The Museum of Heartbreak (22 page)

I thought of his Wonder Wheel story and felt immediately guilty, though I wasn't sure what exactly for.

“That's okay. It all worked out for the best anyway,” I said, trying to really mean it. “How was Beckett?”

Keats frowned. “An asshole. He's bailing on our trip.”

“What, no way!”

“Well, not totally bailing, I guess, but we're not going for the whole summer anymore. Instead we're cutting it back to two weeks so he can go to Bali with his white-trash girlfriend.”

“Oh.” I winced at the description.

“She's one of Emily's best friends,” he added, as if that made it all okay.

“Oh,” I said again quietly.

We started walking down the hall, and he was clearly still stewing, his face stormy.

“Well, at least if you're only gone for two weeks, we'll have more time together,” I offered. “And it'll be awesome. We can go to Coney Island and watch movies in Prospect Park and go to the Big Gay Ice Cream store . . . ,” I said, listing some of my favorite New York City summer things.

“You're missing the point,” he snapped.

I stopped mid-sentence, mid-step, hurt.

He stopped too, his face exasperated. “Scout, I didn't mean that. Please tell me you're not mad.”

“No.” I shook my head, confused, feeling potentially teary, trying to push it back. “It's only . . .”

His voice softened. “Beckett planned this for me after Emily and I broke up. It was supposed to be our trip—no girlfriends, no baggage, just us on the open road.”

“Oh,” I said, realizing I was getting tired of Keats's history with this Emily person.

“Listen, let's go to the Strand today instead, yeah?”

“Okay,” I said somewhat reluctantly, but then he leaned over and kissed me under my eye, right on my cheekbone, and even though his lips were rough, it sent a shiver up and down me. “Okay,” I said again, willing myself to be more certain this time.

As we stepped outside, leaves were rustling noisily across the sidewalk.

Keats was immediately distracted again, his eyes on a group of people from school hanging out across the street.

“Do you know someone over there?” I finally asked. “We can go over and say hi if you want.” I squinted. One of the people kind of looked like Cherisse, and I immediately regretted the offer.

“Nah.” He started to flag a cab.

“We're not taking the subway?” I asked.

“No, I'm just flagging a cab for the hell of it,” he said, irritable again.

“I get really carsick,” I said apologetically. “I'm sorry, I thought I told you that before. I know it's a pain, but I'm all barf-a-rama in cabs.” I smiled, trying to make light of it.

“You don't like cabs?”

“Um, no. I get really sick, like I just told you.”

At that second Keats unbelievably, actually, literally rolled his eyes as he turned to walk toward the train, his back ahead of me, hands shoved moodily in his pockets, and I felt gross and sad because this was not the boy who'd charmed me at his party, because I hated his comment about white trash, because I hated his “Wonder Wheel” story even more.

I bit back what I was going to say and reminded myself that he wasn't mad at me; he was mad at Beckett. He was having a bad day.
Be an understanding girlfriend, Penelope.

“I'm really sorry about your summer trip,” I said, resting my hand softly on his arm.

He stopped, closed his eyes, sighed deeply, then looked at me, his eyes beautiful and dark. “I really appreciate that, Scout. I knew you'd understand.”
He wrapped an arm around my waist, and I settled into the side of him.

This was good. We just had a wrinkle. That happened.

But not more than four steps into the station Keats's face turned sour. “It smells foul in here. We should have taken a cab.”

I wished I could kick Beckett in the shin.

Or maybe Keats.

We walked down the steps to the trains.

The platform was wild and too crowded, people pressed closely together in a way that made you worried about getting shoved on the tracks.

Keats and I pushed toward the end of the track, where there was space.

But sprawled out on most of the wooden bench was a large man wearing what could only be described as an elaborately woven dress made of plastic bags—garbage bags and deli bags and sandwich bags—all tied and tufted together. At his feet were an empty Yankees hat, turned upside down, and a sign that said
Your fortune for $1.

“Ugh,” Keats said, starting to head back, pulling me after him.

But I refused to move. Nothing about the afternoon was perfect right then: Keats was not perfectly charming, his lips weren't perfectly smooth, he was acting like a moody a-hole. The subway smelled like wet parts at the bottom of a dumpster, and the man in front of us was goofily grinning at me in a way that was definitely abjectly terrifying.

I wanted to fix it. I wanted magic and fairy tales, and maybe this was my test.
I needed to see through the muck to find the happy ending.

I was going to fix it.

“Scout, what are you doing?” Keats asked.

“You'll see,” I said, moving toward the man.

“Come on,” Keats said from behind me, grabbing my arm. “You shouldn't give money to these guys. They could be scam artists.”

I shook off his grip and stepped up to the old man, catching his eye.

He smiled. He was missing some of his front teeth, and the remaining ones were yellow, and his breath was stale and dank, as if all the subway stink was actually coming from the inside of him.

I felt my resolve crumbling, but I forced myself to step forward and gently hand him a dollar.

“My fortune, please.”

He snatched the bill out of my hands and dropped it in the Yankees cap, then pulled out a dirty old tube sock from his side and began digging through it. A bunch of folded-up pieces of paper spilled out—all the colors of the rainbow, like Miles's Mohawk: a good omen.

I suddenly and desperately missed my subway token, still shoved in the bottom of my purse after my fight with Eph two weekends ago at the Brooklyn Flea.

The man pulled out a neon-green piece of paper and offered it to me, grinning his missing-tooth smile, and I smiled at him, because this was my New York fairy tale, this was my New York fairy godmother in disguise.

