“Yeah. Is that okay?”
“Where’d you get that idea?”
“You talked about women and freedom, you know, when you said how you feel about the word slut, and, well, I thought of her. You cool with it? ’Cause if you’re not…”
“No no, I’m cool. It’s great.” I let out a whoop. “We’re going to New York City!”
“Yup. You have to help me watch the signs.”
“What are we looking for?”
“I’m not sure. I went with my family to Ellis Island the summer before last—and we went from there to the statue. But late at night like this, we can’t get in. The best we can aim for is a great view. And I know how to do that, if we can just make it to the southern tip of Manhattan.”
“Do you have maps in the car?”
“No.” He smiles at the road ahead. “I wasn’t planning this. I do things with you I don’t plan. You make me sort of crazy.”
“You didn’t plan making out last night?”
“Plan, no. Hope, yes. But only in a… I don’t know… distant way. You surprised me.”
You mean because I grabbed your head and kissed you all over your face? But I don’t say it.
Joshua clears his throat. “I think we want to take the first tunnel we see that will get us over to Manhattan.”
“All right. I’ll watch for tunnels.”
I am a superb navigator, but that’s when we have a map. Without a map, I’m as stupid as anyone else. But I can read the word tunnel. And soon enough I see it and we actually pay a toll and go through a tunnel and turn south and find a parking place (my father would be popping with envy—a parking place in the city) and wind up at Whitehall Terminal.
And I finally understand. “The Staten Island Ferry.”
“Yes, my lady.”
The ferry comes and we’re not the only ones to get on board. It’s the middle of the night: 1:30 a.m., in fact. And I wish I had texted Dante, after all, but there’s no point doing it now. He’s asleep for sure.
We climb the stairs to the open deck on top and lean against a side rail as the ferry pulls away. The water is night black, darker than the sky by far. There are zillions of stars. I didn’t know you could see so many stars so close to the city. Usually when I’ve been in New York City, the lights are so bright, I’m not even aware there is a sky. But tonight the sky is vast. It feels like it goes right down through the water to the end of everything.
The city is behind us now. The Statue of Liberty looms magnificent, all lit up, her chest so proud, her torch so high. And I feel it—that electric zing of patriotism that shoots through me every time I say the Pledge of Allegiance or sing the National Anthem.
The wind blows off the water and chills us. I press my arms against my sides and clutch my hands together at my waist.
“Want my jacket?” Joshua pulls his hands out of his jacket pockets and goes to take it off.
“No. No, thanks.”
He puts his arm around me.
That’s better.
We are tiny, tiny—infinitesimal. But not lost, far from lost. In this one blind moment, everything is perfect.
I stand on tiptoe and press my nose against the middle of Joshua’s cheek.
His other arm comes around me now, too. “I thought you wanted to… you know… just talk.” His voice is husky and he turns until our noses meet. “Are you changing your mind?”
I don’t think my mind’s part of this. I don’t speak.
He touches his forehead to mine. With his arms around me so loosely, it’s like we’re two trees whose branches mingle at the top. “This isn’t a great make-out place,” he says, almost shyly.
“Just a kiss?”
“Kiss and make up, huh? Instead of kiss and make out.” He gives a little chuckle. “Sorry, that was lame. Again. I get kind of self-conscious, out in public. But that’s stupid. No one’s looking anyway. And if they are, they can always look away. I’m ready to make up. More than ready.” He breathes deep. “Lots more.”
I lean into him.
We kiss. And his tongue goes in my mouth. He didn’t do that last night. We kissed so many times last night, so many ways. But he didn’t do that. His tongue keeps coming in, more and more. All the way. I choke and pull back.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Sep.” He gasps and shakes his head ruefully. “I guess I’m a little too ready.” He rubs his mouth. “Sorry. Really. I can’t believe I did that.”
“It’s okay.” And it is. I loved the taste of him. “It was good. Till you cut off my air.”
He laughs. “You’re amazing.”
