The Stars of Summer (10 page)

NEW YORK CITY'S NEXT TOP HOT DOG

O
N FRIDAY MORNING, THE PLATFORM AT
the East Dumpsford train station was far less crowded than it had been the last time Gladys went to the office with her dad. Apparently, he hadn't been exaggerating when he'd grumbled about being the only person working on July fifth.

The ride to New York City took about an hour. At each stop, just a handful of commuters climbed aboard, looking sunburned and bleary as they collapsed into their seats. Most snoozed or played on their phones, but Gladys noticed that a few pulled fat black books out of their bags to read. When she looked closely, she saw the title:
Zombietown, U.S.A.

Great
, she thought. Even when she wasn't at camp, she still couldn't get away from Hamilton.

Gladys pulled out her reviewing journal so she'd have something to look at that wasn't his stupid book. She had tried to write down some criteria the night before that would help guide her through the day's tastings.

Meat: all-beef or mixed? kosher?

Bun: white or whole-grain? freshness? toasted?

Condiments: quality? best combination?

Honestly, though, it wasn't much. She would just have to taste as many samples as she could find.

From Penn Station, Gladys and her dad took a subway downtown to his office on Wall Street. When they exited onto the sidewalk, the first thing Gladys noticed was a huge red-and-white umbrella near the corner. They got a few steps closer, and her suspicions were confirmed: It was a hot dog stand!

“Hey, Dad, can I get a hot dog?” Gladys asked.

Her dad stared at her. “
Now
, Gladdy? It's eight thirty in the morning!”

“I didn't really eat much breakfast,” she said, which was true. She'd been saving space for Operation Top Dog.

“Well, a hot dog's not really breakfast,” her dad replied. “But there's a good bagel shop around the corner. How about we stop in for a couple of bialys and schmear?”

Gladys's mouth watered at the suggestion. A fresh-baked bialy, all warm and chewy and covered with browned bits of onion, sounded divine—but she had to stick to her assignment. “I'd much rather have a hot dog,” she forced herself to say. “And hey, people eat sausages for breakfast.”

“I guess that's true,” her dad said. “All right, I suppose that just this once it won't hurt.”

He stepped up to the vendor—a middle-aged man in a Yankees cap—and ordered a hot dog for Gladys. “What do you want on it, Gladdy?” he asked.

“Oh—just whatever people usually get.”

The vendor fished a long pinkish dog out of his vat of boiling water, placed it on a white bun, and squiggled yellow mustard and bright red ketchup on it. As her dad paid, Gladys snuck out her journal and speedily noted down the name of the stand, the corner it stood on, and the type of hot dogs it served (“Hungry Cow, all-beef”). She barely managed to drop the journal back into her bag before her father turned to hand her the hot dog.

“Well?” he asked after she'd taken her first bite. “How is it?”

“Er,” Gladys said with a swallow. “It's great, Dad.”

But it wasn't. The wet hot dog had immediately turned the bun soggy, and the ketchup was separating before her eyes into juicy liquid and a tomatoey clot. The meat itself didn't have much taste, but what it was lacking in flavor it made up for in gristly bits.

Hungry Cow,
she thought,
you are out of the running to become New York's City's Next Top Hot Dog.

As they entered her dad's building, Gladys looked around for a trash can. “You'd better finish that up, Gladdy,” her dad said. “There's a strict no-food policy in the elevators here.”

“Oh, okay,” Gladys said. “I'll just throw it out, then.”

But as soon as those words were out of her mouth, her dad's jaw stiffened, and she knew she'd be doing no such thing.

“Throw it
away
?” he squeaked through clenched teeth. “That is not how I raised you, Gladys Gatsby! Do you know how much a hot dog costs in this city?”

Already lamenting the wasted stomach space, Gladys forced herself to take as big a bite as she could; she might as well get it over with quickly. But once the bite was in her mouth, she knew that that had been the wrong strategy. What she should have done was taken a tiny bite, and then another, eating so slowly that her dad got fed up and either let her throw it out or finished it himself. Why hadn't she thought of that before she'd filled her mouth with the nasty stuff?

