by Meg Leder
“I’m fine,” I said, the prickliness in my voice an unfortunate giveaway that I was anything but.
“Well, if you want to talk—”
“I don’t.”
“Hmm. The darling daughter is distinctly lacking in darling today.” He chuckled to himself.
I rolled my eyes, wishing at least for the five billionth time that there was a moratorium on dad humor on the weekends.
“Your mother was looking for you, by the way.”
I wanted to point out that our apartment in the brownstone was only so big, that there were only so many places to look, but I bit my tongue instead.
Boy oh boy, was I was feeling ugly on the inside.
To cheer myself up, I pulled out my favorite glass—the one with the illustration of the boy holding his nose underwater—filled it up with skim milk, and added chocolate powder.
Sitting down next to my dad, listening to him hum along with classical music, I decided I needed to change my frequency. Sure, I wasn’t going on a date with Keats or anyone else, and sure, I didn’t have people to go with me to the Fall Festival. But I had a delicious glass of chocolate milk and a full Saturday afternoon ahead of me in one of the best cities in the world. Maybe I’d go to the Met and read by the pool at the Temple of Dendur. Or perhaps I’d pick up a sandwich at Chelsea Market and read on the High Line. Who needed boyfriends? Who needed friends? I had New York City and the e-book of the Complete Works of Jane Austen at my fingertips. What more could a girl want?
“Pen! There you are.” My mom stood in the doorway holding her cup of tea against her chest. She’s always cold—even on sunny eighty-degree September mornings. “When you go to the Fall Festival today, can you make sure to bring the bag by the door? It has the afghan I knit for the silent auction. Did you see it? It turned out nice.”
“That afghan could go for at least eight hundred dollars, Jane,” my dad suggested, totally unrealistically, right as I declared, “I’m not going.”
“Why aren’t you going?” Mom asked.
My teaspoon clinked against the edge of my glass as I stirred the chocolate powder about two minutes longer than needed.
“I don’t want to.”
“Aren’t Eph and Audrey going to be disappointed?” she asked.
“They’ve got other plans,” I said, feeling sour again.
“Ahh,” she said, as if that explained everything, which okay, it totally did, but I wasn’t in the mood to throw her a bone. In fact, I wasn’t in the mood to throw anyone any bones—possibly ever again. I imagined myself as a ninety-five-year-old spinster, living in a decrepit old rest home with puke-yellow walls, whiskery and wrinkled and ornery, hollering at anyone who deigned to talk to me: No bones for you! That seemed about right.
“Can’t you drop it off?” I asked.
“Your dad and I are going bird-watching in Long Island.”
The meanness in me yawned and stretched, waking up.
I bet Eph’s parents weren’t going boring old bird-watching. I bet they were going gallery hopping in Chelsea or checking out the new costume exhibit at the Met.
“There’s no reason you can’t go on your own. I’m sure you’ll see people you know.”
I heard both helpfulness and hopefulness mingling in her voice. My mom loved me more than anyone on earth, probably even more than my dad, but at that moment her concern made me feel pathetic, which made me feel angry, which let the ugly full-on out, growling and tearing off faces as it went.
“I said I don’t want to go!”
Mom flinched. Dad dropped the paper.
“I don’t want to . . .” I trailed off. Both my parents were staring at me like I was four years old again, which granted was probably the last time I had raised my voice at either of them.
The monster disappeared and shame settled, all patronizing and prim in its place.
“The bag’s at the door?” I asked quietly.
“Yes,” Mom replied curtly. “Thank you for dropping it off.”
I stomped upstairs to shower, in an attempt to make myself somewhat presentable.
• • •
Four hours later I dropped off the bag from my mom in the school lobby. (The PTA president: “We can start this bidding at at least seventy-five dollars!”) I walked outside, hearing the traces of the carnival carry through the fall breeze.
At the wafting scent of funnel cake that came along with it, my heart did a giddy little hop, awakened by the possibility of fried dough and powdered sugar.
