This Day Changes Everything, page 16
Or maybe—I think as soon as we heave open the door—they all went to Chelsea Market.
Outside, Chelsea Market is a giant red brick of a building. Inside, it’s a mishmash of exposed-brick walls, high industrial ceilings, and sleek modern glass. And it’s all decked out for Christmas. Twinkling white lights hang from the ceiling like hundreds of tiny icicles. Holly jolly Christmas music hits us as soon as we’re through the door, along with the echoing hum of a whole lot of voices. There are people everywhere, bundled up in coats, with shopping bags or backpacks over their shoulders, picking out bottles of wine and long loaves of crusty bread. And probably fancy turkeys and fancy cheese, too. I guess New Yorkers do their Thanksgiving shopping at the most artisan-looking shops I’ve ever seen, all lined up in a row like this is an old European street, instead of the inside of a warehouse.
Abby stares around as we wander under a brick arch, complete with an old-fashioned clock that’s wreathed in gold and silver ornaments. “I almost feel like we’re locals,” she says.
I get what she means. This definitely isn’t a crowd of tourists. Everyone’s moving too fast for that. I wonder if she’s trying to imagine that she’s a local, too. Pretending, for a minute, that she lives here and can disappear into this anonymous city, far away from the kind of town where everybody knows when you come out. Where everybody will have opinions, even if they don’t tell you what they are. Where sooner or later, you’ll end up as a Logistical Headache.
I look up at the steel beams high overhead, wrapped in more twinkling lights. Down at the knobby brick of some of the storefronts. “What should we look for?”
Abby’s shoulders hunch up to her ears. She looks tense again. “How about food first? Dinner?”
Maybe that’s why my stomach feels weird. I’m just hungry—again. It has nothing to do with how anxious Abby looks, or how desperately I want her to not look anxious. But I can’t figure out how to say anything comforting. All I manage is “Good idea.”
Neither of us seems to feel that adventurous, because we head for another pizza-by-the-slice place without even discussing it. It’s not as cheap here as it was at that hole-in-the-wall where we ate lunch. I’m getting down to my last few dollar bills.
We sit at a little table with our slices, watching people hustle through the market.
“Do you think New Yorkers ever walk slow?” Abby says.
“No,” I say, around a bite of pizza. “They’ve all got important places to be.”
Someone power walks past us, so fast they actually generate a gust of wind.
Abby grins at me. “Where do you think he’s going?”
“Really important business meeting?”
“The night before Thanksgiving?”
Good point. “Really important turkey?”
She almost chokes on her pizza. “Now I’m just picturing a turkey in a suit.”
We finish our pizza and chug some soda, and then Abby says she needs to find the bathroom, so we join the hustle and bustle again until we see a restroom sign pointing down a narrow hallway.
“You can leave your backpack, if you want,” I say.
“Oh. Thanks.” Abby shrugs it off and leans it carefully against the wall.
I stand next to it, fidgeting with the straps of my own backpack, while she disappears into the ladies’ room. I look back and forth between the two bathrooms on either side of a drinking fountain. LADIES and GENTLEMEN. The gender binary in all its glory, once again.
I also need to pee. But there’s no gender-neutral bathroom here.
I have used the men’s room before. Several times. At a high school in Atlanta when we were there for a competition, at the movie theater, even at Springfield High, once, before an early band practice on a Saturday morning when no one else was around.
But Evan went with me, each of those times. It felt humiliating and comforting all at once. Nobody’s going to mess with you when your friend looks like an Avenger. Even if he does wear a T-shirt featuring a tuba-playing scuba diver under the words Terrible Underwater Breathing Apparatus a little too often.
Evan really loves corny jokes.
I lean my head back against the wall and squint up at the fluorescent lights overhead. This is New York. Maybe nobody would care. If that men’s room is anything like the rest of the city, maybe nobody would even look at me.
