All You Never Wanted (6 page)

Approving nods met me all around the table.

Nice save, Thea. Nobody can argue modelrexia.

Bulimia made Alex sound pitiful and sickly. In need of help. Bulimic was the wilted opposite of the heartbreaking warrior story I’d just told about her. The fierce baby who’d had to leave her twin behind. Who beat the odds to live. (And there were truth germs in this story, too. Alex had been born a couple of weeks early, with jaundice, and had spent a few days in the hospital.)

But I wasn’t breathing evenly. The lunchroom was closing in on me. I wanted to chase down the other Blondes—Palmer and
Jessie and Maureen—and demand to know which one of them was rumormongering my sister.

And I probably would have done it, too. If I’d been sitting anywhere else. But it was so hard to grab a power seat. And now that I was here, it didn’t make sense to give up the Figure Eight. Lose your turn and then you might miss everything.

She is empty. There’s nothing new inside her body except for a tampon and half a cup of black coffee, and all the pent-up apologies she will shower on Leonard for not showing up yesterday. She lets the passenger-side window unroll so that the air can find her face.

Lulette is maneuvering the Bronx-bound traffic every bit as well as Hector, who used to drive race cars. Lulette smells sweet. If Alex had to assign her a signature perfume, she’d call it Lipstick Print on a Warm Glass of Coke. Lulette has found Joshua’s ont he-go Glen Washington playlist on the docked iPod, and she settles happily into the reggae and her stories, which come easy. As if Alex is a real friend and not her boss’s daughter. Except Alex knows Lulette does this with everyone. It’s her usual charm. Now she’s talking about her house in Grenada. She recently transferred the deed to her sister.

“Good to be done with that house. It was from a time when I was with Delroy, and you wouldn’t give that man a dog to love.”

“Why did you marry him, again?” Alex knows why. She’s heard the story of gorgeous, no-good Delroy many times before.

Lulette merges deftly off the Parkway exit. “Handsome was all the why I needed. Then, one night while he’s sleeping, I stare at that handsome face so hard, I stare all my love for him right out my heart.”

Alex imagines Lulette propped up on a pillow, wearing her puckered frown like when she takes a Chore Boy scrubber to the bottom of a lasagna pan. It’s hard to imagine Lulette outside the Camelot kitchen, which makes Alex feel very white and very spoiled.

They drive in silence until the turn onto East 187th Street.

“It’s halfway down the block. Over the photo shop.” She feels relief prickling her eyes, a sag in her spine. She made it, and nothing foul or dire has happened along the way.

“I can watch you inside,” says Lulette.

“It’s not dangerous.”

Lulette isn’t convinced. “Call when you need a ride home.”

“I’m taking the train, remember?”

“If you change your mind.”

“Thanks, Lu.”

Empty Hands is the entire second and third floors over Chesnoff Photos. Third floor is tutoring and second floor is the dojo. Salvatore Diaz, the founder, had bet that if he could lure in the kids with free karate lessons, they’d stay to do their homework. It hasn’t been a bad wager. The space pounds and shouts—all day there’s life here.

Salvatore’s story is known to everyone who volunteers at Empty Hands. Alone in the world at age twelve, he’d been sent down the spiral of foster care and lousy schools, hit a rough patch of meth addiction and sleeping on park benches, and then, with help from martial arts and meditation, he pulled it together and made it his mission to help others. There are Empty Hands hostels and karate dojos all over the country. Salvatore is old now, with a salt-and-pepper beard and an autobiography that you can
find in any airport newsstand. Alex has never met him herself, but other Empty Hands staff have an overly amped-up way of speaking about him, like he’s a combination of their best pal and the Karate Dalai Lama, due to visit any day.

Kids like these two, Penelope someone, who’s brand-new on staff, an education director or something, and Xander Heilprin, who just finished his freshman year at NYU and is working the check-in. Penelope’s got a British accent and a thick chop of bangs, and Xander’s forearms are as inked as a medieval tapestry. He’ll probably be buried in one of his arty nonprofit-organization T-shirts.

