I Like It Like That (14 page)

Petite mignonette, sweet coquette

I taste your cookies, your bread

You fill my plate

On his last day at work before school started again, Dan stood in front of the toilet in the Red Letter men's room reading and rereading the words he'd written on the scrap of paper that had disappeared from his desk a week ago. He'd found the other poem he'd written using that same last line—you fill my plate—and he'd intended to reword the line in this new poem. But it was his fleeting glimpse of Elise holding a baguette that had inspired the poem, and both his interest in her and his interest in finishing the poem had completely diminished.

Did that have anything to do with a certain e-mail he might have received recently?

The redundant line was not the main reason he couldn't stop staring at the words on the bathroom wall. The words he was staring at weren't even his. Whoever had copied his fragment of a poem onto the wall had written underneath it, Note to self: See above for how not to write.

Okay, so what he'd written was sappy and girly and didn't make much sense. He'd be the first to admit that. But insulting someone's writing so deliberately was just downright … mean and immature. It was like talking trash about your mother: Only you were allowed to do it.

“Bastards,” Dan muttered under his breath as he flushed the toilet. He dug a black Sharpie out of his back pocket and began to scrawl next to his poem.

Notes on how not to be an asshole:

1. Don't steal stuff from people's desks, especially when they don't know you well enough to think it's funny.

2. Never assume a poem is finished. In fact, never assume anything, because when you ASSuME, you make an ass out of u and me.

3. Go fuck yourself, because no one else will.

He stuffed the pen back into his pocket, washed his hands, and kicked open the door, almost trampling over Siegfried Castle.

“Kid,” Mr. Castle addressed him in his awkward German accent. “I am haffing some calls about checks zat never arrived. But you mailed zem yourself last veek. Wusty just called to say Mystewy Cwaze is trapped in Helsinki because Wusty can't wire her traveling money.”

Dan walked over to his desk and picked up his black messenger bag. He was tempted to tell Sig Castle that Mystery's check was on its way to Helsinki via the Hudson River, but he didn't want to get fired—he wanted to quit.

Mr. Castle had followed him to his desk and was staring him down with his mean German eyes.

“Why don't you find someone else to be your slave,” Dan hissed. He climbed on top of his chair to read the words written in the red horizontal line that was painted around the room. Red Letter, Red Letter, Red Letter, was all it said, over and over. “That's real creative,” he added, hopping off the chair. And then he walked out.

Within thirty seconds of his leaving, his cell phone rang obnoxiously in his back pocket. Dan knew without looking at it who was calling.

“Fuck me, kid. NO ONE, I mean NO ONE, quits a job at Red Letter!” Rusty Klein shouted at him. “You're supposed to be ABSORBING the aura of literary genius. You're supposed to DO AS YOU'RE TOLD. You're just an APPRENTICE, for chrissakes. You can't QUIT!”

Dan strode up Seventh Avenue South with the phone pressed against his ear, determined not to let Rusty ruin the tingly feeling of triumph coursing through his body. “Sorry, but I don't really get what mailing people's mail or buying caviar or making photocopies has to do with writing good poems.”

Rusty was silent—at least for a moment. “Hop in a cab, doll. I'll meet you at the Plaza in ten. I think I know how to handle this.”

Dan stood at the head of the stairs down into the subway at Fourteenth Street. He thought about how Rusty had tried to talk him into taking a break from school to write a memoir, which was so totally not what he wanted to do. He wanted to go to college to have new experiences and learn how to write better, and he didn't need an agent to do it. “That's okay, I think I can handle it myself. Actually, I think I can handle me myself. At least for a while, anyway.”

Rusty didn't answer right away. He could hear the phones ringing and her assistant, Buckley, frantically answering them. Dan waited for her to shout something at him about how he didn't know what was good for him, but instead she just said, “You're sure about this?”

“Yeah,” Dan said firmly. “Thanks.”

“Well, fuck me. Have a good one, then.”

“You too,” Dan said earnestly before hanging up. Rusty Klein was crazy and intimidating and kind of a bully, but he would miss her all the same.

He ducked into the donut shop behind him and ordered an extra large black coffee and a jelly donut, dialing Vanessa's number as he waited. His hands shook as he carried the huge, hot cup of coffee outside. He set it on the ground, lit a cigarette, and waited as the phone rang and rang.

“Hey,” he said when her machine picked up. “I sent you something. I was wondering if you got it.” He took a long drag on his cigarette, trying to think of what else to say. “It's Dan, by the way. Hope you're okay. Um … bye,” he added, and hung up.

Well, it wasn't exactly “Sorry and let's get back together,” but at least it broke the ice.

Leo was standing in front of the black metal gate, waiting for her. “Hey,” Jenny said, her cheeks flushed with the notion that she had invited herself over.

Leo fumbled with the lock on the gate. He nodded at the bike learning against the metal trash cans in the entryway. “Dad rides that around the park a few times every morning. He's really fit for his age.”

