The Mythic Koda Rose

by Jennifer Nissley

  Chocolatey red. Not too flashy or anything. Perfect for chilly hikes up Thirtieth, or getting trapped on trains.

  Mom approaches with a giant shopping bag, guilt scribbling all over her. “I got both,” she announces. Her eyes brighten when she sees the scarf. “That’s exquisite, Koda, really. Do you want it?”

  “No,” I mumble, wadding the scarf up. Apology gifts embarrass people. One day, she’ll understand.

  Even so, as we descend to the jewelry department—Grandpa is way easier—I decide to try something new. I’ll browse Saks with my father’s eyes, since Sadie thinks I have them. Probably he’d be overwhelmed by the selection. And too broke to shop here, which is fine considering I won’t really buy Sadie anything. This is for fun. An experiment. What else am I supposed to do while Mom hunts for old-man watches? Heads turn as we step off the elevator. I swear the linoleum pulls beneath me. The two of us sucked into the inescapable tidal wave of Diehard enthusiasm, but this time, the excitement fades quickly. I wait until Mom’s eyes are the only eyes. Then I swallow my nerves. “Can I look around?” I ask. “By myself?”

  She frowns. “Koda…”

  “I won’t go far, I promise.” I swallow harder, trying to project the confidence that I in no way feel. “I’ve got shopping to do too, you know.”

  Miraculously, that seems to convince her, although she couldn’t look more pained as she signals for a security guy to follow me. Stay close, she mouths. Like I need a reminder.

  Jewelry overlaps with Cosmetics. I wander down the central aisle, to be judicious. Tinsel abounds. Almost as disorienting as the techno remix of “Silver Bells” that’s been blasting for the past ten minutes. Cosmetics is tricky. Sadie hasn’t worn any makeup around me, but thanks to old pictures, I know she used to. Razor-fine blush and tarry eyelashes. Purple lipstick that she’d smear on purpose, right as they took the stage. Ensnared by a MAC display, I pick up the darkest I can find, a black so deep that the test swatch I dart onto my hand smears like ink. It reminds me of Lindsay. Of sitting on her bed, watching her get ready for Peter’s shows. My mouth goes dry from all the spit it takes to scrub off.

  In Women’s Jewelry, I part seas of anxious men, using Security Guy’s might to linger at case after case. This stuff’s ridiculous, way too red-carpet, but there are some pieces where I think, if I was Mack Grady… dainty gold hoops. A topaz ring, dark as her eyes. I get as far as sliding it onto my own finger before deciding it’s not right either. Would my father stoop to getting her another ring? Unlikely. He was too original. Perfume’s next. I flap test strips under my nose, but it’s hopeless. She already smells so good.

  The sales girl’s eyes flick from me to Security Guy as she approaches the counter, her expression all, Why her? Not the first I’ve noticed while browsing. Lots of people recognize me. Lots still don’t. “Can I help you?” she asks, and I pretend to consider this, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear as shyness seizes me. I need a gift for somebody. Would he say that? I bet after they both found out about me, my father got down on his knees. Begged Sadie, begged her, to take him back. But I shake my head—“Just looking”—and grab a random test bottle. Oval-shaped, with amber liquid sloshing inside. I bring it to my nose. Sniff.

  And smell velvet. A battered guitar in my hands.

  A tap on my shoulder, and I whip around, clinking the bottle hard on the counter. Mom giggles. “Sorry to scare you,” she says. “I just thought…” She shows me something twined around her fingers. A delicate silver bracelet, with a single charm. The letter L. I stare. “For Lindsay?” she explains. Then, suddenly doubtful, “That’s who you were looking for, right? Is it too much?”

  No. No, it’s perfect, is the thing. So perfect that the moment Mom held the chain up, I saw it shimmering on Lindsay’s wrist. She wouldn’t even have to take it off to swim. “It’s beautiful,” I manage, but she doesn’t seem to hear, her attention hijacked by Salesgirl, who talks quickly. Hostage to the nervous awe Mom inspires.

  “Your daughter was looking at this one,” she says, pointing to the oval bottle, and of course Mom is too nice not to play along. Helpless, I watch her spray a test strip.

  Her nostrils quiver. “Wow.” She glances at me, the bracelet forgotten completely. “Musky.”

