Fearless (10 page)

IN RETROSPECT, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN so much better if Sam had stayed where he was.

Instead, for no good reason, he allowed his unfaithful legs to carry him from Heather’s side, where he belonged, down the hall and after
the girl
.

It was impossible for him to explain why. He didn’t decide to do it. His body was just suddenly up and moving. It was like when the doctor thwacked your knee. You didn’t
decide
to kick your foot.

“Wait,” he said as she fled from him just as she had a few days before.

Heather’s sisters and a crowd of friends blocked the hallway, impeding the girl’s progress. She dodged and wove like a running back facing a defensive line.

“Leaving already, Gaia?” he overheard Carrie Longman say in an unmistakably hostile voice.

The girl broke through the line and made for the elevator bank. Sam followed her there along with a lot of whispers and nasty looks. It honestly did not occur to him that
the girl
was the girl Carrie had been addressing until he was facing her, just two feet away from her, in front of the elevators.

His thoughts were covered in molasses. They moved achingly slowly with big gaps between them.

The girl Carrie had been addressing was called Gaia….

This girl he was now gaping at was called Gaia….

This girl was
the girl
….

The girl
was Gaia….

Gaia was the one who had …

“Y-You’re Gaia,” he said to her.

She was silent for a long time, just staring. Her eyes were too much for him.

“You’re The Boyfriend,” she said slowly.

It sounded like a felony, like an atrocity, the way she said it.

“Sam. My name is Sam.”

“Oh.” Her face was strangely open, her eyes a whirlpool.

He was scared to let himself read them this time. He was scared of getting sucked in.

“I—you—w-w-we—,” he stammered. What exactly did he want to say?

He could see from the panel above the nearest elevator that it was climbing toward them. 3 … 4 … 5 …

“You’re the Gaia who saw the guy with the knife in the park last night,” he blurted out in a disorganized rush. “You’re the one who didn’t warn her.”

The girl’s face was a little too white for a person with a beating heart. Her hands trembled at her sides. She nodded.

“W-Why? I don’t understand. Do you dislike her that much?”

“I—I guess I do.”

Silence. 6 … 7 …

He needed to pull himself out of this trance, to get a little distance. He needed to remember who needed defending here. He looked away from her, summoning his shield of righteous indignation. “What is wrong with you? Are you some kind of monster?” He hated the way his voice sounded.

She took so long to respond, it was punishing. Those wide, boundless eyes pinned him to his spot with a

look that made him feel horrible, like a salted slug.

“You’re not what I thought,” she said finally.

Why should
he
feel horrible?
He
hadn’t done anything wrong.

The elevator arrived on eight The doors opened with glacial slowness.

Suddenly he hated her. It was only partly rational, partly fair. She was the source of all the problems, of Heather’s condition, of the shameful, disloyal thoughts that had invaded his brain. Now in her face, in her eyes, he saw none of the tenderness or the possibilities he saw before.

“I hate you,” he said, amazed as the babyish words emerged from his own mouth.

She stepped into the elevator. “I hate you, too.”

He watched her face until the doors closed.

Unbidden, that stupid saying entered his mind: that one about hate not being the opposite of love.

“WHO PICKED CJ OUT OF THE lineup?” the older woman asked, leaning over the table that divided them, resting her chin in her palm.

Marco could see down her lavender blouse to the tops of her breasts spilling out of a white bra with lace edges. He wanted to kiss her and touch her so bad. She always wanted to talk first. That was the way most girls were, in his experience. So his mouth went one way and his mind another.

“Nobody knows for sure. Some guys think it was that blond girl—that, uh, friend of yours. A couple of them saw her in the park last night before that other girl … you know.” He didn’t feel like going any deeper into this particular subject. He wanted to talk about how good her shiny red hair looked all loose like that and the dream of his she’d starred in last night.

She crossed her legs under the table, and her knee brushed his. “I heard on the news that the girl who was slashed—they didn’t release her name—is out of a coma and expected to make a full recovery,” she said.

“Yeah? That’s good news for CJ. They’ll stick him with assault instead of murder. He never meant to hurt her so bad.”

“CJ’s in custody? Nobody came up with bail?” she asked.

He pressed his shin against hers. “Nah. It was like a hundred grand or something. His mother lives in Miami. She doesn’t even know about it.”

“So maybe you’ll need to take over in his absence?”

Marco lifted his shoulders so they looked extra big. “Yeah, that’s the plan. Tarick, you know, Marty’s older

brother, wants me to, uh, take care of this old Jew foreigner in the park, this crazy guy who sits over by the chess tables.”

