Also Known As (15 page)

“Such a charming visual. Look, I’ll be there soon, okay?” Angelo would have to wait for an hour or so. It was all right, though, I knew he loved hanging out at the Frick.

“Okay. Call when you’re on your way. Bring coffee!”

My parents were in the kitchen when I finally emerged from my bedroom, showered, dressed, and grumpy from caffeine withdrawal. “Was Angelo here?” I asked, holding up his business card. “Because this happened.”

“He said to meet him whenever you could,” my mom said, clicking away on her laptop without looking up at me. I could tell she was still pissed. “Take an umbrella if you’re going. It’s raining out.”

I bit back my sarcastic response and reached for the coffeepot. “I don’t know when I’ll be back,” I said. “I might have to go see Roux.”
And Jesse
, I thought. Just thinking about him made me nervous, which was weird because I
never
get nervous. My dad used to call me “Steely McGee” because my hands wouldn’t shake, even when I opened the most difficult combo locks, but now when I thought about Jesse, it felt like my stomach was filled with liquid gold, warm and burning.

And to be honest, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do now that we had made out. Should I text? Was I supposed to send a thank-you note or something? Did Jesse
even want to see me again? I needed Roux’s advice, and I knew she’d have no problem giving it to me.

“—car,” my dad said, and I realized he had been talking.

“What, sorry?”

“We’ve got a town car now,” he said. “New rule starting this morning. It’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

I raised an eyebrow. “So, we’re not going to talk about last night and instead you got me a chauffeured car?”

My mom put up her hands. “Hey, not our call. This was all Colton’s idea. You know that.”

I did know that, but I was still annoyed. I sort of wanted to apologize for being so angry the night before, but I also didn’t know what to say or how to say it. My parents and I had always been a team, but now it felt like me versus them, and I didn’t know how to play the game.

“Better go,” my dad said. “The umbrella’s broken, by the way. I found out the hard way this morning.”

Great
.

My Hunter rain boots clomped on the floor as I headed toward the front door, but my mom stopped me with her arm. “Here,” she said. “Take an apple. You didn’t eat breakfast.” Then she brushed an invisible piece of lint off my red plaid coat and kissed my temple. “Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll figure it out.”

I bit my lip and gave her a quick hug. “Don’t stare at the computer screen too long,” I told her as I left. “You kids these days, you’ll ruin your vision.”

Things may not have been perfect, but at least they were a little better when I left.

The anonymous black car took me uptown on the worst route ever, in the slowest traffic imaginable, made slower by the rain, but we finally made it to the Upper East Side. Roux’s apartment building seemed even more austere in the daytime than it did on Halloween night, which was saying something. For starters, it had gargoyles—full-on “I will eat your face, you urban heathen” gargoyles—that leered down at me as I waited for Harold the doorman to let me in to the marble lobby. (Did he ever
not
work?)

“Oh, it’s
you
,” he said when he saw me. “Delightful.” He seemed anything but delighted.

“Yeah, because it was a blast for me to carry my drunk friend home,” I retorted. “Thanks for helping, by the way. You’re a peach.”

He waved me away and I pressed the PH button to take me up to Roux’s apartment, where the scene was no less pretty. Every shade was still drawn and there had been some sort of smoothie accident in the kitchen that left the blender oozing onto the granite countertop. My mother would have had a coronary if she had seen the mess.

I, however, had no problem walking away from it and going upstairs to find Roux. I found her, all right, sprawled on her bed in a room so dark that I had to feel along the wall for a light switch.

“You went back to sleep?” I demanded.

“Go ‘way, Pollyanna.”

“You look ridiculous with that sleep mask on. C’mon, rise and shine.”

Roux sat up, her blond hair a huge tangle around her
head, and raised her sleep mask to reveal one bleary eye. “Do you have provisions?”

“Pro-what-ins?”

“Bagels. Coffee.” When I admitted I forgot, she sighed and flopped back onto the bed. “As a New Yorker, you are useless.”

“As a friend, though, I’m pretty damn useful, especially the part where I made sure you got home safe last night.”

“Fair enough. We’ll order in.”

