Starry Night (3 page)

“So, guys, what do you want to talk about?” I said, throwing my voice like a stage actor so I could be heard in the center of the hub.

I got a blank stare and a possible are-you-kidding-me squint out of mean-Melissa's eye.

I continued, not being as good as I might have been with social cues yet. “How about … if we were horses, what color would we be? I would be a dappled gray one.” I laughed nervously and thought I might pee in my pants.

“Wren, what are you even
talking about
?” Reagan said, to the tune of all the alpha (maybe-as-insecure-as-I-was-but-sure-didn't-look-it) girls laughing in unison. Reagan and I had
just
had that very same, totally fun what-horse-would-you-be conversation over the summer in my garden and I knew she would be a chestnut brown one, so I looked at her like,
Huh?

“I can't quite tell, Wren, but are you”—wait for it—“retarded?” Melissa said, like a Marine-trained sniper.

Retarded?

I laughed at my own expense to fit in with everyone else, but it felt like someone had just made me swallow a clementine. Before I actually wet my pants or cried or vomited, I heard a clear, strong voice behind me.

“I would be a black-as-night thoroughbred with four white socks and a star,” said Farah, from a kinder, gentler table, throwing her voice way more effectively than I had. There was a big blister of a pause. The girls were silenced.

“I can see that,” I said, as the clementine made its way out of my esophagus and down into my tummy, where I could still feel it but where it didn't hurt so badly.

“We can be in the same barn,” Farah said, smiling at me as a few tears fell by mistake out of my eyes.

 

6

Summer after kindergarten.

Padmavati's house was my favorite. There was always a moss Diptyque candle burning in the front hallway that made me think I was in a sophisticated place. My mother wasn't a fan of scented candles. She said they were “too expensive by half,” a fire hazard, and made rooms smell like a brothel. The one at Vati's house smelled like a place where relaxed people lived—people who ordered in sushi and had guitars in the living room.

“‘And for all I know he is sitting there still, under his favorite cork tree, smelling the flowers just quietly. He is very happy.'” Padmavati's mom, Dipa, closed the worn cover of
The Story of Ferdinand
by Munro Leaf, put it down on her skirt embroidered with a Mexican village, tilted her head to the side, and sighed.

“Oh, how I love Ferdinand,” she said. “He just wanted to be himself, right, girls?”

“When I am six, I am going to wear flowers in my hair just like the ladies at the bullfights,” Vati said.

“I don't think I would want to sit alone under the tree,” I said.

“How come, Wrenny? I think of you as a very thoughtful person who would be happy under a cork tree, drawing or reading.”

Padmavati's mom is an editor at a fancy publishing house. Even when I was five I felt pressure from her to like books and reading. I looked at the very small gold and red bindi dot she always wore on her forehead. Everybody thinks it means you are married, but it doesn't; it's just there to make you look pretty. Even babies can wear bindis.

“I think I would get lonely under the tree,” I said.

“Did Ferdinand seem lonely?” Dipa asked.

“No.”

“Yes.”

Vati and I had different responses. I think because I have a brother and a baby sister, I think doing things by yourself seems lonely, and since Vati is an only child she doesn't. I don't know why I think that, as I am alone all the time when I draw, but somehow that never feels lonely.

“Can you read that one about the mermaid and the whale?” I asked, and re-tucked one of the tassely ikat pillows under my head.

“Oh
yes
! Please, Mommy!” Vati knelt and put her hands together in begging prayer with a
huge
smile on her face.

“Pleeeeeeaaase,” we both said, giggling because we knew it would work like a charm.

“Oh my goodness! I don't like that book!” Dipa said, but she went to get it anyway.

“Her hair is like Rapunzel's,” I said. “When I am an older girl, I am going to grow my hair like that.”

“But are you going to chase a crotchety, mean old whale and try to make him love you when clearly he doesn't?” Dipa snuggled in between the two of us on the big red velvet sofa.

“I don't get
why
that whale doesn't love her,” Vati said. “She can talk to fish!”

