Seeing my father now, spilling his sno-cone while the depressed lions pace around, I feel a sharp sadness for him. Things weren’t supposed to turn out this way. As Tile runs his fingers through the water fountain that doesn’t turn off, I brush the tiny pieces of crushed blue ice off Dad’s button-down shirt.
After getting home from camp—that horrible day on the dock—my father and I didn’t really know how to grieve. We didn’t talk much, but we took comfort in each other, and we still do, now more than ever.
“It’s been almost a year since Mom died, you know.”
“Really?” he says, pushing up his glasses.
“Don’t you think you should maybe try and date someone?” Saying the words makes me feel horrible, like I’m betraying my own mother. But somehow I know I’m right, and maybe it’s what she would’ve wanted.
“Funny you should mention that.” He holds up a finger and touches my cheek with it. “I have a date on Tuesday.”
“You do?” Now I wish I hadn’t said anything. Now I want to build a brick wall around my father’s heart.
“Not even sure what I’m going to do.”
“Be yourself,” I offer. “What’s her name?”
He tilts the sno-cone up to swallow the last bit, then crumples the paper in his hand. As we walk toward the monkeys, he starts to laugh. “I don’t remember … something with an E … Ella?”
I realize it’s the first time I’ve heard my father laugh in a year. I desperately want him to forget someone else’s name.
“Well, you should maybe figure that out before the date.”
His broad smile gives me hope. Maybe the E-word will be funny and kind and strong like my mother was. Or maybe she’ll just want to be in one of his movies, which would be even sadder than seeing drugged-up lions in a cage.
The bird sanctuary is unimpressive. Underneath the white canopy, they can barely fly. I prefer birds in real life. Once when I was at camp I saw four loons flying across the lake together, and they were so smooth and effortless. The sunset looked like a giant wound in the sky and I could see their reflections, silhouettes on the water’s surface. All at once they landed with a flourish, as if choreographed, perfectly calculated.
My father buys Tile a big paper eagle at the gift store and we leave the zoo and go to a café where the waitresses all have weaves in their hair. The hostess pats my head as she sits us down. My dad orders a beer and I notice something in his eyes, some sort of light that wasn’t there. After the accident his eyes turned gray and cloudy, and now they are blue and clear again. I take a big breath and stretch my legs onto the empty seat. This is the problem, though. Right when I start to feel like everything’s going to be all right, I’m reminded in some way that my mother isn’t here, sitting in this empty seat that my feet rest on. We’re not a complete unit, like the loons.
“Moon, don’t put your feet up on that.”
My father calls me Moon because it was my first word. Apparently they would take me onto the roof when I was a baby to see the moon every night before bed, and if it wasn’t there I’d cry myself to sleep.
I take my feet down and wipe the chair with my napkin. As we eat our meal I keep turning to the empty seat, expecting to see Mom’s long eyelashes, her curvy nose, her fragile hands.
On the subway home, I think about writing a letter to Oliver. If I could write something as beautiful as the music he plays, maybe we’d be destined to be together. Even though I know from experience that life is not a romantic comedy, something about his curly hair, his fluid walk, and his cello playing makes me feel like the girl walking down the street during the opening credits.
CHAPTER 5
PIED-À-TERRE
On Thursday, garbage day, the trucks sound like distant monsters screaming their terrible sounds. I wake up at the first high-pitched squeal, roll out of bed, and shuffle into the bathroom. There’s no pen or pad, so I write on toilet paper with an eyeliner pencil:
There once was a boy with impossible curls
Watched from afar by a curious girl
Listening through the open window
She pictured his hands gripping the bow
Making the deepest sound she ever heard
Nothing that could ever be described by a word
The bathroom door opens, and Tile walks in rubbing his eyes, his hair in disarray. He takes the poem out of my hand and reads it, then makes a noise that hints of approval. He’s my perfect audience. I grab it back and leave so he can pee in private.
