Roman and Jewel

by Dana L. Davis

  She stares around at all the flashing, larger-than-life billboards. I stare at them, too.

  Phantom of the Opera.

  The Lion King.

  Dear Evan Hansen.

  Hamilton.

  Ads for clothes.

  And drinks.

  And TV shows.

  And plays.

  For some reason this moment reminds me of when I was six years old. Coming into the city for the first time, somehow knowing I belonged here. Knowing I was home.

  “It’s proof, don’t you think?” I say breathlessly. “That there’s enough.”

  “Only infinite stars in an infinite universe could be a better example.” She guides me back into the sea of pedestrian traffic, and we walk toward the subway entrance.

  “An infinite universe with infinite gifts to give.” The thought warms me up inside.

  “So what are you gonna do, little niece? To tap into your infinite gifts?” She wraps an arm around my shoulder.

  “First thing’s first. Get unjealous. Which...” I turn to her. “How do I do that?”

  She laughs. “The most important step of all on the path to overcoming jealousy? Accept what’s yours. Honor what’s theirs.”

  “Right.” I nod. “Even if what’s yours feels kinda crappy?”

  “So long as what’s yours isn’t physically harming you or anybody else, then yes. Even when it feels crappy. Cuz something really magical happens when you truly accept what’s yours.”

  “What’s that, Aunt Karla?”

  “Well, duh. The universe gives you something new.” She steps into the street, extends her arm, and yells, “Taxi!”

  Within seconds a yellow taxi pulls up alongside the curb. The driver lowers the window, and Aunt Karla leans forward to speak to him.

  “Pioneerz. In Fort Greene?” she calls out.

  Pioneerz. Wait...huh?

  “Jerzie,” she pulls open the back door, “I’m headed to work from here. So you have fun.” She reaches into her purse and hands me a wad of cash from her wallet. “Take a cab home.” She checks the time on her cell. “It’s 9:00 p.m. now. He said he goes on at ten. Come home right after, or I’ll come out to find you. If you’re a little past your 11:00 p.m. curfew, it’ll be okay.”

  “But, Aunt Karla, I’m exhausted. It’s been such a long day and—”

  She holds up a hand to silence me. “Stop acting like a little old lady! Go out. Have fun. Make some friends. Enjoy your new internet fame. Enjoy...life.”

  The look on Aunt Karla’s face says, Do it or die.

  I toss back a look that hopefully covers up how terrified I am.

  First time out, alone in New York City. An invitation from a boy who makes me feel like I’m Alice, plopped headfirst into Wonderland, struggling to navigate a world where nothing is as it seems, and everything that is...might not actually be.

  I sigh. An unexpected “gift” from the universe, huh? Well, here goes nothin’.

  I push aside my fears, step off the curb and slide into the back seat of the cab.

  “Come Gentle Night”

  When the cabdriver pulls up to Pioneerz, I note the large crowd of people outside, standing in line to get in. I’m not agoraphobic or anything, but everybody looks college age. I chew my bottom lip. Will I be the youngest person here?

  “Thank you, sir.” I dig into the purse slung over my shoulder for a tip.

  “No problem.” He turns and hands me his card. “I’ll be in the area for a while if you need a ride back.”

  I slide his card into my purse and thank him again as I step onto the sidewalk and slam the door shut.

  Right away, I recognize a few people from rehearsal standing among the crowd. They’re all laughing. Conversing. Smoking. I approach the long line and step behind a couple locked in each other’s arms, trying my hardest to avoid looking at them. People who suck face in public should be ticketed for disturbing the peace. The boy keeps moaning, and the girl keeps giggling. They seriously need a room.

  The line is moving at a snail’s pace, so I take out my cell and log on to my favorite gamer website to play Oregon Trail. It’s this super old game I’m obsessed with. You have to create a family, give them all names, pile them into a covered wagon, and try to make it across the Oregon Trail alive in the 1800s. The game loads, and I get busy planning a trip across the Great Plains.

  * * *

  “Next?”

  I was so busy hunting for bison to feed my virtual family that I didn’t realize I’d made it to the front of the line. I slide my phone into my purse. A hostess with short pink hair holding a tablet stares at me.

  “Hey.” I smile. She doesn’t smile back.

