by Meg Leder
I was ready to check “nope” on the reader report when my brain caught up with my eyes and finally processed the last sentence: As the Wonder Wheel jerked to a halt at the top, he stretched his legs onto the aluminum seat and studied his mismatched socks, the weariness of life beating ceaselessly into him like a drum.
No.
No.
No mismatched socks.
I dropped my half-eaten pizza onto a napkin and flipped to page one, reading more carefully this time.
The narrator had an older brother who taught him to smoke pot when he was thirteen.
His mother complained frequently of ghosts.
But most damningly of all, even though his father wanted him to work at Goldman Sachs, the narrator wanted to be a writer.
Just like Kerouac.
I flushed, like I had been caught red-handed at something, but Oscar was staring out the window and no one else was there.
My stomach gurgled guiltily, but how was I supposed to know? It wasn’t like his name was on the story.
I hated the story.
I wanted to burn it to the ground.
But at the same time I also felt this weird sense of protectiveness for Keats’s vulnerability, sitting there all plain and raw on the page.
The first bell rang, and I checked the “not sure” verdict on the reader report and hastily handed it to Oscar, and instead of recycling the submission, per our guidelines, I shoved it in my bag.
“Talk to you later,” I said at the door, my hands tingling with, what? The theft? Borrowing? Not recycling?
“Later,” he said quietly.
I practically ran out of the room.
The right thing to do would have been to throw the stupid story in the nearest recycling bin and not give it a second thought.
Instead I read it furtively under my binder in World History. It didn’t get better with repeat reads.
• • •
After the final bell, Keats was waiting for me at my locker, smelling like cinnamon. I snuck a glance at his socks.
I tried hard to banish thoughts of moths flying into flames and shallow-girl eye shadow.
“Scout,” he murmured, pulling me into a kiss.
I had a fleeting moment when I wondered if Audrey or Cherisse or Eph was walking by. What would they think if they saw us?
He pulled away, reluctantly, and gave me a sleepy smile—what I was learning was his post-make-out smile. “How are you, babe?”
Babe. Keats called me babe. Forget the stupid story, Penelope.
“To be honest, kind of crappy. Two of my friends got in a really ugly fight. Have I told you about Miles and Grace? I’m worried about them. So I’m mega looking forward to taking my mind off things. I mean, looking at books.” I rubbed his arm, gave him what I thought was a super-cute, flirty smile.
“Ahh, that’s the thing. My parents want me home early tonight—Beckett’s in town for fall break and we’re having some fancy family dinner with Cherisse’s family.”
Cherisse’s family?
I waited for him to ask me to join them.
He didn’t.
“Oh,” I said finally, trying not to sound too disappointed, wishing I could shove Cherisse in a lake.
“You’re totally mad, aren’t you?” He ran his hand through his curls, searched my face.
“No, it’s okay, you should spend time with your family,” I said, even though I wanted him to console me about Grace and Miles, wanted him to at least confirm he knew who they were.
“You sure?” His expression relaxed.
“Yeah,” I lied.
“Thanks, babe,” he said, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek and jogging backward down the hall. “I promise I’ll make it up to you,” he called.
Gloomily, I headed toward the door. Once I was outside, I decided to take Columbus instead of Central Park West. The walk wasn’t as pretty as passing by the park, but after the day’s events, I wasn’t in the mood for fall’s show-offy colors.
I wondered if Cherisse and Keats were heading to his brownstone together.
I wished he hadn’t bailed. I wanted to be with him, wanted to make out until my lips hurt. I wanted to talk with him about Grace and Miles.
Or, at the very least, I wanted him to be a little more upset about canceling our plans.
But to be fair, he hadn’t seen the fight, probably didn’t know how horrible it was to witness, didn’t know it made me sad in a way that reminded me of Audrey. And he was going to make it up to me. He wanted to be with me.
And, I reminded myself, Keats wanting to be with me was surely better than no Keats at all. This was what relationships were: give and take, ebb and flow. We couldn’t hang out every second, right?
I chewed on my lip, walking by the greasy diner Audrey insisted made you smell like fried food if you were even on the same side street, when I did a double take.
Miles was sitting inside, slumped in a booth.
I didn’t particularly want to go in, but I couldn’t leave him there, so I sucked in my breath and walked inside, wrinkling my nose at the smell of cigarette smoke (even though it was nonsmoking) and alcohol (even though it didn’t have a liquor license) and fish sticks (those, at least, were on the menu).
“Miles?” I asked.
He glanced up, his eyes red and face puffy.
“How long have you been here?”
“Since Oscar shamed me so hard I couldn’t stay another second at a place where people knew my name.”
“What are you doing here now?”
He poked at his fries. “Sad eating. Grace won’t answer my calls. But I wouldn’t blame her if she never talked to me again.”
I sat down across from him, thought about putting my bag on the floor, then thought better of it and held it in my lap instead. “Yeah, today was kind of ugly.”
“I’m not usually that mean.” He shook his head, then grimaced. “At least not to people I love. I don’t know what came over me.”
I chewed on my lip, thinking of the ugly Santa that Eph gave me, wondering if I could say what I wanted to say. “I think you really, really wanted Starbucks Guy to work. I think maybe heartbreak made you a little bit mean.”
