Two of a Kind Read online

  Andy had to wait a few minutes before he was able to get Ida in the kitchen alone. “What did you go and say that for? Are you trying to get rid of her?”

  “It was an accident,” Ida said, sulking. “Like what happened with the cake.”

  “How did you even know about that? Anyway, there were cookies!”

  “Yes, there were cookies, Mr. Big Shot. Cookies that were so hard I nearly broke a tooth!” And with that, she swept regally—or as regally as was possible for someone of her diminutive stature—from the room.

  • • •

  The next day it rained and they decided to drive back to the city early; they reached Andy’s apartment by five. He called a car service and stood under an umbrella in front of the building with Ida while they waited for it to arrive. She hugged him good-bye without mentioning Christina again and he was relieved to be spared. Upstairs, Oliver, who had slept the entire ride back, was now wide-awake. “I’m going out,” he said.

  “Oh?” Andy said. “Anywhere in particular?”

  “I’m . . . going over to Jake’s.”

  “Jake.” Andy smiled. He hadn’t heard that name in a while and was glad to hear it now. “Bring him out to the beach with us next time we go.”

  A stricken look seemed to cross Oliver’s face. “Yeah, sure, whatever,” he said.

  After eating the leftovers of a dinner Lucy had prepared, Andy checked his phone. Nothing. He turned to his e-mail. There were messages, including a thank-you from Stephen, but none from Christina. It was as if the other night had not happened.

  Then it hit him: he should contact her. She was obviously a holdover from the days when the girl—or woman—was supposed to wait for a signal from the man. Immediately, he began tapping out a message and then stopped. What should he suggest? Dinner? Movie? Theater? Then he realized it didn’t matter. He just wanted to see her again.

  TWELVE

  Avenue C had been busy enough on this Sunday night, with lots of people strolling along in the summer dark. But once Oliver turned the corner, he saw that East Seventh Street was deserted. He walked quickly until he came to the battered metal door and knocked. Nothing happened, so he tried again. When there was no answer, he pressed his ear to the scarred surface. The guy he’d met in the head shop on St. Marks Place had given him specific instructions: north side of East Seventh Street, between Avenues C and D, two steps down, a gray metal door with no number on it. This had to be the door, and behind it, the place. He knocked again, pounding his fist.

  This time the door was yanked open and a guy with rust-colored dreads under a top hat stared at him. “Yeah?” He wore suspenders but no shirt, and a pair of denim cutoffs so bleached they were white.

  “Jojo sent me,” Oliver said nervously. Jojo was the kid Oliver had met in the head shop. “He told me to ask for Raven.”

  “Raven’s in there,” said the dread guy with a sharp jerk of his chin. “You can come in, but you better be quick. He’s kinda busy.”

  Oliver followed him inside. The door slammed shut behind him with an awful, wheezing clang; he had an urge to push it open and run. But Jojo said Raven could get weed, so Oliver wasn’t going anywhere until he’d scored. Since he was no longer speaking to Jake, his supply had dried up. In desperation, he’d started hanging out at the head shop; that was where he’d met Jojo, and Jojo had directed him here.

  The room was dimly lit, with exposed pipes running along the low ceiling and up some of the walls. There was carpeting so filthy it was hard to tell what color it had been, and the place was filled with a weird assortment of furniture: an imitation-suede couch with collapsed springs and stuffing oozing from its various slits, a claw-footed bathtub covered by a thick wooden board, a row of seats that looked like they had been yanked from a movie theater.

  On one side of the room there was a pool table; the guy he assumed was Raven was holding court next to it. His hair was the shiniest, blackest hair Oliver had ever seen on a person, and it framed his face in graceful waves. It was actually pretty, like a girl’s, except Raven’s mean, glittering eyes and thin slash of mouth were neither pretty nor girlish. He held a pool cue in his hands, but he did not actually seem to be playing. Instead, he was telling a story to the bunch of guys ringed around him. The story ended and the guys laughed. Oliver took the opportunity to edge closer.

