A Long Way From You (13 page)

I turn double-decker red for suggesting it. Maybe Tad notices because he puts his hand on the small of my back. I try not to stiffen. Even though he’s a New York native, he doesn’t remind me of stylist/socialite Waverly. Or Corrinne.

“Kitsy, we’re going to have fun. This is New York City, the Empire State, the Melting Pot, the Center of the Universe. So let’s act like it.”

The only nickname Broken Spoke has is the BS, so Tad has a point.

“Okay,” I say, watching a bus lumber to a stop in front of us. Tad steps back so I can go on first. Maybe there are actually Yankee gentlemen willing to show a newbie around with no strings attached. Although I’ve never heard about it, there might be such a thing as northern hospitality.

Tad stands on the bus and holds on to the railing above my seat.

“I like standing,” he says as I notice that his blue eyes have tiny flecks of hazel in them. “Besides, there’s almost always someone that needs the seat more.”

I won’t lie. The view of looking up at Tad isn’t bad.

As we pass through the different neighborhoods, Tad gives me a running commentary.

Approaching a small park with a pool and track near the FDR Drive, Tad gets all giddy. “That’s Thomas Jefferson Park,” Tads exclaims. “That’s where I learned how to ride a two-wheeler and to do a cannonball. In the summer, my family had BBQs there every Sunday. It was like my personal park. People say it’s not fair to raise a kid in the city because they need to be outside, but what they don’t know is that something like fourteen percent of Manhattan is public parks for anyone to use.”

“I didn’t realize that,” I say. “You should work for the city.”

“Just want to make sure you enjoy your visit here,” he says with a smile. “I want you to know what it’s like to live here, not just be a tourist. Maybe I can even persuade you to buy a one-way ticket next time.”

That sounds like heaven to my ears. But how could I ever make it work?

As we wind our way through the city, I keep my nose pressed to the glass. I’m pretty sure I see Tad smile every time I light up at seeing something new.

“Here’s a little piece of national history,” Tad says and nods toward a beige building with a gable roof and beautiful balconies that looks like it belongs more in France than it does in New York. “That’s the Dakota, where John Lennon was shot. I wonder what music today would be like if he hadn’t died.”

I try not to swoon over the way Tad talks about art and music. I don’t want it to be obvious that I haven’t met many people like him.

Our bus cuts across the city, flies down the West Side Highway, and passes the financial district, where the World Trade Center towers once stood.

Pointing toward a nearly finished building, Tad says, “That’s One World Trade Center. The mast is supposed to evoke the Statue of Liberty’s torch. I can’t wait for it to be done. The city’s ready.”

I think back to the first grade, when our teacher tried her best to explain what was happening on that day. “Hopefully I can come back to see it when it’s all finished.”

“Of course you will,” Tad says. “Once you visit New York, it gets in your blood. It’ll draw you back.”

I want to explain to Tad how I’ve felt drawn to New York my whole life. But how do you describe that to someone who’s from here? How can you get them to understand that what they’ve always had is what other people have waited their whole lives for?

As we steer around the remaining wreckage and construction from 9/11, both Tad and I are quiet. Navigating our way through the financial district, we go uptown toward Union Square. I see in the distance the words
TEXAN BBQ
in neon lights even though it’s still daylight.

“There!” I say. “Can we eat there?” I ask. Not only do I really miss barbeque, I also need to see New York’s take on Texas.

“That’s some cheesy tourist restaurant,” Tad says. “It might as well be T.G.I. Friday’s.”

“Please,” I beg. “I’m a Texan ambassador, after all.”

I purposely neglect to mention that sometimes we drive an hour just to go to the nearest T.G.I. Friday’s, which I love since I’m a sucker for their wings.

“Fine,” Tad concedes, smiling. “It’s your day.”

I like how that sounds.

“I can’t believe we’re in New York, and you want to eat Texan food,” Tad says, looking down at a pile of ribs. “It’s a sin. We could eat Ethiopian. Vietnamese. Argentinean. We could eat countries that we’ve never heard of, and now we’re in a cheesy chain.”

The smells take me back to the tailgates in Broken Spoke. “You didn’t have to say yes,” I say, holding a rib to my mouth.

“Yes, I did,” Tad says. “It’s impossible to say no to that smile.”

