Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac(47)

“I—”

“It would really help us out.”

I looked at the little girl. She was sweet, shyer in person than she had been on the phone. Besides, none of what had happened was her fault. I nodded toward Fuse. We were about to enter the interior part of the bathroom, and I took Chloe’s hand.

“What’s your name?” she squeaked.

“I’m Nomi,” I said.

Her eyes grew very wide. “Nobody?”

“Sure, whatever.”

I let her go first. “Do you need any help?”

“No, I’ve been doing this myself forever,” she informed me. I wondered how long forever was. A year? Six months? “I could have gone in here myself, but my daddy doesn’t want me to get raped.”

“Raped?” I nearly burst out laughing. Did she even know what that meant?

“That happens all the time in bathrooms,” she informed me seriously.

She had Mom’s blue eyes and Fuse’s black hair. She was cute. She remembered to wash her hands without my prompting.

“Daddy says you’re my sister,” she said as we were on the way out.

What was I going to do? Tell her it wasn’t true? “Yeah,” I said.

“I don’t want to be anyone’s sister,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because I want to be the only one.”

“You’ll still be the only one,” I said.

She pursed her tiny rosebud mouth. She didn’t look at all convinced.

Fuse was waiting for us right outside the door. “Thanks for saving me from having to be the only man in the women’s room.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“Naomi,” Fuse asked, “I hope this isn’t too forward, but why don’t you come over to our apartment after the show? We live about twenty blocks up from here, and I know Cass would be so, so, so psyched to see you. Chloe and I would be glad to have you, too.”

“I’m…I can’t…I’m with friends,” I said.

“Bring them along. Really. Please. Cass would kill me if I didn’t try to get you up to our house. She’s really missed you. I know, trust me I know, things have been hard between you, but it’s nearly Christmas, and what luck us running into you, and isn’t that the coat she sent you for your birthday?”

I nodded. This guy knew so much about me without my knowing a thing about him.

“I helped her pick it out. She’d be really glad to see you in it. Did you get the pictures from your friend?”

I had no idea what he was talking about. “What pictures?”

“Nothing. I…I must have gotten confused. We’ll meet you right here by the bathroom, okay? The Radio City Music Hall ladies’ room. It’s our special place,” he said with a wink.

The guy sounded sort of desperate, and the little girl was staring at me. The whole situation was starting to get incredibly awkward. A light flashed indicating that intermission was over.

“Please come. I know you weren’t planning to run into us; I know this isn’t how you were thinking you would spend your day. But now we have and it’s lucky, I think. Please, Naomi.”

He was begging. I didn’t want the little girl to have to watch her father beg, so I found myself saying yes.

During the second half of the show, the kicking had lost its novelty for me and the women’s identical painted-on smiles were giving me a headache. It occurred to me that if any of the Rockettes got sick or even murdered, no one would notice. They’d just bring on an identical replacement, smack on some lipstick, and the show would go on without any noticeable decrease in quality. Somewhere, some poor Rockette would be dead and buried, and the only people who would notice or care at all would be her family. The thought made me depressed as anything.

I whispered to James that I needed to leave, and he told Alice and Yvette. “It’s her head,” he said. It was my built-in, all-purpose excuse.

“Do you want us to come with you, cookie?” Alice whispered sympathetically.

“No, watch the rest of the show,” I whispered back. “We’ll take the train back early.”

I didn’t tell James about running into Fuse and Chloe. When we got outside I said, “I couldn’t be in there anymore, you know?”

“Sure,” he said.

“I don’t feel like going back yet, though.” I was too wound up from running into my mother’s new family.

James didn’t ask me why, only what I wanted to do instead. I couldn’t think of anything—most of the things I knew were in Brooklyn—so I told him that we should just ride the subways for a while.

We rode all the way down to the South Ferry stop and then all the way up to Van Cortlandt Park and then back to Grand Central. It took three hours total.

We didn’t really talk much during that time. We watched people get off and on the train. There were lots of shopping bags owing to the time of year, and the people carrying them all seemed tired to me, but warily optimistic. It put me in mind of Fuse asking me over to Mom’s house. I wondered how long he and Chloe had waited by the restroom at Radio City Music Hall.

“I have this sister…” I said to James right before we were about to get off the subway.