“No, no.” Nora wondered if Grace had heard anything. Or Henry. “You know Ozzie. She talks like that about everything.”
“Yeah.” Monica laughed. “So what’d you guys talk about on your walk? Anything about me?”
“No, nothing about you.” Nora folded her arms behind her head and tried to smile. “Grace, mostly. And Ozzie’s husband.”
“Oh, Gary.” Monica sounded disgusted.
“Why do you say it like that?”
Monica shrugged, running a fingertip over a line of stitching on top of the quilt. “I don’t know. Just that I don’t think Ozzie’s all that happy with him.”
“She said that?”
“No. Not exactly.” Monica’s finger paused. “It’s just a feeling, really.”
“What kind of feeling?”
“Oh, just something inside.” Monica looked up. “Ozzie never wanted to get married in the first place. Remember?”
Nora nodded.
“You gotta wonder, you know? What was it about this guy that convinced her to do something that she’d always been so against? I mean, we’re talking about Ozzie here. He must’ve been pretty . . .” She shook her head, letting the room swallow up the rest of the sentence. “I don’t know. It’s none of my business, anyway. It’s her life.”
Pretty what? What word would Monica have used just now if she had let herself? Nora wondered. “I heard him on the phone,” she heard herself say, immediately wishing she could put the words back in her mouth. Not ten minutes ago, she had given Ozzie her word that she wouldn’t talk about it with anyone else. And yet the admission had come so naturally, as if by instinct. A red flag had just been thrown into the ring. The others needed to know.
“When?” Monica turned. “On your walk?”
Nora nodded. “He was awful to her.”
“What do you mean? In what way?”
“He called her a . . .” Nora could not bring herself to say the word out loud. “You know, the c word.”
Monica went rigid. “He did not!”
Nora dropped her eyes, as if she had been the one to commit the offense.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. She had the phone on speaker, and we were talking to the kids, and he just came on all of a sudden and started cursing at her.”
“In front of their kids?” Monica sounded incredulous.
“I guess so. They must’ve still been around.”
They looked at each other for a moment, waiting, it seemed, for the other to provide a perfectly reasonable explanation for the incident. Except of course there wasn’t one.
“Well,” Monica said finally, shaking her head. “Honestly, if it was anyone else, I might worry.”
“But it’s Ozzie,” Nora concurred softly.
“He shouldn’t be calling her anything even remotely close to that. But she’s got a mouth of her own that she uses. I’m sure she can handle it.”
Nora nodded. She hoped so. Whatever “it” was.
Monica kicked her sandals off and lay back on the pillow, positioning the heel of her right foot on top of the toes of her left. “Are you tired?” she asked.
“A little.”
“Do you want to sleep? I’ll leave.”
“No,” Nora said. “Stay.”
“I’m not that tired after all. And even if I were, I don’t think I could sleep if you gave me ten Ambien. My brain is just racing.”
“About what?”
“I just can’t stop thinking about all of us back at Turning Winds. It seems like yesterday, doesn’t it? And now here we are, all these years later, and everything from back then is still so much with us. Maybe even more so.”
Nora couldn’t go into all of it again, just after the discussion with Ozzie; if she did, something might explode inside her head. Instead, she turned so that she could look at Monica’s profile. She stared at the perfect arch of brow above her black eyelashes, the alabaster skin that barely moved, even when Monica rested the tips her fingers against it. “What’s it like being beautiful?” she asked softly.
“What?” Monica looked startled.
“Is it fun? Being so pretty?” Nora could feel her neck getting hot. “I just . . . I always wondered what it would be like.”
Monica sat up. For a few seconds, her eyes roved over Nora’s face, as if trying to figure out where her voice had come from. “Don’t you think you’re pretty?”
Nora muffled a laugh with the back of her hand. “Come on, Monica.”
“No, really!” Monica got off her bed and sat down next to Nora. She pushed Nora’s brown hair off her face and tilted her head, studying it.
“What’re you doing?” Nora said.
