Also Known As (21 page)

“I don’t know what what is?” she asked. “And Maggie, is that your closet? Because there are some beautiful pieces in there that are wasting away on some equally beautiful hangers.”

I jerked a thumb in Angelo’s direction. “He did most of my clothes shopping for me.”

“Well done, sir!” Roux raised her palm for a high five, and then, in front of my very own eyes, Angelo high-fived her back.

My dad made a strangled sound and started pouring the wine.

“I don’t know what what is?” Roux asked again.

This should be good. “Roux,” I said, turning to her, “when’s your curfew?”

She pretended to think for a second. “Um, I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with the word. Is it Greek? Latin, perhaps?”

Angelo started to laugh and Roux giggled. “Kidding! I don’t have a curfew, Mr. and Mrs. Silver. My parents trust me to do my own thing.”

“Twelve thirty,” my mom said.

“Do I smell chili?” Roux asked.

Thirty minutes, three near-burns with the flatiron (Roux’s mistakes, my scars), two stubbed toes (mine after walking into the bathroom wall), and a bowl of chili (Roux’s) later, I was ready to go meet Jesse.

“Okay, I’m just gonna say it,” Roux told me. “You look beautiful. Why do our parents send us to private school when we both have all these amazing clothes?”

I didn’t answer. I was too busy looking at my reflection in the mirror. Roux had put me in dark jeans, that pink-not-salmon sweater, and leopard-print ballet flats. She even did my makeup, and although she almost blinded me with the mascara wand, the efforts paid off. I looked, for the first time in my life, like myself.

Roux grinned at our reflection in the mirror. “Jesse is going to flip his shit.”

“That sounds terrible. Let’s hope not.”

“And why are you so tall? I feel like a garden gnome next to you.” She looked really happy, though, and I knew she was in her element.

“Oh, c’mon,” I told her. “You don’t look like a garden gnome. You’d never wear that little hat they all wear.”

“Yes, but the pants look comfy.”

When my parents saw me for the first time, I swear that I saw my mom’s lip tremble, but all she said was, “You look very pretty, sweetie.” Then she hugged me, so I knew all was forgiven with the not telling about the date thing.

My dad just squeezed my shoulder and said, “Jesse Oliver’s not gonna know what hit him. And if he messes with you, then he’s
really
not gonna know what hit him. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Tone down the violence, Dad,” I said, but I was still smiling. It was kind of hard to stop.

Angelo kissed my cheek and said, “As beautiful as always. Roux, you have a talent.”

“I know,” she said, humble as ever as she leaned against the countertop. “Hey, do you guys ever do, like, family game night? Because I kick ass at Boggle.”

“No,” we all chorused.

“And I have to go,” I added. “I’m late, I have to meet Jesse at the Flatiron Building in, like, ten minutes.”

“I’ll walk you ladies out,” Angelo offered.

“‘Idiotic,’” Roux suddenly said. We all turned to look
at her and I realized she was studying my dad’s crossword puzzle. “Forty-nine Down is ‘idiotic.’”

My dad and I both zoomed to her side to inspect the grid. “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” my dad muttered, reaching for his pen.

“I could’ve sworn it was ‘asinine,’” I added.

“Well, my work here is done.” Roux sighed. “
Ciao ciao
, parents. Thanks for the chili and good times.”

“Bye!” I said as Angelo escorted us into the elevator.

“Be safe!” I heard my mom yell.

“Aww, that’s sweet,” Roux said.

“Let’s get this party started,” I muttered.

Chapter 23

“So,” I said, “are you trying to kill me?”

“What?” Jesse laughed.

“Sharp blades, a frozen body of water. I see what you’re up to, and frankly, I’m on to your clever plan.”

“Maggie,” Jesse said, “it’s
ice skating
.”

We were standing at Wollman Rink in Central Park. Well, Jesse was standing there. I was standing five feet away with my arms crossed, refusing to move.

“It’ll be fun!” he promised.

“Oh, falling on my ass on the ice, what fun!” I said.

“You’re not going to fall,” he promised. “Look, I’m here, I’ll catch you.”

