Loud Awake and Lost, page 11
“That’s the Ember I know.” He stopped, rubbed the pad of his thumb across my chin. “But there’s no answer in that accident. There’s nothing there, actually. You’ll only make yourself unhappy if you keep looking back. So why don’t you start to build up new memorable moments? Like today. Right? Today was amazing.” Then he brushed my bangs away to touch the scar. And then, to my surprise, he kissed it.
I flinched. “Don’t.”
“It’s a badge of courage. It’s who you are now.”
“Not yet I’m not.” I ducked my head and turned away.
Horribly, somehow I could feel right in that odd, painful moment the wrench that Kai hadn’t called, and that he wasn’t going to. It was very likely he had a girlfriend. Or maybe he just plain wasn’t interested enough in me. Beyond the spontaneous, electric combustion that seemed to happen during these chance meet-ups, there was no place for me in that guy’s life.
At the next corner, I reached into my jeans pocket to toss the matchbook into one of the park’s giant steel trash baskets. How silly to be so sentimental. Kai hadn’t given this to me as some kind of romantic keepsake. I didn’t need any reminder of a night that held no logic or meaning.
Holden was right. Let go. Some things were better off forgotten. Be the moment. Live in beauty. Seize today. Except that wasn’t exactly how it worked. Life wasn’t as easy as messages on coffee mugs sold in hospital gift shops, and I should know—I had a shelf of them.
At the last minute, with the basket in clear sight, the matchbook stayed in my hand.
15
It’s Your Pandora Moment
“Hey, Mom, where are my accident clothes?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“You know what. From February, from the bridge. The hospital people have to give you those things.”
“Oh, Ember.”
Mom looked so crestfallen that I returned my attention to the pot. Not exactly a happier view. The polenta looked like sludge, dense enough to bind bricks. Mom and Dad were both waiting at the kitchen table, set for three. But now, with this new topic, it was as if I’d lit a flare. We’d been discussing Dad’s golf handicap, right before. Which had been a breezier topic.
But I pressed on; I had to. “I want my biker boots back. People keep telling me about them. How I wore them every day. But I can’t find them. They’re not in my closet, or in the coat closet, or the winter clothes closet. I must have been wearing something on my feet that night, right? So I’m guessing it was those boots.”
“Ember, please. Lower your voice.” Mom took a sip of her wine. I pressed my lips together, then ladled out my sautéed button mushrooms and served the dish to the table. At least the mushrooms would sneakily disguise my polenta issues. “And you’ll just have to give me some time to think about where I put those things.”
“The boots have got to be here. I know you, Mom.” I went to the drawer for the serving spoons. “You’re two parts neatnik and one part hoarder.”
Dad smiled. “The girl’s got your number, Nat.”
“I didn’t want to start rummaging around in the basement and messing stuff up,” I continued, “but I bet they’re in one of the bins, somewhere between the Christmas tree lights bin and the summer patio cushions bin, and probably with an ‘Ember—car accident’ label.”
Dad let out a whoop of laughter, but Mom looked perplexed. “It’s hard to say exactly where I put—”
“Come on, Natalie. You absolutely know you stored them down in the basement.” Dad swept a hand through the air as if swatting a fly. “If you want those things back, Embie, they’re yours. I think it’s actually a plastic bag on that back shelf near the ski poles. And I’ll bring it up after dinner.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Though I sensed Dad’s forced casualness, and Mom’s silent discontent. But how could I not be curious? What boots had the power to bug Tom? What kind of jacket would Lissa Mandrup covet?
After Holden had dropped me off this afternoon, I’d gone through all of the upstairs closets with a fine-tooth comb. No boots, and definitely no style of jacket that Lissa ever would have wanted to buy off me.
I cut the polenta into slabs as thick as pound cake, as Mom refilled her glass. “Thank you, Ember.” Though she refrained from saying “This looks delicious”—assumedly because it didn’t—as she shifted forward to serve herself a precise, mathematical square. “Did you and Holden have a nice day?”