  “We have an invite-only event tonight. Name?” she asks.

  Well, I’ve been invited. “Jerzie Jhames.”

  She studies her tablet. “Sorry. I don’t see you.”

  Maybe I got here before him? But he did say he’d call ahead. “Are you sure?” I say. “Zeppelin Reid said he would put me on the list. Can you like, call him or something? Tell him I’m here?”

  The girl motions to the long line of people behind me. “I got a job to do, and getting you on the list is not a part of that job description, boo.”

  Bitch!

  “Hey, I know you,” a boy says as he’s stepping out of the restaurant.

  I know him, too. I saw him at rehearsal today. Damon.

  “I, um. I don’t think I’m on the list,” I say to Damon.

  He turns to the girl. “Check again. J-e-r-z-i-e J-h-a-m-e-s.”

  “Fine.” The hostess has an air of importance. Like being a hostess at this place is something real special. “Oh.” Her brow furrows. “I was spelling it wrong. You’re here.” She looks up from her tablet. “Sorry about that. And your ticket’s been covered, too.”

  He paid for my ticket?

  “Thank you.” Damon gives the girl the stink eye and grabs my hand. We move through the door. “Sorry that girl was being all diva. Like whatever, right?”

  “Thanks for your help,” I say. “You came out just in time.”

  “All good. My boy Zepp told me to check and see if you came. He got here about fifteen minutes before you did.” Damon shouts over the noise of the restaurant. My heart flutters in my chest. Zeppelin paid for my ticket to get in and sent someone to check for me. Maybe this is a date.

  “He’s feelin’ all sad cuz Ava couldn’t make it,” Damon says. “So you showing up should lift his spirits.”

  Oh. I deflate. Ava. That’s the girl he was on the phone with earlier.

  “Ava is like, the love of Zeppelin’s life,” he adds.

  Aaaand it’s official. He does have a girlfriend. I’m not really surprised by the confirmation that Ava is Zeppelin’s girlfriend. I’m mostly surprised at how officially knowing it sort of sucks the energy from the night.

  “I’m Damon, by the way. Damon Coleman. I saw you today but didn’t get a chance to say what’s up. Then I saw your video online. Get it, girl!” He laughs.

  Wait a second. Damon Coleman? I knew he looked familiar! “You’re from that Sing Star show!” I shout.

  He grins. “Oh, you watched that?”

  “Watched it? I was obsessed! Every week with my mom. I literally cried when you got voted off.”

  “I was robbed, right?” He drags me to an oversize semicircle booth with seven people stuffed into it. I slide in after him and sit awkwardly on the end. Apparently I missed the memo that I should be wearing black, since pretty much everybody else is. I look like an orange traffic cone plopped on the street next to a line of sleek, metallic black Lamborghinis. Maybe this dress wasn’t such a good idea.

  “You guys, this is Jerzie.”

  Pretty much no one acknowledges Damon introducing me. They’re all too busy on their phones or in de
ep conversation with each other to be bothered. I notice Lorin. The leggy redhead. She’s slathering hot pink lip gloss on her thin lips and using her phone camera as a mirror.

  “Like, hello?” Damon says. “This is Jerzie. Stop being rude and say hi, y’all.”

  A few from the group finally look up. Lorin sets her phone down. “Oh. Jerzie. Not every day a standby goes viral.” She eyes me like I’m a bag of trash piled on the street on trash day. “‘I Think I Remember You.’”

  Everyone at the table laughs. I laugh, too, even though I don’t get what’s funny.

  “I’m Lorin,” she says. “Welcome to Broadway hell.”

  A waitress taps me on the shoulder. I turn to face her.

  “Hi, what’ll it be?” She’s got hair like mine. Wild. Curly.

  “Nothing. I’m good.”

  Damon shouts into my ear over the roar of the restaurant. “Doll, it’s a one-drink minimum. You gotta get a drink.”

  “I do? Oh, okay.” I turn back to the waitress. “I’ll take a grape juice.”

  I hear laughter from the table. Are they laughing at me? Is grape juice a lame thing to order? Am I being corny?

  The waitress sort of rolls her eyes. “We don’t have that.”

  “Um. Lemonade?”

  “We have Arnold Palmers. Comes in a bottle.”

