“You know what?” he said. “No charge. Keep the money.”
“Thank yoooou!” the girls shrieked in unison, toppling out of the car and onto the sidewalk.
They lay there in a little pile laughing and squealing for a minute before helping each other to their feet.
“You ready, Gertles?” Rachel asked when they stood up tall and stared up at the building, grins plastered across their faces.
“I’m finally ready,” Gertie said. “Let’s fucking do this.”
They strode into the Henry Hotel, confident and proud and beautiful. They looked a lot older than they were—and they also, somehow, looked very, very young.
The Henry Hotel couldn’t have looked more different from the standard-issue Holiday Inn in which Flemington High School sophomores were staying. This hotel was hip and funky and cool, with lots of artsy-looking white furniture, a roaring fireplace, and a black-and-white swirly rug. Pink chandeliers hung from the ceiling. House music thumped in the lobby.
“Wow,” Rachel whispered. “So cool.”
Gertie marched right up to the concierge and smiled brilliantly.
“Hi,” she said to the stylish young man. “We’re here for a pool party.”
“I’m sorry, miss,” the concierge said, and he genuinely did sound sorry. “The pool closed at two a.m.”
Gertie looked shocked. “It’s after two a.m.?”
“It is three, miss,” the concierge said gently.
“Oh, NO,” Gertie moaned. “Oh this is terrible.”
“Hold on,” Rachel said, rushing to the counter. “Can you call a room for us? Or give us a number and we’ll call the room? From, uh, your phone?”
“I’m afraid I can’t unless it’s an absolute emergency, miss,” the concierge said. “Don’t want to wake anyone up.”
“It is an emergency!” Sivan said. “It is a huge emer-
gency!”
The concierge looked at Gertie.
“Is it, miss?” he asked.
She sighed.
“No,” she said glumly, her shoulders dropping, her eyes on the floor.
“Very well then,” the concierge said. “Is there anything else I can assist you with before you’re on your way?”
“We could use a cab back to the Holiday Inn,” Gertie said softly. Tears pooled in her eyes and she willed them not to drop onto the pretty, fancy carpet.
“Of course, miss,” the concierge said. “I’ll call you one right away.”
“No!” Sivan said. “There has to be some way we can get upstairs!”
“There is not, miss,” the concierge said. “I can assure you our in-house security team would not permit a non-guest to enter at this hour unless a guest expressly gave permission. And now, let me call you that cab.”
The girls trudged out to the sidewalk and stood under the bright green taxi light affixed to the front of the hotel. They were silent for a few minutes, Sivan patting Gertie’s back and Rachel twisting her hands in frustration. When the cab arrived, they crowded into the back.
“Holiday Inn, please,” Gertie said.
“No,” Rachel said. “The Lincoln Memorial.”
“Why?” Gertie asked.
“I know why,” Sivan said. “Because Danny went, right? With the redhead and the hot lesbian and their friends.”
“Exactly,” Rachel said. “Sivan, sometimes we seriously do have this mind meld thing.”
“No, we don’t,” Sivan said. “I just love you and I love Gertie and I want her to see what Danny saw too. The sunrise at the Lincoln Memorial. We can at least do that for her. Right, Gertie?”
Gertie looked very small. She sniffled.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s do that, at least.”
The cab driver drove off, heading south on 21st Street NW toward the Lincoln Memorial, and the girls held hands in the backseat.
“It will be cool to see this anyway,” Rachel said. “I mean, Lincoln freed the slaves.”
“Only after a concerted abolitionist movement by women and people of color,” Sivan interjected. “And his motivation was largely economic, not moral.”
“Well, that’s debatable,” Rachel said.
They chattered on and Gertie half listened, bouncing along gently with the windows open to the cool night air.
He dropped them off, and it was eerily quiet but incredibly beautiful. They approached the gorgeous white marble temple with the imposing pillars, illuminated from within. Of course Sivan knew everything about it.
