grew more insistent, Arabella emerged. She was not, as I’d expected, sleek and steely like her mother. In fact, she was pudgy and flushed, her hair only making a halfhearted effort at curling. Her expression was sour, her clothing dour, and her anger at being interrupted was palpable. She held up her Berenstain Bears book and said, “I’m trying to read!”
Elise took it in stride.
“Well, I’m heading off, Arabella. Gabriel will take care of you until Manolo comes at two. Comprenez-vous? ”
“Oui.”
Arabella didn’t seem to pay me any mind, and once her mother left the apartment, I remained standing there awkwardly. Arabella didn’t return under her covers, but she continued to use the flashlight over every page.
Stupidly, I hadn’t brought any reading material of my own. So I reached for a copy of Pete’s a Pizza, only to be chastised when I picked it up.
“You should ask first,” Arabella said.
I apologized.
“I don’t go out until ten,” she told me. “You can watch TV if you want.”
“Do you mind if I read some of these instead?” I asked, gesturing to her bookshelf.
“Sure,” she replied. “Just don’t say them out loud.”
I started with a few picture books, then found a copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and began to read that. Every now and then I’d look up and check on my babysittee. I could see her concentrating on each word of every page; only after a sentence was through would she look at the pictures. It was cool to see reading become such a transparent act – it was as if her face had a different expression for each punctuation mark, and when there was dialogue you could see her actually listening to it in her head. One time she caught me watching her and grimaced. I quickly returned to my own book, and didn’t smile or even acknowledge it when she started to take books from the pile that I’d already read.
At precisely ten o’clock, Arabella announced, “It’s time to go.”
Elise hadn’t said anything about whether or not we could leave the building, but I assumed it was okay. Arabella swiftly moved to the front door, undoing the locks and bolts as if they were pieces of an ancient Chinese puzzle. She pointed out the spare keys and then instructed me how to lock up once the door was closed again.
I had always secretly suspected that rich New York City kids acted twice as old as they really were. The three-year-olds acted six, the six-year-olds acted twelve, the twelve-year-olds partied like they were twenty-four, and each eighteen-year-old took on a thirty-six-year-old’s weariness. Because they had seen the city, they felt they’d seen the world. Whereas those of us in the suburbs had simply seen the suburbs.
I will admit: I was still somewhat amazed and intimidated by New York City and its complex hugeness. Back home when I wanted to go somewhere, I jumped in my car and drove there. But the city required the higher math of navigation, factoring in subway grids and bus paths and street maps, so many letters and numbers and names and letter-number combinations and number-name combinations. The basic act of considering a local distance in terms of east, west, north, and south was bizarre to me; those words, I felt, should be used to describe coasts or countries, not a place two blocks over and one block up.
Arabella didn’t seem fazed. Even though she was barely taller than the hydrants, she knew exactly where she was going. Since we were near Central Park, I thought we might be heading for the zoo, or a museum, or a playground. It was a perfect July day – sunny, but with the feeling that God had left the windows open.
At the end of the first block, Arabella waited, even though there was a walk sign. I didn’t understand, so after a moment she said to me, a little impatiently, “You need to hold my hand when we cross the street.”
Such a strange thing, to hold a six-year-old’s hand. Especially a six-year-old you’ve only just met. A toddler will grab hold of your finger, and someone your own age will clasp on to your whole hand, but with six-year-olds it’s something in between, this acknowledgment that they can’t be the one to take hold, so you have to do all the holding, folding your hand around theirs, feeling so much bigger and responsible. It’s weird and it’s scary and it’s nice. Neither Arabella nor I said a word, and as soon as we got back to the curb, she pulled away and I let go until the next curb.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“I want to try a new Starbucks,” she replied.
“Are you sure you’re allowed to go to Starbucks?”
“I go there all the time. ”
Elise had told me to call if there was an emergency, but I figured the prospect of undue caffeination didn’t really count as one. In fact, Arabella made it seem like going to Starbucks was the most natural thing in the world, so I followed along. We only had to walk five blocks to hit the nearest one. It was now ten-fifteen, and the morning rush was over. Instead the seats were filled by the daytrippers, the patrons for whom the word ensconced was no doubt termed. Laptops were open, bookmarks were orphaned on tables, and newspapers were set out to be read section by section. An idle idyll. Suddenly I felt more at home.
And then I looked behind the counter.
Now, it has to be one of Starbucks’s more brilliant marketing strategies to maintain at least one completely dreamy guy behind the counter at any given shift. This guy is invariably known as Starbucks Boy to the hundreds of regular customers who have a crush on him, and the glory of it is that he always seems just accessible enough to be within reach, but never accessible enough to actually touch. Starbucks Boy wears short sleeves even in the winter, so you can study his arms when you’re feeling too shy to stare at his face (in hopes of catching an eye sparkle or a dimple). Depending on the location of the Starbucks, you can imagine that the minute he gets off work, he heads off to rehearse some new songs with his band, or surf the big waves, or shoot an indie film. He is, unlike most beautiful people you’ve ever encountered, friendly – and you honestly believe it’s not because that’s a part of his job. He banters with the counter girls relentlessly, whether it’s cornrowed Latisha, corn-fed Barbara, or corn-toed Betty. You listen in on their in-jokes, and then think that the way he says “Good morning” or “Have a good one” or “Here you go” to you is a little different from the way he says it to anyone else. Or at least that’s the hope.
The dreamy guy at this Starbucks wasn’t working the counter. Instead he was working a broom behind it, smiling as he swept. At first I didn’t get the smile, but then I realized he was listening to the radio, to Norah Jones sliding her voice around the notes. In his own way, he was dancing along.
I was so busy not-looking-but-looking that I didn’t notice Arabella arrive at the front of the line.
“Can I help you?” the counter girl asked. She was about my age, with her hair pulled into a ponytail and her face pulled into a ponyfront.
Suddenly, Arabella became shy. She leaned into me and whispered, “I want a vanilla mocha decaf latte but with no mocha.”
I figured the counter girl had heard, but instead of punching it in, she stared at me. So I said, “She’d like a vanilla mocha decaf latte, hold the mocha.”
“You mean like a vanilla steamer?” the bored barista asked.
“No!” Arabella shouted. “I want a vanilla mocha decaf latte, hold the mocha! ”
“One vanilla mocha decaf latte, hold the mocha,” the bore-ista repeated.
Arabella pulled on my shirt. I leaned down and she whispered, “I have my purple cup.” She rummaged through the small Hello Kitty purse she’d brought and pulled it out.
I could sense a stop to the sweeping, and could imagine Starbucks Boy finally noticing me as I said to the counter girl, “And would you mind putting it in this purple cup?”
“I’m sorry, we can only refill