“We did.” I sat up, spine arched and ready to field the Holden questions.
“He’s become a real man,” said Dad. “He wears college well. Matter of fact, I’d like to see Holden coming around here again.”
“Will he be?” asked Mom.
“Sure. I mean, why not? We’re still good friends,” I answered.
“Good friends doesn’t count for much if he starts dating someone else,” said Mom. “And he’s a lovely young man. Holden Wilde would be the One That Got Away, I’m afraid.”
“And I bet he does pretty well with the ladies,” Dad added.
I nodded in absent agreement. So parenty. “He’s become a real man” and “the one that got away” and “does well with the ladies”—those were just the kind of dorky Mom-and-Dad-style lines that I might repeat to Holden later, so we could crack up. Holden and I shared a long-standing private joke that my parents’ approval had always worked just a tad bit against him. And it wasn’t completely untrue, either—though I never would have admitted it.
But even if I wasn’t going to confess it to my parents, it was impossible to ignore that something had rekindled with Holden. When he’d dropped me off earlier, lingering on the steps as the sun set, the sky cold and bright and pale as champagne, he’d invited me to Drew’s engagement party at his house this coming Thursday.
“Ooh, I don’t know.” I’d grimaced. “That could be all kinds of nonfun. I’m not tops on your mom’s list.”
“Please. It’s gonna be all of Drew’s Young Republican friends, and I’d really like you to be there, to even the odds,” he said.
“Well, when you sell it like that.” I laughed, then asked, “Is Cassandra busy?”
Holden paused before answering. He was seeing her, I could tell. Her name meant something private to him. “Look, I can’t spring my family on Cassandra just yet. Or vice versa.”
“So I’m the old hat, the ole pal?”
He stared at me evenly. “More like first choice.”
“How about…I’ll think about it?”
In response, he’d kissed me. A sweet kiss, on the lips. Not a dangerous, electric Kai kiss. But it gave me butterflies just the same.
And I couldn’t deny that the prospect of my taking Cassandra’s place as Holden’s date, made me feel a touch smug. I’d been an unofficial member of the Wilde household for my entire sophomore year, plus that summer into my junior fall, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to jump off the diving board into the anonymous pool of girls who didn’t matter anymore. Especially now that Holden and I had been enjoying this new closeness. Serendipity, and the walk in the park afterward, hadn’t been unromantic, and it had held all the memory of when we had been a couple. He and I were older now. We’d lived through things. Survived them.
Midway through dinner, the doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it.” Mom stood, and was back in a moment with Rachel.
“Yay! Perfect timing! Good job, me!” She whooped as she sprang into the kitchen and took a plate. “I must have a sixth sense. Because I just knew I wouldn’t have to eat leftover pork fried rice tonight.” Like me, Rachel was an only child, but Rachel’s parents were both corporate trial lawyers, with all the crazy hours and long nights and last-minute meetings and work-slog weekends. Which meant that Rachel was on a first-name basis with every takeout restaurant in her twenty-block delivery radius.
Watching Rachel, seeing her ease and comfort here as she dished up her plate, I wondered what last year had been for her. Without me. Without my home to rely on. It couldn’t have been especially great.
After dinner, we were excused while Mom and Dad handled cleanup. “It’s only fair to give the chef a break,” said Mom.
“Cool. You don’t have to offer twice. Hey, and Dad? Will you bring me—”
“I will. As soon as we’re finished here.”
“Thanks.”
“Bring you what?” asked Rachel as we grabbed ice cream sandwiches from the freezer and then hauled upstairs to my room.
“Just some of my old clothes,” I said. “I need to do a closet cleanout.”
“Cool. I’ll help.”
Rachel started to look through my clothes closet, which was stuffed with fluttery blouses and ruffled dresses. The other day, I’d sorted out everything into piles of “wear” and “never.” On my chair was the wear pile: black jeans, broken-in boyfriend jeans, black leggings, brown leggings, plus two thin gray sweaters and one navy sweater from the bottom of my drawer. Voilà: my new neutral-palette uniform. I’d also chosen two white and one black long-sleeved T-shirts that were really just the tops to thermal underwear packs Mom had bought for me to use as pajamas.
