9781988256184-epub2 Page 2

  The lady behind the cash register is counting out Levitt’s change and I realize it’s now or never. I scoot out the door, jumping into the crowd before she can even turn around. As I rush down into the cellar I hear her yelling from across the street.

  “Ruby! Hey!”

  Five, six, seven steps, and another door. I open it and run down more steps to a musty-smelling tunnel. It’s dark, cold, and wet and I have to keep my hand on the wall to feel my way.

  I’m inching forward in baby steps when I see a light that seems to be coming from underneath another door. I have no idea where I am at this point because cellars in the city go on forever. The cellar under Sophie’s apartment goes all the way to Chinatown, which is like ten city blocks and has only Chinese people. I know because we followed it once and wound up under a bakery that sold thousand-year-old eggs. This tunnel seems like it’s still under the wine store but I can’t be sure.

  I reach down and put my hand on a knob that opens easily, and all of a sudden I’m in a kind of storage closet lined with wine bottles. At least I can see in here.

  I walk inside, looking at the shelves that stretch from floor to ceiling. They have pink wines on one side and white on the other. On the far side of the wall are burgundy reds. Nell-mom and Gary Daddy-o like those, so we always have some at home.

  I’m staring at a row of them when the door behind me shuts and I hear a clicking sound. My heart starts beating very fast because I know what that means. The door slipped and if no one’s around to hear it, I’m going to be here for a while.

  I should tell you I’m claustrophobic, meaning scared of small spaces, like closets and elevators. I know it’s dumb but I’ve been that way since I was little and I’ve never been able to shake it no matter what I do. It’s always felt like if I’m in a place with no way out, the walls are closing in on me. And that’s exactly what I feel like now. I turn the knob and sure enough, it’s locked. I jiggle and pull on it but it’s not budging and I can feel sweat on the back of my neck. I start breathing slowly, which is what they always tell you to do when you’re panicking. I try the door again but it’s tight as a drum.

  The closet floor is carpeted and I sit down, trying to think. Someone’s got to show up at some point to get wine. Of course it could take days and there’s no window in here. I heard there was a kid once who suffocated in a closet when he ran out of air.

  Beat heat—street fleet.

  I’ve been working on this poem and for some reason, the words start running through my head.

  Beat heat—street fleet.

  Sky says you have to trust your poetry. You can set it up in your mind but without trust, it won’t unfold. It will sound like you’re trying to con someone into thinking it’s poetry—but it won’t be real.

  Sweet fleet beat of the street

  Rising heat

  From the white of the sidewalk

  And the conga sound of the

  Bonga bonga bongos

  BEAT. BEAT. BEAT.

  My heart is going crazy. I close my eyes and say the words:

  “Every spring

  They sprout like toadstools

  In the key of heat”

  I take out my notebook and pen to start writing, propping it up on my knees. Nell-mom bought it for me more than a year ago. It’s green leather and used to have a key, but I lost it somewhere. She bought it at the art store and totally embarrassed me by saying I would be an amazing poet if she could just get me to write stuff down. But then someone said not a lot of moms would even read their kid’s poetry, let alone buy them a notebook for it. So that made me feel better.

  I open the notebook and scribble the first verse but the carpet is hard and prickly and I could swear something’s dripping in here. It could be wine, which means it will be sweet and sticky. And that means bugs.

  A centipede skitters across the wall behind the wine shelves. We have them in the bathroom at home sometimes, but our cat chases them. Her name is Solange and she’s black all over. She eats remnants, which is another word for scraps. I think she needs company but Nell-mom says we barely have enough to feed Ray and me, let alone a cat. So I don’t think we’ll get another one any time soon.

  There’s a tiny little snuffling sound behind me and I’m pretty sure I know what that is, too. We had mice before Solange came and you could hear them skittering in the hall at night. Sometimes we still find one—or half of one—but Solange scared most of them off, so I think they’re skittering in someone else’s place. They could really use a cat in here, too.

