Apartment 1986

by Lisa Papademetriou

  “Maybe your friends would be understanding.”

  I shrug. “Maybe. Who knows?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t know them that well.” I stare ahead at the board of drinks. It is almost our turn to order.

  “Well, maybe you would if you told them the truth.”

  “Maybe that’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Isn’t there anyone you could tell? Don’t you have any real friends?”

  I think about Anna, but my brain is feeling a bit twisty and turny. I know that I could tell Anna about my dad’s job, and maybe even tell her about history class and all the trouble I’m in there, and I know that she would understand. But she would freak out over the two-hundred-and-fifty-dollars thing. She wouldn’t understand how I could ever agree to spend that much money in the first place—and it would be pretty awkward to talk about. And she would want to know why I even care what Zelda and Min think. She wouldn’t get it.

  When I first started at Haverton, Anna told me I should watch out, because rich Upper East Side girls are mean. I think we have all watched enough television to know that! Even though Zelda and Min seem nice, I don’t always feel like I fit in around them. And I don’t know if I trust them. I mean, what would they say if they found out I was just a girl from Jersey City whose dad happened to grow up with two members of the Haverton board of trustees, and not someone who got into this fancy school because Beyoncé wrote her recommendation letter? “I don’t really know if I have any real friends,” I say finally.

  Cassius is silent for a while, and we are the only perfectly still people in the Starbucks. Everywhere else, people are talking, or checking phones, or typing on computers, or inspecting the display of artful mugs on the shelf along the wall, or frantically making espresso, filling the air with movement and spicy smells and energy. But Cassius and I are like rocks at the edge of an ocean, where the waves just beat and circle, moving in and moving out. “Friendship is not something you learn in school,” he says, breaking the silence between us. “But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.”

  “That’s deep, Cassius.”

  “Muhammad Ali said that, not me. He was a deep guy.”

  “Well, it just made me feel worse.” I look up at the menu on the wall, so that I won’t have to look at him. What kind of saying was that? Althea Orris would never say anything like it.

  “Think about it. Maybe it’s time to trust someone. That’s all I’m saying.”

  The line moves, and so do we, and now it is our turn.

  There is a very, very small, maybe microscopic part of me that wants/expects Cassius to ask what the Big Flaming Secret is. But he doesn’t. Instead, he takes out a ten-dollar bill and holds it up, inspecting it.

  “Is that a fake ten-dollar bill, or something?” I ask.

  “Nope,” he says, and places the money on the counter. Then he orders a mint tea. That just seems so . . . Cassius. Then I order my Frappuccino, and reach into my purse. Naturally, my wallet has fallen into a black hole again, but Cassius just says, “I’ve got it,” and pays for us both.

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Why would I have to do it?”

  “That’s just an expression.”

  “If I had to do it, I wouldn’t want to.”

  And even though this conversation is kind of annoying, I also kind of want to hug him and it occurs to me that maybe Cassius is the kind of person that I could tell about my dad’s job and the stuff at school and everything. I don’t know if he would understand, but he would be nice about it. I could tell him, I think, and then I think that maybe I will tell him.

  “Carrie?” the barista asks.

  “Callie.” Why are baristas so pathetic with names?

  He frowns at me, making his little goatee twitch. “Frappuccino?”

  “Yes.”

  He hands me my drink and looks at the other. “Casual?”

  “That’s me,” Cassius says, and I have to admit that I really admire the way he is able to keep his face perfectly straight, even though his cup actually reads “Casual” on the side. He turns to me and says, “Everybody knows I’m Casual.”

  We sit down and Cassius asks what I thought of the Mondrian painting we saw, which I really love, but in a totally different way from the way I love the ones we saw at the Guggenheim. So then I start talking about the paintings and my brain sort of switches gears and, in the end, I don’t tell Cassius about my dad and the hedge fund and how I lied about a bunch of stuff at school and how I owe Zelda two hundred and fifty dollars and how—okay, I admit that he nailed it—I am also failing history. I don’t even say part of it.