“I know, sweetheart. She's smart, she knows all the tides … she's beautiful, she looks like a supermodel of the Atlantic Ocean whose best friend is a dolphin, and yet she spends her whole life chasing that good-for-nothing whale.”

“But maybe if she tried harder, the whale
would
love her,” I said, hoping there was a sequel to the mermaid-and-the-whale book.

“Wren, dear heart, if a man doesn't love you, there is nothing you can do to change that. You should just let him swim away.” I remember thinking that
clearly
Dipa wanted us to glean something from this piece of wisdom. Vati's parents were divorced but were still great friends—they both stayed in the book club even after their split. I think Dipa might still love Vati's dad, Jordan, but ever since they were divorced he has always been with Summer, his girlfriend. He never has married Summer, but he never goes back to Dipa either. Confusing.

“Oh never mind, that is silly.” Dipa shook her head, took a deep breath in, and then said with a twinkle in her eye, “Maybe, Vati, you should write a storybook about a mermaid who is so talented, funny, and beautiful that every single creature in the sea falls in love with her and wants to marry her.”

She wrapped her hands around our shoulders and squeezed as she said the next part. “But instead, she goes to Ocean College and graduates Summa. Cum. Laude.” She released her grip. “Wrenny, you can illustrate it. Until then, we'll just read this antiquated book.” She flipped open the cover, looked over the title page, turned it, and as she did said slowly, “Here we go. ‘Once upon a time…'” Dipa licked her long, elegant finger and got ready to turn the page.

*   *   *

Whoosh, I really just went down memory lane. But I kind of had to for you to get where we came from, for you to see who we all were, who we have always been. Sometimes I think people change in only the smallest ways over time. My mother says that kids are basically the same from the moment they come out, and I think that's true. I hope it's not altogether true though. There are so many things about myself that I hope one day will change.

 

7

Back to the day of the museum party.
Or, much more important, the day I met Nolan.

“We have to get a move on, my mother is just going to drop off the dresses on her way to the airport,” Farah said, quickening the pace as we walked up the last hill in Central Park before we got to the West Side.

“There are four hundred people at my house at the moment so someone can take them. Where is your mom going?” I said, checking my phone. It was almost four o'clock.

“Napa. There is a gentleman there apparently,” Farah said in a no-big-deal way. I didn't say anything. Farah's mom's “adventures” are beyond what I can understand in my parents-have-been-married-my-whole-life brain.

“Oooohhhh! I am very excited for the party!” Vati skipped a few feet ahead, clapping her hands.

On the day of the party, the day with the life-changing crazy wind, something else was happening in our house that was making the afternoon feel chaotic. My ten-year-old sister, Dinah, was shooting an episode of her cooking show,
Dining with Dinah.
Dinah is a celebrity—for real. She is definitely the most famous person I know. Her show is shot in our house on average every eight days for fourteen weeks during the school year. Our mother likes to think she is the kind of person who believes your name should only be in print three times in your life—when you are born, when you get married, and when you die—so the fact that her younger daughter has a hip little “Ask Dinah” cooking column at least three times a year in
New York
magazine and her own blog is really ironic.

The whole TV thing started, to Mom's horror, because one day
Eyewitness News
, a local newscast, went to Hatcher to do a report about how kids were participating in cooking school lunch. It was some kind of feel-good news story about healthy food awareness. Anyway, Dinah caught their eye. She is one of those adorable kids with almost unimaginable looks-like-it-was-dyed blood orange hair (which she inherited from my maternal grandmother), heavy-cream skin tone, and, of course, freckles—a pretty Pippi Longstocking. She sparkled and charmed the camera chopping away at an onion like Morimoto when she could barely see over the counter. It was just weird how adept she was—AND she has an incongruous New York accent that no one else in the family has. It's like Fran Drescher raised her. So a day later, when the broadcast ran, a star was born. All you could see was Dinah. She was saying “buttah” and her twinkly sapphire-blue eyes grew in size two or three times when the turkey meat loaf (which is what they were cooking) tumbled perfectly out of the pan. I mean, we knew she could cook—she was eight when she started and could whisk egg whites into stiff peaks like Julia Child. She's a prodigy—a Mozart of mozzarella. But when all-the-world (pretty much) saw it on the news and then on YouTube (where it went viral), suddenly she wasn't ours anymore; she was a sensation.

