Summer in the Invisible City Page 11

  But then he steps back and pulls the blanket off, and we are back in my bright bedroom. My face is burning. I wonder if he can see how he transformed my body from the inside out. I stare at my feet, afraid to meet his gaze.

  “That camera is sweet,” he says.

  I look up at him. His cheeks are flushed, too.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  He sits down on the edge of my bed. There are holes in his jeans and I can see the skin of his sharp knees behind the ripping white threads of denim.

  “What do you think your mom would do if she came in and saw me in here?” he asks.

  “Omigod,” I say, laughing at the thought. I sink down onto the floor, leaning my back against the door. “I can’t even imagine. Honestly, we’ve never even talked about whether or not I’m allowed to have a boy in my room or whatever. It just hasn’t come up.”

  “My mom never let me be in my room with the door closed when Mandy used to come over,” Sam says. “It was so stupid. She can’t control what goes on.”

  I feel a pinch when he says her name but I try not to show it. What did they do, alone in a room together? I try to push the thought away but it rises up in my stomach.

  “But you know, I guess my mom is extra paranoid since she got pregnant with me in high school, or whatever.” Sam shrugs, oblivious to my jealousy.

  “Do you miss her?” I ask.

  “Who? My mom?” Sam blinks innocently.

  “No,” I say. “Mandy.”

  Sam frowns. “No. I mean, yeah, but as a friend.”

  “Did you see her when you were in New Hampshire?” I ask.

  Sam cocks his head. He doesn’t answer my question, just looks at me curiously, like he’s assembling a puzzle. Then, he says, “Did you show your dad this camera? It kind of makes the one he gave you look small.”

  I laugh. “No. He hasn’t been over here or anything. And we just got these today. So . . .”

  “He’s gonna be impressed, though,” Sam says.

  “I hope so,” I say. I pull my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them, holding myself tight.

  “You’re lucky. You know that, right?”

  “Lucky how?” I ask.

  “To have parents who you respect,” he says simply.

  It’s late. It must be almost two a.m., but I don’t want to ask Sam or check my phone because I’m worried if Sam realizes how late it is, he’ll leave.

  “Wanna see some pictures of Allan’s work?” I ask.

  Sam nods.

  I crawl over to my desk and pull out the old Artforum magazine with Allan on the cover.

  Sam slides off of the bed onto the floor and I scoot back over to him. We sit side by side, our backs against my bed, and I open the book so it’s on both of our laps. Again, we are close enough to kiss. Again, the places where our bodies are touching, our elbows and our ankles, feel electric. All of our fumbling keeps bringing us closer and closer together but never quite close enough. Is he as aware of it as I am? Is it possible that this feeling could be one sided?

  The more I get to know Sam, the more the things that I don’t know about him, like how he kisses and what he looks like without his clothes on, grow heavier and more distracting. The closer I get to him, the closer I want to get.

  Sam thumbs through the pages slowly. He isn’t reading every word, but I watch his eyes scan the images and read the pieces of text that have been pulled from the article. There’s a photo of Allan with the caption, “When I work, I’m reaching for things that are always present.”

  “This is impressive,” Sam says. “But it’s all over my head.”

  “It’s not over your head,” I say. “It’s just the kind of writing that is supposed to make you feel that way.”

  I take the Artforum, and stretch across my floor to deposit it back in my drawer. Then, I turn and face Sam.

  “I’m embarrassed,” I say.

  “About what?” he asks.

  “That I made you look at Allan’s article,” I say.

  “Why?” he asks.

  “’Cause. I don’t want to seem like I’m bragging,” I say. “Or like I’m obsessed with my dad or something.”

  Sam half smiles. “I know it’s not like that.”

  I scoot closer to Sam. He puts his arm around my shoulders and I tip my head onto his upper arm, letting him hold me. I shut my eyes, feeling his shoulders rise and fall as he breathes.

  Then, I feel his fingers moving through my hair, so gently at first I don’t know if it’s happening. Seconds, minutes, maybe hours pass, with my cheeks burning and my body beating like one giant heart. I don’t know how long we sit there because the moment is elastic, expanding and contracting. A second isn’t a second, it’s an eternity. We’re sinking lower onto the floor, until we’re lying down, my head resting on Sam’s hard chest, right at that bony place where his collarbone and shoulder meet. I close my eyes, feel him breathing beneath me, feeling his hands in my hair, the subtle smell of his skin, and the cotton of his shirt beneath my cheek.

  —

  I wake up when a garbage truck grunts loudly on the street outside my window. I open my eyes, disoriented. I’m lying on the floor on my side, and Sam is on the floor, too, also asleep, his knees a little bent. I rub my eyes. The light in my room is a dusky lavender. Outside my window, there is a rim of glowing orange light over the city. The sun is coming up. I panic as I reach for my phone. We might never have talked about it, but I know if my mom came in now and saw that a boy slept over that it would not be okay.

  “Sam,” I whisper.

  He doesn’t move.

  I gently touch his arm and he stirs. When he opens his eyes, there’s a blank moment before he remembers where he is, and then his eyes pop open.

  “What time is it?”

  “Maybe five? It’s getting light out,” I whisper.

