The Me You See

by Stevens, Shay Ray

  “She hid a note in there for you when she left?”

  “Well, I didn’t know she had. I mean, initially. I didn’t find it for two months. I didn’t think about looking for anything when she first left because I thought she would come back.”

  “Did she leave many times before that?”

  “No,” Stefia said, looking at me as if I’d just asked her the most impossible thing. “She had never left. She was always home.”

  “How did you know she wasn’t coming back?”

  “Mail stopped coming to our house for her. I was old enough to figure out she’d had her address changed. So I figured that meant she’d ended up somewhere. And then I was brave enough to check that secret hiding spot.”

  “What did the note say.”

  “She’d moved to New York.”

  “New York?”

  “Yeah. For the theater.”

  Outside my room, a young girl slowly passed by with a vending machine cup of hot cocoa. She alternated between blowing at the steam and sipping gingerly, trying to protect her taste buds as she indulged in the liquid chocolate.

  “Before she met dad, she was big into theater,” Stefia continued. “I mean, big time. The summer she met my father, she was supposed to be heading off to New York to audition for some company that had pretty much already promised her a spot. Two months later, when she was getting ready to leave, she found out she was pregnant with me.”

  The girl with the hot cocoa stopped in front of my room as if she was listening to the story. Stefia saw my eyes at the door and turned her head.

  “Hello,” she said to the girl. Stefia picked up her thermos and held it out. “Want some coffee?”

  The little girl grinned, took another sip of her cocoa, and continued walking past my room.

  “Anyway,” Stefia resumed with a sigh, “at least that’s what the note said. I didn’t know any of that about my mom before I read that note.”

  Stefia didn’t say anything else for a long time. She got out of her chair and looked at the old Polaroid snapshots I’d pegged up around my room. She picked up the scribbly Crayola drawings from great grandchildren that sat on my nightstand. She asked if I wanted more coffee and I shook my head.

  “Stefia?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is that why you decided to become an actress?”

  “Huh?”

  “Because of your mom?”

  Stefia didn’t say anything. She just looked at the black and white checkered floor and slipped the back of her shoe off and on, off and on.

  “Well, anyway, you don’t have to tell me anything,” I said, finally. “You don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want to. That’s our deal, right?”

  “Yeah.” Stefia smiled, checking her phone for the time.

  “Did your dad know where she went?” I asked.

  “My mom?”

  “Yeah.”

  Stefia paused for a minute, and then cleared her throat as if she was trying to cough the answer out. “He was the one who told her to go,” Stefia said. “That was in the note, too. Dad didn’t want to keep mom from her dream.”

  “Her dream?”

  “He felt like if she stayed with us, she’d be—how did it go?—wasting her true purpose.” Stefia’s voice turned sharp. “But I’m pretty sure dad doesn’t know about that note under the tree.”

  “So your dad doesn’t know that you know?”

  “Nope.”

  A tiny smirk of irony slid across my lips. I knew why she was telling me instead of her dad. Because she’d only known me for nine weeks, and in the grand scheme of things, we didn’t really know each other.

  “We all have secrets” I said. “Don’t we?”

  And then Stefia smiled one of those smiles that made you feel less comfortable for having seen it.

  “Anna? You know the answer to your question, right?”

  “Which one?”

  “The one about why I’m an actress?”

  I thought for a minute.

  “I don’t have to answer that,” I said. “That was our deal.”

  Stefia smiled.

  And I knew.

  We talked another fifteen minutes about everything except her mom and dad, instead flitting from the topic of aliens to drag racing to the best way to cook a steak. Then Stefia checked her phone again for the time and announced it was time to leave.

  “You enjoy your day,” I said and giggled, “and thanks again for the hot coffee. I so enjoy our visits.”

  “So do I, Anna Marie,” she said. She took my ceramic mug from me and rinsed it in my bathroom sink. She dried it carefully and stuck it back in its hiding spot in the closet.

  “For next time,” she said. She smiled but it seemed to lack the glitter and gusto that usually lit up my room.

  “Is something bothering you today, Stefia?” I asked.

  “I’m just really tired,” she said, then smirked. “I suppose you think that’s silly. Like…how hard can acting be?”

  I thought for a minute and answered carefully.

  “Acting is one of the most exhausting things known to man. It’s hard to be someone you’re not. It takes a lot out of you.”

  “Yeah,” she said, dismissively. She picked up her empty thermos and headed for the door.

  “And Stefia?” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Being in a play is probably pretty hard, too.”

  Stefia smiled.

  And I knew.

  She knew that I knew.

  And that’s all that mattered.

  **

  I sit now in my pink room in a simple black dress, strangled by the irony that Stefia's funeral is on a Wednesday.

  I throw my blue and green ceramic mug across the room and watch it shatter as it hits the wall.

  Why did it have to be on a Wednesday?

  Rowena hears the mug break all the way in the nurse’s station and rushes to my room. She throws open my door so hard that the handle jams into the closet behind it.

  "Anna Marie!" she says, stopping short of the broken pieces of mug scattered in the floor. "Oh my god, are you okay?"

