Someday, Somewhere

by Lindsay Champion

  JAYESH MALHOTRA, MD, PhD

  NEW YORK PSYCHIATRIC CENTER

  Patient Name: Benjamin Tristan

  Address: 1480 Lexington Ave., Apt. 1556, New York, NY 10128

  BUPROPION HYDROCHLORIDE extended-release tablets, 150 mg

  Take one tablet by mouth once a day.

  Quantity: 100; 3 refills remaining

  JAYESH MALHOTRA, MD, PhD

  NEW YORK PSYCHIATRIC CENTER

  Patient Name: Benjamin Tristan

  Address: 1480 Lexington Ave., Apt. 1556, New York, NY 10128

  CLONAZEPAM tablets, 1 mg

  Take one tablet nightly before bed.

  Quantity: 30; no refills remaining

  {51}

  Dominique

  “Paging Miss Fashionably Late. If you don’t leave in the next three minutes, you’re going to miss your train.”

  “Okay, okay,” I yell to Cass in the living room. Tap shoes, check. Jazz shoes, check. Socks with little rubbery things on the bottoms, check. Change of tights, check. Dance skirt, check. Extra hair ties and bobby pins, check. Lip gloss, check. MetroCard, check.

  “Okay,” I say, poking my head out of the bedroom. “I’m ready.”

  Cass gasps in this completely exaggerated way, like he’s trying to suck all the air out of the room and into his lungs. “You look gorgeous.”

  “I’m just wearing dance clothes.”

  “I don’t care. You’re going to get it.”

  “I’m so glad the audition has absolutely nothing to do with my dance aptitude but everything to do with how I look in a pair of tights.”

  Cass shoos me away, and I run to the kitchen to grab the apple and water bottle my mom left for me on the counter. She’s at Spin Cycle, of course. Nothing new there. But she’s really excited about this college thing. Now, instead of talking about what we’re going to eat for dinner, we talk about what it’s going to be like when I move to New York next year. Not that it’s a done deal. But there’s a scholarship for lower-income students and if we combine that with the money Reg gave me and I take out student loans, it’s … possible. Now that there are three of us working together, it’s more than just a fantasy. Even just the promise of a plan has made my mom laugh and joke a lot more while she’s folding other people’s sheets.

  And she laughs and shakes her head whenever I say it, but my master plan is to get her to come to the city with me. She could get a job in retail — she folds faster than anyone I know and would probably be the manager by the end of the month — and we could move somewhere more affordable, like Queens or the Bronx, and Cass could move in with us, too. We could all move into one apartment at first, and as everyone starts to make more money expand out and eventually buy the entire building. Mom says I’m nuts when I start talking like this, but for the first time in years I’m actually letting myself dream. Maybe none of it will come true, but there’s always a chance.

  Mom’s been letting me work fewer hours so I can get ready for my audition, and Cass has been coming in to help her on weeknights. His plan is to start community college in the fall and work as many part-time jobs as he can so he can save a bunch of money. When he gets to the city, he wants to work in a restaurant at night and audition for movies during the day. (“Not, like, action movies or anything, though,” he says. I tell him he can’t be too picky.) I don’t think our Carnegie Hall apartment is in the cards, but we’ll settle for sharing a studio. We don’t need anything fancy. As long as it’s ours. Even just month to month.

  * *

  Taking the train is the simplest thing in the world now, since I started dance classes at a little studio in the East Village. Renee, my old teacher at the community center, told me about some “pay what you can” classes on Saturdays, and I’ve been going every week, thanks to train money from Reg. My dad.

  New Jersey towns speed by the window, like I’m watching a movie in fast-forward. Hamilton, Princeton Junction, New Brunswick, Edison, Metuchen, Metropark, Rahway. They’re all places I wished I could live when I was a kid. Now I have a chance to escape them all and live in New York City, the best place in the universe.