“You have gorgeous bone structure,” Monica said. “And everything is so natural! So real! I’d give anything to have that back, you know that? I’ve been pulled and pinched so many times now that my skin’s natural elasticity will probably never be the same.”
Nora pulled back. “Well, why’d you get pinched and pulled, then?”
“Oh, all the women in New York do it. Getting your face done is the thing to do these days. I haven’t had that much done. A brow lift, some Botox. I got my nose done too, but that was more because of my deviated septum than anything else. I can actually make it through the night now without snoring. And my teeth. Liam offered to get my teeth done.” She shrugged, a little pink rising along the swell of her cheeks. “God, remember how my teeth used to look? Like a jack-o’-lantern! And those horrible whistling sounds I used to make when I talked? You guys didn’t call me Har-Monica for nothing. Seriously, how could I say no?”
“Do you like it better?” Nora asked. “The way you look now?”
“Oh my God, yes!” Monica touched the edge of her hair. “There’s no comparison! I looked like a little gnome back then!” She shivered. “All that dry, orange hair, that horrible pimply skin. And chubby too. God, I was always at least fifteen pounds overweight.” She looked out the window. “No wonder no one ever asked me out in high school. Ugh. I was just a dog.”
Nora thought she saw something flit behind Monica’s eyes when she said that. Boys weren’t the only ones who hadn’t wanted her in high school. She’d had no siblings, and after her grandmother died, there was no one else who had ever put Monica first again. Maybe not even until she met Liam. Maybe Monica wasn’t the only one who fought so hard to hold on to love. No matter what shape it took.
“Well, I’m glad for you,” Nora said now, touching the sleeve of Monica’s hoodie. “Really, I am.”
“Oh, Nora,” Monica squeezed her hand. “God, you were always so sweet. You still are, baby doll. You’re just the sweetest thing.” She gazed at her for a moment and then said, “Do you wear any makeup? At all?”
“A little bit of Vaseline on my eyelids.”
“Will you let me do your makeup? For dinner tonight?” Nora opened her mouth to object, but Monica pounced. “Oh, don’t say no! Please! Let me put some makeup on you—just a little, I promise—and then you can see if you like it. If you don’t, you can just take it off again. No hard feelings. Okay?”
Nora hesitated only a moment more before relenting. It had always been hard to say no to Monica, who rarely if ever asked for anything. She’d always been the one who insisted that Grace and Nora share the umbrella on rainy mornings as they walked to school, or let Ozzie have the last chocolate chip brownie after dinner, even though they were her favorite. And she had never, not once during their entire stay at Turning Winds, asked for anything else but a hug during every Who Wants What part of their Invisibles meeting. It took a lot for Monica to ask for anything really big for herself, although that had changed apparently, now that she could.
Nora sat still as Monica pushed her hair back with a black headband and tilted her chin toward the light from the window. “Okay,” Monica said. “Let’s start with a primer.” She picked up a thin cylindrical bottle from an enormous pile of makeup she had dumped on Nora’s bed and squirted a small amount onto t
he tips of her fingers. “This is going to set your foundation and make you glow.”
Nora pulled back. “Maybe just do some mascara.” She twisted her fingers in her lap. “I just . . . I don’t want to look stupid, Monica. You know, like I’m all spackled. I’m really just a jeans and sneakers kind of person.”
“Nora!” Monica arched her back. “You’re going to have to trust me. I know what I’m doing, okay? I promise, you will not look spackled.” She ran the tip of her finger lightly down the bridge of Nora’s nose. “Not even remotely.”
Nora closed her eyes then and let Monica do her thing. She could wash it off if she didn’t like it, she told herself. Monica had said she could. No hard feelings. Monica’s fingers across Nora’s forehead, along her cheekbones, under her lips, were as smooth as marble, as soft as light. It occurred to her that this was the first time in a very, very long time that someone had touched her like this. This, Nora thought, was what might happen someday when someone she loved again brushed the tears off her cheeks or ran his fingertips over the planes of her face just before he kissed her. The thought alone made the inside of her nose prickle and the side of her neck flush hot, until, when Monica asked her to open her eyes for the mascara, they were wet and glistening.
