You Have Seven Messages

by Stewart Lewis

  Rachel One looks at me like she’s hurt.

  “You never called me.”

  “Sorry,” I say, “I’ve been busy.”

  They look at each other and roll their eyes, and my stomach turns. Somehow nothing I say or do will make them grow up, or understand that this is not an episode of Gossip Girl or a chapter in The Clique.

  The second picture I take is at lunch, outside in the quad. Jared, the ninth-grade stoner, has drawn a huge city on the sidewalk in chalk. It is beautifully intricate. I shoot it lengthwise, with his arm in the edge of the frame, about thirty thin black leather bracelets on his wrist, his hand almost completely white from the chalk.

  I get to English early to show Ms. Gray the camera, and not surprisingly she bubbles over with excitement. I decide that if I ever take a picture of someone’s face—a portrait—it will be hers. She stands right in front of the lens, and the only way I can describe her is honest. Nothing to hide. She looks like she wants to save the world, then make you dinner. I tell her she’s a natural.

  After I show the camera to the class and everyone gets a chance to look through the lens, Ms. Gray asks me if I’d like to take a picture. I say yes, but I have a specific request.

  “As long as we keep our clothes on,” she says. A few kids laugh.

  “If everyone could put their feet up on the desks, just for a minute.”

  Ms. Gray looks apprehensive, but then nods, as if it’s now the class assignment. For a few moments, I feel like my father directing a scene. I have a few kids cross ankles, and arrange some shoes so that they look askew. Then I tell everyone to freeze. I take the shot and it looks cool: the soles of everyone’s shoes resting on top of the desks at all different angles, with a giant map of the world in the background.

  I leave the camera in English for the rest of my classes, then retrieve it at the end of the day. As I pack it up, Ms. Gray says, “How is everything at home?”

  I sit on the edge of her desk.

  “Fine. My dad’s seeing someone.”

  “Really?” Ms. Gray tries to play it down but I can tell by her face that her mind’s working fast.

  “She’s an English teacher.”

  “Can’t say I disapprove. Is it weird for you?”

  I finish packing up the camera and don’t answer.

  “Dumb question,” she says. “What about Tile?”

  “He’s ten, you know? I think it hasn’t really sunk in.”

  “Yes, well, when it does, he’ll be glad to have someone like you as a sister.”

  I know that Ms. Gray isn’t saying that just to be nice, that she means it. She knows who I am, that deep down I have good intentions. This makes me feel, for a brief moment as I turn to leave, hopeful.

  On the way home, however, I begin my descent into reality. Why did Oliver turn so cold yesterday? What did Cole mean about my father being distraught?

  I tell my driver to take my camera home and drop me off at the studio. I feel it’s time to continue reading the Luna file.

  Inside, something seems different, the furniture moved slightly. I carefully sit down at her laptop and grab the phone. There’s one message left, but I’m afraid of what it might be, that it will be a hang-up or something that isn’t a payoff of some kind. I decide to wait. I double-click the file and continue where I had left off.

  … his films, those are his real loves. And you, Luna. He loves you more than anything and always has. When I told him about what was going on, his first concern was you—not himself, not Tile—you. He wanted to make sure you never knew, he thought it would destroy you. But I think his expectations for himself are so high, he wants to be perfect in your eyes. You are old enough to know that no one is perfect, right? The world I have been living in, the so-called glamour that you will read about in my book someday, is far from perfect. But how could I have known that I would meet the love of my life at the wrong time? And should I let him pass me by?

  I read the words again and think of Oliver. Love of my life. How can she write that? I think of Cole in the coffee shop, so different from Dad, so easily readable. Nervous, exposed … scared, even. I can’t remember my father ever being scared, or at least giving away that he was. Although my instinct is to hate Cole, I don’t. There was something else in his eyes—remorse, compassion.