What does he mean by that? But then, he’s amazing. Everything’s amazing. “Try again?”
His tongue comes in slowly this time, flickery. It’s astonishing how lovely it is. I put my tongue in his mouth now. This is French kissing. I wonder how the French got to name it.
But I don’t wonder long. I don’t care. This is good.
“PUT YOUR HANDS ON the wings of the person in front of you and press.” Ms. Martin walks around the outside of the circle. Her voice is soft and rhythmic.
It’s Wednesday and Mamma finally agreed to let me come to Jazz Dance Club. I now have a curfew: 11 p.m. It’s surprisingly fair, given how angry and frightened my parents were when I got home Sunday morning at almost 6 a.m. But I don’t get to exercise that curfew for the rest of the month, because I’m grounded. Mamma went to our neighbor, Mrs. Weisskopf, for advice—she always does that—and that’s what Mrs. Weisskopf recommended. I go to school and I go home, and that’s it. Except that Mamma let me come here today after I played the responsibility card; I said that the rest of the club depended on me. We’re all in this together. And Mamma is big on communal responsibility. It’s not a total lie. We do put on one dance at the Battle of the Bands in December, after all.
It turns out Joshua had a curfew and simply broke it. So he’s grounded, too. But only for a week.
“Drop your eyes so they look down toward your heart. Now slowly let your eyelids follow, until they close. Gently. But keep pressing firmly on the person in front of you.”
I never noticed before how comforting Ms. Martin’s voice can be. It has a low pitch for a woman, and there’s a thick, mellow quality to it. She talks continually and somehow I feel like her voice supports me, physically, like it’s holding my spine long and my arms just so.
We are sitting in a tight ring, one behind the other. Our legs are crossed, so I can feel the warm, smooth, wood floor under the upper part of my thighs and the outer sides of my feet. With my eyes closed, I am striving to see my heart.
If I could really look inside me now, what would I see? My mouth goes sour. If Joshua Winer could look inside me, what would he see?
Deception. I am rotten inside.
“Now move your hands to the sides of your own chest and lift up. Lift yourself. Feel the happiness between your ribs.”
There’s no happiness in there. But I lift anyway. What else can I do?
Ms. Martin’s still talking, always talking, and I missed what she said. But now she murmurs, “Let your hands drop easy onto your thighs. Keep sitting up tall. Let your spine stretch its full length, going down through the floor and up through the ceiling. And breathe.”
She talks so much about “letting”—as though our bodies naturally want to do what she says if we’ll only let them. But my hands don’t fall easy, they fall like lead. My flesh feels heavy on my bones. Everything is heavy. Like just before tears come.
“Where are your palms? Are they facing up or down? Think about that. And how did you know it? With your mind or with your body?”
Someone snorts, holding in a laugh. I wonder if it’s that freshman I freaked out last week. The idea of knowing with your body—that shouldn’t seem laughable.
So I take Ms. Martin’s question seriously. But I don’t know which part of me realizes the direction my palms are facing. I can’t distinguish between mind and body on some things.
But on other
things it’s all body. Dictator. My body is turning me white, bit by bit. First my lips. Then the back of my hand. And this morning I found a white spot on my left breast. Shaped like a giant kidney bean. Precisely two and an eighth inches at the longest point and seven-eighths of an inch at the widest point. It’s partly on the nipple. And my nipples are dark, so it shows. It glares.
I should dig a hole and crawl inside.
Instead, all I want is to be with Joshua. We sit together at lunch—or we did on Monday and Tuesday and today. He talks and I listen. Me, the big talker. I sit there and ache and want nothing more than to be close to him.
God, am I fucked.
And I don’t talk that way—using that word. I don’t even think that way. That’s not me. That’s not how my family talks. So it’s bullshit to talk like that.
Or it was.
But there’s no other way to say it that matches how I feel.
“We’re going to take a deep breath in, then let it out and say, ‘Om’ all together. Holding the M as long as we can. Let the sound of light enter through the inner eye, the eye in the center of your forehead.”
