16

Amanda pushed opened the door to her mother’s bedroom and stepped inside. She wore her school uniform: the green plaid jumper with dropped waist and box pleats; the long-sleeved, round-collared white blouse, the green kneesocks. Everything but shoes was regulation. Amanda, who was thirteen, and all her friends wore a certain kind of brown lace-ups, with a dull matte finish that was unpolishable. The shoes were made of thick leather, with heavy metal eyelets. They were meant to support growing arches—that was what the box said—but this intention was entirely subverted by the way Amanda and her friends wore them, with the shoelaces untied, carefully loosened into a series of useless loops. The shoes slapped noisily against the floor at every step.

Caroline’s room was dim and quiet; the morning light was sifting in around the shades. Caroline was always in bed when Amanda left for school.

Amanda spoke from the doorway. “Bye, Mom, I’m leaving.” Her voice was loud, an announcement, not the beginning of a conversation.

Across the room, Caroline’s head rose from the pillows.

“Oh,” she said fuzzily. “You are?”

“Yeah,” said Amanda, still loud. She came closer, dragging her untied shoes on the rug.

“Oh,” Caroline said again. “What time is it?” She squinted at her bedside clock. “Oh, of course you are.” Her voice turned brisker. “Come give me a kiss.”

Amanda bent over quickly to kiss her mother. She was careful about this: sometimes Caroline sniffed her breath, and asked if Amanda had brushed her teeth. Today Caroline only said, “Did you have something for breakfast?”

“Yes,” said Amanda, who had not.

“I’ll see you this afternoon,” Caroline said, then remembered. “Or no I won’t. I’ll see you later. Bye-bye, sweetie.” Her mother said sweetie to all her friends, even people she hardly knew, and in just the same tone that she used to Amanda.

“Okay,” Amanda said. “Can I have some money?”

“Didn’t I just give you some?” Caroline said.

“No. That was last week.”

“What do you need it for?”

“We want to go to the movies.”

There was a pause, and then Caroline said, “In my purse.” She lifted her head up from the pillow and pointed. Her purse was on the desk chair.

“Thanks,” Amanda said. She crossed the room to the purse and opened Caroline’s smooth black leather wallet. It was bulging, and she took out a twenty, folding it quickly into her hand. “Okay, bye. Thanks,” she said again, and waved.

“You’re welcome,” Caroline said, sounding irritated. She dropped her head back onto the pillow.

Amanda slid out of the room, closing the door. She went rapidly down the hall, grabbed her jacket and book bag from the chair in the front hall and left the apartment at once, so that her mother would not think of something and call her back.

Out in the hall she put on her blue-jean jacket and slung her heavy canvas book bag over her shoulder, hoisting it up so that its weight hit her in the right spot. She pushed the elevator button. Now she was free, the rest of the day belonged to her.

When Amanda came home in the afternoon, the apartment would be empty. Caroline got up late and spent the morning at home, most of it on the telephone. She went out to lunch with friends. Four afternoons a week, she worked at Sotheby’s, the auction house, where she arranged their flowers. It was a big job. She did all the arrangements in the exhibition galleries, the auction rooms, the boardrooms and the executive offices. When Caroline had first started doing this, when Amanda was little, Amanda would tell people that her mother worked at Sotheby’s. Their faces always brightened at the name. “Sotheby’s, how interesting,” people said. “Your mother must be very smart. What does she do there?” When Amanda told them that her mother arranged flowers, the faces changed. People nodded, and what they said next was about something else. Now Amanda didn’t say where her mother worked unless she had to.

Downstairs in the lobby, Amanda said good morning to the new doorman. The old doorman, Tommy, had retired. Tommy had a narrow rocky face and an Irish accent. He had told her rhymes, taking her up and down in the elevator. Did you hear about the old woman, he would ask her. Oh, there was an old woman who lived in a shoe, he would say as the elevator rose. Tommy’s accent reminded her of Maeve’s, though it was not the same. But now he was gone, and the new doorman barely spoke. He was named Alberto, but he wanted to be called Albert. He had black hair, black eyes and a Spanish accent.

