“Well, this is all very emotional and dramatic,” remarks Joe.
I grin, gazing up at the city around us. The night is so warm, and the lights are so bright, that it doesn’t feel like the middle of the night. At moments like this, New York City feels timeless, hourless, limitless. Like the entire universe begins and ends here.
I glance over to see Madeleine climbing up to the roof of the truck, her eyes glittering intently. As soon as she grabs the microphone, music starts pumping out of the speakers again, and Madeleine throws her fist in the air and belts out the opening lyrics to “Just a Girl,” that ’90s song by No Doubt.
“Take this pink ribbon off my eyes…”
A ripple of interest goes through the crowd. Pia’s song was romantic and cute—an adorable only-in-New-York anecdote to tell their friends. But Madeleine’s voice and stage energy, or charisma, just plain old talent, whatever you want to call it, is undeniable. She’s wearing jeans and a black top, yet somehow it’s like a light is emanating from her. And to say her voice is extraordinary doesn’t begin to do it justice.
“It’s not just me, right?” says Joe, staring at her proudly, his arm slung around my shoulders. “She’s really got something.”
“It’s not just you,” I say. “She’s the best.”
“What’s her name?” says a voice behind us.
“Madeleine.” Joe glances at the guy and then does a double take. “Ian James? I’m a huge fan. Joe Nolan.”
They shake hands while I check out Ian James. Is he famous? He must be, right? He’s short and tanned, and is wearing a weird little hat. He’s one of those people who look like they should be famous, if you know what I mean. New York is full of people like that.
“Is she signed to anyone?”
“Not yet,” says Joe. “She’s with a band called Spector. I’m the manager.”
“Well, the name has to change.”
“Oh, totally.” Joe nods quickly. “It started as a covers band. You know, old Phil Spector stuff, with a noise rock edge, uh…”
Ian nods. “Great.”
I can see Joe is about to say something else, when Ian’s phone rings, and he quickly answers it and walks away.
“Fuck me, Ian James…” says Joe under his breath. He glances at me. “Music producer. Big. Huge.”
We both gaze expectantly at Ian James’s back, but he walks down the street without pausing. He’s already forgotten Madeleine.
“I should go after him. I should ask him for advice. I should…” But Joe is rooted to the spot.
“Go!” I say. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“He says no and laughs at me,” says Joe. “Isn’t that always the worst that can happen?”
Madeleine finishes the song, to more rapturous applause and whistles, and climbs down.
People in the audience are shouting, “More! More!” I cheer and clap and scream until my throat starts to crack. My friends, taking over New York, helping each other. We are all in this together.
Joe pulls me in for a quick kiss, just before he bounds over to the food truck and reaches for the microphone.
“If you guys want to see Madeleine playing live with her band Spector, check out the Potstill Brooklyn Web site!”
But now that the show is over, the crowd has lost interest, too jaded and busy to care.
I head over to the girls, who are congratulating Madeleine.
“That was incredible!” Angie is saying.
Madeleine grins, looking shy but euphoric. “Julia’s idea.”
“You are amazing! Fivies!” Julia is in hyperactive mode now, everyone’s little cheerleader. Everything she says has an exclamation point. “I expected someone to come up and give you a record deal immediately!”
“Totally.” Madeleine rolls her eyes to let us know she’s joking. She looks over to Pia and Aidan, who can’t keep their hands off one another. “Well, at least Pia’s plan worked out.”
“Seriously,” Angie says. “I don’t know what you’re doing wasting your time as an accountant.”
“Raking in the Benjamins,” replies Madeline.
“You mean counting someone else’s Benjamins.”
“That too.”
Joe walks up, grinning. “I love New York. At any moment you could run into people who are really doing something with their lives, you know?”
“Yeah, it’s a fucking nightmare,” says Angie, lighting a cigarette. “We’re so close to everything we want, but so far away.”
CHAPTER 20
Later, back at Rookhaven, Joe and I are upstairs in my room when I’m suddenly overcome by shyness. That nervous flutter in my tummy is bigger than ever.
