Other Words for Love Read online

  It wasn’t? But she made me feel a little better until that afternoon, when she rushed to Casey’s BMW with her hair flowing and they locked hands and kissed, and then I rode the subway to Brooklyn by myself.

  The next day, I sketched in my notebook during homeroom until I felt a tap on my shoulder and heard a raspy voice in my ear.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Leigh asked. “You look sad.”

  I told her the truth. I told her about Evelyn and about Patrick, and she listened intently before inviting me to another party. This one was at the theater where we’d seen Cats.

  “You need a night out, Ari. The party is a farewell for one of the cast members. My mother’s planning it. It’s supposed to be on Friday, but it might not happen because the caterer she hired just canceled. She’s looking for another one.”

  I thought of Tina’s Tell Your Friends card, pulled it out of my wallet, and gave it to Leigh. “I know you and Summer don’t get along, but this is her mother’s catering business, and she’s very reliable.”

  Leigh shrugged. “We’d hire a mass murderer at this point.”

  A mass murderer would have been better. Because later on, when it was nearly midnight and I was studying for the SAT at my kitchen table while Mom and Dad slept upstairs, the phone rang and it was Summer, who wasn’t happy that Rachel had hired Tina for the farewell party.

  “Are you retarded?” Summer asked.

  Retarded. That was worse than calling Del an Indian. “Am I—” I began, thoroughly confused, but she cut me off.

  “Retarded,” she said. “I think you must be if you expect me to wait on Leigh Ellis like I’m some Puerto Rican maid.”

  She needed a few courses in respecting ethnicities and disabilities if she wanted to be a psychiatrist. And making her work as a maid wasn’t what I’d meant to do at all.

  “Summer—”

  “Ari,” she interrupted. “If a person is a true friend, she doesn’t associate with people who’d disparage her best friend of many years by calling her names that are written on dirty bathroom walls and spoken aloud only by low-class individuals.”

  “Leigh isn’t a low-class individual,” I said as Mom and Dad walked into the kitchen with messy hair and the worried expressions they often wore after late-night phone calls. I suddenly got the feeling that Mom was right—Summer didn’t want to share me. She preferred it when I sat at home on Friday nights while she was on dates and at parties.

  Then I listened while Summer told me that she had plans with Casey on Friday and she wasn’t going to the Winter Garden no matter how much Tina ranted and raved, and I should find my own way to school tomorrow.

  “I told my father you’re sick,” she said. “I’m so mad right now that I don’t feel like riding to school with you for a few days. He thinks you’re staying home for the rest of the week … and don’t you dare tell him anything different or I’ll never speak to you again.”

  I heard the dead hum of the dial tone. I hung up the phone while my parents stared at me, and I knew what they were thinking: Was that Patrick? Did something terrible happen and are we going to be visiting Evelyn at New York–Presbyterian Hospital soon?

  They both relaxed after I explained that it was just Summer. Dad went upstairs and Mom sat across from me and asked me what Summer wanted; then she lit a cigarette and I told her everything.

  “Well,” Mom said. “I think I’ll call Jeff and let him know that you’re perfectly healthy.”

  “Do me a favor and stay out of it,” I said, and the mention of Jeff got me thinking about psychiatrists in Queens and about Evelyn. I asked Mom what was going on and she sighed.

  “Evelyn’s seeing a shrink again. But you shouldn’t worry about any of that.”

  “Of course I’m worried, Mom. I’m not welcome in my own sister’s house.”

  She opened the window beside the table and tapped her ashes into the air, where they turned into fiery speckles before vanishing in the wind. “It’s just for a while, Ariadne. Evelyn is in a delicate state right now and there’s some jealousy going on … you know the crazy things she comes up with.”

  I felt guilty, thinking that not everything Evelyn came up with was crazy and Mom knew it. But Evelyn had no reason to be jealous of me. She was the one with the refined features and the green eyes and the handsome husband who did things in their bedroom that made her moan and gasp.

  “She shouldn’t feel that way,” I said. “I don’t have anything Evelyn wants.”

  Mom shrugged. “Some people don’t know what they want.”

