Dreamland Social Club(35)

“What about behind that shell?” I say, pointing to an ashtray on the coffee table.

“Let’s look around,” she says, and she uses her arms to pretend to swim around the room. “I bet there’s a submarine around here somewhere or a shipwreck or a . . .”

I am struggling again in Rite Aid now.

With a word.

The word at the end of the memory that is missing.

And in a moment I am on line again and I am afraid to look at my watch.





Part Two

THE KEYS TO CONEY ISLAND





CHAPTER one


IN HER ROOM JANE PUT ON some cover-up, blush, and lip gloss. She put a little goop on her fingers and ran it through her hair, then slipped into Birdie’s burgundy dress. She put some money, her keys, and her lip gloss into a beaded purse she’d found in Birdie’s Bavarian Bar and looked for her father to tell him she was going out. When she couldn’t find him or Marcus, she left a note on the kitchen table, then headed out to meet Babette.

Jane walked away from the boardwalk toward Surf Avenue and turned right, then walked past Nathan’s and the Coney Island Museum and a bunch of stores. She stopped in front of Luna Park Furniture with a seed of excitement, but then all she saw inside were leather couches and ornate end tables and kitchen tables made of something mirrored and something black. It didn’t seem fair that such an ordinary store could bear the name of Luna Park. Then again, she was named Luna, and she wasn’t exactly a dazzling specimen either. She felt more like one than she had in years, though—only wished that it were a different night, a different era, that she were on her way to Luna Park—Electric Eden—and not the projects. She passed a few creepy-looking men and tried to push down her fear by imagining a dazzling world of lights, and shimmering lakes, and ladies in gowns and men with top hats, all on their way to Trip to the Moon or Shoot the Chutes, and suddenly wished her brother had come with her.

There was no sign of Babette in front of the McDonald’s where they’d planned to meet. Big double arches came up out of the ground in front and then disappeared into the building’s roof, and Jane peeked inside to see if the yellow structures, like huge, B-movie spider legs, continued there. The McDonald’s definitely seemed like it was out of another era, just not the right one. Maybe built in the fifties. Babette pulled on her arm.

“Okay. I think I like.” She twirled a finger. “Turn around.”

Jane complied and Babette said, “A lot of people couldn’t really pull if off, the vintage thing. But for you, it sort of works. It turns you from sort of boring into sort of, I don’t know, edgy.”

Now that was a compliment Jane could get behind. She knew she wasn’t beautiful or pretty or, despite Leo’s claim to the contrary, cute. But edgy had a ring to it. It was how she felt inside, too.





The projects didn’t seem all that different from the other apartment complexes around Coney. All the faces they passed as they wound their way down a few paths between buildings were black, but that was the only difference Jane could see, and she still didn’t really get it. What a “project” even was.

They got in an elevator, then came out an outdoor corridor where Babette rang the doorbell of Apartment 12-09. A gorgeous guy—Babette had been right about that, at least—answered the door and looked at Jane in confusion.

Babette said, “H.T. told us to come,” and the guy looked down at her. She said, “You’re Mike, right?”

“No,” he said. “Ike.”

“Shit,” Babette said. “Sorry.”

He shrugged and let them in. “H.T.’s in the kitchen.”

“Cool,” Babette said. “Thanks.”

The apartment had an amazing view through huge windows facing the ocean. Jane walked right over to it and looked out at a cruise ship that was making its way into New York Harbor. She imagined its captain’s view, wondered if he could see her tiny figure at the window through binoculars. Babette appeared at her side with two beers, though Jane took one sip and decided it would be her last. Too much booze and she’d probably turn to Babette and say what she was really thinking.

What are we doing here?

Why are we the only white people?

Is Leo coming?

That was the sort of stuff that was better left unsaid. That and things like I found a set of secret keys inside a mermaid doll.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to say it, though.

Leo was popular. He would definitely be coming.

Right?

The party seemed to take some kind of turn just a few minutes later when a big group came in all at once. Suddenly, the room felt electric, charged, and Jane felt buzzed without so much as a second sip of her beer. “Come on,” Babette said. “Let’s say hi to Debbie.”

And so Jane was finally introduced to the bearded girl. Her hair was light brown, so her beard was, too, and it wasn’t coarse-looking at all. Jane couldn’t help but think it was actually sort of, well, pretty. When Babette ducked away to get another beer, Debbie blurted, “My mother’s the bearded lady at the sideshow. I’m thinking about electrolysis, though.”

Jane just nodded.

Debbie said, “You can touch it if you want,” and stroked her beard. “It’s soft.”