The date had started off really well. Not that I had a lot to compare it to, other than every single date I had seen on TV and in the movies, but I had been enjoying myself. Jesse had met me at the Flatiron Building, just as he promised, and I don’t want to sound boastful or anything, but he looked damn good. Curly hair everywhere, blue checkered
shirt under a gray V-neck sweater, and khakis. I was pretty sure that Roux was going to pretend to slit her throat over the khakis, but Jesse wore them well. He had a peacoat, too, reminding me of the jacket he had put over me on Halloween night, and I couldn’t help but smile when I saw it.

“We meet again,” he said with a grin, and then he kissed me, and honestly, if the date had ended right there, it would still probably have been one of the best nights of my life.

“We do,” I replied. “So what are we doing? Because I’m planning on being impressed.”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that,” he said. “You’re going to be impressed. They’re going to have to invent a new word because ‘impressed’ won’t even begin to cover it. We’re going to start uptown and work our way downtown.”

We both paused.

“Uh,” I said.

“I am so sorry!” he said. “I was speaking geographically, I swear! Totally not a metaphor for, like, seducing you. I promise.”

Seduce away, baby
, I wanted to say, but I just shook my head instead. “Don’t worry. I always speak geographically.”

We took my town car after Jesse had a quick, whispered conversation with the driver, even though Jesse was like, “Um, the subway is right there,” which is why I liked him. He’d rather take the subway even though his family probably could have afforded a fleet of cars to drive him around Columbus Circle for twelve hours straight! He’s a man of the people!

And then we got to Wollman Rink.

“Um, can’t we just say we did this?” I asked him. “I get nervous wearing other people’s shoes.”

“You do?”

“Yes. Because they’re all warm and moist and then I have to
say
the word ‘moist’ and ugggggh.” I shuddered. “I hate that word. So that’s why I don’t ice skate.”

Jesse crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at me. “Ah,” he said. “I get it.”

I sighed. “Great, thank you so much. Why don’t we take a walk and get some of the roasted peanuts and—”

“You don’t know how to skate.”

“I do know how. I just choose not to.”

“You are
such
a bad liar!”

Was there a memo going around the city telling people that? “Well, yes, I am,” I admitted. “But I’m not lying about choosing not to skate.”

“Oh, so you know how to skate, then.”

“Um …” I glanced at the ice rink, filled with skaters and impending doom.

“Look,” Jesse said. “I’m really good. I play ice hockey in the winter here. I can teach you.” He came over and held his hands out to me. “See? We get to hold hands the whole time. Kinda romantic.”

“Will it be romantic when I fall and cause a domino reaction that sends thirteen people to the hospital?”

“Has anyone ever told you that you have a real flair for imagining the apocalypse?”

“They have now.”

“C’mon!” He shook his hands at me. “What’s the worst that can happen? You fall? Big deal. I told you, I’ll catch you.”

“I have weak ankles.”

“I find that insanely attractive in a girl.”

“Fine!” I sighed. “Fine, you win! But you can’t laugh at me if I fall!”

“Not only will I not laugh,” he promised, “but I’ll beat up anyone else who laughs.”

“Not if I get to them first,” I muttered.

Not ten minutes later, I was wobbling out on the ice. “I think these skates are defective,” I told Jesse. “They’re too wobbly. I need the nonwobbly ones.”

“Shut up and skate.” He grinned.

I glanced over at the rink’s edge, where all the newbie skaters were hanging on to the wall and carefully making their way around the ice. “Look,” I said. “That must be where the new people hang out. I’ll go over there.”

Jesse looked to where I was pointing. “I think the average age of those people is five.”

“Don’t be ageist,” I told him. “Go twirl or whatever. I’ll watch and applaud.”

“
Okaaaaaaay
,” he singsonged as he pushed away, in a tone that told me all too well that he’d be back soon.

Twenty minutes went by and I managed to make it halfway around the rink. I felt sort of sweaty but still managed to smile and wave at Jesse every time he zoomed past. I even watched as he slowed down long enough to scoop up a little girl in a pink snowsuit who had just wiped out.
“You okay?” I heard him say, righting her on her feet, and my heart got sort of fluttery.

But that was probably just a sign of the heart attack I was going to have from the stress of skating.

“Hey,” he said, stopping in front of me. “As much fun as it is watching you elbow small children out of your way while clinging to a makeshift wall …”

“That kid was hogging all the space!” I huffed. “He had it coming!”

“… maybe we should skate together now.” He held out his hands. “C’mon. Time to be brave.”

He was right. For a girl who had always tried to blend in with the crowd, I wasn’t doing myself any favors. “Okay,” I said, “but—”

“No falling, no laughing if you do fall. I remember the rules.”

