He did not deserve my help, but I didn’t feel like going to school just yet, so I didn’t hang up on him. “Where are you now?”
“How do you expect me to know that?”
“Put your camera on the nearest street sign instead of your face.” That face. So stubbly and amber wolf–eyed and full-mouthed. Also, stupid.
His camera wobbled first to his feet, wearing men’s black-and-white saddle shoes and showing a glimpse of pink-and-black plaid pants (“Urban Caddyshack” is how Edgar Thibaud describes his personal style). Then the camera dropped to the ground, was lifted up again to reveal a fire hydrant that looked freshly peed on, and then up and over to a street sign. Bowery and Canal.
I did my mental food-map brain scan and said, “Great N.Y. Noodletown, Bowery and Pell. They open early.” I only knew this drunk info because it was my brother and Benny’s favorite post-dancing-the-night-away spot—when they weren’t broken up.
“I’ll never find it,” Edgar Thibaud whined. “Come help me.”
“I’ll send you a link. I have to get to school.” I sighed. “Even though I don’t wanna go.”
“So don’t,” Edgar said, and hung up on me.
For once, Edgar was right. I was always such a good girl. I got good grades and I tried to take care of everyone and I never missed class or soccer practice or dog-walking appointments or SAT-prep class or volunteer work. I ate a lot of carbs like pizza and bagels but threw vegetables on them when I remembered, and if enough cheese was involved. I didn’t smoke, drink, do drugs, or do anything too naughty with Dash. I never even said the f-word.
“FUCK!” I yelled. Wow, that felt good. So I said it again. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Boris placed his paws over his ears again and refused to look at me.
I sent a quick message to that afternoon’s dog-walking clients that I was sick and couldn’t tend to their dogs today, along with the contact info for my dog-walking subs. Then I threw my phone on my bed so no one could text or email or call or FaceTime or tag me so I could be whoever I wanted to be today, without distraction or electronic intervention. I hastily left the apartment before I lost my courage to wander the city phoneless, like in olden days.
—
I had no plan for where I’d go, so I just walked. Roaming the streets of Manhattan on foot has always been one of my favorite ways to find inspiration. There’s so much to see and smell (not all of it pleasant, except this time of year, which smells of roasted cashews, crisp air, and gingerbread lattes). It was impossible not to feel exhilarated on a day like today, so sunny and warm, which was annoying for December, but also helpful since I was outside walking and the stores were decorated for the holidays and there was a palpable sense of cheer among my fellow pedestrians.
Truth: There wasn’t actually a palpable sense of cheer, but I decided to pretend there was, in hopes the holiday cheer would seep into my troubled soul.
“Don’t be such a coddled bird,” Langston had said to me this morning after I burst into tears when he said he was moving and I said I wasn’t ready for him to go, especially if that meant my parents thought their eldest leaving the nest opened the door for them to kidnap their youngest to Connecticut. Hah! Coddled bird. It was the name Langston sometimes teased me with, because of the framed picture on our living room mantelpiece picturing Grandpa holding five-year-old me in front of that year’s Christmas tree, with his sister, Mrs. Basil E., on one side of us, and his twin brothers, Great-Uncle Sal and Great-Uncle Carmine, standing on his other side. In the photo, the siblings are holding beers, their mouths open but not about to drink, because they were serenading their little girl with a Christmas carol. Whenever Langston gets annoyed with our relatives for babying me too much (because I am the youngest of all the grandchildren and, I’m told, the most delightful), he’ll look at that picture of the four siblings serenading their baby girl and, to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” will sing out, “Four coddle birds” instead of “four calling birds.” Who even knows what the fudge—I mean, fuck!—calling birds are.
I know I am an overprotected, coddled bird, but I’d like to evolve past that. I mean, not to the extent that I don’t get generous birthday cash, but a certain amount of independence would be healthy.