I waited for my mother to find me.
The sky grew dark. I heard the sounds of drawers opening and closing. The sounds of zippers. The sounds of packing. Then silence. I lay on my bed in the darkness, holding my empty locket in my hand. I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew it was dawn, and there was an envelope with my name on it on the floor beside my bed. My mother’s usually beautiful handwriting was cramped and shaky.
I closed my eyes, trying to find Rachel again in my dreams. Trying to hear her voice. But all I heard was the long, mournful cry of a loon echoing from across the lake. I held my breath, waiting for the reply that always came, the same mournful cry of its mate, but it never did. I lay there, listening to the single loon calling and calling.
Veronica takes me to church again on Sunday afternoon. Mostly it’s the same: Kneel. Pray. Stand. Repeat. And I wonder if it’s because they think God likes it that way. The sameness. But that can’t be true. God must love variety. Beetles that sparkle like emeralds. Giant flowers that smell like moldy cheese. The platypus?
Then there’s the wine and the bread, which I don’t take, but which I also thankfully don’t spill. My grandmother lights a candle before we leave, then another. And another. I stand at the back of the church, waiting. Are candles something else God needs? Or are they lit because we need something to do? Something to hold on to?
Veronica bows her head for a few moments. Then we start back to her apartment in silence. I wonder who the candles were for. One was for Rachel, for sure. But the other two? Herself, maybe? Me? I stare at the cracks in the sidewalk as we walk.
I step down off the curb, and hear the car before I see it. Tires squeal and a horn sounds, too loud and too close. Veronica’s hand is on my arm, yanking me back onto the sidewalk. The driver guns the car past us in a cloud of exhaust and profanity. I see my grandmother saying something to me, see her arms waving as she talks, but she sounds far away.
My skin feels clammy and my heart is racing. I sit on the edge of a planter, willing my breathing to slow. It’s the smell that undoes me. The smell of burning rubber coming off the skid mark in front of me—dark and burnt and familiar. I close my eyes. All I can see are the lights on the dashboard of Rachel’s car and then the dark road through the windshield. There’s the sound of tires squealing and that same sharp smell. Then pain, like fire running through me as I’m thrown forward.
Then screaming. Two voices.
Then just one.
“Mia!” Veronica’s voice pulls me free from the memory. Her hand is on my arm. “Are you okay?”
I look up at her and nod. I stand, still shaken, and take a deep breath, tasting the burnt rubber on my tongue.
“I’m okay,” I say. She looks at me for a long moment, the longest she’s ever looked at me. “I’m sure,” I say, now as undone by her concern as the quickly disappearing memory.
Veronica nods, her face pale. She holds my arm all the way to her building and into the elevator, and I wonder who is holding up whom. She only releases my arm so she can unlock her front door.
“Go sit down,” she says, leading me into the living room.
As she walks into the kitchen, I sink into a chair. I’m tired—way down in my bones tired. Veronica returns and hands me a glass of water. I take a sip.
“Better?” she asks. I nod and listen as she rants about the dangers of city drivers.
“They’re no worse than the logging trucks up north,” I say. My voice is still shaky.
“I suppose not,” she agrees.
I think about what I remembered. It’s the first time there’s been more than still shots, little collections of partly developed Polaroids.
Veronica asks me again if I’m okay. I again nod yes. She narrows her eyes slightly.
“Really,” I say. My stomach growls. “I’m a little hungry,” I admit.
Veronica is up instantly. “What can I get you?” she asks.
“Do you like pizza?” I ask.
Veronica opens her mouth to say something, and then quickly shuts it again. Her cheeks go pink. “I’ve never had pizza,” she finally says.
I can’t keep the surprise off my face. “Seriously?” I ask. She nods rather sheepishly. “We have to change that,” I say, surprised at how bold I’m being with her.
“Okay,” she says simply. “Let’s order a pizza.” She gets up and retrieves her phone. I tell her the name of the pizza place I went to.
“Do you want me to order?” I ask.
