at home for the rest of my life and never be allowed to go on a date and end up as an old maid.
After all, I’d lost a whole human being.
I glanced out the window as we weaved in and out of traffic. The streetlights illuminated parts inside the cab. My hands. Callisto’s face. Maurice’s hair. Caitlin’s earrings.
“Can you go faster?” I asked the cab driver.
Even though I’d lived in New York City my whole life, I didn’t know where I was. Somewhere on the East Side, going downtown, was all I knew. If you’d asked me to point to it on a map, I would have failed.
I adjusted myself, trying to settle in. But I couldn’t relax. The pressure of trying to be cool in front of Maurice, Caitlin, and Callisto, who were acting like they actually liked me, was killing me.
“Why does your face look like that?” Maurice asked. I was squashed up next to him and he massaged my shoulders, like we did to one another in the warm-up exercise in the one acting class we had to take. Usually it felt nice, but now I was freaking out. “That’s how you look in dance class.”
“Like what?” I asked. But as I spoke, I realized that I had been holding my face in a grimace. No matter how I spun it, I knew it didn’t look very pretty.
I knew that I was not very pretty.
“All angry or something,” Maurice said. “Your face gets all frozen.”
I didn’t know if I liked the fact that he’d noticed my face in class. Or that I even did the face in class. It struck me that I felt that same mix of angry at myself and totally terrified whenever I was overwhelmed and out of my comfort zone.
There was no space outside. On one side of the street, buildings were pressed up next to one another, block after block. Only the green of the park on the other side gave some relief. Cars were honking. The taxi made a sharp turn. I fell into Maurice. He pushed me back up.
In class, everything went so fast and everyone was so on top of everything that it took every ounce of concentration to keep it together and keep up. Just like that moment right then in the cab. The night was slipping out of my fingers.
“Here, here,” Callisto said, banging on the plastic divide. The cab driver pulled over and we emerged from the cab at the bottom edge of Central Park.
“I gotta make a phone call,” I said, spotting a bay of pay phones. I left them standing there paying for the cab.
I had never been so happy that my parents gave Todd his own telephone for his own room. That’s what I wanted for my sixteenth birthday. But I wanted mine to be a rotary phone. Black. Todd had an orange one with push buttons. He thought it looked futuristic.
I slid the dime into the slot and dialed the number.
Come on. Come on. Come on.
Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.
“You’ve reached Todd. Rhymes with Zod. Land of Nod. And alien pod. Leave your transmission at the tone. May the Force be with you.”
“Todd. Are you there? Pick up.”
The phone clicked as someone picked up.
“This is Dungeon Master Hertreopo,” Todd said in a booming voice. “What do you want, Rose? And don’t say we’re making too much noise down here because I know you can’t hear us from upstairs. The garage is soundproof .”
“I’m not calling from upstairs,” I said.
Todd was quiet for a moment.
“Really? You went out?” He sounded impressed. “Where are you calling from?”
“Central Park South and Sixth Avenue.”
“Whoa!”
I could hear his lame-o friends in the background yelling at him to get back to the game.
“I need your help,” I said.
“You need my help,” he said. “Oh, how I like the sound of this. Hey! Don’t touch that troll! And don’t move your dwarf into that hexagon until your turn!”
I imagined he and his friends were wearing costumes. God. I was going to owe Todd one forever. His nasal breathingon the phone reminded me that he was the last person I wanted to owe one to. I was beginning to regret calling now.
“Have you noticed if the girl
After all, I’d lost a whole human being.
I glanced out the window as we weaved in and out of traffic. The streetlights illuminated parts inside the cab. My hands. Callisto’s face. Maurice’s hair. Caitlin’s earrings.
“Can you go faster?” I asked the cab driver.
Even though I’d lived in New York City my whole life, I didn’t know where I was. Somewhere on the East Side, going downtown, was all I knew. If you’d asked me to point to it on a map, I would have failed.
I adjusted myself, trying to settle in. But I couldn’t relax. The pressure of trying to be cool in front of Maurice, Caitlin, and Callisto, who were acting like they actually liked me, was killing me.
“Why does your face look like that?” Maurice asked. I was squashed up next to him and he massaged my shoulders, like we did to one another in the warm-up exercise in the one acting class we had to take. Usually it felt nice, but now I was freaking out. “That’s how you look in dance class.”
“Like what?” I asked. But as I spoke, I realized that I had been holding my face in a grimace. No matter how I spun it, I knew it didn’t look very pretty.
I knew that I was not very pretty.
“All angry or something,” Maurice said. “Your face gets all frozen.”
I didn’t know if I liked the fact that he’d noticed my face in class. Or that I even did the face in class. It struck me that I felt that same mix of angry at myself and totally terrified whenever I was overwhelmed and out of my comfort zone.
There was no space outside. On one side of the street, buildings were pressed up next to one another, block after block. Only the green of the park on the other side gave some relief. Cars were honking. The taxi made a sharp turn. I fell into Maurice. He pushed me back up.
In class, everything went so fast and everyone was so on top of everything that it took every ounce of concentration to keep it together and keep up. Just like that moment right then in the cab. The night was slipping out of my fingers.
“Here, here,” Callisto said, banging on the plastic divide. The cab driver pulled over and we emerged from the cab at the bottom edge of Central Park.
“I gotta make a phone call,” I said, spotting a bay of pay phones. I left them standing there paying for the cab.
I had never been so happy that my parents gave Todd his own telephone for his own room. That’s what I wanted for my sixteenth birthday. But I wanted mine to be a rotary phone. Black. Todd had an orange one with push buttons. He thought it looked futuristic.
I slid the dime into the slot and dialed the number.
Come on. Come on. Come on.
Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.
“You’ve reached Todd. Rhymes with Zod. Land of Nod. And alien pod. Leave your transmission at the tone. May the Force be with you.”
“Todd. Are you there? Pick up.”
The phone clicked as someone picked up.
“This is Dungeon Master Hertreopo,” Todd said in a booming voice. “What do you want, Rose? And don’t say we’re making too much noise down here because I know you can’t hear us from upstairs. The garage is soundproof .”
“I’m not calling from upstairs,” I said.
Todd was quiet for a moment.
“Really? You went out?” He sounded impressed. “Where are you calling from?”
“Central Park South and Sixth Avenue.”
“Whoa!”
I could hear his lame-o friends in the background yelling at him to get back to the game.
“I need your help,” I said.
“You need my help,” he said. “Oh, how I like the sound of this. Hey! Don’t touch that troll! And don’t move your dwarf into that hexagon until your turn!”
I imagined he and his friends were wearing costumes. God. I was going to owe Todd one forever. His nasal breathingon the phone reminded me that he was the last person I wanted to owe one to. I was beginning to regret calling now.
“Have you noticed if the girl
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