More snickers, from more people now. Even I wonder if Ms. Martin has gone too far. Now the class can’t pay attention to whatever else Ms. Martin might say, no matter how valuable.
But I can. I will. There’s something strong in Ms. Martin, and I want that strength. I don’t care if she believes in inner eyes that can hear.
“Ready? Take that breath. Now, all together: Ommmm.”
Ommmm fills the room. Ommmm surrounds me. I didn’t know people had that much breath.
“Open your eyelids slowly.”
I open them itty bit by itty bit, not so much to follow directions as to hold back the flood I fear. I don’t see why, why, goddamnit, why is this happening to me?
“You can stand now. And, Becca, it’s time for you to take over.”
We spread out. I avoid meeting anyone’s eyes and watch as Melanie talks with Becca, then goes to put on a CD. This can be fun. It can be, really. If I just let my body do it, I can have fun. In spite of everything.
Zing! It’s Usher’s old song “Yeah!” I’m already bouncing on my heels, itching to fly.
And we dance. Knees coming up high, being pushed back down by our palms. Energy bouncing back and forth from right knee to left knee: bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce. Our heads spin and we twirl and kick and swing so hard that the sweat drips off and stings my eyes. It feels sweet and hot. And in this moment I love my body. Take that, vitiligo. Take that! I love this body. It’s strong and fast and flexible.
I shower longer and hotter than I usually do.
When I pull the curtain back, Melanie’s the only one left in the locker room. She sits on the bench in her bra and dance pants with her arms halfway into a T-shirt. I’m already fully dressed when she looks up at me. That little tattoo on her ankle is of a yellow butterfly inside a pink triangle. I wonder if it’s permanent. It must be; the wash-off kind, like henna, they don’t last a week. Did it hurt?
“You know ‘Stella Errans’?” she asks.
My cheeks go hot. She must know I was staring at her tattoo. I shake my head and lean over the sink and reapply my lipstick.
She pulls her shirt on the rest of the way. “It’s a terrific song. It’s from a Cirque du Soleil act called Dralion. It’s great to move to.”
I close my lipstick and walk in front of her toward my locker.
She smiles. “You looked good dancing today.”
“Thanks.” I don’t know why she’s being nice to me. I’m sure I wasn’t so bad that someone has to feel sorry for me. “You always dance good,” I say. Melanie’s one of the best—so it’s the truth, even though I was so caught up in moving myself I didn’t notice her dancing today.
I take out a marker and touch up the three red dots on the back of my hand. One of them covers the white spot. Red is more noticeable than white, of course, but that’s the point: Red looks like decoration. And one would be tacky, but three seem like some sort of pattern—the big one that’s the white spot in disguise, and two satellites, like moons—so that fits with the decoration idea. I think it’s working, because no one has even asked what it’s all about. I smile at Melanie. “See you.”
“Count on it, hottie.”
What a funny thing to say. Did I dance like I was feeling sexy? I wasn’t thinking about Joshua. But still, it’s like Joshua lit me up anyway. The energy of passion. Whatever. It doesn’t matter.
I come out and there’s Owen, leaning against a wall, legs crossed at the ankles, studying his sneakers. He looks like he’s loitering. “Hey, Owen.”
He smiles and perks up. “Jazz dance. Oh yeah, I remember now.” There’s something off about the way he says it. In all the years we’ve been friends, I’ve never known Owen to bullshit, but right now I get the weird feeling that’s exactly what he’s doing. Was he waiting for me?
“Not just jazz dance. Yoga, too.”
“Ah. Want to walk home together?”
“This is getting to be a habit,” I say lightly.
“Not a bad idea,” he says, as we start out. “So, what’s up?”
“I could say nothing. But really there is something. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
He nods as though he’s agreeing with himself.
“Did you just talk to yourself, Owen? Inside your head?”
“I have a rich inner life. Like Carl Jung says.”
