Chapter 13 #2
Nelle squirms, wishing she could walk out onto the damn balcony already.
Then Jessie laughs, snapping any tension like a bone. “Sorry if I made you feel weird. I don’t always know when a bit’s gone too long, that’s my bad. Look, I don’t know you, so having you here with James is a little strange, especially because he’s never brought a girl around. But you seem cool.”
Nelle relaxes. “You do, too.”
Jessie pauses, studies her a moment, then reaches for the wine. She pours another glass. “Here,” she says, passing it over.
Nelle takes the offering just as James barrels into the room, sweaty and obviously freaking out.
“What’s the matter?” Jessie asks. “Did you see the ghost, because Lena swears she—”
“Can I speak with Nelle?” James says. “Alone.”
“Sure. I’ll . . . wait on the balcony.”
Once Jessie is safely outside, he motions for Nelle to join him on the couch.
“What’s wrong?”
“The pen is empty.” He shakes it. “I tried to get some out, but it’s all gone. I hate to ask you to—”
Nelle plucks the pen from his fingers. “Watch Jessie. Make sure she doesn’t turn around.”
“Wait, don’t you want to go somewhere else to—”
Nelle gasps as the metal nib cuts into her palm. A bead of ink swells, as small as a black diamond. She fills the pen and gives it to James. He writes, Nelle goes onto the balcony.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” She opens the balcony door, stepping into the summer night. A car alarm blares a couple of blocks away. The hot reek of subway steam wafts in her direction. Jessie looks up expectantly.
“You can go back in.” Nelle lifts her wineglass in salute. “He’s ready to talk.”
As soon as the balcony door shuts, Jessie whirls on James so violently that wine sloshes out of her glass. She doesn’t even notice the Greenland-shaped stain it leaves on her faux cowhide rug.
“What are you thinking, running away from home with some girl you barely know? Do you know how many times your mom has called me, inconsolable, and I’ve had to talk her through it, to tell her it’s all okay, and that you’re not ignoring her texts because you hate her, which, by the way, I get why you’d ignore her texts, she is kind of annoying sometimes, but why the fuck are you ignoring my texts?
” She gulps down six ounces of wine and holds out her phone. “Call your mom. Now.”
Her tone leaves no room for argument. James takes the phone with shaky hands.
His mom answers instantly. “Hey, Jessie, I—”
“Hey, Mom.” Icy silence. “Sorry I haven’t responded to your calls or texts. I . . . uh . . . threw my phone in the ocean.”
“You what?” she says.
Jessie mouths the same thing.
“I haven’t been answering because I threw my phone in the ocean,” he says again. “I wanted to be free from technology, I don’t know. It’s been nice not to be distracted by it, but that’s why I’ve been not answering. I haven’t been receiving your messages.”
His mom scoffs. “That doesn’t forgive anything, James. You can’t just up and leave on a random night—”
“I know, I’m sorry—”
“Your savings. School. Your job. You won’t survive if you’re not making mature decisions for your life.”
He sighs. “I have considered all of that. Look, Mom, I love you, but I honestly don’t care about school right now. I want to travel for the rest of the summer, so that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Whatever.”
Oh, she is angrier than he has ever heard her.
“See you in a few weeks,” she says, and hangs up.
“I hate you for making me do that.” James throws the phone back to Jessie.
She hums as she sways into the kitchen, apparently proud of herself. While her back is turned, he whips out the journal and writes, Nelle comes back inside . . .
He continues the sentence, with freedom to wander all of New York City.
As soon as he writes the words, they dissolve until the paper is blank.
Next he tries, with freedom to wander all of the West Village, but that, too, fades.
Finally, he writes, with freedom to wander all of apartment 3B, including the balcony.
His chicken-scratch handwriting doesn’t disappear.
As the balcony door squeaks open, street noise trickles in. Car tires whoosh, people’s voices drift down like feathers from the rooftop bar around the corner.
Nelle steps inside, wineglass empty, more relaxed than he has ever seen her.
“It’s so nice out there.”
Jessie shoves her cheeks full of pizza crust, wipes her hands on a rag, and gathers up the plates. “Y’all want to see the roof?”
Nelle’s smile rivals sunshine.
James scrambles for the journal and writes, and the roof? but the words vanish. He tries again. Nelle goes to the roof.
They follow Jessie into the dank hall and up a sketchy staircase to a door that can only be opened from the inside.
“What if we get locked up here?” James asks as they step into the sticky night.
Nelle bounces on her toes like a kid in line for a roller coaster. “Then we’ll climb down. It’ll be fun.”
“Just enjoy the view, James,” Jessie says.
Night hangs over the city, and skyscrapers light up in the distance past the comparably shorter streets of the Village.
He leans against the half wall lining the roof, soaking in the view.
A pigeon picks at a banana peel on the sidewalk.
Trees hang over the narrow one-way street.
Voices and car horns and the hum of the city underline the electric air.
A rumble of thunder shakes the sky. James flinches as water splats on his forehead. It ripples across the concrete, a hushed rainfall. The tree branches titter, droplets playing music on their thirsty leaves.
