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“It’s all man-made, you know. Everything is by design, which makes it, I don’t know,moreperfect.”
Two whirls this time. Quick, looping ones that leave Ingrid flushed and slightly dizzy, like a child after one too many cartwheels.
She reminds me of a child in many ways. Not just her excitable spirit but also her looks. I can’t help but notice our height difference as we stop at the edge of Central Park Lake. I’ve got about six inches on Ingrid, which means she barely clears five feet. Then there’s her thinness. She’s nothing but skin and bones. In all ways, she looks hungry. So much so that I give her my hot dog and insist that she eat it.
“I couldn’t possibly,” she says. “It’s my apology hot dog. Although I should probably also apologize for the apology hot dog. No one knows what’s in these things.”
“I just had lunch,” I say. “And your apology is accepted.”
Ingrid takes the hot dog with a grand curtsy.
“I’m Jules, by the way.”
Ingrid takes a bite, chewing a bit before saying, “I know.”
“And you’re Ingrid in 11A.”
“I am. Ingrid Gallagher in 11A, who knows her way around a dumbwaiter. Never thought I’d learn that particular life skill, but here we are.”
She plops onto the nearest bench to finish the hot dog. I remain standing, staring at the rowboats on the water and the handful of pedestrians currently crossing Bow Bridge. This is, I realize, the ground-level version of the view from 12A.
“How do you like the Bartholomew?” Ingrid says before popping the last bit of hot dog into her mouth. “It’s dreamy, right?”
“Very.”
Ingrid uses the back of her hand to wipe away a speck of mustard at the corner of her mouth. “Here for three months?”
I nod.
“Same,” she says. “I’ve been here two weeks now.”
“Where did you live before that?”
“Virginia. Before that was Seattle. But I’m originally from Boston.” She lies down on the bench, her blue-tipped hair fanning out around her head. “So I guess I don’t live anywhere now. I’m a nomad.”
I wonder if that’s on purpose or out of necessity. A constant flight from poor choices and bad luck. Someone not unlike me. Although, honestly, I see nothing of myself in her.
And then it hits me: I see Jane.
Both share the same rambling, manic-pixie personality that gallops right to the cusp of being too much. I never felt fully balanced around Jane, even though she was my sister and my best friend. But I loved that lack of equilibrium. I needed it to counterbalance the rest of my shy, quiet, orderly existence. And Jane knew it. She’d take my hand and whisk me to the woods on the other side of town, where we’d stand on stumps and do Tarzan yells until our throats hurt. Or into the shuttered headquarters of the town’s old coal mine, guiding me through musty offices that had been untouched for years. Or through the back exit of the movie theater, where we’d slip into our seats after the lights went down.
She caused and healed so much. Scraped knees, mosquito bites, broken hearts.
Jules and Jane. Always together.
Until, all of a sudden, we weren’t.
“I left Boston two years ago,” Ingrid tells me. “I came here to New York. I forgot to mention that earlier. The New York part. The less said aboutthat, the better. So it was off to Seattle, where I waitressed a bit. So awful. All those overcaffeinated assholes with theirspecial orders. This summer I went to Virginia and got a job bartending at a beach bar. Then it was back here. Silly me thought it would pan out this time. It didn’t. Like, at all. I had literally no idea where to go next when I saw the ad for the Bartholomew. The rest is history.”
Just hearing about it all gives me something akin to jet lag. So many places in such a short amount of time.
“And how did you end up at the Bartholomew?” Ingrid sits up and pats the spot on the bench beside her. “Tell me everything.”
I take a seat and say, “There’s not too much to tell. I mean, other than losing my job and my boyfriend on the same day.”
Ingrid displays the same stricken look she had when asking about stitches. “He died?”
“Just his heart,” I say. “If he ever had one.”