The Invisibles

by Cecilia Galante

  Ozzie shot out of the garage, tires squealing, and then came to an abrupt halt at the stop sign on the corner. She looked over at Nora as she gripped the seat rest with one hand and pressed her fingertips against her mouth with the other. “Oh shit, I forgot you get carsick!” Ozzie reached out, her eyes wide, and touched Nora’s elbow. “Don’t worry, babe. I’ll go slow.” She eased the car out onto the highway and settled in among the traffic. “Okay, this isn’t a real long ride. Henry gave me the directions. We should be there in about thirty minutes if I don’t get us lost.”

  “Use the GPS,” Monica said. “It’ll tell you exactly how to get there.”

  “You’ll have to set it up,” Ozzie replied, swiveling around in her seat. “My husband’s got one of those things in his truck, but I’ve never used it.”

  Nora grabbed Ozzie’s arm as a tractor-trailer sailed past on the left. “Ozzie,” she said. “Please.”

  “I got it.” Ozzie turned back around. “It’s all good, Norster. Don’t worry.”

  “Here, gimme that little black thing on the dashboard, Nora,” Monica said. “It snaps off, right at the base.” She turned to Ozzie. “How is it that you’ve never used a GPS?”

  Nora handed the instrument over the seat and sat back to listen.

  “I live on a farm,” Ozzie said. “If I want to get somewhere, I ride my motorcycle.”

  “You have a motorcycle?” Nora wasn’t sure why this detail surprised her. “Really?”

  “Damn straight.” Ozzie clenched her jaw as she pressed down hard on the gas. “A vintage Harley-Davidson. I’ve got to keep something of my former life.”

  Her former life. She was referring to a part of her life after Turning Winds. Another part Nora didn’t know about. Couldn’t possibly know about since Ozzie hadn’t stayed in touch.

  “Where’d you get it?” Nora asked.

  “New Mexico.”

  “New Mexico?” Nora was impressed. “When were you in New Mexico?”

  “Oh, I dated this guy for a few years who loved to do road trips,” Ozzie said. “We crossed the country twice on his motorcycle.”

  “Oh, you got your road trip!” Monica said fondly. “Remember how you always wanted to do that?”

  “I wanted to do one with you guys,” Ozzie corrected. “It’s a whole different story going on a road trip with someone you’re sleeping with. I can’t tell you how many times I ended up with dirt and grass in my mouth.”

  “Ozzie!” Monica looked up, laughing.

  “It’s true.” Ozzie shrugged. “Anyway, I got sick of riding behind him all the time, and he never let me drive the damn thing, and one afternoon, when we were cruising through New Mexico, I saw this little red beauty propped up on the porch of an adobe house with a FOR SALE sign strung across the handlebars. I told Cesar to pull over, and the rest is history.”

  “Cesar?” Monica echoed from the back.

  “Yeah,” Ozzie said. “That was his name.”

  “Was he Latino?”

  “Argentinian.”

  “Mmmm . . . ,” Monica said. “Yum.”

  “You remember the road trip we tried to give you?” Nora asked, turning from the window. “Or the feeling of one, at least?”

  “Never forget it,” Ozzie said, rearranging her hands on the wheel. “One of the best days of my life.”

  They hadn’t known anyone well enough to ask if they could borrow a car, and for weeks, Nora and Grace and Monica huddled together whenever Ozzie wasn’t around, trying to think of something that might suffice as a road trip. The most important thing, Nora had stressed, was that Ozzie feel something like freedom, that she have a day to herself with only the wind in her hair. No rules, no regulations. When a carnival came to town the following weekend, Nora knew she had found the answer. They skipped school, the four of them, and spent all day on the rides. Monica won a stuffed panda with one eye, and Grace and Ozzie had a deep-fried-hot-dog-eating contest, after which Grace promptly threw up. But it was not until they were crammed into a Ferris-wheel car, the large, rotating structure bringing them slowly to the top, that Monica giggled and flung out her arms. “Ah, I feel so free,” she said. “Don’t you guys? I mean, wasn’t this day just so completely free?”

  Ozzie had squinted strangely at her, not comprehending, and then all at once, the understanding of what they had done settled across her face. “Is this my road trip?” she asked. “Is that what this was all about?”