Meanwhile, Gladys's dad's pocket was vibrating, and as she swallowed her second bite, he pulled out his phone. “Text from Robbins,” he muttered, swiping at the screen. “‘Give my regards to Wall Street!' What nerve. And look, a picture of him and his sons at the Cape May arcade.”

“Sorry, Dad,” Gladys said.

“Are you done eating that thing yet?” he snapped.

Sheepishly, Gladys took another enormous bite.

Two minutes later, the last piece of hot dog had finally disappeared down Gladys's gullet, and she and her dad were on their way up to the twenty-eighth floor. “I've got a meeting at nine o'clock,” he said. “Do you want to come?”

“No thanks, Dad—I wouldn't want to be a distraction,” Gladys told him. “I can just hang out at your cubicle 'til you get back.”

“All right, it shouldn't take too long—half an hour, tops, unless Silverstein goes off on another one of his rants about spreadsheet formulas.” He sighed. “Some accountants need to get a life.”

Gladys's dad got her situated in his cubicle, which was far from the elevator but close to a window. The July sun beat in, warming the desktop.

“All right, I'm off—the conference room is just down that hallway if you need me,” he said, pointing to the right. “You can use the Internet if you want, but don't mess with my files, okay?”

“Okay, Dad! Have a good meeting!”

When he left, Gladys scanned the hubbub out the window twenty-eight floors below. People dotted the sidewalk and yellow taxis zoomed down the street, and at the end of the block stood a large blue-and-green umbrella. Another hot dog stand!

After making sure her dad had disappeared around the corner of a neighboring cubicle, Gladys took off in the opposite direction, walking as quickly as she could back toward the elevators.

In less than five minutes, she was downstairs and out on the street. Half an hour should be plenty of time to get to the corner and back. She looked to the left, expecting to see the blue-and-green umbrella on the corner, but there was nothing but a subway entrance. Confused, she looked to the right, but there was no hot dog stand there, either.

Fudge!
Her dad's window must not have faced the same direction that the front of the building did. Which way was it oriented? She knew that Wall Street was close to the southern tip of Manhattan Island, but she didn't remember seeing a lot of water from her dad's office. So that window probably faced north.

But which way was she facing now?

Just ask someone,
said a voice in her head. But it was a small, quiet voice—just like Gladys's voice in real life. She hated talking to strangers, and the people flitting past her on this street, conversing with each other or shouting into cell phones, looked particularly intimidating.

She'd just have to figure it out herself.

Gladys thought back to the hours she and Sandy had spent studying an online map of Manhattan before her foray to Classy Cakes in the spring. City blocks were rectangular. So all she needed to do was pick one direction and start walking. If she followed the block all the way around, she'd find the hot dog stand and make it back to the front door of her dad's building, no problem! Feeling more confident now, Gladys turned left and made for the corner.

Once she got there she turned left again, onto a louder, busier street. Scaffolding shadowed the sidewalk and cut off a good portion of the walking area, forcing people to crowd into a tunnel-like space as they moved down to the next corner. Gladys found herself buffeted on all sides by sweaty, fast-walking men and women, the corners of their bags and briefcases jabbing painfully at her bare arms. She tried to look around for a blue-and-green umbrella, but all she could see were people.

As she turned onto the next street, Gladys glanced down at her watch. Thirteen minutes had passed since her dad left for his meeting, and she still didn't have her hot dog!

One more block,
she told herself,
then left again.
She repeated the directions to herself like a mantra as she hurried toward the next intersection.

The sun slipped behind a tall building as she turned the corner, throwing the entire block into a murky dimness. Gladys was tempted to pull out her journal and make a note about the atmosphere—
A twilightesque ambience blankets the Financial District's hot dog stands—
but she needed to keep moving, so she tried to commit the description to memory.

It wasn't until Gladys had walked half a block up the third side of her square that she remembered to actually look around for the hot dog stand she'd seen from the window. She should be getting close to her dad's building again—where was that umbrella? If she didn't get a hot dog, this whole expedition had been for nothing!