“Oh, honey!” Monica said. “What’s the matter? Am I upsetting you? Do you want me to stop?”
Nora shook her head, mortified and grateful at the same time at Monica’s reaction. “No, no, no. Go ahead.” The words came out in a whisper. “It’s okay. I’m fine.”
And she was, she thought.
Right now she was perfectly, inexplicably fine.
Chapter 14
Say cheese!” Henry pointed Ozzie’s camera at the group of them posing in front of the fireplace.
“Cheese!” Nora was in between Ozzie and Grace, their arms clutched around her waist. Monica was on the other side of Ozzie, jumping up and down like a little kid. Nora held in her stomach again, hoping that a sudden burst of laughter wouldn’t split open the back of Monica’s black silk pants. She had on a blouse of Monica’s too—a sheer peach thing with ruffles in the front that pulled a little across the front—and a pair of very expensive pearl stud earrings. The only thing she’d refused to try was Monica’s high heels. Her dark gray New Balances with the pink stripes would do just fine. And when she had come downstairs in Monica’s clothes, her face done up with Monica’s makeup, both Ozzie and Grace had gasped in amazement.
“Oh, Nora!” Grace breathed. “You look spectacular!”
Nora bit her lip, smoothed down the front of the blouse. She looked over at Monica, who was beaming. “It’s just . . . you know, for going out tonight. I don’t usually get dressed up like this.”
“Well, you should!” Ozzie said. “There’s a friggin’ bombshell inside that frame of yours, dying to get out.” Ozzie did not look as if she had rested; on the contrary, the shadows under her eyes were darker, and her mouth lapsed every so often into a scowl. But she was trying, Nora thought. Despite everything else, she was trying. Just like she always did.
She got into formation with the rest of them as Henry prepared to take their picture. They were all done up: Ozzie in soft wide slacks and a purple V-neck sweater, Monica in a tight black dress and heels, her perfect face punctuated with a swipe of deep red lipstick, and Grace in a flowy skirt and blouse, her blond hair pinned up in a twist. A different scarf than the one she’d had on earlier had been looped several times around her neck and knotted neatly on one side. As awkward as she felt on the outside, Nora could feel a warmth rising in her belly too as she stood there, an assuredness she had not felt in a long time.
“Cheese!” they said in unison.
“Okay!” Ozzie said. “Enough already. Let’s go eat!”
The white-gloved maître d’, a thin man with wire spectacles, confirmed Monica’s reservation for four and then led the women to their table by the window. Nora had never been to a restaurant like Tru before, had never even seen a restaurant like Tru before. The few times she’d accepted Trudy’s repeated Friday night dinner invitations, they’d gone to a seafood place that was decorated with white-and-red plastic life preservers on the walls or a steak joint where peanut shells littered the floor. Here there were candles everywhere, some nestled in small coves along the walls, others in copper candelabras, their tips glowing in the dimmed room. Gold drapes framed the rectangular window at one end, and an enormous Warhol painting adorned the west wall. The carpet was a plush cream, the tablecloths stark white, and the chairs a smooth black satin. It was like something out of a magazine.
“So, what do you think?” Monica grinned as the waiter, dressed in a dark blue designer suit, left with their drink order. Nora had followed Monica’s lead, ordering a glass of sauvignon blanc, while Ozzie ordered a Jack Daniel’s, neat. Grace asked for a club soda with lime.
Nora shook her head and looked around anxiously. “I can’t even imagine what a drink in a place like this is going to cost, let alone a meal.”
“Let alone four meals!” Ozzie echoed, pointing to the menu. “Look at the appetizers!”
Nora’s eyes roved over the tissue-thin paper anchored with gold ribbon inside her menu, trying to take in the strange words—langoustine, carpaccio, foie gras—without giving away her ignorance. But when she saw the prices—$260.00 for a trio of caviar samplers—she closed it again and put it to the side. Paying that amount of money for any kind of food, no matter how rich someone was, did not make any sense.
