Welcome Home, Mary Anne

  “Look,” Sunny finally said, breaking the silence. “I really need this.” She met my eyes. “I’m not going to beg, but it would mean a lot to me if you guys would agree to go.”

  How could I say no when she put it that way? I’d made it clear that I wanted to be there for her. And this was what she needed me for. I looked at Dawn, and I could tell she was thinking the same thing. She gave me a tiny nod.

  “Okay,” I said quietly. “We’ll go.”

  What am I doing? What am I doing?

  This is nuts! This is nuts!

  The thoughts rattled in my brain — in time to the clickety-clack of the train.

  Yes, Sunny, Dawn, and I were on our way to New York.

  Eek! Ack! I want to go back!

  I hadn’t slept much the night before. Partly out of excitement, partly out of pure fear. According to Sunny’s plan, we’d stayed in bed this morning until we’d heard Sharon and Dad leave the house. That meant Jeff was gone too, since Sharon was dropping him off at the Pikes’ on her way to work.

  “If we sit down to breakfast with them, they’ll be able to tell something’s up,” Sunny had explained the night before. “I might be able to hide it, but you two — ” She shook her head. “You’d give it away in a second. So it’s best to lay low until they’re gone. Then we’ll jump on our bikes and head for the train station.”

  Sunny had it all figured out. And she was probably right. If my dad had seen my face that morning, he’d have known immediately that I was nervous about something. And if he asked me what was wrong? I would have had to tell him everything. I wouldn’t have been able to lie to his face.

  So instead, I’d lied in a note (Sharon — we’re at the pool. See you at dinner!), and now I was sneaking off to New York. Before we’d left, Dawn had made one suggestion I thought was very smart. She had insisted that we tell somebody where we were going, “just in case.” (I didn’t want to think about the awful possibilities that “just in case” covered, so I didn’t.) And that morning, she’d called Stacey to let her know our plan.

  “What did Stacey say, anyway?” I asked now as the train rocked along.

  “She was so jealous!” Dawn reported. “She said if she didn’t have a sitting job today she’d come with us. She said we were going to have a blast. And she said we have to go to Canal Jean.”

  “What’s Canal Jean?” I asked.

  “I know! I know!” said Sunny, holding up the magazine she’d shown us the night before. “They talk about it in here. I wanted to go there anyway. It’s this cool clothing store in Soho. It’s huge, and they have everything from vintage clothes to trendy stuff, and the prices are supposed to be really good.”

  “Stacey said it’s like the Macy’s of Soho,” Dawn told me. “She said there are lots of other, cooler stores. But most of them are really expensive and upscale. Like, they’ll have just one perfect little dress for nine hundred dollars. We can check those out, but if we want to buy anything, Canal Jean is the place for people like us.”

  I could see that Dawn was catching Sunny’s enthusiasm. She didn’t seem nervous at all. I decided she had the right idea. It was time to forget my fears and enjoy the day.

  We spent the rest of the train ride looking over Sunny’s magazine and talking about all the places we wanted to see.

  “How are we going to get to the Village anyway?” I asked. “Are we going to take the subway?”

  “We could,” said Sunny doubtfully. “But let’s take a taxi. It’ll be more fun because we’ll be able to see where we’re going.”

  I had the feeling Sunny was a little scared of the subway. Somehow it made me feel better to know Sunny was scared of something.

  “So, we’ll take the taxi right to Canal Jean?” asked Dawn.

  “No way!” Sunny cried. “That wouldn’t be any fun. Let’s just take it to Washington Square Park. That’s supposed to be the heart of Greenwich Village. We can walk anywhere we want from there.” She showed us the little map featured in the magazine article. “See? Nothing’s that far from the park.”

  The map was small, so it was hard to tell. But Sunny was probably right. Stacey always says that walking is the best way to get around in New York.

  So now we had a plan. And somehow that made me feel better. I sat back and enjoyed the rest of the train ride.

  The train pulled into Grand Central Station right on time. “This way,” I said when we landed on the platform. I led us up the escalator, feeling pretty cool. The station was familiar to me, since I’d taken the train to New York before. Dawn had too, but not for a while.

