I don’t know it until I’m there, but the Ramble is exactly where I’ve wanted to be ever since Marcus punched me. The trees are crowded close together, and the pathways form a twisted labyrinth, snaking up and down small slopes. I lose my sense of direction almost immediately, and the lattice of branches provides the illusion of being far from New York City.
“Maybe we could stay here,” I say. “Live in Central Park forever.”
“Maybe,” Izzy says. Her eyes have dark circles under them. It has only been a couple hours since we woke on the train, but it is as though all the sleepless nights from the past few weeks have descended upon us at once. She droops, and I can feel the weight of our situation on my own eyelids.
Approaching the far end of the Ramble, we find a bench. The voices of birders and tourists float up from the edge of the lake, no more than a few dozen yards away, but if I softly recite the opening lines to “Verses Upon the Burning of Our House” into Izzy’s ear, I can’t even hear them. “In silent night when rest I took, for sorrow near I did not look…” We are asleep in seconds.
In my dream, I spiral upward, above our sleeping forms. I see us there on the bench, hunched protectively around our bags, barely touching. We are Hansel and Gretel in the wood, beleaguered siblings instead of lovers. From a bird’s-eye perspective, I watch Marcus walk up the path toward us, but then I drop back down into my body as he approaches. He stands over us, as if he is weighing a decision, and I am paralyzed as he does, unable to turn my head to look at Izzy, unable to move a fraction of an inch. In the distance, I can hear a dog howling, so mournful that I am certain it has lost its way home. Marcus bends toward me, his face looming larger and larger, his lips slightly parted, but I am unsure whether he is about to kiss me on the forehead or bite me like a vampire. I wake before he can do either, my limbs jerking wildly.
Izzy is already awake. “I’m tired of being outside,” she says. “It’s cold.” She might be talking to me, or she might be talking to the squirrel, made brazen and fat with human handouts, who sits almost on her shoe, staring up at her. “Shoo,” she says, and he reluctantly scampers away.
“It’s probably warmer in the sun,” I say. “Let’s walk.”
After the comfortable closeness of the Ramble, the wide-open expanse of the Sheep Meadow feels exposed and ugly, but we trudge toward the far side, searching for something that neither of us can name. We are not planning to end up at the Chess and Checkers House, but here we are, as though it has dragged me slowly across the park, a metal filing to a faraway magnet. I’ve been here a few times, especially in those first heady days in New York, when it felt like a miracle that such a place existed. The central enclosed room isn’t open on Mondays, but a few games are in process on the circular porch, mostly old guys who have suckered tourists into playing with them. Izzy and I slide into seats on opposite sides of one of the tables, even though we don’t have any pieces with us. To our left, a guy with a gold tooth is explaining the game to a pigtailed blond girl, whose father hovers over her shoulder.
“Look at this one!” Gold Tooth says. “It’s a knight!”
“Horse!” the girl says. “Neigh!”
“That’s right, that’s right. It moves like an L. You know L?”
It’s cute, this mismatched pair, and part of my brain knows it. But there’s a cynical voice inside me that wonders how large of a tip the dad, in his polo shirt and tennis shoes, is going to kick this hustler at the end of the lesson.
“I think we need to tell your aunt,” Izzy is saying. “Are you even listening to me?”
“I know,” I tell her. “I know I need to tell Patrice. But I’m trying to make up my mind about some things first. Because I don’t want Patrice to make up my mind for me.”
“What things?” Izzy asks, narrowing her eyes. I hate when she does that. It makes her look like a different person, not my gentle, wide-eyed Izzy.
“I think I can get a scholarship to go to a different school. One of the fancy schools in Manhattan that stakes a lot on their chess team. They asked before, and I turned them down without ever telling Patrice. But they can win state this year, maybe nationals, if they have me on their team, and that’s why I think they’ll let me transfer. Why they’ll go out of their way to let me transfer.”
“What school?” Izzy asks. Sometimes I forget that she’s been a New Yorker for far longer than I have.
