“Well, you should. If you want.” I turned to Jules. “Same place?”
She shrugged a yes.
I pivoted back to Oscar. “Yeah, so this club . . . it’s meh, it’s fine, and the music’s really bad, but if you want to come, you should?”
“Sounds amazing,” Oscar said, grinning. He played a lightning-quick arpeggio. Show-off. “Gotta work, though.”
“Right.”
“The symphony’s in the performance calendar, no going back, so I’ve got to . . . yeah.” Oscar looked woozy.
“If you change your mind, text Ruby!” Jules linked elbows with me to drag us both down the steps, whispering, “Jesus, nerd love, spare me. I can see why you’re into him, though. He’s intense.”
I trailed her out to the sidewalk. “Intense?”
Maybe she meant it in the sense of, like, intense sunshine, but the word out of context sounded like a synonym for tortured.
Jules stood in the middle of the road, apparently trying to hail a taxi by forcing it not to hit her. “Those eyes. He looks at you like he’s staring deep into your soul.”
I scrunched my nose, wondering frantically whether she meant he looked at me that way, or more of a general “you.” In which case I’d been misreading him; I’d been acting the way everybody probably acted around Oscar Bell.
I was at the very least determined to distract myself for one night while hanging out with my brand-new social circle in our super-lame-but-didn’t-card clubhouse.
“Hey!” Joey said, jumping up from a conversation with Sam to wave at me. “Figured out your future yet?”
“Not yet,” I said, flopping down on my own banquette.
It wasn’t a lie. The best thing about the Met event had been the part when I was hiding from it. Maybe I wasn’t cut out for that particular brand of socialization. Or maybe I just needed more time with Nora . . .
“I’ll pick your future!” Sam clapped, pulling herself up from a slouch. “Mmm . . . zoologist!”
I laughed. “Okay, I get that, but I don’t think I could deal with the poop.”
Her eyes filled with horror. “Oh God, I never even thought of that.”
Tyler appeared from nowhere to hand me some sort of red drink on the rocks with two tiny straws sticking out of it. I thanked him and sipped. It tasted like cough syrup. When nobody was looking, I left it on a bar table as I walked with them to the dance floor.
My phone buzzed with an incoming call. I ducked to the side of the already crowded room and took a peek. Unfamiliar number . . . Maryland area code?
Then a text came in. Your dad gave me your number so we could meet up.
Then, a few seconds later: Or not. Either way.
Then, as I was trying to type back . . . This is Oscar. Should have said that first.
Reading these texts made me feel like a hot-air balloon.
I replied with the cross streets and he wrote back: On my way.
My heart started pounding louder than the music. I blinked at Jules over the thumbnail I was biting. She waved for me to come dance but I couldn’t do more than pace, glancing compulsively at the door. Then I remembered the bouncer and ran out to wait on the sidewalk.
The street was busy. A taxi stopped down the block and I started toward it, but it was a middle-aged couple with a cat in a carrier. Somebody touched my shoulder and I turned, clutching my chest.
“I couldn’t work,” Oscar said, smile flickering. “Couldn’t concentrate.”
The ultimate compliment.
“We go this way,” I said.
The doorman was nice enough to make a show of examining a piece of gum stuck to the sidewalk as I took Oscar’s hand and led him into the back alley. There was a line tonight. God knew why.
“Are you gonna mug me?” Oscar asked.
“Maybe.”
He’d dressed up. Black tee, gray pants, almost enough to make him look like a New Yorker. The gleam in his eye gave him away, though, the way he took in everything—dingy back door, dumpster, fire escape ladder—like he’d just dropped into Oz.
And then his eyes crash-landed on me—and burst into flames. This couldn’t possibly be an everyone thing. He reached out to tease one of my curls loose from my braid, letting it bounce against his finger.
My breath got stuck. I stepped back, swept the hair nervously back into place, and opened the “VIP entrance,” waving for him to walk through.
