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Chapter One - Amanda
I’d never seen a colossal city before. It sounds silly, but it’s still true. I was born and raised in nowhere Wisconsin and went about fifty miles up the road to the bustling metropolis of Milwaukee to attend the university. I’d read about cities like New York with their 8 million people and couldn’t quite get my head around it. The books might as well have been discussing the sky city of Asgard—which I also read a lot about being a massive book nerd. Not that I looked like the dork I was. My bestie Liz kept telling me I was hot and what I saw did little to contradict her, though I would have more said ‘cute’ than ‘hot’, but it was really a matter of perspective.
The trip to the Big Apple was Liz’s idea, as were most of the cool things that had ever happened to me. Were it down to my own discretion, I would probably never leave my room, except maybe to go to the local theater now and then — not the one in Milwaukee but the one back home.
My parents encouraged me to go to college, but Liz had insisted. It was embarrassing but true that she had a lot more sway over me than my own parents. Even at the university, I was a studious homebody. None of the wild sex or drinking I’d heard about for so long. Though I was pretty sure it was happening in the next room, the one occupied by Liz, who had insisted on attending the same school.
I felt a bit bad about that. She had the brains and courage to go wherever the hell she wanted. No less than thirty schools had accepted her application, some in borderline betting tones. She’d narrowed it down to Yale, Harvard, Oxford, and Trinity College Dublin before finding out I was going to Marquette and applying that same day. She didn’t walk into her closed program so much as was welcomed with a parade. I doubted the administrators knew what they were getting into with her. Most of the other students were Catholic School kids like me.
Liz was from the heathen public school across the road that all the nuns warned me about. It was pretty much an accident that our paths crossed five years ago, but I was glad they did. Liz took the lead, of course, and took me in hand, showing me how to actually be a teen. Something no one else could have been bothered to do.
Not the kind just to say no — like my parents and teachers — Liz gave me other things to distract me from my teenage depression. Things like mythology, fantasy fiction, and black metal, all of which helped me build a different world in my head. Somewhere to go whenever things got rough. Some might call it a ‘happy place’ but Liz, and therefore I, preferred the term ‘inner realm.’
The streetlights were coming on when we left the New York Public Library. My idea of a landmark, even if I didn’t have a card. It was something special just to be there. Left in awe, we stumbled down a few blocks, deep in conversation about first-editions and such. After a while, we realized we had forgotten where we were going.
Manhattan island really wasn’t that big, at least geographically. Being built up rather than out. We had a map, bought at the airport before we ever set foot in the city, and were confident we could find our way around without a guide. Often, we were wrong. However, being lost at night was unsettling.
“That corner looks familiar,” I observed as we came up to an intersection.
“What makes you say that?”
“Aside from the non-chain record store that would really only ever be there?” I asked.
“Fair point.” Liz did something that kind of looked like dance before nodding in satisfaction. I was honestly hoping for good news, the fear of being lost already beginning to creep into my bones.
“We are definitely on the Upper East Side,” Liz said, authoritatively.
“That’s good, right?” I asked, trying to remember that section in the travel book.
“Better than some,” Liz said.
I took a deep breath, trying to keep my heart from beating quite so hard. I was with Liz, everything would be fine. We would figure out how to get back to our hotel.
The brownstones around us were truly impressive. Even Liz stopped to look at a few of them. We’d never really seen anything like it, and I felt the sudden urge to take a picture. If nothing else to prove to myself I’d actually seen them. Pictures or it didn’t happen and all that.
No sooner was my phone out than Liz was posing at the bottom of the stairs. We both laughed as I took the pictures.
