“Thanks,” she said. “This is a new stage in my career so I figured I needed a new look.”
I stepped into the apartment and gazed around at the artwork on the walls. Most of it is modern, which is not really my favorite. Somehow, though, it looked right in the Walkers’ place. So did the sculptures and wall hangings that were everywhere. I noticed that they’d acquired a new sculpture since I was there last. It wasn’t of anything in particular, just different colors of metal that intertwined in an interesting way. I liked it, which I hoped meant my taste was becoming more sophisticated.
Their apartment was laid out just like our old one, with the rooms in the same arrangement. But it looked very different. For one thing, they had turned the dining room into an artist’s studio. There were no curtains or shades on the windows because Mr. Walker, who is a painter, wants the soft, northern light to stream in without any shadows. His easel and chair were near the window on the left side of the room.
Mrs. Walker, who is an illustrator, also wants the benefit of good lighting on her slanted desk by the window on the right side of the room. I noticed a very large pastel drawing on her desk. It seemed to be about three-quarters finished. It showed an African-American woman in an old-fashioned outfit, with a big straw hat, standing in a garden. Many smaller characters tumbled from her hands. “This is great,” I said sincerely, moving toward the picture.
“Thanks. It’s going to be the cover of a book on African-American folk stories,” Mrs. Walker said, standing beside me and studying the drawing. “It’s not due to the publisher until next month, but I want to finish it for the show. I got this far while the kids were at camp, but since camp ended I haven’t even looked at it.”
“I’m here now,” I said. “So you can start working on it again. Where are the kids?”
Mrs. Walker laughed. “They’re in shy mode, hiding in Henry’s room.”
“Shy?” I cried. “With me?” The Walker kids are shy, but they know me well. I suppose I’d been gone longer than I realized.
At that moment I heard giggles from nearby. The moment I turned, Henry and Grace scrambled down the hallway and darted into Henry’s room. “I hear kids!” I shouted playfully, hurrying down the hall after them. “I hear kids!” I entered Henry’s room and heard more giggles. It wasn’t hard to tell where they were hiding. Henry was in the closet and Grace was under the bed. “Hmmmm,” I said loudly. “Now where did those kids go?”
More giggles.
“I know, they’re hiding in the hamper.” I lifted the white straw hamper and looked inside. “No.” I walked around the room some more. “Aha! Behind the curtains!” I tossed aside the green curtains covered with a pattern of small zebras.
From under the bed came a yelp of hilarious laughter. Dropping to my knees, I peered under the bed. “I found Grace!” I cried, reaching under the bed. Grace stretched out her small, warm hand and grabbed mine. She let me slide her toward me.
“Stacey! Stacey!” she said, hugging me. So much for shyness. I hugged her back, glad to see her again. She’s definitely my favorite three-year-old.
“We have to find Henry,” I whispered. “Do you know where he is?”
Grace nodded. “But I can’t tell,” she whispered back.
“I understand,” I said as something in the closet bumped. Winking at Grace, I tiptoed to the closet and threw it open. “Got you!” I shouted.
“Aughhhhhh!” Henry scrambled past me, yelling and waving his arms in the air. Then he doubled over with laughter.
“Hey there, Henry. How was camp?” I asked as his laughter died down.
“It was good,” he said, smiling. “I was the best drawer in my craft group.”
“I was, too!” Grace said. “I am a good drawer, too!”
“I believe it,” I said. I gazed around at the crayon pictures of dinosaurs that covered the room. “These are excellent.” They were, too. Henry had obviously inherited his parents’ talent.
Both Henry and Grace like artistic activities, such as drawing, painting, and making things from clay. As you can imagine, they always have plenty of materials around. At camp, Henry had built several dinosaur models from Popsicle sticks, which he proudly showed me. His parents had bought him a whole bag of the sticks, so the kids and I spent the next hour gluing sticks together. I made a box. Henry attempted a pterodactyl, which would have been successful if the wings hadn’t kept falling off. Grace’s hodgepodge of sticks and glue didn’t look like anything much, but hey, maybe it was modern art.