“Talk me through it,” she says. “If I’m going to have a teenager in the house, I’d better figure out how to order a pizza.”
When the food arrives, Veronica really gets into their Under Thirty Minutes or It’s Free claim, letting the delivery guy know that he was one minute away from buying us dinner. I set the table while she negotiates his tip. I’m pleased to note that even a guy with a tattoo of an octopus on his neck is intimidated by Veronica. He thanks her for what must be a pretty nice tip and tells her to have a nice night.
Veronica serves both of us slices of Veggie Heaven. She uses her knife and fork to cut off the end of her triangle. I start to do the same, but she waves my utensils away. “It’s perfectly okay to eat some foods with your hands,” she says.
I wait as she takes a bite. She chews carefully, swallows daintily, and then dabs. “It’s good,” she says.
“We should do this again,” I say.
“We should,” she says. This makes me smile. Look at us. Eating dinner together and smiling. After dinner, I tell Veronica I’ll clean up. She tells me she has a novel she wants to finish.
Dishes for two people take a lot less time than dishes for four. I glance at the clock. Not even seven. I pull out my phone and stare at it. One missed call, from Fig. I think about calling my father—it’s been a week since he tried to call me. But instead I return Fig’s call. She doesn’t answer her cell. I get her voice mail; just a leave a message and I’ll give you a holler, in a terrible faux Texas accent. I try Brunelli’s. I get Grace.
“Hi, Grace,” I say, my voice wavering from nerves. That woman terrifies me. “Is Fig there?” She doesn’t answer, instead just barely moves the receiver away from her mouth before yelling Fig’s name. I wince as her voice drills a hole into my brain. There’s a thunking noise and then nothing. I wonder if the call’s been dropped, but then I hear more thunking and Grace’s voice, then Fig’s.
“So how was church?” Fig asks.
“It was good,” I say. “We had pizza.”
“At church?”
“No, here. Veronica and I ordered pizza.”
“Weird,” she says.
Definitely a little weird. I hear Grace yelling again, then Fig’s voice is muffled, like she put her hand over the receiver.
“I’m sorry, Mia,” she says. “I have to go. It’s family dinner night.” I can almost hear her eyes rolling through the phone. “What are you doing?”
I look around at the closed door and the empty apartment. “Nothing,” I say.
“Well, I’m not going to invite you to dinner,” she says. “Because I like you. If I ever invite you, you know it’s because I’m mad at you.” There’s more yelling in the background. “Okay!” Fig yells. This time she doesn’t cover the mouthpiece, and I have to pull my phone away from my ear. “Sorry,” she says. “Listen. Call Cooper. No, wait. Don’t call him. Go see him.” She rattles off an address. I pull a Sharpie out of a drawer and write on the palm of my hand.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Just go there,” she says. I can hear Grace’s voice through the phone, staccato and loud, telling Fig if she doesn’t get off the phone, she’s going to—then the rest of it is muffled. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” Fig says.
She hangs up before I can say goodbye. I stand there and look at the address on my hand.
I walk over to the door into the living room, where Veronica is reading intently. Once again, I don’t have much of an explanation for where I’m going. “I’m going for a w
alk,” I say, because it’s the truth.
Veronica looks at me for a moment, and I can almost tell she’s pulling away from the story she’s reading just enough to talk to me. “Be back before dark,” she says.
“Before dark,” I repeat, but Veronica is already back in her book. I grab my bag and a jacket from the hall closet and head out.
Chapter Eleven
I check the address on my palm again and look up at the buildings lining the other side of the street. I followed the directions on my phone, walking through the crisscrossed streets of downtown. The whole block in front of me is filled with brick buildings that look more like they were cloned than built, but their signs couldn’t be more different. There’s Dharma’s Holistic Healing, Ken’s Computer Repair, a store named Scoops that seems to sell only spoons. There’s a market on the corner with pyramids of watermelons out front that look like the softest touch might send dozens of melons rolling out into the street.
I count the buildings, stopping at a middle one that has no sign, only a blue-and-green awning and a wooden cutout of a hand pointing to the door. I take a breath and start another round of the argument I’ve been having with myself the whole time I’ve been walking.
