Touch her? I barely wanted to look at her. But what other choices did I have? Arya made the time move faster, and she brought me snacks and Gatorade.
By the time summer was over, Arya and I were inseparable. Once the school year started, that was when the friendship ended. Talking on the phone was lame—and also kind of stilted; we tried—and neither of our families was going to agree to a playdate, a concept Arya tried to explain to me several times.
I sometimes wrote to her, but I never sent the letters.
The last thing I needed was Arya thinking I liked her.
Plus, it wasn’t even true.
Another summer break rolled in. I was four inches taller. My mother, yet again, brought me over with her to work. This time, I was allowed inside the penthouse. Not because Mom worried for me, but because she was worried because of me. Earlier that year, I’d started hustling at school, selling counterfeit Jordans for a 500 percent profit margin after the commission Little Ritchie, who gave them to me, charged. The principal warned Mom I was headed straight to juvie if I didn’t cut it out.
The first time I set foot in the Roth penthouse, I was light headed. Everything was stealable. I’d knock down the walls and stuff them in my pockets if I could.
Onyx marble gleamed like a panther’s coat. The furniture appeared to be floating, hanging on invisible wires, and large, imposing paintings were everywhere. The wine fridge alone was bigger than our bathroom. There were dripping chandeliers, marble statues, and plush rugs everywhere. If this was how rich people lived, it was a wonder they ever left the house.
But the real gem was the view of Central Park. The silhouette of the skyscrapers gave the impression of a thorny crown. And the person wearing that crown was Arya, who sat at a winged, stark-white piano, her back ramrod straight, the view her backdrop, wearing a Sunday dress and a solemn expression.
My breath caught in my throat. It was then that I noticed she was pretty. I mean, I knew she wasn’t ugly. I had eyes, after all. But I’d never considered she was the opposite of ugly. Last summer, Arya had just been . . . Arya. My partner in crime. The kid who wasn’t afraid to jump over gates and ambush people in bushes. The girl who’d helped me find cigarette butts I could suck on.
Arya’s head snapped up, her eyes flaring as she took me in. For the first time in my life, I felt self-conscious. Up until then, I hadn’t cared about my big nose and Dumbo ears or that I had a good six or seven pounds to gain to fill into my frame.
Her parents were standing behind her, watching her play the piece. Her dad had one hand pressed against her shoulder, like he expected her to evaporate into air any moment now. I knew she couldn’t talk to me, so I ignored her, smearing the bubble gum I had stepped in across their floor. Mom and I stood like unattended grocery bags at the entrance, Mom kneading her blue apron nervously as she waited for Arya to finish the piece.
When Arya was done, Mom stepped forward. Her smile looked painful. I wanted to scrub it off her face with one of her bleach-fumed cleaning cloths.
“Mr. Roth, Mrs. Roth, this is my son, Nicholai.”
Beatrice and Conrad Roth stirred toward me like evil twins in a horror flick. Conrad had the dead, beady eyes of a shark, trimmed silver hair, and a suit that reeked of money. Beatrice was a model trophy wife, with a blown-out blonde mane, enough makeup to sculpt a three-tier wedding cake, and that vacant gaze of a woman who’d married herself into a corner. I saw the same look on mobsters’ wives in Hunts Point. The ones who realized money had a price.
“How darling you are,” Beatrice said crisply, but when I reached for a handshake, she patted my wrist down. “Lovely boy you have, Ruslana. Tall and blue eyed. Why, I would never.”
Conrad glanced at me for a fraction of a second before turning to face Mom. He looked ready to burst with anger. Like my existence was an inconvenience. “Remember what we discussed, Ruslana. Keep him away from Ari.”
A boulder the size of New Jersey settled in my stomach. I was right freaking there.
“Absolutely.” Mom nodded obediently, and I hated her in that moment. More than I hated Conrad, I think. “Nicholai will not leave my sight, sir.”
Behind them, Arya rolled her eyes and pantomimed aiming a gun at her temple. When she fake-shot herself, her head jerked violently. Any concern I had of her forgetting about our alliance evaporated immediately.
I bit down a grin.
Hope was a drug, I realized.
And Arya had just given me my first, free-sample hit.
Mom didn’t enforce the stay-the-heck-away-from-Arya rule. She had too much on her plate to give a crap. Instead, she warned me that if I ever touched Arya, I would be dead to her.
“If you think I’ll let you ruin this for me, you’re wrong. One strike and you’re out, Nicholai.”
Despite that, the summer Arya and I were thirteen was by far the best of my life.
Conrad was a hotshot Wall Street wolf who ran a hedge fund company. Arya tried to explain to me what a hedge fund was. It sounded dangerously close to gambling, so of course I made a mental note to check it out when I grew up. Conrad worked crazy hours. We rarely saw him. And between her weekend-long shopping sprees in Europe and country-club luncheons, Beatrice seemed more like a flighty older sister than her mother. Quickly, Arya and I settled into a routine. We went to the building’s indoor pool every morning and raced laps (I won), then lay on Arya’s balcony to dry off, faces tilted up to the sky, the chlorine and sun bleaching the tips of our hair, competing over who’d get more freckled (she won).
We also read. A lot.
Hours spent every day tucked under the big oak desk in her family’s library, sucking on boba slushies, toe fighting with our legs stretched across the Persian carpet.