Today’s the day I’ve decided to go to my mother’s studio, which has basically been untouched since she died. I feel like there may be something there that will bring me closer to her. On the way to school I have our driver go past it, to get a picture of it in my mind, so I can mentally prepare throughout the day. It’s on the top floor of a skinny brownstone near the park. Since two of the walls are glass, it resembles an urban greenhouse. It’s small but has a lot of charm, as real estate people say. My father went there once a few weeks after she died, but he couldn’t bring himself to move anything. To this day, the place remains as my mother left it, and none of us has gone in there.
It’s “green” week at school, so everyone is acting like they care about our environment. After the week is over most people will go back to using Styrofoam cups, driving massive SUVs to the Hamptons, and letting the water run while they brush their teeth. But it’s nice to raise awareness, and I’m trying to be a half-full instead of a half-empty girl.
My dad’s not there when I get home from school, so I go into his office and search the key drawer. At the bottom is a large key with a piece of masking tape stuck to it, the word studio written with a red Sharpie. My heart pinches at the sight of my mother’s wavy handwriting. I stare at the key in my open hand for a minute and then curl my fingers around it.
My neighbor smiles at me when I walk by. I’m allowed to go out alone as long as it’s light out. It takes me fifteen minutes, and when I get to the front of the brownstone I realize I’m sweating. I take a deep breath and start to climb the steps.
I don’t take the elevator because it’s the size of a phone booth. On the landing of the fourth floor, I pass a cleaning lady who’s listening to one of those old Walkmans that play cassettes.… Does anyone have those anymore? She grins and puts her hand on my shoulder. Even though she seems supernice, I cannot wait for the day when people stop petting me like I’m an animal.
I get to the door, which says 6b but the b is broken and hangs down to look like a q. I slowly turn the key and push the door open.
The first thing I see is what might have been an apple in a big silver bowl. Now it looks more like a prune with a green blanket of mold wrapped around it, half eaten by bugs. I open the window and then dump the decomposed apple in the garbage, then go to the fridge. I am relieved to find there’s nothing in it except some condiments and a bottle of white wine. I go back down to the cleaning lady and ask her if I can borrow some rags and her Windex. She doesn’t understand English, but I show her what I need, like a charade, and she smiles and hands me the bottle, a rag, and a feather duster. I spend the next hour cleaning the half inch of dust covering everything. I open Mom’s laptop and am taken aback by the screen saver. It’s a picture of me on the beach in Nantucket. I’m not smiling. I look cold and annoyed, but my gaze is sharp.
A large tear goes splat on the keyboard.
The bedroom alcove is the size of a closet but has lots of light. I try to smell her in the crumpled sheets, but they’re old and musty. I peel them off quickly and pile them in the corner. I see a black cord peeking from her desk drawer. I pull it out and take in a shallow breath. It’s her cell phone, the charger still attached. I plug it in to see if it still works, amazed at the sound of it booting up. I guess my father didn’t even bother canceling her service. Maybe it was a family plan and he wanted to keep it that way. She wasn’t one of those people who always had her cell phone on her—it took her forever to even get one. I go down he
r list of contacts and stop at Marc Jacobs. When I was nine, I actually had tea in Paris with him. My mother was a fashion model, and one day when she went on a “go-see” for French Vogue she left me with Marc at a café in the Marais. His fingers were long and tanned, and he had kind eyes. At the time I thought he was just some guy. Now I think about that afternoon every time I wear my favorite low-cut blue dress, from his 2001 spring collection, made especially for my mother but passed on to me. I press Call. It goes straight to his voice mail and I don’t leave a message. I am too stunned that I am in my mother’s studio, calling Marc Jacobs, a trail of big tears drying on my face.
I decide to take a shower in the tiny black-and-white-tiled bathroom. I watch the dust from the tub swirl down the drain and think, That’s what she is now. I dry off and get dressed again, collapsing on the naked mattress. I briefly think of what it would be like to bring Oliver here. Maybe he could play the cello while I made him baked salmon. A few days after my mother died I found a recipe in the newspaper for baked salmon, and I made it for my father, along with asparagus, his favorite vegetable. When he came home and saw me with the apron that went all the way to the floor, my face sweaty from the steam, he started to cry. Seeing a grown man cry is heartbreaking but also beautiful. We hardly put a dent in the salmon, but what we ate tasted good.
