You Have Seven Messages Read online

  I know he’s saying this from an artistic point of view and not because he’s my sibling, and that makes me feel proud. But then he adds an expression he must have picked up from one of my dad’s scripts. “They pack a wallop.”

  The phone rings, and it’s finally my father. He sounds out of breath. I realize he’s calling me from a gym, probably one of those posh L.A. ones. I picture Jodie Foster on the next StairMaster.

  “Is Tiley good?”

  I can’t deal with pretending everything’s fine anymore.

  “Yes. Listen, Dad …” I realize Tile is still in the room. “Why did you lie to me?”

  I hear the cardio machine he is on slowly stop, then just his breathing on the line.

  “Moon, I didn’t lie, I simply omitted information. We went through this. It’s very complicated.”

  I motion for Tile to leave but he refuses to. Instead, he’s furiously writing down something on a pad to show me: Get to the bottom of it.

  “Well, we’re going to have to get to the bottom of it.”

  “Okay, okay. Listen, Elise told me about some photography show, and that you have an agent. Is this really happening?”

  “Yes, if you were home you might—”

  “That’s great, Moon! I’m going to have Christy get on the horn.”

  The first time I met Christy, my dad’s publicist, she secretly gave me a twenty-dollar bill. I remember not wanting to spend it, feeling I didn’t deserve it somehow. I never had the chance to prove anything to her, smiling condescendingly with her blinding white teeth and her Prada bag. It was just because I was the daughter of Jules Clover. And now it’s coming full circle.

  “I have an agent, Dad. And nothing is finalized. We don’t need Christy. But maybe you can invite Orlando if it happens.”

  Orlando Bloom is the only celebrity I know as a person. Well, the only one I’m glad I know as a person. He worked on a film with my father a long time ago, and he actually lived in our house for a while. It was right around the time the Rachels started being really nice to me—go figure. He was so sweet and kind, and we talked a lot about silly things, not trying to be intellectual, just making each other laugh. It was the best time of my life. He has been my only crush other than Oliver. I knew he was too old for me but as Janine says, sometimes we want what is taboo, or what we can’t have. It makes it more thrilling.

  “Done. But you must forward me Daria’s info. I have a few meetings tomorrow and Wednesday and then I fly home Thursday. I arrive too late but we’ll talk the next day. I’m so sorry, I know the timing is off on this, but with the film having unexpectedly done so well at Cannes …”

  “Right.”

  Tile is chomping at the bit.

  “I’m so proud of you, Moon.”

  “Luna—that’s going to be my photographer name.”

  There is silence, then he says softly, “I know.”

  CHAPTER 34

  HOW COULD YOU?

  The next night Elise comes over to watch Tile so Janine and I can go to Oliver’s recital. It’s supposed to be his practice run for Paris. In the cab on the way, we talk about my show, which is actually happening now, and I fill her in on the diary, Cole, losing the phone, and Oliver’s absence. It feels good to say it all out loud.

  When we arrive, Janine checks her voice mail by the side of the building. I notice there’s a stage entrance and I wander over casually. The door is slightly ajar. I can see frantic-looking parents and a dilapidated table lined with bottles of water. Janine is on her cell phone and not paying attention.

  When I see Oliver my breath catches. He’s talking to someone whose back is to me, a girl. His hair is a little frizzy, curling in the fluorescent light. I have an urge to turn away, but instead I tilt the door open a little wider to see who he’s talking to.

  Honestly, I am so not prepared for what I see.

  Rachel One?

  I make a sound, close to a gasp, and Janine comes running over. Oliver leans down, just like he did to me, and gives Rachel a long, we-know-each-other-really-well kiss. Something crumbles inside me, the architecture of my whole body, and I can barely stand up. I feel weighted down by the ruins.

  Rachel One, how perfect.

  “C’mon, we’re going,” I tell Janine.

  We walk over to the deli and then sit on a makeshift bench. It’s not until we are almost finished with our big chocolate bar that Janine says, “They made a bet that they could get his attention.”

