The park: a patch of concrete and dried-out grass and a single statue of a long-dead astronaut, wedged in between the Brooklyn Museum and a school for deaf kids, largely overlooked by everyone except for the old guys who play chess there and certain high school kids whose pastimes make it advantageous to adopt the spaces that are overlooked by everyone else. Today, though, it’s packed. I’m not sure what Marcus did to get all of these people here or why he would go to the trouble, but there’s at least thirty or forty people, talking and messing around with their phones and generally goofing off. The crowd is loosely gathering around one of the granite chess tables at the front edge of the park. Hector has reluctantly agreed to come with me. I like having Hector with me because when I’m with him, Marcus has to notice me.
Marcus didn’t mention who was playing, but I knew it would be T. T’s in my grade. He’s Marcus’s little cousin, super smart, but also kind of a drag, always looking past you, like you don’t exist in the same world as him, or looking too hard at you, like you’re an alien species. He wins Marcus a lot of money with his crazy chess habit, though, so you won’t find me saying a wrong word to him. When we arrive, T is shaking hands and sitting down with some white kid (dorky type, shoes like my dad wears to church), and Marcus and his friends are there, too, perched at the next table over. He’s wearing a loose cotton shirt, buttoned halfway, almost as if he were getting dressed up for this occasion. When he leans forward, toward the game, I can see the curve of his chest muscle, the glimmer of his necklace.
Everyone pays close attention to the first few moves, but watching a chess game gets pretty boring when most of the crowd doesn’t know what the hell is going on. People keep talking and making noise, but if someone gets too loud, Marcus throws him a look and then things get quiet again fast. A front row forms, made up of kids from our high school chess team, younger than T and worshipful of him, and since they actually know what’s happening in the game, everybody else looks at them for cues as to when to cheer and clap. It’s pretty obvious that everyone’s rooting for T—no one cares about this other kid—but the chess geeks go oooh and aaah over some of the moves that Church Shoes makes, so that’s how I know it’s a close game.
It goes on like this for a while. Hector gets restless and wanders around the park, talking to someone on his phone. I pull out my tarot cards and do a quick whispered reading for Bethany Jones, who wants to know if she should have sex with her boyfriend, Saeed. Then I hear the row of chess geeks bubble and squeak, and by the time I look up, Church Shoes has gone red in the face. T slides a piece into place, coughs politely, and says, “That’s checkmate.”
“I know it’s checkmate!” Church Shoes says, and he’s so angry that I can see the little flecks of spittle flying from his lips, gleaming in the sunlight. I scoop up the cards and dump them back into my purse in a hurry, feeling a disruption in the afternoon’s vibrations, and I’m right, because Church Shoes sweeps the pieces off the board, a little burst of chess shrapnel that bounces off the pavement. “How could I possibly concentrate with this riffraff making so much noise?” He sweeps his arm out to indicate us, the crowd. It’s quiet for a second, and then somebody lets out a big, amused laugh. Marcus, I realize. Like a current is passing through the crowd, we all start laughing at the fit this pathetic kid is throwing. It always feels good to be in a position to laugh, rather than be laughed at. Church Shoes is turning a hot fuchsia.
“Riffraff!” I hear Tyrone Hill crowing. “Riffraff!”
Church Shoes walks over and pushes Marcus right in the chest. The laugh in me flickers and goes out, and the crowd noise breaks into a static of incredulous whistles and mutters. What’s with this kid? Does he have a death wish?
But then the planets spin, things get weird. Before Marcus can punch this kid in the face, Church Shoes reaches in the back of his pants and pulls out a wicked-looking knife. It’s not a switchblade; it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen someone carry. It’s curved and has its own leather cover and scary notched teeth on the blade, like something out of a horror movie. Somebody actually screams in horror at the sight of it, if that tells you anything. He swings the knife in wide, crazy arcs before pointing it right at Marcus, and I choke on my heart.
“Stay back!” he shouts.
