Marooned in Manhattan (11 page)

Chapter 20

T
he heat was intense in the city this
evening, but I was utterly fed-up of being stuck inside in the air conditioning. I wandered over to the Park, hoping for a breeze. Ben put his head out the door with me but, recoiling from the heat, he sensibly changed his mind and returned indoors. Set among the small plot of pine trees north of the Delacorte Theatre are two sets of swings, one for toddlers and the other for bigger kids. I sat on a swing, tucked my skirt between my knees and pushed off. Higher and higher, I climbed. I leaned back into the air, my hair sweeping against the dusty, sandy ground.

‘Hi, Evie,’ said a familiar voice.

I instantly stuck out my feet to slow myself down and bring the swing to a stop.

Finn leaned his hockey stick up against the pole and sat on the swing next to mine. I wondered desperately if, despite the tucked-in skirt, my knickers had been showing. If they were plain white, it would not be a complete crisis, but I had a horrible feeling that they were the pair with the teddy bears holding birthday candles.

There was no possible way I could have a quick peep to check.

A hardback library book stuck out of Finn’s backpack.

‘What’s it about?’ I asked, indicating the book and trying to forget about my knickers.

‘It’s the biography of a professional ice-hockey player from Vancouver.’

‘Good?’ I asked.

‘Nope, the dude is a little smug.’

Into my mind floated questions I wanted to ask Finn, but I never seemed to have the right opportunity. I plunged in.

‘I was wondering if you were mad when you ran away… and when that person called the police?

‘Nooooo …’ he said slowly. ‘I wasn’t mad.’

I felt astounded.

‘But he turned you in and ruined everything. Maybe you would still be in Wisconsin if that nosey guy had minded his own business.’

Finn picked up his hockey stick and fiddled with it.

Without looking at me, he said, ‘Evie, I was “the nosey guy”, as you call it.’

‘What?’ I said, ‘I don’t get it.’

‘I was the nosey guy,’ he repeated. ‘I was the anonymous caller who tipped off the police. I told them there was an underage kid working at the gas station who looked like a runaway and they should check it out.’

‘But why?’ I asked, puzzled.

‘Because I wanted to be found. I wanted to come back to New York. I hadn’t planned on running away forever. I picked Wisconsin because I kept in touch with one of my
foster brothers who I thought might be able to help us. Also, I figured since we came from there, it would be the first place they’d look. But adults can be so dumb sometimes. They kept the search for us focused on the tri-state area.’

I couldn’t think of anything to say.

Finn continued, ‘It wasn’t my dream to spend my life pumping gas and eating ninety-nine cents tacos. I just wanted to try to shake up our parents, to make them realise that they were being played by the lawyers, that they should dump the whole stupid divorce litigation.’

‘And it worked,’ I said.

‘Yeah, eventually.’

‘Look around you, Evie,’ he said, waving in the direction of the Time Warner Building to the south.

‘This is
NEW YORK CITY!
’ he said in a radio presenter’s voice.

Then he switched back to his normal voice. ‘I would rather be a panhandler on the streets in New York than a king anywhere else. Well, unless I was on a professional hockey team. For that, I would go anywhere.’

I thought about what he said, idly tracing in the dusty sand with my left foot.

‘There’s a small fishing town, not much more than a village,’ I said, a little shyly, ‘where my godmother Janet’s parents live. It’s called
An Daingean
, that’s “Dingle” in English, and it’s right on the most western tip of Ireland and it’s the most beautiful place on the planet. I spent most of my summers there. You can stand on the cliffs jutting out over the Atlantic
and feel the spray from the waves crashing against the cliffs and you can feel the wind. The wind is different there and it doesn’t matter whether you are a panhandler or a king or a queen or a sports star, you can just be.’

‘Profound,’ said Finn. ‘You think a lot,’ and then he added teasingly, ‘I bet they don’t have an ice-hockey team,
The Dingle Icebreakers
!’

‘No ice hockey,’ I admitted.

Suddenly, he jumped off his swing so swiftly that it flew into the air with a clanking sound. He stood directly in front of me, his fists clenched. I couldn’t understand his sudden anger.

‘I haven’t told anyone that I ratted myself out’, he said fiercely, looking me straight in the eye. You’d better not tell anyone, not Greg, not Dr Brooks, nobody.’