  I am not okay.

  I am not okay.

  And one thought consumes my mind as Rowena stares at me, her lips moving but no sound reaching my ears: I want to unknow everything that I know.

  -Gabriella-

  Words were my currency. As he pushed his way in and out of my mouth he filled me with words and I could finally explain the blunt square-headed ache that came when the drought shriveled the zucchini and my pants hung off my hips and mom left and never game back.

  We lay together twisted up in sweaty sheets and I traced my finger along the outline of him. I wanted to slice my fingernail through his skin and down his arm; leave a trail that would bleed and scar. Just to prove to myself he was there. Just to prove he was real.

  Please be here.

  Sometimes I don’t want Adam to talk. I don’t want to hear the crackle-scratch-clip of his voice. Sometimes I just want to grab his face and claw my way through the skin of his cheeks. But other times I want to drag the soft of my lower lip just below his, catching the bristle of a four day beard on his chin.

  Please. Be here.

  I fish my palm up his arm through the sleeve of his t-shirt and out the neck hole, closing a fist around the fabric. I have him, or at least the cotton that covers him, firmly in my grasp.

  In the dim glow of what light sneaks through the window, I see the edge of his lips twist into a grin.

  “Why are you holding on so tight?” Adam asks.

  “I want you here,” I say.

  “I am here.”

  “I want you to stay.”

  “I’m not leaving.”

  “But sometimes people do. Sometimes people say they’re staying but they change their mind and don’t change it back.”

  His grin fades into a crisp straight line and now he is serious. He rolls to face me full on and repeats in a thick
voice I can latch on to:

  “I’m not leaving.”

  I want to curl up in his words. I want to fix them around my shoulders and cover my neck and plug my ears with the things he says. His words are few but solid and sure. There is comfort in the sound of him and in the weight of them.

  Please.

  Be.

  Here.

  His gaze moves from me to the neat and crisp dress I’ve hung from a hanger on the hook over my door and I know he’s saying without saying that we should really get ready to leave.

  My look back to him says I don’t want to.

  If I go, I will be the girl in the corner, the girl in the shadow made by the cast of light her oldest sister throws off. There is no difference whether she is alive or dead. Stefia will always be the most brightly shining star in the room.

  “Let’s get ready,” he breathes into my ear.

  “I’m not going.”

  His lips open again and close gently on the top edge of my ear.

  “Come on, Gabriella,” he whispers. “You have to.”

  “I don’t have to do anything.”

  “Oh, Gabriella…”

  It almost sounds like he’s pouting. I know he’s tsk tsking me.

  “I was hoping to see you in that dress you hung on the door,” he continues.

  “Liar,” I say. “You’re happiest when I’m not dressed at all.”

  “Wrong. I’m happiest just having you by me, whether you’re clothed or not.”

  I stare at the popcorn textured ceiling of the hotel room we’ve woken up in and I wonder who laid in this bed before us? Were they happy? Did they make wild passionate love but never kiss on the lips? Were they comfortable in their nakedness or did she ask to turn off the lights? What kind of home did they return to? And did they return home together?

  I close my eyes. I wonder why I wondered about it. I realize it doesn’t matter.

  “Gabriella, you have to go to the funeral,” he says, and then as a correction, adds, “We have to go.”

  “No. We don’t.”

  **

  “Gabriella!” I can hear her laughing. I remember that day. I remember the one time we got away just us three sisters. There was just over a year separating each of us by age and if we dressed just right we could almost get away with looking like triplets. So we all wore white skinny jeans and a solid color tank top, big matted brass hoops and knee high boots. We looked great, but Stefia looked best of all. She had a way of shining like a beacon even if we were all saying or doing or wearing the same thing.

  We went to eat at McRudy’s that day. Cokes and cheeseburgers and fries and then, because we were pretending it was our own personal Sister Thanksgiving, strawberry shakes. We walked out of McRudy’s feeling like the buttons on our jeans would pop off and fly across the parking lot. We were so stuffed.

  We laughed. Oh god, did we laugh. We laughed about funny things dad had said and stupid things mom had done. And remember that one Christmas when we went shopping but forgot to bring all the Christmas lists with so we just punted and ended up picking out the best gifts ever? That afternoon Stefia was my sister. She was just my sister, nothing else.

  The only thing I ever wanted was for my sister to sit with me for a meal somewhere where no one else recognized her. Somewhere I could talk to her as my big sister. Somewhere that she could just be herself and not the person everyone else saw her as.

  Just. My. Sister.

  After McRudy’s, we planned to see a movie. We rolled our stuffed bellies into Stefia’s car. Stefia picked up her cell phone to check her messages and said, “Crap.”

  “What?” Naomi asked.

  “I’ve got to take this message. Give me a second, okay?”

  So Stefia got back out of the car, sent the number through on her phone, and walked away from the car to talk.

  “Who is she talking to?” I asked, not hiding my annoyance. “The pope?”

  “Who knows,” Naomi said from the front passenger seat. “Don’t be mad.”

  “She said this was just going to be a sister day. Now Hollywood calls and she’s just going to ditch us?”

