Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Gabriel looked drained with sweat plastering his hair to his head, but he wore a smile. Guitar in one hand and his arm around Annika, they made their way to the bar.
When they stopped in front of me, Annika put her hand on his chest and smiled up at him. “Gabriel, this is my friend Cleo. My best friend,” she added.
The smile fell from his lips and his eyes narrowed to slits. “ You’re Cleo?”
He stared at me so accusingly you would think Annika had just told him I’d drowned a litter of puppies.
With a shake of his head, he wiped his hand down his face and laughed under his breath. “Of course you are.” He muttered a curse then let out a weary sigh like he couldn’t believe Annika expected him to be civil to me. “Nice to meet you, Cleo .”
So much for charming. What the hell was this guy’s problem?
I looked him up and down, thoroughly unimpressed. He wasn’t a legend at all. He was just another Dick.
“Wow. That was so convincing. You sound absolutely delighted to meet me.”
He opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it and strode to the bar where he asked Sean if he had any whiskey back there. He downed two shots in quick succession and slammed the glass on the bar while Annika and I looked on.
“An asshole and an alcoholic. Funny how musicians always look so much smaller when they’re not on the stage,” I mused. I made sure to say it loud enough for him to hear too. Because yes, I was just that petty.
Annika elbowed me in the ribs and mouthed, Be nice .
I held up my hands. I didn’t start this . Your loser boyfriend did.
Gabriel turned from the bar, ran his hand through his hair and took a few deep breaths before smiling at Annika and completely ignoring me.
“Let’s go to the Kiev,” he said, adding that he was starving as he ushered Annika out the door.
I trailed them to the sidewalk, poised to leave. “I’ll see you later, Annika. I need to get home.” I jerked my thumb over my shoulder then spun and strode away.
“Oh no, you don’t.” Annika grabbed my arm and yanked me in the opposite direction. “You’re coming with us.”
“Nope. No way.” I didn’t want to be subjected to another minute of that asshole’s bad attitude. “I’m going home.”
We argued about it, and I made a million excuses, but Annika was so insistent that Gabriel felt compelled to say, “No, really. Come with us. We want you to come.”
Annika flashed me a bright smile as if a few words from him solved everything. It didn’t. “Just give him a chance,” Annika pleaded.
At this point, it almost felt like my duty to spend time with them, if only to ensure that he wasn’t being a dick to my friend.
So off to the Ukrainian diner we went.
We ordered coffee and French toast, and Annika snuggled against Gabriel’s side, her fingers idly playing with his hair while she gazed at him with awe and wonder and a smile of adulation.
I’d seen her like this before, with countless guys she’d fallen in and out of love with, so I knew that in time, her smile would fade, and she wouldn’t be so enamored. But right now, she was in the early stages of infatuation, and he was still perfect in her eyes.
With any luck, she would come to her senses quickly.
“So you and Annika went to high school together?” Gabriel asked, attempting to make polite conversation.
I sheathed my dagger and nodded. “Mmhmm. LaGuardia.”
Annika picked up the ball and ran with it, hyping me up like she was trying to sell her new boyfriend on the merits of her best friend.
“Cleo was the artsy one. She thrifted all her clothes, and her art always had important messages. She was an AIDS activist, a feminist, anti-establishment. She just did her own thing and marched to the beat of her own drum. I thought she was so cool but kind of intimidating.”
“I wasn’t intimidating. I was more of a loner. Annika was one of the popular girls. Everyone loved her.”
“I wouldn’t say I was popular. I was in a really cliquey group,” she told Gabriel. “We all walked around in tight buns and Flashdance-y clothes like a bunch of clones. It’s so embarrassing to think about that now.”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “You rocked those cropped T-shirts and leggings like nobody’s business.”
“I wish I’d been more like you instead of one of the sheep.” Annika pushed a forkful of French toast around her plate, gathering the syrup on the challah bread before exchanging her half-eaten plate with Gabriel’s empty one. “Cleo didn’t care what anyone thought.”
That wasn’t entirely true. I cared. But there were a lot of extroverts at LaGuardia, and there was so much pressure to put yourself out there and be the best that I found it overwhelming.
I didn’t say anything though. Gabriel was studying my face intently, like I was a puzzle he was trying to solve. I didn’t want to give too much away.
