One Real Thing (7 page)

Having a new cell phone came with one huge disadvantage: Holly needed to give his number to his family, or at least Emile. Emile, his father’s assistant for the last fifteen years, was often his only connection to the family. He liked Emile, and not just because Emile could always get money to him, no matter where Holly ended up. Emile never lectured about Holly’s long absences, never asked questions. That didn’t stop Holly from feeling guilty, but at least it was all self-inflicted.

“The doctor at Bellefield says your mother was trying to get in touch with you,” Emile said. Bellefield. Fucking Bellefield. He’d never even heard of fucking Bellefield.

“Didn’t Dad tell her I was fine?”
When did she move? Why didn’t anyone tell me?
Holly couldn’t bring himself to ask, because of everything it would say about him that he didn’t already have the answers.

“He did, I did, but she has been insistent, especially since she recently regained her phone privileges. You should update your information with Bellefield. At least for the sake of the poor soul who got your last number.” Emile was always so damn thoughtful. Fucking Emile.

“What happened to her phone privileges?” Holly, sitting alone on the black leather love seat, curled up and rested his forehead on his knees. She’d lost them before, at other places. It meant things were going worse than usual.

Why didn’t they tell me?

Because Emile reads the fucking tabloids,
his brain supplied.

Right. Fucking Emile.

“She’s had them back for two weeks now,” Emile said. “She calls here every day.”

“Does Dad talk to her?” Maybe if Dad wasn’t talking to her either, Holly wouldn’t feel so…

“Of course he does.”

Right. Dad always did the right thing. He always did the right thing for Mom. Fucking Dad.

“Of course.” Holly uncoiled and leaned over to grab a pad of paper and a pen from the end table.

Nick’s ring flashed in the sunlight, and on the front page of the pad, Nick had written:
no alcohol, no drugs, no random sex and call if you need me.
Nick’s number was in thick, emphatic black letters below. Holly ran his fingers over the paper, feeling the indentations where the pen had pressed in as Nick wrote over each number again and again to thicken the lines.

“Ready?” Emile’s voice broke into his thoughts.

“Oh yeah. Right.” Holly flipped to a new page and wrote
FUCKING BELLEFIELD
on the top. Then he drew an angry face. “Ready.”

Emile rattled off the number and extension for Mom’s doctor, in case Holly needed to contact him. “I don’t know if you have your father’s mobile number, and your brother called the other day to give me his new number as well, so write them down too.”

“Yes, dear,” Holly said, trying not to be too irritable. He felt like a child.

Maybe that’s because you’re acting like one,
the voice in his head pointed out.

I’ll deal with you later,
Holly shot back.

“Put them in your phone,” Emile said. “Now. I know you.”

Fair enough. Holly was beginning to see that there were times when he really did need to do what he was told, because he didn’t think of those things for himself. The world was full of people telling him what to do these days. He wasn’t used to it.

For years no one had been there to parent him; he’d been the one telling Mom what to do. Then Mom had gone to Hopespring—now that he was sober, Holly could recite each institution and hospital and its phone number—and suddenly everyone from Emile to his half brothers to the fucking mailman had something to say about his life. Too bad he’d been away to college weeks later.

He took the phone away from his ear and repeated the steps he’d watched over Nick’s shoulder.

Holly had once had a phone an entire year, and when he got a new one from his father for Christmas—probably chosen by Emile—there wasn’t a single number to transfer. Not that they weren’t in Holly’s head, or written on the wall by the phone, or on his hand, or on his jeans. There was one girl he’d stopped seeing because his jeans had been washed enough times that her number disappeared.

“Okay. They’re in.”

“And you’ll call Bellefield?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Good boy. Do you need anything?” Emile’s tone was warm. Holly knew Emile cared about him. He could say,
Yeah, I need rent money and clothes,
and Emile would get them.

“Am I still on Dad’s health insurance?” he managed to say at last. For some reason, saying it brought tears to his eyes. He could hear Emile’s fingers on a keyboard.

“Not your father’s, because of your age, but yes, you still have health insurance. Is everything all right?”

“I just…” Holly couldn’t make the rest of the words come out.

