The Takedown(12)

And I could only think of one person who might care enough to decimate me completely. The same person whose dad was some big-deal head honcho of development at Eden and had access to all the latest software. The same person who had been cozying up to my best friend for weeks now. As I sat in a café in Bed-Stuy, ordering one pastry at a time and waiting for Prep to let out, my profile told me she’d watched the video twenty-seven times. A few times for laughs, I could understand, but twenty-seven? That spelled guilt (only with entirely different letters).

So two hours, one really long walk, and five baked goods later, I pressed a doorbell I hadn’t rung in over three years. No matter who answered, they wouldn’t be happy to see me, but I prayed it wasn’t her mom. The last time I’d seen Mrs. Amundsen was at the school talent show. Her withering gaze burned worse than that home hair-removal machine Audra had once inflicted on my toes.

The door opened.

Did I have no good karma chips left?

“Kyle.” Ailey’s mom took a graceful step back inside. Not to let me in. More like she might slam the door in my face. “What a surprise.”

Ailey’s mom ran a Bronx-based modern dance company. A former ballerina, her posture was pin straight, her skin coal black, and her manner elegant. For as long as I could remember, she’d worn her salt-and-pepper hair cropped to her head.

My voice cracked as I said, “Hi, Mrs. Amundsen. Is Ailey home?”

I still thought about the exact day we stopped hanging out. It was the first week of freshman year, lunch. Audra came up to us and set a fresh-squeezed green juice in front of me. It perfectly matched the one she was holding.

“There are four seats at my table,” Audra said without preamble. “Which means one’s empty.”

I looked over at Fawn (who waved) and Sharma (who was glued to her Doc) and their two other identical juices, and I’d never wanted to be anywhere so badly in my life. I’d noticed the girls during freshie orientation. The ease between them was palpable, like only in each other’s company were they all whole. I guess that’s what being friends from birth got you. Their mothers were in the same Lamaze class, then after the babies were born it was weekly playdates, then shared babysitters and summer camps, and eventually aligned middle schools.

“Can Ailey sit with us too?” I asked.

Audra looked into the distance, twisting the swoop of her black flapper’s bob. She took a sip of her juice. “Like I said, there are four seats.”

I shrugged at Ailey, like Audra’s answer was the most logical argument in the world, trying not to look as giddy as I felt. Ailey and I had been friends since kindergarten. But even though she knew everything about me, from the mole I’d had removed when I was six to my speech impediment with the letter R until I was eight, I would never have called her my missing piece. Maybe because when eighth grade hit and I got prettier and people were nicer to me, she began acting…what’s a word that means fake sugary, worried, and proprietary all in one? Anyway, she started acting that. When Audra walked up to me a year later because, as she later told me, I “wore cute shoes and a powerful aura,” all I felt was relief.

Ignoring Ailey’s panicked expression, I went to sit with the girls. After all, they’d gotten me a juice and there were four seats. Never mind that it left Ailey at a table with three empty ones. At least I’d asked if she could join us.

In a way, I’d been waiting for Ailey to take revenge for years. Part of me (a very minuscule part) even kind of thought, Good for her. But now it was time to make it stop.

“I just came home myself,” Mrs. Amundsen said. “Let me see….Ailey might still be at the pool.”

Before she went to check, Mrs. Amundsen closed the door. Mrs. A. used to call me her other kid. This same door that she had just shut against me would have been thrown open. She’d have chatted about this or that as she walked away, letting me lock up. I used to spend the first ten minutes at Ailey’s talking to her mom. Now she didn’t invite me into the vestibule.

Five minutes passed. I clicked on Ailey’s CB profile. It said she’d shared the Mr. E. video with her entire peer contact group—over a thousand people. I was about to jab my thumb down on the doorbell when the door opened and there was Ailey. Study Glasses were pushed up on her head, partially holding back her curly bangs. Ailey had her mom’s willowy body and oval face, her dad’s Norwegian nose and cheekbones.

She glanced around outside hopefully, like maybe the other girls were there too.

“I’m alone.”

“I see that,” she said.

“Can I come in?”

She hesitated, part in awe that I was on her steps, part fearful as to why. I figured that had to be a good sign.

“Ailey, you can’t not let me into your house.”

Sighing, she held the door open.

Walking inside felt like how I imagined it would if I stepped into my house after it had been sold and strangers moved in. It was 100 percent familiar and foreign at exactly the same time. The dance prints on the walls, the African blankets piled in multiple baskets around the living room. Ailey’s father in the back doorway, glaring at me like the flu virus had just invaded his home.

“Hey, Mr. A.,” I said mildly, waiting for it.

He wanted to have a go at me? Let him. It would give me a better opening for what I had come to say. Ailey was already at the top of the stairs, probably secretly praying her father would say everything she’d never been able to. But debate was all about preparation. And though he’d had over three years to build his arguments, Mr. Amundsen now only had two minutes to put them together.