Kiss Me in New York

by Catherine Rider

  “Have we come the wrong way?” Charlotte asks, as I bend down to pick up the dog.

  “Nope,” I tell her. “On the other side of this is the best sledding in Manhattan — maybe the whole of New York, I dunno. Me and my brother, Luke, used to come here on Sundays. Our mom brought us here …” I take a moment to let my mind get used to screening a memory it purposely hasn’t thought about in a year. I’m kind of an idiot for not realizing exactly what it was that made me think sledding would be a good step for Charlotte. “I was around seven years old, I think. Anyway, it’s not technically legal for us to do this, ’cause the land belongs to the parks department. But I gotta think they’ve taken today off.”

  She’s staring at me, openmouthed. “Hey, that’s good,” I say. “Looks like you’re definitely doing something that scares you.”

  She slaps my arm. “I seriously doubt the book advises breaking the law.”

  “I’m sure you can interpret the book in lots of different ways. And hey — there’s not much scarier than breaking the rules, right? This might be the purest version of Step Eight that’s possible to take!”

  “I’m a foreigner here, remember? What happens if I, you know, get arrested and deported and can never come back?”

  “Hmm, arrested and deported … sounds scary.”

  “You really want to do this, don’t you?”

  I only just manage to stop myself from telling the truth: that yes, now that I’ve realized what, subconsciously, led me here, sledding on the pristine white hills on the other side of this fence feels like the only thing I want to do. I want to feel seven years old again, excited and scared as I watched Luke sled fearlessly down the steepest hills, while Mom sat me on her lap and did the sledding herself, then said it was all me once we were at the bottom.

  Instead, I tell her: “It’ll be fun, I promise. Me and Luke have been sneaking in since we were kids, and we’ve never been caught — there’s got to be even less chance of us getting caught tonight.”

  She thinks on it for a second, then gives a nod that’s not all that reluctant. “Okay, let’s do it. But be quick …”

  “Oh, as soon as you hit peak scared, we’re out of here.”

  I hand Mistake to Charlotte so she can put the pup back into her tote bag as I hop the fence. On the other side, I reach up so Charlotte can toss the sleds to me. Then she climbs up high enough to gently swing her bag over the fence so I can take it. I put the sleds down and hang the bag from my shoulder as Charlotte climbs over. She’s more agile than I expected.

  Once she’s safely down, I hand her the bag back. Mistake is craning to see what’s up, and I assure Charlotte that this area of the park is totally fenced off. Mistake might run, but she won’t get too far.

  “Okay, good,” says Charlotte, letting the dog out. “I don’t want to lose her.”

  We don’t have to worry about losing her, because as soon as we take out the sleds and get into position at the top of the first slope, Mistake is all over us, wanting to be exactly where we are. She settles in my lap.

  “I guess I’ve got a passenger.” But Charlotte doesn’t smile back at me. She’s staring down the pure white hill, at the lake of shadow down at the bottom.

  “It’s a bit steep,” she says.

  “Yeah, it’s scary,” I tell her. “That’s the point.”

  “What if I — you wanker!”

  She calls me that because I’ve given her a push. Not a hard one — just hard enough to get her going.

  I hold Mistake close and sled down after Charlotte, enjoying the weightless feeling and only just stopping myself from crashing into her. Any fear she had before is gone — she’s now lying half off the sled, laughing up at the night sky as the snow falls on her face.

  “Hey, hey, not so loud,” I tell her, as Mistake jumps off my lap and runs in an arc from one side of Charlotte’s head to the other, like a windshield wiper. “It might be deserted, but that just means noise travels.”

  She claps a hand over her mouth, as she sits up, controlling herself. “Sorry,” she says, finally. “Just got a bit of a … rush, I guess. Once the fear passed, I kind of liked it.”

  “I guess that’s the point.” I don’t mean for this to be anything intense, but the fact that we’re staring right at each other when I say it makes the eye contact we hold feel much more significant.

  The spell is broken when Mistake yaps for attention, and we see that she’s halfway up the hill, looking back, clearly expecting us to follow.

