Have You Met Nora?

by Nicole Blades

  “Okay,” Jenna said, her voice smoothed. “Just . . . just don’t do that again. I was actually worried. Last couple of days, you’ve been really out of it and with you going ghost like that, I didn’t know what to think.”

  “Like, maybe I swapped out the champagne bottle for razor blades on my way to the bathtub this time?”

  Shit.

  The minute the words left her, Nora wanted to claw at them, drag them back to her mouth, and swallow them. “Oh, I—listen, Jenna, I’m sorry. That was just—”

  “Not very funny.”

  “I know. I didn’t mean to—” Nora dipped her head, clapping a hand over her eyes. “I’m sorry. That was way out . . . I’m sorry. Mateo was just here and we talked and he said some stuff that made me shift the angle on all the crap stewing in my head and I’m finally feeling like myself again and . . . well, I guess that means being an asshole with absolutely no tact. That was dumb. Sorry.”

  The silence that followed was long enough for regret to set in under Nora’s skin. Why did I listen to anything Mateo said? Suicide would always be a barbed subject with Jenna. Two of her five siblings—oldest brothers—had killed themselves within a year of each other. It was the awful thing she and Fisher had in common, but that they never dared discuss. Nora thought up and in turn abandoned a dozen different ways to steer the conversation toward better, rested waters.

  Mateo, she thought. Jenna was sweet on him. He had mentioned to Nora earlier in the week what he was planning to wear to the wedding: a slim-fitting jean suit made from raw selvage denim, with a dress sneaker and colorful custom bow tie.

  As Nora took a breath, a grin already starting up on her face, Jenna finally spoke. “Do you want to know what’s really chapping my ass? It’s not all on your disappearing act—although, don’t pull that shit again. But it’s something one of my editors said to me today.”

  Nora moved the phone away from her mouth and exhaled loudly. “What’d they say? Am I going to have to come choke a bitch?”

  Jenna’s laugh was back and it sounded honest, relieved, making Nora’s grin bend farther up along her face.

  “No, it’s nothing like that,” Jenna said. “This woman, she just came back from maternity leave and, first of all, looks even skinnier than before she left. It’s like, Stop it already. This isn’t Hollywood. But anyway, my real bone with her is—look, I know this stuff is heavy and weird for you, but I just honestly really need to talk about this for a minute. Is that enough of a trigger warning?”

  Nora’s smile snapped like a rubber band. “Actually, I’m sorry, Callaway, but I can’t really get into this right, right now. Is that okay? Just let me know you’re intact at least and not crafting one of your dragon-fire emails.”

  “I’m fine. She’s not hot-garbage horrible, but it was just something she said about my fucking eggs and how—”

  “I’m so sorry to cut you off, honey, but I’m supposed to go over some last-min wedding stuff with Fisher and we’re doing a Skype thing. I want to, uh, freshen up, you know?” Nora said, trying to keep her voice as light as Jenna’s. Plus, she noticed that a lie seemed to flow easier when she stripped away even the slightest traces of angst from her tone.

  “Riiiight. I see you. Get the kitty camera ready. Not mad at that. What time is it for him over there anyway?”

  “Who knows? I’m not into those facts.” Nora moved back over to the blender and grabbed the near-empty bottle of champagne.

  “Well, the facts are always friendly,” Jenna chirped. “Every bit of evidence one can acquire, in any area, leads one that much closer to what is true. My daddy used to always say that. It’s actually from psychologist Carl Rogers, but Kenneth Callaway practically made it his very own brilliance. It’s one of those things that never makes sense on its own, you know? ‘The facts are always friendly.’ It’s almost fortune cookie-ish, right? I kind of filed it away anyway, for later, when I can attach some kind of meaning to it.”

  Nora shrugged and pursed her lips, prepping to take a swig from her bottle. In the face of Jenna’s psychobabble, “Do nothing” felt like much better advice.

  “You’re drinking again?”

  Startled, Nora pulled up from the bottle just as the fizzy goodness was about to hit her lips. “Wh-what,” she said, coughing and wiping the splashed drops from her cheek. “How did you know . . . what are you, a witch?”

