I SPOT THE COUPLE WHILE ELIZA AND I ARE WAITING for a light to change. They’re youngish, in their twenties maybe. Wearing similar parkas and gigantic backpacks. He’s got a guidebook, she’s got a phone. Arguing at an empanada truck in a language that sounds like it hurts your throat.
Arguing, like Luna and the guy. The kind of arguing that makes you smile at first, because let’s face it, it’s funny. Funny to get a peek at how couples talk to each other when they’re mad. Funny because, oh phew, you’re not alone. It’s a universal truth: sometimes people in a relationship act shitty to each other.
In this case, though, it’s not serious. Not scary. I can see it in the way she rolls her eyes at him. The way he lets out a long, frustrated sigh. I step closer to them and hold my hand up in a half wave.
“Excuse me,” I say. “Are you two okay? Do you need help?”
Eliza’s confused. I feel her tug questioningly at my coat sleeve, then let go. I know this isn’t fair. She doesn’t have any context about the dare with Kendall. But I make a split-second decision not to tell her.
The guy frowns, shakes his head. Motions with his hand. A be gone type of gesture that should be enough to make me exit the scene, swearing at them under my breath. But the woman nods eagerly.
“I speak English,” she says. “He doesn’t. We need help, yes.”
“What’s the problem?” I ask.
“We are trying to go to the High Line. My husband says, we must go all the way down here.” She shows me a map on her phone. Points to a dot labeled Whitney Museum. “But I say no, we can walk across and find it here, yes?” Her finger travels up to Thirty-Fourth Street.
“Well,” I say. “You can start from either end. But personally, I like the north end. You can’t see it on the map but it goes out onto an old pier. Nice view of the river.”
I only know this because three months before my grandmother died, when she’d started a new drug that made her feel great for about a day, she took me to that pier. We leaned against the railing and watched a cruise ship head out to the ocean. We didn’t talk. She just rested her hand over mine on the railing. It’s one of my favorite memories of anyone ever.
“Ah, so I am right!” the woman says. “Then we walk, yes? That way for a few streets, then down?”
“Yes. Or you could take the subway.”
The woman shakes her head. “No subway. Too confusing.”
Her husband says something to her, his voice filled with disgust.
“You’ve never been on the New York subway?” asks Eliza.
The woman shrugs. Now I see she’s embarrassed.
“Why don’t we take you?” I hear myself saying. “The station’s right there and it’s a quick ride.”
The woman looks me up and down, then Eliza. Checking for some ulterior motive, I’m sure.
“It’s okay?” she asks. I’m not sure what “it” truly is, but I nod.
The woman speaks to her husband, and he really gives us the once-over. I’ve been scanned less thoroughly at airports. He asks her a question.
“Do we have to pay you?” she translates.
“No, not at all. This is just something nice.”
“Something nice,” she says, trying out the words. She repeats them (I think) in her language. Her husband scowls.
I can’t explain it, but it feels extra important to finish the dare now. Without Kendall. On my own.
I point to the subway entrance across the street. When I start walking, the others follow.
Now we all get to wait awkwardly on a subway platform. The woman looks nervous. She keeps shuffling her feet and can’t seem to stand still. Gosh, it’s only a train traveling in tunnels under the ground. Get a grip.
“I’m Max, by the way,” I offer. “And this is Eliza.”
“I’m Kerstin,” the woman says.
“Aksel,” says her husband. No eye contact. He pretends to be fascinated by a Food Network poster.
“Where are you from?” I ask.
“Munich,” Kerstin replies. German. Duh!
“First time in New York?” asks Eliza.
“For him, yes,” says Kerstin. “I came here as a teenager. I lived with a family in Connecticut for one year.”
“An exchange student?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, smiling. “It was a great time.”
I almost say, A friend of mine just spent a semester in Europe, but catch myself. As another painful silence settles over us, I furtively send a text message to Kendall. I tell her I have Kindness Number Five covered, details to come.
A train comes and we step on. I spot two seats and motion for Eliza and Kerstin to take them. Aksel stands facing away from me, his backpack in my face. Charming. We ride in silence toward the Hudson Yards station.
Kerstin shoots her husband dirty looks the whole time. She doesn’t appear at all nervous anymore.
Once we’re back on the street, there are signs directing people to the High Line. We could leave Kerstin and Aksel here and I’d feel like I could check this one off. But we keep walking. Nobody talks.
Finally, we’re climbing the steps to the raised walkway of the High Line. The pier stretches off in one direction toward the Hudson, the walking path lined with piles of snow.
“Well,” says Kerstin, turning to me. “We are here, and I rode the subway. Are you always such a nice boy?”
I’m sure she doesn’t mean to sound like she’s talking to a puppy, but the words nice boy make me cringe.
“Max is the nicest person I know,” says Eliza.
Kerstin takes off her gloves, reaches one hand into the other arm’s coat sleeve. She struggles with something. When she pulls her hand away, it’s holding a woven bracelet with a single onyx bead.
“I make these,” says Kerstin. “I’d like you to have one.”
I hold out my hand and let her drop the bracelet into my palm. Open my mouth to say thank you.
Before I can do that, someone hits my hand, knocking the bracelet into the snow.
“Stop it!” shouts Aksel, the words thick as smoke. Followed by a whole lot of extra-angry-sounding German.
Kerstin steps forward and slaps his hand the way he slapped mine. She shouts at him. It’s unnerving, not knowing exactly what she’s saying. She pauses, then speaks again, more slowly.
Aksel’s face freezes when she says this last thing. There’s a long pause where I wish Eliza and I could teleport out of the situation to anywhere else. A tropical beach, or even the dentist’s office. Now Aksel simply turns and stomps away. Back to the staircase, back down toward the street.
Kerstin watches him, her eyes filled with tears.
“Are . . . are you okay?” I ask.
She looks at me. “Thank you again,” she says, then heads toward the river.
Eliza and I watch her go.
“What the fuck was that?” asks Eliza.
“I have no idea,” I say.
There’s a terrible heaviness in the pit of my stomach. Eliza doesn’t believe in regret, so she won’t understand. Somehow all that was a mistake.
I don’t know how or why, but in my efforts to be a nice boy, I made a bad situation worse.