“Daniel Chester French designed the statue,” she said in a low voice. “It’s nineteen feet tall. It’s supposed to be Lincoln contemplating his choices during the Civil War. Above his head, it says, ‘In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.’”
They climbed the steps slowly and then stopped to sit on the very top step.
“This is so cool,” Sivan whispered. “It’s like we’re sitting at his feet.”
“It feels so ancient,” Rachel whispered.
“Not really,” Sivan said. “It was dedicated in 1922, I think.”
“What do we do now?” Rachel asked.
“We wait,” Gertie said. “We wait for the sun to rise. It won’t be long now. Just a couple of hours.” She gazed out at the vast reflecting pool and felt a kind of strange, sad peace.
They sat in silence for what seemed like forever, even though it was perhaps ten minutes at most. They all put their hoodies on, because it was the sort of cold it gets right before the dawn on any morning.
“Hey, Gertie?” Sivan finally asked, breaking the quiet.
“Yeah, Sivan?”
“What’s so special about Danny Bryan, anyway?”
Gertie was quiet for a moment.
“When I look at him, I feel infinite,” she said.
“Wow,” Sivan said. “That’s kind of beautiful.”
“I don’t get it,” Rachel said. “Like your feelings for him are infinite?”
“Kind of,” Gertie said. “It’s more like the feeling I have for him, the attraction or whatever, is so strong that I feel I could power the sun or something, but forever, like it’s a resource that will never run out.”
“Like a renewable energy source,” Sivan said. “Wind power. That kind of thing.”
“Um, sure,” Gertie said. “I guess. Danny Bryan is smart and handsome and funny and amazing and the idea of even being near him makes me feel like I could be happy without anything else, without us dating or having sex or getting married and having kids or anything like that. Like I could exist peacefully and joyfully just sitting near him, forever.”
“So you’re in love with Danny Bryan, like, for real,” Rachel said.
“Yes,” Gertie said. “I am completely and totally in love with Danny Bryan.”
Behind them, they heard a cough. They whipped their heads around, startled.
And looked right up at Danny Bryan.
“NO fucking WAY,” Rachel said.
“Holy shit,” Sivan said. “Ooh boy.”
Gertie said nothing. She couldn’t say anything. She was in a living nightmare, and her voice froze in her throat.
He looked amazing, of course, as per usual. Perfect cheekbones. Fantastic dark hair. Dark eyes. White teeth a flash in the darkness. Good God.
“Danny fucking Bryan,” Gertie tried to say, but she still couldn’t speak.
Danny Bryan smiled down at her and practically shouted, “DO YOU GO TO CAMP WILLOPE?”
The girls looked at each other, confused.
Then Danny Bryan took out his ear buds.
“Sorry,” he said in a normal voice. “I’ve been blasting Kendrick Lamar for like a full hour.”
“Nice choice,” Sivan said approvingly.
Gertie found her voice. It was very small, but she found it.
“So—you—didn’t hear anything we said?” she squeaked.
“Nah,” Danny Bryan said in his perfect,
nonchalant Danny Bryan way. “I had the music turned way up.”
Gertie looked at Sivan. Sivan looked at Rachel. Rachel looked at Gertie.
“Is this real life?” Rachel asked in wonder.
“I’m Gertie,” Gertie said.
“I know,” Danny said. “You’re the counselor who won’t ever talk to me.”
Sivan and Rachel stared at each other with huge eyes. They were dying. Dying. And Gertie knew they were dying, but she was in such a trance that she couldn’t even do anything about the fact that her BFFs were freaking out.
“I’m Danny,” Danny said.
“I know,” Gertie said. “You’re Danny Bryan.”
“Listen, I don’t know if I ever did something to offend you,” Danny said. “But if I did, I’m really sorry.”
“Offend me?” Gertie said, shocked. “Why would you have offended me?”
“Well, you haven’t said one thing to me since that day you talked to me by the salad bar your first year,” Danny said. “I know it’s a big camp, but that’s a long time to not talk to somebody.”
