“Will you sign my cast?” She tipped her forehead to her foot.
“I thought you’d never ask,” I said, and reached for the Sharpies she’d left at the foot of her hospital bed. Her friends had already commandeered most of the plaster real estate with colorful loopy signatures and red hearts. “Hmmm. Not much room left,” I said, appraising her foot and its new packaging.
“Right by the toes. There’s a little space right next to the toes,” she said, pointing toward the edge of the cast.
“Nice toes,” I said, with a laugh, when I noticed her toenail polish. Her toenails were bright green and bright purple, alternating each shade on every other toe.
“My friend Amanda calls them Skittles toes.”
“I’ll just sign right here under those Skittle toes then,” I said, then scratched out my signature near her candy-colored toenails.
I didn’t have a foot fetish. I certainly didn’t fall for her because of her toes. Romance didn’t even cross my mind.
I just liked talking to her. I had no idea that three years later, she’d become the center of my universe.
Chapter Eight
Kennedy
“Think Mr. Lipshitz will remember you if he sees you?” Lane asks, accentuating the name of my mom’s onetime lover, as we ride across a quiet block in the East Seventies, rolling casually by the brownstones and buildings with pretty stoops.
“Probably,” I say with a groan as we hunt for the residence of the wife of the man with the worst last name in the world. “It was four or five years ago but I had to have dinner with Mr. Lipshitz a couple times. My mom even made her world-famous pork chops once when it was just the three of us at the dinner table. It was disgusting.”
“And that didn’t offend your vegetarian sensibilities?”
“She made me a peanut butter and honey sandwich instead,” I say in a deadpan voice, as if the choice of food is what mattered.
“Epic. I love those things, especially when they’re toasted.”
“There’s no other way to eat them but toasted,” I say. “Anyway, his wife knows me too. They came to one of my parent’s parties a few years ago. My mom invited them both, right while she was still in the thick of it with him. I even called the wife to confirm they were coming. I believe my instructions the night of the party were Act as if you’ve never seen him before.”
“And did you? Act?”
“You’ve seen the Oscar on my bureau, right?”
He chuffs a humorless laugh. “What did your Dad say? Was he suspicious?”
I shake my head as we near the curb, remembering how awful I felt that night, how my stomach tied itself in knots as I maintained that lie. “Didn’t have a clue. He never did,” I say as we pull our bikes onto the sidewalk and lock them up. I take an envelope out of my backpack and show it to Lane. There’s no return address on it, but Doreen Lipshitz’s name is on the front. She lives in the corner brownstone with a green planter in one of the windows.
“How fortuitous that this block also happens to have a mailbox.” Lane points to a blue postal box twenty feet away. “Because of course you couldn’t mail this from anywhere else in the city,” he teases.
“It’s ceremonial.” I walk to the mailbox, but before I open it, a jagged sort of worry sneaks through me. “I think this might be crazy. I shouldn’t do this. I should just leave her alone.”
“What did you say in the letter?”
“Just that I wish for her to be happy and to be surrounded by love,” I say in a small voice, feeling small. Why should she care? I’m just a seventeen-year-old girl, struggling to find a way through her messed-up life.
“Does she know what happened though?”
I nod, the memory of my mom’s affair so fresh it’s in high-definition. My stomach churns as images of those days flash by. After Mr. Lipshitz was caught by his wife, Doreen, my mom was a mess for a week. My dad was in Italy, so my mom had carte blanche to be mopey, to sniffle, and to barely eat anything but crackers. I brought her books to read and made her sandwiches and told her everything would be better when she said she was sad because she’d lost a friend. She let me take care of her though, let me cuddle with her and watch old sitcoms on television.
We were both pretending. She was pretending she was sad over a friend. I was pretending I believed her.
I try to shove the memories away so they don’t imprison me any longer. “Yes, his wife knows. She caught him e-mailing my mom.”
“Then all you’re doing is saying sorry in a roundabout way. You’re not rubbing something in her face that she never knew.”
“Right,” I say with a nod, reassuring myself. “Besides, my letter is anonymous. I just want to make her feel happy.”
Lane smiles, then drapes an arm around me “You are a good person, my friend.”
His arm feels warm and comforting, and it’s enough to give me the courage to just do it. I gulp, then open the door of the mailbox and slide the letter in, taking a deep breath as the door clangs shut.
This is how I reverse the damage.
“Oh, I’m so proud of you, my little Kennedy. Growing up now and making amends,” he teases.
I swat him. “Shut up!”
“Now I get to play,” he says, tapping his backpack. “I told you I’d be your comrade in amends. Since you’re sending letters to particular people, I thought we should leave love letters around the city too—to anyone. Like how some people leave stickers for a campaign or a cause? They plaster them on subways and billboards and railings. We do the same. It’s like found art. But found love. We’re Cupids, kind of, but more in a cosmic, big-picture sense.” He reaches inside and hands me several pieces of paper. He has printed copies of the F. Scott Fitzgerald love letter—the one from the “bonkers” wife of the drunk writer.