“The one and only,” I say. Astor and I are sitting on my floor, and he’s flipping through a New Yorker magazine, his legs crossed beneath him.
“You should see my last call logged from you. Somewhere in the vicinity of two weeks ago,” Claire says. I hear the clank of the freezer door opening. Ice cube trays rattle.
“I could hang up and call you again, if you’re looking for frequency?”
The background noise goes quiet, and I can almost hear her smile. “Yuk yuk,” she says. “So what’s going on?”
Astor flips a page and looks up. He reaches over and tucks some hair behind my ear. Instinctively, I move the phone away. “Oh, you know, the usual. School, blah blah,” I say.
“Hey, want to get dinner?” Claire asks. “There’s this show on the Bowery we could check out too.”
“Dinner sounds good. Where should we meet you?”
There’s a pause on the other end, and I know she’s responding to the word “we.” It makes something inside me flare up again. Claire never used to care when we hung out with Trevor. She’d sometimes say she preferred his company to mine. I knew she was joking, but it was just never an issue. I don’t know why she’s being so intolerant of Astor.
“How does Eataly sound?” she says. The attitude is gone from her voice, and I know she’s working hard at it. “We can sit up on the roof, have some salads or something?” Eataly is one of my favorite spots in the city. It’s an Italian food market with a restaurant on the roof that has great city views. Claire always calls it a tourist trap, and she’s right, but there is something I still really love about it. It’s so crowded it’s almost possible to disappear. Usually I have to con her into setting foot in that place. I know this is her peace offering, and my anger dissolves. I swallow the last remnants like the grainy bits of juice at the bottom of a glass.
“Sure,” I say. “Sounds great.”
After I hang up, Astor places a hand on my stomach. He casually flips one of the buttons of my shirt open.
“Hey,” I say. I slap his hand away playfully. “We just made plans.”
He reaches back. Flips another one. “Just give me a few minutes.”
I sit up, pull my shirt closed. “Now.” I raise my eyebrows.
“She’s waited, in her words, weeks. What’s another five minutes?” He bends his lips to my neck, and I press his head back up.
“That’s not exactly how it works.”
He’s still trying for my neck, and his words come out light and playful. “So tell me, then. How does it work?”
“Do you want her to like you? Then we should be on time.” I push myself off the floor.
“I was just trying to see you for a minute,” he says, grabbing for his loafer. “This doesn’t need to be some dramatic scene.”
“I’m not making a scene,” I say, crossing my arms. I feel small, indignant—like a child refusing a bedtime or dinner.
“Sure seems like it.” His tone has changed. He’s annoyed, and his words have a clipped edge to them. It’s a side of him I haven’t seen before. I don’t like it.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I can feel my voice breaking. I just want to get out of here. He sighs, runs a hand over his chin. Then he turns to me. “No, I’m sorry.” He comes over to where I’m standing and puts his arms around my waist. “I guess sometimes I don’t want to share you.”
“Claire is my friend,” I say.
“So let’s go be with her.” He steps in front of me and opens the door. I go to follow him and then stop. There are still some books in my bag, and they’re weighing it down. I take them out and place them on my desk. When I look up, I catch that picture of Trevor and me. Winter formal. I pick it up.
Astor turns around and looks at the photo in my hands. My heart seems to stop.
“What’s that?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say quickly. Too quickly.
He lifts the picture up. My pulse fires through my veins.
“You guys were together, right? You and Trevor?”
I nod. I keep my head low. Plenty of people have ex-boyfriends. It’s not a crime. But the past has crept in, somehow. Even though we’ve tried to keep it out, here it is.
I blink and look at him. “We broke up in May.”
“Okay.” I keep on. “I’ve had the entire summer to get over it.” I hug my arms to my chest.
Astor puts the picture down and takes my hand in his.
His touch feels like a weight being lifted.
“I don’t even know why I still have that picture there,” I say. “Are you mad?”
“No,” he says. “I’m not.” He keeps his gaze fixed on mine.
