Burnout (9 page)

I must have called her. Or she called me. However it started, we met up, and we used, and now all the promises I’ve made have been broken, and something is really, really wrong. I’m not sure I can bear the weight of hating myself this much again. How could I do that? How could I be so weak? She must have begged me to meet up with her. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe I begged her. Called her alone from my empty apartment, crying and pleading with her to see me.
I’m so sorry, Seemy. I’m so sorry!
Dr. Friedman lied to me. She said I was strong enough to do this. But I’m not. I’m not strong enough at all.

I walk faster.

By the time I get back to our building, I’m freezing again.

Chuck’s on the phone, and I practically drop the pizza box in his lap. He takes it from me, shouldering the phone and glaring at me. I shake my hands and rub them together, trying to get the feeling back. “
It’s cold!
” I whisper to him in apology.

He mouths the words
Give me my change!
I hold up my hands, showing him that they’re empty, and whisper
loudly, “If you wanted change, you shouldn’t have sent me for tourist pizza!”

Duke’s isn’t far, only on Eighth Street, but I’m so cold I can’t bear the thought of walking the ten blocks. And I’ve started to shake so much I’m not sure that I’d make it without falling over on the sidewalk, a quivering, shivering mess.

I jump the subway turnstile without paying and wait on the edge of the subway platform. At least it’s slightly warmer once I’m underground. My shivering slows down to just the occasional full-body shudder. I stare down at the subway tracks, and my vision blurs a little. I back away to lean against the wall.

There’s a woman in a business suit and heels standing next to me. It’s one of those suits with a narrow skirt, her legs bare. She must be freezing. Out of the corner of my eye I see her pull a white folded handkerchief from her satchel and pat her forehead with it. I try not to stare, but is she
sweating
? She must be ill.

She looks at me and smiles. “It’s boiling down here. You’d think they’d fix the heat so they don’t fry us to death before winter even gets here.”

I nod and try to smile. I look furtively around us and see dozens of moist faces, jackets taken off and slung over
arms. One woman pulls at the neck of her blouse, trying to create a breeze.

I am freezing to death, and everyone else is on fire.

I pull my hat down farther, shielding my ears from the blasts of hot air that only seem to chill me.

S
eemy and I always said that the discovery of the Vegetarian Dim Sum House was the official start of our best-friendship.

We’d hung out a bunch of times before, and were growing closer and closer, but it wasn’t until that brutally hot summer day that things felt like they really clicked into place. We were down on Canal Street because Seemy had heard there was a place we could get matching sets of brass knuckles with our names on them. I don’t know
why
she thought we could find them down there, and I warned her Canal Street was the most annoying place in the city, especially in summer, and I would rather gouge my own
eyes out than go there. Canal Street is in Chinatown, but I think it gives Chinatown a bad name. Canal Street is a ten-block stretch of street filled on both sides with tiny stores selling chintsy scarves and junky jewelry and cheap electronics. But the real reason tourists flock to Canal Street like cockroaches to a bagel crumb is the illegal knockoffs. Chanel, Prada, Gucci, Fendi. Purses, scarves, watches, wallets, whatever. I hated it.
Hated
it. But Seemy pouted and said she really, really wanted to go, so I gave in.

So we walked down to Canal Street, and just like I’d said it would be, the place was filthy with tourists moving slower than snails, loaded down with black plastic bags filled with contraband knockoff purses that they’d bought with thumping hearts in the back rooms of the storefronts that lined the street. And worse, every five seconds some sketchy-looking guy would walk up to us and say in a low voice, “Gucci, Prada, Birkin,” wanting us to follow him into those same back rooms to buy crappy knockoffs.

Worse still, it was
hot
, just ridiculously, stupidly HOT.

And then one of those creepy, whispering purse guys actually
touched
my arm to try and get me to stop, and I lost it. I know this city is filled to bursting with people, and sure, you’re constantly bumping into each other, but there’s an unspoken rule, the reason that people don’t go postal and kill each other every other minute. We’re crowded, but we
don’t touch each other unless we have to. Unless someone’s on fire or about to step in front of a bus, you can count on the fact that no one is going to reach out and make contact.

But this guy did.

