by Jeff Zentner
Alex whoops and throws his arm around me. He starts poking me in the ribs with his index finger, making me double over in laughter. “Cash is in loooooooove. Ooooooooh, Cash is in looooooooove.”
The elevator stops at the second floor and the doors open. We stop our horsing around, snap back to normal, and stare forward, clearing our throats. Some senior whose name I don’t know gets on and stands in front of us, facing the door.
Alex starts pointing at me, mouthing, Cash is in loooooove. I flip him off. We start snorting, trying not to laugh. The guy glances back at us, irritated.
“Inside joke,” Alex murmurs. We get to his floor. He gets off the elevator, turns back, and says, “Tomorrow,” pointing at me and waggling his eyebrows.
“Stop that eyebrow thing.” The doors close, cutting me off.
I arrive at my room, where I hold the day close to me—a warmth that won’t soon surrender to the air.
I pull off my shirt and press it to my face in the dark, searching like a sailor, nose to the wind, for some hint of a green shore ahead.
Sometimes you’ll come around a bend in the river to see a blue heron standing quietly in the distant shallows. As you near, he coils up and releases himself to the sky. My heart feels like the moment he’s coiled up as the miles to the city melt away beneath our feet.
Desiree drives. Dr. Adkins sits in the front passenger seat, twisted around to talk to us. Vi sits between Alex and me in the second row, and Delaney claims the cramped third row for herself. For most of the hour-and-forty-minute drive, I’m alternating chatting with everyone; staring out the window, reflecting on how the last time I traveled this stretch of road it was too dark to see anything; and planning what I’ll say to Vi and where I’ll say it. I decide it’s probably best to let Vi pick her favorite place in New York.
The city thickens in density and starts growing upward, appearing more like I imagine New York City to look. We drive into Brooklyn and park in front of Dr. Adkins and Desiree’s friends’ brownstone. “They’re in Berlin for the next year,” Dr. Adkins explains.
I step out into the whir of the teeming city.
Dr. Adkins sees me scanning around. “Wait’ll you see Manhattan.”
Vi is giddy. “I love this place. There’s nowhere on Earth like here. London, no. São Paulo, no.”
“Sawyer, Tennessee, no,” I say. Everyone laughs.
We walk in the direction of a nearby subway station. The sky is a festive tinsel silver, and a brisk, stiff wind forces our hands into our pockets and tinges our cheeks pink as it rushes between the buildings like it’s late for something.
Delaney looks simultaneously dazed and happy. A lot to observe and process here. So many patterns to analyze.
“Can you believe we’re here?” I murmur to her.
“Thanks, Penicillium delanum,” she says.
Alex is still the only person who knows my plan for today with Vi. I was afraid to tell Delaney because she and Vi live in such close contact to each other. I didn’t want Delaney slipping up and blowing it for me.
It takes me five tries to successfully swipe my subway card, but even this is exciting. There are seats available on the train, but I prefer to stand and hang on to the steel poles, like on TV.
“Everybody got their phones?” Dr. Adkins asks. “Full charges? The rules are: Check in with me every two hours. Nobody goes off solo.”
We get to our stop and emerge from underground into the ecstatic hum and buzz of the city. I can taste the live-wire energy immediately, metallic on my tongue. It takes about three seconds for my senses to be overwhelmed. Alex and Delaney have awestruck expressions. Of the four of us, only Vi takes it relatively in stride.
Our first stop is the Strand, because Dr. Adkins’s student’s reading is early in the day. It’s a temple of books. I’ve never seen so many in one place. Delaney immediately disappears, as does Vi.
One of the booksellers recognizes Dr. Adkins. Her book Holler, its silver National Book Award Finalist seal gleaming, is on an employee-recommendations shelf, which she shows off proudly.
I suddenly realize I’ve never read Holler. I’ve only ever read Dr. Adkins’s poems online. I take one of the copies from the shelf. I shouldn’t be spending much on this trip, but “Here’s my souvenir from New York City,” I say.