  Raven was on him in a nanosecond. “Do I know you?” he said. The laughter stopped.

  “Jojo sent me—,” Oliver began.

  “Like I care,” snarled Raven.

  “Yeah, well, he said that you had . . . I mean, I’ve got money,” said Oliver.

  “I don’t want your money,” Raven said. He used the pool cue to poke Oliver in the chest. “Now get out. Go back to your mama.”

  Mortified, Oliver turned and went for the door. As he pulled it open, he heard Raven’s falsetto: “Jojo sent me,” which made all the guys burst out laughing again. The tip of the cue had caught the soft space between his ribs; it hurt.

  Out in the street again, he didn’t know what the fuck to do. Why had Jojo sent him to Raven? Did he get off on humiliating people? The door squealed open and Oliver jumped away, expecting another poke from Raven’s cue. But it was Dread Guy. “You looking for weed?” he asked.

  “Why are you asking?” Oliver was not about to walk into another trap.

  “I heard what happened in there and I felt sorry for you, man. I’d sell you something if you wanted.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like this.” Dread Guy reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, rumpled paper bag. He unfurled the top and invited Oliver to sniff.

  “How much?” he said warily.

  “Fifty,” said Dread Guy.

  “Are you fucking crazy?” That was, like, a total rip-off. So much for Dread Guy feeling sorry for him.

  “It’s really choice stuff.”

  “So you smoke it.” Oliver turned to go. He wanted the weed, but no way would he pay fifty for what was at most thirty dollars’ worth.

  “I’ll throw these in too.” Dread Guy opened his hand. In his palm were four oval tablets.

  “Vicodin?” asked Oliver.

  “Mystery pill,” said Dread Guy. “But it will make you feel good.”

  Oliver didn’t usually like pills; he preferred weed, which was in his mind a natural high, as opposed to a chemical one. Still, he wanted the weed, and the pills might be all right, especially if he used the two together. “I’ll give you forty,” said Oliver.

  “Fifty’s my price,” said Dread Guy. “And you’ll be back for more—you’ll see.”

  “All right.” Oliver handed him two twenties and a ten. He took the tablets and put them in the bag; then he shoved the bag way down into the pocket of his jeans, where it made a little bulge. He’d have to find a new hiding place; he didn’t want his dad finding this stash.

  Later, at home, Oliver rattled around the apartment. His dad’s door was closed, which meant he was asleep—good. Although he was itching to try some of the weed he’d just scored, he knew the smell would linger. Better to try one of the pills instead. He crushed it with the back of a spoon and snorted the resulting powder.

  Then he went back to his room and flipped open his laptop. He was about to do something he knew he shouldn’t do, but what the fuck, he was going to do it anyway. He logged onto Facebook, where, amazingly enough, neither Delphine nor Jake had unfriended him; he could follow—and had been following—their time together in Provence. Toujours Provence, he remembered bitterly. The open book on the floor of Jake’s room was like a taunt, a fucking punch in the gut. Only he was the one who’d punched Jake, and then, like the wuss that he was, regretted it.

  So there they were: against various backdrops of palm trees and blue sky, Jake feeding pommes frites to Delphine; Delphine offering Jake a lick of glace au chocolat to Jake. They both looked tan, happy, an
d totally into each other. And look, here was Jake showing off the tattoo he’d gotten: a map of France on his left forearm. What a total suck-up. What if she dumped him? He’d be stuck with that stupid-ass map on his skin forever.

  Oliver suddenly felt thirsty. Maybe it was the pill. He got up, taking the laptop along, and went into the kitchen, where he downed a tall glass of water and immediately poured another, which he drank more slowly. The door to his mom’s office was open. The room was different now; the desk was gone, and there was now a bed in its place. There were several bolts of fabric propped in a corner and a new chair he did not recognize. The mattress was still covered in plastic and on top of that was a shallow cardboard box. He left the empty glass on the granite counter and went over to investigate.

