Blue Rose In Chelsea Read online

  “He was the closest I’ve ever been to another person. When you have an identical twin, it’s like you are in sync in so many ways, it’s almost spooky,” he reveals, after a long silence.

  “Is he the one who was claustrophobic on subways, like me?” I suddenly recall Evan’s incongruous reference to his brother after our passionate kiss on the E train, feeling ashamed now of my callous response that day.

  “Yes. The blue bandanna is his. Don’t lose it,” he says, with such command that I can only nod in obedience.

  I fight the urge to throw my arms around him and comfort him. He walks on ahead of me, as if he needs some moments free from my penetrating gaze.

  “Do you believe in God?” he asks abruptly, almost brusquely.

  “Yes, of course,” I say, sliding beside him into a pew, where he has sat down.

  “Because you were taught to believe, in Catholic school?”

  “No, actually I kind of sensed there was something, long before I began first grade at Holy Family.”

  Evan turns to face me. “How so?”

  “I can remember being four years old and I felt a connection to Something, something I couldn’t see, but could strongly sense. I felt I had come from Somewhere Else, and like a stranger in a strange land, I had to acclimate myself to where I was now. I used to lie in bed at night and I could actually see these sparkly particles in the air moving. I would watch them, moving like waves, like a stream flowing over the bedroom, like slow motion strings of Christmas tinsel.”

  Evan studies my face.

  “And that to me, was God—the sparkly particles in the air all around me, always there but for the most part unseen. I’ve always wondered what it was that I saw, and then I read something that sounded similar. My roommate at Princeton was reading a book about Near Death Experiences, have you heard of that phenomenon?”

  “When someone dies and is revived, and they see a light or tunnel?”

  “Yes. In one account in her book, a girl had an NDE and she said she saw the Light that they talk about, and when she woke up she said she could still see it, but it was fragmented, broken into tiny pieces, but it was in everything. She could see it in everyone and everything, little pieces of the Light, stitched through the fabric of everything, and nothing was left out. I think that may be what I saw when I was very young.”

  Evan slips off his coat in the warmth of the church and folds it in front of him, his hands hidden beneath it. He wears a pale blue sweater. His intense gaze does not waiver, and I’m not sure if it is my words or my face that has captivated him.

  “I remember I could do things so easily when I was very young,” I continue, “as if I was tapping into some inexhaustible resource, some magical force that always answered my requests,” I continue. “If I attempted to do something, I succeeded. I had this strange ability to recall everything that I was taught. The small Catholic school I attended didn’t have the funding or facilities for accelerated courses, although they used to put me in a classroom by myself and give me more advanced work to do. That’s why we moved out of the city, so that I could attend a school in the suburbs that had programs for the gifted. Poor Dylan had to leave all his friends. I don’t think he’s ever quite forgiven me for that.”

  Evan watches me with rapt attention, and asks, “Can you still see them, the sparkles?”

  “No, not anymore. I’m sure it’s still there all around us, even now. I’ve just lost the ability to see it. And when I stopped seeing it, I lost that ease, that strange effortless mastery of things, and I became ordinary.”

  “I wouldn’t call you ordinary, Sylvia,” he says with a wry smile.

  “News of my genius is greatly exaggerated,” I smirk. “It’s who I was. I’m not that person anymore. The truth is that I struggled at Princeton.”

  “You’ll never be ordinary,” he says. His gaze drinks in the ornate structures as we rise to walk again. We weave around other tourists who stroll indolently beneath the majestic architecture.

  “You’re so gifted, much more than me. You must be in touch with the sparkly particles in some way.”

  “I’m not that gifted, Haley. Things just sort of happened for me.” My name on his lips is jolting.

  “But whatever you want, you seem to get,” I say with ardor.

  “But I’ve never wanted anything, that’s the paradox. Things just happened, the ballet company, the acting jobs. I’ve never been attached to the outcome of anything. I just go with the flow, as they say.”

  “That’s very Zen,” I counter, and he chuckles. “Have you ever read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance?”