But then, as my hand touched his, he opened his mouth and screamed right in my face “Canada is
doomed to destruction
!”

I yelped, jumping back, my heart in my throat.

“Come on,” Keats said, wrapping his arm hastily around my shoulder.

The man responded by hocking a giant wad of spit near Keats's oxfords.

“Fuck,” Keats swore, and steered us down the platform.

A few tourists stared our way, trying to suss out who had caused the outburst. The man continued to yell about Canada, throwing in some choice comments about terrorists and amaretto and cats.

“God, I told you I didn't want to take the subway. I told you not to talk to that guy,” he said.

“I wanted to make things better,” I said.

He rolled his eyes again, and I thought about Grace's ex-boyfriend, how he'd made her feel bad about herself.

We waited for the train in an awkward silence, one punctuated only by periodic bursts of 9/11 hollering from the other end of the platform.

“Maybe we should head home?” I offered after a few minutes, waiting for him to disagree.

“Good idea.”

But I just stood there, not leaving, wondering how to fix this.

“You're coming to the
Nevermore
launch party on Sunday?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, glancing anxiously down the tunnel for the train lights.

I tried to remind myself that he was having a bad day. That liking Keats meant liking all of him—good and bad—and that he just needed some space.

But my stomach hurt, and I felt sick, even though we hadn't taken a cab.

While he paced the platform, I unfolded the green piece of paper, my hands shaking.

JESUS IS THE WAY THE MOON IS AT COLUMBUS CIRCLE 59TH STREET MOON LANDING FAKE 9/11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wanted my dollar back. I wanted my afternoon back. I wanted my fairy tale back.

I felt so embarrassed, and as I watched Keats get onto the arriving train, barely waving at all, I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood—all to keep from crying.

KEATS AND I HUNG OUT
the day after the subway incident, a sunny Wednesday, and everything seemed normal again. We made it to the Strand that time, and even though I felt tentative from the day before, he was übercharming, buying me an amazing illustrated edition of
Moby Dick
, finding us a secluded corner in the poetry section to make out.

To be honest, it scared me a little, how normal he seemed, as if the day before had never happened. But maybe that was okay. The subway incident had really sucked.

That afternoon, as we made out amid the comforting smell of musty old books, I felt myself relax into him again, my body ease into the shape of him. The way he kissed the spot under my ear, I felt a little dizzy.

Maybe this was his gift, to make it all go away.

My gift to him: never telling him or anyone about reading his “Wonder Wheel” story.

•  •  •

By the time the weekend rolled around, I was wound up with energy and practically jumping with excitement about the
Nevermore
release party, like Beaker from the Muppets.

Mr. Garfield had arranged for us to take over the back room at a coffee shop on Sunday evening. When I showed up with several bags of cookies from a Little Italy bakeshop in hand, I gasped. Grace and May (the decorating committee) had transformed the place. There were a few rows of seats set up for the reading and small white fairy lights strung around the top of the room.

“So I'm thinking I'll turn the lectern over to Grace as soon as everyone's settled,” Mr. Garfield said as I joined them.

“And I'll introduce you guys and Oscar,” Grace added, nodding toward Miles, May, and me.

“Perfect!” Miles said, standing at complete attention, not teasing, not distracted, on his best behavior.

Though neither of them had said anything to the rest of us, clearly Grace and Miles had talked. Over the past few days, every time she suggested something, Miles agreed exuberantly. There hadn't even been any arguing when we had our first meeting for the next
Nevermore
issue. May, Oscar, and I had secret wagers on how long it would last.

I was glad, though, that things were, if not back to normal, at least closer to it.

“Where's Oscar?” I asked.

“Here!” Oscar ran in, his cheeks pink from the chill outside.
In his arms was a stack of printed journals, fresh from the bindery.

“Oooh!” Grace said, grabbing a few and handing them out.

“Our baby's all grown up!” Miles said.

“No typos I can see yet,” May muttered, anxiously scanning the pages.

“What did you finally decide to use to fill that space? Did you pick the nature poems?” I asked, scanning the table of contents, double-checking that Keats's name wasn't on there.

It wasn't.

But someone else's was.

“We got some great art at the last minute,” Oscar said to me. “Grace said you know the guy?”

I flipped to page seventeen.

There, in meticulous, amazing detail, was one of Eph's dinosaur drawings.

“Oh,” I said automatically, because it took all my other little words away.

He had drawn two small brontosauruses, their necks long and calm, peeking into the old wooden attic at the museum where they stored the giant elephant skulls, light skimming in from one of the alcove windows. It was titled
Part I: Things Begin
.

Grace stood next to me. “He dropped them off when you weren't there. He also apologized for being an ass when he met me.”

“He did?” I asked, unable to take my eyes off the image. Eph had managed to capture the wonder I felt the first time I saw the attic at the museum. The dinosaurs were clearly modeled after us—down to the Superman cape one of them was wearing. And it was all there: the sunlight, the sense of magic, the feeling I'd opened the wardrobe to Narnia.

I flipped to his other piece.

It was the last page in the journal and showed a solitary brontosaurus, also in a Superman cape, craning his neck over racks of clothes in what looked suspiciously like a thrift store.

It was titled
Part II: Things Change
.

I pressed my fingers against my lips. I smelled mint; I tasted salt.

“You know, your friend's not so bad,” Oscar said, admiring the image over my shoulder.