I try to frown, but it makes me just smile bigger. “It’s just how my face goes.”

“Don’t apologize,” Tad says, swallowing his first bite with trepidation. His face relaxes. “This really isn’t bad after all.”

Nope, none of this has been bad at all.

“So, when are you going to make it big?” I ask him. “I want to say I knew you when.”

Tad pauses and puts down his forkful of mac ’n’ cheese. “I already did,” he says, “or . . . I almost did.”

I don’t say anything. I’ve learned that sometimes it’s better just to wait. My nanny always said, “Let people narrate their own stories, Kitsy. Don’t be thinkin’ you’re Oprah all the time.”

Tad wipes BBQ sauce from his stubble. I don’t know if Hands could even grow a beard. He’s a redhead, but he calls it “cinnamon” even though I’ve told him that’s a spice, not a hair color.

“A few years ago, I signed a record deal, but then some stuff happened.”

Tad looks down at his food. I want to know more, but I’m not going to push. And a few years ago? How old is Tad now? Maybe he was like a Bieber.

“I actually just started back up again,” he says and smiles. “I was on pause for a long time.”

I lick my fingers, purposefully trying not to be sloppy
or
sexual, which is harder than it sounds. I blurt out, “So what were you doing in between?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Tad says after a long pause. “First, I lost my dad, then I lost my music . . . then I lost me. Hipster Hat Trick is a cover band. We don’t write our own songs. We play pop hits and occasionally switch them up a bit.”

You wouldn’t realize that Tad’s experienced that kind of loss. He seems so cheerful. But I guess the same could be said for me.

“Do you write any of your own songs?” I ask.

“Just for me,” he answers, then he wags a finger at me. “But I don’t want to talk about this, Kitsy. This is your day, not Confessions-of-an-Almost-Rock-Star day. Besides, my story is totally common. There are more musicians that almost made it than there are people in Manhattan.”

In Texas, I mostly talk football with the boys. I’ll brag that I know the difference between a Hail Mary pass and a Music Miracle City, and I can name the last twelve Heisman Trophy winners. However, I must say there’s something heart-palpitatingly nice talking to a guy who has a passion for something other than football.

“So what do you really think of my city, Kitsy? I’ve lived here my entire life. We moved once, but it was just across the park from the Upper East Side to the Upper West Side. Even when I did a year of college, I went to NYU. The city’s the only home I’ve ever known, so I like hearing what other people think,” Tad says.

A year of college definitely answers my question that he’s older. I don’t ask how
much
older.

“Well, it’s so not like the movies,” I say. I watch through the window.

“What movie did you want it to be like?” Tad asks. He looks relieved to have ended his story. “Please don’t say
Sex and the City
.” He holds up both hands in the air and crosses his fingers. “There are way too many girls in this city who moved here thinking it’d be like that show. They all end up crushed, alone, and broke from buying too many expensive shoes. Instead of being cat ladies, they’re shoe ladies.”

I look down at my sneakers. I guess I’m in no need of worrying about that fate. Maybe I’ll end up in an apartment packed full of art supplies, but that sounds like a great destiny.

“I wanted it to be like
Home Alone Two
,” I answer. “My brother and I watch all the
Home Alone
movies every Christmas. I want to meet the pigeons and the pigeon lady.” Smiling, I think about Kiki mouthing the words of nearly every line from the movies. I hope one day he gets an opportunity like I’m having here. Maybe I can even be the one to make it happen.

Laughing, Tad says, “We call them feathered rats, but okay. We’ll do the park next, and you can meet our city’s animal, the pigeon.” He extends his pinkie out to me, and I bring mine to meet his.

“By the way, Kitsy, I like seeing the city through your eyes,” he says as we twist our pinkies.

That sounds like a big-brother comment. I surprise myself by wishing it didn’t.

“Where are we going?” I ask as I follow Tad through Central Park.

“You’ll see,” he says.

I make quick steps trying to both keep up with Tad and take in all the people sunbathing, running, and meandering around the park. Eventually, we approach a lake near a restaurant called The Boathouse.

Tad points and says, “X marks the spot.”

“We’re eating again?” I peer into the elegant restaurant’s windows and see white tablecloths and lakeside views.

“No, silly. We’re going boating.”