“Cash, I have copies. I’ll hook you up,” Dr. Adkins says. “Sorry,” she says to the bookseller. “Teenagers. Fixed incomes.”
“Nope,” I say. “I’ve never gotten to buy the book of someone I know. You have to sign it for me.” I buy my copy and Dr. Adkins signs it, smiling.
She’s no sooner finished than she looks up. “Kisha!” She runs over to a young woman who just walked in, a battered black journal nestled under one arm. They embrace energetically and for a long time.
“Cash!” Dr. Adkins waves me over. “Come meet TaKisha!”
I walk over and shake hands with her. “I’ve heard amazing things about you,” I say.
“Likewise,” TaKisha says. “Bree tells me you’ve caught the poetry bug.”
I blush and break eye contact, absently straightening a stack of books with my left hand. “Oh. Yeah. Wasn’t expecting it.”
“So what inspired you to take her class?”
“Needed an English credit.” Everyone laughs. “I grew up in this little town in East Tennessee no one’s heard of, and I didn’t read much poetry growing up.”
TaKisha eyes Dr. Adkins with playful accusation. “Do I see a pattern here?”
“Maybe,” Dr. Adkins says coyly.
“I came to Middleford on scholarship from Sardis, Mississippi,” TaKisha says. “I listened to rap and hip-hop nonstop, but I had never just sat down and read a poem before. I take Bree’s class and, well…” She and Dr. Adkins trade wide smiles.
“And by the way. May I?” TaKisha reaches for my copy of Holler, and I give it to her. She holds it up to Dr. Adkins and taps the silver seal on the cover. “Can we just…” She hands the book back to me.
Dr. Adkins waves her off.
“Girl. Please,” TaKisha says.
“I’d much rather discuss the time I picked up my copy of Boston Review to read a dazzling poem by my former student TaKisha Biggs.”
We talk about that, about Middleford, about Dr. Adkins’s sixth sense for finding kids from the rural South and planting in them the seed of poetry. Then we watch TaKisha read.
Dr. Adkins was right about her. She’s a brilliant poet. Her lines are sinewy and muscular. They land with the heat and energy of lightning strikes.
Listening to her read feels like standing in a river—any moment you could be swept away. A few times I hold my breath until I am almost gasping, for fear of missing even a single word.
At one point Dr. Adkins looks over at me and just says, “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
We think of language as this tame thing that lives in neat garden beds, bound by rules and fences. Then someone shows it to you growing wild and beautiful, flowering vines consuming cities, erasing pavement and lines. Breaking through any fence that would try to contain it. Reclaiming. Reshaping. Reforming.
In my life, I’ve never known anything else that felt so full of infinite possibility.
Words make me feel strong. They make me feel powerful and alive.
They make me feel like I can open doors.
* * *
We leave the Strand. A tall guy with dreads comes around the corner and approaches us.
Desiree squeals, runs up, and hugs him. “Everyone, this is Malik. We worked together in kitchens all over New York City.” We all go around introducing ourselves.
“Rayray and Malik are taking me on a culinary tour of Manhattan,” Alex explains.
“You get to call her Rayray?” Dr. Adkins looks at Alex, agog.
He loo
ks to Desiree. “She told me to.”
“Alex is my son now,” Desiree says. “I am adopting him. You can adopt Cash and they can be brothers.”
I laugh but with a sharp twinge, because it’s only a joke. It’d be a lucky kid who got to grow up with them as parents. It’s a real shitty deal that you get to grow up only once and your parents are your parents and you get one shot at it.
Desiree, Malik, and Alex say goodbye and head out on their eating expedition.
Dr. Adkins, TaKisha, Delaney, Vi, and I grab huge pizza slices around the corner. I notice Delaney getting bored and antsy with all the poetry talk.
“If no one’s willing to come to the museum with me, can I still go?” Delaney asks, looking at me accusingly.