“Good morneen,” Alberto said. He was caramel colored, small and brisk, very formal. He pushed the door open for Amanda, looking past her.

“Thanks, Albert,” Amanda said, and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

Outside, the early light slanted along the street, and the air was chill and fresh. It was the first week of December, and the sun was pale and colorless. Amanda walked over to Madison and then north toward school. She walked quickly, the air cold against her bare thighs. Her unlined denim jacket was little help: the cold air funneled down her chest and sifted chillingly up her arms from her loose cuffs. She went into the coffee shop on the corner, grateful for the warmth. The shop was full of people, of the sharp smell of coffee and the sizzle of frying breakfasts. The tall silvery coffee machines glowed, steaming. People sat on stools, leaning elbows on the counter; the thin, dark-skinned waiter listened to the orders and said nothing. He wore a white uniform and moved fast.

Amanda ordered coffee to go. Back out on the sidewalk, she held the cup, in its small brown bag, in both hands. She could feel the warmth spreading into her palms, her cold fingers. She walked slowly, to keep from spilling. At the corner of Ninetieth she turned toward Fifth. Set grandly back from the street was the big Carnegie mansion that was now the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. Amanda sat down on the low stone wall that surrounded it, leaning against the iron railing. She took out the cup and lifted its plastic lid. She bent her head to the cup’s warmth, its smell. A tiny cloud of steam rose from the coffee, and Amanda squinted against it as she took her first sip. The stone wall was warm, and the pale winter sun fell across her face.

Down the street Courtney Miller appeared, walking fast. Courtney was Amanda’s best friend. She had long limp blond hair, blue eyes and colorless eyelashes. She was often in trouble, and Caroline did not like her. She wished Amanda would find a more suitable friend.

Courtney’s book bag hung heavily from one elbow, banging against her leg with each step. In her other hand she held a take-out bag. She stopped in front of Amanda.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” said Amanda, moving over. Courtney sat down beside her. Concrete pillars rose at intervals from the stone walls, and the girls each leaned into a corner made from the railings and the pillars, as into the corner of a sofa. Courtney took the plastic lid from her coffee.

“What’s up?” said Amanda.

“Not much,” said Courtney. They sat in silence, taking noisy sips of the hot coffee. “I had another fight with my mom last night,” Courtney said. She leaned down and pulled at her sock.

“What happened?” Amanda asked.

“Same as always. She pisses me off,” Courtney said. She leaned back, facing Amanda, and set one foot up on the stone wall.

“Now, now,” said Amanda in a teachery voice, and they both laughed. “But she’s still going to let you go to the dance,” Amanda added, to make sure.

“Oh, yeah,” said Courtney. “Obviously. No, this was my mouth. And she uses worse language than I do, which she knows perfectly well.” Courtney shook her head. “Last time they had a fight I heard her yelling at my dad in the middle of the night. You asshole, you asshole! And now, to me, she goes”—Courtney dropped her voice to imitate her mother—“‘Courtney, I really do not want to hear you using that language,’ because she heard me say shit on the phone. I just can’t believe her.”

“Just don’t get grounded,” Amanda said. “If you’re not going I’m not.”

The Cosmopolitan Ball was held at the Palm Club, in late December. Invitations were sent to girls at the age of fourteen, and to boys at fifteen. Courtney had a late birthday, and was nearly a year older than her classmates. She was fourteen, and had received her invitation as a matter of course. Amanda was still thirteen, but she had talked Caroline into getting her on the list. Caroline had called a friend who was on the committee, and Amanda had already received the thick white envelope, the heavy engraved invitation.

“I’m going,” said Courtney. “Don’t you fight with your mom.”

“I never have fights with my mom,” Amanda said.

“You’re lucky,” said Courtney.

“Only with my dad,” Amanda said.

“And your stepmother,” Courtney added.

Amanda made a face and did not answer. They drank in silence.

“Emma says drinking coffee will stunt your growth,” she said, her voice rich with scorn. She looked at Courtney and shook her head. Both girls began to laugh.

Courtney looked at her watch. “Come on,” she said. Amanda drank the last of her coffee, noisily, tilting the paper cup high. She drained it and stood up, sticking the empty cup between the iron railings.

