The Museum of Heartbreak (9 page)

I SHOULD HAVE ENJOYED THE
journey to Keats's West Village brownstone. I was going to a party, a party thrown by the potential love of my life. Several people, not counting the man on the corner muttering to himself about pork rinds, had already stopped to compliment me on my costume. Eph was in a good mood, chattering most of the way there about comic books and skateboard decks, and when we got out at West Fourth Street—“Holy crap, check out the moon!” And the moon was luminous: big and oddly, precisely circular, like it was a space hole-punched out of the sky. People in sweaters and boots were smiling pleasantly around us, all the frustration of the summer humidity suddenly forgotten.

Like I said, I should have enjoyed it.

The climate inside my head, though, was distinctly terrible.

My lip gloss was tingling unpleasantly, and I was pretty sure I was having an allergic reaction and would end up with lips that
were swollen but not in an appealing Angelina Jolie way.

My Docs suddenly felt like the heaviest shoes in the world, like I was a fat horse clomping on the sidewalk.

A few stars had fallen off, and I felt bad about littering, but I was too busy second-guessing my costume to stop, thinking of how I'd appear amid all the sexy vampires and slutty Dorothy Gales and at least two hip Charlie's Angels who'd be there.

Dinner was not sitting well in my stomach. I was heading to possibly the most momentous event of my sixteen years to date, and my breath reeked of the Chipotle that Eph and I had shoved down thirty minutes ago. Things were gurgling ominously down below.

Two doors from the address, I flat-out froze.

He looked back at me.

“Let's go home.”

He waited.

I gnawed on my lip and bit at the sore spot on the inside, tasted the iron tang of blood, and wiped my clammy palms on my skirt. A few more stars fell off. I imagined a giant white hand hurtling through the universe, wiping out entire galaxies.

“I'm sorry for dragging you out. I'm sorry I made all this stupid fuss.”

He sighed, patiently exasperated. “You want to go. You dig Keats.”

“No, I don't,” I said automatically.

He raised his eyebrows. “Oh, so you're a total party animal now—that's why you wanted to go in the first place?”

I sighed and shook my head, trying not to meet his eyes, trying not to be all weird and watery-eyed, and totally failing.

“God, you really like this guy, don't you?”

I bit my lip so hard it almost bled. “I do.”

I waited for him to joke how it was about time I got a boyfriend or to make a loud fart noise or something else terrible, but instead he nodded, studying me carefully, his eyes taking me in like I was something new.

“All right. I was saving this for myself, but . . .” Eph pulled his wallet out from his back pocket and dug through the billfold. His hand emerged with a small, round piece of metal, the center cut out.

“An old subway token?”

He nodded, pleased with himself.

“Thanks, I guess?”

“You ‘guess'?”

“Sure?”

“Pen, I won that in a game of cards with the Bearded Lady at the Coney Island freak show. It's full of totally sick magic.”

“The Bearded Lady? Oh, please.” I studied the token in my hand.

“It's true! We were playing a round of five-card draw, and Rufus the Sword Swallower and Serpentina had already folded.”

“You are so full of it.”

“My sketchbook was up for grabs, and now that you've seen my latest stuff . . .” He raised an eyebrow. “You
know
it's worth millions.”

“Um-hmm. So now we get to talk about it?”

He ignored me. “So the Bearded Lady had her lucky subway token on the table—the one you currently have in your clammy hands. Turns out she had never been beat, thanks to that very token.
And of course she was winning—she was crushing me. I thought me and my dinosaurs were toast. And I was convinced she was fucking stacking the deck. Her beard? Huge. There could have been a whole deck of cards hidden in there. But no way could I accuse her with Rufus there—I mean, his lady's reputation was at stake. I would have ended up with a sword through my spleen.”

“The Sword Swallower and the Bearded Lady were a couple?”

“Totally head over heels in love with each other.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, and to be honest, I probably could have gone home with Serpentina. She was giving me sex eyes.” He wiggled his tongue, snakelike, at me.

“Gross.”

