Food sounded good, crucial in fact after the last strenuous hour, but she didn’t think that Temerity had any idea of how much, and she certainly wasn’t going to let Justice watch her eat the amount she required. That kind of commitment called for privacy. The Snickers bars’ protective effect had worn off, and she felt drained and raw.
Ellen’s knees wobbled at the thought of the lunch Temerity and Justice would consider a good meal. Probably salad. She shuddered. The strangely emotional morning had left her light-headed and shaky. Her interior fortifications craved caloric sustenance to thicken their worn walls, and a lot of it.
Normally, by this time in the a.m., she would have consumed several times the recommended daily allowance of carbohydrates as determined by the, in her opinion, far too fervent Food and Drug Administration, whose tidings of gloom were constantly being broadcast on her little radio. She’d listened with lukewarm interest to their warnings about calories per day, fat percentages, and fiber intake and had been left with a sense of indifferent futility. Those limitations seemed more fantastical than the thrift-store paperbacks with the long-haired, half-naked supermodel pirates on the cover. Neither the novels nor the labels on her food interested her, and they struck her as equally absurd. Who could adhere to those calorie counts? Who wanted to do the math? For that matter, who could sail a ship through a storm without a shirt or a hair tie? Sure, it looked good, but the windburn would sting like the dickens and it would be next to impossible to get the tangles out, was the way she saw it.
“I . . . need to go home first,” Ellen fumbled. “I have to, uh, feed Mouse.”
“And we don’t want the fragile little darling to waste away, so okay. We’ll run you by there. Good?”
“I don’t want Justice to see—” Ellen could hear the panic in her own voice, and Temerity’s exceptional hearing had certainly not missed it. Hell, that girl’s ears could probably pick up her inner monologue.
She was right. “We won’t go up. We’ll wait in the car.” Temerity sat down, signifying that it was a done deal.
So Ellen sat with Temerity, restraining her preferred impulse to flee into the nearby planters, dig a hole and cover herself with compost. As she waited, she repeatedly reached up and finger-combed her hair down over the left side of her face. Not that it would hide her ravaged cheek from Justice’s perceptive gray eyes. But she consoled herself with the memory of how indifferent he’d been to her appearance the first time he had been able to see her. For a brief moment, she indulged herself by imagining that, if she tried, she might be able to not only be invisible, but to control her appearance when she chose to be seen. The fantasy didn’t last. Double the miracles seemed highly improbable.
Every time her fingers accidentally brushed against the rutted, poreless scar tissue, she flinched. Not from pain, but from the hated images it recalled to her mind—flashes of her early life with the woman who, impossibly, had been her mother, the constant hungry burn in her stomach, sleeping on the cold floor at night, curling into a ball until the hitting stopped. And, worst of all, she could feel her mother’s fist twisting her hair, holding her while she struggled, see the red glow of the electric hot plate coming closer and closer, the heat searing even before her skin reached it. The smell of . . . no. Ellen snorted to clear her nose of the phantom stench of liquor and burnt meat. She would not think of it. It was over, gone, dead, and she would not resurrect it, or her. It didn’t matter anymore, anyway, no one could see the mutilation. She was spared the dull stab of seeing the revulsion in their eyes before they could avert their gaze, or worse, the staring and jeering that had been her youth. The relief of invisibility was profound.
“Here he comes,” Temerity said, rousing Ellen from her murky thoughts. She looked up in surprise to see a black BMW rounding the drop-off circle of the hospital, engine purring so softly that Ellen’s inferior ears could barely hear it when it stopped right in front of them.
The driver’s door opened and Justice got out, he was dressed in a corduroy jacket and jeans, more formal than the first time she’d seen him, and Ellen looked down, humiliated by her worn clothes. But once again, Justice didn’t even seem to notice as he rounded the front of the expensive auto.
“Your carriage awaits, ladies,” he said with a smile and little comic bow. “Hey, Ellen,” he added in a secretive undertone as he opened the back door for her.