  There was all the stuff that had been on his mom’s bulletin board. He picked up a pair of ticket stubs from Rent, which she had taken him to see. Some of his friends’ parents had been a little shocked; too much adult content, they said. But he’d loved the play and loved his mom for understanding that he was old enough to appreciate it. She never talked down to him; that was only one of the things he missed about her.

  Usually, seeing all this stuff would have bummed him out. But the pill must have been, like, blunting his perceptions or something, softening them so that the raw, jagged edge of pain was gone. She touched this, he thought, his fingers rifling through the contents of the box. And this, and this.

  As he stood there, the room started to melt, the walls becoming elastic, the window, liquid. He lurched toward the door. Maybe he’d feel better somewhere else. Laptop tucked under his arm, he made it into the living room. Yeah, that was better. It was dark in here, dark and quiet; the only light came from outside, the water sparkling insanely, like all the stars had dropped from the sky and were floating on its surface.

  Oliver sat on the couch and opened the laptop again. What had he been looking at? Oh yeah. Jake and Delphine. He started to read some of Jake’s posts: Loving la vie en rose, posted Jake. Vive la France. That was the best he could do? Vive la France? He’d never thought Jake was some kind of brain, but really, this stuff he was posting was a new low, even for him. He was, like, a retard, not that you were supposed to say that anymore. A fucking moron.

  Then he came to another photo: Jake and Delphine on the beach, arms wrapped around each other’s waists, squinting slightly from the sun and smiling. Jake wore bright red baggy trunks and a blue bandanna tied around his head, channeling some hippie dude from the sixties. Delphine wore a black bikini bottom . . . and nothing else. Her tits—smallish, perfectly shaped, and capped with delicate little nipples—were out there for anyone and everyone to see. And there were no visible tan lines either. He knew about those beaches where the girls went topless; it was, like, very European. But to think that Delphine would be one of those girls—it just did not compute. Oliver stared at the picture. He knew that it would be gone very quickly; Facebook didn’t allow any nudity on the site. But until it was taken down, he could look as long as he liked. He kept thinking it was a mistake of some kind, that he was not seeing what he was seeing.

  And then he got it: the mistake had been his. He’d been wrong about Delphine, completely and totally wrong. It wasn’t that she was, like, a slut or something. It was just that she was not different, not special. She did not have a rare soul. She was just a girl, prettier than some, cooler than most, with a great accent, and great tits. But his longing for her ended that minute. Game over. Done. He looked long and hard at the picture, as if to memorize it.

  Then he navigated away from the page. He would never look at it again. In fact, he never even wanted to look at this laptop again; it was, like, tainted. He closed it, a practically brand-new MacBook Air, and held it in his hands. Now the living room had started to sway too. He could swear the floor was trembling and the furniture was humming, a low, soft murmur. It was actually kind of a nice sensation. The laptop, though, seemed dangerous, like it was leaking poison gas. He had to get rid of it, make sure he could not see it or touch it again.

  With some effort, he stood and went into his dad’s study. On the desk sat a digital clock whose green numbers glowed with eerie precision: 12:32. There seemed to be some significance in that—it was a new day. Still clutching the laptop, Oliver went to a door that led to a balcony. When his mom was alive, she liked to sit out here early in the morning and “feel the city waking up.” He had not been on that balcony since she died and he didn’t think his dad had either. The lock in the door stuck a little, but he pushed and was able to get it open.

  Outside, there was a breeze, and the fuzzy gray clouds tumbled along like a bunch of wasted kittens. The balcony did not face the street, but the back of the building. This was good. He did not want to hurt anyone. He just wanted to be free of it, free from that picture. The ledge of the balcony was high, but Oliver was tall enough to reach over without straining. He looked down first. As he expected, no one was there. Then he raised the laptop up, like an offering, up and over the ledge. He released his grip and let the thing drop. There was no sound, at least not any he could hear. And it was too dark to see anything. But the act of letting go was a release and his face bloomed in a peaceful smile. The laptop was gone. He felt rinsed with an enormous sense of relief, and calmly, he walked back into the kitchen for yet another tall, cool glass of water.

