I WALK THE THIRTY-TWO BLOCKS DOWN PARK FROM Big E’s to Fiftieth Street, enjoying every step on the cold-but-sunny concrete. Aunt Suze is taking my place today, interviewing some poor unsuspecting home aide candidates. I’m so happy to be out of that apartment, I could weep.
There’s Kendall, waiting on the corner.
“Hey,” I say when she sees me.
“Hey,” she says back.
So here we are again. Kendall examines the curb. I don’t know what to do next. I can only hope we’ll push through this horrible awkward phase and get to the normal-interaction part. The better.
“Should we walk toward Fifth?” I finally ask her. She nods. We start moving. “You said you wanted to go somewhere in particular, right?”
“Uh-huh. St. Patrick’s. I want to light a candle for Luna.”
This strikes me as a painfully lovely thought. I feel that pain in my chest.
“Also,” Kendall continues, “it’s packed around there this time of year. Should be plenty of opportunities for random acts of kindness.”
“Both excellent ideas,” I say. She smiles.
Silence again as we walk. Kendall stares hard at many of the people passing by. If the way we were connected wasn’t twisted and weird, I’d ask her something along the lines of What are you thinking about?
Instead, the best I can do is: “You okay?”
She nods, then breaks out laughing.
“What?” I ask.
“So many people,” she says, shaking her head. “It makes you wonder.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Well, pretty much everyone has two eyes, a nose, and a mouth, right? How can there be so many variations, that each person has a completely unique face?”
I scan the folks walking past us. There are a lot of them since the sidewalks are much more crowded with tourists here. Their faces are every size, shape, color. Built with the same basic materials, but each one so different. I’d never considered it before.
“Yeah, that’s intense.”
We fall back into the quiet. Kendall takes a deep breath, and it occurs to me that she’s as uncomfortable with these lulls as I am. We could have an awkward-silence-filling smackdown.
“Also,” she continues, “isn’t it weird to think that for each person we see, sex happened?”
“Beg your pardon?”
Kendall doesn’t turn to notice the surprise on my face, the flush of embarrassment. “Sometimes I look around and all I see is sex,” she says, with dead seriousness. “Instead of a person in clothing walking around, I see two people naked and doing it.”
I follow her gaze to an old man slouching his way down the other side of the street. Then the picture comes into my head: two nameless, faceless people having sex. Probably a long, long time ago. But still.
“That is really disturbing,” I say.
“I know, right?” she says, cracking up again. Her laughter jingles. “Sometimes it’s fun to disturb yourself.”
She stops, steps out of the flow of foot traffic. Takes out a notebook and leans against a building. Writes something down. I catch a glimpse and all I see is MORTY, age 82. “Who’s Morty?” I ask.
Kendall shrugs. “A name I just came up with for that elderly guy. I’m collecting characters for a novel I’m working on.” She holds up her notebook and flips through the pages. Each page has a name and a person sketched out. Some written notes. They look a bit like manga characters. She’s a really good artist.
I say, “I didn’t know you were a writer. I thought you were into photography, like Jamie.”
She shrugs and her demeanor changes, as if this is the thing that actually embarrasses her. Not admitting that when she looks at people, all she sees is sex. “I used to be. I’ve sort of moved on. It’s a bad habit, jumping from interest to interest. But this book is different. I’m committed.”
We’re quiet again. I hear people speaking French behind us. To our left, a woman has a thick Southern drawl.
“So what exactly are we looking for?” Kendall asks. “One thing I discovered yesterday is that it’s harder than you think, knowing when a complete stranger needs your help.”
“You did okay with that little girl at the store.”
“Lucky break,” she says.
Up ahead, there’s a woman with a tiny dog on a leash. It stops to sniff around the base of a potted tree, then assumes the position.
“We could offer to scoop that dog’s poop,” I suggest.
“Would that really make a difference?” asks Kendall.
I shrug. “Who knows. Maybe she’s having the worst possible day, and picking up that poop would push her over the edge.”
“Okay. Go for it.”
“You’re the girl,” I say. “If I offer, she’ll think I’m creepy.”
Kendall shakes her head and rolls her eyes, but I can tell she knows I’m right. Girls rarely think about how guys need to balance the creepy factor in all their social interactions. Especially for someone like tall-and-bony me. I spend most of my life trying not to seem nefarious.
As the woman shakes out a plastic bag, Kendall steels herself with a deep breath. Steps up to the woman.
“Would you like me to do that for you?” she asks with a vague gesture toward the fresh pile of dog shit.
The woman gives Kendall a horrified look. “What? Why?”
“Just because.” Kendall glances nervously at me. “Just to be nice?”
The woman takes a step away from Kendall. So does the dog. “No, thanks. I’m good.”
Kendall comes back, looking completely dejected. “Wow,” she mutters.
I watch the woman put a plastic shopping bag over her hand and pick up the poop, then invert the bag so it’s hermetically sealed like something toxic. Or precious. She glares at us, thoroughly weirded out.
“Don’t take it personally,” I say to Kendall. “Nobody’s used to offers like that.”
“You said real kindness was easy,” Kendall reminds me. “You just have to do it.” She mimics me with a deep, dumb voice.
I have to laugh. “Okay, so I was an idiot. I usually am. Should we call the whole thing off?”
“No,” she says, with determination. “I liked how that felt, yesterday with the little girl. Maybe we should aim lower.”
“Not seven random acts of kindness?”
“Maybe not seven each. Erica didn’t specify that, did she?” Kendall pauses, tapping her bottom lip with a red-gloved finger. “Seven total? If we work together?”
The word together hangs there between us, offering more than three syllables’ worth of meaning. It means spending time with each other. It means that maybe we’re friends.
We reach the corner of Fiftieth and Madison. While we’re waiting for the light to change, Kendall’s phone dings. She glances at it, then pulls the screen closer. Squints. Confused. After a second, she makes a face and recoils from her own device.
“Ew!”
“What? What is it?”
“My brother,” she says, shaking her head. “My brother just texted me the weirdest message.”
Her cheeks flush again. She holds the phone out to me. I’m almost afraid to look.
It’s a photo of a young guy, shirtless and smiling. Wow. He looks pretty good. I need to start working out. Underneath it is the message: Hey Brian, looking forward to later.
“That’s your brother?” I ask. Kendall nods, clenching her eyes shut. “Your brother just sent you a flirting selfie by accident?” She nods again. I bust out laughing. Come on, it’s hilarious.
But Kendall’s giving me a dirty, dirty look. “You don’t understand. Emerson has an Andrew, not a Brian. They live together.”
I shut myself up. “Oh.”
She gives her phone the same withering look she gave me. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Are you going to respond?”
“I might throw up.”
“Don’t throw up.”
We have the light now. I reach out and put my hand gently on her back. It’s an instinctive move. If I pull away suddenly, it’ll be even more awkward. Go with it, Max.
“Let’s cross,” I say, and Kendall lets me guide her forward.