“Yeah, hi,” mumbled Ellen, keeping her face down. It was a bit of a squeeze, but once inside, Ellen sat in awe. She was afraid to touch anything in the cream leather interior at first, but she could not stop her fingers from running back and forth on the supple seat cushion. She had seen this kind of car by the thousands, but she had never imagined that she would be granted access to such a luxurious ride. In spite of her fear and embarrassment, she couldn’t keep one side of her mouth from grinning.
She told him which way to go and blushed profusely when they pulled up in front of the run-down building. She had never looked at it as anything but a hiding place before, but seeing it through his eyes made her burn with shame when she thought of their beautiful, stylish apartment.
But Justice turned to her with a smile and jerked a finger toward his sister. “We’ll wait for you. Hurry back. We’ve got to get Ms. Mole here to her rehearsal.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Temerity said. “It makes me feel like an informant.”
“I’m so sorry,” Justice chided her in a baby voice. “I meant the furry little blind rodent.”
“Oh, that’s much better,” Temerity said with droll sarcasm. She crossed her arms and withdrew, pouting.
Ellen got out and hurried as best she could up the rickety wooden stairs to her front door. She went straight to the kitchen, pulled out a loaf of white bread and ate four slices by rolling them into doughy, chewy balls and eating them whole. She followed this with several large handfuls of dry Cap’n Crunch cereal and a few cookies.
Still chewing, she turned to look out the back window, though she didn’t expect to see much with both of her pets in the hospital.
But she was wrong. An initial sweeping glance of the courtyard revealed nothing but police tape and the balding toy poodle squatting arthritically in the gravel. As he eased his backside stiffly into position, he tilted his little head upward. Then suddenly, he began to bark in a high-pitched, furious stream, his original business forgotten.
Ellen looked up to the roof across the courtyard to see what was upsetting the little canine, and spotted him. A boy was looking down from the flat roof, crouching low. Ellen leaned forward and stared, but she knew immediately it was not the same young man as the night before. This was little more than a child, maybe twelve years old, and the skin on his wrists was clean and unscarred. He hissed at the dog to shut up, and then searched around him. He picked up a small rock and threw it at the animal, hitting him on the rump, which sent him into a spasm of spinning and indignant yapping. Then the kid froze, dropping his body to the rough tarred surface below the two-foot raised edging. But too late.
“I see you, you!” Ellen heard the dog’s mistress shout in her crackly voice, outraged that he had attacked her beloved dog. She must have been standing directly below Ellen, because she couldn’t see her, but the volume of the old woman’s voice was every bit as strong as before, and Ellen could hear her perfectly. “I’ve already called the police, you little shit! They’ll be here in one minute. You leave my dog alone!”
But the kid was gone before she’d finished the sentence, running and dropping off the far side of the roof like Spider-Man’s scrawny, brown, inner-city nephew.
Ellen exhaled, unaware that she had been holding her breath. She felt a huge wave of relief. It was not the first time she’d seen kids on the roof. Because only three apartments were on the second story, the flat roofs of the lower story gave perfect access to the exposed walls, and the local gangs had pissed their marks there for more than a decad
e. The window over Ellen’s kitchen sink, striped with wrought-iron bars, led onto this roof; it was from the broken slat at the bottom of that window that Mouse had first crept into her life. She had to wonder if the boy was a coincidence or a messenger. It was unusual for one of these kids to be up there in broad daylight, but in view of the onslaught of strange events in the last few days, this rated low on the list.
Because on that list was the strangest thing of all: Ellen had a friend. Well, an acquaintance with mutual interests, and she supposed, having no point of reference, that it amounted to the same thing. That was the most peculiar thing that had ever happened to her, even considering that the last few days had been some of the oddest ever.
Back in the car, Justice glanced back at her before asking, “So, you want to tell me what you two have been up to?”
Ellen couldn’t see Temerity’s face in the front seat, but her shoulders did a little dance of anticipation. She had a story to tell. “Visiting neighbors of Ellen’s. There was a little incident at her apartment building last night. You want to tell him?”
