The Stories We Tell (15 page)

“Eve.” Willa's voice startles me. Sunlight surrounds her and forms a halo around her hair and body, a ring of fire as she steps into the studio. I see her as she'd been in those days we hid under the bed during our summer of heresy, a summer that was now being turned into a card line, into something good: one thing again made from another.

“Good morning,” I say. “How're you feeling?”

She bites her bottom lip and steps closer, speaking in almost a whisper. “I'm scared.”

I set down the pile of thick paper in my hand and wrap my arms around her, hugging her tightly. “It takes time.”

She gives me a look. “Dingle.”

“Sorry.”

She tries to smile. The sliding doors open again, and Francie and Max enter. They see Willa, and loud greetings erupt; hugs are given all around. Max touches Willa's swollen eye and Francie cries a little bit before turning on the music. Johnny Cash sings “Folsom Prison Blues,” proving that Max last used the iPod.

Francie tosses a pad of paper on the table. “Welcome back to work, Willa. Today we work on number seven.”

“Yes,” I say, “but we also have that appointment with the accountant this morning and then I have to finish this wedding run. So let's spend the afternoon with number seven. And I have to pick up Cooper's car.”

“Cooper can't pick up his own car?” Francie asks.

I don't need to answer Francie, because the resounding bell that signals a guest outside rings through the studio and Max opens the door for our client.

Framed in the doorway, she appears small. She carries a large satchel, hugging it to her chest like a kid running away from home. She strikes me as nervous and afraid.

“Come in.” Max waves her in.

“Thanks,” she says, and stops for a moment to listen, and then looks at me. “I love Johnny Cash.”

“Good,” Max says. “So do we.”

“I'm Mary Jo,” she adds.

Francie walks toward her. “Nice to meet you. We have some ideas and concept boards to go over with you.” She points to the project table.

“Are you Eve?” she asks Francie.

“No.” I step forward and hold out my hand for her to shake. “I am.”

She stares at me for the longest time—or what seems the longest time, although it might have been only a few seconds. Finally, she holds out her own hand, clutching her satchel, so that her elbow is bent up. “Nice to meet you,” she says.

Behind me, there's a small sound like a cat's weak meow or the squeak of the printer before we oil her cog. But it's Willa. She's stepped underneath the overhead hanging work light, so she looks like she's under a stage spotlight. Her bruise is greenish blue against white skin. Her lips are bloodless and thin, pulled across her face in a line. As pretty as Willa is, she looks anything but at this moment.

Mary Jo drops her satchel and it lands with a loud clunk it as it slams onto the floor. “Oh,” she says.

Francie calls from the project table. “Over here.”

Willa, Mary Jo, and I stare at the satchel on the floor. Finally, I speak. “Sounds like something broke.”

Mary Jo grabs her bag, again clutching it to her chest. And she steps backward, so I see her clearly. She is small, and not only because she is thin but because her bones seem made in miniature. Her eyes are round, two stormy worlds floating in her pale face. I've never seen eyes so blue. Does she wear blue contacts? I wonder. Her hair is not quite blond and not quite brown, and it's pulled back in a loose knot that rests on her neck and falls a bit onto her right shoulder.
Cute
would be the right word for her if she didn't look so pathetically nervous.

“It's okay,” she says. “Nothing broke.” Her voice is lovely, with the sugary southern accent I've tried in vain to master.

We all move to the project table and Max brings the concept board, where our ideas and Francie's sketches are displayed in overlapping squares and rectangles. Mary Jo settles into a chair and squints at the board, staring. “Tell me about this.”

Max launches into his normal introductory speech. “We listen to your story about how and why you started your company and then we dig into the symbolism we hear. This is our first concept, and then we move onto concept two after we hear your thoughts.”

Francie walks to the board, touching the top right corner. “This is the color palette we chose, since you said that “the numbers tell the real story.” We're all about words and image here, so your take on numbers really inspired us. We started with green, but of course that was way too obvious, so we moved on from there and eventually ended up with these shades of blue and gold. Blue because it's expansive and positive. And gold because,” and at this Francie laughs, “it's gold!”

