As I was on the verge of a useless bout of self-pity, I decided to go over to the buffet table to get a tumbler of fruit punch.
A different song came on at some point, a slower one, and that was when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
‘Miss Balanchine,’ Win said.
I turned around. His eyes were bright and almost sheepish.
For some reason, having heard his music made me feel awkward around him. ‘I’m glad you came over. I really liked . . . You play well.’ Not my most eloquent moment, to say the least.
‘Dance with me,’ Win said. ‘I know I’m probably making a fool of myself. You’re probably thinking, how many times do I have to reject this guy? Can’t he take a hint?’
I shook my head.
‘But somehow I don’t even care. I see you in your red dress, standing by the punch table, and something in me wants to keep trying. I think, she is a person worth knowing.’
‘You’re here with someone else,’ I pointed out.
‘Alison? Alison’s a friend,’ he said. ‘My parents have known her parents for years. I’m doing her a favour. Her dad doesn’t like her boyfriend so I’m keeping them off his trail.’
‘That’s not how it looked to me,’ I said.
‘Come on,’ Win said. ‘Dance with me. There’s only half a song left. What harm can it do?’
‘No,’ I said, and then because I didn’t want him to think badly of me, I added, ‘I wish I could, but I can’t.’
I walked out of the gymnasium and into the hallway to get my coat. Scarlet would have to find her way home without me. Win followed me.
‘What does that mean?’ he asked. ‘I don’t understand you.’
I couldn’t get my arm in my left sleeve for some reason. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘let me help.’ He leaned across my body and guided my arm into the sleeve.
‘I don’t want your help,’ I said, but it was too late. I felt somehow outside my body. I knew no good would come of it, but I rose up and kissed him on the mouth.
His lips were sweet and salty. It took a second for them to respond to mine. But dear God, when they did!
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’
‘That’s a terrible thing to say,’ Win said.
And then I ran out the front doors of the school and into the brisk November air.
The weird thing was, I had meant to run out by myself, but somehow I had grabbed Win’s hand.
We ended up back at my apartment.
We kissed for a while in the living room, and if I’m honest (God forgive me!), I wouldn’t have minded if it had gone further. But I wasn’t that kind of girl and, thankfully, Win wasn’t that kind of boy either.
We stayed up all night talking about nothing in particular.
And then the sun came up, and because I liked him as much as I did, I knew I had to talk about something very particular with him: i.e. his father.
‘I like you,’ I said.
‘Good,’ he said.
‘I want to tell you a story,’ I said.
He said he liked stories, and I replied maybe not this one. And then I told him about the day I met his father.
Win’s eyes narrowed and their colour seemed to change from a clear blue sky to twilight just before a hurricane. ‘I don’t give a damn what he thinks or says, Anya,’ Win said.
But I doubted that was true. ‘I care what he thinks,’ I said. ‘I have to.’ I explained how I didn’t want any heat brought down on my family. Unlike Scarlet, Win didn’t say I was being ridiculous for thinking that was a possibility. ‘So that’s why we can’t be together.’
Win considered this. ‘I’m really sorry he said that to you, but screw my father. Seriously, screw him,’ he said. ‘What I do is none of his business.’
‘But it is, Win. I see his point.’
Win kissed me then, and for the moment at least I stopped seeing Charles Delacroix’s point.
It was nearly 7.30 a.m. Still clad in her pyjamas, Natty emerged from her bedroom. ‘How was the dance, Annie?’ Then she noticed Win. ‘Oh!’
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘He was just leaving,’ I said.
Win stood, and I pushed him out of the door and to the elevator.
‘Let’s go see my father right now,’ Win said in a tone that I couldn’t quite identify as serious or joking.
‘And tell him what?’
‘That our love is too strong for him to suppress it!’
‘I don’t love you yet, Win,’ I told him.
‘Ah, but you will.’
‘I have a better idea,’ I said. ‘Let’s keep this a secret until we know if it’s serious. Why sound the alarms if we don’t even end up liking each other all that much anyway?’
‘Hmmph,’ Win said. ‘I think you might be the least romantic girl I’ve ever met.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’ I laughed. ‘I’m just being practical.’
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Practical it is.’
The elevator came, and he was gone, and, truthfully, I felt the least practical I’d ever felt in my life.
