Goodbye Stranger (24 page)

Bridge:
Fine now.

Sherm:
Where R U?

Bridge:
105th

Sherm:
I’m on 106th!!

Bridge looked up and scanned the block. It was dark, but she could just make him out, standing on the corner.

Bridge:
I think I see you

Sherm:
I think I see you too. Can you come over?

SIX WHITE FLAGS

“I want to show you something.” Sherm pulled at a latch above his head, and a trapdoor in the third-floor ceiling came down slowly until it hung in front of them like an open mouth. From this he carefully unfolded a narrow ladder that made Bridge think of a tongue reaching out to taste the floor.

“You okay with climbing?” Sherm asked. He held out a flashlight to her.

Bridge went up first, unhooking the latch on a second little door at the top and pushing it open to find herself on the roof of Sherm’s house. There wasn’t much open space—maybe two strides in any direction. She swung the flashlight around, though with the moon so bright she could see perfectly well without it. “Does your grandma know you come up here?”

“Yeah, she knows,” Sherm called from below. “I used to go up there with my grandfather all the time. Catch!”

She caught a dark bundle that turned out to be a sleeping bag, and Sherm dragged another one behind him up the ladder. When he was standing next to her, he flipped it out in front of him and Bridge heard something go
thunk
when it hit the roof.

“Dropped my binoculars,” Sherm explained.

“I’m cold,” Bridge said.

They sat against the attic door with the sleeping bags pulled up to their necks. Bridge squinted into the binoculars. “I can’t find it.”

“What do you mean you can’t find it?” Sherm said. “Keep both eyes open.”

“I
am.
” Then she suddenly had it. The moon.

“Wow.” It glowed hugely in front of her, like something she could reach out and touch. Who knew you could see the moon like this with a regular pair of binoculars?

“Okay,” Sherm said. “So you see the face, right? Look at the eye on the left, and go down a little from there. There’s a dark spot.”

“Yeah. I think. Yeah. Got it.”

“That’s the Sea of Tranquility.”

“There’s water up there?”

“Well, not anymore. But that’s what they call it.”

“Oh. ‘Sea of Tranquility’ sounds like it should be someplace in the Bahamas.”

“That’s where they landed.”

“Who did?”

“Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong. Apollo 11.”

She lowered the binoculars and looked at Sherm. “Apollo 11? So you admit they were there?”

“First manned flight to the moon. Landed July twentieth, 1969.” He shrugged. “It’s a fact.”

Bridge looked through the binoculars again. “What about no wind on the moon? What about the American flag?”

“The flag is still there. There are six flags up there, actually. But they’re all white now. Bleached out by the sun.”

“Six white flags?”

“Yeah. Like a big fat surrender.”

In the moonlight, Sherm looked sad, as if he were the one surrendering. “Also, you can see their footsteps. The astronauts’, I mean. The footsteps are still there in the dust, and with a really powerful telescope, you can see them from Earth.”

“Wow.” Bridge lowered the binoculars. “So this was kind of a grandpa thing? Something you did together, I mean.”

Sherm nodded. “My grandfather is this really patriotic space-mission fan. We used to come up here a lot and he would tell me things. He actually worked at the factory that made the flag left on the moon by Apollo 11.”

“Seriously?”

“The factory is in New Jersey. My dad was born right after that. That’s why he’s named Apollo.” Sherm laughed. “Weird, right? But my grandfather used to say he had the best job in the world.”

“Making flags?”

“Yep—sitting in front of a sewing machine all day. Best job in the world. That was after he got back from the war. Vietnam.” Sherm reached for the binoculars. “Anyway, I wanted you to know. I was just being annoying—about the moon landing.”

“Because you’re mad,” Bridge said. “At your grandfather.”

“I guess so. Yeah.”

“Like,
really
mad,” Bridge said.

“Okay, thanks, Dr. Freud.”

Bridge looked at the moon again. “Today’s his birthday, right?”

She felt him turn to her. “How’d you know that?”

“February fourteenth. I saw it at Dollar-Eight, remember? On that piece of paper you carry around everywhere. Because your grandfather doesn’t matter to you anymore.”

