The Invisibles

by Cecilia Galante

  And yet she’d paused this morning. More than paused. She’d worried. Were her clothes too frumpy? The sneakers too weird? Did she look like one of those stereotypical librarians, whose idea of fashion included forty-two cardigan sweater sets in different colors? She’d settled finally on a black turtleneck, pressed khaki pants, her brand-new gray-and-orange Sauconys that still smelled like wet leather, and the brown barn jacket she wore everywhere. It had a soft corduroy collar, tortoiseshell buttons, and deep pockets. She brushed her brown hair back until it fell in its natural middle part and tucked the ends under with her round brush. A bit of Vaseline on her eyelashes to make them shine, a slick of lip balm, and a spritz of the overly floral perfume Marion had bought her last year for Christmas completed the picture. A final glance in the mirror was not reassuring, especially since a small pimple was just starting to bloom in the middle of her chin, and the faint, C-shaped scar on her forehead, which stood out like a careless scribble mark on her otherwise unremarkable face, seemed to glare at her. But it would have to do.

  Now she was settled in the coach section of the plane, squeezed in between an elderly man with a tweed cap pulled down low over his forehead and an enormous woman dressed all in purple. The woman was fingering a plastic sack of peanuts, and the man smelled like old tobacco. Nora turned her head and held her breath. Pungent smells were a surefire way to get her sick in any sort of moving vehicle. She grabbed the white paper bag stuck in the pocket of the airplane seat ahead of her and tucked it in between the seats as the wheels of the plane began to move.

  “You get airsick?” The large woman in purple eyed Nora’s barf bag as the plane started to move. A black hair stuck out of her chin like an exposed root.

  Nora shook her head. Crossing her arms over the front of her chest, she slid down into the seat, tucked her head down low, and closed her eyes. If she could just disappear, she thought—just for a little while—maybe she could make it through. The plane rumbled and lifted, and for three, four, five seconds, Nora’s stomach felt weightless.

  Grace didn’t talk for two days when Nora was first assigned a room with her at Turning Winds. This was fine with Nora. She herself was still in the throes of her own self-imposed silence, and she dreaded the annoyed looks she knew she would get once everyone found out she wasn’t a fan of speaking. Grace seemed to be in a state of her own; she stayed in her bed most of the day, curled up like an underfed cat against two purple pillows, drifting in and out of sleep. Her tangle of blond hair framed her face like an angel’s, and she had wide, sapphire-blue eyes fringed with dark lashes. Every once in a while, she would lift her arm and examine the inside of her wrist, as if she were preparing to do surgery. Then she would drop it again and sigh. Nora was reading Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust, intrigued by the first line: “For a long time, I went to bed early,” but she was having a difficult time getting through the rest. It was dull and too dense to sustain her attention. She kept her head down and reread the same sentence a third time, trying to convince herself to continue.

  “I’m not staying here, you know.” It was early evening on the third day when Grace finally decided to speak. Nora looked up, relieved at having been interrupted and curious to hear what this strange girl had to say.

  “My mother’s at a hospital,” Grace said by way of explanation. “But it’s totally temporary. She’s coming back in, like, a month, and then we’re going home.” Her arms were wrapped around the purple pillows, her fingers clutching the edges the way a child might hold a favorite doll.

  Nora blinked.

  Grace waited.

  Nora pressed her lips together.

  “You don’t talk?”

  She looked back down at her book, shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  Nora shrugged.

  Grace rolled her eyes. “Great.”

  The door banged open then, startling both of them. Ozzie strolled in, glancing around the room with quick, eager eyes. Nora had seen this girl at nightly dinner—a requirement for all of them living at Turning Winds—noting how she always sat at the head of the table and directed the conversation. Nora hadn’t dared meet her eyes. Now she couldn’t take them off her. Ozzie was a picture of nonchalant authority, arms crossed over the front of her denim jacket, long legs encased in a pair of dark brown corduroy pants and heavy black boots. A red cap sat atop her head, trapping all but a few wisps of black hair beneath it, and her ears were pierced with tiny gold hoops. She was pretty, but in a hard sort of way, with deep-set eyes and an angular chin, as if someone might have to take a chisel to get to the soft stuff underneath.

