Have You Met Nora?

by Nicole Blades

  Nora, age 13

  The wetness on her cheek woke Nora. She opened her eyes and wiped the drool from the side of her face. Lying flat on her stomach, Nora arched up, looking around the room, still groggy. Next to her hand was a splayed copy of Girl, Interrupted and a note on top of it:

  Daughter,

  Gone down the road. Back home shortly. There is soup in the pot you can warm up in micro oven. Boil some ginger tea for your other troubles.

  Your Mother

  Nora always found it funny and a little sweet that her mother called the microwave, essentially, an extremely small oven. She had stopped correcting her about it long ago since the interpretation wasn’t completely wrong. Nora stared at the note, focusing on the neatness of her mother’s handwriting. Despite the persistent tremble that her mother had developed in her right hand and arm, the handwriting remained pristine. She read the note over and again, even squinted a couple times as her eyes moved from one word to the next, trying to find some hint, a deeper meaning spelled out beyond what was written. The mother’s mystery trips—first by public transit, then later always by way of the Bourdains’ driver Geoff—had grown frequent and her time spent away from the home stretched the limits of “be back shortly.” Her mother’s health was obviously failing, and she refused to give Nora anything resembling straight talk about her feeble state. As her mother’s body continued to battle itself, all that she would offer Nora were assurances that God was good and so were the Bourdains. But Nora knew that both of these things were untrue.

  She stayed fixed on the words for a few more seconds, then crumpled the note in her tight fist. Nora dropped her face into her pillow, squeezing her eyes shut and pressing her nose deeper into the fluffy padding. She forced her head into the pillow more, so much so she started seeing dark spots and shapes knocking around the insides of her eyelids like Ping-Pong balls, and her breathing was muffled. Nora finally broke the seal, turning her head to the side. Her vision was blurry and her breath quick. She let her eyes float around her, taking in the fog of the room, before rolling over and sitting up at the side of her bed.

  It was her thirteenth birthday, but she felt nothing. The day could have been any other. Nora started to regret that she insisted on nixing her birthday cake and special lunch in the sunroom tradition with her mother. It was a hasty decision built on the flimsy idea that thirteen was not special. Though it meant she crossed over, an official teenager, to Nora thirteen was just more of the same. Thirteen was not worth celebrating, especially since Nora’s same and only wish for the last four years was to travel through time and go back to her world before nine. Turning nine was the start of all things dirty and awful. She stared at her feet—the bright blue, forbidden nail polish chipped and faded—and wiggled her toes. She slipped her new Ralph Lauren white sweater—one of the early birthday gifts from Mrs. Bourdain (or Elise, as she insisted Nora start calling her)—over herself and headed upstairs to the kitchen. Part of her hoped that she would discover the poorly hidden ingredients to her chocolate banana birthday cake. No luck. Just spotless and sanitized everything gleaming back at her. She glanced at the rooster clock by the elaborate coffee maker: 10:43 AM. The only reason her mother allowed her to sleep this late—birthday be damned—was because she lied the night before and said that her period was starting. The same story spared her from Dr. Bourdain the week prior.

  Nora pulled a mug from the cabinet and poured some of the freshly steeped ginger tea from a saucepan on the stove. The homemade brew, her mother’s panacea, was still warm. She sipped the biting mix despite the taste, despite not really having cramps, and scanned the span of the kitchen once more.

  The Bourdains were out of the country at a cardiothoracic surgeons’ conference in Berlin, so Nora did what she always had when she was fortunate enough to be home alone: went straight to the Bourdains’ bedroom.

  She pushed open their door. The creaking sound, loud as usual, made her pause. She shook her head. No one’s home. Nora continued through the broad hallway, gliding past the large reading chairs, stopping when she reached the bulk of the bedroom. Everything was bright, drenched in late-morning light. Even the monochrome gray bed linens seemed illuminated. She did a quick sweep of the room—the matching night tables, each with books stacked neatly on the same edge; the sharp folds of the long, silk, French-pleat drapes pulled wide open; the antique family portrait on the farthest wall flanked by framed silhouettes—until her eyes finally rested on the gaping bathroom door. Nora figured one of the Russian women who help clean the house probably left the door that way, the wrong way; she knew her mother was much too careful for those kinds of simple slip-ups.

  Although the Bourdains’ master bathroom had always been a lure, Nora hadn’t been in it in over a year. When she was younger, and the couple was out and her mother was otherwise occupied, Nora would find her way into their bedroom, splitting the stolen time between the bathroom, poking around Mrs. Bourdain’s vanity—a cosmetics gold mine—and the woman’s large, elegant dressing room. There Nora would slip her feet in and out of the many pairs of shoes all arranged by hue, neatly propped up along slanted shelves.

  The adjacent, smaller walk-in closet belonging to Dr. Bourdain held almost zero interest for Nora. Mrs. Bourdain’s version had three-way, floor-length mirrors, recessed lights, and fancy chairs—specifically the stiff, slim wingback and the elaborate chaise lounge with gold gilt upholstery—into which Nora liked nestling. Dr. Bourdain’s had none of this. Instead, his closet was all grays and blacks and navy blues, with a few strips of crisp white tucked into the duskiness. There was one section of his corner of things that Nora actually found captivating: the narrow armoire just outside of Dr. Bourdain’s closet that housed his collection of ancient fountain pens and antique miniature travel clocks. Nora would be sure to polish away any smudge marks her sweaty fingers left behind by gently brushing each of the intricate clock faces against her shirt.