“You still coming after school?” Amanda asked as they set off again.

“Yeah. Are we going to do it?”

Amanda raised her eyebrows. “Unless you’re going to chicken out.”

“Right,” Courtney said scornfully, and butted her shoulder against Amanda’s.

Inside the school building, the girls clattered down the big front stairs to the upper-school cloakroom. This was in the basement, a low-ceilinged room with a checkerboard linoleum floor. Tall metal lockers lined the walls. Now it was quiet; in the mornings the girls were still muted from sleep, still subdued by the recent weighty presence of their parents. They were still tidy. Glossy hair was drawn sleekly back. Kneesocks were still high, blouses still unwrinkled, personalities still docile.

In the afternoon, when Amanda and Courtney met there after classes, the atmosphere had changed. The girls were now messy, unraveled by the challenges of the day. Hair hung in loose filmy strands, escaped from the tortoiseshell barrettes, the bright elastics of ponytails. Kneesocks had slid down into comfortable piles around ankles. Personalities had emerged. Girls leaned on locker doors, pushed at each other, used their bodies in expansive ways. Voices were raucous, the noise in the low room deafening.

Amanda opened her locker and put on her blue-jean jacket. She jammed her books brutally into her bag. Courtney, her jacket on, her book bag already full, leaned against the next locker. She stared closely at Amanda.

“You nervous?” she asked finally in an undertone. She brushed one hand beneath her hair, resettling it on her back.

Amanda paused, not looking at Courtney. She pretended to shake. She said slowly, “Nervous?”

Both girls laughed. Both girls were nervous. Amanda turned brisk. “Okay,” she said, resolute.

She slammed her locker shut with a metal clang, and hiked her book bag up onto her shoulder. “Come on.”

They walked down Fifth to Seventy-second Street. On the east side of the avenue, buildings towered toward the sky, orderly and majestic. The grand apartments rose rank upon rank, commanding the great New York views: the pastoral splendor of Central Park. The doormen stood under the crisp awnings, erect, immaculate, militant.

“There’s Tina’s building,” Courtney said, pointing.

“Whoo-pee,” Amanda said scathingly. Then, in a high silly voice, she said, “Oh, girls, I’m so rich. Aren’t you impressed?”

Courtney stared up at the building, squinting. “I went there once. In fifth grade, to her birthday party. She’s on the sixteenth floor. There’s her window.”

“Juuump, Tina, juump!” Amanda called.

They walked, long strided, on the park side of the avenue. Trees leaned over the stone wall, invading the city street, dropping leaves, twigs, seed-pods, onto the stone-paved sidewalk. In the summer the leafy branches formed a cool, damp canopy over the sidewalk. Now bare, the branches made a woody network, a shield from the stinking blasts of cars, and the Fifth Avenue buses. These steamed periodically away from the curb, to lumber southward, ponderous and self-important.

As they neared the park entrance at Seventy-second Street, Amanda slowed.

“Wait,” she said, “let’s go over it again, what your brother said.”

“Okay,” said Courtney. “Dirty blue coat. Sneakers. Goatee. Always grinning. His name is Harold.”

Amanda nodded, uncertain. This had seemed entirely straightforward when David had told them about it. Then, in the privacy of Courtney’s bedroom, the three of them sitting on the rug, leaning against Courtney’s bed, watching MTV, it had seemed exquisitely simple, a world they knew, could handle. Now things were different: now there were only the two of them, standing on the cold sidewalk, surrounded by noise and strangers. Now it seemed perilous, full of variables and risk. Amanda found the plan hard to hold in her head.

“Okay,” she said bravely. They walked on. “But what if the blue coat’s at the cleaners?”

“What if he’s shaved his goatee?”

“What if he’s changed his name? What if we go, ‘Harold?’ and he goes, ‘Not anymore’?”

At Seventy-second Street they slowed more, and turned indecisively into the park. Just inside the entrance was a broad curving sidewalk that descended into the park’s interior. The walk was lined with benches, and the girls looked covertly at the few people sitting on them.

“What if he’s not here today?” Courtney whispered.

“It’s his job,” said Amanda firmly. “He has to be here.” She hoped this were true.