“Give me your address, and I’ll send you a new card and the instructions for filing returns,” Emile said gently. “Do you need money?”

“Not now.” It was better if Holly only had what Nick let him have. Smarter. “I need to cancel my credit cards, though.”

“Send them to me.” Emile spoke like they were sharing secrets. “I’ll take care of them. And let me know if you need anything else. Your father trusts me to take care of a good number of things without having to report to him, you know.”

Dad didn’t have to know how badly Holly had fucked up. He never had.

“Thanks, Emile.”

“Just earning my big paycheck.” Emile laughed, and then the line was silent. It was a damn big paycheck for putting up with the family, and Holly’s dad didn’t short anyone on holiday bonuses either, down to the janitor. Holly felt an unnatural surge of pride right then, realizing what a decent guy his father was, even if he’d never quite known what to do with Holly or his other sons.

Maybe that kind of thing was hereditary too. Being decent. Being okay. Holly looked at the ring on his finger. Maybe that was what he saw in Nick. The part of himself he’d never thought was really his. Holly polished the ring with the hem of his shirt. Maybe there was hope for him after all.

***

The other problem with having a new phone was Holly kept answering the damn thing in case Nick was calling. He left the phone all over the apartment and then had to make a mad dash whenever it rang. It was a small apartment, yet Holly got a decent workout at least once a day by leaving the phone somewhere weird.

That was because he’d forget what he was doing when he was on the phone with Nick. He’d end up sitting on the floor in a corner or leaning against a leg of the table or with his back to a cupboard, or he’d be perched on the counter or the edge of the tub, after wandering the apartment just listening to Nick’s voice. When he got off the phone, he’d leave it wherever he was and go to sleep, if he could. Hearing Nick, hearing Nick
praise
him for getting through each day without fucking up, undid most of the tension in Holly, and he got a reprieve from hating himself that let him sleep.

Sometimes Rich called, which was great, but not the same. He’d come into the city once, and they grabbed coffee when he was between meetings. That was hard and humiliating, but Holly couldn’t feel anything but grateful. Rich gave Holly’s number to Alison, Rich’s ex-girlfriend from college. They’d stayed friends somehow, despite their breakup and Rich’s marriage to Anne. Apparently Alison remembered Holly fondly enough that she wanted to catch up again.

It turned out she lived just three blocks on the other side of the gym where Holly had a membership. She was out of town, shooting a spread for some magazine he hadn’t caught the name of, but she called regularly.

So Holly got in the habit of answering the phone.

It rang one evening, and even though Nick was out of town for dinner with Caroline, Holly dived for the phone anyway.

“Hey!” The back of Holly’s brain kicked in, and he realized the caller couldn’t be Nick. His mood dropped.

“Baby?”

“Mom.” Holly’s gut twisted. “Hi, what are you doing on the phone so late?”

“It’s not late here. Where are you that it’s late?” Her voice was slurred, and he could barely make out her words.

Oh shit. Right.
“New York, Mom. Did you see my new address or only the phone number?”

“I can’t remember. The new nurse dialed the number for me.”

She didn’t sound like his mother now, hadn’t for years. Seizures and strokes, side effects of the medication that had helped her stay in touch with reality, had changed her again and again since he was in his teens. She’d had a sweet, sad voice before, with perfect diction. When she was herself, she would scold him for lazy speech, even now.

“That was nice of her. I’m glad you called,” he lied.
Don’t ask how she is. Don’t ask.
“How are you?”

“They put something in my head, Holly.” Her voice trembled.

“I know it feels like that, but they didn’t.” He tried to keep his tone soothing.

“I have a scar.” She sniffled. “I can feel it. They’re listening, but I had to tell you.”

“You have a scar because you had surgery. I promise,” Holly said gently. “I was there, I came home from college to make sure you were okay.”

“That’s what they said.” She was getting strident. This was why Holly hated answering her calls, no matter how much he wanted to talk to her. “You’re using a cell phone again. I wish you wouldn’t use cell phones. I warned you. They tell you things on the cell phone waves, things you can’t hear. They lie to you about things, Holly, things about me.”

