Vengeance(119)

“You need to listen to me,” I said firmly. “No playing during nap time.”

He looked up with eyes as dark as charcoal. “But my galley isn’t done.”

“Trust me, it is,” I said.

Music swelled from the boom box, the soaring violins that represented the wolf’s arrival. Dylan smiled then, as though he knew something I didn’t, and it made me so angry I started to pull my hand back. I wasn’t really going to hit him, of course, it was just my anger getting the best of me. And then I heard the door open.

When Rebecca walked in, my hands were back at my sides, and Dylan looked at her. “Eddie and I made a galley.”

“That’s very nice,” she said, but the look on her face was stern. “But Eddie knows there’s no playing during nap time.”

“Of course I know that, but —”

Rebecca gave me a sharp look that said she didn’t care what I had to say and shook her head. Disappointed. Dylan had made a fool out of me once more, and I didn’t much like it. But then, it was my own fault. I promised myself that I wouldn’t let him take advantage of me again.



DYLAN WAS ON his best behavior for the rest of that week, at least until the encounter with the ice vendor. It was a Friday, and the promise of the weekend was bright — I’d finally have some time with my old high school friends and away from camp. I stood on the hot Manhattan sidewalk, the sun crisping my skin. There were kids all around, being herded by their mothers and nannies.

A middle-aged street vendor was selling Italian ices in paper cups. I waited in line behind some of the campers and then ordered a pineapple ice. I’d just taken my first lick when I heard a familiar voice. Britta. She was calling after Dylan, who’d stormed toward the ices cart. She was a dozen feet behind him, struggling to push the stroller over a large sidewalk crack.

“Tell the man what you like,” she said, wheeling up to the cart.

“Chocolate,” Dylan said.

“No chocolate,” the vendor said in what was barely English. “You want grape?”

Dylan closed his hands into fists. “No, I want chocolate.”

The vendor looked at Britta with concern. He didn’t want to be the cause of a full-fledged tantrum in the middle of Seventy-Fourth Street. “No chocolate.”

I glanced at Britta, who looked like she was about to have a meltdown of her own, and then at Dylan. “I’ve got pineapple. It’s pretty tasty. You want to try some?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Go ahead. I think you’ll like it.”

I held out my soggy paper cup. Dylan took it and lapped up a mouthful of pineapple ice.

“It’s good,” he said, surprised. “I want one of these.” Instantly, the vendor began to scoop pineapple ice into a cup. Britta gave me a look of pure gratitude.

“Thank you.”

“Of course. Anything to help.”

“How has he been doing?” she asked quietly, adjusting the bonnet around the doughy face of Dylan’s baby sister. Dylan was a few steps away.

I shrugged, playing coy. “Pretty good, mostly. What’s he like at home?”

She shook her head sharply, which I took to mean Don’t ask. I wanted to know more, but just then Dylan inserted himself between us, still sucking on my pineapple ice. He looked sharply at Britta.

“He won’t let me make my galley.”

I smiled. “Yup, I’m Mr. Mean, all right.” I tousled Dylan’s hair and leaned in closer to Britta. She smelled of baby powder and suntan lotion and looked as beautiful as any girl I’d ever seen. “What’s this galley he keeps talking about?”

She turned away, and I couldn’t tell if she didn’t know or if she felt this wasn’t the moment to tell me. I wanted to press her further, but I didn’t have the chance. Something cold and sticky began to dribble onto my leg, and I saw that Dylan had turned over the paper cup and was pouring pineapple ice on me.

“Goddamn it, what the . . .” Glancing at Britta, I let the anger sputter out, smiling instead. “Lost your grip, huh, little guy?”

Dylan said nothing, just let the paper cup fall to the ground. He reached out to the vendor to take his own cup of ice and began to lick it with relish.

“I’m so sorry,” Britta said. “Let me buy you another one.”

“No need,” I said, and I was about to say Why don’t you make it up to me by going out with me sometime, but then the baby started to squawk. I noticed that Dylan was beside her, one hand around his ice, the other inside her stroller. He must’ve pinched her or hit her and made her cry.

You little bastard, I thought, but I kept that smile right on my lips, still sticky from pineapple ice.