You Have Seven Messages

by Stewart Lewis

  To keep myself busy, I scan some of my images into my computer and check out the blog Levi mentioned. I notice there’s a link to a contest for best city photograph. I decide I’ll use the one with the kid drawing the city in chalk. It costs twenty dollars to submit a picture, so I’ll use the credit card my dad gave me for emergencies. I know this isn’t one, but I think I deserve it, considering. I look at some of the photographers’ work and feel really, really humbled. How could I even dream of being in the same league as these people? But then I read a blog about how art is subjective and even untrained people can have a gift and just not know it. This gives me hope.

  I take a break from the computer and try to concentrate on my math final. For some reason, I’ve always studied on my bed. It helps me to have the space to spread things around. I usually get back cramps but do it anyway. I start reviewing my geometry, which Janine hates but I’m pretty good at, even though it seems like stretching your brain for some workout it will never do in real life. When am I going to have to use the Pythagorean theorem?

  Halfway through reviewing my first lesson plan, I hear my computer chime. It’s an IM from Daria. She tells me she got me an interview with a Brooklyn zine in a few days. Seeing as I’m not really a photographer yet, this strikes me as odd. I write down the information anyway, and we sign off.

  I keep going back to my mom’s last message, telling myself maybe it was nothing. But still, I have to know. Where could I have left the phone? Is some stranger using it to call Germany?

  When I finally get to sleep, I dream that I am swimming, at camp. The lake goes on and on and is extra-thick and deep blue. My mother is on a small rock in the distance. As I get closer, she gets smaller. The water gets heavier, and it’s all I can do to keep my head above it.

  CHAPTER 25

  A FINE IMITATION

  The search for my mother’s phone proves entirely unsuccessful, and I arrive home sweaty and tired. My father’s not in his office, and the house is eerily quiet. Outside my parents’ bedroom, I can hear a muffled woman’s voice. Elise is sitting on the edge of the bed, talking on the phone. I decide to just walk in, and she tells the person she’ll call them back.

  “Hi, Elise, do you know where my father is?”

  “Hey there,” she says while fiddling with her beaded necklace, “he’s actually on a plane. He had to go to L.A. a few days early to prep for the premiere. He felt terrible that he couldn’t tell you himself, but he said he’d call the minute he arrived.”

  I feel the need to throw something, to yell, to shake her, but I remind myself it’s not really her fault. Still, seeing her sitting on my mother’s bed, wearing that hideous brown blouse and staring at me with a stupid sympathy smile makes it really hard.

  “You okay?”

  I am suddenly void of defenses.

  “No,” I say, softer than I mean. “It’s just, I knew he had to go, but he’s never left without saying goodbye.”

  “Come, sit. I know it may seem weird that I’m here and your father’s not, but there is crazy construction going on in my building and he told me to stay.”

  “It’s cool, but can we not be in this room?”

  “Sure, I was actually just leaving anyway. I’ll grab my things and meet you in the kitchen—cool enough?”

  “Okay.”

  I fix myself a sandwich with turkey and mayonnaise, but after a few bites I realize I’m not really hungry. When Elise walks into the kitchen she has an air of ease that tells me she knows something I don’t.

  “Did you know my mother?” I ask as she pours herself some juice.

  “Not really,” she says softly. “Just met her briefly once or twice. Do you miss her?”

  “Duh.”

  “I know, silly question.”

  “Has my father ever talked to you about her death?”

  “No,” she says, but I know she’s lying, ’cause I saw this special on TV where they showed the common signs of fibbing. She scratched her head while she answered and didn’t look me in the eye. Sometimes adults are like holograms.

  “Well, he seems to be holding something back from me and it’s really annoying.”

  She looks at me, unable to come up with a quick reply, so I change the subject. “So, when is Dad coming back?”

  Elise finishes her juice and starts to put on her shawl. Do people wear shawls anymore? Strangely enough, she pulls it off pretty well.