“I saw your MRIs. You had a blood clot in your brain. They took it out.” Holly knew the party line. Every time, he had to go over this. So did Dad, so did Emile, so did anyone she was allowed to call. “I would never let them put anything in your head. I could tell. I promise.”

“I wanted to talk to you because I couldn’t tell if they put something in my head. I called your other number, and the person there said they weren’t you. Were you trying to hide from me?”

“No, Mom. I just didn’t have a number for a while. I’m sorry.”

“That wasn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t lie to you. I don’t lie.”
I do. I do because I have to.

“It didn’t seem like you. I would know,” she said, sounding a little better. “I’m your mother.”

“That’s right,” Holly assured her. “You would know if it wasn’t me.”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice crumbled and caught.

“How come you’re sorry, Mom?”

How could he have left it so long? How could he have gone more than five years without at least seeing her. How could he have gone so long without hugging and comforting her?

“Because I’m your mother.” She started to cry, and Holly knew why.

“I’m not sorry.” Holly sank onto the couch and put his head in his hand. The line of Nick’s ring dug into his forehead.
I am. I’m not. I wish you weren’t sick.
“I promise, Mom. I’m not sorry.”

“I should never have had you,” she sobbed. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know I was sick.”

“I know,” Holly said. He needed to go and see her, but seeing her was worse than talking on the phone.

“They tell me I did know. That I had you so I wouldn’t be lonely. I knew I was going away, and I wanted someone to come with me.” If Holly hadn’t heard it so many times, he never would have understood what she was saying.

“That’s not the truth, Mom. Those aren’t real voices, remember?”

“What if I did? What if I did that to my baby?”

Mercifully a voice in the background intervened, probably the nurse who had dialed the phone. “You need to calm down, Mrs. Welles.”

Holly needed to calm down too. “Mom, you didn’t do anything to me. I’m fine.”

“I know!” His mother’s voice hit the next octave. “I know you’re not fine, Holly. They tell me. They say you’re sick.”

“Mrs. Welles,” the nurse said, “it’s time to get off the phone. You need to rest.”

“I’m not sick,” Holly said again. “I’m not going to get sick. I promise.”

“Mr. Welles?” Now the nurse had the phone, and there were more voices.

“Put her back on for a second,” he pleaded. “Just a second.”

“Okay, but you have to say goodbye,” the nurse said firmly. “Here’s your son, Mrs. Welles.”

“Mom, I promise you, I am not sick.” Holly forced his voice to stay steady. “I’ll come and see you, and you can see for yourself.”

“Don’t!” Her voice was frantic. “Stay away, Holly!”

“Mom?”

“They won’t let you out if you come. Don’t come, don’t come. They can tell. They know you’re mine. They won’t let you go…”

“Mom…”

“Mrs. Welles, it’s time to go.”

“Don’t come here!” His mother’s shriek was distant. “Don’t you say anything to him, you bitch! Don’t talk to him! Holly…”

“Mr. Welles?”

Holly nodded before he realized the nurse couldn’t see him. “I’m here.”

“I’m sorry about that, Mr. Welles.” The nurse kept her voice low. Discreet. “She’s fine more often than not, and she misses you. She talks about you all the time. Sometimes it does set her off, though. You know how it can be, with her illness, I’m sure.”

“I know. Please don’t take her phone privileges away,” Holly begged. “She loves talking to my father.” Even when she’d been at home, she called his father at the office every day, just to hear his voice—on the days she could convince herself no one was listening in.

“We won’t,” the nurse assured him. “Her file suggests this didn’t go as badly as last time.”

“No.” Holly swallowed hard. “No, it didn’t. Tell her I’m fine and I love her, will you?”

“Of course. Have a good evening, Mr. Welles.”

When the nurse hung up, Holly put the phone in his lap and stared at it for a long time. He needed a drink so much. He needed
anything
but to be himself right now.

“No, you don’t,” he said to himself, out loud.

Holly shoved the phone in the pocket of his jeans, grabbed his coat and wallet, put on his shoes and headed for the door. He was going for a walk. A fucking walk. Like a normal human being. Like someone who was right in the head.

***

“Well, there’s been no indication the senator knew what her husband was doing,” Nick said, glancing up to see Caroline helping Max carry the used dishes back to the kitchen.