FOR MY DAD. SEE, I REALLY DID NEED YOU TO BUY ME THE ENTIRE ARCHIE AMERICANA SERIES.
—S.K.S.
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One: Katy
Chapter Two: Jorge
Chapter Three: Pepper
Chapter Four: Josie
Chapter Five: Katy
Chapter Six: Jorge
Chapter Seven: Pepper
Chapter Eight: Josie
Chapter Nine: Katy
Chapter Ten: Jorge
Chapter Eleven: Pepper
Chapter Twelve: Josie
Chapter Thirteen: Katy
Chapter Fourteen: Jorge
Chapter Fifteen: Pepper
Chapter Sixteen: Josie
Chapter Seventeen: Katy
Chapter Eighteen: Jorge
Chapter Nineteen: Pepper
Chapter Twenty: Josie
Chapter Twenty-One: Katy
Chapter Twenty-Two: Jorge
Chapter Twenty-Three: Pepper
Chapter Twenty-Four: Josie
Chapter Twenty-Five: Katy
Chapter Twenty-Six: Jorge
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Pepper
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Josie
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Katy
Chapter Thirty: Jorge
Chapter Thirty-One: Pepper
Chapter Thirty-Two: Josie
Chapter Thirty-Three: Katy
Chapter Thirty-Four: Jorge
Chapter Thirty-Five: Pepper
Chapter Thirty-Six: Josie
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Katy
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Jorge
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Pepper
Chapter Forty: Josie
Epilogue: Katy
About the Author
Teaser
Copyright
I HAVE ALWAYS LOVED FALL.
It’s the perfect season, especially in New York: the colors, the brisk weather, all the fashion-layering opportunities. Plus, there’s the September issue of Vogue, New York Fashion Week, beautiful new displays in all the department store windows … But I’ve loved fall since before I could even pronounce “Anna Wintour.” It’s probably because of back-to-school shopping.
Every year, my mom took me uptown to Lacy’s so we could browse the sale racks. But more often than not, we’d just look at the glamorous window displays for inspiration, then go home so Mom could create her own versions of the outfits we couldn’t quite afford, teaching me how to sew at her side. Bergdorf and Bloomingdale’s and Barneys may have their devoted followers, but none of those stores even come close to Lacy’s. Every time I walk through her famous double doors with the stained-glass panels, designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany himself, I get the sense that nothing bad can happen to you there.
Lacy’s is high-end enough to be aspirational, but timeless enough to be accessible. If Lacy’s was a person, she would be a woman in a perfectly tailored suit. Something classic, that would never go out of style.
Lacy’s is an American icon.
But despite all this, my favorite part will always be the windows. Mom and I came every year to see the displays change with the seasons, back when I was small enough to be strapped to her chest in a baby carrier. But this was the first fall I was at Lacy’s on my own.
No Mom.
I clutched my coffee a little tighter, blinking as I focused on the window display. Mom wouldn’t want me to cry at Lacy’s. It would be all wrong, like crying at Disney World.
The mannequins in the window all had silk scarves trailing from their necks, almost like Amelia Earhart. Little-known fact: Amelia Earhart actually designed a fashion line in the 1930s, and they carried it exclusively at Lacy’s. I stepped closer to admire a pair of high-waisted tweed pants, a pair of oxford heels peeping out from under the hems. Absolutely the kind of thing a daring aviatrix might sport. Amelia would definitely approve.
“Happy fall, Katy Keene.”
I turned, and there was my boyfriend, KO Kelly, standing in the middle of the busy sidewalk, holding a donut. There’s something about a six-foot-one heavyweight boxer holding a confection covered in pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles that’s just too perfect for words. He folded me into his arms, careful to keep the frosting from rubbing against the red Peter Pan collar of my wool coat, resting his chin on top of my head. There’s no safer place than wrapped in KO’s arms.
Well, except maybe Lacy’s.
“I know I’m not your mom, Katy, but I didn’t want you to be on your own for the unveiling of the Lacy’s windows.”
So sweet. I rose up on my tiptoes to kiss him, and I melted a little, just like I always did.
