Before We Were Strangers Read online

  “What? What am I?”

  “Shameless!” She turned her attention to the receptionist. “Hi, Jane. This is my friend, Matthias. He has excellent blood and he’d like to sell you some.”

  “You came to the right place.” She gathered some forms from under the counter. “What’s your last name again, Grace?” she said as she riffled through a file.

  “Starr.”

  “That’s right, how could I forget? And you’re giving just plasma today, Matthias?”

  “Yes. And it’s Matthias William Shore, if you need my full name.”

  Grace looked at me sideways. “Well, Matthias William Shore, I’m Graceland Marie Starr. Delighted to make your acquaintance.” She held her hand out to shake mine.

  I kissed the back of it. “Pleasure is all mine. Graceland, is it?”

  She blushed. “My parents are Elvis fans.”

  “Lovely name for a lovely lady.”

  The woman behind the counter put an abrupt end to our courtly exchange. “Just blood, Grace, or platelets, too?”

  “Today, I’ll be selling my enormous, lush platelets.” She leaned in and whispered in my ear. “Are you turned on?”

  I laughed. She could be brazen, but that didn’t mask her sweet, shy side. Something about her made me want to get to know her in every possible way.

  After the forms were filled out and the blood checks done, they took us into a big room where there were ten other people getting their blood drawn. We lay across from each other on inclined beds. Grace watched me with a smile as they inserted a line into my arm. She was hooked up to a machine that took the blood from one arm, removed the platelets, and then returned the plasma to the other. I chomped on the pretzels and waited as my blood dribbled into the plastic bag. She held her juice in the air and said, “Cheers.”

  I started feeling lightheaded, almost drunk. Black nothingness began filling my vision from the sides. “Best date ever,” I said woozily, holding my juice box up to her.

  She smirked, but there was compassion in her eyes. “Who said anything about a date?” I gave her a lethargic shrug. “Let’s make a deal. If you make it through this without passing out, I’ll let you take me on a real date,” she said, before everything faded to black.

  Smelling salts work, apparently. My eyes opened to find a nurse who looked like Julia Roberts circa Mystic Pizza leaning over me. Her bushy eyebrows pinched together and her big hair bounced as she talked. “You okay, sweetie?”

  I nodded. “I think so. Why are you upside down?”

  She smiled. “The bed can be flipped so that if you pass out, we can get your feet elevated above your heart.”

  I was totally out of it. “Thanks, baby. You saved me.”

  “No problem, baby.” She chuckled.

  I looked across the room to Grace, who seemed listless.

  “You okay?” she asked quietly. I nodded.

  After they removed the needle and loaded me up with sugary snacks, the nurse helped me stand. “You can stay as long as you need to,” she assured me.

  “I’m all right. I’m just gonna sit with my friend over there.”

  I shuffled over to Grace, who was beginning to look pale and tired. Sitting in the chair next to her bed, I noticed that goose bumps covered her arms and legs. Her dress was riding up on her thighs as she slumped against the headrest. She noticed my gaze and discreetly tugged the hem of her dress down.

  “Hey,” I said as I looked above her and studied the machine of pinwheels and tubes. It looked like a Willy Wonka contraption.

  “Hey yourself,” she said in a low voice.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m just tired and cold.” She let her eyes close. I stood up and rubbed my hands up and down her arms.

  With eyes just barely cracked, she shot me a tiny smile and whispered, “Thanks, Matt.”

  When the nurse walked by, I quickly caught her attention. “Excuse me, nurse. She’s freezing and she seems kind of out of it.”

  “That’s normal. I’ll get her a blanket,” she said, gesturing to a nearby chair.

  I rushed over and grabbed it before the nurse even had time to turn around. I covered Grace all the way up to her neck and then tucked the blanket in at her sides so she was completely cocooned.

  “Perfect,” I said. “A Grace burrito.”

  She laughed silently and then closed her eyes.