  But Nora closed the door on the doctor’s armoire for good one week before her ninth birthday when, in haste, she left out one of the small clocks. It fell and broke. “My oldest, most delicate one, cobalt blue and lemon yellow with the double enamel.” Nora always remembered his exact description of it, exactly how he said it to her in a fevered whisper when he called her to his study to discuss it the following Sunday. Nora’s mother was at church, her morning off, and his wife was at a charity luncheon. He told Nora that he wouldn’t mention it to her mother and that it was best to leave the misstep between them. It was the first—and least vile—of their “secrets” that he ordered her to keep.

  Standing there now in the lion’s den, a half cup of cool, golden tea in her hand and an indecipherable stinging in the center of her stomach, Nora decided to open the armoire again; this time taking a pen and a small clock—the shiniest one. She shoved them both in her sleeve, eased the armoire’s door closed, and walked out.

  Back in her basement room, Nora stashed the items from her sleeve under her pillow and moved on to opening the next birthday gift from Mrs. Bourdain. The note on the perfect-wrap box said: Pretty for pretty, in curly script and signed, With love, Elise. It was a leather cosmetic bag filled with makeup in copycat shades and colors to her beauty essentials upstairs and a polished compact mirror with OUR NORA engraved on the back.

  Mrs. Bourdain’s return to benevolence baffled Nora. About two years earlier, nearing her eleventh birthday, Nora had noticed a distinct change in her. She went from kindhearted to cool, and the transformation was swift, like a heat switch flicked from on to off overnight. That year the Bourdains hosted a party for forty people at their home. With little time or planning, Mrs. Bourdain still insisted on the rather impromptu gathering and that it be held on Nora’s birthday—a Wednesday. The party required an all-hands maneuver that left Nora’s mother working alongside a cast of hired servers, butlers, and caterers, and without her usual time to prepare for her daughter’s birthday celebration, not even the cake. The only birthday gift from Elise that y
ear was a shapeless, dour dress—“a frock,” her mother called it, making a sour face each time—given to her in a pretty box early that morning.

  “You don’t have to wear that frock, chile,” Nora’s mother told her quietly when they returned to their basement quarters. “You did right in tellin’ she thanks and with a smile ’pun yuh face. That’s all yuh could do, darlin’.”

  That plan changed when Elise told Nora’s mother that the party would require an extra set of hands to serve water.

  “We can let Nora do it. See? Problem solved,” Mrs. Bourdain said to Nora’s mother, and floated her manicured fingers in Nora’s direction. “And it would be very nice if she could wear the dress I bought her.”

  On her twelfth birthday, there was no party. The Bourdains left for a “quick getaway” to Martha’s Vineyard that morning, returning early the next week. And Mrs. Bourdain was sure to leave another frumpy dress in a beautifully wrapped box for Nora on the kitchen counter.

  Nora was relieved that there were no wrapped boxes holding frocks this time around, but found it odd all the same.

  What made thirteen the year that Mrs. Bourdain returned to giving her nice and thoughtful things again? She pulled out one of the lipsticks in a slender, black shiny casing and pursed her lips in the small mirror, gliding the color along. It was a deep red, like fresh blood. Nora puckered up and smiled and posed and then back to puckering and smiling again. She stared at her mouth in the mirror before turning the compact over and studying the inscription again. Nora wiped away the lip color—and her smile—with the pads of her fingers and slammed the opened mirror against the wall next to her bed. She let the tiny shards sprinkle onto her quilt. A sharp splinter landed on the top of her leg. Nora pinched the glass between her fingers and ran it up along her thigh, digging it into her flesh as she dragged her nightshirt up to her floral underwear. She stayed watching the deep scratch redden and bleed until the sound of the mowers outside interrupted her.

  Nora hopped up and dusted the quilt, pushing the broken mirror bits to the side where the bed met the wall. She rubbed off the blood as best she could, slipped a bulky hoodie over herself, and raced upstairs to peek out the back kitchen window. She kept leaning and dodging and skulking, hoping for a Daniel sighting. Actually, she was counting on it.

  Daniel was the son of Mr. Park, the Korean gardener who had tended to the Bourdains’ lawn for as long as Nora could remember. Mr. Park was polite with the Bourdains, of course, and fairly civil with Nora’s mother. Over the years, Nora had overheard Mr. Park and her mother talking about the same two things: the weather, specifically rain, and the price of tulips, her mother’s favorite cut flowers. Her mother would always refer to him as Mr. Park, while he only ever called Nora’s mother by her first name, Mona. Never Ms. Gittens or Miss Mona, at the very least. Still, of all the different service staff who had breezed in and out of the Bourdains’ home since Nora’s mother worked there, the Park family was the only one whom Nora could really tolerate. It had little to do with Mr. Park’s gardening expertise or his wife’s gentle smiles or how patient she seemed waiting for her husband, back in the earlier days, sitting in their parked van out front sucking on tangerines. Her fondness for the family had everything to do with their youngest son, Daniel. He helped his father with business over the past two summers, until last year when he was accepted to the prestigious Pre-Med Summer Program for high schoolers at McGill University.