  “Who?”

  “The Rachels.”

  I can almost feel the blood boiling inside me. “You’re not serious. How do you know this?”

  “I overheard them. I was cutting class and hiding in the bathroom.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t want you to buy into their crap, I guess. And I didn’t think they’d even go through with it. I’m totally sorry.”

  “I feel like everyone is lying to me!”

  She puts her hand on my shoulder and I brush it off a little too aggressively. After a minute, she calmly explains, “They have stooped to an unimaginable low. Rachel told her little mute sidekick that whoever you were pining over, she could have within two weeks.”

  “What? That is psycho. I can’t believe I was even friends with them. That’s why she invited me over last week, to grill me about Oliver!”

  “Don’t worry,” Janine says, taking the last bite. “Karma’s a bitch.”

  “What did they bet?”

  “Tickets to Wicked.”

  “How appropriate.”

  Before we get home, Janine gives me a card she made. It’s a picture of a camera, with a girl holding it high above her head. It says: Good Luck.

  For some reason, it makes me cry. She hugs me goodbye and I feel like a blubbering idiot. When I get in, Tile is asleep with his head on Elise’s lap. She smiles at me and I just wave and head upstairs. I’ve had about enough for one evening.

  For some crazy reason I sleep really well, and in the morning I head into the kitchen for some juice. Elise has spilled the sugar again, and it just might be the saddest reminder of my mother being gone. If she had spilled the sugar, she would have cleaned it up immediately. I start to wipe it up and I hear Elise shuffle up beside me.

  “Oh, sorry about that. My ex-husband used to follow me around with a sponge. It’s no wonder he went gay.” Her face twists a little. “I knew something was wrong when he arranged the whole closet by color, including the linens.”

  I try to smile, but last night’s revelation comes back like a jolt of poison. She must be able to see it in my face ’cause she says, “Rough night?”

  I look at her and feel this strange release, as if my heavy judgments of her are vanishing. “It’s going to sound petty, or obvious, but my supposed friends, the Rachels, they made a bet that one of them could steal my boyfriend, which basically happened. The Rachels I can understand, it’s Oliver I cannot. He’s so, I don’t know, above them. He was the only boy I’ve ever …”

  Suddenly I’m embarrassed, even though she’s acting like it’s no big deal that I’m opening up to her.

  “If it was meant to be, he’ll come around.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Well, I’ve had my share of disappointments in the male department. In my opinion they’re all a bunch of whack jobs. Your father isn’t, though. He’s a good soul.”

  The fact that she’s talking about my father’s soul seems odd. She barely knows him.

  “A good soul who has lied to me.”

  She doesn’t flinch at this either, just continues to sip her herbal tea.

  “Well, no one’s perfect.”

  Her answers are so generic. There must be a side of her that she’s not revealing. If there’s one thing I’m learning through all this, it’s that we all have veneers, the part we show to the world and each other, and some of us have more layers than others. Is Elise that complex? Maybe not. Maybe what she brings to my father’s life i
s simplicity. But my mother was not a passive woman. She would always challenge us, make us think around things as opposed to about them. She once told me that people have what is called their real voices. When you are with people you truly love, you speak with your real voice, meaning everything you say is the truth. This might be Elise’s real voice.

  I look out the window toward Oliver’s town house.

  “He hardly plays the cello anymore.”

  “What about last night?” she asks.

  “We bailed ’cause I saw Rachel One kissing him. But what I mean is, he doesn’t practice. I wonder if I freaked him out by always listening to him.”

  “I’m sure he loved it. He won’t last long with Barbie.”

  “How did you know she’s a Barbie type?”

  “You said she was blond.”

  I’m starting to like her.

  The doorbell rings and it’s a messenger service with a package for me. I sign for it, then open it and spread the contents on the kitchen table. It’s the press clipping from the zine. They printed the shot of Daria on the bench. It looks supercool.