They walked, slowly, along the sidewalk. They both saw him at the same time. He was sitting on a bench, leaning back, his legs stretched out in front of him and crossed casually at the ankles. His arms were spread out along the top of the bench. He was grimy, with a small horrible goatee. He wore a gray sweater and jeans. His coat was unbuttoned and flung open. It was dark blue.

“There he is,” Courtney said.

“Shhh,” Amanda said, urgently.

“We can still talk,” Courtney whispered. “Just because we’ve seen him, there isn’t an order of silence for half a mile.”

Amanda didn’t answer. They were getting closer, and he had noticed them. He took his arms off the back of the bench, folding them over his chest. He looked straight at the girls.

“Is that a signal?” Courtney whispered.

Amanda didn’t answer.

“Are you going to talk to him?” Courtney asked.

“I have the money,” Amanda whispered back.

“Are you going to talk?” Courtney repeated.

“Yes,” Amanda whispered angrily. They had almost reached him. The man sat up straighter, watching them boldly. The girls walked up to him, wavered, stopped, and stumbled on past, not looking at each other. Courtney jostled Amanda’s shoulder with hers. Then, two strides past him, Amanda swiveled abruptly, as though she had forgotten something. The man was staring at them.

“Harold?” Amanda said.

He nodded. His dark eyes were very bright, his mouth small and thin. There was a pause.

“My brother told me about you,” said Amanda. Her voice sounded strange, as though she were out of breath. “Or, her brother, actually.” There was another pause. Harold stared. “We’d, uh, like to buy some stuff from you.” She swallowed.

Harold smiled at her, his small mouth red and moist above the dust-colored fur of his goatee.

“Great, great,” he said fast, nodding. “Let’s just step into my office.” He led the way out onto the grass, into some trees.

Amanda kept her eyes on the ground. Her heart was pounding, she felt the danger of the open space. She felt suddenly, overwhelmingly, the presence of the city police force all around her. She was filled with dread, with certainty. Over and over she heard the approaching buzz of the little scooter, saw the plastic windshield, the helmet, the implacable black and white sign: POLICE. She saw the neat black boots of the policeman appearing next to her. She did not look up.

When they reached the trees Harold stopped.

“Okay,” he said, “great.” He watched the girls too closely. He shook his head interrogatively, baring his teeth in a tight-edged smile. “What are you, prep-school girls?” His overcoat was long and dirty, with military stripes.

Courtney nodded. Amanda, hating him, said nothing.

“Great, great,” Harold said, talking fast. “Now, look, this is really great shit I’ve got here. I want you to know that Harold always has good stuff. The best. Tell all your little friends.” He turned severely from girl to girl, serious. “Got that? The best.”

The girls said nothing. Courtney nodded again, squinting.

“Great,” Harold said. “You got the money?” The smile had gone.

In her pocket Amanda’s fingers were already curled around the twenty-dollar bill. Her heart was pounding. David had told them how to do it, but suddenly it seemed impossible, a roaring chasm lay between her and the act itself. The tiny folded bill in her hand now was something she could not lift, in fact she could not move it at all. If she pulled it out it would fall to the grass, would suddenly be carried off by the wind, the policeman would appear, the shining blackness of his sunglasses concealing his eyes. Taking the plastic bag she would fumble, it would open, everything would spill out, the policeman would arrive as her fingers tightened around it. This was excruciating, she thought, she would never do this again. Her chest felt tight, cramped. She looked into Harold’s eyes. He was watching her closely.

Amanda nodded stiffly, and Harold’s mouth slid into a smile, a real smile this time. “Great,” he said softly.

The apartment was dark and silent. Amanda called out, “Mom?” when they arrived and went down the hall and looked in her mother’s bedroom, to be sure. It was empty, the bed unmade.

“It’s okay. She’ll be gone until six,” Amanda reported. “We have almost two hours.”

In the kitchen they turned on the lights and dropped their jackets and book bags on the floor. They turned on the small TV on the counter and tuned it to a soap for company. Courtney found a bag of Fritos. Amanda found matches and brought the china ashtray from her mother’s room. Her mother was always planning to stop smoking but so far had not. The girls sat down on either side of the small kitchen table.