  “Something like that.” Nora flushed as she wrote the answer, wondering if the whole thing had been a mistake. It was a stretch when you thought about it. Trying to capture a feeling like freedom was a lot harder than she’d imagined.

  “Do you like it?” Grace raised her eyebrows. “It was mostly Nora’s idea.”

  In response, Ozzie had turned her head, staring at the horizon spread out beneath them. From this distance, the green slope of mountain looked half its size, a vast map of the unknown, the streets and houses below like playthings. The sun was beginning to set, and small birds flew overhead, rising and swooping with the wind.

  “Oz?” Monica sounded worried.

  Nora held her breath as Ozzie leaned over and pressed her forehead against hers. It was something she’d seen Ozzie do only once, after Monica had made a special cake that Ozzie used to eat as a kid. It was a nonverbal gesture that meant simply “I know you. You know me.”

  “I love it.” Ozzie’s voice sounded hoarse as she straightened back up, and she cleared it roughly. “I more than love it. It’s fucking awesome.”

  Nora had sat back then, meeting Monica and Grace’s satisfied gazes as Ozzie pressed her forehead against each of theirs. She was sure she’d been the only one to see the lone tear that had trickled down the far side of Ozzie’s face, and she was glad for it. She already knew it was something she’d keep to herself, tucked deep inside one of her pockets, a tiny piece of Ozzie that she might never see again.

  “Okay, here,” Monica said, handing the GPS over the seat again. “Now snap it back in. It’ll tell you exactly where to go.”

  “Hell. Oh.” A British female electronic voice drifted out from the tiny box. “You. Are. On. Highway. 56. Take. Right. At. Exit. 98.”

  Ozzie sat back against her seat, clearly taken aback by the electronic voice. “Who the hell’s talking? Princess Kate?”

  “Take. Right,” the GPS commanded. “Exit. 98. Take. Right.”

  “Okay, honey,” Ozzie said. “Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’m heading over to the right.” She glanced at Monica again in the mirror. “This thing have a name?”

  “Yeah,” Monica said. “GPS.”

  “That’s not a name,” Ozzie insisted. “Listen to this wench talk. She sounds like that English teacher we had in junior year—you know, the one with the beehive hairdo and the big stick up her ass.”

  “Mrs. Ditmer!” Monica laughed raucously, clapping her hands. “Oh my God, it does sound like her!”

  Ozzie grinned. “What was Ditmer’s first name?”

  “I have no idea,” Monica said. “I never paid attention to anything in that class except the back of Jeremy Rindle’s neck.”

  “Myrtle,” Nora said quietly, wondering how Monica and Ozzie could have forgotten how much she loved Mrs. Ditmer, how the teacher had taken a special interest in the way she carried a book to read with her everywhere, even letting Nora stay late after school a few times so that she could finish reading her first edition of Mrs. Dalloway. The first line, “Mrs. Dalloway decided she would buy the flowers herself,” was number fifteen in Nora’s notebook.

  “Myrtle!” Monica and Ozzie burst out simultaneously.

  Nora looked out the window as they laughed.

  “Myrtle it is,” Ozzie said, wiping her eyes and patting the GPS. “Myrtle, I’d like to introduce you to the girls. Girls, this is Myrtle.”

  Nora blinked rapidly, as if the movement might suppress the knot ascending within her throat. It wasn’t often that something reminded her of Theodore Galla
gher anymore, but Mrs. Ditmer’s name was one such reminder. She’d known him as Theo the way everyone did back then—a tall, thin boy with a quick smile and an easy, unaffected manner—but it wasn’t until the end of her junior year that she’d actually spoken to him. It had been in English class after dismissal one day, when everyone had cleared out of the room and was rushing toward their lockers to retrieve their books. Nora, however, had stayed, settling into one of the desks in the back of the room with a book, ready to while away a few hours before leaving for the weekend. Theo materialized out of nowhere, hovering inside the door, looking curiously around the room. Nora glanced up from the book and then looked back down again. “She’s not here.” Her eyes skipped over a line. “And no, I don’t know where she is or when she’ll be back.”

  There was a pause and then, “Who?”

