Chapter 17. Dahlia
DAHLIA
I flip my Falcon Messenger cap off my head, landing it on the table in front of Teddy where he sits with his feet up outside of Caffé Dante. “Ta-da! Your turn.”
His dark, silky curls bob to something playing on his phone, my off-brand earbuds he borrowed a month ago in his ears.
I plop down next to him in one of the cream-colored wicker chairs.
He doesn’t acknowledge my presence.
Back in middle school, this place was an Italian coffeeshop. The barista once comped our coffees and slipped us free muffins when the tattered dollars and change in our pockets failed to cover the bill. Teddy and I felt like grownups coming here.
Dante’s looks fancier now, serves booze, and has a real menu. They hired us after we graduated high school last spring. Soon Teddy will head to our other job, the one I just came from—delivery person extraordinaire for Falcon Messenger.
I attempt to snatch his phone. A cruel memory from another night I tried to take Teddy’s phone floats in my head. I stuff it back down.
“Knock it awff!” He twists his broad shoulders away.
I’ve always found that thick Yonkers accent of his endearing.
“Lunch slow?” I sigh. The West Village regulars, like the rest of the people in this city, swap the sweltering streets and garbage and human excrement stink for sandy beaches this time of year.
Another reason why we also work at Falcon Messenger and take shifts at The Duplex on Christopher Street. “I need that shirt on you for tonight.”
Teddy drops his feet and straightens up. “Gawd, bad enough we gotta work these jobs. Now we’re sharin’ uniforms?”
“Good thing we wear the same size.” I smirk. In length, at least. I grew up lanky, with long baby giraffe legs adding to my awkwardness. Dishwater-blond hair. Green eyes. Sometimes called cute. Never pretty.
Teddy, meanwhile, is cut like an athlete, with Sicilian skin and dark, thick lashes.
What’s with the heavy breathing? A white puff ball of a dog with beady black-licorice eyes stares at me from the woman’s lap at the next table. I stick out my tongue at the offender.
It licks its nose and resumes its serenade of panting.
I longed for a dog growing up. A companion that would give me the unconditional love I craved.
I didn’t grow up having a mom—not after the police took me away from her as a baby—and I never stayed long enough with any of my foster families to know what that kind of love felt like.
I was never good at making friends at school, either.
As a child of an alcoholic, it takes me longer to pull my thoughts together.
Made me an easy target for bullies when I got to elementary school.
I’d hold my breath until I got dizzy, just to not say something stupid. I nearly passed out once.
One day at recess, a skinny towheaded kid in my grade told the meanies if they messed with me, they’d have to go through him first. Everyone liked Cody, the smiley kid with the silly voices who could make everyone laugh. They listened to him.
I stuck by his side after that. And that same year, when Teddy’s uncle went to jail for killing someone and he had no other relatives to live with, we invited him to play with us. The three of us became fast friends—in time, a family.
The white puff ball on the woman’s lap indulges in a healthy yawn.
I eye the platinum credit card poking out from her napkin as she signs the check. I hate running down the street after customers.
She gives me the stink-eye and slides the card closer to her.
I’ve served the couple seated at the next table, dressed in workout clothes and sharp kicks, a few times. Newly dating. Polite. Not great tippers, but at least they leave something. I take what I can get to afford my voice and guitar lessons.
One time a customer ordered a spring water and left me a twenty under her glass.
A crisp fall day. Nothing like today’s icky stickiness.
When I lifted the glass, the twenty blew onto the chair.
That rascal floated to the sidewalk. Next thing I knew, my tip was lying in the middle of MacDougal Street.
I rushed to retrieve it, pausing for passing cars.
By the time I made it to where it landed, it was gone. My heart sank in my chest.
“Here, you lost this.”
I turned, my eyes glazing over the twenty in his hand and up the muscular arm of the guy in jeans and a T-shirt beside me. His thick brown hair was wet and uncombed, his scent like fresh woodchips in Central Park.