  “Hey.” Ozzie walked over to Nora and stuck out her hand. “Ozzie Randol. I’ve been meaning to give you a formal introduction since you got here, but I haven’t had the chance ’til now.”

  “Excuse me.” Grace had raised herself from her mattress and was eyeing Ozzie with an indignant gaze. “Have you ever heard of knocking? This is our room, you know.”

  Ozzie leveled a gaze at Grace and then turned and walked back over to the door, where a chubby pale-faced girl lingered, picking at the edge of the doorjamb with a thumb. Nora had seen this girl before too, hanging around the outside of Ozzie’s door, or occasionally sitting on the wicker rocking chair on the front porch, leafing through an old, worn copy of Madeline that someone said she’d brought from home. Now, dressed in sneakers and an ill-fitting blue sweat suit, Nora thought the girl looked a bit like a bruised marshmallow. Her orangey hair, braided and secured with rubber bands, hung like tails over her shoulders, and her cheeks were as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

  Without taking her eyes off Grace, Ozzie knocked once on the back of the door. Twice. And then a third time, with great deliberation. “Better?”

  Grace slit her eyes as Ozzie walked back across the room.

  Nora suppressed a small smile.

  “That’s Monica,” Ozzie said, jerking her thumb in the marshmallow’s direction. “She came last year, two days after me. We’re roommates.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Monica said, taking a few steps into the room. Her teeth were too widely spaced, and there was a large bump on the ridge of her nose. “What’s your name?”

  Nora reached around for the little notepad she kept in her back pocket at all times. It had a blue unicorn on the front and was full of lined paper. “Nora,” she scribbled.

  “Nora,” Ozzie read aloud. Her eyes flicked from the paper back up to Nora. “You don’t talk?”

  Nora shook her head.

  “Why not?” Monica asked.

  Nora stared at her the way she always did whenever someone asked her a dumb question. After a few seconds, Monica looked away again.

  “Nothing wrong with not talking,” Ozzie said. “Shit, I know about a dozen people who should keep their mouths shut at all times.”

  “Is one of them you?” Grace shot from the bed.

  “Depends on who you ask,” Ozzie replied without turning around. She settled an arm on top of Grace’s dresser, studying Nora for a moment. “So when did you get here? Monday, right?”

  Nora nodded. Today was Wednesday. The last two days had disappeared in a blur, consumed with curious stares, endless questions (all of which Nora had answered with a nod or a shake of her head), and forms to be signed. She was glad that part of things was over.

  “That’s what I thought.” Ozzie glanced at the top of the dresser and picked up a tiny figurine a few inches from her elbow. “I thought I saw—”

  “Hey!” Grace’s voice was sharp. “You put that down!”

  Ozzie eyed Grace the way someone might regard a rabid animal. “Who is it?” she asked.

  “The Blessed Virgin Mary,” Grace said. “And it’s private property. Don’t you touch it again.”

  “The Blessed Virgin Mary?” Ozzie put the statue back. “Who’s that?”

  Grace’s face paled. “Jesus’s mother?”

  Ozzie laughed. “I’m just fucking with you. I know who she is.” She raised an eyebrow. �
��You’re Catholic?”

  “No,” Grace retorted. “I keep a statue of the Blessed Virgin on my dresser because I’m an atheist.”

  The left side of Ozzie’s mouth lifted into a smile, and then she shrugged, as if determining that the ensuing argument was not worth it. She sat down on Nora’s bed instead. “So,” she said, “Monsie and I always come in and check out the new goods. Ask a couple questions, try and get the lowdown, see what the deal is.”

  “Could you just leave?” Grace followed her with hateful eyes. “You’re really not welcome here.”

  “Oh my God. Chill. Out.” Ozzie leaned back on her elbows and placed the heel of one foot atop the toe of the other. “You’ve had your panties in a bunch ever since you got here, you know that?”

