The Wild One (13 page)

“No … that can't be right either,” I say. “I don't know, Pia.”

“I have to tell him,” she says. “I do. I know I do.”

I nod. “I think maybe you do.”

She looks up at her truck. A sudden influx of tourists has boosted the line at the Italian Stallion. Her assistant looks stressed.

“I have to go back,” Pia says, wiping her eyes. “My God, I cry a lot.”

I grin. “Me too.”

Pia gives me a big hug. “Thank you for helping me, Coco. You're a really good friend.”

It's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.

 

CHAPTER
14

I still have time to kill before I meet my dad.

So I get the subway back up to Central Park and take a stroll.

The smell of grass in the hot sun is so distinctive, isn't it? It reminds me of my childhood summers, of drying off on scratchy grass after swimming, of birthday parties where everyone else was on the bouncy castle and I was too scared to join in because some of the boys were really rough. (Julia was really rough too.)

I've probably been in Central Park only four or five times in my entire life. That is pretty lazy of me given I live here now, but somehow it's easy to just stay in your own little area of New York City, even though everything else is just a subway ride away.

My first time coming to Central Park was with my mom.

She brought us into the city to see
The Lion King
for Julia's tenth birthday. We started out at Serendipity, for Frrrozen Hot Chocolates, which was officially my favorite dessert in the entire world until … actually, it's still my favorite dessert. Then we saw
The Lion King,
which was awesome and, at the time, a little scary. And then we walked over here to watch the toy sailboats on the lake.

My mom told us it was her favorite place in the whole world.

She said Central Park had a little bit of magic, that it opened the sky to the world below and vice versa, that you could stand in the middle of it and feel at one with everything around you.

We watched the boats for a while, before going to a playground to swing. After that we went down to this restaurant in Chinatown for dinner. Eventually we headed back to Aunt Jo's house, and Julia and I were so tired we fell asleep in the cab, and my dad carried Julia and my mom carried me up the stairs of Rookhaven and put us to bed. I can still remember the sensation of being carried by her, what it felt like to put my face into the soft crook between her shoulder and her neck, the smell of her perfume and shampoo. I remember her
momness
.

And then, suddenly, I realize I can't remember my mom's voice.

No. No way.

What did her voice sound like? What was it
like
?

When I try to imagine it, I have like a blank fuzzy white noise in my head. I can hear Julia's voice, and Angie's voice, and Pia and Madeleine and Miss Audrey and Mrs. James and every other woman's voice I've ever heard. But I can't remember my mother's. What happens if soon I can't remember what she looked like, or her smile, or the feeling of her arms around me? It'll be like she never even existed! Why didn't I record her voice? Why? All we have is an old birthday video that my cousin made at Christmas once, and I'm, like, three or something. Why didn't we video every single day we ever had together? Why?

Suddenly, I'm going to cry. I know I am. The tears are already overflowing, blinding me, oh, God, this sadness is going to swallow me up.

Crying about death isn't like normal crying, it's not like crying over a TV show or a boy or whatever. I wouldn't say that to Pia, of course, I don't want to be all “you don't really understand sadness”—but truly, no one who hasn't experienced it themselves can understand. It's desperate and overwhelming, like drowning … It's like you're suffocating with fear. I try to not let myself cry about my mom because I'm scared that if I do, I'll never, ever stop.

Sometimes I used to wake up crying at night, like my body was holding in tears and would only let them out when I was sleeping.

Now, with every bit of strength in my body, I
will
the tears to withdraw, taking all of my sadness back into the center of my body where it normally lives. Then as I blink away the tears, focusing again on all the pigeons, I have a flashback to Julia's birthday.

We were standing next to the lake, and I was tired, when I saw this wild-looking woman—not a homeless woman, just one of New York's eccentrics—covered in pigeons. I totally freaked out. I started to cry and cry. And my mother leant down and said, “She's just doing her own thing, Coco. If she's not scared of the pigeons, you don't need to be scared for her.”

Relief courses through me. I remember now.

