After Image, page 5
“Is Elena here?” Giles asked, his fingers toying with the earpieces of his sunglasses, which he’d slipped off as he walked inside.
He was nervous, I realized with surprise. I’d never seen him nervous before. When my mother first introduced us, he’d talked to me for a long time about books. And when he discovered I didn’t have any strong opinions on the novels I was reading for school, he’d told me that was something I needed to develop. You don’t want to be a passive consumer of things, he’d said. You’ve got to have a point of view.
But now he seemed fidgety, like he couldn’t quite find the right way to guide the situation forward. It was Allie, I realized, who was setting him on edge. He kept his eyes on her as she moved around the living room, examining the bookshelves, running her fingers across the seashells on the windowsill.
“She’s upstairs,” I said, wondering why Mom hadn’t come down yet. “I’ll go get her.”
Allie didn’t look over when I spoke. And I realized then—it wasn’t her clothes or her jewelry or even her beautiful features that made her so striking. No, it was something about the way she held herself. Like she knew you were staring at her, and she did not give a shit.
From upstairs, Mom called, “I’m coming! Sorry, sorry—I was on the phone.” And then she was hurrying down the stairs, her long legs threatening to trip her up. She’d changed out of her teaching clothes and was wearing jeans and a men’s button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
“Giles!” Her face lit up when she saw him. “You’re early.” She was about to embrace him when she saw Allie and pulled up short. “Oh!”
Allie stood by the maidenhair fern, one frond pinched between her fingers.
“Well, you must be Allie,” Mom said, smiling in that way that transformed her face from plain to beautiful.
But Allie’s face remained stony. “In the flesh,” she said.
I thought of the photos I’d seen of Allie in magazines. Pictures of her partying at nightclubs she should have been too young to get into, sweat glittering on her skin.
“Sorry to surprise you like this,” Giles murmured to Mom. “At the last minute, Allie decided she wanted to come along.” Something in his tone made me think this was not an idea he’d been pleased with. But he smiled expansively at me, then put one hand on the small of Mom’s back. “Allie moved in with me last month,” he explained. “We’re just getting settled in.”
My mother turned to Allie, her face flushed with pleasure. “I’m so glad to finally meet you.”
“Let me guess,” Allie said, one corner of her mouth twisting. “You’ve ‘heard so much’ about me.”
Mom glanced at Giles and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Actually, not enough,” she said. “I’d love to know more.” She reached out a hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, Allie reached out hers and let Mom grasp it. “We’ll have to get to know each other better.”
For the first time, Allie hesitated, scanning Mom’s face with a puzzled expression. “Sure,” she said. She took in Mom’s makeup-free face, her bare feet, then turned to Giles. “How did you two meet?”
He pulled Mom closer to him, curving an arm around her waist. “She came to my reading at Skylight Books. Elena’s a real lover of literature.”
“Well, what’s she doing reading your books, then?”
Giles laughed, a little too loudly. “Ah, you see,” he said to Mom, “Allie likes to give me a hard time.”
“Oh, your books sell, all right,” Allie said casually, walking along our bookshelf and running her fingers along the spines of the books.
Giles laughed again. “And thank God they do. How else could I afford to keep you in the style to which you’re accustomed?”
She turned and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, you do that? All this time, I thought it was Isabel.”
I shifted uncomfortably. They were tossing off the words lightly, as if this was familiar banter. But there was a distinct electric current between them that left the room feeling charged. And I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t call her mother “Mom,” like any other teenager would, but “Isabel,” as if the two of them were the same age.
Mom glanced at Giles. “Well, I think he’s an amazing writer.”
Allie’s eyes met mine, and her mouth twitched. Then she smiled at Mom. “Hey, why don’t we leave you two to yourselves for a bit? Natasha and I can hang out upstairs while you guys . . . catch up.”
Mom looked startled. “Oh . . .” She was used to directing teenagers, not being directed by them. She reached out and squeezed my arm. “Well, Natasha? What do you think?”
