You Have Seven Messages (17 page)

I look out the window toward Oliver’s town house.

“He hardly plays the cello anymore.”

“What about last night?” she asks.

“We bailed ’cause I saw Rachel One kissing him. But what I mean is, he doesn’t practice. I wonder if I freaked him out by always listening to him.”

“I’m sure he loved it. He won’t last long with Barbie.”

“How did you know she’s a Barbie type?”

“You said she was blond.”

I’m starting to like her.

The doorbell rings and it’s a messenger service with a package for me. I sign for it, then open it and spread the contents on the kitchen table. It’s the press clipping from the zine. They printed the shot of Daria on the bench. It looks supercool.

Elise gasps.

“You’re such a star. Who needs Oliver? You’re getting your own show! When I was fifteen I was basically a freak. Never really talked to anyone, never mind starting a career …”

“How come?”

“I was just a little lost. I didn’t have a dad like yours, let’s put it that way. I had really strange parents.”

I think about that word,
parents
, and how I will never be able to refer to it in the plural. I have only one parent. The thought makes me feel guilty for even caring about Oliver and Rachel. That’s not a real problem. But it is. I can feel it inside me stirring like sour acid. Every once in a while, I suppress the urge to hit something.

I look at Elise and for a second, I see through the aging hippie to someone grounded and proud. “Maybe I can shoot you sometime.”

Her lip quivers a little. “Maybe in a field.”

Tile runs in and says, “Didn’t mean to barge in on your little heart-to-heart, but I think there’s a problem with the john.”

We look at each other and start laughing, and Elise goes with him to check it out.

As I walk Tile to school, he says, “She fixed the toilet like a pro.”

“Good,” I say.

My mother would not have fixed the toilet. She would stencil the wall, or fill the bath with rose petals, but you’d never catch her with a wrench. Besides, she always wore dresses.

Tile turns to me at the steps to his school.

“Are you going to move away when you get famous?”

“If I do I’ll pack you in my luggage.”

“Deal,” he says, “but it better be Louis Vuitton.”

I chuckle. “Scram, kid.”

I watch him take the steps three at a time and think of how fast he has grown. Maybe Mom being gone is really sinking in with him. He dealt with it so literally for a long time. She was gone. Everybody dies. She just died early. But now that he’s been around Elise, he’s opening up to it emotionally, and I think he’s a little scared.

I am too.

When I get to school the day before the show, I can feel that something has changed. More people look my way, smile at me, nod. The word about my show is spreading. A cute junior even holds the door for me. I’ve always felt celebrity-ish being the daughter of Jules Clover, but it feels so satisfying that the attention is for me, on my own accord. My photographs.

During lunch Rachel One comes up to the table where Janine and I are sitting with a couple of sophomore boys.

“Hey,” she says, like the bleached-blond traitor that she is.

“Hey, Two-Face,” I say. Janine giggles. Rachel acts like she doesn’t hear what I say and goes on. “Can I get an invite to your thingy?”

I straighten myself up and say, “Well, my
thingy
, as you
so gracefully call it, is an event for people who appreciate art, and I’m not sure you can appreciate anything except your own hair. So why don’t you trot on back to your sidekick and put on some lip gloss.” She walks away in a huff and I add, “Oh, and thanks for stealing my boyfriend.”

The sophomore boys look at me like I’m Wonder Woman. I feel like I could lasso out of the room and kick some serious ass.

After school Janine helps me pick out what to wear. We decide on the black dress that I got after the first message, even though I think Cole gave it to my mother. Since my father has still not returned, I don’t even care if it hurts his feelings. He’s got a lot of explaining to do. Besides, it’s the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen. Even Janine, Miss Jeans-and-a-Top, is very impressed.

“Did you invite the stoner kid from art class?” she asks.

“Yeah, why?”

“He could clean up well.”

I wave a hand. “This is not about boys, this is about showing my work. Then, after school gets out, I want to visit my uncle Richard in Italy. After all this drama, I need to make sense of it all, you know?”