“Okay,” Amanda said, ceremonial.

Apprehensive, Courtney lifted her hair from her shoulders with both hands, shook her head and resettled her hair. Amanda put the plastic bag between them: it was half full of dried weedy-looking bits. Brown seeds drifted through the mass. Courtney put the book of papers on the table, and the two girls began awkwardly to roll cigarettes. The marijuana formed awkward heaps, the seeds stuck to the girls’ tongues when they tried to lick the paper’s edge, the paper did not meet properly.

“How do you do this? It looked so easy when David did it,” said Amanda.

“Shit,” said Courtney, starting over.

Finally Amanda made a cigarette, bunched and bulging, that stayed rolled.

“There,” she said. She set it down. The girls stared at it.

“I can’t believe we really did it,” Courtney said.

“I can’t either,” said Amanda.

They looked at each other. Amanda shook her head.

“I kept hearing policemen;” she said.

“I kept thinking he was a policeman,” said Courtney.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Amanda said.

“Oh, I’m really going to,” Courtney said, rolling her eyes.

“Just don’t,” said Amanda. “Don’t tell your brother.” She picked up the lumpy cigarette and put the end gingerly in her mouth. She took it out again and looked at it. “Does it matter which end you put in?” she asked. They both stared at the joint.

“No,” Courtney said, uncertain. “I don’t think so.”

Amanda put it back in her mouth and lit it. She drew in a long hot breath, held it, and handed the joint to Courtney. Courtney drew a deep breath of her own. The two girls stared solemnly at each other, the blue smoke expanding inside their chests.

“I meant to tell you,” Amanda whispered, trying to hold on to her breath. “Emma’s asked me to go Christmas shopping with her on Friday.”

“Emma?” Courtney frowned. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Amanda said. “Will you come with me?”

“But you hate her.”

“I have to go.”

Courtney frowned. “But she’s awful.”

“I know,” said Amanda, “but she won’t be to you. Please, Courtney,” she said, and closed her eyes. “If I have to go alone I’ll commit suicide.” She opened her eyes again. “If you come it will be fine. She’ll be really nice to you. It will be fine, I promise.” She put her head down on the table again. “I can’t go alone.”

Courtney frowned. “I don’t know,” she said. “What will you do for me?”

“Anything. There is no favor large enough,” Amanda said, her head still down on the table. “Plee-ease, Courtney,” she said again. “I’ll commit suicide, and then you’ll have to be friends with Tina.”

Courtney shuddered. “Okay,” she said. “When do we do it?”

Amanda raised her head from the counter and took a Frito. “Friday,” she said again. “She’s coming here at five. Mom won’t let her up in the elevator, so we’ll have to wait in the lobby.”

“Why can’t she just call upstairs?”

“Mom won’t speak to her on the phone. We have to be in the lobby. Tell your mom you’re coming.”

“She’ll be delighted,” Courtney said. She frowned earnestly, imitating her mother. “‘I just wish, I just wish you had more friends. It’s not that I have anything against Amanda. I just wish you had lots of friends. Don’t you have anyone else to do things with? Not that I have anything against Amanda.’” They both laughed.

“‘I just wish you were more suitable,’” Amanda said. “‘As a friend.’” Imitating her mother, she said, “‘I think it’s a good idea to have a circle of friends. It’s more broadening.’” She picked up the joint and drew in another hopeful breath. She handed it to Courtney, who sucked on it hard. They stared at each other.

“Do you feel anything?” Amanda asked.

“I don’t think so,” said Courtney.

“He’s such a nerd,” Amanda said suddenly.

“Who?” Courtney said. They spoke in high little gasps, trying to talk without letting the smoke escape.

“Harold,” gasped Amanda. They both began to laugh.

“This is really great shit, Amanda,” said Courtney, nodding like a marionette. She waved the joint grandly in the air. “Really.”

“Great, great,” Amanda said, nodding back, frowning. She pressed her lips together tightly. She took another breath, sucking in the hot smoke, holding it inside the hollow of her chest, holding and holding it. Inside, she could feel it expanding, burning mysteriously, enlarging and darkening. At last she coughed, letting a gout escape.

