You Have Seven Messages Page 4

  He puts the scarf around me and says, “Well, there were certain sides of her life she never showed me. I think everyone has those sides.” He puts the scarf back on the hook and turns to me. “Are there things you feel, thoughts you have, that are only for you, completely private?”

  I think about Oliver and his cello, and my mother’s phone under the mattress.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I think that Elise is an open book. She doesn’t really have anything to hide. While it’s reassuring, I’m not sure about it … there’s no mystery.”

  I don’t know what to say, so I just watch him. He has gotten something back, he seems more confident. I want to ask him more about the day my mother died, and tell him I found the cuff link, but I know this isn’t the time.

  “If you see her in the morning, don’t be alarmed, okay?”

  “Okay. Did you tell Tile?”

  “No. I thought maybe you could talk to him about it. He really looks up to you.”

  “No problem.”

  He kisses me on my forehead and leaves the room. I reopen the email and wonder why Daria wants to hang out with me. I figure it won’t hurt, especially if we meet in public. But doesn’t she have people her own age to shop with?

  When I see Elise in the morning, I notice that she looks different. Loosened. It’s strange having her in my kitchen, spilling sugar on the counter and not cleaning it up. She smiles at me from behind her coffee mug and suddenly I feel transparent.

  “So, are you like, moving in now?”

  She laughs and shakes the hair out of her eyes. “The U-Haul is outside.”

  Good, I think, she has a sense of humor. Tile runs in and grabs the toast I made for him and jumps into the breakfast nook. I gave him a little prep talk about Elise last night, but he barely seems to notice her.

  When she leaves the kitchen, I clean up her spilled sugar and rinse her mug out with extra-hot water. Tile watches me curiously.

  “So that’s Dad’s new girlfriend?”

  “I think so. Do you like her?”

  He’s quiet for a moment, then says, “We made cookies yesterday.”

  “That’s good. I think it’s right for Dad to have a new friend around.”

  “How many times a day do you think about Mom?”

  He’s serious now. It’s frightening, these moments when he looks like an adult and has so much truth in his eyes. Completely exposed.

  “Five, maybe more depending on the day. What about you?”

  “A thousand,” he says, as if it’s a single-digit number.

  “Well, I bet you wherever she is, every time you think about her she feels it in some way.”

  “No she doesn’t. She’s dead.” Here are the adult eyes again. I feel myself caving in, like I could just start sobbing. I’m glad to actually feel things again, but it’s almost easier not to. I give him a hug. He squeezes back, and he smells so pure and clean that for a moment I think, He’s going to be all right. We are all going to be all right.

  I meet Daria in the park and she has on a short black skirt and another thin sweater the color of blood, like her lipstick. She sits down next to me on a bench and sighs.

  “You live around here, right?”

  “Very close,” I say.

  She puts her hand on my thigh and says, “Well, let’s move.”

  She takes me to Victoria’s Secret and buys me a “starter” bra. I am not even embarrassed because she has this way about her, like everything is natural. Then we go to H&M and she buys me a pink hoodie. I don’t usually wear pink, but being with Daria, I feel like the possibilities are endless. She even eats pretzels from the street vendors. We get two, draw thin lines of mustard on them, and sit at a bus stop. She asks me about boys and I start telling her about Oliver. His curly hair, the music, and the way he looked at me at the dry cleaner.

  “You need a plan of attack,” she says, wiping mustard from the corner of her mouth.

  “Attack?”

  “You know, a plan.”

  “I really want to watch him play.”

  “Good. Tell him you are writing an essay for school on classical music. And you’d like to sit in on his rehearsal for research purposes.”

  I don’t have the heart to tell Daria this is a dumb idea, so I just shrug. A bus pulls up and the driver smiles at us.

  “Or … what if you just ask him, flat out?”

  If someone had said this to me a month ago I would never have considered it, but I’m feeling strangely empowered after finding Mom’s phone. “Yeah, why not?”

