“We’ll find a new place to crash,” she said. “And then I have an idea for something nice.”
They met up with Jake and Ella
at the Bloomingdale Library. At one of the Internet stations, Wally worked at finding the crew a new place to crash. She found the online site for Desmond & Green Realty—the top Upper West Side agency that Claire Stoneman worked with—and logged on, entering the password that she was not supposed to know. She filled in some search parameters, and a list of housing possibilities immediately appeared on the screen, along with an interactive street map that showed their locations. Wally sent the list to the library’s printer, and within a few minutes they were off together, house hunting.
The first place on the list wouldn’t do. It was a neighborhood video store on 100th that had gone belly-up. The shop’s rear walkway was shared with several businesses that had deliveries coming in at all hours, so access would be limited. The windows hadn’t yet been covered, either; the crew could do that themselves, with soap or paper, but the management company might notice the changes.
The crew migrated south for a few blocks, to 94th Street and West End Avenue, and this second spot was an absolute score. The building was a twelve-unit, turn-of-the-century apartment building that was being renovated into six big luxury condominium units. The documents Wally had accessed online told her that the development company had gone into receivership halfway through construction, and the lawsuits could go on for years. Until a settlement was reached, the building would stand empty.
Wally punched the code into the lockbox and got the key to the space. The crew entered at the basement floor, which had once been a dry cleaner’s shop. It was now empty and was a perfectly discreet squatting place for the crew. The spot included a bonus that was almost too good to be true: one street north on 95th Street was a public high school that shared a back alleyway with the empty dry cleaner’s. Teenage school kids would be a common sight in the neighborhood, so the crew wouldn’t attract unwanted attention.
As they explored the space, Wally heard Ella give a delighted shriek and followed the sound to a full bathroom in the back, which included a shower and a vanity mirror with a ring of makeup lights around the edge. Nirvana. The boys could squat—literally—anywhere, but for Wally and Ella, a decent bathroom was essential. This one was way more than decent.
“Why haven’t we been living here all along?” Ella asked.
“Just got listed.” Wally shrugged and smiled. “Welcome home.”
TWENTY
That first night
in the dry cleaner’s was warm and quiet, and the exhausted crew slept in late on Thanksgiving morning, almost till noon.
“We slept through the parade,” Ella said, yawning.
“Good,” Jake said. “That thing gives me a headache.”
“We have other plans, anyway,” said Tevin.
Wally got up and went to the ironing room, coming back with a full paper bag, which she emptied on the floor in front of the others. Clothes.
“Tev and I stopped at the Salvation Army on the way back from Jersey,” Wally said. “We’ve spent hardly any of the money, even on our fun day. We figured a Thanksgiving dinner would be good.”
“A real one?” Ella said, lighting up.
“Sure,” Wally answered. “Turkey, stuffing. The whole deal.”
They picked through the items and matched the second-hand clothes with their sizes: a couple of colorful, funky ties for Tevin and Jake, new plaid schoolgirl skirts for the girls to wear over their leggings, and some accessories like junk jewelry and skinny scarves.
“Thirty bucks for all this stuff,” Tevin said.
Layered on top of their usual clothes, the crew radiated a sense of urban chic. The only resistance came when Wally pulled out an old British public school blazer with red piping on the seams and a bona fide crest sewn onto the front pocket. She handed it to Jake.
“Oh, hell no,” Jake said.
“C’mon,” Wally said. “You’ll look totally hot. …”
“No fucking way—”
“Oh my God, Jake!” Ella objected. “Put it on, right now. I don’t wanna see that varsity jacket at our fancy table.”
Jake remained indignant but caved in to Ella’s command. As Jake put on his jacket, Ella took a couple of the varsity pins off his letterman jacket and attached them on the lapel of his new blazer.
“That actually works,” Wally said.
Jake looked at himself in the mirror. “It does, doesn’t it?”
The crew hoofed it
to the subway stop and caught the
B
train south, toward
SoHo
. Wally had called around the good restaurants in that part of town the night before, and she’d been lucky: Balthazar had a cancellation on a table for four at three o’clock.
