Starry Night (28 page)

“Dad! No, you don't get it. I
am
feeling emotion and having feelings, big feelings, and it's not bullshit. It's real. I'm not so young.” He stared me down, and that made me feel pretty young, especially since he was wearing his suit.

“No, you are right, you are not so young. You are old enough that I can't
make
you send in that application. But I wish I could. I would do anything to draw that self-portrait for you and get it in on time. But I can't.”

“I know.” My head was down.

“You would get accepted, Wren. You are that talented.”

“My talent isn't going to go away.”

And then he lifted his eyebrows and said, as if he were speaking to a fool, “Let's hope not.”

 

48

I can hear my mother
yelling to no one in particular, while decorating the Christmas tree or getting a notification in one of our backpacks about yet another holiday concert at Hatcher or at St. Tim's, “December is the most
insane
month!” I never got what she was talking about because for a long time, December, for me, was angel-shaped sugar cookies and cocoa by the fire, and personally, I always loved the Hatcher holiday assembly. But that year December lost some of its charm.

The very next night after my heart-to-heart with Dad, my parents' book club met at our house—the book group where it all started. Needless to say I was persona non grata around the house. I think the sight of me was making my mother's blood boil, because even on a school night (when I thought I would be relegated to my room to eat gravel and toothpaste for supper) she asked Oliver to take me to Big Tony's, the best pizza place in New York, so we wouldn't bother them. (Dinah was asked to make finger food for the book club, so she was in the kitchen mashing avocados for guacamole.) Being in a house with not only my own but a multitude of Turtle parents magnified the feeling that I was a rogue-bandit bad girl, even if none of the Turtle parents knew yet that I had blown my future. We left at six-thirty, missing Farah, Vati, Reagan, and Charlie's parents by a solid half hour. We chose Broadway for the walk downtown.

“I guess I'm just surprised,” Oliver said. He was wearing a maroon Hatcher skullcap Vati had given him as an early Christmas present. His blond dreads were sticking out the bottom.

“Well, what I don't get is
what
is the real difference between going to the Art Students League here—where many, many people from around the world come to study—and going to France? I mean, really?” I asked defensively.

“That's BS and you know it,” Oliver said as we trudged past a Korean deli selling fir trees and wreaths. “I like Nolan a lot. He's not like guys at St. Tim's … I think he's smarter than most people I know.” I smiled at him and pushed my hair out of my face, wishing I had a hat on. “Do you know he's read
The Brothers Karamazov
like three times? He always has a paperback copy of it with him in his guitar case.”

“That's a difficult book, right? Dostoevsky?” I said now, beaming at him. Knowing Nolan read and re-read any book, much less important Russian literature, made my deep insides tingle and reinforced my conviction that I had made the right decision, to stay in New York.

“
Yeah
, it's a difficult book.” He paused while we waited for the light. “It's political and complex, all about social injustice and is-there-a-god, and good and evil. It's the real deal, man.” He walked ahead and I followed him like a peppy miniature poodle.

“Have you read it?” I asked.

“No. But I know it's intense and I am going to read it.”

“Yeah, see! Nolan is amazing,” I oozed.

“My point is, Wren, that is
his
thing.
He's
smart and a great musician and he's on a serious path to something and I'm sure he will be really successful. But he's on his own path.”

I wanted to interrupt him and say I was on Nolan's path too. That was why he asked me to stay. We were on a path together.

“But—” I said. I was now sashaying beside Oliver instead of walking.

“No, let me finish,” Oliver interrupted. I stopped leaping and calmed down because he almost sounded annoyed.

“
Your
thing is art, Wren. That is what you are really good at. You love drawing. Do you know you draw without even knowing you're drawing?”

“What do you mean?”

“You are always picking up some pencil and drawing on something. All of our school directories in the kitchen have your sketches all over them. You draw in the sand on a beach. When you were little you drew in the bubbles in your bath. It's like you can't help it.” I walked quietly now, listening.

“Did Nolan really ask you not to go? Mom thinks he did. And I can't believe that, because of all people, I would think Nolan, if he liked you or loved you or whatever, would want you to follow your dreams just like he does. Not keep you here. Not make you miss something special.”

“Do you think Vati is special?” I said, walking with my hands way down in my parka pockets.

“Yes,” he said, looking ahead at where his feet were going.

“Would you want her to go away?”

“No, but she's not. And I think even if she did, she would come back and we could do what we do then. And anyway, I'm going to MIT next year, so, what will be will be.”

“Nobody is understanding me,” I said. We were at Big Tony's. There are tables outside even in the dead of winter with green awnings over them. All over the storefront there are a bunch of signs saying
BEST BURGER IN TOWN! SUMO PIZZA! ITALIAN HEROES!
I pulled the door open and led Oliver inside where it smelled of hot cheese, sauce, and baking bread.

“Are
you
understanding you?” he asked, pulling off the skullcap and shaking out his dreads.

 

49

Even with talks from
Mom, Dad, and Oliver, I bizarrely didn't get punished for not submitting my application. In fact, the subject was ignored. It almost felt like
I
was being ignored altogether even though I had exams and it was Christmastime, and my parents never ignore me. Life went on, except I had a dark-purplish swirling black hole of anxiety in my stomach. I couldn't tell if it was because I hadn't turned in the application or if it was just a loving-Nolan feeling. Love can make you feel sick just as easily as it can make you feel blissed out. I wasn't even seeing Nolan that much, but that didn't seem to matter. It's like how some girls are in love with guys from boy bands they never have laid real eyes on. I once saw Padmavati cry because of how much she loved some dude from One Direction. Not seeing Nolan in no way kept me from daydreaming obsessively about his teeth, or replaying how he held my hand in the coffee shop, or thinking about how he called me when he was upset about not seeing his dad for Christmas. Sometimes it felt like I loved him by myself. But if he didn't love me back, why would
I
be the one that he called when he was sad? Why would he have sex with me that one time? He must have loved me. I really think he did love me—that's what he said, that's what it felt like. Sometimes.

