First Born(47)

‘I don’t go back,’ he says, starting to prepare a tropical fruit smoothie. ‘It’s not like it would be for you, I don’t think. I fly back to spend a month with my cousins, catch up with my old neighbour, my best friend he was, and then who knows if I get let back through customs at Newark, you know? I’m a US citizen now, but who can say? Really, for sure? So, I stay right where I am and I work and I live my life. Regular customers. A wife who loves me, and three good boys. I’m lucky to be alive, Molly.’

He hands me the smoothie and I hand him a ten-dollar bill.

‘You never ordered it, you don’t pay for it.’

‘I want to pay.’

He shakes his head. ‘Advice, though, now that you might have to pay for. What you wanna know, Molly?’

I eye the smoothie. I didn’t see the ingredients, which fruits he blended, but maybe I should take a sip anyhow. Just for the hell of it. Be adventurous.

I sip the drink and it is sublime. I hold it up with a questioning expression.

‘Guava, coconut, pineapple and a little ginger root.’

‘It’s delicious.’

‘Of course it is, I made it. You want advice on something or don’t you?’

‘Best place in Manhattan for lunch under ten bucks. I’m flat broke.’

‘Who isn’t?’

‘Best place?’

He smiles and sucks air through his teeth and looks into the middle distance. ‘Ten bucks, really?’

I nod.

He sniffs and says, ‘Head down to 37th Street, then walk east to Third. Place called Sarge’s Deli. Now, it doesn’t look like much from the outside but that’s the whole point, right? You walk in there and get yourself a booth, nice and quiet. Hot pastrami on rye with pickles. Dunno if it’s exactly ten bucks but it won’t be a whole lot worse. Thank me later.’

‘I will,’ I say, walking away with my free smoothie.

The streets are still wet but the sun is out. I cut around Bryant Park and there are hundreds of construction workers building some kind of structure, some kind of temporary buildings. Maybe for Halloween?

I feel good on my walk. The dark shroud has lifted.

My heart races. I pick up my pace to the New Yorker rhythm, a trot with purpose, a march. I don’t wait for the green man at the intersection; I just step over when the locals step over.

I pass the New York Public Library and keep on walking.

It took diligence and careful military-style planning to do what I did. But I managed it. The women and men walking either side of me are oblivious to my past actions. They’re the kind of people who grow bored after researching a subject for an hour. They would have failed. Some people can research for twelve hours straight. They’re the kind who are confident they will succeed, but they will not succeed because they will overlook a key detail. There are a handful of people in the world like me. A hundred, maximum. People who research for twelve hours, getting deeper and deeper into some esoteric subject, and then, just when they think they have an expert handle on the facts, they brew a pot of strong coffee and strap on an adult diaper, maximum absorbency, and they research for another fifteen hours straight.

And it’s not just the researching. If you’re playing a part, as I’ve done these past few days, you need to inhabit that role and commit to the mindset shift. Believe in the task completely. Not just speak and act but actually try to think in a totally different way. Live the role from the inside out, even when on your own. Because it takes that level of focus. Unwavering commitment and dedication. And that is why I can walk down Fifth Avenue the day after a storm and not need to look over my shoulder. My diligence has bought me that freedom. I earned it.

Mum sends me a text with a photo of their dog, a dog I never liked. I reply with a heart. She doesn’t normally send me this many messages but I guess she feels the need to step into KT’s place in some way. Mum is a good-hearted person.

I walk down to Third and find Sarge’s Deli and go inside. I don’t research the hygiene report from the New York City Department of Health, and I don’t consult Yelp. I don’t scroll TripAdvisor to scrutinise badly lit customer photos of sandwiches, and I don’t review the menu on my phone. I just walk in like a normal person.

Part of me feels guilty for implicating Dad. Not implicating him exactly, but not standing up for him either. But I knew he’d be fine. He was innocent and I knew he’d be all right. A retired conman, post-prison, once said on his successful podcast that he wished he’d deflected more shade on to those around him. Smoke and mirrors. Decoys, and layers of false data.

I’m seated, and I should normally order a plain cheese sandwich on white bread. But I ask the waiter what he would order. He says the matzo ball soup. I say I’ll have it. My temples throb from the exhilaration of this. From living my life in the moment.

The soup is outrageously good. This is what it’s like to live your life. To just go with the flow, roll with the punches, see where the day takes you.

Where today will take me is some cheaper accommodation. I may be liberated from my former existence, flying solo for the first time ever, but I am also stone-cold broke. I need to find something cheaper than seventy dollars a night. The thought of discovering a new area, a run-down block in the Bronx or Harlem, scares me.

This all started fourteen months ago.

In a way it started twenty-two years ago when KT received all the confidence and joy destined for us both, and I received none of it. In the womb we were equals, nobody knew our differences back then, nobody judged us. I like to think people looked at our sonograms and saw two equals. But from as early as I can remember, the imbalance between us grew, and after years and years of being slighted, ignored, not invited, and not welcomed, the effects magnified. KT was the person everyone wanted to be friends with. I benefited from that, of course, from the twin fame. We were popular at primary school. But KT’s default was to smile and laugh and pat her hand on your arm, whereas my default is to look unimpressed and withdraw. Which is no big deal in itself; lots of kids are like me. But they don’t have an identical Sesame Street version in the same room at all times, that is the difference. Compared every second of our lives, by family and teachers and strangers. Scanned, appraised, and analysed. But fourteen months ago things unravelled. They totally fell apart.