Gertie’s world turned upside down and inside out and exploded and then came back together all in one moment.
He had thought she was ignoring him.
“It’s okay, I mean, I get it,” Danny said, and he sounded a little embarrassed and shy then. Danny Bryan sounded shy and embarrassed. “I mean when we were kids, I figured it was just because I was a couple years older and maybe you didn’t want to hang out with anybody outside your level or something. But then since we’ve both been counselors, I always wanted to talk to you, but you’d always turn around and go the other way, or just not look at me, so, I dunno …”
“Oh my God,” Gertie said. “I am seriously just shy. Like it’s horrible. I always noticed you. I always.”
It was hard to tell in the dark, but Gertie was pretty sure Danny Bryan blushed.
Danny. Bryan. Blushed.
Gertie thought she might pass out.
“Oh, shit,” Rachel said worriedly. “Looks like we’ve got company.” A crowd of about twenty figures appeared out of the darkness.
“It’s cool,” Danny said. “Those are my friends from school, right on schedule.” As they approached and faces became clearer, Sivan saw the two girls from earlier.
“Hey!” said the pretty brunette. “We know you three! The girls from Flemington! What’s up?” She laughed and hugged each of them. The redhead high-fived each of them in turn.
“What are you all doing here?” Gertie asked in wonder.
“We’re here to celebrate freedom by getting fucked up and watching the sunrise,” the brunette said. “Not that we aren’t already fucked up. We all got kicked out of the pool for partying, actually. We had to save the night somehow, right?”
“We’re wasted,” the redhead said. “I mean, most of us are drunk as fuck.”
“So are we!” Rachel said excitedly. “You guys brought treats, though?”
“Hell yeah we did,” said the brunette.
“Awesome!” Sivan said, and she and Rachel and the other two girls ran off with some of the Lindbergh kids to get high.
Gertie and Danny Bryan stood by themselves and stared at each other. It was definitely, without a doubt, the best moment of Gertie’s life on Planet Earth thus far. She didn’t know if she’d ever felt so much excitement and joy all at once. She felt like she was floating. She didn’t need to smoke a bowl with everybody else. No drug could possibly make her feel this awesome.
And then it got even better.
“So—hi, Gertie,” Danny said, a little awkwardly. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”
Without thinking, Gertie stuck out her hand. And instead of shaking it, he held it.
“You promise you don’t hate me?” he said, looking at her seriously.
“I don’t hate you,” Gertie said. “I’m just really, really shy sometimes.”
“For seven years, you’re shy?” Danny said.
“With you, yes,” Gertie admitted. “But I always wanted to talk to you. Always.”
“I get nervous around you,” Danny said. “Like I’m nervous right now.”
“Me too,” Gertie said, and they both laughed a little.
“Well, I’m not usually shy or nervous,” Danny said. “So I’m gonna hug you, okay?”
“That’s probably fine,” Gertie said faintly, and he wrapped her in his arms like he’d know her for years.
Which, if you thought about it, he kind of had.
They held each other for a while there, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, while their friends got high as hell. Gertie felt infinite.
Alicia and Brian did get around to ordering Thai food, but only after they’d fucked four times (Alicia counted the time he went down on her as the first time, the time she sucked him off as the second time, the time they did it with her legs behind her head as the third time, and the time they did it in the shower as the fourth time) and really worked up an appetite. They agreed that there was something about having sex in a hotel bed that was so much more fun than doing it in a regular bed, even though neither one of them had done it with anyone anywhere at all for quite some time. And then after pad thai, Brian suggested they watch an old rerun of Star Trek: The Next Generation, so they did, but then they had to fuck again in the middle of it.
They fell asleep naked, wrapped in each other’s arms, as the black of evening gave way to the dim blue of morning.
Gertie and Danny spent the rest of the night sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, gazing out over the reflecting pool at the Washington Monument in the distance. She leaned against him and he wrapped both arms around her. It didn’t feel weird and it didn’t feel strange. It felt like the most normal thing in the world.
