Blue Rose In Chelsea Read Free Page A

easily intercede to end this debate, but he appears spellbound to see where it will lead, and if I will back down.
         “Doesn’t Fifth divide the East and West, Evan-lier?”  I turn toward him.  I am not sure why I attach part of his last name to his first, but it seems somehow to fit, like a thrilling musical lyric.  He seems jarred by it; a crack forms in his unshakeable composure, as if I had indeed placed the fabled Shelley kiss upon his lips.
         “Haley is right.”  He addresses Dylan, directly taking on my aggressor, and the sound of my name on Evan’s lips is like a brief but sublime symphony.
         And then Evan does something odd. He abandons his swivel chair to sit beside me on the daybed.  He smells like sweet laundry drying in the summer sunshine.  He loosens the blue bandanna from his head, smoothes it with his hands, and drapes it playfully across my knee, as if laying claim to something.  This gesture is not lost on Dylan, who can no longer follow with full attention Brandon’s babbling.  I have somehow had an effect on Evan.  He looks unsettled at the prospect of my departure.  His veil of impenetrable serenity seems pierced, though he says nothing.
         A great emotion of impending emptiness wells up inside me at the thought of leaving that little sunny studio with the lemony light.  It’s as if chords of light connected me to it, and to go requires some painful psychic surgery.  The ground seems to split open before me, and I’m faced with the choice to remain in the warmth of Evan’s presence, or to risk stepping into some great cold chasm.  Nothing in my life has ever felt so wrong as to walk out that door.
         Evan stands to shake hands with Dylan.
         “No coffee, but how about a kiss on the cheek?” he says softly, leaning in to brush his full lips across my skin, and it feels like the first truly perfect moment of my existence. 

~3~
    Solidarity & A Salted Pretzel
     
         On the street, Dylan is lost in his own thoughts.  I define my mission:  I must find out all he knows about Evan.  I could kick myself for not listening to everything Dylan was spilling earlier about Evan, when he was bubbling with information.  I lob a few innocuous questions at Dylan to warm him up, batting around for Evan’s age (he’s younger than me), and where he’s from (Dylan thinks Boston).  I’m winding up for The Big One, which is Does Evan have a girlfriend?
         “Dylan, are you listening to me?” I demand, when he continually drifts off.  Dylan pays for a newspaper at a street vendor.  I tuck my purchases from Gotham Book Mart into my duffel bag to free my hand for the warm salted pretzel Dylan buys for me.
         “Look at this.”  He folds back the newspaper to show me an article on the Polish government.
         I shrug.
         “This is big, Haley.”
         “Why should I care about what’s happening in Poland?”
         “You know, for somebody with a genius IQ, you can be very shortsighted.  You should pay more attention to what’s going on in the world, instead of burying your head in dopey love stories about ancient England.”
         “Regency England!” I snap, as Dylan is making a dig at my obsession with Jane Austen.  I’ve read one of her books every year since I was fourteen years old, and since Jane—my kindred soul in shortsightedness—only gave the world six novels, they are in continual rotation on my nightstand.
         He checks his watch, and as we have barely time to burn, he takes the steps two at a time down to Penn Station.  I find myself jogging in my funky pink-strap shoes to keep up with him.
         “It’s always bad news,” I say with a weary sigh, an attempt to defend my ignorance of current events.
         “This is very good news.  This is huge.  It’s the beginning of the end.”  Dylan launches into a passionate discourse on the solidarity movement in