  I sat back down in the chair and watched my new friend. She didn’t wear much makeup, if any at all. Her lashes were long, her skin flawless, and she smelled of lilac and baby powder. In the short time I’d known her, I could tell that as savvy as she seemed about the world around her, there was a poignant fragility about her, a childlike innocence I had detected immediately. It came through her eyes and shy gestures.

  Glancing around the room, I noticed a few homeless-looking people and one grungy, obviously very inebriated man in the corner making a fuss over the fact that there were no more Oreo cookies left in the snack basket.

  Resting my head back, I let my own eyes close, then drifted off into a light sleep, listening to the sound of the machine above me removing Grace’s platelets and then pumping the blood back into her body. I wondered how often she had done this for fifty dollars.

  I don’t know how much time passed when I felt a delicate hand on my shoulder. “Matty, come on, let’s go.” I opened my eyes and looked up to find Grace, pink-cheeked and grinning from ear to ear. She handed me twenty-five bucks. “Sweet, huh?” She seemed back to normal and totally poised, with her small purse strung across her body. “Need a hand?” She reached out to me.

  “Nope.” I popped out of the chair. “I feel like a million bucks.”

  “You look about twenty-five short of a million.”

  A strand of hair had fallen out of her hair tie. I reached to tuck it behind her ear but she flinched. “I was just going to . . .”

  “Oh, sorry.” She leaned in, so I reached down again, and this time she let me tuck her hair back.

  “You smell good,” I said. She was mere inches from my face, looking up at me. Her eyes focused on my lips. I licked them and then leaned down an inch closer.

  She looked away. “Ready?”

  I didn’t feel rejected. Instead, her reservation piqued my interest even more. I was curious.

  “Seems like there were a lot of druggies in there,” I said, once we were outside. “Do you think they use that blood?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”

  The sun was high in the sky, there were birds chirping, and Grace was standing stock still with her head down, her eyes trained on a line of ants heading toward a trashcan.

  “What do you want to do now?” I asked.

  She looked up. “Wanna get some weed and hang out in Washington Square?”

  I laughed. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “Come on, druggy.” She yanked on my hand and we were off. A block down, she tried to pull her hand out of mine but I wouldn’t let her.

  “You have tiny hands,” I said.

  At the corner, as we waited for the crosswalk, she pried her hand away and held it up. “Yeah, but they’re bony and ugly.”

  “I like them.” When the walking sign lit up, I grabbed her hand again and said, “Come on skeletor. Let’s go.”

  “Funny.”

  She let me hold her hand the rest of the way.

  We stopped by Senior House so I could get my camera. Grace grabbed a blanket and the skinniest joint I had ever seen. On our way out, Daria, our RA, stopped us as we passed the registration desk. “Where are you two headed?”

  “The park,” Grace said. “What are you doing here?”

  Daria popped the last bit of a fish stick into her mouth. “Lots of people movin’ in today. I’m just gonna keep getting bugged. I might as well sit here. By the way, I wanted to talk to you, Grace. The cello-playing at night can get pretty loud. It was okay for the first few days, when no one was here, but . . .” />
  “I don’t mind and I’m right next door,” I interrupted.

  Grace turned around and shook her head at me. “Don’t. It’s okay. I’ll keep it down, Daria.”

  We turned and left the building. “Daria looks like a man, huh? Like David Bowie or something?”

  She scrunched her face up. “Yeah, but David Bowie looks like a woman.”

  “True. Maybe you should learn some Bowie songs to keep Daria happy.”

  “Yeah, maybe I will.”

  At the park, she laid the blanket down near a big sycamore tree and sat with her back against the trunk. I lay on my stomach, facing her. I watched as she lit the joint, inhaled, and passed it over to me. “Do you think we’ll get busted here, out in the open?”

  “No, I come here all the time.”

  “Alone?”

  “A bunch of people from the music department hang out here.” She took a long hit and then looked up, startled, and coughed a puff of smoke out. “Oh shit.”

  “What?” I turned around to see a man in his early to midthirties coming toward us. He was dressed in khakis and had a severely receding hairline. “Who’s that?” I asked, grabbing the joint and stubbing it out.

