The Invisibles

by Cecilia Galante

  She lifted her pencil one last time. “Okay,” she wrote. “I’m in.”

  “Great.” Ozzie grinned and looked over at Grace. “What about you, Queenie?”

  “Oh.” Grace leaned back, letting her head fall between her shoulder blades. “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t strain yourself,” Ozzie said.

  Grace lifted her head again, perusing the group of them with her blue eyes. “All right,” she said slowly. “I guess I’m in, too.”

  Nora didn’t panic as she followed Ozzie’s slow ascension through what looked like a chimney in the attic of Turning Winds the following night; despite the narrowness of it and the fact that it smelled like a dirty diaper, she already trusted Ozzie for a reason she could not put her finger on, and she knew—she could feel it in her bones—that she wanted to go wherever this girl was going to take her now.

  “Almost there,” Ozzie said over her shoulder. “Hold your breath until we get all the way through. It stinks.” Nora nodded. She wished Ozzie would keep her voice down. It was after midnight and the other four girls in the house were asleep, but God only knew what would happen if one of them woke up. Then there was Elaine, who worked the night shift at Turning Winds, drowsing downstairs in front of another episode of The Twilight Zone. Elaine was large and thick, like a tree, and she wore loud T-shirts with sayings on the front like KEEP TALKING; I’M RELOADING. An apple tattoo with an arrow shot through the middle of it adorned her upper arm, and she drew in her eyebrows with a black pencil. Since they were in school for most of the day, Elaine was the one who had the most contact with the girls, but it was quick and brusque, as if she did not want to get to know them very well. “I’m not here to be your friend or your mother,” she’d told Nora the first day she’d arrived. “My job is just to make sure you stay out of trouble.” Nora hadn’t been too sure what kind of trouble she was referring to, but she would bet money now that climbing to the roof in the middle of the night would qualify.

  They emerged all at once into fresh air, and it swept over Nora’s face like a salve. She inhaled deeply, mouth, then nose—once, and then again. Monica and Grace were already up there, their backs resting against a wrought iron railing, legs crossed beneath them. Truth be told, there wasn’t much room to do much else; the entire enclosed space—which Ozzie informed them was called a widow’s walk—was about as large as a throw rug. But they were up high. And my God, Nora thought as she stared up at the moon above them—full and yellow as a soft-boiled egg yolk—was this the first time she had ever really looked at the moon? The light around it was a neon blue, enclosed yet again by a thinner, paler line, a pulsing white heat. If she rose up on her tiptoes, she thought, she might be able to touch it. The first line from the novel Catch-22 flickered across her brain: “It was love at first sight.” And it was. Right here, right now, she felt something stir inside her that she hadn’t even known was there. She’d never seen anything so beautiful.

  Ozzie sat down next to Monica, motioning for Nora to do the same. Nora settled in between Grace and Ozzie, her knees touching theirs on either side. “Everyone here?” Ozzie asked. “Monsie, me, Grace, and Nora.” She hesitated, looking at Nora. “That reminds me. I looked up your name last night. It’s Greek.”

  Nora felt something tense inside.

  “It means ‘light,’” Ozzie said. “Isn’t that cool?”

  Light. Nora couldn’t imagine Mama ever feeling anything close to lightness when it came to her. She’d barely used her name at all, in fact, referring to Nora most of the time as “girl” or “you.” Nora turned the word over inside her mouth. Light. She liked the feel of it, small and smooth, like a marble. Or a jewel. Something waiting for just the right moment before it exploded into a million fractured pieces of energy. She nodded, smiling shyly at Ozzie.

  “What’s your name mean?” Grace asked Ozzie. “I don’t think I’ve ever even heard it before.”

  Ozzie straightened up. “It’s a male name.” She surveyed the group with a quick glance, as if daring any one of them to laugh. “It’s Hebrew,” she went on. “And it means ‘strength.’”

  Monica nodded in satisfaction. Grace raised her left eyebrow and then lowered it again. Nora grinned. As if the word could mean anything else.

  “Okay then,” Ozzie said. “Let’s start. Rules first.” She grabbed a notebook sitting off to the side and handed it to Monica. “You want to read, Monsie?”