“Birdie got me hooked on these,” I said, remembering. “She was always layering undershirts and leg warmers, and when the dance studio got too hot, she’d unpeel herself like an onion.”
“If you’re ripping off her style, you should swing by her office and say hi,” said Rachel. “You know Jake’s little sister, Mimi, is taking dance this year? And she has a mad girl-crush on Birdie.”
“Everyone does.” It pained me. When it came to dance, there’d always been two things I’d wanted: Lissa’s talent and Birdie’s passion.
Rachel was still shifting hangers, examining dresses. “Remember how your mom used to come back from Loehmann’s with armloads of clothes for you?” she asked. “She must be bummed you’ve gone and drained all the color out of your working wardrobe—again. See, even if you drop over a bridge and lose your memory, you still end up making the same fashion choices.” She stepped back, hands on her hips, as she gave a final appraisal of the flirty girlishness that took up most of my closet. “Except I think this stuff is what needs to be on the chair, right? And the pieces you actually want to wear get the priority of the closet.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready to do that to Mom yet. And full disclosure, my dad’s about to bring up what I was wearing the night of the accident.”
“Ooh. Creepy.” Rachel dropped her last bite of ice cream sandwich into her mouth. “But I get it. Memory helpfulness and all. Hey, Holden texted me that you two hung out today.”
“Mmm.” I smiled.
“That sounds like a private mmm, so guess what? I won’t be nosy. But guess what else? I went to the movies with Jake this afternoon.”
“Ah. And?” I wriggled my eyebrows. “What’d you see?”
“Does it matter?” She smirked.
“So is this official?”
She shook her head in a vague non-gesture. “Too early. I will say that all tickets and concession-stand items were paid for by him.”
“Nice to hear that chivalry isn’t dead.”
“I’m mostly happy that I’m hanging out with a guy who’s not shorter than me. You don’t realize, Emb, all the advantages of your shrimpdom. When I was going out with Patrick Case, he lent me his jacket and the arms were a little short. For a girl, that is distinctly not a cool feeling.”
“Wait—when were you going out with Patrick Case?”
“You were at Addington. It was super casual, and it’s way over. Hey, and Jake’s asked me out for Friday, too,” Rachel added shyly, “so I was wondering if I could borrow those Indian gold and jade hoops of yours?”
“Of course. Hang on.”
Rachel and Patrick Case. I barely knew him, except that his untied construction boots always made him look a little bit homeless. It wasn’t important, but information about anything I missed while at Addington probably would always catch me off guard.
In my jewelry box, I’d placed the matchbook next to Kai’s little sketch of me. As I plucked the earrings from their notched holder, I wondered if maybe it would be better to toss out the Kai items. He hadn’t been in touch all day or night—clearly I wasn’t someone he’d fixated on the way I’d fixated on him. Out of sight, out of mind and all that. So maybe I wasn’t being fair to myself to hold on to these objects of defeat, keepsakes that were like my temp teeth—an impression hardened from a moment that had no permanent use in my life.
And thinking of Areacode was a little bit like thinking about Rachel and Patrick Case—a not-quite-reality. The night flowed back to me in a roar of noise, fake heads on spikes, toxic punch, fog and shadows, and me trance-dancing—with Kai and without him—light-headed and spaced-out.
I shut the jewelry box hard, to snap out the memory. “Here.” I handed Rachel the earrings.
“You’re the best.”
There was a soft knock on the door.
“Sweetie? Delivery.” Dad was holding a blue recycling bag, tied in a slip hitch—Dad’s knot of choice when he wanted things to stay sealed. “Here you go, with love from me and Mom.”
As he passed off the bag, his hug was hard, his cheek a quick press to the top of my head. He didn’t want to do this. My heart clutched. “Night, Dad.”