  Well, if I can nail this audition, get in and get the scholarship. But I can’t worry about that now. I just need to give the best audition I possibly can. That’s all I can do. Fate will have to do the rest. A boy with black hair walks through the train car, and for a second I think it might be Ben. He’s wearing a button-down shirt with a collar like Ben would. But as he passes, his eyes are too light and his nose is all wrong, and I wonder how I even thought it was Ben to begin with.

  I hope the real Ben is okay. I hope he’s happy.

  I see Fake Bens a lot. Someone with his eyes or his hair or his arms will walk past the window of Spin Cycle and I’ll get goose bumps. I’ll press my palms to the glass, trying not to blink, just in case. But it’s never really him. Cass thinks he sees him, too, sometimes. Ben look-alike on the corner of Washington and Roebling, he’ll text me. Not as cute as the real one, though.

  Ben sent me a bunch of e-mails right after One Perfect Day. Telling me he was still sick with mono and he couldn’t see me because he was contagious. And then that he was away on a family vacation to visit his aunt and uncle in California. And then that school had gotten way too busy and we’d have to meet up in a few more weeks. I knew these things were lies. He’d always end the e-mail with “I’m okay. I hope you’re okay, too.” But I wasn’t. And I knew he wasn’t. I just didn’t know how to ask what was wrong.

  Then, a few months later, he finally told me the truth. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and he had just gotten out of the hospital. He’d been in there for four months. On our One Perfect Day, he was having what his doctors called a “manic episode.” He said he barely even remembers it, but was able to put the pieces together with his psychologist. I looked up “manic episode” on Google, and the whole thing really scared me. It could have been so much worse. He’s lucky he went to the doctor when he did. And that I yelled for the guard, and he helped me get him down.

  And then he apologized. He told me he was sorry for pushing me to sneak into Carnegie Hall when I didn’t want to. Sorry for keeping me out too late, even though I needed to go home. And especially sorry for making me feel uncomfortable. (Which was actually a total understatement.)

  I wrote back, fingers cramping I was typing so fast, telling him none of those things mattered. I wanted to take him in my arms and wrap him up and make him feel safe, the way he made me feel when I needed it more than anything. I told him to please keep writing to me, even if he didn’t want to see me. I didn’t tell him — because I didn’t want to worry him and make this even harder than it already was — that at the time, his e-mails were the only thing holding me together. Without them, getting up in the morning was pointless. Why even bother to go to school? Why not just melt into a puddle and drip into the gutters on Main Street and get washed away in a rainstorm?

  Three excruciating days later he wrote back.

  To: hidingbehindcurls@gmail.com

  From: lookingforatrain@gmail.com

  Subject: You are …

  February 8, 11:12 p.m.

  My A Train,

  You are the most kind, caring, funny, charismatic, badass, beautiful person I’ve ever met in my life. I need you to believe me when I say this. When I was sick, I wanted to bottle you up and take you around with me so I could always feel your energy. I thought if I could just figure out a way to do that, I’d be relaxed and happy, like you. But now I’m realizing that’s not how it works. I can’t save you and you can’t save me. We need to stay on our own paths. And right now, I need to know that I can be healthy on my own before I can be healthy with someone else. Please, please understand, A Train. I just need to know I can do this. I know you can, too.

  Love, Ben

  I e-mailed a couple more times after that. I called hi
m once, leaving a rambling voice mail about wanting to be friends if that’s what he wanted and offering to meet by the fountain at Lincoln Center, like we used to. Just to catch up. Just to see how he was doing. But he never called back.

  Then it was a week between e-mails.

  Then it was two weeks.

  And then it was nothing.

  No one really ever knew about Ben and me except for Cass. Sometimes I wonder if Ben ever existed in the first place, or if he was just a mirage — appearing when I needed him most, then disappearing back into the crowd as it rushed past Grand Central Station. City anonymity. Hundreds of people moving as one.

  There are more than 8.5 million people in New York City. Statistically, I could live here my entire life and never see him again.