“Is that donut for me?” I asked.
“Oh yeah.” KO blushed. “I, uh, ate mine on the walk from the subway. But here.” He handed over the donut, and I bit in, relishing the sweet sugar rush. Delicious. “Nothing but Plunkin’ Donuts’ finest for my girl.”
“So,” I asked in between mouthfuls, “what do you think?”
I gestured to the window in front of me, and KO turned to contemplate it fully.
“This is really …” His brow furrowed as he looked in the window like he was hoping an answer might fly out of the caramel-colored beret on the mannequin closest to us. “Um … pants? Those are some nice pants?”
“Oh, yes, I agree,” I said seriously. “Very pants.”
“I’m sorry; my fashion expertise is limited to boxing gear!” He picked me up and spun me around as we laughed, sprinkles scattering onto the sidewalk.
Being here, with KO, was the first time since Mom died that I felt like I could remember her without the beep of machines, the faded fabric of her hospital gown, and the smell of the terrible food. I remembered her here, at Lacy’s, sketching what she saw in the window on a crumpled napkin or the back of a receipt.
“Well? Shall we?” KO offered me his arm.
“Shall we what? Go in?” I raised an eyebrow skeptically. “Unfortunately, I’m not exactly in the market for a new fall wardrobe right now. Number one priority is figuring out how I’m going to pay the rent.”
I was still in the apartment on the Lower East Side that I’d grown up in, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t last for much longer. I was doing my best to find a job, but at the moment, I could barely scrape together what I owed each month. And although the landlord had been really understanding ever since Mom got sick, from our last couple of conversations, I was getting the sense that Mr. Discenza was thinking of selling the building. He could probably make a lot more money selling it to some developer than he was currently collecting in rent, now that the neighborhood was getting increasingly trendy, even as far east as we were. A spin studio had opened up on our block last week, which meant it was really the beginning of the end. It was no longer the Delancey Street of my childhood.
“You’re taking ‘window-shopping’ a bit too literally.” Gently, KO tugged me toward the revolving doors, and we squeezed in together, KO’s bulk taking up most of the space. “You’re allowed to look at more than just the displays.”
As we emerged onto the marble-tiled floor, the atrium expansive above us, I breathed in the scent of hundreds of perfumes commingling.
“Ambition by Rex London?” a spritzer asked. I paused, admiring how chic her high-necked black blouse was, with the small, surprising floral detail at the collar that kept it from being too staid.
KO sneezed in response.
“No, thank you.” I smiled, steering my boyfriend to the less-scented air of the clothing departments. He was still sneezing as we stepped onto the escalator, his normally clear blue eyes red.
I gripped KO’s arm excitedly, wondering what they’d have upstairs. Obviously, I was excited to see the new designs, but it
wasn’t just about a new pair of suede boots. It was about what those boots represented. The changing of seasons. Saying good-bye to the old to bring in the new.
A fresh start.
And this year, I really needed a fresh start.
“You know what I decided?” I said as we rode up to women’s wear, the sounds of the perfume hall disappearing behind us.
“What’s that?”
“I’ve decided this is going to be the best fall ever.”
My final year of high school had been swallowed up by the pain of slowly losing Mom, knowing there was nothing I could do. I barely even remembered last fall. But this was a new season, full of nothing but possibility, and I was going to do everything I could to make the most of it.
“The best fall ever, huh?” KO grinned, hopping off the escalator behind me. “I don’t know about that. What about the fall of freshman year, when I saw the prettiest girl I’d ever seen, walking down Second Avenue in a bright red coat?”
“Better than that.” I grinned, too, remembering how I’d almost walked into a trash can because I’d been so distracted by the cute boy in the Western Queens Boxing Gym jacket.
“What about the fall of sophomore year, when I finally got the courage to ask her out?”
“Even better than that.” I flung my arms around his neck and kissed him, right there in the middle of women’s wear. “It’s going to be perfect. We’ll watch the leaves change color in Central Park and sip hot cider, and we can take the train to that pick-your-own apple orchard on Long Island …”
“And we’ll eat, sleep, and breathe pumpkin spice,” KO finished for me, suppressing a laugh.