Maybe I’d go in for a quick spin around the length of the festival—it only ran across one block—and then I’d go to Central Park and read for a little bit. I was still feeling guilty for yelling at my mom, and this seemed like a bearable penance. I could tell her I went and had a nice time.
As I entered, two little girls with matching red gym shoes tore past me, their moms simultaneously telling them to slow down. Another boy ran around me, the edges of his mouth pink with cotton-candy sugar. A dad pushed a stroller in one hand and held an oversize stuffed lion in the other. The kid in the stroller was sound asleep, head sprawled back, mouth open, face streaked with tears.
I wandered past a ring-toss booth offering goldfish as a prize, and a booth selling an excess of USA-labeled socks. I thought about the year when we were nine and Eph barfed after riding the Scrambler (two pre-ride hot dogs too many), and then Audrey and I vomited sympathetically, and my parents had to take all three crying kids home. And then there was the year when I won at Whac-A-Mole, earning us a certificate for dessert at Serendipity. My mom took me and Eph and Audrey, and I pretty much thought I had died and gone to best-friend hot-fudge heaven.
Right then, amid happy kids and carnival songs, I missed Eph and Audrey both so much that I felt like a haunted house, all hollow echoes where they used to be.
I patted the weight of my e-reader in my bag, trying to reassure myself, and turned around to cross the street to leave, when my eyes fell on a small folding table in between a face-painting booth and an informational display about the ski team. Taped to the edge of the table was a neatly lettered sign:
DEAD POETS PHONE
$1 per call
SEIZE THE DAY!
CARPE DIEM!
TALK WITH GREATNESS!
(all proceeds go to Nevermore)
I stepped closer. In the middle of the table sat an old beige rotary phone and a glass bowl with two lonely dollars in it.
I thought I recognized the two people behind the table from school. I was pretty sure they were seniors. The girl was short and curvy with a definite rockabilly vibe: hair dyed fire-engine red, a Schoolhouse Rock T-shirt, and super-dark Buddy Holly glasses. The boy had a pointed Mohawk, the tips spiked up, and a rich, haughty expression that reminded me of some minor scheming character from Masterpiece. He was reading an old beat-up copy of E. E. Cummings’s poetry.
The girl caught me checking out their setup and brightened. “Want to talk with a dead poet? All proceeds go to the Saint Bart’s literary magazine, Nevermore. By the way, I’m coveting your shirt,” she said, pointing at my CONEY ISLAND CIRCUS SIDESHOW T-shirt.
I flashed back to last year, when Audrey had ecstatically introduced me to Cherisse, who had just transferred to Saint Bart’s. Cherisse had given me a once-over and winced out a pained smile that immediately put her in the running for any superhero movie that ever needed a frost-queen villain.
The girl in front of me had the exact opposite energy. She was sunny and warm, and maybe it was because I was already feeling so needy, but I immediately wanted her to be my friend.
“I’m Grace. And this is Miles,” she said, pointing to the Mohawk boy.
“Are you a junior?” Miles asked, his voice drawling out the u sound.
I nodded, unsure about him. His eyes were the softest gray, but the tips of his hair were gelled sharp enough to draw blood, and he looked a little bored watching me.
“I’m Penelope,” I said. “But everyone calls me Pen.”
<
br /> Miles slouched in the chair and tapped his upper lip, sussing me out. I stood a little bit straighter, putting on my Cherisse armor.
And then he sat up. “Oh my God, you’re the one who always hangs out with that tall dreamy boy.” He flopped back, fanned himself once with the book. “He is hot.”
It took me a full ten seconds.
“Wait. You’re talking about Eph? You think Eph is hot?” I asked.
“We both do,” Miles said, gesturing eagerly to Grace and himself. A mortified look crossed her face, and, blushing, Grace smacked him on the arm.
“Ow!”
“So how does the phone work?” I asked, eager to stop thinking about Eph and his alleged hotness. I pulled out my wallet and handed Miles a five. The phone was plugged into a big fat empty space of nothing.
He dug in his pocket and started counting out change.
“Keep it,” I said.