  I shrug, reading the box that Salesgirl sets on the counter. It says MUSK, so Mom must be right. Deer secretions. Not velvet, or guitar. Briskly, Mom thanks Salesgirl and leads me away. “So?” she says, lifting the bracelet. The L spins, sparkling like silver shouldn’t. Pool water on Lindsay’s lip.

  I could never give that to her.

  Looking away, I whisper, “Where did you get it?”

  She brings me to the case, and the sales girl here is nicer, doesn’t judge or question me when I hand the bracelet back and ask to see other L designs instead. I study them, doing my best to appreciate their subtleties while Mom looks on. It’s excruciating. Forget my father. I have never felt more powerless, more desperately alone, than in this moment. Sadie—the only person in my life who seemed to get me—has already cut her losses. And the only person I have left, the girl who might get me, if I let her, is the same girl I can’t stop pushing away. Bracelets sparkle before me, tempting, teasing. Mom’s distracted now. Poking at her phone.

  If my father was here… really here. Not just in my imagination…

  Would he help me choose?

  Finally, I just point. Mom and Salesgirl exchange smiles, like we all share the same taste.

  “You could’ve gotten one for Sarah, too,” says Mom while Driver loads our packages into the trunk.

  I don’t answer. Tourists flail at yellow cabs.

  Mom smiles, brushing my hair from my lips. “Honey? Don’t you think?”

  “Stop.” I pull my hair back into place. “She’s not even my real friend.” Her silence this past week confirms it. And now I have a bracelet for Lindsay, a card to pick out and send to California. The same bullshit scribbled inside.

  CHAPTER 15

  WHEN SARAH HUMS ONTO MY phone screen that night, I slam my hand over it, dismiss the text by accident. Turns out Sadie isn’t avoiding me. Just upstate for the holidays, with minimal service. Back next week. C u then? she asks, and I reply, OK sure! suppressing the drumbeat in my ears. Next week. Sadie Pasquale wants to see me next week.

  Christmas goes exactly as predicted. Mom, some designer friends, a bottle of prosecco, and me. Our gift ban doesn’t stop me from showering Vinnie with the java moss I promised him, plus Amazon swords and a dwarf anubis, so he can hide under its leaves. New Year’s Eve, we go to a party—some ball The Magazine throws at a fancy Midtown hotel. The entire office shows up and gets shitfaced. I fall asleep on a couch in the lobby. When I jolt awake, dry-mouthed and groggy, it’s after one a.m. Behind the ballroom’s ornately carved doors, a beat simmers. Laughter rings like glass breaking. I sit up, smoothing the shimmery scales of my gown.

  The doorman here doesn’t ask where I’m going. Only tips his hat and says, “Happy New Year, miss,” as he swings the door out into the empty black night. It’s cold, but I have Mom’s feathery shawl that I borrowed. Combined with my gown and the heels that have been gnawing my toes all night, I look half mermaid, half poached swan.

  Also, the night isn’t that empty. I guess New York never is. On the narrow sidewalk, groups of friends form drunken whirlpools, laughing and shouting and helping one another into cabs. I should probably avoid them, but with Sadie due back soon, I’m discombobulated, so frantic to see her that nothing can penetrate the static in my head. She and my father could’ve gotten bagels with cream cheese at this bodega. Sat on this exact bit of sidewalk with their arms around each other, shivering, half-dead. Lately, I’ve built them into everything, but for some reason tonight the visions seem especially vivid. Maybe I snuck more champagne from Mom’s glass than I thought.

  When I reach a certain corner, the static stops. That street sign—West Forty-Ninth. I’ve read about it online somewhere. I’m sure I have.

&n
bsp; I find a girl who seems knowledgeable. Standing beneath a dribble of streetlight, vaping and alone. “Um,” I say, “what neighborhood is this?” and she sucks the e-cig before answering, “Hell’s Kitchen. Why?”

  To make this awkward, I could say, Because my father died here. But the girl doesn’t wait for a response. She laughs a cloud of cherry vapor, eyeing my sparkles. “What’s with the dress? You rich or something?”

  “Yeah,” I tell her. Though I don’t really think of it like that.