  On our wedding day, while I was getting ready, your uncle Richard asked me if I really knew what I was doing. I never answered, because I’m not sure we ever really know what we are doing. We feel things in our hearts, make decisions, hear voices in our heads that tell us what to do, but in the end we never know how things will turn out. In all honesty, I will never stop loving your father …

  What? It’s like I’m reading words written by another person entirely. My mother was so self-assured, so together, almost meticulous in her ways. In one of my earliest memories I was collecting shells on the beach in Nantucket, and lining them all up on an old wooden table in the rented house. I always liked to put things in perfect lines. After taking a bath, I came back to the table and one was missing. My mother said it was cracked, so she had thrown it away. Maybe that shell was symbolic, like a mirror held up to a deep part of herself she couldn’t bear to face. She was the cracked shell.

  … or you. But I don’t know if I can stop what’s happening to me. I feel like this person has swung open doors and let light into places I never knew existed. I feel like I’m floating.…

  The scary thing is that I know what she’s talking about, sort of. On the subway, when I was resting my head on Oliver’s shoulder and parts of his hair tickled my forehead, the train might just as well have been a plane, something with wings. I felt suspended above everything: the city, time, the hard, cold edges of the world. It was fleeting, but it’s a memory I can still feel.

  CHAPTER 23

  RED FLAGS

  I remember I have a dentist appointment, so I make my way down to Sixty-Third Street. My former dentist, a funny and kind man, has been replaced by an Indian guy who’s very soft-spoken and eternally sad. The receptionist, a college kid named Levi with obviously dyed black hair and a nose ring, is a photographer. He gave me and Tile a flyer for a show he did once. I never got to go, but I remember the image on the postcard. It was an arm reaching into white space, and in the distance was a reddish sky. Something about it resonated with me, so I taped it to my locker.

  “Hey, he’s running a little late,” Levi says.

  “Who, Mr. Sunshine?”

  He smiles. “Rays and rays of it.”

  I tell him about my camera, shooting Daria, and the possibility of a show. He mentions this cool blog that tons of photographers are on, and how he got picked for representation through it. It was what led to his own show.

  “So receptionist is not the end goal?” I ask.

  “Safe to say.”

  I sink down into the giant couch in the waiting room, and it seems to eat me alive. I can barely see the top of Levi’s head as he answers the phones, which are very persistent. When I’m called in ten minutes later, I have to wrench myself out of the thing.

  Mr. Smiley cleans my teeth as I watch Rachael Ray cook something that involves pork and mushrooms on the monitor above the dentist chair. When he’s finished and I get up to leave, I think I see a hint of a grin, but then I realize he’s burping.

  I get home to Tile, Elise, and my father eating in the dining room again. At least it’s not the stew. They are having takeout from Thai Palace, and I’m excruciatingly hungry. Instead of scolding me for being out late, Dad simply says, “Moon, we got you the yellow coconut curry.”

  “Thanks,” I say, taking a seat.

  Elise is looking at me with this overblown smile, like I’m five, and it’s irritating. I have an urge to dunk her head into the steaming soup. As usual, Tile is smothering his chicken satay in peanut sauce.

  “So, Moon, what did you do today?”

  Somehow I think Read Mom’s diary wouldn’t be appropriate, so I concentrate on the other stuff. “I t
ook my camera to school, got some good shots.”

  “Tiley says you also shot a model by the park?”

  I look at Tile. He’s pretending to concentrate on chewing the chicken and not returning my gaze. I haven’t prepared an answer for how I know Daria. Nothing comes so I just look at Tile hard and say, “Yes.”