My mother's voice was warm and reassuring and calm. It was like buttery toast. It was honey-colored. It was
Mom.

I stare at the lake until I remember what I'm supposed to be doing today. Then I gather myself together and head to lunch.

An hour later, when I get to the bistro, I take a seat in the far corner and order a sparkling water while I wait for Julia and Dad to arrive. It's weird how I often think about my mom on the days when I know I'm going to see my dad. They still go hand in hand in my brain.

Where the hell is my dad already?

“Coco Russotti?” asks a voice, and I look up to see a vaguely familiar, extremely handsome face that I can't quite place. “Coco, is that you?”

“Yes? I mean … hi!” I'm drawing a total blank. Who the hell is this guy?

“It's me!”

The guy, the giant, gives me a big perfect shiny-teeth smile, all chiseled jaw and brown eyes and perfect dark skin, and I get the strangest flashback to seeing him in a football uniform. Huh?

“Topher Amies. I went to high school with you. In Rochester?”

I must still be staring at him blankly because he's starting to look confused.

“Um, I was a friend of Julia's? I mean, I'm still her friend, I just never see her anymore, she's like, socially elusive since she became the next big thing in banking…”

Suddenly I remember. Topher Amies! He was one of Julia's jock friends. He was part of the cool crowd. He dated a succession of pretty, toothy girls with long legs and bubble gum voices. His dad was a pro football player. He was en route to being a pro football player too until he broke his leg in a dramatic injury that left most of the cheerleaders in hysterical tears. He was scouted to be an Abercrombie and Fitch model, though it didn't happen, it totally could have. He was, in other words, a high school hero.

I can't believe he remembers
me.
I was nothing in high school. I mean, not nothing, but—never mind. Whatever. Julia wasn't in the so-called cool crowd either, exactly, but she was captain of the soccer team and everyone liked her, so she was accepted across different cliques. Anyway. Back to Topher. Who is standing right in front of me, waiting for me to speak.

“Hi!” My voice cracks.
Oh, Coco, you are so lame.
“I mean, hey. What a weird coincidence! I'm just about to meet Julia and my dad for lunch.”

“No, I'm meeting your dad too,” he says, taking a seat at the table.

“You're what? I mean, sorry?”

“My dad and your dad are golf buddies. And my dad wants me to get an internship with your dad's company, so he set this meeting up. Personally, I don't think I want to be a banker. But hey, that's my burden.” Topher flashes a perfect smile, and I blink a few times. My God, he's so pretty.

I'm not exaggerating. He really is that pretty. The girls at school called him Hot Topher. Girls like me, who hung out on the edges of the cafeteria watching the cool people interact. Eric, that guy I had my stupid crush on for so many years, was in the cool clique too, but a much lower echelon, reserved for the guys who were friends with the cool guys back when they were all thirteen. Looking back, I think Eric had that tinge of desperation that the truly cool can sniff out a mile off. But I didn't mind: I crushed on Eric anyway. I would never have a crush on someone like Topher; he was too unattainable to even be an unattainable crush. I aimed lower.

Get back to the damn present, Coco.

“So … you live in New York now?” Urgh, stupid question. Obviously he lives here.

“Yup, I just finished freshman year at NYU,” Topher says. “I know. A freshman at twenty-three. It's pretty … pathetic.” His laugh is so open and infectious that I find myself laughing too. His teeth are so white. His eyelashes are so long. His lips are so pouty. “After high school I went to Duke for about four months, and I just, uh, hated it.” He cracks up again. “So I took a few years off and went traveling around the world.”

“Wow,” I say. “That's so cool.”

“Oh, no,” Topher says. “Most of the time I was just broke and lonely. It was kind of tragic.”

“Tragic is cool…” My voice trails off. Oh, man. That was a stupid thing to say.

“Now I live in a studio apartment uptown that my aunt owns. It's tiny, but it's free. And I'm taking some extra classes this summer, you know, for credit.”

“That sounds … fun.”

“Does it?” Topher grins at me. “It's not. It's pretty boring.”

