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Authors: Alison Gaylin

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #General, #Contemporary, #Sagas

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BOOK: Hide Your Eyes
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‘Maybe Sal is a woman,’ Yale offered. ‘My gal Sal . . .’
I started to laugh.
‘I wasn’t speaking to you.’ Shell plucked a speck of tobacco off her tongue and flicked it into the air. ‘I am speaking to Sammy, who understands the problem.’
‘What
is
the problem?’ Yale said. ‘Hermyn is engaged, which we all should be terribly upset about because . . .’
‘Because it should be one of us.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ I said.
‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ She ht.s sake.whirled around and glared through the big subscription room window. ‘That weird-ass butch bitch is engaged to a mother-fucking dentist from fucking Scarsdale, and you’re as pissed off about it as I am. Only difference is I’m honest enough to admit it.’
She crushed the cigarette butt under the sole of a black patent-leather boot and stormed back into the box office without saying another word to either one of us. I looked at Yale. ‘I don’t want to be engaged to a dentist from Scarsdale.’
‘How about a urologist from Short Hills?’
I took a drag off Yale’s cigarette, coughed. Together we turned and peered through the window. We watched Hermyn hug Argent, watched our septuagenarian boss Roland slap the bride-to-be on the back, watched Shell grab Hermyn’s hand, stare at the large diamond on her finger, drop it like an unwanted flyer and stalk off into the ticketing office.
‘She’s all id, isn’t she?’ said Yale.
‘Yep.’
‘Well, we’d better get back in there before Roland gets pissed.’
‘Hey, Yale?’
‘Yeah?’
‘It isn’t like Shell said. And I’d only tell you this. But I think I
am
a little jealous. Not about the engagement. Just . . . I don’t know. The way she seems to feel, I guess.’
Yale put out his cigarette and patted me on the back. ‘Me too, hon,’ he said. ‘Happy Valentine’s Day.’
Despite Shell’s new theory, Hermyn had not bought the diamond ring for herself. She was engaged to a (male) dentist named Sal Merstein, whom she had met six months earlier. An avid performance art fan, Sal drove into the city like he always did on Saturday nights and went to his favorite bar/space, Industropia, just to see what was going on.
As it turned out, more was going on at Industropia than the NEA-supporting DDS could ever have imagined - and according to Hermyn, he had a very active imagination. Dr. Merstein caught a midnight performance of
Inanimate Womyn
and fell instantly and irrevocably in love. He explained his way into her dressing room and proposed to her that night. Hermyn, who wasn’t speaking at the time, shook her head and mouthed the words ‘Are you nuts?’
Hermyn remained skeptical; Sal remained persistent. And adorable. And incredibly funny - at least to a woman who liked jokes about gasoline-powered fruit. Half a year later, at dawn on Valentine’s Day, he’d affixed the butterfly to Hermyn’s tooth and reiterated his proposal. And that’s when she’d said, ‘Yes.’
‘He’s got to be crazy. Maybe he’s kinky. I hear that a lot about dentists. Too much nitrous oxide.’ Three hours later and Clarion was still at it. She was whispering in my ear, so as not to be overheard by Roland as we sorted prepurchased tickets (‘will call,’ as we say in the trade) at the small, speakered window where at window customers would later pick them up. I was pondering physics. With a perfectly executed jerk to the right, I figured I could knock out both of Shell’s front teeth, caps and all. Sal could fix them. Maybe throw in a root canal.
Hermyn was answering phones in the subscription office. I could hear her voice, friendly and musical, saying ‘Thank you so much for calling the Space.’
Shell wondered aloud how much money Sal ‘socks away’ every year after taxes and began quoting huge dollar amounts, her whisper disappearing and her vocal pitch rising alarmingly.
‘Unless that’s the price for your silence, we’re not interested!’ Yale’s voice resounded from the subscription room.
Shell shrieked, ‘Eat me!’
‘All right. That’s enough!’ said Roland.
‘I’d rather eat arsenic,’ Yale said.
‘I heard that, you twat!’
‘I said that’s enough!’
I looked at Shell.
