Like A Charm

'Hey, maybe some day someone will open up a Grounds Zero,' I said as we fixed our coffees, just to be saying something. I noticed we took our coffees the same, with skim and two Equals.

Maya wrinkled her nose. All my life, I had been seeing that phrase in books, but I didn't really get it until that moment. She looked like a cat, a cat that had smelled something bad. I wondered if I would look like that if I made the same face.

'I'm sorry, my dad is a stockbroker, we knew like a dozen people who were killed that day.'

'Your stepdad, right?'

She didn't like that word. She played with the clasp on her bracelet, easing it on and off her wrist, just as she had that first night in Long John's. 'Who told you that?'

I shrugged, determined not to mention Clay. See, I didn't have any intention of hurting her. If I wanted to blow up her life, I could have done it right there, introduced Clay into the mix and let her draw her own conclusions. 'I don't know. I probably just confused you with someone else. You know how it is on this campus, you hear bits and pieces of people's lives, all out of context. It gets jumbled up.'

'Well, he is my stepdad, technically. But I think of him as my father. I never knew my biological father.' She hit that word hard, as if it were something distasteful. 'He ran out on the family when I was less than a year old.'

'You never knew him?'

'I don't want to know him. Creep.'

'Still, he paid child support, right?'

'I'm sure I don't know. It couldn't have been much, he was a real loser. It was my mother's lucky day when he left. She met my dad, Frank, six months later and they were married before I was three years old. I grew up on Park Avenue.'

The last detail bugged me. Why would she tell me that she grew up on Park Avenue if she didn't know it would get under my skin. We had moved nine or ten times, but not one of our former addresses was Park Avenue. I had lived on streets with names like Meushaw and Hinton, places as ugly as they sounded, in stripped-down apartments that were still more than we could afford. We usually left owing a month or two of rent, although once my dad played the hand out too far and they put our stuff on the street. Whatever happened, the excuse for everything we didn't have was that my father had another family before he met my mom and his ex-wife took him for every pe

'I took a sociology and statistics class last semester and they say the average household sees its income drop after divorce. Guess your family bucked that trend.'

'Thanks to my father, yes. If my mother hadn't met him, life would have been pretty hand-to-mouth for us.'

'Your stepfather,' I said because precision in language is important to me.

'Right,' Maya said.

'I have both parents, and life is really hand-to-mouth for me.'

I was trying to make a joke, or at least be a little self-deprecating, but Maya didn't laugh. She suddenly glanced at the big neon clock over the counter and said she had to go. She left in such a hurry that she didn't notice her charm bracelet was still on the table. Maybe that was because it had sort of scooted under a napkin, so she didn't see it as she gathered up her stuff. Or maybe she thought it was in her tote. At any rate, she left it behind and she was long gone before I realized it was there. So I did what anyone would do. I picked it up, pla

Of course I examined it first. It was surprisingly heavy and some of the charms were almost lethally sharp. A person would have lots of little nicks and cuts on her wrists, wearing a bracelet like that day-in and day-out. You couldn't dance in it, or work on a computer, or - if Maya had a life more like mine - wait tables with it on. You wouldn't want to wear it with a fine dress, because it would end up catching a thread here or there, creating runs. And you couldn't make love with it. You'd put someone's eye out, as my mom might say, although not about sex.

I fingered the charms. There was a heart-shaped locket with a catch and I tried to prise it open, certain my father's photo was inside. I know, I know, Maya said it was her stepfather who had found it in the cab, but I didn't believe that. She was so keen to write our father out of her life that she had revised the story in her head.

The charm I couldn't help noticing were the ballet slippers, two tiny gold cylinders with ribbons so fine you couldn't imagine one not getting broken over the years, with a jewel sparkling at one toe. It could have been cubic zirconium, but how would I be able to tell? The most precious stone I ever saw was the green glass in my high school ring. But I was sure it was a diamond glistening on those toe shoes.

I had wanted to take dancing lessons, wanted it more than anything. I was graceful, I had the right build for it, long and lean. But even the half-assed amateurs who teach ballet and tap and jazz at ten bucks a pop still expect to be paid, up front and in full. Twice, I got into a class, only to have to drop out when my dad stopped paying. I can still see myself at eight, bare-legged because the leotard and the shoes were a big enough stretch - no money left over for the pink tights - being told that I can't come to class again until my mommy or daddy calls Madame Elena. After the second time I was barred from class - barred from the bar - I just didn't go back. I began ru

I tucked the bracelet in my jacket pocket, thinking I would give it to Maya the next time I saw her. It was the natural thing to do, right? She was gone, I couldn't run after her, and I didn't know exactly where she lived. I couldn't see giving it to the manager at Grounds for Life, he looked pretty skeevy. But what with one thing and another, I didn't see her for a while. Midterms came and then spring hit the area hard, with a wave of almost summer-like days. Even the mopey types at Not Quite U. knew what to do with good weather. The grassy hill in front of the Great Glass Library was filled with sunbathing girls and Frisbee-tossing boys. They told us not to tan, Not Quite put on a big information push about skin cancer, just like with STDs and eating disorders, but we know, OK? We knew and we made our choices.

Anyway, I was sitting on the lawn with my sociology text when Clay approached me. He seemed kind of nervous, but guys often act weird after they've had sex with you. Why is that? I haven't been with that many guys, but I haven't found one yet who wasn't nervous after screwing you. Maybe it's because I don't get hooked on them, don't follow them around. The only thing guys dislike more than a clingy girl is a non-clingy girl.

'Hey,' he said. 'Kate.' He looked around, as if he were proud of knowing my name and wanted to see if anyone appreciated the great effort he had made, dredging it up.

'Hey,' I said, refusing to give him a name at all.

'Um, you know Maya? My girlfriend?' So she was his girlfriend now, I hope she appreciated her promotion. 'She said you two had coffee a while back.'

I figured he was feeling me out, trying to find out if I had told her anything.

'Yeah, for all of ten minutes. We didn't really get into deep.' See, I was being nice, letting him off the hook. I didn't sleep with him to make trouble for anyone, especially myself.

'Well, she thinks maybe she left her bracelet there, and she wonders if you took it.'