“I’ll go with you; I’ve somehow never been to the natural history museum,” Dr. Adkins says. “TaKisha? What are you doing after this?”
“I’ve never been either! I’ll go,” TaKisha says.
“Cash? Vi? You two want to come, or would you rather go explore together?” Dr. Adkins shoots me a glance that says she knows exactly what’s up and that she knows which we’ll choose.
“Vi? You wanna show me around the Big Apple?” I ask.
She claps. “Yes!”
Delaney shoots me a reproachful glare. I return an apologetic look. I know we said we’d hang out in NYC together, but.
Dr. Adkins checks the time. “Okay. Meet back at the Strand at eight-thirty.”
Delaney, TaKisha, and Dr. Adkins start off together. “Okay, so tell me the whole story of this stuff you found in the cave,” I hear Dr. Adkins say. Delaney throws me one last castigating look over her shoulder as they walk away. I shrug sheepishly. She’ll get over it.
And it’s just Vi and me. And the city.
Vi’s not wearing one of her usual Marvel T-shirts today. She’s dressed for the city in black jeans with slashes in the knees. She’s bundled against the chill with a scarf and a white leather motorcycle jacket. Her russet curls cascade from underneath a broad-brimmed floppy black hat. She looks like a model. I feel unsophisticated by comparison. I’m carrying Dr. Adkins’s book, which I hope makes me look a little smarter and more urbane.
I remind myself to play it cool today and wait for the perfect moment to tell her.
“We have to go to Central Park first, while it’s still light out,” Vi says, checking her phone and striding purposefully in the subway’s direction.
“I can’t believe you lived here.”
“My dad was making some big deal, and my mom said, ‘We’re going to New York if we won’t see you anyway.’ So we lived in a nice hotel for a month.”
“Whoa. Was that fun?”
“Sort of. I would have preferred to have my dad around, though. You know?”
“Totally.”
“Was your dad around when you were young?”
Not today. Not this conversation. Another time. “Pretty much.”
“I miss my dad a lot. Being here is making me miss him. It’s reminding me of how I felt then.” She looks wistful. “There’s a word in Portuguese for the feeling I have. Saudade. It doesn’t really have a translation.”
“What’s the closest thing?”
“Mmm. Maybe ‘the sadness of missing someone or something.’ ”
We walk for a while. I keep almost tripping as I look skyward at the tops of buildings.
“Where should we go after the park?” Vi asks.
“It’s all cool to me. At some point, I want to go someplace where we can get good views of the city at night.”
Vi thinks for a moment. “Okay. After Central Park…the Metropolitan Museum of Art is near.” She pulls out her phone and scrolls and taps. “There’s an indie video-game arcade I wanted to go to. It has lots of games you can only find there. Can we?”
I would joyfully accompany you to an arcade where the only game is sticking your hand into a box of rattlesnakes. “Of course.”
“Then we could get dinner—maybe Brazilian food, if we can find it—and go walk on the High Line?”
“Is the High Line a good place to see the city lights?”
“Very.”
Then it’ll be a good place to tell you what I need to tell you. “Cool. I’m gonna need you to guide us on the subway, though. It’s a little confusing.”
“I got this.” She looks up directions on her phone. She starts off confidently. “This way.” I quickly fall behind. She turns back. “Come on, Tennessee Boy. You have to walk faster.”
Tennessee Boy. A new nickname. I’m searching every word and action of hers for omens.
We get off the subway near Rockefeller Center and walk around there for a bit. It’s a wonderland—the likes of which I’ve only seen on TV. Funny how everyone in Sawyer thinks places like New York City are so godless but New York City is the one pulling out all the stops for Jesus’s birthday.
We watch the ice-skaters for a while. Vi asks if I want to skate. I lie and say I’m scared to because I broke my arm as a kid doing it. I’m embarrassed to tell her I can’t afford it, especially after buying Dr. Adkins’s book. Not if I want to eat tonight.
