Did I say that? I must’ve, but the problem is where to start. What if I make her hate me more? “Well, it’s…” Instinctively, I pull a strand of damp hair forward, hiding my mouth. “I’m doing a feature with ROCK magazine in the spring”—Sadie makes a face—“I mean, it’s coming out in the spring, but we already took the photos. They leaked recently, and if I thought my new school was awful before, now it’s… the kids there are obsessed with the band. Obsessed obsessed. They have these necklaces. With pigeons on them, and—”
“Diehards,” she interrupts, unfazed. “Diehard fans.”
“Right. Diehards. And it’s like… they have all these expectations. About me? And who I’m supposed to be, just because this famous guy was my father, but the problem is… the problem…” Maybe something hidden in this mess will help. A piece of him that I could point to and say, Start here, but how can I manage that when I’ve been told my whole life I can’t have this one thing, and now he’s here, invisible as ever, but alive? It’s paralyzing. The clutter alone makes my mind feel like a book with the pages all out of order. My gaze ransacks dishes on the coffee table. Her crappy old guitar.
She perks up. “You play?”
“No,” I whisper. Like in the cafeteria, when my classmates realized how unworthy I was. Like Sadie must realize now. Clonking my mug down, I say, “I’m useless.” Sadie cocks her head. She doesn’t get it. I’m screwing this all up, and if I don’t pull my shit together, she’ll never invite me back. Every word the press will ever wield against me, every smear, will be true. “I came here because”—we’re back where we were, me stunned and stammering on the street—“well”—KR GRADY: A TOTAL COWARD—“because I don’t know my father at all, not really, not like everybody thinks I should, like I want to. Like, just that little thing you told me the other day, about him not knowing how to play piano, completely blew my mind, so I thought since you knew him so well, that you could tell me some more about him, and… if I just knew him. If I could know who he was, what he might’ve thought of me, then maybe I could… this makes sense, right? Please, please, be honest. Tell me it makes—” My stomach finishes the thought for me. A massive belch.
“Sorry,” I say quickly.
Sadie’s smile isn’t quite a smile. The corners of her mouth turned up.
“I’m sorry,” I babble. “Excuse me, oh my God, that was disgusting.” There are fish so cunning they change colors to escape danger. All I can do is burrow against the armrest and pray I’ll be devoured.
After a moment, the couch squeaks. A raw voice says next to me, “Get your hair out of your face.”
Obediently, I paw it back, trying not to flinch as the dreaded skinned feeling overtakes me. Sadie’s close. Too close. I see every freckle, smell the honey cough drop clicking around her mouth. I can’t stop staring. My inadequacies are on full display. Yet she squints at me like she’s making out a far-off constellation.
“I didn’t,” she says slowly, “know your father. We were in love. Got it? And I don’t mean like I was going to marry this man, pump out a litter, and live happily ever after, blahty blah blah. We’re talking big-time love. Like every breath I breathed, every word I wrote or spoke, only wanted to be his name. Ever felt that?”
Every word she… how does that make sense? But then I think of Lindsay. Our toes in the sand. And I know. I know. “Yes,” I say.
Sadie sits back. Satisfied? It feels like I’ve passed some kind of test. She doesn’t need to know Lindsay’s reunion with Peter is imminent. That Lindsay and I will never run away together, or start a band. Sadie jiggles her leg. I look out the window, at the clouds doing their sorbet thing.
Finally, Sadie says, “Your fucking father had a nervous stomach. Puked every gig.”
Struggling upright sends my hair tumbling. “Seriously?”
“So what’s the deal?” She leans closer. “Do I make you nervous?”
My stomach lurches. Clearly, this is a trick question. My hair is in my face again, but before I can swipe it back, Sadie intervenes, pushing a lock behind my ear just firmly enough to say, I don’t have to be this gentle. It makes my decision for me. “You do. Except,” I hurry to add, “I think it’s the kind of nervousness I could eventually learn to handle? You’re just… really up in my space right now. But I could… I’ll get used to that. I promise. And”—I hesitate; surely this will not help—“I’m sorry. About being born April first. Believe me, if I could go back and do it differently, I would.”
Sadie’s eyes sparkle. They truly are enormous for somebody so small. “At least it sucked for you, too.”
