Chapter Nine
Almost a week has passed since I last spoke to Henry. Sunday, I had a shift handing out magazines in front of the Flatiron Building in the pouring rain. Monday was a plated dinner at NYAC honoring its retired members. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were at the library with Sal, which brings us to today. One more catering shift at NYAC and I’m free for a weekend of Criminal Minds . I have two whole days ahead of me with nothing planned.
My phone buzzes in my back pocket and doesn’t stop—which is weird, since hardly anyone calls me nowadays. I open the screen, inhale sharply when I see Mom is calling. I swallow and clear my throat, willing my voice to sound chipper and bright. To my parents, I’m living my dreams in the big city, happy as a clam.
“Hi,” I say, my voice slightly too high to sound natural.
“Hi, angel!” There’s soft music playing in the background—she’s probably cooking.
“Hey, Mom, I can’t talk. I have a shift.”
“You’re always working,” she says, the whir of a blender blasting through the phone speaker. So not cooking—making a smoothie for Dad. “I wish you’d call more.”
“I know,” I say, pacing back and forth in front of the NYAC loading dock. “I’m just really busy,” I lie. “Can we talk later? I really gotta go.”
“Of course,” she says, a hint of worry in her voice. “Be well. I love you.”
“Love you too,” I squeak in before hanging up. I take a deep breath through my nose and out my mouth.
I think back to that horrible year at home between dropping out of college and moving to New York. My mom was so worried about me. I wasn’t eating. Food lost its taste, and my stomach couldn’t hold anything down anyway. I wasn’t watching TV or reading books or scrolling through Instagram. I was existing. Catatonic. Sonya came over once or twice, I think because my mom assumed that having her there would bring me out of my room, but it just made me burrow deeper.
One night, Mom sat on the edge of my bed sobbing, begging me to let her help me. But there was nothing left to help. I wasn’t human. I wasn’t interested in getting better.
I can’t admit to my mom that I still feel like the girl in bed, lying still as life passes by. If I did, I’m not sure she could bear it.
I miss my parents, but it’s better this way, with a couple of fake phone calls and the occasional snapshot of Sonya and me looking normal and happy and fine . Better they don’t know the truth.
Standing at the NYAC loading dock, I dread the coming shift. Maybe it’s the anticipation of Mr. Kirk being a total dick, or the idea that a bunch of ancient men will send me running around the building like a madwoman to get them a side of mayo, or maybe it’s because I’m tired of being invisible. Sometimes I come home from these shifts with the eerie feeling that I don’t actually exist at all, that I’m a figment of my own imagination, made to smile and serve.
Unfortunately, I’m stuck here because the paycheck is fat, and I’m desperate. I pull on my maroon jacket and bow tie. My name tag today is Brad . At least Kirk is nowhere to be found. Maybe it’s his night off.
I grab a tray of shrimp cocktail and head into the party. The guests all adhered to the black-tie dress code, men in tuxedos, women in fine silks and satins. Everyone smells like lemon perfume and lavender soap and looks like they brush their teeth with mineral water. I only get to see this side of New York through a looking glass, but never to touch. They’re all the same wolf in different clothing, these places I temp at. Or, I should say, the same wolf in different sequined pashminas.
After I spend a few hours passing out shrimp, the guests take their seats at their assigned tables. I carry a white cloth with a big bottle of sparkling water from table to table, refilling glasses until a woman in an electric-blue pantsuit pulls me gently by the elbow out of the dining room.
“Darling,” she says in a hushed southern accent, “I have a favor to ask you.”
The glass bottle of water sweats in my hands.
“I’m embarrassed to ask you this, but do you happen to have a…a tampon on you?” She nervously eyes her table. She must be no less than forty years old and is too flustered to ask any of her posh friends.
“I’m not supposed to leave the dining room,” I say, biting my lip.
“Please…” She shifts her weight in her kitten heels. “It’s an emergency.”
A drop of cold water rolls down my sleeve as I remember the scolding I got from Kirk. “I could get in trouble.”
She crinkles her eyebrows and frowns, glancing back to her table. “I’m supposed to make a toast.”
Maybe I’m tempted to help her because she’s the first fancy guest to speak to me, or maybe it’s because I’m tired of pouring water and wine. “I think I have one in my bag, but I have to run downstairs. Can you wait here?”
“You’re amazing,” she says, relaxing from her tense posture into a more relieved stance. “I won’t move a muscle.”
“Five minutes,” I call back to her as the service elevator doors close behind me. It takes a lot longer than five minutes just to get down to the basement and sift through the contents of my bag, but I find what I’m looking for and head back upstairs. I press the elevator button, but it doesn’t budge. The light at the top of the door indicates that it’s on the fifth floor.
