Starry Night

by Isabel Gillies

  Farah froze and gave a guilty look at Cy, like maybe she had screwed up by posting everything on her Facebook page. It didn’t look like he gave a shit, but then out of the side of my eye I saw Cy Dowd take a thin rectangular piece of slate or something off the table.

  “Hello, Wrenny,” he said, in what I perceived as a mocking tone. And I immediately thought it was freakish that he knew my name at all, much less called me Wrenny, which is what my father and my close friends call me.

  “Oh, by the way, everyone is here,” I said. Now Farah didn’t look so calm, and she sounded edgy.

  “Oliver, Padmavati, and Reagan are here too, but they are in there.” I pointed to the room we had just come from. “We’ve come to take you home.” I did not look up at Cy Dowd. Nolan was standing behind me.

  “Cy, wait here, okay? These are my friends and I have to deal for a minute.” He nodded and didn’t seem to care at all where she went.

  Farah got up and led Nolan, Charlie, and me even farther back into some kind of grownup video game room. She whipped around.

  “Nolan, don’t you have a gig or something?”

  “Farah, what the—? Why wouldn’t we all come to a party where we know you are going to be?” Charlie said. “And you look super-strange in that lipstick, you haven’t found your color yet.”

  Farah looked like a trapped silver fox standing next to an ancient Pac-Man video game machine.

  “We think you are in trouble with this guy, Farah,” I said, putting my arms on her shoulders, attempting to calm the beast.

  “I am certainly not in any trouble, Wren. I’m totally fine here. I’m here all the time, for your information. This is just a party.”

  “What was Cy taking off the table, Farah?” Nolan asked.

  “What was Cy taking off the table?” I asked too, because I actually didn’t know.

  “What? What the hell, Nolan, who even are you?” Farah’s eyes darted in the direction of the kitchen room with the Vogue girls in it.

  “What was he taking off the table? Drugs?” Nolan asked steadily.

  “DRUGS?” both Charlie and I said. Somehow, like an idiot, I’d thought this intervention was all about sex. Drugs had never crossed my mind.

  “He totally slipped lines or something off the table when we came in. I saw him,” Nolan assured us.

  “I’m not doing coke,” Farah quickly said, looking at the video game.

  “God, Farah! Are you doing coke?” I whispered.

  “No! God.” She was so lying—or was she? I wasn’t sure.

  “Farah, look in my eyes,” Charlie demanded.

  “Oh, this is insane,” she said, peering into Charlie’s eyes.

  “Huh.” He sounded confused.

  “What?” I said, watching him stare into Farah’s widened eyes.

  “If she was doing coke, her pupils would be as big as Frisbees,” Charlie said. “They don’t look that big, but how can you tell in this crazy light?”

  “I know I saw him hide something,” Nolan said, almost to himself.

  Farah was standing there in what was clearly her mother’s dress. I thought she was about to tae kwon do and kick her way out of there (like she said she would do in seventh grade if anyone took advantage of her).

  “Farah.” Charlie took her hands. “I think I get why you are here.” She let him talk—we all did. “You are getting swept away by something so riveting and so powerful you can’t help but go with it. But I don’t think you should. Cy Dowd is a genius and one day you will be surrounded by men like that, but now is not the right time. We’re too young. You are too young for him.” Farah looked at all of us and chewed her lipsticked bottom lip.

  “You all came down here,” Farah said, buckling. Her shoulders crumpled and she started to cry into Charlie’s arms.

  “I can’t believe you guys are here,” she said, muffled in Charlie’s shoulder. Then she pulled away from Charlie for a second. “And it was coke.” She looked at Nolan. “He always has it. Everyone here is doing it,” she blurted out as she cried. “I don’t do it.” She used both hands to put her hair behind her ears and looked down. “Well, I did it once. That first night.” Then she really started crying. “It was awful. I couldn’t sleep and I felt like there were these black lacquer devils in my brain, but I haven’t done it since. I hate it, and I just want to get out of here now.”

  Nolan looked at me and mouthed, “See?”

  Charlie took her in his arms and gave her a big Charlie hug. He was still in his green coat.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Nolan said and put his hand on Farah’s back.