  Once we hit the street, though, my anxiety returned. For a few seconds, the three of us just stood on the sidewalk, trying to get our bearings. I always forget how big New York is, and how many people live and work there. I mean, everywhere you look are all these giant buildings. And the streets — at least the avenues — seem about ten times as wide as the streets in Stoneybrook. Plus, they’re filled with traffic. Noisy, fast traffic. There’s a constant flow of trucks, buses, taxis, and cars, not to mention the bicyclists and in-line skaters who whiz by. Every single vehicle seems to be honking for no particular reason. Exhaust fumes fill the air, mixing with, in our case, the smell of hot pretzels being sold from a shiny metal pushcart with a big yellow umbrella.

  And the people. The sidewalks are full of people of every type and description, and most of them are walking quickly, as if they know exactly where they are headed — and know they are late. We saw people of every color and nationality. Women who looked and dressed like models. Homeless men pushing carts full of deposit bottles they’d pulled out of trash cans. Guys who looked as if they spent their lives at the gym, building up their bodies. Indian women in beautiful saris. Hip-hop guys in backward baseball caps and huge baggy jeans.

  “Wow,” said Sunny, drinking it all in. “Wow.”

  “It’s something, isn’t it?” asked Dawn. She looked a little pale.

  “It sure is.” Sunny took a deep breath. “So, we’re taking a taxi, right?”

  “Right,” Dawn and I agreed.

  But how? How were we supposed to make one of the yellow cars, the ones that were flying by in all that traffic, stop for us? I’d seen Stacey hail a cab before. I knew it wasn’t that hard. But the traffic was overwhelming. I felt frozen.

  Then I saw Sunny take a small step off the curb and hold up her arm.

  “Sunny!” I yelled, reaching out to grab her. “Watch out!”

  Just then, a taxi veered toward us, finding its way out of the traffic to stop next to us. Sunny grinned at me. “How about that?” she asked.

  We opened the door and climbed into the back-seat. “Washington Square Park, please,” Sunny said, as cool as a cucumber.

  “Sunny!” I said as soon as the cab had lurched away from the curb. “How did you know how to do that?”

  “I watched a woman up the block,” Sunny confessed. “Plus, I’ve seen it in movies.”

  I was impressed.

  The cabdriver looked at us in his rearview mirror. “Where are you girls from?” he asked.

  “Connecticut,” we chorused.

  “Well, California,” Sunny added. “This is my first time in New York City.”

  “You girls look a little young to be here by yourselves,” said the cabbie, eyeing us again. He was about my dad’s age. “You be careful, hear?”

  “We will,” Dawn promised.

  I stared out the window as we whizzed through the busy streets. I almost felt dizzy trying to take in so much at once. I had no idea which direction we were heading. All I knew was that we seemed to be heading there very, very fast. Cabbies in New York are not known for being cautious drivers.

  “This where you wanted to go?” asked the driver, a few minutes later. He’d pulled over to one side of a wide avenue (Fifth Avenue, I realized later). Straight ahead and across a side street was a huge, beautiful gray stone arch, and beyond the arch was a park full of people.

  “Definitely!” c
ried Sunny. She was practically bouncing up and down in her seat with excitement.

  We paid the driver (I knew enough from other visits to remember that we were supposed to tip him, so I added a dollar to the amount on the meter) and climbed out of the cab.

  “Yesss!” Sunny stood staring at the park, a broad smile on her face. “This is exactly why I wanted to come here.” She looked both ways, then trotted across the street. Dawn and I trotted behind her. “Check this out!” Sunny was entranced. “Talk about finding you a city boyfriend, Mary Anne — this would definitely be the place.” Her eyes followed a skateboard dude who zipped by, wearing a pair of low-slung shorts. “Nice tattoos,” she said, loudly enough for the boy to hear her. He glanced at her and grinned.

