Forget it.”
Again Boris yawned, eyes heavy-lidded with vodka. “Sleep here, then,” he said, rolling over and scrubbing his face with one hand. “Will they miss you?”
Were they even coming home? Some nights they didn’t. “Doubtful,” I said.
“Hush,” said Boris—reaching for his cigarettes, sitting up. “Watch now. Here come the bad guys.”
“You saw this movie before?”
“Dubbed into Russian, if you can believe it. But very weak Russian. Sissy. Is sissy the word I want? More like schoolteachers than gunfighters, is what I’m trying to say.”
xiv.
THOUGH I’D BEEN MISERABLE with grief at the Barbours’, I now thought longingly of the apartment on Park Avenue as a lost Eden. And though I had access to email on the computer at school, Andy wasn’t much of a writer, and the messages I got in reply were frustratingly impersonal. (Hi, Theo. Hope you enjoyed your summer. Daddy got a new boat [the Absalom]. Mother will not set foot upon it but unfortunately I was compelled. Japanese II is giving me some headaches but everything else is fine.) Mrs. Barbour dutifully answered the paper letters I sent—a line or two on her monogrammed correspondence cards from Dempsey and Carroll—but there was never anything personal. She always asked how are you? and closed with thinking about you, but there was never any we miss you or we wish we could see you.
I wrote to Pippa, in Texas, though she was too ill to answer—which was just as well, since most of the letters I never sent.
Dear Pippa,
How are you? How do you like Texas? I’ve thought about you a lot. Have you been riding that horse you like? Things are great here. I wonder if it’s hot there, since it’s so hot here.
That was boring; I threw it away, and started again.
Dear Pippa,
How are you? I’ve been thinking about you and hoping you are okay. I hope that things are going okay wonderful for you in Texas. I have to say, I sort of hate it here, but I’ve made some friends and am getting used to it a bit, I guess.
I wonder if you get homesick? I do. I miss New York a lot. I wish we lived closer together. How is your head now? Better, I hope. I’m sorry that
“Is that your girlfriend?” said Boris—crunching an apple, reading over my shoulder.
“Shove off.”
“What happened to her?” he said and then, when I didn’t reply: “Did you hit her?”
“What?” I said, only half listening.
“Her head? That’s why you’re apologizing? You hit her or something?”
“Yeah, right,” I said—and then, from his earnest, intent expression, realized he was perfectly serious.
“You think I beat girls up?” I said.
He shrugged. “She might have deserved it.”
“Um, we don’t hit women in America.”
He scowled, and spit out an apple seed. “No. Americans just persecute smaller countries that believe different from them.”
“Boris, shut up and leave me alone.”
But he had rattled me with his comment and rather than start a new letter to Pippa, I began one to Hobie.
Dear Mr. Hobart,
Hello, how are you? Well, I hope. I have never written to thank you for your kindness during my last weeks in New York. I hope that you and Cosmo are okay, though I know you both miss Pippa. How is she? I hope she’s been able to go back to her music. I hope too
But I didn’t send that one either. Hence I was delighted when a letter arrived—a long letter, on real paper—from none other than Hobie.
“What’ve you got there?” said my father suspiciously—spotting the New York postmark, snatching the letter from my hand.
“What?”
But my dad had already torn the envelope open. He scanned it, quickly, and then lost interest. “Here,” he said, handing it back to me. “Sorry, kiddo. My mistake.”
The letter itself was beautiful, as a physical artifact: rich paper, careful penmanship, a whisper of quiet rooms and money.
Dear Theo,
I’ve wanted to hear how you are and yet I’m glad I haven’t, as I hope this means you are happy and busy. Here, the leaves have turned, Washington Square is sodden and yellow, and it’s getting cold. On Saturday mornings, Cosmo and I mooch around the Village—I pick him up and carry him into the cheese shop—not sure that’s entirely legal but the girls behind the counter save him bits and bobs of cheese. He misses Pippa as much as I do but—like me—still enjoys his meals. Sometimes we eat by the fireplace now that Jack Frost is on us.
I hope that you’re settling in there a bit and have