Jenny had never even heard Leo mention his father. She'd always imagined him fatherless and lonely in his mother's huge pink-and-white Park Avenue spread, watching TV and brushing that spoiled dog of hers with a gold hairbrush while his mom was out spending the millions she'd received in the divorce settlement on designer dog jackets and dinners with younger men.

“Hey guys, I'm home,” Leo called into the apartment as he opened the door. “Here,” he told Jenny, taking her black parka and hanging it over his. “Come on.”

Jenny followed him down the dark, narrow hallway. The apartment smelled of stale popcorn and Pine-Sol. The white paint on the walls was cracked and peeling, and the plain burgundy rug was worn and linty. It reminded her of her house, only worse.

“Mom, Dad, this is Jennifer, the girl I've been telling you about.”

Jenny's jaw almost dropped to her new red suede Steve Madden retro sneakers when she got a glimpse of Mr. and Mrs. Berensen. They were wearing matching gray sweat suits and eating microwave popcorn, their feet propped up on a glass-topped rattan coffee table as they watched TV in their tiny, dark living room. Mrs. Berensen was petite, with short white hair and bright blue eyes surrounded by tiny smile wrinkles. Mr. Berensen was at least eighty, with white hair, long, bony limbs, and a tanned, leathery face. They were both so skinny, they looked like they lived on a diet of only popcorn and water.

“It's really nice … to meet you,” Jenny faltered. She stepped forward to shake their hands.

“Oh, aren't you a doll,” Mrs. Berensen declared.

“We were just watching some old James Bond flick,” Mr. Berensen said. “Sit down and watch if you like.” He grunted as he shifted over on the burgundy velour couch to make room for them. Jenny didn't know how he could possibly make it around the park on a bike. It looked as if he was going to keel over and die right there.

“That's okay.” Leo touched Jenny's elbow. “Come on, I'll show you my room.”

Jenny bit her lip as she followed him into the adjoining room. She hated herself for feeling disappointed. Why should she care if Leo wasn't a prince living in an exclusive doorman building on Park Avenue?

Because a guy's gotta have something more than a sweet disposition and a cute chipped tooth!

Leo's room was even more depressing than the rest of the apartment. Just a single bed pushed up against the wall, with some kind of synthetic yellow-and-green-plaid coverlet on it that looked as if it belonged in a motel circa 1979, plain white walls, a linty brown rug, and a scratched wooden desk with a giant Mac on it. The computer was very definitely the newest, most expensive thing the Berensens owned.

Jenny perched on the edge of the bed and sneezed violently. She was having an allergic reaction to this entire situation.

Who wouldn't?

Leo sat down on his stiff wooden desk chair and jiggled the mouse until the computer sprang awake. “This is what I do most of the time I'm not in school or with you.”

“Oh?” Jenny wondered if he was about to show her some weird chat room he went to to pretend he was somebody else.

“Come here and I'll show you.”

Reluctantly she stood up and went over to look, expecting to have to read through a bunch of annoying e-mails. Instead, it was a painting, an exact replica of Marc Chagall's Birthday, with some little flourishes that were all Leo's own.

“You did that?” Jenny asked, when she had found her voice. It was very good.

“Yeah, but it's not finished yet. I have to do something about the windowpane. It's a little too bleak.” He started opening menus of color palettes and shading techniques. “I could outline it in gold. …” He glanced up at Jenny. “What do you think?”

Jenny walked back to the bed again because there was nowhere else to sit. She bounced up and down on it a few times in an effort to clear her head. “I really thought you lived in that fancy apartment on Park. I thought Daphne was your dog.” She stopped bouncing, looked down at the rug, and swallowed.

“I guess I sort of wanted you to think that. That's why I took you there.”

Jenny looked up. Leo looked a lot less dashing and handsome slumped at his desk chair in his hideous room. “But Elise said she heard you were at that benefit at the Frick. And you have that nice leather jacket.” She tucked her hands under her thighs. “I thought that's where you lived,” she repeated.

Leo shook his head. “I walk Henry for Madame T after school. She invites me to things like the party at the Frick and gives me memberships to the museums 'cause she knows I like art and her kids are all grown. It's pretty nice of her, actually.”

Jenny nodded. Why was it so hard to accept what she already knew? Leo was just a normal boy who walked dogs after school.

And had really old parents and lived in a really dark, depressing apartment. Sure he was into art and so was she, but there had to be more … something.

Suddenly she scooted off the bed and lunged for the phone. “Let's do something crazy and romantic! We can steal a bottle of wine from your parents and take it to the park and sit out under the stars and get drunk!”

Leo looked dumbstruck. “Maybe you're the mysterious one,” he remarked with a confused smile. “My parents don't have any wine, and besides, it's a school night. I have to cook dinner and do my homework. You're welcome to stay and eat with us.”

Dinner with Leo's emaciated thousand-year-old parents who didn't even drink wine? There was nothing crazy or romantic about that!

