Visible City (27 page)

“Hop is gone,” Max announced to Emma, who had arrived to baby-sit in the midst of their frantic searching. Through some extraordinary combination of will and desire, the frog had catapulted out of its bowl.

“We’ll find him, don’t worry. When I was little, I had a bird that escaped from its cage and it flew around the apartment until bedtime, then happily went back in,” Emma said, and took Max’s hand. Nina tried to catch her eye, but she was focused solely on the kids. She had missed Emma but assumed the kids had forgotten her, their love for her temporary and fickle. But Max and Lily saw no betrayal in her absence; they were thrilled when she walked in the door.

“He’ll show up,” Emma promised Max when they had searched the apartment and there was no sign of the missing pet.

“What should we do now?” Max asked, ready to call off the search.

“We’re going out,” Emma said. “I have a plan. Is it okay if we come home a little late?”

Nina agreed, still trying to catch Emma’s eye. “The kids missed you. I missed you too,” she said as Emma bundled the kids into their jackets.

“There’s been a lot going on,” Emma said. “Maybe you already know. Things are very hard at home, with my parents. But I’m not staying there anymore. And I’m not going back to Steven either. I found my own apartment. I’m moving in today. And I got a job. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to baby-sit as much.”

Nina was surprised though she shouldn’t have been. The haze of indecision, the grip of paralysis, eventually lifted. Sooner or later, everyone moved forward in their lives.

“The kids will really miss you. So will I,” Nina said. “I guess we won’t be neighbors anymore.” Inadvertently she glanced at the living room windows, almost wishing she could restore Emma to the image she had seen through the window. How badly she wanted to say to Emma,
Did you know I was there watching you, or did I simply see what I wished to be there?

Emma was trying to get the kids out the door, but she followed Nina’s gaze to the window, then finally met her eye. “When I first came back home, I used to stand by the window and imagine that someone looking in might understand me. But why would anyone be standing there watching me? Why wouldn’t people be focused on what’s going on inside their own apartments?”

Emma hustled the kids out of the apartment before Nina could think of how to respond. Alone, she prowled the apartment, tossing toys into baskets in an attempt to create order. She looked across the way, but in the daylight, she could see little. Emma’s words replayed in her head. She had tried to escape her own life by immersing herself inside the lives of others. If she didn’t seek refuge in other people’s lives, what would she finally see?

No swelling crowds overtook the sidewalk and blocked traffic, no chorus of voices was wrapped together into one. But Arthur wasn’t dissuaded. Afraid of being late, he had walked swiftly, weaving purposefully around those who were in his way, carrying the posters he planned as a surprise for Barbara: black-and-white replications of John La Farge’s most famed works, and underneath, the proclamation
SAVE THE WINDOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
, the exclamation marks for Barbara, the bold letters and all caps for him.

Beneath each picture, he’d listed facts about La Farge, along with the information about the newly formed Committee to Save the La Farge Window. Arthur handed signs to the ten or so people assembled and looked up and down the block, hoping to see throngs of approaching supporters. A man was lingering with a look of bewilderment but didn’t join them. A woman who did join was disheveled, and instead of holding the sign Arthur handed her, she stared into it, mesmerized.

When he and Barbara first met at her apartment, he had been distracted by the lingering memory of Georgia, with her long, tousled hair and creamy, freckled skin. But the harder they worked, the more he was drawn to Barbara, fiery and energetic, short and clipped, tough and knowing. He awoke each day with renewed purpose. He came to Barbara’s apartment brimming with ideas. And then, one night, as they wrote press releases and drafted letters to lawyers and local council members, he realized that his ever-present image of Georgia had faded. He could see only Barbara.

He didn’t dare believe that his feelings might be mutual. But Barbara looked so happy when he arrived at her apartment and invited him to stay for dinner. Accustomed to being disliked, he hardly knew how to interpret her apparent interest. So as not to jeopardize the pleasure of their newfound friendship, neither he nor Barbara mentioned their previous encounters until the morning they decided to walk their dogs. Lacking their owners’ polite reserve, the dogs began barking furiously. But dogs don’t get to choose their friends, and though he and Barbara each offered apologies, it was easy to laugh them off and chalk them up to the fact that dogs will be dogs.

“Is anyone here from the press?” Arthur whispered.

Barbara shook her head. “They’re not coming.”

“It’s still early,” he said, lifting his sunglasses.

“Do you know how many times I’ve stood here and waited for someone to show up? You haven’t been out here like I have. Trust me. They’re not coming,” she said, and looked as though she expected him to walk away. He looked at her searchingly, trying to understand what he had done wrong.

Her anger turned to fear. She turned her eyes upon his and her voice became hesitant. “I don’t want to do this alone anymore,” she admitted.

“Then you’re in luck,” he said.