I’m not sure if I believe him.
“Trevor doesn’t have anything to do with my life now,” I say.
Astor nods. “I know,” he says finally.
“I just don’t want you to think that . . .” I hate myself for talking like this, for the slightly pleading edge to my tone.
But I don’t want to lose any part of him—not his trust, not anything. I can’t.
He tucks me to him and his face is recognizable again.
Softer. “I know,” he says again.
There is something new between us now, something charged. The past is here, but it’s not a dead weight—not like it was with Trevor. It’s not something I have to carry around with me, then unpack and explain. It’s something fluid, like mercury. It coils and spills. It travels. Infects.
Astor is a part of this too now. And I can’t help but feel grateful for that.
Eataly is across from Madison Square Park on Fifth Avenue. Above Fourteenth, so it’s a surprise Claire suggested it. It doesn’t take us too long to get downtown; traffic is oddly light for this time of weekday evening.
Claire is hanging out by the hostess stand when we get there. She’s impossible to miss, and when I catch sight of her mile-high legs, something unhinges in me. I have the urge to run over to her and bury my head in her shoulder. But I don’t. Maybe it’s Astor, I’m not sure. But something stops me.
Claire has on a white button-down shirt that looks like a man’s. In fact it is a man’s. I know because my brother has the same one. It’s thin, white cotton, with blue pinstripes and the Ralph Lauren logo on the breast pocket. It’s not summer anymore, and I see a brown leather jacket tucked over her bag. Black Ray-Bans sit perched on her head, and she’s thumbing through a magazine. Vogue, probably, but I can’t see the front.
She looks up at us. I see her give Astor a once-over, slowly, before she turns to me. “They said ten minutes,” she says. She folds the magazine into her bag and gives me a quick hug with the other arm. “Hey, Astor,” she says over my shoulder.
“Thanks for letting her come up for air.” I can’t see his facial expression, but I hear him snort behind me.
“Where’s Band Boy?” I ask when she releases me.
“Who?”
“Max?” I try. “Brooklyn?” I gesture toward Astor, and Claire’s eyes get wide.
“Oh, him? Please. Done.” She smacks her hands together.
“He sent me this love poem that it turned out he stole off a blog. It was super creepy. I kept googling lines and they’d pop up on people’s old Myspace pages. We broke up.”
“I didn’t really think that was a match,” I confess. I knew it wouldn’t last, it never does, but she did seem into him.
“I know,” she says. “You may think differently, but you’re a terrible liar.”
Something in my stomach tightens. I’m still feeling a little shook-up from the picture incident in my room. “So who’s in the mix now?” I ask, clearing my throat.
She tugs on her collar and shrugs. “No one.”
“Yeah, right,” I tease. “There is never no one.”
“I’m not seeing anyone, okay?” She sighs and flips the call box in her hands. It’s just lit up. Our table is ready.
We head into the elevator, then up the steps to the roof. There’s a great view up here, one th
at makes you feel like you’re a part of the Manhattan skyline. Like you’re floating up in it, right along with the Chrysler Building. It’s one of those views that makes me remember I live in New York. Trevor and I used to go for drinks at the Mandarin at Columbus Circle sometimes. There is a spectacular view of the park at the bar on the thirty-fifth floor. We’d put the ridiculously expensive drinks on my dad’s tab and hole up in one of the couches by the windows. I liked looking at the city that way, from a distance. Like it was a painting, or a statue. Something composed, steadfast, fixed. Something eternal. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what I miss more: what New York used to mean to me, or what Trevor did. They were so tied together. Trevor was my New York.
I squeeze Astor’s hand. He squeezes back.
Claire orders champagne, and the waitress gives her a funny look. “You know what? Just bring me a Diet Coke,” she says. Usually Claire wouldn’t change her order, and if anyone gave her heat about it, she’d just call the owner, who inevitably knows her father. Even if they call to let him know, he doesn’t care. Claire’s dad has always had a pretty liberal view of drinking. Claire’s been having wine at dinner with her family since she was like eleven.
