I want to ask what does he see, but I don’t dare. He looks at Pandy. “Were you washing him—or her?”
“Him,” I whisper. I swallow again and nod slowly. “Yes. It’s my sister’s.”
“Is he on a field trip?”
I nod, smiling slightly. My smile falters because I know Becca’s missing him. One of her caretakers tried to throw Pandy away this morning. Becca’s been sick with a GI bug she can’t shake—it’s put her in the hospital two times in the last six weeks—and this morning, she threw up on him.
The nurse, one of the newer ones Mom hired a few months back, doesn’t know my sister yet. She doesn’t care about my sister. When I told her she wasn’t allowed to get rid of Pandy, she called my mom, who told her she could do whatever she thought was best.
So I grabbed Pandy. I’ve gotta find some way to sanitize him so my mom won’t make a big fuss when I bring him back.
“My sister is…sick,” I offer in a voice that’s just above a whisper. “Pandy is dirty. So I need to clean him.”
I wait for the look of confusion on his face—or even worse, boredom. But he looks rapt, his eyes fixed on mine…so I keep going.
“One of her nurses tried to throw him out. But Bec’s had Pandy since she was born. And she...is really attached to him.”
Which matters a lot, because my sister is dying. I wipe more tears from my cheeks, and he holds out a hand—I guess for Pandy. He looks down at the bear: ragged from years of love and damp from my attempt to clean him.
“Have you thought about dry cleaning?”
“No,” I whisper. I don’t think my mom would even be willing to schedule a dry cleaning pickup. My mom doesn’t care, I guess. She doesn’t care about Bec anymore. I don’t understand why, but then I’ve never understood my mother. No, that’s not true, I correct myself. I do understand. Now that Bec is having more seizures, Mom is disconnecting one step at a time. And it’s grotesque and awful. She keeps saying Bec was never meant to be with us this long, as if it’s just…that time. As if it’s fine to let her go.
I wipe more tears from my eyes and shake my head. “I don’t think—” I manage.
“I could do it.” He takes Pandy from me. “After school. He’d be the first in line. After he’s cleaned, I can take him home and freeze him. I know it sounds weird, but freezing things can kill germs. My mom…she has cancer. She’s doing really well, but still takes maintenance chemo, and that means germs are bad dudes at our house.”
He nods as if to reassure me that he knows about such things.
“Do you know someone? Who has a dry cleaner? Because if he gets lost…” More tears well. I wipe them quickly. “Not trying to be a beggar and a chooser—”
“My dad,” he says quickly. “He’s got a shoe store and a dry cleaners. Right next door to each other. I help at the dry cleaners after school. I help them close.”
“Oh, which one is his?”
“It’s in Red Hook.” I can tell he’s trying to act casual, but he’s also watching me for a reaction.
I don’t give him one. “So, do you like…do it yourself?”
He nods. “I could do it myself, and then take him home and drop him in the deep freeze. My dad’s big on deli meat. We’ve got a pretty solid freezer.”
“Could you…would you mind bringing him back to school tomorrow?”
“Yeah, for sure.” He takes off his black hooded sweatshirt, revealing a ragged-looking Rolling Stones T-shirt. I watch as he wraps Pandy carefully in the hoodie.
“I’ll be careful. I can give him back to you tomorrow morning at the tennis courts?”
I nod. “That would be great. Amazing, really.” I smile, and then I’m beaming. I can’t seem to help myself. “This really makes my day. Like…you have no idea.”
He winks. “Not a problem, Elise.”
I notice again that his eyes is swollen. I almost ask him about it, but he asks, “So you good now? You feel good walking back to your class?”
“Yes.” I nod. “Thank you.”
He gives me another strange look…like a smile, but with only his eyes. And he says, “You don’t need to.”
I watch him walk down the hall for a long time before I turn back toward the office. And I think about him for the rest of the day.
Chapter Two
Luca
The part about the dry cleaners was a lie. I don’t know why I told her that shit. Actually, I do: because I wanted to make her happy. I wanted her to let me take the bear. So I acted like my dad owns Diamond’s place, like it’s no big deal for me to take care of it.
When I get to Red Hook at 5:30, I swing by The Shoe Store, check in with Dad, then head toward Diamond’s Dry Cleaners.
Diamond—Tony Diamond—is a prick. When I was a kid, I knew him as Alesso’s big brother. Tony is ten years older than us, so at one point, we thought he hung the moon.
Incorrect.
Tony is an asshole and a loose cannon. Now that Tony does Roberto Arnoldi’s bidding, every interaction with him carries some risk. Ever since things went bad between Roberto and my dad—and it was Dad’s fault—we’ve been in a vulnerable position. With the store. With the debt. Tony knows all that shit, and sometimes he likes to try to play enforcer. I’m biting on the inside of my cheek as I approach the cleaners, one of dozens of storefronts along Van Brunt Street.
With any luck, Diamond will be playing Xbox above Matt Russo’s pawn shop on the next block down, and I can get help from one of the assistant managers. They’re all closer to my age than his, all from the neighborhood. Most of them are female, so that doesn’t hurt.
The red and white striped “Diamond’s” awning looks dull in the afternoon light. It’s cloudy today, probably going to rain later. I pass by Lisa Faye’s, the pizza place, and wince at the smell. I’m starving. Then I catch a glimpse of Tony’s fat ass through the glass door of Diamond’s, and my stomach does a quick flip.
That’s my luck, man. Tony’s never here. It only takes me a second to decide to hoof it to the next dry cleaners down—it’s pragmatic to avoid him, even if it’s a walk. But just then Tony straightens up and looks right through the glass door at me like he heard my fucking thoughts.
He grins like a hyena, and before I can beat it, he’s pushing the door open, and I’m hit with his weird, Diamond schtick.
“Howya doing, Bowsie Bow?” He lunges onto the sidewalk toward me, his big hand clasping my shoulder too hard, like we’re long lost friends and he can’t help himself. Except, of course, we’re something very different and I’m sure he knows I fucking hate it.
“Diamond.” I give him a nod, trying to keep from gritting my teeth at the sensation of his fingertips biting into my shoulder. “What’s up?”
“You tell me,” he says. “Still going to that rich boy school?”
I nod, my lips pressed flat. Tony likes to poke you where he thinks it hurts. When we were kids, he wasn’t like this, but his father was. When old man Diamond kicked it, Alesso and I were in sixth grade; Tony was twenty-two and really into gaming. He wanted to get a job making the CG part of video games, but Mrs. Diamond pushed him to take over the store. That’s how he got into what he’s into these days.