  Charlotte prods my toes with hers. “Race you!”

  *

  About ten minutes later, we’ve gone up and down the same slope twenty times. After three or four turns, Charlotte got confident enough to try going backwards. She laughed the entire time.

  Now, Charlotte’s collapsed in a heap at the bottom, lying on her back again as Mistake runs circles around her, while I come charging down backwards, careful to get as close as I can without crashing into her. I can actually steer myself pretty close, and she makes no attempt to move. She trusts me.

  I let myself fall next to her, feel the backs of our fingers grazing as we laugh at the night — both of us, I guess, wondering how the hell we’ve ended up illegally sledding in Central Park on Christmas Eve.

  I can hear her laughter’s dying down, and all I want to do is look to my left. If I do that, we might have a “moment.” But it’s like one side of my neck fills with concrete or something, because it just won’t move.

  “Thank you.” Her voice is almost a whisper.

  I still can’t turn my head. “For what?”

  She doesn’t answer, and the silence goes on long enough that I know she’s waiting for me to look at her. So I take a breath to relax, then finally turn my head. Her long hair is lashed across her face in thick strips, dappled with snow.

  “For letting me see it’s all right to be scared sometimes.”

  “New Charlotte’s okay with being scared?”

  “Yeah, she is …”

  My breathing is shallow, and my arms are quivering — from more than just the cold, I’m sure of that. I think too long about my next move: could I reach across and move the hair from her face with these shaking hands, or would I just poke her in the eye?

  And if I got close enough to do that, could I do the thing that I’m now wishing I hadn’t stopped doing in Smooch?

  Could I kiss her again?

  It’s all a moot point when Charlotte sits up so quickly that Mistake takes off running, thinking there’s more sledding to be done.

  “So, what’s your thing?” Charlotte asks, moving her hair out of her face. “What scares you?”

  The answer comes to me right away, and I really don’t want to talk about it — but I can’t think of anything to say in its place, so I just end up staring at her for a few seconds.

  “Uh, you know …” I dig deep for anything scary. “Sharks, I guess. But I don’t have to face my fear ever, because there are no sharks in Brooklyn — well, there are loan sharks, if you need one. But I never do, so …”

  Crap, now it’s me who’s rambling, and Charlotte’s looking at me, and I can tell she knows that I’m hiding something. I sit up, grind my fist into the snow and frozen grass. Oh, God, I’m actually going to talk about this. “You really want to know? Even if me telling you might, like, puncture your Christmas spirit?”

  She smiles, leans forward. “Have you not been paying attention tonight? Aren’t we ‘muddling through’?”

  “Yeah, I guess we are. Okay … I’ll tell you what it is.”

  And I want to tell her. I really do. But everything I want to say slams up against the lump in my throat, because I’m wondering if my being in Central Park on the sledding slopes on Christmas Eve, about to confide in a random English girl, is somehow meant to be.

  If Mom somehow brought me here.

&nb
sp; “My, uh, mom …” As if sensing I might need her for this, Mistake literally jumps into my lap, and I automatically hug her to me. “My mom died last year. On Christmas Day.”

  Charlotte shifts forward, drawing level but still facing me. “Oh, my God, Anthony.”

  The sympathy in her soft voice is real; the squeeze of her hand on my forearm is genuine. But everything I’ve been keeping contained for the last year is threatening to come charging out, and that’s why I don’t talk about it. I never once did with M… with my last girlfriend. Not after the funeral. It was the only way I knew how to keep it together.

  And I can’t cry in front of Charlotte.

  So I lean down and kiss Mistake’s head, fussing over the pup until the lump in my throat falls away, until my chest loosens up enough to let more than tiny wisps of air into my lungs, and I feel like I can talk again.

  “Cancer,” I tell Charlotte, trusting that that single word means I don’t have to give any more detail about the type, about the chemo, about what the chemo did to her, about the unthinkable amount of time between the doctor saying there was nothing more they could do and the day she actually died, about how bad it got toward the end …

  “I’m so sorry” is all she says. It’s all anyone ever really can say.

