The Fading (21 page)

Noel shifted to keep his left arm away from her so that she wouldn’t feel the bandages. ‘Do you want me to stay? I don’t have
to, if it’s too crazy for you. I just wanted to make sure you got home safe.’

‘If you leave now I’ll be a wreck, wondering what the hell that was all about.’

‘Yeah. Both of us normal. That would be nice.’

Julie didn’t respond for a long time. Noel grew warm, then hot, hardly able to breathe under the covers.

‘Julie?’

But she was sleeping. A while later she rolled on her side, leaving them spooned. Noel pulled the cover down so that he could
breathe. He lay awake long enough to hear Marna get up, make coffee, shower and leave for work or school or whatever Marna
did with her days. Then he fell asleep, too.

‘Oh, my God.’

Noel was on his back, too tired to stir.

‘Noel?
Noel
.’

The bed dipped with her movement, then the covers were thrown back and a cool draft roused him a little more. The room was
dark again. They’d slept all day?

‘Say something,’ she said. ‘Are you still here?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re still …? This isn’t a joke?’

‘It’s not a joke.’ He turned to look at her.

Her face was on a pillow beside his. Her eyes were huge, searching.

‘Can you see me?’ he said, daring to hope.

‘No, but those are your legs, right?’

Their legs were tangled together.

‘Yes.’

She reared back. ‘Did we do anything?’

‘Slept.’

‘That’s all?’

‘That’s all.’

‘Promise?’

‘I might be a freak but I’m not a total creep.’

‘This is insane,’ she said.

‘Sorry. Do you want me to leave?’

‘Like, what am I supposed to do?’

‘Who says you have to do anything?’

Julie laughed with incredulity. ‘How do you live like this?’

‘Most of the time I don’t.’

‘Jesus. I thought I had problems. Sorry.’

‘It’s okay.’

‘I can’t think about this right now. I’m starving,’ she said. ‘Are you hungry? I mean, can you eat like this?’

‘I can do everything like this, so long as it doesn’t attract a lot of attention. Do you have anything here?’

‘I can order a pizza,’ she said. ‘Hey, how did you find me?’

‘The parents were worried about you. Should they be?’

Julie scoffed. ‘Does he know about you?’

‘He thinks it’s all in my head.’

‘Typical,’ she said. ‘If that’s the case, it’s all in my head too now.’

Noel laughed.

‘Tell me about it,’ Julie said. ‘Will you?’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Everything.’

She ordered a pizza and they sat in bed, eating Domino’s with extra cheese and pepperoni (she couldn’t
watch; the sight of a slice of pizza dissolving into thin air was too strange for her), and he told her. Everything he could
remember, from his earliest memories of the cloak’s visitations, through all of the episodes and the things he had done in
them, good and bad and meaningless and terrifying.

He told her of his mother’s break with reality and shunning of him, of his fruitless search for an explanation during his
late teens, of his own collapse into depression, but did not mention his stitches or the reason for them. Several times she
made him stop while she went to get water or use the bathroom, then asked him to resume. Noel felt rescued after being stranded
on an island for the past ten years. Julie listened, sometimes turning on the light to stare at him, trying to get used to
the invisible dome of bedding, but it was like watching yourselves having sex, too much too soon, and she turned the light
off again.

The darkness was better, allowed her to forget for a while what he was. Halfway through, she cuddled beside him, crawling
around him, marveling over what she could hear and feel but not see. It was distracting having her so close and he tried to
kiss her. She let him, and it seemed for a few minutes that it would lead to everything else, but this frightened her too
and she stopped him, asking him to tell her more.

She opened up about herself in ways she never had before, making him laugh over the strangest things, and he was surprised
the years had changed her, leaving her scattered yet somehow more alive, messy yet fearless,
just as childlike and more beautiful than ever. At one point he broke down crying, with relief that someone was here and believed
him, and because there was no one else he would rather this long lost believer be. The night hours passed, and, though his
bubble refused to let him go, Noel was content. They fell asleep holding hands, waking only an hour or two later to talk some
more. If he was a wonder and mystery to her, she was a miracle to him. They talked until sunrise.