She nodded and sipped her coffee.

Marco looked down at his own coffee. He’d hardly touched it. He’d only ordered it because it seemed more mature than a Coke. The coffee was cold now, and an iridescent grease slick quivered on the top. Everything in this diner was greasy, but the tables in back were private.

Why was she so fascinated by this stuff? Nothing seemed to shock her or upset her. Was she a writer for a magazine or something? Even though she was older, she was so freakin’ sexy, he didn’t care much as long as she changed the names and all that.

“Why the old guy?” she asked.

Marco shrugged. ” ‘Cause he’s there. He’s kind of a joke in the park. This loser kid who wants to be part of things—Renny is his name—he loves this old guy. Marty and them think it would be funny.”

“Are you going to do it?”

Marco smiled in a way he thought was both tough and mysterious. “I’ll see.”

She didn’t smile back. “Do you want something else?” she asked. “A Coke?”

He couldn’t wait anymore. He stood and grabbed her hand. “I want to get out of here.”

She remained seated. “I want to finish my coffee.”

1 poppy-seed bagel with cream cheese

1 large coffee with milk and 2 sugars

3 Wint-0-Green Life Savers

When
I was twelve, my mind’s eye would sometimes flash on excruciating images from the night I lost my mother. They destroyed me. but I couldn’t stop. The worst thing you can do in that situation is order your mind not to think of something. You know, the old ” don’t think of an elephant” problem. So I invented these tactics for distraction.

The first line of defense was to think about kids at school. Not my friends, exactly, because I didn’t have many of those, but the people I fantasized about being friends with. I ‘ d weave these scenes filled with cute dialogue about the fun we’d all have palling around together.

The second line of defense was imagining a boy to fall in love with. What would he look like? What kinds of things would he say to me? Would it be love at first sight, or would it take me a few minutes to overwhelm him with my charm?

If those two didn’t work, I exiled my mind to listing European capitals, which my dad made me memorize when I was three.

And finally, if my mind offered absolutely no place to hide, if thinking at all was sheer torment, I would distract it by cataloging what I ‘ d eaten the day before.

Tonight, lying on the floor of my room, the first three attempts led to:

Heather

Sam

Belgrade

I skipped directly to yesterday’s breakfast.

Sam was watching the place across the park where Gaia’s back had been minutes before. “I don’t know,” he said absently. “I got distracted, I guess.”

HEATHER WAS GOING TO BE OKAY.

Heather was expected to make a fall recovery.

Gaia was so happy, she felt like telling the man behind the sandwich counter at Balducci’s.

“Roast beef?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said. “On that.” She pointed to an extravagant-looking roll.

It was all over school today, all anybody was talking about. That and the part Gaia played in the catastrophe. The way the rumor mill was spinning, Gaia expected she would be charged with the slashing herself before the end of the day.

And that was, admittedly, part of the reason why it was 11:45
A.M.
and Gaia was buying a sandwich rather than listening to her imbecilic math so-called teacher botch an elementary explanation of sine and cosine.

She paid for the nine-dollar sandwich and headed down Sixth Avenue, swinging the green-and-white bag. Zolov would eat like a king today. She imagined his face when she surprised him at the unusual hour.

Cutting was a serious offense, as she’d been told a few thousand times. Ooooh. She pictured the vice principal calling George at work. Or, God forbid, Ella.

She almost skidded to a stop at a pay phone at the corner of West Eighth. She plunked in her quarter and dialed George’s work number. “George Niven, please.”

George’s voice came on a few seconds later. “This is George Niven.”

“Hi, George, it’s Gaia. How’s it going?”

“Just fine, Gaia. Just fine.” He sounded surprised and pleased. “You sound like you’re … uh …”

“I’m actually calling from a pay phone, because I left school early, because I wasn’t feeling well.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” His voice was filled with such genuine concern, she felt a little bad. “Did you speak to—”

“It’s nothing serious. It’s … well, you know, it’s
that
time of the month, and I get these really bad cramps sometimes.” Gaia knew there was no faster way to get a man off the phone than to bring up her period.

“Right, right. Of course. Understood.” She’d never heard him talk so fast.

Poor George. It was hard enough having a girl in your house, let alone one who arrived fully formed at the age of seventeen.

“So, would you just give them a call and let them know what’s up?” she asked.

George was clearly so traumatized, he didn’t argue. “Yes. I’ll give them a call at the … uh, office there. You, uh, just let Ella know. She’ll take care of you. There’s, uh, there’s no better sick nurse than Ella.”

