“Layla, your parents would help if you just asked them,” Quinn continues as she follows me out. “It’s not like they’re hurting for cash. Your dad is the best plastic surgeon in Seattle, for crying out loud.”
I stop just as I grab the doorknob, suddenly seething and wanting something to take out my frustration. It’s one of those times where I miss the combative outlet of soccer, where it’s acceptable to kick the shit out of a ball and run over anyone who gets in my way. Everything that was good about this day—about this weekend—has just evaporated, and Quinn only wants to push me further into the abyss. She doesn’t get it. None of them do.
My dad is the definition of the macho Brazilian father. Sure, he’d love to help his little girl, just like he’d love any reason to cart his kid back from the big bad city and force her to live at home until she’s married. It doesn’t help that my mom thinks the same way. Neither of them understood in the first place why I had to leave home for college, let alone move to New York. There is nothing they’d like better than to cut off my tuition checks and force me to transfer to the University of Washington. Credit card debt and a too-old boyfriend would be the perfect excuses.
I turn once again to glare at Quinn, who has suddenly become my scapegoat. I’ve told her about my dad—she knows I’d rather pull out my fingernails one by one than ask him for money.
“Well, my folks don’t own half of fucking New England like yours,” I spit out. “My dad might make some money, but I wasn’t raised with a silver spoon.”
“Layla,” she starts again, earning one more glower from me even as her voice starts to rise.
“Don’t,” I order her, and shut the door behind me.
~
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Layla
It takes me a good hour and a half of walking around the snow-lined streets of Lower Manhattan before I’m ready to apologize to Quinn. She’ll forgive me—she always does, just like I forgive her for spouting off at me. I know in another week or two I’ll bear the brunt of one of her shitty moods to make up for it.
As much as I hate to admit it, I know Quinn is right. I need to get that shit paid off, and soon—otherwise it will eat at my credit score. Law school isn’t cheap, and federal loans don’t cover all of the tuition. God, if I’ve heard that from my father, I’ve heard it a million times.
But by the time I return to my dorm, the girls have all left—most likely to the library. Instead of being responsible and doing the same, I spend the last ninety minutes walking around Soho, window-shopping for things I can’t possibly afford, and trying to figure out exactly how I am going to pay off the debt I somehow racked up in the last year and a half. So far, the only solutions I’ve come up with are selling my body on the street or giving up my social life for a while.
I continue to brood through another bowl of oatmeal and prep for my date with Nico. I decide to go totally casual this time, the better to help me play nonchalant when I certainly can’t depend on my face to do it. My curls have air-dried again around my shoulders with appropriate devil-may-care waywardness, and I’m just wearing my favorite gray Rolling Stones t-shirt with jeans and brown boots. I dress up the outfit with a little bit of jewelry, but it’s still very “I was just hanging out when you happened to show up.” It also feels a lot more like me than the decked out look I was rocking last night.
Nico calls up to the room promptly at two.
“I’ll be right down,” I tell him as I jot a quick apology note and leave it on top of a candy bar I picked up for Quinn. That bitch better appreciate it––it was purchased with my last dollar from the bottom of my purse. I pull my coat back on and skip the elevator, running two at a time down the stairwell to meet Nico outside.
He’s taken a shower and changed his clothes since departing from my room this morning and is dressed as casually as I am in a pair of fitted jeans and a white t-shirt, over which he wears his black parka and a Yankees hat on backward. New York is still mostly white, courtesy of the snowfall the night before, and his big black boots will make walking through the snow much easier. I’m dressed similarly for the cold, in my big down coat and a cream-colored wool cap pulled over my curls.
“Hiya, sweetie,” he says with a light peck on my lips, and I thrill at the rumbling of his low voice against my skin. “You wanna go to the Cloisters?”
I frown, adjusting my hat against the cold. It’s not snowing anymore, but the winds have definitely picked up, and the “Cloisters,” whatever they are, sound suspiciously outdoors and possibly expensive. “What’s that?”
“Art, remember?” He gives me a crooked smile, recalling the conversation we had at the office. “You’ll like it, I promise. You up for an adventure?”
I squint at him, feigning suspicion, then shrug. I still have a little bit left on one of my credit cards. “Sure, why not?”
~
The Cloisters, I soon find out, are castle-style buildings that house a large collection of medieval art. It’s an extension of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, located at the very northern tip of Manhattan.
Nico and I catch the A train uptown, enjoying the hour-long ride tucked into each other’s sides while we chat amiably about our mornings. He tells me about Mass with his family and makes me giggle when he describes the way his brother managed to spill wine down his shirt when he was taking the Eucharist. I recount the boring details of the gym and skate briefly over my disagreement with Quinn without giving him all the gory details about my finances.
“Sounds like she’s just looking out for you,” Nico says at one point. “Your girl sees you stressing over a stack of bills; she just wants to help you figure it out.”
“I know,” I admit. “I was kind of a bitch to her, so I left her a little apology gift before I came down for you. But…well…it’s really none of her business unless I want it to be, right?”
