Lost in Love (18 page)

Residue keeps the beat up for three more songs, stoked that people are so into them. Then they announce they're taking a break. Darcy and I spill back out into the night, laughing and breathless.

“You know what I'm in the mood for?” Darcy asks.

“What?”

“Sugar. Residue has that effect on me.”

“Birthday cake time!”

“The deal was no birthday cake. But something else.”

“How about warm cookies fresh out of the oven?”

“Girl, you are on fire today.”

“This place has seriously delicious cookies. And it's a short walk from here.”

“Yes, please.”

We walk along East 11th Street toward Insomnia Cookies. I tilt my head back and look up. You could miss out on something magnificent if you don't look up.

“What are you looking at?” Darcy asks.

“See those trees on that rooftop terrace up there?”

Darcy tilts her head back and follows my gaze. “Yeah?”

“That freaking rules. I'm going to have a rooftop garden with trees.”

“Are you having parties?”

“No doubt.”

“Am I invited?”

“Only if I want my parties to be legendary.”

“You know me so well already.”

Looking up makes living here even more spectacular. Looking up anywhere does. When you look up, you notice all these beautiful details you would never notice otherwise. You become more in tune with the infinite possibilities this life brings. You open yourself to positive energy. You wake up.

Darcy freaks out at Insomnia Cookies. She gets a peanut butter and I get a triple chocolate chunk. They're warm and gooey. Darcy makes me promise to bring her back here again. We leave with our cookies and eat them as we walk farther east.

“I need to find a birthday candle for your cookie,” I say. “So you can make a wish.”

“You're forgetting that I'm not a birthday person.”

“Not forgetting. Just . . . trying to change your mind.”

Darcy looks up. “Check out that octopus mural!” she screams. There's a purple octopus painted high on the side of an apartment building. Tentacles are wrapping around some of the windows. The purple octopus seems right at home here in the East Village with the gritty building exteriors and rusted-out fire escapes and iron bars clamped over the ground-floor windows. It's fun being this far east for a change. Being a west side girl means rarely venturing east of 5th Avenue.

We're almost at Avenue B when I notice a majestic, expansive building across the street with a wide staircase and huge stone columns. You can tell it has remained unchanged since way back in the day. This building is probably one of the historically preserved structures that are protected from being knocked down or altered. Unlike Bleecker Street Records.

“What do you think used to be here?” I ask Darcy. We survey the building. I look up and see that it says
FREE
PUBLIC BATHS OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
etched across the top.

“Let's find out.” She whips out her phone. One thing Darcy is good at is whipping out her phone. She quickly finds a bunch of info. There was a public bath movement that began here in New York in the 1840s. A lot of apartments didn't have showers or even bathtubs back then. Free public baths in crowded tenement districts like the Lower East Side provided places where people could bathe. This building had seven bathtubs and ninety-four showers. The public baths closed in 1958, and then the building was used as a garage and warehouse. Now it's a posh photography studio. But the heart and soul of this building will always represent what it originally was.

There's a whole new part of New York I'm beginning to discover even though I've lived here my whole life. It's amazing how when you think you know someone or something so well, you can suddenly find out that there is so much more to see. At the same time, the New York City history I love so much is still here. I can find it anytime I want. All I have to do is look up.

WAS IT WRONG OF ME
to lie to Sadie when I told her I'm not a birthday person? Possibly. But the truth was too depressing to reveal.

I thought Logan was going to be the first person to call me today. He would call me before my first class and jack up my mood for the day. He would wish me a happy birthday. He would tell me where he was taking me for dinner. We would have this fun night we'd always remember. He didn't say anything about my birthday at the Standard. I thought that was strategic on his part. You know, not mentioning my birthday so I'd be more surprised when I found out what he had planned?

Yeah. Turns out there were no plans.

Logan didn't call me until this afternoon. He left a message while I was in Social Foundations. When I called him
back after class, he sounded like he'd just woken up.

“Hey, babe,” he slurred.

“Are you drunk?”

“No. Juss hungover. Stayed out too late with the boys last night.”

Um, was I suddenly supposed to know who the boys were? Logan never tells me about his New York friends. Or where they hang out. Or what they do together when they stay out late and get wasted.

I waited for him to say happy birthday.

He didn't say anything. A muffled car alarm went off on his end.

“Are you at work?” I asked.

“Nah. Blew it off.”

My stomach twisted in a slow, murky roll.

“So . . . ,” I probed. “Do you have anything you want to tell me about tonight?”

“Like what?”

The way Logan said it wasn't like he was playing dumb. He wasn't trying to throw me off. He wasn't covering up a surprise party. Or planning any kind of surprise.