  He sits up. “Wow. Are we good? Did your mom come in?”

  I shake my head no. His shoes are sitting on the floor next to him. When did he take them off?

  “I don’t remember falling asleep,” I say, blinking.

  “You passed out,” he says. “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  Sam grabs his shoes and gets up before I do. His cropped hair is crooked from the way he slept and his shirt looks wrinkled.

  I stand up, and we’re face-to-face, not touching.

  “I should go before we get caught,” he says.

  Then he taps my calf with his sneaker, breaking the invisible wall between us.

  “Yeah,” I say. “You’re right.”

  I open the door, check that the coast is clear, and give him a nod.

  He walks past and then he stops and looks down at me. He’s only a foot away from me now. If my mom opened her door, she would see us here.

  “Sadie,” he whispers. His green eyes see straight through me.

  “Good luck at your dad’s thing tonight,” he says.

  I swallow. Nod. “Thank you.”

  And then he’s gone, out the door. I’m not tired now, though. I lie on my bed and watch the sky turning from lavender to white to pale blue as the day arrives. And then, just when it’s so bright out that it looks like a normal morning, I fall asleep.

  Chapter 24

  When I wake up again, my mom has gone to work. I roll out of bed and head to Willa’s, stuffing a change of clothes in my backpack. We’re going to spend the day at her apartment and then go to Allan’s opening together.

  On the subway ride, I know I should feel tired since I basically didn’t sleep, but instead, I feel energized. My night with Sam is a good secret, something that gives me strength. I keep reliving all the ways we did and didn’t touch. The only thought gnawing at the edge of my mind is why he didn’t kiss me. If he liked me, wouldn’t he have tried?

  As soon as I walk into Willa�
��s room, I sit down at her computer and open it up to Amanda’s Facebook page.

  Willa watches with her hands on her hips. “What are you doing?”

  “Do you think this girl is pretty?” I demand.

  Willa looks at the screen, and then at me.

  “Who is this?” she asks suspiciously.

  “Sam’s ex-girlfriend,” I reply.

  Willa reaches out and snaps the computer closed.

  “Okay, fine, I know, I’m being bad,” I say. “I just wanted to know if you think she’s prettier than me.”

  “Of course I don’t,” Willa says gently. “Obviously I’m gonna think you’re prettier than some stranger.”

  “I don’t mean it like that,” I protest. “I mean, like objectively pretty.”

  Willa doesn’t answer me. She turns, crosses to her bed, flops down on the mattress facedown, and screams a muffled scream into her pillow.

  I can’t help laughing. I climb up on the bed next to her and poke her pale arm with my pointer finger so it turns pink. Willa bruises the easiest of anyone I know.

  “Please. Just tell me.”

  She rolls onto her back, her glasses are crooked on her face.

  “I refuse to condone this crazy behavior,” she says, staring straight up at the ceiling. “First of all, if she was his girlfriend, I think it’s safe to say he thinks she’s pretty. And guess what else? There are probably a lot of other things about her that he likes, too. Maybe things that matter to him even more than what she looks like.”

  “I know.” I sigh. “I’m just curious about her because I’m curious about him. I think I like him for real. He came over last night, and we stayed up for hours, just talking and doing nothing.”

  Willa looks at me and her eyes grow enormous. “Wow! Really? He came over? What did you guys do?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “I can’t explain it. We just talked and then, like, didn’t talk. He’s just really comfortable with himself. He’s just easy to be around.”

  I picture Sam in my bedroom and my body turns hot at the memory. I press the heels of my hands into my eyes. I don’t know if I can stand not knowing what’s going on between us.

  Willa takes her glasses off and rubs the bridge of her nose. “I’m so tired from this week. I hate my science class. My teacher is a fascist.”

  “Why do you have to do this to yourself?” I ask. “You know you’re going to get into Yale. You’re a genius, plus you’re a legacy. You’ll be fine. “

  “I don’t want to go to Yale,” Willa says. “Yale is just a party school for rich city kids.”

  I groan. “Now who’s the one being crazy?”

  “I’m not being crazy. Everyone knows it’s true,” Willa insists.

  I slap her arm affectionately. “You don’t honestly believe that.”

  Willa lets her eyes meet mine and all the laughter drains out of them. “Fine. I don’t want to go to Yale because I don’t want to go to college with my sister.”

  “Really? Why not?” I ask.

  “I just know how it will be.” Willa sighs. “I’ll end up writing her papers for her, like I did in high school. Besides,” she says softly, “if I go there, I’ll be ‘Danielle Davis-Spencer’s little sister’ for the rest of my life.”

  Willa and I are lying side by side and now I wrap my feet around her ankles.

  “You’ll never be Danielle’s little sister to me,” I say. “She’ll always just be Willa Davis-Spencer’s big sister.”

  Willa smiles. “Aww. Thanks, Boo.”

  —

  Later, we are making pancakes, trashing Willa’s kitchen, when Izzy texts me.

  Where and when r we meeting?

  “What does Izzy want to know?” Willa asks, glancing at my screen.

  “She wants to know what our plan is for tonight,” I say. “You know, for going to Allan’s show.”

