imogene

Even though I don’t have any muffin left, the pigeons are still here, swarming my feet for more tidbits. It’s too cold for them to be out, and I’ve honestly never seen so many in one place, but somehow by the time I reach the corner I have an entourage.

“Shoo,” I cluck at them. “It’s time for me to go.”

One of them cocks its head at me and allows me a beady glare before it marches off in the opposite direction, fluttering its wings sporadically. Now that they’ve left, I’m tempted to chase them with breadcrumbs and win them back. I watch as a boy lets go of his mother’s hand to terrorize the creatures, causing a frenzy of fluttering gray rainbows in the air. It’s 9:30 in the morning and I’m late to class.

It takes a subway ride of ten minutes and another five-minute walk to get to my part of campus, but I know I’ll be caught in the bustle of late rush hour if I go now. Cutting class is the last thing I want to do, even though I know I could probably survive without a review of partial differentiation. I have no reason to be, yet I’m perpetually anxious about falling flat of my mother’s expectations or suddenly landing myself in an inescapable rut. I used to have nightmares when I was young, laughably mundane dreams about being swallowed by debt.

“Genie,” my mother would laugh as she stroked my hair, “you’re too young to be thinking about that sort of thing. You’re like a middle-aged woman in a child’s body.”

So I was, and I haven’t grown out of it, ironically. I wonder if I’ll be a fiery eccentric in my old age. An eighty-year-old teenager, aging backwards.

I chafe my hands to warm them, but as soon as I’ve breathed on them, they’re cold again. The sign flashes do not walk at me, so I pause to shove my hands in my pockets and enjoy the acerbic early-spring breeze on my face. The subway is just around the corner; I’ve decided I’ll try to make it to class.

The faint slapping of sneakers on pavement rebounds behind me, and then a familiar – albeit out-of-breath – voice calls to me:

“Are you Imogene?”

I turn curiously. It’s the second time we’ve met and I can already feel my mind spiraling out of control at the sight of his lopsided smile. It’s a cheeky sort of grin, but with enough bashfulness that I believe in him.

“Remy, was it?” I know his name. I know it perfectly well.

“Yeah. I knocked you over last time,” he says sheepishly. “You said you didn’t need multivariable calculus.”

“Who does need it?” I ask dismissively. I realize that if I don’t catch this next ride to campus, I’ll have to wait another half-an-hour, and I might as well not go then. Despite this, I don’t walk any more quickly, nor do I shrug him off.

“Not me. I’m an art major.” He glances at me. “I’m not keeping you from any appointments, am I?”

“I actually have a class right now,” I begin to say, but what comes out of my mouth is “Not at all.” I start walking again with the hope that he’ll follow, and he does. “You want to have a small tour of the city?”

“Sure,” he says.

We walk along in silence, taking in the smoky vibrancy of the downtown. There’s music streaming out of bars and restaurants here, and the occasional tinted bus stop. Withered trees greet us every few feet with the barest of branches, and some even shiver as the cars pass by. More than city-watching, though, I watch his expression as we make our way down the road, smudged as if by a giant eraser from so much melting snow. The strange combination of domestic and danger suits him so well that I’m almost certain he’s a city-dweller, and he surprises me with that half-grin again just as I think this.

“This place is really small compared to New York,” he observes.

“You’re from New York?”

“You could say that. I’ve been too many places to count, but that’s where I was born.” Remy rolls up his sleeves and adjusts his bag, then gestures to the office-buildings towering around us. “These would probably be the squattest of skyscrapers in New York. You could get vertigo if you stared at them too long.”

“It sounds like an amazing place,” I say.

He shrugs. Then, as an afterthought, “It makes me claustrophobic.”

I realize suddenly how lean he is, almost unnaturally skinny for a boy. His features are irregular but delicately shaped: he has a bit of a retroussé nose and his chin is pointed, which gives him the appearance of a sweet-tempered sprite, and he has chameleon eyes that leave you unsure of their color even when they’re familiar as the scent of warm laundry. They’re the color of water – dark, reflective, shimmering. Pools I could drown in if I’m not careful, that I want to drown in.

“Could you tell me the way to the nearest airport?” he asks, as if he’s repeating himself.