It was the usual way to fall in love.

After Marna showered and left for work on the second morning, Julie launched herself from the bed. She had been restless,
tossing and turning in the early hours, in some kind of withdrawal, he assumed. She went to the bathroom, peed, ran the faucet
for a minute or two and came back wiping her face with a small towel. Noel had not come back to the spectrum and, upon waking,
he was again surprised by how quickly Julie was adapting to his condition. She brushed her teeth as she cracked a window to
let some air into the room, rinsed and came back applying lotion to her hands. She rubbed the lotion in faster and faster
and then stopped abruptly. Her hands were shaking as she flexed her fingers open and closed.

‘Oh, shit,’ she said. ‘Shit, shit!’

Noel sat up in the bed. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I just remembered I left my car downtown.’

‘What, you think it got towed?’

She started talking too quickly. ‘No, it’s in the garage on Walnut, I’ll have to pay like twenty bucks, but it
should be fine, but I left my pills in there. We started out having margaritas at the Rio and I was too fucked up to drive.
In my bag in the back. I left them in there but I can’t find my keys!’

Her pills. The shaking hands. Her drop in mood. Noel felt something collapse in him. Not hope, exactly, but something like
it. She’s not just a recreational user.

But then again, what am I?

‘Not
drugs
, drugs,’ she said, as if reading his silence. ‘My prescription. They’re for my poles.’

‘Your poles?’

‘I’m kind of manic. It’s not a big deal. But I start to freak out if I go more than one day. And I forgot to take yesterday’s.’

‘So, we go get them, right? It’s okay.’

Julie’s lip trembled. ‘It’s not okay! I’m starting to freak out. This situation isn’t helping. I can’t … I need those pills.’

‘That’s understandable. I know this is a lot.’ He was thinking:
margaritas, acid, ecstasy, a visit by your invisible almost-stepbrother who is sort of becoming your boyfriend. How are you
not screaming bloody murder every time I open my mouth?

‘Gee, thanks,’ she said, stomping back to the bathroom. ‘Glad you approve.’

‘Julie, that’s not what I meant.’

She slammed the door. Showered faster than a Navy man at sea, came back, said, ‘Don’t look at me.’

‘I’m not.’ He pulled the blanket up over his head.

She mumbled, cursing, slamming her dresser around. ‘Goddamn it!’

She gave up, sitting on the bed. She was in a big gray sweatshirt and maroon sweatpants, with a knit ski hat crooked on her
head, its bright blue pom-pom dangling to the side.

‘Hey.’ He sat up and pressed a hand to her back, but she flinched. He removed his hand. ‘One thing at a time. What can I do,
right now, in this minute?’

‘I need my medicine!’ She was crying. And not just a little, but was suddenly a wreck. She cried deeply, through heaving breaths.
He guessed she needed to, pills or no pills. Probably some of it was coming down off her high, but a lot of it was the stress
of him back in her life, his freak condition. How could the world make sense to anyone confronted by him, like this?

She went to the bathroom to blow her nose.

‘Okay, I’ll go get them,’ he said.

She came back and stood with her arms crossed, looking away rather than trying to talk at his approximate location. ‘How?
How are you going to do that?’

‘I’ll walk, open your car, grab the meds and walk back. Won’t take more than an hour.’

‘I can’t find my keys!’

He walked to her jeans on the floor, dug around, came up with a small red caribiner with two Honda keys and one regular house
key attached.

She softened a bit. ‘I can’t make you do that.’

He moved to her, resting a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’ll take care of it, okay?’

‘I would do it myself but don’t think I can drive,’ she said through a runny nose. ‘I’m really in a bad place right now.’

‘I can’t drive your car back, but I’ll get your meds. Don’t panic. I promise I will come right back, okay? It’s going to be
okay.’

‘Thank you so much.’

‘No big deal. I should be thanking you.’

She watched him get dressed, his clothes filling out like blown flags, then blinking out as they were absorbed.

‘I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to that,’ she said.