She didn’t, but Temerity had offered like it was some kind of treat. “Some guy got shot.”
“Oh good,” Justice said dryly. “Glad to know you girls are staying out of trouble.”
“We didn’t shoot him!” Temerity said. “But Ellen saw the guy who did.”
“Not really, it was dark,” Ellen filled in hastily.
“And,” Temerity rushed on, “Cindy went into labor, so we went to the hospital, just to check up on how they were doing.”
In the rearview mirror, Ellen could see Justice’s brow furrow as he shook his head with resigned acceptance. “I knew I should have come home last night,” he said.
“Oh, that reminds me, how was your date?” his sister asked.
He grinned. “I didn’t come home last night.”
“Excellent,” Temerity said, and held up one hand to be slapped by her brother. “So you like her?”
“She’s pretty cool, actually. Smart. But back to you two meddlers.”
“Meddlers?” Temerity turned her body toward him so that Ellen could see the determined set of her mouth in profile. “I seem to remember you talking about ‘fate’ and ‘charity.’ You said we should help.”
“Help does not include gunfire or any other exchange of deadly force. How is the guy doing?”
Temerity sighed. “Not great. It’ll be a couple of days before they can even say if he’ll make it.”
“How about the girl . . . Cindy? Did she have the baby?”
“Healthy baby girl. Not quite the color the would-be adoptive parents had ordered, apparently. There was a good bit of discussion about returning it to sender.”
Justice glanced back at Ellen and asked, “And how, exactly, do you know all of this?”
Temerity held up one fist. “I’m blind and she’s invisible. It’s a powerful combination when it comes to gathering information.”
A long, tortured sigh came from Justice. “Great,” he said, but it came out more like Blast.
“And anyway, Mr. Anthropologist, you’re the one who’s always saying that gathering is an important part of our human history and development, especially for women. Men were the hunters, women were the gatherers, that’s what you said.”
“Gatherers of nuts and berries, not other people’s business. I was talking about traits that affected certain evolutionary changes in society and physiology. And that’s Dr. Anthropologist to you.”
“Some doctor. Everybody likes to gather information, in other words, ‘other people’s business.’ Hell, in some places it’s hard currency, just ask the CIA or the folks at JPMorgan Chase. Oh, and I talked to Cindy.”
“You did what?” He braked hard for no apparent reason and Ellen felt the seat belt, already maxed out, tighten across her chest.
Temerity used one of her fingers to respond before she spoke. “If you would have heard the sound she was making, there’s no way you would have walked away, so don’t even.”
They were pulling up to the artists’ entrance at the music center and Justice reached over the back of the seat to get the violin case from the floor. His fingers brushed Ellen’s knee. “Sorry,” he said, as though it were nothing, and found the case. He lifted it over the seat and set it in his sister’s lap. “You’re probably right. I have to admit the whole situation with the girl is culturally pretty fascinating. Sad but fascinating. How did she react when you told her about the letter?”
Temerity didn’t answer, so as they came to a stop, Justice turned to Ellen for an explanation.
“We didn’t tell her,” Ellen muttered. “I mean, we gave her the letter, but she didn’t know it was us, and then she went into labor, so, well . . . I mean, it’s not like she had any time to think, or, you know, do anything about it, uh, you know . . .” She trailed off.
“And she’s not adjusting very well, I take it? Emotionally, I mean.” Justice sounded resigned, as if it were a foregone conclusion.
Temerity said brightly, “Let’s review. She’s all alone, doesn’t talk to her family, if she even has one, she met a guy, fell in love, allowed herself to hope, he left to go to war, she found out she was pregnant, he died, she has nobody to help her, and no way to take care of a baby in a harsh world.”
“So . . . not great.”
“Not great,” Temerity agreed, dropping the false cheer and unfolding her stick. “Okay, I’ve got to get in there. Pick me up in an hour and a half?”