“Cool place,” Astor says, leaning back in his chair and surveying the scene. “You come here often?”
Claire shrugs. “I go everywhere often.”
I roll my eyes and attempt to shove her under the table.
“So how’s school going?” I ask.
She takes a long sip of her drink. “Fine, I guess. Downtown kids are strange, but what else is new.” She eyes Astor. “Where are you from, anyway?”
“Here.”
She squints at him. “What were you doing in London, then?” Claire looks at me, perhaps to fill in.
Did I tell her he was in London? How does she know?
And then: Do I even know what he was doing there? I think his dad moved over for business, but I’m not sure. I know he got kicked out of school, but I don’t know why they moved over to begin with. There’s a lot we haven’t asked, because there’s a lot we both don’t want to talk about. Astor makes it easy to try to forget. To move on. I think, although I’m not sure about what, that I help him do the same.
I look down at the table, avoiding Claire’s gaze. I don’t say anything. I suddenly feel really self-conscious, like someone has walked in on me changing, my shirt tangled around my head, my arms trying to thrust through the sleeves.
I swallow, focus on my plate. “You moved over there, right?” I offer lamely.
Astor puts a hand on the back of my chair. He shrugs. “Sure. Yeah. Hey, what’s good here?”
Claire frowns. “The cheese plate, gnocchi, and vegetable salad are all awesome,” she says to him, her eyes on me.
I look over at him. He catches my eye and seems to read something there—worry, maybe. He reaches his hand to my shoulder and squeezes. “My dad had some business abroad.
We moved over, and then when he left, it was easier for me to stay on.” He cups my shoulder with his hand, traces the bones with his thumb. “Does that answer your question?”
I nod. “Of course,” I say. “Right.” I look across at Claire as if to say, See, told you so, but she has her eyes on the menu.
I’m so annoyed at her for bringing this up. I know who Astor is. I know how he makes me feel—like things are finally okay. That’s the important stuff. Who cares why he went to London? After all the countless dates I’ve listened to of hers, all the stupid decisions she’s made, she can’t even give me this. Hate starts to creep in, right along with anger. I’m livid at her for insinuating that I should doubt him.
We order, and the conversation shifts to Kensington. Claire wants to know the latest gossip—whether Abigail is still terrorizing me this year (yes, with her “friendship”), who Constance is dating (everyone), and whether or not Jack Fisher is back (yes, and yes, he’s still gorgeous). I glance at Astor when I confirm, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He just winks. “Hey, don’t look at me,” he says. “That guy’s a stud.”
Then Claire asks about Kristen.
“Why do you keep asking me this?” I snap back. My anger hasn’t dissipated, and it all comes out in that one question. Claire frowns, and her voice is quiet when she speaks.
“I’m just trying to see how things are for you.”
“She didn’t end up in a mental hospital this summer, if that’s what you’re driving at.” My words sound like they’re laced with venom. I can taste it as they come out. Tangy and acidic.
Claire looks like I just socked her in the face. “What’s your problem?” she asks. Claire isn’t the kind of person to care whether or not Astor is sitting right here. She doesn’t care about what’s appropriate, or about doing things in private. If she wants to get into something, she will.
I glance at Astor. He’s watching us with a quiet fascination. His expression is mild, but interested. Hard to read.
I exhale, turning my attention back to Claire. “I honestly don’t really know. As you may recall, we were never friends.”
Claire arches her eyebrows. “You’re being weird about this.”
“I’m not being weird,” I explain. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
Claire puts her elbows on the table and leans forward. She squints and looks at me, the way she does when she knows I’m lying, the way she did last year when she asked me, after the fact, whether Trevor and I had slept together. I wasn’t ready to tell her yet, but she still pushed me anyway. She has no idea how to mind her own business. “This is my business,” I remember her saying. But she was wrong then. And she’s wrong about this, too. It’s my life, not hers. All of a sudden I’m so sick of her. I’m so sick of her butting in and the way she always feels entitled to everything about my life. But she can’t share this. She didn’t lose a sister. She didn’t lose Trevor. The fact that she thinks she can empathize, that she thinks she has any idea what it feels like to be me, is maddening.
