You Have Seven Messages

by Stewart Lewis

  Just when I think the evening couldn’t possibly go any better, in walks Drew Barrymore, and the kicker is, she remembers me! She tells me she heard about my show and changed a flight so she could come.

  “You’re not serious.”

  “I am. And the shot of the kid drawing the city in chalk? I want a huge print of that for my bathroom in L.A.”

  The fact that she wants it for her bathroom is a little disconcerting, but I bet her bathroom could sleep ten, so I let it go.

  “Oh my god, I’d be honored.”

  “And who is that woman?” She is pointing to the portrait of Ms. Gray.

  “That’s my English teacher.”

  “Wow. Old soul.”

  “Yes.”

  Her date, the Mac commercial guy, comes and sweeps her toward the punch table, and she smiles at me like we’re best friends. But it’s not a Rachel smile, it’s a smile that says, We are made of the same thing. I almost want to scream.

  Richard takes my arm and starts dancing with me, and several people take our picture. Tile is slumped in a chair in the corner, asleep. My dad readjusts his position and kisses him on the forehead.

  When everyone is gone and I’ve almost hit a wall, I walk up to the self-portrait and try to find something in my eyes that I can carry with me. Innocence? I look at my small hands gripping my mother’s dress. I want to believe that even though the world’s edges have become harder, I may be able to find a warm, soft place in it.

  CHAPTER 39

  READY FOR MY CLOSE-UP

  The next morning I wake to the sound of a cello. Not only is he playing with the window open, it’s our song. I refuse to let myself be seduced by it, thinking once again of Rachel One and her stupid bet. The fact that Oliver fell into her trap has made me lose all respect for him, and that’s the saddest part. I honestly thought he was better than all that. Even though I’m learning that loving someone is also being able to forgive them, I’m not sure I’m ready yet with Oliver. Or if I’ll ever be.

  “Fifteen!” I hear him call when he’s finished. I wrap my robe around myself and step to the window, not even caring that I probably have a really bad case of bedhead.

  “I can explain!”

  For a second I think Tile is feeding him lines from a script, but I see that he’s really upset. I simply shake my head and close the blinds. I notice my clock reads 10:15. I am being photographed for the New York Times in four hours. I hate to say it, but now is when I really need someone like Rachel One. Instead, I settle for Tile. He helps me pick out my outfit (simple red dress with a thin pearly trim) and holds my hair up while I apply a little mascara.

  “You know what, Tile? They probably have people who will primp me.”

  He looks skeptical. “They’re not shooting you for the fashion pages. It’s an exposé.”

  It’s clear he has no idea what exposé means but I go along with it.

  “Hey,” he says while helping me into my left boot, “you did really well last night. I think you’ve got a future in this stuff.”

  For some reason, hearing this from Tile is more meaningful than hearing it from any celebrity in the world.

  Later that day after my history final, which I know I probably got a C on, I’m shot by the Times. It’s done in a white studio, and the photographer is bald and European. His assistants, and I’m serious, are called Hans and Franz—straight out of central casting. He makes me feel at home and we play word association. He shouts out a word and I’m supposed to answer with a word that comes to mind. It goes like this:

  “Blue dress,” and I say, “Mother.”

  “Coconut,” and I say, “Cracked head.”

  “Yellow,” and I say, “Curry,” and he snaps my picture.

  My self-consciousness dissipates and I exude a confidence I’m not sure I knew I had. I don’t think about Rachel One and Oliver for a whole hour and a half. After, I am fed some kind of biscuit and hot chocolate while being interviewed by yet another European. She has black hair that covers most of her eyes and she asks me technical photography questions that I answer sort of like Tile would. I’ve read the manual but don’t really know what I’m doing. She seems charmed enough. In the end, I add, “I just try to find new ways of looking at things.”

  I’m a celebrity, but it’s the last day of school. A sophomore boy gets me an extra Jell-O at lunch and I accept flowers from a group of freshman girls. I even take one out and put it in my hair. On my way out of school, people whisper and stare.