They watched until she was through the door. The second she disappeared, Ellen became hyperconscious of the fact that she was now alone with Justice in a car. Every nerve in her body was on high alert, and her brain was screaming, Get out! Run! But before she had time to act, Justice thumped the steering wheel and asked jovially, “Hungry?”
He couldn’t have said anything else better designed to put Ellen’s fears back to their “standby” position. Always, she thought, but what she said was, “Sort of.”
“Cool. You like Italian sausage, with pasta anyway, I know. There’s this amazing food truck that parks nearby that makes the best sausage subs on warm Italian loaf. I say we pick up a couple of foot-longs with onions, peppers, cheese—the works—a couple of iced teas, eat until we can’t, and soak up some sunshine.”
She wasn’t sure about the sunshine part, but the rest of the plan sounded like something perched on billowing clouds behind pearly gates. “Sure,” she said. And then she added two words she couldn’t remember ever using as a stand-alone pair before. “Why not?”
It was hard for Ellen to believe that someone as slim as Justice could actually finish a sandwich that was larger than his own head, but he did. Ellen savored hers, finishing it, but only just. When they’d balled up the white paper wrappings and crushed the iced tea cans, they lay back on the grass and made satisfied noises.
The early-spring wind was still refreshingly cool and the feel of the sun heating the dark clothes she always wore was actually welcome, nothing like the usual sweltering broiler heat she usually associated with a sunny day. The pleasant fullness of a satisfying meal and the fact that Justice was with her in the middle of a large field of grass insulated Ellen from her usual state of high alert when she had to be outside in any kind of sunlight. The novelty made her sleepy and contented.
“Mmm.” She made the noise without realizing she’d done it. It came from her chest, like a purr.
“My sentiment, precisely,” said Justice. They lay there for a few minutes, sluglike, until Justice rolled up on one elbow with a groan of effort. Immediately self-conscious, Ellen sat up, crossing her legs and flattening her hair down over her cheek.
But he wasn’t looking at her. He was watching the people enjoying the sunshine and the fountain in the plaza in front of the music hall. “Aren’t they fascinating?” he asked.
Ellen followed his gaze an
d noticed several vignettes, a family with small children who had “accidentally” gotten wet in the fountain and were now sporting their parents’ jackets and shivering in the light wind, a young couple making out against the ticket booth wall, an elderly group of men playing chess. “Who?” Ellen asked him.
Raising the hand not supporting his head, he waved it grandly. “All of them! I mean, look at them. Look at what we’ve built: high-rises and electronics and space rockets. The things we can choose to do every day: music, art, sports. We even have leisure time! We can eat tacos or spaghetti or hamburgers or sushi for lunch and something else for dinner. It’s unprecedented, what humans can do in our age, yet so many of us are still so unhappy.”
She watched the men at the chess table argue about a move, but the altercation passed quickly. She’d never really thought about people on the whole as being unhappy, though she had seen and recorded hundreds of individual moments. Come to think of it, she never thought of people as a whole, except possibly as the faceless mass outside of her safety zone. “Why do you think that?” she ventured to ask.
“Me?” He puffed out his cheeks and let out an audible breath. “I think it’s because we’ve forgotten the important things.”
Ellen snuck a peek at his serious face. Unused as she was to pursuing a conversation of any kind, she found that she really wanted to know what he thought. “Like . . . what things?”
He turned as though remembering to whom he was speaking and sat up. “Our place in the world, for starters. By that I mean humans as part of a living organism, the planet. Think about it. We’re part of a huge, balanced biology that’s being messed up. That’s the first thing. The second thing we’ve forgotten about is the human need to connect. We were meant to function together to be whole; without that, we feel fundamentally incomplete.”
Ellen must have looked as lost as she felt, because he clapped his hands together and said, “Okay, look at it this way. Human beings developed as tribes, each member had his or her role and was necessary for the survival and well-being of the whole. That is how we managed to evolve so far. But we don’t give much thought to the common good anymore. It’s every man for himself, and on a really basic survival level, that’s unnatural. Therefore, people feel unfulfilled, but they don’t know why.”
Invisible Ellen Page 13