  Elise gasps.

  “You’re such a star. Who needs Oliver? You’re getting your own show! When I was fifteen I was basically a freak. Never really talked to anyone, never mind starting a career …”

  “How come?”

  “I was just a little lost. I didn’t have a dad like yours, let’s put it that way. I had really strange parents.”

  I think about that word, parents, and how I will never be able to refer to it in the plural. I have only one parent. The thought makes me feel guilty for even caring about Oliver and Rachel. That’s not a real problem. But it is. I can feel it inside me stirring like sour acid. Every once in a while, I suppress the urge to hit something.

  I look at Elise and for a second, I see through the aging hippie to someone grounded and proud. “Maybe I can shoot you sometime.”

  Her lip quivers a little. “Maybe in a field.”

  Tile runs in and says, “Didn’t mean to barge in on your little heart-to-heart, but I think there’s a problem with the john.”

  We look at each other and start laughing, and Elise goes with him to check it out.

  As I walk Tile to school, he says, “She fixed the toilet like a pro.”

  “Good,” I say.

  My mother would not have fixed the toilet. She would stencil the wall, or fill the bath with rose petals, but you’d never catch her with a wrench. Besides, she always wore dresses.

  Tile turns to me at the steps to his school.

  “Are you going to move away when you get famous?”

  “If I do I’ll pack you in my luggage.”

  “Deal,” he says, “but it better be Louis Vuitton.”

  I chuckle. “Scram, kid.”

  I watch him take the steps three at a time and think of how fast he has grown. Maybe Mom being gone is really sinking in with him. He dealt with it so literally for a long time. She was gone. Everybody dies. She just died early. But now that he’s been around Elise, he’s opening up to it emotionally, and I think he’s a little scared.

  I am too.

  CHAPTER 35

  TWO-FACE

  When I get to school the day before the show, I can feel that something has changed. More people look my way, smile at me, nod. The word about my show is spreading. A cute junior even holds the door for me. I’ve always felt celebrity-ish being the daughter of Jules Clover, but it feels so satisfying that the attention is for me, on my own accord. My photographs.

  During lunch Rachel One comes up to the table where Janine and I are sitting with a couple of sophomore boys.

  “Hey,” she says, like the bleached-blond traitor that she is.

  “Hey, Two-Face,” I say. Janine giggles. Rachel acts like she doesn’t hear what I say and goes on. “Can I get an invite to your thingy?”

  I straighten myself up and say, “Well, my thingy, as you so gracefully call it, is an event for people who appreciate art, and I’m not sure you can appreciate anything except your own hair. So why don’t you trot on back to your sidekick and put on some lip gloss.” She walks away in a huff and I add, “Oh, and thanks for stealing my boyfriend.”

  The sophomore boys look at me like I’m Wonder Woman. I feel like I could lasso out of the room and kick some serious ass.

  After school Janine helps me pick out what to wear. We decide on the black dress that I got after the first message, even though I think Cole gave it to my mother. Since my father has still not returned, I don’t even care if it hurts his feelings. He’s got a lot of explaining to do. Besides, it’s the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen. Even Janine, Miss Jeans-and-a-Top, is very impressed.

  “Did you invite the stoner kid from art class?” she asks.

  “Yeah, why?”

  “He could clean up well.”

  I wave a hand. “This is not about boys, this is about showing my work. Then, after school gets out, I want to visit my uncle Richard in Italy. After all this drama, I need to make sense of it all, you know?”

  “Totally.”

  “And, this is going to sound weird, but I feel drawn there.”

  “Gravity, baby—it’s a powerful thing.”

  I manage to get the dress on again, and it’s still a perfect fit.

  “Well,” she says as she spins me around, “I must say you’re not only going to be showing your work … you’re going to be working the work as well.”