What could I say? For God’s sake, please don’t leave me alone with her. “Oh. Uh, sure,” I said, trying to sound easygoing.
But as I led Allie upstairs to my bedroom, I felt a flicker of panic. Maybe there was still time to change course, to bring her somewhere else—anywhere but my bedroom, which still had glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the ceiling, remnants of my eleven-year-old-self.
I paused on the landing.
“Everything okay?” Allie asked.
“Yeah.”
Laughter floated up from the living room. My mom sounded different when she was around Giles. Younger. It hadn’t occurred to me, before Giles entered our lives, that Mom was still a young woman. That, despite the stress of single-motherhood, she was someone men took notice of.
Another peal of laughter echoed from downstairs.
I frowned. I was still adjusting to this new version of my mother. Was this what she’d been like, before my dad died? Had she blushed when she answered the phone? Had she tried on five different outfits before leaving for a date?
“Well, Giles is smitten,” Allie said as we started walking up the stairs again. “And not in his usual way either.”
Usual way? Before I could ask what she meant by that, we’d reached my bedroom and she’d walked in ahead of me. Just like she’d done downstairs, she circled the room, examining my belongings with interest, like they were an exhibit in a museum. Nothing escaped her notice—not the patchwork quilt on the bed, not the line of battered books on the bookshelf. When she plucked a novel off the shelf, I felt myself redden. Out of all my books, why had she chosen that one? It was a kid’s book, the first in the Mia’s Shoes series, which I’d been obsessed with when I was nine.
“Oh my God, you read these?” She plopped down on my bed, flipping through the pages of the book. “I used to be crazy about them. Still am, really.” She smiled at me, a real smile this time. The effect on her face was startling. She looked like an entirely different person.
“Seriously?” I said.
She pulled her legs up beneath her to sit cross-legged. “Oh, fuck yeah. At one point, I even tried to convince Isabel to legally change my name to Mia. But no dice.”
I laughed.
“I still might,” she said contemplatively, turning the book over in her hands. “Change my name. Mia is better than Alastriana, anyway.” She rolled her eyes. “Seriously, what were my parents thinking?”
Then she let the book fall out of her hands and onto the bedspread. She pushed herself off the bed and walked over to peer more closely at the calendar on the wall over my desk. I’d marked the days when I had upcoming tests with a neon highlighter.
“Giles said you were smart,” she said quietly.
I winced. “I don’t know about that.” I wasn’t like those kids at school who were naturally brilliant. I just worked really hard. All my life, I’d known I’d need a scholarship for college; my mom had drummed that fact into me early on. And the only reason I could attend a school like Palos Verdes Prep was because my mom worked there, and I had a faculty scholarship. Most of the other students drove brand-new BMWs and went skiing in Aspen over winter break.
I expected Allie to make fun of my calendar, but her attention had already jumped elsewhere, to a smattering of black-and-white photos I’d taped to the wall, portraits I’d done for last semester’s photography class. “What’s this?”
God, I never would’ve taken her up here if I’d realized she was going to examine every single thing I owned.
“Just some photos,” I muttered. She stared at one I’d taken while standing on the soccer fields on a misty morning, aiming my camera at the janitor sitting in his golf cart. The photography teacher had let me borrow the camera with the Canon zoom lens, and the shot had captured every crease in the janitor’s lined face.
She turned to look at me. “You took these?”
“Yeah,” I said, folding my arms across my stomach.
She examined the pictures for a long moment, and then made a face, like she was mentally upgrading her opinion of me. “They’re good.” Then she turned and sat down on my bed again, bouncing up and down a little as if testing out the mattress. “So, you go to Palos Verdes Prep?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded. “Cool.”
So, we were going to talk. A normal conversation. I sat down in the swivel chair by my desk, searching desperately for some common ground. “Where do you go?”
“Where do I go?” She looked at me as if I’d posed a trick question. This was the Allie I’d seen on the doorstep earlier, the one whose face was unreadable, dangerous.
Had I said something wrong? “To school, I mean.”
“Oh.” She studied me. “I thought Giles would’ve told you.”