I turn my head and see something that makes my throat tighten: a cuff link on the nightstand, made to look like a sad theater mask. What is it doing here? I pick it up and blow the dust off it. As far as I know, the only cuff links my dad has are the ones that look like little rope knots. Besides, this is not the sort of thing he would wear. I look underneath the bed for the happy face, but there’s nothing there except more dust and a stray button.
Hmmmm. I run the cuff link through my fingers, like it’s a key to some language I’m not sure I want to learn. My mother never mentioned entertaining guests at her studio—it was her own private space. But somebody was here. Somebody who was not my father.
I remember one day in eighth grade I skipped soccer practice and came home early and went up to my mother’s room. We had a ritual where we’d sit on the bed and I’d tell her everything that happened that day. Even when the details of the day were boring, she would find ways to make them exciting. Like when I told her I had a math test and ate chicken tenders for lunch she explained that math was a way to get your mind to think a certain way, and even though it seems tedious, it’s the basis for everything in the world. Then she’d tell me that chickens lose their feathers when they get stressed. Basically, my mother could weave a colorful conversation out of a pile of dirt. That day I actually had something kind of exciting to tell her—we had a bomb threat, and my science teacher brought his dog in for an experiment, and it got so excited that it peed on his desk, which was hilarious—but she was in the bath, not expecting me so early. She was talking to someone on the phone in a honeyed tone that made me feel like I shouldn’t be eavesdropping. Still, I listened. It was almost like she was singing.
As I turn the cuff link over in my hand, the memory lodges itself in the bottom of my stomach like an undercooked pancake. Could the person she was talking to that day be the owner? I had an inkling there was more to learn about her death, but this was not what I had in mind.
Back in the living room, the air is starting to freshen up since I opened the small window in the bathroom for cross-ventilation. I go back to the computer and look at the folders on her desktop. One says “Stuff” and one says “Modeling.” In the bottom corner, another says “Luna,” her version of my nickname, and basically what everyone calls me. In fact, the only person who calls me Malia, my real name, is the school nurse. I look at the folder again, and I cannot bring myself to double-click on it. It’s probably just pictures and stuff, but there are so many emotions coursing through me that I can almost feel my brain uncurling like a flower blooming on fast-forward video. I look outside and notice it’s almost dark. I shut down the laptop, close the window, grab the trash along with the duster and the Windex, and head down the stairs. The woman is still there. I place the stuff neatly on the floor and say “Gracias,” and she smiles. One of the things I learned from my father is if you use words from other people’s languages it makes them smile. Whenever we go to my favorite Thai place near Times Square, I always say “kop khun kha” to the waitress when she serves our food, and she gives me an extra Coke on the house.
On the way home I stop and buy peanuts. Chewing them helps distract me from the questions that flutter around my mind like frantic insects. Who is the owner of the cuff link? What’s in my folder?
As I reach Central Park West, I am startled by a buzz in my pocket. Mom’s phone! I open it up and the screen reads, 7 new messages. As if it’s a bomb that might go off, I quickly turn it off and head into our building.
I go upstairs and lock the door to my room. I look at the phone again and think, This is a dead person’s phone.
My mother was very open with me, but her personal life was just that: personal. Would she want me to have this? Who are the messages from? I squeeze the stress ball Dad gave me and think about this past year, how much I have been through, how much I have lost. In order to preserve my sanity, I cannot listen to the messages right away, and if I do, maybe only one at a time. Maybe I’m just being dramatic, but something about finding the cuff link has made me question what was really going on in my mother’s life.
I try to focus on my homework but before long I hear Oliver practicing. I go over to the window and stare across the street. The angle only allows me to see a corner of his cello, and the tip of the bow if he holds a long note. I put my mother’s phone under the mattress and lie down.
