Free Crossroads by Mary Morris

hunchback tree and in tons of parking lots. I’d hung around with them since we reached puberty, sometimes spying, sometimes tracking down their panting breath to save them from discovery.
    I’m not sure what I felt when I walked into the kitchen and watched them. I know I felt surprised. Jennie’s spine was pressed against the Formica counter, her hips thrust against Zap’s, and his hands cupped her breasts. She kissed him on the neck and whispered indistinguishable words into his ear. It was dim in the kitchen but not so dim that I couldn’t see Zap’s hands, gliding along her ribs and trying to tear her blouse in two.
    Later that evening Sean asked me if I wanted to go with him for a walk by the pond. I didn’t want to go with him, but I also didn’t want to be with anyone else. I’ve always had a difficult time saying no. As we walked, he told me he thought
he’d gotten a job as an assistant director on a major motion picture. His agent would let him know in a few weeks. “An Arthur Hansom film, do you believe it?” He lit a joint and said how nice it was to come home to New Jersey once in a while. I’d never heard of Arthur Hansom at the time. “You aren’t listening,” he said to me finally. “What’s on your mind?”
    â€œNothing, just thinking.”
    â€œI like your brother.”
    â€œHe likes you.”
    We walked as far as the pier, then sat down. For a few moments we didn’t talk. “This job,” he said at last. “It would be a big deal.”
    â€œI’m glad.”
    He took his hand and put it under my chin. “May I kiss you?”
    â€œThat’s the last thing I want you to do.”
    I expected some kind of a struggle. Instead he laughed. “What’s the first thing?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œUsually I don’t ask if I want to kiss someone. I just go ahead and do it. But you look like you needed to be asked.”
    â€œThat’s right,” I said, getting up. I started back toward the house. Sean didn’t move. “You coming or staying?”
    â€œI think I’m staying.”
    They’d all gone upstairs by the time I got back. Zap had left me warm milk on the stove, with a note that said he’d see me in the morning but he was bushed. We always brought each other warm milk when we were kids. A fire smoldered in the living room even though it was a summer’s night, but because it was cool outside the heat felt good.
    I decided to work. I got my briefcase and propped my feet up on the coffee table. Inside my briefcase was a map of Manhattan with several plastic overlay sheets and colored crayon markers. There was another detail map of the Bronx and sev
eral aerial photographs of the specific area I was writing about. I would have to describe that area in minute detail.
    I knew the maps like the back of my hand, but suddenly they seemed foreign to me. The blue spots marking available building space, the green spots for available landscape space, the red arrows for traffic circulation, and the brown slums, the black spots where neighborhoods had been destroyed—now they seemed like mountain ranges, like jungle habitats. Poor neighborhoods were tropical isles. Puerto Rico, Galapagos, Fiji. I was looking at a pirate’s map. Certainly no place to live.
    It needed rearranging. I knocked down skyscrapers, hauled in trees. I erased Eighth Avenue completely and put crosstown subways under Central Park, little red and yellow trolley cars moving above the ground. I gave everyone a view.
    In the morning Zap and Anna were ready to head out. Anna kissed me on the cheek. Jennie squeezed Zap’s hand as if she were offering her condolences. Zap took me aside. “I’ve got some things to work out. But I’ll see you soon.”
    â€œJust give me a call before you arrive, all right?”
    Tom and Jennie came out onto the porch to say good-bye.