I shrugged. “He doesn’t really talk to me that much.”
Allie snorted. “Of course he doesn’t.” Then she leaned back, propping herself up on her elbows. “I’m not in school. Well, I was. But I got expelled. I just got out of rehab.”
“Oh.” I flushed. I didn’t know anyone who’d been to rehab. It was probably bad taste to ask about it, what it was like. Even if I did want to know.
“But I got kicked out of there too.”
“Oh.” God, I sounded like a robot. “I didn’t know you could get kicked out of rehab.”
She grinned. “Oh, it’s tough. But it’s possible. If you put in the effort.” Appearing bored by the conversation, she got up off the bed and went over to the window that looked down into the courtyard, where a stone fountain was surrounded by wilting geraniums. “I like your place.”
I laughed.
“No, seriously. I do.” She turned and brushed her hand over the curtains, which my mom had sewn herself. “What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. It’s just—you must live in a place that’s, like, a million times nicer.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Giles’s place? Sure. But he throws a fit if I even leave a towel on the floor. Your house is more . . . real.” She examined the stitching on the curtains. “What’s your dad like?”
I braced myself. When I told people my father was dead, their reactions veered between embarrassment and pity. Both of which were hard to respond to, because I didn’t remember my father, and I couldn’t pretend to feel the sadness I saw in other people’s faces.
“He died,” I said.
“How long ago?” She picked at a loose thread on the curtain, as casually as if we were discussing the weather.
“I was two.”
“No shit.”
Now she would ask me how he’d died. A car crash, I’d say.
Allie released the curtains, letting them swing back against the wall. “Your mom’s really pretty, you know.”
I let out a surprised sound. “My mom?” This was coming from the daughter of Isabel Andersen. The face of Dior perfume. “You’re kidding.”
“No. She really is. But not in, like, an artificial way.” She scuffed the heels of her boots against the carpet. “She really doesn’t know anything about me, does she?”
“Like what?”
“Like, the stuff in the tabloids.”
I shook my head. “My mom doesn’t really follow any of that stuff.” She didn’t even flip through the magazines at the grocery checkout, like I did. She was too busy watching the checkout girl scan the items, mentally calculating the bill.
“And you?”
“Not really,” I said. But of course, I did. I’d read all about Isabel. And Allie. But with the stress of my upcoming exams, I must’ve missed the story about Allie’s stay in rehab. “I mean, I read some stuff,” I amended. For some reason, I felt she’d be able to sniff out if I was lying. “I’ve seen you in some pictures before.”
“Occupational hazard, I guess,” she said lightly. “When your mom’s Isabel Andersen.” Then she walked over to the dresser and stared at herself in the mirror, a line appearing between her eyebrows. What she found to be dissatisfied with, I couldn’t imagine. She toyed with her hair, pulling it up into a mass on the top of her head.
“How come you don’t live with her?” I asked—then instantly regretted it. That was a nosy question.
But Allie only laughed. “You mean, how did Giles get saddled with me? He’s as surprised as anyone, believe me.” She turned her head, examining her profile in the mirror. “Seabrook—the rehab place—tried to send me home to Isabel. But she said I couldn’t stay with her anymore. So, Giles it was.”
“Why couldn’t you stay at Seabrook?” I didn’t usually ask so many questions, but Allie didn’t seem to mind, and there was so much I wanted to know.
She made a funny face. “Behavioral issues. I didn’t honor the contract.” She laughed. “They make you sign this stupid contract when you get there. To say you’ll sincerely focus on your recovery, blah blah blah. Anyway, I did all that. Went to therapy, did all the group sessions, as dumb as they were. The problem was, they assigned me to this whole equine therapy thing. You know, bonding with horses. It’s supposed to make you grow as a person, or some shit like that. Anyway, the guy who led that program was a total fox. Late twenties. Young Russell Crowe vibes. And, well . . .” She shrugged, as if I could guess what happened next.
“Well, what?”
She rolled her eyes at having to spell it out. “Well, we fucked.” The word hung in the air, almost visible.