By now Hector is at my side again, and then he’s past me, stumbling through the crowd, because even though Marcus irritates him sometimes, there’s no question about whose side he’s on here, and I use his momentum to push closer to the front, too.
T, in that weird, flat voice of his, says, “Hull, man. You don’t want to do this.”
Church Shoes whirls around to face Tristan. He stabs the air and when he yells, it’s high and jagged and crazy, a perfect match for his weird-ass knife. “How do you know what I want to do?”
But to say this, he’s had to turn his back on Marcus and Hector, and in that moment, they jump him and tackle him to the ground, face-first. Marcus is pounding the kid’s hand against the pavement so that he’ll let go of the knife and Hector has his spine pinned beneath his knees, and that’s the moment when the cops show up. Two in a patrol car. One fat, one skinny, and both of them looking like they arrest teenagers as a hobby. Their hands are on their holsters and they’re running straight for my brother, straight for Marcus, and the crowd panics, a tide of arms and legs. Marcus looks around, wild-eyed, and for a second I think he’s searching for me, but no, he’s looking for T. “Get out of here!” he yells at him.
Hector pulls a Ziploc freezer bag out of his pants and throws it to me. “Run, Brianna! Go!”
I’m not exactly a track star, but I can move when I have to. I hike my skirt up and run for the edge of the park, stuffing Hector’s weed into my purse as I go. The crowd is scattering in all directions. I feel someone running close to me, and I’m sure it’s one of the cops, but when I glance back, I see that it’s T. There’s a fence on this side of the park, and we’re going to have to hop it. I use my momentum to swing myself up and over, even though crap, I rip the hem of my skirt in the process, and it’s one of my favorites, a pink paisley. T’s right beside me, but I guess he’s not the most practiced at running from the police, because his feet get tangled on the top of the fence, and he tumbles to the ground on the far side. I know I should run, leave him there to solve his own problem, but something makes me reach down and haul him to his feet.
“Thanks,” he says, and he’s limping, but at least he’s up and moving, and we’re running again. Then he turns a corner while I’m running straight, and that’s the last I see of him. A block farther on, I see another cop car driving toward the park, and I pull up short, change direction again. I’m worried the cruiser is going to follow me, I’m waiting to hear it turn on its siren, because surely those cops in the park saw Hector toss me the bag, but a block later, I look behind me, and it’s all clear.
I don’t slow down until I’ve made it all the way home, and I bound up the stairs to the apartment and sit on the floor of my bedroom, waiting for my breath to settle. I had an inhaler when I was a little kid, but I’m determined not to use it these days. Mind over matter. I bury the bag in a drawer beneath my underwear and light a purifying candle. I’m worried about Marcus, and I’m especially worried about Hector, because he’s not a minor anymore and that can spell serious trouble. He owes me one for saving his ass, that much is for sure, and that’s not a terrible position for a younger sister to be in.
THE QUEEN
LONG, HOT DAYS OF SUNBURNS AND POTATO BATTERIES and litmus solution made from red cabbage: The job at camp passed in a comforting blur. When it was over (when the last small camper had hugged me and sworn to never forget me and departed, probably to forget me immediately) my parents drove to Camp Timbuktu to pick me up, even though I told them I wasn’t nine anymore and could take a bus back to the city. They were in a sunny mood on the drive home, and they chattered to me about the house, about all the work they’d finished while I was away.
“What about Hull?” I a
sked. “Why didn’t he come with you?”
“Too busy acting like a jerk, I guess,” my father said, sort of under his breath but sort of not. “Most ignorant of what he’s most assured.” (My father was always spouting Shakespearean quotes like this, and yes, it was as annoying as it sounds.) My mother, seated in the passenger seat, swatted his arm, but she didn’t contradict him. So I already surmised that Hull hadn’t come around to my parents’ point of view, and I knew enough about my brother to have an idea of what that might look like. I don’t think any of us, however, could have foreseen the shitshow that we were, even at that very moment, driving toward.