“What do you think?” Jessie wraps an arm around his shoulders. “You’ve wanted to be here your whole life, right?”
James sighs, unable to produce words to explain how he feels. A bubble starts small in his chest, engorging with every breath, filled with pink glitter.
New York. He made it.
Nelle straddles the low concrete wall, her right leg hanging off the edge of the building.
Her foot has gone numb. She trails her finger where people have carved C+L, R+P, and G+G, dodging smudges of black ash from crushed cigarettes and mysterious stains.
She doesn’t worry about falling into the street below because she wouldn’t die.
Would her bones break? Most likely, but only two things can kill her, and one of them is the black journal.
The last words written in her ink. The last tie she has to the earth.
With Father’s study burned, she realizes that her life is literally in James’s back pocket.
“Can I see your key?” she asks him.
He holds it out, then hesitates. “Depends on what you’re planning to do with it.”
“Nothing violent this time.” She holds out her pinkie. “I promise.”
Key ring wielded, she digs into the ledge, carving her initial. N. Then she scratches a squiggly ampersand, followed by a J.
N&J. Not plus. And. Nelle and James.
Thunder rolls through like an avalanche. Lightning forks over the city. Hot wind swirls around them. Leaves spiral down the street like green confetti. As the storm worsens, the illuminated skyscrapers hide behind pounding sheets of gray.
“Let’s get inside!” Jessie screams over the torrent.
James starts to stand, but Nelle pulls him back. Shakes her soaked head. He understands.
“We’re gonna stay for a minute!” he yells back.
“Suit yourself!” Jessie holds her jacket above her head and scurries to the door, propped open with a cinder block.
Nelle pulls James away from the ledge and leads him to the center of the roof.
She raises his arm, her fingers wrapped in his, and spins herself around.
He falls into her movement, assuming a dance neither of them has rehearsed.
They waltz sloppily in the rain to an invisible orchestra, whirling and laughing as the water rushes over them.
Each raindrop hits the concrete like a note to a song only they can hear.
Lightning splits the black clouds, and the rain pours harder, but Nelle’s not scared.
James sprints a circle around the rooftop, howling fearlessly into the night. His shoes splash in deep puddles, spraying rainwater. He is so much freer than the man she met under the fireworks last month.
Nelle chases after him. Warm water prickles her hairline, the tip of her nose, her parted lips, her neck, chest, arms, fingertips, toes—
She slows to a stop. Holds out her arms, extending her fingers, each tip sizzling as adrenaline pumps through her veins.
She tilts her head back and opens her mouth.
Water fills the back of her throat, dribbles over her lips, and spills out.
When she breaks her pose with a giggle, James is in front of her.
He leans in close, his lips brushing the lobe of her ear.
She shudders. For the first time tonight, Nelle realizes that she’s trembling.
“Did Jessie give you a talk when I was gone earlier?” James’s voice is low, gravelly.
Nelle grins. “A little one.”
“She’s protective of me,” he says. “But I can tell she likes you.”
“I like her, too.” She traces a finger along his scruffy jaw. “She has a nice book collection.”
James touches her hand, stilling it on his cheek. “I never thought I’d be standing on a rooftop in New York during a thunderstorm. And I definitely never thought you’d be here with me.”
Nelle has never wanted to kiss him more than she does now, in the darkness, rain-smeared neon blinking in the distance. His blue eyes burn into her like ice, his hair slicked back, his shirt soaked and pasted to his chest, his stomach.
“Here I am,” she says.
“Here you are.” His voice barely more than a rasp.
Her eyelids flutter shut, and she rises on her toes, holding on to James like he’s a life raft. She has never kissed anyone, but she has read about it. Dreamed about it. Her pillow, her hand, and the shower wall have all substituted as men in her fantasies.
Crack!
White light blasts behind Nelle’s eyelids. She opens her eyes, to see only rain and the ghost of a flash dancing past her vision. Too late. She missed it.
“Was that lightning?” James walks over and examines a black scorch mark that stains the concrete. “Holy shit, we almost got struck by lightning.”
Nelle’s heart hammers in her chest, whether from the near-death experience or the almost-kiss, she’s not sure.
“I know this is stupid,” she says, “but do you think that was a sign?”
“A sign saying what?” James asks.
“That we should wait . . . no, never mind, it’s stupid.” She shakes her head. For years, her first kiss was nothing but a wish. What better moment to make it reality than a stormy rooftop in New York?
“We should wait to . . . kiss?”
“Forget I said anything, James.” She doesn’t want to wait.
“No, no, I think you’re right.” He holds her hands. “You were right about me waiting for the right moment to throw my phone away, and you’re right about this.”
“But how will we know when the right moment for this is?” Nelle runs her thumbs over his wrists.
“We’ll know.” He brings their hands up and kisses hers. “Trust me.”
Nelle doesn’t want to wait, but she does trust him. With her life.
“Fine.” She taps his nose, the bow of his lips, saying goodbye to her hope of tasting him tonight.