* * *
The sea lions’ underwater viewing area is closed for renovations, but I don’t mind, my butt already numb from the cold stone of the outdoor amphitheater. Sea lions snore on a platform. Three females, and a gigantic male who was honking his head off when I arrived. Gray sky seethes over their rocky enclosure, and the air tastes like it smells, like dead mackerel. But for once it doesn’t burn going down. Thanks, I text Sadie. That antacid really did the trick! I add a smiley, then a thumbs-up and an octopus. For visual interest.
My thumb veers toward Instagram, but I back out and make my way down to the sea lions, stepping over Pepsi cans and McChicken wrappers. Brooklyn is so far from the city it almost isn’t the city at all, despite Driver’s repeated assurances that we’re not too far from the apartment. Distance is like that here. Two hours since I left Sadie, and the couch, her face in mine, might as well have happened on another planet. The urge to tell Lindsay gnaws at me. Guess who I met?! But she gets her secrets. No reason I can’t have one too.
Reading exhibit placards helps regain my bearings. The print is small, bleached from decades of New York grime. According to a laminated index card, the big male is on loan from Santa Monica, and named Leo. Original. If the partition wasn’t so unnecessarily thick, I’d climb down there to ask what he misses most about California.
My phone rings as I turn to leave. Mom. I answer right away. “Hello?”
“Koda! Honey. Hi.” Mom always sounds vaguely out of breath on the phone. “I thought I’d—we’re between meetings. What are you up to?”
“What do you mean what am I up to? I’m at the aquarium, like I said.”
“Oh.” She pauses. “I’m sorry, I guess I… you made it sound like you weren’t going for sure.”
My hair isn’t damp anymore. I rake it over my shoulder, summoning patience. “No, I’m here. They have sea lions. And guess what? One’s from Santa Monica. His name is Leo.”
Santa Anas. That’s what I miss most. People say winds that fierce and dry mess with your head, but I never noticed. In fact, without them, Christmas doesn’t really feel like Christmas. Realizing a family’s joined me, I move to the edge of the enclosure. Once they’re distracted by placards, the male’s honking, I crush my nose to my coat cuff. Inhale Sadie’s char.
“That’s lovely,” Mom says.
A pull in her voice. She’s not really listening. I tell her I have to go.
“Okay,” she says doubtfully. “Are you sure everything—no, you know what, never mind. I’m just happy you’re enjoying yourself. Call if you need anything. Have fun. Love you.”
“Love you too,” I say into my cuff.
When I hit end call, a text from Sadie appears. ur welcome. My fingers hover over the keys.
After she pressed the antacid into my palm, I told her about the doctors Mom dragged me to growing up. Assholes who made me drink liquid fireworks and threaded cameras down my throat. Sadie smirked. She said that sounded about right to her. Nervousness, Koda? Anxiety? This all-consuming panic you’ve come to understand as life? That’s him too. One hundred percent genetic. The way she set that word down, him, made me grin. I plugged my nose and chewed.
Glancing at the family—a mom and dad, two rowdy offspring—I type, Is it ok if I come over again? Then I shove my phone away, confused by the heat beating through me.
Knowing Sadie, it’ll be another week before s
he answers.
A honk from Leo cracks the family up. I smile—his vocalizations are pretty spectacular—and as I head back indoors, the kids rush past me. My phone buzzes. If u got nothing better 2 do.
I stop in the doorway. The mom and dad assume I’m holding the door for them and thank me. I thank them back, like an idiot. My eyes snag with the dad’s. Only for a second. But they do.
“Come on, Steve,” the mom says. I almost laugh.
Whose dad is called Steve?
CHAPTER 13
MONDAY, SADIE REQUESTS THAT I meet her at the Thirtieth Avenue subway stop—part of the elevated line Driver clued me in on during our first trip to Astoria. He drops me off beneath the trestles, where I shiver for an eternity in the subarctic dark, getting jostled by pedestrians as trains shriek overhead. My gloves drip from wiping my nose. Snot icicles. A truly New York phenomenon.
Sadie, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to notice weather. When she finally appears, barging through a pack of commuters down the rickety metal steps, her hands are bare, bomber flapping unzipped. Beneath that she wears a checkerboard flannel. Also flapping. A guitar case bangs against her calf, plastered in stickers. She thumps the case between us, and I squint to make them out. Smiley faces and pot leaves, mostly.