Jenny didn't know what was wrong with her, but if she didn't bust out of Leo's tiny room very soon, she was going to explode.

“I think I have to go now,” she muttered, practically running for the door. Her face was hot, and she couldn't possibly stop to say good-bye to his parents. The front door was only eight feet down the hall. She lunged for her coat, already anticipating the cool air on her cheeks and the soothing bus ride across town.

“Wait!” she heard Leo call after her, but she was already gone.

Elise had told her to figure out if the real Leo was someone she could like. Now she had the answer.

And it wasn't pretty.

“It's so wonderful to see you home!” Blair's mother gushed when Blair stepped out of the elevator, wheeling her Louis Vuitton valises. Mookie, Aaron's dog, waggled up to her and rubbed his butt against her knees.

“Fuck off,” Blair hissed at him under her breath, even though she was kind of glad to be home. She took off her coat and tossed it onto the antique settee in the corner of the foyer. “Hi, Mom. Where's Kitty Minky?”

Eleanor waddled over and kissed Blair noisily. Then she handed her the phone. “It's your father, dear. We've been having the most wonderful chat.”

As far as Blair knew, her parents hadn't spoken to each other—civilly, that is—in over a year. “Dad?” she said, taking the phone.

“Blair Bear,” her dad's cheerful, wine-infused voice darted over the airwaves from his chateau in France. “Ça va bien?”

“Sort of,” Blair replied.

“Haven't heard from Yale yet?”

“Nope.” Blair hadn't given her father any inkling that her chances at Yale—his alma mater—were almost completely destroyed. She wandered down the hallway to her old room and stood in the doorway. “Not yet.”

“All right. Well, be nice to your mother. She's absolutely glowing, isn't she?”

“I guess.” Blair walked into the room and sat down on the floor. “I miss you, Dad.”

“Miss you too, Bear,” her father said before clicking off.

“So what do you think?” Her mother walked into the room behind her, breathing heavily. Her stomach seemed to have expanded about twelve inches while Blair was away, but her face was nicely bronzed from the Hawaii trip, and she looked kind of pretty in a dark-green-and-black Diane von Furstenberg maternity dress. Even her black velvet headband didn't seem so bad.

Blair attempted a half-smile from where she sat cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the room. “You look nice.”

“No, I mean the room.”

Blair shrugged and went back to studying the room. The familiar mother-of-pearl-white walls had been repainted the palest yellow-green, with celery green trim and a stenciled daisy border. Instead of her rose-colored Oriental carpet, a creamy yellow shag rug covered the floor. A bassinet stood in the corner, covered with white lace, and inside it was a folded yellow blanket, stitched intricately with white daisies. Along the far wall stood a changing table and an armoire, both painted pale yellow. To Blair's right was a wooden rocking chair with daisies stenciled on its back. Kitty Minky, her cat, lay curled up on a cushion on the seat of the chair, fast asleep.

Her mother waddled over to the armoire and ran her hand over the drawers. “We wanted to monogram all the furniture, but we haven't decided on a name yet.” She smiled brilliantly at Blair. “Your father suggested that you come up with a name. You've always been so creative, darling. I think it's a wonderful idea!”

“Me?” Blair blanched. This baby had nothing to do with her. Why on earth would they want her to name it?

“Don't worry about it being a Jewish name or anything. Cyrus doesn't care. We just need a good name.” Her mother smiled encouragingly. “And don't rush into it. Think about it for a while.” She walked over to the bassinet, shook out the yellow daisy blanket and refolded it again. “Cyrus and I are going to the 21 Club now for a wine tasting. Let Myrtle know what you want for dinner, and she'll fix you something.” She bent down to kiss Blair on top of her head. “Just a good name,” she repeated before leaving the room.

Blair stayed where she was, contemplating the color scheme and her new role of Big Sister, Namer of Babies. Her room didn't even smell the same. It smelled new, new and full of promise.

“I've been pushing for Daisy,” Aaron said, ambling into the room in a pair of maroon flannel Harvard boxer shorts and nothing else. His baby dreadlocks had grown past his ears again, and his bare chest was tan from his week in Hawaii. He would've looked good if he wasn't so annoying.

“How was Hawaii?” Blair asked, although she really didn't care.

Aaron's dark eyes widened excitedly. “Even better than I thought. I met this girl who's like, even more into being a vegetarian than me. Her parents are Haitian refugees. From Berkeley. She taught me to surf. We had some trippy times.”

Blair raised her eyebrows, unimpressed. “But now you're back,” she remarked.

He nodded. “So, what do you think of Daisy—for the kid's name?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Duh, Harvard Boy, that's way too obvious.” She twirled her ruby ring around and around on her finger. “So what was that Haitian girl's name, anyway?”

Aaron frowned. “Yael. She said a lot of people say it like ‘Yai-elle’ or something, but she pronounced just like the school: Yale.”

“Yale.” Blair stopped twirling her ring, the corners of her mouth curving up into a smile. “Yale.”

Of course.