He’s wearing an Empty Hands one now—lettered M T
s.

“Alexandra,” he says.

Funny to speak her name like that. Her proper name, which people use sparingly, like the good china. Her name is his name, too, although they’ve never touched that fact except implicitly, at that first meeting in the Empty Hands office. When the recognition passed in the catch of a look between them.

“Hey,” she answers.

She stares at his arms and she knows that he knows that she’s looking, but she can’t look away. They are kind of amazingly beautiful. When Arthur and her mother talk about tattoos, they always conclude with the smug adult observation that every tat is a grave mistake. That tattoo regret would happen. Perhaps at age thirty. Or maybe at age forty. But the remorse is certain.

They play it like an old record. As if there is no other tune. As if there is nothing but impulse and stupidity in the magnificent purple-green-blue garden of Xander’s arms.

Penelope sits cross-legged on the desk, her bangs spiking up
from a hot-pink polka-dot kiddie barrette. As soon as she sees Alex, she hops to her feet. “I’ll leave you two,” she murmurs. Like she and Xander have an appointment, or at least an agreement for privacy. “Will you come find me after?” She seals it with a knowing look. Alex’s heart thumps. What’s wrong? What has she done?

Penelope’s slipped behind the door. Gone.

“Missed you yesterday.” Xander is casual with this line. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t.

“I was sick.”

“Yeah? Are you better?” Xander scratches his chin as he regards her. His eyes are nature’s softest shades of green-flecked brown, but their diamond shape makes him look meaner than he is. Which is not at all. He’s unusual-looking, mostly. Golden skin and black, straw-straight hair. He also holds himself at a distance. It would be difficult to track a Signature Scent on him. “What?”

“Oh. Nothing.” She’d been staring at him. She breaks it with a shrug and now checks her cuticles. “Yeah, sure. I’m better.”

“So, listen, Alex. I’ve got an invite for you. We’re all getting together at my place tomorrow. Real simple. Just a franks-and-chips barbecue deal.”

“Why?” She didn’t intend the word to come out that way.

“Just … just because.” When she looks up at him, he smiles but she can tell he feels self-conscious, and she doesn’t mind the power she has over the moment. She’s aware of her heart’s uptick. Xander always puts her a bit on edge. He’s got that college year on her in a way that Joshua somehow doesn’t. “It’s a social thing for all of us who haven’t had a chance to hang out at any of the cheese-’n’-chats. A few of our older kiddos might be there, too.”

“Okay. If I can …” Alex lifts her eyebrows to show she’s
probably not considering this as an option. She signs her name on the clipboard. Heads up the stairs. It’s a bitchy-girl move and she’s not sure why she did it, or how to undo it.

But there’s no way she’d be in any shape to attend Xander’s barbecue.

At least he hadn’t mentioned Marisol Fernandez.

“Sure, great! You’re the best!” Xander answers loud into the vacated space. Making fun of Alex’s rudeness. Her face goes hot. Should she turn around and apologize? Is there anything to apologize for? She keeps walking, but apparently Penelope’s put a homing device on her, because around the stairwell, there she is.

“I took the lift.” She grins. “I’m so dreadfully lazy. But now that I’ve got you, I wanted to reach out.”

“You can’t reach out if you’ve got me already, right?” Her bitchiness is almost reflexive. But they’ve put her on guard, both Xander and Penelope, with their eager kindness.

Penelope looks hurt.

“Look,” Alex begins, “if this is about my not showing up yesterday, I’m really sorry. I thought I had something. Something contagious. It just turned out to be food poisoning.” She hates to lie into people’s faces. How does Thea do it so often? So convincingly?

“Oh, no no. It’s not about yesterday.” Penelope smiles. “I … I just wanted you to know I’m here. For anything.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out a pen and what looks like a bank receipt, rips it, and then, balancing the paper on one raised knee like a crane, she scribbles something. “Here’s my email and my phone number. Take it.” She shoves the paper at Alex—she has to accept it. “If you want to grab a coffee or something.”