Nico’s quiet, like he knows I’m second-guessing that statement myself. Then he shrugs and shifts his gaze around the subway car, checking out the other people. We sit a bit awkwardly until finally he breaks the silence, although still not looking directly at me.
“Look, Layla, I don’t know what’s going on between your friends and your family…it’s not really my business either—”
“That’s not what I meant,” I start to protest, but his dark, piercing eyes silence me as he continues.
“It isn’t my business,” he repeats. “You don’t know me. But since you brought it up, it sounds like you’re behind on things enough that your friend feels like she has to step in. So I’ll say this, and then I’ll shut the fuck up about it so I don’t sound like your dad or something. Don’t fuck with your money. I’ve been there, owing money and not being able to eat, and it fuckin’ sucks. If you need help, ask someone—your dad, your friends, whoever’s willing. Don’t be so proud you just screw yourself later, all right?”
He holds my gaze for a beat as a rush of blood rises in my face. Finally, I tear myself away and sit forward so that his arm falls from around my shoulder. I take a few deep breaths, trying to push away the hot tears and shame of knowing he’s right—they’re all right—down where I can ignore them again. I feel like an idiot. How immature must he think I am, that he has to give me life advice? I wanted him to look at me like an adult...but I literally stuck my tongue out at Quinn like a little kid. How grown up am I?
“It’s nothing to worry about,” I insist once I’m able to look at him again. I force a smile. “Really. Quinn’s kind of a drama queen, and sometimes I am too. Please don’t worry about me. What else did you do this morning?”
Nico cocks his head to the side, measuring my response before he decides to let it go. I’m already figuring out that Nico is not the kind of person who will press you to talk if you don’t want to. He has patience that my friends and I don’t have.
The train emerges from the underground tunnel, elevated as we pass a cluster of tall brick tenement buildings. I’ve never been inside buildings like them, even tho
ugh there are plenty in plain view everywhere you go here, lining the periphery of the island and most of the outer boroughs too. But anyone who has ever watched music videos knows they look like a prison on the inside, with shitty florescent lighting, thin walls, small windows.
“Projects,” Nico says knowingly, catching me staring at the buildings.
I turn. “I know.” I pause for a moment, and then a question bubbles up before I can stop it. “Do you live in the projects?”
He snorts, and I immediately feel foolish all over again.
“No, sweetie, I don’t,” he says kindly.
I want to explain that I didn’t necessarily ask because he’s not white––didn’t I?––but because he said he knows what it’s like to be poor. It never occurred to me before now that maybe he still is. These buildings line the edges of the island almost all the way around. Why wouldn’t he live in one?
Nico’s hand slips up my back and squeezes my shoulder. Great, now he feels sorry for me. But my curiosity, that stubborn bitch, gets the best of me.
“Did you ever live in one of them?”
I don’t know what made me ask. Something about the way he talks about his family, sharing bedrooms, or the way his mother doesn’t seem to be able to do much for herself anymore. Or maybe it’s just the look on his face when he saw the buildings. A shadow lurks under that bright smile. I want so badly to know this man sitting next to me on the train, but I don’t know how to do it besides ask the questions, dumb or not.
As if on cue, Nico’s expression darkens as he looks back at the buildings receding into the distance.
“No,” he says carefully. “But…I might as well have.”
“What does that mean?”
He chews on his lower lip for a moment, considering. “Tell me something, NYU. How many bedrooms did you have in your house growing up?”
I frown. There’s that moniker again, and this time it feels like a designation, a reminder of the difference in our social...I don’t know what to call it. Stations? Upbringings? I want a word that won’t sound so permanent.
I don’t want to do this—we’ll get nowhere comparing that sort of thing, and it will make me look like a spoiled brat. Which, compared to him, maybe I am.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I ask.
“Just tell me, baby,” he cajoles. “I won’t judge. But it matters.”
I look back at the tenement buildings, now almost out of sight, and then back at him.
“I know what poverty looks like, if that’s what you’re getting at,” I say carefully. “I’ve seen the favelas—the slums—in Brazil. I’ve driven through places where people live in houses literally built out of crumbling bricks and metal scraps they steal off railroad cars. Whatever’s inside those buildings, I promise it’s about ten times better than those people live.”
“You think those favelas—” he pronounces the word carefully, testing out the unfamiliar accent, “—are worse than the projects?”
“Yeah, I do,” I contend mulishly. “I’ve seen kids there running around the streets with open sores all over their legs. Half the women are forced into prostitution because they can’t make enough money as maids to eat. People ‘disappear’ all the time, and the cops won’t go there because the gangs are stronger than they are. You know, when my dad was a kid, most of the favelas weren’t even included as part of the city, so they didn’t even get basic services like water, electricity, and sanitation. So yeah, I think it’s worse.”
“People die in the projects here,” Nico counters. “There are some places here that a pretty rich girl like you should never, ever go by yourself because you might disappear too.”
He leans in, close enough so that his nose is almost touching mine, and his sooty eyes burn with a kind of intensity that holds me still even though I want to turn away. I shake my head, trying my best to break the connection. It doesn’t work.
