by Beth Turley
I didn’t know what to say next, because I never knew what to say, so I put my duffel bag on the stair with the embroidery facing her and hoped she might open her eyes. Maybe seeing we were both Spread Your Wings fans would help one breath come easier. I sat down on the step in front of her, next to my bag.
“Can you hold my hand?” The girl held out her hand, and I could see she was shaking from her wrist to her fingers.
“Um. Yes. Sure,” I said, and wrapped my hand around hers. Her palm was clammy. I felt the trembling under her skin.
We sat in quiet for a minute. I watched her shoulders stop shaking, listened to her jagged breath get smoother. She took one more big gulp of air and then let it out. It reminded me of runner’s breath, which Summer had told me about. She said when she was struggling to take in air during a long run, she would focus on breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth until her lungs calmed down. I thought I should tell the girl about the technique, but maybe someone had already told her about it. Or maybe she wouldn’t want to hear it. People have their own ways of getting through things.
She let go of my hand.
“Thank you.” She took a tissue from the side pocket of her bag, then took off her glasses to dab at her eyes. “I felt okay the whole ride from Philadelphia. It came out of nowhere. Well, it always does.”
“This happens to you a lot?” I asked.
The girl cleared the fog from her glasses and put them back on.
“It happens enough. I mean, even once is enough. And it’s always at the worst time in the worst place.”
Was this where I should mention the runner’s breath? Or the matching duffel bags? Words flowed so much easier when it was me and Summer. They flowed easier into my Lyric Libro, too. But this was a stranger. Color flooded to my face.
“I’m Whitney, by the way,” she said. “I’d shake your hand but I think we covered that.” I was happy to hear her laugh, a soft and twinkly sound. Almost as if she hadn’t been breathing so hard a second ago.
Of course. I should’ve said my name.
“Elena,” I said.
Whitney’s eyes narrowed, and she shifted her gaze to our duffel bags. Back and forth between the two, once and then again.
“Like Elena Martinez?!” She stood up and stomped her foot. It was funny, because people usually stomp when they’re mad, but it seemed like she was doing it to pack even more power into her words. Her curls bounced.
“That’s me,” I said.
“I’m Whitney Richards. We’re both Flyers!”
Whitney wore a jean skirt and brown, strappy sandals. Her pink shirt was flowy on top and cinched at her waist. She had a ring on every finger of her left hand, shaped like gold pyramids.
“Wow,” was all I could think to say, about her picture-perfect outfit and the coincidence of running into each other. Whitney reached down to pick up her bag.
“It’s nice to officially meet. We never heard from you in the group chat.” She started walking down the steps and I followed her. I looked up to the Cancer crab, begging the crustacean to help me be brave, seize the opportunity, feel adventurous. Show me how to make friends.
“Yeah, I was having technical difficulties with my phone.”
It was a lie, and after the words tumbled out of my mouth, I didn’t know why I said it. Whitney turned to look at me. Her jaw dropped.
“How do you even live?” she asked.
In a shell. Like a crab.
I wanted to sweep the moment aside and get as far away from the lie as possible. Whitney and I walked across the terminal.
“Do you know where you’re going?” I asked.
“No.” Whitney giggled. “I was hoping you did.”
Being lost seemed like the kind of thing that might make Whitney panic again, which I didn’t want to happen now, right in the middle of Grand Central underneath Orion.
“I think the info packet said we should meet our driver at Forty-Second and Lexington.” I looked around the terminal. Tunnels veered off in different directions, and there were street names written over the arched doorways in black letters. “There.”
I pointed and Whitney squealed.
“I am so glad we found each other. Best panic attack ever,” she said. We started walking again and I felt something nudge at me. I had helped someone.
“Me too,” I said.
Maybe I could do this.
Chapter Eight
The Tappiston Hotel
The ceilings in the Tappiston Hotel lobby were high with crystal chandeliers, and green plants grew out of white wooden barrels. A seating area near the check-in desk had yellow wicker furniture and the words WELCOME TO THE TAPPISTON written in pink neon lights on a wall made of logs.