He's so confident. So easygoing. No wonder everyone loved him so much in high school.

The waitress comes over. “Are you ready to order?”

Topher looks up at her and grins apologetically. “We're still waiting for two people,” he says.

“No problem.” She winks at him and walks away. Told you he was hot.

“I need the extra summer classes to help me graduate early,” he continues. “For the next few weeks, my life is comparative literature.”

“Cool!” I say. “It must be so much fun to just sit around and talk about books all day. I always thought that, anyway. Uh…” I pause, wondering if I sound like a total dick. “Sorry. I'm such a geek. I spent all morning reading
Anna Karenina,
and it was pretty much the best morning I've had in weeks.”

Topher's eyes light up. “
Anna Karenina?
Are you kidding? That's such a coincidence! I—”

But before we can start talking about books, I glance up and see my dad and Julia walking into the café together. They must have arranged to meet up before coming here. They always do things like that: a united force.

I quickly stand up. “Hi, Daddy!”

“Little Coco!” exclaims my dad.

My dad looks just like Julia, if you can imagine Julia as a fifty-something guy with a slight bald patch and wire-rimmed glasses wearing a gray pin-striped suit.

He envelops me in one of his big rocking hugs, then leans back, looking at me. “Is that red lipstick? Wipe that off, sweetie. You look like a clown.”

I frown, pick up a paper napkin, and quickly wipe off my red lipstick, feeling my skin prickle with embarrassment. I totally forgot I was even wearing it. Luckily, Topher didn't notice; he's too busy hugging Julia.

We all sit down. My dad doesn't even look at the menu, he never does, he always knows what he wants.

“Does everyone just want the roast chicken? That's what this place is famous for, right?” Dad waves over the waitress. “We'll take four roast chickens, please. What does everyone want to drink?”

“I already ordered a sparkling water,” I say.

“Bad for your digestion,” say my dad and Julia simultaneously, then grin at each other. “Jinx!”

Topher catches my eye and winks. I'm so surprised I don't even think to wink back, and by the time I've recovered myself enough to even consider winking back, the conversation has moved on and Topher isn't even looking at me anymore.

“I've been working so hard,” says Julia. “That I realized the other day that I have more makeup in my desk drawer at the office than at home, and all my toothbrushes somehow ended up there too.”

“That's my girl!” says Dad. “So, Coco. Quitting your job. Walk me through it.”

“Um…” I look at Julia for help, but she's just smiling at me in this weird parental way she does when we're with Dad. I look back at Dad. He's going to grill me right here in front of Topher, a virtual stranger?

He looks back at me expectantly. Yes, yes he is.

So I tell him all about how I didn't like working at the preschool, how it wasn't what I wanted to do anymore, how I felt unfulfilled and depressed. Only I don't use the word “depressed,” of course, it's not something we say in our house, I just say “down.”

My dad nods the whole time and slowly eats three pieces of bread with butter.

As I finish my story, there's silence. I feel like I'm in trouble. But I'm twenty-one. If I hate my job, I should be allowed to quit, right? Why can't I just say that?

“Well, honey, we don't want you to not enjoy your work, of course,” says Dad. “So let's figure out how we can make you happy.”

“I think I just want to work at Potstill for a while,” I say. “It's this really fun bar, and the manager is really cool. Plus, I can just work there at night and read during the day and figure out, um, figure out … stuff.”

Total silence. Topher is concentrating on chewing his chicken, eyes on his plate.

“Figure out
stuff
?” Dad sighs. “Honey, a bar job is not a viable long-term career.”

“I know,” I say, though I'm thinking,
Why not?
Some people work in bars for their entire lives.

“I don't think it'll suit you,” says Julia. “You know, rough patrons, drunk people, and you'd have to be on your feet all night.”

“Little kids are way more intense and annoying than drunk people,” I say. “And I was on my feet a lot in the preschool too.”

“Coco, it's just not a job for a nice girl like you,” says my father. “I think Rochester is a better place for you. You can live at home and work in one of the local preschools. They're great.”