Brooklyn Girls

by Gemma Burgess

  The next few weeks were … indescribable. I think that when a relationship ends, it’s a little bit like a death, and I was beside myself with grief.

  Angie doesn’t really do heart-to-hearts, but God, she was amazing during that time.… She listened while I boozed and ranted. She held my hair back when I puked and stockpiled Kleenex for my tears. She reprogrammed my iPod so I didn’t have to listen to songs that reminded me of Eddie. She picked me up at the end of each night, carried me home, and put me to bed. She was, quite simply, the perfect best friend.

  Then I started college, and decided to never talk about it again. It was the only way to contain my misery and act like Little Miss Happy Party Girl.

  So that’s the Eddie story. That’s why I’m always single and only have casual flings. Why would I ever want to go through heartbreak again?

  Urgh. I hate it when I think about Eddie. My brain goes back to him, over and over again, like when you’re eight and you have a tooth that’s about to fall out and you just wiggle it constantly.

  But unlike a tooth, Eddie never falls out of my head.

  My reverie is interrupted by Jonah walking up to me and tweaking my nose. “You want to see the honeybees, princess?”

  Wearing woolen gloves, Jonah takes the lid off a hive and pulls up a wooden tray. It’s thick with honeycomb and crawling with drowsy stoned bees.

  “I guess you gave them a buzz,” I say, slapping my thigh with delight at my own joke.

  “You are hil—wait for it—arious. Okay, check it out,” he says. “This one is full of honey. It kind of blows my mind. Give bees a home, and in return they create the sweetest thing in the world.”

  “What kind of flowers do they eat?” I ask, trying not to flinch every time a bee buzzes near me. “Have sex with. Whatever. Pollinize. Pollinate. You know what I mean.”

  “Any flower, really, or fruit trees, berry bushes,” he says. “They fly up to four miles for their pollen, so that could get them to Central Park. And there’s the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens for the lazy bee, of course.”

  I watch a fat little bee do two perfect figures of eight around the crowd, rubbing its fuzzy, chubby little body against its neighbors in a kind of soft-shoe shuffle.

  “They’re so beautiful up close,” I say softly. “So busy and happy. They’re sort of comforting, you know?”

  I stop myself, realizing that I’ve probably said something stupid again. I catch Jonah’s eye, but he’s not laughing. Instead, he leans in to kiss me, then at the last moment, something inside me says nope and I pull away.

  Thank God, Jonah takes it like a man. “I love the smell of rejection in the morning!”

  I laugh. “Sorry, dude. I’m just not…”

  “Nothing to apologize for,” he interrupts. “Easy come, easy go, sailor. Let’s get to work.”

  A couple of hours of honey-milking later, I’ve decided beekeeping is definitely not for me. It’s too dangerous (or I’m too wussy, whatever). I spent most of the time running back and forth over the rooftop whenever bees landed on me. Now we’re in Jonah’s beat-up old car, the sun is shining, and I’ve got a basket of hand-labeled Kings County honey jars on my lap.

  “Baby, you’re a fiyaaawork!” sings Jonah along to Katy Perry on the radio.

  “I feel so awake! It’s so much fun to do something!” I say. “I love it!”

  “What’s life usually like for you, princess?” asks Jonah, laughing. “You just sit back and let slaves feed you grapes, or what?”

  “Ah, bite me. This car is disgusting, by the way.” It’s filled with empty food wrappers and smells like feet.

  “This? This is nothing. You should see my apartment. I share it with five other dudes, it’s like a petri dish of disease. The other guys are always getting sick, but not me!” He grins proudly. “Constitution of a Texas buffalo.”

  Ew. Guys our age are so happy to live like pigs. I don’t get it.

  “So, how do you fit in all these jobs around your acting career?”

  “Dude, I wouldn’t call it an ‘acting career.’ I’ve been here six years and nothing’s really happening. Still, I’m having fun. Sometimes I help out my friend’s band, Little Ted. I take acting classes sometimes, the rest of the time I just mess around.”

  “Cool,” I say, though actually, six years of just messing around sounds kind of depressing. “What was your last acting job?”

  “Diesel ad campaign.” He’s trying to sound cool and failing.

  “A TV commercial?”

