The Bermudez Triangle (33 page)

Scarf Girl and Friend of Scarf Girl were there too—they’d been hip to hip the whole day. Avery had managed to gather that they’d gone to some music camp together for several years when they were kids. She vaguely wondered if they were dating, or if it had
ever crossed their minds to just kiss, to hold on to each other in this cold lobby and just make out like maniacs to get through this agonizing wait.

But then, not everyone was like Avery. Not everyone gave in to their whims and destroyed their friendships in the process. Some people actually had a grip. Some people could keep their friends, and those people didn’t have to sit by themselves in a puddle in the freezing cold, waiting for the what was potentially the biggest piece of news (probably bad) they’d get in their lives.

Even the music Avery was listening to was depressing her. She connected songs to events and people and times and places, and every line drawn from every song seemed to connect to Mel or Nina. She yanked out the earphones and listened to the girl next to her jabbering into her phone. She was having a particularly soap-opera conversation—the kind of overly loud one that was clearly meant to be heard by everyone around her. Lots of
I know!
’s and
Shut up!
’s and even one
For serious? For totally serious, serious?

When the girl said, “Oh … my … God!” nothing really registered until Avery noticed that almost everyone had jumped up and was rushing the hallway on the far left, forming a confused tangle.

This could only mean one thing.

Avery stood up slowly. She made no effort to get to the front of the throng. She hung on the edges until a spot was clear, which took some time. Finally, she saw a lonely list stuck to a door. It contained only one small column. Remarkably small.

Some people around her were gushing, and some were on the verge of tears.

Avery stepped a bit closer and ran her eyes down the page. She ran down again.

Her name was not there.

This time, she did laugh. Everything swam a bit. She turned around and almost walked straight into a guy who had come up behind her.

“Sorry,” she mumbled.

To Avery’s amazement, the guy responded by tweaking her on the top of her earlobe.

“What the f—”

“Tagged her,” he said.

She looked up into Parker’s grinning face.

“I tagged you,” he said. “On the ear. Like they do with animals. In the jungle. Get it? Jokes are funnier when you explain them, huh? I was going to pretend to hit you with a knockout dart, but that’s a two-person joke. You’d have had to fall down, and you wouldn’t have known to. So I went with the tag. I think it went over pretty well. Stop me anytime.”

Avery was still just staring up at his smooth chin, trying to figure out why and how Parker had come to be in front of her at one of the worst moments in her life, rambling about jokes and tags and darts. In the next moment, Mel squeezed into the frame, sliding between Parker and Scarf Girl. Either she was very excited or she lost her balance, because she threw herself forward and grabbed on to the lapels of Avery’s coat for support.

“Hi,” she said. “We got a little lost….”

There was snow in Mel’s hair. There was snow on Parker’s shoulders. Avery began to put it together. Obviously, they’d just run in. Mel had heard what she was saying the other night, and she’d recruited Parker to come to New York with her. And for nothing. It was all for nothing. Avery couldn’t bring herself to speak, so she went back over to her corner and slid down the wall. Parker and Mel followed and stood looking over her.

“Were you guys in the area?” she finally said.

“It was just a fun day for a drive,” Parker replied. “We heard twelve inches of snow, and we said
road trip
. So, what’s happening here? Anything going on?”

He turned and looked around at the crowd. Mel kept looking at Avery, then she sank down and sat by Avery’s outstretched legs.

“They put up the list,” Avery said simply. “I’m not on it. I blew it. It’s over.”

She tried to sound cavalier, but it didn’t really work. Parker looked away, and Mel reached out and held on to Avery’s arm.

“Oh,” she said. “Ave, I’m sorry.”

“I’m going to …” Parker jerked his head toward the door. Mel seemed to understand what this meant and nodded. He walked off toward the door and disappeared back out into the snow.

“You came a long way for nothing,” Avery mumbled.

“Not nothing. We came to see you.”

“Well, here I am.”

Avery didn’t want to stay in this place. She didn’t want to stick around long enough to get a clear memory of it that she could recall later. She pulled herself from the ground. Mel silently fell in beside her as they walked to the door. Scarf Girl stopped Avery halfway there.

