Chapter 1 #4
Noah isn’t really into the fashion part, but he’s always up for critique.
He role-plays as a reporter from Entertainment Tonight on a red carpet, referring to the mannequins as if they’re actresses from Designing Women or L.A.
Law. I laugh, but I’m also a little bored—not by Noah but by the clothes in the windows.
I perk up only when we pass by Brentano’s.
“That’s such a nice bookstore,” I tell Noah. “It’s like being in Europe.”
“Do you want to go in?” he asks. “We can tell the girls to stop.”
“No, it’s fine.”
I can’t help but check what’s in the window. Best way to know what the new books are.
“Are you sure?”
“I told you, I’m fine.”
“Why do you do that?”
“Why do I do what?”
“Think you don’t matter as much as the rest of us. You do.”
I have no idea where that’s coming from. Especially from someone who hasn’t called me back the whole break.
“I go to the three bookstores at home on an almost daily basis,” I tell him. “I’m fine.”
I’m quiet for the next ten blocks, then happy when we walk past the big library with the lions.
Margaret wants a shot with all of us in front, and asks a stranger to take a picture with her camera.
I am squeezed between Andie and Noah. Noah puts his arm behind my back and his hand on Andie’s shoulder.
“Can you make me a copy of that?” I ask Pam after the tourist gives her back her camera.
“Of course,” she says.
When we get to Twenty-Ninth Street, we turn off Fifth Avenue and all the stores fall away. From Pam’s stride, it’s clear we’re in her neighborhood now. We all talk, conversation to fill the time, to entertain. I picture a balloon, colorful and empty. Pam stops to point out a certain brownstone.
“This is where my former best friend used to live,” she announces, treating the house with a shaky reverence.
“What happened?” I ask. “Is she an ex–best friend or a once–best friend?”
“What’s the difference?” Pam asks back.
I feel everyone’s attention on me and don’t know how to get out of it.
I say, “Would you still talk to her now, if you could?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t part on good terms. She really hurt me.”
“Then she’s definitely an ex–best friend.”
Margaret looks at the brownstone. “Don’t you feel there are a lot of once–best friends going around? That’s what break was like for me. It didn’t hurt to see people, but it wasn’t the same.”
Andie says, “I guess going away to college will do that.”
We start walking again.
Andie continues to talk: “I kept looking forward to vacation—a whole month to be home. It sounded ideal. Now I can’t wait to go back. All those people I thought I’d see . . . I just didn’t.”
“Most of them, I didn’t even want to see,” Pam says.
“I don’t know,” I mumble. I did see friends over the break, and I was glad to see them. Like rereading a favorite book. The story didn’t really move forward, but I enjoyed myself, and saw a few things in a slightly different way.
“Home isn’t home anymore,” Andie says.
I don’t know, I think. I really don’t.
“I always thought home would be where my parents were.” Pam sighs.
“I thought it would be where my friends were,” Margaret says.
“What about you?” I ask Noah. Andie and Pam have started talking about their former friends—who they haven’t seen, who they haven’t wanted to see.
“I’m not sure,” Noah says. “My friends are still here. Not all of them, for sure. But the ones I’ve been best friends with are still my best friends.”
“No ex–best friends?”
“No. Well, at least not that dramatically.”
“Once–best friends?”
“Sure.”
“Do you think you’ll miss your best friends when we go back?”
“Yeah. I mean, we’ll still call each other.”
“Do you wish you were still here with them?”
Noah looks at me strangely. “Sometimes yes and sometimes no?”
What are you doing? I ask myself.
And I ask Noah, “Do you want me to stop cross-examining you? Sorry. Too many questions.” I walk a little slower.
Trying to explain will make it worse. You see, sometimes I feel as if I’m crossing a line, but then it’s revealed to be a cliff and I’m falling straight off.
Do you know what I mean? Sorry. Sorry sorry sorry.
“It’s alright,” Noah says.
“Alright” makes me think of permissible or allowable. I am not encouraged. I vow to shut up and hope my silence will last more than two minutes.
Noah looks at me and says, “Really.”
Pam stops and announces, “This is my dad’s building.” Andie looks at us and mouths, He owns it. The doorman nods at us as we enter. Pam says she’ll be right back, dragging Andie to a hidden elevator.
The lobby is enormous, probably larger than my house.
It is almost all marble, with lamps and tables that seem to have sprung from a Sherlock Holmes movie.
Noah and Margaret stop to look at a bona fide gilded mirror.
I keep walking, keep walking until I am right in the center of the room.
The light is not bright, more of a glow than an illumination.
“Echo,” I say, and hear an “echo” back. Margaret and Noah turn to give me a matching pair of curious glances.