Her watch read 9:24 when she finally spotted a silver cart near the upcoming corner. Yes! And there wasn't even anyone else in line. Reaching down into her pocket for money, Gladys dashed up to the vendor, whose bald pate shone in the sun. “One hot dog, please!” she gasped. “With all the regular toppings!”

The vendor assembled a hot dog for her without comment. Gladys thanked him and took off down the street. She hadn't had time to take notes on the name and location of the stand, but she figured that once she was back up in her dad's office, she could get that information by looking out the window again.

Turning the corner, she finally paused to take a bite of her hot dog—and a series of unfortunately familiar sensations coursed through her mouth.

Soggy bun. Gristly meat. Weirdly clumpy ketchup.

Gladys looked back at the stand where she'd just bought her hot dog. The umbrella hanging over it was red and white. And just then, the vendor pulled a Yankees hat out of his apron pocket and set it back on top of his bald head.

Gladys couldn't believe it. She'd bought a hot dog from the
same cart
she'd already tried that morning!

She looked around desperately but could spot no sign of the blue-and-green umbrella she'd seen from the window above—and according to her watch, it was now 9:28. Her time was up.

Rage quickened her steps as she tore up the street, breaking into a run when she finally spotted her dad's brown building. At least this time she was able to do what she'd wanted to do with her first hot dog of the day; she hurled it into a black trash can outside the entrance. Then she burst into the lobby and, after flashing her guest pass at the security desk, dashed toward the elevator bank. On the ride up, she caught her breath and used the elevator's reflective wall like a mirror to smooth her hair. It was 9:32 now, so she could only hope that Silverstein had indeed gotten going about those spreadsheets.

The elevator jerked to a halt at floor 28, and Gladys stepped toward the door.
Just act calm and normal,
she told herself.
You have nothing to worry about.

But then the doors opened to reveal her dad's face, and he didn't look calm at all.

A (HOT) DOG DAY OF SUMMER

“
GLADYS!” HE CRIED. “WHERE HAVE YOU
been?”

A bevy of potential explanations swirled through Gladys's brain:

I wanted to see the rest of your building.

Another accountant asked me to deliver some papers.

Your desk smells bad, so I went looking for some air freshener.

But what came out of her mouth was “Bathroom! I needed to go to the bathroom.”

Her dad's face scrunched up in puzzlement. “On another floor?”

“Well, I looked on this floor,” Gladys said, “but I couldn't find it, so I had to go downstairs.”

“You couldn't find it?” Gladys followed her dad's gaze and saw, with a sinking heart, a perfectly large and clear sign that read
RESTROOMS
and pointed down the hallway next to the elevator bank.

“Oh,” was all that she could think to say.

But it didn't seem to matter to her dad—he grabbed her and pulled her into a tight hug. “I'm just glad you're okay,” he whispered. “But please don't go running off anymore without telling someone where you're going! I got back to my cubicle, and you weren't there, and no one remembered seeing you for a long time . . .”

“I, um, had some indigestion,” Gladys said.

Her dad released her quickly from the hug. “Hmm,” he said. “Maybe hot dogs don't make the best breakfast after all, huh?”

“No, no—I don't think it was the hot dog.” Seriously, how many dumb things could come out of her mouth in one morning? If her dad thought hot dogs were making her sick, then he definitely wouldn't eat one with her for lunch . . . and forget about that mid-morning hot dog snack . . .

“Well, it's time to head out for a few meetings around the city,” he said. “Are you feeling well enough to go?”

“Yes!” Gladys assured him—and thankfully, he believed her.

Ten minutes later, they were back in the subway, on their way to the Upper East Side. Gladys had never been to that neighborhood before, but when they got off the train, she quickly determined that it was a fancier part of town; posh boutiques lined one side of Fifth Avenue, and the green trees of Central Park beckoned from the other side of the street.
Do the people in this neighborhood even eat hot dogs?
she wondered.

Just then, she spotted a vendor by one of the gates leading into Central Park. “Hey, Dad, how about a hot dog?” Gladys asked.