Inside the apartment, Natty was waiting for me. ‘What was that?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘It sure looked like something,’ said my little sister.
‘You’re imagining things,’ I told her. ‘Now what do you want for breakfast?’
‘Eggs,’ she said. ‘And a love story if you’ve got one, Annie. A really sappy, romantic one with tons of kissing and stuff.’
I ignored her. ‘Eggs it is.’
‘Have you told Scarlet?’ Natty asked.
‘No, because there’s nothing to tell,’ I said.
‘It sure looked like something,’ Natty repeated.
‘You already said.’ I cracked two eggs and began to scramble them. Natty was still looking at me expectantly. Her eyes were moist and shiny as a dog’s, and something about the sweet anticipation of her expression made me want to laugh and confess. Life hadn’t been easy for Natty either – everything that had happened to me had happened to her, too. It was a beautiful thing how innocent and generous she still was, how much she cared if her older sister was having a romance. ‘I like him, all right?’
‘You
looove
him!’
I poured the eggs into the pan. ‘And you have to promise that you won’t tell anyone. Not Nana or Leo or Scarlet or anyone!’
‘I liked him from the first time I met him,’ Natty said happily. ‘What was kissing him like?’
‘How do you know I even kissed him?’
‘I just do,’ Natty said. ‘You look all pink and . . . and kissed. You’ve got to tell me. He’s got those soft-looking lips.’
I laughed. ‘It was good, OK?’
‘That is not very descriptive,’ Natty said.
‘Well, that’s all you’re going to get.’ As I put her eggs on the table, I noticed a bruise on her right forearm. ‘What’s that?’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I don’t know. I probably banged it in the night.’
‘Does it hurt?’
Natty shrugged. ‘I had a nightmare, only a little one. I didn’t even have to wake you up. Maybe I hit it against the wall? When are you going to see Win again?’
‘Maybe never. Maybe he won’t ever call. Boys sometimes act like they like you and then never call, Natty.’
At that moment, our phone rang. It was Win.
‘You got home fast,’ I said.
‘I ran,’ he said. ‘I wanted to talk to you before you changed your mind about things. Can I see you tonight?’
Part of me thought it might not be such a great idea to see Win again so soon, but that part of me was curiously mute. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Come over tonight.’
‘I want to take you somewhere,’ he said.
‘Where?’ I asked.
‘It’ll be a surprise.’
I told him that I still thought it would be a good idea if we kept our relationship a secret.
‘I know and I agree,’ he said. ‘But you don’t have to worry. Where I’m taking you, no one will know us.’
We rode the subway out to the furthest stop in Brooklyn, which was Coney Island. When we got off the train, there was a weathered boardwalk and an ominous cluster of nonoperational amusement park rides that looked like colourful spiders.
‘Oh, I know this place!’ I said. My parents had taken me and Leo here the summer before it had been closed by the city. (Something to do with an infectious outbreak. Or maybe it had been power-grid issues. I had been too young to remember.) ‘Nothing runs any more.’
‘Not quite nothing,’ he said, taking my hand. He led me down the boardwalk. I could hear voices in the distance, and I could see that a small kiddie Ferris wheel was lit up.
‘Someone reported this to the DA last week,’ Win said. ‘These people built an illegal generator and have enough power to run a different ride every Saturday. My dad doesn’t care about them. The city has bigger problems. You’ve heard his stump speech.’
‘I have. Unfortunately. But I will say that he did seem like he wanted to make a difference.’
‘The only thing he wants is self-advancement.’
The ride operator greeted us. ‘I just need to warn you that this ride has not been inspected and you may get, for lack of a better word, killed.’
Win looked at me. I shrugged.
‘So long as you know,’ the operator reiterated.
‘Not a bad way to die,’ Win said. I agreed.
Win gave the operator money, and we got on the Ferris wheel. I’d never been on one before. We sat side by side, though it was actually a sort of tight squeeze as this particular ride had been built for children and, though I’m reasonably petite, my behind is generously sized. I was self-conscious about the way my rear was pushing into his, but then he put his arm around my shoulders to make more room, and I stopped thinking about my butt.
It was peaceful on the Ferris wheel. It took forever to get started because the operators waited until the whole thing was loaded to run it. The November air was cold and I could smell something burning in the distance. Win had put on aftershave and it was minty, though not quite strong enough to cover the scent of burning.