  I wander farther, rustling in my shawl feathers. For all I know, my father and Sadie could’ve lived a block from here. The fifth-floor walkup where he died is some kind of shrine now, the ultimate Diehard destination. They leave flowers on the stoop—daffodils, like my father and Sadie stole for each other on their first date—and birdseed for pigeons. Take selfies. But I don’t want to visit a shrine. I want to step into their apartment, deeper than any picture could go. Cracked linoleum, I’m thinking, my father and Sadie jumbled together with mismatched everything. A couple of plates and coffee cups. Five minutes of hot water each. In the only photos I’ve found of their apartment online, they lounge on a balding plaid sofa. Sadie sprawls across my father’s lap, pixie feet propped on the armrest. A beard shades my father’s cheeks. They both seem dazed. Rumpled. Like they slept in their clothes and might go back to sleeping in them once the photographer leaves. In the next pic Sadie’s the same, but my father has his head tipped back to blow a smoke ring. A perfect lavender O.

  The risk of cancer, and heart attacks and lung disease, can’t stop me from wanting to blow my own smoke rings, just so my father could watch me try. He probably wouldn’t have lectured me on the risks anyway. He probably would’ve been the kind of father who lets his kid make her own choices. I mean—he did drugs. At the very least, I doubt he’d judge me.

  The sky’s a chemical spill. Purple ribbons, zero stars, which is one thing—besides traffic—that New York has in common with LA. But there’s this burst of light in the distance, clear and bluish bright like it’s radiating from a TV, and I know, even without knowing anything, that it must be Times Square. This certainty is freakish. Totally instinctual, which means the city must be changing me somehow. Altering my DNA.

  I walk until I can’t anymore. Until the blocks all run together and I need a navigation app to limp back to the hotel. As Doorman does his thing, my reflection flashes across the glass. Not so much poached swan as too-tall girl in clopping shoes, her cheeks chewed pink from the cold. The party’s still raging. At this rate, we’ll definitely skip brunch. I clop over to my couch and flop down. So tired that I’m already slipping beneath the waters of a dream when my buzzing phone wakes me. “Oh my God! Happy New Year, baby!” I can barely hear Lindsay over whatever’s happening in the background, a jumble of shrieks and bass. “Happy New Year,” I manage, but my mouth is Styrofoam. It doesn’t sound like I planned.

  “Hold on,” she says, and there’s this sense of movement—the noisiness fizzling out behind her as she goes somewhere more private. “Okay. Sorry. I’m at this party and… it won’t be midnight for a while here, but I wanted to be the first to tell you Happy New Year. Was I first?”

  I sit up. One heel slips off and I overreact, trying to hush it with my other foot so both go clattering to the marble. Doorman jumps.

  “Yeah,” I lie, once my ears quit ringing.

  Lindsay giggles. “Hooray!”

  I can’t tell if she’s drunk.

  “How’s the party this year?” I ask. “Fun?”

  She goes quiet. “It’s okay.” Then, in a voice barely above a whisper, “Everybody here is so dumb.”

  She must mean because it’s not one of her boozy concerts. Because it’s at a swim teammate’s house, girls only, and Peter—even if they were back together—would sooner die than show up at a high school party. I lie with my cheek against the armrest, curled around this fact. “Everybody here is dumb too,” I reassure her. “Except one person.” This is the closest I’ve come to mentioning Sadie, and I bite my lip, waiting for Lindsay to demand, Who?

  “I miss you, Koda.”

  She says it two more times.

  “I miss you, I miss you.”

  It’s January 1. In exactly three months, I turn eighteen. What if I don’t come up with the words by then? What if all these feelings will become like the bracelet I still haven’t sent her? Shoved to the back of my nightstand, locked inside a pearl-white box. I don’t know how to bring up my birthday without giving myself away. I miss you doesn’t mean I love you. Not remotely. You’d have to be seriously pathetic to seize on a hope that small.

  “Miss you more,” I say.

  * * *

  The rest of the day proceeds blearily, like it always does after a big night. While Mom recuperates, wobbly from her hangover, I tear apart my closet.

  It’s all shit, is the problem. Baggy sweatshirts and jeans, the Converse I’ve slouched around in my entire life, are okay for kids, but with my birthday on the horizon I’ve got to get serious about making improvements. This isn’t your typical resolution, me promising myself, I’ll do better this year, a brand-new chance that I’ll still mess up. Worthiness is the goal. Like I deserve my father’s legacy. Deserve Lindsay.