I didn’t know what to make of this guy.
Why was he so rude when we met? Had he expected Annika’s friend to be different somehow? More colorful and vibrant and outgoing?
Sorry to disappoint you, Gabriel .
“We didn’t become friends until the end of ninth grade,” Annika continued. “One day, Cleo came to school in the coolest T-shirt, and I asked her where she got it. I wanted one just like it. Jordan almond pastels with the words I am, I am, I am written in red.”
“Sylvia Plath,” Gabriel said.
“Yes!” Annika beamed at him. “I had never heard of Sylvia Plath until I met Cleo. A fourteen-year-old reading Sylvia Plath and all this deep poetry.” Annika shook her head like she couldn’t get over it.
She grabbed her fork and ate off Gabriel’s plate.
“Anyway, it turns out she designed the T-shirt and silk-screened it. She hand-painted her Doc Martens too.” Annika smiled at me. “My brilliant, talented friend.”
“You’re the brilliant one. Annika is so incredibly talented,” I told Gabriel. “She’s an amazing dancer and choreographer.”
“She is.” Gabriel wrapped his arm around her. “When I stopped by the studio last week, I was blown away.”
Annika laughed and smacked his arm. “You saw two minutes of my rehearsal.”
He smiled. “That’s all it took.”
Gabriel was being sweet with Annika, so I started to thaw a bit. Not that I was enamored with him, but at least he appreciated her and wasn’t being a total dick.
“Do you read a lot of poetry?” he asked me.
“I just read a lot in general. My mom’s a writer and a voracious reader so I grew up surrounded by books, and we used to go to a lot of poetry readings,” I said. “How about you?” I thought to ask.
“My mom’s not a writer or a voracious reader. That I know of,” he added, his face shuttering before he smiled. “But I got into poetry because of my high school English teacher. Cool guy. He used to read Bob Dylan lyrics like it was poetry and he introduced me to Rimbaud.”
“I love Dylan and Rimbaud,” I said. “They were my gateway drug to beat poetry and literature.”
“Same,” Gabriel said, sounding thrilled that we’d found common ground. He looked around the diner then leaned in conspiratorially. “I saw Ginsberg eating a bowl of broth in here a few weeks ago and was hoping to see him again.”
“Oh yeah, he’s a regular,” I said. I was a big fan of the beat poet, too, and had seen him quite a few times over the years. “I’ve never spoken to him, but if I ever do, I know exactly what I’ll say.”
Gabriel raised his brows, prompting me.
“ Howl you doing, Al?” One of Allen Ginsberg’s most famous poems was called “Howl.”
Gabriel howled with laughter then pointed to himself. “You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me? You talkin’ to me?” he said, doing a really good impersonation of an unhinged DeNiro in Taxi Driver.
“Well, I’m the only one here.” I was aiming for a tough guy accent but mine paled in comparison to Gabriel’s. “Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?”
“Listen, you fuckheads, you screwheads…listen, Al, just howl if you need me.”
I don’t even know why it was so funny, but I was laughing so hard my stomach hurt. Every time we looked at each other, we started laughing again.
“Howl you doing, Al,” Gabriel repeated, wiping tears from his eyes like that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.
“Can you imagine?”
“I would give you all the tips I earned tonight just to see that.”
Annika caught my eye and gave me a smug smile. See? He’s amazing .
I wouldn’t go that far. It was just one funny moment.
“So you’re a fashion designer?” he said.
“Not really. I’m a struggling artist who works at a boutique. A girl’s gotta eat,” I said with a laugh. “So why New York? Why not LA?”
He shuddered. “LA isn’t my scene. I played guitar in a band in Detroit, and those guys all wanted to go out to LA.
They kept hyping it up like it was some kind of Promised Land.
It sucked my soul dry. I ended up doing session work and odd jobs just to pay for a plane ticket out of there.
The first time I came to New York, I felt like I’d finally found the home I’ve always been looking for.
Now I can’t imagine living anywhere else. ”
Detroit. LA. NYC .
“ When I first moved to New York, I got robbed… ”
Could it be…?
No. NO. Absolutely not. It was just a coincidence. Hundreds, probably thousands of people had a similar story.