“Hey!” Abby reappears, rubbing her hands on her jeans. “Do you want to go?”
“Uh, no, that’s okay.”
“You sure?”
“This … isn’t the best place.”
She blinks at me. And then her mouth forms a little o.
She got it. I wish I could sink into the ground right now.
“I’ll hang out and wait.” She points to the bathroom. “It’s up to you, but…”
Is she offering to guard the men’s room for me?
That’s not really going to stop anything from … happening. If anything is going to happen.
But there’s nobody else around right now. “You sure you don’t mind?”
She smiles. “You waited for me!”
It’s not remotely the same thing, but I can tell she knows it, in the way her eyes are focused on mine, in the way she’s really looking. She’s being casual on purpose. She’s pretending it’s the same thing, because that would mean it’s no big deal.
It’s just a fucking trip to the bathroom, but …
“Okay. Thanks.” I drop my backpack next to her and head into the bathroom. It’s empty, but I still try to be fast. Into the stall, out of the stall, wash my hands, dry my hands. Even though I know I don’t belong in any other bathroom, I still feel like I’m getting away with something. Or at least being a nuisance.
A Logistical Headache, yet again.
Abby’s waiting for me outside, swaying gently from side to side like she’s dancing to some music in her head. Or maybe practicing some formation for tomorrow.
Ugh. I don’t want to think about tomorrow. Not yet.
Abby grins when she sees me and holds up her hand. “Victory is yours. High five.”
Is she serious?
“If you want to,” she adds.
I give her a high five. It’s kind of embarrassing. And also matters more than I want to admit. It’s something else she offers with reckless abandon. Like spinning in the rain. Who cares what anyone thinks. “Thanks.”
She looks at me for a long moment, and then she looks away, while I pick up my backpack. “Sorry, I hope I didn’t put you on the spot.” She says it to the floor.
“You didn’t.” We walk back down the hallway to the bustling corridor of the market. And maybe I should leave it at that, but something draws the rest out of me—the things I usually think, but don’t say. “I wish it didn’t have to be such a thing. I sort of wish nothing had to be a thing. Like, I wish I could just be invisible, but only because I look like an ordinary guy and nobody gives me a second glance.” I hunch my shoulders under my jacket. “Probably not very loud-and-proud of me.”
Abby shrugs. “I’m not exactly loud-and-proud, either. I mean, I know I’m not even out. I think I want to be out, eventually, but mostly … I just want to exist.”
“You exist to me.”
Abby pauses, right there in the middle of the hustle and bustle, and looks up at me. People dodge around us like we’re two rocks in the middle of a river. Several of them definitely swear, and plenty more give us really dirty looks.
And I suddenly hear myself. “God. Sorry.” I pull off my hat and scrub at my hair. Is it a million degrees in here? “That was super cheesy.”
She smiles. Not a laughing-at-me smile. Just … a smile. A little shy, maybe a little hopeful. “Yeah. But … I’m cheesy. It’s cool.”
“I just meant that I get what you mean. About wanting to exist. You know, like other people exist, without proving anything or whatever.” I try to shrug casually, but all I manage is a shoulder twitch. “So … you exist to me. I see you as queer, if that’s what you want, whatever other people see or don’t see.”
That’s not any better. But I mean it, and I don’t want to take it back.
She watches me. “You exist to me, too.”
These things don’t happen in real life, but I could still swear the echoing din of footsteps and voices disappears. The people rushing past us blur into the background. All I see are the pinpricks of light in her eyes, from all the twinkling strands overhead.
It might be the first moment, in my entire life, that I want to last forever.
“Thanks,” I say.
I wish I could say something else. But it’s all I can think of. Just thanks. Again.
Someone bumps into Abby, trying to get around her. A quick, annoyed “Watch it” and then the woman is past us. But it still breaks the moment.
“I guess we should keep going,” Abby says.
“Yeah.”
But we hesitate. Like we’re both waiting for the other one to move.