‘What.’
At times like this, I found myself wishing I were back at Sunny Side with the grown-ups. I grabbed my shoulder bag and coat, walked out of the ticketing office, into the subscription room. ‘I’m done with the tickets. I’m going to take a little walk before the window opens.’
Roland nodded as he checked off spaces on the seating chart and stopped briefly to turn down his hearing aid. I looked at Yale on my way out. ‘Breath of Clarion-free air?’ he asked.
I nodded.
‘Well, lucky you.’
Hermyn, sitting at the desk across from Yale’s, was smiling with her eyes closed. I wondered what she was thinking about, and felt a stab of envy as I walked out the door.
¢>
3
Worked Up
I was born in Venice Beach and raised in Santa Monica. And, while there were a lot of things about southern California that I didn’t like - the lazy way that people talked, earthquake drills, strip malls, pastels, stage three smog alerts, Eagles reunions - I always loved the ocean. The thick, salt-laced scent and the continuous whoosh of the waves always worked like a tranquilizer on me.
The Hudson River wasn’t the Pacific Ocean, but the Pacific Ocean wasn’t walking distance from the Space, so I was willing to compromise.
On stressful days, even blisteringly cold ones, I would walk to the piers, cl
I couldn’t get to the river fast enough that day. My hands balled into fists, I clutched my bag as though it were a poorly designed life preserver and slammed my feet into the sidewalk.
Before I expected it, I saw the thick gate that shrouded the few remaining piers, the intermittent signs that read
Area Peligrosa. Area Unsafe
.
When Yale had first moved to New York as a seventeen-year-old, gay men used to sunbathe on the Peligrosa Piers, as he called them.
You’d know it was spring when those tiny basket shorts cropped up on the Peligrosa Piers. They were more reliable than crocuses . . . Prettier, too
. During the sticky, fragrant summer nights, the men would return, making
Area Unsafe
a well-known double entendre.
Not anymore. Some of the piers had been dismantled to make room for the big gym complex with its bowling alleys and family restaurants. Others, like these, crumbled into the river like old corpses. Only the signs remained, with some of the fence corners cut and folded back, historical evidence.
Unsafe
. I shivered a little. So many ghosts. So much bad luck.
 
I’d been walking along the river for about fifteen minutes before I saw the construction site. There was an
Area Peligrosa
sign on the fence in front of it. And, even though the fence corner had been cut and folded back, I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to crawl under it.
Three tall stacks of concrete blocks bounded the area, the farthest edge of the farthest pile touching the end of a rusty, sad-looking trailer. Faded red letters stretched across the trailer, reading
Shank’s Dredging and Construction
, and a broken
RK AND RIDE
sign was propped up against it, even though there was nowhere to park and nowhere to ride.
Perhaps it was the sign that drew me in. Who would ever park a car in this place?
Who would ever ride away from it, knowing they had to return?
Or it could have been the construction company’s name. Shank’s, as in butchered body parts.
I knew these should have been reasons to leave - warning signs, literally - but they had the opposite effect on me.
No one’s here. No one will be here. No one ever, except you
.
I crawled under the folded-back fence corner.
On the other side, I stood up and took a few steps toward the trailer.
I couldn’t quite hear the water - I was still several car lengths away from the river, and the trailer seemed to block out sounds. To the left of the trailer was a huge rusty bin that was nearly overflowing with broken chunks of cement. I wondered when they’d been dumped there, and by whom.
I crept closer, saw some dead, brown weeds shooting through the concrete, then a few deviant, crumbling cement blocks and, finally, the oily green water of the Hudson. Placed neatly next to the bin like a spectator’s seat was a smooth, rectangular block of cement with a blue chalk scrawl of
1/3/00
across the top. More than thirteen months old.
No one will be here
. . .
I sat down on the block. An icy gust flew off the river and bit at my face, but with the hood of my coat still up, I didn’t mind.
No one ever, except you
.
 
My father left home when I was five years old, and I haven’t seen him since. He’s more a voice than a face to me - a loud laugh in the hallway; a hoarse, angry whisper in my parents’ bedroom; a tinny mumble on the other end of the phone, asking Sydney for help. Picturing him is difficult, but if I clear my mind and close my eyes really tight, I can sometimes see his profile.