I like him.
Joe is lying stretched out on my bed. He’s such a big guy that his feet hang off the end, and his long arms easily reach the sides.
I perch awkwardly next to him.
“I’m hot,” he says. “Can you put the air on?”
“It is on,” I say. “Sorry. It’s kind of old.”
“No problem.”
Joe reaches up, taking his shirt off over his head. I eye his broad shoulders and muscled arms and am suddenly stabbed by desire. God, I want him.
“You want to lie down?”
Joe moves over an inch so I can lie down on the pillow next to him. We’re so close that I can feel the heat from his body, and I’m having trouble breathing. I reach up to turn off the bedroom lamp, but Joe grabs my hand.
“Leave it on?”
Then he leans into me, and slowly, so slowly I’m almost aching, kisses me.
How can kissing, fully dressed, with a lamp on, somehow feel more intimate than having real actual sex in the dark?
Because we just had such a weird, crazy adventure, the kind that only my friends can have?
Or because I can pretend to be someone else in the dark? Because in the dark you can just forget yourself in desire?
I don’t know.
All I know is kissing Joe is making me forget how to breathe.
Then I wonder if he’s looking at my nose and thinking that it’s ugly, or that I have a double chin, so I prop my head up on one hand, elbow resting on the pillow. I hope this is a more flattering pose. Then Joe does the same, and suddenly we’re face-to-face, eye-to-eye. He grins at me, and I grin back, but I’m so tense right now, it’s more of an awkward grimace.
“What’s that book?” Joe asks, squinting at my nightstand.
“Anna Karenina. I’m rereading it.”
“What’s it about?”
“Um … love,” I say.
“Stealing education again? Why don’t you just go legit, enroll in college and use your prodigious reading ability to earn a degree?”
“I’m not smart enough,” I say, trying to sound offhand about it.
“Course you are,” says Joe. “You just have to believe in yourself.”
“I’ve never believed in myself,” I say flippantly. “Sometimes I think I’m imaginary.”
“I believe in you. I believe that you can do anything you want to do.”
That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.
I glance up and we meet eyes. Joe smiles, and I smile back, and then look away, my insides cramping with nerves. I pretend to sigh and close my eyes again, like I’m really sleepy, and secretly look down through my lashes at his body, the sinews of his muscles, and his flat stomach with those little hip curves that lead to—
“Can I ask you a question?” asks Joe, interrupting my about-to-be-R-rated train of thought.
“Yes.”
“The first time we, you know, made sweet, sweet love…” He pauses as I snort with laughter. “Was it your first time?”
Midsnort, I start coughing awkwardly. Why is Joe asking that? Because I was so terrible at sex?
“You were amazing,” he says, reading my mind. “Truly. The skill of Mata Hari.”
I laugh despite myself. “Um, okay, well, no. That wasn’t my first time.”
&nb
sp; “Was it okay for you?”
“It was lovely,” I answer honestly. “Why?”
“I don’t know … Sometimes I feel like there’s a barrier up, like there’s a part of you that you’re holding back. Something in reserve. I wondered … I don’t know.”
There’s a long pause.
“There was one other person,” I say finally. “His name was Eric. I thought he was my friend and, um, he wasn’t. And I didn’t want to have sex with him, but we did.”
“He—he forced you?” Joe suddenly looks furious.
“No! No, I mean, not exactly … It just, you know, it happened and I didn’t really expect it to. It wasn’t how I would have wanted it.”
“What a fucking asshole,” Joe growls.
“Worse than that. I, um…” The words come out before I can stop them. “I got pregnant.”
“Shit,” says Joe.
I take a deep breath. “I got an—an—you know.”
“I know.”
I gaze into Joe’s face, trying to read if he’s judging me, or hating me. But he’s not. All I see is understanding.
“My sister had one,” says Joe. “She went to England for it. It’s still illegal in Ireland.”
“It’s illegal?”