  On Friday night, Leigh sent a car that took me to the Winter Garden Theater, and I decided to have fun even if it killed me. I forced myself to forgive Patrick for keeping me out of Queens. I was sure that the situation was only temporary. Evelyn’s new psychiatrist would probably recommend an innovative medication, and soon she’d be buying me Mrs. Fields cookies by the dozens. So I was going to have a good time tonight. A fantastic, spectacular time with interesting theater people and Tina’s deviled eggs.

  This idea lasted approximately five minutes. Leigh met me at the front door and I followed her into the theater, where we walked beneath a gaudy gold ceiling past rows of empty chairs and through a big red curtain. Then I heard jazz music and voices and I saw Summer.

  She was serving truffle canapés on a tray and she looked miserable. Her mouth was stiff and her feet dragged, and Rachel made everything worse. She ordered Summer around in a sharp, condescending tone, and I knew why. It was Summer’s fault that Rachel’s baby had cried on New Year’s Eve, and this was payback.

  “Summer,” Rachel said, towering over her in a pair of silver stilettos and a matching dress. “Every party has a pooper, but I don’t pay to have one at mine. Put on a happy face, sweetheart. And clean up that mess over there—stage right. My guests are getting tipsy and spilling their drinks.”

  Summer glanced around. “Right what?”

  I heard someone laugh. Rachel did too, as if the entire world should be familiar with stage directions.

  “Stage right,” Rachel said, pointing a spindly finger. “Right, left … get it?”

  Summer got it. She grabbed some napkins and crouched down on the floor, and I pitied her. Rachel acted like she was royalty and Summer was a peasant, and Tina only cared about her business—I have a reputation, you know. She expected Summer to be polite no matter what. I was glad I’d brought my medicine, because I had a headache. So I found a bathroom, stuck my mouth under the faucet, and swallowed two pills.

  Leigh was standing by the door when I came out. “My bracelet’s missing,” she said.

  I was sweaty. I wanted to go home because this whole mess was my fault, but I couldn’t go anywhere. Leigh’s ID bracelet was gone and she was panicking.

  We looked everywhere—backstage, on the stage, in every row of the theater. We were searching the lobby when Rachel came in, wondering why we had ditched the party.

  “I can’t find my bracelet,” Leigh said, and started to cry. I wished she’d brought that thing to a jeweler like Del had suggested.

  “It’s not here, baby,” Rachel said after another search, and then she and Leigh and I went backstage, where everyone tried to help. Finally Tina told Leigh not to worry, she and Summer were going to clean up after the party and if the bracelet was here, they would find it.

  Leigh’s eyes shot toward Summer, who was standing stage left with a tray of Gorgonzola popovers in her hands, obviously eavesdropping on our conversation. Leigh’s lip was quivering as she looked at Tina. “What if she finds it?” Leigh asked, nodding toward Summer.

  Tina glanced over her shoulder and then back at Leigh. “You mean my daughter? She’ll let you know if she finds it. Why wouldn’t she?”

  The story was too long to tell, and we wouldn’t have shared all the sordid details with Tina anyway. Leigh shrugged and Rachel said that she and Leigh should go home, but Leigh shook her head.

  “I’m always ruining your fun, Mama. You stay her
e. We’ll go over to Uncle Stan’s for a while. I just need to use the bathroom first.”

  She walked away and I dashed across the stage, where Summer was leaning over a table and refilling her tray.

  “Summer,” I said, lingering behind her. “You’ll let Leigh know if you find her bracelet, won’t you? I think it belonged to her boyfriend, and it means a lot to her.”

  She straightened up and put a hand on her hip. “Of course I will, Ari. What kind of person do you think I am?”

  A few minutes later, the chauffeur was driving me and Leigh away from the Winter Garden while Leigh brushed tears from her face and I obsessed about Summer. I kept quiet as the chauffeur took us to the Upper East Side, where we found Leigh’s uncle in the foyer of his luxurious penthouse. He was wearing a suit and he was all smiles, like last time. I addressed him as Mr. Ellis and he didn’t correct me.

  “Is Blake here?” Leigh asked.

