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I lengthen my strides as I pass a crew on scaffolding, eight arms reaching to smear putty on the outside of a brick building. A green-haired guy nods my way as he pedals by on a bike towing a portable espresso station. I’ve gotten my caffeine fix from him a few times, and I’m pretty sure he’s around my age.
“Hey, man.”
An older guy in front of me glances over his shoulder before returning to his cell phone conversation.
Most students at Manhattan Magnet aren’t commuting from Brooklyn, much less Red Hook. As far as I know, it’s just me making the march from Chambers Station toward Washington Market Park—which is to say I’m walking toward the Hudson.
Some days—including this one—there’s a breeze off the river that blows through my shirt. I always think the sunshine streaming through these trees seems sunnier than the stuff in Red Hook. At this new school of mine, damn near anything seems possible. Even if it’s not.
By the time I get to the gardens at Washington Market Park, I’m feeling all right. Beyond the thick green trees that line the sidewalk up ahead, there are some tennis courts. If I time it right as I approach them, I’ll see what I’ve waited for all morning. It’s a familiar scene now: a black Lincoln pulls up to the curb. She always hops out the back door, which is how I know she’s being driven by a service.
Every day, I watch her rise to her full height…which isn’t too high. I watch as she lifts her long hair over her purple leather backpack. It’s long and wavy, dark but not exactly black. It has some red, I think. Not hair-dyed, but a sort of maroon shine, when the sun hits it, which it does some days as she walks toward Tribeca Bridge, some twenty feet in front of us. The covered bridge takes us over West Street and into the school.
Every day, I watch as she saunters toward the bridge, and then I watch her as she walks across it. I stay back far enough so she doesn’t feel as if she’s being followed and close enough so I can appreciate her ass as it bounces below the backpack, usually clad in colored jeans or leggings, sometimes hidden by an extra-long blouse.
I stay close enough that I can smell her. Not because I’m fucking weird and like to smell girls, but because she smells abnormally good. Like what I think gold would smell like if it were a scent: pure and clean, with a hint of something like vanilla. It’s probably some Bergdorf Goodman bullshit, but damn, it smells so fucking good.
Even after the bridge leads us to the school’s side door and we go opposite ways, I can still smell her.
Elise O’Hara—that’s her name. Kind of awkward on the cadence there. Elise O’Hara. Might sound better with Galante at the end. Elise Galante.
I stop under one of the trees shading my stretch of sidewalk by the park’s garden, frowning at the empty tennis court and then out at the traffic.
Did I miss her? Did she come early? Or is she late?
It’s kind of creepy, okay? I know. But I crouch down so I can fuck with my shoe, for just a second. I’m only going to wait here for a minute. I hate being late, and today especially, that would suck. Everyone will stare at my busted up face even if I’m at my desk early.
I toy with my new Jordans. My dad owns a shoe store. Usually he sells more formal shit, but I can get pretty much whatever for the vendor’s price. I’m messing with the laces when the black car parks beside the sidewalk.
Almost before the wheels stop rolling, the rear door opens and she’s out. Damn, she’s like a rocket today. Doesn’t even stop to pull that waterfall of hair out of her backpack straps.
She walks like she’s pissed or in a bigtime hurry. I check my watch, but we’re not really late. Maybe on the later side of on-time.
Black pants today. From twenty feet behind her, I can’t see the stitching well enough to know if they’re leggings or this new girl pants thing—“jeggings”—but goddamn with that ass.
I cast my eyes down to the sidewalk, but it doesn’t last. Just a second later, my gaze jumps back up her curvy form. This time, my eyes rest on her slim shoulders, the sway of her arms. I can tell she’s clutching something half a second before it hits the ground and bounces toward me.
A stuffed animal?
I scoop it up, smiling at its big bear eyes and happy panda smile—and then she’s on me. I get a whiff of her—the clean, rich smell—before she snatches the thing from my hand and whirls away, her long hair brushing my cheek as she spins.
