The center of town is called Ithaca Commons and it’s blocked off so it’s just for people, not cars. The stores are painted bright colors like a village out of a movie. Like it might not be real.
I’m not sure what I’m looking for. Something cheap to eat, maybe a place to get warm for a while so I can plan my next move. There’s a brick building that has DAIRY painted on the outside even though it’s a bakery. I buy a donut and a cup of coffee from a lady with long white braids and take a seat at a wobbly table by the window.
The people who walk by just look different. They’re wearing a lot of clothes. Layers and layers. Thick hand-knit hats with flaps that cover their ears, or they have hair like they just got out of bed. Corduroy pants cut up the seam and turned into bellbottoms with bright patchwork pieces. There’s a man in a long skirt walking around like he’s nothing out of the ordinary. I’ve never seen anything like it. Freaking dirty hippies, I think, smiling as I try to picture Gary walking around The Commons wearing a flowing skirt and his Harley jacket.
I eat my donut slow, breaking off teeny tiny pieces, chewing them down to mush before I swallow. After I drink half my coffee, I go back to the cream and sugar table and load the cup with cream so it’ll last longer. I eat every last crumb of donut and wait for the final drop of coffee to roll down the seam of the paper cup into my mouth.
“Want a warm up to go?” the lady with the braids asks as I stand up and collect myself. “On the house.” She holds the coffeepot above the counter.
“Thanks.” I walk over with my cup. She takes it from me and pours until it’s full.
“Cold for November,” she says. “Stay warm, sweetie.”
“You too,” I say, taking the cup back from her carefully. I throw some more change in her tip cup. Now I’m down to a hundred and fifty-five dollars, but even when you don’t have much, you always have to tip. Margo says there’s no excuse.
I walk down one side of The Commons and up the other, looking in windows. There’s a storefront full of shirts and bumper stickers that say things like ITHACA IS GORGES, MY KID BEAT UP YOUR HONOR STUDENT, and I NEED A MAN LIKE A NEEDS A . Another shop seems to sell nothing but silver rings and weird pipes made out of glass. There’s a used bookstore and a place that sells old clothes—like Mrs. Ivory would wear—for a dollar a pound. There are bead curtains and cracked CDs hanging all over the place and one of the stores has the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland painted on the glass. I wonder if this is what it feels like to go to Europe. It’s a far cry from Little River.
I walk past a coffee shop that’s dark inside even though it’s open. Lit candles in glass cups line shelves on the walls. It looks like a cave. There’s a HELP WANTED sign in the window.
— Chapter 8 —
“Um, a girl here wants to help us,” this blond guy yells toward the back room.
Everyone in Cafe Decadence looks at me. I stare at my boots, let my hair fall in my face. Long hair is like carrying a hiding place with you everywhere you go.
“Carly will be out in a sec,” the guy tells me. His voice is low and dopey like a cartoon character. His hair has streaks that are almost white. No one is that sun-kissed in upstate New York in November. He looks like he should be someplace warm. California, Florida, Barbados. He should be surfing. He hasn’t been in winter long enough to fade.
“Thanks,” I say, but he’s already taking an order. A woman in a lime green dress coat asks for something called a “half-caff soy mocha,” and the blond guy knows what she’s talking about.
I move to the side and try my best to look like I belong. There’s a bulletin board on the wall covered with neon flyers. Voice lessons, dog walkers, tutors, auditions, roommate, new play, babysitter, anarchist book club—fringes of phone numbers cut at the bottom. There’s even a personal ad, handwritten and photocopied. It says: You want me. Your body knows. Heart will follow. NSWM. Agnostic. Bi. Let’s explore your wildest fantasies and silliest whims. Must be open to anything; like Depeche Mode. The picture is a naked man sitting the wrong way on a chair so the chair back covers his privates. He has chicken legs. He’s wearing a black bowler hat; his eyes are rimmed with liner and there’s a fat black tear drawn on his cheek. He’s sticking out his tongue. It’s long and pointy. One of the phone numbers is torn off. I don’t know what agnostic means, but it sounds like some kind of weird sex thing. I can’t imagine the person who not only looked at that picture and wanted to do agnostic things to this guy, but also had the courage to pull off the phone number in the middle of the coffee shop with everyone watching.