Penelope must be five years older than Alex, but she has a girlish energy that makes Alex feel old and brittle. In the lengthening silence, Penelope turns pink as her barrette. “Look, I had my own issues,” she blurts out. “So I know about being … your own worst enemy.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“So if you need to talk …”

“Okay.”

Is this as excruciating for Penelope as it is for her? And then Penelope makes it worse. Taking a loping half hop forward, she brushes Alex’s face with a kiss that hits her mostly on the nose. The warmth and connection shoots flyaway sparks through Alex’s body. “All right, then!” And then she dives away like a clumsy dragonfly, dipping past Alex and clopping down the stairs.

Alex folds the scrap in half and slides it into the side pocket of her bag. If one of the Blondes had been with her, maybe she’d have laughed. Done her eye-roll. Her most chilling “What-ever” or “Ooookay” or “Ummm!”

But there are no Blondes. Nobody has witnessed Penelope’s sweetness, which makes it easier for Alex to handle. To appreciate, maybe.

Leonard is waiting for her in the room he likes best—the stuffy one that’s also used as a storage closet. He’s writing in his spiral notebook and he won’t look up.

“I owe you an apology. I flaked on our time yesterday.” Alex folds herself like origami into the only other chair. Leonard doesn’t stop writing. “I called. I hope they gave you the message and you didn’t wait around for me.”

“They did. I didn’t. I wasn’t mad,” he says, so quick that she knows he was.

“Will you tell me tomorrow’s forecast anyway?”

Leonard loves the weather. He wants to become a meteorologist like Chuck “Tornado” Gussman on New York’s NBC Channel Four affiliate. Before they start homework, Leonard always clips on his inky Gussman bow tie that he keeps in his pencil case and gives her a quick forecast.

But no tie today. He’s wary with disappointment. Leonard’s not a karate kid; he only comes here for tutoring with Alex. From his sneakers to the doodles in his margins, she knows that basketball’s his sport.

“Please?” she asks. “I feel so bad. I really do. I hated thinking about you showing up, and me not.”

He thinks. Then pushes up from his chair and walks the three steps to the front of the room. Pivots sideways.

“Tonight we’ll have mild temperatures across the board. Mid-forties and the influx of a few low-rising clouds with the wind picking up from off Point Arena to Pigeon Point. Looking to sunrise, expect falling temps and possibly some light precipitation.” Leonard makes current circles across the imaginary greenboard. He indicates the cold front coasting down from Canada.

Alex listens attentively. Leonard ends with a friendly suggestion about how a family can reduce their carbon footprint. “If your refrigerator chore is walking the dog, then remind your mom and dad to use eco-friendly scooper bags.”

From the light in his voice, this might be Leonard’s favorite part of the forecast. Imagining those parents making to-do lists and sticking them to the fridge. Except Alex knows from her
sneak at Leonard’s file that the tenement where he lives on Arthur Avenue houses five foster kids. No pets.

“Awesome! Thanks!” says Alex when he’s done. “Now I know exactly what to wear tomorrow.”

“Hey guess what Alex tomorrow afternoon we play Bronx Charter West in the first of the Final Fours,” offers Len in one long pour of words. “The All-Stars championships and it’s not too far from here if you want to come see me it’s at four.”

She colors. Not ten minutes she’s been here and already she’s got three invitations to do things she’d never do. Can’t do. This place is officially dangerous.

“Wow. I’m—I’m so sorry, Leonard,” she says. “I would if I could. But. I’m busy all tomorrow. So. What should we tackle first, Social Studies or English?”

Leonard rolls his shoulders. If she’s disappointed him again, he keeps it far from reach. He picks up a book.

They work the whole time and he doesn’t once ask to break. It’s past five when she checks her voice mail. Joshua has called about the ride (and so has Lulette, and so has Thea). She texts them all back that she’ll take the train. She hasn’t eaten anything since ten o’clock this morning. Her body is still as a vase. She wants to show everyone that she can do it. The train takes longer and it’s more claustrophobic for her. But any healthy, normal person would suck it up and ride the train.