I was curled up in the back seat, reading a thriller about a viral outbreak, and my parents were singing along to a staticky classic rock radio station (as they had been for over an hour—barf) when my dad’s phone rang, and since he was driving, my mom answered. We were almost there, already passing green highway signs for the George Washington Bridge, and I was hoping to burn through a couple more chapters, so I started to tune her out. I snapped back to attention when I heard her say in a business voice, “Yes, this is Maura Steinbach speaking,” as she clicked the radio off. I leaned forward for a better sight line and tried to interpret her expression. It looked surprised and pained, like a scene from a soap opera in which someone is receiving bad news.
“Is he all right?” she said. “Is he hurt?”
Hull. It had to be. I tossed aside the book, unfastened my seat belt, and inched forward until my head was in the front seat.
“I’m sorry, can you explain exactly what happened?” my mother said, and her voice had a trembling edge to it. My father rested his right hand on her leg, but she jerked it away. “Okay. Yes, Officer. Yes. We’ll be there as soon as we possibly can. Can you give me the address, please?” My mother hung up the phone and turned to look at us, stunned. “That was the police. We have to go pick up Hull. He’s been arrested.”
“That’s not possible,” I said.
“What happened?” my father said.
“They couldn’t tell me anything over the phone. They said they’d explain when we got there.”
We passed most of the next twenty minutes in stunned silence. Here are the things I was thinking during that long, weighted pause: 1) While I was building baking-soda volcanoes in the Chemistry Cabin, I must have missed a few things. 2) An arrest record is not the best asset for an aspiring politician. 3) Hull must be freaking out right now.
My parents are pretty big on the whole family-acting-like-a-team thing, so I could barely process it when my dad took the exit off the BQE and said, “We have to drive right past the house. I’m dropping you off, Izzy.”
“No. No! I’m coming with you.”
“I think your father’s right. We can handle this one ourselves.” My mom shot my father a sideways glance, and I marveled again at how scrambled the household dynamics must have gotten in my absence.
They unceremoniously dumped me and my bag by the curb and took off down the street. I knew where the spare key was hidden, but I was indignant and worried and I didn’t feel like looking for it yet. Instead I wanted to sit on the porch step and breathe and try to think. I watched one of the stray neighborhood cats stalk across the yard, pause with one foot in the air, scratch at its mangled ear, then continue on its mission. Up the block, some younger kids were playing with a remote-control car. There were still a few scraps of damp crepe paper tacked to the trees from the block party I had missed the day before.
I’d only been sitting there brooding for a few minutes when I looked over at the run-down playground that sat diagonally across the intersection from our house, and my eyes snagged on something unusual. A person was sitting on the low crosspiece of a set of monkey bars, hunched over and rocking back and forth. I crept closer, snooping a little. I could see that it was someone my age. A boy. Holding his ankle like he was in pain.
On a different day, maybe I would have been too shy to say a word. Here’s the thing, though: I always wanted to be the one to save the day, be the hero. And in that particular moment, I was right in the middle of not saving Hull. I walked a little closer.
“Hey,” I said. “Are you all right?”
He looked up, looked me in the eye.
It’s tempting, in retrospect, to say that it was love at first sight, but that’s not exactly the truth. I’ve had a lot of time to think about it since then, and I’m still not sure I believe in love at first sight. Or at least, I think it’s a much easier concept to swallow if you’re expecting it to happen. When Cleopatra went sailing down the river in a golden barge full of rose petals in order to seduce Marc Antony, I’m sure she believed that love at first sight existed. The future of Egypt depended on it. I think most people, though, fall in love slowly, and then much later change the details of their first meeting to better suit the instantaneous-love story line. I’m a woman of science, so I’m not going to try to pull any of that stuff here.
I have to admit, though, that there are moments, and I think you’ll know the ones I mean, when time collapses on itself, and you get this glimpse that someone or something is part of your future, good, bad, or otherwise. There, in the playground, I had one of those moments, but more jarring than I’d ever felt before, a thunderclap compared to the sound of a book closing. We both looked at the other’s face for a few long seconds. It wasn’t like looking at just anyone’s face. I felt an urgency to remember the details of his features, a sudden need to be clearheaded and pay attention to what was happening.