  That settles it. We eat in silence. The curry tastes good, and I remember how much of it I ate after Mom died. Almost every day for months. My mother didn’t like Thai food; she preferred Japanese. Whenever we ate Thai, she would have her own little tray of sushi from Whole Foods. She was an expert at using the chopsticks. Sometimes she’d put unused ones in her hair. She never ate dessert, unless it was fruit. She was always conscious of her diet but not obsessive, like Rachel One’s mother, who’s so thin she looks sickly. She would discourage Rachel from eating carbs or sugar, even when we were ten! As I bite into a moist chunk of potato, I’m so thankful that my mother never imposed any phobias on me. Rachel One will probably always have issues with food, and it won’t be pretty. So many girls and women suffer from eating disorders, and to me it seems so useless. Why spend so much energy on making yourself look like an airbrushed waif in a magazine? My mother was skinny, but she was strong. She did Pilates and yoga. There are so many challenges that the world brings, why waste all that worry on the shape of your body? There’s nothing sadder than hearing the tenth graders at my school throwing up in the girls’ room. Try losing your mother, I often think. That will give you something to throw up about.

  Elise attempts to clear my plate but I say, “It’s okay, I got it.”

  The plan is to go to the movies, but I opt to stay home. Dad asks me if everything’s all right, even though he knows it’s not. Why do adults insist on asking important questions at the wrong time? Why not just wait to ask me when it’s the right time, when we can actually talk?

  “I’m fine,” I say, sick of white lies.

  As they are leaving, Tile says, “Want me to bring you back Gummi Bears?”

  I smile and shake my head.

  After they leave, I go into my room and walk over to the window. I know Oliver is practicing, but the blinds are drawn. I see Tile’s Flip camera still stuck into my computer, the files all uploaded. I start to watch the footage.

  It’s mostly terrible. Handheld is not even the word. More like earthquake. There’s one great sequence, though, where my mother is steaming some wineglasses and wiping them with a small white towel. She’s wearing a pale green dress, and her hair is unusually wispy. She looks so beautiful, so at ease. The steam makes her face flush a little and she laughs at the camera when Tile asks, “How long have you worked in this household?”

  I save that section and try to find other bits I can use. There is a POV shot entering the master bedroom, and I can hear my mother say something out of the shot. In a screenplay this would be called OS, for offstage. It’s a simple sentence, but knowing what I know now, it is rooted in a whole other story.

  It’s over, Jules.

  I look at the date of the clip: three weeks before she died. What’s over? A TV show? The marriage? The affair?

  The camera sweeps quickly past my father, who looks, as Cole mentioned, “distraught.” Then my mother comes into the frame and turns on the charm, spinning around, modeling her nightgown. How can she just switch gears like that if she was talking about what I think she was talking about?

  Tile asks her how old she is.

  “Twenty-nine,” she jokes.

  “And what’s your favorite color?”

  “Red. The color of passion.”

  She looks across the room, presumably at my father, and her face deflates a little.

  Then the clip gets cut off.

  The next few segments are too shaky, but there’s one that is salvageable. She’s getting ready to leave, putting a scarf and a jacket over her dress, and she does it effortlessly. The whole time, she’s looking at the camera with an expression of truth. She is not trying to be glamorous, or funny, or pretty. She’s just being herself. I pause it, and stare into her eyes.

  Truth. If it really is our skin, why is it so hard to live by? All that time I witnessed my parents’ life together, there was nothing I thought more “true.” I remember noticing the way Rachel One’s parents acted around each other, almost as if they were business partners—everything so rigid and planned, no affection, no longing in their eyes. I knew that wasn’t “true.” But in my house, seeing my mother throw her head back and do her angel laugh, my dad pinch her butt, kiss her lightly on the delicate skin below her ear … all of this was the truth. And now, crushing me with more weight than her being gone is the realization of that truth being an illusion, that their love wasn’t strong enough to hold them together. If they built a love to withstand time, why did it crumble?

  I walk to the window once more. The light is on now but the blinds are still drawn. I picture Oliver working on his pieces, his eyes closed in concentration, his soft hand caressing the bow.

  I will not give up on you, Oliver. Sometimes the love we build is meant to survive.

  CHAPTER 24

  TREADING WATER

  The next day after school I find myself at Rachel One’s house. I was in a daze all day, just going through the motions, and when she asked me to come over, I just said yes without even thinking about it. Now, in her chocolate-brown-and-pink-trimmed room, with pictures of Zac Efron and Penn Badgley everywhere, I feel like I have to get to the bottom of something.