After the door shut, Rachel and I climbed up on my bed, facing each other, the bag plopped between us. “You know what? I’m not sure I want to open it.”
“Just do it,” said Rachel. “It’s your Pandora moment. And you need to know what’s in there.”
“Okay, you’re right. Here goes.” I worked out the knot, then I pulled up the items one by one. A thin, deep purple cardigan and a white T-shirt, patchily bloodstained rusted brown, and neatly sliced—probably by an EMT’s sterile scissors. The softened jeans were also seam-sliced, the right leg cut to ribbons. Just looking at the jeans, I could feel a bone-deep tingling in my legs, and could see those monstrous purple bruises stamped on my skin. God, I’d thought they’d never heal.
Unlike my body, there was no salvaging these clothes.
“I see the boots,” whispered Rachel.
I fished them both up with effort, as if out of a pond. Wide and blocky, the silver grommets were encrusted in dried river sludge. The boots themselves looked huge, too big to fill. But they were intact, and broken in, presumably to the shape of my feet. Rachel reached into the bottom of the bag and pulled out my black leather bomber jacket—whenever you’re selling—ripped and water-stained, like an old carcass.
We were silent. My fingertips followed the wavy traces of water and rusted blood, plainly visible against the sheepskin lining.
“Go ahead,” said Rachel. “Test them.” She nudged a boot closer to me. I set them both on the floor and slipped one foot, then the other, deep inside. They were heavier than anything I’d worn all year—including my hospital Crocs, my tennis sneakers, my loafers, and my rain boots.
As I walked around the room, my steps as careful as a biker Cinderella, Rachel folded the ripped clothing and tucked the items away into my bottom dresser drawer.
She would know that I’d need to hold on to them. They were my grim keepsakes.
Neither of us spoke as I slid into the jacket. Rubbed the sleeve back and forth against my cheek.
“You look cool,” Rachel commented. “Okay, so maybe I wasn’t loving it last year. But I’m revising that opinion. I think you grew into this look. Could be because you seem tougher, with the scars and all,” she joked.
“I think I bought the boots on Canal Street.” My words came as a surprise to me. I’d had to make a choice between these boots and a pair of vintage Doc Martens. I’d paid in cash. It had been freezing that day, the dead of winter. I’d marched straight out of the army-navy shop in them. Ready for anything and rushing toward everything.
The unexpected surge of remembrance was like a hug from a lost friend.
From my corkboard, the band members of Weregirl were observing me as if they’d been waiting for this moment ever since I got home.
“One step closer to the real me,” I said.
“Embie, no.” When I looked up, Rachel’s eyes were as steady as stars. “You’re so wrong about that. All parts of you, right this minute, are the real you, okay? With every new thing that you remember, don’t let that be something you forget.”
16
My Drowned Face
They had all gathered to watch the artist. A silvery afternoon in Carroll Park, chilled in silence. He had set up a picnic table. His concentration was utter, an invisible wall between himself and the crowd that had grown around him. Tubes of paints were spread out on the table. I remembered their names from my freshman art class—cadmium red, Chinese white, phthalo green.
I’d approached from a distance, lost in the audience while wanting to stay close. But he knew I was here. That was what mattered. I watched him squeeze paints, smearing color with a spatula-shaped instrument.
“The darklight on the silk screen will pick up the negative.” His voice. Exactly that voice. It prickled the hair at the nape of my neck.
“Let me look.” Had I spoken out loud?
And then I was aware of someone else. Someone watching us from the periphery.
The artist’s voice reverberated in my head. But that couldn’t happen—it was a distortion in my own brain. “Look. Look at you. You’re my best work.”
And now I saw T-shirts hanging like ghosts, caught in the bare branches. Some folded, others arranged to reveal images of me.
My own face, underwater. My opened eyes were sightless, my lips were a sealed slash of blood, my hair stood out from my face, unfurled like seaweed, snakes, Medusa.
When I opened my mouth to speak, all that I could taste was icy, dirty water—it filled my lungs, heavy as earth, pushing down on me, swallowing me—