He nods. “Of course, it still happens. It always happens.” He sighs. “It’s not fair. It takes two people to do it, but the girl deals with the consequences alone.”
“Not always alone,” I say. “I bet some boyfriends are supportive.”
“Probably.” Joe doesn’t sound like he believes it. “My sister’s boyfriend dumped her the night before she had to go to England.”
“That’s awful,” I say.
“I got him back,” says Joe. “I saw him in a bar in town a couple of weeks later. I punched him. Broke his nose.”
“You’re a nice brother.”
“I wish I hadn’t had to do it.”
“I wish I hadn’t had to do it too,” I say. Suddenly, I know I’m going to cry. I close my eyes, and the tears roll down my cheeks. “I was stupid. I was so naïve. It wasn’t even a year ago, but I’ve changed so much since then. If I could go back in time, I would never have gone home with Eric. I wish— I wish—” I can’t talk anymore.
“It’s okay,” says Joe, brushing his hands against my cheeks to wipe away the tears. “It’s really okay.”
Joe wraps his arms around me and I snuggle right in to him. He’s so warm and lovely, and I feel so safe that I stop crying. I take some big, shaky breaths, calming myself down.
“You okay?”
“I’m okay. Talk to me about something else. Tell me stories about the hundreds of women you’ve slept with.”
“Okay,” Joe says, says, stroking my hair. “Would you like to hear about the wonderful events of my first time?”
“Yes.”
“Last year of school. My girlfriend. And she had to tell me I wasn’t putting it in the place that I, uh, thought it was in.”
I crack up.
“It was fine! I found all the right bits eventually. You know. Trial and error. It was nice. Special. For me, anyway.” Joe pauses. “Then she cheated on me.”
“Bitch,” I say. “What happened?”
“The usual. She went away for college, met someone else, couldn’t bear to break up with me. I found out because someone else I know posted photos of a party on Instagram. Some guy was kissing her.”
I make an involuntary urgh sound. “That’s bad.”
Joe shrugs. “She was just young. That’s what I think now. We both were. Shit happens. It’s all part of growing up.”
I nod. “That’s what I think now too. About Eric, and everything after. It’s just part of my past. Like everything else, good and bad.”
We lie in silence for a moment. Then I run my fingers along the muscles on his back.
When I touch him, he takes a deep breath and makes a peaceful little hmmmm sound, and I get that nervous flutter again. It’s the same feeling as when I’m with Topher, but somehow … warmer, safer.
I gaze at up him, willing Joe to open his eyes and look at me, to feel what I’m feeling.
Bizarrely, he does.
We stare at each other for a moment.
Without warning, Joe shifts and pulls me under him so he’s pinning me to the bed with the entire length of his body. He looks serious, more serious than I’ve ever seen him and, my God, so perfect.
He kisses me slowly.
Then he pulls back and looks into my eyes. I feel totally exposed, emotionally naked, if that makes any sense, lying here, nose-to-nose, so close, in the lamplight.
Joe smiles. “Beautiful.”
I frown when he says it. He clears his throat and says it again, his voice low and intense.
“Really. You are. You’re so beautiful.”
Then we start kissing. Real kissing. Kissing with intent. The kind of kisses that make your entire body tingle and your lips feel swollen. We undress each other, still with the light on, and I try my hardest to cover myself, especially my thighs, but then—
“So perfect,” Joe says, almost under his voice, running his hands down my thighs. “Soft and smooth. Your body is incredible. Just the way women are meant to be.” Then he says that word again. The word I’ve never thought about myself. “Beautiful.”
“I…” I can’t find the words to contradict him. I look down at our naked bodies and think, Maybe he’s right. His body is long, hard, muscled. My body is soft and smooth and voluptuous. It’s meant to be like this.
And then we … well, you know.
This time it’s different. This time I feel like I’m here, really here, present in the moment. My body, my soul, my brain: all acting in unison. I’m not just using him for his body, and I’m not closing my eyes and pretending I’m someone else. I’m here.