Not yet ten in the morning but already it looked like four in the afternoon, the sky one huge inverted kettle grill filled
with charcoal. It was snowing again, albeit gently. If he used the backstreets, he could be downtown in twenty minutes. He
walked half a block north on 30th, imagining her alone back in her apartment.

Was she really unraveling? How bad was another hour going to make her? He was antsy, not just about her meds and whatever
not having them for the past two days was doing to her. He couldn’t help feeling that no matter how fast he made the trip,
when he returned she would be … not gone, but reverted to her scared self, scared of him, too freaked out by everything to
let him stay. Let him stay? What did he think he was going to do with her? Move in? This had to end sometime. Probably she
would be depressed or feeling sick, and when he
handed her the pills she would take one and then wait for him to leave. She would go back to her life, to reality, and the
whole idea of him would be too bizarre to deal with ever again.

He walked faster, scanning the streets, seeing no one, thinking of shortcuts. The intersection of Arapahoe and 30th was coming
up. Busy, lots of cars. Right next to the Crossroads Mall. In a way traffic was good. The busier the scene was, the easier
it would be go move unnoticed. More distractions. But there were a lot of lights and intersections between here and the parking
structure on Walnut and 13th. People stop at the light, what do they do? Look around, see what’s happening. What he needed
to do was take the Boulder Creek bike path, snaking his way up behind all the homes and businesses, in the trees, where he
had more places to hide.

But first he needed to find the path.

Without realizing what he was doing, not even sure the path swerved near here, he cut left across the rolling wide flank of
Scott Carpenter Park. It was a popular park in a densely populated part of town. On days when it was covered with snow, the
large hill and long runway bottom were often overrun with kids aged three to twelve and their sleds, snowboards, toboggans
and anything else that could be ridden for cheap entertainment. Parents liked to stand at the base, a cup of coffee in one
hand, nervously watching to make sure the big kids didn’t crash into the littler kids, and that none managed to slide all
the way into 30th Street.

But today, at not quite eleven a.m., most of the
children were at school and most of their parents were at work. A lone mountain biker, probably a dedicated student, was bundled
up and pedaling hard toward campus, moving south on 30th, away from the park, but he did not glance in Noel’s direction. No
one happened to be walking by, and there were no plows or park service employees about.

He focused on making good time. He thought of Julie getting out of the shower. Her naked body that he hadn’t peeked at. He’d
slept beside her all day. The smell of her bed, the smell of her body when she came back from the shower, all soapy fresh.
He hadn’t showered in almost three days and was filmy from all the walking. Home. A hot bath. That would be so nice, but he
couldn’t spare the time. Julie needed her meds.

He watched his invisible feet boost clouds of snow from the perfect sparkling plane stretching before him, plowing for what
seemed half an hour to cover only a couple hundred feet, and when he next looked up a police cruiser was parked in the unplowed
parking lot beside the park, its exhaust pipe emitting a cyclone of steam.

Noel stopped, his chapped and stinging face flushing with fear. Oh, Jesus. This was very bad. How long had the cop been parked
there? What had he or she seen?

For many years Noel had feared that his bubble of invisibility, while absolute in every respect (to the best of his ability
to tell during all the early tests he had performed), might, in certain light, caught at the right
angle, reveal some kind of human shape. Or the suggestion of a shape, like the thinnest scree of ice melting from a sculpture,
or a transparent mannequin sealed in plastic food wrap. Times he had feared projecting even the rainbow effect of a soap bubble
blown on a sunny day, seen for a few seconds and gone the next, but in between rendering some feature (his jawline, a shoulder)
visible to the chance human eye. Personally he had never recorded such an effect, not in daylight or dusk or night, not with
mirrors or magnifying glasses or photos – and he’d tried them all.

But this was different. He was crossing an open field of snow. An error so colossal and lazily committed, he now questioned
his sanity. Recent days had wound up his emotions, messed with his head, allowed him to abandon caution. And maybe he was
simply, in the manner of dwindling supplies, running out of control.

Staring at the idling police car, his fear came back in a toxic splash, waking him to the severity of his terrible ailment
all over again.

The cop car was still there. Noel did not take another step.