The surprise was that he forgot my birthday.

Oh, and then he said he was busy tonight. Something about the boys wanting a reprise.

When Sadie asked me why Logan wasn't taking me out tonight, I brushed it off with some nonsense about how I'm not a birthday person. That was such a lie. I freaking
love birthdays. Mine, other people's, celebs', it doesn't matter. Any excuse to throw a party is a
mitzvah
in my book. My friends went all out on my seventeenth birthday. They did this whole “17 on the 17th” thing at the Penthouse. Everyone was there. We had a cupcake bar, three photo booths, and enough barbecue to feed a small country. They even got Ethan Cross's mixer to DJ. It was one of the best nights of my life.

Unlike tonight.

Don't get me wrong. Sadie is a doll for showing me a good time. The poor girl had like no advance notice. I told her I was in the mood for cookies because I couldn't stand the thought of her buying me a piece of cake somewhere and sticking a candle in it despite our deal that there would be no birthday fuss, which would be a total Sadie thing to do. Being reminded that it's my birthday all over again wasn't an appealing option. What would I even wish for? A boyfriend who remembered my birthday?

The delicious smell of Insomnia Cookies hits me half a block away. Warm cookies and melted chocolate and brown sugar. I could get high on this smell.

“Oh my god, that is the best smell ever,” I say.

“Wait 'til you see the cookies.” Sadie pulls open the door of Insomnia Cookies. She holds it open for me.

I take one step in. One step is pretty much all you can take in here. This is the smallest shop I've ever seen. Sadie told me how there are all these pop-ups in New York, tiny
spaces that rent to stores on a temporary basis. Pop-ups can be even smaller than a food truck. They're sometimes just counters you go up to on the sidewalk. Insomnia Cookies is microscopic. There's a tiny counter along the window where you can eat your cookies. But that's it for staying. Unless you're scrunched up against the counter, you have to grab your cookies and go.

“How cute is this place?” I rave, whirring from a sugar contact high. “They need to bottle that warm cookie smell. I could seriously come here every day. This is—are those the cookies?!” My eyes pop at the cookie display. So many flavors. So little time.

Who knew that a low-key birthday could be so fun?

“I knew you'd love it,” Sadie says. She's smiling all big. The girl loves making people happy.

We try to figure out which cookies we want while we're waiting. Way more people than should conceivably fit in here are crammed in line. Two boys around our age are wolfing cookies at the tiny counter. Guys are working back behind the register at the ovens. A fresh batch of peanut butter cookies comes out. So now I have to get a peanut butter cookie.

“What are you getting?” I ask Sadie.

“Triple chocolate chunk. My search for New York's best chocolate chip cookie is what brought me here in the first place. This one is definitely in the top five.”

“Has this place been here a long time?”

“Oh yeah. Some Penn student started Insomnia Cookies in his dorm room back in 2003. Now they have tons of locations. I love inspirational stories like that. Can you imagine being him? You're at college in your dorm room, gaming with your roommates or whatever, wasting time. Then you have an idea for a business. But you're not thinking large-scale. Not yet. You're just like, ‘Hey, wouldn't it be cool if there was a way to get warm cookies in the middle of the night? Delivered right to your door?' So he started this business at Penn and it exploded. Dude gets the Dream Big Award.”

Sadie's excitement is infectious. I can almost hear another piece of my public relations career plan click into place. What if I represented kids like Insomnia Cookies Boy? High school and college students with big dreams, who deserve to be heard. The kind of kids who are making moves to bring their goals to life. Grownups underestimate the power of our energy. Teens are the most enthusiastic, passionate entrepreneurs. They are not afraid to take a chance on something that could fail. They take more risks. They are hungrier for meaning. More desperate to make something big happen in their immediate future. What if I were a publicist for the kids who are going to change the world?

Sadie can't contain herself when it's our turn to order.

“This is my friend Darcy,” she tells the cashier. He's a
tall guy with hipster glasses and what might be ironic facial hair. His T-shirt shows a cookie with a bite out of it and a glass of milk holding hands. “It's her birthday.”

“Happy birthday! This your first time here, Darcy?”

“Yes, and you will be seeing me again.”

The cashier glances around behind him. He leans over to us.

“Don't tell anyone I did this? But your birthday cookie is on the house.”

I gape at him. “You. Freaking. Rule.” My peripheral vision catches one of the boys at the counter turning to look at me. His look lingers. But I don't look back. This is girls' night. Not about Sadie trying to make my birthday suck less and then me glomming on to some cute boy just because he's looking at me. Boys look in New York. They are not afraid.

