Free Burnout by Adrienne Maria Vrettos Page B

overarms. One woman pulls at the neck of her blouse, trying to create a breeze.
    I am freezing to death, and everyone else is on fire.
    I pull my hat down farther, shielding my ears from the blasts of hot air that only seem to chill me.

CHAPTER 14
REMEMBERING
     
    S eemy and I always said that the discovery of the Vegetarian Dim Sum House was the official start of our best-friendship.
    We’d hung out a bunch of times before, and were growing closer and closer, but it wasn’t until that brutally hot summer day that things felt like they really clicked into place. We were down on Canal Street because Seemy had heard there was a place we could get matching sets of brass knuckles with our names on them. I don’t know
why
she thought we could find them down there, and I warned her Canal Street was the most annoying place in the city, especially in summer, and I would rather gouge my owneyes out than go there. Canal Street is in Chinatown, but I think it gives Chinatown a bad name. Canal Street is a ten-block stretch of street filled on both sides with tiny stores selling chintsy scarves and junky jewelry and cheap electronics. But the real reason tourists flock to Canal Street like cockroaches to a bagel crumb is the illegal knockoffs. Chanel, Prada, Gucci, Fendi. Purses, scarves, watches, wallets, whatever. I hated it.
Hated
it. But Seemy pouted and said she really, really wanted to go, so I gave in.
    So we walked down to Canal Street, and just like I’d said it would be, the place was filthy with tourists moving slower than snails, loaded down with black plastic bags filled with contraband knockoff purses that they’d bought with thumping hearts in the back rooms of the storefronts that lined the street. And worse, every five seconds some sketchy-looking guy would walk up to us and say in a low voice, “Gucci, Prada, Birkin,” wanting us to follow him into those same back rooms to buy crappy knockoffs.
    Worse still, it was
hot
, just ridiculously, stupidly HOT.
    And then one of those creepy, whispering purse guys actually
touched
my arm to try and get me to stop, and I lost it. I know this city is filled to bursting with people, and sure, you’re constantly bumping into each other, but there’s an unspoken rule, the reason that people don’t go postal and kill each other every other minute. We’re crowded, but wedon’t touch each other unless we have to. Unless someone’s on fire or about to step in front of a bus, you can count on the fact that no one is going to reach out and make contact.
    But this guy did.
    “Don’t you touch me!” I screamed in his face. “Do I look like a goddamn tourist to you?” My whole body was shaking, and I thought for a second that I wanted to hit him, that I wanted to punch him right in the nose, and it seemed like such a good idea that I was afraid I might actually do it. So instead I screamed at him again, just screamed right in his face hoping to blow his ears right off his head, and then I grabbed Seemy’s arm and pulled her across the street. We got yelled at by the traffic cop and kept walking down one side street and then another until we were on a narrow street shaded by buildings.
    “Nan,
stop
!” Seemy was laughing, but I could tell she was freaked out. I still had her wrist, but she stopped walking, dug in her heels, and I let her drag me to a stop. “It’s
okay
, Nan, seriously, it’s okay.”
    I didn’t even realize I was crying until she handed me the napkin that’d been wrapped around her iced coffee. It was soaked with condensation from the cup, but it felt good on my face.
    “It’s just . . .” I hiccupped. “It’s so
hot
!” And then I turned to look at the window of the restaurant we were standing infront of. It had this giant aquarium filled with gray, bulbous fish with bulging eyes. “And what the hell is wrong with those fish!” They were so slimy and looked so soft, like they were about to fall apart, and all of a sudden I thought I was