When adults use the word overwhelmed, I always think it’s just an excuse to get attention, but now I understand what it means. I decide to close my eyes and just listen to Oliver. I take deep breaths and try to let the music seep through my skin, into my bones. It’s a trick my drama teacher told us about, for relaxation. It works for a while, but then all I can picture is the little red phone, shoved under the mattress, and I imagine it pulsing like a heartbeat.
CHAPTER 6
I DARE YOU
I don’t tell anyone I’ve been to the studio. It’s my secret. Today is crystal clear and everyone in New York seems to carry the promise of spring in their waving hands, their scooping arms, and their buoyant steps. I walk deep into the park and find a bench in the shade. I get out Mom’s phone and dial her voice mail. It asks for a password. Damn.
I’m clutching the phone so hard my knuckles are white. I try her birth date. No luck. Then I try our address. Nope. I sit back and look up at the expanse of blue sky with one small lonely cloud. I think of my dad, who would say, “Look, a storm’s coming in.” And then it appears in my vision. A little obscured by a giant tree, looking like a withered white balloon.
I type in luna and the voice says, “You have seven messages. To listen to your messages, press one.”
My fingers are shaking. I tell myself, One at a time. That way it won’t all come crashing down on me. I do what the voice tells me.
Beep.
I can hardly understand the thick Asian accent, but at the end she says the word pickup, so I figure it’s Mom’s dry-cleaning place. I hit 7 for Delete and head to Seventy-Sixth Street. Or is it Seventy-Seventh? I remember they had terrible candies in a bowl. One day my mother got mad at me for spitting one out on someone’s stoop. She said it wasn’t ladylike.
I recognize the small blue awning and go inside. Sure enough, the candies are still there. There’s a Chinese girl, maybe sixteen, who gives me a challenging look. I’m not exactly sure why I’ve come here. Surely they don’t still have her clothes?
I stutter a few times until the mother comes in and recognizes me, gives me that look of pity I’m so tired of. She must have heard about my mother’s death from the neighborhood women gossiping. Or maybe she reads Page Six, which is doubtful. She has a bob haircut and wears a brown cardigan. Her finge
rs are dry and twisted. She holds them up as if telling me to wait. The daughter keeps looking at me, except now with a blank expression. The bell that’s tied to the door rattles and a woman comes in, dressed in a tight black skirt and silver heels. It takes me a second to realize it’s Oliver’s mom. My heartbeat quickens as I see a shadow behind the door, a boy following her in.
I start to take inventory of what I have on. Jeans and a red shirt that’s faded to orange. Oh no, the wrong shoes—they make my feet look too big. I peek over at Oliver, who is swinging his book bag and definitely not noticing my shoes. I see him reach out for a candy and I blurt out a sound to make him stop.
“You really don’t want to eat those,” I whisper.
He looks at me, really, for the first time, and smiles. I feel like my skin is on fire and any moment I will self-combust. His eyelashes are overgrown and his lips are violet. The fluorescent light makes a thin halo around his curls.
In what seems like an hour, the lady comes back with my mother’s dress. She hands it to me along with a bill. Is she going to charge me? I look over at Oliver, who looks at the floor. The lady nods and waves her gnarled fingers again and I turn to leave, but not before giving Oliver my best smile.
I don’t think my mother even owned a pair of shorts—she always wore dresses. When I was little, I would constantly hide under them. The skirt part would become my own personal tent with her smooth, tanned legs as the poles.
When I get home I immediately rip open the plastic, which is lined with paper advertising the cleaners. It’s a black dress, with tiny gold beading along the collar and on the hem. I can’t remember my mother ever wearing it. I try it on and look in the mirror. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever worn. I turn around and go to the window. I can sense someone has been watching me. There’s no one there but the light is on. After a few seconds the light goes off and a figure approaches the window. All I can see is the silhouette of curly hair. I smile and turn around, showing off the dress, and then pull the curtain.
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