It’s a purely mental exercise - not emotional at all - because I really don’t feel one way or the other about him. Fact is, if Dad hadn’t left, Sydney would never have written her first book (
PMS: Post Marital Survival
) and become instantaneously famous among self-help enthusiasts. She’d still be a social worker. He’d still be spending most of her salary on twelve-packs of Mickey’s BigMouth. So it’s probably best he got out when he did.
That said, I used to be crazy about him. One of my happiest memories was the time he’d taken me on the Ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier. When our cage turned upside down, I’d laughed instead of screaming like the other kids. And he’d patted me on the arm and said, ‘That’s my brave girl.’
Funny how I could remember the Ferris wheel ride as if it had just happened, but I couldn’t remember the day he took off. Especially since, according to Sydney, I’d been the first one to notice the note he’d left on the kitchen table.
Listening to the sound of the river, I closed my eyes and tried to picture Dad. The hair was easy. It was long and dark and shiny; he usually wore it in a ponytail. But the features were blurry, and the eye color was a complete mystery. I knew they were brown, but were they amber colored like Nate’s, or were they darker? My own eyes are pale green, like Sydney’s, so they were of no help.
I’m losing Dad, I thought. It depressed me more than it should have.
I pressed my palms into the freezing cement block. The water sound was nice. I’d concentrate on that, block out everything else. Nate had once taught me how to meditate. It wasn’t the type of rules-driven meditation that you learn at weekend retreats in upstate New York mountain towns. It was just an
inner chant
that his acting teacher had come up with in order to relax the class before scene work.
Breathe in, breathe out
, it went.
Think of anything
.
Think of nothing
. It sometimes helped if you said the words aloud, so that’s what I did, over and over and over . . .
‘
Relax, princess,’ says the man in the Pinto. ‘Stop moving.’ But I can’t. There’s no crown in the car. Not in the front, not in the back. The vinyl seat is hot, sticky on my bare legen n my bas.
‘Where is my crown?’ I say.
‘Where is my crown?’ he repeats, his voice a squeaky imitation of mine. ‘Princess needs a crown
. . .’
His hand clamps the back of my neck. It’s big and rough and feels like it’s made of sandpaper. He starts to laugh, and his laugh is big and rough too. ‘Princess needs a crown,’ he says, still laughing. ‘That’s funny, princess.’
Stop,
I want to say. But I can’t. My mouth opens and closes. He squeezes tighter. Pinches my skin between the stubby tips of his fingers. He jerks my head back, then down, like you’d do with a big doll
.
I’m looking at the floor beneath the dashboard. ‘No crown for prin-cess,’ he sings.
On the floor I see a coiled rope. Next to it I see a roll of thick gray tape. They remind me of two snakes
-
a mother and her baby.
‘I have something else, though. Something else princess can wear
. . .’
I try to scream, but still nothing comes out. I am a doll. Can’t move. Going to get broken.
‘You can wear this on your neck.’ He holds something up to my eyes. It’s silver mostly, but he’s holding it so close that I have to blink to see what it is.
It’s a long, sharp knife with a black leather handle.
I’m wondering why I can’t cry, can’t yell, can’t move when his hand isn’t over my mouth and he’s only holding my neck. I’m thinking maybe he’s magic. Maybe I’m under a spell. He whispers, ‘Little bitch.’
His breath smells of beer, which reminds me of Dad. I wish he was Dad, because Dad wouldn’t say that, wouldn’t hate me like this
. Dad wouldn’t,
I think, as he presses the cool side of the blade to my throat, then shoves my head down farther
. . .
I opened my eyes, breathing fast and shallow.
Some meditation exercise
.
I understood now why I’d blocked the memory for so long. It had nothing to do with the knife or the rope. It was the dry calm of the voice in my ear. And it was how I couldn’t move.
Here’s how I escaped: A pigeon wiped out on the Pinto’s windshield. The stranger loosened his grip and dropped the knife and said, ‘What the fuck?’
