Invisible as Air

by Zoe Fishman

  Teddy’s alarm continued to beep. She imagined his little hand searching for it on his bedside table, his eyes still shut, his smooth forehead scrunched into an accordion of frustration.

  Except his hand wasn’t so little anymore, her Teddy’s. Just the other day she had noticed that he no longer had dimples where his knuckles should be. How she hadn’t noticed before, she wasn’t sure, watching him take a sip from his glass of water at dinner, his grown-up hand wrapped around its diameter.

  She hadn’t wanted Paul to confront her, to know about the pills at all. And he hadn’t, he didn’t. She was free and clear. She should be relieved. So what was this other feeling doing here?

  “Syl, can you help me into the shower?” Paul called to her from the bathroom.

  “Sure,” she called back, getting up. She felt deflated. Disappointed. She watched her feet plod, one in front of the other, toward him.

  What was wrong with her? Everything had turned out just as she wanted it to. She was going to be able to continue this glorious charade for just a little while longer, with her husband, who had known her for twenty years, who she thought knew her better than she even knew herself, none the wiser.

  She was as invisible as air.

  * * *

  SYLVIE PRESSED THE last digit of Paul’s prescription number into the keypad of her work phone, holding her breath. Would it go through? It should; it read 1 REFILL in bold on the label of the bottle. But what if it didn’t and the doctor had to be alerted and then the doctor called Paul and then—

  Hallelujah. It went through. Sylvie did a little dance in her cubicle and keyed in her pickup time. Nine A.M. the next morning. Easy peasy.

  With this new bottle, she would conquer the Bar Mitzvah. Be done with it, finally. And then they could all move on into Teddy’s manhood, together.

  Sylvie got up to refill her coffee mug in the kitchen. Every day at work was like Groundhog Day. Come in, read some emails, send some emails, break for coffee, go to a meeting, go to lunch, surf the Web, fight traffic to get to the grocery store and then: home.

  Repeat.

  It was just so goddamn boring, Sylvie thought, as she snaked her way through the maze of cubicles, her cold coffee swirling in her mug. All of it.

  “Open concept, open minds” was what her new boss, her new child-boss, had announced last year, right before the holiday break. When Sylvie had returned, her beloved office with a door had been demolished, replaced with a cubicle the size of a shower stall, sandwiched between two of the loudest people on earth, although thankfully, one was currently on maternity leave.

  Sylvie sighed. Her boss was thirty-two. Thirty-two! Fourteen years younger than her.

  “Sylvie?”

  She froze. Oh, how she hated small talk. Her pill had lost its initial intensity; she was not so sure she could socialize successfully without it.

  Sylvie braced for she didn’t know whom, since she didn’t recognize the voice, and turned around in the hallway.

  “Greg!” she answered, relieved. She liked Greg. She could handle Greg.

  “How are you?” he asked, lifting his own mug in salute.

  “I’m okay,” answered Sylvie.

  “Good for you,” said Greg. “I’m certifiable. The twins have been sent from Satan himself to destroy me.” He stroked the faint stubble covering his chiseled jaw and shook his head. “I don’t even remember what it feels like to exfoliate.”

  “Greg, I haven’t exfoliated since 1998.”

  “Sylvie!” Greg laughed. “How’s Paul?”

  Greg was in sales and the only person anywhere near her age in the entire office. He and his partner, Josh, had four-year-old twins: Agnes and Hank. He was the only person to acknowledge Delilah’s death when Sylvie had returned to work, and she was infinitely and forever grateful for that small act of kindness. The only one in an office of near fifty people. It blew her mind still.

  “He broke his ankle,” Sylvie answered. “But he’s a pro on his crutches. And I think the cast comes off in a month or so.”

  “That’s terrible,” Greg said, standing aside to let Sylvie into the kitchen first. “How?”

  “Fell off his bike.” Sylvie approached the coffeemaker and popped a pod into its mouth.

  “Oy,” said Greg. “And how are you?”

  “Hanging in. Barely.”

  “I’m sure,” said Greg. “If I even have a cold I’m the biggest pain in the ass on the planet. Josh has come close to poisoning me, I’m sure. How’s Teddy?”