  I jump up and start kicking at the door even though I know it won’t do any good. I start yelling, too; I can’t help it. Then I stop.

  Yelling makes you panic even more and I want to stop panicking. The room seems a teeny bit smaller than when I came in, but I know it’s my imagination. I KNOW it. Gary Daddy-o says he also gets the heebie-jeebies about being stuck in small spaces. That’s why he never goes into an elevator unless there’s at least one other person in there.

  I jiggle the doorknob again, trying to see if I can trip the lock. Nothing budges so I kick at the door a few more times, but no one’s coming. I am not. Not. Not going to be a crybaby. That is totally uncool—it is the opposite of cool.

  I lean against the door trying to think of all the things I can name that are also the opposite of cool—mostly to keep myself from crying. I would probably start with school and school uniforms. Murray Hill and Park Avenue where the rich people live. Suburbs like Rye and White Plains. Anything pink that has ruffles or ribbons. Anything in New Jersey—except for the George Washington Bridge.

  I first saw it from a car window when a friend of Gary Daddy-o’s drove us home from a party New Year’s Eve. The night I saw it, someone said the lights made it look like a pearl necklace, which I wrote down in my notebook. If you want to be any kind of writer, you should always have a notebook with you.

  Beat heat—street fleet.

  I hear that snuffling again from somewhere above me. I look up and see it—a tiny gray mouse on top of a wine bottle. If it’s wine he’s after, he’s going to have plenty of it. Maybe it will make him drunk and he’ll go to sleep.

  Gordy once said if you’re ever in trouble, scream “Fire!” because more people will rush over to help you. But if people come and there is no fire, they might get mad and say you don’t deserve their help. On the other hand, I’m starting to panic again and decide I have nothing to lose.

  “FIRE! FIRE!!! HELP!”

  I throw myself at the door a few times, but all that happens is it shakes a little bit. The only one who seems to notice anything at all is the mouse, who looks down at me for a second and then disappears. Nothing else makes a sound.

  If I ever do get out of here I’m never going anywhere near that stupid fruit store. I’m never going back to MacDougal Alley. And I am for sure never going anywhere near an open cellar for the rest of my stupid life.

  I look around to see if there’s something I can throw at the ceiling, but all I see are bottles, wall to wall. I really don’t want to break one unless I have to.

  “Somebody HELP—”

  I kick and pound the door as hard as I can.

  “Who is that? Who’s there?”

  A man’s voice calls from somewhere in the hallway—and my heart starts pounding again. I want to get out of here more than anything but that guy could be anyone. The city’s full of perverts and they all live in cellars—everybody knows that.

  The doorknob rattles just as the snuffling starts up again. The knob is turning and I step back against the wall. I look up at the row of wine bottles and put my hand on them. If he jumps me I can break a bottle over his head like they do in movies and maybe scare him off.

  He doesn’t seem to have a key because I hear banging like he’s trying to break down the door. That makes me think he really is a pervert so I grab
a bottle and pull it off the shelf—which turns out to be a big mistake. Now all the bottles are shaking.

  I must have knocked them pretty good because the ones on the top shelf are tipping over. I don’t think I can look anymore. I close my eyes just as the door opens, and a whole row of bottles comes hurtling down at my head.

  3

  House of Sorocco’s

  A WIRY-LOOKING MAN with dark hair and bony shoulders sticking out of his undershirt opens the door. The girl standing next to him looks about seventeen, but it’s too dark to tell if she’s someone I know.

  “Sorry, I got . . . stuck,” I say, gesturing lamely at the floor. Luckily, only three bottles fell and only one of them broke, but the man is acting like I broke all of them.

  “What are you DOING in here?” he shouts, and I’m so relieved to be out of there I almost start crying.

  “Someone was chasing me,” I say, “so I ran in here. Then the door locked and when you opened it, all the bottles fell.”

  “Elena.” He gestures to the girl and then turns to look at her. “Don’t let her step on the glass.”