  Daniel was tall, lean, and had a creamy complexion with intricately chiseled features. At fifteen years old, he was handsome, not merely cute. His high, hard cheekbones would devour his eyes when he smiled. Nora especially liked how his impeccable hands were usually tucked into his pockets, making his shoulders edge up toward his chin. Daniel liked to read, another pleasing thing about him. He often had a soft book wedged into the back pocket of his jeans or rolled up and somehow squeezed into the front of his hoodie. Nora enjoyed spying on him as he read under a tree or draped himself across the back of the Parks’ work van, his classic aviator-style sunglasses perched on the straight ridge of his nose. Even damp and dingy from the day’s work, he looked magnificent. She would replay the slow, syrupy moments during her steamy shower late at night. Nora could close her eyes and instantly see him gingerly licking his index finger before using the dewy tip to turn the page. Or she’d have a tight close-up of his mouth as he nibbled on his red pillowy bottom lip.

  As much as she liked watching him from a distance over the summers, it took Nora almost three months to stir up the nerve to move beyond their usual charming exchanges made up of waves, glances, and smiles, and finally talk to him. She had asked him what he was reading and he turned the book’s cover over to face her, danced it around a bit. The Remains of the Day. “It’s this Japanese author, Kazuo Ishiguro,” Daniel started, quietly. He stepped out from the shade of the back door canopy and closer to Nora. “The whole book is like the main guy’s diary. Stevens. He’s an English butler, and he’s totally in love with the housekeeper—” He stopped and looked behind him into the house as if someone had called out to him from the kitchen. Then he bit the corner of his lip, tugged at it gently with his teeth. “He’s, like, so proper and so focused on dignity—but he takes it too far. He never tells anyone what he really thinks or feels. It just becomes regret. Like, heavy-duty regret. And sadness. Anyway . . .” He trailed off and smacked the soft book on his leg a few times. Nora remembered how greedily she watched his mouth, waiting for more words to slip out. Instead he licked his lips and smiled.

  Nora kept peering through the scatter of workers out on the back lawn—the usual rotation of brown men from different regions of South America who Mr. Park had working for him. Looking at the men’s shapes and stances, Nora tried to figure out if one of them was Daniel. He was supposed to stop by to return a medical book he had borrowed from Dr. Bourdain (as she overheard Mr. Park tell her mother the week prior). Nora really wanted to be home when he showed up.

  But she saw no sign of him.

  Nora was heading back to the basement when a light knock on the door came. She smiled before even turning around and opening the door. It was Daniel.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “You’re here,” he said, and moved closer to Nora, leaning into the doorjamb.

  “Shouldn’t I be?”

  “When I stopped by earlier to drop off Dr. B’s book, it looked like your mom was heading out. Thought you were, too.” Daniel shook his head. He had grown his hair out. Nora liked that. It was messy, thick, wavy, and brown, not black like at the start of the summer. “So, I took a chance and—”

  “And I’m here.”

  Their smiles stretched wider.

  “Oh, wait . . .” Daniel took a small step toward her standing in the open door and tilted his head. “Happy Birthday!” There was a small tug in his brow. “It’s today, right?”

  “Nah, next month.” Nora’s face remained stiff through the lie.

  “I could have sworn you said May.” He shook his head again. “Sorry about that. That was kind of lame.”

  “No, don’t . . . I’m not big on birthdays. It’s fine. It doesn’t mean any—”

  “Did you cut yourself?” he said, his face scrunched as he looked down at the blood spot printing through Nora’s nightshirt.

  “Yeah, I guess . . . maybe when I was in the kitchen. It-it’s nothing.” Nora tugged at the end of the thin nightgown peeking out from beneath her large sweatshirt. “What are you reading now?” She used her chin to point at the rolled-up book jammed into the back pocket of his jeans.

  “This? Oh, this one is hardcore.” He pulled the book out, handed it to her, and took a seat on the top step closest to Nora’s foot.

  “Lord of the Flies?” Nora slid down and sat next to him in the doorway. “Didn’t you read this in English, like, a couple years ago? We did, last year.”

  “Yeah, it’s a reread.” He reached over and slipped the book out of Nora’s hands and thumbed the pages. �
�I’m working my way through a list: the hundred best novels of all time.” He rolled up the book again and leaned over to slide it back into his pocket, his body lightly pressed against Nora. A warm tingle swam up from her stomach to the top of her throat.

  “What’s next?” Her knee brushed his. More buzz and fluttering through her body.

  “Not sure. I’m not going in order. At first I was going to attack the list from the bottom up, of course skipping the books I’ve already read . . . unless it’s a really good one, like Lord of the Flies or Animal Farm ; then I would read it again. But that felt, I don’t know, boring. So I decided to go in a more random order.” He chuckled and glanced at Nora. “I mean, like, crazy random.”