You Have Seven Messages (11 page)

I’m not sure I’m recognizing her, either. My mother was intelligent and sharp-tongued, and there’s something in her writing that seems soft around the edges. I realize that my palms are sweating. I wash my hands in her tiny sink, go to the refrigerator, and pour myself a glass of water. I don’t drink it, I just let it sit there, and continue to read.

I start to cry a little.
Where are you now, Mom? Why couldn’t you have come shopping with me for a bra? Why do I have to get advice from Janine?
I feel so angry I could throw her laptop through the window. I gulp the Pellegrino and suddenly hear a key turn in the lock. My heart leaps through my chest as I close the laptop and pour the rest of my Pellegrino into one of the dead plants.

“Oh, well, hello there,” says a woman who’s trying way too hard with her outfit. Behind her is a young couple, dressed in Gap, with soft, eager faces.

“Oh, hi, I didn’t realize …”

“You must be Jules’s daughter.”

“Yes, hi.”

“Kit Langley, with Citi Habitats. Your father put the property on the market yesterday. Shall we give you a minute?”

“No, it’s okay. I was just leaving anyway.”

I realize there are still tears on my face. I grab my bag and walk past them, trying to smile and be normal.

From the third-floor landing I can hear Kit using her key words.
Cozy. Light-drenched
. I have to talk to my father about this. Why didn’t he consult me? Was he afraid of the things I’d find if I went back there? It’s too late for that.

The streets are piled with trash bags stacked in front of the pristine brownstones. Some window cleaners whistle at me, and I realize for the first time that though they definitely aren’t as big as Janine’s, I have noticeable breasts. With my hair down I could probably pass for eighteen. When I get back home I go right into my father’s office.

“You’re selling Mom’s place?”

“Moon, it’s empty. I should have sold it months ago. What do you want me to do?”

“I want to use it after school, to do my homework and stuff.”

He looks at me, knowing I have more leverage now. The
more information I find out about him, the more transparent he becomes. I am chipping away at his exterior.

“The maintenance is over a thousand a month, my accountant—”

“Screw the accountant. I’m not ready for you to just sell Mom’s place like it’s some … investment.”

I don’t really know what I’m saying, but I’m furious. At my mom for leaving the world, at my dad for lying to me, at the Rachels for thinking they’re so cool, and at myself for not being smart enough to see it all coming.

His phone rings. It says
Birnbaum, Alex
—his agent.

“I have to take this.”

“Good,” I say, turning to leave, “you’ll be needing more jobs to pay the maintenance.”

He widens his eyes at me and I smile like I’m kidding, but I’m really not.

I find a note taped to my door when I get home:

I look at my watch: 5:28. I drop my bag and turn right around, tucking the note into my back pocket. When I get to the sixth floor and open the exit door, Oliver greets me with a bowl of popcorn and points to the recliner chairs set up in the center of the roof.

“How’d you get those up here?”

“I know people.”

I smile, walk slowly over to them, and sit down. I guess our second try at talking to Cole will have to wait.

He says, “Stay right here.”

I hear the hum of a projector and see a large white square of light appear on the side of the next building, and then the first shot: golden fields and blue sky. It’s my favorite movie!

“
Witness
,” he says. “Your
Singin’ in the Rain
.”

I feel like the luckiest girl on the Upper West Side.

During the movie, Oliver refills my Sprite and occasionally holds my hand.

“How the hell did you do this?” I ask him.

“Isaac, the guy in the penthouse. He shows movies up here sometimes. I tutor his son in math, so I pulled a string.”

“Wow.” There I go again. Surfer talk.

As always, the movie is riveting and very human. I’m so happy that I don’t even mind Oliver falling asleep a little toward the end. When the credits roll I catch him looking at me with that incredible smile. I blush a little and turn toward him, waiting for the inevitable, and there it is again: his violet lips, soft as a cloud, and everything becomes irrelevant. I am drowning in a moment I hope will never end.

The next day Oliver meets me at the Creperie. I thank him profusely for the movie and he waves it away like it was nothing. He gets a call from his father, I can tell by his voice. He becomes very tense, and it’s strange watching
the transformation. When he hangs up I say, “Gosh, he must really have some claws on you.”

“You don’t even know. He calls me like three times a day. He knows my routine has changed since I met you, and he’s not happy about it.”

I feel my heart sink a little.

“He doesn’t want you to have a life?”

“Not really. He’s only concerned with my cello and my schoolwork. He’s like, you can have fun later. It’s weird, though, because he doesn’t even live with me and it’s like a shadow following me. He’s really strict, like his father was with him.”

We get ginger ales and
pommes frites
, and again, he orders in perfect French.

“We have to talk to this Cole character,” I tell him.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“How much worse can it get?”

He looks at me and smiles, and for a second everything goes away, like the kiss on the roof. My face is probably the color of a ripe tomato. I feel like I am what love songs are made of.

On the way downtown, Oliver holds my hand on the subway. I secretly wish the Rachels could see me now. The train lights go off for a minute and Oliver kisses me again, and I hear myself moan with pleasure. I remember Rachel One bringing a porno DVD she had stolen from her brother into school and we watched some of it on her laptop. There was an Asian girl on top of a chubby white
guy, and she was almost singing, obviously faking it. I feel like I could do that right now, and wonder if the Asian girl wasn’t. I look at Oliver after the lights go back on. He’s probably never seen a porno. Suddenly I want him to be mine to corrupt, forever.

We stake out Cole’s apartment again from across the street. A drag queen walks by looking like he/she just got into a fight. She asks us for a cigarette.