  “That’s Dan—I mean, Professor Pornsake. One of my music teachers.”

  “You call him Dan?”

  “He told me to. I don’t think he likes his last name.”

  “Understandably.”

  She nervously brushed grass from her lap and sat up straight. I turned on my side, propped my head on my hand, and looked up at Grace’s face. She was high as a kite on just the small amount we had smoked. Her eyes were narrow, red slits, and she was grinning maniacally.

  I started to laugh. “Oh my god, you’re super stoned.”

  She made an attempt at a serious face, “Don’t start!” she said, mock-scolding me. We both lost it and fell into a fit of silent, hysterical laughter.

  “Grace!” Dan called out as we struggled to pull it together. “What a pleasure seeing you here.” He had a bushy mustache that moved dramatically when he talked. I fixated on it and didn’t realize that Grace had introduced me.

  “Matthias?” She nudged me.

  “Oh, sorry, nice to meet you, professor.” I leaned up and shook his hand.

  He smiled strangely at me. “So, how’d you two meet?”

  “He lives next door to me at Senior House,” Grace said.

  “Oh.” There was something in his expression that made me think he was disappointed.

  “Well, I’ll let you two get back to whatever it is you were doing.” He looked directly at Grace. “Make sure you stay out of trouble.”

  Grace seemed far away, lost in thought as she starred at him walking away.

  “He has a thing for you, huh?” I moved up on the blanket.

  “I don’t know, but I can’t mess up here. I’m on thin ice already.” I pulled off a string that was hanging from the bottom of her dress. “Thanks,” she said, looking dazed.

  “You’re welcome.” I blinked a few times and then yawned.

  She patted her lap. “You wanna lay your head?” I rolled onto my back and laid my head on her thighs. She leaned against the tree again and relaxed before mindlessly running her hands through my hair. “Fast friends,” she said lazily.

  “Yeah. I like you. You’re kinda weird.”

  “I was gonna say that about you, I swear.”

  “Did someone break your heart? Is that why you don’t date? Please tell me you don’t have a thing for Pornsake?”

  She laughed as she dug around for the joint. “Why? Would that make you jealous?”

  “Jealous? No, it’s your life. I mean, if you want to be kissing that guy and potentially ingesting any food item lost in that absurd mustache, be my guest.”

  “Ha-ha. There’s nothing going on with Pornsake . . . and gross! And no, I didn’t get my heart broken. I just have to stay focused on school to keep my grades up.”

  I knew there had to be something more than the fact that Grace wanted to stay focused, but I didn’t push her. We had only just met, yet she had spent the whole day with me and part of the day before not focused on music, so I knew there was another reason. I might have thought she wasn’t into me and didn’t want to send mixed signals, but I saw the way she looked me up and down and the places that her eyes would land.

  I took my camera, turned it around to face us, and then clicked the shutter three times.

  6. I Needed to Know You

  MATT

  Later that week, in the dark room, I studied the negatives. I couldn’t fully make out Grace’s expression in one picture so I enlarged it to make a print. When the image began to appear, I realized right away that instead of looking into the camera lens, Grace was looking down at me, adoringly. It made me smile the entire time I was in the lab that day. I took the print after it dried and waited for Grace on the steps outside of Senior House. I removed a cigarette from behind my ear and lit it as I waited.

  A minute later, Grace walked up, carrying her large cello case. “You want me to carry that for you?” I asked as I got to my feet.

  “No, sit down. You got another one of those?” She pointed to the cigarette and then sat next to me on the steps. It was late in the day but still warm. I had a T-shirt, jeans, and no shoes on. She was wearing a white V-neck and cut-off Levis. The skin on her legs was tan and smooth. She held two fingers to her lips, reminding me again that she wanted a cigarette.

  “I only have this one, but I can share.” I handed it to her and then held up the photograph I had developed that day. “Our first photo together.” At the bottom I had used a grease pen on the blank photo paper. I had written “BFFs” on it so that when it developed, it stayed white.

