I’m not all that keen on reaching out to any of my old friends, but Charlotte is staring at me with what looks like hope, and I’m still cool with anything that keeps me from going home — and, for some reason, I’m also feeling like I really, really don’t want to let her down. So I take out my phone and warn her, “You asked for it. I think these guys will be a totally different kind of American from what you’re used to.”
“As long as they’re not hipsters, I’m sure I’ll get along with them just fine.”
I shrug. “For all I know, they could be hipsters now. Old friends, remember?”
I look down at my phone, thumb hovering over the WhatsApp icon in the top left corner of the screen — ignoring the badge over the Snapchat icon that tells me I have seven notifications. I should really change the settings so that I don’t get told every single thing that Maya’s doing anymore — that wasn’t okay even when we were together. I open up WhatsApp, where there’s a group chat for my senior class. It hasn’t had a new message posted since before the end of the summer. Probably everyone on it is wrapped up in college, and no one checks it anymore, but Charlotte doesn’t have to know that — she only needs to know that I tried. I send a two-line message about being in the city, if anyone’s around. I close the app and stare at my home screen for a second, willing myself not to go onto Snapchat — even if that damned red badge is now saying “8,” and finding out what eight noteworthy things could possibly have happened to Maya in the last forty-five minutes or so feels like something I should absolutely do.
I stuff the phone in my pants pocket, look at Charlotte. “Want to get out of here?”
*
Ten minutes later, we’re passing the Washington Square Arch, walking for the sake of walking, neither one of us sure who’s in the lead. I guess it’s me, since I actually live here.
Bleecker was strangely dead earlier, but this part of the village isn’t. Tourists are gathered at the arch, and locals are barging through them with hands in their pockets, heads angled down and shoulders hunched against the snow that’s settling on the sidewalks. Unlike me, some people just want to get home tonight.
Charlotte stops, looks at the arch. I really, really hope she’s not going to ask me to take a photo of her or, worse, take a selfie — but she doesn’t seem like a selfie kind of girl. I like that.
“Penny for your thoughts,” I ask, because I literally can’t think of anything else.
She smiles at me. “Shouldn’t you guys say, ‘A cent for your thoughts’?”
I make a face. “Yeah, because that has such a ring to it.”
She looks back to the arch, still smiling, thinking. “A cent for … your sense … of … No, you’re right. Penny’s better.” The smile eases off her face. “I was just people-watching.”
“You like to do that?”
She nods. “Why? Is that weird?”
I shrug, tell her: “I’m kind of the same. What caught your eye?”
She shrugs back. “Nothing in particular. Just … these are people who all planned to be here at Christmas. Most of them probably live here, but some have got to be far from home, right? But I guess, since they’re with people they know and love, they don’t feel all that far away from home. You know what I mean?”
I look down at my feet. “I’ve never really been out of New York.”
“Seriously?” She laughs. I make a face that says, I know, isn’t it terrible? “Well,” she goes on, “I’m starting to think it’s the not knowing anybody here that makes me feel the distance, more than the actual distance. I don’t know if I’m making sense at all” — she kind of is, kind of isn’t — “but it’s got me thinking about the idea of ‘home.’ The whole time I was here, studying, I was telling myself that I was making New York my home, just by being here … that it would be the same when — if — I came back to study at Columbia. But now I realize, I was wrong — at least a little bit. Without my host family and their house as a base, everyone’s a stranger.”
“There’ll be school next year,” I tell her. “That’s pretty good as a base. And people won’t stay strangers on campus for very long.”
She nods, adjusts the tote bag on her shoulder, then folds her arms over her chest. She stays silent a long time, but not the kind of silent a person gets when they’ve got nothing to say. She’s silent because she’s thinking.
And it feels very important to me that I don’t interrupt her.
“I guess it’s just annoying,” she says to the sidewalk, “to have in your head the idea that you’re going to have this great semester, and you’re going to truly find yourself — answer all of the questions you have about who you’ll be in the future, what you’re capable of … and when it comes down to it, and you have to decide what to do, you start to feel like you just want to go home. And you know what the worst part is? I am actually starting to feel angry at my family because I’m missing them. Is that messed up?”
“Oh, totally,” I tell her, as an old couple walk past us, arm in arm. I hate myself for wondering, is this their last Christmas together? “But you know what? Home is home. It’s always going to be ‘where you’re from’ — you can’t change that. You’re thinking of it as a physical base, a place where everything always begins. Maybe the trick is to think of it as an emotional base, where everything began. Life’s a journey, but you sound like you’re preparing to run laps around a single track, when you should be, like … I dunno, running a marathon.”
She’s not looking at the sidewalk anymore. She’s looking at me, with an expression I can’t read. Her eyes are narrowed, and her lips are pursed, smoothing out her cheek dimples a little.
“You think it’s better to move forward?” she asks.
I snap my fingers, point at her — suddenly wanting to change this conversation to a lighthearted one. “That’s exactly it. Move forward. Thank you for translating my long-winded ramble into a single sentence.”
She smiles, looks back at the park behind the arch. Thinks it over.