It’s already been ten minutes.
I don’t have time to wait.
The stairs in this building are like a game of Chutes and Ladders. It is so easy to get lost, but if I keep climbing up, I hope I’ll eventually reach the rooftop lounge where the event is happening. I hike up and up and up until I come to a door that leads me to a carpeted staircase. I keep going up until I hear the music from the party again. My heart is pounding, my thighs are burning, and I’m out of breath. God, Bennet, would it kill you to work out once in a while? I get my bearings when I spot the familiar doorway that leads to the event. The handle is barely out of my reach when a hand grabs my shoulder, spinning me around.
Mr. Kirk.
He looks at me with his evil little snake eyes. “Why aren’t you on the floor right now?” His voice is nasally and sharp.
“I was heading there,” I say as I try to scoot away from him.
He steps in front of me, cutting off my path. “Fredo said you stopped water service fifteen minutes ago. That is unacceptable.” He acts as if a rich person not getting their sparkling water fast enough is as bad as if I personally punched one of them in the face.
“A guest asked me to do something for her,” I explain, slipping the tampon up my sleeve.
“What was so important that you had to leave the floor?”
“It’s a feminine issue.”
“Why didn’t you come find me?” He puts his hands on his hips. He reminds me of a cartoon paper clip, with big bulging eyes.
Because I didn’t want to embarrass the nice lady in the cool pantsuit, and also you and everyone else on staff here are cis men.
“Forgive me for not assuming that you had an extra tampon, Mr. Kirk,” I say coolly.
He purses his lips and glares at me. Wrong thing to say, Bennet.
“I’m going to have to file a complaint with Carlyle.”
My heart skips a beat and I immediately pivot into grovel mode. “It’ll never happen again. Please, I promise.” I hate myself for pleading with him and not fighting back, but I need this job, no matter how much of a twerp Mr. Kirk is. “Please, sir.”
“This is strike two, Bennet. Strike three, and you won’t be asked to return.”
“Strike two? What was strike one?”
“You were late last week,” he growls. “Don’t you remember?”
“I wasn’t late! I was here—”
“Do you want me to add another strike right now? Because I don’t like this attitude.”
“No, I—I’m sorry. Please.” I take a deep breath. “I need this job.” I can’t fail at yet another thing.
Kirk grinds his teeth and squints down at me. He takes his sweet time thinking over what to do with me, putting on a three-act play. Finally, he speaks. “Don’t let it happen again.”
I nod. “Of course.”
He turns on his heels like a spinning top and heads down the stairs to the kitchen.
Fucking bastard.
···
I tear off my bow tie and ugly maroon jacket and stomp out the door into the cool night air. What did he expect me to do, let the poor woman bleed onstage?
If I ever got this mad at school, Sam, Andy, and I would go to the batting cage. I wasn’t good at hitting baseballs, but holding a bat and smashing things always made me feel better. Andy said it was healthy for us to let out our anger instead of bottling it up. Sam was always there to pitch for us. He never got mad or upset. He was always kind, always levelheaded, always looking for rational solutions to problems. He was a fixer.
Andy sucked at baseball. It was one of my favorite things about her—that someone who seemed so good at everything could not figure out how to make contact between a bat and a ball, no matter how easy Sam pitched it to her. I loved having something to tease her about, though it drove her absolutely insane. Our only true fight before everything went down with Sam was on one of those nights—Andy couldn’t hit the baseball no matter how many times she tried, and she insisted we stay until she got it. Sam and I were exhausted, and tried to usher her toward leaving, when she snapped—yelling that we weren’t on her side anymore, that Sam and I were leaving her out. It was shocking. Andy always seemed supportive of our relationship, but I was friends with Andy before I fell in love with Sam. She introduced us. We screamed at each other until Andy stormed off, and Sam drove me back to his apartment in silence.
The next morning, when I opened Sam’s apartment door to head to class, there was a baseball sitting on the mat. I picked it up, turned it over, and saw I’m sorry. I love you , written in red Sharpie. It became sort of a white flag between me and Andy—anytime we got in a fight or wanted to apologize, we’d sneak the baseball someplace where the other would find it, and it was instantly better. Instant forgiveness. I’m sorry. I love you .
Our apology ball worked until I screwed up so bad that I don’t even know where the stupid baseball ended up.
I don’t have a batting cage at my disposal in Columbus Circle, so I decide I’ll walk off my anger. I pass heaps of garbage, a man collecting empty soda bottles in big plastic bags, a woman pushing a granny cart of flowers. I smell the sweet cinnamon aroma of a sugared-nut cart. I pass a man packing up a display of graffitied shirts, and a child playing with glow sticks. I pass Lincoln Center.