  “Okay, but here’s the thing. Act aloof, like it was just something that popped into your mind. Never give too much away.”

  What is it with adults and their secrets? I start watching the people walk by: a businessman, a skater kid, an old lady. I realize they all have secrets, hidden like small stones in their pockets.

  “What should I wear?”

  “Wear the hoodie I got you, and your favorite jeans. It’s very important that you wear your favorite jeans.”

  She gets a call on her cell phone and talks for a minute while I finish my pretzel.

  “I’ve got to run downtown for a go-see.”

  I know this term, as my mother was always on go-sees. It’s where a designer or a photographer gives you a quick look to see if you’re right for a shoot or a runway show. Daria throws half of her pretzel in the trash and kisses me on both cheeks.

  “You have my cell, right? Let me know how it goes with Cello Boy.”

  “Okay.” As she walks away I say, “Thanks for everything.” She turns around and waves her hand like it was nothing. I realize I never got to ask her about the cuff link, whether it might belong to Benjamin. Maybe the next message will lead me there.

  When I get home, I go into my room and put on the bra and the hoodie. I walk over to the window and look for Oliver. He’s not there, but my heart still picks up. Tomorrow is the day I turn fifteen, and I’m going to ask Oliver if I can watch him play.

  CHAPTER 9

  QUINCE

  When I come downstairs in the morning, there are balloons everywhere, and my dad and Tile have made a giant sign that says MOON IS QUINCE!! There’s a huge pile of chocolate chip pancakes. They sing “Happy Birthday,” and at the end, Tile runs up and hugs me.

  I’m not in the mood for pancakes, but they’re so sweet to have done all this that I start to serve myself one. Tile already has chocolate on his rocket-ship pajamas. My dad brings me orange juice and says, “A fine vintage.”

  I take a sip and look through the kitchen window. I can just barely see Oliver walking out of his house. He sits down on his stoop like he’s waiting for someone. Something tells me that this is the time.

  I run upstairs and put my hair up, then down, then up again. Wearing it up makes me look older, closer to Oliver’s sixteen. I return to the kitchen and announce, “Be right back!” before my dad can even do anything.

  It’s a perfect spring day, and I descend the stairs slowly and casually, like Daria would. I walk over to Oliver, who is twirling an unpeeled banana around in his hands.

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hey.”

  “I’m fifteen.” Oh my god. What a dorky thing to say. He smiles anyway and holds out his hand.

  “I’m Oliver. Nice to meet you, Fifteen.”

  I giggle a little, sit down, and ask him what he’s up to.

  “Waiting for my mom. She’s taking me to a play.”

  “Cool,” I say, as aloof as possible.

  A siren goes off and he looks down the street. I use the time to glance at his face. His skin looks pillow soft. I decide to forge on.

  “Hey, do you think I could listen to you play sometime?”

  “You already do.”

  I can feel my face heat up. He knows I listen from my room. Duh.

  “Well, yes, but I mean, in person.”

  His driver pulls up, and his mom waves out of the back window. He stands up to leave. “What do I get out
of the deal?”

  I don’t know what to say, but he’s almost at the car, so I need to think of something fast. “Cookies. I’ll bring cookies.”

  He turns around and smiles.

  “Just bring yourself. Five o’clock.”

  “Cool. See you then.”

  The car pulls away and I look up at our kitchen window and see Tile and my father, apparently watching the entire time. Suddenly, I feel very private. I am fifteen and there are so many things that will have to change.

  Before I retrieve the next message, I decide to go to the scene of the accident. Perhaps there will be something there, some clue I can use later on.

  I take the subway down to the East Village, where every day is like Halloween. There’s a different set of rules for everything. Goths, punks, gays, bookworms, schizophrenics, fashionistas, cooks, hoodlums—they all coexist together, which to me is thrilling but also dangerous. I stand on the corner of Fifth Street and Second Avenue and stare at the pavement. My mother was hit by a taxicab right here. As the taxis go by, I wonder what it felt like for her. Did she feel what it was like to fly?

