Also Known As (22 page)

“It’s an old building that’s being turned into a hotel,” he said, grinning at the obvious amazement on my face. “My dad’s friend bought it, so I asked if we could sneak in. I remembered that you said you missed seeing the sky.” He waved his hands toward the ceiling. “I thought I would just try to get you a little closer to it.” Then he paused. “Too cheesy again?”

“No,” I said. “No, it’s
perfect
. It’s beautiful, it’s so … what’s the word? Majestic. It’s majestic.”

We stood next to each other, Jesse’s arm around me, and gazed up for what seemed like hours. “You can actually see stars,” I told him.

“I think that’s a plane.”

“No, not that. That one.” I pointed up, which really didn’t indicate anything, but Jesse nodded anyway. “Maybe it’s a planet.”

“Maybe.” He held me a little tighter and I let him. No guy had ever hugged me before, at least a guy that wasn’t my
dad or Angelo or someone thirty years older than me. Jesse smelled really good, like shampoo and soap, and I rested my head on his chest and pointed again. “What’s that?”

“The Woolworth Building. Where they make woolworths.” I could hear and feel him laugh at the same time. “Just kidding, I have no idea what they make there.”

“Let’s say unicorns,” I said.

“Sure, why not? Unicorns for everyone.”

“Hooray! Hey, by the way?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m very impressed.”

He smiled and then leaned down to kiss me. “I thought you might be.”

“I just can’t wait for our second date if this is the first one!”

“Well, that’s when we do a tour of the unicorn factory,” he teased. “Spoiler alert!”

“Hey, can I ask you a question?”

“I have a feeling that my answer doesn’t matter.”

“True. How did you know all these buildings? This one, the Woolworth one. You’re like a weird architecture groupie.”

Jesse’s eyes dimmed a little and I saw him go somewhere that I couldn’t follow. “My mom,” he admitted after a few seconds. “She used to take me around after school and show me all the buildings. She wanted to be an architect but then she married my dad and they had me instead.”

I wrapped both my arms around his waist and held on tight. “I’m sorry. I know you miss her.”

“S’okay. Don’t be sorry.”

“Where else did she take you?”

“Everywhere. Public gardens, private gardens, old carriage houses. I just wanted to play video games back then and she dragged me everywhere. I was a stupid kid.”

“You were a
kid
.”

“She used to take me to Gramercy Park but we could never get in.”

What?

“What?” I said, looking up at him.

“It’s a park that’s completely locked. You can’t get in unless you have a key and—”

“No, I know what it is.” My heart was starting to race. “You couldn’t get in?”

“Nope. Not without the key. And you have to live on the park to get one and we don’t. Wah-waaaahh.” He took his peacoat and pulled it around both of us since it was pretty chilly in the atrium. “One day.”

“Maybe,” I said, then looked back up at the night sky. “Maybe you should make a wish.”

“I thought you could only wish on falling stars.”

“I know, but think about it. That’s sort of bad luck if a star falls out of the sky. Like maybe your dreams are burning through the atmosphere!” I covered my mouth in fake terror. “Quick, wish on the ones still in the sky!”

Jesse just shook his head, then looked up. “I wish …”

“No, you can’t say it out loud or it might not come true.”

“There’s a lot of rules here!”

“Just two.”

Jesse sighed and then closed his eyes. “Okay,” he said after a minute. “Wish wished. You wanna get out of here?”

“Yes,” I said, standing on my tiptoes to kiss him. “And I know just where we should go.”

“What? Not to ruin the surprise, but we’re supposed to have dinner at a restaurant that serves a kind of food that rhymes with mooshi.”

“Awww, that’s sweet. You should cancel the reservation.”

“But …”

“C’mon,” I said, taking his arm. “It’s
my
turn to impress
you
.”

Chapter 25

“I think,” I told Jesse as we walked up Irving Place, “that bread is my favorite food group. It should be the whole food pyramid.”

“Do they still have the food pyramid?” he asked, drinking water and carrying our bag from Whole Foods on Union Square. I helped to lighten the load by carrying the baguette and eating it as we walked. “Is that still a thing?”

“I think it’s, like, the food rhombus now.”

He started to laugh. “It’s food geometry. Pick a shape, any shape!”