I thank the cashier profusely for my warm peanut butter cookie. Then I pay for Sadie's. She deserves a hundred warm cookies. Warm cookies for life.

Some rowdy boys shoving their way in the door crash into the people behind us in line. As I turn around to leave, I get pushed into the cute boy at the counter.

“Sorry!” I apologize.

“That's okay. Anyone staying here to eat is asking for it.” He has a nice smile. I can't help noticing how straight and white his teeth are. He must have had braces. His teeth
are so white he probably whitens. Should I be whitening? My image has to be polished to a high shine if I'm going to be a publicist. Teeth included.

Back out on the street, we bite into our cookies. Talk about melt in your mouth. That Penn kid had the right idea. I can see myself discovering other young talent like him. Blowing them up even bigger than their wildest dreams. I could be known for finding the next big thing. My reputation would grow quickly. What would I call my agency? Darcy Stewart Public Relations? Publicity by Darcy? Branding is important. What you choose to call your agency speaks volumes. Maybe I'd go minimalist with a one-word agency name. That might add a touch of glamour and intrigue. My list would be highly exclusive.

A motorcycle rumbles by. The rider reminds me of Logan, the way he expertly maneuvers his bike like he owns the streets. So now I'm thinking of Logan all over again. What is he doing tonight? Getting drunk with the boys? Whoever they are? He didn't even tell me where he was going.

I want to get wasted. Why should Logan be the only one who gets to be wild? I'm in a questionable relationship with a boy who can't even be bothered to remember my birthday. And I can't be with the boy who would. If Jude knew when my birthday was, there's no way he'd forget. Jude is the kind of boy who would plan a super special day months in advance.

Boy drama shouldn't be invading my birthday chi. I could make it stop. I could numb the pain. But tonight is about chilling with Sadie. She didn't know me back in my wild days. She probably thinks I'm a wild child now.

If she only knew.

MY GROUP VOTED ON HIDE-AND-SEEK
for free play. Being a camp counselor means getting to play games I haven't played in years. It also means I get to make up rules on the spot while trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about.

“No going out of bounds,” I instruct the group. “You have to stay on this floor.” Good thing our camp is in a school on the Lower East Side instead of out in the wilderness. I could just see myself losing one of these girls in the woods.

“Can I be It first?” Jenny asks.

“Okay,” I tell her.

“What should I count to?”

“Thirty. Count loudly so we can hear you. Everyone ready?”

The girls jump up and bunch by the classroom door. Jenny turns toward a window and puts her hands over her eyes. “One!” she starts counting.

We scatter. I haven't decided if I'm going to hide or supervise yet. When I see one of the girls cram herself into an empty bin in a dark classroom, I decide I better supervise.

“Twenty!” Jenny yells from her spot halfway down the hall. All of my other girls have hidden except for Momo.

“Where are you going to hide?” I whisper.

“I don't know!” she panic-whispers back. “Help me!”

We go into the nearest classroom. There's a tall free-standing closet in one corner. I swing the door open. Empty.

“How about in here?” I suggest.

“No,” Momo says.

“There's plenty of room. It's empty.”

“I don't want to.”

“Twenty-five!” Jenny yells.

“Why not?” I ask.

“No!” Momo yells louder than Jenny. “I'm not going! Don't make me get in there!”

“Okay, okay. You don't have to. Sorry, it just looked like a good place to hide. We'll find somewhere else.”

“Thirty!” Jenny yells. “Ready or not, here I come!”

“Um . . .” I look around the classroom. The closet is the only place to hide. Except behind the door. Under the
desk is a possibility, but Momo would only be partially hidden. “How about behind the door?”

“Will you hide with me?”

My plan to supervise vanishes with one look at Momo's face. She seems way more terrified about hiding behind a door than anyone playing hide-and-seek should.

“Sure,” I say.

We get behind the door. Momo's breathing is heavy. I can feel her shaking next to me. She shouldn't be acting like this. It's just hide-and-seek. But Momo is panting and sweating as if she's being hunted down by a serial killer.

That's it. Frank obviously intends to do nothing to help Momo. Which means I have to be the one to help her.

After camp I don't head to the subway to go home. I go to the main office. Cecelia works in the office for about an hour after camp gets out.

“Hi, Rosanna,” Cecelia says from behind her desk. “How'd it go today?”

“Good. How was your day?”

“Oh, you know. Riveting as always.” She gestures to a stack of file folders on the counter. “Applications for next year.”

“Already?”

“We select our campers for next year by the end of the summer.”

“I didn't realize you worked so far in advance.”