“What are you, prep-school girls? You know, you girls are so great,” Courtney said. She had stopped nodding and was now shaking her head goofily from side to side. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against her chair. She began to laugh, her eyes still shut. “You girls are really something,” she said. “What are you, prep-school girls?”

They both laughed helplessly.

“What are you, slime?” Amanda said, and they laughed more. “So great.”

They each took another long gasping breath on the cigarette. Amanda’s vision seemed strange, her eyes were beginning to lose focus. She took another belt of smoke and looked around the kitchen. She was surprised to realize that things were changing, in fact they were completely different, all around her. She felt an overwhelming need, both to let everyone know about this—about the hilarious absurdity of the great white refrigerator, humming by itself in the corner, for example—and at the same time to keep all this to herself, to hoard and savor it, as she—alone, she saw now—could do.

But if she tried to tell all this Courtney would not hear her. Courtney was leaning back against the kitchen chair, her eyes closed, nodding to a rhythm only she could hear.

They finished the Fritos, got out the sodas. They gorged. David had told them about the munchies. They sat chewing solemnly, staring straight into each other’s strange powerful eyes. They watched a soap, laughing uncontrollably. They had never understood the soaps before, never realized how breathtakingly funny they were. The things they all said to each other were uproariously funny, or amazingly profound, sometimes both at once. They talked and laughed and closed their eyes. Amanda went to sleep in little intermittent dips.

Later, it slowed and stopped. The room returned to its normal proportions. Everything was once again ordinary: the kitchen furniture, the soaps. Their eyes were now well known, familiar, no longer magical. Amanda stood up and slid open the kitchen windows, wide. The cold evening air swept through the room. She stood in the open window, waiting, shivering. Outside it was dark, and the kitchen was full of shadows. The room seemed altered, contaminated by their afternoon there.

“You think we should spray with air freshener?” asked Amanda, uneasy.

“Won’t your mom smell it and wonder?” Courtney asked.

“Won’t she smell the grass and wonder?”

“Tell her it’s room freshener? A new flavor? David says that at boarding school they hold the joint out the window. They pull it inside to take a puff, and then they exhale into socks, so all the smell goes into the socks. Then they put the socks in the wash.”

“Yuck,” said Amanda.

“I knew David’s socks always smelled bad,” Courtney said.

“They’re high,” Amanda said, but nothing seemed funny now.

The kitchen had turned bleak and desolate. It was past six, and the afternoon was over. Amanda carried the ashtray to the garbage can and threw in the crumbly ashes, rustling the papers around so the ashes would sift invisibly into the trash.

At the sink, she held the empty ashtray under a heavy stream of hot water. It was her mother’s favorite, a white porcelain saucer. In the center was a bouquet of dark pink roses. From this fluttered a few petals, a leaf or two; ribbons trailed from the stems. Amanda hated it, and she hated hearing her mother say it was sweet. Amanda hated hearing her mother say things like that. It made her feel pulled back, against her will, into the time when she, Amanda, would have looked up at her mother’s face and agreed with anything her mother said. She would have said that she loved the roses too. She hated that, she could not even bear the thought of it anymore.

A dark smudge of greasy ash stubbornly spread across the center of the ashtray, resisting the hot water. Amanda, one corner of her lip curled up in concentration, scrubbed hard at the stain with the sponge. She felt the ashtray slip in her fingers. She felt it slide from her grasp; grabbed at it, found it, clutched it, and felt it—smooth and slippery—slide again from her fingers. Amanda’s fingers closed desperately on themselves and she saw the ashtray hit the white porcelain sink, saw it split, beautifully, into clean narrow shards, as simply and quickly as though it were meant to.

Amanda stood in front of the sink, the cold kitchen behind her. The ashtray lay in pieces, the bouquet with fluttering leaves and streaming ribbons now shattered, indecipherable. The water ran over the jittering shards, steadily, as though all of this were all right, this sudden terrible sense of aftermath and letdown. As though Amanda were meant to stand here like this, the kitchen bleak, and flooded with the evening chill, she herself flooded with failure, with this black black grief suddenly crowding around her, enveloping, everywhere.