“It’s not like I’ve been texting back. I mean, I’m supposed to be kidnapped and everything . . .”
“That makes no difference.” He gave up on my SIM card and threw the whole phone on the ground, shattering the screen instantly. He stomped on it full force with the heel of his shoe, just for good measure, and kicked the pieces into the tomato plants. “And let’s just not talk for a little while, okay?”
In silence, we dug our way out of the garden and made our way back down the alley, past the Chinese restaurant, to the subway.
When we got out of the subway at Seventy-ninth Street, it was noon. I was a little shaken, and my arm was bleeding pretty badly. We got up to the top of the stairs at street level and looked both ways up and down Lexington Avenue. It was business as usual here. People were rushing to the park or to lunch or home to sleep after a big night out. That may be the most exciting thing about New York—the fact that everyone there is doing something totally different. A woman with a $15,000 handbag waited at the light next to a Vietnamese delivery guy on a bike. The richness of it was not lost on me, even at that moment.
John stopped and pulled out his pocketknife from his backpack and sliced off the tails of his button-down shirt. He quickly bandaged my arm with it.
“Too tight,” I complained.
“Too bad,” he replied, putting his arm around me and leading me down Seventy-ninth Street. I wondered how such a beautiful city could be so dirty. And I wondered if we were the dirtiest people in the city. It had been exactly eight days since my last hot shower and nine days since I last shaved my legs. Unfortunately, I’m not one of those girls who just gets the tiniest bit of downy blond fuzz on her lower legs. I’m more like one of those girls who gets a five o’clock shadow on her legs by noon. My need for a razor was becoming a national emergency.
Also, I was starving and cold. I could tell John was still pissed, but his arm was around me and I leaned my head over onto his shoulder as we walked. I was injured, so I could get away with this sort of thing. I was enjoying the sounds of the city, the traffic, the horns, and the shouting. I didn’t want to interrupt it by asking John exactly where we’d be staying. Correction: spending the night.
Just before we got to the end of the long block separating Lexington Avenue from Park Avenue, John steered me into an alleyway. We were wedged between a dry cleaner and a townhouse with a spilled garbage can blocking any further access. John helped me over the garbage can and carefully placed his hands on my shoulders. Gently, he pushed me up against the brick wall of the townhouse. He stood with his chest against mine, his lips at my forehead, and his hands against the wall. I could see his breath as his mouth got closer to mine. I didn’t know where the change of heart was coming from, but, well, it was about time. Sometimes all you need is a near-death experience.
I looked up at him to make the kiss unavoidable. I think in my head I’d already been kissing him since we got off the subway; it was time for him to catch up. But when I looked up, I saw that he wasn’t looking at me at all. He was focused intently on the brick to the left of my ear. Great. I meet the perfect guy, and he’s too shy to kiss me.
“John, it’s okay . . .” I said, encouragingly.
“It . . . is . . . almost . . . okay . . . got it.” I looked over my shoulder at the brick and saw that it was an electronic keypad with a thumbprint reader. Very cool, but where the hell was my kiss? The light flashed green, then flashed faster, until three beeps were followed by a cracking sound.
The exact spot where we were standing moved beneath us and, still leaning against the wall, we were shifted into the building. I couldn’t tell where we were, but it felt like we were in a tiny elevator that was meant only to hold one person. John was holding me tight to make room for the door to close. I’m not normally boy crazy—you should know that about me by now. But this was getting ridiculous. I had no clue where we were, and frankly I did not much care. I looked up at him and touched his face.
More with the talking: “Don’t you want to know where we are?”
I wasn’t about to let go of the face; smelling and touching his skin at the same time was making me a bit dizzy. “Are we where we are spending the night?”
“No, we’re where we’re staying.”
I snapped to reality. “Staying? Do you mean staying? Clean sheets? Minibar?”
“Something like that.” And with that the elevator door opened, and we were there. Where we were staying. The first thing I felt was a gust of warm air. Heat! The entrance (or is it a foyer?) was paneled in a light oak with a black and red Oriental rug and an antique table with a statue of some armless goddess that I couldn’t identify. What I could identify was an original Degas oil painting that I’d studied in school. Where were we?