  “That’s why I was so stubborn about being at the airport today. I so didn’t want to go home that I convinced myself it would be totally cool for me to surprise … her. That there’s no way she would leave me to face the holidays by myself.”

  I’ll bet the significance of the day for me was totally lost on her, too. That’s how little she cared about me.

  But I don’t say this to Charlotte, because we’re past talking about exes.

  “Your family might need you, though,” she says, sliding her hand into mine.

  I can’t help scoffing. “They’re fine. My aunt Carla basically, like, annexed our kitchen this morning. There’s a huge feast happening tonight at the Monteleone house.”

  “Sounds like it might be nice — family, all together, keeping each other strong.”

  “It’s a goddamned joke!”

  The pain in my heart hits me only after I hear the pain in my own voice. A rebel thought has slipped through my defenses, out into the world, and has left behind an ache in my chest and a sting in my eyes. Mistake whines and shifts to stand up in my lap, wagging her tail at me to calm down. “Sorry,” I mumble to her and Charlotte. “It’s just … I don’t get how everyone can just come together like always, like it’s a normal Christmas. It’s not a normal Christmas, and I’m not going to pretend it is. It’s not Christmas without her. It won’t ever be.”

  Charlotte says nothing. We just sit in the snow, holding hands, me cuddling Mistake and taking deep breaths, trying to keep it together. I haven’t cried since Mom passed — and, I don’t know why, but I don’t want to. I feel like I can’t let myself.

  She squeezes my hand again. “You need your family. And they need you. I can go with you, if you like? You turning up with a Brit would surely make a great story to tell next Christmas.”

  I squeeze her hand back. “You serious?”

  “Why not? I can distract everybody, and then it might not seem such a big deal to you to be back home. There’s just one thing I have to ask first, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What type of Brit do you want to bring home tonight? Is my actual voice all right, or should I go more Downton for the giggles?”

  “I really don’t hear much difference.”

  She makes a mock offended pout. “You cheeky — argh!”

  We’re both blinded by the blazing spotlight that hits us right in the face, and we release each other’s hands to shield our eyes.

  “What the —”

  “Freeze! Police!”

  Oh, yeah. I’d forgotten about the trespassing.

  ~ Chapter Nine ~

  Charlotte

  11:30 p.m.

  I have to shield my eyes against the cop’s flashlight, which — in the darkness of the park — feels more like a spotlight.

  I am going to get arrested! Ohmygodohmygod, I’m going to get arrested and deported, and I will never be allowed back — even if I want to take up my spot at Columbia, I will be turned away by Immigration! I’m going to get to the immigration booth, and some guy with a mustache — I’m seeing a guy with a mustache, I don’t know why — is going to look at my passport, check my name on his computer, then peer at me, like:

  “Hold up, honey — are you the little lady who got arrested for sledding in Central Park?”

  And my left eye is going to twitch — because it always twitches when I prepare to give a dishonest answer — and I’m going to try to say “no,” but he’s going to cut me off with a shake of his head. He’ll hand my passport back to me, and then two bigger guys are going to appear out of nowhere to say, “Miss, you need to come with us.”

  Before I know it, I’ll be on the next flight home … and I just know that they’re going to forget my luggage!

  I hear Mistake barking unhappily, feel Anthony wriggle and squirm as he blindly tries to keep her under control. Then comes the sound of boots crunching against the snowy grass, and I start to tell myself that trespassing in Central Park isn’t exactly the most serious crime, is it? I’m surely not going to miss my flight because I’m in a cell, right?

  And they wouldn’t really deport me for this …?

  “Oh no, oh no, oh no.” I’m babbling, and Anthony takes my hand again, squeezing it tight. I dare to open my eyes, finally, and see him looking right at me. He’s not freaking out at all. In fact, he looks totally calm, if extremely reluctant about something. He passes Mistake to me and then shifts to face the cop, hands up and held out — not surrender, more Everything’s cool.

  “We’re sorry, officer.”