God, it’s like everything is compounding, the pressure cooker inside my skull zipping from my dead-end job to Andy to Sam to Sonya back to Mr. Kirk, and I just feel so damn frustrated . I’m frustrated with Andy for moving on. I’m frustrated with Sonya for trying to set me up before I was ready. I’m frustrated with Sam for dying. And I’m frustrated with myself for…for everything.
Come to think of it, I’m also frustrated with Henry for thinking it would be so easy to fix me. That it would be so simple to find a passion and turn my life around.
I pass a man asleep on a flattened cardboard box. I pass an empty bodega and a couple making out on a stoop.
My cheeks are real. My chin is real. My lips are real.
I pass a woman walking a cat on a leash. I pass a man covered head to toe in silver paint, clearly on a walk home from his shift as a human robot in Columbus Circle.
Breathe.
Kirk is just an insecure man who didn’t have enough power as a child and is taking advantage of it now. He probably won’t even report me. I’m a good caterer. I keep my mouth shut and I do my job. He’s just talking a big game.
Henry is just being nice. Andy is just trying to survive. Sonya and Jamie are just existing. Sam is just…gone.
Come back to earth, Bennet.
My body aches from the eight-hour shift and the fifteen blocks of tantrum-walking, so I cave and take a train the rest of the way home. I calm myself, decrease my heart rate with every stop on the train.
Tomorrow is Saturday, which is supposed to be the day I spend with Henry, but it’s now eleven on a Friday night and I haven’t heard from him.
It occurs to me only as I reach the front door of my apartment building that I’m also capable of texting him . I shiver. The thought of asking someone to hang out gives me agita. I can’t remember the last time I did that.
I weigh the pros and cons of texting him as I avoid going up the stairs to my apartment to Jamie and Sonya cuddling on the couch.
Pro: it will feel good to nurture a friendship.
Con: the friendship is with a weirdo who likes to talk to strangers.
Pro: I might be able to discover my passion.
Con: discovering my passion will mean I have no more excuses.
Pro: I will have plans tomorrow.
Con: I will have plans tomorrow.
I pace back and forth on the sidewalk. It’s just one text. This shouldn’t be such a big deal. I open my messages and draft one.
I think your demonic raven drawing gave me powers? I found a couple of feathers in the shower drain this morning, and I crushed a water glass with just the strength of my talon. Oops, I meant my *hand*. Is this normal?
Send. Don’t think about it.
I walk to the corner bodega for a bag of salt-and-vinegar chips and a ginger ale, my favorite nighttime snack. I’m about to pay when my phone vibrates in my pocket.
I’ve consulted with the tattooed honeydew man living in my closet. He came to life shortly after our class. He said it’s fine.
The cashier catches me chuckling. I quickly insert my card into the reader and pay for my food. When I’m out on the street I type:
Does this honeydew man have a medical degree? He’s a little too young to be giving out advice so freely if he was only born a week ago…
Henry takes more than a minute to respond. I open the bag of chips and lean on a streetlamp. There aren’t too many people out right now, but I make eye contact with the chunkiest bulldog I’ve ever seen. He’s being walked by a fit twenty-something in head-to-toe Lululemon. I chortle at the juxtaposition. My phone vibrates.
He says that it’s best not to question him.
The message comes alongside a selfie of Henry with the melon, except the melon now has an angry face scribbled across it in Sharpie. He holds a butter knife to his throat as if the melon is threatening him.
Please tell me you had to get up and go get that knife and you don’t sleep with one by your bed. Major serial killer vibes.
He starts typing immediately.
The blue dots appear at the bottom of the screen, but they quickly vanish. I guess it’s not very nice to accuse someone of being a serial killer all the time. Eventually the dots return and Henry responds.
What’s one thing you wish you had as a kid?
I click my phone off, tucking it under my chin to think. The Lululemon girl and her bulldog pass me again. He grumpily trots alongside her, stomach almost grazing the pavement.
It gives me an answer to his question.
A pet.
He starts to type but stops. I wait for a few moments, but when he doesn’t respond, I put my phone in my pocket and head upstairs.
I tiptoe to my bedroom and sidestep the piles of dirty laundry on my floor to collapse on my bed. I kick off my clogs and they land with a thud. I rest my computer on my boobs so the screen is inches from my face and I bury my hand in the bag of chips. I try my best to forget that it’s Friday night in one of the most populous areas in the world and I’m alone.