“Are you sure Liam is okay with this?” Grace asked. “I mean, he’s never even met us.”
“He doesn’t have to meet you to treat you to dinner,” Monica said. “He already knows how much you mean to me. Besides, he likes doing things like this. It makes him happy.”
“He likes spending his money, eh?” Ozzie asked.
Monica arched an eyebrow. “On certain things, yes.”
“Like you.”
Monica nodded. “Yes. Like me. And really good food. Come on, girls, don’t worry. I mean it. Besides, when will we get the chance to do something like this again?”
“Well.” Grace still sounded unsure. “It certainly is generous of him. You’ll have to make sure to leave me your address, Monica, so I can send him a thank-you note.”
Monica smiled. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll tell him.”
“Absolutely not,” Grace scoffed. “It’s the least I can do. My goodness.”
“You know, I never think to do things like that.” Ozzie closed her menu and looked at Grace over the top of it. “You’d think now that I’m all grown up with kids and everything, sending thank-you notes would be something I’d be doing all the time. God knows I should. Gary’s parents probably spend a thousand dollars on Christmas presents alone for my kids.” She pressed her lips together. “But I always forget. And then when I do remember, it’s too late. Like, embarrassingly late. It’s just one of those things, you know, where I wonder . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Oh, never mind.” She opened her menu again, scanning the inside.
“What?” Grace asked. “That if someone had taught you to do that when you were younger, it wouldn’t be so hard to remember now?”
Ozzie closed her menu again, slowly this time. “Yes,” she said. “Exactly.”
The women moved back a little as the waiter appeared with their drinks. Nora took a sip and then placed the glass—which was the size of a small fishbowl—back on the table. The wine warmed her belly, but left a slightly sour pool on the back of her tongue.
“I used to have that problem with going to the dentist,” Grace said. “It literally took me years to remember that I should probably be going on a regular basis to get my teeth cleaned and checked for cavities.” She shrugged, stirring her drink with a slender stick. “She just never took me.”
She. She meant her mother. Nora remembered a story Grace told them once about her and her brother going weeks without brushing their teeth because their mother couldn’t afford brushes or toothpast
e. Another time they had toothbrushes but had to rinse them in the Dunkin’ Donuts restroom since they were out of bottled water.
“Well, Liam’s the one who taught me how to eat properly.” Monica’s voice was soft, as if she was ashamed of this fact. “The first time he took me out and I looked at all that silverware on either side of the plate, I got so anxious about using the right one that I almost burst into tears. And then there were three different glasses!” She reached up and fingered one of her diamond earrings. “I caught on eventually. But I felt like a little animal for a while, until I did.”
“Or like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman,” Grace said forgivingly. “Remember that scene with the snails? Where she sends one of them flying across the room because she doesn’t know how to use that weird little fork?”
Nora nodded, listening. There had been a lot for her to learn on her own too, things Mama had never shown her, such as eating three meals a day instead of whatever you could find before bed. Taking a daily vitamin. Flossing. Changing her bedsheets every two weeks instead of every six months. Dusting. For real, with a cloth and lemon oil, instead of with the back of her hand. She’d picked up a lot of things by reading what other people did in books, such as getting an ob-gyn and following up once a year for a checkup. Even managing her periods had been an exercise in futility; the first time she had started to bleed, she had been sure she was dying. It was only when she went to the woman on duty at Turning Winds and confessed what was happening that she got the full story—and a box of pads, to boot. Once, when Trudy had observed her in the library kitchen, eating yet another lunch of saltine crackers and grape jelly, she’d put her hand on her hip and asked: “Don’t you ever get sick of eating those every single day?” The question had startled Nora, who had taken to preparing the jelly crackers for lunch without even thinking about it. Now, though, as she thought back, she realized that they were exactly what she had prepared for herself back in grade school, when Mama had forgotten to pack her a lunch, and crackers and jelly were the only things in the pantry. Old habits were hard to break. Some more than others.
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