She smirked. “Problems with your dad?”
“How do I get out of here?”
“That’s up to you.” Blaze shrugged. “But he knows what shirt you’re wearing.”
An hour later, Ronnie was sitting beside Blaze on one of the benches near the end of the pier, still bored, but not quite as bored as she’d been before. Blaze turned out to be a good listener, with a quirky sense of humor—and best of all, she seemed to love New York as much as Ronnie did, even though she’d never been there. She asked questions about the basics: Times Square and the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty—tourist traps that Ronnie tried to avoid at all costs. But Ronnie humored her before describing the real New York: the clubs in Chelsea, the music scene in Brooklyn, and the street vendors in Chinatown, where it was possible to buy bootlegged recordings or fake Prada purses or pretty much anything else for pennies on the dollar.
Talking about those places made her absolutely long to be back home instead of here. Anywhere but here.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to come here either,” Blaze agreed. “Trust me. It’s boring.”
“How long have you lived here?”
“Just my whole life. But at least I’m dressed okay.”
Ronnie had bought the stupid Nemo shirt, knowing she looked ridiculous. The only size the booth had in stock was an extralarge, and the thing practically reached her knees. Its only redeeming feature was that once she donned it, she’d been able to slip unseen past her father. Blaze had been right about that.
“Someone told me Nemo was cool.”
“She was lying.”
“What are we still doing out here? My dad’s probably gone by now.”
Blaze turned. “Why? Do you want to go back to the carnival? Maybe go to the haunted house?”
“No. But there’s got to be something else going on.”
“Not yet. Later there will be. But for now, let’s just wait.”
“For what?”
Blaze didn’t answer. Instead, she stood and turned around, facing the blackened water. Her hair moved in the breeze, and she seemed to stare at the moon. “I saw you earlier, you know.”
“When?”
“When you were at the volleyball game.” She motioned down the pier. “I was standing over there.”
“And?”
“You seemed out of place.”
“So do you.”
“Which is why I was standing on the pier.” She hopped up onto the railing and took a seat, facing Ronnie. “I know you don’t want to be here, but what did your dad do to make you so mad?”
Ronnie wiped her palms on her pants. “It’s a long story.”
“Does he live with his girlfriend?”
“I don’t think he has a girlfriend. Why?”
“Consider yourself lucky.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My dad lives with his girlfriend. This is his third one since the divorce, by the way, and she’s the worst by far. She’s only a few years older than I am and she dresses like a stripper. For all I know, she was a stripper. It makes me sick every time I have to go there. It’s like she doesn’t know how to act around me. One minute she tries to give me advice like she’s my mom, and the next minute she’s trying to be my best friend. I hate her.”
“And you live with your mom?”
“Yeah. But now she has a boyfriend, and he’s at the house all the time. And he’s a loser, too. He wears this ridiculous toupee because he went bald when he was like twenty or something, and he’s always telling me that I want to think about giving college a try. Like I care what he thinks. It’s just all screwed up, you know?”
Before Ronnie could answer, Blaze jumped back down. “C’mon. I think they’re getting ready to start. You’ve got to see this.”
Ronnie followed Blaze back up the pier, toward a crowd surrounding what seemed to be a street show. Startled, she realized that the performers were the three thuggish guys she’d spotted earlier. Two of them were break-dancing to music blaring from the boom box, while the one with long black hair stood in the center juggling what seemed to be flaming golf balls. Every now and then he would stop juggling and simply hold the ball, rotating it between his fingers or rolling it across the back of his hand or up one arm and down the other. Twice, he closed his fist over the fireball, nearly extinguishing it, only to move his hand, allowing the flames to escape out the tiny opening near his thumb.
“Do you know him?” Ronnie said.
Blaze nodded. “That’s Marcus.”
“Is he wearing some sort of protective coating on his hands?”