Loud Awake and Lost (9 page)

“Have you totally lost your mind?” Rachel's veins were standing out in her neck. “Just to up and leave us?”

I nodded, shy and shamed, and rubbed my hands together, trying to extract warmth. The cab's red taillights were in full retreat. Now pinpoints, now gone. As quickly as Kai had appeared, he'd left me. “I'm…I'm…”

“You're nuts. Let's get you back inside.”

I let her put her arm around me and turn me, though I cast another look over my shoulder. Would he double back, maybe? It seemed like a feeble hope. He'd really needed to go home.

We returned to the building, me stumbling between the other two like a culprit. But I was grateful for the heated stairwell as we entered.

Above the fire-escape doors, the words jumped at me.
NO REENTRY ON THIS FLOOR
. It was like a warning of something not yet clear.

“I feel sick,” I said. Aware my voice was dry and toneless, as if I didn't care what had happened, as if the crisis were nothing to me as my mind sank blank and black and quiet. I was shutting down—burying my mixed-up emotions rather than dealing with them. Dr. P even had a five-dollar phrase for it, “habitual inurement,” which I'd forgotten till now. Basically it meant that my brain couldn't pick what it felt like, so it desensitized itself and picked nothing.

“You might be bombed,” Jake mentioned. “There's a rumor they spiked one punch bowl but not the other. Like a cocktail version of Russian roulette.”

“And you most definitely got the wrong Kool-Aid,” said Rachel. “Why else would you be shouting about waffles? Are you hungry? That message you left me was insane! You were seriously leaving the party with a stranger? What'd you call him again? Cal? Where's he from?”

“Kai,” I said.

“I don't know any Kai,” muttered Jake.

“He's not a stranger,” I answered flatly. “And no, I'm not hungry.” But Kai was gone, and my muscles were so cramped that it was hard to move. Pain was a burden in my body. I dropped to the bottom step, leaning so that my cheek pressed against the wall. Rachel took a seat beside me.

Jake offered a plastic bottle of water, nearly full. “Drink,” he commanded.

Which I did, in long, messy gulps.

“Who was he, then?” Rachel asked.

“Just this guy I met,” I managed, wiping my mouth.

“Do you realize how screwed up that sounds to me?” Rachel shook her head. “That you would have just taken off with some random dude who you hadn't even bothered to introduce me to, who you'd only just met tonight?”

“Actually, I
have
met him before. Let's talk about this later, 'kay?” I pushed back the damp tendrils of my hair.

“You're acting really strange.”

“I'm feeling really strange.”

“Hey, Ember.” Jake knelt before me. His face doubled in my vision. “Your pupils look pretty dilated. I drove here, by the way. I'm parked about four blocks down. If you two wait, I'll bring the car around.”

“That'd be awesome.” Rachel's hand covered mine. “Oh, Embie,” she said with a sigh once Jake had gone. “You just can't do that to me. If you'd left and all I'd had to go by was that crazy voice mail, I'd have had no way of knowing where you were heading or who with—or anything!”

“I'm sorry.” I tried to access the right tone so that Rachel would know that I was. Mostly I felt so incredibly tired. “I don't know what got into me.” Kai. Kai had gotten to me. Again. I did such incredibly stupid things when I saw him. All common sense—
pffft!
—out the window.

“If that was grain alcohol you were drinking,” said Rachel, “then I'm just going to blame the rest of your bad judgment on accidental drunkenness. When's the last time you even had a drink? It must be close to a year ago, right?”

“Mmm-hmm.” I rested my head on her shoulder. I wanted to cry now, to break down in a flood of tears like a baby. My emotions were in whizzing orbit. I'd obviously gotten the spiked drink. There was no other reason I was feeling shaken. And Smarty was also right that I hadn't had any alcohol since before the accident—my tolerance was probably zero.

“We're going to get you all tucked in bed with tea and toast—sound good?”

“Sounds good.”

“Good. I just texted Jake to hurry.” Rachel rested her fingertips on my knee. A dragonfly's weight. As if I were made of something less able, less capable than a regular person. Tonight, that was probably true.

