TWENTY-FOUR

She’s running to stand still.

—U2, “Running to Stand Still”

“Order up,” the barista said, putting two hot chocolates with whipped cream on the bar.

Finny and I were at Chocolate Chocolat, where I’d just eaten the best chocolate chip cookie ever to inhabit my mouth.

“Want more?” I said, getting back in line. “No telling when we’ll eat again.”

“We’re eating at six with Peyton,” Finny said. “At some Italian place on Broadway, remember?”

“I remember,” I said, even though I fully expected to miss it. I was going to be busy being a test subject, trying to prove the Sophie Effect and save myself before I hopped on a train. I walked back to the table with our hot chocolates and half a dozen cookies. I opened the box and handed Finny another one.

“Mmmm,” he said, munching. “I think you can cross number four off your list.”

“Great,” I said, even though I didn’t feel any different. Too bad this filling-your-heart thing wasn’t more like a video game. My life would have been a lot easier if I heard a ding every time a hole was filled. “What’s next, poetry?”

“I have something better,” Finny said, taking an orange Sharpie out of his bag. “Give me your arm.”

He flipped it over, revealing my forearm, and drew a heart with an arrow running through it. On the inside he wrote “SS + FJ 4EVR.”

“Cute,” I said. “And the purpose of this is?”

“We’re madly, deeply in love!” he said, grinning like he’d just solved all my problems.

“Fake love,” I said, running my finger over his design. “Don’t you think our hearts can tell the difference?”

“Maybe,” he said, his face falling. “Why? Don’t you feel anything?”

“Not yet,” I said. No dings. But since I didn’t want to disappoint him, I said something else. “It’s not your fault, though. My heart probably has so many gaps it’s going to take more than a fake-lationship to repair it.”

“True,” he said, opening the box and taking another cookie. “But as far as fake-lationships go, this is a pretty good one.”

“It’s amazing,” I said, finishing off my hot chocolate. It was the best friendship of my life, but not because he was with me then. It was because he was always there—after I got suspended, after my freak-out at Café Haven, after Mom admitted she thought I was crazy. My chaos continued, but so did his loyalty.

“Ready to get out of here?”

“Sure,” he said, wiping cookie crumbs off his mouth. “I’m feeling rather poetic. And walking is great for the creative process.”

Walking also connected me to Dad, my feet taking me places he’d been. Dad loved walking so much that he used to pick a street and take it as far as it would go. Broadway was one of his favorites because it ended up at the top of Manhattan, his problem solved by the time he got there. I could only hope it did the same for me.

“Your current crush is Drew, right?” Finny said, following me down the sidewalk.

“As far as I know,” I said. “Do you have a crush on him, too?”

“I am completely crushing on his style, but not his person. It’s possible to fall in love with clothing, you know.”

I knew. It was probably easier to love my Army Navy jacket than an actual person.

“I’ve got it!” Finny said, stopping in front of the Strand bookstore. “Check this out: Roses are red, hearts have holes, too. If you’ll plug mine up, I’ll give it to you.”

I laughed. “I christen you the rhyming scientist.”

“What would you do—something more esoteric? Like a haiku?”

“Of course,” I said, leaning against the wall next to him. I counted syllables on my fingers as I recited. “You are my coffee, waking me up to myself. Pour another cup.”

Finny laughed so hard people stared.

“That’s how we met!” I said. “Coffee is a pivotal part of our relationship.”

“But it’s not very romantic. Should we go inside?” he said, motioning to the store. “For inspiration?”

And then I remembered what I had in my pocket: The Pocket Emily Dickinson. I took it out.

“Ooooh,” Finny said, practically drooling. “Is that—”

“A souvenir? Yes,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it later, but right now I need to study the greats.”

I turned to a poem called “Wild Nights” and held the book open between us. It was definitely passionate, but what struck me most about it was the word moor. I loved it. It sounded like more but actually meant “anchored.” Secured. Emily wanted to secure herself to another person. Maybe that’s what love was all about—safety—like how I felt the first time I saw Drew. It was like he filled one of the holes in my heart I didn’t even know was there. And even though I hadn’t said it out loud or written it down, I think that was poetry enough.

“Let’s come back to this one,” I said, even though I knew I was finished. “What’s next? Yoga?”

“Sure!” he said, the optimistic partner in crime. “I’m sure there’s one down the street.”

This time I followed Finny, thinking about love. There was romantic love, which I’d just attempted. There was friend love, which I was attempting all over the place with Finny. And then there was unconditional love. The kind where people loved you exactly as you were, no matter how you showed up. Could yoga possibly help with that?