  “I’m in the middle of avoiding planning his Bar Mitzvah.”

  “Teddy is old enough to get Bar Mitzvahed?” Greg whistled. “That’s crazy. He was just a little guy, running around chasing Pokémon here, like, yesterday.”

  “Time flies,” Sylvie murmured.

  Her coffee was ready. She slid it out of the machine and cupped it with her hands, relishing its warmth and promise.

  “Listen, I’ve been meaning to email you anyway. Josh and I are having a party of our own. It’s our ten-year anniversary next week.”

  “Ten years!” exclaimed Sylvie. “A milestone.”

  “Exactly. So we’re shipping the twins to Grandma’s and having a night. You and Paul have to come. You must.”

  “When is it?” asked Sylvie, surprising herself by not being entirely opposed to the idea of attending. A party could be fun on her current cocktail of choice.

  “Next Friday night. Eight P.M. until whenever. We’re getting it catered, having a bartender, a deejay, the whole kit and caboodle. Y’all have to come.”

  “Okay,” said Sylvie, nodding. “Okay, yes. Thanks, we will.”

  “Terrific,” said Greg, giving her a big smile. He really was impossibly handsome. “Okay, let me return to the conference call I’m supposed to be on.” He squeezed her shoulder and headed back to his desk.

  She felt excited about a party for the first time in three years—maybe four, since who was excited about a party when they were pregnant? No one, that was who.

  Sylvie used to love parties when she was younger. The primping, the dressing up, the scheming. Who would be there, what would she say, would she go home with anybody or would she sneak out early without so much as a goodbye? It was usually the latter; Sylvie hated party goodbyes. They took forever and were usually steeped in bullshit. Let’s get together! Or I’ll call you! No, you would not get together, and you definitely weren’t going to call, so what was the point? But that had been fun too, the slipping out the door and into the night, the cab gliding through neighborhoods as she slumped in the back seat, peering at treetops and streetlamps and dreaming of her pajamas.

  She had had a lot of girlfriends once. A lot of time to acquire and nurture those friendships that would inform a lot of who she would become as an adult. After all, she hadn’t met Paul until she was twenty-six, which now seemed like infancy but at the time felt on the precipice of Medicare in terms of marriageability.

  She wished she could go back in time and shake that former version of herself, tell her that she had all the time in the world. Not to rush. Not that she had felt rushed into her relationship with Paul, not at all. The moment she had met him, the moment he had popped his head out from under that sink, she had known. It was him.

  But even still. Marriage was not easy. It changed things. Not the least of all her support system. Sylvie had left her girlfriends in the dust, and when she had finally resurfaced from the pool of passion and newness her relationship with Paul provided, they were all long gone. That was one of her biggest regrets.

  Sylvie meandered through the hallway back to her desk, thinking of her past as the bubbles resurfaced inside her, vibrating pleasantly. She lost her footing for a moment and reached out to grab the wall for support, tumbling the coffee out of her mug and all over herself in the process. Shit, she thought, as the hot liquid bloomed brown against the red and white stripes of her shirt.

  “Everything okay?” a voice behind her asked. The Weenie. Her child-boss. Of c
ourse.

  “Oh yes, sure, I’m just a bit of a klutz today, I guess,” she offered. “I’ll get some paper towels from the kitchen, sorry about that.”

  “Here, use my napkin,” he said, removing it from underneath the bowl he held in his hand. “Not that it will do much, but just a start.”

  “Oatmeal?” Sylvie asked, peering into what she assumed was his breakfast.

  “Steel-cut oats,” he corrected her, as though the term oatmeal was an insult.

  “Right,” she said, accepting the napkin and stooping down to blot the floor. Before she knew it, she had lost her balance entirely and was splayed out like a ragdoll.

  “Jesus, Sylvie, you sure you’re okay?” The Weenie stooped down to help her up.

  “I think I forgot to eat anything this morning,” she confessed, embarrassed and slightly alarmed by her blunder. The pill on an empty stomach had not been a good idea. Well, it had in terms of her demeanor, but as far as balance, not so much. Note to self, she thought.

