When You Don't See Me

by Timothy James Beck

  His smile was so kind that I had to get out of there fast before I started feeling emotional. Block after block, as I walked up Madison, I had an internal debate with my father. No, the jeans hadn’t been an emergency. But what if there had been an emergency? What if I’d been bleeding to death from a head wound in the emergency room when I found out the card was no good? Couldn’t he have told me I was cut off?

  Was I being punished for the five-hundred-dollar cash advance I’d taken? He’d probably gotten the bill for that, hit the roof, and canceled the card. But again, couldn’t he have told me? Or at least called and asked why I’d needed money?

  I stopped at Marcus Garvey Park, took out my cell phone, and called Eau Claire.

  “Let me speak to Dad,” I said when Chuck answered.

  “He’s not here.”

  “Then Mom.”

  “They left this morning for Hilton Head.”

  “Golf?” I asked. “Mom, too?”

  “No, him and the dog. That’s who ‘they’ would be, moron—your parents.”

  That seemed to be all either of us had to say to each other, although we didn’t hang up. I listened to him breathe and realized we were synchronized. Had that begun in the womb? How could two people who’d started out together be so different? Or have nothing to say to each other?

  “Are you working this summer?” I finally ventured.

  “I’m working for Grandpa. Dunhill Electrical now installs home security systems. I help set up the computer stuff. Did you finally get a job?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I work for a design firm.”

  “Like Tommy Hilfiger?”

  I couldn’t help but smile and said, “Not a designer. A firm that does residential and corporate renovation and decorating.”

  “So you’re an interior decorator? Nothing like being a stereotype.”

  “I’m a runner. Or just—whatever they need,” I said. “The firm contracts most of our interior decorators. The ones in-house are either women or straight men. Sorry to crumble your illusions. Could you tell Dad that I called, and—”

  “You could always call his cell phone.”

  “It’s not important,” I said.

  “Did you move back in with Uncle Blaine?”

  “No. I have an apartment in East Harlem,” I said. Then an imp took over my mouth in a way that would have had Sister Divine screaming that I was possessed. “Did you want me to give Blaine a message? I’ll probably see him soon. Maybe at the gay pride parade.”

  “This is where you hope I get all worked up so you can pick a fight with me,” Chuck said. “But I honestly don’t give a flying crap. As far as I’m concerned, you can put on a wig and a formal and ride down the street in a convertible. Just thanks for not doing it here.”

  “You warm my heart,” I said, feeling tired. “So listen, I need to—”

  “What I’m wondering,” Chuck interrupted, “is what you have to be proud about. You dropped out of school. You have a shit job. And you live in Harlem. Isn’t that like the worst part of New York?”

  “I’ve got another call,” I said and snapped the phone shut. Then I flipped it open and dialed Adalla’s number.

  A few minutes later, I was headed north again after promising to pick up burgers and a movie. A romantic comedy, Adalla had said. Apparently her day hadn’t been much better than mine.

  June 2, 2003

  Nickster,

  We love the little illustrated story called “Nick’s Day” that you sent to Emily. When we take walks, she points to all the white delivery vans and says it’s Cousin Nick! She’s learning so many new words and putting sentences together all the time now.

  She very much wants to see the blue and red dogs. There’s nothing abnormal about that to her, as we often meet a woman in the elevator who has a Maltese with pink highlights. Very chic.

  Last night something was on TV with a character named Isaiah. Emily informed me that Isaiah is a “very big man with a very big laugh.” Then she yelled “ah ha haaaaaaa” just like I’d read it to her from your story. She likes this laugh a lot. It’s very disconcerting to say, “Did you finish going potty?” and hear “Ah ha haaaaaaa” echoing from the bathroom. Thanks for that!

  Much love,

  Gwendy

  9

  Only the Wind

  After the third time the sales associate at Drayden’s asked if she could help me, I realized that I probably looked like the classic shoplifter. Loitering. Picking up stuff I had no interest in buying and quickly scanning the area.

  “I’m waiting for someone. He works here,” I said.

