I’ve always loved Central Park. I mean, it’s the closest to nature I’m likely to get, growing up in Manhattan. It’s the closest to nature I want to get, if you must know. There’s wild things in it—squirrels and pigeons and like that, and trees and rocks and plants. But they’re city wild things, used to living around people. I don’t mean they’re tame. I mean they’re streetwise. Look. How many squished squirrels do you see on the park transverses? How many do you see on any suburban road? I rest my case.
Central Park is magic. This isn’t a matter of opinion, it’s the truth. When I was just old enough for Mom to let me out of her sight, I had this place I used to play, down by the boat pond, in a little inlet at the foot of a huge cliff. When I was in there, all I could see was the water all shiny and sparkly like a silk dress with sequins and the great gray hulk of the rock behind me and the willow tree bending down over me to trail its green-gold hair in the water. I could hear people splashing and laughing and talking, but I couldn’t see them, and there was this fairy who used to come and play with me.
Mom said my fairy friend came from me being an only child and reading too many books, but all I can say is that if I’d made her up, she would have been less bratty. She had long Saran-Wrap wings like a dragonfly, she was teensy, and she couldn’t keep still for a second. She’d play princesses or Peter Pan for about two minutes, and then she’d get bored and pull my hair or start teasing me about being a big, galumphy, deaf, blind human being or talking to the willow or the rocks. She couldn’t even finish a conversation with a butterfly.
Anyway, I stopped believing in her when I was about eight, or stopped seeing her, anyway. By that time I didn’t care because I’d gotten friendly with Elf, who didn’t tease me quite as much. She wasn’t into fairies, although she did like to read. As we got older, mostly I was grateful she was willing to be my friend. Like, I wasn’t exactly Ms. Popularity at school. I sucked at gym and liked English and like that, so the cool kids decided I was a super-geek. Also, I wear glasses and I’m no Kate Moss, if you know what I mean. I could stand to lose a few pounds—none of your business how many. It wasn’t safe to be seen having lunch with me, so Elf didn’t. As long as she hung with me after school, I didn’t really care all that much.
The inlet was our safe place, where we could talk about whether the French teacher hated me personally or was just incredibly mean in general and whether Patty Gregg was really cool, or just thought she was. In the summer, we’d take our shoes off and swing our feet in the water that sighed around the roots of the golden willow.
So one day we were down there, gabbing as usual. This was last year, the fall of eleventh grade, and we were talking about boyfriends. Or at least Elf was talking about her boyfriend and I was nodding sympathetically. I guess my attention wandered, and for some reason I started wondering about my fairy friend. What was her name again? Bubble? Burble? Something like that.
Something tugged really hard on about two hairs at the top of my head, where it really hurts, and I yelped and scrubbed at the sore place. “Mosquito,” I explained. “So what did he say?”
Oddly enough, Elf had lost interest in what her boyfriend had said. She had this look of intense concentration on her face, like she was listening for her little brother’s breathing on the other side of the bedroom door. “Did you hear that?” she whispered.
“What? Hear what?”
“Ssh.”
I sshed and listened. Water lapping; the distant creak of oarlocks and New Yorkers laughing and talking and splashing. The wind in the willow leaves whispering, ssh, ssh. “I don’t hear anything,” I said.
“Shut up,” Elf snapped. “You missed it. A snapping sound. Over there.” Her blue eyes were very big and round.
“You’re trying to scare me,” I accused her. “You read about that woman getting mugged in the park, and now you’re trying to jerk my chain. Thanks, friend.”
Elf looked indignant. “As if!” She froze like a dog sighting a pigeon. “There.”
I strained my ears. It seemed awfully quiet all of a sudden.
There wasn’t even a breeze to stir the willow. Elf breathed, “Omigod. Don’t look now, but I think there’s a guy over there, watching us.”
My face got all prickly and cold, like my body believed her even though my brain didn’t. “I swear to God, Elf, if you’re lying, I’ll totally kill you.” I turned around to follow her gaze. “Where? I don’t see anything.”
“I said, don’t look,” Elf hissed. “He’ll know.”
“He already knows, unless he’s a moron. If he’s even there. Omigod!”
Suddenly I saw, or thought I saw, a guy with a stocking cap on and a dirty, unshaven face peering around a big rock.
It was strange. One second, it looked like a guy, the next, it was more like someone’s windbreaker draped over a bush. But my heart started to beat really fast anyway. There weren’t that many ways to get out of that particular little cove if you didn’t have a boat.
“See him?” she hissed triumphantly.
“I guess.”
“What are we going to do?”
Thinking about it later, I couldn’t quite decide whether Elf was really afraid, or whether she was pretending because it was exciting to be afraid, but she sure convinced me. If the guy was on the path, the only way out was up the cliff. I’m not in the best shape and I’m scared of heights, but I was even more scared of the man, so up we went.
I remember that climb, but I don’t want to talk about it. I thought I was going to die, okay? And I was really, really mad at Elf for putting me though this, like if she hadn’t noticed the guy, he wouldn’t have been there. I was sweating, and my glasses kept slipping down my nose and …
No. I won’t talk about it. All you need to know is that Elf got to the top first and squirmed around on her belly to reach down and help me up.
“Hurry up,” she panted. “He’s behind you. No, don’t look”—as if I could even bear to look all that way down—“just hurry.”
I was totally winded by the time I got to the top and scrambled to my feet, but Elf didn’t give me time to catch my breath. She grabbed my wrist and pulled me to the path, both of us stumbling as much as we were running.
It was about this time I realized that something really weird was going on. Like, the path was empty, and it was two o’clock in the afternoon of a beautiful fall Saturday, when Central Park is so full of people it’s like Times Square with trees. And I couldn’t run just like you can’t run in dreams.
Suddenly, Elf tripped and let go of me. The path shook itself, and she was gone. Poof. Nowhere in sight.
By this time, I’m freaked totally out of my mind. I look around, and there’s this guy, hauling himself over the edge of the cliff, stocking cap jammed down over his head, face gray-skinned with dirt, half his teeth missing. I don’t know why I didn’t scream—usually, it’s pitiful how easy it is to make me scream—I just turned around and ran.