I think kids watch Food TV more than cartoons, which is probably why, very soon after Dinah was on the news, Bravo called to say they were interested in having Dinah host a thirty-minute cooking show. Mom was repelled, but Dad, who is more relaxed about publicity and media and sort of everything, convinced Mom that it would only be
good
for Dinah. I remember him saying at dinner, “Nan, love, it's a wonderful life
experience
for her. I don't see how we can stand in her way.” My mother protested, “I can stand
directly
in her way, David. She is only NINE!” Dad laughed and put his bent pointer finger under her chin, looking her in the eyes. “Oh, I love you, Nan, my little worrier … Maybe she will be a
hit
and we can all retire!” Mom laughed too. He had won.
Dining with Dinah
airs on Saturday mornings. Some of her recipes, like her caramel sauce, you can buy on Gilt.com. She is so famous she wears sunglasses to the Museum of Natural History so the under-eight set doesn't mob her.

*   *   *

“I feel like I'm about to see Beyoncé and Jay-Z or fall off a cliff or something! This party is freaking me out, I feel all
crazy
inside. I have never been to a party this big!” Vati said, and skipped again.

“I think it feels more like going to the prom, or staying up to watch Jimmy Fallon,” I said, huffing. The park is hilly.

“Staying up to watch
Jimmy Fallon
? You are such a nerd,” Reagan said, laughing.

“What, we weren't allowed to till, like, last year,” I said.

“None of us have ever
been
to a prom, nor will we ever
go
because we go to an all-girls school, Wrenner,” said Farah, quickening her pace. “No, no, no, no, I have a more ominous feeling about tonight, in a good way, but I feel like something disastrous will happen, like a flood.” There was a huge field to our right, where people were walking their dogs and kids were doing after-school sports.

“Floods aren't good, Farah,” Vati said.

“I know, but they are exciting.” Farah raised her eyebrows and winked at Vati.

“You're weird,” Vati said.

“What are you going to wear, Wren?” Reagan said, checking her phone.

“I don't know. My mom said she had a plan.”

“Sc-AIR-ree,” she sang.

“Well, I know you all borrowed Farah's mom's dresses, but my mother didn't want me to. She thinks Alix's clothes are
too sophisticated for a fifteen-year-old.
I can't help it. You know my mom. She's uptight.”

“Your mom is
so not
uptight, Wren,” Padmavati said, putting her hand out so we wouldn't jaywalk across Central Park West.

“I know she doesn't look like that on the outside, but she completely is. I'm not even allowed to be on Facebook.”

“Um, hello? She lets Bravo come into your house every week,” noted Farah.

“And Oliver has dreads!” Vati said, releasing her arm when the light turned green. “I loooove the dress Alix lent me. It's pink!” she said, crossing the street.

“Dinah's TV thing and Oliver's dreads are totally different. Remember when she made me give back that little bracelet to Andrew Goodman in sixth grade?”

“Oh yeah—what was up with that? It was weensy, and he was
asking you out
,” Farah said.

“I know, but it was gold, and Mom thought it was inappropriate. She let me keep the Hershey bar he gave me with it.”

“Oh god, she's going to be home when we get to your house, right?”

“Yes, Farah, Dinah has her show thing,” I said, and looked at my phone.

“Wren!
Just help me.
How am I going to stay downstairs with your mother hysterically lurking around the set?” We were now two blocks away from my house. Farah's sudden and obsessive application of the palest pink sparkly lip gloss every block was giving away the fact that she was about to see Tom-the-camera-guy. She took a deep cleansing breath in preparation.

“Farah, we don't even know if Tom-the-camera-guy will be shooting. And we have to get dressed anyway.” Farah had a massive crush on the DP (director of photography), Tom, who was so old. I'm pretty sure he was in his twenties.