  Roberto chose that moment to show up and say, “Don’t let him fool you. Thievery is his superpower.”

  “Yeah? Yours is mendacity,” the woman said as she walked away.

  Roberto looked puzzled and said, “Should I be proud or ashamed?”

  “Proud,” I answered with a little mendacity of my own. “Dinner? Movie? Staten Island?”

  “Like I’d get you on a ferry.”

  “Stranger things—” My cell phone rang, and I frowned at the display. It was a 715 area code, but I didn’t recognize the number as belonging to anyone in my family. “Hello?”

  “You need new clothes,” my mother said.

  I looked around with paranoia and said, “Mom? What? What phone are you calling from?”

  “This is my new cell number,” she said. “It’s a long story. At least you finally took my call.”

  “I wasn’t dodging your calls.”

  “Let’s don’t argue about that,” she said. “I want to see you.”

  “I can’t come home. My job won’t—”

  “I’m here. In Manhattan.”

  I gave Roberto a panicked look and he mouthed, “What?”

  “She’s here,” I mouthed back. He looked as surprised as I felt. “Are you at that same hotel? The Park Savoy?”

  “I’m at the Four Seasons,” she said.

  On her other trips to Manhattan, she’d wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible and spend as little money as she could. Now she was staying at some of the priciest real estate in Manhattan, only minutes from where I stood. And her hotel happened to have Roberto’s mother on its housekeeping staff. It made me uncomfortable.

  “Are you with Dad?” I asked. There was no way my father would spring for the Four Seasons unless he was trying to impress somebody. He’d never do it just for her.

  “I’m alone. When can I see you? Have you had dinner?”

  “Mom, it’s only eight.” Then I remembered at home, dinner was never later than six. I hoped she didn’t suggest that I join her in ordering from room service. I’d be trapped without distractions or other noise to fill the empty spaces. “I was supposed to have dinner with Roberto tonight.”

  He began shaking his head violently at me. He’d never ditch his mother. I was a shitty son.

  “I really want to see you, Nicky.”

  “Of course you do,” I said. “I need to change my plans. Can I call you back at this number?”

  “You will call, won’t you?”

  “Yes.” I hung up and looked at Roberto. “She’s staying at the Four Seasons. Did she rob a bank?”

  “Runs in the family, I guess,” Roberto said. “She’s spending, bare minimum, six hundred a night. I wouldn’t pay that much to see you.”

  “Go with me.”

  “Nickito.”

  “I know, I know. Fuck. Tell me somewhere to meet her. I’m not dressed for the restaurant at the Four Seasons.”

  “You could get a jacket right here at Drayden’s,” Roberto said.

  “Now you sound like her.”

  “What’s her favorite food?”

  “She loves seafood.”

  “Call her back. Suggest Oceana. Fifty-fourth between Park and Madison. Not our kind of place, but the food’s good. Tell her it’s safe to walk and you’ll meet her there.”

  After I made the call and snapped my phone shut again, I said, �
��She seemed surprised that I called her back. I hope she’s not going to act wounded all night.”

  “Come with me to the personal care counter,” Roberto said. “We gotta get you flossed.”

  By the time I walked into Oceana, I was sprayed, spritzed, and sporting a new blazer courtesy of Roberto’s Drayden’s card. I knew it would be worth paying him back when my mother spotted me, looked me up and down, and smiled.

  She’d already been seated. As I crossed the room toward her, I was struck by how attractive she was. She wasn’t beautiful. She was too thin and her facial features were too sharp. But she’d always known how to look put together. She’d developed an intense grooming ritual from her work as a consultant for Clinique Cosmetics. From the time I was a kid, she worked at the Eau Claire Drayden’s. When Roberto was interviewing with the company, I was able to tell him about it because my mother was a Drayden’s junkie.

  She stood and hugged me, which wasn’t as awkward as I’d feared. For a moment, I knew what it felt like to be Chuck.

  “I guess I shouldn’t have worried about your clothes,” she said. “You look cute.”

  “Cute?”

  “I like the jeans and those shoes with the blazer. It’s a good look for you.”