There were seven of them, then four, the slogans tepid when chanted by so few people. But they’d outlasted the nursery school kids across the street, who, despite meltdowns and accidents, managed to stay in business all afternoon. Soon, Barbara and Arthur were the only ones left.

“We’re not done yet,” Arthur said. He took her hand and shyly interlaced his fingers with hers. Then from his knapsack he pulled out two rolls of masking tape. From a small bag he produced two cookies he’d bought, both shaped, however vaguely, like dogs.

The car was gone. Leon knew exactly where he’d parked it and yet, when he walked past that spot, a black Camry was in its place. He walked up and down the block, past children selling cookies, past a small group protesting some unknown offense. He was becoming increasingly concerned that his car had been towed or stolen—but his spot was good until tomorrow and who would steal an antiquated Volvo?

He looked around for someone who might help him. The street was crowded, but no one cared about the distress on his face. He felt an unfamiliar yearning to stop a passing bystander in need of help or comfort; they could sit on the curb and he would tell all.

He tried calling Claudia, who, for all he knew, was still in Boston. As he left a series of messages, he became increasingly worried about the meaning behind her absence. He should have known, of course, her travel plans; he should know why she had gone, what she had learned. There was no hiding from his own culpability. Claudia had made no terrible transgressions, nothing he could offer to justify the fact that he did not want this any longer, nothing except the feeling of falling into an inescapable slumber. He could no longer look away from the slow seepage of his feelings for Claudia, over months, over years.

He stopped trying to reach her, stopped trying to try. He thought instead of Nina. He had counseled himself on all the ways it was improbable, impossible, a path surely paved with pain. Until now he hadn’t been sure that he would have the courage to tell Nina the idea that he was holding on to as though it were a life raft. But that practical restraining resolve was gone. So many of his patients came to him seeking permission to act in accordance with what they felt; they paid him to reassure them that they were not bad, to bolster what they knew to be true of their lives. They came to him, like people strapped and bound with ropes, wanting to know: were you allowed to change course?

He had to find Nina, talk to her. The two of them could be together. Not for a few weeks, not just for the tenuous uncertain present. In his mind, he created the story they would tell themselves and others:
We fell in love. We were married to other people at the time but we were both unhappy. We wanted to be together.
His life was once again before him. In so many ways, his life was his to start again.

“We’re riding the subway,” Emma announced. “Come on, Max. It’s going to be fun. If you want to be a real New Yorker, you’ve got to take the train.”

Max’s eyes pooled with concern, but avoidance worked for only so long. Eventually you had to face your fear. Max slipped his hand into hers, offering his agreement. Her good mood was infectious. Emma had half expected her mother to try to talk her out of her plans, but to her surprise, there had been no such impulse. The permission she had been after had been hers to grant all along. It might be a little late to be making such a discovery, but there it was nonetheless.

They bought a MetroCard, planning to ride the trains as far as they wanted. Emma showed Max the subway map and let him choose the route. Lily sat in the stroller, happily licking her shoe. Giddy with relief, Emma laughed at the sight. On the train, Max lost himself in the view out the window. Amid the crowds, they were the only ones not in a hurry. The subway car’s placards advertised a buffet of possibilities.
Learn English.
Lose weight.
Report suspicious packages.
And
If you see something, say something.
And
There are sixteen million eyes in the city. We’re counting on all of them.

Max was so engaged by his conversation with Maurice that she decided it didn’t matter that she’d forgotten the diaper bag.

“It’s part of the adventure,” she said when he held out his hand for his regularly scheduled snack. “We have to see if we can survive—at least until we can buy something at a newsstand.”

She too was hungry, but in her own bag she carried no Ziploc baggies filled with food. All she had was Steven’s manuscript, which she’d brought along on this journey to nowhere.

She pulled it out and started leafing through the pages. Despite Steven’s claims that he was nearly done, whole sections were missing, and in their place were typed notes to himself, in bold and all caps. Fragments of sentences appeared next to those perfectly hewn. Paragraphs that began beautifully trailed off into blank white space. He’d given her the novel, imperfect, unfinished. Whatever struggle with his work he was engaged in he had kept hidden from her. She was tempted to call him, to ask him what it meant that in the face of her own difficulties he had pretended to be effortlessly working. It was so easy to grab this chance to ply him with questions, to seek out the closeness she had so badly craved. But she wasn’t going to do it. Since she was a teenager, she’d gone from one boyfriend to another; there was rarely a stretch of more than a month or two when she was not connected to someone. Now she was ready to be truly alone—she wasn’t even sure yet what this meant. Nothing to anchor herself inside of, nothing that gave the feeling of being held down. She had thought that when she was finally an adult, life would be firmly rooted, but she was learning what a wishful illusion that was.