Saved by a kamikaze pigeon
. Finally, I’d managed to open the car door and run home.
No, I don’t open the door. I stare at the flattened feathers. At the bright smear of blood. I don’t move. I can’t.
‘maysize="3What the fuck?’ He leans across me, opens the door, pushes me out. My knees hit the concrete. ‘My car, my fucking car, fucking bird.’
‘Fucking bird,’ I whisper as I run and run and run. ‘Fucking bird, fucking bird
. . .
’
 
With the memory echoing in my brain, I didn’t quite notice the sound at first. But then it became clearer, more defined. It was a scraping. The scraping of a heavy object across a floor. After a few seconds, I realized it was coming from the trailer.
Rats, I decided. But rats didn’t scrape, they scurried. Besides, this sound was much too heavy for rats, even big rats. The scraping got louder and culminated in a thud on the concrete between the bin and the trailer.
It’s not rats
. Instinctively, I jumped to my feet, tightened my grip on my bag and backed up. Soon, I’d made my way behind the bin and had almost reached the fence. I stopped for a moment. From where I was standing, I couldn’t see the whole space between the bin and the trailer. But there was no more sound.
Maybe I imagined it
.
I used to imagine things a lot when I was a kid - monsters under the bed, snakes in the kitchen cupboard, Dad’s car outside our apartment. Grandma said I was special and intuitive; Sydney said I was making things up to get attention.
When I tried to tell them that a pigeon had saved me from a strange man who thought I was a princess and tried to kill me, even Grandma wasn’t buying it. ‘If you didn’t want to go to your Brownie meeting,’ she said, ‘all you had to do was say so.’
Sydney added, ‘You’re too big a girl to be making up stories.’ After a while, I began thinking that Sydney and Grandma were right; I really had imagined the whole incident.
What if I had?
No. I was saved from a murderer by a damn pigeon, and I am not hearing things. It was probably a homeless guy. A homeless guy dragging something around. And now I am going to leave him alone
. I got up and walked back toward the fence.
But why didn’t I see the homeless guy earlier?
I looked through the trailer’s windows. It was empty.
I turned around again, made myself stare at the big space between the bin and the trailer.
Two people stood there, a man and a woman. He was facing the water with his back to me, his dark hair cropped so close it looked like a shadow. He was a tall man in a long black trench coat; she was smaller with blond hair, wearing a red dress. She wasn’t wearing a coat, even though it was freezing. Her dress had short sleeves.
She must be cold in those sleeves, I thought. They were bending over, pushing against something that I couldn’t see.
I could hear it scraping the concrete, though. And when they straightened up, I saw it: a pale blue ice chest. Small, to be making such a scrape.
Prettier color than the water
. . .
a clean, shiny blue.
Both of them bent over again, and pushed it hard. I heard a dull splash, and as they stepped back, I saw the white lid sinking into the Hudson.
Not so clean now. Not so shiny
. . .
Why am I watching this?
For a long time, they both stood there, staring at what they’d just done. The woman’s bare arms and back seemed to shake violently, though the rest of her body remained perfectly still.
‘Crying,’ I said. The woman didn’t move, but the man spun around fast and stared at me.
The bottom half of his face was covered by a thick black scarf, but I wouldn’t have noticed it had it been visible. He had a smooth forehead, black eyebrows. But the eyes . . .
Where did you come from where did you?
The irises were, literally, mirrors. The fading sunlight refracted off them, made points of light on my black coat. For a second, they seemed to transform into two laser beams.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ I whispered. ‘I am insane.’
Heart pumping, fingernails digging into my palms, I held my breath and ducked under the fence. On the other side, I walked fast, but I refused to run. I crossed Tenth Avenue, headed east on Fourteenth.
It’s okay. Too much emotion in one day. Weird things happening. Dead Man’s
Fingers. Cops in the classroom. Safety lectures, bad memories. Hermyn told a joke. You’re worked up. You’re not crazy. Not insane
.
Just worked up. But where did they, where did he
. . .
BOOK: Hide Your Eyes
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