“That's city-funded day camps for you. The competition is fierce.”

“How do you decide who gets in?”

“We take everything into account: school transcripts, behavioral reports, financial need. The kids all write essays on why they want to be here. They're pretty cute. Especially the younger kids' essays.”

I wonder what Momo wrote. Whatever it was, she must have appealed to the board of directors.

“So what's up?” Cecelia asks.

“Could I see a camper's file?”

“Frank doesn't like us sharing them, but I can tell you whatever you want to know.”

I ask for Momo's address. Cecelia checks her computer and tells it to me. I write the address down in my small notebook.

“She lives in the Mott Haven projects,” Cecelia says. “Have you been to the South Bronx before?”

“No.”

“It's a pretty rough area.”

Cecelia might know why I wanted Momo's address. But if she's guessing why, she doesn't say. And I don't explain. The less she knows, the better. I wouldn't want her to get in trouble with Frank if he found out she knew my plan but didn't tell him.

At the subway station, I ask the lady working in a booth
how to get to Momo's neighborhood. She barks at me through the intercom. Her voice crackles, obscuring her words to the point where I don't even know if she's speaking English. I bend down to the little circle covered with mesh below the window that I am assuming is a microphone and ask her to please repeat that. She barks louder that I have to take the 6 train. It's like she's angry at me for daring to ask a question. People who hate their job shouldn't take it out on the rest of us. Especially when their job involves helping other people.

The barking subway station lady has left me frazzled. I find a map on the wall to get a better idea of where I'm going. Between what Cecelia said about Momo's neighborhood and having absolutely no clue of what I'm going to find once I get there, I'm kind of a mess. But there's no way I'm backing down.

The subway ride up to the South Bronx is long. I take out my book and lose myself in a love story. I can always count on Jennifer E. Smith to soothe me. But I'm nervous about missing my stop. As the street numbers get higher, I peer out the window at each stop to see where I am. Finally the train slows down as it approaches my stop. I bolt up from my seat too early and have to catch myself from toppling over when the train jerks to a stop. Graceful as always. One day I will master the art of subway riding. When I get on the subway, I won't sit down just as the train bolts forward to leave the station, flinging me into
whoever is sitting or standing nearby. My timing will be perfect when I get up from my seat to leave. I will be intuitive and effortless, fluidly navigating each subway car I ride like a real New Yorker. No one will be able to tell I moved here from somewhere else.

My heart pounds as I climb the stairs out of the station. Whenever I emerge from a subway station, I have no idea which way to go. It took me like ten different times before I learned which way to go when leaving the regular stops I use to get to camp and back home. So here I am spinning around outside the subway station like a dingbat target in a foreign neighborhood, clearly lost and searching for landmarks that don't exist.

I pick a direction and start walking. I can always turn around if I'm going the wrong way. The last thing I'd do is ask for directions. Advertising that I don't know where I'm going would make me an even bigger target. No one knows I'm here. Cecelia might have her suspicions, but she wouldn't have a chance to save me if I were attacked on the street. Or chopped up in some rapey dude's freezer.

People are giving me strange looks. I'm wearing the T-shirt all the counselors have to wear. It says
LOWER EAST DAY CAMP
on the front and
COUNSELOR
on the back. Not exactly blending in with the girls in this neighborhood. Their goal is apparently to show as much skin as possible. Guys are loitering on street corners and stoops. A rowdy pack of boys hanging out in front of a mini-mart catcall
as I zoom by. I focus on hurrying and keeping my eyes on the ground.

I hate myself for acting this way. One goal of being a social worker is to help people in low-income areas like this one. Yet I'm acting like I'm scared to be here. Actually . . . I am scared. The South Bronx is a lot grittier than I expected. I don't know what I thought I'd find. Not the burned-out husks of abandoned buildings, vacant lots piled with random debris, and graffiti sprayed everywhere. The energy here is totally different than the West Village. How can two parts of the same city be so different?

I stop for a second outside a Laundromat to surreptitiously check the folded Google Map I printed in the main office before I left camp. The map confirms that I'm going the wrong way. Passing that rowdy pack of boys again is not going to be fun. I take a deep breath, turn around, and tell myself to ignore the catcalls as I zoom by again.

“Coming back for seconds,
mami
?”

“You like a supermodel workin' that runway.”

“Lemme get a piece of that white-girl ass!”

My face burns until I can turn a corner a few blocks away. I take more deep breaths until I stop shaking. I'm too afraid to peek around the corner to see if they are coming after me. They might see me peeking and take it as an invitation to harass me some more. But I don't hear their voices getting louder or anything. They're not coming after me.

