You in Five Acts(57)

“You’ve never gone to Coney Island?” I watched them say, incredulously.

I shrugged. “New York City’s a big place.”

“Oh, man,” you laughed, clapping your hands together. “I can’t wait. This is gonna be the best.”

It already is, I felt like saying.

? ? ?


Our first stop was Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs on the boardwalk, where you made a big show of buying two hot dogs twice the length of their buns, plus curly fries and giant sodas that dripped condensation onto the table.

“A good, greasy meal is the foundation of the true Coney Island experience,” you explained, brandishing the squirt-top ketchup like a paintbrush. “If you don’t feel at least a little sick on the rides, you’re doing it wrong.”

“Rides?” I shook my head, swallowing my curly fry half-chewed. “Uh-uh. Who said anything about rides?”

You looked at me like I was crazy. “C’mon,” you said. “We have to ride the rides. At least the Cyclone. That’s the whole point.”

“When I was—” I was about to tell you that when I was eight, I’d ridden the Cyclone and busted my nose on the safety bar (because I’d been hiding my face in my lap out of sheer terror, and the G-force during the descent had jerked my head upward). But then I remembered that as far as you were concerned I hadn’t been to Coney Island. “When I was a kid I had a bad roller-coaster experience,” I said, guiltily grabbing another fry.

“Then let me”—you took an enormous bite of your hot dog and grinned at me through bun-filled chipmunk cheeks—“replace it with a good experience.”

“On that rickety-ass thing?” I laughed.

“It’s only ninety years old. Besides, you can’t really talk, gimpy.” You gave me a look like, It’s on, and it was a battle not to smile.

“I’ll think about it,” I said.

“That’s the elevation portion of the day,” you said. “It’s the most important part of the healing process. We can’t skip it.”

“Mmmm hmmm.” I gestured to our fast food feast. “And what’s this supposed to be?”

You picked up your soda and shook it. “Ice, ice, baby.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Flimsy, but I’ll allow it.” We toasted and knocked back the rest of our drinks. “What about compression?” I asked.

“Wait and see. That’s the next stop.”

“We going back to Times Square?” I laughed.

You smiled in a way that made my stomach flip. The ice joke had been lame, but at least we had heat covered.

“You’ll see,” you said.

? ? ?


The wind coming off the ocean was freezing, so we darted down the boardwalk, past an old man sitting on a folding chair under a beach umbrella, holding a boombox that was blaring “La Bamba.” You pulled me into a brightly lit arcade and led me by the hand to an old-fashioned photobooth.

“Compression,” you announced proudly, opening the curtain. I slipped off my glasses and leaned Abuela’s crutches against the outside of the booth. Once we squeezed in, not knowing what to do, I perched awkwardly on your lap. I tried to make myself light and dainty by keeping as much weight as I could on my feet, like I was doing a static squat.

“OK, what faces are we making?” I asked as you fed three crumpled bills into the machine. “Silly or serious?”

“Let’s alternate,” you said, resting your hands on my hips.

The first pose was silly; I crossed my eyes and made a fish face. For the next one, we tried to look tough, all cocked eyebrows and mafioso sneers. On the third one, you tickled my ribs, so I was frozen mid-laugh, my face contorted in giggles while I tried to swat you at the same time. Once you stopped, I turned to tell you off but we were so close our noses brushed and I could feel your body tense under mine. So in the last split second before the flash went off, I whipped my face forward. When the photos came out a few minutes later, the last frame was just me looking nervous and blank-faced while you stared meaningfully into my ear.

“We definitely nailed it,” you said, tucking the strip into your pocket.

? ? ?


I put off the Cyclone as long as possible, but by the late afternoon we’d eaten enough popcorn and churros to fuel a small circus, and I was getting tired of swinging up and down the boardwalk on the crutches. After our tenth game of Skee-Ball, I could tell your heart was someplace else, so I screwed up my courage and lied and told you I was ready.

“One ride,” I said.

“Seriously?” You picked me up and spun me around, and when we stopped, our bodies pressed against each other for just a few extra seconds too long. I tilted my face up and thought, dizzily, this is it.

But it wasn’t; you broke away and handed our prize tickets to a couple of little kids playing a basketball free-throw game nearby.

“Let’s go,” you said. “The line is probably insane.”

The old man with the boombox was still in his spot under the beach umbrella, and as we walked by he started playing Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.” I stopped cold. People like to talk about things being “their jam,” but most of the time they’re just posturing or trying to sound cool. But that song . . . that song was what I’d listened to in my room growing up, when I’d practiced my first “routines.” My mom had it in a box of cassette tapes she’d kept from high school, and I’d always loved the way Whitney looked on the cover, lifting up the bottom of her tank top with her hair all big and unkempt like she gave zero shits. That song was my jam.