“Is it weird to say I want to marry a lobby? Because I want to marry this lobby,” Whitney said after we got through the gold revolving doors. The sound of honking horns faded, replaced by soft piano music, and the car-exhaust smell of the city was overpowered by vanilla and roses.
“Not weird,” I said. The lobby was the perfect blend of a royal castle and a cozy cabin in the woods. It felt homey even though it was so big.
A girl who looked college-aged crossed the lobby with her gaze set on us. She wore dark jeans and cowboy boots and a shirt with the balloon house from the movie Up on it. Her pumpkin-orange hair was tied in a ballerina bun.
“Whitney Richards and Elena Martinez? Are you Whitney and Elena?” she asked when she stopped in front of us. The stack of photos in her hands fell to the floor. I knelt to help her pick them up and saw one was a picture of me in a silver dress at the winter dance, fake snow in my hair. I’d used the picture for my Flyers application. There was a pink Post-it with my name in loopy script stuck on. I thought of the Spread Your Wings wall in my room and for a second missed Summer so much it hurt.
“We’re Whitney and Elena,” I said, and handed her the pictures. The one on top, with the Post-it that said Cailin, looked all too familiar. The girl knelt on a striped towel. The sun shone on her face. Her sunglasses were huge.
“Excellent. Thank you. I’m Mindy O’Grady.” She took the photos out of my hand and stuffed them into the bag on her shoulder, a beach tote with the words You’ve Got a Friend in Me written in sequins.
Mindy pushed down the frizz around her temples. She talked fast like Summer did, but it was different. It was nervous-sounding and made me feel like I was late for a test no one told me about.
“You work at Spread Your Wings?” Whitney asked. She bounced up and down on her toes.
“No. I’m just carrying your pictures around. Ha!” Her fake laugh was loud and made Whitney and me take a step back. “Kidding. Yes. I’m an intern. And your chaperone.”
“Ooo-kay then,” Whitney mumbled.
I heard the whir of the revolving doors and turned around. Cailin Carter walked in. She wore the same sunglasses from her Miami photo, even though it was early evening and not that bright. Her phone was pressed to her cheek.
“Oh my gosh, it’s actually her.”
The words slipped from my mouth. Cailin Carter had walked out of Summer’s TV right into the Tappiston Hotel lobby in black flip-flops and a tank top that said Lone Star Elite inside a red cheerleading bow. She dragged a leopard print suitcase behind her.
“Over here, Cailin!” Whitney called out like it was no big deal.
Cailin smiled tightly and held up her hand. She came to stand on the other side of me, so now I was between her and Whitney.
“Yes, Mom, I posted.” I noticed her voice was different than on TV; the Southern accent was there, but the sugary tone wasn’t. “I asked someone in baggage claim to take it. Mom, I’m at the hotel now, I have to go.” She hung up and stuck the phone in her back pocket. Her cheek was pink where the phone had been, like she’d pushed it too hard into her skin.
“Welcome, Cailin. This is Whitney and Elena.” Mindy fished through her bag and pulled out a wrinkled packet of paper.
Cailin lifted h
er sunglasses and looked up at me. She was a few inches shorter than I was. Thick mascara clumped on her eyelashes.
“Hey,” she said, as if she didn’t have hundreds of thousands of followers, as if Summer and I didn’t look at her pictures and ask, What would Cailin Carter do?
I opened my mouth but no sound came out. Cailin narrowed her eyes and turned back to Mindy while my face flamed and my chest squeezed. I looked up at the ceiling. There were no stars up there, painted or real. Why was I here? How was I here? My crab shell hardened around me.
“Now we’re just missing…,” Mindy started to say.
“Harlow Yoshida is here!” A flash of black hair came through the revolving doors to stand in our line. She had a beige canvas backpack, a New York Yankees T-shirt, and a pencil behind her ear. “Sorry I’m late. My brother drove me and he’s a stupid dumb stupidface.”