Momo's building is part of a complex of buildings that all look the same: tall and brown with lots of small windows close together. I find the right one. Her apartment is on the third floor. At first I'm worried that her mom won't buzz me up. Luckily a group of people are going in as I get to the front doors. I follow them inside. They crowd into the elevator with a baby carriage. Instead of crowding into the elevator with them, I step back and take the next one.

The elevator opens on the third floor to a long hallway that wraps all the way around the building. A sign on the wall across from the elevators shows which way to go for Momo's apartment. The hallway smells like someone is smoking in one of the apartments and cooking onions in another. A woman is yelling behind one of the doors. I can hear a baby crying somewhere in the distance. Music blares behind the door next to Momo's.

This is it. This is where she lives.

My heart leaps into my throat as I ring the doorbell. I still don't know what I'm going to say. I've imagined this scenario a thousand times, but all the words I've said in my head seem wrong now. How can I find out if Momo's mom is abusing her without coming right out and asking? And what do I expect her to say? Yeah, I am, thanks for stopping by?

The door opens a few inches. A pretty girl who looks just like Momo peers out at me. She must be Momo's older sister. I wonder why Momo never mentioned she had a
sister. She told me she just lives with her mom.

“Can I help you?” she asks.

“Hello,” I attempt to say in a professional manner. But it comes out all stuttery. I try again. “Hi. I'm Rosanna Tranelli. A counselor at Momo's camp?”

She opens the door a few more inches. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything's fine. I just . . . wanted to come by. The camp director has been trying to get in touch with your mom. Is she home?”

“My mother doesn't live here.”

“Oh.”

“Why would he be calling my mother?”

My heart races. How am I supposed to answer that? If I went with the truth, I would have to admit that I reported suspected abuse and he's following up. Then her mom would avoid talking to me like she's avoiding Frank. Of course her mom lives here. Maybe she tells her daughters to lie to any strangers who come by unannounced.

“Sorry to show up like this,” I say. “I was just hoping to talk with your mom for a few minutes.”

“My mother has no business here. I'm raising my own child.”

Wait. What?

“If there's a problem with Momo, you can talk directly to me,” she continues.

“So you're . . . are you . . . Momo's mom?”

She looks at me like I'm an idiot. “Who did you think you were talking to?”

Okay. My mind is officially blown. How can this girl have an eight-year-old daughter? She doesn't look much older than me.

The baby crying in the distance is screaming now.

“My work schedule is crazy,” she says, unfazed by the screaming baby. “That's why I haven't had a chance to call Frank back. Didn't think he'd send someone in person.”

“He didn't send me.” Great. Compromise myself more, why don't I. Now I'm some stalker freak. So much for playing this off as official camp business.

“Then why are you here?”

“Um, well—”

“Is she acting up again?”

“What do you mean?”

“She likes to talk back. Has she been giving you sass?”

“Oh, no! Momo is wonderful. She's very sweet.”

“Then what's the problem?”

“She seems . . . kind of nervous. Jumpy. Loud noises scare her. And today she was afraid to play hide-and-seek. I was wondering if you knew what might be causing her behavior.”

“She's always been a jittery little girl. Nothing to worry about.”

Momo's mom hasn't invited me in. We're still standing in her doorway with the door halfway open. I was hoping
to see Momo's room. Maybe get a chance to look around a little. That's what a good social worker would do while making a house call. Inspect the premises.

Momo's mom gives me a brief, tight smile. “It was nice of you to come all this way. Tell Frank I'll call him soon?”

“Okay. Thanks for speaking with me.”

She closes the door softly.

I linger at the door. The conversation feels unfinished. There is so much more I want to say.

I'm in a foul mood on the way home. Momo's mom was nice enough, but I still feel like something is off. My gut says there is more to the story than what she told me. Which was essentially nothing.

Something is wrong, but I don't know the right questions to ask. How can I uncover the truth when Momo's mom is hiding it? I have no clue where to go from here.

There's a note on my pillow from Sadie when I get home. She said to call her when I get in to meet up with her and Darcy. But I feel gross. I don't want to infect Sadie and Darcy with my foul mood. All I want to do is crawl into bed. After I call D.

I stayed out on the roofdeck Sunday after D left to take Shayla to the clinic. By the time he came back two hours later, my jealousy had already taken control of my emotions again. It wasn't enough to tell myself to stop being so insane. Trusting that D and Shayla were just friends was going to take a lot more than simply wanting to trust him.
D was all smiling and kissing me and pretending like he didn't just leave me for her. Was he trying to be extra nice because he knew he messed up? Or was he just being a clueless boy?