“So, anyway,” I say, “about Step Three. You seriously don’t know anybody in New York? Besides me, obviously. Didn’t you just spend a whole semester at a high school? Surely you made some friends.”
“Oh, yeah, I did …” She stuffs her hands into her pockets, hunches her shoulders against the cold, shuffles from foot to foot. “Well, not friends friends, but there were girls I used to sit with at lunch and stuff.”
I lean down, find her eyes. “And let me guess — Colin came along and things changed?” She nods. “Well, I guess those girls at lunch count as honorary old friends for you. They’re the closest you’ve got here.”
“You think I should message them?”
I think she totally should. Because her new old friends have got to be a better option than anyone from my senior class who might answer my lame WhatsApp message.
But I try not to look too eager when I say: “Why not?”
She shrugs, takes out her phone and sends a group message on her own WhatsApp. She puts her phone back in her inside jacket pocket when she’s done, then turns to look at me, and we’re left looking awkwardly at each other because, for the first time in the three hours or so that we’ve known each other, we have nothing more to say.
I ought to be used to this, because it happened with Maya — a lot. It’s only now that I think maybe that was a clear sign we weren’t right for each other.
Or maybe I’m just bad at talking to girls.
But I’m not panicking with Charlotte the way I’d panic when this happened with Maya. The silence is kind of awkward, but it doesn’t feel like it matters — she’s leaving soon and will probably forget me before she’s finished her first cup of tea back home.
When she says, “So …” I know she’s feeling as awkward as I am, and the Thing to Say just sort of comes to me.
“What do you feel like doing?” She loo
ks at me as if she doesn’t understand the question. “I mean, we should do something. Anything. These are your last few hours in the city. We can’t just stand around waiting for our phones to ping.” (If and when my phone pings, it’s not going to be who I want it to be anyway.)
She stares at the sidewalk, her smile punching the dimples back into her cheeks. Why do I keep noticing them?
“Well, I suppose there is something …” She’s looking nervous about asking. Oh, man, she’s going to ask me to take her to the Empire State Building. I just know it. “But it’s kind of lame.”
Yep, she’s going to ask to go to the Empire State Building.
She looks at me, half embarrassed and half teasing. Whatever it is, it’s not going to be good. “It’s typical and obvious and all of that stuff, but … I don’t know, this might be my last day here, so it would be kind of fun …”
*
Next thing I know, I’m at the West Fourth Street–Washington Square station, en route to, of all places, the Empire State Building. Charlotte’s walking straight for the stairs, but I reach out to take a handful of sleeve and pull her back. I point at the IFC across the street. “How about we catch a movie?” I ask her, hearing the desperation in my own voice.
She turns around, gives me this grin that says she’s not having any of it. “I’m a visitor here. You should want to show off your city.”
“You don’t understand. Christmas Eve, everyone gets the same lame idea that they have to have a perfect kiss on top of the Empire State Building, in the snow.” I may or may not be talking about the plans I had for tonight, before the Airport Incident. “We’re gonna be standing in line until New Year’s.”
We sidestep to make way for a middle-aged couple coming out of the station. They are wearing matching beige trench coats and walking side by side — in perfect step and perfect silence, the kind of married couple who have been in love for so long they probably gave up on PDAs in the nineties.
“I’ve been here almost four months,” Charlotte says, “and I’ve spent most of my time inside a classroom or in the Lawrences’ house, studying. I haven’t seen the Statue of Liberty, the Rockefeller Center or the UN. I should at least cross something lame and obvious off the list, right?”
I can’t really argue with that, but I also can’t pretend like I’m down for this — I’m actually taking out my phone and hoping that some random, forgotten high school buddy has responded to my WhatsApp message. But my lock screen shows no notifications. Just my background image — the selfie that Maya made me take in the airport on the day she left for college. I’m kissing her cheek, and she’s looking off camera, like something — someone — has caught her eye. Of course she is.
“It’s not like you have anything better to do,” Charlotte says. Her voice is teasing, but, for a moment, it reminds me a little too much of the condescending tone that Maya would use sometimes, the Maya who apparently couldn’t give me her full attention even when I was kissing her goodbye, and I can hear in my own voice that I’m kind of snapping at Charlotte more than I should be.
“It’s Christmas Eve. Of course no one’s checking their phone every five minutes.”
She sighs, like she’s annoyed — just irritated. Maya would have gasped and looked like she was about to cry. “Yes or no,” she says, half turning to point to the subway station. “Yes or no, can we get a train from this station to the Empire State Building?”
I don’t answer, but she can see from my face that we can — F train, D train. We can be there in ten minutes.
“Right, then, since we just happened to be walking this way — for no reason, let’s be honest — I say we call this fate. Let’s go.”
I really should have taken charge when we left the diner.
Charlotte leads me into the station but stops at the bottom of the stairs. Sitting there is a bedraggled, balding guy in a tatty parka, a cardboard sign in front of him asking for five bucks for dog food, an arrow pointing to the sleeping puppy — a white English bulldog — nestled in the crook of his arm. He sees us see him (well, he sees us see the dog) and starts stroking its head.
“You guys got it in your hearts to help me feed this girl?”
