The Pretty Ones Read online

  “It’s okay,” Nell said, smiling. “I didn’t mind. I wanted to do it.”

  “But, Nell . . .” Linnie’s frown was obvious now. She shifted her weight from one platform shoe to the other, fingering the wooden bangles around her left wrist. They clattered like xylophone keys. “I’m sorry, I just . . . I really can’t.”

  Nell shook her head, not understanding. “You can’t?”

  “No, I really can’t. It’s very nice of you to offer, though. I’m flattered that you’d go to such lengths—”

  “Well, tomorrow, then,” Nell said, cutting Linnie off. “You can tomorrow, can’t you? Tomorrow is Saturday.” Rambert & Bertrand wasn’t open on weekends. “I’ll even take the train to your place to meet you if you want. You don’t have to ride into Brooklyn by yourself. It’ll be better if we meet somewhere and I ride in with you, if only to make sure you find the apartment okay.”

  Linnie cleared her throat. Her hands moved from her bracelets to worrying the hem of her orange floral-print blouse. “I can’t tomorrow either.”

  “Well, Sund—”

  “Look, Nell.” It was Linnie’s turn to interrupt. Her tone was abrupt, edging toward annoyed. Its hard edge demanded that Nell listen. “Not Sunday either, okay? I’m not going to Brooklyn.”

  Nell furrowed her eyebrows. If it was the neighborhood, she could understand Linnie’s trepidation. Nobody wanted to deal with a bunch of Puerto Rican boys catcalling from their stupid bicycles. Maybe, even with Nell walking her to the apartment, Linnie didn’t want to be anywhere near that part of New York. It was a rough neighborhood. Girls got harassed all the time. People got mugged. Sometimes, bodies would turn up in alleys and the police would block off entire streets. And then there was the Son of Sam . . . the one the cops had yet to catch. None of the shootings had been anywhere near Nell’s place, but people were still scared to go out.

  “Okay,” Nell relented, and Linnie let out a breath, as though she’d been holding it for the length of their conversation. That was it, then. The neighborhood was the problem, not Nell’s invitation. “Just tell me where you live and we can do it at your place instead.”

  Linnie’s angular features went taut. She shot Nell an incredulous look. “You’re really far out, you know that?” Nell opened her mouth to speak—Is that a compliment?—but Linnie didn’t give her the chance to respond. “It’s . . . creepy.”

  Nell shook her head. But . . .

  “Listen, I don’t want any cake, okay? I was being nice the other day because nobody else ever is to you. I felt bad. But you just can’t take a hint.”

  “A hint,” Nell echoed.

  “We just work together,” Linnie reminded her. “Just because I helped you get a coffee stain out of your shirt . . . What I’m trying to say is . . . I was just being nice, Nell. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t mean we’re friends.”

  Nell stood motionless, her eyes fixed on the girl who was now unable to meet her gaze. Linnie splashed coffee into a plain white mug and turned away, darting out of the break room with a mumbled “I’m sorry.” Nell didn’t have time to protest or cry or throw Mr. Topsy-­Turvy, coffee and all, in Linnie’s face. Left alone with burnt coffee and day-old doughnuts, Nell stared out the open break-room door. Beyond it, a sea of perfectly aligned desks. Typewriters. Telephones.

  How may I direct your call?

  Linnie Carter was a fake.

  Hollow. Insincere.

  A backhanded contemptible Jezebel.

  A real bitch.

  Please hold.

  A pair of girls walked into the break room. They paused in their conversation, taking note of Nell as she winced next to the Bunn-o-Matic auto drip. Nell’s eyes shifted to catch their judging glances. Their Janus-faced expressions. Their clown-painted eyes and mouths. She imagined them hanged by the silk scarves they had fashionably tied around their necks. Pictured their faces blue and lifeless as they swung beneath the fluorescent office lights.

  Not so pretty when you’re dead.

  “Um, hello?” One of the girls spoke, jolting Nell out of her momentary fugue. “Wanna get out of the way, please?” She nodded toward the coffeepot, waiting for Nell to step aside. Nell’s eyes darted from one girl to the other, and then, before either one of them could say something underhanded—loser, whale—Nell slammed her mug onto the floor. It shattered into a dozen ceramic pieces, Mr. Topsy-­Turvy’s bean-shaped body wrecked by the impact. Coffee sloshed across her penniless loafers, spattering the closest girl’s stockings. The girls jumped, exhaling yelps of surprise.