“You bring a lot of girls here?”
“Just you. I figure you’re over the wall. Plus I am getting sick of sleeping on an air mattress and wasn’t looking forward to showering in a gas station sink tonight.”
Over the wall? Maybe. Over the moon? For sure.
“So you happened to find a magic brick that allows us to break into someone’s townhouse? I’m all for the fancy digs, but aren’t we in enough trouble already?”
A loud gong interrupted me.
Great,
I thought,
here comes the security company, and there goes my night in clean sheets.
John walked into a small den and reached for a phone attached to the mirrored wall of the wet bar. “William? Yeah, hey, it’s me. I know, sorry, they didn’t know I’d be here either. Uh-huh, I’m just in town for a few days. No, I don’t need anything. Well, yeah, I guess. Hang on.” He put his hand over the phone and turned to see me with my mouth hanging open. “Are you more of a steak person or a seafood person?”
“Steak?”
“Okay, a couple of steaks and those good fries you do would be great. Maybe a couple of Coronas, for medicinal purposes.” I got a wink. “And some Cokes and maybe a little . . . hang on. Are you more of a chocolate person or a cheesecake person?”
“Chocolate?” I barely got it out.
“Chocolate cake? Great, thanks so much. No rush. Oh, and I need six large bandages and some rubbing alcohol. And maybe a razor? Okay, bye.”
I wanted to say, “Make that two razors. Stat.” But I couldn’t get it out fast enough. I plopped down on the den’s deep chestnut leather sofa and asked the obvious question: “Where are we?”
John smiled the half smile and picked up a framed photo from over the bar. He handed it to me, and I immediately recognized a ten-year-old John with a young couple who must have been his parents. They were seated under a thatched umbrella at a table overlooking the ocean, maybe the Mediterranean Sea.
“My parents both work for the CIA. That’s why we moved around so much when I was growing up. And every few years, things would get too hot in the Middle East or someone would start to suspect them of spy stuff in Europe, and we’d have to go into hiding. So this is our hideout. No one ever sees us walk in or out of the front door. Our neighbors think William lives here alone, which he does most of the time, but he’s really our butler.”
So this was his house? I spotted the expensive suit on day one, but I never would have taken him for a Manhattan townhouse-owning art collector. “Where are your parents now?”
“I never know. I can’t. There’s a lot of baggage between the FBI and the CIA, and everyone’s listening to everyone all the time. So they call me when they’re between gigs, and I go meet them for a long weekend in Mexico or Costa Rica or somewhere. We are always here for Christmas. No one knows about this place—not the CIA, not the FBI, nobody.”
I walked around the den, shamelessly picking up photos and examining them for more information. The photos all seemed normal enough but not. John was six years old with his soccer team, but they were in Tanzania. John was riding a bike, maybe for the first time, but the street is cobblestone. The Christmas photos were all taken in this house, around the fire with stockings and a tree and the works. They seemed as happy and normal as my family, not caring at all that they were hiding out.
John had moved into the living room and was making a fire. I plopped onto the huge brown velvet sofa, kicked off my boots, and surveyed the grandeur. Everything was beautiful but nothing was frilly. Everything went together but nothing matched. The room did not look like something from a magazine, where a gifted designer had assembled beautiful fabrics and rugs to create a particular feeling. This room was decidedly less deliberate, where everything seemed to have meaning and a history. The room, like the family itself, was a collection of countries and experiences. An antique French chair had a handmade African blanket tossed on the back. An asymmetrical crystal bowl from the Czech Republic dwarfed the coffee table. This room quietly told the story of John’s family, of where they’d been and what they’d chosen to take with them. It was a little like my bedroom, where the bumper stickers told the story of who I was becoming. Okay, it may be as personal as my room, but the similarities ended there. This room said:
Yeah, this all cost a bundle, but feel free to sit anywhere, put your drink down, and enjoy.
I planned to do just that.
Dinner came up through a dumbwaiter. “Just like old times,” John said as he pulled out our steaks on china dishes, our Cokes in crystal glasses, a silver bucket filled with Coronas, and perfectly ironed linen napkins.
