The Invisibles (4 page)

A
lthough she had never done it before, booking a plane ticket online was not nearly as difficult as Nora thought it might be. Nora had been on a plane exactly once in her life, when her mother had flown the two of them to Florida to attend her grandfather's funeral. She had only been four years old at the time, and she did not remember much about the funeral or the plane ride. Trudy, however, found her a last-minute deal on some obscure travel website, which shaved fifty dollars off the final price, and had offered to take care of Alice Walker while Nora was gone so that she would not have to pay for a kennel.

“You do want me to come back, don't you?” Nora asked as they locked up the library later that evening.

Trudy laughed. “Only if you promise to go again.”

It was dusk when Nora started back home. The sky was awash in a sea of periwinkle, and the moon was brightly visible. She had been too preoccupied with things today to look for a new first line in any of the books she had to shelve, but one came to her now as
she gazed up at the sky:
“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”
She remembered the chill that had descended over her the first time she read that line from George Orwell's book and how a similar sensation—like small, frozen fingertips—tiptoed over the top of her head and down the back of her neck as she thought of the weekend ahead.
Anything could happen,
she thought.
Anything at all.

She still had to pack and get Alice Walker over to Trudy's, and then call a taxi service to come pick her up in the morning so that she could get to the airport, but right now she needed to walk. She grabbed a handful of Swedish fish, clipped on Alice Walker's leash, and headed toward the east part of town, over a mile away, until she got to Wisconsin Avenue. It was located on the outskirts of one of the more ragged sections of Willow Grove, and the street stuck out from the highway like a dislocated arm. Her head started to pound as she made a left onto Magnolia and stood on the sidewalk opposite the old building, just like it did every time she came down here.

Ozzie would never believe it if she saw what it looked like now, Nora thought; how Turning Winds had transformed over the years from a stately yellow Victorian house with a snake of red ivy crawling up one side into a pale, sagging structure. The wide wraparound porch they used to sit on, Ozzie's legs dangling over the side, skimming the tops of the rhododendron bushes beneath, had almost rotted away to nothing. When Monica had gone through her “I'd rather die than be fat” stage, she used to hook her toes under the railings and do sit-ups until she couldn't breathe. Now the porch floor had sunk to the ground and the railing spindles, formerly delicate white arms, had collapsed into
jagged stumps. Behind the house, the grass was waist-high, but back then it had been a lawn, neatly trimmed around the edges and flanking the east side of the river. Nora walked around to one side of the house. She stared past the weeds, tall as grown men, until she could see Grace and herself that last week, before everything happened.

T
hey'd walked to one of their favorite spots, a place where the ground dipped down into a wide sort of basin and three birch trees, their trunks wide as flagpoles, draped the surrounding area in shade. It was a particular spot where Grace liked to sit and draw. A forgotten section of railroad tracks sat less than a stone's throw away, obscured by tufts of weeds, and the bank itself, which sloped toward the water, was sprinkled with blue cornflowers. Nora thought there were more attractive places—just a hundred feet behind them was an entire field full of black-eyed Susans and Queen Anne's lace—but Grace always insisted that the light in this particular spot was perfect. Whole, she called it. Untainted.

The weather had been gauzy-warm, a breeze soft as cotton breathing over everything. Grace was looking at a book of photography, flipping the glossy pages slowly as she examined each face, every picture with a studied intensity. A large sketch pad, which she brought with her everywhere, lay next to her, along with a variety of charcoal pens. She had rolled up the sleeves of her T-shirt, exposing her bony arms, and a lone pencil stuck out from the bun in her hair.

Nora lay next to her, one arm draped over her face to avoid the glare of the sun, the hand of the other arm dipping intermittently
into a bag of sunflower seeds. She was reading
Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston, hooked by the stunning first line:
“Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.”
It was already in her notebook.

“Do you think people who die can still feel love?” Grace asked, turning from her book to look at Nora.

Nora cracked a sunflower shell between her teeth. “Yeah, I guess.” She was at a good part in the book where the main character—a girl named Antoinette—was about to meet the man she was supposed to marry.