Before noon we wandered out to the kitchen for lunch. “Hi there, Stacey,” said Mr. Walker, who entered the kitchen just as we did. He’s tall and wore a long, white, paint-covered apron over his jeans and shirt. “How’s life in the suburbs?”
“Pretty good,” I replied.
“I don’t believe you,” Mr. Walker said, smiling. He pulled a bottle of club soda from the refrigerator and poured himself a drink. He offered me a glass and I took it. “The suburbs are no place for a city girl like you,” he continued, putting the bottle back. “You belong here where things are happening.”
“I sometimes think the same thing,” I admitted. “But I have good friends in Stoneybrook. I like it there.”
“You’ll come back,” Mr. Walker predicted with a sparkle in his eyes. “I know you, Anastasia. You’ll be back.” It was funny to hear him call me Anastasia. Almost no one does. Sometimes if I’m in trouble one of my parents calls me that. When Mr. Walker said it, though, it sounded cool and artistic.
“Can we have Fluff, Dad?” Henry asked his father. “Peanut butter and Fluff?”
“All right,” he said. “But that stuff’s supposed to be for dessert.”
“Yea! Fluff!” Grace cheered.
I made sandwiches for the kids. As I spread the gooey marshmallow stuff, the doorbell rang several times. The first two times messengers came to the door with things from the Fitzroy Gallery. The third time I heard a male voice in the hallway. “Come in, Ethan,” I heard Mrs. Walker say. “Mr. Walker could really use your help. He wants you to hammer together another frame and stretch the canvas. And when you’re done with that, I need you to take some more pieces over to the Fitzroy for me.”
I couldn’t see Ethan, but he had a nice voice. “Sure thing, Mrs. W,” he answered.
Then the phone began to ring. By the fourth ring, I ran to pick it up. “Don’t answer,” Mrs. Walker said, sticking her head into the kitchen. “We’re not answering any calls except from the Fitzroy.”
She cocked her head, listening to the voice coming over the answering machine. “This is Arnold from the Fitz —”
Mrs. Walker darted across the kitchen and snapped up the phone. “Hi, Arnold.”
As the kids sat at the kitchen table and devoured their sticky sandwiches, the phone kept ringing. Sometimes the Walkers took the calls, sometimes they didn’t. A man named Antoine showed up and started talking to Mrs. Walker about how they were going to arrange the show. Mrs. Walker’s illustrations would be in one room, Mr. Walker’s paintings in another. Mrs. Walker disagreed and thought they should be mingled together.
They were still discussing this as I cleared up the table and shepherded the kids back to their rooms. I planned to take them on some outings, but it seemed best just to stay home and get reacquainted today. The three of us sat on the floor of Henry’s room and played Candy Land for a while, then Henry wanted to play funny freeze tag.
“Okay,” I agreed, putting away the board game. In funny freeze tag, you run around acting goofy — hopping, jumping, walking silly. If you get tagged, you have to freeze in that silly position.
We decided to play in the hall. In minutes, the three of us were laughing breathlessly as we ran up and down the hall looking completely ridiculous. Henry had just tagged me as I walked like a chicken, bobbing my head and flapping my elbows. I was frozen in that position, with my back turned, when I heard a voice behind me. “Can anyone join this game?”
I recognized the voice.
Ethan’s. Slowly, totally embarrassed, I turned.
Ethan was about fifteen. And gorgeous! Completely, totally gorgeous! He had deep blue eyes and long, almost black hair. He had high cheekbones, a straight nose and a wide mouth. A tiny gold hoop earring dangled from one ear. He was tall with broad shoulders. A Mexican print shirt was loosely tucked into his faded jeans.
Quickly I twisted out of my chicken pose.
“No fair, you were frozen!” Henry protested.
“I’m Ethan. You’re Anastasia?” he said with just a touch of adorable shyness.
“Stacey,” I said. “That’s what everyone calls me.”
He nodded. “I’m waiting for Mrs. W. to wrap up her work for me to bring to the gallery,” he explained.
“You work there?” I asked.