  It’s nice to think that maybe I could, though.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  In which some stuff happens that I barely even understand

  “GRAN?” I CALL OUT as I push open the door to Grandma Hildy’s apartment. “Gran?” I have to shout, because probably my favorite Cyndi Lauper song of all time, “When You Were Mine,” is blasting through the apartment, coming from the guest bedroom, which I think of as “my bedroom.”

  “Callie!” My grandmother strides from the hallway in her tennis whites. “I’m so glad you’re here. Can you help me fasten this bracelet?” She’s wearing her signature sand-colored lipstick that shows up against her bright smile as she holds out a tan wrist. She seems full of energy, as if she’s still feeling like a thirtysomething after her visit with Mr. Johnson.

  “You’re going to play tennis?” I ask.

  “I’m already late, and you know how Anita gets.”

  “Uh—are you—feeling okay?” My stomach feels cold and quivery, and I’m wondering if my grandmother suspects that I overheard her in Earl’s apartment when I was here in the morning. My fingers are numb, and I can’t quite make the latch on the bracelet work.

  “Oh, give that to me, you’re hopeless.” Grandma Hildy’s voice is playful, and I have this weird new thought that maybe I am going crazy and I was never here in the morning and the whole thing was a weird dream. Then Gran does a little dance and sings along with the song, “I love you more than I did when you were mine!”

  My bag buzzes against my leg, and when I reach inside, my fingers close on the photo I found earlier. I pull it out and my grandmother plucks it from my fingers as I dig around again, finally finding my phone. “Hello?”

  “Why aren’t you answering your texts?” It’s my mom.

  “What? I was in the subway.” Crap—I just realized I was supposed to be at school, not on the subway! Delete! Delete!

  “Subway? What? Callie—I need you to go get Desmond.”

  “Why? Funzone just started.”

  “I’m in the middle of a Skype with a client and your brother is being sent home for hitting some boy in the head with a lunch bag.”

  “What?” This is so far from the realm of possibility that I assume that I have misheard her. “Where’s Dad?

  “With the lawyer. Look, you need to get Dezzie right away!”

  “Okay, I—okay, I’m going.” I click off. “I have to go pick up Desmond right away . . .” When I look up, I notice that Grandma Hildy has gone still. She stares at the photo she took from me—the one I found in my bag. Her lips have fallen slightly open. “It’s Larry,” she says softly. In the background, the last line of the song echoes, trailing off as it nears the end. Then it begins again abruptly; it’s on repeat.

  I twist my head to get a better look at the photo. “Yeah—and two other guys.”

  Grandma Hildy points. “Your father.”

  “Seriously?” I look more closely, and realize that she is right—the scrawny dude with the beard and the sunglasses . . . remove the beard, remove the sunglasses, add gray to the hair, add forty pounds . . . “Who is the other guy?”

  My grandmother sighs. “Stephen,” she says, but she doesn’t sound sure.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I never met him
. I just heard about him. He was your uncle’s friend.” She places the photo on the sideboard, not even asking if she can keep it. She can, of course. I’m just saying that she did not ask.

  Ugh! A thought occurs to me, and I blurt out, “Gran, can I have two hundred and fifty dollars?”

  Grandma Hildy blinks. “Why?” she asks.

  “Dad said I could go to this concert two months ago, so I told my friend to go ahead and buy tickets, so her mom did, but now we can’t really afford it, but it’s kind of too late—”

  “Your father isn’t going to honor his commitment?”

  “Well, since the hedge fund is shutting down—”

  “The hedge fund is closing?” Grandma Hildy’s face goes rigid, like a mask, and I realize OHMYGODMAYBETHAT’SASECRET.

  But nobody told me! I mean, I can barely keep a secret when I know it’s a secret! Okay, okay—quick, I need a positive reframe!

  Um . . . struggling . . .

  Grandma is looking at me like a hawk. “I’ll get my checkbook,” she says at last, and I am left standing there, kind of gasping.

