"You can't see any skyscrapers from here."
"I know," I murmur. "That's what I love about it."
Maven and I walk along a tarred pathway, every type of tree imaginable to our left and a paved street with all sorts of white markings to our right. Though Maven and I walk at a brisk pace, bikers come whizzing past us, vanishing around a curve in the road up ahead.
The lunchtime traffic on the way to Central Park's Seventy-second Street entrance was awful. Not to mention that it's a Saturday. The subway would've been ten times faster, but Maven insisted on taking a taxi. Apparently his trip on the subway to Little Italy was a one-time thing—I spent half of the ride picking on him for it.
But now we're late. It's ten after twelve, and my partner and I are fast-walking toward the Loeb Boathouse sign.
We turn left for another pathway and take a right down it. "Nevermind. I see some skyscrapers over there."
I scoff, glancing over the line of trees where Maven points. Sure enough, a couple of high rises poke up over them, jutting into a pewter grey sky. "It was nice while it lasted."
Maven and I share a sigh and laugh it off. The buildings that we can see from here are west of Central Park, not south like the ones in Midtown are. Still, it feels like somebody's . . . watching us. It always feels that way with the big buildings around, and it seems that I can never get away from them completely.
"Think they'll be mad that we're late?" Maven asks quietly as he leans into my ear. A wrought-iron fence surrounded by shrubs and these spindly trees guards the Loeb Boathouse up ahead, and I can just make out a few glass panels.
"I think they think you're setting them," I mutter, crossing my arms. We come to where the fence transitions into gates, and Maven takes the lead by pulling one of them open. He lets me walk in first, elegant bricks under my boots. "I wouldn't be surprised if they split."
Maven received the letter, after all. He never had to share it with me and could've called the cops to arrest Farley and whoever else is attending this lunch date. But again: I trust him. Farley doesn't, though.
"But it'll be fine, either way. It's the traffic's fault, not ours," I say when Maven doesn't respond.
We make it to the end of the pathway, but before I have the chance to open the black French door, Maven grabs my wrist. He's gentle about it. I have to look back at him.
"I hate him, Mare."
A desperateness lurks in his tone, and beneath that, an anger. With one glance at his face, Maven comes across as perfectly calm, but his voice almost shakes.
"Maven . . ." I can only say his name. He found out the same time I did about his father's criminal underworld, and neither of us knows the half of it. Though Diana Farley's story is enough to make anybody sick with rage.
Maven thought he was a shadow before. Yet it turns out he's been in the dark altogether, blind to what his father really is and what he really does. I saw the pain in his eyes far too many times that night in Little Italy, and I still don't think any of it has fully sunken in for either of us.
I want to talk to him about everything, but I haven't had the chance since the subway station, and we spent that time discussing other things. And last night, I couldn't say anything with Iris around.
But even now, I have no idea as to what I should say.
Instead of adding any more, Maven reaches past me for the door again. I guess that's all he wanted to say. He attempts a smile, and though it fails miserably, I return it. It's his way of telling me that everything's fine, that he's fine, and that we're fine.
We're far from it, in truth.
On the other side of the doors, a gust of cool air greets me and Maven. It's hotter and more humid outside than it has been all week, and with the storm clouds overhead, it's only a matter of time before the city sees a downpour. Though the heat of New York has let up for the more part, we haven't seen much rain these past weeks. I'm just not looking forward to a walk back to the street in lashing rain and even brought a rain jacket in case—
A curse falls out of my mouth at what I see.
Maven's brought me to some crazy places over the course of time we've been friends, but this . . . this is truly for the rich-as-shit.
The Loeb Boathouse is divided into two halves, the upper section including this classy bar and leather booths. But with a few steps down a miniature staircase . . . I forget the upper section.
One-hundred square tables adorning white clothes, tiny vases of flowers, and empty wine glasses run parallel with The Lake, separated from it by a mere guardrail and some vines weaved throughout. The chairs at each of them are coffee-colored, cushioned and matching the wooden floor tiles beneath their legs. The tables are too crunched together for my taste, though, with three columns of them and too many in a row, one never more than three feet from another.