“Yeah. I was helping at the gallery during the summer. I quit there last week because school is starting, but then the Walkers hired me to help get ready for the show.” He smiled. “I thought I’d have this last week for vacation but I couldn’t say no to the Walkers. They’re so cool and talented. I’m trying to talk Mr. Walker into giving me art lessons.”
“You’re an artist?” I asked.
“I’d like to be,” he said.
“Hey, what happened to our game?” Henry asked indignantly.
“Sorry, Henry,” I apologized.
“I’ll be It,” Ethan volunteered.
“Okay,” Henry agreed.
So Ethan joined the game. He was great with the kids, and came up with some hilarious steps when it was his turn to run. He turned his feet in and walked with his knees knocking, his arms flapping. Like a little kid, he didn’t care how silly he looked.
Ethan played with us for about twenty minutes until Mrs. Walker had her artwork ready for him. He was so funny and easy to be around that I stopped feeling nervous near him.
For the rest of the day, every time I heard the bell ring, I peeked to see if it was Ethan, but he didn’t come back.
“Does Ethan come by every day?” I asked Mrs. Walker around six-thirty when I was leaving.
“Yes,” Mrs. Walker said, smiling. “Are you interested?”
“Oh, no,” I replied, blushing. “I have a boyfriend at home. And besides, you know, we just met. We don’t even know each other. No. No.”
Mrs. Walker kept smiling. She didn’t look convinced. “He’s so talented. Really gifted. And a nice young man.”
“He did seem nice,” I said, trying to sound casual.
“Thanks so much, Stacey,” Mrs. Walker said as she accompanied me to the front door. “See you tomorrow.”
That night, Dad and I ate at the Lion’s Lair on 70th Street. It was warm enough so that we could eat in the back on the open patio, which was next to a huge rock ledge. Around us the lights from apartment buildings lit up one by one as the sun set behind the ledge. While we ate, I told Dad about my first day at the Walkers’.
“So, I guess you liked this guy, Ethan,” Dad observed with a wry smile.
I stared at him. “Why do you say that?”
“You’ve mentioned him about six times so far and you’ve only been there one day.”
“Yeah … well … he was nice,” I said, “but it’s not what you’re thinking.”
“What am I thinking?” he asked.
“You know what you’re thinking and it’s not true,” I said adamantly.
“Okay, okay.” Dad waved his white cloth napkin like a surrender flag. “Let’s order dessert. They’ve had great fresh berries here lately.”
That night, as soon as we got back to the apartment, I phoned Robert.
The line was busy. I called him back every fifteen minutes for the next hour and a half.
But the line stayed busy.
I was having such a great time at the Walkers’ that Tuesday and Wednesday just flew by. Both nights I came home exhausted but happy. Dad and I would eat supper, rent a video, and then go to sleep early. At night before going to bed I thought about Robert a lot, wondered what he was doing. I didn’t try calling him again, though, because I was too tired even to talk. Still, I wondered why he hadn’t called me.
That Wednesday night I had my hand on the phone in the living room, about to try Robert’s number, when it rang. “Hello?” I answered, hoping it would be Robert.
“Hi. It’s me.” It was Claudia. Oh, well. I was glad to hear from her. I settled in on the couch, cradling the phone under my chin, preparing for a good long chat with my best friend.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
“Great,” I told her enthusiastically. “The Walkers’ place is a madhouse of people coming and going, but Grace and Henry are as cute as ever. Yesterday I took them to the Museum of Natural History. We had a ball. You should see the new dinosaur exhibit they have there. It is so cool! Henry and Grace have already seen it a billion times, of course, but Ethan and I hadn’t, so we —”
“Ethan?” Claudia interrupted.
“Yes. He’s this very, very cute guy who is working for the Walkers. He was going down in the elevator with us so we started talking about the museum and he came with us.”
“Very cute, huh?” Claudia said, interested.
“Very,” I repeated. She asked me a few more questions about him — how tall, how old, what color eyes — and I filled her in. “But it’s no big deal,” I added. “He’s just this really nice guy who is around a lot. You should have seen him when we went skating with the kids in Central Park today.”
“Isn’t it a little warm for skating?” Claudia asked.