  “Here, you go back to your desk; I’ll take care of the mess,” he said, glancing toward his cooling oatmeal, which was beginning to look more like mortar than anything suitable for consumption.

  “Are you sure? I can handle it,” said Sylvie.

  “No, no, go on back. Eat a protein bar or something. We have that FaceTime meeting with the dog-food people in ten minutes; you sure you’re going to be all right?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, although she wasn’t sure at all. “A protein bar, roger that. And thank you.”

  Sylvie walked slowly away, concentrating on her balance. Behind her, she could feel his Weenie eyes boring holes into her back.

  Chapter Eight

  Teddy

  Teddy stood at the sink, eyeing the sopping and soapy shih tzu–terrier mix with disdain. At least that’s what Marcus, his boss at the shelter where he volunteered, had told him this dog was. She looked more like a large rat to him in this condition. Just bones and eyes, her mouth hanging open to reveal tiny yellow teeth.

  He grabbed the hose and turned on the water, testing it first. He didn’t like animals, but he wasn’t a monster. He wouldn’t burn it or anything.

  Slowly, he washed the soap from her fur, guiding it off with his hands, which were encased in turquoise rubber gloves that went up and over his elbows. The kind of gloves you would dismember somebody’s body with.

  He had watched American Psycho on his computer the night before, the sound turned down to be barely audible, his blanket practically pulled over his head. His parents would kill him if they knew, but Krystal had told him it was one of her favorite movies, so what was he supposed to do?

  It had occurred to him as he watched it that it certainly said a lot about Krystal if murder and dismemberment, along with unapologetic behavior from truly horrible characters, engaged her. After watching it, he wasn’t sure they were going to make it.

  It worried him now, still, as he toweled off the rat dog.

  I like dark humor, she had texted him.

  Teddy didn’t think he was sophisticated enough to appreciate dark humor. He was more a Spielberg kind of guy. Or a Splash kind of guy. The dog blinked at him, now wrapped in a white towel. She was shivering beneath Teddy’s hands.

  “Okay, okay,” he said as soothingly as he could. “Time for your blow dry.”

  He got to work, blasting her with a steady stream of warmth as she shook, sprinkling her wet-dog smell all over him. Teddy combed her fur with his free hand, and soon, she didn’t look half bad. Much better than when he had first seen her, at least. Maybe now she would get adopted.

  Teddy could see some little girl liking her. A little girl with blond hair. Straight. Maybe a pink bow in it. Six or so. He wondered what Delilah would have been like at six. She would not have had straight blond hair. She would have looked just like his mom; Teddy knew that somehow. A miniature version of his mother, complete with scowl.

  Teddy picked up the dog and took her into Marcus’s office for his approval.

  “What do you think?” Teddy asked tentatively.

  Marcus was never happy with his work. He was a former Broadway costume designer, or so he said, and favored viscose kimonos in swirls of fuchsia, tangerine and chartreuse over gray slogan T-shirts proclaiming things like “Rosé All Day” and “Indoorsy,” cut-off jean shorts and slip-on sneakers in a variety of hues. He also expected Teddy to be some sort of dogmetologist and not, you know, a twelve-year-old boy volunteering for his Mitzvah Project against his will.

  “I mean, I guess? Did you use the brush?”

  “Yes, I used the brush,” answered Teddy.

  “The small one? With the boar’s-head bristles?” Marcus countered.

  “Yes,” Teddy lied. He had used the big one.

  “Here.” Marcus made a big show of digging around in his desk drawer and getting up, like it was water torture or something. He approached Teddy and the dog with a tiny silver bow barrette. Sweeping some of her fur out of her face, he clipped it back against her skull.

  “Hold her out,” he commanded, taking a few steps back to consider his styling decision. “That works. What should we call her?”

  Teddy was silent.

  “Hello?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  “No, I’m asking the dog.”

  Teddy swiveled her around in his arms so that he was looking directly at her.

  “Barbara?”

  “Barbara?” Marcus looked off into the distance, although the distance in this case was a wood-paneled wall six feet from his face. “You know what? I actually like that. Barbra it is, but without the second a. You can put her back in her cage; just make sure it’s clean first.” Marcus turned toward his desk but then pivoted back around. “I’ll go out to the front, see what’s what. Is Kirby here?”

