by Amy McNamara
Evie. Commit.
Mamie’s voice warbles. I lean against the chilly metal and look at her a minute. Her name’s on the wall behind her, spare, all lowercase, “wren wells,” like some small bird fluttered in, modern, fortunate, innocent.
I close my eyes. Bitterness ratchets up my throat. No one’s innocent.
Patrick’s dead.
Emma’s a wreck.
I’m telling myself revolutionaries do not let fear hold them back when something in her voice changes, drops. She’s going down all on her own, an epic fail without my help. I shift my footing a little, move a step away from the firebox and out from behind the tall man in front of me so I can see her better. It seems only fair on behalf of Emma to let her suffer as long as possible before I pull the lever.
She’s standing next to the painting of the Sullivans. It’s life-size, like they’re up there with her, and it takes my breath away. The image is distorted, but she caught them. Living in it. Their faces. The look they have now that Patrick’s gone. How did she do that? It’s so strange, but they are here in paint, Patricia and Frank in Patrick’s room, near his window, by his still unmade bed, holding a photo of their son.
I retreat to the wall again, unsettled.
My eyes flash from the painting to Mamie’s face, and for a second I don’t recognize her. Her expression holds none of the entitlement I’d imagined. She looks as lost as I feel.
Right then, a motorcycle thunders by, the gallery door opens, and a guy steps in. Mamie hesitates, the space momentarily filled with the roar of the thing.
A few people cough. Everyone’s waiting for her to go on, but she doesn’t.
I try to shrug off the weird feeling gathering in me. Everything’s changing, somehow. Mamie’s obviously losing it, and because I’m so porous I catch other people’s moods, she’s making me lose it too.
Mamie makes a sound that’s not words.
I stare at my boots, muster the confidence pulsing through me a minute ago, try not to feel for her, but it’s hopeless.
I look up. Her eyes are on the guy who stepped in. He’s tall, with dark hair and glasses, wearing a slim navy suit and leaning slightly on a suitcase handle. Obviously a surprise arrival. The way they’re looking at each other makes me feel lonely, like I’ve missed the point of something huge, complicated, something I’ve refused to consider.
I clench my jaw. Take a deep breath. Will myself to look away from them. Whatever’s going on between Mamie and that guy is beside the point. I’m an insurrectionist on a mission. Focus on the mission.
Mamie starts talking again, but not about art. She tells what happened instead, why she made these paintings.
I get myself into position. Press my back hard against the firebox to root myself in the here and now—but Mamie’s words pull me through time until I’m back on the beach that night with Em, watching her scream and scream in the flashing blue light.
My eyes fill with tears. I blink them away, looking around the gallery while Mamie’s painted people tower over us, lost and haunted.
Just like Em.
She explains why she started with old film, the first images already partly imperfect, like memory. How she scanned, enlarged, and projected them until they were as distorted and indistinct as she felt after Patrick died. Then she painted what she saw. All those lost people living blurry within us.
A painting of me and my dad would be mostly white.
I squeeze my eyes shut tight. My inner rebel feels like dress-up. I glance around the gallery, hoping for a sign. Something to help me recommit to my mission. The guy who came for Mamie is still by the door, listening to her like she’s speaking to him, like they’re connected.
Mamie’s in love.
And I’ve been mean. Naïve. Why am I so small?
She’s a thousand times braver, standing up in front of all these people, telling what it means to hold someone only in your heart.
She keeps her eyes on the guy by the door while she talks. He’s in love with her too. That fact alone would kill Em if she knew.
The alarm box is cold against my back. Doesn’t feel like a solution anymore.
I clench my teeth, press against it hard, harder, like I can wedge it through my ribs to the place where I’m supposed to have a working heart, and not the dark hollow echoing there instead. How can this be what Emma needs?
The gallery is full of people from the paintings. Real people. Not the villains I had in my head. Victims of alcohol-related accidents. People who know loss, like Em and her family. Like Mamie. Like me.
