Страница 30 из 77
North leaned in. “Do you want to go to college for that? For animation?”
“I want to work. I’m ready to work.” Marigold paused. “Do you want to go to college?”
“Yeah. I do…” But he trailed off, embarrassed.
Marigold leaned in. Mirroring him.
His words came out in a rush as he gestured at his T-shirt. “I know it’s a dying art and all that, but I want to study broadcasting. I want to work in radio.”
An alarm sounded, full blast, inside Marigold’s head.
“Someone once told me I had a good voice for radio,” he continued. “I’ve never been able to get it out of my head. And I love radio. And podcasts. I listen to This American Life and WTF and Radiolab all day long, obsessively, while I work.”
“You do have a good voice. You have an amazing voice.”
North looked taken aback by her level of enthusiasm, but it was too late to stop.
“I have a confession,” she said. And the rest of her story poured out, the one that revealed that this whole night had been about the sound of his voice.
North was frozen.
“—and I’ve clearly freaked you out, and I’m totally mortified, and now I’m going to stop talking,” she said. And now I’m going to die.
There was a long and painful silence. And then North’s features slid back into their usual state of composure. “First of all,” he said, as smoothly and sardonically as anything he’d said yet, “I’m flattered that you came looking for me and not a tree. This shows excellent taste on your behalf.”
The corners of Marigold’s mouth twitched. “I came looking for your voice.”
“Second of all, I can’t believe it took you an entire month—not to mention, me physically entering your apartment—for you to ask me that question. Which, by the way, you still haven’t formed into an actual query, so I couldn’t possibly give you my reply until you do.”
Marigold sat back and crossed her arms.
North gri
“North,” she said through gritted teeth. “Would you please consider lending me your voice for my new video?”
“That depends.” He placed his hands behind his head. “How much does it pay?”
Marigold’s heart staggered. She couldn’t believe it, but she’d never even thought about paying him. Her friends and coworkers had always done it for free. But of course she should pay him. Of course.
“Marigold,” he said, after she’d been silent for twenty seconds. “I’m kidding.”
“What?”
“I’m kidding. Of course I’ll do it. It sounds awesome.”
“I could pay you in food,” she said quickly. “From Henrietta’s.”
North stared at her. “You know what’s the strangest thing about tonight? Tonight, being an astoundingly strange night?”
“What’s that?”
“That you still don’t realize I’m willing to do anything, anything”—he gestured in a full circle around them—“to stay in your company. You don’t need to pay me.”
Marigold’s heart was in her throat. It’d been over a year since she’d been in a situation like this with a boy. A handsome boy. Suddenly, she couldn’t think straight.
North nudged one of her boots with one of his.
Her boot—her foot—tingled.
A pounding on the door startled her out of her trance. “Keep it down in there! Some of us are trying to sleep!”
“Jesus,” North said. “She doesn’t stop.”
“Never.” Marigold got up and trudged to the door.
“I mean, this is the quietest we’ve been since I arrived.”
“She does this even when my mom and I are asleep. She’ll wake us up.” Marigold opened the door and plastered on a fake smile. “Ms. Agrippa. How can I help you?”
“It’s midnight. I can’t sleep with this racket—” Ms. Agrippa cut herself off. “Oh my lord! You’ve been robbed!”
“No!” Marigold took a step forward.
Ms. Agrippa bolted back—one shaking hand on her chest, the other pointing at North. “That man! There’s a strange man in your apartment!”
“That’s my friend.” Marigold steadied her voice. “He works at the tree lot next door. You saw him up here earlier? He’s been helping me clean. Doesn’t it look nice?”
“Do you need me to phone the police?” Ms. Agrippa hissed. “Are you in danger?”
“Really and truly, everything’s fine. That’s North. He’s my friend.”
North waved.
Ms. Agrippa’s expression changed. “Does your mother know he’s here?”
“Of course she does,” Marigold said firmly. Better to lie about that one. “Good night, Ms. Agrippa.”
“Will he be leaving soon? You’ve been so loud tonight—”
“Yes, Ms. Agrippa. We’re sorry to have disturbed you.”
Marigold wanted to slam the door shut, but she waited. Stared down her neighbor. It had gotten chillier outside, brisker. It felt … almost like snow weather. At last, Ms. Agrippa relented and headed down the stairwell. Marigold exhaled.
“Hello, friend,” North said, right behind her ear.
Marigold startled.
And then she chanced it—she bumped his chest with her shoulder, lightly. North looked delighted. “Is that…” He sniffed the air. “Snow. It smells like snow.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
It didn’t snow often here, but when it did, most of it happened after New Year’s. They’d only had one brief snowfall, back in November. The flakes didn’t even stick.
“I love snow.”
They said it at the same time. They glanced at each other and smiled.
“I hope it snows,” Marigold said.
“I’ve always felt lucky to live someplace where snow is rare, you know? It’s the rareness that makes it so special.”
“That could be said about a lot of things.”
“True.” North stared at her. His smile widened.
Marigold felt it, too. The rareness, the specialness, of North. Of this night. She wished it could last forever.
“Oh, no.” The wonderful thought had triggered a nerve-wracking one. She pushed North inside. “My mom! If it snows, she’ll close the restaurant early.”
They glanced at the lingering items in the hallway—and the tree—and hurried back to work. As fast as they could, faster than Marigold would have thought possible, everything was stacked flat against the living room’s longest wall.
Only the tree remained.
North hefted it inside—a groom carrying his bride across the threshold—and placed it proudly before the sliding-glass door. As he adjusted it in its stand, Marigold vacuumed away the fallen needles. She did another quick sweep of the bedrooms while he rearranged the last of the furniture—the couch, a coffee table, the Moroccan end table, a glass lamp—into an agreeable living space.
She was almost done when she spotted them in a newly cleared corner of her own bedroom. The Fisher-Price boxes.
Marigold carried them into the living room as if they were sacred.
“Look,” she said.
North turned on the lamp, and Marigold’s heart jolted. The area he’d created—everything on top of her favorite floral tufted rug—looked warm and snug and inviting. He’d even found the rainbow afghan that they used to wrap around themselves while watching television. He’d draped it over the back of the couch.
It looked perfect there. Everything looked perfect.
“It’s not much…” he said.
“No. It is.” This was, perhaps, the greatest gift she’d ever received. Her eyes welled with tears. “Thank you.”
North smiled. “Come on. Let’s decorate your tree.”
Marigold laughed, dabbing at her eyes with her sweater sleeve. “Oh, so it’s my tree now? I’ve earned it?”
He pretended to look shocked, as if it had been a slip of the tongue. Marigold laughed again. She felt happy—the kind of happy that reached every part of her body—as she opened the first box. It was filled with neatly bound strings of white and blue lights.
North peered over her shoulder. “Ha! Go figure.”