  I wanted to tell my mom. Especially at the end. But I knew if I tried to describe him from memory, I could never do him justice. The way his eyes got squinty when he smiled. The way his hair fell across his forehead, and just when you thought it was about to fall into his eyes, his fingertips would brush the strands away. The way he’d get excited about something and talk without taking a breath, until he was practically gasping for air. The way he unlocked the whole city, and all its music, and showed me how I fit inside it. The way he gave me the strength to rise out of this mess, and the confidence to dream of something better. Like the life he had. Or I thought he had.

  So I just couldn’t.

  I left him out of the story completely.

  One morning at Spin Cycle, Mom came in with a bag of Mrs. Fisher’s delicates, like she does every week. I saw her sorting them all carefully into the sink and I knew I had to tell her about seeing my dad. I felt like I was going to throw up, but I started to talk anyway, words flying out of my mouth so fast I wasn’t even sure what I’d end up saying.

  “Hey, Mom? Can I ask you a question?”

  “What, baby?” She pushed her hands into the sudsy water, up to her elbows, like I’ve seen her do a thousand times.

  “Actually, it’s not a question. I have something to tell you. Um … I saw Dad.”

  “What? Where?”

  “In New York.”

  “What were you doing in New York?”

  “I went to see him.”

  “By yourself?”

  “Yeah.”

  She stopped. “Without asking me.”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry. I knew you wouldn’t want me to.”

  “How did you get the money to go?”

  “I did something really bad.”

  She pulled her hands out of the water. They were chapped from the cold, all the way up to her forearms, like she was wearing long pink gloves. She wiped her hands on her jeans.

  “What? Don’t you dare tell me you stole it or you did something illegal or —”

  “I found some money in a coat we were sending out for dry cleaning. I’m so sorry. I saved the owner’s receipt and I have her contact information, and I almost have enough to pay her back.” I was crying then, like a snot-dripping-down-my-face kind of embarrassing cry, and Mom was hugging me and telling me how dumb it was, and I could have just asked for the money, and then I told her that I was afraid of what she’d think, because I knew she hated my dad and didn’t want me to have anything to do with him. And then I told her about knocking on the door and the pancakes and his daughter who speaks Spanish, and everything I said to him. And then Mom was telling me how sorry she was that I didn’t have a dad in my life, and we were hugging each other and crying so hard that Mom had to lock the store and put the Be Right Back sign in the window.

  And then I showed her the note my dad sent in the mail, written on a Wildwood, New Jersey, postcard.

  Dominique —

  Thank you for coming to visit me. I’m sorry I didn’t say that when you were here. I didn’t know what to say. I want you to grow up smarter than me. I don’t have a lot of money, but I want to help you if I can. I’d like to meet you and your mom for breakfast and talk about college.

  — Dad (Reg)

  But I never told my mom about Ben, the person who inspired me to do it all in the first place.

  Sometimes I wonder if Ben even really loved me to begin with. How could you be preoccupied, obsessed with someone one day, and then the next day just vanish? I know — if he’s sick, as sick as he says, he probably isn’t in the right mind-set to be in a relationship. He probably doesn’t want to hurt me again. But I just wish that this time I could be the one to help him, the way he helped me.

  Ben was music. And that’s the thing about music, I guess. It begins, it consumes you and then it ends.

  * *

  I step onto the hot platform at Penn Station and my hair immediately frizzes up. I wore my black tights, hoping they’d show sweat the least, but now I’m wondering if I should have gone with a brighter color, like blue or green, so my legs don’t absorb as much heat. I pinch the fabric on my thighs to air them out.

  I swipe my MetroCard at the turnstile, push my way through, then double-check the directions I’ve scribbled down on the audition notice. Take the A, C or E train to West Fourth Street, where I used to tell Ben my dorm was. Walk up to Washington Square Park and look for the tall tan building on the north side with the plaque that says NEW YORK UNIVERSITY. Check in with the security guard, then go up to the twelfth floor.

  There’s no one else on the platform but me, so I do a few stretches. First position. Second position. Lunges. Pliés. Tendus.