  “I have things here—in his bedroom,” she said, looking wet-eyed and exhausted.

  “Can you just leave them?” I said, putting my hand on her back too. She rested her head like a little kid on Charlie’s shoulder.

  “Yeah, I mean, I’d have to leave my favorite desert boots but…”

  “I say bag the boots and let’s go,” Nolan said.

  “Do you want to say goodbye to Cy?” I asked, even after what she had told us. She shook her head no.

  “Do you have a coat?” Nolan asked.

  “It’s in the bedroom.”

  “Here, take mine.” Nolan took off his grandpa’s overcoat and draped it around Farah.

  Cy Dowd was gone from the kitchen when we came back. There was no fight for Farah. The most romantic part of myself thought maybe he would have tried to convince us that he really loved her, but who was I kidding? One word from me to my father about that tryst and his massive career would be in ashes.

  Farah, who I thought would give a fight to stay, led us through the party, down the flights of nasty industrial stairs, and out onto the street. Maybe she was waiting to be saved all along. We stood in a circle looking at each other.

  “Is your Christmas tree up, Wrenny?” Farah asked.

  “Yeah, it is! And Dinah made eggnog today. Oh, let’s go home!”

  “Yeah, let’s go home. It’s only ten,” Oliver said, looking at his phone.

  “Maybe we can get It’s a Wonderful Life on Netflix?” Vati said and took Farah’s hand.

  “That is an awesome idea,” Oliver said, looking at Vati like she was a Christmas angel. Neither one of them knew what Farah had told us yet.

  “Oh my god, I can’t stand that movie, it was made a hundred years ago!” Reagan whined. She also didn’t know what Farah had been doing with Cy Dowd. If she had maybe she wouldn’t have put up a fight about It’s a Wonderful Life.

  “Oh come on, you Grinch,” said Nolan, as he threw one arm around Reagan and the other around me. Charlie linked arms with Farah, who linked arms with Oliver, who was Velcroed to Padmavati. We made our way back through the fog that was also rolling through Brooklyn and onto the subway, uptown to our house. When we got there, we saw that the tree lights were on, and even though Dinah was asleep, her creamy, nutmegy eggnog was in the fridge. I made popcorn, and if you can believe it, we did go upstairs and watch It’s a Wonderful Life—with my parents. “Hi, guys!” my mother said when she saw us come up the stairs. It was the first time since I’d told her I wasn’t going to France that she seemed happy to see me.

  Nobody talked about Cy Dowd or my missed application to Saint-Rémy. Sometimes at Christmas, when you have just escaped a famous-artist-pedophile-cocaine-guy or missed an opportunity of a lifetime, you have to pretend everything’s okay and just get cozy, even if it’s only for one night. I think parents even do that. I think even though they were worried about me (and maybe Farah, who looked like a tramp), they had to put it to the side, because we were there. Everyone, for just one night, wanted to forget what was worrisome, pile on the sofa, get blankets, turn down the lights to watch an old black-and-white movie about the meaning of Christmas, with eggnog, May-the-corgi curled at our feet, and a ten-year-old asleep upstairs.

  During the opening credits, Nolan did one small thing that, if I’m being honest, felt weird to me. He stood up from where he was sitting next to me on the
sofa, took a throw blanket that was folded on the same sofa behind where Oliver was sitting with Vati, and tossed it to Reagan, who was snuggled on an armchair on the other side of the coffee table. “Here, you look cold,” he said. She looked up at him and smiled, unfolded the blanket and wrapped it around her feet. He came back to me, got under our blanket, grabbed a handful of popcorn from the mixing bowl resting on my stomach, and settled in for the movie.

  In retrospect, getting that blanket for Reagan was meaningful, and maybe I knew it at the time, but I chose to put that troubling feeling somewhere else, just for that one night.

  54

  My father has a saying about what one is supposed to do on vacations. “Eat, sleep, a little fresh air.” And happily that is all my family did that weekend. I slept like I was under a spell until I woke up Monday morning with a bad pit in my stomach. I picked up my phone and texted Charlie.

