Hiding

by Henry Turner

  Now, this whole area across Roland Avenue was what people call the dollar side of my neighborhood, where all the doctors and lawyers and big property owners live—the really rich ones. Laura knew it was called that; anybody in my neighborhood or any of the nearby neighborhoods would, because that’s something you learn no matter where you live around here.

  My side of Roland Avenue, where just regular people live, we always call the fifty-cent side. Laura knew that, too. Everybody calls it that. But up there across Roland Avenue, everybody calls it the dollar side. And even though I already told you about The Oaks, where Laura lives, and how everybody over there is rich, you have to remember how I said those are people who sort of come and go and haven’t lived there long, whereas these people on the dollar side were even richer, and their houses were the oldest of any around, and the families had lived there the longest.

  I walked awhile, just sort of admiring all these huge houses—or really maybe just trying to admire them, because I couldn’t always see over those flagstone walls as high as my head and felt like I was lost in a huge, hilly maze. I remember the sky was dark with clouds and the air felt pretty heavy and sort of cold, too. Finally I came up to this country club over there, which had these big brown shingle buildings not much different from houses, only bigger, and a big inner courtyard with fenced-in tennis courts, and this golf course out back, down at the bottom of a long hill they let kids sled on in winter‑time. I’d sledded there, but I’d never been inside any of the buildings.

  I told Laura I probably wouldn’t’ve even approached the country club, because I really did think it was completely off-limits. But drizzle started falling and there was no real place for me to stand around outside; I was getting soaked. So I slipped in through this gateway I was passing—they have this big black cast-iron gateway in the middle of this high ivied wall out front—and I crossed the courtyard to this building, where I stood in a doorway. All I wanted was to stay warm and dry, and I was listening to the rain tap on the pavement when a waiter stuck his head out the door, smiled nicely, and asked if I’d like to come in and get dry and maybe have a Coke or something.

  I said I would.

  He was foreign-sounding, the waiter, with gray in his hair, and wearing this white sort of formal jacket that had brass buttons up the side of the front.

  One thing I can say is, he was, like, the politest guy I’d ever met, because he never lost his smile, and he sort of waved me forward with his hand so I’d know exactly where I was going.

  He led me into this very fancy and old-fashioned bar area where everything was made of very heavy dark wood, thicker with varnish than a gym floor. There were long tables and big dark leather chairs and sofas everywhere. It was pretty quiet in there, but I noticed a few old men in suits were sitting around, reading newspapers and having drinks.

  I sat at the bar and the waiter went behind and poured me a Coke and passed it to me.

  And I don’t know what it was, but when he asked me some question—just a simple question about where I was from or something—I just went off.

  I told him I was the son of the police chief.

  I don’t even know why I picked that.

  I mean, you’d think I’d say I was the son of a congressman or senator or something like that, but what I said was police chief, because it sounded important to me. And I don’t mean the local police chief, because I sort of instinctively figured they all might know him—the old men in the suits, I mean—so I said the police chief in Chicago, because I thought it sounded right, and that I was in town visiting a friend. Then I said—and he hadn’t even asked me but I just sort of volunteered it—that I went to a boarding school and was on break, and how I wasn’t even staying in a hotel or house, but on a big yacht downtown moored at the marina near where the old spice factory used to be.

  I kept my eyes on him while I talked; he was polishing some glasses. But the truth is, I wasn’t saying all this just to tell the waiter, but more so those old guys—and I’d counted five or six of them sitting around drinking drinks—would hear me.

  And sure enough, the more I said about the Great Lakes and anything else I knew about Chicago—calling it the Windy City because I’d heard it called that somewhere—these old guys sort of perked up and nodded and grinned at one another. I could tell they were listening to everything I said, until finally—and it only took, like, a minute—they all got up from their tables and stood in a circle around me at the bar while I blabbed on and on.

  I don’t know what it was, but for the first time in my life it was like I could talk endlessly. I’ll admit it was a little hard keeping up with all the lies, but I kept track of everything pretty good. I had, like, a lot of vital mental energy for some reason, probably because it was a real rush like Carol had said, and I could tell that these old guys in the country club had had a few drinks anyway even though it was still morning.

  In the beginning I didn’t know if they actually believed me, but I just kept talking anyways, because, at first at least, it was really fun.

  But the thing is, after just a minute or so, I could tell that none of them were doubting a word I said.

  I mean, they wanted to believe what I told them—I could tell just looking at their drunk, grinning faces—and if they chimed in and said that at their boarding school there had been an indoor pool or polo grounds or some tree everybody carved their initials on—because, you know, they sort of wanted to relate to me—I’d say that we had a really big pool and dozens of horses and that an English guy named Withers taught us to ride and play polo. And they never even tried to contradict me, these old guys, and if anything they tried to encourage me—I mean even correct me—and said my dad was actually police commissioner instead of chief, because it sounded more official, and so I went along with it, and for a while I was thrilled to be getting all this attention, and I really felt—at least for a minute—that I’d sort of created a new me.