  “No,” Jenna said, chuckling. “I just know you very, very well, friend-o.”

  A wash of something ugly spread across Nora’s face. “Right. You do,” she said flatly.

  “Hey, what happened?” Jenna said. The sound of her voice was so dulcet it sounded almost foreign, like she was speaking a different language, and it made Nora uneasy. “Look, hon, I’m not passing judgment on you about the drinking thing. This is me; you know I take my coffee highly Irish. I’m just saying, this is a super-stressful time for you, and drinking alone in a bathtub is not the right salve. Because, sweet pea, that dress? The last thing you need is a beer pooch pressing through that stellar garment on your wedding day. If nothing else, do it for the sake of that dress.”

  “So this is not AA, then?” Nora hissed.

  “Sweetie, I’m not judging you. It’s a suggestion to maybe come at things from a new angle. Like look at my production manager, Angelica. She’s always on and on about how running basically saved her life when her starter marriage fell apart,” Jenna said, the sweetness in her voice quickly melting away. “Wait. Bad example. Point is, the whole jogging in the open air thing helped her work shit out. It’s that or yoga, and frankly,” she snorted, “I’d take someone droning on about their pace or shin splints or whatever over those yoga assholes with their sweaty-crotch leggings any day.”

  “There was a point here?”

  “Yes, and it’s a valid one: The next time you’re feeling stabby and over it with all the wedding crap, go for a run instead of grabbing a bottle. Is that so awful?”

  Nora nodded, but said nothing. She could hear that Jenna was rattled by the long silence; her breathing was choppy and getting louder. But she stayed quiet, staring out the window and tracing the frame of the tall building next door between blinks.

  “Nora,” Jenna said. “Come on.”

  There was a bass note of desperation in Jenna’s few words, a pleading that made Nora’s stomach turn. She settled into the quiet even more. Silence. Stony, chilled silence. It was her signature move, a power play from back in the late Montreal days when she was under the exclusive care of the Bourdains after her mother died. It was also the one thing the couple couldn’t force Nora to do: talk. When Mrs. Bourdain came to Nora’s darkened bedroom—just next door to the one her mother slept in and that had become thick with sorrow—she said she had “good news.” That something could ever be good with her mother gone was unimaginable to Nora. Mrs. Bourdain was wearing a butter yellow sundress and a loose, lime-green cape. Her white-blond hair was swept back into a classic chignon, and her makeup was pristine. Nora could still picture the slight shimmer to her light pink lipstick so clear nearly a decade and a half later. Mrs. Bourdain’s face looked like the start of spring—sun-kissed and warm—as she stood next to Nora’s unmade bed, smiling down at her.

  “The adoption, it’s been approved,” Mrs. Bourdain said, and placed her soft hand on Nora’s bare shoulder. “Your mother, may she rest, we did right by her. She would be happy.”

  Nora barely turned her head to look at the woman. The hand on her shoulder took on the weight of ten bricks, but Nora said nothing. And as Mrs. Bourdain—or Elise, as she insisted Nora call her now—went on, trying to convince her that the adoption was not out of some moral obligation to their maid’s hard years of service, but instead her mother’s long-held wish fulfilled, Nora remained still, soundless.

  “You’re a Bourdain now,” Elise said, gritting her teeth in place of a smile. “It really is a gift, you know? The name. You’ll see that life’s kinks will be smoothed out now that you’re like us.”


  Nora said nothing. Not a nod or blink.

  She also kept her mouth shut when, not even a full year after her mother’s passing, Elise came to her basement room once again with more “good news.”

  “You’ve been accepted, dear,” she said, practically beaming, “to the renowned Immaculate Heart boarding school, in Vermont. You leave in six weeks. But don’t worry; we’ll have plenty of help packing you up, and Mr. Noel has kindly offered to drive you there.”

  And again, her hand went to Nora’s shoulder, resting there light at first, turning heavy and pressing shortly after.

  Nora said nothing. But inside she wailed as an unmistakable relief coursed through her body. She would be away from the attentions of Dr. Bourdain for months at a time. Maybe there were still good things to be found in a world without her mother.