  Naomi turned around.

  “What is your problem? Who said Hollywood was calling? It could have been dad for all we know.”

  “If it were dad, she wouldn’t have gotten out of the car to return the call.”

  “Maybe he was asking about a Christmas list. Maybe he was asking what Stefia had already bought someone and he didn’t want you to know.”

  “Why couldn’t she just text that back to him?”

  “Gabriella, honestly,” Naomi said, heaving out a sigh of exasperation. “What does it matter who is on the phone anyway?”

  “Because this was just supposed to be a sister afternoon.”

  “Why can’t you just be happy for her? I mean, Christ! She’s practically a small town movie star.”

  “No, she’s not,” I said. “She’s just my sister.”

  Naomi turned back around in the seat and looked out the windshield. She muttered something under her breath and shook her head.

  “What?” I yelled.

  “Nothing.”

  “No, tell me!”

  Stefia was standing in front of the car, facing away from us but you could tell from the way she was holding her stomach that she was laughing.

  “I just don’t get why you have to be so bitter,” Naomi said, not bothering to turn around and look at me. “It doesn’t help her at all.”

  “Now I’m supposed to help her?” I said. “I don’t know why she needs our help. She seems to be doing just fine on her own.”

  “It’s not her fault that people think she’s talented at what she does. Gabriella, she is talented. Don’t you get that?”

  “Yeah, I do. But so what?”

  “So…I don’t know why in the world that means you have to be mad at her. You’re punishing her for something she has no control over.”

  “Bullshit,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I said bullshit. I think she likes the fame.”

  “I didn’t say she didn’t. Who wouldn’t? I said she can’t control that people like her and want her to do stuff. I mean, the girl could read the back of a cereal box and people would fall down at her feet. I think that’s pretty darn amazing.”

  “I think it’s bullshit,” I said, staring out my window. Stefia finished her phone call and opened the car door to hop back into the driver’s seat.

  “Sorry, gals,” she said, bubbly as ever. “No more interruptions from now on.”

  “Who was that?” I asked.

  “Dad. He thought we were going to be home by now. I asked him if he forgot we were catching the movie. He said he had, and was thinking maybe some group of men carried the three of us off. He was wondering if he needed to send out a SWAT team to find us.”

  Naomi and she collapsed into giggles in the front seat, squealing about dad and his overactive imagination, and Stefia started the car and steered it towards the movie theater.

  But me? I wasn’t laughing. Because I didn’t believe that Stefia had been talking to dad. Stefia was an actress, master of making people believe all things. I imagined her as reading a script most of the time she was awake. Just reciting lines she was supposed to say.

  I wished someone would have just written her a scene where she looked me in the eye and said, Gosh, I’m so glad to be your sister. And you matter to me.

  Now that would have been a moving, emotional scene.

  Too bad she never picked up that script.

  **

  Adam leans into my back with a gentle kiss, pressing his fingers into my shoulder.

  “Are you coming?” he teases. “There’s plenty of room in the shower for both of us…”

  He tugs at the sheets, pulling them off slowly, leaving me more and more exposed as the bedding slips to the floor. I ignore him.

  “Come on, Gabriella. You’re going to get cold. Come conserve water in the shower wi
th me.”

  I close my eyes and think of Stefia.

  He stops tugging on the bedding, picks up one of the pillows and throws it at my head.

  “Come on, Gabriella. It’s not funny anymore. Get out of bed. We have to leave in an hour.”

  “Adam, I told you I’m not going.”

  He stands at the right hand side of the bed, hands on hips, still feeling smart for tossing the pillow that I didn’t bother to move off my face where it landed.

  “I already told you we have to go,” he said. “What will people think if we don’t?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “People will want you to be there.”

  “They never did before.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means if they didn’t care if I was around or not when she was alive, what the hell difference does it make now that she’s dead?”

  “You can’t mean that.”

  “I do mean it.”

  His eyes would not divert from me, as if he was trying to see past my skin to determine if I was telling the truth.

  “Well, I’m still going,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I’m still going to the funeral.”

  “My family hardly knows you, Adam.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to pay my respects to the dead.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Just what I said.”

  He picks up the bedding off the floor, sets it back up on the mattress, and walks around the bed to pick the pillow up that he tossed.

  “You will regret not going to her funeral,” he said, brushing my hair out of my face.

  “I have never regretted anything I’ve done except for not being born first.”

  He stares at me. His eyes beat through my skin and make the hairs on my neck stand up. Suddenly I’m cold.

  “I’m getting in the shower,” he says finally. “If you change your mind about getting ready to go, you know where I’ll be.”

  I don’t respond. I just watch him walk into the bathroom and pull the door almost shut, just enough so it doesn’t quite latch.

  An invitation.

  One I will decline.

  I’ve spent my life living in someone else’s shadow. I’ve spent my life wondering why doing the right things didn’t get me the all-adoring eyes that my sister seemed to attract just by breathing. The blood pumping through her body was enough to make people flat out stupid with undeserved respect for something anyone could have done just as well as her if she only would have sat down long enough for someone else to try.