“Who’s Carl Jung?”
“A big deal psychologist. Sort of like Freud. You’ve heard of Freud, right?”
“Cut it out, Owen. Just because you’ve read everything that’s ever been written…”
“Sorry. Anyway, yeah, I talk to myself. Don’t you?”
“Pretty much,” I say.
“Is Joshua Winer what you don’t want to talk about?”
I feel like I’ve been stripped naked. My little private romance—my sacred secret—has been outed. “Who told you?” And I want to kill Devin.
“You did. You told the whole school. At lunch. Three days in a row.”
Of course. We’re on display. And I’m so wrapped up in Joshua, I didn’t even notice others watching. “Actually, that isn’t what I meant when I said there was something up.”
“There’s something else?”
“Yeah.”
“But you don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s right.”
“Something private?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“About your family? Family stuff is so—”
“Hey, let it drop. And, anyway, it’s not about my family. It’s just about me.”
“Then I have the solution.”
I look at him and blink. Owen has never been this pushy before. “The solution? Did I say it was a problem?”
“Your face did. Your face gives you away every time, Sep. Didn’t you know that?”
“Fuck that.”
“Yikes. Listen to Sep.” He runs a few steps, slapping his feet down loudly, and I notice how really big his feet are. Out of proportion, like puppy paws. Owen’s going to get a lot taller, I bet. He slows and waits for me. “You want the solution or not?”
“Yeah, okay.”
“Chomsky dot info.”
“What’s that?”
“Noam Chomsky’s website.”
I know I’ve heard that name before, but I can’t place it. “You got me again: who’s Noam Chomsky?”
“The intellectual giant of our times. The guru of linguistics. The truth-monger.”
I smile in spite of myself. When he gets gushy, no one’s sweeter than Owen. “You like the guy.”
“Go read what he has to say.”
“About what?”
“Politics. The world and how it’s a disaster and no one is doing anything to fix it when we could, we definitely could.”
I know nothing about politics, really. I read a lot—a ton—but mostly about animals. Animals are just
as complicated as humans, so that’s good, but you can’t get mad at them for what they do because the motivation is always straightforward—survival. “Some guru writing about politics is going to solve my problem?”
“Obviously.”
“How?”
“The point is, Sep, you don’t have a problem. Whatever it is, it’s tiny in comparison to what a mess the world is in.”
No. I have a problem. And in my life it’s big. I have a right to suffer from this problem, my problem, my life. “Go away, Owen.”
“Why? What did I say?”
“Just get the fuck away from me.”
MAMMA DRIVES WITH HER hands at nine and three, exactly like our stupid Drivers’ Ed. teacher last spring said we should do. Her back is straight; she always has good posture. But it’s even straighter now than usual. She’s holding herself together—my brave mother.
We stop at the traffic light and she turns to me with an open mouth, eyes wide, eyebrows raised.
“No!” I put up my hand. “If you say something cheerful, I’ll start screaming and I won’t stop.”
She sighs and looks ahead again. “Well, you’re healthy, at least. Every single test came out negative.” She drives fast. “Dr. Ratner said he’d never seen such a perfect specimen.”
“I know what he said, Mamma. I was there, too.”
“Then listen to him.”
“I have vitiligo, Mamma. And it’s progressing. Fast. In one week I’ve gone from lips only, to spots on a hand, an arm, my chest, my back way down at the waist. Six. Six of them.” Dr. Ratner said this happens sometimes. Zap, and you’re a different person.
That’s me: zapped.
“There are therapies you could try, Pina. Topical steroids, phototherapy…”
“You’re the one who doesn’t listen. None of them really work. And they all have side effects.”
“Well, it’s your choice, then.”
“Yes. And Dr. Ratner agreed with me, if you’ll remember. He said those therapies are worth trying only if you have a few small spots. You saw the size of the one on my chest. And the one on my hand is still spreading. And all the others… For me, it wouldn’t make sense.”
“It could be a lot worse, Pina.”
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