From a coffered alabaster ceiling hang lights encased in metal and opaque glass, and red-and-yellow striped awnings extend from the Boathouse a dozen feet out over The Lake. Silent fans spin around and circulate air above us, and the air conditioning's still blasting from somewhere. This fits the picture of the kind of place that would play classical music, but nothing of the sort makes it to my ears.
And then there's The Lake, which of course, is its highly-creative name as well as what it actually is. Swampy-green in color, the inlet of The Lake is framed by lush, billowing greenery, some of which look more like giant bushes than trees. I notice a particularly large weeping willow across the way, on the other side of a footpath from where small rowboats dock. With the chance of storms on the horizon, few people walk down that footpath, and even fewer boats are out rowing on The Lake.
"If you were going for fashionably late, you failed miserably."
What Farley says is the first sound out of this place that isn't a whisper of a machine or a faraway laugh. The Loeb Boathouse is utterly empty aside from her and Shade, who sit at one of the tables in the column furthest from The Lake.
I weave between tables, aiming for them. "Manhattan traffic," I say. "Sorry."
I try to be a real New-Yorker and shrug my shoulders like I don't mean the apology, but I think that Farley sees me as more of a teenage girl considering the glower that flashes across her face.
In spite of that, I take a seat at the spot closer to her and try to ignore the fact that this place is empty when it should be filled to the brim on a Saturday at lunchtime. I'm not surprised that the Scarlet Street Fighters cleared an entire restaurant, though.
"So I'm assuming you guys keep tabs on our schedules?" Maven pulls out the chair to my left and slumps down into it. Any fear of the woman across from him is artfully masked. "We usually don't have Saturdays off."
Maven's right. Saturdays are usually like weekdays at the Academy, but every so often they'll give us the whole weekend off. Minus the entire week during the Calores's Hamptons trip, this is only the second time I've gotten a full two days to myself since I've been there.
"We keep tabs on a lot more than your schedules." Shade returns for Farley. "But yes."
Backdropped by The Lake, my youngest brother sits across from me, wearing a golf polo and an effortless, relaxed smile. If anybody were here, he'd blend the easiest, with his son-of-a-country-club-owner vibe. Maven and I just wore our usual street clothes, and Farley's decked out in a black trench coat. I have to contain a laugh, remembering the sweaty gym clothes Shade used to wear all the time and how Mom would have to remind him over and over again to put them in the hamper. His taste in fashion has finally evolved.
This is weird. Weird and surreal, and I don't use the word surreal. I'm seeing my brother in the flesh again. Our last conversation was cut short by Evangeline crashing her car, and now I want nothing more than to talk to him. After the week I've had, I'm ready to hear everything and tell him everything.
"Well done, Calore."
Farley's compliment has my eyes shifting to the tablecloth, where a couple of letter-sized papers now lie. The papers bear creases that divide them into quadrants, where Maven folded them to fit them into his jean pockets.
"What are they?" I ask. With all of the chaos lately, I haven't had the chance to talk to Maven about that either. Farley gave him an assignment before we left Shade's apartment, whispered it in his ear seconds before we walked out the door. She only told me to stand by and wait for developments, and I'm still wondering if I should be glad or not that I didn't receive an order.
The side of Farley's mouth twitches upward, the scar at her lip stretching a little. "Security codes, workers' schedules, and blueprints for entrances and exits in Calore Industries' downtown building."
My eyes slide to Maven next. "You dug all of that up in three days?" Damn.
"Let's just say that my father doesn't always keep the door locked in the penthouse office." Maven stares down at the table, eyes tracing a pattern invisible to the rest of us. "In his defense, Cal was yelling from the other room that the Mets were at-bat, but my father didn't even bother to log out his desktop. Getting into his files was no problem at all."
"And you copied these files without triggering any security systems?" Farley asks.
Impassively, Maven nods. He snuck into his father's office while his father was a few rooms over and managed to not set off any security, but apparently, he's not impressed with himself. "Trust me, I know that security system. We'd know by now if something had gone wrong anyway."
I'm not about to ask how hacking or copying files works, so I just take a sip of water from the wine glass set in front of me. As much as I want to, I don't ask Shade or Farley if we're actually eating lunch.