  Nell narrowed her eyes.

  I don’t want any cake.

  Bared her teeth at them.

  It doesn’t mean we’re friends.

  And marched past them with a hiss.

  . . .

  Kings Highway’s resident bicycle gang was parked just outside the train station. They were passing around a small cigarette, sucking in smoke and exhaling in slow, deliberate breaths. The moment they spotted Nell, they abandoned their lackadaisical post, shoved their dirty sneakers against the pedals of their bikes, and began to trail her down East 16th like a group of roving hyenas.

  “Hey, bibliotecaria,” one called out. “Hey, I lost my library card . . .”

  “I’ve got late fees, Blanca,” another chimed in. “I borrowed that Karma Sutra book to figure out what position I want to try on your dimpled ass first.”

  Their jeers weren’t anything new. Nothing shocking or all that disturbing after dealing with them day after sweltering day. She’d spent months ducking her head between her shoulders and walking faster and faster, until she was marching just under a full run.

  Shouldn’t complain, you need the exercise.

  She never spoke to them, never made eye contact. Barrett had warned her about doing so: If you give them an inch, there’s no telling how far they’ll take it. For all she knew, they’d drag her into an alleyway and rape her just for standing up for herself. Maybe she’d be one of the bodies the cops found behind a Dumpster. They’d probably shut down the street—a sad white girl found in a crappy area. Tabloid news.

  But today, after Linnie’s rejection, their catcalls woke something dormant and ugly deep within her guts.

  The moment they had set eyes on her, the new girl on Kings Highway, they’d nicknamed her “the librarian,” because she was homely. Boring. A milquetoast girl taunted for the same reason her coworkers exiled her to eating lunches alone at the office. Because God forbid anyone should eat anywhere near her, which could increase caloric intake. It all boiled down to looks, to stereotypes, to who they thought she was—a big girl wearing a sweater in the dead of summer—rather than having the guts to find out for themselves.

  “Oh shit, man,” the first boy jeered. “I think you pissed her off.”

  “Damn, dude,” a third spoke up. “You better watch it. She’s gonna lay you out with her yardstick or something.”

  “Like one of them Catholic school nuns,” another laughed. “La monja voladora! ”

  “Yeah, she looks pretty Catholic to me,” the first egged on. “You a straitlaced chica Catolica? You wanna teach me a lesson, slap me around with a ruler?”

  “That in the Karma Sutra?” the third boy asked. Despite his laughter, Nell could sense his genuine curiosity.

  “Yeah,” the first one said. “It’s in the fat-girl section, filed under ‘Jesus Freak.’ Get on your knees and pray to my bicho, baby.”

  Nell’s legs stopped working.

  Her feet refused to take another step.

  She glared down at a sidewalk that was black with grime, small tar-like circles of chewing gum pockmarking the concrete like freckles among the filth. She clamped her teeth together, felt her nostrils flare. Somewhere, in the not-so-far-off distance, she could hear Italian opera filtering into the street from someone’s open apartment window. All at once, the he
at that Nell had become accustomed to beneath the bulk of her unseasonable sweater hit her head-on, threatening to burn her up from the inside out. Spontaneous combustion. Flash paper. Atom bomb.

  She snapped her head to the side.

  Shot a steely look at the group of boys on their childish bikes.

  Let her upper lip curl away from her teeth.

  “Oh damn, dude,” said one. “Here we go. Rabid like a fuckin’ dog!”

  “Aw, don’t be mad, chica,” said another. “We like you, girl.”

  “Yeah,” said the third, pumping his hips into the handlebars of his bike. “We really like you.” He let his tongue roll out of his mouth and flicked it at her. Obscene.

  Nell’s stomach pitched.

  A wallop of pain punched her between the eyes.

  She turned away from them as if to run, and they laughed among themselves as soon as she looked in the opposite direction. But the celebration of their victory over pudgy Ms. Nobody was premature. Nell wasn’t turning away to flee. She regarded a patch of gravel between the sidewalk and the nearest building. The rocks were a mishmash of small pebbles and larger stones. Without so much as a second thought, she swept up a handful of the rocks and looked back toward her assailants. They weren’t paying attention anymore, distracted by a group of black kids on the opposite side of the street.