It felt like home.
“So you wanted to talk to me,” Gertie said. “At camp? You really did?”
“I wanted to do more than talk to you,” Danny said, and Gertie’s heart leaped out of her. “You’re beautiful. I always thought you were cute, but you were a little kid for so long, and then a couple summers ago you came to camp wearing this T-shirt with The Muffs on it and I love them and I was like ‘Wow’ and I saw how beautiful you were.”
This was not happening. This was not fucking happening.
“Isn’t it crazy that this is happening?” Danny said.
“It’s bananas,” Gertie said.
“Bananas is exactly what it is,” Danny said.
“When do you guys go back?” Gertie asked softly. Maybe they could hang out for like days and days and days.
“This morning,” Danny said. “Your hair smells good.”
“Thanks,” Gertie said. “I use shampoo and conditioner.”
“Me too,” Danny said.
“Oh, cool,” Gertie said.
Sometimes you talk about stupid shit right before you kiss someone.
Danny looked at her, and Gertie looked up at him, and then—
“It’s the one named Gertie!” came a voice. Gertie sat up straight, startled, and looked around.
Kaylee and Brooklynn and Peighton.
“Ooh, and her boyfriend’s hot,” Kaylee said.
“Thanks,” Danny said, laughing, and Gertie didn’t even realize that he’d basically jokingly acknowledged that they were totally and completely in love, because she was so fucking freaked out that the worst humans in the world had appeared right at the moment when she was going to experience her first kiss.
“What are you doing here?” Gertie hissed.
“We could ask you the same question,” Brooklynn said.
“Where’s Sivan?” Peighton asked.
“Is that the gay?” Kaylee asked. “I’m so bad with names.”
Gertie turned and saw Rachel and Sivan hauling ass across the steps, away from the crowd of smokers.
“What are you doing?” Rachel demanded of the cuntriad. “They are obviously having a private moment. And why aren’t you in bed?”
“You s
ound like Ms. Deats,” Brooklynn said, laughing. “Relax. We’re just here to have fun.”
“How did you know we were here?” Sivan asked.
“Um, everybody knows you sneaked out,” Peighton said. “Those walls are like super thin. So we thought it’d be a cool idea to sneak out and come here.”
“It is a cool idea,” Rachel said. “Which is why we had it first.”
“Rachel,” Brooklynn said. “Look. We’re not copying you. We’re copying Lindbergh High. Peighton sneaked out to use a pay phone in the lobby and called her field hockey friend who plays for Lindbergh and that girl told us about the plan to come to the Lincoln Memorial.”
“A pay phone?” Danny said, confused. “They even have those anymore?”
“They do at the Holiday Inn,” Peighton said, a little proudly.
“We didn’t know you’d be here specifically,” Brooklynn continued. “We don’t like you, and you don’t like us, but we were talking in our room, and Peighton was saying school is almost over for the year and we should just give up the bullshit because at best we just feel like we’re better than you, which we are, and at worst, we fucking get mysterious food poisoning because we pissed you off.”
Rachel hesitated for a moment.
“We know it was you,” Kaylee said. “I mean it sucked but I kind of wish I’d thought of it first.” She hung her head. “I never think of anything.”
“It’s okay, K,” Brooklynn said soothingly. “It’s like a pretty evil thing to think up, and we’re not evil.”
“I’m not sure about that,” Gertie said. Having the love of your life’s arms around you can make you kind of bold.
“I know we’re assholes,” Peighton said. “I know we don’t treat you well. But you don’t treat us well either. And the bottom line is, if we rat you out about tonight, you can rat us out too. So it’s MAD.”
“It’s what?” Brooklynn asked. “I was with you till MAD.”
“Mutually Assured Destruction,” Sivan said quietly, looking at Peighton. “The Cold War nuclear policy of the Soviets and the—”
“—Americans,” Peighton finished. “But not just them.”
“You can apply it even today,” Sivan said.
“Definitely,” Peighton said.
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