  “I’m reading that book right now, actually. How weird is that?” He blinks rapidly at the coincidence.

  We stroll slowly past the Stations of the Cross. “These are very sad,” he says.

  I decide to light a candle for the grandmother I never knew. When I can’t locate a dollar in my pockets, Evan leans forward to help fish in my pockets for me, which brings him close enough that his hair brushes my lips.

  “So you have lost someone,” he says gently.

  “I never knew my grandmother,” I say, and then it dawns on me what Evan is asking of me. “If I had lost the person that I was closest to in the world, I would probably doubt that there was a God.”

  “You wouldn’t doubt for long,” he says, softly, walking again.

  “I would doubt for as long as it takes.”

  “As long as what takes?” he asks, turning toward me.

  “To be convinced otherwise. Until I was given a sign that the person was not gone, but in some better place, or still with me, though I couldn’t see them.”

  I tell him the story my father once told me—that the day after his father’s funeral—and long before I was born—my mother went to the store for milk, and my father went to lie down at home. He was lying in bed alone, when suddenly the room was filled with the smell of pipe smoke—my grandfather smoked a pipe—the entire room smelled of it; there was no mistaking it. My father got up and searched the house to see if someone, some visitor or neighbor, was in the house smoking a pipe, but there was no one. He moved out onto the porch and wandered through the neighborhood, looking to see if perhaps a neighbor was smoking the pipe, but there was no one. It had come from within the room. It was his father sending him a message that he was not really gone.

  We have made our rounds of the cathedral, and we come upon Sinclair sitting slouched in a pew with his Rayban sunglasses cloaking his red eyes and his black turtleneck pulled up over his chin, like a child. We settle in beside him for the Mass. Evan puts his arm around me, not around me exactly, but behind me on the wooden pew and leans into me to read from the prayer and hymnal book that I hold, although he does not recite or sing along. I feel as if I’m under the wings of my guardian angel, with Evan above me like that. After, we file out of the cathedral with the other parishioners, and find ourselves standing on a very windy and sun-soaked Fifth Avenue.

  “Sylvia doesn’t like wind. It gets in through her little ears, and it unbalances her chi,” Sinclair states, standing stiff as a Robo-cop, hoping to minimize any unnecessary movement so as not to rouse the Hangover Beast.

  “I’m fine,” I say. I beg them to walk with me to see the Christmas displays in the department store windows along Fifth Avenue. I’ve seen Sinclair’s a dozen times, in various stages of development, but I want to see it now with Evan.

  We nab some coffee from a vendor, and we walk, despite the wind. I am surprised that Evan has stayed through the Mass, and now for our tour of the displays. I’m so used to Evan leaving, going somewhere, always going, going. Something feels different; something new is in the air between us.

  There are lines of people three deep before the displays at Bergdorf’s, but Sinclair can no longer stand the wind and walking, so he must sit down. Sinclair announces he will wait for us in a café, nursing a cup of java. Evan and I move along the avenue, but there is such a line to see the display that the
best we can manage is to jump sporadically on the perimeter of the crowds, to catch flashes of it.

  “Jetes come in handy,” Evan jests, as, laughing, we spring from the pavement like we’re on pogo sticks to catch sight of the exiled Count’s lavish display of fairy queens and castles.

  Evan asks for my help picking out Christmas gifts for his mother and sisters. This is the perfect opportunity for me to ask about his family, under the guise that I must know as much about them as possible in order to determine the perfect gifts. He considers buying his mother something for the kitchen, but I nix that, and convince him to buy her something personal, as we peruse cashmere scarves, until he informs me that it’s hot in Texas this time of year. We settle on a golden box of Godiva chocolates, “the best chocolates in the city,” I assure him.

  I discover that his older sister, who works as a buyer at a department store in Boston, is a great fan of Princess Diana, and that she often tries to dress like her, and even resembles her, with a similar haircut and complexion. I find a hat that is almost identical to the black hat that Princess Diana wore in Paris this month. It’s a black pillbox hat with a short black veil.