  Grace sat up a little straighter. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “All you do is snarl at people. You give these snotty, one-word answers when we talk at dinner and—”

  “When we talk?” Grace burst out. “How about when you talk? All you do is hog the conversation! No one else can talk at dinner.”

  Ozzie shrugged. “Monica talks at dinner. Ella talks at dinner. Samantha and D’Shawn and Roberta all talk at dinner.” She kept her gaze fastened in Grace’s direction, tipping her stacked feet in one direction, then the other. Nora still wasn’t sure which name belonged to the other four girls in the house, but she had to agree with Ozzie. They had all (except for her, of course) contributed to at least one dinner conversation over the past few days, mostly to tell the others where they were from, what ages they were (almost everyone was in high school; the youngest, Ella, was in eighth grade), and how long they’d been at Turning Winds. D’Shawn, who smoked an endless stream of Newports despite the fact that she was seven months pregnant, had just told everyone yesterday that she’d arrived here when she was twelve. Now, at eighteen, she had only a few months left before she had to leave. She was going to move in with her boyfriend, Frederick, and his mother, who was crocheting a blanket for the baby. D’Shawn’s eyes had flashed when she relayed this last bit of information, and Nora couldn’t help but wonder what it was about Frederick’s mother that had conjured such a look. Whatever it was, she was pretty sure D’Shawn was not going to have an easy time of it.

  “Oh please,” Grace retorted. “You fire so many questions at them that they don’t even know where to start. I wouldn’t call that talking.”

  “At least they answer,” Ozzie said. “You just sit there like a prima donna. ‘Yes, no, I don’t know.’ You think you’re too good to be part of the discussion?”

  “Seriously?” Grace rolled her eyes. “Just leave, okay? Please. Just leave.”

  “I will.” Ozzie turned her attention toward Nora. “After I ask the new girl a few questions.”

  “Well, she doesn’t talk.” Grace rolled over on her bed so that she was facing the wall. “So good luck with that one.”

  Ozzie grinned and raised an eyebrow. “But you can write in your little notebook there if you want to answer, can’t you?”

  Nora nodded.

  “Okay, then. I just have two questions. First, do you know what your name means?”

  Nora shook her head, puzzled.

  “I don’t know either.” Ozzie looked aggravated. “Usually I know. I know a lot of names’ meanings. Like Grace. Grace means ‘love.’ Monica means ‘advisor.’ Ella means ‘little girl.’ Nora, though.” She shook her head. “I haven’t come across a Nora yet.”

  Nora bit the inside of her cheek. She felt uncomfortable, as if she had just failed at something she hadn’t known she was being tested for.

  “Is it just Nora?” Ozzie pressed. “Or is Nora short for something else?”

  “Just Nora,” she wrote on the pad.

  “Yeah, Ozzie’s not short for anything, either. Actually, I think my mother may have mistaken me for a pet when I was born.” She grinned, a gesture so forgiving of whatever her mother had put her through that Nora just stared. “Okay, second question,” Ozzie said. “You get to see her at all? Your mother, I mean?”

  Nora shook her head. She hadn’t seen Mama since she was twelve years old, after Mama had walked into the kitchen and seen Daddy Ray, her second husband, with his arms around her daughter. Nora had been frozen stiff, eyes shut tight as the syrupy smell of rum drifted out of his mouth, and his dry lips moved along the swell of her neck—quietquietquietandthenitwillbeover—but Mama had blamed her anyway. This time, though, she had thrown the remote control so hard at her that Nora’s forehead had split open like a peach. When Nora’s seventh grade teacher asked her the next day what had happened, Nora told her. It was the last time she remembered talking. She’d been in and out of foster homes since then until three days ago, when a spot in Turning Winds had opened up.

  “How about supervised visitation?” Ozzie pressed.

  Nora shook her head again, biting her lip until she tasted blood. Mama hadn’t wanted visits. None. She’d been firm about that.

  “What about Christmas?” Grace turned over suddenly, looking at Nora from the bed. “Or your birthday?”