“This looks great!” Astor says. He smiles as the waitress sets down our food. I can feel the tension across the table between me and Claire. It’s palpable. Like thick fog—something you can see.
Finally Claire speaks. “My dad is going to Africa for a shoot next month,” she says. She leans back in her chair to let the waitress set her pasta down. She gives me a look like This isn’t over, but for the time being, we’re moving on. “He asked me to go with him.”
This time Astor jumps in. “You should. It’s an incredible place.”
“You’ve been?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah, a while ago. I went with my dad. It’s crazy there.”
“What part?” She asks. “I think they’re going to Tanzania.”
Astor interlaces his fingers and stretches. “Southern. We did a safari and then a few days in Cape Town on our own.”
“How long ago?” He pauses. “Two years?” Claire sits back in her chair. “Cool,” she says. “Well, maybe I can hit you up for some info, then.” Astor holds out his hands. “Anytime,” he says.
This should get her off my back. So we won’t be the three musketeers like Trevor and I were with Claire, but he’s trying, isn’t he? That has to count for something.
Astor refuses to let us pay. Claire fights him for just a moment before thanking him. Another point in his favor, I hope. Although I’m becoming increasingly uncertain as to whether or not I care. Then we push back our chairs and take the elevator down to the street. Astor steps out onto the curb to hail us a cab, and Claire grabs my arm, dragging me over to the left.
“What’s his deal?” she hisses. It’s loud out on the street— wind, taxis, conversations—so I know he can’t hear us. But I still can’t believe she’s doing this here.
“What are you talking about?” I ask. I shake myself loose from her grip. “He was perfectly nice to you.”
“Why is he so guarded?” she says.
“What do you want from him?” I ask. “The story of his life? If you’re so conce
rned, ask. I don’t care. I know who he is now, that’s enough for me.”
Claire snorts. “You’re so naïve.”
“You’re so shortsighted,” I say. “You think that just because I don’t make someone spill his soul to me after a week that he’s not a real boyfriend. Not everyone is like you, Claire. Not everyone is just looking for a month.”
Claire ignores the last part. “Boyfriend?” She looks at me; her eyes seem to expand in their sockets.
The word surprised me, too, but I don’t take it back. Astor and I haven’t officially discussed that, but I’m sure he is.
He’s got to be. I cross my arms. “I have never once put up a fight with you. Do you know how many losers you’ve dated? How many pathetic dates I’ve listened in on? Astor’s actually a really great guy, if you’d just get to know him.”
“Do you?”
“What?”
She looks at me. Hard. “Know him, Caggs.” She runs her fingers over her temple. “I’m just saying, you guys seem really close for two people who don’t have the details down.”
I square my shoulders. I think about that conversation in my bedroom. About Astor asking and then telling me it was okay not to talk. Claire’s never made it okay not to talk. No wonder I never want to tell her anything.
I inhale. My tone is measured, even, when I speak. “Unlike you,” I say, “Astor doesn’t make me dwell on last year. I’m actually with someone who lets me move on. If I was still around you and Trevor, I’d be in the fetal position forever.” EClaire shakes her head. I can see the hurt in her eyes, but she’s good at masking it. “I’m worried about you,” she says.
“All you wanted was for me to meet someone,” I counter.
“You were worried about me when I wasn’t moving on; now you’re worried about me that I have?”
“But that’s just it,” Claire says. “Whatever this is, it isn’t moving on.”
I open my mouth to ask her how the hell she knows that, but Astor has gotten a taxi.
“Oi!” he yells. He’s holding the door open with one hand and waving me over with the other.
The Edge of Falling Page 11