I didn’t much feel like talking, and Win seemed to understand that.
At some point, the wheel made it to the top. I could see water and darkness and land and beyond that the skyline of Manhattan, where I had spent my whole sad life. I wished I could stay up there forever. Everything awful happened on land. There was safety in elevation.
‘I wish I could stay up here forever,’ Win said.
I leaned over and I kissed him. The metal basket we were in began to sway and squeak.
The only person I told was Natty. I didn’t even tell Scarlet. Scarlet was much occupied with being Lady Macbeth. (Hecate turned out to be a far less demanding role.) If she noticed that Win had begun eating lunch with us again, she didn’t remark on it. In addition to the play, Scarlet was busy with a romance of her own – Garrett Liu, who was playing Macduff.
At school, Win and I made sure never to be seen alone. Scarlet was usually with us, and I never waited for him by his locker or anywhere else.
Win and I were still lab partners in FS II, and this was probably the most exquisitely torturous hour of my day. I wanted to touch him, to hold his hand under the lab table, to write him a note, but I never did. I knew that our relationship could not continue if our peers started to know about it or to talk about it. Once that happened it would surely get back to Win’s father, and I didn’t think our silly teenage love affair would survive that.
So, it was torture.
Yet, for as long as it went on, the keeping of the secret was sort of thrilling in its way.
The school day before the opening night of
Macbeth,
Scarlet had to go to an additional rehearsal so Win and I were left at the lunch table by ourselves. It would have been strange for us not to eat together as everyone knew that was where he usually sat. Still, I suggested that we go eat with his friends in the band, but he thought it would be better if we just stuck to the usual routine.
That lunch seemed to stretch on forever. Being with him and yet not with him was unpleasant. To be alone and yet not alone. We spoke of the play, his band, the weather, our plans for the holidays, and other safe subjects, as if fearful that discussing anything more interesting would reveal more than we wished to reveal. The wooden tables were narrow, and at some point I felt his knee push up against my knee. I moved my knee, but his knee followed. I shook my head, only slightly, and narrowed my eyes. At that moment, Chai Pinter from our FS II class sat down next to Win. ‘Hi, Win,’ she said. ‘Annie.’ She began to chatter stupidly about some concert she and her set of friends were going to over the holidays. I could barely pay attention because she kept touching Win a lot. I mean, a lot. One moment, her hand was on his hand. The next, it was on his shoulder. The next, she was brushing his hair behind his ear. It was all I could do not to reach across the table and strangle her with my bare hands. I took a deep breath and coaxed myself back from the dark side.
‘So do you want to go?’ she asked. ‘Because I’ve got an extra ticket. I mean, it’s a big group of us, so it’s not like a boy-girl thing . . . I mean, unless you want it to be?’
Was this happening? Was I watching someone ask my boyfriend, albeit my secret boyfriend, on a date in front of me? I wondered if perhaps we had done too good a job of covering our tracks. Again, I had an impulse to reach across the table, only this time it was Win I wanted to grab. I wanted to kiss him on the mouth in front of everyone and mark him as mine, mine, mine.
‘No, sorry,’ Win was saying. ‘It’s a really nice invitation but my girlfriend wouldn’t like it.’
‘Oh,’ Chai said, ‘you mean Alison Wheeler? She said that was just a friends thing.’
‘No. From my old school. It’s long-distance.’ Win lied so easily that I almost wondered if he actually did have a girlfriend at his old school. At that moment, the bell rang, and Win stood to leave. ‘See you around, Chai.’ He nodded at me. ‘Annie.’
‘Long-distance girlfriend, huh?’ Chai said to me. ‘Well, those never last.’
‘I don’t know,’ I muttered. Then I grabbed my books and tore out of the cafeteria. I ran down the hall and in the direction of Win’s sixth period, which had changed to English. I knew I could be late to my own sixth period because that was Beery, and Beery was in the theatre, finishing the play. I tapped Win on the shoulder. ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘Could I have a word with you?’
He nodded, and I led him into a storage closet that was next to the school theatre, and then I kissed him.
Kissed
sounds so much more tame than what it was. I pressed my body up against his, and then I stuck my tongue in his mouth as deep as it would go, and then I put my arms around him. ‘I’m tired of this being a secret,’ I said.