“Do we need, like, special manners for this place?” Ella asked as they walked.
“Nope,” Wally said. “You know how to eat, right?”
“I do.”
“Besides,” Wally said, “you and I are ravishing, and our men are breathtakingly handsome. Our biggest problem will be the envy we inspire in those less fortunate than ourselves.”
They found Balthazar on Spring Street and—just as Wally predicted—there were no hassles. The maitre d’ did give them a halfway curious look, but that probably had more to do with their age than anything. Style-wise, the fashion-forward crew fit in nicely with the upscale, quasi-bohemian crowd in the busy restaurant. The only hiccup came with Ella’s first reading of the menu.
“Uh, where’s the turkey and stuffing?”
“This is a bistro,” Wally said. “French style. But look toward the bottom of the second page:
turkey leg confit
.”
“What’s that?” Tevin asked.
“It’ll be yum, I promise.”
And Wally was right. The turkey was “insanely tasty,” according to Ella, delivered to their table with deference and efficiency by a flock of hovering waiters who never even let a water glass dip below half full.
“Best Thanksgiving turkey ever,” Jake said as he wolfed down the huge leg on his plate, with in-between bites of fried herb potatoes and wild mushroom sauté.
“Yeah, by far,” agreed Tevin. “Like,
another-planet
far.”
Most of the other guests in the café were youngish, upwardly mobile types, with only a couple of real families dining together. The parents of those families barely noticed Wally and her crew at all, but their children were fascinated. Obviously jealous, they stole sideways glances at the four teenagers and fantasized about a world devoid of embarrassing parents, itchy sweaters, and flatulent great-aunts with untrimmed whiskers. Ella was the first of the crew who noticed this attention, so of course she gave the kids furtive waves and sympathetic smiles.
Wally felt good for the first time in days. Seeing the delighted faces of her friends as they ate and laughed, their faces glowing in the candlelight as they toasted each other with wineglasses full of sparkling water, Wally knew she had done the right thing in bringing them here. And something else, the warm feeling at their table—and in the room—gave her kind of a flashback to an earlier time. A bittersweet memory.
Tevin noticed that something was on Wally’s mind.
“What?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I was just reminded. One of the last dinners I had with my folks, before they split, was Thanksgiving out. Sort of like this.”
“Wally—” Ella wanted to console her.
“No, it was good. Really. Maybe the last nice time we had together.” She looked at the others with a warm smile. “We’re having a nice time too, and that’s how I’m reminded. Thanksgiving dinner with two happy families, both of them mine.”
They toasted each other again, just as their waiter arrived with a dessert cart full of the most indulgent pastries any of them had ever seen. Wally again observed the looks of wonder on their faces, but now focused especially on Tevin. He was as thrilled as the others with the sight of the treats, but Tevin observed the desserts as if through the window of an elegant shop that he was forbidden to enter, as if these special things were there for him to witness but not taste for himself. Even as he was deciding which pastry to order, Tevin looked as though he was doing something that he would later be punished for.
Wally’s heart broke a little at the sight of this.
“You know what?” Wally said. “Let’s hold off on dessert. We can do better.”
The others gave her skeptical looks.
“Better than this?” Ella said, crushed that she would not be tasting the towering, gleaming wedge of lemon meringue pie that she had already selected.
Wally just nodded, confidently, and looked to the waiter. “We’d like the check, please.”
The crew followed
Wally out of the bistro, obviously curious about what she was up to.
“What’s on your mind, Wally?” Tevin said.
She took out her smart phone and did a local map search, coming up with a place called 60 Thompson, described as a “chic boutique hotel that brilliantly reflects the refined, artistic sensibility of SoHo.” There were several dollar signs attached to the review, meaning it was expensive even by Manhattan standards. Wally enjoyed keeping her friends in suspense as she led them the few blocks to Thompson Street and in through the front door of the hotel.
The lobby was hushed and stylish in a restrained way, lit to a sort of muted glow that gave the place an intimate feel. Wally felt a rush of guilty excitement as she stepped up to the front desk and placed a credit card on the counter. It was a Platinum American Express card with her name on it, given to her by Claire “in case of an emergency.” Wally had never used the card and was determined that she never would, but at that moment she felt driven by an irresistible compulsion.
