There is one part of the conversation-I-had-with-my-father-whom I-chose-to-defy that has stuck with me to this day. We were in the living room. He was sitting by the fireplace with no fire lit. There was no need for it because of the warmer weather and all that fog. He was sitting in his chair in his work clothes—a dark suit and a silk tie from the Met Museum gift shop. Usually he takes his work clothes off and gets into his “at homes,” but not that night. He had a dictionary-size report of some kind on his lap—work. It looked hard and boring. In fact, he told me it was hard and boring, which was weird because he never complains. I was standing in the room, but close enough to the door that I had a clear path out of there. Mom had prepped Dad, and instead of looking mad, he looked exhausted and irritated. The part that got me was he didn’t even mention Nolan. It was like Nolan was beside the point. I couldn’t understand why the central thing on my mind was the furthest thing from his.
“Wren, I would never in a million years expect this from you.”
“I’m not making some gargantuan change, Dad. I just don’t want to leave New York right in the middle of everything.” I could tell he was wondering what exactly “everything” meant.
“I’m sure it doesn’t seem like you are changing anything in the big picture, my darling. I bet you think that you are honoring something as creative and important as the dreams you have for yourself, but you are simply too young to know that kind of thing with certainty and I am here to tell you that you are wrong.” He was carefully choosing the right words. “To compromise who you are and where you are going because of emotion is bullshit.”
“Dad! No, you don’t get it. I am feeling emotion and having feelings, big feelings, and it’s not bullshit. It’s real. I’m not so young.” He stared me down, and that made me feel pretty young, especially since he was wearing his suit.
“No, you are right, you are not so young. You are old enough that I can’t make you send in that application. But I wish I could. I would do anything to draw that self-portrait for you and get it in on time. But I can’t.”
“I know.” My head was down.
“You would get accepted, Wren. You are that talented.”
“My talent isn’t going to go away.”
And then he lifted his eyebrows and said, as if he were speaking to a fool, “Let’s hope not.”
48
I can hear my mother yelling to no one in particular, while decorating the Christmas tree or getting a notification in one of our backpacks about yet another holiday concert at Hatcher or at St. Tim’s, “December is the most insane month!” I never got what she was talking about because for a long time, December, for me, was angel-shaped sugar cookies and cocoa by the fire, and personally, I always loved the Hatcher holiday assembly. But that year December lost some of its charm.
The very next night after my heart-to-heart with Dad, my parents’ book club met at our house—the book group where it all started. Needless to say I was persona non grata around the house. I think the sight of me was making my mother’s blood boil, because even on a school night (when I thought I would be relegated to my room to eat gravel and toothpaste for supper) she asked Oliver to take me to Big Tony’s, the best pizza place in New York, so we wouldn’t bother them. (Dinah was asked to make finger food for the book club, so she was in the kitchen mashing avocados for guacamole.) Being in a house with not only my own but a multitude of Turtle parents magnified the feeling that I was a rogue-bandit bad girl, even if none of the Turtle parents knew yet that I had blown my future. We left at six-thirty, missing Farah, Vati, Reagan, and Charlie’s parents by a solid half hour. We chose Broadway for the walk downtown.
“I guess I’m just surprised,” Oliver said. He was wearing a maroon Hatcher skullcap Vati had given him as an early Christmas present. His blond dreads were sticking out the bottom.
“Well, what I don’t get is what is the real difference between going to the Art Students League here—where many, many people from around the world come to study—and going to France? I mean, really?” I asked defensively.
“That’s BS and you know it,” Oliver said as we trudged past a Korean deli selling fir trees and wreaths. “I like Nolan a lot. He’s not like guys at St. Tim’s … I think he’s smarter than most people I know.” I smiled at him and pushed my hair out of my face, wishing I had a hat on. “Do you know he’s read The Brothers Karamazov like three times? He always has a paperback copy of it with him in his guitar case.”
“That’s a difficult book, right? Dostoevsky?” I said now, beaming at him. Knowing Nolan read and re-read any book, much less important Russian literature, made my deep insides tingle and reinforced my conviction that I had made the right decision, to stay in New York.
“Yeah, it’s a difficult book.” He paused while we waited for the light. “It’s political and complex, all about social injustice and is-there-a-god, and good and evil. It’s the real deal, man.” He walked ahead and I followed him like a peppy miniature poodle.
“Have you read it?” I asked.
“No. But I know it’s intense and I am going to read it.”
“Yeah, see! Nolan is amazing,” I oozed.
“My point is, Wren, that is his thing. He’s smart and a great musician and he’s on a serious path to something and I’m sure he will be really successful. But he’s on his own path.”
I wanted to interrupt him and say I was on Nolan’s path too. That was why he asked me to stay. We were on a path together.
“But—” I said. I was now sashaying beside Oliver instead of walking.
“No, let me finish,” Oliver interrupted. I stopped leaping and calmed down because he almost sounded annoyed.