  “Does it have alcohol in it? I can’t drink. I’m only sixteen.”

  More laughter from the table. Yep. They’re definitely laughing at me this time. I’m sure of it.

  This waitress looks so over me. “It’s lemonade and tea. You want it or not?”

  Eww. Who thought to mix those two things together? “Sure. I’ll take that.”

  She moves off, disappearing into the crowd.

  “One-drink minimum is lame, right?” Damon still has to shout over the roar of the restaurant. “Especially after having to pay to get in. But Zepp’s band is blowin’ up. So the restaurant knew they could make some money. Dirty capitalists.”

  “It’s fine!” I shout back. “I don’t mind.”

  Damon nods, then grabs the shoulder of a boy I also recognize from rehearsal. “Jerzie, did you meet Angel Aguilar?” He leans his head onto the shoulder of the striking boy beside him. Angel is sorta emo-meets-punk meets...strange. Dark eyes, bleach-blond hair with dark roots. A small hoop ring through the center of his lip. A black vest. Leather pants. His hand rests on Damon’s leg. In fact, the two look very friendly.

  “Hi. Nice to meet you.” I’m talking so loud that my ears are buzzing.

  Angel only nods in my direction. Viral or not, I guess I haven’t earned his vocal strain. Angel plays Tyree in the show and Damon plays Mauricio. Aka Tybalt and Mercutio.

  I wish I could ask them a few questions, or maybe a few hundred, but in the seconds that have passed since the introduction, Angel and Damon have entered into a major make-out session. Where is the social etiquette police when you need them? I scoot farther away. Another inch, and I’ll slide right off this cushioned booth and onto the floor.

  I stare at the screen on my phone like it’s interesting. I could keep playing Oregon Trail. Would that be silly? Would they laugh at me some more? I could watch Angel and Damon make out. That would absolutely be silly. I could force the other people at this table to talk to me by asking them boring questions, like, what part of the city do you live in?

  I twist my body to make sure no one can see what I’m Googling—Angel Aguilar. Right away, about a billion pictures of him load onto my screen. Apparently Angel is a slam poetry artist. Originally from Spain. Trilingual. I click on his Instagram page. Over a million followers. Insane! I look over my shoulder. Angel and Damon are still making out. Perhaps it’s time for a bathroom break.

  I inch my way out of the booth and skirt slowly through the crowd. Once I make it to the restrooms, I push through one of the two doors that say All Sex on the front and step into a quiet space with red tile walls and a painted concrete floor.

  I’m alone, so I breathe a sigh of sweet relief. To think, I could be on Aunt Karla’s couch watching a minimalist documentary. Why do people think going out is fun again? I step inside a stall, slide the sliver lock to bolt myself in, shut the toilet lid, and plop down right on top on it, fully clothed. Aunt Karla would be none too happy to know my night out started off stuffed inside a bathroom stall. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, I guess.

  I hear girls laughing as they stumble into the bathroom. Their heels click clack across the concrete floor. Their voices echo off the tile walls.

  “I can’t believe she’s wearing an orange dress. She looks like a Popsicle.”

  Orange dress? They talkin’ about me? I hike up the possible Popsicle dress in question and step onto the toilet so they can’t see my legs, hunching down Mission Impossible style. Tom Cruise got nothin’ on me.

  “She’s so young,” another girl replies. Right away I recognize the voice. It’s the redhead who made the lame joke I didn’t get. Lorin. “What is she? Twelve?” She laughs. “Cinny has a twelve-year-old standby.”

  “She’s young. I saw her being walked back to the rehearsal room with a child wrangler.”

  Now they both laugh. They are definitely talking about me!

  “Who do you think uploaded that video of Cinny?” the girl asks Lorin.

  “Who knows? Maybe it was the twelve-year-old. Did you see the way she was staring at Zeppelin today? It was sorta stalkerazzi style. Then suddenly a video of her is uploaded onto YouTube?”

  I wasn’t staring at Zeppelin stalkerazzi style! I don’t even know what that means!

  “Speaking of Zeppelin...” the other girl says. “What’s going on with you and him?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing. He’s frustrating,” Lorin replies.

  I can hear water running now. My legs are burning from hunkering down on this toilet. I’m still careful not to move a muscle or make a sound.