“Totally.”

“And, this is going to sound weird, but I feel drawn there.”

“Gravity, baby—it’s a powerful thing.”

I manage to get the dress on again, and it’s still a perfect fit.

“Well,” she says as she spins me around, “I must say you’re not only going to be showing your work … you’re going to be working the work as well.”

I smile. I’m glad I know Janine. I cannot believe what a bad rap she got, when she has a bigger heart than half the people at school. It’s stereotyping. My uncle’s first boyfriend was a mechanic who only worked on big trucks. Not every gay guy wears frilly scarves and prances around. When I was younger I used to go to the park with my mother’s friend Joy, a black model. People used to assume she was my nanny because she was from Trinidad. Meanwhile she was on the covers of all the rich white people’s magazines. There is so much we can’t know by merely grazing the surface.

We have to reach farther in.

An hour after Janine leaves, I find myself staring over at Oliver’s steps through the kitchen window. I’m supposed to be so thrilled that my show is happening, but there’s an emptiness that can only be filled by Oliver’s soft smile and watery eyes. I miss him, and I don’t understand what happened. With Oliver, with my parents, with all this love business that seems to cause more harm than good.

A black car pulls up and I think it’s going to be him. Then I see a man in a tailored suit get out of the back, unmistakable flakes of gray in his black hair: my uncle Richard.

I run out to the stoop to make sure and there he is, standing in front of me. “How’s my big girl?” I crush him too hard when I hug him and he falls back a little. Ever since I was two, he has called me Big Girl. There was a
period from about eight to ten years old when I didn’t like it, but now it’s as charming as ever.

Uncle Richard is the one person I know who presses his pajamas. He also speaks three languages and can make a soufflé from scratch. He has a classically handsome face, with big dark eyes and a disarming smile. His pockets are always filled with mints, and he rarely cusses.

“What are you doing here?”

“I came in for a friend’s wedding in Massachusetts. It will most likely be a bore. It’s odd, I’m a romantic who hates weddings. But guess what? I have something for you.…”

“Really? Okay, come in, come in.”

We chat for a while in the kitchen as he makes coffee. He starts to rearrange the kitchen a little but I divert him upstairs to show him the tribute video Tile and I made. I watch my mother and strangely enough, feel momentarily okay that she’s gone. But then I realize that if she were here I would tell her about how Oliver won, then broke, my heart, and she’d probably say something hard to hear but at the same time reassuring. That’s the way she was.

At the end Richard dabs at his eyes with a handkerchief.

“Tile shot that?”

“Yes. Edgy, huh?”

“Absolutely. Get him a script, he needs to be making features.”

I want to tell Richard everything, but before I can he
hands me a box that says
Big Girl
in red marker on the top.

In the box are three things: a Polaroid camera, a burgundy scarf, and a small shell. “They were your mother’s,” he says, “things she had left behind at our Tuscany house. There’s more, but I thought I’d start with these.”

I hug him and his familiar clean mint smell makes me feel at home.

“Listen, I’m here for a few days and wanted to surprise you for your exhibition opening, but I can’t stay at the loft because they’re shooting a movie there and paying us a fortune to use it. So I’ll be bunking here if that’s okay. I spoke to your father.”

“Sure,” I say jokingly, “as long as you do some dishes or something.”

“How about windows?”

“That works.”

After he naps, Richard comes with me to the meeting with the gallery owner, Les, and Daria. My pictures are all hung in metallic frames. They look amazing. On the door, the sign is already up:

The gallery is perfect. Exposed brick on one side, super-white walls on the other. A view of the Williamsburg
Bridge through the fire escape. The only picture that is hung on the brick part is the self-portrait I picked from the collage in my father’s office.

Les has on all black except for the green rims of his vintage glasses. We sit in the back lounge and he serves the adults white wine in small glasses, and me a bottle of fancy water. I feel like this is the last situation I could’ve ever imagined myself in. I try to soak in the moment for all it’s worth. These important people discussing my art! JJ negotiates with a quick and sharp demeanor I didn’t see in his office. There he was calm and smooth; now he is an arrow, his eyes piercing Les. He ends up changing the percentage of sales more in my favor, and getting them to black out a clause about reprints. When everything is set and we shake hands, I walk around and look at the pictures once more.

