White Lines (23 page)

THIRTY-ONE

I NEVER THOUGHT
I’d live somewhere as normal as New Canaan, Connecticut, but I’ve been here for a month now, and so far no one’s chased me out of town with a bunch of torches or anything. The grounds of my father’s estate are framed by rolling hills hushed and blanketed in whiteness. Through the frosted panes of my bedroom windows I can see dappled gray horses in the distance, and the drifts of snow that press against the house make me feel safe and hidden away—especially when I sleep huddled under a pile of blankets. And sleeping is mostly what I did for the first few weeks I was here, my face pressed into a wide, soft pillow.

When my father showed up at the emergency room, his long black coat spotted with snow, I collapsed into the heft of his body, falling limp. As his arms encircled me, I heard the tears in his voice and along with them, his regret. My father isn’t perfect, something he’s recently admitted during one of our joint therapy sessions, but we’re trying.
I’m
trying. With every session, I’m coming closer to someday forgiving him for abandoning me, for turning away from my mother’s abuse. Sometimes the anger still claws at me when I look at him, but I’m learning to wait for the moment to pass. It always does, eventually. Maybe I’ll even talk to my mother again someday, although right now that seems as likely as visiting the moon. I’m not back at school yet, but my father says that it doesn’t matter, that what I need now is rest, that I have all the time in the world for history and algebra. It probably isn’t really true, but it makes me feel better each time he says it.

Even living with Jasmine hasn’t been that bad. Since I’ve been here, she’s left stacks of Godiva chocolate bars on my nightstand, stocked my freshly painted white room with extra pairs of pajamas and slippers, and filled the bookshelf with classics like
Jane Eyre.
This gave me pause for a second, until I realized that she’d probably never even read it, that she had most likely asked a bookstore clerk what books were appropriate for a seventeen-year-old girl, that in all likelihood she probably wasn’t leaving some tome about a crazy lady locked away from the world lying around just to torture me. That would be going a little far—even for Jasmine.

At night we sit around the kitchen table and eat the dinner that Marta, the cook, has prepared, or we’ll order in Italian or sushi. “NO avocado in the California roll,” my father will bark into the receiver while giving me a slow wink. “My daughter hates it.” I have to grudgingly admit that my father and Jasmine seem kind of perfect together. I like to watch them when they don’t know I’m looking, mesmerized at the tenderness between them as he leans in to her hand resting on his cheek, or pulls her to him as they cuddle together on the couch watching a movie on HBO. Sometimes, though, when I’m watching them, I can’t help thinking about my mother, how my father would walk past her in the kitchen after work, oblivious, and I hurt a little inside for what we’ve all lost. Still, it’s obvious that Jasmine makes him happy, and for the first time in years, I actually
want
my father to be happy.

From what I hear through her letters, Alexa is now the reigning queen of downtown, and her parties, thrown in tandem with Sebastian, have become almost legendary. Her debutante ball at Tunnel broke some kind of record in attendance, and there were club kids and Upper East Side debs lined up all the way around the block waiting patiently to get in. Diana Ross’s “I’m Coming Out” was the track of the evening, and the drag queen cotillion that took over the main dance floor is still talked about in clubs and on street corners. Ethan left the scene as quickly as he’d entered it, leaving Alexa behind and moving, I’ve heard, to Los Angeles. Sometimes when I can’t sleep at night, I picture him out there among the palm trees and platinum-blond starlets, pouring drinks in some fancy bar with oak-paneled walls. I like to imagine the sound of the surf pounding outside his window at night as he sleeps, his tanned body turning in clean white sheets, his hair tangled on the pillow. I hope he’s found what he’s looking for out there in that la-la land of perpetual sun I know only from movies. I hope it’s something real.