“I smell incense!” Finny said, opening the door to Yoga Love.

We walked into a class already in session, took off our shoes and coats and grabbed mats from the shelves lining one wall. I felt out of place in my skirt and tights, but since yoga was all about self-acceptance, it was probably okay. Finny and I set up our mats in the back in case we needed to make a speedy exit.

“Arms over your head and inhale,” the teacher said. “Exhale, dive forward.”

My hair flopped in my face.

“Inhale, rise up halfway and exhale, bow forward.”

Finny looked seasick.

“Inhale, float back to plank and exhale, go through Chaturanga Dandasana to Downward Facing Dog.”

Finny collapsed on his mat, and I got into Down Dog, the only pose I really knew. I tried to think about peace. About loving the world. But it was hard to open my heart when all the blood was rushing to my head. She took us through the sequence four more times, which was really three times too many.

“Arms out to the side like wings and inhale, rise toward the sky, exhale, hands to your heart.”

Good thing she’d guided my hands there, I thought. My heart was beating so fast it would have popped out of my chest if my fingers hadn’t been there to block it.

“Nice work, everyone,” she said. “Let’s move on to Surya Namaskara B.”

“The B stands for let’s bail,” Finny said, his face red and sweating. He made it through two sequences before he fell on his mat, which he now rolled up and returned to the wall. I did the same, and we both headed for the door.

“Namaste,” she said as we were leaving.

“Namaste,” I said quickly, pushing Finny out the door before he could laugh. I knew it was a special word, but it always made me laugh, too. It sounded like “my nasty.” And there was nothing sacred about that.

Finny put his hand in front of my heart, hovering a few inches away from my shirt.

“Oh, heart of hearts, are you filling? Do you feel the love, or do you just feel tired?”

“Tired,” I said. Like bone tired. And not just from the yoga. It was exhausting trying to make something work that clearly was not. It was like Finny said. The Sophie Effect was impossible to prove.

“Don’t give up yet,” Finny said. “We have one more thing on your list.”

He popped inside the dollar store and came out with a box of sidewalk chalk.

“What did your list say? It can’t hurt, right?”

I tried to crack a smile, but my lips stayed small, horizontal.

“So forget about the list,” Finny said, handing me a piece of purple chalk. “Let’s just have fun.”

He took a piece of pink chalk and together we drew little hearts and big ones, wide ones and skinny ones all over the sidewalk, up the buildings, down the curbs and into the street. Hearts to catch people’s attention, reminding them to put more love in the world. Reminding me to let love in. One guy high-fived me, and a little girl smiled as I drew hearts around her feet. I looked over and saw Finny connecting his hearts with swirls and getting smiles from strangers, right and left. We drew hearts around dogs, bicycles and fire hydrants, leaving little signs, messages to my heart, letting it know I understood. Messages to Dad, letting him know it was okay to come home. I knew the chalk would fade, but it didn’t matter. I was connecting. Leaping. And I wasn’t alone. Except when I looked up from doodling, I was. And I was at 34th Street.

“Finny?” I said.

His bird’s nest hair wasn’t anywhere, but Walt was. And he was standing in front of me wearing a pink tutu.

“Care to dance?”

I took his paw and he led me into Herald Square. Pandas sat at tables and on benches and still others wore tutus, which is when I realized: Walt hadn’t come to me. I went to him. I traveled.

“Crap!” I said, flopping down next to Larry, who had one leg up on the bench.

“Are your muscles tight, too?” he said, attempting a hamstring stretch.

“Something like that,” I said. Except it was nothing like that.

“What’s going on?” I said to Merv, who was kicking. It looked less like dance and more like karate.

“Rockettes tryouts are today,” he said. “We’re all auditioning.”

“Why?” I said.

“Dancing improves marching skills,” Walt said. “You should try it sometime.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Because if poetry and yoga won’t help me prove the Sophie Effect, high kicks will.”

Walt stood up and balanced on his tiptoes. “You want my advice?”

“Yes,” I said. “Generic as it may be.”

“You’re thinking about love in the general sense,” he said. “Maybe the real work is closer to home.”

“Like Havencrest?”

“Even closer than that,” he said. The rest of the pandas had formed a line in the middle of the square and were waiting.

“You have a choice,” he said, adjusting his tutu. “You could sit here with a sad face, or you could realize you’re doing all you can. Forgive yourself a little. And then celebrate how far you’ve come.”

He held out his paw, and I took it, joining my tribe in tutus.

