Silent Symmetry (The Embodied trilogy) (10 page)

“Hmm?” she said as she glanced at her watch. I guess she was starting to think about her date with Bob.

“That door – it’s the office next to yours. What’s in there?”

“I don’t know.”

The elevator went ding
. The doors opened.

“Have you ever seen anyone going in or out?”
I enquired.

She shook her head as we entered. “No, why?”

“Isn’t that weird?” I wondered aloud.

She suddenly went all antsy and didn’t answer. Within seconds the elevator doors opened on the ground floor.

“Oh, shoot!” she exclaimed. “I left my purse in the office.”

“I’ll wait
for you down here,” I said, stepping out of the elevator.

“Sure thing, honey,” she said through the closing doors.

I sauntered over to the reception desk. What did I have to lose by trying to coax some information out of the guard?

“Hey – what’s up?”

He just looked at me blankly from above the patch of sugar grains on his stubbly chin.

“Those Temple of Truth dudes are doing some totally rad shit up there. You ever run into any of the guys in charge? The priests or druids or preachers or elders or monks or whatever?”

Man, shut up Kari – you totally suck at this.

The guard eyed me like I was a skunk. I pretended I’d seen something of interest on the floor.

At that moment a ding signaled the return of the elevator to the lobby. I started to walk toward it, but instead of
Mom, out stepped a man. A man I’d seen before. He realized I’d spotted him and froze. But where had I seen him? Where? He averted his gaze and ducked behind a towering, leafy indoor palm. Then I remembered. It was Noon’s father! He was in the classroom with Noon on my first morning at Chelsea Prep.

“Hello?” I called out. He broke from behind the palm and
walked quickly, head down, along a corridor behind the bank of elevators. I followed as the security guard shouted something at me from the reception desk.

I rounded the corner and noticed the door to a stairwell swinging shut at the end of the corridor. The guard clickety-clacked across the
marble floor behind me. I sprinted down the corridor and flung the door open. Breathlessly, I looked up and down the metal staircase. But it was deserted. How could he have reached the floor above or below so quickly? I held my breath, listening, but there was nothing.

Then the guard caught up with me. “What are you doing?” he panted, hands on thighs, leaning over his large gut.

Good question. What was I doing?

“I don’t know,” I admitted. I heard the elevator ding again in the lobby. “I thought it was someone I knew,” was all I could say.

Mom must have heard us talking and peered around the corner.

“What’s going on, Kari?”

“Nothing. Nothing.”

Maybe if I said it twice, I’d be able to convince her?

The guard stood up straight, having barely gotten his breath back. “Mrs. Marriner – if you sign in a guest you’re responsible for them at all times they’re in the building.”

“What did she do?” asked
Mom, concerned.

The guard was stumped. “Just a warning, ma’am.”

I rejoined Mom, who was looking quizzically from me to the guard.

“Let’s get you ready for your big date,” I
said, elbowing her.

She rolled her eyes.

“No pressure though,” I added, winking, and grabbed her arm.

The guard returned to his post. As we left through the revolving doors I threw a last glance back over my shoulder, hoping to catch
Noon’s father. But the lobby was empty and I was left wondering why he had run away and how he had managed to disappear into thin air.

So
... Mom’s big date. I can’t pretend that I didn’t stay awake that night just to see what time she got home. When I did hear the front door it was nearly midnight, and I took this as a positive sign. The next morning I couldn’t wait to hear her dish some dirt on the evening with Bob. I cornered her as she emerged from the bathroom, towel wrapped around her head.

“So? How’d it go with Bob the Beautiful?” I smirked.

She shook her head, grinning.

“What?
! You’re not gonna tell me?” I said, wide-eyed.

“I guess I’m just not the kind of girl who kisses and tells!”

“Ah-ha!” I pounced on her slip. “So there were kisses!”

She marched purposefully into her room and threw the towel onto the bed. She turned to face me and stood there
, hands on hips, debating with herself the wisdom of revealing this information to me.

“Okay, fine. We kissed.”

“Yes!” I squealed, jumping up and down.

“Gosh, if I’d known it was so easy to make you happy, I never would have bought you those $200 Uggs.”

“And?” I continued. “What else?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Okay, okay. But do you like him?” I asked hopefully.

She pretended to be nonchalant. “Sure, he’s a nice guy.”

But I could tell she had been charmed. There was a spring in her step and a twinkle in her eye. The unmistakable signs of my mother finally overcoming her tragic past and opening up a little.

We left together for work and school, hormones exploding and thoughts swamped by
Noon and Bob respectively. The present was exciting and the future seemed filled with possibilities.

But that morning turned out to be the high-point. Over the next few weeks, Bob became as elusive as the warmth of the sun. Mom kept herself busy with work, but I could tell that she was disappointed when a month went by between their first and second dates. And
, after that, when Bob announced over the phone that he’d be leaving town for the holiday season, I saw her face fall.

As for
Noon... he didn’t show up in class that morning. Nor the day after. Or the one after that. In fact, the week just flew by, and it was only on the Friday afternoon that I cautiously asked Mr. Jefferson whether Noon was going to be sick for a while.

“Oh.. no,” he said distractedly, “He won’t be back.”

“What?!” I exclaimed, making the teacher jump. “What happened?”

“He moved away, that’s all.”

I couldn’t believe it.

Mr.
Jefferson could sense my disappointment. “I guess he didn’t have a chance to tell you. His father was posted overseas.”

Overseas? My mind flashed back to the
world map on Mom’s computer at the Temple of Truth. And to Noon’s father fleeing from me so bizarrely that same day. I had really felt a connection with Noon. Something more than that, in fact. Both emotional and physical. And now I had to face up to the probability that I might never see him again.