The doorbell rang while I was on Facebook late that next morning, rubbing Bengay into my aching muscles and browsing Maisie Gantz's profile. One album had a picture of Anthony Travolo in it. I'd zoomed it to pixels, but I still couldn't tell what he looked like. He was wearing a baseball cap pulled low, and was standing in a long-view group shot of maybe a dozen kids with paintbrushes who were all posed in front of a wall, celebrating a city mural that looked familiar.

He'd been tagged, too, but when I clicked his name, a message popped up that told me his profile did not exist. My skin went cold at the words.

Anthony Travolo didn't exist in this world. But once upon a time, he absolutely, gloriously had. He'd been an artist; he'd helped create murals and a single, tiny, perfect painting that was good enough to hang in a sumptuous, multimillion-dollar Tribeca loft. I already knew such interesting things about him. What else had he been?

It wouldn't take more than one painful conversation with Mom to get his parents' email. I wanted to know about him, sort of. I wanted to step closer. I just wasn't sure of the cost.

So much about last night felt vague and distant. After I'd gotten home, I'd checked in with Mom and Dad, who were pretending not to be awake until I was home safe, and then I'd crawled into bed, letting Rachel give me a stern tuck-in, before she and Jake took off.

In bed I'd tossed and turned for hours, unsure if I was suffering the effects of alcohol or exhaustion. First Claude and then Maisie, then Bushwick, Lissa, then, finally, when I'd been almost too tired to process him, I cleared my head to fill it with Kai. That part of the night was confusing. A thousand moments crystal clear, a thousand others as dark as storage closets.

Why was the interconnection such a snarl? Why, in the bleak patter of this morning's rain, did last night at Areacode feel so immediate—and yet not part of any reliable whole?

Kai had said he had to get back to Hatch, who I'd revised in my imagination from thuggish wingman to somebody younger, more sensitive—maybe a brother or a cousin. So it made sense that he wouldn't have jumped out of the cab when I didn't jump in. But he could have called or messaged me anytime. Last night, or this morning—anytime. Though with every passing hour, my hope on that deflated.

As I glanced at my phone to see if someone was texting their arrival, the doorbell rang again, insistent. Mom and Dad were out doing errands, and I wasn't expecting anyone.

I raced downstairs, then unlocked the door and threw it open. “Oh!”

“Hey.” The rain was a steady drizzle. I shaded my eyes. Holden stood on the mat, wearing the Driza-Bone that he'd bought years ago on a family vacation to Australia. I'd always loved that raincoat; it made him look edgy, like the bank robber hero in a spaghetti western.

“What are you doing here?”

He shrugged, a little self-conscious. “Can't a guy come check on his ex?”

“I guess. If he's feeling unloved.” I crossed my arms and leaned against the doorframe. “But I thought college guys didn't need to make time for their high school exes.”

His smile deepened. “Here's the thing, High School Ex. I was home doing my Sunday-laundry drop-off, and that's when I heard a voice in my head saying to go treat you to lunch. So my advice is you better hurry up and say yes before I realize I'm way too cool to hang out with you.”

“You're serious, aren't you? I'd need to dig up my rain boots.”

“No rush.” He gestured to the cab idling at the curb.

“You are serious. Okay, hang on. Let me change real quick and leave a note for my parents. If they come home to find me gone, they'll freak.”

I'd missed one cab last night—this time, I was getting in. Holden and cabs went way back, on account of the fact that he didn't like to drive. After I'd passed my driver's license test, I was always the designated driver, picking him up in the Volvo whenever we wanted to get out of the city. Of course, Holden was also always totally fine to bike, walk, or subway. But if he had half a choice, he defaulted to cabs, which wasn't very Brooklyn. I wouldn't say it was Holden's fault. His mom didn't even know how to drive; Holden and his older brother, Drew, had been given credit cards to pay for rides since they were in elementary school.

“Those Wildes have their heads in the clouds,” my mom always remarked.

“Or up their arses,” my dad liked to respond. Dad, who'd grown up on “old” egg-creams-and-Dodgers Brooklyn, thought the Wildes were a perfect example of everything that was wrong with “new” boutiques-and-cafés Brooklyn.