As for Tristan, I don’t know what went through his mind at that precise moment. Later, of course, I would ask him if he believed in love at first sight, and he would laugh and say, “How could I not?” But as I said, memory is fickle, and by the time we talked about it, everything had changed, so I’ll never know for sure. All I can do now is pause the video of my memory right there, at that suspended moment, over and over again. Strangers studying each other in a playground at dusk. Lovers embracing their fate. You can choose the kind of story you like best.
Finally, Tristan nodded at his leg and said, “I busted my ankle pretty badly, but I’m not sure how you can help. Nice of you to ask, though.” He pulled up the leg of his jeans, revealing an ankle swollen to the size of a grapefruit, and I made that sucking-in-air noise that you make when it looks like something hurts.
“Hold on,” I said, and I jogged back to the porch and retrieved my counselor’s first-aid kit from the end pocket of my duffel bag. I always made sure to have impressive first-aid kits, though the only time I’d cracked this one in the past six weeks was to give one of the older campers some Midol for her cramps. So it was kind of exhilarating to rummage through it as I crossed the street until I located an ACE bandage and one of those self-cooling ice packs.
“May I?” I asked my patient, and he managed a small smile and made a “be my guest” motion toward his ankle. I popped the inner bag of the ice pack to activate it, felt that magical kindling of cold, and then bound it to his ankle with the bandage, tight but not too tight. I concentrated on wrapping it evenly and perfectly, trying to cover up the fact that I was nervous to be touching a stranger. Caring for someone is intimate, even if it’s only an ankle, and the crystalline stillness of that moment of eye contact had evaporated. I was self-conscious Izzy again. “What happened?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Long story. I twisted it down by Eastern Parkway.”
“You walked all the way from there? Ouch. That probably means it’s not broken, though.” I was talking too much, I could feel it, but I couldn’t stop myself, and, in fact, started speaking faster, making it worse. “Sprained, or maybe just bruised. Um, here.” I handed him a little paper packet. “Ibuprofen will help with the swelling. You should probably go to the doctor, though. Get a second opinion.”
“You live there?” he asked, nodding toward the house.
“Yeah, we moved in a few weeks ago,” I said, and it almost seemed like he was cringing at that fact, but at the ti
me I chalked it up to the pain in his ankle.
“I live up the block,” he said, sort of somberly, and then he looked at me again. He had this way of tilting his head away from you and looking at you from the corners of his eyes. He did that, and then he smiled and shook his head and made an “ohhh” sound, like someone had told him a bad joke. And then he let his head fall back against one of the rusty metal bars and said, “Have you noticed the sky?”
I hadn’t noticed the sky. But when I followed his gaze, the clouds were on fire from the setting sun, stripes of hot pink and lavender. “Oh, it’s so pretty!” I said, then felt stupid for saying something so obvious. And then I felt doubly stupid that I was still kneeling in the dust at his feet, so I stood up and he stood up, too, gingerly, on his good leg, but then I felt stupid for not being able to think of something interesting to say, so I said, “I’m, uh, Izzy,” and stuck my hand out for a handshake. Still more stupidity. I could see that, behind the lenses of his glasses, his eyes were light brown with little threads of gold.
“It’s so cold,” he said when he took my hand.
“Um, yeah, sorry. Ice pack,” I said, trying to withdraw it. But he held on to it and rubbed it between both of his, warming it up. And then he turned it palm down, and bowed over it dramatically, and kissed the back of it. I could feel my face getting hot, and I was hoping he wouldn’t notice the way my sweat was making my hair stick to my forehead.
“Izzy,” he said. “Thank you.” And then he started slowly limping toward the playground exit.
“So I’ll see you around, I guess,” I said, wishing my voice didn’t sound so high and so much like a question.
“Sure. You couldn’t not see me around if you tried.” I think he was smiling when he said that, but it was hard to tell.
Izzy + Tristan Page 4
