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“Margarita Schuyler, I swear to God!”
At the sound of her sister’s voice, Peggy’s head shot up, curls flying. Angelica banged on the door once, twice, three times, her knuckles making gunshot sounds on the white painted wood.
“We’re leaving right now and I still have to brush my fucking teeth and you’re in there putting lipstick on or some shit; you have a mirror in your room!”
Peggy opened the door, grinned a red-lipstick grin at her glowering older sister, ducked past her open-handed slap, and declined to mention that she’d been playing Neko Atsume on the toilet for the past ten minutes.
Her sisters had an agenda; on days where they had nothing to do, they’d get ready in the morning and head to Starbucks, laptops in bags and headphones looped around Angelica’s neck. Eliza would upload and edit all of the pictures she’d taken that week, Angelica would work on whatever essay she was writing for school, and Peggy (if Peggy even bothered coming) played on her phone and stole sips out of whatever drink Angelica ordered.
That was it, the glamorous Schuyler sister experience. Peggy getting lipstick all over Angelica’s cup and Eliza constantly asking them whether they liked color or black and white better.
(Peggy always liked color, Angelica always went for black and white. Said it captured the soul of the image better, or some bullshit like that.)
Peggy left Angelica to her toothbrush and the empty bathroom and headed for the door, slinging the strap of her bright blue purse over her shoulder as Eliza’s head shot up from where she was bent over a magazine at their dining room table.
(Yes, their apartment had a dining room, complete with a small chandelier and everything. The Schuyler sister experience was usually pretty boring, but Peggy was never lying when she said it was glamorous, even if she said it sarcastically.)
“Where are you going?” Eliza asked, saving the space in her magazine with one perfectly painted nail. Peggy’s own nails were painted, but they’d started chipping three days ago and it was too much work to keep up with. That’s how Peggy fit in her family most of the time, the youngest sister, the unkempt sister, the wild sister with the stories that worried the rest of her family about falling asleep on the subway and befriending bouncers at clubs and eating chips that had fallen to the floor, five second rule be damned.
Most of the time, not that she’d ever tell her family, Peggy was sure she was never meant to be a Schuyler.
Even though both she and Eliza had both been adopted, Eliza fit in with their family’s old money New York lifestyle better than she ever did. Eliza wore pearls, for god’s sake. Peggy had spent the majority of her junior year of high school skateboarding around the city and trying to hit pigeons.
“Hey,” Eliza said, throwing a golf pencil at Peggy’s head. Was she seriously using a golf pencil to circle things she wanted to buy from a magazine? God. “I asked you where you’re going? We usually leave all together.”
“I didn’t eat breakfast,” Peggy answered, hiking her purse up higher on her shoulder and ducking down to grab the pencil, tucking it into the bun holding half of her hair up on her head. She’d tied it back with a yellow ribbon that morning, pairing that with red lipstick, denim overalls, and Oxfords that she’d found at the thrift shop down the road. “I’m going to Chipotle first and I’ll meet you guys at the place.”
“I’m not going to say anything about Chipotle at ten thirty in the morning,” Eliza said.
“By saying you’re not saying anything you’re saying something,” Peggy said.
“Did either of you fucks steal my zit cream?” Angelica yelled from the bathroom.
Peggy cackled (the zit cream was on top of her dresser, she’d had a mean one brewing on her jawline the night prior and there was no time to ask permission), and, once again, headed for the door. Eliza had pulled another golf pencil from somewhere and had gone back to circling. She promised she was never going to turn into their mom, but Peggy had never met anyone else who actually went through and circled things in Williams-Sonoma catalogues.
“Remember,” Eliza said, “we’re not going to Starbucks because of the rat poop warning. We’re going to that place a few blocks away--”
“Revolutionary War something,” Peggy called over her shoulder, halfway out the door. “I got it, ‘Liza. I’ll see you there!”
“Sons of Libertea!” Eliza yelled after her. Peggy plugged it into her phone’s GPS as she walked down the hall to the elevator, just so she wouldn’t forget.
Their apartment was right in the middle of everything, a tall building in the center of New York City, which meant their nights were loud, their days were louder, and their rent was obscene. Peggy didn’t mind. Some people would be rubbed the wrong way by letting their old money parents pay for stuff like rent, but Peggy wasn’t some people.