Alexa is dating Christoph now, and weirdly enough, she confirmed to Giovanni’s endless delight that he really
does
have a round bed in his apartment, complete with pink, fur-lined handcuffs permanently attached to the headboard. Apparently he gave her a pair of five-inch patent-leather high heels for her eighteenth birthday and a gift certificate to Elizabeth Arden. I’ve written to her, asking her to be careful, that I know the terrain she is treading so intimately that I could walk it blindfolded, but Alexa pushes away my concerns with the brush of her elegant fingers. And maybe she’s right. Alexa Forte was always much stronger than I am, more sure of herself. But when I think of Christoph’s grip on my body, his hands snaking possessively over my flesh, I shudder, and I can’t help but worry just a little. The envelopes she sends are the lightest shade of pink imaginable, sealed with the precise imprint of her glossy mouth.

I can’t lie. When I read her letters, a part of me misses it all. The crowds, the power of that velvet rope in my hands, the lights flashing over the sweaty bodies littering the dance floor. How after a line I’d feel invincible, diamonds exploding like fireworks in my brain. I long for that feeling the way you mourn a lost love, how the drugs let me release everything pent up inside for so long, the way they made me feel bigger than I actually was and more numb than I ever want to be again.

Whenever this happens, I call Dr. Goldstein for a session. Sometimes I call Sara. Sometimes Giovanni, who now lives in my apartment on Third Street and spends the majority of his days in an outpatient rehab program for substance abuse. Even though we’ve spoken on the phone multiple times, we haven’t yet talked about that night. It sits between us like a shadow or a sword, waiting patiently. Most evenings, he tells me, he stays in, working on his designs, drawing blouses and dresses in his distinctive, flowery hand. He’s been talking about applying to Parsons or maybe Pratt if he’s lucky enough to get financial aid or a scholarship. I’ve heard that the gash on his arm is mostly healed except for a long, twisted scar that will eventually turn white, a souvenir permanently tattooed on his skin. A reminder. A warning. “I love you, girl,” he says, chuckling softly before getting off the phone, and each time I hear those words in my ear, I’m careful to actually say them back.

But today I’m nervous, pacing the wide wood floors of my father’s house before settling down on my bed, hugging a purple pillow to my chest as I wait for the doorbell to ring. I’ve been growing out my dyed black hair, and an inch of walnut-brown roots peeks through at my scalp. My nails are bitten down to nubs, and I’ve taken to leaving my face free of makeup. It’s devoid of color, but it’s all mine. I’ve gained some weight back—around five pounds—and my clothes no longer hang so loosely on my bones. It feels good to be getting stronger, and sometimes, during one of the aerobics classes Jasmine drags me to on Tuesday mornings, when I’m contorted into some ridiculous position that would make Giovanni burst out laughing, I begin to smile, feeling the joy of my body working all on its own without any kind of chemical enhancement, just the way it’s supposed to.

When I see Julian and Sara walk through my bedroom door, I jump to my feet. It’s been a month since I’ve seen them, and I’m nervous. Sara walks in front, striding purposefully in her combat boots, and when she reaches me, she opens her arms wide. Crushed against the familiar weight of her body, I close my eyes as her weird hippie perfume inundates my senses, her hair flattened against my cheek like strands of pale cellophane.

“How’s my girl?” she whispers in my ear, hugging me so tightly that I can barely breathe.

“Better,” I answer, fighting the tears that tremble beneath my lashes. I step back and look at her, at the shock of crazy white-blond curls going every which way, her serious eyes, the way she is just so completely
Sara,
and I am flooded with something like happiness. “I’ve missed you,” I say after a minute of silence in which I take her hands, squeezing her cold fingers tightly.

“Ditto,” she answers, choking back the tears in her voice and rolling her eyes so that we both burst into peals of laughter. But I am feeling so much at this moment that I can’t tell whether I’m laughing or crying. I am inundated with raw emotion, the weight and responsibility of being fully
present.

“Hey, you.”

I’d forgotten how Julian’s voice is even huskier in person than it is over the phone, and he looks at me bashfully, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his well-worn jeans. He is wearing his Ramones leather jacket and a black sweater, and just standing there, he is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my entire life.