“Do we look like we smoke?” Oliver says.

She makes a sound with her lips and walks off in a huff.

“I think she likes you,” I tease.

“Yeah? I’ve always had a soft spot for transvestites.”

We share a Snapple and a chocolate bar. I almost feel like it’s another date, like we’re not waiting for my mother’s secret lover to exit his building.

“Can you imagine feeling like you’re the wrong gender?” I ask.

“I had this teacher in fifth grade, Mr. Jagel. One Halloween he came to school dressed as a girl. Everyone called him Fag-el after that. The thing is, I really liked him. He wasn’t gay, he was just open-minded. And a little silly.”

“My mom had so many gay friends. Everyone she worked with. The makeup people, the photographers, even her literary agent.”

“You mean her gay-gent?”

I laugh. Oliver’s eyes are pools of warmth, and his hair is so perfect I could cry.

“My father has a gay-gent too,” I add.

Oliver smiles. “I remember visiting my cousins who live in Utah. We went to this ski camp and there was this one kid who wore his scarf the French way, you know? And they kept calling him a fag and stuff, and I told them to stop, said that I was gay too just to teach them a lesson.”

“Good for you.”

“Besides, the scarf looked kind of cool.”

“Well, I’m glad we’re not ignorant country bumpkins.”

“What exactly is a bumpkin, anyway?”

He looks at me and we both break out into laughter. The moment is quickly squashed by the sound of the large door opening across the street and Cole emerging. I throw away our Snapple and the candy wrapper and we follow him west. He ducks into a coffee shop and we stand outside at a loss.

“Okay, Fifteen, we’ve got to do something.”

“When he comes out, ask him for directions.”

Oliver nods, as if that’s a good plan.

Cole comes back out wearing huge aviator glasses and carrying a large coffee.

“Excuse me,” Oliver says, “do you know where the A train is?”

He stops, gives us a funny look, and says, “You’re on the wrong side of town, I’m afraid.”

After an uncomfortable moment, I say, “It’s fine, Cole, we’ll figure it out.”

Oliver looks at me hard.

“What?” Cole says. “How do you know my name?”

“Listen,” Oliver says, “do you have a minute?”

Cole runs his free hand through his hair and nods. I notice that he has very blue eyes. “I could spare a couple.”

Back inside the coffee shop, a bunch of people are crouched over their laptop screens, and it smells like cinnamon. The sun has overwarmed the place, so I take off my sweater. We sit down at a corner table.

“This is Luna,” Oliver says, “and from what we understand you were close with her mother.”

When Cole realizes who I am, he looks at the floor, then out the window, then at his fingernails—anywhere but into my eyes. Oliver excuses himself to go to the bathroom and I start to talk softly.

“Look, I just want to know what happened. Were you with her at Butter the night she died?”

“Yes.” He finally looks me in the eyes. “I can’t believe how much you’ve grown. I met you once but you were … little.”

I plop the cuff links down on the table.

“Are these yours?”

Now he looks a little scared. He picks up the cuff links and turns them around in his cupped hand as if they dropped from the sky.

“Were you there when she got hit by the cab?”

He looks at me again, his bright eyes burning into mine.

“How did you find me?”

“What does it matter?”

He sips his coffee and his phone rings. He hits mute
and puts it in his pocket. I try to see what my mother saw in him. He’s attractive, but maybe he’s like a smooth stone that when turned over reveals darkness underneath. Oliver comes back and sits close, fortifying me.

“Look, it was no one’s fault. Your dad, he was very distraught.”

“Duh,” Oliver says.

“Listen, are you two allowed to be …”

“No, we’re skipping kindergarten,” I say.

His phone buzzes again.

“Luna, listen … your mother was a … friend of mine. I am so sorry about what happened.”

“Just a friend?” Oliver is skeptical.

“It’s complicated,” he says. “I’d be happy to talk to you about this further but I have a meeting.” He stands up, bows slightly, then leaves in a daze.

Oliver and I don’t say anything for a while. Cole has left us calculating in silence. Oliver’s phone rings again and I see it’s his father. He makes a grunting noise and answers it. He walks to the corner and I can tell he is very frustrated. When he finishes the call, he looks up at the ceiling for a minute, as if praying.

On the way uptown our subway car is empty. I rest my head on Oliver’s shoulder and he brushes his fingers along the underside of my wrist. I listen to the rumble and try to let it drown out the thoughts in my head.

The last time I saw my mother was the day I left for camp. I came into her room and she and my father were sitting on opposite sides of the bed, facing away from each other. She turned and motioned me toward her, hugged me a little too desperately.

“Make sure you keep in touch while you’re up there,” she said with damp eyes. She was wearing a wispy red scarf tied loosely around her neck. I wasn’t sure if her fragile state was because I was leaving, or if something had happened before I walked into the room. Had they been talking about Cole? Then my father abruptly stood up and said, “Let’s get this show on the road.” It was not the sort of thing he would say, and even though I could sense something was wrong, I was too wrapped up in my own world: the anticipation of camp, who my counselor was going to be, which kids were going to return, whether I had packed everything I needed. Now, as the train continues to barrel through the dark underground, I wonder how I could’ve been so immune to those moments, those signs that I can only see now, after it has all happened, after she’s gone. For the most part they were happy, and I guess I bought into all the good stuff so much that I was in denial about what was underneath. It’s like that line Richard quotes about Mrs. Dalloway, “Always throwing parties to cover the silence.” My parents did entertain a lot, and that is when you put on your game face. I am just so curious now. When did the façade start to crumble?