“Why are you leaving?” she asked.

“I didn’t make it,” Avery said in a low voice.

“How do you know?”

“I’m not on the list.”

“They haven’t posted the list.”

“Yes, they have,” Avery said, looking at her in disbelief. She turned and pointed to the crowd of people behind her, all pushing in close to the door. “What do you think they’re reading?”

“The woodwind list. Woodwinds are posted on room 403. Piano is going up on room 410. There.”

Scarf Girl pointed to a door on the other side of the hall that was completely list-free.

“I missed that memo,” Avery said weakly.

“Good thing I caught you.”

Avery turned and her shoe made a loud squawk against the floor. Her movement put her face to face with Mel, and she caught herself just before she leaned over and kissed Mel on the bridge of her nose. It was just automatic—an old habit from the summer, and something that really couldn’t be more inappropriate.

“I guess I wait,” she said.

The draft blew through the room again, and Avery heard another “Mm-mm-mm.” At the same moment, the crowd began shifting
around again, and there was more noise coming from the area by the doors. Avery turned wearily and saw a woman hanging up another piece of paper on a door on the other side of the hall.

“It feels like it should be something more dramatic,” she said, her stomach taking a sudden tumble. “They should engrave it on stone tablets or something.”

“Come on,” Mel said, taking her hand.

“Can’t. You look,” Avery said.

Mel nodded eagerly and pressed into the crowd.

“Hey. You in the corner.”

This was Parker’s voice. When she looked up, he was back again, brushing fresh snow from his sleeves. Next to him was Nina, her huge crown of hair tipped in snow.

“I was looking for the building,” Nina said quietly. “They all look alike. Especially in the snow.”

“Yeah,” Avery said, numbly. “They do.”

They looked at one another, sizing one another up. Nina. Mel. They’d both come. In fact, Mel was pushing through the lump of people.

“She made it,” she was gushing. “She made it.”

“I’m on there?” Avery asked.

“She made it!”

“I made the first round,” Avery corrected, still trying to process what she was seeing. “It means I have to go back and play again.”

There was already a line for the elevator, a little frenzy that had sprung up
in the air. Avery clutched at the fingers of each of her hands, as if checking to make sure they were still attached, still flexible, still able to play. Nina. Mel. Too much information …

People were cramming onto the elevator.

“You’ll still be here when I get back, right?” she asked quickly.

Nina hesitated a moment.

“We’ll be here,” she said.

Avery backed slowly toward the elevator, keeping an eye on her friends, then looking for puddles on the ground.

“You coming?” a guy asked, holding his arm in the door for her. Avery slipped into the last available space on the elevator. She noticed, just as the door was closing in front of her, that Scarf Girl wasn’t coming. She was standing with her friend. She had her hands over her face.

She was glad that Scarf Girl wasn’t alone.

It had been an hour.

Mel couldn’t keep still. She paced the perimeter of the room, touching the elevator buttons, running her fingers along the edge of the now-empty table where the greeters had been. She pressed her palm against the shiny folders.

Nina and Parker watched her. They watched the snow fall outside. They watched the custodians trying to keep the floor dry. This was not a hugely successful effort there were dirty, footprint-shaped pools everywhere. There was very little to buffer the cold now that the lobby was almost empty. It seemed -to reflect off the floor and the marble slabs on the walls; it leaked
through the door and the long, high windows. They had to stay side by side simply to keep from shivering.

“Okay,” Parker finally said. “I give.”

“Huh?”

Parker shifted and pressed his palm into Nina’s hair, flattening it back against her head.

“Your hair has been in my eye for the last five minutes.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“I don’t know,” he said, rubbing at his eye. “I didn’t think of it until now.”

Nina pulled her hat on to keep her creeping locks down. Mel started another circuit of the room—elevator buttons, table, folders. They all turned as the elevator door opened, but Avery wasn’t among the people who got out. Mel started pacing again.

Why are we here?
Nina asked herself.
Why does Mel care?

As she watched Mel adjusting a line of pencils for the tenth time, Nina realized that she was equally as nervous. She was just holding the feeling tight in her stomach.

