The Edge of Falling (16 page)

I sit down cross-legged on the floor and flip open my
jewelry box. I peer inside. It’s a mess, just like I thought—everything jumbled and tangled like the rat’s nest my hair sometimes becomes if I’ve been wearing it down. It’s impossible to tell one necklace from another. I hear my mother’s voice in my head:
These are nice things, Caggie. You really should take better care of them.

My mother has always been a collector. She buys the old stuff—antique, art deco. When I was younger she used to take me to the markets in Paris, the Marché aux Puces, and scour the stands for finds. Whenever we’d go on a trip we’d find the jewelry district and spend at least one full afternoon there. The souks in Morocco, the gems district in Bangkok. It was something we did together, just the two of us. She’d always buy me a present, too. Something to remember the trip by.

We haven’t done it this year, though. My mother shops a lot at Ralph Lauren now. They started designing stuff that looks like the antiques, so she buys that instead.

I find a pendant necklace entwined with pearls and a chain-link bracelet I got for my sweet sixteen. I pick them apart and hold the pendant in my palm. It’s green—an emerald, I think—and about the size of my thumbnail. It’s on a silver chain. My dad gave it to me. It was his mother’s, but somewhere along the line the original chain got lost. I remember my mom laughing, “It would be like your father to give
you a gem with no way to wear it,” and taking me to get a new chain. Hayley insisted on coming too.

We went to Tiffany’s, which was unusual for my mom—Tiffany’s was too mainstream for her—but Hayley wanted to go. She was on an Audrey Hepburn kick. She’d made Trevor and me watch
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
about ten times. I told her she could pick where we went; it didn’t matter to me. So she picked Tiffany’s. She made us get all dolled up before we left too. Black cocktail dresses and gloves and hats. She even borrowed a pair of my mom’s big sunglasses. I remember they kept sliding down her nose.

We each chose a silver chain. My mom told Hayley that since she had come with us she could pick out something special. Anything she wanted, within reason. But Hayley chose that silver chain. She wanted the same thing I was getting. My mom tried to explain to her that mine would have a pendant on it, but she didn’t care. She wanted to buy what I was buying.

Hayley was independent, definitely, but she was like that with me sometimes. It wasn’t that she wanted what I had. She wasn’t jealous. The only five-year-old I knew who never threw a tantrum. She wanted us to match. She wanted similarity. She wanted to share things. It was just a plain chain, and I tried to talk her into something else—after all, she didn’t have anything to put on it—but she insisted. One just like mine. My mom ended up buying her a charm later—a little ruby—
but she never put it on. She wanted to wear it plain. “Just like the day we bought it,” she said.

I slide the green emerald off and squeeze the stone in my hand. It feels cold, like a frozen penny in my palm. Then I put the chain on. I edge up to the slip of glass on the lid of the jewelry box. I can’t see my face at this angle, just my neck. I could be Hayley, I think, as I glance at the chain, shimmering on bare skin. Then I bring my hand up to touch it. My fingers give me away. They’re long; they always have been. Hayley’s were short, tiny, baby hands. Peter would always tease her about it. “Can you even pick up a fork, Hayley?” “Are you sure you can open that door, Hayley?” It was in good fun, she knew that, but I wonder if he thinks about that now. I wonder if he regrets it.

“Knock knock.”

I spin around to see my dad standing in my dressing-room doorway. It shocks me so much I practically snap the necklace off.

“Dad,” I say. “Hi.”

I don’t remember the last time I saw him, but it’s been weeks, at least. I can’t help but notice how much he’s aged this year. His hair is nearly all white—gone is the salt-and-pepper my mom used to say made him look like George Clooney. His suit is wrinkled. It looks too big. I know he must have lost weight, because he gets them all made custom.

I stand and go give him a hug. It’s stiff. He doesn’t wrap his arms all the way around. You know how I keep saying my dad has been on a plane all the time since January, how he hasn’t been here because he doesn’t know how to deal with what happened? What I mean is: He doesn’t know how to deal with me.

My mom didn’t blame me, I knew that. She was devastated. She was inconsolable. But she didn’t think it was my fault.

My dad couldn’t help it. He’s right, too. It
was
my fault. I was the one who said she could come. I was the one who was there. I was the one who didn’t realize, who wasn’t paying attention—how can I blame him? I’ve basically sent him away.