I really don’t want to play the cynical New Yorker in front of Charlotte, but I don’t buy it. I roll my eyes when she drops into a crouch to join the guy in petting the dog, who is just starting to wake up.
“What’s her name?” Charlotte asks.
I’m trying to figure out how to pull her away, so she doesn’t get lured into some kind of scam — but before I can do anything, my phone buzzes against my leg, and my chest clenches with what could be dread but is probably hope. Maybe it’s Maya. Maybe she’s gotten tired of Handsome Hipster already and is thinking she’s made a huge mistake.
I take my phone out and see that I’ve got not a text but a WhatsApp message — it might still be from Maya — but when I go in to see it, I just get a white screen with the gray ring of doom, like the app’s saying, “Damn, I know the message is here somewhere, Anthony. I just had it. But God knows what I did with it. I’m such a dumbass.” The signal’s not strong enough down here.
Charlotte’s still petting the puppy, who’s wide awake now and licking her hand. The guy in the parka says something about not wanting to take her to a shelter, and I know I should start hustling Charlotte down to the tracks, even if she does want to do something lame and touristy like go to the Empire State Building, but …
What if it’s Maya, saying she’s kicked Handsome Hipster to the curb, and that she really does want me to spend Christmas with her family after all?
I know this is a terrible idea. And I hate myself for wanting it to be Maya. But I also know that there’s no way I’m not going to look at the message. So, while Charlotte is cooing over the dog, I lean down, tell her I’ll be right back, then take the steps two at a time back up to street level.
The WhatsApp message isn’t from Maya. It’s from someone named Vinnie Zampanti, who says that he’s going caroling with his choir group in the East Village in twenty minutes, and I’m totally welcome to join if I want, and it doesn’t matter if I’m not a singer.
Who the heck is Vinnie Zampanti? He responded to the group message I sent, so he must be an old classmate, but the name is not ringing any bells at all. I click on his name, go to his profile — but his picture is just a wedge of Gouda cheese (not exactly a good sign).
Seriously, who’s Vinnie? And why would he think anyone would randomly want to go caroling in the East Village on Christmas Eve? Then I think, maybe I can sell this to Charlotte as a real New York experience — local flavor, something like that. Anything that keeps me off the top of the Empire State Building tonight. So I type thanks to Vinnie and add that I’ll try to swing by, then turn around to go get Charlotte.
But I don’t have to go get her — she’s already at the top of the stairs.
Walking an English bulldog puppy.
“Oh, you gotta be kidding me!” I’m pinching the bridge of my nose like I have a splitting headache, which is something all Monteleone men do when we’re stressed out. Luke copied Dad, and I copied Luke — and then Dad told me not to imitate my big brother all the time, that I should be my own man. I was seven.
“I could tell that guy down there wasn’t after money for dog food,” she says, handing me the puppy’s leash — as if I want it. “He was conning commuters, obviously — I could actually see an iPhone in his pocket. It looked newer than mine!”
“So you took …”
“Bought.”
“Oh, man …”
“Fifty dollars.” She’s beaming at me like she’s gotten the best deal in the world. “Small price to pay to save a dog from an owner who, I can tell, didn’t care about her. She can go to a better home. A loving home.”
“Where? In England? You want to take the puppy with you? You’re getting on a plane
in a few hours, and there are rules about this kind of thing. Quarantines, paperwork — I don’t even know!”
She’s shaking her head at me. “We’ve got all night.” She kneels down to fuss over the puppy, who squirms and yaps, and, despite myself, I feel an insistent urge to pick her up. “Who wouldn’t want to take this little princess home with them? It’ll be fine. Also …” She takes out her book. The book that’s gotten me into this mess. It’s only now I notice that there’s a puppy on the damned cover.
“I think I remember something …” She flicks through the pages. “Yes! I thought I remembered seeing this chapter. Look — Step Four.” She turns the book around and shows it to me: “‘Take care of somebody else — so that you remember how to take care of You.’”
“So, what? We’re doing the whole book now?”
She looks at me over the top of the puppy’s head. “Why not? It’s worked well for us so far, right? All the experiences we’ve had — I wanted a Story, and I’m definitely getting one. Plus” — she holds up the dog to make her point — “we’re taking steps by accident — maybe this is meant to be or something.”
“Okay, slow down” — the dog chooses this moment to start licking my boots; kinda gross, but Charlotte thinks it’s hilarious — “we didn’t even do Step Three yet.”
“I don’t think the book said we had to do them in an exact sequence.”
How would you know? I wonder, as she puts the book back in her bag, unread. You’ve barely skimmed the surface of that book. For all you know, Step Eight could tell you to walk backward across Times Square with your eyes closed.
“Do you even know anything about dogs?” I ask her.
“Oh, yeah,” she says. “We have a Staffie called Rocky, and there’s no way this little lady could ever give me as many problems as he does. Now, she needs a name!” Charlotte kisses the dog’s head. “I was thinking ‘Winny,’ because she looks a little bit like Winston Churchill — but that’s too obvious. Plus, people might hear it and think she’s named after Pooh Bear.”
Kiss Me in New York Page 6