  “Not exactly sure. He asked me to pick up Tile from—”

  “I got it. I’ll get him.”

  She stops, like she’s about to protest, but then hops over to me and gives me an awkward kiss on the cheek.

  “Okay, bye then.”

  Before she leaves, she turns around and I think, Oh no, here it comes.

  “Hey, if you ever want to talk, I’m here.”

  Barf.

  “Sure, thanks.”

  She closes the door. It’s not that I don’t like her; I just don’t want to like her.

  CHAPTER 26

  LARGER THAN LIFE

  A few minutes later I leave to get Tile. On our way back home, we talk about Dad leaving early, and since we have the house to ourselves, he wants to order pizza for dinner.

  “Dad gave me a credit card,” he says. “Carte blanche.”

  “Oh yeah, what are you going to buy?”

  “A vintage Vespa.”

  “Cool.”

  We round the corner to our street, and at the sight of Oliver’s stoop my heart sinks. How could he just forget about me? Was it something I did? Tile, as if reading my thoughts, says, “Don’t worry, Moon, he’ll come around.”

  I smile and we turn to head up our own stoop. After we both work on our homework a little, we decide to finish the film we started in remembrance of our mother. I arrange the best clips on the video-editing software, and add a sound track of the Shins. It works nicely and Tile is impressed. She looks so beautiful, and I realize it’s something I couldn’t really see before, when she was simply my mother. Now that she’s gone, her beauty is clearer, like opening the blinds to a perfect summer day. When she was living, her spirit was contained, and now she seems larger than life. Is that why some artists don’t get recognized until they’re dead? I ponder this as Tile runs downstairs to get the pizza.

  I save the movie and post it on YouTube. I call it A Day in the Life of Marion Clover. In the box, I type, “Edited by Luna, Shot by Tile.” After it uploads, I go downstairs, where Tile is already halfway through a slice. I grab a piece, wrap it in tinfoil, and tell Tile that I’ll be right back.

  I cross the street and ring Oliver’s doorbell. The housekeeper, Denise, comes to the door, again glassy-eyed and smiling. She has the little boy on her hip, so obviously Oliver’s mother is not home. Before I can even ask, Denise tells me that Oliver is upstate at a rehearsal. Suddenly I feel stupid holding the warm slice of pizza, but then I realize that Felipe would probably love it.

  “Would he want …?”

  The boy grabs it before I can even finish the sentence and smiles. Denise notices my defeat and says, “Hold on, sweetie.” She leaves and comes back with a flyer for Oliver’s recital.

  “Thanks,” I say, not sure if I’ll have the will to go without being invited by Oliver himself.

  “I’ll tell him you came by,” she says. The boy, whose lips are now covered with tomato sauce, says, “Dank you pizza.”

  I turn to leave, and as I look down at the flyer, I see that my hand is shaking.

  CHAPTER 27

  MY BABIES

  I immediately start developing more of the photographs I took at school. Since he looks at me with those soft, pleading eyes, I let Tile in the darkroom with me. He leans on the wall while I soak the photos in solution.

  “What are these of?” he asks.

  “The Rachels, this artist kid, and my teacher. Oh, and everyone’s shoes from English class.”

  “You’re friends with the Rachels again?”

  “Not really. I just took it for the
composition. See?”

  I hold up the image. It looks vintage and modern at the same time. The girls are clearly beautiful, but not in the obvious way. It’s a different kind of beauty. They are primping in various positions, not aware I was taking the shot. The light from the rectangular windows washes over them. There’s something about the picture that makes you want to stare at it for longer than usual. I hope I’m right, that it’s the composition.

  “It looks like a painting,” Tile says.

  “You’re right. Still life.”

  I motion for Tile to step onto the stool and hang the picture to dry. He smiles and then turns really serious as he fastens the clothes hangers.