  The park was full of activity. Didn’t anybody in the city work? What were all these people doing hanging out in a park in the middle of the day? The focus of the park was a fountain, and it was surrounded by people: skateboarders, guys playing drums, a juggler, parents pushing strollers, couples kissing, old men feeding pigeons. People strolled up and down the paved paths that crisscrossed the park. Along one side of the park, beneath some trees, were stone tables. At every one, two people were sitting across from each other, playing chess. Other people sat nearby, watching the games and making comments.

  Dawn and Sunny and I found seats on a bench near the fountain. For a while, we just sat and looked at everything going on around us.

  “I could sit here and watch all day,” Dawn said.

  “Me too.” I had to agree.

  “Not me!” exclaimed Sunny. “I mean, it’s incredibly cool here. But there’s so much to see! Let’s start walking.”

  I didn’t mind. “Okay. Which way to Canal Jean?”

  “Oh, let’s not rush down there,” said Sunny. “Let’s just wander for awhile. Let’s go … down that street!” She waved toward a quiet street on the other side of the park.

  “Why not?” asked Dawn with a shrug. I couldn’t think of an answer. So we began to wander.

  We walked for a long, long time, up one street and down another. I can’t even begin to tell you all the things we saw, but here’s a partial list:

  — An Italian bakery that looked as if it had been there for a hundred years. The bread smelled delicious as we walked by.

  — A girl who had short red hair — and I mean red, like a red Lifesaver — with black-and-white quills sticking up all over it.

  — Tree-lined streets with old brick buildings that sported window boxes overflowing with flowers.

  — A very cool-looking mother, all dressed in black and yakking on her cell phone as she pushed a stroller. The baby riding in it was all dressed in black too. New Yorkers like black.

  — A guy wearing knee-high leopard-skin boots.

  — A store full of all kinds of things made out of glass, including glass candy kisses (I wanted to get one for Claudia, but they were too expensive).

  — Guys who looked like pros playing basketball on a street-corner court, with spectators lining every inch of the fence.

  — A store full of rugs and Egyptian jewelry, where two purring black-and-white cats seemed to rule (they lived there, according to a sign on the door).

  We walked for blocks and blocks, stopping in every store that looked interesting. One whole street was full of nothing but shoe stores! We didn’t buy anything; the choices were just too overwhelming. It was fun to look, though.

  Until, suddenly, we realized we were starving. It was time to take a break for lunch.

  “This looks like a nice place,” said Sunny, gesturing toward a café with tables on the sidewalk. “What do you think?”

  “I’m too exhausted to think,” said Dawn.

  “And I’m too hungry.” I led us to one of the tables and dropped into a chair. “It looks fine.”

  A waiter dressed in a white shirt, black pants, and a long white apron approached our table. “Hello, ladies,” he said, handing us three menus.

  Sunny opened hers and took a look. “Yow!” she exclaimed, dropping it like a hot potato.

  The waiter, still standing there, raised an eyebrow.

  “I mean,” said Sunny, blushing, “I think this place might be a little out of our price range.”

  I opened my menu and looked. The cheapest thing I could see was a salad. For fourteen dollars! “I think you’re right,” I said, cracking up. I looked at Dawn and saw that she was laughing too.

  The waiter just smiled, took the menus back, and suggested a pizza place around the corner. We stumbled away from the table, giggling so hard it was difficult to walk.

  The pizza was delicious. In fact, it might have been the best pizza I’d ever had. Or maybe it was just that I was so hungry. Anyway, by the time we’d finished scarfing up two slices each, washed down with large sodas, we all felt ready for more walking.

  By that time, I was feeling less nervous and more at home. I think Dawn and Sunny were too. We’d become used to keeping one another in view as we walked down the street, even when we were briefly separated by crowds pushing past us. Still, I was glad we’d had the sense to designate a meeting place (under the arch at Washington Square Park) in case we were separated for real.

  I was so interested in everything I was seeing, everything we were doing, that I’d even stopped thinking about the fact that we’d come here on our own, without telling our parents. Sunny — and the city — seemed to have cast a spell over me.

  “Whoa, check this out!” said Sunny as we strolled by a huge brightly colored mural featuring abstract people dancing to a wild beat.

  “Claudia would love that.” Dawn stopped to look.