  “He’s studying,” Mr. Ellis said.

  She made a sour face. “He needs to relax.”

  “He needs to stay on the dean’s list, and he will. Blake knows I’ve had my share of disappointment—he won’t give me more.”

  I was sure he meant Del. I thought of the fight with the engineering student and the college expulsion and the STD, whatever it was. I also thought of Evelyn, and I wondered if Blake and I had something in common. We were both trying to make up for things we hadn’t even done.

  “Where are you going at this hour, Uncle Stan?” Leigh asked, and he said something about work and a client. Then the elevator doors shut and she led me to the kitchen, where she sat at the table and sounded desperate. “That bracelet belonged to my boyfriend. If I don’t get it back … I swear I’ll kill myself.”

  “Stop it, Leigh,” I heard someone say, and I turned to find a young man behind me. “Don’t ever say that again.”

  “I can’t help it, Blake,” she said as tears dripped from her eyes.

  He sat next to her. I was surprised that this was the studious Blake, because he didn’t look studious. He wore jeans and a T-shirt over a body that was average height with muscles that rivaled Patrick’s, he had a shock of deep brown hair that stood up from his head, and his eyes were a much brighter blue than mine.

  “Are you all right?” he said after Leigh stopped crying, and I wanted him to say something else because his voice was so soft and smooth. Leigh nodded and excused herself to the bathroom, and we were alone. “Blake Ellis,” he said, reaching his hand across the table, flashing a boyish grin worthy of a Colgate commercial. “Please pardon my family drama.”

  His two front teeth were slightly longer than the rest, and there was something cute about that. I was suddenly embarrassed by my own flawed teeth, but what did they matter? Blake was probably no better than Del, and I wouldn’t have a chance with him even if my teeth didn’t overlap. So I shook his hand and smiled back.

  Mom didn’t listen to me when I told her not to call Jeff about my perfect health. She did it on the sly, and the next thing I knew, it was Monday morning and Summer and I were sitting on the couch in my living room. Mom stood on the carpet with her arms folded while Jeff advised me and Summer to work this thing out like adults.

  I wanted to work it out. Summer put on a big phony act. She pretended to understand that I had only wanted to help Tina when I gave her business card to Leigh, and she hugged me after the conversation ended, but it was the fakest thing ever. It was worse than an air kiss or those people who said “Let’s do lunch.”

  Then she and I were at Hollister and I remembered Leigh’s bracelet as we passed the iron gates. I asked Summer if she had found it, and she looked at me with the disgust she usually reserved for chewed-up gum on the soles of her Gucci shoes.

  “Did I find what, Ari?”

  “Leigh’s bracelet,” I said.

  “Oh, that.” She took out her compact and examined her lip gloss as we walked through the entrance and past the plaque of Frederick Smith Hollister. “It wasn’t in the theater. We checked everyplace. Leigh must’ve lost it somewhere else.”

  “Are you sure?” I said.

  Summer snapped her compact shut and stopped walking. We were standing next to a row of lockers and a crowd of students maneuvered around us.

  “Yes, I’m sure,” she said, her dark eyes blazing. “What are you implying?”

  She looked so offended that I felt guilty for bringing it up. Maybe she was right—I’d known her forever, she had her flaws, but she wasn’t that kind of person. I shouldn’t have accused her of stealing a dead boy’s bracelet.

  “Nothing,” I said before heading to homeroom.

  A few days later, I was sitting with Leigh in the cafeteria. Summer was eating pizza at her friend’s apartment and I hadn’t been invited.

  “Are you really sure Summer doesn’t have my bracelet?” Leigh asked.

  “Positive,” I said. “I know she can be sort of flaky sometimes, but she doesn’t mean it. She’s a good person underneath. She wouldn’t do something like that.”

  Leigh let out a heavy sigh. “So I guess it’s gone and I just have to accept it.” Then she started talking about California, and I almost choked on my sandwich.

  “You’re leaving?” I said, wondering if it was my destiny to be alone.