‘No, of course I won’t,’ I said indignantly. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist.’

‘What? Oh, knickers are underwear right?’

I nodded.

‘Ok,’ he said, visibly relaxing. ‘I don’t know why I even told you about the call.’

‘I don’t know why you told me either,’ I said honestly and he laughed.

‘Come on, Irish fishing village girl,’ he said, not in a mean way. ‘I’ll walk you home; I’m heading that way.’

Chapter 21

C
haos reigned in the clinic on Saturday
morning. First, Karen called in sick, claiming she needed to go to the dentist due to severe pain in her wisdom teeth. Scott was sceptical. Karen had thrown a big,
basketball-themed
thirtieth birthday party the evening before for Jerry, her firefighter boyfriend from Staten Island. Scott had been on call, but Joanna had gone along.

‘How was the party?’ I asked her curiously.

Joanna shrugged in a non-committal way.

I persisted.

‘But what was it like? What does a basketball theme really mean? What kind of food did Karen have?’

Joanna took off her glasses and rubbed her tired eyes.

‘Buckets of chicken wings with blue cheese dip. Nearly everyone wore Knicks jerseys, and Knicks games played constantly on two enormous flat screen televisions and there were balloons and a blow-up, life-sized Jeremy Lin doll.’

‘He’s a player,’ she added.

I nodded.

‘I know. Greg and Kylie love him.’

Joanna groaned, ‘I haven’t seen so many kegs of beer since
I was in college.’

She began to grind some white medical powder viciously with a pestle and mortar.

‘Did Stefan enjoy the party?’ I wondered.

The pestle stilled.

‘Funny you should ask that. No, he didn’t. He wanted to leave after about fifteen minutes.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Because he didn’t want to get his hands dirty mixing with the rednecks,’ volunteered Scott, who had apparently been listening in.

Joanna’s face flushed an angry red colour, a shade darker than her hair. She opened her mouth to speak, but then shut it again, satisfied herself with throwing Scott a dirty look, and began to grind the cat medicine even more aggressively, as if Scott’s head was in the bowl.

Scott didn’t apologise. He very rarely does. He ran his hand quickly through his hair.

‘Evie, will you step up to the plate and be our receptionist today?’

I’m starting to understand the baseball metaphors they use here all the time.

‘Sure,’ I responded and headed out to the reception desk.

Four hours later, the backlog of dogs, cats, two guinea pigs, a ferret and a cockatoo had passed in to the examining room and out again. Just as I was considering a lunch run, the door opened and in stepped a woman, about forty-five years old, with dyed cotton candy pink hair, carrying a tiny monkey
dressed in a red and white gingham dress and wearing a
doll-sized
, peroxide blonde wig.

The woman did not seem perturbed to find a child behind the desk. I liked her for that straight away.

‘Hi. I am Lorraine Horrocks and this is my monkey, Marilyn. She has completely gone off her food, the poor little angel. She just sits around the apartment, making little moaning sounds.’

On cue, Marilyn emitted a pitiful moaning sound. I reached out and stroked her tiny, soft, furry head.

‘You can go right through. Dr Brooks will see her straight away.’

‘Thank you,’ she said and she put Marilyn on the floor. Marilyn had a pink leash attached to a crystal-encrusted collar. Lorraine tugged on the leash and Marilyn scampered after her through the doors. I quickly placed a bell on the counter with a note saying, ‘Please ring for attention’ and followed Marilyn. I couldn’t miss this.

Scott was weighing Marilyn when I walked in.

‘Three pounds,’ he announced and took the opportunity to give me a brief lesson.

‘Marilyn is a capuchin monkey. They come from South America. They typically live in groups of between ten to thirty and spend most of their days hanging out, surfing trees and looking for food. They are highly intelligent.’

‘I got Marilyn a toy piano and I’m teaching her to play “Happy Birthday”,’ interjected Lorraine proudly, gazing fondly at Marilyn as if she were her little girl.

Scott glanced at me. I knew what he was thinking. He is vehemently opposed to humans owning wild animals as pets and treating them like children. But he smiled at Lorraine in a compassionate way and I could tell he wasn’t about to give her a lecture.

‘What are you feeding her?’ he asked.