Okay
, she thought.
And why do
I
care? After what Ave did, why do we both care?

Because it was Avery.

Nina remembered the day that Avery had come to her and tried to explain that she was confused, that she didn’t think she was gay. At the time, that had seemed ridiculous—not like some thing you could be in a gray area about. And then it dawned on her. Avery had just fallen for a friend, and then realized that she didn’t
really like her that way. It was actually kind of logical. It wasn’t unlike what had happened with Parker. Nina had no doubt that Avery had really fallen for Mel—she let her feelings play out. Avery was big on honesty, always trying to get to the bottom of things.

It all began to unravel.

Now that Nina thought about it, if Avery hadn’t been there, who even knew how long it would have taken Mel to come out. Maybe she never would have come out. With Mel, that was possible. Avery had helped draw her out. Maybe on some level, she knew that’s what she had to do. And the result was that though Mel had suffered, she’d become stronger. She’d come out to her parents. She’d set up this whole trip. She’d forgiven Avery—more than forgiven her. Mel understood.

Parker had helped. This was undeniable. Parker had been there all along, holding Mel together. He’d helped Nina when she needed him. And now, without even thinking about it, she was leaning into his side, close enough to stab him in the eye with her hair.

“So, are we going to do the awkward thing or not?” she asked.

“Sounds so good when you put it like that.”

“Park …”

Parker pulled his coat tight over his chest.

“Okay,” he said. “Fine. I know I got weird. But it was only because I like you, okay? Like you a lot. Want to be the boyfriend, but you said no boyfriend.”

“What if I want a boyfriend?” she asked.

Parker’s eyes regained their bright spark, and then narrowed even narrower than usual.

“You’re not talking about me, are you?” he said.

Nina looked down at her boots. She rubbed some rock salt off the toes.

“Can I just ask why?” Parker said. “I don’t get it.”

“Because he said he was sorry,” Nina said. “And he meant it.” “Sorry?”

“Sometimes you have to let people say they’re sorry,” she said.

“I always do this,” he said. “I like girls I can’t have. It’s like the number one thing I look for—total unavailability. I liked Mel, even though I was pretty sure she was gay. I liked you, and you had a super-serious boyfriend. I’m thinking that maybe next time I’ll look for someone in who’s in jail or a coma. One for the shrink, I guess.”

“I really like you Park,” she said. “I like you so much.”

“Don’t say, ‘Let’s be friends.’ Just stop now while I still have some dignity.”

“Don’t do that!”

“What?”

“The ‘don’t say let’s be friends’ thing. I mean it, Park. You’re really my friend. Don’t blow me off like that.”

“There are too many don’ts in this conversation,” he moaned.

“I’m serious. We’re friends. That’s not a blow-off.”

He didn’t reply for a moment.

“My goal was to date all of you,” he finally said, heaving a deep sigh. “Avery’s next. I want to be the official boyfriend of the Bermudez Triangle.”

“I dare you.”

“Dare me something else.”

“I dare you to make Mel stop OCDing around the room.”

“You
dare
me?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Because what do I have to lose? I’m not trying to impress either of you anymore.”

“Double dare,” Nina said.

“Oh, no, you didn’t. Done. Fine.”

Parker glanced around, thinking for a moment. Then he stood up and made a loud whistling noise.

“Hey, Mel!” he said. “Check out this kung fu.”

Parker broke into a strange dance in the middle of the lobby. It was kind of like bad martial arts combined with jerky hip-hop moves. He accompanied himself with some beat-box noises.

Mel stopped. Everyone stopped. For the first time, Nina could hear the faint sounds of music overhead, and a woman by the door shook her head and said, “Mm-mm-mm,” under her breath. Nina pulled her hat low over her eyes and pushed herself deeper into the corner.

Parker went on, unconcerned by the silence. He bit down on his lower lip and let his hair flop freely. He switched from karate to disco, sliding through the lawnmower, the driving the bus, the swim. Then, to Nina’s amazement, people started to clap, providing him with rhythm. It was a scattered clapping, which mostly came from people nervously clutching folders of music to their chests—but it grew stronger. It was as if the crowd had been waiting for someone to snap.