Small on the wall next to each canvas are her original photographs. The one closest to me is a family of four on a beach, holding a picture of a girl named Sabrina.
There’s no way I can wreck this.
Not for Em, not for anyone, and not because I’m scared.
Mamie’s doing what she can, trying to live with what happened, trying to make something anyway, to go on.
Being scared is what got me here in the first place.
The only wrong thing about tonight was me.
Endless Possible Mistakes
I SIDLE OUT, PAST THE BLY COHORT, past Mamie kissing that guy, and start to walk downtown. I don’t know where I’m going, but for the first time in days my head’s a cathedral of silence. No more sound track, rebel or otherwise. The gallery had something big in it, like when you see a whale, and it’s bigger than your wildest expectations, so big it seems impossible, and you realize the ocean is full of magisterial creatures you forget about because you’ve limited yourself to only what you see. It left me with an electric shiver that’s getting stronger, like walking is charging it, charging me. It was in Mamie’s paintings—I’ve been looking at love all wrong, wanting it to fill me, when I should be trying to serve it instead. I’m not sure how we got here, but I don’t think friendship is supposed to be like this, to mess with your head, to make you see things from the wrong angle.
I picture for a second what I almost did, the chaos and pain I would have caused, and my body vibrates with relief, with the conviction that not only did I dodge a bullet, but one from my own gun.
This part of town is covered with posters and graffiti, people making their marks where they can, inside galleries and out. I stop at the end of a block, pull chalk from my pocket, and draw a gun on the ground. Hearts exploding from the end of it.
Place where Evie got another chance.
The light changes and I straighten up, cross the street, and keep walking.
This night is nicer than any other spring evening, and I don’t want to keep my head down anymore. I’ve been hiding, paying attention to the wrong things. I want to be open to everything—the air full of river and the beginning of green, and all that love in the gallery—families that are still families after something unspeakable blew them apart, and Mamie making images, and all those people there to support her—I want it all—God, even that guy who showed up, especially him, the way they looked at each other—I want that.
If that’s what my mom had with my dad, maybe that’s why she won’t look for someone else.
I’m tripping along, loose with relief and the idea of wanting. I’m thinking life is full of endless possible mistakes, and I sidestepped a big one tonight, when my phone buzzes.
I dig it from the bottom of my bag.
Emma.
Are you there?
I stare at the screen, unable to respond. Her question seems bigger than she means. Unanswerable.
Something comes loose inside me. Breaks away. When this relief dies down I’m still going to have to tell her how wrong we were. But not yet. I power my phone off and drop it back into my bag.
Tonight was so screwed up. I’m so screwed up. And love is super confusing. I wanted to help Em, get rid of what’s been making her so sad, but I had it all wrong. I almost made a huge mistake, an unforgivable one.
My knees go weak. I stop. People sluice past me on the sidewalk.
I should have stayed and ta
lked to Mamie instead of slinking out like a coward. Then, like I’m a magnet orienting to a new field, I turn and walk back to the gallery. This pretty night’s not for me.
I have to go find her. Tell her what I almost did.
No One Else Can Do It for You
MAMIE AND HER GUY ARE OUT on the sidewalk when I get back up there. They’re leaning against the gallery wall, her arms inside his suit coat, slipped around his waist, their foreheads pressed together.
I stop and watch them. They look so happy kissing and smiling and talking. Then I turn back. I’m not going to mess with that.
I only make it a few paces before I hear Mamie say my name.
“Evie Ramsey? Is that you?”
I try to keep going, walk another step or two away like I didn’t hear, but I can’t leave. She remembers me. I turn to face her. They’re side by side now, both a little flushed, leaning against the gallery wall, holding hands. She’s smiling, her face open. She even looks happy to see me.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I say, taking another step back. Why is my voice so tight? “Just wanted to say hi.”
“Come here!” she calls, waving her arm toward me like we’re in a swimming hole and she’s stirring the water.