  “Thanks,” I said. She was making me nervous. I glanced around at the crisp white tablecloths, subdued lighting, and sea-themed murals. I didn’t think much of the murals, and the décor was what I imagined a cruise ship would be like. Why would people want to eat in a place that made them think of being seasick? “I’ve never been here. Roberto suggested it.”

  “I met him once, didn’t I?”

  “Yes. He’s the one who ended up at Drayden’s. Actually, we were there tonight when you called.” She looked at the blazer and smiled faintly. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming to New York?”

  Our waiter arrived to ask what I wanted to drink. I glanced at my mother’s cocktail, and she said, “Go ahead, if you want one.”

  “I hardly ever drink,” I said. At least that was the truth. I had an appealing vision of the waiter holding a tray of expertly rolled joints toward me, telling me the merits of each blend. And the day’s special, something like Deep Sea Weed or Great Coral Reefer. “I’ll just have water, please.”

  Before he could leave, my mother handed him our menus and said, “Why don’t you just choose for us? There’s nothing on your menu that doesn’t look good to me.” She looked at me. “Unless you’d rather—”

  “It’s fine,” I said, my nerves going up another notch. She always pored over menus and gave detailed instructions about how she wanted things. Maybe she’d already had a couple cocktails at the Four Seasons.

  After she and the waiter finished talking and he left, she said, “It was an unplanned trip. I’m here on Drayden’s business. At their expense, obviously. You don’t care about that.”

  “Tell me,” I said. Anything was better than talking about me.

  “Several Drayden’s locations opened spas in their stores this year. Manhattan Drayden’s has the flagship spa. I came to organize training classes for our midwestern managers.”

  “Are they Clinique spas?” I asked.

  “I’m not a Clinique consultant anymore. I’m overseeing Drayden’s spas at eight different stores.”

  “That’s a big promotion, right?” I asked. She nodded. “That’s great. Good for you.”

  “Thanks.” She talked for a few minutes about her new position. Our salads came. I started to relax. Then she said, “About the clothes comment I made on the phone. I’d just—I heard some news that upset me, and I was being silly. I’m sorry.”

  The assault on my nerves moved to my stomach, and I said, “What’s wrong?”

  “Do you remember Maddie Monroe?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. Maddie had dated my brother Tony in high school.

  “She’s on a scholarship at Wellesley. She’ll be a senior next year. She just came home for the summer, and she’s changed. She’s really weird. She’s goth or emo or whatever it’s called these days. She wears those black outfits and black makeup, like you used to. She buys all her clothes from thrift stores.”

  “That doesn’t make her weird—”

  “Yesterday, she emptied her parents’ medicine cabinet, went to their cabin on Altoona Lake, and tried to kill herself.”

  “Is she okay?”

  My mother rolled her eyes and said, “I don’t think she noticed what the prescriptions were for. High cholesterol. Acid reflux. Diarrhea. Oh, and there was some Viagra. Anyway, she earned herself a date with a stomach pump and a bad summer. But it made me think about all those gloomy clothes you wear and how depressed you were—”

  “I’m fine, Mom,” I said.

  I could have told her that none of the Monroe girls had ever seemed all that sane. Or that some of Maddie’s problems started when I, just a week after I got my driver’s license, had to drive her to Madison to get an abortion. Tony had already broken up with her by then and wouldn’t return her phone calls. In the area of parent-child relations, I still adhered to the us-against-them code, although if our situations were reversed, Tony would have ratted me out. Anyway, Tony and Maddie were ancient history.

  I didn’t feel like answering a lot of uncomfortable questions, so while we ate, I talked about Wamsley & Wilkes, from the partners to the dogs. I talked about places that Isaiah and I had seen. Clients we’d worked with. I tried to sound as upbeat as possible, all the time wondering what judgments she was making. Our salads were removed and our entrees delivered, but I never took a breath. Her expression was so intense that I knew she was listening for things I wasn’t saying.

  She suddenly put down her fork as if she’d been using it to hold up the last of her hopes for me. “Are you fine, Nicky? Really?”