  “Uh, no. Web.”

  “A Web site campaign? Isn’t that modeling?”

  “No, it was moving image. It was acting.”

  I’m doubtful about this (my motivation in this scene is denim!), but never mind.

  At that moment, my phone rings.

  I stare at the screen for a second, then press silent. It’s my parents. I haven’t spoken to them since the post-party phone-call disaster, and I don’t want to start now.

  A minute later, my phone beeps. A message. May as well get it over and done with.

  My dad starts speaking first. “Ah, Pia, it’s … 2:45 P.M. in Zurich, which makes it 8:45 A.M. in New York, you’re probably still in bed”—No, I’m not, I’m working, I think defiantly—“We’re calling to tell you that we’ll be in New York in October.”

  My mother interrupts him from the extension. “And unless you have a job, a real job, you are coming back to Zurich with us where we can look after you!”

  Then my father interrupts her again. “We will call you tomorrow. Try to be awake and sober.”

  Click.

  I press “delete,” hang up, and sigh.

  Now, I know thousands of girls my age are totally independent from their parents, they’d just tell them to back off and cut all ties.… I don’t want to do that. Part of me still hopes that maybe, one day, the weird estrangement of the past few years will end. After all, they’re the only parents I’ve got. I really want them to be proud of me. Most of the time, I don’t even think they like me.

  I look out the window, lost in thought. Suddenly the sunshine looks kind of bleak. Who am I kidding? I can’t make a career out of goddamn bee-milking. I need a job, a real job … and fast.

  “Today is a special day for lucky guys and gals,” says Jonah in a radio announcer voice. “It’s Food Truck Festival at the Brooklyn Flea! And that’s where you, Pia Keller, will be working! Do you know the Brooklyn Flea?”

  “Of course!”

  Actually, I only went to the Brooklyn Flea for the first time a couple of weeks ago, with Angie and Coco in tow. It’s a gigantic collection of tented stalls selling everything from vintage stuff to design stuff to art stuff to, well, there’s just a lot of stuff.

  Then I pause. “Wait, what’s a Food Truck Festival?”

  “Jeez, you really are new here, aren’t you?” he says. “Food trucks are trucks that drive around the city selling—wait for it—food.”

  “Well, duh,” I say, blushing. “Like ice-cream trucks.”

  “Think bigger,” says Jonah, pulling into a parking space.

  “Kebab trucks,” I say as we get out of the car. “Oh, I think I saw a cupcake truck once in SoHo.”

  “Bigger.”

  We walk down the street, toward a sign saying BROOKLYN FLEA FOOD TRUCK FESTIVAL, and now I know what he means by bigger. Lined up, one after the other, like gigantic colorful shiny toys: food trucks of every possible description.

  Gobble Cobblers, Mac’N’Cheese, Schnitzeldog, Lang Kwai Fried Dumplings, The Spelthouse, Mexineasy, The Artisan Cheesemakers, Everyone Hates Offal (with the strapline “Fry Me a Liver!”), The Queen’s English Trifle Guild, Screamfer Ice Cream, Mash and Stew in It, Simple Simon the Pieman, Macaroonatics.…

  “Punny,” I comment. “How do they make all that food in the back of the truck?”

  “They have elves,” says Jonah.

  “I’m getting hungry,” I add, looking up at him.

  “Just you wait, sugar.”
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  People are already waiting patiently in line to get their food before a long day at the market. Wow, people will do anything for a good meal in this city. These trucks must be raking in the cash.

  Jonah stops outside a dark green food truck with A MEAL GROWS IN BROOKLYN painted on the side in white block letters. The side awning is up, revealing a short, handwritten chalkboard menu.

  BREAKFAST

  French Toast with Raisin Bread (DUMBO)

  Bacon (Mill Basin) with Fried Eggs (Brooklyn Heights) on Buttered Sourdough (DUMBO)

  Buttermilk Cake Donuts (DUMBO)

  And it’s ALL local, sustainable, seasonal, grass-fed, hand-reared, and organic whenever possible!

  “This is Ray’s brother Phil’s truck. The specialty is bread, but almost everything is made, grown, killed, or cured in the borough. Get it? A Meal Grows in Brooklyn.”

