LAUGHS.
—
“What are you writing?”
Kay snapped back into the mustardy yellow bus rumbling down the West Side Highway, delivering her class to the planetarium. Two braids hung above her head: Chloe Haber looking over the back of Kay’s seat, squinting to read.
Kay shook her head, nothing, and tried to turn the page, but Brett Haber had popped up too, curious, and nodded at her sister, whose arm darted down and grabbed the notebook away.
“Stop,” Kay shouted. She turned around on the seat and got up on her knees. “Stop, you guys. Just give it.”
Up front Mr. O’Toole was standing with his back to the driver, counting heads. He had long hair for a man, and he was the one she pictured whenever anyone mentioned Shakespeare.
Kay slumped back in her seat, afraid to turn around again in case they were reading it. The year before, for her birthday, she had taken the twins on a trip to Six Flags. There had been room only for two more in the rental car, with her mother driving and her brother riding shotgun (her father, who’d hurt his shoulder and who didn’t like roller coasters anyway, had stayed home to ready the cake and streamers). She’d invited Chloe and Brett because at the time it seemed possible that they together would become her best friend or that she could become their triplet. But it is not easy to come between twins, who grew up with their own language and sometimes still use it, on long car rides especially, a language punctuated with laughing fits they swear are not about you but your brother, who has been very quiet in the front seat and is probably afraid of them.
Still, she could not look. What if they were looking at her? The bus was traveling south now down Riverside Drive, they were so near her house and she wished they would just let her off.
Maybe the twins could help. There were things in the box that she hadn’t understood. Maybe Chloe and Brett would be able to explain what, for example, was cuming? Coming? Coming where? And going down—again, down to where?
Across Amsterdam and Columbus, toward the park. The bus eased into the curved drive reserved for visiting groups, and Mr. O’Toole raised his voice over all their heads, flapping open a garbage bag and saying to bring their trash to the front with them.
The twins stood over her. Kay looked up but couldn’t quite tell. “Did you—”
“Don’t talk to us.”
“Perv.”
Okay then. Right, okay. Chloe pushed up the aisle behind her sister, whose hand she was already taking, leaning in to whisper. Kay looked into the seat behind her and found no notebook there. And from the Haber twins, word would spread, to Chelsea and to Jess and to Racky, which meant to everyone, and they would call her weird and a perv and gross, and the thing is, maybe she was?
As Mr. O’Toole’s students sat in the planetarium, watching supernovas become black holes under a great dark dome, Deb was passing the fountain at Lincoln Center, where water climbed and fell down a tower of itself, white in the broad day.
The guards smiled and nodded her in. They had been old then and were even older now. She walked around and down to the dressing rooms, through the maze of emptied halls. She didn’t come around as much as she used to, though when Simon was born the girls had all fussed over him, the little prince. None of them had children—they still were children. There were so many new faces now, too many to keep straight, ones that looked at her without recognition. And what faces she did know were changing.
“Sit sit, five minutes,” Izzy said, already turned half away as the door fell open. It looked like it would take more than five, with Izzy still in underwear and a bra bandaging her chest. She’d grown so small. When they’d danced together, Deb had been the thinner one.
They were going to lunch because each had been waiting for the other to cancel. Making dates only to call them off, it was how they kept in touch.
You’re the only
—
“What are you writing?”
Kay snapped back into the mustardy yellow bus rumbling down the West Side Highway, delivering her class to the planetarium. Two braids hung above her head: Chloe Haber looking over the back of Kay’s seat, squinting to read.
Kay shook her head, nothing, and tried to turn the page, but Brett Haber had popped up too, curious, and nodded at her sister, whose arm darted down and grabbed the notebook away.
“Stop,” Kay shouted. She turned around on the seat and got up on her knees. “Stop, you guys. Just give it.”
Up front Mr. O’Toole was standing with his back to the driver, counting heads. He had long hair for a man, and he was the one she pictured whenever anyone mentioned Shakespeare.
Kay slumped back in her seat, afraid to turn around again in case they were reading it. The year before, for her birthday, she had taken the twins on a trip to Six Flags. There had been room only for two more in the rental car, with her mother driving and her brother riding shotgun (her father, who’d hurt his shoulder and who didn’t like roller coasters anyway, had stayed home to ready the cake and streamers). She’d invited Chloe and Brett because at the time it seemed possible that they together would become her best friend or that she could become their triplet. But it is not easy to come between twins, who grew up with their own language and sometimes still use it, on long car rides especially, a language punctuated with laughing fits they swear are not about you but your brother, who has been very quiet in the front seat and is probably afraid of them.
Still, she could not look. What if they were looking at her? The bus was traveling south now down Riverside Drive, they were so near her house and she wished they would just let her off.
Maybe the twins could help. There were things in the box that she hadn’t understood. Maybe Chloe and Brett would be able to explain what, for example, was cuming? Coming? Coming where? And going down—again, down to where?
Across Amsterdam and Columbus, toward the park. The bus eased into the curved drive reserved for visiting groups, and Mr. O’Toole raised his voice over all their heads, flapping open a garbage bag and saying to bring their trash to the front with them.
The twins stood over her. Kay looked up but couldn’t quite tell. “Did you—”
“Don’t talk to us.”
“Perv.”
Okay then. Right, okay. Chloe pushed up the aisle behind her sister, whose hand she was already taking, leaning in to whisper. Kay looked into the seat behind her and found no notebook there. And from the Haber twins, word would spread, to Chelsea and to Jess and to Racky, which meant to everyone, and they would call her weird and a perv and gross, and the thing is, maybe she was?
As Mr. O’Toole’s students sat in the planetarium, watching supernovas become black holes under a great dark dome, Deb was passing the fountain at Lincoln Center, where water climbed and fell down a tower of itself, white in the broad day.
The guards smiled and nodded her in. They had been old then and were even older now. She walked around and down to the dressing rooms, through the maze of emptied halls. She didn’t come around as much as she used to, though when Simon was born the girls had all fussed over him, the little prince. None of them had children—they still were children. There were so many new faces now, too many to keep straight, ones that looked at her without recognition. And what faces she did know were changing.
“Sit sit, five minutes,” Izzy said, already turned half away as the door fell open. It looked like it would take more than five, with Izzy still in underwear and a bra bandaging her chest. She’d grown so small. When they’d danced together, Deb had been the thinner one.
They were going to lunch because each had been waiting for the other to cancel. Making dates only to call them off, it was how they kept in touch.
You’re the only
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