk. She just rested her hand over mine on the railing. It’s one of my favorite memories of anyone ever.

  “Ah, so I am right!” the woman says. “Then we walk, yes? That way for a few streets, then down?”

  “Yes. Or you could take the subway.”

  The woman shakes her head. “No subway. Too confusing.”

  Her husband says something to her, his voice filled with disgust.

  “You’ve never been on the New York subway?” asks Eliza.

  The woman shrugs. Now I see she’s embarrassed.

  “Why don’t we take you?” I hear myself saying. “The station’s right there and it’s a quick ride.”

  The woman looks me up and down, then Eliza. Checking for some ulterior motive, I’m sure.

  “It’s okay?” she asks. I’m not sure what “it” truly is, but I nod.

  The woman speaks to her husband, and he really gives us the once-over. I’ve been scanned less thoroughly at airports. He asks her a question.

  “Do we have to pay you?” she translates.

  “No, not at all. This is just something nice.”

  “Something nice,” she says, trying out the words. She repeats them (I think) in her language. Her husband scowls.

  I can’t explain it, but it feels extra important to finish the dare no
w. Without Kendall. On my own.

  I point to the subway entrance across the street. When I start walking, the others follow.

  Now we all get to wait awkwardly on a subway platform. The woman looks nervous. She keeps shuffling her feet and can’t seem to stand still. Gosh, it’s only a train traveling in tunnels under the ground. Get a grip.

  “I’m Max, by the way,” I offer. “And this is Eliza.”

  “I’m Kerstin,” the woman says.

  “Aksel,” says her husband. No eye contact. He pretends to be fascinated by a Food Network poster.

  “Where are you from?” I ask.

  “Munich,” Kerstin replies. German. Duh!

  “First time in New York?” asks Eliza.

  “For him, yes,” says Kerstin. “I came here as a teenager. I lived with a family in Connecticut for one year.”

  “An exchange student?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says, smiling. “It was a great time.”

  I almost say, A friend of mine just spent a semester in Europe, but catch myself. As another painful silence settles over us, I furtively send a text message to Kendall. I tell her I have Kindness Number Five covered, details to come.

  A train comes and we step on. I spot two seats and motion for Eliza and Kerstin to take them. Aksel stands facing away from me, his backpack in my face. Charming. We ride in silence toward the Hudson Yards station.

  Kerstin shoots her husband dirty looks the whole time. She doesn’t appear at all nervous anymore.

  Once we’re back on the street, there are signs directing people to the High Line. We could leave Kerstin and Aksel here and I’d feel like I could check this one off. But we keep walking. Nobody talks.

  Finally, we’re climbing the steps to the raised walkway of the High Line. The pier stretches off in one direction toward the Hudson, the walking path lined with piles of snow.

  “Well,” says Kerstin, turning to me. “We are here, and I rode the subway. Are you always such a nice boy?”

  I’m sure she doesn’t mean to sound like she’s talking to a puppy, but the words nice boy make me cringe.

  “Max is the nicest person I know,” says Eliza.

  Kerstin takes off her gloves, reaches one hand into the other arm’s coat sleeve. She struggles with something. When she pulls her hand away, it’s holding a woven bracelet with a single onyx bead.