  I go to the Creperie, and even though I’m over Oliver, I feel like I’m betraying him by meeting Richard there. He loves it, though, and also orders in French. I secretly tell myself to learn another language.

  He gets banana and I get ham. He talks about how much he misses Julian, but also how he can eat more while he’s away from him. I keep trying to think up a way to ask him if I can come to Italy, but he beats me to it and asks me flat out, like it’s nothing, like Italy is in Queens.

  “You don’t even know how much I want to do that. There’s been so much going on for me, and I need to get out of the lodge.”

  Richard laughs quickly and says, “I think you mean, out of Dodge.”

  “I’m such a dork,” I say. “But yes, the answer is yes.”

  “Italy it is.” Richard waves the waiter down for our check and says, “We shall have to work on your father.”

  “Are you kidding? He owes me. I’ll make him say yes.”

  “Well, well. A girl who knows what she wants.”

  On the way home I try to remember the other times I have felt this good. When Orlando lived with us, and … New Mexico.

  “Do you remember Santa Fe?” I ask him.

  “How could I not?”

  My mom had our driver take me out of school one time, right in the middle of the day, and we went to the Teterboro Airport and met her on a private plane. Like the Hudson River place, she wouldn’t tell me where we were going. I remember freaking out that the plane had a freezer with like six kinds of ice cream to choose from. When we got there we were quickly led into a limo. I looked outside as we drove into a canyon. The earth around us was a rich red. I was so happy to be transported to another place, and especially to be taken out of school. I was instantly someone to be jealous of. Not so much that I was taken out of school, but because I was taken out of school for a reason—one that involved private planes and ice cream.

  In the morning we went to the ranch where her shoot was and there were five people fixing my mother up. Well, more like messing her down. There was a black stallion, and he was huge and fierce but had big warm eyes. After my mother got on, the horse completely lost it and started bucking wildly. My mother jumped off and ended up breaking her wrist. The horse ran into the wild, miles away from everyone, just disappeared. Even though my mother was rushed to the hospital, I kept asking about the horse. They assured me the horse would come back, but I was skeptical. Mom was immediately put in a cast. Richard was teaching in Denver at the time, and he ended up making the eight-hour drive to see us. He claimed she’d never broken a bone before.

  We ended up staying at the hotel for three days, the three of us. We ordered all this weird stuff from room service just for kicks. We danced to a popular song at the time, Madonna’s “Music.” Richard read us some of his poetry, and my mother read us a short story, which actually turned out to be the beginning of her book. We played truth-or-dare in the hot tub, my mother holding up her cast, which was covered with a plastic bag held on by a rubber band. There were a million stars.

  “Those days, that time in Santa Fe, that was probably my favorite ever.”

  Richard smiles his handsome smile and his soft brown eyes brighten up a little.

  “It’s weird because I know she broke her arm and everything, but …”

  “Sometimes tragedy brings out the best in people,” he says.

  “By the way, I know he was there. But why did he feel guilty about it? I need to know. Please.”

  Ri
chard looks up to the sky, all muted reds and oranges, the sun a glowing promise behind the buildings. He has to tell me now, I can see it in his face.

  “From what Cole told me, your father followed them to the restaurant, and was drinking in a bar across the street. When they left, he confronted them. He was yelling at your mother.… Cole said your father was trying to pull her away from the curb, but she was disoriented. She was tipsy as well.”

  The last bit of color is drained from the sky and there is just a muted gray.

  “She turned around to get away from him, and ran right into traffic.”

  “Away from him? Was he attacking her?”

  “No. You know your father. He wouldn’t do that. I honestly don’t believe it was anyone’s fault.”

  I start to feel my chest tighten. Why isn’t there a clear explanation?

  “I hate it when guidance counselors say this word, but I need closure.”

  “Well, you’d have to talk to Cole, as he was present. Or your father, of course.”

  “But he was drunk.”

  “Well, yes, apparently.”