  Monica pushed her orange bangs out of her face and cleared her throat. The light from the moon cast a soft glow over her face, blurring her pudgy features, softening the scraggly edges of her hair. “Rule number one: Never speak of the group outside of this circle. To anyone. Ever. Rule number two: Members must always bring something of themselves to share at every meeting. Rule number three: Stick wishes are private, unless a member wants to discuss them with the rest of the group. No stick wish—no matter how weird—will be judged. Failure to abide by any said rules can result in immediate dismissal.” She looked up. “Okay, that’s it.”

  Grace frowned. “What the heck is a stick wish?”

  “Hold your horses, jumpy,” Ozzie said. “Those come last. Is there anything anyone wants to add?”

  Grace shook her head.

  “How about you, Nora?”

  Nora hesitated, bringing her fingers to her earlobe. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to bring something up at the first meeting. Especially if you were new. And you didn’t talk.

  “Go on,” Ozzie urged. “I can tell you want to say something. You’re part of the group now. You can tell us.”

  Nora flicked her eyes at Ozzie and then pulled out her pencil. “What about a name?” she wrote.

  Monica and Ozzie exchanged a glance.

  “I told you,” Monica said. “Every group needs a name.”

  “We talked about this before,” Ozzie said. “I think a name for the group is a great idea. It’s just—I don’t want some dopey, sissy name, you know?”

  “I still don’t think The Velvet Moondrops is dopey.” Monica pouted. She looked at Grace and then at Nora. Both girls dropped their eyes.

  “If we pick a name for the group,” Ozzie continued, “it has to be a really great one. Strong, you know? Determined. Sure of itself. Like us.”

  “So if you think of anything . . .” Monica sighed and closed the notebook. “All right, rules are done for now.”

  “Okay,” Ozzie said. “Now we share what we brought. Who wants to go first?”

  “Me, of course.” Monica grinned, passing around a small plastic container. It was full of the chocolate-dipped pretzels she had made in the community kitchen that afternoon. Nora had smelled the melting chocolate in her room and come down, lured by the rich scent. She sat on one of the countertops, watching Monica dip the pretzels into the chocolate and then dust them with cocoa and crushed candy cane. Now everyone got four apiece. Nora ate three of them and then slipped the last one in her pocket for later.

  Ozzie leaned forward as they finished eating. “Okay, I’ll go next. I only have two jokes tonight. But they’re good ones.” She cleared her throat and threw back her shoulders. “So once there was a family who was given some venison by a friend. The wife cooked up the deer steaks and served them to the husband and kids. The husband thought it would be fun to have the kids guess what they were eating.

  “‘Is it beef?’ their daughter Mandy asked.

  “‘Nope.’

  “‘Is it pork?’ the son AJ asked.

  “‘Nope.’

  “‘Heck, we don’t know, Dad!’ AJ exclaimed.

  “‘I’ll give you a clue,’ the dad said. ‘It’s what your mom sometimes calls me.’

  “‘Spit it out, AJ!’ cried Mandy. ‘We’re eating asshole!’”

  Ozzie and Monica screamed and fell over, and even Nora smiled wide and then covered her mouth, but Grace sat stoically, arms crossed.

  “You didn’t think that was funny?” Ozzie asked, righting herself again and staring at Grace. “Seriously?�
��

  “No.” Grace bit her bottom lip.

  “How?” Ozzie demanded. “How was that not funny?”

  “I just don’t think parents calling each other names like that in front of their kids is funny.” Grace shrugged and looked away. “We have different senses of humor, I guess.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s . . .” Ozzie began, but Monica reached out and tugged at her sleeve. Ozzie took a deep breath. “Okay, whatever. I’m sorry if I offended you.” She shook her head as she began rolling up her sleeves and then dropped her arms into her lap. “Well, there’s no way I can tell the next joke, then. It’s filthy.”

  Nora waited, wondering if Ozzie would back down first or if it would be Grace. They were sitting across from each other in the circle, with no more than a foot of space between them. “Well, I don’t have to tell it,” Ozzie said. She shrugged, clearly disappointed. “It’s not a big deal. I did my thing.” She reached out and poked Nora in the shoe. “How about you go next, Norster?”