  She laughed. “Best friends forever? Already?”

  “Wishful thinking.” I shot her a big toothy grin.

  “I love it. I will cherish it always. Thank you, Matt.”

  “Did you practice a lot today?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m beat and hungry.”

  “Daria can probably warm you up some fish sticks if you want.”

  Grace scrunched her nose up. “Why does she always eat those? It’s so nasty.”

  “Probably because they’re cheap.”

  “Speaking of . . . on Wednesdays there’s a diner that I go to that serves free pancakes if you wear your pajamas. You feel like breakfast for dinner?”

  I laughed. “Sounds good.”

  She stood and stomped on the cigarette. “Cool, let’s get our jammies on.”

  I put on flannel pajama bottoms but kept my white T-shirt on. I slipped on giant slippers that gave me Sasquatch feet and walked over to Grace’s room. I pushed the cracked door open and inhaled sharply. She was in her underwear and bra, her back toward me. I swallowed hard and tried to will myself to turn around and walk out before she saw me, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the round curve of her perfect ass. She had on white cotton panties with tiny flowers and a little ruffle at the top. The material rode up on one cheek. I felt an urge to drop to my knees and bite her there. My heart picked up and my dick twitched as I held my breath. Fuck!

  Without noticing me, she lifted a pink T-shirt nightgown over her head and pulled it on. She turned to reveal white polka dots and a Hello Kitty logo on the front. I couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across my face.

  She froze when she saw me. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Just a second,” I lied.

  She glanced down at the front of my pants. I didn’t follow her gaze; I just tried very inconspicuously to adjust myself enough so that she wouldn’t notice what was going on down below.

  “Oh.” She looked further down at my slippers. “Dude, those are so rad.”

  I laughed, feeling a bit relieved that I wasn’t caught. “How far is this place?”

  “We have to take the subway—it’s in Brooklyn.” By that point she was on the floor, tying the shoelaces on her blue Converse.

 
As she walked toward the door, my hand naturally fell to the small of her back. She stopped and turned toward me, her face just inches from mine. “Do you wanna bring your camera? It’s a pretty picture-worthy place.”

  “Good idea.”

  I went to my room, grabbed my camera, and then met her downstairs, where she was standing with a guy and a girl, also in pajamas. “Matthias, this is Tatiana. She plays the strings with me. And this is Brandon, her boyfriend.”

  I hadn’t expected company, but I was excited to meet Grace’s friends. Reaching out, I shook Tatiana’s hand first. She was wearing red footy pajamas and a baseball cap. Although pretty in general, she looked plain standing next to Grace. Brandon was wearing a typical pair of gray college sweats. Brandon was on the short side, with dark cropped hair and frameless glasses. We exchanged grins at our outfits and headed out the door.

  The diner was a ’50s-throwback type of place, with shiny red booths and little jukebox stations at every table. Grace scooted into the booth first and began flipping through the song pages. “I love these things.”

  Tatiana and Brandon sat across from us, almost on each other’s laps. Tatiana reached into her bag and pulled out a flask. “Bailey’s and rum for our vanilla shakes. It’s to die for.”

  Grace and I made appreciative ooh-ing sounds.

  “How long have you two been together?” I asked.

  “Three weeks,” Brandon said, before leaning in to kiss Tatiana. I noticed that Grace watched them with intense interest.

  I instinctively rested my hand on Grace’s bare thigh where her nightgown had ridden up. She didn’t push me away but didn’t respond either. When I moved my hand higher, she gestured to let her out of the booth. She got up and danced toward the bathroom, singing along to James Brown’s “Please, Please, Please.”

  “So, Brandon, what are you studying?”

  “Music, but more on the recording and business side of things. You?”

  “Photography.”

  He pointed to the camera on the table. “I guess I should have figured that out.”

  “It seems like you and Grace have been inseparable the last couple of days,” Tatiana said.

  “She’s literally the only person I know here. I just moved to New York.”