A Long Way From You Read Free Page B

never had the opportunity to go anywhere outside of Texas.
    “All right,” Corrinne says. “I’m totally back onto coffee. Don’t tell my grandma. You know how she feels about caffeine being the gateway drug. What do you want from Starbucks?” Corrinne points to a green awning with a line that’s already ten people deep.
    “Um, coffee,” I answer, shrugging.
    “Oh, Kitsy. I forgot that the Spoke’s like the last place on earth untouched by Starbucks. They should make it like a national preserve. The last frontier, completely unscathed by Frappuccinos! ” she broadcasts as if she were an announcer for a travel channel, and dashes off to Starbucks.
    I follow Ivan to the spinning baggage thing. Unlike most of the other bags, which are black wheelies, Corrinne’s grandparents’ faded floral one is easy to spot.
    We find Corrinne balancing her welcome sign and two large green-and-white cups. Immediately, I wish we had asked Ivan if he wanted anything. I’m in New York only two minutes, and I’m already forgetting my manners. While waiting for my bag, I learned that Ivan’s from Bulgaria, where his wife and two kids still live, and he used to be a pharmacist. I guess it’s true when Amber says that I’ve never met a stranger.
    She hands me a massive green-and-white cup. “I got you a venti skinny mocha latte with three Splendas. Memorize that. You need a signature drink. Everyone has one,” she says with Corrinne authority.
    I take the cup from her and slowly sip. It pretty much tastes like a burnt chocolate bar. I don’t say this, of course. Starbucks, like most bad things, probably just takes a few times to get hooked. Amber says she hated her first cigarette; she started at twenty-one, right after I was born. “Got lonely in the house with just you,” she told me once. It’s now seventeen years later and she smokes two packs a day. Hopefully, I don’t get addicted to Starbucks. I definitely can’t afford to be buying fancy, semi-gross coffee every day.
    We follow Ivan to the car. The July air is cool. It feels like the Spoke does in April. I look at the clouds and think it might even rain. Back home, it’s so dry that the bark is bribing the dogs. We could use a little of this New York weather.
    Corrinne squeezes my hand and says, “It’s going to be fabulous . You know that’s East Coast for cool, right?”
    We hop into the back of a black sedan with leather seats. Ivan navigates his way through the mass of taxis, buses, and pedestrians, and then we’re Manhattan-bound. Once I spot the city in the distance, I realize that my life is finally moving at sixty miles per hour in the right direction.
    How fabulous.

Chapter 2
Ladies Who Lunch
     
    A S WE CROSS THE Q UEENSBORO B RIDGE , Corrinne launches into a spiel of what she calls EMK: Essential Manhattan Knowledge.
    “Bridges and tunnels,” Corrinne explains. “That’s what you call people who visit Manhattan from off-island. And it’s not meant as a compliment.”
    “Corrinne, since I’m not from Manhattan, am I a bridge or a tunnel?” I ask.
    Ivan and Corrinne both shriek with laughter.
    Corrinne pulls on her seat belt to loosen it. “I’m like having a heart attack, Kitsy. Ivan, do you know CPR? Tell me this town car has a defibrillator!”
    Corrinne stops cackling to explain: “Bridges and tunnels refer to people from Jersey and the boroughs. You, coming from Texas, are a tourist .”
    Corrinne pronounces tourist as if it weren’t a good thing, but I’ve waited a long time to be exactly that— a tourist in New York . And in my wildest fantasies, I didn’t think I’d get to be a tourist and an art student.
    As Corrinne goes on and on, I wish she’d be a tad quieter so I can try to absorb these images to sketch them later. I’d try to draw now, but unfortunately I’ve learned from school bus trips that sketching while in motion makes me totally carsick.
    Corrinne has now launched into a spiel about Williamsburg and how the