Trying to Float by Nicolaia Rips Read Free Book Online Page B

miniature greyhound.
    My Barbie doll had a small waist; Jade’s was smaller. My Barbie had full breasts; Jade’s were fuller. Jade’s eyes and hair and skin were shinier than Barbie’s. So why would I play with dolls when I had Jade?
    Unlike Barbie, Jade had a brain. She was smart and witty, and I spent as much time in her apartment as my parents and Jade would allow. Upon my arrival, she would always offer a glass of champagne.
    I reminded her every time, “I’m a kid. I don’t drink anything but milk, juice, and water.”
    â€œToo bad. It’s French, from a small vineyard.”
    Sitting on her red velvet couch, she would bring the glass to her lips, the bubbles never reaching her mouth. Jade did not drink.
    It is said her name was not really Jade, but Stacey. That she arrived at the Chelsea Hotel in the middle of the night during a blizzard, a runaway from Florida. It is said she walked from Port Authority to the hotel wearing only a T-shirt, tattered shorts, and flip-flops. That Stanley Bard said she could stay for a few nights, which extended to months, then years. And that in those years she transformed herself from a little girl to a goddess—her home, from a dark, single room without a toilet, to a suite.
    It was not to last.
    After a year, I noticed that Jade’s spotless apartment was coming undone. She was no longer vacuuming every day, and clothing, which was once stored on cushioned hangers, was piling up around the apartment.
    â€œJade, do you mind if I ask you something?”
    â€œOf course not, dear.”
    â€œWell, things are a little messy and you seem . . . worried.”
    â€œIs that all?”
    â€œNot exactly . . .”
    â€œPlease.”
    â€œYou have a smell.”
    Normally, Jade had the most beautiful odor, the result of the perfumes that filled her bathroom shelves. She and I had such fun going through those perfumes: rose, lilac, blueberry, and musk.
    â€œWhat sort of smell?”
    â€œThe smell, well . . . ”
    â€œShalimar?”
    I hesitated. “Dog.”
    Jade sighed. And then explained.
    â€œOne day, Nicolaia, you will meet someone and despite how comfortable you are or even happy you are, you won’t want to do anything but be with that person.”
    â€œWhen that happens I’ll smell like dog?”
    Jade continued and told me—and I suspect it was only part of the story—that she had a job which paid her a lot of money, and caused her to work late. She was happy with that job, and it allowed her to buy fancy things and to live in a nice apartment in the hotel.
    But one day she met someone. Someone she liked.
    â€œHe is studying and doesn’t have a lot of money. If I want to be with him, I need to find another job, and the only one I could come up with was betting. I learned from my father when I was a kid, and it’s the one way I can make enough to support the two of us.”
    She retreated to a pile of newspapers in the corner, returning with a copy of the Greyhound Review, which, according to Jade, was essential to her new life.
    For the next hour, she taught me how to handicap “the hounds.” Interesting, but not exactly something that was going to help me with elementary school.
    What she didn’t tell me was that she was moving out of the Chelsea Hotel.
    â€”
    With Jade gone, I had no babysitter.
    On those evenings when my parents went out, there was a scramble to track down one of the various girls who had looked after me in the past. My parents could never quite remember their names, and if a name was recalled, the number was on a scrap of paper that was lost in a drawer or pocket or inside a book. Often, my parents would give up and haul me along to wherever they were going.
    A solution arrived one afternoon when we met a young lady and her mother in the lobby of the Chelsea. They lived in the hotel, and the girl, Dahlia, worked as an au pair.