There have been some variations, but it’s something like this:
You sure you want to do this?
Maybe.
What if Cooper doesn’t want to see you?
(silence)
What if he’s busy?
(silence)
What if Fig’s just setting you up?
She wouldn’t do that.
No, she probably wouldn’t. But what if Cooper thinks you’re weird, or a freak, or ugly, or boring?
But—
What if he thinks you’re damaged? What if he’s just being nice because he feels sorry for you? What if he found out who you really are, what you really did?
(silence)
You sure you want to do this?
Yes.
This last part I say out loud, so loud that I startle a woman walking past. I wait for a cab to pass, then jog across the street. The sign on the door that I couldn’t see from across the street says, “There. Opening Soon.” From the sidewalk, I can hear music and hammering and swearing. Mostly music. I tentatively step inside. The hammering and swearing is coming from my right, but there is music in front of me. I opt for the music. I walk forward into the large room, where stacks of chairs and tables are pushed against the side walls. Ornate light fixtures blaze, revealing an antique tin ceiling.
Wood paneling covers most of the walls. Only the back wall is left open. There, Cooper is standing on a long board balanced on top of two stepladders. His back is to me and he’s holding a stack of something that looks like blue playing cards. He holds one up, then another, considering them against the wall. I stand there, simply watching him. He bends and picks up another stack of colored squares and begins holding them up one by one. Finally, he pauses, holding one up longer than the others.
I tell myself I haven’t told him I’m here because I don’t want to startle him and make him fall off his makeshift scaffolding. But that’s only partly true. I haven’t said anything just in case I decide that I was right all along and I’m not actually sure I do want to do this. But I’m also just watching him. Watching how he is when he thinks he’s alone. Wondering if I’m that calm, that careful, that—
“Another one of Cooper’s admirers, eh?” The voice from behind me makes me jump. I turn and see a man wearing a dirty T-shirt and jeans and holding a hammer. Alarm bells start ringing in my head. Weird guy, nearly empty building, hammer. That has danger written all over it. But then I hear Cooper’s voice.
“Mia?” Just my name, but the way he says it makes me feel like sticking my tongue out at the other Mia and saying “See?”
I turn toward Cooper and watch him climb down from the platform and start walking toward me. “Hey,” he says. “What are you doing here?”
“I, well, Fig said . . .” My brain is working furiously, trying to put words together that make sense.
“I’m glad you stopped by,” Cooper says. He looks past my shoulder. “Mia, this is Simon.” I glance over at the disheveled man with the hammer. He smiles at me. “Simon owns this place.”
“Hi,” I say, still feeling nervous.
“Hi yourself,” Simon says. “Hope I didn’t scare you.” I shake my head, not wanting to tell him the truth. Simon looks at the side of my face for a beat too long and seems to consider something, but then he just nods to himself. “Lot of people wandering in here.” He winks at Cooper, who, I swear, blushes. “I should close the door, but the AC’s not hooked up yet, and with the door shut, it’s an oven.” There’s a familiar bump in his voice. Less an accent and more a way of speaking.
“Are you from Maine?” I ask. Simon grins and Cooper rolls his eyes.
“Good luck,” Cooper whispers. I hear his words, but I also feel them on my cheek and the side of my neck. Pull it together, Mia!
“Born up to The County. Grew up Downeast,” Simon says, his accent definitely thicker. I smile. Few people south of Portland would have any idea what he just said.
“I’m from Brunswick,” I say. He squints at me. I know I’m barely from Maine as far as he’s concerned, but then he smiles and looks over at Cooper.
“You tell this one, she’s welcome here anytime. Ah’yuh. Anytime.” Simon nods at me one more time and walks under the archway, to the other side of the wall where he was working. Cooper is shaking his head at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Simon doesn’t like anyone,” Cooper says. “I mean, he barely likes me.”
“I don’t much like you!” Simon yells from the other side of the wall, making me laugh.
“See? But you say less than a half dozen words to him and he likes you.”