Gaia almost laughed at that one. Ella’s skirts were too tight to sit at a bedside, and she probably couldn’t distinguish aspirin from arsenic. God help George. Love was more than blind. It was deaf and dumb, too. It was catatonic. It was vegetative.

Sixth Avenue passed her by in a stimulating buzz. The buses, the baby strollers, the three-man Peruvian band that played on the corner, the delis overflowing with fruit and flowers, the guy selling dirt-cheap tube socks, underpants, and secondhand books from a card table set up by the curb.

The world was fresher and a lot more spacious when you were supposed to be in school. Kind of like a public pool during adult swim.

She rounded the corner of West Fourth in eager anticipation. Maybe today she would buy a bag of those sugary roasted nuts. The exquisite smell was already reaching her nostrils. Yes, today would be the day.

She breezed into the park, actually appreciating the sunshine for once. It made the place seem so different from the malicious gang nest where Heather had been slashed. She saw Zolov’s hunched, familiar back and almost ran for him.

Then she stopped short. She dropped the bag and watched the silver-foil-covered sandwich roll over hexagonal gray stones. She put her hand to her heart.

He was there. The Boyfriend. Sam. Whatever.

He was sitting directly across from
her
friend, concentrating on the chessboard. How dare he? Was he trying to hustle poor old Zolov? Couldn’t he see the old man had nothing to lose besides his terrible coat and his Power Ranger? Shouldn’t he be in school or something?

She hoped the old man would summon up all his skill and beat the crap out of him.

The Boyfriend, Sam, whatever, looked scruffier today. The cuffs of his flannel shirt weren’t buttoned, nor were they rolled up. His hair was sticking up a little in back, and his eyes looked tired Probably from staying up all those hours worrying about Heather.

Blah.
Blah
. The thought made her sick.

Gaia grabbed the sandwich and stuffed it back in the bag. Now what? She didn’t want to see him or talk to him, but she didn’t want to flee like a little mouse, either.

Of course he had to look up right then. Right then, as she clutched her pathetic green-and-white bag, paralyzed with uncertainty, eyes round and startled.

Why did he have this effect on her? Why? Had she some intuitive knowledge, the day they played chess, that he was Heather’s boyfriend? Did she recognize he represented the best possible way to torment herself?

She couldn’t be having these alien feelings about Heather’s boyfriend. It was too cruel a coincidence. Was somebody up there having a belly laugh at her expense?

Her mind flashed back to their last encounter in the hospital, and she wanted to groan out loud. She felt her cheeks turning warm.

No doubt about it. She was a femme fatale. A romantic heroine for the ages. A heartbreaker. A female

James Bond. A role model for girls everywhere.

Of the two boys Gaia had ever met in her
entire life
who could have possibly ever maybe meant something important to her (and coincidentally, the only two who had ever beaten her in chess—Stephen from around the corner being the first), she’d told them both she hated them. She was two for two.

No wonder she’d never kissed anybody. “I hate you” wasn’t exactly come-hither. It wasn’t a big turn-on to most guys. Not ones who belonged on this side of prison, anyway.

Maybe she could sell a book touting her romantic advice.
Gaia’s Rules
. Not only should you not call the sucker back; go ahead and tell him you hate him.

And as a follow-up she could publish her popularity secrets. Okay, it was time to go somewhere else. Time to let up on the mean-yet-indifferent laser beams she was directing from her eyes.

She wheeled around, sandwich bag in hand, and walked toward the fountain. It was a beautiful, warm day. Why didn’t she just go to the fountain? That was a normal thing to do.

The benches were filled with mothers of babies, nannies, college students, people who didn’t have jobs. There, directly in front of her, bathed in the buttery shade of a yellow umbrella, stood the pushcart filled with nuts so sugary and delicious, the smell alone could make you hallucinate.

And she was going to buy a bag. So what if her stomach felt like it had been Stapled shut?

“One bag, please,” she said to the cart’s proprietor as he stirred the caramelized mass. She thrust two dollars in his hand, and he gave her the warm, paper pouch filled with sticky nuts. The smell was a living thing. She put one in her mouth. She chewed. She tried another.

She kept chewing as she walked herself from the fountain to the dog run near the perimeter of the park, feeling her hopes deflate as the grease from the nuts soaked through the paper to her fingers.

Sugar-roasted nuts, as it turned out, could be added to the list that included vanilla extract and bread and meeting a guy you could fall in love with—things that smelled a lot better than they tasted.