“You going out?” he asks me. He keeps his hands by his sides. He tucks them into his pockets.

I nod. “School dance,” I say.

“With Trevor?”

I shake my head, but I don’t explain.

“I’m only in town for the night,” he says. “Peter and I are going to Trattoria Dell’Arte.”

Trattoria Dell’Arte is this Italian restaurant near Fifty-Seventh Street that my dad always took the three of us to. My mom hated it, but he loved it. Loves it. Sometimes we’d sneak in a meal before Sunday dinner, the four of us. My mom knew what we were up to, but she never confronted us
about it, and if she confronted him, we didn’t know. I don’t think she did. I think she secretly liked that we spent time without her. That we’d want to do that.

“That’ll be fun,” I say. I think about them sitting at the table by the window. Two chairs instead of four. All of a sudden I just want to get back on the phone with Astor. To tell him that whatever he wants to do tonight is fine with me as long as we can do it together.

My dad clears his throat. “Well, have fun,” he says.

I look up at him. He’s still so tall, taller even than Peter. “Thanks,” I say.

He leaves, his gray suit sagging. It seems to hold the space of all of the things we cannot see, but that are there.

*    *    *

I leave for the Whitney at seven. It only takes me a few minutes to hail a cab and get there. I enter on the first floor. The walkway up to the door is decorated with rose petals. There are just a few left; the rest have landed on the sidewalk or over the railing, clearly disrupted by the wind. Abigail and Constance are sitting at a folding table against the left-hand side of the entrance.

“Caggs!” Abigail coos when she sees me. She has on a red dress that plunges so far down in the front that when she stands, it reveals her belly button.

“Hey, Abbey.”

Constance is busy chatting with Bensen Wool, who has just walked in, and she doesn’t look up.

Abigail tilts her head to the side. “Are you here alone?” she asks. She runs her finger down the class list and taps my name.

“No,” I say. “I’m meeting Astor.” I peer down at her check-in sheet. “Is he, um, here yet?”

Abigail shakes her head no. Then she leans across the table, her top dangerously close to spilling out. “It’s so funny you’re with him. I’d never put you two together.”

She giggles, and looks down at Constance, who is all of a sudden paying attention to us.

“Yeah,” I say, “well.”

Constance cuts me off. “Is Claire coming?”

“Claire doesn’t go here anymore.”

Abigail shrugs. “We thought you’d still bring her. Once a Kensington girl, always a Kensington girl. Right?”

“You two used to do everything together,” Constance adds.

It’s the state-the-obvious twins.

“Have a good night,” I say, and then turn right and head downstairs.

The bottom floor of the Guggenheim has an outdoor-indoor event space. Some students are milling around outside, and there are high, round tables set up around the perimeter of
the inside. They’re each covered in a cream-colored tablecloth with a white-rose centerpiece.

I glance down at the black dress I chose. Something I bought in the Hamptons last summer. It’s a halter, with silver straps and one cutout circle at the chest. I’ve been waiting to “fill out” since the seventh grade and it’s never happened. This is probably the sexiest thing I own, and on me it might as well be jeans and a T-shirt. If Claire were here she would pull it down in the front. She might have even pinned it down before we left, so that it could show more of my nonexistent cleavage. Claire would step back and survey me.
Not bad,
she’d say.
I really do my best work on you.
Then I’d throw a shoe at her or something, and we’d start hysterically laughing. I realize that sounds like a movie montage of friendship, but the sad part is it’s sorta true. Or it was.

I go over to the bar and pick up a cranberry juice in a wine glass. Sometimes they even have champagne at these things “for the chaperones.” Our school makes very little effort to pretend the kids at Kensington don’t drink. I take a couple of sips, surveying the scene. Gidget and Bartley are a few tables over, talking to Harrington Priesley and Greg Mathews. I think about going over to them and saying hi, but if I remember correctly, I think they have crushes on these boys. Trevor told me that once. Interrupting while they’re trying to flirt doesn’t feel like the best “make friends” plan.

I just sort of stand off to the side. Ten minutes pass and Astor doesn’t show up. You know what’s sad? Standing at a party that is being thrown by your high school, by your own grade, and realizing you don’t have a single person to talk to.