But Dad had a point. The cabs, the credit cards, and the endless supply of twenty-dollar bills had always set Holden apart from the rest of us. Even snotty Claude lived in a regular apartment with two parents, one sister, one and a half bathrooms, and a Murphy bed for guests. But the Wildes, who presided over the neighborhood from their five-story town house on Columbia Heights, had never known what it meant to want what you couldn't have. As far as I'd ever witnessed, being a Wilde meant that life passed in an easy spin of private lessons and extra-long vacations at their genteel-shabby lake house upstate.

I'd always dealt with the Wildes just fine, without ever warming to them. They could be arrogant, but they'd been nice to me—except right after my breakup with Holden, when Mrs. Wilde had pulled some strange moves. Like once she'd crossed the street right in the middle of Montague so she wouldn't have to talk to Dad and me. Another time she and Mr. Wilde both painfully, deliberately ignored me in line at Key Food. Since money couldn't fix our relationship, it was as if they'd made a pact to quietly reject me.

The Wildes would have been displeased to see me in this cab with Holden, after I'd hurt him so badly. Even considering all that had happened to me afterward. None of them—especially not Drew—was generous with forgiveness. Not by a long shot.

“So what gives?” I asked as we whooshed down the rainy streets.

“Rain makes me think about you.”

“Ha. That sounds like bad Taylor Swift.”

“We-ell, dang,” he drawled. “You got me.” Then Holden began to sing “Love Story” with a croaky country accent. Joking through the earnestness.

Don't let me go.
Kai's words—I heard them again, rough and honest and deeply vulnerable in the moment. Last night with Kai was a bruise on my lips.

Last night with Kai, I'd never have thought that I'd be sharing my next day with Holden.

Who looked great as always, casually slouched with a knee knocked lightly against mine. Over the bridge, we watched the East River glide past, slate water touching the sheen of a pearl-soft sky. I couldn't help wondering (okay, maybe a little gloatingly) why Holden had decided to spend the day with me and not Cassandra. I knew they'd gone to Oktoberfest together. Plus a dinner-and-a-movie thing. Holden played a close hand with the details, but even from his bare-bones report I got a sense that he liked this girl. And while I wasn't sure how I felt about it, I'd resolved to play the role of former girlfriend with as much grace as I could.

We exited onto the FDR uptown, and then on Holden's instruction we pulled off the highway at Sixty-Third Street.

“Midtown, interesting. What's your master plan?” I asked.

“Serendipity.”

“Aha.” I settled back. Sweet. Serendipity was a well-known café slash ice cream parlor around the corner from Bloomingdale's. It was also where Holden and I'd had our first date.

The place was usually packed, and today was no exception. A ponytailed waiter led us to a table behind a fat potted fern.

“It's so cute here.” I looked around as we sat. “You should have seen the dive that Rachel and I were at last night.”

“Yeah. She told me.”

“Ah.” I could feel the smile drop off my face as I opened the menu to hide behind it. The Holden-Rachel cousin bond could wax and wane, but it was always there. Whether I liked it or not. “She told you everything?”

“That you might have had a disgusting green cocktail, and it impaired your judgment to the point where an hour later, you were jumping into cabs with strangers? Yes.”

Over my menu, I wrinkled my nose. “It happened, it was awful, I guess I was following an impulse. What can I say?”

“There's not much to say, except I think you should just order the everything nachos and a frozen hot chocolate to share.”

“Done.”

He'd chosen the items deliberately. It was as if by unspoken mutual agreement we were taking a nostalgia leap two years backward. Back to the thrill of our first date, my sophmore and his junior fall at Lafayette, when we'd only known each other for a couple of weeks.

We'd sat right there, a stone's throw from this table. It had been so fantastically awkward. Staring at each other, sometimes laughing at each other for no reason, and then, over the shared frozen hot chocolate and everything nachos, seeking and finding the million things we had in common, including a mutual appreciation of anything dashed with cinnamon (from French toast to applesauce to gum), our dueling collections of retro board games, and our major sneezing allergies to pollen—which my mom was obsessed with and Holden's mother totally disregarded.