The pandas linked arms, shoulder to shoulder, while I stretched mine as far as they would go around Walt and Larry’s waists. Walt counted off, and before I knew it, we were kicking, blurs of black, white and Doc Marten flashing in the sun.

“You’ll have to kick higher than that,” Walt said, sending his leg up to eye level. Grinning.

“If the shaman thing doesn’t work out, you definitely have a backup job,” I said.

We kicked together, one perfect unit, as Merv busted out his own enthusiastic, acoustic version of “New York, New York.”

As my legs stretched longer, I forgot about the Sophie Effect.

As my limbs went higher, I forgot about being lonely. Being angry. Being me.

I was finally getting the hang of it when Merv’s chorus ended and it was over. The pandas and I took a bow and then we unlinked, tutus running for water, me wondering where I’d run to next.

“Drink up, doll,” Walt said, handing me a bottle of water. “Hydrate that beautiful brain of yours.”

“And my heart?”

“You’re closer than you know,” he said. And then he pointed to the Broadway street sign. “Just keep going. You’re headed in the right direction.”

The pandas disappeared, and the old Broadway reappeared. I didn’t see Finny, just an old guy sitting inside a doorway holding out a tattered hat. I think it was a fedora.

“Lady, spare a dollar?”

“Enjoy,” I said, putting one of my five-dollar bills in his hat.

SOPHIE: Where are you?

I texted Finny as I continued up Broadway, shadowed by tall buildings and tailed by taxis. I passed a theater, which was showing Mamma Mia, but remembered Dad talking about when everything was all Cats, all the time. It made me miss Balzac. I found him when he was a kitten, sitting on our stoop, all blue eyes and fur, no collar. When I asked if I could keep him, Mom said no, he was too hairy, but Dad said yes, and that I should bestow a regal name upon him. I ran inside to the bookshelf, closed my eyes and spun. When I opened them, I was pointing at The Quest of the Absolute, by Honoré de Balzac.

“I christen you Balzac,” I said to the tiny fur ball who would turn out to be my best friend. He didn’t care that I saw things that weren’t there or that we moved a lot, just that I let him climb all over me when I was reading in bed, snuck him tuna from my sandwiches and talked to him every morning. His mom might have been Siamese, which gave him blue eyes, but his dad was definitely Maine Coon. Balzac was a talker who responded to anything that would respond, which Mom described once as manic.

“You know the real Balzac suffered from fits of mania and depression, right?” Mom said.

Apparently I’d invited mania into my house without knowing it was already there. It made me wonder what else I’d let in by accident.

|||||||||||

Broadway curved and got busier with people, stores and clubs. Maybe one of them was a jazz club where Dad liked to go. Maybe he was in a jazz universe right then, showing horn players the connection between dissonance and mustard, accelerando and roller skates. How everything was linked, like the lines that ran between us. Some of those lines were really close, especially the one between science and sanity.

Buildings blocked my view as I ran into a crowd filled with babies and briefcases, my feet trying to keep up with my mind. As the smells grew stronger, the avenue grew wider and the sky opened up, a big circle of dusk surrounded by TV screens and headlines. NASDAQ and neon. Pepsi, TDK, Toshiba. Toys “” Us, Bank of America, Target. Drink our soda, watch our sports channel, see our movie. Commercials played right, left and center, creating a constant circle of babble, while real life Statues of Liberty—people wearing green face paint and dresses—posed for photos with tourists who ignored everything else going on around them in their quest to get the perfect shot. People from all over the world came here, to the center of everything, where the apple dropped.

Nine-to-fivers ran by me to catch the train. Suit wearers and purse swingers rushed over me, headed for the first act. It was all bike messengers and bedlam, traffic and travesty, all that was and would always be Times Square.

Finny hadn’t texted me back. My heart felt the same as before, and I sensed the dark place in my stomach darkening. The air left, the sky closed in, and a shopping bag hit me in the head. It was hard to think about love while chaos swirled around me, but maybe that was the point. A bike raced by and knocked me onto a bench, so I sat there, absorbing the neon.

“Are you crazy or traveling?” Panasonic asked.

“You think if you prove the Sophie Effect, things will go back to normal?” Sony wanted to know. Sony had a point. My version of normal was different from everyone else’s, even before I started seeing things.

A woman in an American flag sweatshirt wheeled a double stroller past me, yelling at her kids. I would have yelled at Dad if he had been there. What if the last time I saw him was the last time I’d ever see him?