  She raised her eyes again, taking in his lanky frame, the caramel-colored hair that stuck out beneath a faded blue baseball cap, his small, slightly crooked teeth. “Mrs. Ditmer,” she said. “Isn’t that who you’re looking for?”

  He straightened up and leaned against the doorframe. “No, actually. I’m not looking for her at all.”

  She tucked her hair behind her ear and fiddled with her earring. She’d seen this boy a hundred times in the hallways over the past two years, and yet it occurred to her that this was the first time she’d had a clear, unobstructed view of him. He was always surrounded by a group of people, usually his track teammates, who seemed to enjoy racing from class to class at breakneck speed. He was even more handsome than she realized with his lean, aquiline nose and wide eyes.

  “Well, I can’t help you,” she said finally. “There’s no one else in here.”

  “No one?” The left side of his mouth lifted in a grin.

  She bit the inside of her cheek and looked back down at her book. The words swam in front of her. He wasn’t flirting with her, was he? No, of course he wasn’t. No boy had ever looked at her, much less flirted with her. That kind of thing was for pretty girls like Jenny Packer and Carolyn Meyers, who had big chests and perfect teeth. “Just me,” she said, hoping she sounded irritated. “And I’m busy, if you haven’t noticed.”

  She held her breath as he walked into the room. His track pants made a faint rustling sound as he moved, and one of his neon-yellow shoelaces was untied. He stopped at a desk next to the far window, dropped a backpack at his feet, and then plopped down into the seat.

  Nora lowered her eyes again and pretended to read as he looked at her. It was impossible. She could feel the weight of his stare on her like some kind of living thing, boring into her skin, whispering through her hair. “Did you need something?” she asked without lifting her eyes. The irritation in her voice was gone.

  “Maybe.”

  She looked up quickly.

  “Whatcha reading?”

  She held up the book, hoping he could see the cover.

  “Mrs. Dalloway,” he recited. “Who’s that, Virginia Woolf?”

  She nodded, secretly pleased by his guess.

  “You reading that for fun? Or for an assignment?”

  “For fun.”

  “You must read a lot for fun.” He leaned back a little, crossing his feet at the ankles. “Your head’s always in a book. Even in the halls.”

  Her heart skipped another beat. He’d noticed her before? When?

  “You like to read more than you like to talk.” It was a statement, not a question.

  She shrugged, embarrassed.

  He laughed, a sweet sound that made its way across the room to her like a bubble. “We should go out some time,” he said. “Like to a movie or something.”

  She raised her eyes, too quickly this time. Did he really just say what she thought he said? Or was he making fun of her?

  He stood up and walked through the narrow line between the desks until he was directly in front of her. “I’ve been wanting to ask you. I just haven’t gotten the chance to find you alone anywhere until now.”

  She tried not to look at the string that clutched at the material in front of his pants, or the way his hips, narrow as a bow, curved beneath it. “You have?”

  He nodded.

  It didn’t seem possible. And yet here it was, finally, for the very first time. A boy who had seen her. Who had not only seen her, but thought about asking her out. Who had, just this minute, gone and done exactly that.

  She could have wept.

  Here, sweetie.” Nora started out of her thoughts as Monica handed something over the seat. “I thought this would go well with your eyes.” It was a cobalt blue scarf, threaded with tiny gold filaments that gleamed when the light hit them.

  “You brought us gifts?” Ozzie asked, glancing over her shoulder. “I didn’t bring any gifts. Norster, did you bring any gifts?”

  Nora shook her head, her cheeks reddening as she ran her palms over the front of the scarf. “No.” She pressed it against her cheek and closed her eyes. “It’s so soft,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

  “It’s cashmere,” Monica said. “I got you one in red, Ozzie, and one for Grace in yellow.” She placed Ozzie’s scarf in the space between her and Nora. “I’ll put yours right here. You can try it on later.”

  Ozzie glanced down at the scarf. “It’s gorgeous,” she said. “You shouldn’t have, Monsie. Now I feel like a rube.”

  “Me, too.” Nora still had the scarf pressed to her cheek. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize,” Monica said. “It was just something I wanted to do.”

  “Heading. North. On. Route. 19.” The GPS’s voice crackled. “Stay. In. Left. Lane.”

  “Gotcha, Myrtle,” Ozzie said. “I gotcha.”

