Other Words for Love (12 page)

“Did I find what, Ari?”

“Leigh’s bracelet,” I said.

“Oh, that.” She took out her compact and examined her lip gloss as we walked through the entrance and past the plaque of Frederick Smith Hollister. “It wasn’t in the theater. We checked everyplace. Leigh must’ve lost it somewhere else.”

“Are you sure?” I said.

Summer snapped her compact shut and stopped walking. We were standing next to a row of lockers and a crowd of students maneuvered around us.

“Yes, I’m
sure,
” she said, her dark eyes blazing. “What are you implying?”

She looked so offended that I felt guilty for bringing it up. Maybe she was right—I’d known her forever, she had her flaws, but she wasn’t that kind of person. I shouldn’t have accused her of stealing a dead boy’s bracelet.

“Nothing,” I said before heading to homeroom.

A few days later, I was sitting with Leigh in the cafeteria. Summer was eating pizza at her friend’s apartment and I hadn’t been invited.

“Are you really sure Summer doesn’t have my bracelet?” Leigh asked.

“Positive,” I said. “I know she can be sort of flaky sometimes, but she doesn’t mean it. She’s a good person underneath. She wouldn’t do something like that.”

Leigh let out a heavy sigh. “So I guess it’s gone and I just have to accept it.” Then she started talking about California, and I almost choked on my sandwich.

“You’re leaving?” I said, wondering if it was my destiny to be alone.

Leigh nodded and told me that her uncle owned a condominium in some city called Brentwood, and she and Rachel were moving there in June. Mr. Ellis also had a close friend whose aunt was the principal of a private school where Leigh would be accepted for her senior year, and another friend was a movie producer with connections who could get Rachel hired as a makeup artist at Warner Brothers.

“I need a new atmosphere,” Leigh said as I noticed that she wasn’t wearing anything printed with
SUNY OSWEGO
, which was a good thing. So I smiled and listened while she told me that she’d be going to UCLA because her family had donated money there and she would get in for sure.

UCLA. Of course. I imagined UCLA surrounded by palm trees and sidewalks with famous people’s names carved into the cement. I saw it as a giant magnet with the power to drag my friends across the country. But I didn’t say anything negative because Leigh seemed excited, and she changed the subject by asking about my college plans.

I mentioned Parsons and it sounded boring. But maybe
I
was boring because I wasn’t interested in Brentwood or anyplace other than here. I didn’t want to be far from my parents, and I couldn’t move away from Patrick and Evelyn and the boys, even if they never wanted to see me again.

“Uncle Stan knows people at Parsons,” Leigh said. “He can get you in. Do you want to work in art?”

“Sort of. I want to teach. But you’re going to be a real artist, aren’t you?”

“No,” she said. “Art is mine.”

That made sense. Her art was hers and my art was mine, and I wanted to keep it hidden in my studio like a newborn baby because nobody would ever love it the way I did. So I nodded and Leigh started talking about teaching on the college level, something about getting a master’s and a PhD, and she suggested that I become an art professor.

“That’s what Idalis is planning to do. And you’re much smarter than she is, Ari.”

I had no idea who she was talking about until she reminded me: Idalis, Twenty-third Street, the
putas
in Del’s bed. According to Leigh, Idalis was finishing her master’s in Spanish literature. She was going to start her PhD in the fall, and I could meet her and get some career advice if I went to Mr. Ellis’s apartment for dinner on Saturday night.

“You
have
to come, Ari,” Leigh said. “It won’t be any fun without you. Del will be there, but who cares? You don’t want him, anyway.”

Not really. Maybe a little. But Del was a pig, so I started thinking about other things—things like very blue eyes, a Colgate smile, a smooth voice that gave me goose bumps. The possibility that Blake would be at the dinner too made me accept Leigh’s invitation.

twelve

Idalis
Guzman was older than Del. I found out—over a four-course dinner served by two maids in Mr. Ellis’s penthouse—that she was twenty-six, she was from Venezuela, and she wasn’t serious about her boyfriend.

“I can’t marry this guy,” she said in perfect English with an accent that was even more appealing than I expected. “Then my name would be Idalis Ellis.”