“They could make it a food dodecahedron and as long as it was filled with bread, I’d support it. Oh look, here we are.”

We crossed the street and stood in front of the Gramercy Park gates. “Um, Maggie?” Jesse said. “I’ve stood at this gate before.”

“Oh, you have? Really? Gee, if only you had said something.” I rolled my eyes at him. “Dork, I
know
you’ve stood here. You told me half an hour ago.”

“So why is this better than sushi?”

“I liked when you said it rhymed with mooshi. That was cute.” I was so excited that I was wiggling around.

“Maggie.”

“Okay, okay, turn around.”

But he just stood there, eyeing me. “Whyyyyy?”

“Becaaaaause.” I took his arm and started to turn him around. “Just trust me, okay? Have some faith. Don’t eat my bread, though, for real.”

Jesse looked a little nervous, as if it were possible for him to look any cuter, and his turn-around was reluctant. Still, he turned, and when he couldn’t see, I fished my old reliable paper clip out of my pocket and popped the lock with almost zero effort, just like Angelo had taught me all those years ago.

“Okay,” I said, opening the gate. “You can look now.”

Jesse’s mouth fell open when he saw what I had done. I had never actually seen anyone be rendered speechless before. “Is this okay?” I asked. “I’m not, like, making you feel bad about your mom, am I?”

“No!” he gasped. “You have a
key
?”

“It’s probably better if you don’t ask too many questions,” I told him. “Just know that I have my ways.”

He was looking at me like he had never seen me before. “We can just go in?”

“After you.”

“
Maggie
.”

“C’mon,” I said, “before we get arrested for breaking and entering.”

He walked through the gate like he was afraid it might reach out and grab him, and I followed and carefully shut it behind us. “We probably have to be a little sneaky,” I murmured, “since technically no one’s allowed in here at night, key or not.”

“Sneak away,” he replied, and we went and sat on the bench where Angelo and I had sat on my first day in the city, back when I thought Jesse was a Manhattan rich-kid jerk and that this job would be easy.

Nothing had worked out the way I thought it would.

I showed Jesse my favorite pagoda birdhouse (“Is that a pineapple on top?” he asked. “Because if it is, that is cool”), and we watched the city move around us, blinking lights and sounding horns and people who looked like shadows as they hurried past us. No one knew we were there, hidden by wrought iron and trees older than anyone in the five boroughs.

“Impressed?” I asked after we spent a few minutes just curled up next to each other. The bench could have been a little more comfortable, but I wasn’t complaining.

“I am,” he said. “Impressed and happy. Very, very happy.”

I smiled at him and pretended to fluff my hair. “We make a good team,” I told him. “You and me, running around town, finding cool things to do. We should market this.”

“Nah, let’s keep it our little secret.” Jesse rested his head on top of mine and passed me some strawberries. “Here, eat up. You earned it.”

“You did way more than me,” I admitted. “All I did was bring you here. No big whoop.”

“No, Mags.” He was quiet for a minute, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded shaky. “This means a lot.”

Was Jesse crying? I glanced up to see him thumbing at his eyes and laughing a little, like he was embarrassed.

“Um, I’m not sure I was supposed to make you cry,” I said. I had never seen a guy cry before. It was weird, like seeing your dad cry for the first time, but also so sweet.

“You didn’t make me cry,” he said, clearing his throat. “Sorry, sorry. It’s just been a long time since something made me happy. And now you make me happy every time I see you. I missed it.”

Now I was welling up, too. “No, I know what you mean,” I told him. “I know what it’s like to just sit and wait for something to happen and think that it might not.”

“It’s like, I have all this luck and wealth and privilege, but who gives a shit? People expect me to be some spoiled brat, so then I act like some spoiled brat—I mean, I stole that book, what a dumbass—but it’s not me at all. And then when I try to act like an upright citizen, volunteer and all that, they accuse me of using my dad’s connections to get ahead. But if I
don’t
do anything, then my dad gets pissed that I’m not doing anything. And then my mom decides that
she
’s the one who needs a break from
her
life….” He sighed and looked up through the trees. “It’s like I can’t get out.”