"They'll know that somebody stole the security codes," Farley mutters, flipping through a few more sheets of paper. "But they'll suspect a worker, not a son. Thank you."
A hot gust of wind blows in from outside, and it ruffles Maven's hair. The air does battle with the AC, warm mixing with cool. The perfect conditions for a storm.
Although he's stunned by the gratitude, Maven nods again. "You're welcome."
My partner and Farley share an appreciative gaze, and I have to wonder if the sky's still blue beneath the clouds or if reality's imploded on itself. Not a week ago, Farley was pointing a gun to Maven's head. Now she's glancing between him and the papers, probably a little surprised herself with her furrowed brows and pursed lips.
Shade clears his throat. "Once Tiberias Calore figures out that his company has a mole in its midst, everything will go to hell. He's going to be paranoid out of his mind, and he'll start trusting fewer and fewer people. Not to mention that he's finally going to realize—along with the rest of the city—that he's who the Scarlet Street Fighters are really after." He looks between me and Maven, nodding.
Though Farley will never say it, Maven is the Street Fighters' greatest asset. I might be better to have on hand than a maid—bless Ann's heart, because she does my laundry—but Maven . . . is Maven Calore. In far more ways than one, he has to be the smartest person I know, and he has the greatest weapon of all when it comes to Tiberias Calore: blood. Farley will never find another who lives in the same penthouse as her greatest enemy.
Farley crosses her arms, face going back to her typical rough and tough expression. "I assume you two recall our policy regarding how much we disclose to our members?"
"Yes." Realizing how unnaturally stiff my posture is, I attempt to recline into my chair. I'm only told what I need to know, and that goes for everything. The Street Fighters, the Calores, and everything else.
"Through the door, yes," Maven says. Shade smirks and lifts his glass of water to his lips.
Farley sees it and rolls her eyes at Shade. A small smile follows, though.
It fades a moment after when she looks back to us. "The Scarlet Street Fighters are attacking the Manhattan Dance Academy's gala next Saturday."
I don't have food or water to choke on, but if I did, I'd be keeled over the table, coughing on my own disbelief. Instead, I just turn my eyes on The Lake, fixing my gaze on the space between my brother and Farley. Maven's equally shocked and does the same.
The Lake doesn't glisten as it would on a sunny summer day. Its waters ripple and the surrounding trees swell in the humid breeze, dancing to a strange song that only they can hear. The sky's growing horribly dark, The Lake its murky reflection. The last of the boaters and hikers are moving out, leaving four Scarlet Street Fighters as the only ones around. With this afternoon's storm making its final steps in, I distantly hear a thunderclap. The lightning must be on the other side of the Boathouse.
As if on cue or some ironic joke, rain starts spilling from the sky with another blink from me. It hits The Lake hard, drops of water pounding into a body of it, beating at the red-and-gold awnings.
"But that's all you need to know."
On Tuesday, half-done with a piece of pepperoni pizza, I told Farley that I wanted to know everything. Every detail, every crime ever committed by the Calores, and enough horror stories to make me unfeeling when it comes time for Tiberias Calore to meet his end. So that I can live with no regrets when it's over.
I got one story instead. And it was enough in that way, though I'll always want to know more.
This, however, is my life. The Academy and the Street Fighters have nothing to do with one another, other than their common link to Tiberias Calore. Dancing isn't business or crime, but the Street Fighters are targeting the gala anyway. "Maven and I are going to be there, you know," I say, even though it means next to nothing. I have no doubt that plans for this attack have been in motion for weeks.
I spent three-hundred dollars yesterday on a breathtaking navy-blue gown—I could barely try it on after Maven's note, but I did, and I loved it—and Iris already scheduled me for some hair appointment next Saturday afternoon. But all of the socialites and reporters and paparazzi of the world are nothing now. They were supposed to be the challenge, not . . . this.
"We know. We keep tabs on you guys, remember?" Farley offers me no sympathy. I don't know why she would.
"You're not going to be in any mortal danger," Shade adds, reading me like the brother he is. "It's happening at ten o'clock. Just stay away from the stairs, and you'll be fine. It's just a message, just a . . . warning to Tiberias Calore and his friends.." His face turns a little cold, warmth leaving his honey eyes as he glances behind him to The Lake. "We should move to the bar," he mutters.