They are all reflections of who I am. An outsider peering in on the Rachels. The mystery of Daria on the bench, a faceless woman. The arm of a kid trying to draw his own magic into the world. Ms. Gray, with those unflinching eyes of the truth. A boy standing at the window, draped in shadow. And lastly, a little girl clinging to the hem of a pale pink dress.

As we walk down Bedford, Richard takes a phone call. His calm, lilting tone is a dead giveaway he’s talking to his boyfriend, Julian. I flash back to the funeral, when his long fingers on the piano mesmerized me.

As Daria tells me about the people who are going to attend tomorrow, I start to drown her out. She says something about Orlando not coming, and I basically ignore her and get right to the point.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” she says, rooting around in her purse.

“Why are you doing all this for me?”

Richard tells us to hold on and walks into a deli. Daria stares at me, serious, and says, “What do you mean?”

“It’s not because of my father, or …”

“Babe, no offense, but I couldn’t care less about your
father. I just …” She lights a cigarette and blows it in the direction of the river, then turns back to me. “I lost my mother too, and I didn’t have any, you know, female guidance, and …”

Now I feel bad for even doubting her.

“… your pictures, well, they speak for themselves.”

I smile and hug her. She feels skinny enough to crack.

“Thanks.”

Richard comes out and says, “You girls want to join me at Peter Luger’s for an old-school steak? I made a reservation.”

At the mention of meat, Daria’s face turns into a frown. “I’ve got a drinks thing, but you two go, I’m sure you’ve got a lot of catching up to do.” She ruffles my hair and says, “See you tomorrow night!”

Richard grabs my hand as we walk and says, “I had no idea you were that talented. I’m inviting
everyone
I know in New York. Which is four people.”

I laugh. I know he knows more, but I’m sure the four he chooses will be characters. Those are the kinds of people Richard surrounds himself with.

The restaurant is very simple, but there’s an element of class. I feel underdressed next to Richard in his linen shirt. He orders a martini and I get a Coke. It’s early, and there are only a few tables occupied. We catch up about the usual stuff during our salad course, and then I decide to chip away at the veneer.

“Mom kept a diary for me. Well, she had started one.”

“Really? Her book was written in diary format as well.”

“Well, I hope it wasn’t like this one.”

“How do you mean?”

“It was weird, not like her. It had a very soft focus. I assume it had something to do with falling in love with Cole.” I mention his name casually, like he was my hairstylist or something. Richard tries to hide his amazement.

“Tell me something, what was it about Cole?”

He coughs a little but doesn’t respond. I know he knows about Cole, because my mother told Richard everything.

Our steak arrives, medium rare. It looks amazing, but suddenly I’ve lost my appetite.

“Okay, I’m just going to open the floodgates here. I found Mom’s phone. There were seven messages. Through listening to them and following where they took me, I learned a lot, but I lost the phone before I could really listen to the last message. How about we make a deal? I’ll tell you everything I know, and you tell me the rest. And I know you know the rest.”

“I’m going to need a refill,” Richard says, holding up his martini.

“And I also seem to recall you speaking with a raised voice to my father the morning after the funeral.…”

He finishes his drink and sort of smiles. “I’m not sure it’s my place. Shouldn’t you be having this conversation with your father?”

“Well, he’s not around right now, and I’m sick of being lied to.”

Richard neatly cuts a tiny piece of fat off his steak and moves it to the corner of his plate. “You know what? You deserve to know everything. And from the depth of your photography, and the way you’ve taken things upon yourself, I fear you’re ready.”

“I just want to know the whole truth.”

“Okay, tell me what you know.”

As I fill him in on everything, I slowly get my appetite back. He listens intently, looking at me with a newfound respect, even when I take breaks to eat my steak.