  Ms. Gray comes out sharp and clear. Her candid face, her eyes humble but still holding a strong gaze. Who can just look at a camera and have her soul shine through? Ms. Gray has had a really hard life. She lost her baby boy, who died when he was eight months old. It ruined her marriage and she never had another child. One time when we were talking, she spoke his name, Will, and it seemed to shatter the room and leave us in a wreckage of silence. Maybe that’s what she’s thinking about in the picture, Will. Her eyes are saying, You hurt me, but I love you. I have a slight epiphany and realize that should be the name of my show if I get one.

  “I’m writing a treatment,” Tile says, hanging up Ms. Gray.

  “Cool. I may be doing a photography show.”

  “Duh,” he says.

  “I mean, like a real one.”

  “Is Oliver going to come?”

  I glance at the negative of the shot of the Rachels. Something about it is deceiving, mysterious. It’s the opposite of the Ms. Gray shot.

  “Not sure. What’s your treatment about?”

  “Butterflies,” he says, like that’s an obvious choice.

  “Butterflies that talk?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  The shot of my classmates’ feet up on the desks comes out very nice. Again, I think the composition works.

  I hang up the last shot of the stoner kid drawing on the sidewalk. It’s my favorite, but it’s hard to say why. It’s just the way I feel when I look at it. I wonder if the critics, if there are any, are just going to rip me to shreds. I won’t use my last name so that no one can make the connection to my father. It’s more about pride than anger. These are my babies.

  CHAPTER 28

  SELF-PORTRAIT

  I put some of Tile’s favorite cookies in the oven, and while he watches Animal Planet I go into my father’s office and find the number for Mom’s cell phone. It goes right to voice mail, but when I press Star it doesn’t ask me for the password. I try again using Pound. Nope. Maybe she didn’t have the option to check her voice mail from another phone? I realize that in frantically trying to retrieve the message, I forgot to even listen to my mother’s voice. I call again, and halfway through decide it’s a little disturbing. But truthfully, her voice was something that always soothed me, and she barely ever raised it. It was a soft, lilting tone, almost like her words covered me in a blanket.

  I find the number for Dad’s messenger service in his old-school Rolodex and order a pickup. Before I leave, I take one last look at his space, covered with pictures I took with my first camera. I scan them to see if any are worth including in my portfolio. In the corner is a self-portrait. I must have been holding the camera out ’cause you can see only half of my arm. I’m wearing a fluffy white sweater and my cheeks are rosy. I have one hand on my mother’s pink dress, which I’m still small enough to hide under. I look really happy. I carefully peel it off the wall.

  I Google my mother’s name and the date of the accident, and still find only the words “a friend” regarding who was with her—nothing about Cole. Some of the articles quote her book. She would’ve loved that. Others call her the “anti-pinup” and an “unlikely poster girl.” They all say it was a tragedy, and that she was beautiful. Some are forums where people comment. A few of the comments are really mean, saying that she slept her way to the top, that her book was trash, blah blah blah. A response farther down catches my eye: “She was much more than a model and a writer, she had a big heart and an open mind, two qualities you haters obviously lack.” I look at the screen name that posted it and shudder: ColeTrain.

  Oliver’s window is dark, as usual. No more cello, no more silhouettes. I play our time back in my head, try to think of something I did, some catalyst that would’ve made him retreat. I remember the confidence he had when we first called Cole and try to use some of it to call him myself. I dial quickly and he answers on the second ring.

  “Look,” I find myself telling him, “I don’t want to bug you, I mean, I guess I should hate you or something but I don’t, I just need to know more about what happened. You said he was distraught.”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “He’s conveniently out of town.”

  “Well, I’m about to board a plane as well. And I think you should really hear it from him.”

  “Tell me one thing,” I say, feeling my eyes start to sting a little, then blur from welling up with tears. “Did you love her?”

  There is silence for a minute, and it seems as if he’s choked up as well.

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Why would she just walk into a cab?”

  “She was in a hurry.”

  “Why?”

  I can hear an announcement in the background.

  “Look, I have to go. You can call me in a few hours.”