“Westcroft.”
“Ohhh.” She nods, but I can see something draw tight behind her calm mask. “The sweater and necktie set. My brother would die to have an offer like that.” She clears her throat. “You should do it. You should accept it. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me this was an option until now.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“Why not?” she asks. “Westcroft is a great school. Everyone says so.” There’s the tiniest tremor in her voice.
“You know.”
Izzy shakes her head, not meeting my eye.
“You,” I say. “Of course. You.”
I don’t know how much she needs that answer until I’ve already said it, until she puts her forehead down on the chessboard so I can’t see her choking down tears. There are other reasons: Mr. K and his belief in me, not being able to live with Aunt Patrice, having to be the new kid again, a lingering loyalty to Brooklyn and Sagan High School and, yes, Marcus, too. But I don’t say any of this. I lean down and kiss the part in Izzy’s hair.
“I can’t be the reason you don’t go,” Izzy says, her voice muffled.
“I haven’t decided yet,” I whisper. “Besides, we have to talk about what you’re going to do. You could come with me to Westcroft.”
“Fat chance. I’m not a chess prodigy, Tristan. And my parents don’t have the money for that school.”
“You could go back to your old school.”
“Maybe,” she says. “Maybe.” She takes a deep breath, raises her head. Her face is dry, but the skin around her eyes is raw and pink. “Could we get out of here? I have an old friend who lives near here. It’s just… I don’t want to make an important decision while I’m cold and miserable and tired. You know?”
“I know.”
I’d rather go back to the Ramble, but we leave the chess tables and walk toward the perimeter of the park as Izzy texts her friend. The sun dips lower behind us, the shadows lengthening into late afternoon, as we abandon our urban wilderness for the Upper East Side.
THE QUEEN
I STEERED US INTO A SLEEK APARTMENT BUILDING ON Madison Avenue. The lobby was a cave of white marble, and there was a glass sculpture hanging from the ceiling that looked like an enormous purple sea anemone preparing to descend and feed. We approached the curved white reception desk and the doorman stared at Tristan’s black eye, made a face like he had caught the scent of something rotten.
“Stetman,” I told him. “In 21A.” He looked at me for the first time. “He’s expecting us.”
The doorman gave a reluctant nod.
In the elevator, I could hear Tristan steady his breath, but before I could say something about the doorman, the doors opened and we were in front of apartment 21A. The doorman must have called up, because the door burst open without either of us knocking.
“Two Izzy sightings in a single week?” Philip proclaimed as he pulled me in for a hug. “Nothing less than an unparalleled delight.”
The moment Philip squeezed me in that easy, uncomplicated hug, I felt a burden lifted. We had met when we were five years old. We had witnessed each other’s most awkward haircuts. We had been star mathletes together in fifth grade (a fact I had sworn never to reveal should he become a famous actor). And he knew my family—liked them, even. I didn’t have to pretend to be anyone around him.
He drew Tristan and me into the apartment as if he’d been waiting for us all day. The apartment was exactly as I remembered it: big, full of light and bookcases and graceful modern furniture, the kind of place that most New Yorkers only dream about. When we were kids, he would have
birthday parties here and invite our entire elementary school class. The final one, when we were in sixth grade, had been when Philip was obsessed with The Great Gatsby, and his mom had served us virgin cocktails in fancy glassware. I couldn’t help but smile when I glimpsed the big living room where Kaleo Perkins and Hull had taught everyone how to do the Charleston, which they had learned specifically for the occasion. I caught Tristan looking at me out of the corner of his eye, his expression apprehensive, so I wiped the stupid grin off my face and introduced the two of them properly.
Philip gave us glasses of water at the long marble counter in the kitchen and nudged a bowl of fruit toward us. “Look, I know we just met, Tristan, but… are you guys all right? Those bruises look painful. And Izzy, honey, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve seen you look better.”