“A generous literary patron! Thank you!”
I couldn’t tell if he was making fun of me, but when I eyed the near-empty bowl and heard him muttering to himself, “Worst fund-raising idea ever,” I figured maybe it was genuine after all.
At that second Grace abruptly picked up the phone, saying, “Hello . . . yes, hi! . . . Uh-huh, okay, she’s right here,” and handed it to me. “For you! It’s Walt Whitman.”
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I took the receiver. A recording, perhaps, or maybe Miles throwing his voice so it sounded like it was coming from the receiver. What I didn’t expect was complete silence.
They both waited expectantly.
“Ummm . . . ,” I said.
Miles folded his arms. “Is he talking about Oscar Wilde? I heard they did it, you know.” He elbowed Grace. “Scandal!”
Grace still looked terribly earnest. “Is he yammering on about blades of grass? He had me on the phone for at least twenty minutes one day, going on and on about how beautiful they are.” She made a chatterbox gesture with her fingers.
I wasn’t sure what to do. I kept the phone up to my ear and racked my brain, trying to think of what I had learned in last year’s American poetry class.
“He’s . . . he’s . . .”
Grace waited eagerly, and like a bolt of lightning from Zeus, I had a mini epiphany.
Grace was having fun.
She hadn’t outgrown the Fall Festival either.
And I wasn’t completely sure, but it seemed like Miles might have been enjoying himself a little bit too, unsuccessful fund-raiser and all.
I covered the receiver with my palm. “Walt’s talking about a stranger who passed him on the street.”
Grace turned to Miles. “It’s your Starbucks Guy poem!”
I was surprised to see Miles’s neck redden. That wasn’t very Masterpiece villainy.
“Yeah, Walt, I totally get it. I crush pretty hard too,” I said, feeling completely ridiculous. But Grace’s face was lit up all bright like carnival lights, and Miles seemed pleased that a passing couple was curiously watching my exchange.
“I don’t know what to do, Walt. But I guess it helps to know I’m not alone. . . .” I mimicked Grace’s previous nonstop-talk hand motion.
“I know, right?” she whispered.
Finally, after a few more seconds of pretend conversation, I said good-bye and handed the phone back to Grace.
Miles immediately grabbed it, listened for a second, and held it out to the couple. “For you. Emily Dickinson doesn’t just call anyone, you know?” he said. “This is an honest-to-god once-in-a-lifetime moment. Only one dollar!”
Grace slid a neon-green flyer across the table to me. “You should check out our journal, Nevermore. . . .”
Miles nudged her. “Gracie, Gracie, tell this guy Emily is worth one hundred million dollars, let alone one.”
She waved good-bye to me, and I smiled, folding the flyer carefully and placing it in a safe spot in my bag. Maybe I would check out the literary magazine. Maybe I could write something, or maybe they needed readers.
I could do things without Eph and Audrey.
I thought of Audrey on the Ferris wheel, her face glowing, her surprise that something so terrifying could be so lovely.
Party invitation
Convivii invitatio
Saint Bartholomew’s Academy
New York, New York
Cat. No. 201X-6
THE NEXT MONDAY AFTERNOON, THE miracle happened.
I opened my locker, and there, on the top of my Spanish book, was a small, folded white square.
I read it, and read it again.
Sunlight burst through the ceiling and illuminated the hall, in certified angels-singing-above-a-manger miracle style.
It was an invite to Keats’s First of October party that Saturday.
The invite was on smooth white card stock, and the instructions—address, time, BRING ONE GUEST ONLY, COSTUMES MANDATORY—were perfectly minimal, crisp capital letters stamped into the paper. Only the top left corner was dinged up, like it had gotten snagged in my locker slot, and there was a smear of blue ink on the back. But it had found its way to me.
Keats had invited me to his party.
I’d won the Willy Wonka Golden Ticket.
Keats invited me to his party.