I looked over, hoping I hadn’t overstepped.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” He looked wistful. “I kept imagining how we’d be the perfect couple—we’re the right height for each other, and I’ve seen him read poetry books on break, which is so cool, and his laugh is perfect and deep, and even his handwriting is great. I give up.” He dropped his head to the table and I worried about what he might pick up from the surface.
“No, no!” I said, pushing his shoulder until he lifted his head and looked at me, thank God. “You can’t give up. He’s totally out there—you’re going to meet your dream guy, and it will all fall into place.”
“I don’t know, Pen. I’m starting to think that Grace might be right. Life’s no fairy tale.”
I fell back against the chair, thinking of the Wonder Wheel and thrift-store kisses and family dinners with Cherisse, then remembered this place could very well have scabies and balanced on the edge of my seat again.
Miles picked up a nearly empty bottle of ketchup and squeezed it so hard it splattered ketchup over the fries and the table, making a sad, sputtering fart noise.
Without thinking, I said, “Exsqueeze me,” and then mentally cursed Eph.
Miles smiled a little, though, so maybe it was worth it. He offered me a fry, and I shook my head.
“Do you hate me too?” he asked.
“Why would I hate you?”
“Because I was being, as Oscar made a point of telling me later, the most unlikeable version of myself.”
“He said that to you?” I asked, secretly impressed with Oscar’s moxie.
Miles nodded.
“Well, maybe it wasn’t your finest moment”—I felt suddenly self-conscious—“but I’m really glad to have you as a friend. Just because someone isn’t at their best d
oesn’t mean you write them off forever.” As soon the words left my lips, I thought of seeing Audrey the day Keats and I cut, how neither of us knew how to even wave at each other like real people anymore. I thought about last night, how when I heard there was a new David Lynch movie coming out, I picked up the phone to call Eph before I remembered, a sky full of regret, that I still wanted to shove him over.
It was lonely being mad at people.
“Did you really mean that about Kieran, what you said about him being boring?”
Miles sighed heavily.
“No. He’s not who I’d have picked for Grace—like, he’s so quiet all the time, and he’s super into all this weird online gaming stuff. But he makes her really happy. Ugh, I shouldn’t have said that. I was so out of line. She’s just so smug about it sometimes. Like she knows everything there is to know about dating and I’m some sorry person.” He dropped his head in his hands.
“She’s just worried about you,” I started to say, then sucked in my breath, thinking of Audrey. I didn’t want to think about Audrey. “Give Grace a little time to cool off. You guys have a lot of history. That won’t go away. You may need to grovel for the next five years, but she’ll forgive you.”
“You think?”
“I hope.”
“I’m glad you were born, Pen,” Miles said quietly.
“The feeling is mutual,” I said, meaning it. “But I can’t sit here for one second longer.” I pointed at the Department of Health grade on the door.
“Crap, it’s a C?” Miles yelped. “I’ve never seen a place with a C.”
“I feel like I’m going to get some obscure gastrointestinal parasite from simply sitting at the table. I’ll take you somewhere with better fries. My treat,” I said.
“Promise?”
“Um, yeah, as long as you promise not to ever come here again.”
I helped him up, and we left the grossness of the diner behind, heading out into the cool autumn afternoon. It was getting darker earlier, fall taking over from summer, things letting go.
Handwritten fortune
Fortuna manu scripta
72nd Street Station
New York, New York
Cat. No. 201X-17
THE NEXT DAY, AT THE beginning of lunch, May found me in the hallway.
“Grace isn’t here, and I couldn’t find her yesterday,” she said. “And Oscar stopped by her house last night and no one answered.”
“Miles has been trying to call her too. He hasn’t had any luck either.”
“Not exactly holding my breath on him being the one to get through,” she said dryly, and twisted one of the rings on her fingers. “I’m going to skip lunch and go check on her. Wanna come?”
“Sure,” I said, grabbing my fleece coat and feeling another pang of missing my denim jacket.
“Cutting again?” a voice asked.
Eph was standing behind me, holding his bag, everything about him braced for a fight—straight-backed, chin sharp, eyes mocking.
“I don’t have time for this, Eph,” I started.
“We’re not cutting. We’re going to help our friend Grace,” May interrupted, offended by just the implication of playing hooky. “We’ll be back before lunch is over.”
“Oh,” Eph said, his face falling slightly, but I didn’t feel pleased, just sad.
“I want good things for Grace,” I said to him softly. “I need to go.”
He stepped back, motioning for us to leave.
• • •
Grace’s apartment building was on West Seventy-Second Street, almost near Broadway, so we walked quickly, not wanting to miss the next period. I noticed more bare trees, the way everything was hunkering down, getting ready for the blast of cold building in the future.
“Geez, what’s with that guy? Getting all up in your business,” May said. “Does he like you or something?”
“No!” I said quickly. “I’m dating Keats Francis—do you know him?”
“Oh yeah. But I didn’t know he was dating anyone.”
I frowned. “Well, he is. Me, that is. He’s dating me.” I was surprised by how short I sounded.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“No, I’m sorry. I’m just . . .” I trailed off, not sure how to finish.