I stand there another second, my heart banging around inside my chest. Then I walk to her. Her guy’s supercute, even if he’s kind of squinting at me like he might be annoyed. If I were Mamie, I’d chalk a bed on the sidewalk and pull him down on it. Place where everything’s as it should be. That’s how they look standing there together.
“I haven’t seen you in so long!” Mamie’s voice cracks a little when she says it.
She drops his hand and pulls me into a hug. I let her do it, but can’t lift my arms to hug her back. I am officially the world’s worst human.
“Still making your maps?” she asks quietly in my ear. We pull apart.
She smiles into whatever expression my face is making. I can’t tell because every feeling I’ve ever had is whirling inside me and my face is so far outside the swirl, who knows what it’s up to.
“Evie, this is Cal.” Her eyes shine when she looks at him. “Evie was like a little sister to me. She and Emma—” She pauses a second, takes a breath. “Patrick’s sister—we all used to hang out.”
“I think I’ve seen a few pictures of you.” Cal nods like he’s genuinely happy to meet me. He steps forward with a hand outstretched. I take it. Up close his eyes are this dark winter-ocean color. He’s even cuter than Patrick.
And that’s it for my throat. I drop his hand. One of ours was shaking, probably mine. My throat narrows like I’m strangling myself from the inside out. I step back from them both, and before I can choke out a good-bye, burst into tears.
“Hey now!” Mamie puts a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, Evie. I know it’s weird. It’s been a long time, and I left so abruptly—I didn’t—couldn’t—”
“Don’t be nice to me,” I interrupt. “I came to wreck it all. Tonight. This.” I tilt my head toward the gallery. “Your work.” Mamie’s face freezes, her hand falls back to her side. Cal comes closer.
“Emma’s so hurt,” I say. “Mamie, she’s so mad at you.”
“Emma . . .” Mamie’s voice is small. She shuts her eyes like she has a headache. Lifts a hand to her cheek.
The dam breaks and all the ugly rushes out of me. I’m blubber-crying, not making sense, but I can’t stop. I wrecked something essential inside myself tonight, and now there’s nothing left to hold anything back.
“It’s so messed up. She thinks I love you more than I love her, and I wanted to show her that I didn’t, that I don’t, but nothing I do . . . she thinks everyone does, loves you, not her, like she’s bad or something, and her parents . . . and you, look at you right now, tonight . . . with him . . .” I turn my snotty, teary head in Cal’s direction. He’s stopped looking surprised and is kind of glowering at me now. “It’s so unfair that you—”
Before I can say more, Cal lifts his hand in the air to stop me.
“Hold up,” he says firmly. “Take a breath.” He steps right next to Mamie so they’re one person standing in front of me. “What are you saying?”
What am I saying? How can I be this lost? It’s like Emma and I were some kind of flimsy structure, holding each other together, and now she’s gone, and I’m flapping, empty. I don’t know anything. None of what I could say to Mamie would sound right. I don’t know how I thought it ever would.
Silence drops between us like a heavy barrier with me on the wrong side. The outside.
“Okay, okay, it’s okay.” Mamie’s face is very pale and she sounds a little bit like she might start saying that over and over again and never stop. She takes a deep breath and tucks her hair behind her ears. “I know Emma’s mad. I know it. I—”
But Cal cuts her off too. “I still don’t understand what’s going on here. What are you saying?” he asks me again. His voice has lost all the kindness it had for me a minute ago.
I cry harder.
“I was going to pull the fire alarm, the sprinklers—”
Mamie’s body jolts a little, like I hit her.
Cal puts his hands on her waist, draws her close. “The alarm wouldn’t trigger the sprinklers. They’re heat activated,” Cal says in a low voice.
“Emma wanted me to.” Not true. Not the whole truth. I shake my head. “I mean, I wanted to too. I was ready to make chaos, for her, you don’t understand, she . . .” I’m flailing. “I—”
Mamie cuts me off, points to the curb. “Wow. Okay. We should sit.” She takes a deep breath. Smooths her dress.