  There’s a slight wind off the park, and I try to take a deep breath to process everything. More and more, I’m thinking Italy is a good idea.

  We don’t speak the rest of the way home. When we get inside he hugs me and goes to the guest room. I walk by my father’s office door and I can hear him on the phone. I decide to just be chill tonight and lay the whole Italy thing on him tomorrow. The only thing I want to do is watch B movies and eat popcorn, which I do pretty much all night. Before I go to bed, I look across the street at Oliver’s window, which is still dark. If I could have one wish, other than my mother to come back, it would be for Oliver to be my boyfriend. To take back what he has done. And it’s not like he’s superhot, but he is to me. That’s what matters. Is that what my mother saw in Cole? Her own kind of beauty?

  As I get into bed I hear Tile’s secret knock. He peeks his head in.

  “What are you doing up?” I ask him.

  “I think I have an anxiety disorder.”

  For some reason, this makes me laugh.

  “Anyway,” he says, “I just wanted to tell you that besides Thomas Edison and Homer Simpson, you’re like, my hero.”

  He has a look of an old man again, for a second. Then he turns to go.

  CHAPTER 40

  TAKE ME AWAY

  We gather around the kitchen table: my dad with his black coffee and the Hollywood Reporter, me with tea and the Times, and Tile with toast and his crumpled math homework. It’s strange to think that two nights ago I was on a red carpet. I frantically search the paper for my story. When I see it, I feel a little deflated. It’s more like a mention. The small picture makes me look pasty and they mention my dad in the first sentence. Oh well, it is the Times, though. I show Tile.

  “You should get it laminated,” he says. “Or frame it.”

  My father grabs it and whoops a little.

  “That’s my Moon River.”

  Richard comes in and makes a beeline for the pot of still-steaming coffee. I decide to just take the plunge.

  “Dad, I think it would be best if I went to Italy with Richard for a while.”

  Tile stops eating his toast and Richard busies himself with the sugar. Dad plops down his Hollywood Reporter.

  “It’s something I need to do,” I add.

  Dad looks at Richard, who takes a quick sip and smiles. “She’ll be in good hands.”

  “What about me?” Tile wants to know.

  “You have camp,” I tell him.

  “So.”

  “So, you love camp.”

  “Yeah, when I was seven.”

  I give him a look and he stops. Dad turns to me and says, “You can go on one condition.”

  I start to picture myself in Italy, walking on a cliff over the sea.

  “What?”

  We all wait for his response.

  “You take a lot of pictures.”

  I jump out of my chair and kiss him on the cheek.

  “Can I go next year?” Tile asks.

  “We’ll see, Tiley.”

  I can’t believe how fast it happens. Dad calls the airline and gets me on Richard’s flight using his miles. I am so excited, I drag Richard up to my room so that he can help me pick out what to pack. I am so consumed I don’t even notice that Oliver is playing. Richard is explaining to me where they live, in a small town in Tuscany where there are olive trees and a huge garden, and next door is an old lady who makes the best olive oil in Europe. I start to zone out and walk toward the window, and I realize Oliver’s playing a new song, something really pretty but a little sad.

  Richard walks up behind me and says, “Hmm, he really has great tone.”

  When he leaves I sit down and listen a while longer. Something inside me still wants him. Is that pathetic?

  I go for a long walk with my dad around the outskirts of the park and it feels good just to talk. Now that most everything is out in the open, it seems easier to digest.

  “Moon, you probably won’t know what this means until you have a child of your own, but I was lying to protect you. The problem is, I couldn’t hide it from you forever. You are old enough to know.”

  The sun breaks through the trees and all the anger I felt toward him is slightly lifted, maybe because he was so nice about letting me go abroad. To be honest, I’m angrier with my mother. But what’s the point of holding a grudge against someone who’s not alive?

  “Do you really think she was going to stop seeing him?”

  “I can’t say, Moon, but I do know one thing. She never wanted to hurt you.”