“These goddamn songwriting meetings,” she mutters, fumbling for a lighter. “Lucky you haven’t gone the music route yet, but if you do, take my advice. Music is a business. These corporate fucks need oxygen to grow, my oxygen, and before you realize it—boom. You’re sucked in. Somebody’s little hit maker.”
A music meeting, then. I brush my hair from my lips, marveling at how easy she makes it seem that I could ever do something like that. How possible. “That’s what you do now?” I ask. “Write songs?”
The commuters Sadie rammed past walk around us, radiating judgment. She slides me an uncertain smile. “I’ll let you know if we hear one, but you’ve got to promise not to hold it against me. Em—that’s my songwriting partner? Emmy Chapeau?—and I have been writing some real basic shit lately. No judgment, though. Whatever sells.” She flicks her lighter, and it looks like the spark is coming from her fingertips. “You wait long?”
“Oh.” I scramble to answer. How does she talk so fast? “Nope. Just got here.”
“Ah. Got me all worried for nothing, then.”
Incredibly, her base layer is barely a layer at all—a thin black tank top. As she puffs on the cigarette, I tuck my hands in my pockets, to hide my snotty gloves.
We head uphill. Toward her apartment, I assume. Not that Sadie clarifies. Like all New Yorkers, she has this innate sense, an understanding with the city that informs her when it’s safe to cross seconds before the lights do. I hustle after her, pretending I have it too. Thirtieth Avenue is a slice of Astoria I haven’t seen, as busy as Steinway but with trendier restaurants. Streetlights amplify colors, smudge edges. We pass dry cleaners and eyebrow-threading salons, makeshift stalls selling fabrics and fresh fruit. The screen of a LinkNYC kiosk informs us that the suspended blue whale sculpture at the Museum of Natural History weighs over 21,000 pounds. Excitedly, I turn to Sadie—but the intensity of her smoking, the distant look in her eye, makes me reconsider. Surely her day’s been exhausting enough, and when it comes to revealing details about myself, I want to choose carefully. No way I’m replicating any more of my classmates’ disapproval. Their curled lips. I pull my hair over my shoulder and take my gloves off, fashion an impromptu braid.
At Thirtieth and Steinway, the intersection with the two shouty bodegas I can’t believe I actually recognize, Sadie thumps her guitar down again. So far she hasn’t asked any of the questions adults are programmed to ask after five p.m. on weekdays, like how school went and if my stomach hurts, although I guess she already knows the answer to that. Not that I’m complaining. It’s kind of refreshing to know there’s one person out there who expects me to say stuff other than, I’m fine. What that might be, though, I have no clue. Hoping to make conversation, I point to the case. “Do you…” want me to carry that, is where I was going, but the walk sign flashes and she hefts the case up like it’s nothing. As we hurry across, she glances at me, eyebrows rising—do I what?
“Smoke?” I improvise quickly. “Like, a ton of pot?” She looks alarmed, so I add, “You have three different stickers that say, ‘It’s always 4/20.’ ” I don’t add that I only know what this means because of Lindsay. All the stupid pot memes she continues to post even though she still, from what I can see, hasn’t gotten back with Peter.
Sadie laughs. A squawk-laugh, startling me. “Last I counted, there were a couple more on the other side. Not saying I haven’t been known to partake, but…” She flicks the cigarette away. “Stickers aren’t mine.”
“Oh,” I say.
It takes two keys to get into her apartment. One for the front door and another for her own. She hits the lights, same as before, and then proceeds to do a series of things I never imagined my father doing, let alone his ex—like shed her jacket with a sigh and flip through the mail she got from a metal box with her name on it downstairs. While she fumbles around in the bathroom, I lay my coat over the couch again.
“You want anything?” she calls over the toilet’s roaring. “Help yourself.”
Mom’s rule: nobody who says help yourself actually means it, but I figure I might as well assess the snack situation since my stomach’s doing all right. In the kitchen, I nudge a step stool aside to investigate the cabinets. Fingers crossed for sugar.