“Don’t you touch me!” I screamed in his face. “Do I look like a goddamn tourist to you?” My whole body was shaking, and I thought for a second that I wanted to hit him, that I wanted to punch him right in the nose, and it seemed like such a good idea that I was afraid I might actually do it. So instead I screamed at him again, just screamed right in his face hoping to blow his ears right off his head, and then I grabbed Seemy’s arm and pulled her across the street. We got yelled at by the traffic cop and kept walking down one side street and then another until we were on a narrow street shaded by buildings.

“Nan,
stop
!” Seemy was laughing, but I could tell she was freaked out. I still had her wrist, but she stopped walking, dug in her heels, and I let her drag me to a stop. “It’s
okay
, Nan, seriously, it’s okay.”

I didn’t even realize I was crying until she handed me the napkin that’d been wrapped around her iced coffee. It was soaked with condensation from the cup, but it felt good on my face.

“It’s just . . .” I hiccupped. “It’s so
hot
!” And then I turned to look at the window of the restaurant we were standing in
front of. It had this giant aquarium filled with gray, bulbous fish with bulging eyes. “And what the hell is wrong with those fish!” They were so slimy and looked so soft, like they were about to fall apart, and all of a sudden I thought I was going to be sick, so I ran into the restaurant next door and asked if I could use the bathroom. I barely even waited for a yes, just bolted for the back of the narrow dining room. I didn’t actually throw up in the bathroom, just sat on the can until I stopped crying. I washed my face in the sink, and they were out of paper towels, so I dried it on my shirt.

When I came out, Seemy was sitting at a table. She grabbed my arm and pulled me into the seat next to her, laughing and whispering, “Oh my God, the bathroom’s for customers only! I think we
have
to eat here now or they’ll call the police!”

“What?” I laughed. “Says who?”

“The owner lady at the front!” Seemy hissed, still cracking up. “Don’t look, don’t look!”

“Oh my God, you are such a country mouse,” I groaned, poking her in the ribs. “All restaurants say that, but they can’t, like,
legally
make you eat.”

Her face went from happy to glum.

I’d forgotten that she was kind of sensitive about the whole country mouse thing, so I said, “I’m starving, though, so let’s eat.”

“I thought you just puked.”

“Nope, false alarm. What is this place, anyway?”

“Vegetarian dim sum, apparently,” she answered coldly, not looking up from the menu.

Of course, when we retold the story to my mom and her mom and whoever else would listen, we left out the country mouse part. We just talked about how we didn’t realize that each dim sum item we ordered off the menu came with at least four pieces, so we ordered way too much, and the waiters kept coming out of the kitchen one after another with trays stacked with bamboo steamers filled with delicious dumplings stuffed with mock pork or spinach or banana. They had names like Treasure Boxes and Treasure Balls, and at first when we started eating, we were happy that the waiters kept coming with more and we were laughing at our good food fortune.

But then we started to get full, and they just kept coming with more and more food, and then all of the doughy, fake-meat goodness felt like it had expanded in our stomachs, and by the end we just sat there with glazed eyes, rubbing our bellies and groaning while the waiters laughed at us.

After that we were there at least twice a week for the rest of the summer.

D
uke’s is your typical 1950s-themed diner crammed with calculated nostalgia. Chrome-wrapped countertop, do-wop on the jukebox, waiters in white paper hats, waitresses dressed for a sock hop. The walls are carefully cluttered with tin signs advertising drive-ins, Route 66, and soda fountains. It’s way overpriced, but it’s open all night and it’s close to Saint Marks, so it became our unofficial home base, at least until we found the carriage house. The best part of so many nights with Seemy was rolling into Duke’s at three in the morning, both of our moms thinking we were sleeping over at the other’s apartment. Toad, the dangling participle, would be there
too. We’d be sobering up a little, realizing we hadn’t eaten for hours, that our feet hurt and we had to pee, and that we were in danger of getting sleepy.

We’d pool our money and get a giant plate of disco fries, and vanilla Cokes for Seemy and me, and root beer for Toad. I was never so happy as I was sitting in a booth next to Seemy, singing along with the music, teasing Toad. When we left, the sun would just be coming up, and we’d realize we had four or five hours until we could go home to pass out. Toad always offered to let us sleep at his place, but even Seemy thought that was a bad idea. She and I would take these marathon walks all over Manhattan. If we were really tired, we’d get on the L train and sleep as it went from one end of the line to the other.

