Love and Chaos: A Brooklyn Girls Novel

by Burgess, Gemma

Well, obviously Sam never had a problem confiding in Vic.

  Once we’re outside, I turn to face Pete. “Now we go to the North Cove Marina.”

  “Are you sure he’s leaving from there?”

  “I’d bet my life on it. No, better than that. I’d bet my job on it.”

  Pete looks at me funny again. I have the feeling he thinks I’m a little nuts.

  The drive over the Brooklyn Bridge is largely silent. Pete doesn’t bother to make conversation, he just keeps drumming his hands against his thighs, fidgeting, biting his thumbnail, putting the window down, then up, then down.

  “Stop it! Just stop it!” I finally snap, just as we reach Manhattan. “You’re so fucking tense!”

  Pete looks at me, his jaw clenched. “I need. To find. My brother.”

  “You’re being a total drama queen. I need to find him, too. Your dad isn’t going to kill him.”

  “Really?” Pete pauses for a very long time, staring at me, and then seems to make a decision. “Look, Angie, because of Sam, our father had to fork over more than half his money to our mother in their divorce settlement. Sam had been spying on him, taking photos of Rog, uh, playing around. Gave them to our mom.”

  “So?” I say. “Your father cheated. Sam did the right thing.” I wonder if that’s what I should have done when my dad asked me to lie. Probably.

  “Well it turned out she’d cheated on him, too,” snaps Pete. “She’d been having an affair for years. So, actually, Angie, Sam did the wrong thing. He judged the situation before he knew the entire story.”

  “Oh.”

  “Dad found out. Epic fight. It got … it got pretty bad. So Sam dropped out of college, went a little wild, then took off and didn’t come back. We’re less than a year apart in age, we’re best friends. But I only know half of what’s going on with him. Sam always does what he thinks is right.”

  “Like keeping secrets from me? Even though I was supposedly the reason he came back to New York?”

  “Yeah. Probably. He told me he thought he was busted one time. This guy we went to school with, Lev? He ran into him at some dinner party at your place.”

  “Lev? Julia’s coworker? The guy who called Sam ‘Ruthy’ at the surprise party?”

  “It’s an old school nickname,” says Pete, grinning to himself. Then he assumes his scowly-mean face again. “Anyway, thanks to you, my brother has been a fucking mess the past few days.”

  “Sam lied to me.” I know I sound defensive, but I can’t help it. “I told him everything about me, about who I was, and he lied.”

  “He didn’t lie to you, Angie. He just didn’t tell you everything. It’s not the same as lying. He was trying to figure out the right time.… You don’t get to know everything about everybody right away. None of us do.”

  I stare at him. Maybe that’s true. I might never tell Sam or anyone else outside of Rookhaven the whole story about the Soho Grand night and everything that happened with Hal and Stef. It’s my life, it’s my past, and it belongs to me.

  So by judging Sam for doing the same thing, does that make me a hypocrite?

  Pete sighs. “Sam’s problem was he never thought he did the wrong thing. Ever.”

  “He does now, I think.… He regrets doing that stuff,” I say, thinking back to our conversation on my bed at our sleepover. “He told me something about your parents’ divorce one time.… I think he regrets fighting with your dad.”

  “He said that?”

  “He said he acted like a penis. No, wait, that wasn’t it, not a penis—a dick.”

  Pete laughs for the first time tonight. “Yeah, that’s pretty true.… Sam has always been the principled one, always the guy who did everything right. The ultimate good guy.” Wow. The opposite of me. “But he could be kind of a dick sometimes, too. Self-righteous. And stubborn. If he decided to do something he had a hard time going back on his word.” Okay, maybe not the total opposite of me. “What can I say? We were brought up to be arrogant.”

  “I wouldn’t call him arrogant,” I say. “Self-possessed, yes. Cool under pressure.”

  “I think the last three years have changed him. He used to care more about principles and less about people.”

  “He cares about people now!” I suddenly want Pete to know how amazing I think Sam is. “He looked after my roommate, Coco, and Vic, and, um, and me.…” A tear-lump swells in my throat and I can’t say anything else. He did look after me. And I had stupid tantrums about romance novels and ignored his calls and sulked when he asked Julia out, and he still looked after me. He loved me.