  When I got home from camp after finding out, still in a kind of numb haze, I fell asleep on the couch sitting up. In the middle of the night I woke to a low moaning sound. I walked upstairs to find my father packing all her things. I went downstairs for water and read part of the police report he had accidentally left on the kitchen counter. I only got to read the first paragraph before he came down, concerned that I wasn’t sleeping. It had mentioned the location, and that the driver of the taxicab was not intoxicated.

  She died on this street. She was wearing a dress.

  Okay, it’s time for another message. I walk north and take my mother’s cell phone out once more, press 1 for the next voice mail. It’s my father, and he sounds sedated.

  “I … I … Just call me, will you?”

  I stop as all the pedestrians swerve around me. Suddenly, I feel like this is all wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t be listening to these messages. Maybe I should rejoin the Rachels and obsess over Twilight. But in spite of my doubts, I still feel like there’s something missing, like a restaurant sign with one letter dark. If I can finish spelling the word maybe the story will make sense.

  I feel exhausted. I go uptown to my mother’s studio with the intention of opening the “Luna” folder, but end up falling asleep on her still-naked mattress. I wake up at four-thirty and rush home to shower.

  When I knock on Oliver’s door, the housekeeper answers. She has chopsticks in her hair and a turquoise necklace on. She looks like the type of person who’s always happy. I wonder if she’s high on something. She calls Oliver’s name and he appears, seconds later, like he was waiting in the wings.

  His room is spotless and lined in dark, highly polished wood. The ornate moldings remind me of a castle. He walks over and sits down at the cello. He picks up the bow and looks at it, as if searching for an imperfection. Then he starts the first note, low and smooth, seemingly somber, until the song goes high and playful. Is he improvising?

  I sit down on the floor while he plays and all I can think is Don’t ever let this end. I lose track of time and eventually lie on the floor and close my eyes. When he finishes, I hear his feet scuffle over to the bed, which creaks when he plops himself down. I open my eyes and sit up, and he’s staring at me with a half smile, almost sinister.

  “You play really well.”

  “I’m performing a concert in Paris this summer. There were five hundred kids and eight were chosen.” He manages to say this matter-of-factly, without bragging.

  “That’s so cool,” I say.

  “So what about you, Fifteen, you play any instruments?”

  “No. But I sing sometimes.”

  “Cool, sing something.”

  He’s expecting me to just sing something right now?

  I shake my head but he keeps staring at me. So I sing the first four lines of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and he closes his eyes, like I did for him. I take liberties with it, making it my own version. After, he sits up and says, “That was beautiful.”

  It’s weird hearing a boy describe something as beautiful, but I know Oliver isn’t like other boys. He is his own species, like me.

  “Sing it again, and I’ll play along.”

  He’s so disarming that I’m not even nervous. While I sing he plays notes along with me, sometimes harmonizing intuitively, as if he already knows my take on the song.

  When we finish, we both giggle a little, and his mother comes in. The only way I can describe her is tight. Her face is tight, her clothes are tight, and her hair is pulled back so tight it looks like she’s in pain. But when she smiles, I can see she’s very attractive.

  “Would you two like a snack?”

  “No thank you,” we both say in unison.

  She smiles again and gives me a pointed look.

  “Well, dinner in an hour, Ollie. Would you like to join us, dear?”

  “It’s okay, maybe another time, thank you,” I say.

  When she leaves he says, “You’re better off—it’s her night to cook and it’s usually some healthy stuff, like macaroni and cheese, but the cheese isn’t really cheese.”

  This strikes me as funny, so I laugh a little.

  It’s clear that our rendezvous is over. He’s putting his cello away and looks a little distracted. I walk up to him and shake his hand, like an adult.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “Don’t mention it.”

  As I’m leaving, he calls for me and I turn around.

  “I’m sorry about your mother. She was always so nice to me, and she seemed so mysterious. Sometimes I wished she was mine.”