  “What is it with women and Princess Diana?”

  “We just love her,” I say, with a shrug. “Okay, tell me the truth.” I turn to him for his opinion on how the hat looks.

  “You think I haven’t been telling you the truth?”

  “About the hat, silly.”

  “Do you think most people lie about themselves?” A slight ripple vibrates outward from the surface of his cool demeanor.

  “I think most people conceal. Not for malicious reasons. They conceal the things they think will make them not loveable. They invest huge amounts of thought and energy in hiding the things they think will make them vulnerable.” I pivot to observe myself in the mirror. The hat looks good on me. I find myself reciting snippets of Sylvia’s poetry in response to the subject matter.

  “What do you conceal?” he asks, leaning an arm on the counter.

  “From you? I have a feeling I don’t conceal anything, although it’s not from a lack of trying.”

  He smiles, glancing down at his softly drumming fingers on the glass.

  “And what about you?” I dare.

  “I don’t conceal. I just reveal things slowly. I like to take things in, to take people in gradually, to sit back and listen and watch.”

  “Do you watch me?”

  “It’s impossible not to. You’re always putting on some major spectacle.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I say, deflated.

  “You say what most people won’t; you just zoom right in to the core of things. You don’t waste time with fluff. You don’t seem to live by the same rules that other people do. You have no defenses.” He is focused on the ringlet of hair snagged in the mesh of the hat. He tries to disentangle it.

  “Should I acquire some?”

  “Yes, but not with me.”

  “You’re not dangerous?”

  “I didn’t say that. But you’re safe with me. I mean you no harm.” He untangles me from the svelte hat, and as there is a long strand of my hair stuck in the mesh, he frees it and holds it up for me to see, then runs it over his lips, as one would a blade of grass.

  “No one ever means anyone harm, until they harm them,” I say, mesmerized by the seductive gesture.

  “There it is again, a Sylvia-ism.” He leans down to tie a lace on his impeccable shoes. I don’t know why I do it, but I sink gracefully beside him onto my embroidered heels, my borrowed fur coat fanning out over the polished floor, the pink trees glittering above me, and I lean in to touch my lips gently on his. Startled, he looks up, and our lips inadvertently separate. He watches me for one inexorably long moment, as I long for him to lean in and kiss me, and fear that he may instead stand up and put an end to this, in which case the only remedy will be for the floor to open up and suck me into some other dimension, never again to be seen by human eyes.

  Suddenly someone barrels into Evan with a baby carriage, a woman rounding the corner of the counter who doesn’t see him bent there over his shoelace. Evan topples into the counter, as the woman gushes a hundred apologies before galloping off again. Evan is on his feet quickly; he never seems long at the mercy of outside forces, but rather is sustained by some unshakeable inner equilibrium. I stand up quickly and flutter my fingers over his shoulders, his hair, his cheek, as if checking to see that the beautiful sculpture of him has not been chipped. He watches me, but he doesn’t brush me off.

  “You’re the dangerous one,” he says, and he lifts my chin and gently kisses me on the lips. Handel’s Messiah plays over the sound system, and I’m not sure if it is the silver garland of the trees I’m seeing at the edge of my eyelashes, or sparks of electricity. I lose all sense of time, as Evan continues to kiss me. To be this close to him feels like being delivered into an energy field of warm light and well being where the burden of thought ceases and only feeling reigns.

  “And his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor,” the choir sings.

  When we come up for air, a cashier inquires if we’d like her to ring up the hat.

  “Where would my sister wear this?” he asks, as we watch the cashier wrap it up for him.

  “Well, you’ll just have to take her somewhere when she comes to town. Be sure to tell her that this is the hat Diana wore to the Tuileries in Paris recently.”

  “Oh, believe me, she probably already knows,” he says, with a roll of his eye.