“Occupational hazard of being a tall, handsome hottie. Anyway, so she puts down a straight flush, all smuglike, and I can see her, practically reaching for my notebook, when
bam
, I crush it with a royal flush.”

“I don't know what any of this card stuff means, you know.”

“The Bearded Lady was mega pissed, couldn't believe I had won, especially with all her cheating, and I grabbed the token, right as Rufus shot his sword down into the table, only fucking millimeters from my hand. My life flashed before my eyes—sort of like when you pushed me off my skateboard? Or tried to give me a deviated septum by ramming your skull in my face? Or broke my nose?”

“I was ten!”

“But Serpentina held up her hands. ‘Rules are rules; the wager was made; promises must be kept.' Damn, she was hot.” He sighed wistfully. “So I shoved the token in my pocket and got the fuck out
of there. And now I'm bestowing it on you. I mean, the Bearded Lady landed Rufus with the magic in that token, Pen. That's some powerful shit there.”

I unfurled my fingers, studied the totally average-seeming old subway token.

“Not that I'm comparing you to the Bearded Lady,” he added hastily.

Eph was so full of it.

But he was waiting, expectant, and I felt a trace of the things you can't hold glowing around me: glimmer and potential and maybe.

“Okay, let's do this,” I said, and slid the token into the pocket over my heart.

•  •  •

As we climbed the stoop to Keats's brownstone, I patted the token against my chest for reassurance. The thump of the bass on the other side of the door was so loud I felt it in my ribs. I reached for the doorbell, but Eph pushed in.

The first person we saw? Cherisse.

Not an auspicious start.

Her blond hair was curled in feathery seventies waves, held back by a terry-cloth headband, and she was wearing a white tennis dress—the pleated skirt so short I worried about potential hygiene issues for her lady parts. Nestled deep in her cleavage was a gold charm on a gold necklace, all glittery in the light.

“Ephraim!” She pulled him into a hug, giving him a kiss on each cheek.

She squinted at me. “Are you an arts-and-crafts project?” The drunk slur in her voice made it sound like she had called me an arts-and-
craps
project.
Though it was Cherisse we were talking about—maybe she actually had.

“Hey, Cherisse,” I said, edging around her. “No, I'm the night sky.”

“Oh my God, Penny, that's so cute!”

Okay, she called me Penny, but had she actually complimented me? Maybe she wasn't so bad.

“I could totally see my little cousin in kindergarten rocking that!” No, she was indeed still the worst.

“Is Audrey around?” I asked, stretching on my tiptoes and scanning the immediate crush of partiers in the front room, searching for Audrey but also for Keats. I saw scantily clad nurses swaying their arms overhead rhythmically to some electronic music, two big guys dressed in drag sitting wide-legged on the couches, sweaty beers in hand, eyes glazed over appreciatively, crowds of people bouncing to some loud music. It was pretty much my idea of hell.

Cherisse stumbled off and Eph pumped keg beer into a plastic cup.

“Can you get me one?” I asked him above the noise.

“You don't like beer.”

I shrugged, holding my hand out until he gave me a cup.

I didn't like beer. Or any alcohol, for that matter. But even more than that, I hated the idea of being the only person in the room not holding one.

I scanned the crowd again, and then I saw, like a lighthouse on the shore, Grace and Miles of Dead Poets Phone fame huddled in the corner of the room. She seemed kind of miserable, and he looked totally bored. Across a group of guys dressed as zombies, Grace met my eyes and raised her hand.

“Penelope, over here!”

Maybe that token was lucky after all.

“I'll be back,” I said to Eph, and took the first step in Operation Social Circle: trying to make my way to Miles and Grace's corner without bumping into anyone and spilling beer on anything expensive. It wasn't going to be easy. From what I could tell about the parts of the room that weren't obscured by drunk partygoers, Keats's parents liked expensive-looking art—there were some modern pieces on the walls, paint spattered and bright, as well as a few striking angular metal sculptures on either side of the fireplace.

When I got there, proud of being neither spiller nor spillee, Grace pulled me into a hug. She was dressed like a Mexican Day of the Dead woman, her face made up like a skeleton, bright red roses in her hair. “Nice art, eh?” She held up her plastic cup for a toast and we smushed glasses.