Ten minutes later, she had gotten out of bed, brushed her teeth, and sent a messenger to pick up breakfast from Absolute Bagels, while I scrolled through the channels on her massive flat-screen television. I stopped at a romantic comedy and muted it so I could talk to Roux at the same time. “Your doorman’s a jerk!” I called to her. “Seriously!”

“More talky, less yelly.” She winced as she came back into the room.

“Sorry. Your doorman’s a jerk.”

“I know. Don’t you just love him? I love him. He
gets
me.” Roux glanced down at the huge pile of clothes that were on her floor. “Clothes are hard.” She sighed. “It’s Sunday. Pajamas are allowed all day, right?”

“Sure. Hey, what happened downstairs?”

“Where?”

“In the kitchen. It looks like someone had a fight with the blender and there were no winners.”

“Huh. Not sure. Maybe I tried to make a smoothie last night.” She shrugged and flopped down beside me on the
bed. “I love this movie,” she said. “It’s so unrealistic, but I love it. I’m such a sap. I’m a pine tree filled with sap.”

“You’re ridiculous,” I told her. “You need your own reality show.”

“Don’t think I haven’t tried!”

“Imagine my surprise,” I replied. We watched the movie in silence for a few minutes. It was the most calm I had ever seen Roux, her mouth moving along with the words. I wondered how many days she had spent in her room watching movies while her parents were halfway across the world. It seemed fun but not really, like being the only person in an amusement park. No one wants to go on rides all by herself.

After our coffee and bagels arrived (“Harold, you’re a curmudgeon and a beast!” Roux yelled into the intercom when the doorman rang. “Kisses!”), we sprawled on the couch in Roux’s living room. It reminded me of a museum where everything seemed expensive and sort of cold. I was sure that the furniture had been picked out by a designer who had probably never met Roux’s family.

“Oh my God, bagel, I love you! Get in my mouth.” Roux sighed happily as she devoured her cinnamon raisin bagel. I watched her, sipping my coffee and trying to get comfortable on the hard-backed sofa. “So. You were saying?” she asked finally.

“I was?”

“You needed to discuss something. Step into my office, we’re open for business.”

I picked up a bagel and twirled it around my finger. “I need to talk to you about Jesse.”

Roux froze. “Did you do it?”

“Do what?”

She gave me a look that, oddly enough, reminded me of Angelo’s “we are not amused” face.

“Oh my God, no!” I cried. “We didn’t have sex! We just kissed!”

“You kissed Jesse?” Roux screeched, then winced. “Ow, ow, my head.”

“We
made out
,” I clarified. “Like, multiple kisses. Plural.”

“I get it, yes, thank you.” Roux sat up so that she was on her knees. “Was it good?”

“It was …” How was I supposed to describe it? It felt like adequate words hadn’t been invented yet. “It was amazing.”

Roux shook her head. “It’s always you quiet girls, I swear. We think you’re hanging out in the library, but really, you’re just banging your way through the guys.”

“I only kissed him!” I told her, throwing a pillow in her direction and making her duck. “I don’t think that makes me the poster child for promiscuity!”

Roux just wiggled her eyebrows. “Okay, so tell me,” she said. “Everything. I like heavily detailed stories. Leave nothing out or I’ll
know
.”

So I gave her the entire saga: how he gave me his jacket, the front stoop, the Ring Pop, and the ice cream kisses. I even told her how soft his curly hair was and how he had told me some really intimate things. When Roux pressed for even more details, though, I shut her down. I
had promised Jesse that I wouldn’t tell anyone his secrets, and I planned on keeping that promise for as long as I could.

“So,” I continued. “What do I do now?”

“That’s easy. Keep making out with him. Why are you here and not with him?”

“No, I mean, what do I do now? Like, do I call him? Do I text? Do I send flowers or a thank-you note?”

“Uh, Maggie? Jesse is not your grandmother, okay? Whatever you do, do
not
send him a thank-you note.”

“Okay, but then what do I do? The clock is ticking here. What if he’s already making out with someone else?” I was only kidding about that last part, but when I said it, the idea made my stomach drop. “Oh my God, do you think he’s making out with someone else right now?”

Roux waved the idea away. “Nah, Jesse’s not like that. He doesn’t dabble. He commits. In fact, I’ve heard he’s actually a little clingy, like moss. Or a monkey with attachment issues.”

“Roux. Please focus.”