I pop a couple of chips in my mouth and scroll through Instagram while Criminal Minds plays on my laptop. Andy posted another gorgeous picture from her engagement shoot. The crunching of chips echoes loudly in my ears as I zoom in on it.
Andy met Theo a year after Sam died. She had just started interning with an art buyer who worked for one of Theo’s celebrity clients, and Andy apparently impressed. She has always had gorgeous taste, and her and Sam being raised with a silver spoon meant that she had expensive taste too. Mr. and Mrs. Chase made sure they wanted for nothing, and when I showed up, their generosity spread to me. Sam was always embarrassed by their wealth, but Andy wasn’t. Not in a vain or selfish way, just in a way that felt natural to her. She thrived out in L.A. at her fancy internship. It seemed like she was always destined to rub elbows with the world’s shiniest people, even a fancy, early thirties, entertainment lawyer named Theo.
I’ve seen them together in action only once, when Andy flew me out to L.A. They had just started seeing each other, and I was still in my near-catatonic state. Theo took us to fancy dinners, on tours of record studios I can’t remember the names of, and even introduced us to a couple of his clients. I hated every second of it, seeing her happy. The sanitized haze of L.A. The palm trees. The fakeness of it all.
I hated that I hated it too, but I couldn’t stop.
Andy begged me to come live with her at the end of that trip. I remember that last conversation—the one that ended everything.
“Bennet, you can’t live like this. It’s not what Sam would want for you.”
We were lying on the bed in her oceanside apartment, only a couple hours away from my scheduled flight home. The windows were cracked slightly, letting the smoggy L.A. air waft gently through her curtains.
“I know what Sam wanted, and that was for us to live in New York.”
“He would want you to be happy. He would want you to move on.” Andy’s red hair spilled over her silk comforter.
“I can’t.” I pressed my eyes shut so I wouldn’t have to look at her.
“What happened to the girl that wanted to travel Europe with me after graduation? Hmm? What happened to that Bennet? I haven’t seen you smile the whole time you’ve been here.”
A not-so-kind laugh bubbled from my throat. “ You have no trouble smiling.”
She shot up quickly, hair whipping around her shoulders. “Jeez, Bennet.”
“You look completely unfazed.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” I rolled over in a ball, facing away from her. “Forget I said anything.”
“No. Say it.”
I lay there in silence, refusing to answer. Andy shook my shoulder. “Say it.”
“Fine.” I sat up in bed to face her. “How can you move on like this? Do you even miss him at all? Because it seems like you don’t, and it’s only been, what? Two years? It seems like you’re more than happy to live your glamorous life out here with this stranger and not be bothered at all that your brother is dead. It’s disrespectful, Andy.”
As soon as I said it, I wanted to take it back.
Her jaw tightened and her eyebrows lowered, crinkling together. I’d only seen this face once, at the batting cage, right before she lost it on me and Sam. This time, when she spoke, her voice was calm and level but dripping with anger. “Just because I continue to live my life doesn’t mean I don’t miss my brother. How dare you suggest otherwise.”
“Andy—”
“No, you had your turn to talk. Now it’s mine. Don’t forget that I loved him a hell of a lot longer than you did. I think about him every second of every day. When I’m with Theo is the only time my heart isn’t actively shattering into a million pieces. So go ahead and judge me, but I know my brother, and he would be happy for me.”
My breathing was ragged and shallow. “Andy, I—”
“You know what? I don’t care. Go to New York. Never finish your degree. Live in your world of misery. Do what you want, Bennet, but don’t you dare question my grief or my love for my brother.”
She stood up and started for the door, curling her fingers around the knob. At the last minute she turned to me and spoke with a wobbly voice. “I love you, Bennet. My family, we all love you so much, and I know you’re too lost in your own pain to realize how much your words hurt me.” A tear rolled down her cheek as she spoke. “Um…” She looked as if she might say something more, but she changed her mind and shook her head. “If you need a ride to the airport, Theo gets home from work in ten minutes.”
She shut the door behind her, and I finished packing my bag.
Our relationship faded after that. I know I hurt her feelings by pulling away. I knew it when I said those awful things, but I couldn’t stop. It was like this sickness was overcoming me, consuming my body, and there was nothing I could do but succumb to it. In the months following, she’d call and I wouldn’t pick up. She would text me and I’d get back to her days later, if at all. And now she’s sent me one final gesture: a save-the-date to her wedding.
I get to the bottom of the bag of chips and toss it in the trash can next to my bed. With greasy salty fingers, I open my phone to a message from Henry:
Secured a location for tomorrow. Don’t dress nice.
I text back a thumbs-up emoji and a melon emoji.