  Me: Are you up?

  Charlie: No

  Me: Call me.

  Two seconds later my phone rang. I had set my ringer to the Shoppe Boys song that Nolan sings about his dad. The one he sang to me in the park.

  “Hi,” I said, pushing a pillow behind my back.

  “Hi,” Charlie said, sounding very awake.

  “Listen—remember when you said Reagan went to all of the Shoppe Boys shows?”

  “Yes I do.”

  “Your guitar teacher told you, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I want you to text him and ask him if he ever sees Reagan with Nolan at the shows.”

  Silence.

  “Charlie, hello?”

  Silence.

  I looked at my phone to see if the call was still connected. It was.

  “Did you hear me? Do you think he ever has seen Nolan with Reagan? Charlie?” My heart was beating fast fast fast, like the heart of a frightened rabbit.

  More silence.

  “Charlie—you are totally freaking me.”

  “I don’t want to say anything.” Then my rabbit heart plummeted deep into my gut.

  “What is it, Charlie? Please tell me. You can tell me.”

  “I think something is going on between them, Wren.” I felt my feet break out in a sweat. I moved them around in a cool part of the bottom of my bed.

  “I don’t get it.” I slid down under the blanket and looked at the ceiling.

  “I don’t get it either. Paul, my guitar teacher, thought Reagan was Nolan’s girlfriend because of the way they act at the concerts. I guess it looks like Nolan thinks Reagan is the only girl in New York.”

  I felt my throat constrict.

  “I have to go,” I barely said.

  “Maybe I’m wrong, Wrenny. Maybe Paul doesn’t know what he is talking about. But…”

  “What?” I felt two thin lines of hot tears race from the corners of my eyes and into my ears.

  “There is a picture of them on Facebook that I don’t think you would like.” I turned away from the phone and squashed my face into my pillow. Oh no, no, no, no, no, nooooooo. “Oh my god, I don’t have Facebook!” I whipped around and looked at my stupid, parentally restricted computer.

  “I know. Everyone knows you aren’t on Facebook because it’s so weird.”

  “I have to go, I have to call him,” I said frantically.

  “Okay, Wrenny. I’m going to go see the Messiah with this friend that I met in my bird-watching class in Central Park this fall. It turns out that he’s also going to Bard this summer and, well, we both like the Messiah, and there is a great choir singing it today at St. John the Divine’s, so I invited him to go.”

  “Okay, thanks, Charlie,” I said, feeling impatient that he was banging on about birds and a concert, but then, through my panic about Nolan, I tuned in to what he was saying.

  “Charlie, are you going on, like, a date with this guy?”

  “His name is Arthur.”

  I could hear the smile in his voice as he said Arthur’s name.

  “Arthur!” I felt a surge of happiness for Charlie.

  “Yeah, Arthur. He’s really cute. And really into birds.” Charlie laughed.

  “So are you!” I laughed.

  “I know.” There was a nice silence. “Wait, Wrenny, how did you know? About Nolan and Reagan? How did you find out?”

  “I didn’t—I think I was just following my heart.”

  “Okay. I’m sorry, Wren. I hope it’s not true.”

  “Yeah, it may not be true, right?”

  “Right, maybe.” He sounded like he thought it was true.

  “Okay, bye. Have fun today. Bye.”

  “Okay, I will. Good luck. Bye.” He hung up.

  I tried to catch my breath. I had to pee. I was thirsty. It was dark in my room because the curtains were closed, and all of a sudden I couldn’t stand the darkness, so I got out of bed and ripped them open. It was bright bright bright outside. The fog was gone. The sun was blaring and the sky was a terrible shade of the most shocking blue—too blue. I texted Nolan.

  Me: Can you meet me on the Met steps?

  Nolan: Yeah, when? Good morning btw.

  Me: Eleven. I have to get my dad a tie.