Frankly? Not much to get excited about. Peanut butter, granola bars, and a folded-up bag of Lay’s. Salt & Vinegar. Gross. I scope out a granola bar’s sugar content. 16 percent. Disappointing.
Sadie’s taking forever in the bathroom. I close the cabinets, then edge silently into the hall. A stitch of light shines beneath the door. Feeling awkward, I hang back, but the hallway’s stubbiness leaves few options. What appears to be a framed poster on the wall is actually a map, with street names I puzzle over way too long before realizing they’re in Italian. Duh. I back up, and my elbow brushes a door shut firmly behind me. Her bedroom.
If she does decide to ask how school went, I’ll tell her, Terrible. I’ll tell her about Lindsay’s latest video, which I was stupid enough to watch before a calc test, how my AP bio teacher caught me hyperventilating on the fringes of the cafeteria and invited me to have lunch with her instead. A tempting offer. Not that I for one second considered accepting it. Everybody knows teacher pity is the worst pity. I went to the nurse’s to lie down.
My braid hangs over my shoulder. I stick the tip in my mouth. One last good nibble before Sadie concludes what must be a ridiculously complicated freshening-up routine, and makes me stop. There’s the sound of a drawer opening and shutting, then water. She coughs.
I beat it back to the living room just in time for her to find me by the bookshelves. Her eyes twitch at me, too big again. Oh God. Does she think I was browsing for dirty stuff? “I can stay a little longer,” I tell her casually, thumbing the wet end of my braid.
She goes into the kitchen. “Yeah?”
“Until…” The guitar case is by the door. Positive Sadie isn’t looking, I crouch down, caress the hard black shell. “Like, seven thirty? My mom will be home around ten.” The stickers look even more busted in the dim lighting of her apartment, each in their own state of flaky, faded decay. Besides the pot stuff, there are slogans: JUST DO IT, and a Chihuahua barking, ¡YO QUIERO TACO BELL! which, I don’t know, seems racist. The most perplexing says, MELTS IN YOUR MOUTH, NOT IN YOUR HANDS, except somebody crossed out NOT and scribbled AND. The corner pokes up. I smooth it, realizing too late that Sadie’s standing over me.
Quietly, she asks, “You really don’t play?” I shake my head, and she chomps at the rim of the plastic cup she’s holding. “You smoke pot?”
I laugh despite myself. “Never.”
“Drink?”
“No. Well… actually, there were pictures. Paparazzi shots from a few months
ago where it looks like I’m drinking, but it’s really just a smoothie my friend Lindsay made.” Sadie shifts her weight to the other foot, probably wondering why I’m cringing up at her. Why her ex’s only child has to be this musically inept. “Never mind,” I say quickly. “Lindsay’s my best friend. We just… don’t talk that much anymore.” Maybe I should tell her how pointless pot is. About that one time Lindsay and I were supposed to hang out, just the two of us, until Peter and his stoner friends showed up, and Lindsay inhaled too hard to impress him and puked into a barbecue pit. Maybe I should get her opinion on Lindsay’s new video.
But then I notice Sadie peering at me again, like that day on the street. Except now there’s a cup in the way. And I swear she’s grinning.
“Mack smoked lots,” she says.
I can’t stop my eyes from widening. The parties, and hotel trashings—it makes sense. But I genuinely never considered the possibility of my father doing drugs. “I thought he just drank. That was the point of the paparazzi pics. They would’ve said—people would’ve said if he smoked pot. Online and stuff.”
Sadie shrugs. “Different time. No social media—or at least not like there is now. We had more privacy.”
So she must be right. But I don’t want to talk about this anymore—I want to focus on learning the parts of my father that connect to me. Parts I would recognize. Impulsively, I thump the guitar case. “I want to play. Can you teach me, too?”
I expect a swift hell no. Instead she taps the cup pensively against a canine. “Where did you come from, Koda Rose?”
“California,” I remind her.
She howls.
* * *
Sadie ties back her dreads and twists off her rings and says, don’t worry about the junk on the couch, chuck it anywhere. I make tidy piles, then un-tidy them, while she explains what I should’ve intuited all along, that the banged-up case and guitar were my father’s. The respectful distance I intend to keep lasts only until she undoes the latches. Then I drop beside her on the rug, plunging my hands into the case’s musty red lining.
The Mythic Koda Rose Page 9