People poured past me and into theaters, trying to make the evening shows. As quickly as they filled, the streets were now clear. I hugged my knees to my chest and planted my feet on the bench. I was walking the streets he’d walked, trying to fill my heart. Hoping it would fill his. But Dad never tried to find me. Even though Mom kicked him out, he never came after me. He let me drift.

I could have sworn I felt the holes in my heart get even bigger.

And then I remembered something I hadn’t been able to remember until now: the night Dad left.

|||||||||||

“But she didn’t drink any,” I heard Dad say. I was sitting in the living room doodling while Balzac sat beside me, quiet for the moment.

“No one got hurt,” he said.

“You put a bottle of rat poison in the kitchen cabinet. What were you thinking?” Mom asked.

“It was an accident, fruit pie,” he said. Dad’s pet names were always desserts, which I thought was funny. “I was using it, came up to make a snack and left it in the cabinet, I guess.”

“This is a house, not a laboratory,” Mom said. “Our closet is no place for chemistry sets, and samurai swords don’t belong next to the toothpaste.”

“I was going to put those away, too,” he said. “I just forgot because—”

“You always forget,” Mom said. “I understand that your brain doesn’t work in a linear fashion, but you’re not the only one who lives here. I can take care of myself, but what about Sophie? She could have been distracted and spooned rat poison into her milk instead of Ovaltine.”

Balzac meowed. Exactly, I thought. I hated Ovaltine.

“No more mixing work and play,” Dad said. “Next time I’ll leave everything in the basement.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” she said. “Since there won’t be a next time.”

Mom poked her head out of the kitchen.

“Sophie, it’s past your bedtime,” she said. “Go on up, and I’ll tuck you in later.”

I went to my room and buried myself under the covers but couldn’t sleep. There was too much yelling. I put on my headphones, but I could still hear them in between songs, crying, yelling and more crying. It was too late to go anywhere else, so I got my sewing supplies, climbed back into bed and turned up the volume to R.E.M.’s Reckoning.

“It’s a Dream Pocket,” I told Balzac, who sniffed my scraps to see if they were edible, which they weren’t unless you were a fan of felt. “I hope it works.”

I heard a crash, and Balzac jumped.

“Sophie?” Dad said, knocking on the door. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” I said. Balzac flew off the bed and over to Dad. “Are you guys okay?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said, but I knew he was lying. “I was dancing with your mom, and a vase fell.”

You and Mom were fighting, and a vase broke, I thought. I wasn’t stupid.

“You’re supposed to be asleep,” he said, nodding at my supplies. “What are you making?”

“Dream Pockets,” I said, holding up a cloud-shaped piece of felt that was blue on one side, lemon yellow on the other and sewn together with a small opening at the top like a pocket. “You write down a dream, put it inside and put the whole thing under your pillow. When you wake up, your dream comes true.”

“Impressive, my little genius,” he said. “Does it work?”

“Not yet,” I said. “I still have to sew on the buttons and test my theory. It’s probably not an exact science, anyway, not like your stuff. Like things might come true, but not right away. Or maybe not in the way you thought.”

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “You know, my science isn’t an exact science, either.”

“It’s not?”

“Far from it,” he said. “There are many things we don’t know about our world, but that’s okay. That means the possibilities are endless.”

“Here,” I said, handing him a Dream Pocket. “It’s not finished, but I want you to have it.”

“Thank you,” he said. “I’ll take it with me on my trip.”

“But you just got back . . .”

I wanted him to stay so we could have toast with jam faces in the morning. I promised to be extra quiet so he could sleep late.

“And I will ‘just get back’ again,” he said. “Can someone else write the dream for you?”

“Sure,” I said, getting a piece of notebook paper and a red pen off my desk.

“Would you write it?”

“Yes!” I said. And there, in small, cramped letters, I wrote my dream for him. “Travel safely and come back soon.”

I folded it up and put it in the front pocket of his jacket, along with a few other strips of paper.

“Those are so you can write your own dreams on other nights,” I said.

“But I like this one,” he said, looking like he was about to cry.

“Daddy?”

“I’m just tired,” he said. “I better get going, lemon drop.”

Balzac rubbed up against his leg and meowed.

“Even the cat wants you to stay,” I said. “When will you be back?”

I never really cared where he went, only when he would come home.

“Soon,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.”

“I’d rather see you sooner,” I said, patting Balzac’s head. “We miss you when you’re gone.”

“I miss you, too, Sophie,” he said. “No matter what you hear or what anyone tells you, know this: I will always love you. Come here.”

Dad wrapped his arms around me and gave me the biggest hug ever, the kind that smashes your heart into the rest of your organs.

“I love you, too,” I said. “But I can’t breathe.”