“Okay. We need a plan.” She set her coffee down and folded her hands. “Has he texted you yet?”

“No. Is that bad?”

“He’s probably still sleeping.”

“Okay.” I reached for my phone, then paused. “Should I text him? What should I say?”

“What do you want to say?”

“That I …” I had no idea. “I’m terrible at this!” I cried, tossing my phone onto the couch. “I don’t even know
what to say! Why can’t they teach
this
in high school? I’m good at so many things, why can’t I be good at this, too?”

“We all shine in our own special star way,” Roux assured me.

“No, I should know how to do this!” I protested. I got up off the couch and started to pace across the dark hardwood floors. “I mean, I’ve done some really difficult things before! Like,
really
difficult! And now all I have to do is text someone and it’s like my thumbs are broken.” I held up my hands in front of Roux and shook them. “Look, broken thumbs!”

Roux gave me the side eye. “Do you need something?” she asked. “Because my mom’s got a stash of pills in every color of the rainbow.”

“No, I’m fine,” I said.

“Really? Because your eyes look like they’re spinning counterclockwise.”

“I’M FINE!” I took a deep breath. “I’m fine. I just feel like I’m screwing up a lot of things here.” Talk about understatement.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Roux announced. She looked much better than she had when I first arrived, and I realized with a start that she must have been really lonely before I arrived in town. This girl-talk thing was right up her alley. “You’re going to text him and say something about the ring or the ice cream. Visual cues, if you get what I’m saying.”

I held my phone in front of me. “Just like,
Thanks for the ice cream
?”

“No. That’s lame. Try something like—”

But she was interrupted when my phone started to ring. It was Jesse’s number.

“It’s him!” I screamed. “Oh my God, what do I do? Do I answer?”

Roux jumped up on the couch, screaming along with me. “Answer it! No wait, don’t, don’t!”

“Why not? It’s still ringing!”

“Voice mail! Voice mail!” Roux was so excited that she spilled her coffee all over the couch.

“WHY?”

“Trust me!”

“AAAHHH!”

Roux did a victory dance that looked a lot like the Funky Chicken that my dad sometimes did to embarrass me or cheer me up. “He called you first! He wants to talk to you!”

“And now he probably thinks I’m lost in Siberia or something because I didn’t answer it!”

“Lost in Siberia?”

“It’s a lot more possible than you might think,” I informed her.

“Whatever. You don’t want him to think that you’re just around whenever he calls.”

“But I’m totally around! I was even holding the phone!”

“No, let him wait. Let him think you’re busy with other things. Guys love the chase.”

“Okay, seriously? This is the twenty-first century. That’s ridiculous.”

Roux shrugged. “You came here for my advice and sweet company. Now you have both.”

I looked at my phone. No voice mail. “He didn’t leave a message. He hates me. He’s going to ask for his ring back.”

“
Never
return the ring. These are gems I’m giving you here!” Roux flopped back down on the couch next to the coffee stain, not even bothering to try and clean it up. “Call him back in two hours, after you run those errands for your mom.”

“The errands? Oh, right, right.” In all of the excitement, I had forgotten that I was supposed to be meeting with Angelo. “Are you sure?”

“Look, I realize that you met me after I achieved social martyr status, but trust me. I still have the touch. This kind of gift doesn’t just disappear.” She finally dabbed at the stain with a napkin, then gave up and tossed it on the hardwood floor.

“Do you not have a housekeeper?” I finally asked. “Or at least some stain remover under the sink?”

Roux just shrugged. “Inez doesn’t work on Sundays. She has a family.” She looked a little lonely when she said that, and I realized that if it weren’t for me coming over this morning, Roux probably wouldn’t have talked to anyone all day. I wished that I could invite her over to dinner, or at least maybe tea with Angelo, but there was no way. I had already mixed enough business with pleasure this weekend.

“—when you call him back,” Roux was saying, and I forced myself back into the conversation, “just act cool. Answer questions, don’t ask them.”

“I can do that,” I told her, and it was true. If there was one thing I could do, it was draw information out of people
without giving up too much of myself. Finally, being a spy was paying off in at least one romantic area.

Roux looked unconvinced. “Really?” she asked through another mouthful of bagel. “I find this hard to believe.”