  Nothing but two lanes of tarmac separated both gangs. Traffic was sparse. Nell could sense that, at any second, the bicycle gang would move to meet their enemies, where they would be out of her reach. The tallest of the black kids yelled something that she couldn’t understand, but his tone was clear: he didn’t like the bike gang either. They should get out of his neighborhood. Off his streets. Or he’d show them exactly why they should never show their faces on the corner of Kings Highway and East 16th again. There was no doubt in Nell’s mind that, had the bike gang not been there, the grouping of black guys would have harassed her just like the Puerto Ricans had. But that was the way things in Brooklyn worked. Everyone was at odds with one another. Nobody was safe from scrutiny. And yet, at that particular moment, Nell felt solidarity with the boys across the street. They were conveniently distracting. Just what she needed.

  As the two groups puffed up their chests and hollered back and forth at one another, she picked out the largest rock from the palm of her hand. Reeled back. Let it fly as hard and fast as she could. It hit the leader of the bike gang square in the back of the head with a muffled thud. The guy’s hand flew up to the point of impact. He spun around, his eyes as wide as a wild dog’s. When he spotted Nell with the handful of rocks, he looked ready to fly into a rage. But then the black kids erupted into a fit of laughter. They slapped their legs and stomped their Dr. Js against the hot concrete.

  She threw another.

  It bounced off his shoulder with a smack.

  “Bitch!” he roared, but she kept throwing, pelting him about the head and shoulders, stoning him in the middle of the intersection.

  But his anger seemed to shift to low-level panic, punctuated by what must have been jabs of humiliation as the black kids howled. She could see the realization in his eyes—he’d never be able to live this down. He’d forever be the guy who got pelted with rocks by some penny loafer–wearing white chick. And his friends all looked to be suffering from a mild case of shock, either because Nell was fighting back, or because their dear leader was now shoving his feet onto his bike pedals and fleeing the scene.

  Across the street, the black kids were dying of laughter. A ­couple of them were doubled over, clutching their stomachs. One cried out in what sounded like pain as he collapsed against the chain-link fence behind him. He wiped tears from his eyes, unable to catch his breath.

  Nell’s tormentors dispersed. One after the other, they pedaled after their alpha, yelling Spanish slurs into the distance. Nell imagined them comforting their ego-wounded friend before leaving him to nurse his injuries. They’d talk behind his back as soon as he was out of earshot. Coward. Cobarde. Perhaps now Mr. Banana Seat would get a taste of his own medicine. Maybe now he’d get a chance to see how it felt to be the pariah. The social outcast. The laughing­stock of the neighborhood. Hopefully the entire borough. The whey-faced baby of Brooklyn.

  The remaining rocks rolled from Nell’s hand, bouncing onto the sidewalk next to her feet.

  “Fuck, man!” One of the black kids shouted at her from across the street. But rather than cajoling her, he lifted his right arm and made a fist in the air in salute. “The revolution has come!” he yelled, then dissolved into another bout of cackles, flanked by his friends.

  Nell slowly turned back in the direction she had been walking. The throb in her head was subsiding, but it left her light-headed. Her nerves continued to crackle with adrenaline. But rather than being overwhelmed by furious anxiety, she hummed with carnal self-­satisfaction instead. Sure, the bike kid’s mortification would take a violent shift. She knew that as soon as his bruised ego healed enough to let him think straight, he’d thirst for justice. But this possibility didn’t bother her. If he did come back, she’d be ready for him. If he dared mess with her again, she’d let him pull her into an alley, maybe even tempt him to do it. She’d kick and scream and act helpless, if only to give him a few seconds of satisfaction. And then she’d whip out the knife or scissors or box cutter tucked away in the folds of her sweater and stab him straight through his stupid heart. Or maybe she’d just give him a pretty Glasgow smile to live with for the rest of his scarred, miserable life.

  The idea of his blood flowing through her fingers felt salacious.

  The thought ignited a dull throb between her legs.