  His voice is starting to sound familiar and I’m trying to figure out where I heard it when Elena steps forward. I recognize her right away. She works at Sorocco’s Restaurant on Bleecker, dishing out lasagna, cannoli, and Italian ices. I doubt she knows me because Sorocco’s is always crowded and I only go when I have money, which isn’t much because I’m saving for a leotard.

  If the man with the undershirt is Elena’s father, then I’m guessing he’s Mr. Sorocco and owns both the restaurant and wine store. Elena usually works with her mom, who has an Italian accent and a stern-looking face with a long nose and chin. Most people try to get Elena to serve them. She has long, dark hair and lips like Sophia Loren.

  Elena kneels to pick up some of the glass and I lean down to help her. She’s wearing a wine-red leotard and smells like Fabergé, which is my favorite perfume. Elena is secretly engaged to Jimmy from Buka’s Bakery. Even though everyone in the neighborhood knows, her parents don’t have a clue. She has to wait until she’s eighteen to marry Jimmy anyway, but her mom doesn’t like him and shoos him off every chance she gets.

  Elena puts most of the glass in a pile, and I start picking up splinters. She puts her hand over mine and says, “No.” I look up and she says, “My father’s getting a vacuum.” I nod and pick up one of the other bottles, setting it against the wall so it won’t break. Meanwhile Elena is staring at the wine stain on the carpet. “I didn’t mean to spill anything,” I say, but I don’t think she’s listening. Instead, she touches the stain and says, “Horse.”

  “What?”

  “The spill makes a horse shape,” she tells me. “See?” Elena starts tracing the shape but I can’t see anything. “I can’t figure out if he has a saddle or just a mane.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, the gypsies say if it has a saddle that means you’re going to marry someone poor.”

  “What if it’s a mane?”

  “Then your husband will be rich and famous.”

  “Really?” I stare at the wine stain, trying to figure out if it has a saddle or not. But Jimmy isn’t rich so if she wants that, why is she engaged to him?

  “Did you ever get your fortune told?” I ask.

  Instead of answering, Elena gets up to help her father, who is dragging the vacuum cleaner downstairs. When he turns it on you can hear little slivers of glass shooting inside it, which make a crackling sound. He runs it up and down the length of the closet until all the glass is gone. As soon as he shuts it off, I look up at him sad-eyed, hoping I can get out of there.

  “I gotta go—”

  “Come with me,” he says, and turns around without another word. I could try and leave the way I came but I’m kind of turned around and don’t want to end up in another cellar. Elena leans toward me and whispers, “Don’t worry. His bark is worse than his bite.” She touches my arm lightly and leads me up the stairs behind her dad.

  We go through a painted wooden door into a room that smells like sausages. A large kitchen table is full of pots, and the pots are full of soup and tomatoes. There’s a freezer the size of a small room, and I think someone’s elbow is poking out of it. Elena calls out, “Ma!” but no one appears. Then I realize the person in the freezer is Mrs. Sorocco. “She’ll be out soon,” Elena tells me. “She goes in when it’s hot.”

  It doesn’t seem very hot to me, but when Mrs. Sorocco comes out it seems like she could have stayed in the freezer much longer. The hairs on her upper lip are wet, and her cheeks are flushed and dripping. She tugs at the neck of her sweater, which has raggedy armholes where she cut off the sleeves.

  “This the child?” she asks, but no one answers, and the line between her eyes darkens as she frowns. “How many break, Angelo?”

  The man with the undershirt holds up his finger.

  “Zo,” Mrs. Sorocco says, turning to me. “You are going pay?”

  “Sure,” I say, “but I don’t have a lot of money right now.”

  “How much you got?”

  “Two bucks,” I tell her.

  “Not enough,” Mrs. Sorocco says. “A bottle is ten dollar.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, trying to look shaken.

  “Sorry don’t fix it,” she says, closing the freezer door and folding her arms.

  “I know,” I say. “But what can I do?”