‘Jars of baby food,’ replied Lorraine, ‘but she hasn’t touched a bite in twenty-four hours.’

‘Is she going to be alright?’ she asked, anxiously.

‘Let’s take a look at her,’ said Scott, carrying Marilyn from the scales to the examining table. Marilyn put her tiny left hand around his neck. I leaned in to get a better look and she reached out and grasped my little finger and looked up at me with her little brown pinkish eyes.

‘Conjunctivitis,’ announced Scott.

‘Oh, that doesn’t sound so bad,’ said Lorraine.

‘I think it might be a sign of a more serious underlying problem,’ answered Scott gently. ‘I think she might have measles.’

‘But she’s been vaccinated against measles,’ protested Lorraine.

‘Unfortunately, vaccination does not always work,’ replied Scott.

The bell from the waiting room rang so I peeled Marilyn’s tiny fingers away and ran to see who was waiting.

I was surprised to find Tamara, Finn’s girlfriend, carrying an adorable golden puppy in her arms. Finn stood behind her.

‘Hi Evie,’ she said and she smiled her beautiful smile at me.

I would love to say that it was a fake smile, but that would be untrue. Her blonde hair was tied in a fishtail braid. She wore high-waisted, neon blue shorts with a frilly, white, cami top. Blue eyeliner made her eyes seem even bluer and she wore pink lipstick that perfectly matched the mini handbag swinging off her shoulder. I don’t wear makeup yet. Mum said that I should wait until I am fourteen. I felt grubby and dull and babyish.

‘How’s Sam?’ asked Finn and it felt like we had never had that encounter on the swings.

‘Sam’s doing great,’ I said. ‘His leg is healing perfectly and it should be good as new by the end of the summer.’

‘This is Patrick,’ said Tamara, ‘a Goldendoodle puppy that Finn got me from an animal shelter for my birthday.’

‘The people at the shelter think that he is about seven months old,’ said Finn.

‘What kind of dog is a Goldendoodle?’ I asked.

‘A mix between a poodle and a golden retriever,’ answered Tamara. ‘Isn’t he the sweetest, cutest puppy you have ever seen?’

I looked at his tiny, pale gold curls and his sweet face.

‘Yes,’ I replied, although I know from photographs that Ben was even cuter than that as a puppy.

‘What kind of symptoms is he experiencing?’ I asked, adopting a professional tone.

‘Oh, none, he seems very healthy, but the shelter people recommended that we take him to get a check-up by a local
vet and Finn told me your uncle is a great vet, worth the trip over to the west side.’

‘Right now he’s looking at a monkey that might have measles’, I said, ‘but if you guys want to sit down, he should be finished very soon.’

Tamara flashed her beautiful white teeth again and sat down.

Finn lingered by the desk.

‘Greg told me you’re going back to Ireland next month.’

I nodded. I hoped that maybe he would say something nice like he would miss me, but he didn’t.

Marilyn came scampering through the door with her leash trailing behind her and began to run in circles around the table with the magazines, occasionally making detours to send cans of dog food flying off the nearby shelves.

‘That monkey doesn’t seem too sick,’ said Finn, and he scooped her up as she passed by on her fourth lap and handed her to Lorraine, who was uselessly chasing her around the table and panting for breath.

‘The little monkey is so sweet,’ said Tamara.

‘In that Marilyn Monroe get-up, she seems more like the Bride of Chucky than sweet,’ Finn said to me in a low voice, so Lorraine would not hear him.

‘Dr Brooks can see Patrick now,’ I said.

Tamara stood up.

‘That’s Ben, your dog, right?’ she said pointing at Ben who had been unhappily disturbed from his all-morning nap by Marilyn’s antics.

‘Yes, well he’s my uncle’s dog.’

‘We should organise a doggie play date for him and Patrick,’ she suggested.

‘Thanks, but Ben’s not a big fan of other dogs. I mean, he will acknowledge them by sniffing their butts but he never seems to be all that interested in them. Sometimes, we call him Pinocchio.’

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Because he thinks he is a human boy, not a dog. We don’t know how to break the news to him. We showed him his reflection in the mirror but he just does his “I’m scared” bark at it. He doesn’t realise he’s barking at himself.’

Finn picked up Patrick with one hand and guided Tamara by placing his other hand on her back.