“I love Serendipity,” I exclaimed in a rush of unfolding relaxation. Or else it was the Advil I'd taken just before I'd left, finally working its muscle-softening magic. “I mean, it's the coolest, dorkiest scene. You can be in first grade or grandparents, and you're never out of place.” Other tables were filled with young couples, families, and seniors, all plowing through their sundaes and grilled cheeses and banana splits, plus the frozen hot chocolates that were the house specialty.

“So where does that put Dave and Busters?” Holden asked.

I laughed outright. “Unforgettable.”

“Okay, for the last time. I had no idea that it was the Champion League soccer final that night.”

“Mmm, I don't know, Hold. I thought it was kind of fun trying to talk to you over the sound of two hundred drunken grown men swearing and drinking Guinness.”

“I'm amazed that I had a chance with you, after that night.”

“I'm not.” We exchanged a glance. What was happening here? It was light, but meaningful. And I didn't mind it. “So how was
your
Halloween?”

Holden passed me his phone. “You want the short story? Check out the last three videos.”

I took it and watched them, mostly of a gang of guys roaming wild up and down a crowded dormitory hall, all wearing crazy hats (cowboy, Viking) and masks (monster, vampire) and mugging for the camera. At one point, Holden flipped the camera on himself to show that he was dressed like Jack Sparrow, which had been his go-to costume ever since I'd known him. It involved a gold clip-on hoop, eyeliner, and a skull scarf wrapped around his head.

“Why does college fun look so much better than high school fun?” I asked as I passed the phone back.

“Hey, high school fun has its charm. Just ask my ex.”

Holden's beard scruff seemed to make his eyes three shades bluer. I knew that he also knew that these moments between us were peculiar, charged with memories, affection…maybe more? Whatever it was, I was relieved when the waiter reappeared to take our order.

And the rest of lunch was easy, as we launched back in time. Which felt amazing. I loved stretching into the weight of time remembered. The day we went on six rides on the waterfront carousel, or when we crashed a party on the roof deck of Soho House. It was a nice change to reminisce easily, with no inconvenient blacked-out trauma section.

As we strolled out of the restaurant, Holden bought me a giant lollipop from the selection of toys and candy at the cashier.

“I remember that wallet.” It had been a gift, one of my first to Holden, for his seventeenth birthday. Ralph Lauren calfskin, not on sale; plus it had cost another thirty dollars to monogram. I'd used up all my babysitting, allowance, and catering-with-Smarty money. It had seemed crazily extravagant, but with parents like Holden's, who gave him everything, it was almost like I'd needed to spend the extra.

“Yeah.” He flipped it over. “If it ain't broke…”

“Your stash of twenties gets skinnier by the hour,” I noted as I unwrapped my lollipop.

“Easy trade,” he said. His smile was wry. I never liked Holden to feel that I was interested in him for his money, but the issue was always there, an unpleasant little twitch. He liked to treat; he liked solving problems with a credit card. Again, not his fault. It was like hailing cabs—it was part of his background.

As we stepped outside, I wondered what that would feel like, to have so many solutions ready via my wallet. This was where my mind had often drifted when I'd gone out with Holden. Smarty and I were always talking about ways to make extra cash. With Holden, it was as if those bills just appeared by magic. And yet it also took away another kind of magic—of scheming, of hoping, of saving.

The rain had stopped. Water dripped from trees and awnings as we strolled down Lexington.

“Thanks for this afternoon, Wilde. It doesn't even feel real. More like some gorgeous Sunday daydream.”

“Anytime.” Holden twined his fingers through mine. “Only thing is, I'm not sure I'm exactly ready to deal with my Sunday-night reality yet. Look, the sun's just about to break through—wanna walk to the park?”

“Okay.”

It was a few blocks to Central Park, where the trees were in burning-leaf autumn glory. On a park bench, an old man was smoking a pipe. The woody tobacco smoke mixed in heady with the mushroomy, wet-soil scent of the park after a rain.

“Which way? North south west east?”

“Strawberry Fields,” I said without thinking.

“The girl knows what she wants.”

Yes, I did, apparently. Hand in hand, we took a rolling footpath that led north and westward across the park.