“In-line, silly.” I laughed. “Man, can he Rollerblade! He can do spins and jumps and everything. I felt like a snail compared to him. But, you know, he wasn’t a show-off at all. He was only doing those tricks because Henry asked him to. He was so good with Henry. So patient. He taught him how to Rollerblade. At first Henry was afraid, but by the end of the afternoon he could do it. Ethan was a big help because Henry felt proud of himself, and I was free to help Grace who is still on training roller skates.”
“He sounds great,” Claudia commented.
“Oh, he is,” I agreed. “What’s happening in Stoneybrook?”
“The Mexican festival, mostly,” she told me.
“How’s that going?”
“Don’t ask!”
“Bad?”
“Mucho bad. Abby is just moving way too fast on this. Nothing is planned right. She keeps hitting us up for money to pay for her little projects. Out of the blue, she decided we had to give out fliers. I was up until midnight last night drawing sombreros. She’s having them copied today and the festival is this Saturday.”
“Kristy would laugh if she heard all this,” I said.
“She’d laugh or she’d have a fit,” Claudia said. “This reminds me of the time we went to California and saw how disorganized the We Love Kids Club was. Remember how that nearly drove Kristy insane?”
I laughed, remembering how out of hand things can get when events and schedules aren’t properly organized.
“This is going to be more of a fiasco than a festival if you ask me,” Claudia said.
“Good luck,” I told her. “I bet Abby pulls through at the end.”
“I sure hope so.”
There was a slight pause in our conversation. I was going to tell Claud about my plans to take the Circle Line boat tour around Manhattan the next day, when she started talking.
“Tomorrow, I’m —”
“Stacey, I —” Our voices overlapped and we laughed.
“You go first,” I said.
Claudia sighed miserably. “Stacey, I … I have some bad news.”
I straightened up, sitting forward on the couch. “What?”
“It’s about Robert.”
My heart slammed into my chest. “Is he all right?” I asked urgently.
“Fine. He’s fine,” Claudia assured me. Then what could it be? I waited. “I think … I mean, I’m pretty sure … I’m positive, really … Stacey, Robert has been seeing
Andi Gentile.”
I heard her words … but I didn’t.
“Stacey?” Claudia spoke into the phone. “Stacey, are you there?”
“Yeah.”
“I wouldn’t tell you if I wasn’t sure,” Claudia went on. “But people have been seeing them together all week. Emily Bernstein saw them at Casa Grande again. Mal and Jessi spotted them playing tennis. All the while I kept telling myself it might be nothing but then I saw them myself today. They were downtown and … and … it’s not nothing.”
“What do you mean?” I asked quietly. Claudia mumbled something so fast I couldn’t hear it. “What?”
She spoke quickly again, but this time I caught the words. “I said he kissed her.”
“On the lips?” I hated to ask but I needed to know.
“Yeah.”
“You saw it yourself?”
“Yeah. I did.”
We were both quiet then, just hanging on the line. “Thanks for telling me,” I said finally.
“Are you all right, Stacey?”
“I think so. I’m not sure. It doesn’t seem real yet.”
“I guess you were right to feel suspicious of him.”
I nodded over the phone, which shows you the kind of shape I was in. Dazed, I suppose. Although I’d worried about this, somehow now that my fears were confirmed, I didn’t want to even think about it. I guess I really am nonconfrontational. I sure didn’t want to face this. “I’m going to hang up now. Okay?” I said.
“Okay. I’ll call you tomorrow to make sure you’re all right.”
“Thanks, Claudia. ’Bye.” For a moment, I sat on the couch, just staring. How could this be? For the last several months, since I’d started seeing Robert, part of being me was being Stacey and Robert.
Stacey and Robert 2-gether 4-ever. At least that’s what I’d scribbled on my school notebooks. That’s what I’d thought. Or, maybe I simply hadn’t thought. I’d just assumed we’d keep going along and going along. I hadn’t really thought about the future, not seriously. Yet I’d expected that Robert would always be there with me. Weren’t we close? Didn’t we care for and look out for one another? Didn’t we enjoy spending time together? Wasn’t that the way it was?