  Nora stared at her feet. She could feel something hot beneath the planes of her face, a slow spreading of blood under her cheeks. She wanted to read it. She knew it was a good one. She’d spent a long time selecting it last night, poring through her notebook for just this occasion. But she didn’t move. What if they laughed? Or thought it was stupid? It wasn’t an actual talent, like Monica’s cooking or Ozzie’s joke telling. She was just borrowing someone else’s words. They weren’t even hers.

  Ozzie put a gentle hand on the knee. “Come on. Show us what you brought. We really want to know.”

  Nora looked up. Ozzie was staring at her with a face so full of encouragement that it made something in the back of her throat hurt. She took out her notebook and handed it to Grace, who read aloud: “I collect really good first lines from novels. For tonight’s meeting, I chose the first line from the Prologue of The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. It goes like this: ‘I am an invisible man.’”

  Grace looked up from Nora’s notebook. “What does that mean? Is he a ghost?”

  Nora looked away, mortified. The book, which revolved around a man the world refused to see, had left her pondering the unseen parts of herself, how there were sides of her that she would never, ever show another human being. Was it possible that such a thing could also be true of Ozzie and Monica and Grace? And if it was, might details eventually emerge among them, bruised flowers held in cupped hands, opening ever so slowly for the rest of them to lean in one day and touch? Could it be the reason for a group in the first place?

  Or was she wrong?

  Maybe she was wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  Then Ozzie said, “Shit, I love it! You really collect first lines?”

  Nora nodded.

  “That is the coolest thing ever!” Ozzie said. “God damn, I wish I had thought of something like that! How many of them do you have?”

  Nora’s deflated heart began to swell back up, a balloon receiving air again. She took the notebook out of Grace’s hand. “Seventy-eight,” she wrote.

  “Seventy-eight?” Ozzie sat back in disbelief. “You’ve read seventy-eight books?”

  “I’ve read hundreds of books,” Nora wrote back. “But I only write down the first lines of the ones I like.”

  “Fuck,” Ozzie said. “That is fucking amazing.”

  “It really is,” Monica said. “I can’t imagine getting through one book, let alone hundreds.”

  “‘I am an invisible man,’” Ozzie recited. She studied the edge of her shoe for a moment, as if puzzling over something. Then she lifted her head. “How about The Invisibles?” she asked. “For a name? Our name?”

  “The Invisibles?” Grace repeated the words as if saying them for the very first time. “I don’t get it.”

  “No, no, it’s perfect!” A faint sheen of perspiration gleamed from the edge of Ozzie’s hairline, and her eyes were bright. “Think about it. We’ve been invisible to most people for most of our whole lives.”

  “Um . . . which totally sucks?” Monica interjected.

  “Which totally sucks,” Ozzie agreed. “Except”—she stopped and pointed her index finger at the whole group—“except that now we have a choice. We can choose to be invisible to everyone.” She paused dramatically. “Except each other.”

  “Ooooh.” Monica raised her eyebrows. “I like that.”

  “Yeah.” Grace nodded. “Me too.”

  Nora closed her eyes as the moment swelled around them.

  “The Invisibles!” Ozzie crowed, pulling back again and raising her fist in the air.

  “The Invisibles!” Monica and Grace echoed, lifting their arms. Nora raised her hand too and made it into a fist.

  Fifty feet below, the sound of crickets thrummed in the dark air. A car trundled past, its headlights glowing a lemony yellow against the side of the house, and then faded again. For a split second, Nora felt as though she were in heaven, or at least somewhere very good, somewhere far away from everything else she had known up to that moment in her life. She squeezed her eyes shut so as not to forget it.

  “Okay, Grace’s turn,” Monica said. “What did you bring?”

  Grace reached for a soft satchel sitting nearby. Inside was a rolled-up piece of parchment, which, when she unfurled it, revealed a drawing of a girl sleeping in her bed. Nora sat back at first, alarmed to see such a vivid likeness of herself, and then, as curiosity got the better of her, crept forward again. It was her. When had Grace even done such a thing? Nora hadn’t seen any paper or pencils anywhere; she’d never observed Grace drawing at all.