He laughed, releasing me.

“Be good while I’m gone,” he said. “Listen to your mom, listen to yourself and don’t be scared of things you don’t understand. Remember—they’re just possibilities.”

“Okay,” I said, wondering why he was acting so weird.

I picked up Balzac, and we walked Dad downstairs and to the front door. Mom stood off to the side, arms crossed, lips in a little ball. She’d been crying, you could tell, but she cried a lot lately. She needed a Dream Pocket, too, one that came with a Kleenex inside. Dad put on his captain’s hat and opened the door.

“Bon voyage, ladies,” he said. And then he did his good-bye dance and walked down the steps. Just like he always did.

“Bon voyage, Captain!” I said, leaning out the door and blowing him a kiss. Balzac meowed, and Mom went to the kitchen, but I stood in the doorway and watched Dad until he was out of sight, which didn’t take long since it was dark outside. It was always sad to see him leave, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. He’d be back before I knew it. He always was.

|||||||||||

Tears ran down my cheeks and mixed with the smell of hot dogs and pretzels, the conversations of cabbies and people on cell phones.

Dad didn’t come back, but other people came in. And they stayed.

I had Finny, master of best-friend-dom. Even though I hadn’t been a stellar friend myself, he was there. Sidewalk chalk and all.

I had Mom, queen of trying to make things better, even when it seemed like she made them worse. Dad was just being himself. And she was just trying to protect me from it.

I had Drew. And even though he was just the tiniest possibility of something, it was something.

And Betty, the other member of the fan club.

Morrissey, who wrote songs about what I was feeling. He made pain sound good.

Einstein, because he belonged to all of us. Without him, the Sophie Effect wouldn’t exist. And science might have stayed small instead of what it was now: infinite.

I had Balzac, the cat with the biggest mouth and the even bigger heart.

Peyton, my closest link to Dad. Maybe we’d find our way.

And Walt. Everyone deserved a shaman panda. Guardian angel, sans the wings.

And Dad.

Let them in.

Let them in.

Let them in.

Armor off, heart exposed, holes and all. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. Finny. It had been vibrating continuously, but I’d ignored it. Just like I ignored what was right in front of me. Love wasn’t about just one part—that happy ending you saw in movies and read in books—it was about all of it. Messy, disappointing, imperfect. But you needed it if you were ever going to be whole.

How to Close the Gaps in Your Heart, Part 2
by Sophie Sophia

1. Realize you have awesome people around you who want to love you.
2. Let them.
3. Show them you love them back. (Actions trump words.)
4. Do the forgiveness thing.
5. If necessary—and it almost always is—do the forgiveness thing on yourself.

Out of nowhere, I wanted to be at that dinner, splashing Finny with red sauce and dangling noodles at Peyton. I wanted to be Sophie minus the Sophie Effect, except that part where I show up. I pressed 1 on my speed dial. Finny.

“Sophie? Where are you! I’ve been calling and texting and—”

“I know,” I said. “I got stuck in the panda-verse.”

“Oh,” Finny said, his voice expressing how I’d felt when I was in it.

“It’s okay,” I said, feeling inside my pocket. A ballet shoe. “Really, it’s better than okay. I think I figured it out.”

“Let me come get you,” he said. “I don’t have to finish this lasagna.”

“You do,” I said. “And I have to finish it with you.”

“Huh?”

“Are you still on Twenty-third and Broadway?”

“We are, but—”

“But nothing,” I said, hoisting my bag on my shoulder and standing up. “I’m about twenty blocks away. Order me spaghetti pomodoro? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Take a cab,” I heard Peyton say. “I’ll pay for it when you get here.”

I hailed one and collapsed into the backseat. I said I was tired before, but this topped it. This was like exhaustion. La grippe.

“East Twenty-third and Broadway,” I said, taking out my phone again. Mom would hate shorthand, but I was going to text her, anyway.

SOPHIE: See you soon.

MOM: Are you on the train?

SOPHIE: Not yet.

Now that I’d been inside Dad’s world, I understood why she didn’t want me there. She loved Dad but was afraid of him. Like she’d started to be with me. But I wasn’t Dad. And pretty soon she’d know that. My hands shook as I typed.

SOPHIE: I love you, Mom.

And then my phone lit up like Christmas.

MOM: I love you, too.

We never said it to each other, which is probably why it felt so good, like a warm bubble bath after trudging home in the cold. Like finally, I wasn’t so alone. And when the cab pulled up in front of the restaurant, I saw Peyton and Finny through the window, waving. Confirming it.