My arm extends—I wave—there is so much space, all even.
I spread my arms out, pull back my head. I let go.
I am an arc. I move my foot around. Barely a sound as I start to spin.
I close my eyes and move around and around so I can make the air around me as smooth as the stone.
Faster faster faster. My feet need to hop to keep me steady.
I open my eyes and see Margaret and Noah coming closer.
Even though I am spiraling, I see them. Suddenly it doesn’t make any sense.
I don’t fall, exactly. I slow to a stop, my feet the first part of me to give up.
Then I sit down on the floor, feeling the ground tilt and tilt. I am ready to slide off.
Noah and Margaret are above me now. Noah is looking down at me, and I am so dizzy I can’t tell what he’s thinking. I wonder whether he thinks I’m stupid or out of my mind. Probably both.
“Are you okay?” Margaret asks.
“It felt great . . . but now I feel very close to sick.”
Noah holds out a hand to help me up. I shake my head. Not yet.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Things stop turning and melting.
“You know what I wonder?” I say, mostly to the ground. “You have the earth—it keeps turning and turning, but we’re so used to it that it doesn’t matter. I wonder if there is a point that if you twirled long enough, it would all seem normal too.”
I raise my head. Margaret looks like she’s ready to call a doctor. Noah just looks confused.
“Never mind,” I say.
“No,” he tells me. “What do you mean?”
Just as I am about to explain that it really isn’t worth explaining, Andie and Pam appear.
Andie asks, “Why is he on the floor?”
A little more friendly, Pam asks, “What did you do? Get in a fight?”
“Yeah,” Noah answers for me. “With the air.”
“The air won,” I add, as if that wasn’t obvious.
I’m ready. I hold out my hand, and Noah helps me up.
It doesn’t feel personal. He would’ve helped anyone up. He’s that kind of guy.
I haven’t even noticed that Pam is holding a bag, but now she reaches into it and says, “I have presents for you all.”
We all protest—none of us brought presents, you really didn’t have to, it’s not even Christmas anymore. Pam blows right past them.
Andie’s box is the smallest. When she opens it, she makes what I can only call a happy seal noise. She pulls out a necklace, and Pam helps her put it on. I know nothing about necklaces—why would I?—but from Andie’s reaction I can tell it’s exactly what she likes.
Margaret’s gift is wool for her knitting, which might sound kind of boring, but the wool is Technicolor vivid and feels super soft when she passes it around for us to touch. She’s now beaming too.
Noah’s present gets a big “WOW”—not from him, but from me. Somehow Pam has found a Sinéad O’Connor T-shirt with the cover of The Lion and the Cobra on it.
“It’s from St. Mark’s Place,” Pam tells Noah. “It made me think of the poster on your wall.”
Then it’s my turn. I remove the wrapping and find . . . a blank book. I open it up and find a receipt from the day before.
“Oops,” Pam says, pulling out the slip of paper and throwing it back in her now-empty bag. “I figure you can write in it!”
“Thank you,” I say. “That’s awesome.”
“Great—let’s go.” Pam gives the bag to her doorman and leads us outside.
“Do you even journal?” Noah whispers to me.
“No,” I answer. “But maybe I’ll start?”
On the street, it’s Andie who asks, “Does anyone know the best way to Chinatown? Should we take a cab?”
“It’s a nice night,” Pam answers. “Let’s walk.”
Indeed, the day has cleared into night, and the cold is falling gently down to earth. Andie doesn’t appreciate it, though. She suggests the subway.
“I don’t like subways,” Pam says. “They used to scare the hell out of me when I was little—not a good thing for a city kid. I just figured that was where the monsters went—this is before sewers became all the rage for turtles and whatnot. The noise that the subway car makes—I thought it was a roar. All very sinister. And when the lights inside the car would pop out from time to time—I was sure I was going to be killed, that something had cut the power and would take me. God, how I cried! It’s a miracle that my parents didn’t try to send me back for a refund. ”
“Kid fears,” Andie mumbles, looking down, then up. “Did you hear anything about the Gulf when you were in your father’s room? I heard the TV on.”
“It’s not looking good.”
“That’s what scares me. I never ever thought there’d be a war, all of a sudden.”
“I know what you mean.”
“Pretty scary,” Noah murmurs. I don’t really have anything to add.
“At least there’s no draft,” Margaret says.
“We’ll see,” Pam says ominously.
The conversation has stopped. I find myself nostalgic for ten minutes ago, and want to get us back to the lighter place where our group friendship resides. “What nonwar things are you afraid of?” I ask Noah.
“I already told you about the windows . . .”