“No, really.” Grace's hair, which was the color of corn silk, curled in wisps around the side of her face, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Her bare legs, thin as pins, were crossed at the ankles. “You know, some people think that if we can't get into heaven when we die, our spirits just sort of drift in and out of the universe. Do you think those spirits can feel things? Like love?”

“Uh-huh.” Nora kept reading. Grace talked this way a lot—she loved ethereal things like heaven and hell and beauty and God, things, Nora assumed, that must have been passed down by her mother. She kept a picture of the Blessed Virgin Mary under her pillow, a glossy rectangular head shot of a lovely dark-skinned woman with a blue mantle over her head, downcast eyes, and lips the color of an overripe peach—something she had never explained to Nora, and about which Nora had never asked.

“Are you even listening to me?” Grace poked Nora in the ribs.

Nora put the book down and stared at the river. The water was a gunmetal gray for some reason, dark and foreboding despite the sunlight. In one more week, her best friends in the entire world were going to leave Willow Grove forever. Talking had become
difficult again. Talking about the future—nearly impossible. “Say it one more time,” she said.

Grace sat up and pulled a piece of grass out of the lawn. “Do you think spirits or souls—after we die—can feel things like love?”

Nora thought about this for a moment, hoping it wasn't a trick question. “Maybe,” she said.

Grace tipped forward a little as Nora spoke, as if she had been waiting for the answer to tumble like a crumb from her lips. “Maybe?” she repeated.

It was then that Nora understood that Grace was talking about the abortion. Nora didn't know too many of the details other than the few Grace had given them a few days before: it would happen on Wednesday, which was three days from now, and it would be as uncomplicated as taking a vitamin. Grace's boyfriend, Max, who was a sophomore at the university across town, had already obtained some kind of pill called Cytotec, which would make the uterus empty itself of what they had calculated to be a six-week pregnancy. Or at least that was how Grace had described it to them. Max, who was studying premed, said it was going to be a simple miscarriage of unwanted tissue, nothing more. He'd slashed open a medical textbook in his dorm room one night and directed them to look.

“There,” he said, pointing to something that resembled a pink lima bean nestled inside a soft blob of tissue. “That's all it is right now. It's nothing. It's not living, it's not breathing; it's not even human.” Nora, who was squeezed tightly between Grace and Monica, leaned in past them, peering closely at the image. She thought it looked more like a comma than a lima bean, but
she didn't say so. Her eyes drifted to the bedspread alongside the book instead, the dark blue, rumpled material under which Grace had been entwined with Max for months now. What was he like in bed? she wondered. Did the things he did to Grace make her moan? Cry? And what kind of thoughts, after all of them would leave his room again and head back to Turning Winds, did Max himself have about the abortion?

“How long will it all take?” Grace asked.

“An hour,” Max answered. “Two, tops. It'll be like a really heavy period. And then it'll be over.” Nora snuck a look in Grace's direction. Her mouth was twisted into a painful scowl and she looked pale. Nora already knew that Grace's strict Catholic upbringing made it impossible for her to believe that any of it was going to be as simple as Max was making it out to be. Grace was pretty sure the whole thing was going to be the equivalent of committing murder.

Nora herself hadn't given the abortion too much thought after the decision had been made, although every so often, after the sound of Grace's faint snoring drifted through the bedroom at night, her mind would wander. There was no reason to doubt him, but she hoped Max knew what he was talking about. He was ranked third academically in his class, but he was still just a college sophomore. Medical school wasn't even on the virtual horizon yet. What if there was something he missed? Something he didn't—or couldn't—know yet? It was frightening to think about.

“Listen,” Nora said now, putting her hand on Grace's arm. Fifty feet away, the river roared, the black water churning like a washing machine. “You're starting to overthink things. Don't go there, all right?”

Grace's face darkened. “Don't go there?” she repeated. “Don't
go
there? It's too late, Nora. The pills are in my sock drawer. I'm already there, okay?”

“I just . . .” Nora fumbled for the words she should have said earlier. “All I meant is that it'll be okay. Max looked into everything, and it'll all work out. Really. It'll be fine.”

Grace had looked away, staring off at some invisible point in the distance. Nora was sure she didn't believe her, but that had been the end of their conversation.

They had never—not once—spoken of it again.

N
ow, as Nora stood there staring at the old house, she wished with all her heart that she could go back.