Within minutes, Tad and I are adrift in a green boat in Central Park’s lake. I’m not sure how my life figured out how to get this good and I can’t help but wonder what the diners in the restaurant think of us. I try to understand how I’m in a boat floating next to ducks on a lake surrounded by weeping willows, and yet I can see the vast skyline. New York really does have everything. 

I try not to look back at Tad; I don’t want to upset the boat’s balance. But on a whim, I dip my hand into the lake and create a splash that sprays him across the face.

Tad doesn’t retaliate, only laughs. “Hey, Kitsy,” he says, “next time, you’re getting soaked for that.”

The way he says “next time” makes me think that my life really is just starting, and that here, anything is possible.

Walking through the streets in twilight, I wonder if you really need to go anywhere but New York to see the world.

Entering a crowded pedestrian street with hundreds of tricolored red, white, and green flags strung across the buildings, Tad blocks my path.

“Passport, signorina?” he asks. “We’re now entering Little Italy.”

“I don’t have one,” I answer honestly.

“Since you’re beautiful, I believe Italian customs will let it slide. But Kitsy, I have a feeling one day you’ll have a passport with so many stamps that you’ll need extra pages.”

I don’t know whether to blush more about the beautiful comment or the fact Tad thinks I’ll be a world traveler. Luckily, it’s dark, so he can’t see the rouge in my cheeks. I guess I didn’t need to wear my CoverGirl Plumberry Glow 140 out tonight.

In front of the many outdoor cafés, waiters yell out, “
Bellissima,
mangia qui,
” which Tad tells me means, “Pretty girl, eat here.”

“I spent a summer in Florence studying art and music,” he explains.

“Did you go to the Uffizi?” I ask. “Did you see
The Birth of Venus
?”

Venus coming out of her shell is probably my second-favorite painting after
The Starry Night
, of course. I feel a bit like Venus right now.

“I went to the Uffizi four times. Let’s go in here,” he says and points to a green-and-white sign that reads
FERRARA BAKERY & CAFÉ
. “This is the only bakery that remotely rivals Italy, where I gained eleven pounds in three weeks. It was totally worth it.”

Tad orders us two cannolis in broken Italian.

I smile, still not believing that I’m in (fake) Italy with Art Boy.

The matriarch of the place puts them in a bag and asks, “
Lei è la tua ragazza?
” Tad shakes his head.

Outside, I ask him what she said.

“She thought you were my girlfriend,” he says and laughs as if that were the most absurd thing he’s heard. I laugh, too, because it should be ridiculous since I have a boyfriend and Tad is a cultured New Yorker, but part of me likes that she thought that. I chalk it up to me liking the possibility I could be with someone who’s lived in New York forever even though I’ve only been here a week.

Next, we explore Chinatown and watch the street vendors pack up for the night. Young men approach us every few feet, trying to sell fake purses. “Gucci, Prada, Vuitton,” they whisper in our ears in broken English.

“We’re doing an around-the-world. First, Texas. Then Italy. Now China. Texas is like its own country, right?” Tad asks.

“Pretty much,” I answer. And right now, Broken Spoke seems like its own galaxy compared to this place and this night.

“And there’s one last stop,” Tad says, pointing at the
LUCKY’S KARAOKE
sign.

“Karaoke?” I repeat, not wanting to believe this. “Tad, I’m tone-deaf. Even though I’m Team Captain back home, I don’t lead the cheers because I can’t carry a tune. And you’re like a rock star. This will be embarrassing.”

“I’m a has-been-before-he-even-was rock star,” he corrects. “Like I said, every other guy with a guitar has a story about how it almost happened to him. And Kitsy, you’re singing. Everyone should be allowed to sing. It’s our right as humans.”

“How about I just watch you?” I ask hopefully. I reluctantly follow Tad through the front door and up a shaky, carpeted staircase. “It wouldn’t be fair to the other people that have to listen to me sing.”

At the top of the stairs, Tad briefly whispers with the lady at the front desk and hands her some cash. Then he opens door number seven and waits for me to walk in. “There are no other people. I rented out the whole room. No more excuses, kid.”

Kid, there he goes with that kid thing. See, Kitsy? It’s not a date. You might be about to enter a dark room with an older boy, but he thinks of you as a kid. He’s the big brother you never had but always needed. This is totally okay to be doing.