  “Well, she did. All of us.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Did you push her into the street?”

  “No. But … the point is …”

  “She’s gone. I know.”

  “Yes.”

  I will still have to get the full details from Cole. From the look on my father’s face, I couldn’t possibly pry further.

  “Do you think Tile is going to be all right?”

  He looks like he might cry, but then messes up my hair a little. I know I’m growing out of people patting my head, but Dad will probably do it forever, and with him I don’t mind.

  “I think we all just need to help each other,” he says.

  “Yeah.”

  I show him Mom’s phone and he holds it carefully, as if she might jump out of it at any second.

  “The pictures,” I tell him, “they’re almost all of you. You were her whole life.”

  He flips through them, smiling.

  “Actually, look.”

  There is one shot of Tile and me. My mouth is pursed and you can see her hand holding my chin up, that wavy silver bracelet she never took off. Tile is making a face.

  “Well, all but that one.”

  We reach the steps of our house and Tile is sitting there playing a video game. Dad goes inside and I sit down next to Tile. He wins a level and the game beeps in victory.

  “I talked to your boyfriend.”

  “What? Oliver’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Well, whatever. He feels bad. I think he’s lovesick.”

  I look over at his window. The curtain is drawn.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said your friend Rachel was a fake.”

  “Wow, shocker.”

  “Moon, I think you should forgive and forget.”

  I stand up to go inside.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  “Will you call us from there?”

  “Yes, Tile. They have phones in Italy.”

  He smiles and goes back to his game.

  CHAPTER 41

  O ITALIA

  At the gate, Richard gives me his first-class seat and he takes the one in coach. “I’m just going to pop a pill or two and pass out anyway,” he says. “You enjoy yourself.”

  As the plane backs off from the gate I feel a stirring in my heart. Yes, I
am excited, but I’ve never been to Europe on my own. Richard feels more like a friend and less like a parental figure. What will life be like there? Will I fit in seamlessly? The man next to me smiles and reminds me to put on my seat belt. I strap myself in, knowing somehow that this trip will be all about the opposite. Loosening, letting go, feeling free. Still, there’s the pit of my stomach saying, Are you ready for this?

  For the rest of the flight I watch two movies, eat steak with a Diet Coke, and listen to the new Imogen Heap.

  Everybody says that time heals everything.

  But what of the wretched hollow?

  The endless in-between?

  Are we just going to wait it out?

  When the plane starts to descend, I picture all the drama from New York falling off me piece by piece, like petals off a flower.

  The ride to Richard’s house is bumpy, or at least the part I wake up for. There are people on the side of the road selling fruit that looks bigger, stronger, and more colorful than the fruit they sell on Central Park West. Finally, we follow the long driveway to Richard’s house, nestled in the nook of a small hill. The house is made of weathered brick and there’s a major smell that I can’t place. It’s sweet, and very strong.

  “He’s basically planted a country of basil in the garden,” Richard says while pulling our bags out of the trunk. “We’re supplying all of Thailand.”

  I’m still very groggy, and I’ve yet to see Julian, who’s on one of his bike tours. Richard leads me to a small room on the second floor. The walls are painted a deep red and there’s a little window that looks over the pool. I sit on the bed and before Richard can even come back with my bag, I fall asleep. I wake up at four in the morning and see a pitcher of water on the table by my bed, along with two small plums. I’m famished, so I devour the plums while staring out the window at the first sign of light creeping over the hill. I’ve seen pictures, but now that I’m here I realize I could never imagine a place so beautiful. How did Richard and Julian do it? They just found each other, moved here, planted basil and plums and tomatoes, and bought the cutest little house in the world that happened to have a pool? I go downstairs and find my way out to the deck. I have never skinny-dipped when it’s light out, but something tells me this is the time. The water is cool but not too shocking, and glides over my skin as I swim to the end and back. I see an orange towel that had been used by someone the day before, and I step out to dry myself off. The sun is now actually peeking over the hill, shining immense rays over the valley. I’m in Italy!