  Biddy walks out from the kitchen and winds herself around my legs. “You are so lucky to be a cat,” I tell her, and a moment later my grandmother comes out with her purse over her arm. She finishes signing the check and hands it to me.

  Relief just pours through me like some kind of cleansing Bath and Body Works foaming bath wash, only without the gross smell. “Thank you,” I whisper.

  I hug her, and she says, “Now go get your brother,” so I go out into the hallway, and she follows. I call for the elevator, and step inside. “Are you coming? Should I wait for you?” I am offering to be polite, but I’m really kind of freaking out about Desmond.

  “I still have to put on my socks and sneakers and get my water bottle ready. You go ahead.”

  “Bye, Gran.”

  “Bye, sweetheart.”

  “Please don’t tell Dad about this,” I beg as I press the button for the first floor. I look down at the check again, and just as the door is closing, I notice the date Grandma Hildy wrote on the check—April 24, 1986.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  In which: bullies; ugh!

  SOMETIMES I THINK THAT it is not that surprising that famous people are always suffering from exhaustion because I think that I am suffering from exhaustion and my life is just normal. I do not even have time to freak out about the fact that I can’t cash a check from 1986 because I have to pick up my little brother, who apparently has beaten someone up. Do these things even count as first-world problems?

  I rub my right arm with my left because this place is over-air-conditioned. I am seated on a dark leather chair just outside the principal’s office at Desmond’s school. The seat is both poufy and uncomfortable somehow, like they shoved too much stuffing inside it. This office looks like a hunting lodge, only without the deer heads on the walls. I guess it would be a little weird for an elementary school principal to be surrounded by a bunch of dead animals. It might seem a bit spooky. This office is sort of accomplishing the spooky thing, even without the decapitated animals, though, and I’m just sitting in the reception area.

  “You can go in, Callie,” Mrs. Lewis tells me. I can’t see her over the partition that separates her desk from the seating area because Mrs. Lewis is about four feet tall even when she is standing up. She has worked at the school for over thirty years, and everybody knows she basically runs the place.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Lewis,” I say, and I give a little knock on the door and then push it open.

  Desmond is sitting on another one of those god-awful chairs, facing the principal, who looks like—and I mean this in the nicest possible way—a toad who has been drinking too much coffee. He’s pale, and bald, and his neck is somehow wider than his cheeks, and the pouches under his eyes look like they are filled with grape juice, and, basically, he looks like he has had the kind of week that I have been having, only for about ten years. He takes out a handkerchief and coughs into it, then sticks it back into the pocket of his jacket.

  Desmond’s lunch bag is on the desk, Exhibit A.

  I turn to Desmond, whose face is red and blotchy, but not like he has been crying. More like he is trying not to scream. “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “Callie Vitalis?” The principal stands up and shakes my hand, and I’m surprised by his tiny fingers and how slightly cold and almost wormy they feel. “Thank you for coming down. I’m Sal Becker.”

  “I met you at Family Night,” I remind him.

  “Oh, yes. Of course.” He drops back into his tall brown leather office chair, which lets out a sigh. “I’m releasing Desmond to you, as neither of your parents are available to pick him up, but please let them know that they should call the office and schedule an appointment as soon as possible.”

  “So what happened?”

  “I can’t give you that information,” Mr. Becker says. He coughs delicately into his handkerchief.

  I look over at Desmond, who rolls his eyes.

  “Okay.” In a way, I am super-relieved not to have to get into a whole discussion about what happened at school because my brain feels very much like a sponge that has been dropped in the ocean, and another ounce of information is just going to float around me like . . . I don’t know. Like extra water that can’t get into a sponge.

  I guess I’m too tired to metaphor right now.

  Des stands up, and I reach for the lunch bag, but Mr. Becker puts his hand on it to stop me. “I think we’ll just leave this here.” He gives me this tight little smile and clears his throat.