  Pete’s too wrapped up in his own world to notice my tears. “Well, now he wants to start somewhere with nothing and end up sailing across the world.” While we’ve been talking about Sam, Pete has stopped fidgeting, loosened his tie, and undone his top shirt button. He’s calming down and warming up, and somehow, reminding me more of Sam. “It’s symbolic. Or some shit like that. Whatever, I don’t fucking get it.… And then he’s going to apply for scholarships to medical school in the fall.”

  “Scholarships?”

  “Yeah. He won’t take money from either of our parents, and he won’t take it from me, either, though I keep telling him there has to be some benefit to me becoming fucking mini-Dad.” I glance at Pete, but he’s not actually being bitter, he’s just being honest.

  God. I wish Sam had told me a tiny bit of this stuff. Though maybe the clues were there all along. I just didn’t look. Too busy thinking about myself.

  And now my brain is turning over and over, thinking about the difference between doing the right thing and the wrong thing, between being a good person or a bad person, between secrets and lies. It’s so confusing.…

  The thing is, everyone thinks they’re making the right decision when they’re making it. It’s only later that our mistakes become clear. And then we either make amends and fix those mistakes and deal with the aftermath, or we don’t. Either way, life moves on.

  Perspective is a bitch, but at least she’s consistent.

  We reach lower Manhattan. Endless skyscrapers light up the night sky. Millions of tiny twinkly lights, millions of people … Goddamn, this city is big.

  And then we’re finally here.

  North Cove Marina. The place where yachts meet skyscrapers, where Manhattan meets the deep blue sea.

  Pete and I jump out of the car and hurry toward the pier, and as we get closer, I can just make out two figures. They’re screaming at each other. And then I realize who they are, and suddenly, I forget how to breathe.

  Sam.

  And Roger Rutherford.

  CHAPTER 48

  At first, I can’t make out any words. Just two extremely angry male voices shouting over each other. Even from twenty feet away I can see Sam is upset—oh God, I hate that. I feel almost sick at the idea of him being miserable.

  Pete immediately charges between them and starts shouting, too, but I hang back, right at the end of the pier. It’s horrible to watch, an almost violent fury between them. I can’t imagine my father or mother ever screaming at me like that. It’s like Sam’s father really hates him. No wonder Sam wanted to leave.

  “Don’t you dare tell me you didn’t know—”

  “I was standing up for what I thought was right, goddamnit—”

  “You were picking sides and being a pain in my ass—”

  “I told you I never wanted to see you again, I meant it—”

  “STOP IT!” Pete shouts so loudly that my ears hurt.

  Sam and his father turn to Pete, their faces consumed with anger.

  “Dad, back off, Jesus Christ!” says Pete. “What, you thought you’d come down here and bully Sam back into the family?”

  “I thought I’d—”

  “I’m still talking! And Sam, do you think maybe you could apologize to the old man for causing him so much trouble over the years?”

  “I was doing what I thought—”

  “But it wasn’t right. It wasn’t black or white, Sam, not
hing ever is!”

  “I don’t need this! Fuck! This is why I left in the first place!”

  Sam throws his arms up in the air, and then turns around, walking quickly away from his family, down the pier toward me. I’ve never seen him so worked up; he looks like he wants to cry and scream and run, all at once. I know that feeling; hell, that feeling has ruled me for years.

  And then, when he’s about fifteen feet away, Sam sees me and stops walking.

  “Angie?”

  I can’t hang back anymore. I rush toward him, wrap my arms around him.

  “I’m so sorry,” we say in unison.

  Then I lean back and kiss him, over and over again. My brain, my heart, my body is in free fall, and the only thought in my head is Sam.

  Right this second, all I want is to make Sam’s life easier and happier. I want to take away every sadness in his life, to make everything better for him, in every way possible.