  “I was at his place after rehearsal. Then he had to head off to some emergency meeting,” Lorin adds.

  They were together? After rehearsal? At his house?! What about Zeppelin’s girlfriend?

  “And? Did you get a little action?” the girl asks.

  They both laugh again.

  “All he wanted to do was talk about boring plays from a few thousand years ago and watch YouTube videos of this old-ass singer,” Lorin replies. “Leonard Cullen or something.”

  “Leonard Cohen,” the girl corrects her.

  “Yeah, yeah. Whoever the hell that is.”

  Her friend really cracks up at that one. “He’s like superfamous. He’s dead. But still.”

  “Whatever. It was boring.”

  “Jump his bones next time.”

  “If he had even one,” Lorin mumbles. “The dude wanted to do nothing but talk.”

  “Maybe he’s gay.”

  Or maybe he’s a loyal boyfriend, Lorin, you skank-a-licious skank-meister!

  “I asked him.”

  Her friend gasps. “You’re rude. You asked him that?”

  “Fuck yeah. That’s not rude. I was like, you into dick or what?”

  “Stop. What did he say?”

  “He just said something about only loving the man known as his dad.”

  “Huh?”

  “And then he went right back to his boring-ass YouTube videos.”

  I cover my mouth to stop myself from laughing.

  “What does that even mean?” the friend asks.

  “I guess it means he’s not gay? I dunno,” Lorin replies.

  Imbeciles! He was definitely quoting a line from “Sincerely Me” from Dear Evan Hansen. How can they not know that?

  “Well, keep trying. If you don’t get that boy, I will.”

  “He’s mine!” Lorin laughs. “Stay away. I’ll try tonight. I’ll probably sleep at his pla
ce again.”

  Sleep at his place? Again?

  More giggles. Seconds pass, and I hear the door open and close. Now there is silence once again, and it’s officially confirmed. Everybody wants Zeppelin. This isn’t love at first sight that I’m feeling. It’s lust. Besides, Damon confirmed what I already knew. Zeppelin has a girlfriend. A girlfriend who, I’m guessing, doesn’t mind girls sleeping over at his apartment? Whatever. I can’t do this anymore. I remove my phone and the driver’s card from my purse. I compose a text: Any chance you can come back and get me? The girl you just dropped off in Fort Greene? Take me back to Bed-Stuy? Clinton Hill?

  I wait for a minute. Two. Three. I’m unable to move, stuck standing on this stupid toilet like the truest form of loser.

  Finally a message comes through: Be there in five.

  Yes. This night can end. I’ll tell Aunt Karla the universe gifted me the bestest night ever. Meanwhile, I’m gonna go home and watch my documentary, drink grape juice, and listen to Seussical.

  I step off the toilet and groan with relief as I stretch my legs, unlatch the door, and move into the empty bathroom. After giving my hands a quick wash, I look in the mirror. Damn. My eyes are red. As if I couldn’t be more pathetic? I’m near tears? Why? So what he’s got a girlfriend. So what he’s hanging out with Lorin. He’s probably hanging out with a lot of girls. But... Jesus. It feels like some sort of strange betrayal. Why is he hanging out with her? She’s not even interesting. Okay, fine. A beautiful, successful dancer on Broadway is interesting. But still, she wouldn’t know a Dear Evan Hansen lyric if Ben Platt sang it to her himself. Besides, all she wants to do is have sex with Zeppelin. I don’t wanna have sex with him. I mean, as a person who has never had sex, I don’t really wanna have sex with anyone. I only want... I pause. What do I want with him? Hell if I know!

  Snap out of it, Jerzie! You’re obsessed. Go home.

  When I push open the door and step back into the dimly lit restaurant, the room is mostly silent. Along with two other boys, Zeppelin’s on the restaurant’s small stage now, an acoustic guitar slung over his shoulder, wearing jeans, black leather boots, and a simple white T-shirt. Waves of black hair fall over his forehead, casting shadows under his blue eyes. He’s practically perfect, if you ask me. One of his bandmates sports a massive man bun and holds a fancy purple electric bass. Super Prince vibe. The other bandmate has dark brown skin like me, with low-cut hair. He sits in front of a drum kit. Zeppelin’s speaking, so I stop, my back pressed against the wall, curious to hear what he has to say.