  I took a deep breath. “I know it seems like a crap job. I know it looks bad that I dropped out of school. Moved out of Uncle Blaine’s. But I’m doing okay.”

  “If you need anything—”

  “Why does everybody say that?” I asked, sounding more hostile than I’d intended. Her face fell. “I’m sorry. But do you expect me to fail? Do you expect me to end up dead on a park bench with the needle from my last dose of heroin sticking out of my arm?”

  “Nobody thinks—”

  “I’m not emptying out anybody’s medicine cabinet. I’ve got friends. I’m holding down a job. I’m not starving. If you guys were so concerned about me, why’d you cancel my Visa card?”

  She stared at me, and my sick feeling came back. She hadn’t known.

  “He canceled your credit card?” she asked quietly.

  “I don’t know. I guess. It doesn’t matter.”

  We’d arrived at a familiar place. I didn’t want to cause problems between them. She wouldn’t say anything bad about him to me.

  Then she abruptly changed the rules and said, “I asked your father for a divorce last month.”

  Our waiter cleared his throat, his face conveying an apology for showing up at that moment. “Can I bring you anything else?”

  “No,” my mother said. Our eyes met, and we both smiled as he practically ran from our table.

  “Are you getting divorced?” I asked.

  “No. I mean…He’s cut back on his drinking. We’re trying to do more things together.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I noticed that along with our waiter, other people—the owners? Managers? I wasn’t sure—kept circling our table. Maybe they were afraid we’d make a scene and disturb the other diners. If so, none of them were midwesterners. Midwesterners didn’t make scenes. We pushed everything down and smiled and borrowed from our parents’ medicine cabinets.

  “They’re like sharks,” my mother murmured.

  “It’s part of the theme,” I said. “Wait’ll you see the mermaid show.” She smiled. “Is that why you went to Hilton Head? To work things out?”

  “How did you know we went to Hilton Head?”

  “Chuck told me.”


  Her face lit up and she said, “You and Chuck have been talking?”

  “Not really,” I said. “I called home to ask Dad about the credit card and got Chuck. He was an asshole. As usual. He’s such a cretin.”

  Her face got the weary look I hated, and she said, “I don’t understand how this happened. How the two of you could go from being best friends as little kids to this.”

  “We were never best friends,” I said. “They always knew there was something different about me. At least Tony did. It was like some British boys’ novel you read in high school. Tony moving in, making an alliance with Chuck. Chuck hero-worshipping Tony and always willing to sacrifice me. I know it sounds stupid. It sounded stupid to you back then, too. You thought it was normal little kid stuff. But they fucking terrorized me on purpose, and you and Dad let them.” I realized belatedly that I’d just said “fucking” to my mother.

  “Do you ever put yourself in Chuck’s shoes?” she asked.

  I wished the waiter had the balls to come back with our check.

  “I understand Chuck,” I said.

  “Do you remember doing your homework together when you were kids? Everything was easier for you. You caught on fast, and once you’d mastered something, you wanted to move to something else because you were bored. Chuck had to work harder at everything. He’d get so frustrated that you could do things he couldn’t. He’d compare himself to you and—”

  “Are you joking?” I interrupted. “Chuck was every teacher’s pet. He was bright and funny and outgoing. Who didn’t love Chuck?”

  “It’s true that Tony and Chuck never got in trouble at school. They never rebelled against the dress code. They never skipped class, or at least they never got caught. They made good grades. They were good athletes and good sports. They didn’t break curfew. They went to church on Sunday. They volunteered to do things with our youth group.”

  “Yeah, I know, Mom. Like I said, who didn’t love Chuck? And Tony. The pride of the Dunhills.”

  “And you,” she went on, as if I hadn’t spoken, “how many times did you get sent home from school? Dress code. Smarting off. No hall pass. Cutting class. Writing sarcastic papers and answers on tests. Your grades fluctuated wildly. You stayed locked up in your room all the time. Were grounded every time you pierced an ear, then did it again, just for spite. Didn’t want to do anything with the family. If you had to be with us, you made sure we all knew we were imposing on you.”