  But it wasn’t long before something felt off.

  I don’t mean my lies fell apart; they held together perfectly.

  I just for some reason started feeling sort of down.

  For one thing, I kept watching these wet, drunk smiles on all these old-man faces, and their glassy eyes that looked kind of red and teary—and I had the feeling they would never have wanted to know who I really was, I mean just a kid from the fifty-cent side.

  But as long as I kept it up with the lies, they all were happy and sort of took what I was saying as a chance to relive their own memories, maybe, and sort of indulge in their past. But it was like I—and I mean the real me—wasn’t even there at all.

  Because all the time I was lying I still felt that fifty-cent-side kid inside me. So it wasn’t long before I started getting pretty nervous, talking faster and faster, and telling them how I had to leave to get the car that was going to take me to the yacht so I could go watch the nationals, and they asked me which nationals—always calling me “young man,” which I don’t think anybody had ever called me—and that confused the hell out of me, because to tell the truth, I don’t follow any sport too well. So I wound up saying the chess nationals, and told them I was a top-ranked national chess player, and could play blind chess and speed chess and multiples, and I tell you they just ate it up, and the waiter, too, though he looked at me funny sometimes, with a funny smile—a very dignified but sort of funny smile—and he poured those old guys so many drinks, you’d think they’d all have died on the spot.

  Then I left and went back outside, and there was no car and no yacht and no nationals.

  I hung around in alleys awhile longer.

  But I got kind of bored.

  I couldn’t think of anything else to do that day. So after about fifteen minutes I went back up to Roland Avenue and caught a bus back to school.

  I sat on the bus looking out the window, watching the houses pass by.

  I thought what I’d done was crazy, except that it was a lot like hiding.

  I mean, at the t
ime it felt like the best hiding I’d ever done.

  What made it different, of course, was that I’d actually shown a lot.

  It just wasn’t me I was showing.

  I guess I felt pretty bad, because unlike Carol I couldn’t just see it as a joke.

  I mean, I really felt like nothing.

  I’d made myself feel like nothing by not being me.

  This was the one time I truly did feel life was horrible and meaningless, because I’d made it that way by just throwing away who I really was, like I was nothing.

  Now, I’ve told you all this just like I told Laura. And we were still just walking over the busted sidewalk, but I think we were near my old elementary school by this time. And while I’d told her, I’d sort of gotten excited trying to fit all the details, you know, into what I said, but now I looked at her, and she seemed sort of upset.

  “Is that what you are? A kid from the fifty-cent side?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “What else?”

  “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “No,” I said.

  But I thought about that for a while.

  I mean, yes, it had bothered me while I was talking to the old men, but on the bus back to school I got used to it.

  So I told her that.

  “I don’t mean I was happy with it. But I got used to it,” I said. “After a while it didn’t bother me anymore. I guess I got over it. I always have.”

  She still had that look in her eyes. I swear to god she nearly had tears in her eyes. Not tears, but almost. “Doesn’t it scare you?”

  I sort of laughed. “No,” I said. “I can live with it. Anyways, I’d rather be me than a bunch of lies.”

  I looked at her face, tilted downward as we walked, flushed and strained. I don’t know what it was, but she seemed in pain. I hadn’t meant to hurt her with what I’d said, but I thought maybe I had. Maybe she thought it was just too sad for me to think about myself that way, accept myself that way. I didn’t know. I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t really so big a problem for me. I mean, I didn’t think I’d just be a fifty-cent-side kid forever. I had hope, and I wanted to tell her that she should have it too, because from what she’d said about the book, I doubted she did, even though I couldn’t yet understand why. I wanted to tell her that I felt I could change my life, and that even if I thought it sucked now, I knew that one day, maybe when I was twenty-five—or maybe even sooner—I would take more control of my life, get the apartment I wanted, downtown in some old hotel, and be what I wanted to be, once I figured it all out.

  Get my life together the way I wanted it.

  Maybe even with her, if I was lucky enough.

  But I couldn’t admit I wanted her that much. I guess I was afraid. So I didn’t say a thing.

  We walked a bit in silence. Weirdly enough, she took my hand.

  Suddenly, everything felt a bit lighter.

  We talked some more.

  About other stuff.

  Meaningless stuff.

  She had this idea about me getting golf lessons, and I’d never even played golf, so she said she’d give me lessons.

  Believe it or not we talked a lot, and she held my hand the whole time.

  For one of the first times she seemed sort of happy with me. And it was weird, because I’d really kind of argued with her—I mean at least when the subject was the book—and not because I’d wanted to or even meant to, but because I was just so exasperated having to hear about that book again that I just had to say what I really felt.

  I mean, instead of my usual thing of making her go numb telling her how beautiful and wonderful she was, I’d sort of reacted to her—to what she said about the damn book—and even though she didn’t agree with me, she liked it.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  I mean, I’d almost been sort of mad with her, almost even yelled, because just talking about that book, which I can’t frickin’ stand, made me feel so damned emotional, because I really can’t just accept anybody telling me life is horrible and meaningless.

