And while I don’t subscribe to the idea that anyone sporting a penis should hold doors for me or throw coats over puddles on a rainy-day stroll, he could have at least muttered “oh, that sucks” or kicked the Färm vase back in my direction. Since, after all, it rolled across the space between us and now rests by his foot.
I’m tempted to snark “Fine, keep it!” and throw the rest of the bags into my apartment, wrapping up the whole scene with a glorious door slam.
No joy for that plan, though, because I’m still kneeling in a disaster area of picture frames, throw pillows, and water glasses with names like Flukta and Varmt, which I’m convinced are dirty words that the Swedes use to mock us. I grope around the hall, trying to figure out where my keys fell.
A twinge in my chest informs me that the knee-jerk outburst has passed and now I feel bad about yelling at him, not to mention clumsy as hell.
He’s just standing there, staring at me.
Guilt and embarrassment are already flooding my chest, choking my throat, making me wish I was anywhere but standing in this building that doesn’t feel like home but somehow is. Instead I’m stuck; my feet have been bolted to the floor of this claustrophobic hall.
I miss air that isn’t full of car exhaust. I miss the horizon. How is there a place that doesn’t have a horizon? Humans evolved on a sphere that’s spinning in an ever-expanding universe. Horizon simply is. It’s like gravity. Yet somehow people on this weird island threw together enough steel and concrete to erase the spot where the sky touches the earth. It’s like they wanted to pretend the rules that the rest of us accept don’t apply. Maybe if I’d paid more attention, I’d notice they’re all walking five inches above the sidewalk too.
You’d think Mom would have mentioned that in her whole New York will be so much better than Minnesota and you want to be an artist and blah blah blah pitch . . . but she didn’t. It’s not like I needed the pitch. After it happened, I was ready to go. We all were. There wasn’t any reason to pretend New York was anything other than an escape hatch for the three of us. But that didn’t make the move easy. Ever since we got here, my teeth have been grinding from the constant noise, nothing smells right, and I always feel like I’m about to get a headache.
I glance down at my shirt because the last time a boy stared at me this long I’d unwittingly popped three buttons while hauling moving boxes my mom had stacked in the living room, leaving my boobs to wink at the world shamelessly.
When my eyes shift down, I see my shirt is intact, so flashing isn’t the issue. Maybe the girls he’s used to don’t talk like me. Girls in Blaine didn’t talk like me. Being nice was more important than being honest. Except their definition of nice included gossip that cut like a knife in your back.
I thought maybe my rough edges would mean I’d fit better here. Obviously my New York girls are tougher theory isn’t going to pan out. I can already hear my mom chiding me. “There’s no need to be abrasive, Elizabeth.”
That’s the impression I give my mother. Her daughter: the scouring pad.
I shove my hand towards him. “I’m sorry. It’s just that the subway felt like a sauna and the elevator was busy, so I took the stairs, which was a bad call. The more I sweat, the less civil I am.”
He gazes at my fingers like they might be leprous and I snatch my hand back. He winces, lifting his eyes to mine. Very carefully he folds at the waist, wrapping his fingers one at a time around the vase. He takes several measured steps as he approaches me.
“Sorry . . . I . . . sorry.” His words are slower than his steps.
I peer at him, wondering if maybe he isn’t comfortable speaking English. But he looks American to me. Is that a thing? Can a person look American? Maybe it’s just that he’s what I always thought New York would look like. All sorts of different places and times mashed up into one person’s body. Worldly—I think that’s the word for it. In Blaine, people look like they’ve never left Blaine. And never will.
My throat is full of cotton and I swallow a couple of times. “No. I was being rude.”
I gaze at the weird little ceramic piece he gently places in my palm rather than looking up at him again because by now I feel like a bitch, an idiot, and a possible racist because of my whole “looking American” inner monologue. The vase he’s handed me resembles an egg that grew a neck. I’d thrown it into my IKEA cart on a whim, adding an item to my list of quirky tasks I would accomplish when exploring my new island home.
Find a wildflower to live in this vase. Note: wild—no garden snatching or purchase allowed. Sidewalk-crack flora acceptable.
I force myself to glance at him. “I shouldn’t have tried a balancing act best left to professionals. I’m no plate spinner.”
Lame. So lame. I’m blushing now, which makes it worse. Blood coloring my cheeks doesn’t do anything for my complexion. On me it’s not demure and sweet, just blotchy and unfortunate.
He smiles and a real person breaks through the mask of disbelief he’s worn up to that moment. He’s cute. The floppy kind of cute with dark hair I want to push out of his eyes and overly conscientious body movements, as if touching anything by accident would be a crisis. And his eyes . . . they’re strange, but alluring. It’s a color a painter might create, but only with lots of effort and an infinite palette to experiment with. They’re blue, but not. It’s that shade you catch right before a robin’s-egg sky melts into the rust and rose of sunsets. It’s the horizon I haven’t seen since we entered the skyscraper forest of Manhattan.
I’m already sketching his eyes in my head and have to force myself to shift my gaze to the rest of him. Nothing else out of the ordinary, but not unpleasant either. He’s wearing a plain white T-shirt and jeans and makes them look good in a way that only some boys can. I’m a little relieved to see he’s sweating as much as I am.
“No. You’re right. I was being stupid.” He sounds sorry and he sounds kinda nervous.
I look down again. Great. My boobs might not be popping out, but all the sweat has turned me into a one-woman wet T-shirt contest.
Hormone-driven apology. That’s typical. That’s my life.
I grit my teeth because I can hear my mother’s voice, like she’s steering the boat that is my conscience. Telling me to play nice. Make friends. Introduce yourself to the neighbors. Neighbors are essential in New York.