A young woman with beautiful, dark skin—Indian, Wally thought—attractive in a well-tailored dark blue suit stood behind the counter. The name tag on her lapel read
Chantra
. She leaned over and examined the credit card without touching it, then stood back and took a long look at Wally and the crew, clearly trying to reconcile what she perceived as a mixed message.
“Yes, ma’am?” she said to Wally.
Wally pulled out her good fake ID and set it next to the AmEx card.
“We’d like a suite,” Wally said casually, “if one is available.”
Chantra arched one eyebrow. She took another look at the crew and another look at Wally’s cards. Finally she picked up the Platinum card and moved toward a back office.
“Just one moment, please,” she said with an enigmatic smile. She disappeared into the back office for a moment but returned promptly, still holding on to the AmEx card.
“What type of suite do you require, Ms. Stoneman?”
“Two bedrooms, please.”
“Yes, very good. We have a two-bedroom suite on the 16th floor with an excellent perspective of the park,” Chantra said. She placed a price sheet on the counter for perusal, but Wally did not look at it.
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Wally said.
Through all this, the crew stood behind Wally, biting their tongues, determined not to break whatever insanely reckless and generous spell their leader was under.
“Excellent,” Chantra said, sweeping the price sheet out of view and setting the paperwork into motion.
Soon the bellman was ushering the crew into the elevator—“No luggage, then?”—up to the 16th floor and into a suite so luxurious that it took their collective breaths away, even Wally’s. The bellman opened the curtains to reveal a large picture window with an expansive view of downtown, to the south.
“Would you like turndown service, ma’am?” he asked as Wally slipped him two twenty-dollar bills for his trouble.
“Not necessary, thank you,” she said, and the bellman was gone, leaving the stunned crew alone in their suite, the air redolent with the scent of the two dozen fresh white roses arranged in a crystal vase on the side table.
Wally reached for the hotel phone and dialed for room service.
“What can we offer you this evening, Ms. Stoneman?” asked the voice on the other end of the line, no introduction necessary.
“We’d like two of every dessert you have,” Wally said, “and one bottle of champagne, your choice.”
Alone in the bedroom with Tevin
, Wally turned to face him and saw that his body was very tense, his fists clenched at his sides and his jaw fixed. At first Wally mistook his posture for anger, but then discovered from the look in his eyes that Tevin was consumed with anticipation, his body vibrating with intense animal energy, raw and barely restrained.
“Tev,” she said. “Your eyes …”
“What?” he asked, breathless.
“I know them, but I don’t.”
He moved toward her and wrapped her in his arms. Wally tilted her chin toward his, and they kissed passionately for the first time, locked together. Wally thought the closeness would calm him, but instead his excitement spread from every inch of his hot, sweaty skin to her own. And then she was trembling also and she lost her breath, feeling like his body was water flooding all around her and she was drowning.
“It’s okay,” she said, struggling to catch her breath. “Everything is okay.” Wally wasn’t thinking clearly, or even thinking at all, and didn’t know if the words of reassurance were meant for Tevin or herself. She understood in that moment how much of themselves they had held away from each other.
A blur of uncontrollable thoughts rushed through Wally’s mind, memories of her first time with Nick—so different, intense but contained—and she realized that she had no idea what it would be like to experience another human heart this way, with no calculation.
They began undressing each other, fumbling, not willing to fully release their hold as they did it so they had to pull and slide the clothes off between their bodies and immediately reestablish contact before any air could rush in between them.
“Don’t let me go,” she said.
“I won’t.”
When their bare skin touched, they settled into a flow of actions and reactions that happened naturally, and Wally could feel herself casting away all control and getting caught up in the irresistible force of it. Before it could happen—with their clothes off now—Wally pushed him away, needing all of her strength to do it, and looked at him naked in front of her. She decided he was perfect, and that once she reached out for him again, she would not be able to let go, but Tevin suddenly looked troubled. Wally pulled him even closer, sensing his distress and afraid that the spell between them would be broken.