The other weird occurrence (and I couldn’t help but wonder if the two were somehow linked) was that Aranara disappeared at the exact same time. Actually, I shouldn’t really use the word “disappeared”. It was as if she had ceased to exist.

When I asked around school, no one else had even heard of her, apart from Cruz. I eventually went to the secretary’s office and thought up a reason to request some information. There was literally no record of her at Chelsea Prep. No registration, no student records. Yet Noon had clearly known who she was – she wasn’t just a figment of my imagination.

This only added to
Noon’s mystery. But exam time came around fast, and before I knew it, school was out for the holidays.

Ch
apter 5

Dream #16: I’m super happy because Flash has come back. He’s sitting on my lap and purring while I pet him and talk to him in kitty-speak. The end of his tail flicks up and down contentedly. Then I realize that his tail is actually an evil-looking snake. Before I can move, it has bitten me on the arm. Then my arm turns into a snake too and I wake up, terrified.

Christmas is a magical time in New York. There’s snow on the ground, roasted chestnuts on the street trolleys and a feeling of crackling excitement in the air.

In
Noon’s absence, Cruz and I had resumed our undefined relationship. We flirted subtly in class, conversed in Spanish two evenings per week (at the café where he used to work) and made out when he walked me back home.

We even spent Thanksgiving together. I guess they don’t celebrate it in
Puerto Rico, but his mother was determined to be as American as possible. So in late November she bought the biggest turkey she could find, cooked a passable pumpkin pie and made a huge spread of yams, winter squash, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, butternut rolls and dumplings that inspired me to refer to it as Carbsgiving as I groaned, clutching my bloated stomach for the rest of the weekend.

Mom and I had made the short, shivering walk from The Warrington to the cramped apartment in the public housing block where Cruz lived with his mother and sisters, carrying what turned out to be a totally unneeded box of pastries from the French bakery in Chelsea Market. We rang the doorbell. The chaotic noise of high-pitched Spanish and clattering dishware that we could hear thro
ugh the front door was abruptly replaced by frantic shushing. We plastered smiles on our faces and waited. The door was flung open by Cruz’s mother.

“Happy Thanksgiving! I’m Dora – come in, come in,” she shrieked, almost pulling us inside.

For the next six hours Mom and I were sucked into a tornado of food, drink, stories, laughter, hugs and more food. I felt like I was watching a crazy 3-D movie called My Big Fat Puerto-Rican Thanksgiving, except that it was me starring in the movie. Cruz interacted politely with Mom, but I could tell that inside he was laughing hysterically at our deer-in-the-headlights expressions.

Dora took
Mom aside for half an hour between courses so that she could explain how much she adored me and how wonderful and trustworthy Cruz was. His sisters cornered me and did the same. My phone buzzed. It was Cruz, texting me from the basement, where he’d wisely volunteered to take out the recycling.

“Having fun yet? :))))”

I managed to discretely type, “Best night of my life!” in response before returning to Luce and Terri, who were tag-teaming on embarrassing stories from Cruz’s early childhood.

Mom and I were exhausted by
midnight, which was when she finally decided that Dora wouldn’t be offended if we made a dignified exit. Cue another barrage of kisses, hugs and stupid amounts of doggie-bagged leftovers. Ay caramba! (I don’t know what that means but I know this is exactly when it should be used.)

Cruz saw us out. Mom
discreetly walked on ahead down the hallway and called the elevator so that Cruz and I could say a real goodbye.

He whispered in my ear: “That was
hardcore. We should do it again next weekend,” and I burst out laughing.

As we crossed
8th Avenue and The Warrington came into view, my thoughts drifted to Noon. I realized that part of the problem was that Noon’s absence was
only
physical. I could still feel him, inside my head and inside my heart. To outsiders, it must have looked like Cruz and I were in love. Maybe it even seemed like that to him. But there was always something holding me back from having deeper feelings for Cruz, and that something was Noon.

The other part of the problem was my insatiable curiosity. And one day it dragged Cruz into the mystery.

It was a Wednesday, we had chatted later than usual at the café, and Mom was already on her way home at the same time as me. Cruz and I always had a five-minute make-out session before we said goodbye. I told him I didn’t want Mom to run into us while we were kissing, and suggested we temporarily shift our parting to a block away from The Warrington.

“Why don’t you just go in by the entrance on 9th?” he suggested. “Won’t she have more chance of spotting us if we’re standing on a street corner?”

“I guess.”

“Plus, we’ll freeze our asses off if we don’t get some shelter from this wind.”

“Okay, you win!” I laughed, grabbing his coat sleeve and yanking him with me as I ran across the street. The light changed immediately. He laughed too as we dodged the honking cars and cabs.

We continued running all the way to the entrance. When we got there he took hold of my jacket lapels and pulled me close. I was cold, but
him doing this was hot. I closed my eyes as his lips met mine. My heart was pounding from a combination of the freezing air, the dash through the traffic, and the passion of Cruz’s embrace.

When I came up for air and opened my eyes, something bugged me.

“Hey – you alright?” queried Cruz, sensing that I’d disconnected. He turned around to see what I’d noticed over his shoulder. “Whatcha looking at?”

“Nothing,” I frowned. “I mean, there used to be something, but it’s gone.
”

He followed my gaze. “I don’t get it.”

I took a step toward the entrance, looking up and down the carved stone pillars. The brass Temple of Truth plaque was missing. A ghostly trace of it was left where it had shielded the stone from traffic pollution. I touched the smooth, hard surface.