“I’ll get us some sodas from downstairs,” Sara says, letting go of my hands, her gaze taking in the obvious vibe between Julian and me. “Don’t go anywhere.” She winks at me before walking off, the buckles on her leather jacket jingling as she moves.

“Ask Marta,” I call woodenly after her, my eyes never leaving Julian’s face.

His hands are still in his pockets and I want to reach out and touch him, but I’m scared to make the first move, take that first irrevocable step.

“So I guess you were wrong about me.” My voice is gravelly and strained with everything that’s been left unsaid.

“How’s that?”

“When you said I seemed like I didn’t need anyone.” I look down at the floor, terrified that if I keep speaking, he’ll walk out that door and never come back. I take a deep breath and force myself to look up. “I guess I’m pretty screwed up.”

“Who isn’t?” Julian shrugs. For the first time I notice that he has a tiny dimple in his chin, the smallest of indentations, and I want to run my fingers over it.

“I’m not so different from your ex-girlfriend at the end of the day.”

I watch the emotions flitting across the bones of Julian’s face like birds skimming the rippling water.
Breathe,
I tell myself, focusing on the air moving in and out of my lungs. I picture my therapist’s face, his round little glasses and red beard that shines softly in the lamplight.
Stay in the present moment.

“Sure you are,” Julian says quietly, taking his hands from his pockets and pulling me to him. “You’re
you,
” he whispers, burying his face in my neck. He is so close that I can smell the scent of his skin: leather, musk, Ivory soap, the blue cold of fresh snow and the bright tang of laundry soap all mixed up together. “And what could be better than that?”

He nuzzles my neck, drawing his nose up my skin until I turn my face and his mouth is inches from mine. We stand there, just breathing each other’s breath, and I’m looking steadily into his eyes as if there is something in there I’ve lost. If my heart is still beating, I can’t feel it. The blood roars loudly in my ears as his lips brush against mine and I close my eyes.

Later, as I sit between them both on my bed, the white duvet piled up around us like fallen snow, Julian and Sara fill me in on all the latest gossip as the tension falls out of me, my limbs loose and pliant. Julian presses his leg against mine, squeezing my hand in his, reassuring me with every joke, with every word that falls from his lips. And even though I’m grateful for their presence, I know that each day I’ll wake up and start all over again, that there will never be a time when I won’t be tempted to fall into the void, reaching out for a line of cocaine or the wrong pair of arms to blunt the pain of existence. For the first time, I know that whatever happens tomorrow, whatever happens with me and Julian, I will be all right, that if I got through the past seventeen years, I am strong enough to make it through anything.

But all that seems far away in this warm room with the hiss of the radiator punctuating our conversation and snow falling gently outside the windows. Julian leans in for another kiss, and I catch Sara’s smile as she rolls her eyes at our blatant PDA. This time when his lips touch mine, I don’t shut my eyes. Instead I memorize the planes of his face, the warm skin beneath my fingers, and as he begins to kiss me more deeply, I don’t think or hesitate when I begin to laugh right into his open mouth, my lips stretched into a wide smile.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Stacey Barney, editor extraordinaire, who single-handedly restored my faith in publishing. Thank you for taking a chance on me and believing so fiercely in
White Lines
—your friendship and support mean the world to me. My agent, the incomparable Lisa Grubka, who always has my back. Lisa stuck with me tirelessly through two years of drafts and edits, and would not rest until she found the perfect home for this book. I owe her everything. Ryan Thomann for a kick-ass page layout, and Linda McCarthy for a cover design that was so much more than I dared ever hope for. Jessica Koslow, my rock, who showed me the true meaning of friendship and family. Robin Benway, for wine and whine, who graciously read the manuscript at a critical juncture. My therapist, Ari Davis, who holds me up. Claire Mittleman, for our beautiful relationship. And most of all, Willy Blackmore, for his unfailing love and support, for believing in me when I didn’t—couldn’t—believe in myself, and who read every word as if it were the first time.