She had Rapunzel hair. It was honey brown and down to her waist, but not the kind that gets chopped off on those daytime talk shows where women neglect themselves and need a makeover. Hers was shiny and stylish. Her face wasn’t the prettiest, but her skillfully applied makeup compensated for that. She wore classy clothes and expensive jewelry, and she carried herself like she was somebody special.

“If you want to teach,” she said to me as we were eating our second course, which consisted of something I’d never seen before called sautéed leeks, “the university level is the way to go. Once you get tenure, you make good money and you have a flexible schedule, so you can work and still have time for a husband and kids. You can have it all, as they say.”

I could have it all. I imagined myself as a professor: I would stand in a classroom and give lectures about Picasso to eager college freshmen. Then I would zip home to Brooklyn, where I would live in one of those elegant Park Slope houses, which I would be able to afford on my salary, and I’d be greeted at the door by my loving children, who would be as adorable as their father.

That idea got me excited and hopeful and it made me shift my gaze from Idalis to Blake. He sat opposite me, not eating his leeks, and his eyes reminded me of a marble that I had owned when I was nine years old. I’d had lots of others, but this one was my favorite, because it was transparent with a brilliant streak of sapphire blue that I would stare at and hold up to the sun. Then one day it disappeared. Mom took me to Woolworth’s to find a match, but I didn’t search very hard—I knew that something so beautiful only came around once.

“You don’t need all that butter on your bread, Stan,” Rachel said after the main course was served. “And slow down. You’re eating too fast.”

Mr. Ellis sat at the head of the table. He was digging into a slab of beef and he sounded annoyed. “I have to go out soon, Rachel. I’m meeting with a client.”

Idalis laughed. “A client, sure. I think you’ve got a few lady friends stashed around Manhattan. And you should listen to your sister. You don’t want another heart attack.”

“That was three years ago,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”

He still seemed annoyed and so did Blake, between dinner and dessert. I was in the bathroom upstairs when I heard his voice and Del’s in the hallway. They were arguing, and I pressed my ear to the door.

“Tell your girlfriend to watch her mouth,” Blake said.

Del laughed. “Why? You know she’s right. Daddy keeps that apartment downtown for whoever he happens to be screwing at the moment. He can pretend he’s faithful to Mama’s memory all he wants, but that’s just his usual hypocritical bullshit.”

Daddy and Mama
. That reminded me again of Elvis, even though Del and Blake both spoke like native New Yorkers. I listened while Blake said Del had no respect for their father and Del said their father led Blake around on a leash, and then Del started talking about some girl in Georgia.

“You’ve got nerve to criticize Idalis,” Del said. “She’s better than that little bleached-blond piece of trailer trash you banged for two years.”

How scandalous. And interesting. The polite part of me wanted to turn on the faucet to drown out the conversation, but the nosy part was dying to hear what would happen next. So I stayed where I was while Blake got angry and Del got angry.

“Don’t talk about her,” Blake said.

“Why?” Del asked. “She drops you with no explanation—she disappears without so much as a phone call—and you still defend her? It’s pathetic, Blake. Get on with your life and stop moping about that chick. Be a fucking man, for Christ’s sake.”

And that was it. I heard footsteps on the stairs and I washed my hands and joined everybody in the dining room, where one maid was filling coffee cups and the other was lighting crème brûlée with a mini butane torch.

Blake didn’t eat anything. Del devoured his dessert and swallowed two cups of coffee while I compared him to his brother. They were identical in height, and they both had dark hair and the exact same hands. Del was outgoing and a slick dresser, while Blake was quiet and wore casual clothes. His face wasn’t quite as handsome as his father’s, but it was much better than Del’s. Blake’s nose didn’t hook down at the tip and there was no scar on his mouth. There was no way Summer could accuse him of having a birth defect.

“What’s the matter?” Leigh asked Blake when she and Rachel and I were in the foyer with him, slipping into our coats. He shook his head and she patted his cheek, told him to cheer up, and suggested that they go skating at Rockefeller Center tomorrow.