  Nolan: See you there. xxxx

  I threw my phone on my bed with all my might. It bounced and flipped down into the space between the bed and the wall. I scrambled over the sheets and pillows. My hair was in my face. I reached behind the mattress and jammed my arm down along the wall. My phone had gone to a place on the floor where I couldn’t reach so I’d have to pull the bed away from the wall to get it. I jumped up and yanked back the cast-iron headboard. My huge drawings portfolio that I keep between the bed and the wall opened—I must have forgotten to tie the ribbon on the top the last time I drew. The two sides separated like a huge cardboard mouth and a piece of newsprint that had been trapped wavered and buckled in the empty space. It was the picture I drew of the owl flying into the air. The picture I drew right after Nolan gave me that beautiful note. The picture that made me feel like the two of us could fly away together. I took it to the open space in the middle of the room and let it float out of my hands onto the floor. The feathers in the drawing fluttered and shimmered in the light. I didn’t remember drawing so many. The owl’s face was turned up, her fierce, delighted eyes looking at the edge of the paper where she would soon blast off so she could fly way, way up. It was a breathtaking, big, bold drawing made when I felt that crazy flush of infatuation and excitement and promise and happiness. And love.

  I got down on my knees and ripped it into a thousand pieces.

  55

  I hoped I would be able to escape out the door without anyone asking where I was going, as I was on vacation, but no, Mom was in the kitchen wrapping presents. She was still in her bathrobe. The radio was on. Two women were talking about a bestselling novel in hushed, oily tones.

  “What’s up, buttercup? Hey, give me your finger, will you?” She held up both ends of a two-inch-thick blood-red ribbon and nodded her head down, indicating that I had to put my finger in the middle so she could tie a bow. I did it. My mother wraps everything in newspaper and burlap sacks but uses really fancy ribbon. “Thank you!” she said, and tugged the loops into a bow that would make Martha Stewart weep.

  “I gotta go, Mom.”

  “Hey—you look worried.” She stood up and pulled my hair back into a ponytail (something she does to see if I’m sick or not). “Are you sick?”

  “Well, I feel like I’m going to throw up, so yes. Sort of.”

  “Tell me. I know something is wrong. Where is Oliver?” she said, with her most concerned look on her face.

  “How am I supposed to know?”

  “I don’t know—what’s the matter?” She sat on a chair and pulled out the one next to her and gave it a pat.

  “Sit. Or do you want to eat something? You’re not taking your pill today, right?” I shook my head back and forth—there was no school.

  “No, no, Mom. I feel awful.”

  “Why, darling? God, will you t
urn off NPR? I can’t concentrate.”

  I stood up, walked around the island, got the clicker for the Bose, and muted the radio. The silence made a space for me to burst into tears.

  “Oh, my baby.” I heard the hornlike noise of her chair pushing back on the floor. “No no no no, what is happening?” My mother was reaching out to hug me.

  “Nothing, stop, Mom.” But she got to me before I could push her away. Her hands on my face, her smell, maybe just because she was my mother, made me cry harder but now in her arms.

  “Oh, my lovey. Tell me.” I just cried and cried.

  “I have made such a mess of everything.” I finally managed to get that out, but it only made me cry harder.

  “Shhhh.” I felt her hands in my hair.

  “I am such an idiot. I am stupid.”

  “No, no … shhh.” I was doing that thing of sucking in breath and letting it out in fits, like I was three years old.

  “Is it Nolan?”

  I lifted my head and nodded.

  “Okay.” She took chunks of my hair and put them behind my ears. “Okay,” she said again. Her voice was soothing.

  “I have to go meet him at eleven.” She and I both looked up at the kitchen clock. It was ten-thirty.

  “You have time, where are you meeting?”

  “The Met steps.” I was still trying to stop crying.

  “Dad’s there, you know. It’s a workday for him.”

  “I have to get Dad a tie. For Christmas.”

  “He’ll like that,” she said.

  I nodded.

  “Listen, Wren, you don’t have to tell me what’s the matter, but listen to me, okay?”

  I nodded.

  “You are my wonderful girl.”

  I started crying again. Nothing is worse for crying than someone being nice to you.

  “You are,” she said.

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “I am.”

  I sniffed a big sniff and wiped snot on my sleeve by mistake.

  “Here’s the other thing,” she said.

  I rubbed the snot into my shirt hoping it would go away.