  I smile. I’m glad I know Janine. I cannot believe what a bad rap she got, when she has a bigger heart than half the people at school. It’s stereotyping. My uncle’s first boyfriend was a mechanic who only worked on big trucks. Not every gay guy wears frilly scarves and prances around. When I was younger I used to go to the park with my mother’s friend Joy, a black model. People used to assume she was my nanny because she was from Trinidad. Meanwhile she was on the covers of all the rich white people’s magazines. There is so much we can’t know by merely grazing the surface.

  We have to reach farther in.

  CHAPTER 36

  REFLECTIONS

  An hour after Janine leaves, I find myself staring over at Oliver’s steps through the kitchen window. I’m supposed to be so thrilled that my show is happening, but there’s an emptiness that can only be filled by Oliver’s soft smile and watery eyes. I miss him, and I don’t understand what happened. With Oliver, with my parents, with all this love business that seems to cause more harm than good.

  A black car pulls up and I think it’s going to be him. Then I see a man in a tailored suit get out of the back, unmistakable flakes of gray in his black hair: my uncle Richard.

  I run out to the stoop to make sure and there he is, standing in front of me. “How’s my big girl?” I crush him too hard when I hug him and he falls back a little. Ever since I was two, he has called me Big Girl. There was a period from about eight to ten years old when I didn’t like it, but now it’s as charming as ever.

  Uncle Richard is the one person I know who presses his pajamas. He also speaks three languages and can make a soufflé from scratch. He has a classically handsome face, with big dark eyes and a disarming smile. His pockets are always filled with mints, and he rarely cusses.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came in for a friend’s wedding in Massachusetts. It will most likely be a bore. It’s odd, I’m a romantic who hates weddings. But guess what? I have something for you.…”

  “Really? Okay, come in, come in.”

  We chat for a while in the kitchen as he makes coffee. He starts to rearrange the kitchen a little but I divert him upstairs to show him the tribute video Tile and I made. I watch my mother and strangely enough, feel momentarily okay that she’s gone. But then I realize that if she were here I would tell her about how Oliver won, then broke, my heart, and she’d probably say something hard to hear but at the same time reassuring. That’s the way she was.

  At the end Richard dabs at his eyes with a handkerchief.r />
  “Tile shot that?”

  “Yes. Edgy, huh?”

  “Absolutely. Get him a script, he needs to be making features.”

  I want to tell Richard everything, but before I can he hands me a box that says Big Girl in red marker on the top.

  In the box are three things: a Polaroid camera, a burgundy scarf, and a small shell. “They were your mother’s,” he says, “things she had left behind at our Tuscany house. There’s more, but I thought I’d start with these.”

  I hug him and his familiar clean mint smell makes me feel at home.

  “Listen, I’m here for a few days and wanted to surprise you for your exhibition opening, but I can’t stay at the loft because they’re shooting a movie there and paying us a fortune to use it. So I’ll be bunking here if that’s okay. I spoke to your father.”

  “Sure,” I say jokingly, “as long as you do some dishes or something.”

  “How about windows?”

  “That works.”

  After he naps, Richard comes with me to the meeting with the gallery owner, Les, and Daria. My pictures are all hung in metallic frames. They look amazing. On the door, the sign is already up:

  YOU HURT ME, BUT I LOVE YOU

  Photographs by Luna

  The gallery is perfect. Exposed brick on one side, super-white walls on the other. A view of the Williamsburg Bridge through the fire escape. The only picture that is hung on the brick part is the self-portrait I picked from the collage in my father’s office.

  Les has on all black except for the green rims of his vintage glasses. We sit in the back lounge and he serves the adults white wine in small glasses, and me a bottle of fancy water. I feel like this is the last situation I could’ve ever imagined myself in. I try to soak in the moment for all it’s worth. These important people discussing my art! JJ negotiates with a quick and sharp demeanor I didn’t see in his office. There he was calm and smooth; now he is an arrow, his eyes piercing Les. He ends up changing the percentage of sales more in my favor, and getting them to black out a clause about reprints. When everything is set and we shake hands, I walk around and look at the pictures once more.