Twenty minutes pass.

I wave at Gidget. She smiles, but quickly turns back around to Greg.

Thirty minutes pass. Astor still hasn’t arrived.

I set my third cranberry juice down. My black dress now feels like I’m trying too hard. To impress who? It’s becoming increasingly clear I don’t have a date.

And then I see Kristen. She’s standing by the bathrooms, toward the other side of the bar. She has on a light purple dress that looks a little like something Hayley used to own. She looks small, innocent. Too young to be here. All at once, my heart starts racing. Because she’s looking at me.

I see her at school, of course—in English, in the halls. But we haven’t spoken since that day in Mr. Tenner’s class. The day she promised me she wouldn’t tell.

I take a deep breath and walk over to her. She straightens up and sets her drink down.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hey,” she says. “Who are you here with?”

I shrug. “Astor was supposed to meet me, but he hasn’t shown up.”

“It’s pretty, huh?” She gestures toward the dance floor.

I nod. “It is.”

“I’ve always really loved the Whitney,” she says. “It’s the kind of museum you could see being remembered in. Not too flashy, you know?”

“Do you paint?” I ask.

She looks down at her drink. “Sort of. I mean, yes.”

“That’s cool,” I say. “I didn’t know.”

She raises her shoulders as if to say,
you never asked.

“So how are you?” I ask.

“Good,” she says. She shuffles her feet. I notice she’s avoiding making eye contact.

“That doesn’t sound awesome,” I say.

She shrugs. “It’s fine. It’s not your problem.”

“I think we’re a little past that,” I say. I realize, suddenly, that she’s not going to tell what happened in May, that she never will. The realization strikes me right through the stomach—so strong it’s crazy I never felt it before. It makes me grateful and relieved and guilty; all at once.

She laughs. It makes her sound older. A little more solid. “I guess so.” She turns to me. “It’s not that I ever had too many friends here. But I’m so sick of Abigail and Constance.”

“Amen,” I say. “I feel you on that one.” I raise my glass to hers and we clink.

“Right?” she says. She loosens up a little. Her tone gets higher.

“You just have to ignore them,” I say.

She sighs. “I know. It’s hard sometimes. The other day I was coming out of the
Journal
and they . . .” She pauses, glances at me.

“Are you working with Trevor?” I ask.

She nips her bottom lip. “Yeah,” she says. “They needed a sub. I’m just helping out. I’m sorry, I thought you knew.”

“No, no,” I say. “That’s good. That’s great.”

She nods a few times. “It’s been fun,” she says. “Trevor has been telling me some of your ideas. They’re really good.”

“Thanks,” I say. “But most of them were his.”

Kristen squints at me, then shakes her head. “That’s not what he said.”

“He’s just being modest,” I say. My mouth feels dry. I suddenly want to get out of here.

“He’s a really nice guy.”

I swallow. “Yeah,” I say. “I know.”

Then Kristen touches my arm. It startles me to feel her fingertips like this. “We just talk about the
Journal
,” she says. “In case you were wondering. He won’t even let Mrs. Lancaster assign me to your position. I think he still thinks you’re coming back.”

I open my mouth to respond, but something stops me.
Trevor is here. He comes in from the outside, laughing with Phil Stern. Our eyes lock instantly, and he smiles. Maybe it’s because Astor isn’t here, maybe it’s because I was standing alone for close to forty minutes, but so do I. I see him relax; I recognize that grin he gets when he’s really happy about something. In the next moment Trevor excuses himself from Phil, and then he’s making his way over to us.

“Hey,” he says. He glances at me and then at Kristen. “How’s it going, Jenkins?”

“Pretty good,” she says.

Trevor raises his eyebrows at her. “Remember what I told you. If those girls give you lip, you come to me. Yeah?”

She sighs. “I know,” she says. “Definitely.”

Trevor looks at me. “Hey,” he says.

“Hi.”

I can hear Kristen clear her throat next to us. “I just remembered I have to relieve the babysitter,” she says.

“Oh, come on,” Trevor says, knocking her shoulder lightly. “Try a little.”

She laughs. It’s good to see her smiling. Happy. Alive. “It was nice to see you both.” She gives us a half wave and takes off for the stairs. When she’s gone, I can feel Trevor close to me.

“You scared her off,” I say.