The music was deafening as we reached the dance floor. I tried to ask him if he wanted a drink, although I wasn’t sure how you procured such a thing, but he was already heading for the center of the crowd.
Jules spotted him and gave him a hug, like they were best friends, then shot me this icy “What the hell is wrong with you” glare. Then, to make it even clearer, she mouthed, “Come! Dance!”
I edged my way through the crowd, jostled on all sides, wondering anew what the appeal of this was.
When I reached Oscar, he pressed his hand to the small of my back, as if to balance me, and bent to shout-whisper, “You were right! This music is terrible!”
“Right?”
They were playing some generic song with lyrics that went, “Grind up, gotta grind up, you know you grind up on meeeeee.” And repeat.
Oscar was barely bobbing to the music, his expression distant but intent, like he was taking the beat seriously. Then he caught me staring, eyes bright, and leaned in to explain. “There’s something. I don’t know. There’s something good about this.”
“What?”
“I’m still looking for it!”
His arm tightened around my waist as the crowd closed in behind me, some drunk twenty-something girls jumping up and down, scattering the other dancers. My hips hit Oscar’s, flush, practically connected. He looked at me as if asking if this was okay. I didn’t know how to dance with someone else—or, um, at all—but I let my arms drape over his shoulders.
We were one unit now, protected against the crowd, a bubble all our own. And yet this felt more dangerous than a million drunk jumping girls in spiky stilettos.
“Grind up on meeeee” went the music, and then the beat overlaid and shifted, the DJ segueing into another track.
Oscar’s warmth fell over me as he started to move us—not a dance so much as a sway with a downbeat. This I could understand. The lights hit his face in scattered time, turning him from brown to blue, then fuchsia, then yellow, then himself, as sweaty bodies moved around us in a humming blur.
His fingers shifted along my lower back, traveling up my spine. My pulse went staccato and part of me wanted to run—this was insane. This was inevitable, and that was the craziest part.
I stood on my tiptoes instead, drawing him closer, as we shifted with the music. The beat, drop, beat-beat, the treble horns, closer, closer, the space between us getting smaller and smaller until the gaps between us felt physically painful.
His thumb traced my jawline, drawing my head up. His eyes asked permission. Mine gave it. And his mouth slid down onto mine.
Our lips barely grazed at first, light and warm, but in the next gasping breath, they opened and we gave in.
It didn’t feel like a free fall so much as a landing, being caught, exhilaration and relief mixing in one heady rush. He tasted sweet, like cherries laced with something new, salty and intoxicating. Someone bumped us from the side and we broke apart, foreheads touching while we breathed, and then I craned my head up again, thirsty for more. Finally, finally.
This kiss was deeper, faster, the taste of him even stranger. I clutched the back of his shirt with one hand, my other grazing his cloud of hair. His mouth, those full lips roved to kiss my jawline, my neck, my collarbone with a low groan that ricocheted through me.
Then he laughed, his exhalation warm on my shoulder. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
I couldn’t eithe
r. But something about the way he’d said that, out loud, rattled me a little. I stared at the dance floor lights above us, blinking up at them like it would shake some sense into my brain. Then his hips moved against mine, a one-degree turn, and I was kissing him again. I couldn’t stop.
“Hey now,” Jules said from behind me. “Having fun?”
I startled alert and turned back, arms still laced around Oscar’s neck.
“I’m going to the bathroom.” She pulled my shirt so I would follow.
I winced at Oscar as I pulled away. He seemed too dazed to take it in.
The bathroom was packed with girls. Jules leaned against a stall door, fixing her hair in the square inch of mirror her reflection could squeeze into.
“So,” she said. “You work fast.”
“I did not expect that to happen.”
Jules arched her eyebrows, not buying it. Of course I’d expected this. From the moment I saw him standing in my living room playing my piano, some part of me was waiting for it—and the other part was still shocked that he would want to. I wasn’t that girl. I was . . .