“I love Rockefeller Center,” I said, surprised at my boldness. I was fishing for an invitation, even though I shouldn’t have because I had a chemistry test on Monday. Chemistry made my mind go numb. I had to work extra hard in that class to stay on the honor roll, so I’d been planning to study tomorrow, but Blake needed cheering up and this was a good excuse to see him again.

Leigh looked between me and Blake. “Oh,” she said. “Do you want to come too, Ari?”

More than anything
. I nodded, and Leigh told Blake we would meet him at noon. Then I was in the back of a sedan with Leigh and Rachel, and Rachel pointed at me.

“Blake would be perfect for this one,” she said, and I was embarrassed to have been so transparent. But Rachel seemed to think the idea was her own.

Leigh glanced at me and back at Rachel. “Ari doesn’t want your dating advice.”

“Now, Leigh,” Rachel said calmly, smoothing Leigh’s hair. Leigh had a perturbed look on her face and her lips were puckered. “All three of you can be friends. I’m sure Ari wants to be friends with you
and
Blake.”

That’s right, I thought. I want to be friends with both of you. All three of us can be friends and I do want Rachel’s dating advice, so shut up, Leigh.

Rachel turned toward me and started talking like a gossipy matchmaker. “Blake’s a good boy, Ari. He doesn’t prowl around the way Del does. And he’s smart, too. He’s a sophomore at NYU.”

“He’s nineteen, then?” I asked.

“Twenty,” Leigh said, and I wondered if Blake hadn’t started college right after high school, if he was one of those people who bummed around Europe for a year to find themselves. But she explained that he’d broken his leg when he was eight and was out of school for a while, and he’d had to repeat the third grade because he went to a school where the Ellis family hadn’t donated any money. I was surprised that such a place existed.

“Del broke Blake’s leg,” Rachel said.

Leigh gave her a shove. “Don’t say that, Mama.”

“It’s the truth, isn’t it?” Rachel asked, then looked at me. “It was after their mother died. They got into a fight and Del pushed Blake down the stairs. That’s the kind of temper he has.”

Leigh told the driver to turn on the radio and we all got quiet. He dropped Leigh and Rachel off at their building, then drove me home, where Mom was waiting in the living room. There were sandwiches and warm milk on the coffee table and she wanted me to tell her everything. So we sat on the couch and I described the crème brûlée and the four courses, and asked if she’d ever eaten a leek.

“Once,” she said. “At a swanky anniversary party.”

Then I brought up my new plans. I talked about teaching college and becoming a career woman who could also have a husband and children and a house in Brooklyn with a flower garden and a hammock tied between two shady trees in the backyard, and I kept closing my eyes to see all of it. But when I opened them, Mom had a blank expression on her face, and that was so disappointing.

“Why would you want to live in Brooklyn?” she asked. “And being a college professor isn’t what you think. Positions are hard to find, and nobody makes any money until they get tenure, which doesn’t always happen.” She stood up and brushed crumbs from her bathrobe. “Don’t be in a rush to have children, either, Ariadne. Just look at Evelyn. She isn’t exactly the portrait of fulfillment.”

Mom went to bed and so did I, but I was too miserable to sleep. I switched between staring at the ceiling and through my window, wishing I could be what Mom wanted. I wished I could be like Summer, who wasn’t afraid to go to UCLA or to put a note in a dead man’s hand. She’d probably do all sorts of adventurous things that scared me, like move out of Brooklyn forever and travel solo around the globe. She’d probably become one of those independent women who didn’t care about adorable children and flower gardens and hammocks.

There was an old pair of ice skates in our basement. I searched for them the next morning, remembering that they’d been a fourteenth-birthday gift from Mom and Dad to Evelyn, and Dad had said they were a goddamned waste because Evelyn had only worn them once.

They had to be here somewhere, lurking inside a cardboard box or buried in one of the plastic bins stacked against the wall. I was looking through a box marked
EVELYN
when I heard footsteps on the stairs.

“What are you doing?” Mom asked.

The skates weren’t in the box. I saw a macramé purse, a container filled with seashells, and a pair of Jordache jeans that made me sad. But my mood was lousy anyway because Mom had crushed my dreams last night, and now I didn’t want to look at her. I mumbled that I needed to find Evelyn’s ice skates, and she started searching with me.