I wanted to hug the acne-ridden freshman passing by; I wanted to dance with the football dude laughing at a dirty joke across the hall. I wanted to burst into a full musical number, complete with a choir of singing unicorns and my cat, Ford, tap-dancing across the hall with a top hat and a cane. I wanted to kiss a baby on the cheek, draw chalk tulips on the sidewalk, and buy grape Popsicles for everyone in the city of New York.
Keats invited me to his party!
My veins were filled with tiny carbonated bubbles, joyfully rising, making my throat tickle not unpleasantly. I wondered how he knew where my locker was. I wonder if he’d asked Audrey or Eph.
Shoot.
Eph.
Saturday.
Coney Island.
But Eph would understand; he’d have to. We’d been to Coney Island a few times already during the summer. And when I told him how much this meant to me, how fate was finally giving me a chance, he’d get it. In fact—stroke of genius—why not bring him? The invitation called for a plus one. Problem solved! Everything was turning up roses. Acres of roses without thorns, the smell so heady it made me dizzy.
I sprinted to Eph’s locker, hoping to catch him before he left for the day.
When I rounded the corner, I skidded to a stop.
A tiny girl with white-blond dreadlocks and clunky steel-toed combat boots was standing across from him, pointing aggressively at his chest. “You knew I wanted to go to that!” She stopped and saw me, folded her arms defensively in front of her. “Is this her?”
“Oh, sorry,” I said, backing up, raising my hands in front of me.
Eph was leaning against his locker, his slouch a mix of irritated and resigned.
“Autumn,” he said. “There is no her.”
The girl was still shooting me a stink eye, but her eyes were also welling up. I remembered meeting her briefly in Central Park a few weeks ago, how she was sitting in Eph’s lap, her legs tangled in his, her laugh like bells. Now she looked both furious and broken, wiping her sleeve across her face.
“I’ll leave,” I said quickly.
“We’re pretty much done here anyway,” Eph said wearily.
She whirled back around, trying to stifle a sob. “You don’t know a good thing when you see it, Ephraim O’Connor. And one of these days, you’re going to end up”—and here she pointed at him with each word, like she was holding a sword—“totally fucking alone.”
She picked up her backpack and hugged it to her chest.
“Autumn,” Eph said, trying pull her back toward him.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” she shrieked, and I cringed; people around us were stopping to watch. She pushed her way through them, and everyone started to move again like nothing had been going on.
“Well, that could have gone better,” he said dryly, resignation on his face, his jaw jutting out stubbornly.
“I’m guessing Macbeth wasn’t a hit,” I said lightly.
He shrugged, turning to his locker and starting to slide books in his bag.
“Do you want to talk about—”
“No fucking way,” he said, shutting his locker and sliding his bag onto his shoulder. “What’s up with you?”
To say that Eph is bad at showing his emotions is an understatement. His heart is pretty much a quadruple-locked vault encased in concrete dropped in the part of the ocean where all the blind bug-eyed monsters live. At that second he had this awful grimace on his face, like he was trying to forcefully pretend the entire moment out of ever existing.
It reminded me of the expression on his face when I found his dinosaur notebook.
I wanted to ask, Are you okay? and Why do you always break girls’ hearts?
I wanted to say, You don’t know how lucky you are.
I wanted to say, I don’t want you to end up alone.
I wanted to say, Tell me about the dinosaurs.
Instead I chucked him lightly on the shoulder. “Now I know where you picked up your excessive use of the f word.”
Eph snorted. “You’re never going to let that drop, are you?”
“No. And guess what we’re doing on Saturday?” I hopped a little in place.
“The Cyclone and the Wonder Wheel.”
“Wellllll . . .” I pulled out the invite and held it in front of him. “Want to be my plus one?”
Eph scanned it quickly, met my eyes. “This sounds like a douche fest.”
I moved to slug him in the arm, and he backed up.
“Easy, killer.”
“Don’t call me that. Say you’ll go with me.”
“On one condition.”
I did a fist pump, which was probably totally uncool, but whatever, I did it. “Name it.”
“I’m not dressing up.”
“No, you have to dress up. It says costumes mandatory.”
“What, is he going to turn me away at the door or something?”
“Eph, please.”