I blink slowly; I’ve been staring at him.

“Right, sorry,” I stammer. “The easiest way is probably to take the shuttle directly there. You could wait here for it if you wanted.”

“Thanks,” he says, but he makes no move to sit down or find a place to set down his bag.

“You’re not... you’re not leaving, are you?” I wince at the sound of my own desperation. I know I’m far to earnest for my own good, probably due to the fact that I repressed my affections in high school and well into college. Even at the university, with plenty of attractive young men, I could never get any luck. There was Monique, strutting around like a peacock in resplendent dominatrix fashion, and then there was... me.

He looks at me, a bit surprised, and I wonder if I’ve come on too strong.

“Oh, I’m not leaving. I was supposed to leave town this morning, but I decided to stay.”

I nod, trying not to look too relieved. “Where are you staying?”

“Actually, I – ” He stops. “Hereabouts, I suppose?”

“I won’t stalk you, I promise,” I say with a laugh.

He looks genuinely uncomfortable now, which puts my mind in overdrive. What did I say? I suddenly feel like a complete imbecile. Of course it’s unnerving for a stranger to ask where you live.

“I don’t know where I’m staying,” he says sheepishly. “I’ll probably have to check out of the hotel.”

“Hotel?”

“Yeah.” Remy shrugs with his chin lifted to the sky and then relaxes with a sigh. “The thing is, I came here with my friend Greg. I’ve been touring the country in search of adventure or a job, whichever comes first, but neither has. That’s the short answer.”

“So,” I hedge, “what’s the long answer?”

“You want my life story, then?”

“Why not.” I smile at him.

He doesn’t speak for a moment, but steeples his fingers over his mouth.

“Well,” he finally says, “you have to understand that I’ve been a misfit for a long time.”

I must look surprised, because he offers me an inquisitive glance, then shrugs again.

“Basically, I had few friends in my formative years, probably from a combination of the fact that I was always somewhat queer and that I went to school in one of the poorer regions of New York where they weren’t as accepting. To their credit, they were very frank about it. I was shunted from the edges of cliques until college, whereupon I decided I would stop caring altogether. It’s worked great for me.”

He stops to dig out a crumpled dollar bill and proffers it to an old man I didn’t even noticed on the side of the street. He’s bundled in rags and sitting on a dirty towel, which I realize also doubles as a carpet for miniature carvings.

“You have a great day now,” Remy says to the man, and then, continuing as if nothing’s happened: “We were close at that art academy. If you’ve ever been in the humanities department you know everyone’s weird there. They were like my family. The other thing you probably know about humanities majors is that we’re constantly in need of a job, but there simply aren’t any.”

I nod.

“You knew that, right? That’s why you’re taking mathematics courses?”

“Partially,” I say, not wanting to admit that I like doing math.

“I have these quirks... that make it difficult for me to hold any job. That and I’m really hot-tempered,” he tells me easily. “Anyway, back at school, I had one pretty good friend who I could tell everything. He’s great, and he’s been driving me around all this time, from Chicago to Nevada to Idaho and everything in between. But Greg needs to sort out some problems with his girlfriend back in Chicago, and I didn’t want to go back with him. So here I am.”

We’ve made it around several blocks already, and are heading into residential area. There are few trees here, and what trees there are look naked. I shiver under my wool coat and hope he doesn’t notice. He doesn’t; he’s staring fixedly ahead when I next look at him, and there’s the slightest shade of regret around his mirror-like eyes.

“Is there anything I can do?” I ask.

He looks surprised at this, as if he isn’t used to being asked such a thing. For some reason, this makes me self-conscious, and I return to staring at my feet as we walk.

“That’s very kind of you,” he says, “but I don’t want to get you mixed up in my troubles.”

I don’t know what inspires me to say what I do, because what comes out of my mouth is unwarranted and so utterly strange that I can’t comprehend it. I’m caught in my own flustered thoughts and I want to reach for his hand. I’d swear that it’s a momentary lapse in judgment, that I’m simply drunk on springtime and the quicksilver of his eyes, but it’s not true. I feel him backing away, and it makes me want to close the space between us. It makes me rash. Impatient. It makes me say –

“Remy, you’re the most beautiful boy I’ve ever met.”