  It’s the strangest feeling, this love. It’s overwhelming. I want to protect him and be protected by him. I want to talk to him and listen to him. I want everything he wants to come true for him. It’s not like anything I’ve ever felt before … it’s whole. Complete. It will always be a part of me, it will never go away. But we don’t have time to talk about it right now.

  All we have time to do is kiss.

  So in every kiss I try to tell him that I love him, that I hope he forgives me for running away, that I understand his past was his past and he didn’t want to talk about it. I try to tell him that I know him so well, I love every inch of him, and that I know that I’ve only just breached the surface of him, of who he is and what he wants and what he’s capable of doing with his life. I want to tell him that he’s my best friend and my love, like no one else ever has been or will be again. And with every kiss, I feel like he’s telling me the same thing.

  “Oh, Angie, I’m so glad you’re here, so glad,” he whispers, leaning his forehead against mine. “I’m sorry. I should have told you everything.”

  “No, I’m sorry I wouldn’t listen, I was wrong—”

  “I wanted to tell you, it was killing me, really—”

  And then I’m absorbed again by the warmth and sureness of his lips against mine, his lovely Sam-smelling skin, the truth and strength and rightness of him.

  I pull back. “The clutch—it’s all over the blogosphere.… That was you, right? You told the world it was mine.”

  “I pulled a favor with an old friend of my dad.”

  “And that’s what got you busted,” I say, looking past him at Rog and Pete. “Helping me.”

  Sam smiles. “You’re so talented, Angie, you just need one tiny break.”

  “I got one,” I say. “I got a job today. A real one. In fashion.” Even saying the words makes me smile so hard my cheeks hurt.

  “Oh, Angie, that’s amazing, I’m so happy for you—” Sam pulls me back in for more kisses.

  Then I break away, glancing back at his father and brother, who are still talking angrily to each other. “You have to talk to them. You know you do. You don’t want it to be like this.”

  Sam stares at me, smiles, and nods.

  We kiss a couple more times, then once more for luck, then Sam takes my hand and leads me back down the pier. And for the first time in days, I feel quiet and calm inside.

  “Angie James, this is my father, Roger, and my brother, Peter.”

  I nod at them, slightly awkwardly, given I know exactly who they are and that they have no goddamn interest in me right now.

  Then Sam turns to his father. “Dad, I’m sorry I took those photos, I’m sorry I took sides. I just didn’t like seeing Mom upset; I thought it was the right thing to do. I was wrong. I regret … everything.”

  Roger looks, immediately, like someone has pressed his deflate button, all that belligerent self-absorption disappears. “I understand, Sammy. I do. You’ve always been such a good kid, always sticking up for the little guy.… But what I don’t understand is how you could not talk to me or your mother for three years. Three years, and nothing! Not a word!”

  “I didn’t think you’d want to hear from me. I thought you’d probably be happier without me around.”

  “Oh, Sammy … Never. I haven’t been happy since you left. You’re my son. No matter what else happens.”

  And just like that, the fight is over. Roger seems to have aged ten years in ten seconds and just looks like a sad old man, and Sam looks like, well, a sad young man. They stare at each other in silence.

  “Your hair’s turned gray,” Sam says finally.

  Roger grins. “I’d like to blame you for that, but I think your mother has the honor.”

  “Ha.”

  “Have you spoken to her?” asks Roger.

  Sam shakes his head.

  “I have,” says Pete. Roger looks at him in surprise. “I didn’t tell you, Dad. I knew you’d freak out.”

  “Well, I’ve been talking to her, too,” says Roger eventually. “She’s very happy out there, away from all this.…” He gestures to Manhattan, to the lights and sparkle and wealth towering over us. “She misses you, though, Sammy. She talks about you a lot, you know. She’s been having some knee problems and been laid up a lot, so she’s had a lot of time to think.… We started talking again because we were both so worried about you. Pete wouldn’t tell us anything except that you were fine and figuring life out for yourself.”

  Sam looks away, and for a second, I think he’s about to cry. Three years without even talking to your mother or father. And meanwhile, his parents are just getting older, and frailer, and lonelier. The minute that you think you don’t need them anymore, that’s when they need you.

