The Museum of Heartbreak (10 page)

“Not whatever I say—what you're suggesting is just wrong. Take it back.”

She rounded the corner to the dining room, turned back, and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“Take. It. Back.”

Eph's arm was balanced against a door frame, and he was leaning over a girl dressed as Annie Hall, wearing a men's vest, tie, and fedora. Wisps of long strawberry-blond hair trailed out from under her hat; a tiny nose piercing sparkled from the light of the dining-room chandelier. Her hand was resting on Eph's elbow and she kept laughing at whatever he was saying.

It was the Elf Queen.

“Guess who's interrupting one of Eph's many hookups . . . ,” Audrey sang under her breath to me as she swept us in between the couple.

“Hey, Eph,” I said, more than a little embarrassed that we were cutting in.

“Pen, Audrey, long time no see,” he said, reluctantly dragging his
eyes away from the willowy girl.

Audrey's theory was clearly ridiculous.

The Elf Queen leaned over, stretching out her hand to us. “I'm Mia.”

“Yeah, I know—I was there when you guys met,” I said, irritated that she hadn't registered my existence.

“Ohhh, you were the one who pushed Ephraim over!”

So she had noted my existence.

“It was an accident.”

“Hmmm, okay, whatever you say?” Mia said in a voice as sweet as perfect tiny pink flowers, all honey and lightness, a tone I personally thought was inappropriate to adopt when you were clearly implying someone was officially a shover-over-er.

“Nice to meet you,” Audrey said, extending her hand in return.

“Ephraim talks about you guys all the time,” Mia said eagerly.

“Mia's an artist too,” Eph said.

“Ephraim's an aaaaamazing artist,” Mia said, tilting her head up at him, touching his elbow lightly again.

“Oh, for God's sake,” I muttered to myself. “Why are
you
here?” I asked her.

Audrey elbowed me, whispering “Rude!”

Mia either ignored or totally missed my tone. “Keats and I know each other from grade school,” she said brightly.

Was Keats childhood friends with
everyone
?

Right then, from behind, a body slammed into me, and I spilled what was left of the beer down my shirt.

“Crap!”

“Penny! I'm so sorry!” Cherisse slurred, and tottered in front of me,
swaying so far to the right I thought she might keep going. Eph grabbed under her arm, straightening her out.

She belched. “Ooops!”

“Nice one,” Eph said.

Mia handed me napkins, and I started to blot the beer across my chest.

Cherisse grabbed Audrey's shoulder. “I can't find Keats!” she said, giving a pouty frown. “He was just next to me.”

“Where is he?” I blurted without thinking, and clapped my hand over my mouth.

Audrey glanced over at me, confused.

“Um, I think he's right over there?” Mia said, pointing over Cherisse's shoulder.

I couldn't help it: I spun around as fast as Cherisse, only to see what seemed like the back of Keats's head as he pushed through the people in the living room toward the steps.

Simply seeing him made me feel all pinprickly and warm, my heart clumsy and oversize.

Cherisse swayed tipsily. “Where? I donna see him.”

“I could have sworn he was right over there . . .” Mia craned her neck.

“Pen, can you help me with Cherisse?” Audrey asked pointedly, inclining her head toward the kitchen.

I was losing my chance with Keats. My eyes darted to Eph's, and in that moment I knew he could see the secret parts inside me, the token over my heart, the fleeting lives of the stars in my sky.

“Mia and I'll help,” Eph said immediately. He wrapped an arm
around the other side of Cherisse's waist and started walking toward the kitchen. Cherisse belched again, eliciting another admiring “nice one” from Eph.

“I'll get her some water,” Mia said, rushing ahead.

Audrey opened her mouth like she wanted to say something more, but at that second Cherisse nearly plowed into the wall. Audrey grabbed her more firmly, moving toward the kitchen, as Eph met my eyes, patted his hand to his heart.

Good luck,
he mouthed.

I put my hand to my heart like he did, feeling the Bearded Lady's token glowing warm.

Time to find Keats.

I SMELLED CHERISSE'S SPILLED BEER
on my shirt, and my lips still felt weirdly throbby, and all the drunk, sweaty people were making me feel claustrophobic. But the token was beating against my heart, powering me forward.

Unfortunately, the second-floor hallway was as crowded and socially challenging as downstairs. There was a line of people waiting distractedly in front of a door—the bathroom, I guessed. A guy with nerdy art glasses stared right through me with bloodshot eyes, and feeling bold, I scowled right back. He blanched, and I felt momentarily pleased and then guilty.

I didn't see Keats. This was terrible.

I turned to the first door in the hall and opened it like I knew where I was going, slid into the dim room, and shut the door behind me with a satisfying click.

I leaned against the door, taking in my surroundings.

The bedroom had hardwood floors, and there was cool silver light from the big full moon spilling across an unmade bed. I saw a book poster for
On the Road
, and a bunch of sports trophies on a shelf. I was guessing it was Keats's room. But the most intriguing thing in it? The far wall: a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf packed with books and only books, books with wrinkled and cracked spines, books filled with thousands and thousands of words. I walked over and picked a random one from the shelf—
Franny and Zooey
by J. D. Salinger.

Someone cleared his throat. “What book found you?”

Busted.

“Oh, I'm sorry! I shouldn't be here—I'm sorry, I just . . .” I tried to shove the book back on the shelf, but my hands had suddenly lost all normal functioning skills, and I fumbled it onto the floor, hastily picked it up, tried to shove it back in, failed, and then spun around and faced the voice, smiling like I wasn't some random uncoordinated book-thieving person.