  The cop is a short guy with a smooth, shaven head. He’s almost as wide as he is tall, so muscular he looks like he’s about to hulk out of his uniform any second.

  “You’re trespassing,” he says, glaring from Anthony to me. “See that humongous iron fence around here? That means keep out.”

  Anthony holds up his hands, like, Oh gosh, my bad. “I’m so sorry,” says Anthony. “I should know better — my big brother’s a cop. I just … really wanted to show an out-of-towner a cool New York secret, that’s all. Guess we got a little carried away. Call it the Christmas spirit.” He makes a show of shaking his head.

  The cop stares down at Anthony, aiming the flashlight over our heads — lighting us up but not blinding us. “Your brother’s a cop, huh?”

  Anthony nods politely. “Yeah — Luke Monteleone. He’s at the Seventy-Fourth in Brooklyn.”

  The officer pulls his mouth into a tight line and walks a few feet away. And within a minute, we’re not in trouble anymore. The officer gets on his radio thing (identifying himself as Marquez) and asks … someone to confirm that a Luke Monteleone is a cop at the Seventy-Fourth. When the lady with the crackly voice on the other end says yes, Marquez motions for us to stand up.

  “All right, listen,” he says, clipping the flashlight back onto his belt. “I guess I can forget what I saw here tonight.” He looks away from us for a moment, taking in the snow-covered hills. His eyes flicker, and his lips purse. “I get it … This place, the two of you. You’re young, you want to enjoy the night, you want to enjoy each other.”

  I duck my face behind Mistake, just in case my embarrassment is obvious.

  Marquez smiles at us. “That’s all cool, kids. But you also gotta play by the rules, okay? You won’t be able to enjoy each other” — why does he keep putting it like that? — “if you’re locked up, you know what I mean?”

  The cop gets on his radio again, asking if any squad cars are close, and the next thing I know, he’s leading us to Fifth Avenue, where a cruiser is pulling up. Officer Marque
z approaches the driver’s side window. I can see a short-haired woman and curly-haired guy, both in uniform. “Hey, Lainey.” I assume her name is actually Elaine. “Thanks for this.”

  “Wait, what?” I yelp. “You’re actually going to arrest us?” I think about running, but I’m not sure I’d get very far carrying Mistake.

  Anthony takes a hold of my hand. “It’s just a ride home,” he mumbles. Then, to Marquez: “I really appreciate it, officer, but we’re fine.”

  Officer Marquez shakes his head. “Kid, I don’t know why you’d rather be in the park tonight, but you should get home. It’s Christmas. Take it from someone who’s not with his family tonight — it’s where you want to be.”

  Anthony stares at the cop for a second, and when I look at him, I can tell that he’s biting back protests. He looks at the ground, then at me. “Guess I’m not getting out of Step Eight, huh?”

  *

  The way Lainey speeds downtown, I feel like I could make it home by … all right, not midnight tonight, but definitely before breakfast tomorrow. It helps that while it might not actually be sleeping, New York is kind of nodding off as Christmas Eve reaches out for Christmas Day. The streets are silent and so deserted that the sound of Lainey’s engine is almost deafening — the whole thing is cooler than I’d ever admit, except for how much it agitates Mistake, whose whine and howl sound like a plea to me and Anthony to make it stop!

  I turn and face him. “So … your brother grew up to be a cop, then?”

  He’s looking down at his knees, and when I see his lips curl, I know this is a topic he doesn’t really like talking about. “Yeah,” he says, shooting a look at Lainey. She’s talking to her partner. Neither of them are paying attention to us. “It’s only ever useful to me at times like this.”

  I nudge his arm. “Oh yeah? You take a lot of girls sledding in the park?” He doesn’t answer, just shakes his head, like, Never mind. “Must be cool to have a policeman brother, though.”

  Anthony doesn’t just laugh — he actually makes a sound like pah! “Being the kid brother of a beat cop is … well, let’s just say, when you have a brother like Luke — doing the things that he’s doing for a living — sitting at home, scribbling in your notebook all day, is not a good look.”