She’s the one who finally starts walking. “I was thinking we could look for some candy. You know, like the scene in The Hundred Romances of Clara Jane. The guy at the sweets shop is the owner, and he teaches her how to make caramels.”
“Sure, that sounds good.” I drum my fingers against my leg as we walk. I feel like we’re both saying stuff just to say stuff. Looking for the next souvenir because, well, that was the plan.
But I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know how to get that magical moment back, or what I would say if I had the chance to.
“Hey, look!” Abby points to a storefront with CARLY’S CARAMELS painted on the window.
It’s perfect. Just like her book. But all I can manage is a shrug.
The shop smells overwhelmingly of sugar. It’s full of chocolates and tea and brightly colored taffy. Blocks of fudge sit on parchment paper in a glass display case. The whole place is a sea of pastels and swoopy fonts.
Abby goes straight for the table of caramels. She picks up a bag and her face falls. “These are kind of pricey,” she says quietly.
I look over her shoulder. Eighteen dollars for the smallest bag. Ouch.
“We have some single caramels, too.” High heels click across the floor. A woman with cotton candy–pink hair and a light blue apron smiles at us. Everything about her matches the shop so closely that I wonder if this is Carly. “These are two dollars each.” She points to a glass jar on the counter, filled with soft candies, each individually wrapped in pastel paper.
“Oh. That’s perfect, actually. Thanks.” Abby drifts to the counter.
I hang back while she picks out a caramel and pays for it. I somehow can’t bring myself to be any more involved. I study my shoes, scuffing my toe against the floor.
“Here.” It’s Abby, appearing suddenly at my shoulder. She holds out a little candy in a slightly waxy blue wrapper.
I take it automatically.
We stare at each other.
“Are you going to eat it?” Abby asks.
What? “Isn’t this for Kat?”
She smiles, her eyes crinkling. “No, I got another one for Kat.” She holds it up and unzips her backpack. “That one’s for you.”
I look at the caramel. “You didn’t have to.”
She tucks the candy for Kat into her backpack. “I know, but…” Her eyes meet mine again. “I wanted to.”
My stomach twists with guilt. The book in my backpack suddenly weighs fifty pounds. “Thanks.”
Why do I keep saying thanks?
“You’re welcome.” She ducks her head and pulls out her phone. “We should probably go.”
I let my breath out. I had my hour. And then some, I realize, looking at my phone. It’s almost six thirty.
“Yeah,” I say. “We should go.”
FIFTEEN
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22—6:43 P.M.
ABBY
IT’S COLD WHEN we head back outside. Cold and windy. My eyes immediately tear up and my ears ache. I pull my hood up and tuck my hair inside it.
“So … Times Square, right?” I try to say it lightly, even though none of this feels light.
“Yeah,” Leo says. “Times Square.”
I glance up at him, but he’s squinting at the bright sign beaming CHELSEA MARKET into the darkness above our heads. So I look back at the map on my phone. My fingers are so cold it’s hard to type. And I can’t seem to make the map make sense. My mind is too full. Too full of twinkling lights and caramels and the way everything seemed to pause when Leo said You exist to me. “So … I guess if we want to go to Times Square, we should … um…”
“You can take the High Line.”
I jump, and so does Leo. A young woman in a black apron and a puffy parka is leaning against the wall of the building, her phone in her hands. The glow from the screen lights up her face. I wonder if she works inside.
“Sorry.” She grins. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“What’s the High Line?” I ask.
“Elevated park. You can walk all the way to the 7 train at Thirty-Fourth Street, and then take that to Times Square.” She points down the street. “See those stairs going up, past the bridge? Take those up and when you get to the High Line, go right.”
“Is that fastest, do you think?”
The woman shrugs. “The A’s normally way faster, but the construction right now is pretty terrible. I was twenty minutes late for my shift because the train took so long to show up.” She pulls a face. “Walking will take a while, but at least it’s predictable.”