  “I’ll call her,” Sam says. “Tell her I think about her all the time. Tell her I’ll call her, I don’t know when I’ll get phone access after tonight, but I’ll call her.”

  Suddenly, from across the water, we hear a tiny speedboat approaching.

  Sam turns his head. “That’s my boss, we’re about to go,” he says, his face creasing in distress. “Dad, Pete…”

  Pete leans forward to hug Sam, with a few back slaps for good measure.

  Then Sam turns to his father. I don’t think Rog is the physical affection type, but then he surprises me and leans forward, hugging Sam tightly. He whispers something in his ear, and Sam nods and then pulls away.

  “I’ll be in touch, okay? I promise.”

  Sam looks at Pete again and gives a funny little brotherly salute. Then he takes my hand, leading me down toward the end of the pier, where the Peripety—the yacht that will take him all the way to the other side of the world—is waiting for him.

  We finally reach her, just as the little motorboat pulls up alongside and the captain jumps out carrying a box of supplies.

  “Hey, Sam! This is the last of it. All good to go?”

  “Yes. Good to go.” Sam nods, his face assuming that professional crew member mask I remember from the day I met him. “Can I get two minutes?”

  “You got it.” The skipper climbs aboard the Peripety and disappears belowdecks.

  The yacht that looked so big the first time I saw it now seems tiny. He can’t sail across the ocean in this. It’s not safe. I mean, she’s not safe.

  I turn to Sam. “Please, please be careful. Please. Nothing can happen to you, okay? I need you to be alive.”

  “I promise. If I could, I’d call you six times a day, but the cell reception on the Atlantic is really shit.”

  Sam pulls me to him and kisses me again. Then I pull away. I have so many questions.

  “So you can’t use a phone on board? What about e-mail? How long will it take you to get to Greece?”

  “Three weeks, maybe four … The guy who owns the yacht won’t be meeting us until June. Then we’re sailing around the Greek Islands with him. Returning by September. I’m applying to schools. Some of them aren’t that far away, Angie, we’ll work it out—”

  “Wow.” Five months away. Five months is a
long time. And then he won’t even be living in Brooklyn anymore. Suddenly I feel a desperate panic in my chest. What if he forgets me? What if this is it?

  There’s a shout from the yacht. “Sammy! Let’s go!”

  “So no e-mails? No phone calls? Nothing?” I can’t stop my voice from rising in distress. “I’ll miss you so much.”

  “I’ll miss you more.” Sam kisses me again. “I’ll be able to text sometimes, and whenever I get the chance to use the Internet somewhere, I’ll e-mail you, okay?”

  “The yacht doesn’t have Wi-Fi?”

  Sam laughs and kisses me again, and I try to empty my brain so all I think about is how this feels, this kiss, this feeling of his lips on mine and his arms around me, so I can have it at my mental fingertips to remember anytime I want, until the moment I see him again.

  “This is for you, by the way. Happy birthday.” Sam hands over a tiny gift-wrapped box. “I’ve had it for weeks.… I was going to give it to you for your birthday and tell you everything. Open it later.”

  I take the gift and smile at him. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  One tear runs down my cheek, and Sam wipes it away gently with his thumb. Then he gives me one last kiss, turns, and walks quickly away.

  I’m overwhelmed with panic. Oh God, that’s it. He’s leaving.

  A second later, Sam turns around and rushes back to me.

  “One more,” he says in a low voice, pressing his lips against mine. “Just one more, I couldn’t let that be the last kiss. I couldn’t take it.” I start laughing and crying at the same time and kiss him back. Between kisses he whispers: “I’ll stay. Say the word and I’ll stay.”

  “No way,” I say, tears running down my face. “This is yours. This is what you want now, it’s what you need. You have to go. Just go.”

  And we kiss again, and then again. And then he turns around and, without looking back, walks to the end of the pier and climbs aboard the yacht. I watch for a few minutes as the skipper shouts instructions to him and the rest of the crew. Sam does everything quickly and confidently, with an air of intense concentration.

  What feels like seconds later, the yacht finally pulls away into the darkness, and I watch the gap widening between me and him.