Something tightened in my chest. Tristan was looking down at his hands, and I hoped that he didn’t hear anything accusatory in Philip’s question. I knew that his worry came from a decent place.
“To be totally honest, I’m not sure if we’re okay or not,” I said. “I know I shouldn’t have shown up here without asking you, but we needed someplace to… think things through, I guess.”
Philip nodded. “Well, this is a someplace. I have to go to work at Chateau Fright in a half hour, but you can hang out here, of course. No one will bother you.”
“Won’t your parents mind?” Tristan asked.
“My father’s in Argentina on business,” Philip said. He rolled his eyes. “Izzy knows how often he’s around. And my mom is at a fund-raiser for…” He walked over to a wall calendar hanging near the door, completely full of small, neat handwriting. “What is it tonight? Sudanese orphans, looks like. So she won’t be back until late, but she won’t care if you want to spend the night. She’d be happy to see Izzy again.”
In response, Tristan gulped down his water in one go and asked if he could use the bathroom. Philip directed him around the corner and after he left the room, Philip leaned over to me and punched me in the arm.
“Well, look at you. I never thought that I’d see Izzy Steinbach in love.”
I squirmed, not used to admitting that fact. “How’d you know?”
“Because you’re so worried about him. You’ve always been unflappable, even when we were little kids. And now… you are flapped, girl.”
“I guess I am. But, Philip, if you have something critical to say, keep it to yourself, okay? I can’t take it right now.”
Philip frowned, hurt. “Hardly. I gotta ask, though: Did he get punched in the face because of you? Do you have men fighting over you?” I cringed, and Philip burst into laughter. “Livin’ the dream,” he said, and I laughed a little, too, and it felt good to see the situation with something other than utter gravity. Then Tristan came back into the kitchen, and I picked up an apple and bit into it to hide my smile.
“Come on,” Philip said. “I’ll show you the guest bedroom.”
Philip made small talk about his coworkers at the haunted house until it was time for him to go. (“Would you believe there was a fight there the other night?” Philip said. “In the alley, like something out of West Side Story.” But Tristan and I both played dumb, and he didn’t make the connection to Tristan’s fat lip.) As he chatted to us easily, I thought I could sense Tristan relaxing a little, becoming more comfortable. The instant the door was closed behind my friend, though, he turned to me and shook his head.
“I don’t want to stay here, Izzy. I don’t know these people.”
“But I know them.”
“Do you have any idea how much that chess set costs?” He pointed to a crystal set that was displayed decoratively on a pedestal in the entryway, something I’d never noticed before. “I’m afraid to even be in the same room. There’s no dust on it, either. You think Philip’s dusting it every day?”
“So they’re terrible people because they have a housekeeper?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
His words stung, mostly because I knew they weren’t only about Philip. My family wasn’t wealthy the way that Philip’s parents were, but Tristan probably saw Hull as a spoiled brat. Maybe he saw me as one, too. “Philip gave you the benefit of the doubt. Would it kill you to do the same?”
Tristan shrugged, barely, with only one shoulder.
“Look, I’m exhausted. And we’re alone for now. Couldn’t we lie down for a few minutes and think about what to do next?” I walked over to him, put my arms around him, rested my head on his shoulder. He didn’t hug me back, but I could feel when he nodded in agreement.
The guest bedroom boasted a giant cloud of a bed, so comfortable-looking that it was hard to believe it was real. We gazed at it for a moment in the pink evening light and then folded ourselves, fully clothed, between the sheets. I fitted myself against Tristan’s tense body, breathing in the perfume of the fabric softener on the pillowcases.
“Sorry,” he said. “Philip seems like a nice guy, and if you like him, he probably is.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I can’t go to Westcroft. Everyone is going to be coming from places like this.”
“Not everyone.”
“Almost everyone, then. I’m not going to fit in, not in a million years.”
“But people there will love you. Of course they’ll love you.”
“Izzy,” he said, turning his head on the pillow to look me in the eye. “Fitting in, that’s about how I feel, not how other people feel about me. Is there any way you can understand that?”