“Not exactly.”
“Listen, promise me you’re not going to pull anything like that cell phone stunt again. People who are famous for killing people are trying to kill us. And that could have been how they found us. We have to be totally honest with each other, deal?” I nodded. “Let me take care of your arm.” John sat down next to me in front of the fire. He untied his shirt-tail bandage and revealed a fairly nasty cut. I looked away, but he was unfazed. He took some rubbing alcohol and started to clean it. I winced because it hurt like hell. John kept talking to me in a doctor’s voice. “That’s it, just one more second . . . Let me dry it up and then—there you go—all bandaged. Are you okay?” He was so close to me that it hurt a little. I looked down to avoid his eyes, knowing that if he saw how I was feeling, I’d have to endure another I-don’t-like-you-that-way speech. I wasn’t going down that road again.
I scooted over to the coffee table covered with food. We ate in silence, occasionally looking up at each other to smile at our good fortune. We were both starving and tired and happy to be temporarily warm and safe. I slowed down a little when I got halfway through my steak. “So who were your friends growing up?”
“No one, really. I made friends wherever we stayed, but then we’d move and I couldn’t exactly leave a forwarding address. When we lived in France, I was Mark; when we were in Iran, I was Dominic. I spent a lot of time mastering how not to be myself, so my friendships were pretty superficial. I mean not being able to be honest with anyone and not being able to let them know you at all—it’s a pretty weird way to grow up.”
“Tell me about it.” I laughed. “Did it ever get better?”
“I decided to go to boarding school in Connecticut at thirteen, and my parents were happy that I would have a more normal life. They came for parents’ weekend when they could, and I’d spend summers in Martha’s Vineyard with my aunt and her kids or at our house in Connecticut.”
“You have another bat cave in Connecticut?”
“No, that house is actually public knowledge. It’s our official address. But it’s very carefully designed not to reveal too much about us. Everything in it was chosen by a decorator, and my mom hates it. This place is more personal.”
And personal it was. John was still the same guy I’d been in captivity with, but seeing him against this backdrop opened him up. It added a dimension to him that was a bit deeper and explained why he was so unavailable. I could tell he was still a little hesitant to have me here.
“Did you make friends in boarding school?” I was dipping my last French fry in a tiny crystal bowl of ketchup.
“Yes and no. I was a little out of it socially because I’d spent so little time in the States. I knew nothing about the music they were listening to or the TV shows they were watching. I’d smuggle all the teen magazines I could find into my room and study them for all the popular culture I’d missed. I got pretty good at smiling and nodding like I knew what people were talking about.” He was laughing a little as he remembered. “Typical oddball teenager trying to fit in. It was sort of pathetic.”
“Been there.” I was trying to take small bites of my cake to make it last.
“What? You’re so . . . well, except for the . . . Yeah, that must be kind of weird.”
“It’s a little more than weird. In middle school I was a total outcast. They called me Digit.”
John laughed a little longer than I thought was polite. “Digit? It’s so perfect for you. So much better than Farrah.”
“Yeah, thanks. My brother thinks the same thing. He hasn’t called me Farrah since I was eleven. I’ve been a dork since I was little; he thinks I should just embrace it.”
“
De pequenino se torce o pepino.
The Portuguese say: ‘From very small the cucumber is bent.’ When you’re born, you are already shaped, nerd or not.”
“‘Bent’ is probably a pretty good way to describe me.” I was wiping the last crumbs of chocolate cake off of my plate with my finger and suddenly felt really vulnerable. If I was so crazy about this guy, why was I telling him what a loser I am? “Did you like learning a new language every year, or was it just survival?”
“I loved it. Languages come really easily to me, obviously, but more than that I felt like really understanding a language helped me to understand the people there. It was like something I could hold on to when I left. Just listening to their idioms tells you so much about what they value. Most cultures have idioms that are based in nature, like the cucumber thing, to describe the human experience. Like we are no different from the soil and the trees. It’s kind of like your thing with numbers, looking into a big messy language to find some logical link to our roots. I find it kind of relaxing.” He looked away like he thought maybe he’d said too much.