"It's not your concern as to how the attack will play out. You supplied us the information, now on Saturday . . . you'll smile and talk and dance like the members of high-society you are," Farley continues. She glances at me. "Or pretending to be." I don't argue with her.
Ten o'clock, the stairs. Whatever stairs my brother's referencing, I'm sure they're in plain sight. Hopefully. I'm not foolish enough to ask more. They've told us what we need to know, and that's that.
"Okay," Maven says, nodding again and again in my periphery. "Okay." It sounds like he's trying to convince himself that this whole thing is okay.
He says it first, so I can't exactly argue with anybody. "Okay," I say after him. I look to my folded hands resting in my lap, and I realize that my fingers are gripping my knuckles a little too hard.
With nothing left to discuss, the four of us more or less look to the open air, Shade having to half-turn around in his seat. Thunderstorms in New York generally pass pretty quickly, but there's always a chance of being stuck here for hours. I wonder how long Shade and Farley have this place to themselves.
The rain keeps no rhythm the way my heart does, pounding softly against my ribs. Miniature waterfalls cascade off the awnings, and droplets of water bounce off cement by the wisteria tree. White light flashes in the sky, another peal of thunder following it. It looks to me like the flash hits someplace south of here, maybe in Chelsea or the Village.
Out of the blue, Farley scoffs. "The Mets? Why am I not surprised?"
In perfect unison, Shade and I turn on her.
"Are you kidding me?"
"Not this again, Diana."
Farley just about throws up her arms. "What do you mean, this?" She points between the two of us. "Both of you Barrows have issues, you know. For God's sake, when was the last time the Mets made the playoffs?."
"2015," Shade and I say at the same time.
"And at least the Mets don't buy their players," I add, crossing my arms. "Your team is the most-hated team in baseball for that, you know."
"That is not fair," Maven says. "And no way in hell are the Mets making the playoffs this year."
Her mouth already open for a comeback, Farley pauses. She seems to be gasping. "You're kidding, right?" The shape her lips make isn't exactly a smile, but she shows teeth.
Maven shakes his head. "My mom's side of the family is all die-hard Yankee fans. Though I have my own reasons to hate the Mets."
It's me and my brother's turn to roll eyes and scoff.
Farley chuckles. It's a nefarious laugh. "Why don't we discuss this over lunch? I'm starved."
After sandwiches, a cutthroat debate on who's the best baseball team in New York, and a killer thunderstorm, Shade and I end up outside.
Farley and Maven stayed inside to talk business and Calore Industries, though it would be a bad idea for them to be outside with us anyway. Whether or not she was wearing a bandana, Farley's been on TV, and too many people in Central Park might recognize Maven from high society. But in spite of all that, I think that they both know Shade and I need some time alone, too.
Only so that I don't have to carry it, I've thrown my rain jacket on, the color of the clouds that have now moved out. To my side, my brother still shows off his golf polo, sporting a pair of cargo pants along with it.
The pathway we walk on slopes downward, canopied by oak trees and fenced by these purple and green perennials. They're among numerous other plants Shade and I have come across on our short walk from the Boathouse, but all have one thing in common: they're not going to need water for years. The dirt by the trees has turned thoroughly to mud, and water droplets fall onto my head from the overhead leaves. My boots find the pavement to be unnervingly slick.
"Remember how I was working at that gym a few blocks over before I left?"
Up ahead, I see a couple of stray walkers, but for the most part, Central Park's still cleared of everything aside from greenery, puddles, and Scarlet Street Fighters. Shade isn't especially careful of his volume.
"Yeah." I tuck my hands into my jacket pockets. "You always stunk when you came home."
Shade gives me one of signature Shade laughs, which consists of nothing more than a haha. Back when we were both at home, it's what he'd always use to tell me that I'm not funny.
Even though when I turn my head to look at my brother, I find humor glimmering in his eyes.
Shade might not be buffed out the way Cal is, or the size of Bree and Tramy, but he's always been into working out. He lived at that East Harlem gym the way I lived at my studio, always training and taking classes. When he was sixteen, he started teaching different classes himself, anything from boxing to self-defense. He got paid shit for it, but he loved it.