“Not really, though . . . ,” I said slowly. She was joking, trying to see if she could shock me.
She laughed. “You should’ve seen the shitstorm that kicked up in group therapy. Well, they’d asked me to be forthcoming, and I was.” She brushed her hair out with her fingers, then drew it forward over her shoulder. “Afterward, they told me I couldn’t stay at their precious rehab anymore.” She pouted at her reflection in the mirror. “Boo-hoo.”
From across the room, I studied her. “Which is what you wanted all along,” I said slowly. She’d planned it that way. Knowing she’d be kicked out.
She smiled, surprised and pleased. “Aw. You get me.”
CHAPTER 10
In the morning, I drag myself out of bed and begin my morning routine. Shower. Apply makeup. Blow-dry hair. Every action seems to require twice as much effort as usual, but I plow through, not skipping any steps.
It’s just a regular Monday, I tell myself. Nothing special about it.
But my body is already bracing for the hit. One week until the anniversary of Allie’s disappearance. Each year, from New Year’s onward, I feel the date bearing down on me like an oncoming train.
This year, though, I’m not going to let it affect me. This year, I won’t fall apart. I’ll eat, I’ll sleep, I’ll remember there’s a world beyond the confines of my apartment.
I pull my hair into a twist at the back of my head. I have a part-time job as a receptionist at a law office, and though it doesn’t pay much, it allows me to scrape up some spending money. I’ve taken out loans for law school, and Matthew is helping with what the loans don’t cover, but I still feel flat broke most of the time.
In my bedroom, I pull on a gray skirt and a white blouse, then insert simple silver studs in my ears.
Allie sighs. Is that really what you’re wearing? I can almost see her behind me, lying across my bed, her legs kicked up in the air.
It’s a job, I say. This is what people wear to jobs.
Oh, please. That’s not a job. You made more when you were babysitting those horrible little kids that used to live next door to us.
I pick up my bag and sling it across my shoulder. I’m already breaking one of my New Year’s resolutions: stop having mental conversations with Allie.
So you’re just going to work today, Allie says. Like nothing happened. I mean, it’s not like two days ago you were hoping they’d found my body.
She’s beginning to get on my nerves. What do you want me to do, Allie? I say. Put my whole life on pause?
I don’t know. Maybe have a feeling every once in a while. Maybe act like you care.
I shake my head, as if that will get her voice to stop. I need to stop responding to her. I need to remember that she’s gone. No amount of talking will bring her back. I draw in a deep breath and try to focus on the present moment.
In the living room, I pull on my coat and head out the front door, locking the door behind me. I’m glad to have work today, to have something to occupy my time. My classes don’t start up again until the twenty-second, and this in-between time stretches long and formless. Without the structures of assignments and test dates, I feel it more: the yawning space in my life where Allie used to be.
While I walk to the Metro station, I pull my coat tighter around me. The promised cold front has moved in, and it’s a shock to everyone’s system, feeling the bite of winter in Southern California.
As I walk down Chandler Boulevard, I pass by two women chatting animatedly with each other and feel a pang. I don’t have friends like that anymore. Not that I was ever a social butterfly. But I’d had Allie. And when I was with her, there were always other people around, people who felt, by extension, like my friends. After Allie’s disappearance, though, those connections dissolved. Now, in my law school classes, I sit apart from the other students, listening to them chatter about concerts, parties, dating.
You don’t even try to talk to them, Allie says.
It’s true. Why bother? I’m not like them, not anymore. What could they possibly understand about my life?
When I step into the subway station, I pick up my pace so I won’t miss my train. A man jostles me as he rushes up the stairs past me, and I have to grab on to the handrail to steady myself. I hate the crowds here in the mornings; they make me feel claustrophobic. After hurrying to the train, I find a spot near the window at the back of the car and settle into a seat. This is when I always put my headphones in, to seal myself off from the other passengers. But as I dig through my coat pockets, searching for the familiar tangle of headphone cords, my fingers brush up against something else—an object an inch or so across, round and irregular.