“Would your journalism teacher approve of that word choice?” Whitney asked.
The three of them laughed at the inside joke I’d seen in the Flyers chat but wasn’t a part of.
“In Denny’s case, yes,” Harlow said. She was small like Cailin and had the bottoms of her jeans rolled up twice. Her eyes were dark like her hair.
“Don’t worry, Harlow, you’ve just completely derailed us. Ha!” Mindy shook her packet and the laughing stopped. “Kidding. Follow me.”
Mindy led us toward the wicker seats. Guests milled around, their shoes squeaking on the shiny tile floors. The elevator nearby dinged. All the people and sounds blended together until I was dizzy. Diagnosis: feeling like a balloon not tied to anything. Treatment: do something to keep your feet on the ground.
I thought about texting Summer, but there was no time to take my phone out. We sat in a row on a chaise lounge the color of sunflowers.
“Here’s the deal. You’re in for the night.” Mindy flipped a page in her stapled packet. “You can head up to your room and settle in and unpack. Order as much room service as you want. I’ll be staying in the hotel too, a few rooms down, if you need anything. Try not to need anything. Ha! Kidding. Here are your room keys.”
She handed each of us a plastic card. Tappiston was written on them in navy blue letters.
“We can’t do anything tonight?” Whitney asked. She pressed her room key between her palms like she was praying.
“You can get to know each other.” Mindy flicked through her packet of paper one more time. “All right, that’s it. Room is on the sixth floor. Giddyup!”
Mindy kicked her leg out, and one of her cowboy boots came flying off, landing with a hollow thud by a potted plant.
* * *
The walls of our hotel room were painted ombré brown, lighter on top and darker toward the hardwood floor. There was a ceiling fan with blades shaped like palm tree leaves, and two beds with bamboo headboards and green satin sheets.
“It looks like we’ll be cohabitating,” Harlow said. She dumped her backpack onto the bed closest to the door.
“Fun!” Whitney jumped, her curls flying with her, as she landed on the other bed.
“What if someone thrashes around in their sleep?” Cailin asked. She lifted her phone and scanned it across the room like she was taking a video. The case had red and black rhinestones. I pressed myself into the corner to get out of view.
“Do you?” Harlow asked. She crossed her legs up on the bed. Her hair was pin straight and her cheekbones were sharp. An article in Spread Your Wings last month had shown readers how to make your cheeks look like that with strategically placed bronzer, but Harlow didn’t have any makeup on.
“I’ve been told I cheerlead in my sleep. There’s no proof though.” Cailin pressed her finger into the phone screen.
“They probably would have caught that on camera,” Harlow said.
Cailin flinched like someone had slapped her. I thought of her face on episode six of On the Mat, right after the world championship performance where her stunt had crumbled to the ground. She placed her phone on the dresser nearby and rolled her lips together.
“They didn’t film us while we were sleeping,” she said, her voice low. I wasn’t able to read the look in her eyes. But it was clear the show was the last thing she wanted to talk about.
“What about you, Elena? Any weird sleeping habits?” Whitney asked. Everyone turned to look at me, flattened against the wall.
I shook my head.
“I call Elena then.” Whitney tapped the mattress. I crossed the room, dropping my duffel on the floor. I slid onto the bed next to Whitney. Cailin laid her suitcase on the floor and unzipped it. There were tank tops and jeans folded up next to rolled pairs of socks. I don’t know what I was expecting her suitcase to look like, but I didn’t think it would be so normal.
The room was quiet for a second, other than the whir of the ceiling fan above us. I turned to face the window. Our view looked out to a tall building across the street, made of granite and glass. The light outside was fading gold. I thought about Summer and our windows across from each other. If I threw a pebble out to the other building, who would answer?
“We should do something.” Whitney lay back. She tapped her feet against the bed. Her toenails were painted pink and her sandals had at least five buckles on the straps. They looked intricate and stylish like the rest of her outfit.