  Also, I’m seeing Sadie tomorrow.

  And three months, I understand now, doesn’t give you much time. Not to record an album, in my father’s case. Definitely not to learn everything there is to learn about him, to ask Sadie question after question until I quit feeling so stripped and shy. How do I do that? Channel him. Obviously.

  I stand in front of the full-length mirror. Almost naked, but not quite. My undies and bra are plain white cotton. Childish. Old clothes are strewn over the carpet like beach trash. I pick through them again, one eye on the mirror to supervise my stomach folds, the swing of my breasts. Lindsay liked my black lipstick, so whatever I come up with will need to be some echo of that. And then there’s all the stuff Sadie’s said to me about how much I remind her of my father, my stomach and face and twisty logic. The right clothes would cement that point even more. Hello, Sadie, those clothes would say. Not hi. Hello.

  The lacy black tunic I settle on isn’t new. A Mom discard that requires tights. But I turn and turn, my fingers tucked in the drapey sleeves.

  Driver doesn’t comment on my transformation the following morning, or when I dive into the car after school. My classmates don’t notice either—thank God. Hard to tell when you’re always greeted with a pile of stares anyway, but keeping my sweatshirt on helped. Now I struggle out of it, zip my coat back up. As we cross the bridge toward Astoria Boulevard, inspiration strikes. I dab my lips with nude gloss, then spend the rest of the ride with my mouth open, guppying it, to avoid licking the stuff off. Hello, Sadie. I’ve been practicing all day. Memorizing each syllable, their edges and curves, like I’m going to sing them. I picture her funny smile. Those big eyes bursting wider with surprise. Hello…

  * * *

  I know the second Sadie opens the door that she isn’t wearing a bra. I process this before her dorky glasses, the torn-up jeans accented with safety pins. Lifting the guitar, she says, “Got to tune her quick.”

  “Cool,” I reply, a beat too late. She must’ve just gotten home. There’s a suitcase and black backpack piled by the door that I have to sidestep to reach the couch. The cushion beside her has been cleared already. I sit down even though she doesn’t invite me to, slipping my coat off along the way. It plops to the rug, and I remember—crap. “Hello, Sadie.” Naturally, this comes out nothing like I practiced. A total splatter.

  She chuckles and cocks her head at me. “Hello yourself?”

  I’m blushing too hard to do anything but watch her with lashes lowered, fists wrapped in my sleeves. Something about her isn’t quite like I remember. Not in a bad way, just different. Again. Sawing her nose on her cardigan, she mutters, “This is what happens when you’re out of town for a week. Everything goes to shit, poor baby. Listen.” She twangs a
string. The B string, if I remember correctly. I’d ask, but she zooms on without me. “That’s flat. The G’s sharp, see?” She twangs the B string and then the other, over and over, until my smile convinces her I hear the difference. There’s more, and I try to pay attention, but it’s all so distracting. My leggings, for one thing. Turns out I don’t have the resolve for tights. And Sadie’s freckles. The sunset, her papers smeared with orange light. Her scratchy fingers pluck notes, coax knobs on the guitar’s neck, and it’s hypnotizing, how one hand always seems to know what the other is doing. Sweat glimmers on her forehead. Her tongue sneaks between her teeth. “Yup,” she says. “Sounds awful. A goddamn travesty, but you know Teddy. Actually, you don’t know Teddy, but he’s got a real bug up his ass, let me tell you. Won’t let me bring my girl anywhere near him, not even for Christmas, if you can believe that. He’s got this big old farm upstate, suppose you googled. Wife and kids. Alpacas—”

  “What?” I say.

  “Those cuddly-looking fuckers—”

  “No, I know what alpacas are.” If she wasn’t talking like a fifty-car pileup, I would’ve caught on sooner that by Teddy she means Ted. The bassist. “You guys really keep in touch?”

  Sadie bends her head, fiddling intently. “Teddy’s my best friend.”

  “That’s awesome.” I didn’t realize he’d moved back upstate or had a farm. Contrary to Sadie’s assumption, I’ve never really bothered to research him. Like most people, probably. He seems all right in photos. Black, handsome, but a different direction of handsome from my father. This narrow, serious face. “Why doesn’t he let you bring your guitar?” I ask, and she laughs. This joyless bark.