  “Oh. Okay,” I say, and Desmond gives me this how could you? look, but what am I supposed to do? Grab the lunch bag and bean the principal with it? Desmond stomps out of the principal’s office, and I kind of wince at Mr. Becker like I’m sorry and close the door behind me. When we leave, I hear him hacking into his handkerchief again, as if maybe he’s allergic to dealing with students.

  Mrs. Lewis is standing by the copy machine. “Where’s your lunch bag?” she asks Desmond, who just points at the door. “Hm.” Mrs. Lewis purses her lips and glances at Mr. Becker’s door like she might just barge in there. I really wish she were the principal.

  I don’t say anything to my brother until we are outside. “Desmond, what the heck?”

  My little brother bursts into tears, and I try to hug him but he pushes me away. “I’m not sad, I’m just mad!” He stomps his foot and bursts into tears all over again.

  “What happened?”

  “Simon Yee was making fun of my lunch bag and he tried to grab it away from me. I wouldn’t let him have it, and then I let go really suddenly, and he bashed himself in the forehead. The zipper cut his eyebrow, so blood was streaming down his face. I wish it had poked his eye out! I would’ve stomped on it!”

  “Desmond!” I seriously have never heard my brother this angry. Never. Ever. About anything.

  He looks a little guilty, then kind of gets over it and looks mad again. “That fustilarian!”

  Oh, boy. More Shakespeare. “Did you tell Mr. Becker the whole story?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said that it was my fault for bringing the lunch bag to school. He said I provoked Simon.”

  “Well, he’s kind of right. Why didn’t you just use the paper bag I gave you?”

  Desmond shakes his head. “When I woke up, I was just so—mad. I was going to take the paper bag, but then I saw Sparkle Pie on the counter and I grabbed it. It didn’t even have anything in it, so I put in a water bottle and an apple. I guess the water bottle was heavy, and that’s why Simon got hurt when he whacked himself.” Desmond shuffles down the asphalt. It’s four thirty—half an hour before Desmond’s after-school program usually ends. It does not seem to make much of a difference as to how many people are on the sidewalk, though. One of the interesting things about Manhattan is that people are always out walking around on the streets. Everyone seems to have jobs at odd times
, or maybe nobody has jobs, or they all have jobs that they do not care about.

  As usual, there are many possible possibilities.

  Desmond is staring at the ground, and I know that his mind has wandered off just like mine has. I do not think that he is so angry anymore, so I reach out for his hand and he lets me hold it. I feel a surge of love for my little brother, which is a very positive thing.

  “Tomorrow,” I say gently, “please just buy yourself a hot lunch.”

  Desmond’s mouth snaps open, like he is going to say something angry, but he stops himself. “Fine.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll have to, anyway. My lunch bag is in Mr. Becker’s office.”

  “That’s a good point.” I squeeze his hand, and I guess we both feel a little better. I’m not so mad anymore. The truth is that even though I think the principal was being unfair, I think that maybe he did the right thing. Desmond will just buy his lunch tomorrow, and Simon Yee will hopefully move on to bothering someone else.

  And then, at least one of my weird problems will be solved.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  In which I make a mess

  SO WHEN WE GOT home, my mom went all mental, and was like, “DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO CRAFT ARTISANAL SOAP WHEN YOUR OWN SON IS A DELINQUENT???!!!!” and there was a lot of yelling because my mom only has two clients who actually carry her soap in their stores, and as she says, it is VERY STRESSFUL TO TRY TO BUILD A BUSINESS.

  Desmond was defensive and refused to say he was sorry about Simon and then my mom was like, “I CAN’T DEAL WITH MAKING DINNER!” and when we all just stood there like uhhhhhhh, she shouted, “CAN I JUST GET A LITTLE HELP AROUND HERE!?” and then she sent Desmond to his room and went to lie down.

  It was quite the dramatic monologue, and that is why Dad and I are at Whole Foods picking up a rotisserie chicken and some other Whole Foods-y kinds of things. My dad is staring at the display of deli items, like it is some kind of intelligence test that we are both failing. “Why can’t they just have potato salad?” he asks.