“Your thing is art, Wren. That is what you are really good at. You love drawing. Do you know you draw without even knowing you’re drawing?”
“What do you mean?”
“You are always picking up some pencil and drawing on something. All of our school directories in the kitchen have your sketches all over them. You draw in the sand on a beach. When you were little you drew in the bubbles in your bath. It’s like you can’t help it.” I walked quietly now, listening.
“Did Nolan really ask you not to go? Mom thinks he did. And I can’t believe that, because of all people, I would think Nolan, if he liked you or loved you or whatever, would want you to follow your dreams just like he does. Not keep you here. Not make you miss something special.”
“Do you think Vati is special?” I said, walking with my hands way down in my parka pockets.
“Yes,” he said, looking ahead at where his feet were going.
“Would you want her to go away?”
“No, but she’s not. And I think even if she did, she would come back and we could do what we do then. And anyway, I’m going to MIT next year, so, what will be will be.”
“Nobody is understanding me,” I said. We were at Big Tony’s. There are tables outside even in the dead of winter with green awnings over them. All over the storefront there are a bunch of signs saying BEST BURGER IN TOWN! SUMO PIZZA! ITALIAN HEROES! I pulled the door open and led Oliver inside where it smelled of hot cheese, sauce, and baking bread.
“Are you understanding you?” he asked, pulling off the skullcap and shaking out his dreads.
49
Even with talks from Mom, Dad, and Oliver, I bizarrely didn’t get punished for not submitting my application. In fact, the subject was ignored. It almost felt like I was being ignored altogether even though I had exams and it was Christmastime, and my parents never ignore me. Life went on, except I had a dark-purplish swirling black hole of anxiety in my stomach. I couldn’t tell if it was because I hadn’t turned in the application or if it was just a loving-Nolan feeling. Love can make you feel sick just as easily as it can make you feel blissed out. I wasn’t even seeing Nolan that much, but that didn’t seem to matter. It’s like how some girls are in love with guys from boy bands they never have laid real eyes on. I once saw Padmavati cry because of how much she l
oved some dude from One Direction. Not seeing Nolan in no way kept me from daydreaming obsessively about his teeth, or replaying how he held my hand in the coffee shop, or thinking about how he called me when he was upset about not seeing his dad for Christmas. Sometimes it felt like I loved him by myself. But if he didn’t love me back, why would I be the one that he called when he was sad? Why would he have sex with me that one time? He must have loved me. I really think he did love me—that’s what he said, that’s what it felt like. Sometimes.
The day before we were all going to do an intervention on Farah, Charlie came over out of the blue. It was a late Thursday afternoon, December 18. I was leaving my house to walk May and he was walking up the street.
“Hey! What are you doing here?” I asked, and held up the arm not holding May for a hug. He was wearing his rather bright green parka with a furry trim on the hood.
“Hey.” He hugged me back. “Nosh is catering a holiday party on Eighty-Fourth.” He hiked his thumb backward indicating farther west down the block. “And I was done with my homework, so I thought I’d see if you were home.”
“Cool! Want to walk May with me? I haven’t seen you much.”
“Yup.”
“Why are you doing your homework at a Nosh party?”
“My mom is at some other holiday thing and I didn’t want to be home alone so my dad said I could come and sit in these people’s kitchen.”
“Was the food good?”
“Of course. Latkes.”
“Oh yeah, it’s Hanukkah.”
“Yup.”
We walked up to Columbus. “Wanna keep going up to Central Park West?” I said.
“Yeah, why not.”
“You seem bummed. Oh, good girl, Mayzer.” May stopped to do her thing, so we waited and I got the bag ready.
“I am bummed!” He sort of exploded there.
“Whoa, why?”
“Well, what is going on? You and Vati don’t even call me anymore. It’s like you’ve been captured by aliens.”
“Well, Vati has been captured by an alien—Oli.”
“It all sucks. Farah is acting like Miley Cyrus.”
“I know, she looks exhausted at school.”
“She goes to school from his loft!”
“How do you know that?”
“I think she is scared to tell you, or any of the girls, so she tells me.”
“When has Farah ever been scared to tell me anything?”
“Since she started having relations with your dad’s friend.”
“Oh, yuck.” I wasn’t talking about dog poop.
“Tell me about it. She made me buy rubbers.”
Charlie held May while I ran back to the corner, threw the crap in the garbage can, and ran back.
“She made you do it?”
“Yeah, I guess Mr. Dowd doesn’t have the decency.”
“That’s awful. Having a rubber is rule number one.”
“Please, I know.” I didn’t think Charlie had come close to having sex, but I let that go, because he was all upset.
“I didn’t send in my application to Saint-Rémy,” I said, and braced myself.
“They give extensions?”
“No, I just didn’t send it in because…” He looked up at me like a horrified Eskimo in his green parka.
“Why?”
“I didn’t send it in because of Nolan,” I blurted out.
Charlie thrust his hands in his pockets and walked with his head down.