“Me too,” May simply replied.
Keats’s canceling yesterday clearly had me on edge. But that happened. People canceled plans all the time.
But to cancel to hang out with Cherisse? Gross.
I thought of Keats, the way he’d kiss me at the spot behind my ear and give me shivers.
I needed to get over him canceling.
Get over it, Penelope.
“I’m really worried about Grace,” May announced, and started chewing on her nails.
“Hey,” I said, stopping her gently. “It’ll be okay.”
“I know, it’s just . . . Kieran is so good for Grace. And it took her so long to see that. I hope this doesn’t change anything. Ugh, I could literally strangle Miles.”
“I thought Grace was super into Kieran?”
“She is. But when she met him, she was still with her ex Joe. He was a drummer in a punk band called the Migraines—the name wasn’t metaphorical—and except for the occasional decent drum riff, Joe was literally a waste of space. Grace was always trying to make herself ‘cool’ enough for him—she got her nose pierced on his request and was on all these stupid weight-loss diets because he told her she was chunky.”
“Wait a minute. Grace? You’re talking about our Grace?” I couldn’t imagine a version of my friend where she wasn’t calm and happy and 100 percent confident in who she was.
“Yeah, and then there’d be the monthly freak-outs when she discovered he’d hooked up with someone else.”
“Ugh, that sounds like the worst. Why’d she stay with him?”
But I didn’t get to hear her answer, because as soon as we turned the corner to Grace’s building, we nearly ran into Grace and some guy, stopped on the sidewalk, making out.
“Grace?” I asked uncertainly, more than a little embarrassed.
“Kieran!” May squealed, running forward as Grace and the guy reluctantly pulled apart.
Kieran wasn’t what I expected. He didn’t have Grace’s rockabilly style, or Miles’s weary hipness. Instead he was kind of schlubby, with thinning hair and a pale blond beard, baggy jeans, an untucked oxford, dirty white gym shoes, and, currently, a super-intense red face.
“She knew him before I did,” Grace said to me, watching May disappear into Kieran’s awkward bear hug. “What are you guys doing here?”
“We wanted to make sure you were okay.”
A smile burst out of her like a symphony. “Kieran surprised me this morning. We talked yesterday afternoon, and then he took the twelve-hour bus ride from Buffalo—he got here at seven this morning.”
“Wow, that’s a long bus ride.”
“And he has to get back on a bus this afternoon at four, so he can make an exam tomorrow,” Grace said proudly.
As a rule Grace usually always seemed pretty happy. But around Kieran she was glowing.
She leaned against him. “Kier, I want you to meet my friend Penelope.”
“Hey,” he said, his voice so low and quiet I had to lean forward. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Good to finally meet you.”
“Yeah, you too,” I said.
He shoved his hands in his pockets, and for a second he looked uncomfortable in his body, like it was too big for him, but Grace leaned up against him, wrapping her arm around his waist, and he relaxed.
“Can’t you stay?” May asked. “You can come to the Nevermore release this weekend,” she said. “Kieran started Nevermore,” she added for my benefit.
“It’s finals next week,” Grace said.
Kieran’s face screwed up, like he was doing mental math. “If it wasn’t such a long bus ride . . . maybe if I left right after, I’d be back in time to study Monday morning . . .”
Gra
ce interrupted him. “Kieran, no way are you missing finals for me. I still can’t believe you came down today. I’m the luckiest girl in the world, you know that, right?”
She stood on tiptoes and kissed him, and he blushed and she beamed.
“We should leave pretty soon if we don’t want to miss next period,” May said, nudging me. “Kieran, can we all hang out when you’re back at Christmas?”
He blushed again, and she happily hugged him, launching into a one-sided conversation about her latest copyediting dilemma. I could see the way he was truly listening, not just nodding for appearance’s sake, murmuring in agreement with May.
At one point he burst out, “Semicolons?”
“I know, right?” May said.
“Copy-editor humor,” Grace said. “By the way, thanks for looking out for me.”
“We were worried.”
“I’m okay now,” she said. “It took a while, but I got here.”
“It’s pretty romantic that Kieran’s spending twenty-four out of forty-eight hours riding the bus for you,” I said.
“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?”
I waited a second, trying to decide if it was my place to say what I wanted to say next. “Miles feels really, really bad.”
She sighed. “I know. He keeps texting and leaving me messages. I know he didn’t mean it. It’s hard sometimes, though, to see him being all impossible about things. It reminds me of how I used to be, and how unhappy I was,” she said, her face dark. But then she let out a relieved smile, like she’d narrowly escaped something. Maybe she had.
“I’ll call him later today,” Grace added. “But I figure it can’t hurt for him to sweat it out a little longer. Patience is not his strong suit. He could use some practice.”
I laughed. “You don’t say?”
She hugged me. “Thanks for coming, Pen. See you tomorrow?”
“Yeah, and enjoy the rest of the afternoon with Kieran.”
“Oh, I will,” she said, wiggling her eyebrows. “Trust me.”
• • •
After the final bell, Keats was waiting for me. He looked tired, distracted.