  By the time Elise Bourdain took fourteen-year-old Nora to her personal salon to have the girl’s hair chemically straightened and the color lightened (with brows to match), Nora’s silence had become another member of the small family. She had also come to the decision that she needed to be a person who could not be chipped away at. Immutable. And so Nora went along with the new hair, the new surname, the new version of herself, never once balking. It was the only way she knew to avoid destroying herself.

  “I know you’ll wear our name well,” Elise said to a blond and blanched Nora two days before she was shipped off to Vermont.

  “Nor? What’s up here? The silence is killing me,” Jenna said. “You know I love you and I’m only doing my part as your maid of honor, best friend, and all-around wise woman of the world.” She cracked up, laughing a little too hard and loud for the moment.

  Finally, Nora spoke. “It’s okay, Callaway.” She rolled her eyes and turned her back to the wide window. “I know you do. It’s just—I don’t like people trying to force shit on me, try to change who I am.”

  “I get it, Popeye. That’s not this. Best interests; it’s what I’m dealing in. Always.”

  “Right,” Nora said, bending down to scoop up the champagne bottle at her feet. “I should go, though.”

  “Of course, of course. Go do your thing, and tell Fisher I said hey,” Jenna said in one fast breath. “Call me later if you want to talk, okay? Be good.”

  Do nothing.

  “Always,” Nora said sweetly. She pressed the button to hang up, tucked the bottle under her arm, and headed straight to the back guest bathroom.

  CHAPTER 7

  A strange chime echoed through the bathroom. Nora unfurled her body in the tub, groggy and squinting. Even though the bathtub had long been her safe space, the place she could truly be alone and untroubled, this one was starting to feel like a pit. Everything felt dry and irritated: eyes, face, lips. The sound continued; it was her phone ringing—some default, robot melody. She sat up and reached for the thing lying faceup by the drain.

  The screen told her BATMAN was trying to connect a video call.

  “Shit!” Nora barked. She jumped out of the tub and bolted down the hall to her bedroom, flying into the bed and pulling the covers up to her neck over her rumpled clothes. She didn’t want Fisher to see her waking up in the bathtub, mascara still rimming her eyes. Nora took a deep breath and pressed the Voice Only button.

  “Hey,” Fisher said. “Wait. I can’t see you. I want to see you.”

  She tried to quietly clear the rasp from her throat. “I know. It’s my phone; I spilled a full vase of water on it and it’s been acting weird since. Sorry, baby. It’s just my voice for right now. Good morn—is it still morning? What time is it there?”

  “Noon. But it’s still a good morning. Darlin’, I would trade a hundred sunsets for just one good morning with you.”

  “Aw, Fish.” A sweet, easy smile bloomed. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “Marry me.”

  Nora felt that familiar surge in her chest, as if every chamber of her heart was filling up. She closed her eyes, crossed her legs, clenched her fists, and tightened her muscles, squeezing all the parts of her body like a dense hug that started from inside. Fisher, he made her happy, and she wanted to feel exactly as she did right then—minus the hangover—every day.

  “You there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. I’m just . . . I miss you, Beaumont,” Nora said. She let the hand that cupped her face drop, sliding it down her front, tracing the smooth skin along her neck, between her breasts, along her stomach, and then off to the side, tucking her fingers beneath the thin band of her panties. “And I want you here.” She pushed her hand, fast and rough, down inside her silky underwear, her fingers starting their slow, rhythmic circles. “Not in two days,” she whispered. “Right. Now.” Nora let out a low, steamy moan. “Right now. Right here,” she continued, with more heavy breaths and hot whispers.

  “Mack. Babe,” he said, sucking in air through his teeth. “Don’t do that. You are . . .” Fisher let out a roguish chuckle. “You are so bad. You know I’m sitting in a glass office here, right? Don’t you dare start this.”

  Nora giggled and pulled her hands out from under the covers. “Fine,” she said, flatly. “I’ll stop. But I still miss you.”

  “Jesus. You have to stop.”

  “What do you mean? I did,” Nora said, wrapping her voice in innocence.

  “Let’s just change the subject, okay, Naughty Nora?”

  “I’ll do whatever you like,” she said, whispering again.