  Whatever I suggest he agrees to. It’s as if we’ve crossed a new threshold in our relationship, just the two of us together, kissing openly in the store, laughing and shopping together. Could it be that we’re finally a couple? We buy cable knit sweaters for his two younger sisters.

  “Women shop, men buy. Check out this guy,” he whispers, nodding toward a man waiting in line with six versions of the same shirt in different colors. “He finds a shirt that he likes, so he buys one in every color. It’s pure genius. He’s set for the winter.”

  “While a woman, on the other hand, will spend five hours and scan six city blocks searching for the perfect sweater, only to come home empty-handed,” I joke.

  “Exactly!” he says with feigned exhaustion, as if he’d sojourned the six city blocks himself on the sweater quest.

  “Well, you must often be in the company of women, to be such an expert on their habits.”

  “No, I just have three sisters who love to come to New York to break my balls and drag me on all day shopping trips.”

  “Do you need assistance with any other female gifts?” I ask leadingly, thinking of The Gum Goddess.

  “Nope, just my sisters and mom. We’ve got everyone covered,” he says with a barely concealed grin.

  Evan carries the shopping bags, and I steal glances as we make our way through the shoppers clogging up the aisles that are trimmed in pink tinsel trees strung with white lights. His tousled hair is the rich chocolate color of the truffles tucked away in the shopping bag.

  “Oh, I think I left my credit card with the cashier.” He halts abruptly. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

  “Let me hold the packages for you,” I offer, moving to empty his arms of them.

  “No, no, I’ll take them. Wait here,” he insists, and vanishes like Houdini. I wait by the cosmetics counter, circling the hot pink display, dabbing on raspberry lip-gloss and sniffing perfume samples, spritzing myself with Calvin Klein’s Obsession. I rub my wrists on my coat, hoping I haven’t overdone it. The cosmetic ladies in white smocks solicit my business; the perfume sprayers are nothing if not persistent. I view myself in a hand mirror; my hair isn’t looking so bad; the wind has fluffed it up with the same effect I usually aim for when I flip my hair over and blow-dry it from underneath.

  Shoppers are everywhere, flowing in a steady stream past the pretty Christmas displays of wreaths tied with gold ribbons that go on forever, like some enchanted evergreen tunnel. “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”
plays on the piped-in music over the loudspeaker. I find myself singing along with it, to ease my anxiety because Evan is nowhere to be seen. It’s strange that Evan wouldn’t leave the packages with me. The lyrics sing of dread and fear and a drought in Africa that has caused famine to spread. Dread and fear fill me as I entertain the thought that perhaps I have been ditched. The store is smothering and warm. Sweat gathers on my temples. My limbs feel stuck in quicksand, as if I’ve been sucked into some vortex and can’t move. Standing there alone, in the midst of so much merriment, and with such a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, I can’t help but begin to cry. My tears are hot and splash down my cheeks.

  “What’s wrong?” he says, his face full of concern, as he is suddenly beside me.

  “It’s this song,” I fib, stunned and overjoyed at the same time to see him. “I always get choked up when they sing, ‘do they know it’s Christmas time at all?’” I hum along, wide-eyed, trying to sound convincing. I brush away the tears with my furry coat sleeve.

  “Don’t worry,” he says with concern. “They raised millions to feed those people.”

  He motions for me to swivel through the revolving doors. Soon we are hurrying down the avenue. His brown suede jacket flaps open. Dylan never buttons his jackets either.

  When Evan catches me looking at him, I cover with, “Why don’t men zip their jackets?”

  “Why do women ask so many questions?” When the light changes to green, he gives me a nudge at the crosswalk, his arms full of packages because his code of chivalry won’t allow that I carry any. My hair has been blown into big messy ringlets that I constantly push back from my face.

  “The point of wearing a jacket is to keep the chest area warm,” I persist, when he catches me again side-longing glances at him. It’s just my favorite thing in the whole world to do: to look at Evan.

  He gives me a look that warns that a racy response is forthcoming, but instead he says, “My heart is so warm in your presence, Sylvia, that I don’t need anything else.”