“Why does this bum you out, Charlie? Now we can all hang out next year and, well, aren’t you happy?”
“Not really, Wren. I think you’re being stupid.”
“Stupid? You know I hate that, Charlie! I hate being called stupid. I am not stupid!” Even May looked shocked he’d called me stupid. “That is a terrible thing to say to someone, especially someone like me who thinks she’s stupid.”
“Sorry.” He looked a little panicked.
“You know who doesn’t think I’m stupid, Charlie? Nolan. Nolan thinks I have a cool mind. Nolan thinks I say funny things and he looks at me like I invented something awesome like, like, crunchy French toast or something.”
“What? That makes no sense.” He didn’t look like he felt so bad anymore.
“Whatever. He looks at me like I’m the only girl in New York.”
“But you’re not.”
“What? I know that, Charlie,” I snapped. “But he makes me feel like I am the only girl in New York.” He pushed his hood back and started spiking up his hair in an anxious way like a parrot.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” I said, hoping we could start that bad conversation over again.
“How do you know he doesn’t make other girls feel like that?”
I paused, as it had never occurred to me one way or the other. I had just thrown that “only girl in New York” thing out there.
“Have you ever—no you haven’t, you haven’t been to one of his shows, which is so strange, but I have, and let me tell you, all the girls in the room feel like they are the only girl in New York when he plays. That’s just how he is with everyone. I feel like I’m the only girl in New York when he talks to me.”
“No, you don’t. And that’s a thing, that’s like a rock thing.” I gave May a scratch behind the ears because she was being such a good girl waiting for us while we stood arguing. “I will go to a show … I haven’t been able to because I was grounded and sometimes they are too late and my parents would never let me go, but I will. I will go to a show.”
“Reagan goes to his shows,” he said.
I started walking. “What? What do you mean? She went to one.”
“No, she goes to all of them.” He walked quickly to catch up with me.
“How do you know?”
“My guitar teacher goes to all his shows and he sees her there. I introduced them once.”
We were walking pretty fast now and I was yanking poor May when she wanted to sniff the tree guardrails.
“Well, so?” I was starting to feel a cold sweat come on.
“So, nothing. But did you know that?”
“No.”
He lifted his eyebrows in a that’s-weird way, and then he said, “Did you really not apply or are you just thinking about not applying?”
“I really didn’t apply. I didn’t send it in.”
“That’s screwed up.”
“You’re screwed up, Charlie!”
“No, I’m not, Wrenny. When you get freaked out or hurt, you blame other people. Remember when you fell down the stairs at your house and I went to help you out and you threw Dinah’s boot at me?” I did remember that.
“You probably made a mistake—a big mistake—and now you are saying that I’m screwed up. But I’m not! My acceptance letter from the Bard bird program is in my special box under my desk, Wren, so I’m not screwed up at all.”
“Well, I have a boyfriend who wants me to stay.”
“Okay. There is nothing I can do about that.”
“Okay.” We stopped walking and stood there for a minute or two in silence.
“Charlie?” I said, wanting to be in a better place.
“Yeah.”
I waited for a second to see if I could use any of my tools to not be impulsive and to not ask a risky question, but I couldn’t stop myself, because as intrusive as it might have been it also felt right to ask.
“Why do you go to so many Nosh events? Are they really so interesting to you?”
“Um, why are you asking me this now?” he said, like I’d started to talk about global warming or something.
“Because I’m thinking a lot about love, and sometimes I wonder why you don’t ever have crushes on anyone.”
“I do have crushes on people,” he said simply.
“Are they all those cute Nosh waiters?”
Charlie looked at the lit-up windows of the buildings on Central Park West and squinted as if he were trying to see the people inside. “Yeah,” he said, still
looking up. I took his hand with my hand not holding May’s leash.
“Does that mean, well…” I don’t know why, but it felt natural to ask him. Like we had had the conversation before. “Do you think you’re gay?”
“Maybe,” he said calmly. “I think so.” He was still looking at the windows of the building across the street. His hair was sticking up, but he looked handsome. He looked grownup.
“Why wouldn’t you tell me?” I said.
“I don’t know, I guess I thought, of all people, you would know.” He looked at me and kind of shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, I did,” I said.
He squeezed my hand and I squeezed his back. We turned around and looked straight ahead into the park. The trees were black against the dark gray sky. The night sky in New York never gets truly black because of all the lights in the city. But that night, even the New York sky looked as close as it comes to total darkness, so we kept holding hands.
50
“Ridiculous! What are you speaking to me about?” Mrs. Rousseau had been out with acute bronchitis the entire week before my deadline, so I didn’t have to face her wrath until my application deadline had passed.
Mrs. Rousseau has a desk in the corner of the art studio behind some palm trees and easels. It looks like you might imagine—lots of different-colored folders, Buddhas, piles of The New York Times, a fancy ebony pen with a gold-plated clip, Sharpies, rubber bands, a box of Kleenex, and a computer.
Starry Night Page 21