  “Why do you want to be friends with me again?”

  She brushes her golden locks, which she does so much it’s a wonder they don’t just fall off.

  “It’s not that we weren’t friends, it’s just, you sort of went off the deep end for a while.”

  “Isn’t that when you need friends the most?”

  “Babe, I tried. Remember? You told me I should go back into my Barbie box.”

  Did I say that? I hold back a smile.

  “Fair enough. But I’m still skeptical.”

  “You’ve always been that way.” She holds up her butter fly hair clips. “Now, what do you think, purple or blue?”

  Like I care. Still, I humor her. “Blue, definitely. Matches your eyes.”

  “Okay, now tell me, who is it?”

  “What?”

  “You’ve been walking around school in a romantic haze. I’m no Einstein, but I know when someone is in love. C’mon, I want dish. Who is it?”

  Is it that obvious? I feel myself blushing yet again. I suppose if there’s anyone who’s going to get it out of me, it’s Rachel One.

  “Well, he lives across the street from me. He plays the cello.”

  “Sounds McDreamy. Name?”

  “Oliver.”

  She starts applying lip liner for what I assume to be the tenth time today. “Good name. Old money.”

  As if on cue, Rachel One’s mother comes to the door, asking if we want a snack. She is so perfectly put-together she looks almost grotesque. When you try too hard, sometimes it has the opposite effect. It may be that she’s had too much work done on her face.

  “Sure,” I say. Rachel looks at me like I’m crazy to even consider putting something in my mouth, let alone swallowing it.

  “Which Hampton do they summer in?”

  I have to laugh at this question coming from a fifteen-year-old, but I answer it nonetheless.

  “His dad lives in Easthampton, but I think his parents are … separated.”

  “Hmm.”

  Rachel is now inspecting her pores and, at the same time it seems, devising a plan. Although I’m not opposed to beauty tips, that’s about as far as I’ll go in letting Rachel get involved in the Oliver situation.

  Her mother comes back with rice cakes and dried apricots and places them on the desk, along with a bottle of Pellegrino, which never fails to remind me of my father. I’m going to have to talk to him once and for all, and get things completely out in the open.

  When her mother leaves
, Rachel turns away from the mirror and looks at me.

  “How far have you gone?”

  “We’ve only kissed. But he’s so sweet. He helped me with … stuff. But the other day he totally changed. Like, his face turned cold and he said he had to work on his cello a lot for his upcoming recital.”

  “Fear of commitment.”

  “Rachel, it’s not like we’re getting married.”

  “Babe, it happens all the time. You were getting too close.”

  I am astonished to think that she may be right.

  “Stay cool,” she says. “Keep your distance. He’ll come around.”

  That’s what Daria said.

  “Come on, let’s go down to the theater.”

  I grab a rice cake on the way out and we head down to the movie theater, which is actually in her house. I spent many childhood afternoons dwarfed by its black walls and huge leather couches, watching Disney movies, oblivious to what the world had in store for me.

  Before we get ten minutes into Bring It On, I realize it’s time for me to hear the last message. One of the reasons why I have waited is that each message is getting me closer and closer to her death, and part of me knows that the last message is the last thing she would have heard, perhaps in the same hour she died, and it’s all a little creepy. But something tells me the time is now.

  I bring my bag into the floral-wallpapered bathroom with eighty-dollar candles lining the toilet, and look for my mom’s phone. It’s not there.

  I’m not sure how long I remain in the bathroom before I hear Rachel One knocking. I flush the toilet, then open the door.

  “You okay?” she asks. “You look a little pale.”

  I tell her I don’t feel good and have to go. I run through all the places I’ve been, trying to think where I could’ve left it. The studio is where I last listened, but I remember having it after that at home.

  Back in my room I go through everything, but no luck. Do not tell me I have lost the phone before hearing the last message! Especially if it contains the crucial detail, like something in a photograph that completes the picture.