“Give him to me,” I say.
Subway Boy shakes his head, and he’s not really Subway Boy anymore. He’s this stranger in my apartment. Which makes me sad.
He says, “I was fine indulging his…whim while the sock was being pleasant. But not if he’s just going to use it as a mouthpiece for meanness. We have enough of that from actual human beings nowadays.”
I look over to Frederyk to see what his response will be. He just holds out his hand—not the Caspian hand, the other hand—imploring.
“You have to give him back,” I insist. “I’m sure he’ll behave better now.”
“Whose side are you on?” Johan asks.
And I say, plainly, “In this case, his.”
“Fine.”
He hands over Caspian as if it’s the only gift he’s ever going to give me. I offer him my free hand, but he stands up on his own.
“I was only trying to help,” he tells me. “I thought you’d appreciate that.”
“I do,” I say. “It’s just that Frederyk—”
“—is crazy?”
“That’s not nice.”
“Okay, Mum. I’m sorry. Shall I go?”
No.
No—
I—
“No! I want you here.”
“I guess I’ll go back to the table, then. You can stay here and preside over the tearful reunion.”
If Ilsa were saying this—or, God forbid, KK—the words would be corrosive, combative beasts. But the way Johan says it—he’s hurt. I’m not the only Subway Boy who realizes things have derailed.
I try to think of a Parton song to bring him back, but my thoughts are more Dalí than Dolly at the moment.
“I’ll be there in a sec,” I say.
“Okay,” he replies. Then he leaves me in the hall, Caspian in my hand.
“Here,” I say to Frederyk. He takes the sock from me and puts it back where it belongs.
“Thank you,” Caspian says quietly.
Frederyk looks like he’s prepared for me to be angry, for me to lash out at him for ruining everything. Which maybe he has. But maybe if it could be ruined this easily, it wasn’t worth having, anyway. I don’t know.
“It’s okay,” I tell him—Frederyk, not Caspian.
“That was very close,” Caspian observes. Frederyk nods.
I am still looking Frederyk in the eye. “You have to be nicer,” I say. “You can’t just shoot his mouth off. I’m not saying what Johan did was right—but you have to know that we all wanted to do it. Except maybe KK.”
At the mention of her name, Frederyk blushes and looks away.
“No,” I say. “You can’t possibly like KK.”
Neither Frederyk nor Caspian denies it.
I press on. “And did you think the way to her heart was through her spleen? Were you being obnoxious to impress her?!”
Caspian nods.
“Bad strategy?” he asks.
“For the rest of us, absolutely. For KK—probably worse. She doesn’t want some amateur version of her. This is New York—there are plenty of guys who fit that bill. KK’s not-very-deep, not-very-dark secret is that she finds her routine as tedious as the rest of us do. When you think you’re the most interesting person in the room, you’re never interested in anything else. So your best shot—your only shot, really—is to be even more interesting than she is. You were doing well until you stooped to her level.”
“I really messed it up, didn’t I?”
“Not necessarily. She hasn’t left yet.”
“I mean for you. I really messed it up for you.”
The hurt look on Johan’s face surfaces in my mind, and I try to shove it away.
“It’ll be fine,” I say. But everyone in the hallway knows how empty those words can be.
Caspian can’t look me in the eye. He’s just staring at the ground. And then I realize…Frederyk has put his hand down.
“I appreciate you taking my side,” he—Frederyk—says. And in an instant, I see how hard it is for him to say it.
“It’s okay,” I tell him. Then I reach out, take Caspian by the chin, and move him so he’s looking me in the eye, too. “I don’t know exactly what it’s like, but…I know what it’s like. Our tribe has to stand up for one another, right? Because there are plenty of people who don’t know what it’s like at all.”
I have already done so many things wrong tonight. But this, finally, feels like something right. There isn’t anything more to say.
“Let’s go back,” I tell them.
Ilsa’s laying down of the law must have worked—or maybe people are so afraid of conversation at this point that the lasagna seems the better option for their mouths. Whatever the case, dinner’s well under way, and is being consumed with gusto.
“Where’s Maddy?” I ask.
“A hawk came in the window and carried her away,” KK replies.
“But don’t worry,” Parker quickly adds. “We still have the cookies.”
I look over to Johan, who turns away the second I make eye contact. Then I look to Ilsa, who’s seen the whole thing.
“Here,” she says, passing over the lasagna. “Don’t be one of those hosts who doesn’t have a chance to eat.”
I sit down. Frederyk, who followed me in, remains standing.
“Excuse me,” Caspian says. “May I have everyone’s attention?”
“By all means!” KK trills. “The sock has the floor!”
Frederyk takes a deep breath, then Caspian continues.
“I did not mean to disrupt this party, or to scare away the cookie-bearing girl. This is the first time I have been invited to such a dinner, and in trying to figure out how to behave, I behaved the wrong way. I understand this now, and it will not occur again.”
“Please sit down,” Ilsa says. “These things happen all the time.”
Both Parker and Jason raise their eyebrows at that…but neither says a word.
“Here.” KK takes Frederyk’s plate and puts some sushi on it. Then, as an afterthought, she separates one of the rolls off to the side—for Caspian, presumably.
“Thank you,” Caspian mutters. Frederyk sits down.
KK launches into a monologue on how she had to try at least a dozen sushi chefs before she could find one that could deliver a decent California roll after midnight, California time. I find it hard to imagine something I care less about, but it does give the