I opened my mouth to thank him.
“Coffee to go,” he barked like a drill sergeant, before I could get the words out.
He followed me inside while I prepared his order. He talked to himself the whole time, his dark eyebrows dancing through every thought.
“Are you rehearsing lines or something?” The guy being an actor made perfect sense—those velvet brown eyes, that strong Roman nose.
He pulled a face and continued whispering to himself.
Hmm, maybe a method actor? What a strange dude. I glanced down at his credit card. MICAH KERSHAW.
I saw him the second time while wiping down tables outside. He exited one of the Easter egg–colored row houses across the street, again in deep conversation with himself. He belonged to the lavender one, my favorite color, located just two doors down from where Bob Dylan once lived. I can’t even.
I spotted him a few weeks later on a delivery for Falcon Messenger at one of the ad agencies in midtown.
He must work there. Duh, Kershaw McKenzie.
He didn’t see me, but I sure saw him. This time dressed like a member of an ’80s pop band, skinny tie and tapered pants showing off his well-defined legs.
His eyebrows were still jigging up and down but his lips were pulled tight.
To rein in all that self-whispering, I imagined.
A flower delivery van interrupts my daydream while more cars stop and go, waiting to turn onto Houston. At a break, my eyes slide up to the lavender house, longing for a glimpse.
Nope. Just dudes whistling and hollering as they pass. They make life look easy.
Take the ringleader in his square, oversize shades and Hawaiian shirt. He trips over his blinged-out Nikes and the other boys bend over in hysterics. Kids from rich families have no idea how good they have it. A far cry from Teddy’s and my childhood.
Teddy yanks out an earbud. “Dahl, you gotta stop posting those videos from freshman year.”
“I know, I’m being stupid. I just loved that show. Cody sounded amazing.”
“So did you. Even with the dyed hair, Gabriella.” He winks, his gap-toothed grin stuck on me.
I bat my eyes. “Oh, stop.”
His smile fades. “So . . . I called Silas. Wanted to talk, ya know. What the news said and all. He assured me St. Ignatius was handling it.”
I whistle through my teeth. “Silas said we shouldn’t keep bringing up that night.” I keep my voice low.
“I’m not. Just with you. Coffee?” His dark, feathery lashes sweep toward the espresso bar inside.
I shake my head.
“Ya sure?”
A woman laughs walking alongside a man. Maybe in their forties and holding hands, they stroll toward us in black jeans and T-shirts with the sleeves cut off, revealing toned arms and tats from their necks to their fingers. They look like two musicians coming offstage.
I freeze in my seat.
Their bodies touch as they walk. I imagine Katia and Basilio Gallardo to be like that, though I never met them.
“Sup?” Teddy follows my gaze.
“Ghosts.” I massage the pain atop my breastbone, squeezing in and out from nipple to nipple with every new breath.
He grimaces. “You wigging out? Not sure I can handle this right now.”
“Yeah, well, you didn’t kill three people.” My voice rises. I wince.
He looks away, shaking his head.
I fish a piece of Nicorette gum out of my bag.
He rolls his eyes. “Not again.”
I clench my jaw, chewing. “Ever wonder how much she knows about what happened that night?”
“Ya mean Cody’s girlfriend? Yeah, I do.”
“She didn’t even come to the funeral. Who does that?”
“Call it effed up.”
My eyes well up picturing Cody, his smile brighter than Rockefeller Center’s Christmas tree. He treated me like I was his favorite person on earth. He should be with us now. I blow my nose into a napkin.
White puff ball barks.
“God, I miss him.”
“Always will.” Teddy stares off, his brows slope downward.
“Sometimes I wake up at night and I hear them. Their screams.”
He puts up a hand, stopping me. “We did what we had to do, Dahl. Like Silas said, ‘They never believe people like us. That’s how it is.’”
“I know.” I look away, tasting the tears in my throat. “Thank god for Silas.”
“Yeah, thank gawd.”