“Another one?” her dad said. “It's not even lunchtime yet! Let's wait until after this meeting, at least.” And he kept walking.

She scurried after him. “But, Dad . . .” She was pretty sure he wasn't going to let her out of his sight for the rest of the day, and there would be other vendors to try later. What would convince him to let her have another hot dog right now? “All this walking is making me hungry!”

“All this walking? Gladdy, we've gone maybe half a block from the subway exit.”

“Yeah, but I'm shorter than you,” Gladys pointed out. “So on my legs, it's like ten blocks!”

This got a laugh out of her dad, but it didn't stop him from continuing. The hot dog stand was now almost half a block behind them. It was time for desperate measures.

“Hey,” she said. “Mr. Robbins and his sons are probably eating hot dogs right now at the Jersey Shore! I bet
they
don't care that it's still morning.”

That stopped her dad in his tracks. “I bet you're right,” he murmured. “And why should they have all the fun?”

“Exactly!” Gladys cried. “And look, there's a stand right by the park. Let's get some hot dogs and text
him
a picture.”

“Good idea!”

A minute later, they were taking a selfie in front of the vendor's stand. Gladys checked the picture after and was pleased to see that it had captured both the name of the stand (Yiddish Countrywide) and the intersection.

From then on, Gladys's dad was happy to stop for hot dogs as often as Gladys wanted—just as long as they took a picture and sent it to Mr. Robbins. The only problem was that she actually had to
eat
the dogs—as in finish them, every single time.

After Yiddish Countrywide, she ate an all-pork hot dog in Washington Heights, a mixed-meat hot dog on the Upper West Side, and even a vegetarian dog from a cute-looking cart in Greenwich Village. The dogs came slathered with mustards and ketchups, relishes and onions . . . but none of them blew her away. In fact, the more hot dogs she ate, the less she could taste them. Were the fat and salt in the meat dulling her taste buds? And if they could do that to her mouth, what were they doing to her insides?

By the time they got in line for a hot dog near Rockefeller Center that afternoon, Gladys's stomach was swelling painfully. “Hey, Dad,” she said, “wanna just split this one?”

“What, and have Robbins think that I'm too cheap to buy my daughter her own hot dog?” Gladys's dad shook his head. “Oh, no, Gladdy. It's nothing but the best for my girl.”

And so Gladys found herself staring down a full-size hot dog for the seventh time that day. This one was decidedly gray in color, and the gelatinous globs of snot-green relish that decorated it didn't improve her appetite.

Gladys forced herself to take a bite. Nope—it didn't taste any better than it looked.

When he finished paying, Gladys's dad beckoned her over to pose for their self-portrait. “C'mon—let's make sure to get Radio City Music Hall in the background,” he said. “By the end of the day, Robbins's kids'll be begging to go on a hot dog tour of New York City!”

Gladys plastered a smile on for the camera, but deep down she knew she was as far from finding the best hot dog as she had been at the beginning of the day. She and her dad would have to keep eating, and eating, and eating, if she had any chance of finding a winner for her review.

And so they did. As they walked down Sixth Avenue toward Gladys's dad's next appointment, they stopped in Bryant Park for more hot dogs (
meat shriveled, bun stale,
Gladys scribbled in her notebook). Then after that meeting, they found another vendor near Grand Central Terminal (
nothing grand about these lukewarm dogs!
).

“Look at the time,” her dad said as he glanced up at the ornate clock that hung over Grand Central's entrance. “Our train leaves from Penn Station in thirty minutes! We're going to have to walk fast if we want to make it.”

He strode toward the intersection, but when Gladys tried to follow him, her legs didn't seem to be working right. They trembled underneath her, and the simple movement of taking a step made her feel incredibly queasy.

“Dad!” she called.

He hurried back over. “What's the matter?”

“I—I don't feel so good. I don't think I can walk to Penn Station.”

“Okay,” he said. “We can just take the subway.”