“Shut up.” He elbowed her in the dark.

“You should mail those letters.”

“I’m thinking about it.”

After a minute, Sherm said, “There’s something I want to tell you. You’re going to think I’m weird.”

“I already think you’re weird.”

“Seriously. Be serious.”

“Okay.” Bridge gathered her sleeping bag around her shoulders, digging her chin into the softness of it.

“When you had your accident,” Sherm said, “you were roller-skating down my block.”

“Yeah, you told me. At the diner.”

“But I didn’t tell you that I was there. I was sitting on our steps, waiting for my dad to come out of the house. We were getting in the car to go to Chuck E. Cheese.”

“Whoa. Did you actually see me get hit? Tab is, like, scarred for life from it.”

“This isn’t funny.”

“It’s
my
near-death experience—shouldn’t I be allowed to joke about it?”

Sherm pointed his flashlight at his very serious face and looked at her.

“Yikes. Okay, sorry.”

“My dad was the first doctor who got to you, after. He went with you in the ambulance and worked on you in surgery that night. You know he’s a cardiologist, right?”

“Wow—seriously? That’s crazy.” Then she added, “Jamie said my heart stopped three times that night.”

Sherm looked at her. “Three times?”

Bridge nodded, thinking. Sherm’s
father.
“Do you realize your dad probably touched my heart? Like—directly?”

“Huh,” Sherm said. “I never thought of that.”

“Weird.”

“My parents had to sell their car,” Sherm said. “After your accident. Because I used to cry whenever I saw it. It reminded me of what happened.”

“Wait.” Bridge sat straight up, letting her sleeping bag slip from her shoulders. “The yellow Bug? It was double-parked?”

“You remember our
car
?”

Bridge decided not to tell him. It would only make him feel worse, and it wasn’t his fault. It was nobody’s fault. She sat back and closed her eyes and remembered what it had felt like, flying down the block on her skates, doing her Chaplin moves.

“Is that why you’re so nice to me?” she said. “Because we have this secret connection that only you knew about?”

“Actually, I tried
not
to know you. I avoided you at school for three years. I didn’t want to think about you at all.”

“Nice. You watch a girl get run over and then you ignore her.”

“Would you stop joking?”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t joke about the accident. And don’t joke about—us.”

Bridge was glad it was mostly dark. She didn’t want to have to think about the look on her face. “Us?”

“Yes. Us.”

Bridge waited. She wanted to tell Sherm about the music and how she didn’t hear it yet. At least, she didn’t
think
she heard it. She didn’t know how to begin.

“You’re my best friend,” Sherm said. After a few seconds he added, “I wanted you to know.”

Bridge exhaled.

“You’re my best friend too,” she said. “Tab, Emily, and you.”

Sherm nodded, and they were quiet. Then Sherm said, “You know what my dad told me once? He said the human heart doesn’t really pump the way everyone thinks.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No. He said that the heart wrings itself out. It twists in two different directions, like you’d do to squeeze the water out of a wet towel.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Bridge said. She thought about her heart, wringing itself out right next to Sherm’s.

They were quiet again. After a minute, Sherm said, “I’m not going to kiss you or anything.”

And Bridge said, “Good.”

CELESTE

That’s what life is. Life is where you sleep and what you see when you wake up in the morning, and who you tell about your weird dream, and what you eat for breakfast and who you eat it with. Life isn’t something that happens to you. It’s something you make yourself, all the time. Life is that half minute in the morning before your cat remembers she’s kind of a grouch, when she pours out her love and doesn’t give a flying newton who sees it.

—

“A flying newton?” Gina says when you’ve given her the rose and spilled your guts. She smiles, but it isn’t a real Gina smile.

You’ve just told her everything: Vinny. Your stupidity. The way you gave her secret away. The fraudulent flower for Marco.

Everything.

You’re both standing in the hall next to the door of her apartment, because you told her you weren’t coming in until you said what you had to say. Because after that she might not want you to come in.