  Leigh nodded and told me that her uncle owned a condominium in some city called Brentwood, and she and Rachel were moving there in June. Mr. Ellis also had a close friend whose aunt was the principal of a private school where Leigh would be accepted for her senior year, and another friend was a movie producer with connections who could get Rachel hired as a makeup artist at Warner Brothers.

  “I need a new atmosphere,” Leigh said as I noticed that she wasn’t wearing anything printed with SUNY OSWEGO, which was a good thing. So I smiled and listened while she told me that she’d be going to UCLA because her family had donated money there and she would get in for sure.

  UCLA. Of course. I imagined UCLA surrounded by palm trees and sidewalks with famous people’s names carved into the cement. I saw it as a giant magnet with the power to drag my friends across the country. But I didn’t say anything negative because Leigh seemed excited, and she changed the subject by asking about my college plans.

  I mentioned Parsons and it sounded boring. But maybe I was boring because I wasn’t interested in Brentwood or anyplace other than here. I didn’t want to be far from my parents, and I couldn’t move away from Patrick and Evelyn and the boys, even if they never wanted to see me again.

  “Uncle Stan knows people at Parsons,” Leigh said. “He can get you in. Do you want to work in art?”

  “Sort of. I want to teach. But you’re going to be a real artist, aren’t you?”

  “No,” she said. “Art is mine.”

  That made sense. Her art was hers and my art was mine, and I wanted to keep it hidden in my studio like a newborn baby because nobody would ever love it the way I did. So I nodded and Leigh started talking about teaching on the college level, something about getting a master’s and a PhD, and she suggested that I become an art professor.

  “That’s what Idalis is planning to do. And you’re much smarter than she is, Ari.”

  I had no idea who she was talking about until she reminded me: Idalis, Twenty-third Street, the putas in Del’s bed. According to Leigh, Idalis was finishing her master’s in Spanish literature. She was going to start her PhD in the fall, and I could meet her and get some career advice if I went to Mr. Ellis’s apartment for dinner on Saturday night.

  “You have to come, Ari,” Leigh said. “It won’t be any fun without you. Del will be there, but who cares? You don’t want him, anyway.”

  Not really. Maybe a little. But Del was a pig, so I started thinking about other things—things like very blue eyes, a Colgate smile, a smooth voice that gave me goose bumps. The possibility that Blake would be at the dinner too made me accept Leigh’s invitation.

  twelve

  Idalis Guzman was older than Del. I found out—over a
four-course dinner served by two maids in Mr. Ellis’s penthouse—that she was twenty-six, she was from Venezuela, and she wasn’t serious about her boyfriend.

  “I can’t marry this guy,” she said in perfect English with an accent that was even more appealing than I expected. “Then my name would be Idalis Ellis.”

  She had Rapunzel hair. It was honey brown and down to her waist, but not the kind that gets chopped off on those daytime talk shows where women neglect themselves and need a makeover. Hers was shiny and stylish. Her face wasn’t the prettiest, but her skillfully applied makeup compensated for that. She wore classy clothes and expensive jewelry, and she carried herself like she was somebody special.

  “If you want to teach,” she said to me as we were eating our second course, which consisted of something I’d never seen before called sautéed leeks, “the university level is the way to go. Once you get tenure, you make good money and you have a flexible schedule, so you can work and still have time for a husband and kids. You can have it all, as they say.”

  I could have it all. I imagined myself as a professor: I would stand in a classroom and give lectures about Picasso to eager college freshmen. Then I would zip home to Brooklyn, where I would live in one of those elegant Park Slope houses, which I would be able to afford on my salary, and I’d be greeted at the door by my loving children, who would be as adorable as their father.

  That idea got me excited and hopeful and it made me shift my gaze from Idalis to Blake. He sat opposite me, not eating his leeks, and his eyes reminded me of a marble that I had owned when I was nine years old. I’d had lots of others, but this one was my favorite, because it was transparent with a brilliant streak of sapphire blue that I would stare at and hold up to the sun. Then one day it disappeared. Mom took me to Woolworth’s to find a match, but I didn’t search very hard—I knew that something so beautiful only came around once.

  “You don’t need all that butter on your bread, Stan,” Rachel said after the main course was served. “And slow down. You’re eating too fast.”