She decided against hailing a cab and walked the few blocks to Chipotle, listening to Nicki Minaj through her earbuds and following different pigeons for a few steps before they flapped away. There was a certain confidence to her step, she knew that, a brash force that was different from Eliza’s self-possession or Angelica’s fearlessness. People left her alone; the sweep of her eyeliner and the quirk of her eyebrow and the almost constant disarming smirk were enough to make sure no one even approached Margarita Ann Schuyler until she gave consent.
Her parents worried. Her parents knew she was resilient. Her parents also knew that she had two of the scariest bodyguards known to man.
Angelica was the only biological Schuyler. She grew up with the money, the prestige, the authority. She could speak three languages by the time she graduated kindergarten. She aced every test ever put in front of her, and, in the corporate world, gobbled up internships and trips abroad like she was the only person at the buffet table. People saw her grace, her head held up so well by her ramrod spine, and nothing less, while Peggy had rubbed her shoulders as she bent over her desk, anxious and shaking. Peggy was witness to the breakdowns, the screaming matches between Angelica and the mirror, and learned that brilliance shone brighter when cracks let the light through.
Eliza had been adopted almost right after she’d been born, and had adjusted well, supposedly. In reality she’d had the toughest time of it, and Peggy had watched her, more than once, pick herself up off of the bathroom floor, wipe a tissue under her eyes to catch the stray mascara splotches, and walk out the door back into perfection like nothing was wrong. She was fierce, and it wasn’t until after high school that Peggy realized Eliza had cornered people and, tiny even in heels, snarled in defense of her family. She watched Eliza stalk through life, tying her hair back only when something needed protection, and learned that strength was only as strong as what one defended.
Peggy herself was adopted at eleven. She’d had a couple foster homes, a few were rough but some were nice, but having a permanent family, one with sisters, was a novelty that never really got old. She was a master of disguise and never grew out of gaming the system; she could fit in with everyone and anyone and no one would ever be wiser. Popping gum with back-of-the-classroom punks, batting eyelashes at functions her parents took them to, changing her hairstyle and makeup (or lack thereof) and clothes and personality to fit in where she’d survive best. She was beautiful, and she knew it, and she used it. She watched herself in cocktail dresses and ripped jeans and winged eyeliner and dripping red lipstick and learned that there was no shame in survival.
If Peggy was the beauty of the three sisters, Angelica was the brains, and Eliza was the brawn. To unsuspecting passerby, that would be it.
Little did they know, each Schuyler sister was all three.
Peggy darted in and out of Chipotle, grabbing a bag of chips, a small container of guacamole, and a quesadilla with peppers and hot sauce before following her phone’s GPS to the cafe. She ended up outside of a boarded-up bagel shop, not exactly what she was going for, so she called Eliza. Her sister answered on the second ring.
“Margarita Schuyler, where are you? Ang gave you the address--”
“Oh, my bad,” Peggy said, chewing on a hangnail as she looked up at the decrepit bagel sign. “I went to Starbucks. That’s where we’re going, right?”
“No, we’re not at Starbucks, the health violation--”
Peggy craned her neck and caught a glimpse of what she was sure was the outside of Eliza’s coffeeshop. It had a sign decorated like an old-timey flag, the one with the thirteen stars in a circle, looking weathered and ancient, like it really had lived through a war.
“Is it the one with that circle-star-flag thing outside?”
“Yes, it’s the one with the colonial flag sign.”
“Looks a little podunk, ‘Liza, are you sure--”
“No, Peggy, it’s not podunk, it’s actually pretty cute.” Eliza sounded like she was smiling at someone. and Peggy picked up the pace. If there were cute boys and Eliza wasn’t telling her, there would be hell to pay. Eliza almost exclusively attracted cute boys, which sucked because she was exclusively into cute girls. Peggy, however, was fine either way.
Peggy reached the door of the shop and leaned against the red brick. “Do they have mocha?”
“Yes,” Eliza replied, almost exasperated, “they have mocha flavor shots.”
“I want some,” Peggy said.
“Sure, sure, okay!”
“Bye, love you, kisses,” Peggy said, biting back a grin. She was such a bitch.
“Bye!” Eliza said, and hung up before Peggy had a chance to hit the end call button. She headed up the street to Sons Of Libertea, fed her Neko Atsume cats, and, with a clash of bells, entered the coffeeshop.