“You mean like—a Fig Newton?” she says. “I don’t think I get it.”

“Yeah. A flying Fig Newton. From now on I’m just building my world, piece by piece, like in the apocalypse game. No creeps allowed. And I was wondering if you still want to be in my world, if you can be my friend, after what I did. Because—I love you. You’re a good friend, a
real
friend. And I really want a friend like you. And I want to be one.”

Gina stares at you for a second. Then she says, “That’s super. Can we go back to the part where you flat-out betrayed me?”

“You’ll never know how sorry I am. Never.”

“You’re
sorry
?”

“I spent this whole day thinking about it, about
why.
I’ve been a total zombie since yesterday, trying to figure out who I am. Why I would do this.”

“Wow. You spent a whole day thinking about it, huh? After you stomped all over the most important thing in my life? A whole
day
? You must be so wise now.”

“I know it sounds stupid. And I’m not saying I have life all figured out. All I know is that nothing like this will happen again. I know I can be a better friend.”

“Better than telling my deepest secret to a girl who is basically evil personified? Letting her humiliate me in front of someone I love deeply and pretty much want to spend my life with? How are you going to top that? Friend-wise, I mean?”

You want to tell her about this morning at the copy shop: the man in the suede shirt walking away, checking his phone. His whole life behind him, his whole life ahead of him. That’s you. That’s everyone. You and Gina can choose to be friends for life, right here and now, even if you’re still learning how to be one. Of course, she might decide to walk away instead. But you think you’re probably being weird enough already, so you don’t say any of that. You just say, “I don’t expect you to ever really understand why I told Vinny. It’s a long story. I doubt you want to hear it.”

“Oh, I definitely need to hear it,” Gina says.

“Really?” That gives you hope.

“You know, you aren’t the first person to experience this. I had a couple of semi-evil friends, in middle school.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I have some things I could tell you too.” Gina puts her hands on her hips and then slides them into her pockets. “If you want to come in.”

You hug her, pinning her arms because her fists are still in her pockets. “Hey!” She laughs. “My hands are stuck!”

“I know,” you tell her. “This is a one-way hug.”

“Just don’t knock me over.”

“I won’t.”

—

The first thing Gina tells you is that Marco didn’t get Vinny’s flower.

“Wait a minute. So I
didn’t
ruin your life?”

“Well, not
yet.
”

She’s pretty sure. She and Marco walked home together, and she teased him all the way about his big bunch of red carnations, and he let her read all the cards that came with them. She said he seemed like the regular Marco, beautiful and funny and completely oblivious to her feelings.

“Wow. I wonder what happened?”

“Are you sure she put the card in the box?” Gina asks. “Maybe she chickened out.”

Vinny is not a chicken. But you didn’t actually see the card go in. You’d stormed away from her, across the lobby, your chest full of words and hurt and helplessness. Maybe she ripped it up. Maybe she shoved the dollar back into her pocket. Maybe the Vinny you used to know isn’t quite gone. If she’s still in there, you thank her, silently. And say goodbye.

SHERM

February 14

Dear Nonno Gio,

I know this is a lot of letters to get at once.

I wasn’t sure whether to send them or not, but I decided to do it. I asked Dad for your address.

We are all fine. Write back if you want to. Or text me.

Sherm

P.S. Happy birthday.

EPILOGUE

Two Years Later

Afterward, they never agreed. They both remembered waking up that morning in the fall of ninth grade, absolutely sure. They both remembered meeting as soon as they could after school, at the top of the subway stairs, and the excitement they felt, one waiting on the sidewalk, one sprinting up the steps.

They both remembered that the Dollar-Eight Diner felt like a room full of eyes seeing them and knowing that something had changed. They both remembered thinking that it must have been obvious to anyone who bothered to look.

They both remembered deciding to stop for a minute on the way to Sherm’s house, sitting together on a stoop. They both remembered being the first to reach for the other.

Bridge had always worried that it might be awful to kiss Sherm. It might be as if everything they had already been to each other wouldn’t matter anymore. It might be like starting all over from nothing, like closing a book and opening another one.