Mary Jo's face takes on a new expression; the childish nervousness is disappearing and turning into something more mature. “This is great. Go on.”

“Well,” Francie says, “you talked about your connection with nature and with Savannah, so we've incorporate sea grass and, here, a wave.” She points at her sketch.

Max stands on the other side of the board and continues to talk about their vision for her logo.

Then Mary Jo holds up her hand and looks directly at me. “And what do you do?”

“Excuse me?” I lean my elbows on the table.

“I mean, do you help with the logos or just … what is it that you do? Just curious,” she says.

Max takes a few steps, until he is standing behind me. “Eve owns and started this studio. She is brilliant with fonts, printing, and layout.
We
”—he points to Francie and then himself—“are the graphic designers and artists. But nothing is complete without Eve. Nothing.”

“I was just asking.” Mary Jo licks her lips and her eyes move rapidly from one face to the next. “So what font do you think we should use?” she asks me directly.

“I usually wait until I see a more concrete design.” I take a deep breath. “Fonts are a language all their own. I can't choose one until I know what we need to say.”

“Does that part really matter all that much?” Mary Jo asks.

Max walks away and returns with two poster boards—one for a rock concert and another for a sweet sixteen. “This is why font is important. Imagine if we switched them.”

Mary Jo shrugs. “I get it. Whatever. But it's the image that's the most important to me.”

Max, Francie, and I glance at one another and smile—another kind of private language—and we continue explaining our process.

“Well, this has been interesting and I can't wait to see the next version. I'll email you my thoughts.” Mary Jo gathers her things and stands. “Where did Willa go?”

I search my mind, nudge words and sentences around, trying to remember when we'd introduced Mary Jo to Willa, but it's Max who says it. “Do you know her?”

“No. She was just standing here when I came and now she's gone. I thought maybe she worked here.”

“How do you know her name?” Francie asks.

Mary Jo squints, as if Francie were made of sunlight. “Because,” Mary Jo says slowly, “you said it.”

Willa approaches us now and gazes at Mary Jo. They stare at each other and then Mary Jo turns quickly on her kitten heels and walks out, speaking over her shoulder. “See you in a couple weeks.”

When the door closes and then tires crunch on the gravel outside, Francie says, “What a bitch.”

“I know her,” Willa says quietly. “But I don't know how.”

“I think she knew you, too,” I say.

Willa shakes her head. It's as if she's trying to loosen memories, to shake them to consciousness. Quick tears come to her eyes. “This is terrible. It's like looking into the dark, like finding your way through a room without lights or windows. There's everything there, but I can't see anything at all. I'm bumping into furniture and walls.”

“It'll get better, right?” Francie says. “We'll help you. What do they say helps?” She is desperate for an answer and trips over her need to help Willa.

“Reorienting over and over,” I say. “But the problem is that we don't know what only you can know.…” I pause. “One of the things I learned is that our brain, your brain,” I say to Willa, “holds memories with a little tag of place and time. I mean, I know it's all mixed up now, but somewhere the image is tied to place.”

Willa sits on a chair next to Francie. “Nothing is tied to anything. I dig around inside my stomach…” She pauses, seeming to know she's used the wrong word, the wrong body part, but still searching. “My head,” she finally says. “I dig around in my head and try to find one scrap of something from that night. And what do I find? Nada. I know Cooper's story, but I can't remember it. What scares me the most is that someone can tell me exactly what happened and I have to believe it because I don't know anything at all.” She talks so quickly, manically, with her voice rising at the end in a crescendo of frustration.

No one speaks; not one of us knows how to combat or fix this blackout in her memory.

Willa claps her hands together once, a signal, a resounding end. “Here. I know how to explain it. It's like this,” she says. “When we were kids, Eve, we heard the creation story, right? Adam and Eve. The garden. The snake.”

I nod.