  “I sketch things,” Grace explained. “That’s really the only thing I can do. I drew you when you were sleeping,” she said, looking apologetically at Nora. No one said anything for a moment. Grace looked down at her knee, touched a small scab. “That’s it, really. I didn’t know what else to bring.”

  “Wow,” Monica said. “It looks exactly like her.” She pointed to the limp cowlick Grace had drawn at the top of Nora’s forehead. “Even the hair. It’s like, perfect.” She turned to look at Ozzie. “Don’t you think?”

  Ozzie was staring at the picture too. “It’s really good.” She squinted at Grace, as if looking at her with new eyes. “That’s a gift, you know, being able to draw like that. You should really consider doing something with it.”

  Grace blushed and then looked away.

  Ozzie clapped once, as if killing an insect, and the moment was over. “Okay, now we do ‘Who Wants What?’”

  “Yay,” Monica said softly. “My favorite part.”

  “What’s ‘Who Wants What?’” Grace asked.

  “Exactly what is sounds like,” Ozzie said. “We go around the circle, and everyone tells the rest of the group what they want. It can be anything, as long as it’s not totally ridiculous, like a million dollars or something. And then, before the next meeting, we’ll try to find a way to give it to you.”

  “I want my mother to come get me,” Grace sputtered. “But you can’t give me that.”

  “No,” Ozzie concurred. “But maybe we can do something close to that. What is it about your mother that you want?”

  “I just want her!” Grace insisted. “Here. Right now. I want to hold her and hug her and remember what she smells like and . . .” She drifted off, a catch in her throat.

  Ozzie arched an eyebrow. “What does she smell like?”

  Nora listened, breathless, as Monica described her mother’s scent: a combination of burnt caramel, fresh-cut grass, and Chanel No. 5 perfume. Somehow, she realized, the rest of them were going to find a way to get that smell, or something very close to it, to Grace before the next full moon rolled around. Her heart felt close to bursting, thinking of contributing such a joy to someone else. It was the most wonderful thing she could imagine, like having Christmas every month.

  “How about you, Mons?” Ozzie asked. “What do you want?”

  “A hug.” Monica shrugged, blushing.

  “Again?” Ozzie tilted her head. “You
said that last time.”

  “I want three this time.”

  “You’re too easy,” Ozzie said, gathering the girl in her arms and hooking her chin over her shoulder. She held her for a good thirty seconds before letting go again. Grace went next, pulling away quickly and ducking her head to avoid Monica’s gaze, and Nora did the same thing, but not without noticing that Monica seemed to whimper a bit as she withdrew herself from her grasp. It was strange how such a simple thing could be loaded with complication; awkward in a way that was full of both need and apology.

  “Thank you,” Monica said, glancing shyly at all of them.

  “How ’bout you, Nora?” Ozzie asked. “Anything you want right now?”

  Nora’s brain raced. How could such a small question be so difficult to answer? Or was the real question that such a thing had never been asked of her before? Maybe an answer did not even exist. She shrugged, fiddling with a shoelace, her mind a blank.

  “Nothing?” Ozzie pressed. “You don’t want one single thing right now?”

  Nora paused in the middle of a shrug and then picked up her notebook. “THIS,” she wrote in large, capital letters, showing it to the group. Ozzie grinned broadly, and Monica reached across the circle and took her hand, just as Grace pressed a palm against her knee. “You got it,” Ozzie said.

  “How ’bout you, Oz?” Grace asked as the moment passed. “What do you want?”

  “Ugh!” Ozzie threw her head back. “I want so many things! I can’t decide!”

  “Like what?” Monica urged.

  “Well, I totally want to get laid.”

  Grace rolled her eyes. “You’re on your own with that one.”

  “Okay then,” Ozzie said. “I want to take a road trip. A real one. With all of you guys.”

  “What’s a real one?” Monica looked nervous.

  “Cross-country,” Ozzie said. “Or at least halfway. In a convertible. Blue, with white siding, the top down. Full tank of gas, and a case of beer in the trunk.”

  “I thought you said these things couldn’t be totally ridiculous,” Grace said. “None of us even has a driver’s license if you hadn’t noticed, let alone a car.”