  “Yes,” Teddy answered, as Marcus breezed past him and the newly christened Barbra. Kirby was another volunteer, but older. With a car. She wore the same lavender T-shirt every day. “Be the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are,” it read across her quite ample chest.

  Teddy was the only person there who kept his thoughts in his brain, where they belonged.

  On Teddy’s first day, when his mother had practically shoved him inside—she had asked him and asked him to come up with a Mitzvah Project of his own, but since he refused and time was running out, here they were, and he damn well better just suck it up and do the damn thing for a year—and sat in her car in the parking lot for the entire hour and a half to make sure he didn’t escape, Kirby had been a little confused.

  “A Mitzvah what?” she had asked him, as she showed him around.

  “I’m getting Bar Mitzvahed,” Teddy explained.

  Kirby had looked at him blankly.

  “I’m Jewish?”

  “Oh right,” she had said. “It’s like a quinceañera, except you’re, like, younger.”

  “And a boy. And Jewish. I read from the Torah,” Teddy had said. Kirby had nodded absently.

  “But yeah, other than that, just like a quinceañera.”

  The other dogs looked at him with resignation now as he walked by their cages with the new and improved Barbra.

  “Okay, let’s see if there’s any poop hiding in here,” Teddy mumbled, searching her cage with his still-gloved hands. No, clean as a whistle. He set her down and retrieved her bowls for food and water, closing the door behind him as he went to refill them.

  This was a small shelter, only ten animals at a time. Most seemed to get adopted fairly quickly—Marcus was good at what he did—but the ones that didn’t, well. Marcia the vet tech from up the road came to take them away in her white van. To kill them. Or what was the word, euthanize? That was a kinder word.

  The few times Marcia had come while Teddy was there, Kirby had sobbed uncontrollably, so much so that Marcus had asked him to man the front desk while she collected herself. It was sad, of course it was sad, but if he had to choose between living in a tiny cage his whole life and going on to the g
reat pet pound in the sky, he would undoubtedly choose the latter.

  He put the replenished bowls back in Barbra’s cage and petted her head awkwardly for a moment before closing the door again. That wasn’t to say he didn’t cross all his fingers and toes that someone would save these animals first. He was just being realistic. He looked at his watch. It was time to go.

  “You headed out?” asked Kirby, as Teddy wrestled himself into his camouflage backpack next to her. He kept meaning to loosen the straps but never did.

  “Yeah. Actually, wait. I should use the restroom first.”

  “Thanks for the play-by-play,” said Kirby.

  Teddy closed the door behind him, and the chemical scent of air freshener was like a punch to the face. He held his breath for a moment as he adjusted, and then wrestled himself out of his backpack and stared at himself in the mirror. He did not need to use the restroom, not in the technical sense. What he did need to do was make sure he looked okay.

  He unzipped his bag and pulled out a fresh T-shirt, just a plain navy-blue one that his mom said he looked handsome in. He would never tell his mom that her opinion on such matters held any weight with him, of course, but it did, because what other opinion was there? He did not have any friends who were girls, and he certainly wasn’t going to ask Kirby. Martin and Raj didn’t even know about Krystal.

  He took off the shirt he had on and grabbed his deodorant from his bag. As he swiped three times under each arm, he checked to see whether any new hairs had sprouted. No, just the same three on the left and five on the right. It wasn’t much, but at least it was a bit of reassurance.

  He retrieved his toothbrush and the travel-size toothpaste he kept in the front pocket and gave his mouth a mint makeover. That was the least he could do, really. Nothing like bad breath when you were sitting close to someone. Which he was about to do. Sit close to Krystal Platt.

  Dating. Crazy. Teddy was going on a date.

  He ran his hands through his hair and shrugged at himself in the mirror. This was him; this was it. It wasn’t like Krystal hadn’t seen him before. She knew who she was having a secret Saturday afternoon waffle with. Although in her case, it wasn’t a secret. Patty Platt was dropping her off, Krystal had told him. This worried Teddy. Did Krystal have waffles with boys often? He put his backpack back on, turned off the light and closed the door behind him.