Eliza was right, it was cute. A big menu framed by Christmas lights hung by the serving window, shelves lining the wall housed a bunch of mismatched mugs, and a handmade colonial flag was tacked above it all, almost brushing the tall ceiling. It smelled good, too, like cinnamon and citrus and coffee, of course, threading through everything else like the life-giving river Peggy knew that it was.
Angelica was already set up in the far corner, taking up one end of a large wooden table with her laptop and her headphones and her drink. Eliza was at the bar, deep in conversation with a barista who, like most people, looked about half in love with her already.
“I made it!” She snuck up behind her sister and wrapped her arms around her waist, speaking a little too loudly into her ear. She saw Angelica look up, grin, roll her eyes, and look back down.
She glanced over at the barista. He didn’t have a nametag, but he had kind eyes, an intelligent quirk to his eyebrows, and cute ears that stuck out from under the band of his hairnet.
“Hey, can I get a big something with four mocha shots?”
“What sort of something?” he asked.
Peggy shrugged, not even bothering to look at the menu. “I don’t know, whatever you have.”
Ears ‘n’ Eyebrows called someone else out from behind the counter, a guy with curly hair that even a hairnet couldn’t hope to contain and more freckles than Peggy had ever seen in her life. He had a nametag, John, and it was painfully obvious that the other barista had a crush on him.
Damn, who doesn’t this guy like? Peggy thought to herself as Eliza paid for both of their orders, and she allowed herself to be steered by her older sister to the back table. They hung out, sipped their drinks (the barista, John, had doodled a little puppy on the side of hers and it was cute as hell), and talked while Peggy played Neko Atsume. Eliza told her the other barista’s name was Alexander, although she was pretty sure he went by Alex.
“And who’s that?” Peggy asked, nodding surreptitiously towards the swinging kitchen door. Another employee emerged, colonial flag apron stretched across his wide chest, except this apron had swirls and eddies of colorful thread interspersed throughout the flag design. He was wearing a slouchy green beanie that looked handmade, and his eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he hefted barrels of tea on and off shelves. His nametag was too far away for Peggy to read, but she had no doubt she’d be reading it up close in no time at all.
“Leave it to Margarita to find a cute guy everywhere we fucking go,” Angelica muttered, fingers flying over her keyboard.
“Eliza found Alex,” Peggy retorted.
“No, Alex found Eliza,” Angelica corrected. “You can’t find what you’re not looking for.”
“Oh, be quiet, Ang, he’s a nice guy,” Eliza said, looking over her shoulder at Alex, who was laughing at something with John behind the counter. “I’m not even sure if he knew he was flirting. Sounds like someone else we know, right?”
Peggy rolled her eyes, about to retort, when someone barged into the shop and started causing a commotion. From what she understood, his name was something Lee, and he deserved to get punched in the face. And then, as the music from her game was softly playing, John the barista hauled back one arm and did just that.
She almost laughed out loud. Starbucks had nothing on this place.
•••
The guy’s name was Hercules, and he was unfairly cute.
Peggy had ducked out of the apartment before her sisters could ask her where she was going, and half-jogged the few blocks to Libertea. She’d made sure she looked unfairly cute as well, with her curly hair in two Princess Leia style buns and her lips bare except for a swipe of Eliza’s favorite balm. Hercules was working, like he was every time she walked past the big window, but this time he was behind the counter with John. The other guy, the one usually in the kitchen, was stocking the pastry display, while Alex Hamilton was nowhere to be seen.
“Morning,” John called over the general hubbub of the shop as she entered and slid onto a chair at the bar. “What can I get you, uh, girl I’ve seen before but can’t remember the name of?”
“Peggy,” she deadpanned. “Eliza’s sister?”
“Yep.” John pointed his marker at her. “You’re the mocha shitstorm girl. I’ll be right back.”
He moved over to the espresso machine and Hercules took his place, sliding a tray with plastic shot glasses in front of her. They were steaming, and smelled like swirls of cinnamon and apple.
“I’m Herc Mulligan,” he said. “I don’t think I got to introduce myself the other day when you and your friends were in. I do the tea stuff around here, and I--”
“They’re not my friends,” Peggy interrupted. “We’re sisters. I mean, I guess we’re friends, too, but sisters first. Ang steals my shit, I use her makeup, all that sister stuff.”
Hercules looked at her like she was rambling, and, for a horrifying second, Peggy realized she was.
“Do you have siblings?” she asked. “I mean, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but I just figured if I’m telling you all this shit about my life, maybe you could…”
She trailed off. Started again.