  THIRTEEN

  Although it was not even eleven o’clock, the August morning was steamy and the streets smelled like ripe garbage. But Jordan didn’t care. Hot, smelly, whatever, she could deal with it. She was here, in her city, in her element, where she truly belonged. In another month, the summer would be over, and she’d have moved up to the next level at SAB; she was so ready she could taste it. She had just finished the advanced ballet class at Dance West and was ambling down Broadway toward the subway. Usually, Alexis would have been with her, but Alexis’s grandmother had gone and died and her parents had made her attend the funeral. So Jordan was alone, and in serious need of a Diet Coke.

  The streets up here were thinning out. People were away—the Hamptons, the Jersey Shore, Cape Cod. Her mom had asked whether she wanted to spend a weekend out in Sag Harbor with Stephen and Misha; they pretty much had an open invitation. But even though Jordan loved her adopted godfathers and had had wonderful weekends with them, she did not want to take time off. Dance West offered classes on Sunday, so she didn’t have to miss even a single day.

  Across the street, she spied a deli and sprinted across Broadway just before the light changed; in her rush, she collided with a boy standing on the corner. “Oh, I’m so sorry!” she said. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

  “That’s okay,” said the boy, who had a head full of blond curls. “Hey, I know you.”

  “You do?” Jordan thought he looked familiar too, but she couldn’t place him.

  “Your mom is Christina, right?”

  “Right,” said Jordan.

  “She’s redecorating our apartment. I met you at that wedding. I’m Oliver.”

  “And I’m Jordan. Your dad—he’s that doctor.” Now, that didn’t sound very nice. “He delivers babies, doesn’t he?” There, that was better.

  “Yeah, and he thinks he walks on water too.”

  Jordan’s hand flew to her mouth and then she realized he was kidding. But it was true—his dad did act like he walked on water.

  “So, like, what are you doing up here? Don’t you live in Brooklyn?” asked Oliver.

  “Dance class,” she said.

  “Do you, like, go every day?”

  “Every day,” she said.

  “Wow,” he said. “You sure are serious.”

  “You have to be serious if you want to succeed,” she said.

  “And you want to. Succeed.” He looked at her intently.

  “More than anything,” she said. “I was just going in to get a soda,” she added. “Do you want one?”
/>   “Me? A soda? Nah. But I’ll come in with you. If it’s okay.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  They went into the deli, where Jordan chose a Diet Coke and Oliver went for some kind of organic juice blend that probably had more than a hundred calories a serving. He insisted on paying for both.

  “So where are you going?” she asked once they were back outside.

  “Home,” he said. “I’m going to walk through the park.”

  “Sweet.”

  “You can come if you want,” he said.

  “I guess I could. Cross the park and take the train on Lexington.” She popped open her soda and took a long drink.

  They entered Central Park at Seventy-second Street. “I love Bethesda Fountain,” Oliver said as they approached it. “I used to come here all the time with my mom.”

  “You miss her,” Jordan said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “How about your dad? Do you miss him?”

  “I hardly remember him,” Jordan said. “You don’t miss what you don’t remember.”

  “My dad’s father disappeared when he was pretty little. He didn’t miss him either.”

  “Disappeared?” Jordan asked. The water rippled out from the center of the fountain in ever-widening circles.

  “He left and my dad hardly ever saw him after that.”

  “Oh,” Jordan said. “Too bad.”

  “Yeah, I sometimes think that’s why he’s such a lousy dad. He didn’t have, like, any role model.”

  “Is he really that bad? I mean, as a dad?”

  “He’s not the worst guy. And he’s a really good doctor. But he forgets that not everyone is his patient, and that he’s not always in charge.”

  Jordan finished her soda and looked for a place to toss the can. When she looked back at Oliver, she saw that he had lit a cigarette. No, not a cigarette. A joint.

  “You’re going to smoke that here? There are people all around,” she said nervously.