  “So.” Monica sat forward again, draping her slender arms over the seat. “Is anyone else nervous about seeing Grace?”

  “Nervous?” Ozzie eyed Monica in the mirror. “Why would you feel nervous? We didn’t do anything.”

  “I know we didn’t do anything.” Monica settled her chin on top of her hands. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I’m nervous.” Nora almost laughed at how calm she sounded.

  Monica gave Nora a grateful smile. “It’s just been such a long time. I think I’m scared that she’s turned into someone I won’t recognize anymore. Especially after everything she’s been through.” A moment of silence passed. It occurred to Nora that Monica could have been talking about any one of them. “What if she cries the whole time we’re there?” Monica asked.

  “Then she cries the whole time.” Ozzie watched Monica in the rearview mirror. “It won’t kill us.”

  “But . . .” Monica rubbed her forehead with her fingers. “I don’t know . . . I mean, I don’t think I’ll be able to handle that.”

  “Of course you will.” Ozzie jerked the car to the right. “It’s just crying. It always stops eventually.”

  “Yeah.” Monica looked out the window. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

  Nora brought a finger to her mouth and began to gnaw on the edge of it.

  She had cried after her first date with Theo. She’d felt it coming as soon as he arrived (two minutes early, no less), a tight lump that pressed against the back of her throat as she noticed that he was dressed in clothes he’d obviously taken time to think about: pressed khakis, a dark blue polo, green-and-white sneakers. It moved her to know that he had wanted to look good. For her. For her and no one else.

  “You’re early,” she said, smiling shyly.

  “Punctuality is the politeness of kings.” He shrugged, grinning. “Something my dad always says.”

  The feeling swelled as they sat together in the movie theater, their forearms resting on their individual seat rests, barely touching, and yet creating a heat between them that shocked her. He’d leaned over at one point, his breath already masked with the cloying sweetness of Twizzlers, and asked, “Are you having a good time?” She’d turned, looking at his elongated face in the dark, a narrow column of white perforated with green eyes and pink
lips, and nodded. “Do you like the movie?” he pressed. “Or should we go?”

  We should go, she thought. We should go and lie down somewhere soft and press ourselves against each other until we can’t breathe. “I like the movie,” she lied, extricating another Swedish fish from her packet. “It’s good.”

  They’d gone to Jitter Beans afterward for coffee. He ordered a frozen mocha drink for himself, a vanilla cappuccino for her, and a gigantic Rice Krispie treat for the two of them to split. The hour had been full of the heady rush of discovery, each of them unearthing themselves one detail at a time. He was the oldest in a family of four boys—all overachievers. He was planning to apply to several colleges early next year, hoping for early admission or maybe even a track scholarship. He had a good shot at one: he’d already set a school record in the 200-meter race and ran the anchor leg in the 400. All of his college choices were far away; he wanted to leave Willow Grove and settle down in a city—Los Angeles, perhaps, or New York—where people could be who they really were and not something others thought they should be. He hoped college would lead him into a profession that helped people, but also afforded him a living—maybe psychiatry or law. His favorite food was his mother’s Irish stew, which she served with real biscuits and, on very special occasions, a mug of Guinness. On the rare day when he had nothing to do, he preferred to put a pair of earphones on and walk down to the small pond a short way behind his house, where he would sit and listen to Bruce Springsteen and think about nothing at all.

  Nora took it all in, relishing details like the Guinness and the pond behind his house and trying to ignore the pang in her chest when he talked about college and moving away from Willow Grove, but the largeness of his life made her acutely aware of the holes in her own. She felt lopsided as she launched into her own excavation, telling him about her first-line collection, her love of reading, and (without getting into any of the Turning Winds details) her friendship with Ozzie, Grace, and Monica. She didn’t have a favorite food unless you counted Swedish fish, and she wasn’t very close with her mother, either. That was all there was, really. No, she didn’t have any plans after high school. Maybe she would take a few classes somewhere; maybe she wouldn’t. Mrs. Ditmer had mentioned something about applying for a scholarship next year at the local college, but she still needed time to figure out what it was she wanted to do first; what it was she liked to do aside from reading books. She ducked her head after she stopped talking, praying that he would stop looking at her.