When I walk into Duke’s, Edie is at the far end of the counter. Her hair is shorter, she’s gotten coppery highlights, but otherwise she looks the same. She rushes over to greet me.

“OH, HELL NO!” she yells as soon as I sit down at the counter. “Get your ass up off my stool!”

My mouth falls open, but no words come out.

“I swear to God I am so pissed I could kill you, do you know that?” She slaps her hand on the counter in front of me so hard her horn-rimmed glasses fall off her head, skid off the counter, and clack to the ground next to me. I bend
over to pick them up. “Leave them!” she yells. “I just want you to get the hell out of here!”

We have the full attention of everyone else in the restaurant now. Dale, the cook, is standing in the entrance to the kitchen, like he’s waiting to see if she needs backup.

“I’m . . . I’m sorry,” I tell her, slipping off the stool. “I don’t know what . . .” I trail off.

She sighs loudly, and then, as if it’s against her better judgment, she snaps, “You don’t know what?”

My voice is husky, fighting back tears. I keep my eyes on the metal creamer on the counter. “I don’t know what happened last night. I don’t know why you’re mad at me. But I’m sorry. For whatever I did. I’m really, really sorry.”

I look up when Edie groans. “You weren’t acting like yourself, that’s for damn sure.”

Everyone is still staring at us. Edie looks around and snaps, “Go back to your pie!”

They do. Then she looks at me and sighs. “Would you get my goddamn glasses, please?”

I bend over to pick them up, and by the time I’m sitting again, she’s put a glass of ginger ale in front of me. She leans on the counter, stares at me. “Go on and drink. You look a little green around the gills.”

I sip the soda, wait to see if it stays down, and then sip again.

“You weren’t yourself last night,” Edie says. “I could tell that right off. You and your little friend didn’t even say hello to me. You just followed those creeps to a booth in the back. Both of you looking like prom queens from hell.” She glowers at me. “I can see you decided to keep the look. What were you two doing with guys like that?”

I look at her blankly. “Guys?”

“You really don’t remember?” she asks.

I shake my head.

I don’t want to go down this rabbit hole. I don’t want to know what happened. But Seemy . . . what about Seemy?

“What guys?” I make myself ask. And then I add hopefully, “Was one of them Toad, that gangly kid we used to come in here with?”

“No, haven’t seen that kid for ages. Not sure who these guys were. I’d never seen them before. Seedy-looking dudes, though, older guys. My age. I’ve never met your mama, but I can bet you she wouldn’t want you hanging out with them.”

Ask the next question, Nan.
“How many?”

“Two guys and the two of you. I kicked you out.”

“Why’d you kick us out?”

She narrows her eyes at me, and for a second I think she’s going to throw me out all over again. “You came in looking like zombies, your eyes were all messed up, like they are
now. Weird dress, messed-up face paint. You looked like you’d been crying, and you went straight to the bathroom. Your little friend followed you. You stayed in there for so long I was about to come look for you, but then you came out and sat down with the two creeps. One of them got up and moved and made sure the two of you were sitting between them. Made sure you couldn’t get out. I didn’t like that. Not one bit. You and your little friend just sat there staring at the burgers they’d ordered for you. The two guys were having a great time. They were punching each other, really hard, so hard they were bruising, and one of them was bleeding and laughing about it. I was afraid you were going to get hit. They broke a few glasses, hit the booth so hard it cracked away from the wall. Tore the high-quality vinyl seat.” She smirks a little. “They scared the other customers. Scared me. I went into the kitchen to get Lenny so he could help me kick them out. I was going to get you girls to stay here so I could call your moms. Lenny told the guys to leave, they refused, but I was ready for that. I showed them I was dialing 911 and that did it. They left. But they took you with them. They slung their arms over you like you were going to prom or something, and I grabbed your friend’s arm and said, ‘You don’t have to go with them,’ and she just looked at me and she looked . . . scared, you know? Really scared. And then I tried to grab you, but you
said, ‘I’m going with her,’ and that was it. You were gone.” She stares blankly at me for a second and then shudders, takes my glass. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” She squints at me. “Though, I’m not sure if you are really okay.”