“So is this a controlling-the-situation type deal?” Jules asked, sliding into a vacant stall and shutting the door.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s this genius, taking all your dad’s attention, you know, all the shit you told me the other day, so you’re going to get the upper hand by seducing him. That old song and dance.”
I stumbled into the dryer. “No! That . . . that’s, no. What—do you mean, like, I’m sabotaging him?”
“Ooh, I like that word.” She flushed the toilet and came out, squeezing past the line to wash her hands. “If not that, then what?”
“I . . . I have no idea.” I like him, he’s everything I’m not and I should resent the very fact of him, but I like him so much. “I have no idea why I’m doing this.” He’s brilliant and hot and vivid and funny and . . . “It’s stupid and reckless and not me at all. I just can’t seem to help myself.”
The strangers at the sinks turned to look at me. Something like respect bloomed in Jules’s expression.
“Makes sense,” she said. “Sounds like me and Ty. Lord knows why I even return his calls. ‘I can’t seem to help myself.’ I like it.”
Tyler was waiting outside the door. Apparently he couldn’t help himself either. She beamed at him, slinking under his outstretched arm, then turned to wink at me.
“Have fun, use protection.”
My cheeks prickled. I glanced at my shirt, tugging the neckline up. It was too crowded. Too many older guys staring at me. Too loud, too sticky, too chaotic.
I scanned the dance floor for Oscar from a distance, nervous to jump back in—to everything—but I couldn’t find him.
Sam walked up, playing with her purple hair.
“Outside,” she shouted past my ear. It took me a second to realize she was talking to me. “You can probably catch him.”
I walked out slowly, wondering whether he’d thought better of this and ditched me. Maybe then my stomach would stop this aching swirl, my skin would settle to a normal level of sensitivity, and I could get on with figuring out the rest of my life. But he was waiting by the curb, staring out into the street—and hot relief flooded my veins.
I touched his elbow, carefully, reestablishing all the broken boundaries.
“Hey,” he said, turning to me. “Sorry about that.”
“About what?”
“It got a little much. That place. Do you . . . do you maybe want to head home? Or you can stay, I’ll—”
I tentatively reached for his cheek, cupping it in my palm, then stood on my toes and kissed him again before I had time to make a conscious decision about whether it was a good idea. He wrapped his arms around me, tilting his head to deepen it, and I closed my eyes and melted against him, my leg drifting around his to get closer—then he jerked back.
I opened my eyes to see his arm waving into the street, hailing a cab. It had its light on but kept going.
I laughed. “Didn’t want us making out in the back.”
Oscar pinched the end of my braid and said, “You try.”
I flagged the next one as he stepped back. It pulled up right away.
“See?” I grinned at Oscar and slid inside. “Seventy-first and Central Park West.”
As we rumbled uptown in bursts and jerky stops, I tried my best not to fall into that late-night club girl cliché. But Oscar’s mouth had found the curve of my neck and started exploring and there was not one cell in my body willing to stop him.
I managed to break out of this hot haze long enough to hear the driver murmur something about near corner or far corner, to answer, “Here’s fine,” to pay, exit, immediately start making out with Oscar again.
I stood on the corner, incapacitated by rapture, dimly noticing the crosswalk light flash and go solid. I kissed him and my feet didn’t know how to move anymore. My eyes didn’t know how to blink.
When the light changed again, Oscar pulled me across the street by my fingertips, gliding backward. When we got to the far sidewalk, I tucked myself under his arm and he kissed the top of my head like we’d been dating for three years and this was our routine.
We stopped outside my place—our place, Jesus—and I slid my hands over his taut waist, around to his back, tilting my chin for more.
But he drew away, eyes hesitant. “I guess I should have considered this earlier . . .”
My skin went hot. How far did he think we would take this tonight?