I did understand it, or at least understood that the world was designed to let one of us fit in at Westcroft more easily than the other, but when I tried to tell him so, I couldn’t find the right words. Instead I brought my head close to his on the pillow and kissed him gently. His swollen lip felt strange against mine, and I could sense his loneliness as though it were a real, physical presence in the room with us. Everything I wanted for him surged up in me. I could fight off the loneliness for him. I could fill up the space where it had been. I knew I could.
“You deserve to fit in,” I said. “You deserve to feel that way.”
I kissed him again, fiercely this time, and I felt that burst of effervescence, that frenzied need of him. I reached down to feel for the hem of his shirt and then struggled to pull it over his head.
“Izzy,” he breathed, and I thought he might be trying to stop me, but I needed to keep going, and so I did, and then he was kissing me back. Outside, the last of twilight had faded from the sky. I folded his glasses and put them on the bedside table and reached up to turn on the lamp.
“We’re always in the dark. I want to see you.” I kissed the smooth skin along his collarbone, ran my tongue over one of his nipples and felt a shiver go through him. I hesitated for a second before I pulled my shirt over my head, because I couldn’t remember what underwear I’d put on the evening before, already an eternity ago. I stole a quick glance down. It was one of my newer bras, at least, even if it was just plain black. Tristan traced the line of the strap, slipped his finger beneath the fabric. We had gone further than that before, pawing each other in dark parks, but I got a shiver when I threw my jeans on the floor.
“It’s not possible,” he said, and I froze, thinking he was going to say something about wanting to leave the apartment, but instead, he pulled me close, so close our noses were almost touching. “It’s not possible for you to be this beautiful.”
I delicately licked at his damaged lip, kissed his swollen eye socket. “Not as beautiful as you,” I whispered.
What can I say about the riptide current that was carrying us along? There was the teenage carnality of it, I guess, the hormonal fever pitch. And there was the wonderful novelty of it all; the luxurious sheets and the soft, velvety brush of our torsos against each other, unencumbered by the clothes that we had to wear or partially struggle out of during our nighttime excursions—the sensations were overwhelming, revelatory. But it was more than that. I wanted so badly in that mome
nt to have decided something important, to no longer exist in the purgatory of youth, to have the die irrevocably cast. And it did feel like that, when we grappled closer and closer, mutually burrowing into each other until there was no longer a clear border between us.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
And I said yes, to him, to all of it.
When I think now of all the things it is possible to regret about those few months, that moment, with our sweat mingling, the unfamiliar ache between my legs, the raw openness of his face—that one never makes the list.
THE KNIGHT
IZZY FALLS ASLEEP AFTERWARD, HER SOFT, ROUND cheeks glowing in the warm light of the lamp, but my heart is racing and I can’t imagine closing my eyes.
Now, lying in this strange bed, our love feels more real, more solid than ever before. When I put my forehead against Izzy’s, I can feel my mind clicking into sync with hers, the way our bodies did a few minutes before, and if I let myself, I could drift off and collide with her in some single shared dream. But the other side of that golden coin is that the fear of losing her is more real, too. If Izzy and I share everything, I have to solve my problems before they become her problems. I waited too long to tell Marcus the truth, stalled too long in making that decision, and it landed us here. I can’t afford to make the same mistake twice. That’s why I slip out of bed, find my cell phone, and call Aunt Patrice (who must know something is wrong, because she’s left me four voice mails over the course of the day, something she never does), and ask her to drive into Manhattan and pick us up. She agrees without questioning it; she must somehow sense the gravity of the situation.
After I hang up, I wrap my arms around Izzy for a few more stolen minutes, holding her close enough to feel the calm, even breaths move through her body. I float there, on the swell of air that sustains her, that ties her to life, that ties her to me. And then I wake her up and tell her that I’ve decided to go to Westcroft.
Izzy + Tristan Page 18
