Super in the City Read Free

lilt, “Who invited you? Are you friends of the prin
cess
?” He put the accent on the second syllable.
    My right eyelid started to twitch, but Tag, who has talked her way past customs officers while carrying a thousand undocumented specimens in her luggage, answered immediately and with righteous indignation.
    “The prin
cess
?! We are not here for the prin
cess.
” You would have thought from Tag’s disdain that Her Highness wasa stripper recently demoted to whore. “We are supposed to be at a reception for Friends of OPEC.” She glared back at the man, who seemed flustered by the about- face.
    “Why,” Tag continued, “were we not told this upon our arrival?”
    The king said something to Ferdinand’s brother, who shrugged his shoulders. The princess tugged on her father’s sleeve and whined something. I had been wildly counting little squiggles in the paisley carpet (twenty- three so far). When I ventured to glance up, I met the gaze of my shoulda- woulda-coulda- been husband and found that Ferdinand was laughing at us. Twenty- four, twenty- five, twenty- six …
    The king started to yell again, but Tag, bless her fearless self, yelled back.
    “You’ve wasted enough of our time this evening. I hope your daughter has a lovely little birthday party. Next time, you might want to consider having a bloody
guest
list!” The last thing a crasher wants is a guest list (as for a
bloody
guest list, that was the British branding boyfriend still clutching a portion of Tag’s brain), but it was a ballsy bluff.
    Sensing my paralysis, Tag put her hand forcefully between my shoulders and pushed me to the doorway. We feigned calm as we marched out of the room and down the hall. As we approached the elevators, though, we heard angry voices behind us, so we headed straight for the fire stairwell and crashed through the door. Whereupon Tag leapt in front of me and flew down the stairs at breakneck speed, screeching, “Zephyr, you fuckwad, run, goddamn it, RUN!”
    I was still holding an hors d’oeuvre plate smeared with tomato sauce. I didn’t want to be charged with trespassing
and
theft all in one night, so I carefully set it on the landing and made after my satin- clad friend as fast as I could. Which is not that fast, when you consider that my name means “breeze.”Every few days, I did a waffle- burning plod of about three miles, but that paltry regimen had hardly prepared me for escaping capture by angry Iberian royalty on two- inch heels, in a five-star hotel.
    As I flung my way down the cement flights, clinging to the rail and growing dizzier with each step, I pictured myself recounting the evening’s story to my parents, whose primary purpose in producing my brother, Gideon, and me was, as far as I could tell, so they’d be guaranteed entertainment for the rest of their days. That, and, when we were small, to have someone hand up the plates from the bottom rack of the dishwasher.
    I’d roll out of bed around nine the next morning, pad up the two flights to apartment 4A, knock as a punctilio while letting myself in, plop down at the lox- laden table, and ask, “Hey, Mom, St. Regis security didn’t call here last night, did they?” Or maybe, “Hey, Dad, it turns out the King of Spain wears the same cologne Uncle Hy used to wear.”
    And my father would fold up the
Week in Review,
slap the table, and lean forward, bellowing, “Do tell!” My mom would chuck the
Book Review
and bustle into the kitchen, saying, “Wait, wait, don’t start, I want a full cup of coffee for this.”
    First, though, I had to ensure that hotel security did not actually become acquainted with my parents or their telephone number.
    Tag and I race- walked across the lobby and emerged, panting, onto Fifth Avenue—surely the streets were safe, like international waters?—and into the magnolia- scented spring evening.
    “Oh my God!” Tag shrieked, her hand on her side, trying to catch her breath.
    I could only wheeze and push