“Can I call you Hercules or do you like being called Herc? What kind of name is Hercules anyway, it’s like that Disney movie with the Greek ladies singing about that muscly guy and his horse--”
“You can call me Herc,” he interrupted, and she felt her face getting hot when she realized he was laughing softly at her. “And I have two brothers, but I live with John and Laf and Alex, so that’s like three extra siblings right there. And Hercules the Disney guy had a pegasus, not a horse, so…”
“Oh, wow, cute and smart,” Peggy said, sarcastically batting her eyelashes at Herc when he laughed, not soft like he had been, but huge and loud and earth-shaking. It was nice, making someone laugh like that, and Peggy found herself cozying up to the counter and making herself comfortable for almost two hours of Herc’s shift, ordering mocha shitstorms from John, trying to talk to Lafayette (the baker) in French (she knew a few phrases, thanks to Angelica’s time abroad), and creating opportunities to make Herc laugh that laugh.
Alex eventually came in, and so did her sisters (they’d figured out where she was, mostly thanks to a picture she’d posted featuring Herc and John arm wrestling across the bar for a cookie), and she found herself asking her dad if Alex could come eat with them. If she was going to hang out with the Libertea employees like she was planning, she had to get all of them onboard, and the only way she knew how to do that was her dad’s cooking.
He agreed. Of course he did. Who could say no to a Schuyler family dinner?
•••
“I told him you were cute,” Angelica said, sitting with her ankles crossed, the epitome of a lady, on their couch in the apartment. They’d just left their parents’, where Alex had eaten dinner with them. It was fun; he’d snapchatted Herc with her and hadn’t even asked how she had his username. “And then I said, be careful, Alexander Hamilton, you can’t have it all.”
“Oh,” Peggy slapped the table’s surface, “that is good!”
“So what you’re saying is…” Eliza was reapplying her lipstick, swiping with precision without looking in the pocket mirror Peggy knew she always kept in her purse. “You’re leading the poor guy on for me.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not rejecting him for you,” Angelica said, shrugging and taking a sip of her drink. Peggy snickered. “That’s your job.”
“I’m not coming out to some guy I just met,” Eliza argued. “This is all so new, and I don’t know what I’m doing, and he doesn’t deserve to have me word-vomit all my thoughts about being gay all over him…”
“So don’t tell him that if you’re not ready,” Peggy said. “You don’t have to lie, even though lying’s pretty fun.”
“What did you tell him after dinner while you were walking him out?” Angelica asked. Eliza looked down at her lap, uncharacteristically bashful, and fiddled with the drawstrings on her sweatpants.
“I gave him my number.”
Angelica and Peggy raised the same eyebrow, the same way, at the same time.
“I know, I know!” Eliza said. “I like girls, he likes me a little, it’s rude to lead him on like this. I promise I’ll close the door the next time we hang out. He’s just such a nice guy, and it’s been so long since I hung out around guys--”
“Looks like that’s going to change,” Angelica said flatly, peering over Peggy’s shoulder where she was sending pictures back and forth with Herc. He was at Libertea past closing with the others, drinking, and she had a hard time not completly losing her shit at a video of Lafayette, flat on his back on the table, drunk out of his mind. “Peggy’s head-over-heels for this Herc guy.”
“He’s fun to hang out with, Ang,” she said, lifting up her phone to send another selfie. “They all are, admit it. You had fun tonight with Alex.”
Angelica rolled her eyes. “Okay, yeah, they’re fun. Lafayette’s weird, but he knows French and it’s good practice. You love Herc, Alex loves Eliza and John…”
“John makes the best coffee,” Eliza piped up. Peggy pointed at her.
“That’s why we do it. The coffee.”
“Sure.” Angelica rolled her eyes again, and raised her own phone to send a selfie. Peggy didn’t ask who the recipient was; her sister was secretive for her own reasons, and it would come out eventually. “That’s why we do it.”
•••
“Oh,” Peggy said, bumping the side of her hip into Herc, “funny meeting you here, huh?”
They were both in line at the Chipotle, the one closest to Libertea, and he was wearing sunglasses. He flipped them down in mock surprise.
“Peggy Schuyler? It’s been too long!”