  The edges of Nora’s ears had gotten so hot that she was sure everyone in the room was staring at them. She knew it was unusual for a parent to drop completely out of sight like this; most of the other girls she’d run into over the years had, at the very least, been permitted supervised visits, usually hanging out with their mothers and fathers in a large room at the Children and Youth building while a caseworker sat nearby and watched. To be forgotten completely was a rarity as well as a hidden source of shame, another reminder of her unworthiness. But she picked up her notepad anyway. “It’s better for all of us if we don’t.”

  “What about your dad?” Ozzie pressed.

  “Never met him,” Nora wrote.

  “Stepparents?” Ozzie’s eyes widened.

  “No one.” Nora underlined the words twice.

  “Yes!” Ozzie punched the air with both fists. “Finally! Someone in the house who can be part of our group!” She reached out and slugged Nora gently in the upper arm. “Congratulations!”

  Nora’s forehead furrowed.

  “No visits for Monica and me, either,” Ozzie explained, tapping her fingertips against the front of her chest. “At least not until we’re eighteen.” She slid a knowing look in Monica’s direction. “And you can believe when we’re eighteen, we’re gonna go get our visits. Oh yeah. We’re gonna have some accountability questions to ask those motherfuckers on our visit.”

  Nora blinked. Maybe Ozzie wasn’t all light and forgiveness, after all.

  Ozzie swung her head over in Grace’s direction. “Grace over there doesn’t get any visits either, but she’s too good to join our group. Aren’t you, Gracie?”

  “Don’t call me Gracie,” Grace said. “And I don’t get any visits because I’m just here temporarily. I don’t need visits. I’m only going to be here for another month.”

  Ozzie regarded Grace for a moment and then dropped her eyes. “You could still join for a little while.”

  Grace picked at the skin around her thumb. “I don’t like being anyone’s third wheel.”

  “Well, now that Nora qualifies, you won’t be,” Ozzie said. “It’s just us four. Which means no third wheel and no more excuses.”

  Grace looked over at Nora and scowled. “If she wants to join, maybe I’ll think about it.”

  “What am I joining?” Nora wrote in her notebook.

  Ozzie reached over and put a long arm around Nora’s shoulders. “Our secret posse, Norster. It’s hard to get in, and it’s a privilege to stay. So far, it’s only been Monsie and me. We have a meeting once a month. Upstairs, in our secret place. Tomorrow night is this month’s meeting. It’s gonna be great. Once you become part of us, your life will never be the same again.”

  Nora hoped the electric exhilaration coursing through her wasn’t too apparent; there was nothing worse than coming across as overeager. Or desperate, which was really pathetic. But she had never been
asked to be a part of something before: Mama and Daddy Ray had always lived in their own world, deliberately apart from her; each of her three different foster families had all but ignored her after realizing she wasn’t going to talk; and so far, there was no one she had even considered wanting to get to know at school. This was the biggest thing that had ever happened to her. This was everything. She glanced over at Grace, hoping she would say something first, but Grace seemed to be enthralled with the inside of her wrist again.

  “Few ground rules before you decide if you want to join,” Ozzie said. “You have to bring a stick and something of your own to every meeting.”

  “A stick?” Grace looked up. “Like from a tree?”

  “Yes,” Ozzie said. “A stick from a tree, Grace.”

  Grace slit her eyes again. “What do we need a stick for?”

  “You want to be part of the group?” Ozzie stood up and put her hands on her hips. The edges of her fingernails were threaded with dried blood.

  “Maybe.” Grace tossed her head. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “Then bring a stick.” Ozzie headed for the door. “And something of your own. It should be something that shows off a talent of yours.”

  “What kind of talent?” Nora wrote.

  “Whatever you want,” Ozzie answered. “Monica’s a really good cook, so she always makes a snack.”

  “I’m thinking something with chocolate for tomorrow.” Monica blushed.

  “And I’m a good joke teller,” Ozzie continued, “so I always start with three great jokes. It can be anything. As long as it’s yours and nobody else’s.”

  Nora stared at Grace one last time. She wondered what Grace had that nobody else in this room did. She already knew what she would bring. It was all she had.