“I’m a likeable person,” I say. The other Mia seems sort of shocked at this, but she stays quiet.
“You are,” Cooper says. I can’t keep from blushing at this. “I didn’t know you were from Maine,” Cooper says.
I shrug. Something Rachel used to say runs through my mind. What you don’t know about me could fill the ocean.
“Want to see something?” he asks. I follow him over to the scaffolding. There are dozens of piles of colored squares scattered all around the ladders like miniature rainbow-colored skyscrapers.
“What is all this?” I ask. Cooper picks up a stack near his foot and hands it to me. I take the first square off the stack and look at it, not sure what it is. I flip it over. On the back are a row of numbers, the words Navajo Sunset, and the name of a hardware store in Brooklyn.
“They’re—” Cooper begins.
“Formica samples,” I say.
Cooper grins. “They prefer the term laminates.”
I sift through the pile, turning each one over as I go. There’s Orange Crush, Pumpkin, Apricot, Tangerine Whisper. “Where did you get all these laminate samples?” I ask.
Cooper looks a little sheepish. “Let’s just say I’m not welcome in most of the hardware stores in the tristate area.” I raise my eyebrow at him. “In my defense, they are free, but I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to take one or two, not forty-seven.”
I put the stack of orange down and pick up a tower of pink. Peony, Fruit Punch, Whisper of a Rose. “They like to use the word whisper,” I say. I look up to see Cooper watching me. I duck my head, letting my hair fall across the side of my face. When I glance back up again, Cooper is frowning a little, but not at me. At the wall.
I can see the wall better now that I’m closer and not distracted by a strange man wielding a hammer. Someone has drawn all over the wall in pencil. “Wow,” I say. I have to step back to see it better. “You did this?” As soon as I say it, the other Mia smirks at me, Duh. But Cooper just nods.
“Simon asked me to do a mural. At first, I was just going to paint it, but then I went to this Impressionist exhibit at the Met.” Cooper looks over at me. “You know how t
hose paintings just look like a mess close up, but from a distance . . .”
I nod. When he talks about painting, about painters, his whole face changes. He gets this faraway look in his eyes, like he’s half here and half somewhere else.
“I thought instead of paint, maybe a mosaic.” He looks back at me.
“It’s amazing,” I say, wondering if that wasn’t the same thing I said about his version of Starry Night. I put the stack of pink tiles I’m holding back on the floor, careful to keep them from falling over.
Then Cooper looks over at me. “You want to help?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, not sure what I’m agreeing to.
“Good,” he says. “I could use another artist’s eye.” The other Mia smirks at me. You’re just another groupie. Like Simon said: “another admirer.” Almost as if he can read my mind, Cooper looks at me. “I can trust you, right?” he asks. His voice is serious.
“Yes,” I say.
“Good, because this project is top secret.”
I feel a warmth in my chest that spreads up to my face, making my cheeks hot.
“You can trust me,” I say.
He looks at me for a long time, then nods. “I think I can,” he says. The way he says it makes me wonder if this is about more than the mural. And I wonder if he has the same feeling about me that I do about him. That I want to trust him. Maybe even need to trust him.
“Okay, you two,” Simon yells from the doorway. “I’m not paying you to stand around.”
Cooper shakes his head at him. “As far as I know, you’re not paying me at all.”
Simon snorts. “I bought you lunch.” He digs into his pocket and drops a couple of bills on the counter. “Here. After work, take your girlfriend out for an ice cream or something.”
I’m suddenly unable to look at anything but the toes of my sneakers. Why do adults always do that? I can hear Simon laughing all the way into the next room. I glance out of the corner of my eye at Cooper, but he’s just sifting through a stack of brown tiles. He seems completely unfazed by what Simon just yelled across the room. Then he turns toward me.
“So, you want to get ice cream after?” Cooper asks. I can only bob my head. Maybe he didn’t catch the part about the girlfriend. But then Cooper winks at me before climbing up on the scaffolding. The other Mia just stands there with her mouth open. For once, at a loss for words.
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