  But the funny thing is, Laura liked it.

  We went behind the school and kissed like crazy. We sat on this jungle gym apparatus, and then when it got darker we kind of crawled under the apparatus, and we were really excited and sort of squirming all over the place, and god knows what would have happened, because usually after dark no one’s ever back there behind the school, except of course that night somebody came through the dark and actually climbed up the apparatus, some drunk or something, and we had to get out of there.

  I know I said I used to talk to Suzie about everything, but that’s not really true.

  It wasn’t like talking to Laura.

  I told Suzie everything, sure, but it was all stuff I already knew. Obvious stuff, really. It was simple and easy with her, and we’d feel happy or frustrated, but never in pain. It was just the little facts of my life, parents and school and neighborhood stuff. I never discovered new things that were buried in me or in her, because I never wanted to look for them.

  After we talked that day, I felt I understood something about Laura.

  There was something deep in her.

  And very dark.

  She’d wanted to share it with me but didn’t know how.

  That was big.

  Really big.

  I think that was love.

  And it scared me.

  I didn’t know if I could handle it.

  Maybe we both couldn’t, because we broke up a few weeks later.

  Anyways, that was the time we talked.

  Chapter

  Fifteen

  I stayed outside Laura’s door a few more seconds, listening.

  The maid was still down in the kitchen. I heard the ring of dog food cascading into a dish. Dobey barked, nicely. They seemed to get along really well. She talked to him cheerfully in Spanish. I couldn’t understand a word.

  Then I stepped into Laura’s room slowly and shut the door behind me, quietly.

  The room was dark. I couldn’t see much yet, only the shapes of the furniture. The curtains were drawn. Vague light bled through, showing the outlines of her bed, a couple bureaus, and a desk with computer stuff on it.

  I’d known it was her room because I smelled perfume, faintly.

  Flowers and spice.

  I’d never asked her what perfume she wore. I wish I had. I loved it. I don’t know how to describe it except to say it made my heart race and my mind go blank.

  I guess that’s a good perfume.

  I stood there another minute, listening.

  I heard the maid let Dobey outside.

  I must have been above the backyard and deck. It was hard to tell, because there were so many rooms in the house. It was easy to get confused. But I heard the door open downstairs, and then I guess she led him out, because I heard her voice still talking to him outside, below the curtained windows. There must have been a chain on the deck to hold him, because I heard the maid drag it across the boards. Dobey thumped around for a minute, and then he must have sat, because I heard nothing more after she came back inside and shut the door.

  I still waited, and when I heard her puttering around downstairs it seemed safe to move, so I stepped lightly across the floor and opened one of the curtains halfway, just enough to let in a little light to see by.

  Her room was kind of hard to explain.

  Laura’s room.

  It was perfect.

  I’d never seen so neat and clean a room in my whole life. I was amazed her mother ever got mad at her. If she’d been my mother, she’d have been on me all the time, because to tell you the truth, I usually made my bed after I got home from school, or even later at night, like right before I got into it.

  But not Laura.

  Her bed was perfect. It looked like a bed in a fancy hotel and even had one of those throws over it, the kind covered with white cotton pompoms.

  I’d always wanted to see her bed. You probably think that’s pretty weird. I guess I’d
sort of fantasized about it, like I fantasized about whatever else she might do when she was alone.

  And here it all was.

  But I can’t say I liked it.

  Not really.

  It was too perfect.

  Everything was too perfect, too ordered, too organized. I saw that right off the bat. It was just like the rest of the house, like nobody really lived in it.

  It made me feel sort of bad. I guess I’d hoped to see a mess.

  But I thought, Hey, it’s probably just me. After all, I grew up in a pretty messy house. I suppose that’s what I thought was normal.

  Most of everything was white: the curtains and the furniture and the bedding and these billowy things hanging by four corners from the ceiling that looked just like the throw on the bed. In one way the room was simply very pretty and perfect, a lot like Laura herself was always pretty and perfect.

  But it didn’t say anything.

  So I was disappointed.

  I don’t mean in her.

  Her room just didn’t explain anything.

  It was like looking at a picture of a very nice girl’s bedroom in a furniture catalog, un-lived-in and waiting. I mean, it was full of stuff but seemed empty.

  I felt sort of sick. I mean I felt strange just being there. For one thing, I never did really make up my mind about whether I should come in; I mean whether I actually had any right to come in, because I knew I really didn’t.

  I mean, I knew how wrong it was, for one thing, what an invasion of privacy and everything. I really was worse than Paul Stewart. I mean, weirdo that he was, he had at least asked to come in.

  But like I said, this was my one chance to find out who Laura really was.

  I just couldn’t blow the chance.

  It was like I had Tommy Werks standing next to me all over again, looking at me with his weasely little face like I was nuts not to take a chance, and this time I was going to take it.

  If there was something in the room that would tell me more about Laura, I was going to find it.

  I was going to search.

  I didn’t want to.

  Everything inside me said it was wrong.