We continue on to Central Park, walking with our hands in our pockets, the vapor of our breath wafting upward. Joggers wearing knit caps pass us by. I could imagine everyone I’m seeing in a tuxedo or an evening gown. They even look debonair in workout clothes.
Vi sees me looking around. “What do you think of the Big Apple?”
“You really love everything apple, don’t you?”
She laughs. “I would still love New York if it weren’t named after the best fruit on Earth.”
“It’s amazing,” I say. “But I don’t know if I could live here. I love quiet. It’s not quiet here much, is it?”
“Never.”
“When you’re done with college and everything, where are you going to live?” I ask.
She spins, arms outstretched. “Everywhere!”
“You sound serious.”
“I am.”
“Sawyer, Tennessee?” I dodge a woman walking a small dog wearing a doggie coat that probably cost more than mine.
“Yes. Will you teach me how to fish and hunt for wolves when I live there?”
“Okay, first off, we don’t have wolves in Sawyer. Second off, would you want to hunt them if we did?”
She giggles. The tip of her nose is rosy. “No. But I want to go fishing.” She pantomimes casting a line.
“That we can do.”
“If I catch a fish and cook it, will you eat it?”
“You a good cook?”
“Terrible.”
“Yes, I’ll eat it,” I say.
I smell her conditioner as a sudden gust blows her hair across her face. I reach over and gently move it out of her eyes for her.
Any excuse. Any.
* * *
“So this game is nothing but you’re a cat and you’re walking across people’s nuts?” I ask.
Vi fixates on the screen and doesn’t deviate. “It’s fun. You try.”
“I’m good.”
“You’re not much of a gamer.”
“Not really. I had a PlayStation for a while, but…” My mama sold it. “It wasn’t my thing.”
The game ends and she turns to me. “Okay. I’m hungry and you need to see more of the city. You hungry?”
“Definitely.”
“Are you ready to try Brazilian food?”
“Sure.” I have a sudden stroke of brilliance. “But I want the real experience. No fancy Brazilian food. What a normal Brazilian would eat every day.”
She searches on her phone for a minute. “Oh! There’s a place right nearby. And it looks not fancy.”
I breathe an inward sigh of relief as we walk in the periwinkle dusk.
&nb
sp; * * *
New York City is incredible. You get your mouth set on Brazilian food, and five minutes’ walk later, you’re sitting at a cheerily decorated modern, casual Brazilian restaurant called Almoço. It looks like a Brazilian version of Chipotle.
I get rice and beans (arroz com feijão) and cheese bread (pão de queijo). My meal reminds me of cornbread and soup beans. It’s filling, delicious, and best of all, cheap.
Vi gets feijoada, which is a couple bucks more. It’s a stew of black beans and sausage and pork belly. She tells me the real thing would have pig ears and snouts in it. She clearly thinks I’ll be horrified, but I’m from Tennessee, so I’m not at all. In fact, it sounds good.
She tells me about her new game idea. You play with a friend and walk around a huge city like New York, rendered in perfect digital detail, interacting with each other and the environment. You just talk while you walk and see the sights. The game isn’t the point—the interaction is.
“Brazilian food makes me want to live in Brazil,” I say as we finish.
“Knowing me wasn’t enough?”
“Oh, it was.” I think of telling her exactly how enough while we eat. But I don’t. Not yet. Soon.
* * *
We finish our dinner and head back into the windblown night. The low overcast sky reflects back the city lights in a wintry rose-gold glow. It’s one of my favorite colors.
The temperature has dipped and I walk so as to shield the wind from her. Once or twice she has to clap her hand on top of her hat to keep it from blowing off.
“High Line time?” she asks.
“Let’s do it,” I say, a widening anxiety churning in my lower belly.
We’re mostly quiet as we head there. I take in the carnival energy of the Manhattan night as we walk down to the High Line.
“This used to be a railroad,” Vi says as we ascend the steps. “It was my favorite place to walk when I lived here.”
A gust of wind catches the brim of Vi’s hat and blows it off. I chase it down and bring it back to her.