“Shut up,” she said, and moved closer to him, allowing him to loop an arm around her shoulder and pull her into an embrace. He dropped a kiss on the top of her forehead, and she grinned. This had become commonplace, meeting at Chipotle over his lunch break, and she relished every second of the time they spent together. She still wasn’t sure what they were, if she wanted them to be anything, and she did what she always did. She pushed the feelings away, and pulled Herc closer.
They continued like this, orbiting in the same social circle, with the same friends, sometimes intersecting, sometimes spending days apart. She spent the night once, getting the pleasure of cooking breakfast with him in the morning, teasing John and Alex about the latter’s sex hair, and meeting Laf’s girlfriend over Skype, and then dissappearing until the next week. Herc never voiced any frustration at her flightiness, instead giving her space and never pushing until they were together, and then, instead of pushing for information, he’d push her against a wall. (Sometimes, she was doing the pushing.)
He was considerate, she was trying. He got along with her sisters, she got along with his friends. He liked kissing her, she liked kissing him.
It wasn’t much, but she was determined to make it work.
•••
Peggy would classify the next few months as a wild ride, and her whole life up to that point had been a pretty wild ride, so that was saying something.
She’d given her testimony about Libertea for Alex to use in his video against George King, she’d cheered in the crowd when John and Alex finally kissed, she’d met Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, two people who quickly became big parts of her life because of how much they meant to her sister. Alex had posted his infidelity on Facebook for the entire world to see. John moved in with them, and then so did Maria Lewis. Eliza fell in love with Maria, John and Alex slowly started talking again, laughing again. John moved out. So did Eliza, to start her life with Maria in a whole new apartment together.
And this whole time Peggy and Herc danced around each other, touching and then not, kissing and then promising to be just friends. She loved him, he loved her, but the emotions were too much. It was easier to make out in a hallway and send selfies to someone than to sit them down and have a serious discussion about relationships and the future. She had no idea how Angelica managed with Thomas and James; she could barely keep her emotions in check about one person, let alone two.
She was so scared; Peggy Schuyler, who had never been afraid of steep hills on a skateboard or speaking in front of a full class or rejecting boys for her sister was so damn scared of the thought of Hercules Mulligan, and his hand in hers, and the possibilities and doors opened and spread out before them.
“Peg?”
She looked up to see Herc gazing at her as they sat across from each other in the Chipotle down the block from Libertea, burrito forgotten on the table as his warm eyes traced the curve of her chin, the lines of her lips, the crinkles around her eyes.
“What?”
“How’d I find you?” he asked quietly, like he wasn’t really asking her. “How did you end up walking into my life? Margarita Ann Schuyler. You make me so fuckin’ happy.”
“Oh, shut up,” Peggy said, and took a bite of lettuce and peppers and sour cream. The wind blew fall leaves in swirling arcs as the sun beat down on their table, summer not quite ready to give up just yet. They’d decided to grab a quick bite to eat before heading to Eliza and Maria’s apartment for a movie night, the first one Theo would be at since Teddy had been born. “Eat your burrito, Hercules, and stop waxing poetic about how perfect I am.”
“I want to wax poetic about you for the rest of my life, Peg,” he said, and then bit his lip. “Okay, that was a little weird I guess, ‘cause we’re not dating or anything, but I’m not taking it back.”
Peggy squeezed her eyes shut. This was it, the talk she hadn’t wanted to have, the relationship she wasn’t ready for, the heartbreak that would inevitably happen when she told this wonderful boy she couldn’t commit to him like she knew he wanted.
“You’re nice,” she said, soft, like she didn’t have the words. She did, they just never wanted to come out how she wanted them to. “I just don’t… Not that I don’t want this, not that I don’t want you, I’m just…”
She got quiet then, and picked at her food with the tips of her fork’s tines. Realizing he said something she hadn’t wanted to hear, Herc covered her hand with one of his large, safe ones and squeezed once.
“Don’t worry about it, Peg. I’m here whenever you’re ready, and if you’re never ready, I’ll still always be here to be your friend. I’ll be here to buy you Chipotle and watch movies with you. I’ll be here until you yell at me to stop being so damn accessible, Hercules fucking Mulligan!, I promise.”
She laughed at that and then so did he, one of his big laughs, the kind she wanted to sample on a keyboard so she could loop back into her brain forever. She flicked a piece of corn at him and he retaliated with some salsa, and soon they were walking together up the city street, fingers twined together and nothing fully resolved. She wasn’t worried, though; he was patient and strong and kind, and she was fierce and resilient and glorious, and the world could wait until they were ready.