"So one day, I was teaching a pilates class, as I often did back in the day, and in waltzes this blonde lady."
And . . . this is the story of how Shade met Farley. Got it.
We reach the end of the pathway, where tar becomes an ornate pattern of red brick. The pattern extends around in a massive ring, probably fifty yards end to end, and in the middle lies a fountain made of carved stone large enough to be a luxury swimming pool. Lily pads float around a statue of a female angel and four cherubs below, elevated nearly two stories in the air on a pedestal of bronze.
Made of the same creamy stone as the fountain, one extraordinarily long bench wraps around the brick circle, dividing it from the rest of Central Park. Another edge of The Lake sits at one side of the circle, and the greenest grass and trees you'll ever find in Manhattan stretch in every direction for as far as the eye can see. Opposite The Lake, stairs the size of the ones at the Midtown library climb up a hill to a terrace outlook.
"She wasn't interested in taking your pilates class, was she?" I ask, still glancing around. I haven't been through Central Park in ages.
"Nope," Shade returns with a head shake. "Diana was looking for recruits. The Scarlet Street Fighters were big enough that at the time I had already heard mentions and whispers of them, but they hadn't pulled any big-time stunts yet. Diana and the others could still go around like that, popping in here and there and asking for recruits." No corporate break-ins or fireworks at that point, then. "And besides. Nobody snitches in East Harlem."
"You joined that day?" We make for the opposite side of the circle, where another pathway begins.
He nods. "I was mad," Shade says quietly, but his voice is rimmed with emotion. "Mad just like everybody else in our neighborhood is when it comes to Wall Street and that crap. Mad just like you were when you decided to join. Taking down the rich . . . who wouldn't want to do that? You know what East Harlem did to you as well as me."
I open my mouth, but Shade continues.
"Honestly, though, it wasn't Diana's usual speech that hooked me. Since I was the one that she saw first in the gym, in charge of a class, she pulled me aside. Apparently she trusted me at the time, because she told me about the Calores. Not about what happened to her mother and sister, but what that family does to people in general, she told me. And I couldn't . . ." Shade trails off, voice nearly breaking. "I couldn't."
I can only look down at my boots. "So then you left." Without packing his things, without eating one last dinner with us, and without saying goodbye. Once, anger would've saturated my tone, whether or not I had tried to control it. Now, it's just an acknowledgment. A statement.
"I wanted to say goodbye more than anything, but Diana told me it wasn't safe for my family to know what I was doing. Any connection, any hint of what was going on . . . it wouldn't have been good for any of us. Not to mention Mom would've chained me to the apartment door. I only answered her call after she had called two-dozen times because I had to give her something. I lied through my teeth, and it killed me, and I doubt any of you bought it anyway. I got rid of my phone after that."
My brother's rambling.
"The letters were the most I could do, and this summer . . . writing you that letter was a big risk on my part. And—"
"Shade," I say my brother's name.
As I've said, I could never judge him. Not after the things I've done.
"You did it because you loved our family. You did what you could, and everybody will understand that when the time comes."
Without giving him any warning, I grind my feet to a halt, turn and face my brother., Shade's already paused.
I whisper what I say next. "I'm just happy to have my brother back."
It's refreshing to have a brother who isn't so damn tall. I don't have to crane my neck to look at him, and he barely has to look down to hold eyes with me. Maybe that's the reason we've always had such an easy relationship, where he understood me and I understood him. He never asked me why I loved dance the way Mom and Dad would, never questioned anything about me.
And here he is, back from the dead now. "I'm happy to have you back too," Shade says with equal quietness.
I plan on asking him all about the last year and a half. I want to know if he's been anywhere cool, or if he's learned anything new, stupid as it sounds. I definitely want to know where he's been getting his new clothes. And I suppose I should also ask him what his role is with the Street Fighters.
But I have a hell of a story for Shade as well. "Now. I need to tell you about the time I auditioned for the Manhattan Dance Academy."
Shade gives me a great big grin. "Oh, yes. I was wondering how you scammed your way into that place."