Sitting on the floor in the dark corner across from me was Keats, disheveled in a twenties-style gangster suit, tie loosened, a silver flask in hand.

He wrinkled his eyebrows. “Huh. You're here? It's you.”

If this were a cartoon, my heart would have pounded out of my chest, all
AOOGA!
Instead my fingers sprang open and the book thunked on the floor. Again.

“Easy there, Scout.”

I picked it up and hastily and unceremoniously jammed it in a new spot. “I'm sorry. I'm a klutz. I'll go,” I said, heading to the door.

“You don't have to leave, you know,” he said, and oh God, his
smile was deep and dark, like a thousand books begging to be read, like the doorway to Narnia. “Come over.” He patted the wooden floor next to him.

I blinked three times. This was happening.

I took careful steps through the moonlight over to him, thinking
be cool
thinking
don't fall
thinking
don't blow it
thinking
seize the day,
and slid down against the wall, pushing aside a stack of books and papers and folding my skirt and Docs under me.

He offered me his flask.

“Sure,” I said, and took a small sip, and it burned a river so far into me, I felt it in my fingertips. I tried not to cough and mostly succeeded, stifling a throat tickle when I handed it back. “Thanks.”

“Of course.”

He took a swig, and I saw his eyelashes silhouetted in the moonlight. Long. He was wearing two different socks again: the left a black sock with tiny Christmas trees, the right a tan one with alphabet letters all over it.

“You're the girl with the comic book, right? I'm the worst, but remind me of your name again?”

“You're not the worst,” I said. And then, “Penelope.”

“Penelope,” he echoed. “The girl who reads comics.”

He studied me, moving closer, his face inscrutable, inches from mine, and I felt my breath catch inside me.

He smelled like red hot candy, things that burned your tongue.

“I don't always read comics,” I started to say, when he held his finger up.

“Wait.” He turned and started rooting through a pile of books next to his bed, then passed me a weathered paperback. My fingertips
skimmed his and I felt the hundredths of millimeters of possibility between us, and my whole body shivered.

“You should read this instead,” he said. “It's fucking incredible.”

I held it in my hands:
On the Road
by Jack Kerouac. The cover was wrinkled like someone had spilled something on it, and the pages were covered in black ballpoint underlined phrases with exclamation points in the margins.

“Okay, yeah, I will.”

I wasn't sure what to say or do next, but since I didn't want to leave, I sat there, my chest rising and falling with his, studying the books in the room, the book in my hand—anything but his eyes. I was pretty sure if I started reading those, I'd . . . I didn't know what I'd do, but it would surely end in tears.

“So tell me, are you having a good time at the party?” he asked, his voice strangely vulnerable.

“Of course, it's really . . .” I tried to think of a word that wouldn't betray how much I hated parties. “It's fun.”

His head fell back against the wall. “ ‘Fun'? Oh man, that's no good.”

“But fun is good. It's an awesome party!”

“Good.” He smiled sleepily and closed his eyes.

This was totally weird.

My gaze fell upon a framed picture on his bedside table: Keats in a prep-school blazer, standing in front of the fountain at Central Park, his arm around a reed-thin girl, long shiny model hair blowing across her face. She was mid-laugh, face raised to the sun, and Keats was gazing at her, and his face was reverent, his eyes wide open and alive, clearly in awe of the girl he had his arm around.

I was 100 percent certain that no one had ever looked at me like that.

And for that second I felt it in me—how badly I wanted that, how I was so hugely envious of that girl that I almost cried out from the unfairness of it all.

“That's my ex.”

I glanced over at him, startled he'd seen me looking, startled to realize he was watching me.

“She broke up with me this summer. After three years.”

“Oh,” I said.

“She insisted I was cheating on her. With Cherisse, you know her?”

My heart stood still.

“I wasn't, though. Cherisse is just an old family friend.”

My heart exhaled.

“I think Emily, my ex? I think she was scared.” He paused. “She burned me bad, made me feel like I was the worst person on the planet.”

I felt myself wanting to challenge this Emily to a duel, to fight for Keats's honor, to reassure him he wasn't anything close to the worst anything at all.

“I'm sorry,” I said instead.

He made a small noise of surprise. “Yeah, me too.”

I practically felt his eyes as they traced my face, the overpronounced slope of my nose, the curve of my cheekbones, the tips of my eyelashes. And then, like a miracle, he lifted a hand and skimmed my cheek, and millions of tiny stars burst into being.

“You had an eyelash there.”

I shivered.

“Thanks . . .”

Something loud crashed downstairs, and Keats pulled away, staring irritatedly at the door. “Shit. I hope that wasn't one of Mom's sculptures or something. I should never have thrown this party. I hate parties.”

“I really, really hate parties too. In fact, I almost didn't come tonight. I mean, I don't hate your party, because, well, I don't. But I hate most of the others, not that I go to many, and pretty much . . .”

He studied me, wry smile curling from the corner of his mouth, and I slowed my words, slowed my heart, tried to calm my anxiety.

“Pretty much, I'm really glad I came tonight.”

“Me too,” he said. He offered me his hand, and I took it, and he pulled me up.

I thought,
I'm holding Keats's hand.

I thought,
I will remember the feel of his hand around mine for the rest of my life.

I thought,
Thank you, Bearded Lady.

I thought,
Holy crap, the moon.

Luminous luminous luminous moon.

I smoothed my skirt with the copy of
On the Road
in my hand, and a few more stars drifted off, their tips curling. “This costume was better at the beginning of the night.”