  On the uptown track across from me, two guys and a girl walk up the stairs and onto the platform. They peer into the tunnel, checking to see if a train is coming. One of the guys has short dark hair. The other one says something, and the short-haired boy smiles, shakes his head and looks down.

  It’s Ben. Not a fake one. The real one.

  He’s holding an instrument case, but it’s bigger than a violin. I’m pretty sure it’s a saxophone. The girl elbows him and he smiles at her, dimples flashing. I should be jealous, I should have rage burning inside me like I did with the red-haired girl, but for some reason I don’t. There’s an ease about him I’ve never seen before. Something has unwound. Not unraveled, but unwound.

  Then he sees me, and our eyes meet across the platform, like there’s an invisible thread pulling us tight through the empty space. I nod at his saxophone, and I can swear he nods back at my dance clothes. The corners of his blue eyes crinkle and I think I see his lips start to curve up into a grin.

  An A train whooshes between us, and I flinch. I’m too close to the platform edge and I back up immediately. But it’s an uptown train, on the opposite side, and it hesitates for a moment before the doors open.

  Stand clear of the closing doors, please, echoes the recorded announcement. Then there’s a ding and the doors shut again.

  As the train pulls away, I hear the notes from West Side Story.

  “There’s a place for us …”

  I look back across the platform.

  It’s empty.

  About the Author

  Lindsay Champion is a graduate of the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, where she spent most of her time doing high kicks and eating falafel.

  After a stint as a closed caption writer (best memory: captioning the first six Rocky movies for TV), she served as the features editor at Broadway.com, where she managed to interview her celebrity crushes Paul Rudd, Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal without fainting or peeing her pants. She is the food and wellness director for the digital media company PureWow, mostly for the snacks.

  This is her first novel.

  Acknowledgments

  When I was ten, my parents took their ancient typewriter out of the garage and put it on the curb to give away. I begged my dad to help me carry it upstairs to my room instead. My first YA novel, The Sitter Sisters, was a horrifically terrible knockoff of The Baby-Sitters Club. So my parents (mom: a children
’s book author; dad: a jazz musician and teacher) sat me down and explained the importance of finding my own creative voice. Mom, Dad, I can never thank you enough for doing this.

  Fast forward to today: the incomparable Kate Egan is my editor. Ten-year-old me would be flipping out right now. Kate, you’ve made my experience as a first-time author an absolute dream. I’m so lucky to have you as my mentor, collaborator and guide, and I can’t thank you enough for everything.

  Without my brilliant agent Sarah Davies, this book would just be a stack of pages under my bed. She and the wonderful team at

  Greenhouse Literary Agency have never given up on me or my writing, even when I was thiiisssscloooose to giving up myself.

  Huge thanks to Lisa Lyons Johnston, Genie MacLeod, Olga

  Kidisevic and the rest of the phenomenal team at KCP Loft for guiding me through this process and taking a chance on Dominique and Ben. (And making this jaded New Yorker want to move to Toronto, because you’re all so darn sweet and kind.)

  My writing group buddies Michelle Levy and Amy Ball have seen every draft of this book, and they’ve helped me shape it from “wouldn’t it be cool if I wrote something about a violin prodigy” to an actual thing. You guys rock.

  Nicholas Pappone: a million thank yous for agreeing to meet with a writer you’ve never heard of in a tiny Italian restaurant in Washington Heights, bringing a stack of sheet music Ben would play and talking me through every last passage over wine and spaghetti. Thank you for fielding frantic phone calls about concertmasters and violin strings. Ben wouldn’t exist without you.

  A few more kind musicians have helped make sure Ben and the students at the Brighton Conservatory are as true to life as possible. Kevin Li, Janet Benton and Anthony “Hootz” Taylor, thank you so much for your help with these details.

  I’m so grateful to my blondestorming partner Imogen Lloyd Webber for her help on the path to publication, Caitlin McNaney for connecting me to some fantastic music resources, Marc (not Mark) Snetiker for the endless support and Ryan Lee Gilbert for the killer book recommendations.