But even walking down to the subway entrance was a trial for Gladys, who felt worse with every step. It seemed like her stomach had taken over her whole body. As she stepped onto a subway train beside her dad, she couldn't help imagining meat and buns and condiments shooting out of her ears and eyes and splattering all over the shiny plastic seats.

Think about something else,
she told herself as the train lurched out of the station.
Anything else!

So she closed her eyes and imagined Sandy, hundreds of miles away at karate camp. What was he doing right now? Practicing his roundhouse kicks? Hiking with his group in the woods? She wondered whether he had to wear his white karategi at all times; was it a camp uniform, like the purple shirts at Camp Bentley? She had so many questions to ask him when he wrote her back—if he ever wrote her back.

The train slowed to a stop, and Gladys opened her eyes. She'd made it all the way across town without getting sick!

“C'mon, Gladdy, we have to transfer,” her dad said, grabbing her hand. “Let's hope a downtown train comes quickly.”

She did her best to keep pace with her dad as they crossed the station at Times Square and hurried up another set of stairs. The platform was packed with people, heat seeming to rise off them in waves. Gladys's dad fanned himself with his fedora, and Gladys was tempted to pull out her journal and do the same. But the risk of dropping it was too great, so she just sweat quietly and took deep breaths, trying to keep her nausea under control.

There was a mad rush to board when a train finally pulled up to the platform, and Gladys and her dad barely fit inside. “Stand clear of the closing doors!” a recording pleaded again and again over the train's loudspeaker. Finally, the doors squeezed shut, and the train jerked out of the station.

Gladys's dad's back was flat against the door; Gladys's back was flat against his stomach. And less than an inch away from Gladys's stomach bobbed another person's stomach—a large, round one encased in a brown sport coat. With every lurch of the train, it bounced a little closer to her.

Please don't bump into me,
Gladys prayed silently.

Another wave of nausea washed over her, and she looked around for something to focus on. Since the car was so crowded, she couldn't see much, so she stared at the man in front of her. The button that strained to hold his jacket closed had two letters embossed on it in gold:
GG
.

The man had one arm wrapped around a subway pole, and in his other hand he held a small black notebook, about the same size as Gladys's reviewing journal. He was flipping through the pages as best he could with the one hand, but when the train made a sudden jolt, the book tumbled out of his hand and landed at Gladys's feet.

“Pick that up for me, would you, little girl?” the man said in a gravelly voice.

Gladys didn't enjoy being called “little girl,” or being asked to do this man a favor without so much as a “please”—but she could see that she was the only person who even had a chance of reaching the book in this packed car. Slowly, with her stomach protesting every inch of the way, she bent her knees and lowered herself to the subway's sticky floor.

When her head was level with the large man's knees, she was able to reach over and grasp the book. It had landed cover-side up but splayed open, and when Gladys flipped it over, the writing on the open page caught her eye.

Reviewing notes for Ristorante Massimo,
it said.

Gladys gasped—she couldn't help it. Ristorante Massimo was one of the restaurants
she
was supposed to review for the
New York Standard
before her assignment got switched!

Could this GG be . . .

Unable to stop herself, Gladys flipped back through several more pages. There were notes on Brendler's Barbecue, and Steakhouse 57, and Café Cacao—all subjects of past reviews by the
Standard'
s head restaurant critic. And then, one more page caught her eye. Its heading said
Classy Cakes & Fusión
Tapas,
and the note underneath it was simple:
Assigned to Gatsby. Don't let Fiona make
that
mistake again.

“Little girl!” the man's voice boomed from above. “What's taking so long down there?”

Gladys snapped the notebook shut and stood up as quickly as she could. On top of the nausea and dizziness, her brain was now swimming with questions. The man snatched the notebook out of her hand and shoved it into his pocket just as the train began to slow.

“This stop is Penn Station,” the recording announced, and the train doors peeled open with a
whoosh
. Gladys's dad stepped off quickly, and she was just about to follow him when something slammed into her.

“Move it, kid,” Gilbert Gadfly grumbled. “I have a reservation.” His huge belly shoved her aside, and the hard, gold-embossed button on his jacket dug right into a soft spot in her stomach.

She threw up all over his shoes.