I had to take a deep breath because I had never heard another person say how I felt. “It’s, like, how can you become an adult when everyone wants you to stay a child?”

“Exactly!” Jesse wriggled into his coat some more and I tightened my scarf around my neck. November seemed to
be getting colder by the minute, but neither of us wanted to leave. “Oh, shit, are
you
crying now?”

“No!” I said, even as I was blinking back tears. “I just know what you mean about responsibility and living up to expectations. My parents are the same way. If I try to do things my way, then they get pissed that I’m not doing them their way. But maybe their way isn’t my way, you know? Maybe I’m supposed to make my own path and not always follow theirs.”

“Easier said than done,” Jesse said.

“Tell me about it. So what do we do?”

“I dunno. Stand up for ourselves? Make ourselves happy? Screw everything else?”

“Damn the man!” I said as we started laughing. “We’re rebels! Get out of our way!”

“Well, we already broke into a park. A life of crime seems to be our only option.”

“I’m sorry,
who
broke into the park? There’s no ‘we’ in that sentence, my friend.”

“Yes, but I’m an accomplice.”

“The Boris to my Natasha.”

“Who?”

Jesse obviously hadn’t watched hours of old cartoons at Angelo’s house when he was a kid. “They’re these cartoon characters from
Rocky & Bullwinkle
and … you know what? Never mind.”

I hated to admit it, but I just realized he’d given me an opening. Jesse was talking about his dad. This was my chance.

“Your dad sounds kind of difficult,” I ventured.

Jesse laughed through his nose. “That’s one word for it. He just doesn’t talk. Like, ever. I don’t even know what we would talk
about
if we did talk.”

I traced a pattern on the edge of Jesse’s scarf as I curled up next to him. “Is he a workaholic?”

“That depends. Does someone who works all day and night count as a workaholic?” He sighed and tightened his arm around me. “He’s always obsessing about stories. Stories, all the time. He’s been working on this one story about these spies….”

I could literally feel the acid start to pool and burn in my stomach.

“… and he was going to run it and clear everything, but I don’t know. Something went haywire and now he’s not sure.”

The adrenaline was rushing through my body. I was glad it was so dark that Jesse couldn’t see my flushed cheeks.

“He’s been so pissed off about it. It’s like work rules his life. It doesn’t matter what I do, only what I don’t do. Hey, are you shaking?”

I was.

“Whoa, okay, that was fun, but if you freeze to death, your parents are going to kill me.”

“No, they won’t,” I said, even though they totally would. “Why did the thing with your dad’s story fall through?” It was messy, I knew. I was pushing for answers instead of letting them come to me. If this were safecracking, a cobalt wall would have fallen down by now, blocking me out.

But as I’ve learned, people aren’t safes.

“I have no idea,” Jesse said as he stood up. “He barely talks, remember? Hey, do me a favor?”

“Of course,” I whispered. At that moment, I would have done almost anything for Jesse. Anything except ruin my job.

“Bring me back here again? Maybe in the daytime?” His smile was hopeful and kind, two things I never thought he’d be, and it felt like my heart was beating too hard, aching with every kind word.

“I promise,” I said.

“You still crying?”

“No, are you kidding? I’m too busy freezing to death.”

We gathered up our food remnants, my heart still pounding in my ears, my hands still shaking a little. What did Jesse mean,
his dad wasn’t sure about the story
? Was this whole thing for nothing? Was he not going to run it? If he didn’t, would we still have to leave? Would I have to move away from Jesse and Roux?

“Well, shall we?” Jesse said, interrupting my racing thoughts. “Ready for the subway ride of your life? I didn’t want to say anything, but I think you’re really going to be impressed with the 6 train.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me.

I pretended to kick him in the shins and he jumped away. “You’re so mean!” he yelped, even though he was laughing. “You have a violent streak and it kind of turns me on.”

“Save it for the next date,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure there would be a next one.

We crept through the gate, shutting it without making a sound, and left the park just as we had found it. Nothing looked different outside the park, either, the city the same as it ever was.

The only thing that had changed, I realized, was me.

Chapter 26

My parents were waiting up for me, of course, along with Angelo. I had never gone out this much in my life, so I wasn’t used to these little nighttime powwow sessions. And I certainly wasn’t ready for this one.