“What are your plans for the most fabulous fall ever?” I punched him on the arm jokingly. I doubt he even felt it.
“Probably spending most of it inside. At the boxing gym.” KO shrugged sheepishly. “Now that I’ve graduated, I can really get serious about my career. The journey to Madison Square Garden starts now, baby.” I laughed as he shadowboxed the mannequin in front of us, throwing a neat cross toward her cashmere-clad torso. “Actually …” KO pulled his phone out of his pocket, checking the time. “I’m meeting Jinx to train in just a couple hours.”
“Jinx?” I asked. I knew all of KO’s sparring partners—sometimes we’d go out to the Starlite Diner together after a match, either celebrating their victories or drowning our sorrows in the best milk shakes in Queens—and I’d definitely never heard the name Jinx before.
“Newest boxer at the gym. Absolutely incredible.” KO’s eyes lit up the way mine did when the silk charmeuse was on sale at Mood Fabrics. “I’ve had to seriously step up my game. It’s been awesome.”
Well, whoever this Jinx was, he must really be something. Usually the only thing that made KO gush like this was Starlite’s chili cheese fries on days that he didn’t have a weigh-in.
“Well, thanks to Jinx for sparing you, and thank you for coming all the way in from Queens before heading right back out there again.” I squeezed his hand, and he kept hold of it, his fingers threading through mine.
“Forget it. A little interborough travel is nothing. I would cross oceans for you, Katy Keene.”
His tone was joking, but I knew he meant it, cheesy as it was. He’d done something much harder than cross an ocean for me. He’d been by my side, every step of the way, while Mom was sick. He’d held my hand in the hospital waiting room. He’d brought dinner on all those nights when I’d forgotten to eat. And when Mom was gone, he’d refused to let me be alone; he brought me home to his family on Long Island, where I could disappear for a bit into the warmth and noise and love of the Kelly family.
If it hadn’t been for KO, I don’t know what would have happened to me.
“I don’t want to disrespect your beloved Lacy’s, Katy, but the clothes you make are way better than ninety percent of the stuff I’ve seen on the racks today. They should be selling your designs.” KO tugged on the sleeve of a sweater near us, frowning distastefully. “What even is this?”
I frowned at the sweater right along with him. One sleeve was covered in sequins. The other was entirely mesh. And there was a saguaro cactus appliquéd on the front that appeared to be bleeding.
Well, not all fashion risks paid off.
“You’re very sweet, KO, but I’m not a real designer.” I made almost all of my own clothes, and my ultimate dream was to have my own fashion line someday, but that still felt like such a long way off. The idea of Lacy’s selling my clothes seemed about as likely as one of my dresses being modeled on the moon. “Not yet, anyway. Someday, I hope, but—”
My phone vibrated in my purse. I jumped, scrambling to open the tricky vintage clasp, thinking it might be the hospital, before remembering that they had no reason to call me anymore. Shoulders slumping, I realized this was only the first of many times I’d forget that Mom was gone.
“Are you going to get that?” KO asked.
“Yeah; I’m sure it’s nothing.” I pulled the vibrating phone out, then stared at the screen in confusion. “Huh.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s Veronica,” I said. “Veronica Lodge.”
I hadn’t heard from Veronica in a while. We’d had that wonderful shopping day together when she came in for her Barnard interview, and she’d sent me a very tasteful fruit basket when Mom died, but we didn’t usually talk on the phone. We were more the make-plans-over-text types, and then once we were together, in person, it was like no time had passed at all.
Veronica Lodge. I stared at the phone. What could she possibly have to talk to me about?
Well, there was only one way to find out.
I pressed “accept” and lifted the phone to my ear.
HELLO DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND …
Light streamed in through the kitchen windows—as long as Mr. Ramos next door kept using his lot to rent out monthly parking spaces, we’d always have the sunniest apartment in Washington Heights—but I couldn’t help humming a little Simon and Garfunkel to myself. The soundtrack to today’s breakfast, like it had been for every breakfast since I moved back home, was nothing but the sound of silence.