“Mindy said we couldn’t,” Cailin reminded her. She slid a drawer open and put her stack of shorts inside.
“Mindy…” Whitney trailed off. “I don’t know. Give me a word, Harlow.”
“Loves Disney?” Harlow suggested.
“That’s two words.”
“Should come with a warning.” Cailin closed the drawer. She picked up the thick black book on the dresser with the room service menu inside.
“That’s five words!”
Baffling. Fanatical. Hurried. I’d gotten a hundred on every vocabulary test I’d taken since kindergarten. But I couldn’t get my mouth to open and my voice to speak up. My mind flashed to an article in Spread Your Wings on how to make friends. Tip #3 was to realize that everyone else is just as nervous as you when meeting new people. But Tip #3 obviously hadn’t factored in Whitney, Cailin, and Harlow, who were acting like they’d known each other forever.
“Let’s go to the pool.” Cailin showed us one of the plastic pages in the book. “It’s on the second floor.”
“I’m in,” Harlow said.
“Me too!” Whitney slid her sandals back on and headed for the door. She turned to look at me. “You’re coming, right?”
Mom was definitely lying about my horoscope. It wasn’t a day to seize adventure. It was a day to be exactly who I was. And who I was did not fit in with exploring hotel pools.
“I have to make a call,” I said.
The three of them looked at each other and shrugged. The door closed hard when they left. I sat on the edge of the bed, staring down at the phone in my lap. Tears pricked the back of my eyes and my heart was heavy. Even my hands felt heavy when I unlocked the screen and dialed.
“Hello?” Summer answered after three rings. Her voice sounded like home.
“I can’t do this, Summer.” My voice shook.
“Is it going badly?” she asked. I could hear her TV on in the background. I closed my eyes and pretended that I was in her sunroom, the stars popping up in the sky through the sliding glass doors.
“I shouldn’t be here. There’s this girl who dresses so perfectly it’s like she stepped out of, well, a magazine, and another who always has something smart and funny to say, and the other is literally Cailin Carter. Like, that Cailin Carter.”
Summer gasped.
“No way, is she amazing? Tell me she’s amazing,” she said, brushing past my words like an opponent in one of her races. I sighed.
“I don’t know.”
“Then get to know her! You can do this. You just have to try.” Summer’s voice got quieter like she’d moved her head away from the phone. “It’s Elena. She’s not happy in New York.”
My s
kin burned.
“Don’t tell your parents that, they’ll tell mine!”
“It’s not my parents, I’m at Riah’s.”
Away from the speaker I heard Riah ask, “Why isn’t she happy?” The image I had of Summer sitting in her sunroom, with my house next door and the stars, disappeared. I’d never been to Riah’s house. I couldn’t picture anything except the two of them next to each other.
“Hi, Riah,” I mumbled.
“I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay? Go have fun with Cailin Carter!”
She hung up before I could say bye. I dropped my phone onto the silky comforter and squeezed the fabric between my fingers. Summer’s and Riah’s voices echoed in my head, muffled, pulled away from the receiver. Like I wasn’t supposed to hear what they were saying even though they were talking about me.
I reached into my duffel bag until I found the purple sweatshirt and unraveled my Lyric Libro from inside the big front pocket. The cover was soft and familiar, and the feather pen stuck out of the spine. I flipped back to an earlier page, to a verse I’d written a few weeks ago. After I overheard Summer in the locker room. My mouth formed the words while my hand moved, singing along.
I heard what you said about me today.
I’d never say those things about you.
But I think the very worst part of it all
Is that every word was true.
Chapter Nine
The Locker Room
Lunch had become my sigh of relief. It was thirty minutes of Summer time, outside of class, just the two of us. After algebra I found Summer at the end of a table in the center of the cafeteria. She waved me over, the sleeve of her burgundy cardigan sliding down.
“Long time no see,” Summer said when I sat down. She handed me a baby carrot.
“It really does feel like it’s been an eternity,” I answered. I chewed the carrot while I unpacked my own lunch from a brown paper bag.