I leaned back in my seat as the waitress refilled our coffee and cleared our plates. When she was gone, I added a dash of cream to my coffee and drank.
My right leg kept jumping and I needed to use two hands to hold my coffee cup. Caffeine was the last thing I needed. I set down my cup and tucked my hands under my thighs.
Two years ago, I found a notebook in Tompkins Square Park.
Or, rather, Chuck the Vietnam vet I’d befriended found it.
He thought I might be able to use it in one of my collages.
When I asked him where he got it, he told me he saw a strung-out, toothless man digging through a duffel bag.
The junkie kept the valuables and ditched the rest.
Chuck rescued a plaid flannel shirt from the trash too. It was soft and worn, and still smelled like laundry detergent and the musky scent of a boy.
The notebook had a torn cover, marbled black and white, and the pages in the front were so water-damaged that the words were illegible. But farther in, I struck gold.
On a bench in the park, I’d flipped through pages ringed by coffee stains and infused with the passion of a wildly romantic soul.
I fell in love with his words and half in love with him.
He wrote like a beat poet crisscrossing the country from coast-to-coast on a quest for enlightenment and the true meaning of life.
Now, I ran through all the reasons why Gabriel couldn’t possibly be my Notebook Boy.
Number one. The flannel shirt was extra-large. Gabriel was taller than me, just above average height, but he was too lanky and fine-boned for an extra-large shirt.
Number two. Annika knew all about Notebook Boy, but it hadn’t triggered any reaction from her.
Granted, she’d only skimmed a few passages and that had been two years ago on the heels of her parents’ divorce drama.
But we used to talk about Notebook Boy all the time, conjuring up images of what he looked like (James Dean but make him nerdy, without the untimely death) and how we would meet (reaching for the same book at a used bookstore).
After agreeing to share the book, we would go to a 24-hour diner and talk all night then stumble home at dawn, drunk on love and kisses and fall into bed. And a relationship.
Years later, whenever people asked how we’d met, we would tell them the story of the notebook. “We were meant to be,” we’d say, trying not to sound too smug that out of all the billions of people in the world, we’d found each other.
“Maybe Cleo has it.”
My gaze snapped to Annika’s face. “Has what?”
“The book Gabriel left at the bar.” She laughed. “What did you think I meant?”
Maybe Cleo has your notebook.
Or your flannel shirt that’s clearly too big for you so it couldn’t possibly be yours.
Or maybe she just has really shitty luck and fate has done her dirty.
But no, they were talking about a lost book, a conversation I’d obviously missed while I was busy freaking out while simultaneously envisioning my future with Notebook Boy.
I reined in my overactive imagination and looked over at Gabriel, relieved to see that he looked nothing like James Dean. I couldn’t picture him in glasses either. “Which book was it?”
“Milan Kundera. The Unbearable Lightness of Being . I need to get another copy so I can find out how it ends.”
“Oh, yeah.” I nodded. “You need to finish it. You don’t know what you’re missing.”
He held up his hand. “Don’t spoil it.”
My jaw dropped. “What do you take me for? A barbarian? Next, you’ll accuse me of reading the ending first.” He laughed. “I guess you can borrow mine,” I said grudgingly. “But only if you promise to return it.”
“Wow. This is a big moment.” Annika’s hand went to her heart. “You never lend out your books.”
“Because I never get them back!” I laughed.
“If you lend me the book, I promise to return it. I’m not a thief,” Gabriel said, his eyes meeting mine. Soulful eyes. Bedroom eyes. Long lashes and sex hair.
This guy had heartbreak written all over him.
But I wasn’t a thief either, so I quickly averted my gaze.
He was Annika’s boyfriend, which made him off-limits for all eternity.
Fine by me. My mystery boy was still out there, and at this point, no other guy could ever compare.
He was not a musician. He would not be rude when we finally met. And he would absolutely not be sleeping with my best friend.
No, he was actively searching for the girl who got away. Me. I was that girl with honey brown hair and smudged eyeliner. And just last week hadn’t Xavier given me makeup tips for accentuating my full lips?
When our paths collided at exactly the right time , under ideal circumstances, I would thank fate for sending him my way.
Hey, Fate, this would be the perfect time . I’m very single. Very available. Ready and eager to meet the love of my life.