I should have just grabbed an egg-and-cheese from our bodega downstairs on my way to Broadway Dance Center, but Ma had been making such a big deal about eating together, as a family.
Which was ironic, because sitting in silence completely ignoring one another was not how the Lopez family usually operated. Back when all my brothers were at home, it was a riot of noise. With Joaquin pushing Ma out of the kitchen so he could cook some cut of meat nobody had ever heard of, Hugo icing his shoulder, Alejandro buried in his econ books, and Miguel and Mateo teasing each other, it was so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think.
I wished I couldn’t hear myself think.
Instead, all I heard was the scrape of a knife as Dad spread butter across a slice of wheat toast. My spoon clinked against the cereal bowl. The pages fluttered in Ma’s magazine as she finished one article and moved on to the next one.
So much left unsaid. All of us afraid to say it.
Why did they even ask me to come home if they are just going to keep pretending I don’t exist?
“Well, I should probably get going.” Dad cleared his throat and stood up abruptly, a half-eaten piece of toast still in one hand. “We may be restructuring the plowing pattern in the district. Gotta get that done before the first snowfall.”
“Wow, another thrilling day in the life of a city councilman,” I muttered. “Get out there and feel the fantasy, Dad.”
He kissed Ma on the cheek, waved vaguely in my direction without bothering to look at me, and left, munching on his toast.
“He’s trying, m’hijo,” Ma said softly once we heard the door shut behind him.
“Trying what? Trying to fill his mustache with crumbs? Dad is serving some Latino Tom Selleck realness, if Tom Selleck tried to eat his way out of an IHOP, mustache-first.”
Mom laughed softly, and just said, “We’re all trying.”
If this was what trying looked like, the Lopezes would have to learn to try a lot harder. It had been three years since I’d come home, and it still felt like nothing had changed. How had we been doing this for so long? I wanted things to change, but it wasn’t on me to make some kind of grand filial gesture and start playing happy family again. They were the ones who kicked me out. At only fourteen! If Katy and her mom hadn’t taken me in, who knows what would have happened to me. Most gay kids who are forced to leave home end up on the streets; they aren’t nearly so lucky.
And now Katy’s mom was gone. Losing the mother figure who had always accepted me for who I was just made my situation at home feel even more messed up. I missed her with an ache that would sometimes sneak up on me and snatch my breath away. My mom may have been right here, but it felt like we’d never been farther apart.
Ma stood up and patted me on the shoulder. She placed her magazine in front of me, very deliberately, then left, probably to go downstairs and rearrange stock, since she never approved of anybody else’s shelving. Ma treated the bodega like her own personal HGTV show, except instead of slapping shiplap on everything that wasn’t nailed down, she was on an endless quest for the optimal placement of Chex Mix and Hot Fries. I turned her magazine toward me. It was an old issue of People—the cover story was about some Matchelorette star I barely remembered and her newfound “Baby Joy!”; the infant wrinkly and red, half of her head obscured by an obscenely large bow.
If Ma thought this was the kind of thing I’d be interested in, she understood me even less than I’d thought. Even with my summer of nothing, I had better things to do than watch a bunch of walking hair extensions fight over some bland white guy with veneers. Plus, it took a very special head shape to pull off a headpiece that dramatic, and this poor baby had not been blessed in that department.
Rolling my eyes, I grabbed my empty cereal bowl and the magazine, dropping the bowl in the sink and tossing the magazine back onto the kitchen counter next to the stack of unopened mail. The magazine slid along the counter, and something dropped out of it, landing on the floor with a smack.
“Great.” I sank down onto my knees with a slight creak—if I was feeling this stiff already, dance class was going to be brutal—and picked it up, expecting an insert advertisement for butt-lifting leggings or cellulite-slimming sneakers or maybe giant, face-obscuring baby bows. Instead, it was an issue of Backstage, folded open to a page of casting calls.
Restless Hearts Page 1