We’re here, together.
An hour later, when we’re lying half-draped over each other, sticky and sated, Joe moves his head to my stomach, and I absently stroke his wild man hair. My nervous tummy is finally gone.
I am perfectly content. “Oh, Coco,” Joe murmurs. “That was amazing.”
I don’t even know what to say. It was more than amazing. It was sex like I always imagined sex would be.
“Thank hell we became friends, right?”
My chest clutches for a second. Is he making a joke? I can’t tell.
“Friends…” I repeat. “Of course. That’s us. Friends.”
“Friends who get to see each other naked and have fun, isn’t that what you said?”
“Yup.” My voice is barely a whisper.
Joe must sense that I thought there was more between us. He’s warning me there’s not. So I don’t get hurt again. Because he’s just a womanizer, a total player, the kind of guy you can be friends with, hook up with, but never date.
And boom. My happiness is shattered.
We’re just friends.
I was stupid for thinking I felt anything else. I will never make that mistake again.
CHAPTER 21
I love walking the Greenwich Village streets around New York University.
Even now, on a sunny midsummer morning, when most students are on vacation, it feels special. A huge college, with over fifty thousand students, in the middle of the best city in the world. Isn’t that wild? I always thought of college as something isolated way out in a small town in the middle of nowhere, you know, where you’re just stuck all the time and the food sucks and the locals hate you, but NYU is in the middle of downtown Manhattan. It’s so cool.
Topher e-mailed me back the assignment and asked me to proofread it one more time, print it out, and drop it off at Professor Guffey’s office for him. She’s requested that everyone print them out and deliver them in person, rather than e-mail them.
I finally get to her office, on the top floor of a nondescript building on Greene Street, just a couple of blocks from Washington Square Park. There’s a plaque on her door. ROSEMARY GUFFEY. PROFESSOR OF LITERATURE,
PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANALYSIS. She won’t be here—she has a class on the other side of campus. I checked. (I’m not stupid.)
I slide the assignment under the door, stand up, and walk down the hall.
“Coco?”
My entire body seizes with panic.
I turn around. “Professor Guffey!”
Professor Guffey smiles and stoops to pick up the paper. Without looking at the paper, or the name on the front—Topher Amies—she beckons for me to come inside.
“I was hoping to talk to you,” she says. “Come into my office.”
Oh, my God, I’m so busted.
Why isn’t she in her class?
I follow her in, feeling icy dread in the pit of my stomach. She hasn’t looked at the name on the assignment yet, and as she walks behind her desk, she opens a file, drops it in, and closes it, all without glancing at the name.
She doesn’t know I just handed in Topher’s assignment and not my own.
Yet.
The walls of her office are lined with books. My eyes nervously flick around.
“Wow, you have so many books,” I blurt out. “I mean, of course you do, but, um…”
“I’m a book person,” she says. “I know it’s old-fashioned, but I can’t see myself on a Kindle anytime soon.”
“Oh, me too,” I say. “If I’m getting the train home to Rochester, or whatever, you know, it’s a long journey, and books are so heavy, then maybe I’ll use the Kindle app on my iPad. But I like the feel of books. I like the permanence of them.” I’m gabbling now, my eyes darting around the shelves, desperately searching for something to distract her. “The smell. The weight. The whole thing.”
“Exactly,” she says. “Now—”
“Oh, look! Jane Eyre, I love that book, and Little Women, of course, I know that one by heart, I’ve read it what feels like a million times. I first read it when I was, like, eight years old,” I know it’s rude to interrupt, but I can’t bear for her to ask me if I’m really a student here. I can’t lie to her face, but if I don’t, Topher might be expelled, right? “Um, and we studied A Doll’s House in high school, but I never really clicked with it.”
Professor Guffey laughs. “High school has a way of destroying any real love for the written word. I hated Shakespeare in high school, truly, I did. I thought it was overrated, at best. Then I read Much Ado About Nothing of my own accord when I was twenty-three, and I just … got it.”
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