  But those wanton thoughts of bloodletting melted in the heat. By the time she reached the third floor of her apartment building, she was holding back her sobs. In her head, Mr. Banana Seat’s shock was replaced by Linnie’s look of disturbed surprise. His sneered insults meshed into Linnie’s disdain.

  Take a hint.

  We’re not friends.

  Unlocking the door, Nell stumbled headlong into the apartment. She slammed the door behind her and dropped to the floor with her hands slapping the hardwood. Anger rushed out of her in a stifling wail.

  Barrett stepped out of his room to investigate the noise, but he kept his distance. She could sense him hovering just over her shoulder, close enough to let her know that he was concerned, far away enough to give her space.

  “You were right.” She choked on the words. “I was stupid to think . . . to think—” Cut off by a sharp intake of air, she curled her fingers against the floorboards, trying to sink her nails in, trying to find purchase to steady her dismay. She was desperate for release but didn’t want to scream. She needed liberation from her own smothering anguish, but she wasn’t going to beat her head against the wall. Met with the perfect solution to her hysteria, she got to her feet and scrambled to the kitchen. She shoved the set table aside in her wake.

  Tearing open the refrigerator door, she pulled her perfect pink cloud of a cake off the top shelf. Her masterpiece, made from scratch. She placed it on the counter, and smashed it with two closed fists. Her breath came in gasps as she beat the confection into pink-and-white paste. She grabbed the cake plate, threw the entire mess onto the kitchen floor, stomped it beneath the heels of her shoes. The plate cracked beneath her soles. She skidded on the frosting, tumbled to the ground, left a long pink smear from where her leg had shot out from beneath her.

  Stunned by her fall, she sat in a fulmination of whipped sugar and pastry. It was only then that she looked meekly at her brother. Barrett was staring, soundless, his gaze unwavering. After a long while he moved, approaching her with slow and deliberate steps. And once he was less than a few feet from his sister, he crouched down beside her, scooped up a handful of destroyed cake, and lifted a cake-smeared hand to his lips to taste its sweet destruction.

  Nell blinked at him as he licked his
fingers clean. A ghost of a smile sprouted across her face when he smacked his lips together to let her know that it was good, really good.

  “Linnie didn’t deserve it anyway,” she murmured. And then she laughed. It belted out of her as unexpectedly as her rage had, as wholeheartedly as the black kids had whooped and hollered across a four-lane street.

  She fell back onto the sugar-smeared floor and cackled at the water-stained ceiling.

  And Barrett grinned, amused by her lunacy. He grinned wider than ever before.

  . . .

  The weekend seemed to both race and crawl. One minute, Nell could hardly focus on the book she was reading. The next, it seemed as though hours had rushed by without her noticing at all. She slept a lot, trying to forget the goings-on of the week before, attempting to erase the malignant grins of Mary Ann Thomas and her gaggle of henchgirls. She tried to forget Linnie Carter existed, nursing the migraine that would swell behind her eyes at the mere thought of Linnie’s lying, angular face.

  Between bouts of hatred, she felt pity. She supposed that in their own way they were just as helpless against their shortcomings as she was. Could they help it if they had been born selfish and superior? Could anyone expect them to be kind and compassionate when, by nature, they were blind to the plight of a girl like her? Perhaps, Nell thought, she was as ignorant to their issues as they were to hers. Maybe their self-confidence, their too-loud laughter, and their compulsion to surround themselves with friends were all to cover up some deep-seated hurt Nell couldn’t begin to understand. Perhaps everyone was broken in their own way.

  By Monday morning, Nell felt better. She wasn’t sure why, but it was as though a weight had been lifted. On the way to work, she decided that maybe friendship with her coworkers wasn’t in the cards, but there was only one way to truly know. Sandwiched between a businessman and a priest, Nell squared her shoulders against the subway seat and decided to apologize to Linnie for acting so odd. Creepy. Perhaps Linnie would accept Nell’s olive branch and apologize in turn for being so rude in her refusal. Or maybe they’d never speak again. Nell decided that it didn’t matter. She’d forget the whole thing, leave it up to Linnie to decide. If Linnie didn’t want to be friends after Nell said she was sorry, then Linnie was more of a bitch than she thought, and Nell certainly didn’t need friends like that.