“And part of us knew it couldn't be all the way true, right? It was true that God made the world and a man and then a woman, but the other stuff seemed as real as Narnia, right? Or the myths you loved in high school about Zeus and Hades and that goddess you loved—what was her name?”

“Persephone.”

Willa continues. “Then when we were in high school we took that field trip to Atlanta to the museum. Fieldstone…” Her voice fades.

“Fernbank,” I say, filling in her gaps, writing over the blank spots as if our conversations are fill-in-the-blank tests.

“Yes.” She shakes her head again. “Anyway … we learned about other theories and the big bang and the dreaded word
evolution
and we discovered that there were other stories about the same event.” She is quiet for a while, shuffling the blank memory cards as if we are about to play poker. “That's how this is with the accident. I know I've been told a story I'm supposed to believe. Mostly, I do, I think. But there's another story out there, and I don't think I'm going to find it at Fernbank this time.”

We laugh, but it's a weak sound, a sad resonance.

Humiliation, a filling and nauseous feeling, overcomes me. We aren't talking about some version of that night told by a stranger. This was my husband's rendition of the accident, which might or might not be true: a creation story of his own mythology?

“How can we help?” Max asks.

“You can't.…” Willa stands, waves her hand, and smiles. “Go back to work.”

We are silent, all of us.

“I do need to finish this print run,” I say, and then we break free. Tears sting the back of my throat like bees released from a hive under my ribs.

I lift the printer's top, checking the magenta ink level, burying again and again the rising sadness that I just can't fix. I focus on work, on my search for the right shade of green, for the poster for O'Leary's pub. I flip through the Pantone color chart, which is a book of color recipes—an indispensable tool in the printing universe. Our chart is ink-stained and well loved, worn at the edges. Max startles me when he touches my elbow. “Hey, you okay?”

“Looking for that perfect Irish green.” I hold up the Pantone chart and then look at him, his eyes, at the circle of blue and then the brown. I close my eyes. “What color are my eyes?” I ask.

He laughs; I feel it as a low rumble under my ribs. “Mostly brown, but lately they've been greener and not so brown anymore.”

My lids pop open. “You noticed.”

“About a year ago.”

“It's weird, right? Why would my eyes change color?”

“I was going to ask you, but…”

“But what?”

He looks away. “Eve, I don't know. It seemed personal. And we stay away from those kinds of conversations.…”

“We do?”

His gaze wanders back to me, slowly, languid and swimming. “Of course we do.”

“Oh, I didn't realize.…”

“Here.” He takes the Pantone chart from me. “Let's do this later. Francie really wants you to see her new sketch.”

“Wait,” I say, a fluttering feeling moving under my skin. “Why do we do that?”

“Do what?” He touches the Pantone chart. “Use this?”

“No, of course I know why we use that.” I smile. “Why do we stay away from those kinds of conversations? I'd have liked to know that you noticed my eyes, just like I know that you have a blue ring around your brown eyes. Did we somehow agree never to talk about these kinds of things and I don't remember agreeing?”

“Eve.” He takes a deep breath. “You've always kept your private thoughts private. You keep your life outside this studio and inside this studio very separate.”

My eyes well with tears, but not enough to spill out.

“I'm an ass.” He picks up a clean white cloth and hands it to me like an old-fashioned handkerchief. “I wasn't saying it was good or bad. You asked.”

“I know.” I hold up my hand. “I don't want it that way, though. I didn't realize I was doing that. I want to know how you and Francie feel about things outside these walls. I want to know what you do and think and notice. I do.”

He stares at me for a bit, pushes back a strand of hair from his forehead, but doesn't speak.

“Tell me something,” I say. “Something that has nothing to do with this life inside these walls. Tell me something, anything about you.”

He smiles. “Okay.”

I wait and he falters, reaching for something.

“My brother is visiting this week. Yesterday, we kayaked from Savannah to Daufuskie Island and spent the afternoon drinking warm beer on Bloody Point Beach.”