I would personally be okay with never laying eyes on another A train in my life, and based on Leo’s face, I think he might feel the same way.
I could still look at my phone, just to check if there’s a faster way. Another train, or maybe even a bus. New York City has buses. I’ve seen them rumbling down the streets several times today.
But I don’t want to look. If I don’t look, then I won’t know, and if I don’t know …
I’m arguing myself in circles. I know I am. I said we should get back—and we should …
“Let’s try it,” I say to Leo.
He just shrugs. So I thank the woman in the apron and we dash across the narrow street in the direction she pointed. Sure enough, there’s a railing and set of concrete stairs, right where she said they would be. We climb up, Leo taking the steps two at a time with his long legs, and me pounding behind him. The stairs bend around several tight corners, along a brick wall, and then we walk back out into the open air, onto a bridge over the street. When the woman said park, I pictured big, sweeping spaces like Central Park, but this isn’t any wider than the street below us. Bare, skeletal trees clack their branches gently, and tall, browning grasses rustle in the breeze. The paved path almost seems to glow with a soft yellow light; I can’t even see where the lightbulbs are. Maybe they’re hidden among the plants?
“Hey, look.” I point to two rusted metal rails, overgrown with plants, disappearing ahead of us into the darkness. “Train tracks.”
“Yeah.” Leo’s looking at his phone. “Wikipedia says it used to be an elevated train track. And now it’s a park.”
“That’s so cool.” A little shiver runs up my back. “It’s another liminal space.”
It slips out before I realize what I’m saying. Leo looks at me. “A what?”
“Um … it means a space between. Someplace that feels out of time, or disconnected, or between where you came from and where you’re going.”
We’ve started walking, automatically, or maybe because standing still is too cold.
It is really cold.
“Maybe that’s what I am,” Leo says. “A liminal person.” He grins, a little wry, or a little sarcastic. A little something, anyway, that isn’t quite a real smile. I’m starting to think he’s convinced himself very few things are worth a real smile. “Liminal person occupying a liminal space. Not a girl, not really a guy.”
“You are a guy, though.” But I mouth his words to myself, silently. Liminal person.
“You seem to have a really easy time saying that.”
“Saying what?”
“That I’m a guy.”
I study his worn-out Adidas as he walks next to me. He walks like a guy, even though I’m not sure I’d know how to explain what that means. Who knew boys and girls walked differently, anyway? I certainly never thought about it before.
But they do. And he does. I wonder if he does it on purpose, or if this is just how he’s always walked. If anyone does it naturally, or if it’s something else we learn without realizing we’re learning it.
“You told me you’re a guy,” I say to Leo. “So I believe you.”
Leo frowns down at the pavement. “I guess I should be grateful somebody does,” he mumbles.
Happy to be here, grateful for the opportunity. It suddenly comes back to me, what he said this morning. Muttering it under his breath. I thought it wasn’t fair, when he said it. I thought he was rolling his eyes at me, judging me, but now …
“You don’t need to be grateful.” It comes out louder than I mean it to.
Leo looks at me in surprise.
“Sorry.” I lower my voice. “But … you don’t need to be grateful to people just because they aren’t dicks. You’re not asking too much. Of anybody. Definitely not your family. And I…” I’m talking too fast. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean it’s not a big, complicated mess, because I know it is. I just … I don’t think you need to be grateful.”
The corner of his mouth turns up. “Maybe you should talk to my parents.”
Even in the cold, my face grows warm. “Yeah, right. Me, who hasn’t come out to anybody.”
He laughs a little, breath puffing in clouds. “You came out to me.”
Oh.
I guess that’s true.
I stop walking, next to an empty wooden bench illuminated by small, round lights set into the pavement underneath it.
“We should scream,” I say.
Leo stops, a few steps ahead of me. “What?”
“Just, like, an angry, pissed-off scream. For the hell of it. Nobody’s here.”
