We met Toad in the dark of the Sunshine Cinema movie theater on Houston Street at a midnight showing of The Goonies. It was November, and even though the days were mild, the night air left Seemy and me chilled and reveling in the hot-fire feel of rum slipping down our throats.
“I’m still cold!” Seemy whispered. “Let me put my hands on your belly.”
“No way!” I laughed, squirming out of reach and trying to keep my voice down. “You have icicle hands.”
“I know!” She was laughing hysterically. “But you’re like a big old bear oven and I’m freezing.”
I laughed about “bear oven” like it was the funniest thing I’d ever heard, even though it sent pinpricks of hot shame into my throat. Seemy took my laughter as permission, and a second later she had her hands under my shirt, pressing her palms against the soft flesh of my stomach. “Stop it!” I hissed, trying to force a laugh, squirming away so hard that I bumped into the person sitting next to me. I turned to him, pushing Seemy’s hands away.
“Sorry,” I whispered to him. Then I hissed “Knock it off!” at Seemy and she started pouting.
The kid next to us leaned over and said, “Don’t stop on my account.”
“Ew, creep!” I said, not even bothering to whisper. I gave him the most evil look I could manage and moved closer to Seemy.
On the movie screen, the Goonies went from the dark of Mikey’s attic to the rainy light of day, and the moment the light hit the theater I saw the kid’s eyes widen as he saw—really saw—Seemy. The very next second his long arm was stretched across me and he was whispering to her, “I’m Todd. Call me Toad.”
Seemy giggled, shook his hand. “Samantha, call me Seemy.” Then she nodded toward me and said, “This is my associate, Nan. Call her Nan.”
Toad grinned at Seemy, barely glancing at me. “We just met. Not to be rude, but could that be some fine island rum I smell?”
I stared at him in the dark. He was skinny and tall, a little taller than me even, which, for some reason, pissed me off. He had a big face. A horse face, I thought, or even like an elephant because his nose was kind of big. When he laughed, his lips pulled back and showed all his teeth. They were big too, and kind of came together in a point in his mouth, like the bow of a ship.
“Nan?” Seemy was saying. “Can you?”
I looked over at her. “What?”
She was holding out her hand. “The rum?” she asked.
Toad jiggled the soda cup he was holding out, sloshing the ice around. Great. So now we were going to share with this kid. I handed her the rum, she uncapped it and poured some into the cup.
I sat there waiting for the movie to be over, waiting for this toothy kid to be out of our lives.
But he didn’t get out of our lives. He tunneled his way in.
“TOAD!” Seemy and I shrieked, pushing through the crowd on Saint Marks and trying to tackle our new friend Toad as if we hadn’t seen him in months, in years, in lifetimes. Really it’d only been a ten-minute pee break in Starbucks, but we felt alive with the invigorating chill of fall in New York, and with the long, skinny scarves we had wrapped fashionably around our necks, and with the shots of vodka we’d thrown back in the bathroom.
“Relax, girls,” Toad said, blushing red as a stoplight, trying to dislodge us from his arms, “you’re scaring the tourists.”
“Eh, they can screw themselves back to Ohio,” Seemy said loud enough to make the people around her look away. She laughed, jumping on Toad’s back. He wrapped his arms around her legs and started running down the sidewalk, making them look like a six-foot-something two-headed beast clothed in many shades of black, Seemy’s olive green scarf trailing behind them. I was used to their shtick by now, so I didn’t walk after them, I just sat down on the closest stoop to pick polish off my fingernails and wait for them to come back.
You could tell he had fallen for Seemy right away, from that first night in the movie theater. They made plans to meet up the next day, and when he saw I was there too, he said, “Oh great, you brought the grim reaper.” And Seemy said, “Nanja’s my best friend! We do everything together!”
We’d been friends with Toad only a couple weeks, and even though I’d kind of hated him at first, he’d quickly become like an elixir for our rotting friendship. The truth is, the afterglow of our first and only summer together had started to fade. Sometimes I wasn’t even sure Seemy liked me anymore. She had friends at her new school, and even though she called them snobs and only hung out with us, I knew she wasn’t exactly sitting alone at lunch like I was.
Anyway, even I had to admit that Toad was the pick-me-up our friendship needed.