“Is it just going to be you and Leigh today?” she asked, pulling a hideous paisley dress from a box. “You didn’t invite Summer?”

“Summer’s always busy with her boyfriend,” I said, watching as she held the dress against herself. It was a size eight, and I thought Mom should face reality and donate it to Goodwill. “You know that.”

She must have read my mind. She tossed the dress onto an exercise bike that nobody ever used. “And all your homework is done?”

“Yes,” I said impatiently, and Mom put her hands on her hips. I wasn’t looking in her direction—I was bent over, digging through a box filled with musty old clothes—but I saw her from the corner of my eye and I wished she’d just go and eat something.

“Don’t be so snippy, Ariadne. You want to get into Parsons, don’t you?”

I straightened up. “Leigh told me her uncle has connections there.”

Mom found the skates. There wasn’t a scratch on them, but they weren’t exactly what I remembered. I thought they were white or tan, or something less ridiculous than silver with rainbow shoelaces and purple lightning bolts stitched into the leather.

She pushed them at me. “What do you mean, her uncle has connections?”

No wonder Evelyn only wore those skates once. They couldn’t have been stylish even in 1976, when teenagers walked around in bell bottoms with combs sticking out of their back pockets. So I jammed the skates into a box and turned to Mom. “Leigh’s uncle knows people at Parsons. He can get me in. My grades probably don’t even matter.”

I might as well have told her that I was “in trouble.” That was how horrified she looked. “We,” she said, pronouncing the word in a virtuous tone, as if she was about to say
We Kennedys
or
We Vanderbilts
, “don’t need anyone’s connections. We stand on our own two feet in this family and you know that.”

I did know that. I felt like a shallow sloth who wanted an escape from those brain-frying SAT practice tests, and that just wasn’t who I was raised to be. So I nodded. I was about to go upstairs when Mom grabbed the skates and held them in the air.

“Forget something?” she asked, and I couldn’t say that I wouldn’t wear those ghastly things, because my parents had bought them with their hard-earned money and it didn’t make sense to pay for rented skates at Rockefeller Center when these were practically brand-new.

They were snug, though. Painful, even. I forced them onto my feet an hour later as I sat on a bench at Rockefeller Center with Leigh. She had spotless white skates with matching laces, and she was too nice to say anything critical about mine.

When Blake showed up, he sat next to me. I slid my feet under the bench, hoping he wouldn’t see my stupid lightning bolts.

I saw other things. I saw his outrageously blue eyes and the wind sweeping through his hair as he leaned over to tie his skates.

“Aren’t you coming?” he asked.

“I have a headache,” I lied. I told him and Leigh to go without me and they disappeared into a swarm of people gliding on the ice, listening to piano music from those Charlie Brown holiday specials.

I acted fast and unlaced my skates, stuck them in my knapsack, and put on my boots so I wouldn’t be humiliated in front of Blake, although I wasn’t sure why I cared. He was skating laps around the rink without ever stumbling or stopping to tie a wayward shoelace, and I felt like I had as much of a chance with him as I did with Del.

I watched anyway, as he zoomed by the United States flag and the Japanese flag and other flags I couldn’t name, but I stopped watching when I heard a dull thump.

There was a boy on the ice just a few feet away from me. He was about ten years old, and he had fallen on his arm. Someone skated over his hat after it fell off.

“Are you all right?” I said, jumping off the bench. I stood over him, offering him my hand, and hoisted him up, which wasn’t easy because he was a chubby kid. “Did you hurt your arm?”

“Yeah,” he said, rubbing it with a gloved hand.

“Are you here by yourself?”

He nodded. “My mom went over to Saks. I promised I’d be careful, but now look at what I’ve done. My arm is probably broken.” He was getting all worked up.

“Don’t worry. I can check your arm,” I said, remembering the class Evelyn had made me take a few years ago, the one where I learned about CPR and diagnosing broken bones. So I checked for swelling and bruising and asked if he’d heard a snap or a crack when he fell. He was shaking his head when Leigh and Blake came back. “You’re fine,” I said, zipping his jacket to his chin.