  “Either pay,” Mrs. Sorocco says, “or work,” only she pronounces it “vark.”

  I’m feeling around in my pocket for a five-dollar bill. I’ve been desperate for a leotard the past year and a half, and today was the day I was going to get one, right after Kerouac. The leotard store is on the corner of West Tenth and is owned by a woman named Cyn, who says if I put five dollars down she’ll hold one, and I know just the one I want. It’s bright red, not wine colored like Elena’s, and Cyn says I’d look great in it. She ought to know because she studies at the Fashion Institute uptown.

  Cyn wears black eyeliner and glasses with little tails on the ends. She doesn’t talk to customers unless she knows them. Even then she’s not big on talking much. If you want to try on a leotard she motions with her head to the fitting room, which is behind a red velvet curtain in back of the store. Meanwhile she sits mostly on a stool smoking Lucky Strikes. She also wears hoopy earrings. I’ve had my eye on a pair just like them in the store, but don’t even have close to the ten bucks they’ll cost me. I’ve been running the cash register at Blue Skies forever, and it will take at least six months to save up another five dollars and I can’t give up my pay no matter what happens. I really, truly can’t.

  “You vark in store with us?” Mrs. Sorocco asks.

  “Mama,” says Elena, “she doesn’t know how to work in a store.”

  “Anyone can,” says Mrs. Sorocco. “She sweep and clean up after school, yes? Maybe two days a week.”

  “I don’t have time,” I say.

  “Vark or pay, miss,” says Mrs. Sorocco. “You not get away without paying.”

  “What if I don’t?” I say.

  “We call police,” Mr. Sorocco says.

  Why is everyone calling the cops on me today?

  “Look,” I say to Mrs. Sorocco. “I’m supposed to work at another store. If I work at this one I won’t even get paid—”

  “For three weeks, maybe month,” she tells me. “Then you are done with us.”

  Great. So not only do I not make money for a leotard, I don’t make any money at all because I broke something by accident. Why did I get up today?

  Mrs. Sorocco leans closer to me. “Vaht your name is?”

  “Ruby,” I say glumly. “But that wine isn’t worth ten dollars—”

  “HEY—” Mr. Sorocco yells, but his wife holds out her arm.

  “Angelo—”

  “It’s
not even worth two dollars!”

  “She’s a fresh kid—” he says.

  “Daddy!” Elena calls out. “Leave her alone.”

  He glares at me for a minute or two and turns away, and Mrs. Sorocco picks up her knife and starts smashing garlic.

  “Elena,” she says. “Take her out.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “Look,” I tell her. “I have to ask my mother—”

  “Ze good,” she says. “We tell her you break bottle—”

  “No, wait—” I say, but we both know she has me. I let out my breath and look at the floor. “All right already.”

  “Could start on Monday,” Mrs. Sorocco says. “In afternoon.”

  “I can’t work Monday,” I say. “Wednesday or Saturday.”

  “Both,” she answers. “You come Wednesday at half past three.”

  Well. At least I can still put money down on my leotard. So I guess I shouldn’t complain.

  “You go now?” says Mrs. Sorocco.

  “Yeah.” I look up at Elena. “Where do I go?”

  Mr. Sorocco looks at his daughter. “Elena will show you.”

  I follow her out of the kitchen and down the stairs, but instead of turning to go out the front by the wine store, Elena takes me to a door at the end of the hall.

  “It’s not all bad,” Elena says. “You get a free cookie at the end of your shift.” I try to smile so as not to hurt her feelings. I like cookies as much as anyone but the cookies in that store are tiny. And they can’t make up for sweeping and cleaning. Ever.

  I step outside and Elena closes the door. It’s really bright compared to the shop and I put my hand up to shade my eyes. I’m in back of MacDougal Alley but since I never come this way, I’m still kind of turned around. I trudge forward a little and then start running, glad to be out of there. I’m almost to the end of the alley when I realize I better slow down. I lean out a bit to peer up the street.