I walk over to it and drop down, my forehead on my knees. The street is dusty under my boots. Someone’s lined the curb with Riot Grrrl stickers.
I’m the only one sitting.
Mamie’s boyfriend’s probably calling the police. I close my eyes, put my wrists behind my back. Easier to cuff when the cops pull up. The least I can do is go without a scene.
I peek back at them. They’re standing close, speaking so softly I can’t hear what they’re saying. No phones. Then Cal nods slowly and I catch, “Okay, if you’re sure.” He takes her face in his hands and looks at her—no one’s ever looked at me like that. It would kill Emma. Mamie’s living everything Patrick’s missing, everything he’ll keep missing.
But it’s not Mamie’s fault. Life gets to go on. Love does too. That’s the part Emma can’t face. I pick at a loose piece of rubber on the bottom of my boot and pretend I’m not watching.
“Go be with your dad. I’ll be in soon, I promise.” She pops up on tiptoes and gives him a quick kiss.
He glances down at me on the curb, his face not quite a scowl, but pretty close. When he turns back to the gallery he’s unsteady a sec, like he’s had a little too much to drink. Mamie watches him go, then sits on the curb next to me, so close our arms touch. She draws her knees in to her chest and lays her cheek on them, looking at me sideways.
“Evie, I feel guilty about so many things,” she says after a minute. “I’ll never not feel guilty. And Emma . . .” She closes her eyes. When she opens them again, they’re watery. “What happened with me and Patrick made everything a million times worse for her. But I don’t know what to do about that. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do.”
“I was trying—Emma just needs—”
But I don’t know how to finish my sentence. For so long I thought I did. I thought I knew what she needed. How to give it to her.
“She saves me too,” I say, only that’s not true anymore, either.
“If I’ve learned anything since Patrick died, it’s that you have to figure it out for yourself. No one else can do it for you.”
So many things are rushing through me I can hardly slow any of them long enough to figure out what they are, who I am, even. But I need to explain it to Mamie.
“Em and I, it’s like we’re both missing the regular toolkit. I’m, like, this freak”—I wipe my nose on the back of my hand
—“mapping, frantic, like I can force the future to give me a hand with direction, or at the very least describe a recognizable present, while Em’s running around finding every way she can to explode out of herself. I’m . . . Bartleby or something, my face to the wall, and she’s a blown dandelion.”
Mamie laughs when I say Bartleby, then nods like I just made sense.
“There is no regular toolkit. And if there were, you wouldn’t want it. It’d keep you from seeing things like Emma blown out like a wish. And you’re not Bartleby, Evie. You’re just not.”
I wipe my nose again.
Mamie puts an arm around me.
“I’m sorry I disappeared,” she says. “I was messed up for a while. I couldn’t really handle much.”
“I can’t believe you’re apologizing to me after what I just told you.”
I am a worm. Smaller. A microscopic worm in a worm’s microscope.
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t do it.” She sighs. “I don’t know, Evie. I always thought if you used half the energy you spent trying to fix Emma on your own life, you’d be unstoppable.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
Mamie squeezes my shoulders.
“It’s impossible to run away from yourself. Believe me, I tried. Hiding from what scares you feels like a solution, but it really only deepens the fear. My dad’s partner, Zara, is always reminding me the only way out is through.” Mamie sighs again. “And she’s right. Also”—Mamie looks me right in the eye—“art helps. Art’s a place you can work on ideas and feelings when you have nowhere else to put them. That’s what you were doing with those maps, right? Please tell me you’re still making them? I always thought they were cool.”
Nothing turns out the way I expect. I’m on a curb in Chelsea with Mamie Wells, and even though I told her I came to destroy her work, she’s talking to me like we’re made of something similar, like everything’s maybe going to be okay.
“Did you really change your name?”