  “That’s okay.” I feel defeated, and hang up.

  I watch the video I edited for Tile, and it actually soothes me. I watch it over and over, noticing the parts where the light makes my mother angelic, as if the sun’s rays were special fingers that could touch her, lift her up, and pull her away.

  CHAPTER 29

  KINDRED SPIRITS

  In the morning, I messenger Daria all the pictures, including the old self-portrait. An hour later, she IMs me, telling me she loves them. She types “omg” like ten times. Part of me is thrilled but another part is angry. It’s unfair that I can’t share this with my mother. When she’d have dinner parties, she’d often tell the story of how, at three years old, I rearranged and redecorated my room. And how a woman who had just written a book on feng shui said I knew what I was doing. I guess I always did have an eye for composition.

  My father still hasn’t called, and I can’t call him ’cause it’s too early in L.A. The first time we went there I remember waking up when it was dark every day. It was eerie. We had this strange nanny who wore wide-brimmed hats and smelled spicy. She told me rats lived in the palm trees. Ever since then, I’ve never really liked L.A. What a terrible thing to tell a child.

  I realize that there’s one more diary section of Mom’s file I haven’t read, so I head over to the studio. If I can’t hear the last message, maybe there will be a clue in her last entry.

  It’s another nice day and there are lots of kids around. On Saturdays in my neighborhood, they all come out of the woodwork and you can hear lots of yelling, laughing, crying, and general mayhem.

  When I get to my mother’s studio, I imagine myself a little older, living there alone, coming home from work. Taking a bath, calling a best friend, having a glass of wine. Making dinner for Oliver. If only.

  The last entry was written the night before her death:

  … have become such a little adult. You have a brain like Richard’s, quick and clever. You have your father’s creative vision … and like him you work from the heart outward … you are my

  Wait a second. That’s it? She just stopped there? What did she mean? Daughter? Friend?

  The weird thing is, it feels like a goodbye. Was she going to run off with Cole to Europe? She would never do that to Tile, or me. Or would she? Did that angelic woman in the video have a dark side she never showed to the world? Do we all?

  I hear my mother’s landline ring. Who would be calling her a year after she died?

  The call
er ID says Private Number. I decide to just answer it. How can I not?

  “Hello?”

  They hang up, and for a second it all seems like some sort of game, like that movie with Michael Douglas. I wonder if more people are going to call my mother’s phone, not realizing she died. I hold the receiver close to my chest. I’m not ready to let it go just yet.

  CHAPTER 30

  RAW VISION

  I notice the clock on the stove, still accurate, and think: Time never stops. Girls aren’t supposed to think about death, but it feels like a heavy backpack I have to carry with me everywhere I go. Especially standing right here, in my mother’s former space. This cutting board, this blender, all these things that were last touched by her. I shiver and realize I’m late for a meeting Daria set up with the gallery owner.

  On the street I pass a Hispanic man who smiles at me so wide I can’t help but smile back. I go down the subway stairs and the train is there. Just as I’m putting on my iPod I look to my left and see the back of a kid’s head with curly hair, and for a second I think it’s Oliver. But I notice he doesn’t have a book bag. The train starts to move and I crane my neck to see him walking toward a girl on the platform, whose face I also can’t see. My view is replaced by the whizzing blackness of the subway tunnel, and I half smile, wondering if I dreamed it up. In all the years living across from him, I’ve never seen Oliver with a girl. He’s not an obvious catch; it takes strong eyes to see his real beauty. I bet he’ll be one of those boys who gets no attention in high school but has girls falling all over him in college. I look at the woman next to me, tall and mocha-skinned with a modern-style Afro. I notice she’s reading my mother’s book, and my heart feels like a wet towel. I try to concentrate on the Jason Mraz song playing in my ears, but my eyes are drawn like magnets to the back cover of the book. My mother’s author photo, the one that looks serious, but she’s really just being herself. I close my eyes for a moment and when I open them, the woman is gone.