The day before we were all going to do an intervention on Farah, Charlie came over out of the blue. It was a late Thursday afternoon, December 18. I was leaving my house to walk May and he was walking up the street.

“Hey! What are you doing here?” I asked, and held up the arm not holding May for a hug. He was wearing his rather bright green parka with a furry trim on the hood.

“Hey.” He hugged me back. “Nosh is catering a holiday party on Eighty-Fourth.” He hiked his thumb backward indicating farther west down the block. “And I was done with my homework, so I thought I'd see if you were home.”

“Cool! Want to walk May with me? I haven't seen you much.”

“Yup.”

“Why are you doing your homework at a Nosh party?”

“My mom is at some other holiday thing and I didn't want to be home alone so my dad said I could come and sit in these people's kitchen.”

“Was the food good?”

“Of course. Latkes.”

“Oh yeah, it's Hanukkah.”

“Yup.”

We walked up to Columbus. “Wanna keep going up to Central Park West?” I said.

“Yeah, why not.”

“You seem bummed. Oh, good girl, Mayzer.” May stopped to do her thing, so we waited and I got the bag ready.

“I
am
bummed!” He sort of exploded there.

“Whoa, why?”

“Well, what is going on? You and Vati don't even call me anymore. It's like you've been captured by aliens.”

“Well, Vati has been captured by an alien—Oli.”

“It all sucks. Farah is acting like Miley Cyrus.”

“I know, she looks exhausted at school.”

“She goes to school from his loft!”

“How do you know that?”

“I think she is scared to tell you, or any of the girls, so she tells me.”

“When has Farah ever been scared to tell me anything?”

“Since she started
having relations
with your dad's friend.”

“Oh, yuck.” I wasn't talking about dog poop.

“Tell me about it. She made me buy rubbers.”

Charlie held May while I ran back to the corner, threw the crap in the garbage can, and ran back.

“She made
you
do it?”

“Yeah, I guess Mr. Dowd doesn't have the decency.”

“That's awful. Having a rubber is rule number one.”

“Please, I know.” I didn't think Charlie had come close to having sex, but I let that go, because he was all upset.

“I didn't send in my application to Saint-Rémy,” I said, and braced myself.

“They give extensions?”

“No, I just didn't send it in because…” He looked up at me like a horrified Eskimo in his green parka.

“Why?”

“I didn't send it in because of Nolan,” I blurted out.

Charlie thrust his hands in his pockets and walked with his head down.

“Why does this bum
you
out, Charlie? Now we can all hang out next year and, well, aren't you happy?”

“Not really, Wren. I think you're being stupid.”

“
Stupid?
You know I hate that, Charlie! I hate being called stupid. I am
not
stupid!” Even May looked shocked he'd called me stupid. “That is a
terrible
thing to say to someone, especially someone like me who thinks she's stupid.”

“Sorry.” He looked a little panicked.

“You know who doesn't think I'm stupid, Charlie? Nolan. Nolan thinks I have a cool mind. Nolan thinks I say funny things and he looks at me like I invented something awesome like, like, crunchy French toast or something.”

“What? That makes no sense.” He didn't look like he felt so bad anymore.

“Whatever. He looks at me like I'm the only girl in New York.”

“But you're not.”

“What? I know that, Charlie,” I snapped. “But he makes me
feel
like I am the only girl in New York.” He pushed his hood back and started spiking up his hair in an anxious way like a parrot.

“I'm sorry I yelled at you,” I said, hoping we could start that bad conversation over again.

“How do you know he doesn't make other girls feel like that?”

I paused, as it had never occurred to me one way or the other. I had just thrown that “only girl in New York” thing out there.

“Have you ever—no you haven't, you haven't been to one of his shows, which is so strange, but I have, and let me tell you, all the girls in the room feel like they are the only girl in New York when he plays. That's just how he is with everyone. I feel like
I'm
the only girl in New York when he talks to me.”

“No, you don't. And that's a thing, that's like a rock thing.” I gave May a scratch behind the ears because she was being such a good girl waiting for us while we stood arguing. “I
will
go to a show … I haven't been able to because I was grounded and sometimes they are too late and my parents would never let me go, but I will. I will go to a show.”

“Reagan goes to his shows,” he said.

I started walking. “What? What do you mean? She went to one.”

“No, she goes to all of them.” He walked quickly to catch up with me.

“How do you know?”

“My guitar teacher goes to all his shows and he sees her there. I introduced them once.”

We were walking pretty fast now and I was yanking poor May when she wanted to sniff the tree guardrails.

“Well, so?” I was starting to feel a cold sweat come on.

“So, nothing. But did you know that?”

“No.”

He lifted his eyebrows in a that's-weird way, and then he said, “Did you really not apply or are you just thinking about not applying?”

“I really didn't apply. I didn't send it in.”

“That's screwed up.”

“You're screwed up, Charlie!”

“No, I'm not, Wrenny. When you get freaked out or hurt, you blame other people. Remember when you fell down the stairs at your house and I went to help you out and you threw Dinah's boot at me?” I did remember that.

“You probably made a mistake—a big mistake—and now you are saying that I'm screwed up. But I'm
not
! My
acceptance
letter from the Bard bird program is in my special box under my desk, Wren, so I'm not screwed up at
all.
”

“Well, I have a boyfriend who wants me to stay.”

“Okay. There is nothing I can do about that.”

“Okay.” We stopped walking and stood there for a minute or two in silence.

“Charlie?” I said, wanting to be in a better place.