  “Actually, the raisins are from California,” says a red-headed guy coming out from behind the truck. He’s one of those aggressively ironic early-thirties Brooklynites who has a handlebar mustache and wears vintage cowboy shirts. Phil and Jonah do a little man handshake-hug combo, and Jonah introduces me. Apparently Phil runs an organic bakery-slash-café in DUMBO, and has the truck on the weekends for fun.

  “Everything is grown right here in Brooklyn?” I ask skeptically.

  “Brooklyn is full of food, ma petite.” Phil peers into the basket. “Dang, those bees are acing it! I love it when my brother has a good idea. Of course, that’s also probably why Ray is richer and more successful.”

  “He can’t grow a ’stache like you, though,” says Jonah. “Do you miss the beard?”

  “Not so much,” says Phil, twirling his scarlet mo. “Anyway! Let’s see … ricotta cheese and honey flame-toasted sourdough?” He raises his voice. “Lara? Sweetie? Do we have that ricotta?”

  “Yep,” says Phil’s wife, a pretty woman with messy hair, strolling out from the back of the truck.

  “Sourdough from our organic bakery in DUMBO, handmade ricotta from a friend of mine in Fort Greene, honey from Williamsburg. Brooklyn food. Get it?”

  “Got it.” I nod smartly.

  “How’s the eggs and bacon coming along, honey?”

  “Small problem.” Lara gets the giggles. “We forgot the eggs.” I get the feeling this isn’t the first time they’ve forgotten something.

  “Plain bacon sandwiches?” says Phil doubtfully. “Yawn. Any ideas, guys?”

  “Bacon … um … and bacon?” says Jonah.

  “What about bacon sandwiches with chili jam?” I say. It’s a favorite of mine. Eddie used to make it when we were hungover on vacations, using sweet chili sauce from a bottle. “Breakfast of champions, Keller,” he’d say, pulling me onto his lap to eat it with him, one bite each at a time. Then we’d go out for gingerbread lattes, which are actually disgusting, I swear to God. Eddie said they tasted like the holidays. Urgh, stop thinking about him.

  “Yes! I love creative thinkers! Okay, go explore, you two. I’ll need you at noon.”

  So Jonah and I wander around the Brooklyn Flea, munching on the ricotta and honey sandwiches.

  “So where are you from, princess?” says Jonah, his mouth full of food. “Ricky and Vinnie told me all about you, said you were European, but I thought you were Indian or Pakistani or something.”

  Or something? “Uh, I was born in the States. We moved countries a lot, if that’s what you mean,” I say, as we pass a stall selling antique mirrors that would look really cute in the hallway at Rookhaven. I should come back when I have money. If I ever have money.

  “Oh, yeah? That’s gotta be weird.”

  I roll out the usual responses. “School is school, no matter where you are. Study hall, after-school clubs, homework.…”

  “You never went to school in the States?”

  “Yes, I did. From twelve onward I went to boarding school here … three, actually.” I pick up some jewelry made from old typewriter parts. “Cool, look at this stuff!”

  “Three? Dude, that is seriously weird! Where are your parents from?”

  Weird. Again. How can I possibly ever feel like I belong anywhere when people always point out that I’m different? “My mother is from India. My dad’s from Switzerland, but he lived in the States for, like, thirty years. He’s a lot older than my mother.”

  “Is that why your eyes are green? From your dad?”

  “I guess.” My eyes are a funny jade color; when I was growing up everyone thought they were contacts and I’d have to practically poke my eye out to prove they weren’t.

  “So you speak, like, three languages?”

  “Not really.”

  “So, like, where is home?”

  I fight the urge to groan. “Wherever I lay my hat, baby.” It’s one of my standard responses to that unanswerable question. I don’t know where home is. Why does everyone care about home so much? Because once they know where your home is, they think they know who you are?

  “Man, your life is freaky.”

  “Mmmhmmm.” I start looking through vintage fur coats. I can never explain what it is like to be me. Only Eddie ever really understood me, and he rejected me.

  God, this conversation is depressing me.

  “You must miss your parents a lot.”

  “Uh, yeah…” I never miss anyone, I’m just used to saying good-bye. But people think you’re so cold and hard when you say that.

