Thalia was dating Robbie, and Beth was all over Kellan, and all four were friends—which left me and Kwan the odd ones out. The trip was unstructured; we had nothing to do between waking up and meeting for dinner. Kwan and I were both awkward enough that we weren’t going to suggest exploring the city together—so I set out alone every day, seeing how far I could walk, doing mental math on calories burned per block.
The biggest city I’d seen was Indianapolis. Well, and I’d flown through O’Hare, which didn’t count. I didn’t mention this, not wanting to seem like a rube. I’m sure if you’d known you’d have given me more direction, at least taught me how to hail a cab.
Everything was enormous, and the sidewalks were broad, and I loved it all, even the way the streets started smelling like garbage at five p.m. when the trash came out. I was terrified the whole time of pickpockets, of crime, of wandering into a gang war (ah, the notorious gang wars of Lincoln Square), but otherwise it was heaven.
I had thirty dollars for the three days, and while Granby covered our Met tickets and dinners, those thirty dollars needed to get me through breakfasts and lunches and transportation. I’d rise early (my body woke at four a.m. for crew, even here in New York), sneak out of the room without waking Thalia and Beth, and buy a small bagel with jam and an orange juice from the deli across from our hotel. That was $3.75. I’d have $6.25 for the rest of the day. I had sorbet for lunch once, which would have broken my diet if it hadn’t been the only thing I ate. Another time I got a pretzel from a cart.
I sent a postcard to my mother in Arizona—letters spelling NEW YORK, each filled with a photo of the city. She didn’t know I was there, and I wanted to casually surprise her. In retrospect, it wasn’t a kind thing, sending that postcard. The back might as well have read, Look how little you know about me. Or You’ve never been here, have you? It’s possible I was taking the opera class for the same reason. How much farther could I get from Broad Run, Indiana?
Not long after we arrived, I was walking down Columbus Avenue when a man who was clearly mentally unwell swerved at me and made like he was grabbing enormous breasts on himself, shaking them in the air. I sidestepped him, hurried down the sidewalk hating the rush to my limbs, my stomach. He called, “Run, little bunny rabbit! Hoppity-hop!” I felt I’d done something wrong and embarrassing, hadn’t been tough enough.
On the second day, I ran into Kwan as he returned to the hotel with poster tubes under his arms. “I was at the Met!” he said, and I was so confused, because weren’t we going to the Met every night? He said, “You only pay what you want.” Further confusion. But then he popped open one of the tubes to show me Van Gogh’s self-portrait in a straw hat, the words Metropolitan Museum of Art across the bottom.
So on the morning of the third day, our last full day, I set out from Lincoln Square through the park to the museum I’d circled on the free hotel map. I made sure to pass a landmark my map called “Beth. Fountain” because a fountain would be good for photos.
I assume you remember what happened next. I saw you and Thalia sitting way too close—legs toward each other, touching at the ankle—on the lip of what I now know is Bethesda Fountain. If I’d been far enough away I’d have stopped, hidden behind other tourists, watched to see what happened next. It would be something to tell Fran when we were back—how Thalia was throwing herself at you. But by the time I saw you, I was five feet away, and you also saw me. You and Thalia jerked your legs apart. Thalia looked like she was trying not to laugh; your cheeks were forest fires. You said, smoothly, “Bodie! Small city, huh?” You said, “Thalia just talked me into being her convocation advisor. Do you have an advisor yet? You need one?”
Whatever else I’d been thinking was subsumed by my enormous relief at what seemed like, and indeed was, your offer to work with me. They’d just posted the list of the ten or so faculty who’d be advising convocation speeches, and they expected us to simply approach someone. That was easy for most kids—the hockey players went to Mr. Dar, the skiers to Mr. Granson—but the thought of walking into someone’s classroom, even yours, and asking them to advise me felt egregious.
So I said, “I—yeah, I guess I do need one.”
You seemed genuinely overjoyed, and I was starved enough to take it.
You asked where I was going, and I said “the Metropolitan Art Museum” and you gently corrected me, told me to be sure to find ancient Egypt.
That night at Tosca, Kellan TenEyck, a row ahead, turned as we stood for intermission. He stretched his arms overhead, oxford shirt rising to expose a pale stomach. He said to me, out of nowhere, “So you and Fran Hoffnung are dykes together, right?”
And that was the thing I went to bed angry about, the thing I stewed over. Not what I’d seen in the park.
18
When did you first notice her? She’d have been in Choristers from the start of junior year, one of many sopranos. Then she joined Follies, one of four girls spinning in black dresses to “I’m Every Woman.” By mid-September, you’d picked her for parts in the opening sketch and given her a solo in the closing number.
By the time we roomed together, she’d definitely noticed you. She kept asking how long I’d been stage managing, what your kids were like when I’d babysat, if I knew what kind of bagel you liked, what kind of soda she should bring you if she stopped by the snack bar before rehearsal.
Aside from this grilling, our interactions that year were oddly formal. Right before bed, the only time we were consistently alone together outside the merciful silence of study hours, Thalia always hit me with a polite conversation starter. It might have come out condescending—might have been condescending—but at least she tried. “Does your family have any special Christmas traditions?” she might ask, or “Have you seen any good movies recently?” She rarely just said things, didn’t complain to me about homework or tell me about her day. It was as if her grandmother were watching, and she needed to prove she’d been well raised.
That spring, she asked my summer plans. I said, “Maybe I’ll work at Burger King,” and she clearly didn’t know if she was meant to laugh. I was kidding, but barely; I hoped to land the swing shift at Baskin-Robbins again.
She said, “Back in Idaho?”
I wondered if she’d been picturing Idaho this whole time, or was picturing Indiana but didn’t know its name. I said, “The thing about Burger King in Idaho is our fries are local. We harvest them ourselves.”
That was junior year, of course. Senior year, after Thalia died, Asad Mirza said, kindly and with interest, “Bodie, is it true you live on a potato farm?”
Thalia’s friends spoke to me, in contrast to her studied politeness, with barely concealed distaste. Beth once told me that I should try a bronzer, that it would slim down my face and make me look “less angry.” Even something like “Nice top” was a baited hook, a feigned act of generosity played for the rest of the audience as pure joke. Its success relied on the assumption that while everyone else would hear the ironic edge, I wouldn’t. The irony being: I was steeped in irony. I was the one whose entire attendance at Granby felt ironic. I was the one whose clothes and posters were ironic. Whereas they (I believed) sailed through life sincerely, with their layered haircuts and North Face and plaid miniskirts. So when I replied with “Oh my God, you too,” even though the girl in question was wearing her lacrosse uniform, I enjoyed the look of confusion, then the unsubtle roll of eyes Beth would share with Rachel.
Beth was the star of that pair, the singer, a blonde Christy Turlington, the one who’d made flirting an art form. Rachel’s mother was the daughter of a former Connecticut governor, and her father owned commercial real estate in Manhattan. This seemed to compensate for her lack of personality. Rachel followed Beth like a shadow, and they made each other more attractive by proximity.