  “Okay,” he laughed. “Let’s talk about my mother.”

  Nora pressed her head back deeper into the high pillow. “You win.” She sat up in the bed. “Lady Eleanor as cold shower. Hmm. What would Freud say about that?”

  “All right, Dr. Armchair, PhD. Let’s dial it down. I actually do need to talk to you about my mother.”

  “Oh.” Nora’s shoulders tensed up. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, of course. It’s about the tea.”

  “The tea?”

  “Yes, I knew something like this was coming and I was planning on giving you a heads-up. I know how you are about surprises—”

  “Complete and total uncut hate for surprises,” Nora said, frowning.

  “Correct. But this Geneva pothole happened and look, the gist is, my mother wants to have you up for tea. She’s been dropping hints about it for a solid two weeks. It’s kind of her thing. She did it for Rock’s and Asher’s wives. And, frankly, she’s been waiting forever to do this for me and my wife-to-be.”

  “So, she wants me to go up to the house to have tea with her?”

  “Well, I don’t want to say it’s a tea party, but . . . it’s a tea party. It may come across a bit formal and overwrought, but that’s Mother. Essentially, she wants to show you off to her dearest friends.”

  “Right.” Nora rolled her eyes.

  “Maybe it’s a good thing that I can’t see you and your eye-rolling right now.”

  “Fish, I’m not rolling my eyes,” Nora said, moving the phone away from her ear to grimace at it. “I just find it weird, prancing me around like I’m some show pony. Makes me uncomfortable.”

  “There’s no need for you to be uncomfortable. You’re not a pony. Mother loves you. And you’re responsible for making her son incredibly happy. That makes her happy. Hence the tea.”

  Nora swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stared down at her dangling feet. “Fisher, do I have to say what the real issue is here?” She paused, hoping he’d fill in the rest for her. Nothing came. “You say your mother wants to show me off to all the other grand heiresses and guardians of the family’s good name, but we both know that these types of gatherings with these types of women always, always find their way back to being about babies, specifically when I will provide you with one.” She slumped forward, resting her upper body on her knees. This part never felt good. But like most people hiding beneath a lie, Nora believed she was doing the right thing. She had to believe it.

  “Mack.” Fisher dropped his voice, and Nora heard what sounded like th
e quiet click of a door closing. “Babe, my mother knows about you and your . . . well, she knows where we stand on the subject of children. And, more important, she adores you. She would never put you in a position where you would be made to feel ashamed or inadequate about any of it. Please. This isn’t even your fault. You know that.” Nora’s head dropped and she blinked back tears. “The dice turns up this way for some people and they deal with it. That’s us. We dealt with it, and we’re good.” He took a breath. “It’s just tea.”

  Nora could almost see his grin balancing on the words and it only made the tears she held rush in faster. Fisher didn’t deserve any of this, she thought. But he could never know the truth. It would ruin him, and them, without a trace of redemption. She pulled her body up and wiped her wet face with the back of her fist. Nora angled the phone away from her mouth. Christ. “It’s just tea,” she said into the phone, and shook her head, an attempt to bring herself back into the moment. “Okay. I’ll go. When should I pop by?”

  “Oh, no. There’s no popping by for this. Like I said, it’s Mother. Her staff will be reaching out to you today—that is, if they haven’t already left the box with the doorman—to extend an invitation.”

  “A box?”

  “Again, it’s Mother. But don’t worry about any of it. You’ll be wonderful. All of those—what did you call them?—keepers of the family name, they’re going to be absolutely smitten with you. Come on. They have no choice.”

  “What am I going to do with you?”

  “I’ll show you later tonight, Naughty Nora. Make sure your video is turned on.”

  “Hmm. Yes, sir,” Nora purred. “Until tonight.”

  “Until tonight. I love you.”

  “You have no choice.”

  Nora hung up the call and flopped back on the bed. The surge returned to her body, running down to her fingertips and toes. She lay there staring up at the ceiling smiling, electrified and unruffled. This moment, this is what she needed and she was basking in it. Right up until it came, like a meteor burning through her world’s atmosphere, and crashed into her brain, tearing giant holes in everything.