  Willa drops the spatula and pancake batter splatters in a ring around it on the floor. She crouches down quickly and picks it up. Then, she tosses it in the sink, grabs a paper towel, and starts wiping up the mess.

  “I’m surprised you invited Izzy to your dad’s opening,” Willa says, rubbing too hard on the floor. “It seems, like, kind of personal.”

  “It’s no big deal. They wanted to come,” I say.

  “They?” Willa repeats, still looking at the floor. Her tone is fake-natural. “You mean Phaedra is coming, too?”

  The mess is totally cleaned up. So I say, “I think you got it all.”

  Willa stands up and starts doing dishes, her back is to me.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, turning off the faucet.

  Willa hovers over the sink, still not looking at me.

  “Maybe I’ll just skip tonight,” she says softly.

  I laugh. “Come on. You’re kidding, right?”

  She shakes her head no.

  “What are you saying?” I ask, stunned.

  She looks up at me. She has a smear of pancake batter on her forehead. “It just doesn’t seem like you need me there.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’ll have Izzy and Phaedra there. I’m sure you guys will have fun.”

  “But it’s my father’s show,” I protest. “You’ve never even met him. You were going to meet him.”

  Willa sighs, choosing her words in her irritating, measured, Willa way. “If having me meet your dad was so important to you, then why are Izzy and Phaedra coming?”

  “’Cause they’re my friends, too,” I say, getting annoyed.

  Willa rolls her eyes. “Come on. Those girls are not really your friends. You know that, right?”

  Humiliation rises in my chest, like a wave swelling in the ocean before it crests.

  “That’s not true,” I protest. “They are my friends.”

  Willa lets out an exasperated groan. “Ugh, you’re driving me crazy. It’s obvious they’ve decided that being into art is cool, so now they’re trying to adopt you like you’re a pet or something. It’s all so fake and I don’t know why you’re pretending it’s not.”

  Willa makes my friendship with Izzy and Phaedra sound small and pathetic. I feel like she always does this: she sucks all the fun out of my life and spits it back onto the floor.

  “Whatever,” I say. “You’re just jealous that they want to be friends with me and not you.”

  “Jealous? I am not even the tiniest bit jealous,” Willa says, rolling her eyes. “Those girls are gonna ditch you the second they realize you don’t even know him.”

  She doesn’t have to say who “him” is.

  Dizzying hurt crashes on top of me, flooding my brain with blinding heat. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I snap. I leave the kitchen, rushing down the hall to Willa’s room. Hot tears streak my face. I’m crying. And it’s the bad, embarrassing kind of tears that I can’t make stop, like when you’re crying in front of a teacher or on the street and everyone is trying not to stare.

  I can hear Willa following behind me and I whip around so we are face-to-face.

  She reaches out to touch me but I push her away.

  “Don’t,” I manage through my sobs. “Don’t pretend to be a good friend.”

  “I’m sorry if I sounded mean,” she says. But she doesn’t sound sorry at all.

  “You’re just bitter,” I spit, “because Danielle is your sister and you’re nobody.”

  Willa halts. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me,” I say, with more certainty now. “You’re jealous. You’re jealous of Danielle because she’s so much prettier than you. That’s the real reason you don’t want to go to Yale. And now you’re jealous of me because I’m making new friends. You’re just a bitter, jealous loser.”

  Willa’s face goes white.

  We stand in silence for a moment
, and the horror of the mean things I’ve said settles on my heart like dust after a burst of wind.

  Then, I’m on the street outside of Willa’s. I slip into the narrow alley between her building and the building next door and clutch my backpack to my chest like a shield. Our fight exploded so fast. I wipe away tears and lean against the brick wall. My mind is zinging and bruised from all the insults Willa and I just threw at each other and I can’t make sense of any of it.

  I stare up at the seam of blue sky between the two buildings. I wish I could be up there, far away, somewhere deep in outer space. If I were looking down at the city right now, I wouldn’t see me, or my problems, or any of the mean, crooked, shameful things in my heart.

  Chapter 25

  Three hours later, I’m back at home getting ready for Allan’s opening. I have to keep suppressing the memory of my fight with Willa, stomping down on it hard like crushing an empty soda can. I change into the outfit I’ve been planning to wear. It’s a simple pale blue cotton dress that belonged to my mom. Then I put on dark red lipstick that flattens my mouth and looks dramatic with my pale skin. I think Izzy would approve, since it’s the kind of anti-fashion fashion move that she likes.

  I don’t need Willa, I think, as I walk toward the West Village under a smudge of pale clouds. It’s better this way. A new life is emerging out of my old one, and it might even be an upgrade.

  Phaedra lives in the prettiest part of Manhattan. The cobblestone streets are lined with unbroken rows of manicured redbrick brownstones and each perfect, cozy home promises to contain one equally perfect family. The people in these houses seem out of reach of the rough, dirty grasp of the city, as if the whole neighborhood floats above the rest of us.

  I text Izzy when I get there, and she comes down and lets me in.

  “Phaedra used to live on the second floor with her little sister, but last year she moved to the top floor which is basically an attic,” Izzy explains as we walk up the Bishops’ winding marble staircase.