And you know what? Skating was nice. Like,
niiiiiice
. Jesse went slow, skating backward and holding my mittened hands in his gloved ones. “Push and glide,” he kept saying. “Like a hot knife through butter. Don’t try to walk, push forward. That’s it.” In the time that it took me to go ten feet by myself, we had already gone around the rink twice. “Stop looking down at your feet,” Jesse told me.

“I can’t,” I replied. “If I don’t look at them, then I’m scared they’re going to start zooming in the wrong direction.”

Jesse laughed and tilted my face up so I could look at him. “Well, that
is
better,” I admitted. “You’re a good teacher.”

“You’re a terrible student.” We both cracked up. “Relax, okay? It’s just ice skating. It’s not brain surgery. I would never take a girl to do brain surgery on a first date.”

“How chivalrous.” I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said. “Let’s glide.”

Eventually I got good enough that we could skate side by side, but Jesse kept my hand tight in his. I wasn’t about to complain. “I’m sorry I was cranky about this,” I told him as we got hot chocolate and waited for the Zamboni to clear the ice. “I’m having a good time.”

“Yes, but are you impressed?”

“I am!” I giggled. (I was
giggling
.) “I didn’t fall and you’re a great teacher.”

“Check and check.” He pretended to cross things off his list. “Maybe I should have named my dog Zamboni.”

“No, that sounds like a type of pasta.”

Jesse laughed. “You’re funny, Maggie,” he said. “C’mon, another round before our next stop.”

“There’s another stop?”

“I’ve said too much already!”

“You’re such a dork.” I grinned. “Hey, guess what?”

“What?”

“Race ya.”

When we were done, I got my own shoes back, which were wonderfully comfortable and did not have skating blades attached to them. “Okay,” I said to Jesse, “so what’s next? Swimming with dolphins?”

“Let me guess,” he said as he tugged his Converse back on his feet. “You’re scared of dolphins.”

“Nope. Love ’em. Especially that high-pitched squealing thing they do. Can’t get enough of it.”

“Awesome. Because we’re not swimming with dolphins.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a few things up my sleeve.
Impressive
things.”

“Of course.” I watched as he started to walk back toward where the car had dropped us off. “Hey, where are you going?”

“I thought your chauffeur awaits.”

“My chauffeur is probably enjoying his thirty-fifth cigarette of the evening. And he makes too many wrong turns. Let’s take the subway instead.”

I knew what I was doing. I knew that the Collective wouldn’t approve, and I knew that my parents would probably hit the roof if they found out that I gave my car the slip, but I had to start making some executive decisions. No other single spy in the network had a driver taking them around town, and even though I was young, I was still a spy. This was my job now, no one else’s.

“C’mon, let’s go,” I said. “You love the 6 train, admit it.”

“Better yet, let’s walk.” Jesse held out his hand to me. “You’re not too cold?”

“I’m tough,” I said. “Can’t wait to see the next act.”

Chapter 24

“Are you peeking? You’re peeking.”

“I’m not!”

Jesse’s hands were over my eyes, and my hands were over his hands, and he was doing a craptastic job of leading me through … well, somewhere. I couldn’t see a thing. All I knew is that we were inside and our voices seemed to echo in circles around us.

“I’m not peeking!” I said again as Jesse laughed. “Please don’t walk me into a wall.”

“Okay, you can look.”

I blinked a few times and saw a haphazard drywall in front of us. We were in the middle of what looked like a construction site, surrounded by bare lightbulbs, Sheetrock, and what I hoped wasn’t asbestos dust. “Wow,” I said. “Construction.”

“This isn’t quite the surprise yet,” he admitted. “One question, though. Are you afraid of the dark?”

“You realize that that’s something a serial killer would say on a first date, right?”

He gave me a gentle shove. “Little Miss Apocalypse. So you’re okay if it’s a little dark?”

“Just as long as you’re not planning on murdering me.”

“Great. Follow me.”

I held his hand (seriously couldn’t get enough of that) and followed him through a plastic sheet and into …

“Oh my God.” I gasped. “Oh my God.”

We were standing under a huge glass ceiling that arched into the night sky, reaching toward the stars. Round art deco doorways surrounded us and I hung on to the wrought-iron railing and kept looking up. “What is this?” I asked Jesse.