  “And I bet you were one of the popular girls at all your schools.”

  “Yeah. I was a total Heather.”

  Okay, so I sort of hung out with the popular crowd, but I was never really one of them. How could I be? Those girls had been wearing the same clothes, getting the same highlights, taking the same vacations to the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard since they were born. I just didn’t fit in: the color of my skin was different, my clothes were different, everything. The only way to survive was to float above the fray, without being an outcast, and that meant always looking like I was happy, no matter what. And then I met calm, steady Eddie, and real happiness was easy. For a while.

  Jonah picks up a pith helmet and tries it on. Nice biceps. For a second I imagine licking his arms, imagine him on top of me in bed … I wonder if it is normal to fantasize about sex with dudes I’m not romantically interested in. Julia would say no. Angie would say yes.

  “I’m hungry again,” says Jonah. “Wanna split a hot dog? Double ketchup! I once drank a gallon of ketchup for a bet. I won!”

  And phloof! My Jonah sex fantasy is gone. Just then I see Angie about twenty-five feet away, in a tiny blue tea dress, holding the arm of an older Euro-trashy guy I’ve never seen before. Probably French, from the looks of his slightly too-short jeans.

  Just as I’m about to shout to get her attention, Angie slaps him across the cheek. He pushes her hand away sharply and says something dismissive. Then she shoves him away from her so hard that he takes a step back. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but the last three words are very clear because she’s shouting them at the top of her lungs. Go fuck yourself.

  Everyone is staring now. “What a sweetheart,” comments Jonah. Then Angie turns around and runs away. The guy flicks his floppy bangs a few times, and disappears into the crowd.

  “She’s my best friend,” I murmur. Why hasn’t Angie mentioned a new guy to me? I thought she was into Hugh, that English lord. Who the hell is this dude? I take out my phone.

  “Yeah, you should probably call her,” says Jonah.

  “No…” God, men are stupid sometimes. If Angie wanted me to know about that guy, she’d have told me. She obviously didn’t, and I have to respect that. But I can make it easier if she wants to tell me now.

  I write Angie a quick text. Hey, ladybitch. What up? Wanna hang out later?

  A second later I get a response. Maybe. I’m out. Let’s drink tonight.

  Typical Angie, I think as Jonah and I keep walking.

  If I saw Julia having a fight with a mystery man I could just be di
rect with her. Not that it’d ever happen, of course. Mystery isn’t her thing. Last time Jules hooked up with a guy she texted me while it was happening. Literally.

  Not Angie. Once when we were on vacation in Thailand with my parents when we were fourteen, Angie told me that she was going to bed early. So I snuck out barhopping with a couple of the bartenders from the hotel. Come midnight, I went to the ladies’ room in some dive, heard sobbing, and saw Angie’s shoes under the cubicle door. I sat outside the stall for an hour, begging her to talk. She refused, and kept telling me she didn’t need me, that she wanted to be alone. Eventually I left, and the next morning she’d checked out of the hotel and gone home to her parents.

  I never found out what happened, and she didn’t talk to me for almost a year after that.

  That was the same year I got kicked out of my first boarding school, come to think of it.

  Then the following summer she acted like everything was fine between us, so I just went along with it. Sometimes friendships are more complicated than any relationships.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” says Jonah.

  I look at him and frown. “Sorry. They’re worth more than that.”

  CHAPTER 6

  It’s nearly lunchtime at the Brooklyn Flea, and while Jonah lines up for a caramel-and-sea-salt ice cream, I lean against a beat-up old truck at the side of the market, people-watching. Is it compulsory for men aged between thirty and forty in Brooklyn to grow a beard, or what? Every male vendor has statement facial upholstery. And they all look so happy.

  That’s what I need: I need a job that’ll make me smile.

  Who am I kidding? I just need a job.

  “Hey, watch it,” says a gruff voice. It’s an older woman with long silvery hair curled around the top of her head in a chignon.

  I look back at the truck behind me with alarm. It’s a food truck, I now realize, painted pale pink and older than I am. I didn’t think it’d damage that easily. “I’m sorry, I—”

  “I’m kidding.” She grins at me. “This is Toto.”

  “Toto the truck? As in the song, ‘Africa’?”