“I get it. There’s poverty everywhere. But it’s real life, not a rap song. I’m sorry, but you can’t tell me that a building with plumbing and lighting and walls that are all of the same material is worse than the worst living conditions in a developing country.”
Nico shakes his head and rubs his face. “Layla, that’s not what I’m saying,” he says, clearly a little frustrated. “My mother was born in a place like that. She grew up in a ghetto outside of San Juan. Trust me, I know it’s better here.”
I frown. “Then what’s your point?”
He presses his full lips together. “Just that it’s not really fair to make those comparisons in the first place. Just because those buildings have basic utilities doesn’t mean they’re safe. And just because someone calls one of them ‘projects’ doesn’t mean they’re hell on Earth. Have you ever actually been inside one of those buildings, NYU?” he asks, his voice dropping into a decibel that’s almost menacing.
The man who shoved the testy investment banker against a wall like he was as light as a scarecrow is back, and I don’t want to be on his bad side. I gulp, and I swear I can feel Nico relishing my discomfort.
“No,” I admit.
“So answer the question, NYU. How many bedrooms did you have in your house growing up?”
“Five,” I admit, my voice small as I focus on folding my scarf in my lap.
Nico sits back in his seat and waits until I finally look to see his face, half satisfied, but half…resentful? Regretful? I can’t tell.
“We had one,” he says as the train dips back down into the tunnel system below the city. We turn away from the window and face the inside of the car, which is old and covered in graffiti, and mostly emptied of people now that we’ve passed through Harlem.
I gape, but not at the vandalism. “You had one bedroom? Weren’t there, like, four of you in that place?”
“Five,” he corrects me. “Sometimes six if my mom had a boyfriend. My sisters slept on the Murphy bed. Gabe slept in the bedroom with our mom or on the floor until he was seven; then he got my spot on the couch when I left.”
I’m the only child in my family. My parents have three extra bedrooms that sit empty in our big suburban house, kept sparkling for relatives who never come to visit. Nico’s family had one to share. Jesus.
“How old were you when you left?” I ask, unable to conceal the awe in my voice, along with the guilt.
“Fifteen,” Nico says in a heavy voice.
“That’s young,” I remark, and he blinks and straightens slightly.
“Um, yeah. I was in a program for a few years that...brought inner city kids to the country to see what that’s like. But eventually I came back to Hell’s Kitchen and got my shit together enough to go to school for a little while. You know the rest.”
It’s clear by his tone that he doesn’t want to linger on this story, but I can’t help myself. “And your mom still lives in that apartment?”
He rubs hands together impatiently. “Yes. Layla, I don’t really want to talk about my past anymore though, all right? My point was just that things can be bad here too. My family didn’t even have it as bad as some, but a lot of people who live in those buildings over there, they still had it better than us. ‘Projects’ is just a word, baby. It doesn’t tell you everything.”
I nod, now wanting more than ever to know more of his story, how he grew up. I want to know how a family of five could get along living together like that for years. I wonder if it’s even legal. But somehow, I know that pressing the issue will probably only make Nico withdraw further, and that’s the last thing I want.
Instead, we let the rumble of the train and the hum of other conversations fill the new silence that grows between us. As we sit back on the hard subway seats, I can’t help but wonder just how much of his life in New York Nico has spent in train cars just like these. I also wonder if he has ever wanted to leave.
~
The Cloisters is about a ten-minute walk up a hill from the second to last stop on the route. As we trudge up the snowy drive, a large tower com
es into view. It doesn’t actually look so much like a castle as like the Roman-style basilicas in Europe and, as it happens, Brazil. A large tower rises above a square-shaped building, in the center of which is an outdoor garden space guests can roam during the spring and summer months.
We walk around the gated building and locate the entrance on one side. Once we’re inside, Nico pulls out a season pass to show the ticket-booth attendant and hands over the “suggested” student fee before I’m able to take out my wallet.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I say while I attach the small “M” clip to my sweater. I tuck my hat and mittens into my satchel and sling my overcoat through the straps.
“Please,” he says. “You’re my date, and you’re just a poor college student.”
In light of our earlier conversation, I can’t help but feel guilty that he’s paying despite my obvious privilege compared to his family, but I shake it off as he grabs my hand and tows me into the museum like he owns the place.
He knows it as if he owns it too. I have my very own tour guide, because Nico has memorized just about every piece of art in the museum and all the trivia to go with it.
“So, get this,” he rambles as we walk around the stone interior. “The museum is constructed from parts of five different medieval buildings from Europe. The rich guys who funded the place—Rockefeller, I think, and some other cats—actually purchased parts of churches and abbeys in Southern France and had them shipped over here, brick by brick, to reconstruct. On the tip of fuckin’ Manhattan. Is that crazy, baby, or what?”
I have to agree that it is, and look on in awe as we walk in and out of the various buildings—the cloisters for which the place is named—peering at the medieval art and sculptures that adorn every room. We are mostly alone; few people want to make the trip up here in the snow, I suppose. Nico eventually steers me into a large room where the walls aren’t lined with paintings, but with tapestries.
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