  He looks vulnerable. I cannot believe I do this, but I walk up to him and say, “If she was, then we’d be brother and sister, and that would mean I couldn’t kiss you.”

  This time he blushes.

  Instead of kissing him, I touch part of his curls, and they are even softer than I imagined. How does a boy have such incredible hair?

  “Bye, Oliver.”

  “See you around, Fifteen.”

  CHAPTER 10

  THE FIRST SHOT

  My father comes to my door, ready to go bowling. I feel like our birthday ritual, which I have always loved, has to be put to bed.

  “Can we see a movie instead?”

  He looks defeated, but slides his glasses up his nose and says, “Sure, what’s your fancy? Comedy? Thriller?”

  “Romance, actually.”

  We have our driver drop us off downtown. As we wait in line at the cinema, I keep thinking about Oliver’s pillow hair and soft eyes. My dad senses it.

  “So, you think you and Oliver will go steady?”

  I’ve never really talked to my dad about boys. Ever since the fifth grade when Bradford Noble tried to kiss me on the playground and I kicked him in the crotch, he never really pursued it. Maybe he thinks I’m a lesbian.

  “No, but I like his sister,” I say.

  “He doesn’t have a sister.”

  “Bummer.”

  We sit on the side aisle. Even my dad, who has a strong aversion to Hugh Grant, seems to be enjoying himself. I remember being younger and thinking the things that happened in movies were possible. I guess sometimes they are, but this movie is a modern fairy tale where dreams effortlessly come true. Because of my recent crush on Oliver, I am completely drawn in to the point of dorkiness. I even cry.

  After, we wait in line to go into John’s pizza, where everyone sits inches apart from one another and it’s so loud we have to yell. It has an opposite effect and calms me, being submerged in a cacophony of sounds. It takes me just as far from my life as Hugh Grant did.

  In the movie, the bad guy lost the girl. Watching my father eat his pizza folded like a cone, I wonder why it had to happen to him. He’s the stable one, always telling the truth and giving all of himself, just a really strong, good man. I look at all the people eating together, many of them happy c
ouples. Always something there to remind me.

  When we get home, Dad stops us short and says, “Hey! Since you darted off earlier I never got to give you your present!”

  He reaches into the bottom cabinet and pulls out a large box that was obviously professionally wrapped—it’s too elaborate. Tile comes barreling in and sits on a stool. Presents bring a crowd.

  “Wait!” Tile says. “Me first.” He reaches into his pocket and takes out a small manila envelope. “Like Uncle Richard says, the best presents come in envelopes.”

  I open it up and pull out a small white index card. In green marker it says, This certificate entitles you to one foot rub and two homemade cookies, courtesy of Tile Clover. I smile and lean over, kiss him on his forehead.

  My dad looks impatient, so I open the box and cannot believe what I see. It’s a vintage camera, the kind I’ve always wanted, where you stick your head under the black fabric to take a shot. It has the original manual, and the wood is the color of a plum. The film is the size of a slice of bread. It’s exquisite.

  I hug him and he looks at me, blushing.

  “You’ve always had an eye. Ever since you were this high.” He puts his hand to his knee. He’s right. Since third grade I’ve loved taking pictures. And with the exception of the collage I did with the Rachels, not of people. Mostly of buildings and textures, and strange things in nature. Natural composition that somehow looks unnatural. I never really showed them to people, but my dad’s entire office is covered with my life’s work, wall to wall. Some are pretty cool, but most are really amateurish. People say the onslaught of digital photography diminished the romance of the art, but even though it’s dated, I will always love the idea of actual film. I used to use my dad’s old Kodachrome and he even built me a darkroom, but I barely use it anymore. I got sucked into the whole Photoshop thing. But now that I have this camera, I’m sure I’ll be using the film again. And I’m so grateful I want to crush him with love.

  “I’m gonna go set it up!”

  In my room I unfold the tripod and screw on the camera, then focus it across the street. Oliver’s light is on. I wait for a whole twenty minutes until he comes to the window, and take my first shot.