  “Claudia would love this,” I said a few minutes later, when we came across a whole corner full of street vendors. “Look! I think this table has every kind of hair accessory in the universe!” The variety was awesome. There were butterfly clips, dragonfly clips, scarves and headbands and barrettes of every color and type — plus, a ton of jewelry: pins featuring every animal and hobby you could think of, earrings and nose rings and toe rings and bracelets and anklets and fake tattoos and necklaces and charm bracelets.

  The next stall featured T-shirts and tanks with Chinese characters on them, and the stall next to that was selling mini-backpacks and some really cool tapestry shoulder bags.

  We wandered around looking at everything. I couldn’t help buying some dragonfly clips. They were so cheap (I don’t think anything at that table was more than ten dollars). Dawn and Sunny spent some money too. Dawn bought a shoulder bag and Sunny bought a black Chinese tank top with a red dragon on it.

  According to the map in the magazine, we were in Soho by then, and as we continued walking, the mix of stores we saw was incredible. We passed fancy boutiques, expensive home furnishing stores (a set of sheets we saw in one window cost $850 — can you imagine?), and even a surfer-dude clothing store with miniature surfboards for door handles. We passed some art galleries, a spa (you couldn’t see anyone getting treatments, just a bright, open space with lots of wood and chrome), another one of those old Italian bakeries, and a store full of things from Tibet.

  Finally, we reached Broadway, the street where Canal Jean is located. (Remember Canal Jean? I’d almost forgotten about it, but Sunny hadn’t.)

  We’d been walking down some relatively quiet streets, but Broadway was bustling. It was a wide avenue with lots of traffic. Once again, the sidewalks were full of people. But the stores were a lot less fancy. We went into one, attracted by the music blaring out into the street, and ended up trying on some wild neon-colored wigs.

  Finally, Sunny spotted the checkerboard flag that is the Canal Jean logo. We headed into the store, which is huge, with several levels, and started to wander around. Dawn hit the vintage clothing area, while Sunny headed for a pile of sailor pants in the army-navy section. I was checking out a cool pair of baggy overalls when I heard a girl next to me ask a nearby salesperson (a guy with a pierced eyebrow and a blond Mohawk) what time it was.

>   “Three-thirty,” said the boy.

  I nearly fainted. That couldn’t be right. I checked my watch.

  Mohawk boy was wrong. It wasn’t three-thirty.

  It was three forty-two.

  And if we were going to make it back to Stoneybrook before Sharon and Dad came home from work, we had to head for the train station now.

  I ran to where Dawn was searching through a rack of skirts and told her. Together, we went in search of Sunny.

  We found her near the entrance. “Hey, you guys! Check this out.” She held up a flier. “This club sounds like a blast. They’re having a battle of the bands tonight.”

  “Club?” I stared at her.

  “Tonight?” Dawn looked shocked too. “Sunny, we have to be home tonight. In fact, we have to be home in a couple of hours. We should be leaving now.”

  “What are you talking about? We finally made it to this store, and I haven’t even had a chance to look around.”

  Dawn and I exchanged a glance. Sunny was only going to get stubborn if we tried to force the issue. “We can look around a little,” I said. “But then we have to grab a taxi and head back to the train station.”

  Sunny made a face. “Oh, come on,” she said. “We have time. Besides, I’m hungry again. And I really think we should check out this club.”

  “Sunny, my dad will be home from work in less than three hours,” I said.

  “So? You left a note saying we’re at the pool, right? It doesn’t close until later. He’ll never know.” She stood up and started to walk toward the stairs to the upper level. “We’re here to have fun, remember?” she tossed over her shoulder. “If you guys want to spend your time worrying, that’s fine. I’m going to enjoy myself.”

  I saw Dawn’s face turn red.

  “Sunny Winslow,” she said in a deathly quiet voice. Nobody else in the store turned to look, but Sunny stopped in her tracks. She turned to face Dawn.

  “Yes, Dawn Schafer?” she asked in a teasing voice.

  Dawn did not crack a smile. “I’ve had enough of this,” she said.