“Um. Is your dad gonna be okay with this? You . . . and me . . .” He peered up at the darkened windows of the townhouse.
My mind spun, stopped, spun in the other direction. “Why would he care?”
“His daughter. I mean, you’re a Chertok, and I’m . . .” Oscar stepped back, out of reach, running his hands over his hair. “Do you know how he might feel about this? The thing is, I really don’t want to cross a line and mess up what I’ve got going with him. This mentorship. It’s pretty much the best thing that’s ever happened to me and—”
“Oh.” Oh. Oh. Oh. I crossed my arms, my skin blanketing with goose bumps, the sidewalk glazing ice-solid, leaves falling dead from the trees. “Honestly, I don’t think it’s a problem, certainly not one I’ve ever butted up against before, ha, but . . .”
What was I thinking, hijacking him like this? I should have stuck with the original plan, dust sheets, blinders on. I was not why he was here and he was—
“Wait.” Oscar reached out. “Ruby . . .”
I stepped up. Onto my stoop. “No, you’re right! We—we shouldn’t. This summer’s so important. For you, and . . . yeah. Tonight was fun, but it’s cool, I completely get it! Have a good night.”
I hurried into the house before the careful, casual expression on my face could melt into sludge.
Then I stood with my back against the closed door, heart thudding, brain a stuck dance track, shouting, What. Did. You. Just. Do.
13.
jules looked surprised to find me waiting when she trotted down the front steps of her building in running gear the next morning.
“Thought you’d be sleeping in,” she said, making it sound filthy. She stooped to pick up an ankle and bend it to her butt.
I tried to copy her, wobbled, gave up. “No, I had a hard time sleeping and—”
“Does he snore?” A grin broke through her poker face.
I whacked her with the back of my hand. “Shut up! I slept alone. Totally alone.” My throat went tight. “Anyway, I need a run.”
A wild gesture from an oncoming pedestrian drew my attention—Sam, of all people, jogging comically toward us, dressed in a cobbled collection of regular clothes that kind of looked like you could exercise in them, complete with a pair of beat-up Chucks.
The unfair thing was, of the three of us,
she looked like the real runner.
“I’ve been curious!” she chirped. “I wanna try it too.”
“Yay!” I clapped.
“Let’s do it,” Jules said, action-hero serious, then took off down the block the wrong way, Sam following at a slower trot.
“Um.”
“Riverside!” Jules shouted back. “Mixing it up!”
It took the crosswalk light for me to catch them, and the effort of launching myself into a sprint nearly did me in. My head throbbed—lack of sleep doing me no favors—and my legs felt rusty and sore, underused and overtaxed at the same time.
My body hurt. It was the best distraction I could have asked for.
By the time we passed the Seventy-second Street dog run and continued under the thundering parkway, lights danced at the corners of my vision—but I pushed on. If I stopped, my brain would restart, repeating the events of last night, including how it had ended. Not only that, but if I wasn’t running, I’d have to return home, risking an encounter. So I outpaced Sam and chased Jules’s ponytail up the wide concrete path, dazzled by the light reflecting off the Hudson.
This park always felt like the edge of a snow globe to me, like if I tried to swim out, I would hit a glass wall and have to come back. I’d left the city plenty, of course, traveling with Dad or Mom to events, from Teatro Colón to Royal Albert Hall to the Sydney Opera House, or down south to see the grandfolks, but never by myself. Alone, I felt bound to this island. I tracked the edge of the imagined glass as I ran.
By the time we got to the boat basin, my lungs had started to sting so much, the pain went white and vanished. Was this runner’s high? It felt more like runner’s anesthesia.
“Hey!”
I glanced back to see Jules stopping beside a bench. How had I gotten ahead of her? The second I slowed, my knees decomposed into jelly. I walked back to her like a drunk person pretending to be sober.
“Look at you,” she called out, palms clamped against her legs while she caught her breath. “Don’t injure yourself.”
Night Music Page 10