“Wine?” I asked when I saw the contents of her cup.

“No, Diet Coke. I had to dig through the fridge to find some.”

“Penelope,” Miles said, giving me a small, careful smile. I smelled his beer breath from where I was standing, three feet away. His hair was gelled into a spiky mullet, and he had a lightning bolt painted on his face.

“Harry Potter?” I asked.

“Ziggy Stardust,” he said.

For a second I thought about pretending I knew who that was. But Grace was drinking Diet Coke, and Miles's smile had seemed genuine, and my nerves were too frayed to hold back.

“I don't know who that is. And I hate beer. I mean, really, really hate it. I think it tastes like urine and green olives got together and had a baby. And I saw my archnemesis at the door and it sounded like she
told me I was an arts-and-
craps
project. And I'm probably dying from an allergic reaction to my lip gloss, even though I now own a lucky subway token from a bearded lady. And I hate, hate, hate parties.”

They both stood there for a second with unreadable expressions.

Miles took my beer. “That was a lot to handle. But I like that you have an archnemesis.” He took a big swig and handed it back to me. “The love child of green olives and urine? I could see that.” He licked his lips.

Grace leaned in confidentially. “I hate this party too.” She sighed and said, more to herself than anyone, “It makes me miss Kieran so much.”

I raised an eyebrow.

Miles snorted. “Kieran is Grace's totally perfect boyfriend who says totally perfect things all the totally perfect times they're hanging out and who makes anyone else's boyfriend look like the worst because Kieran is literally a totally perfect superhuman being. They're all ick.”

Grace slugged him in the arm, and Miles shrugged, nonplussed.

“What? You know it's true,” he said.

She pointedly turned her back on him. “We're only here because Miles found an invite in the cafeteria and was hoping maybe by some coincidence the hot Starbucks guy he's been crushing on would be here. No luck . . .” She made a sad trombone “wah-wahhh” noise.

“Gracie, why do you tell everyone my secrets?” Miles asked.

“Which doesn't really matter anyway, because if Miles would just open his eyes and give the new guy Oscar a chance . . .”

Miles scowled at her and grabbed my beer, then drank half of it in one gulp.

“. . . he
could have a totally perfect boyfriend too.”

“I told you, Oscar's too quiet. He has no edge. He plays Dungeons and Dragons,” Miles said, as if that explained everything.

“You and your standards,” Grace muttered.

“It's called not settling!” Miles hollered.

“Okay, you're cut off, Drunky McFerguson,” Grace said to Miles. She turned to me. “We're bailing and getting churros at this all-night Cuban diner on Fourteenth and Seventh. Want to join?”

Hanging out with new people sounded a little terrifying, but that was what Audrey and Eph had been going on about: hanging out with new people.
Yes
was on the tip of my tongue, when I saw Audrey waving at me from a crowd of people down the hall.

I didn't know if I felt more relieved or disappointed.

“I should probably say hi to my friend and stick it out a little longer. I'm sorry.”

“No problemo,” Miles said, pulling my cup closer and sipping more beer from it.

I laughed as Grace pushed the beer back in my hands.

“Take my details, in case you change your mind,” she said. I handed her my phone and she typed in her number.

“Later,” Miles said, his smile hazy.

“Eat some churros for me!” I called out, watching them leave.

I started to weave my way to Audrey, but being short in a crowd makes finding particular people pretty impossible. I stood on my tiptoes, my boots straining to give me some height, and wished I could transport myself by clicking my heels three times.

“Pen!” Audrey said, ducking under some guy's armpit and bursting into my space. She pulled me into a hug. “You look incredible, starry girl! Isn't this amazing? Let's find Eph!” She grabbed my hand
and began tugging me through the crowd.

“By the way, what was that with you and him earlier?” she yelled over her shoulder.

“What?”

“On the bed. I thought you were going to start making out or something.”

I stopped, grimacing. “No way. It was
Eph
.”

“But you're getting all weird and blushy.”

“No I'm not!”

“Whatever you say.”