“Yes,” she would have said this time, even if she still hadn't believed it, even if she hadn't really known the answer for sure, “yes, Grace, I think dead people can definitely feel love.”

T
here was a litany of things for Nora to worry about as she sat on the plane the next morning: Alice Walker for one, who would probably never forgive her for leaving for two whole days, who would pretend not to know Nora upon her return, lifting her nose in that snooty-dog way she did sometimes when Nora accidentally ran out of her favorite food. Then there was the cost of the plane ticket, which Trudy had sworn was a steal, but because of hidden costs had actually ended up costing a small fortune. The last time Nora had spent a similar chunk of money was two years ago, when she had purchased a new sofa at Burlington Furniture. It had been a necessity—her old one had gotten so threadbare that Tom (who she had been dating at the time) had come over one evening for dinner and gotten stabbed by a small wire when he sat down—but she had tossed and turned over the purchase nevertheless. She didn't like to spend money. Especially on herself. It made her anxious.

Then there was the whole ordeal about what to wear, which had completely thrown her for a loop. She stood in front of her
closet for a full twenty minutes after getting out of the shower, feeling slightly dumbfounded. Nora never fretted about her appearance. Ever. She dressed for work exactly the way she ate—grabbing whatever was closest. Trudy did not have any rules about what they wore to work, which meant that she could indulge in her usual assortment of jeans or khaki pants, a soft long-sleeved T-shirt, and sneakers. Nora had a collection of sneakers that rivaled that of any professional sports player. It was her only indulgence, born out of her necessity to walk, and she took great pleasure in adding to it. To date, she had eighteen pairs, each one labeled and stacked in its original box in her closet.

And yet she'd paused this morning. More than paused. She'd worried. Were her clothes too frumpy? The sneakers too weird? Did she look like one of those stereotypical librarians, whose idea of fashion included forty-two cardigan sweater sets in different colors? She'd settled finally on a black turtleneck, pressed khaki pants, her brand-new gray-and-orange Sauconys that still smelled like wet leather, and the brown barn jacket she wore everywhere. It had a soft corduroy collar, tortoiseshell buttons, and deep pockets. She brushed her brown hair back until it fell in its natural middle part and tucked the ends under with her round brush. A bit of Vaseline on her eyelashes to make them shine, a slick of lip balm, and a spritz of the overly floral perfume Marion had bought her last year for Christmas completed the picture. A final glance in the mirror was not reassuring, especially since a small pimple was just starting to bloom in the middle of her chin, and the faint, C-shaped scar on her forehead, which stood out like a careless scribble mark on her otherwise unremarkable face, seemed to glare at her. But it would have to do.

Now she was settled in the coach section of the plane, squeezed in between an elderly man with a tweed cap pulled down low over his forehead and an enormous woman dressed all in purple. The woman was fingering a plastic sack of peanuts, and the man smelled like old tobacco. Nora turned her head and held her breath. Pungent smells were a surefire way to get her sick in any sort of moving vehicle. She grabbed the white paper bag stuck in the pocket of the airplane seat ahead of her and tucked it in between the seats as the wheels of the plane began to move.

“You get airsick?” The large woman in purple eyed Nora's barf bag as the plane started to move. A black hair stuck out of her chin like an exposed root.

Nora shook her head. Crossing her arms over the front of her chest, she slid down into the seat, tucked her head down low, and closed her eyes. If she could just disappear, she thought—just for a little while—maybe she could make it through. The plane rumbled and lifted, and for three, four, five seconds, Nora's stomach felt weightless.

G
race didn't talk for two days when Nora was first assigned a room with her at Turning Winds. This was fine with Nora. She herself was still in the throes of her own self-imposed silence, and she dreaded the annoyed looks she knew she would get once everyone found out she wasn't a fan of speaking. Grace seemed to be in a state of her own; she stayed in her bed most of the day, curled up like an underfed cat against two purple pillows, drifting in and out of sleep. Her tangle of blond hair framed her face like an angel's, and she had wide, sapphire-blue eyes fringed with dark lashes. Every once in a while, she would lift her arm and
examine the inside of her wrist, as if she were preparing to do surgery. Then she would drop it again and sigh. Nora was reading
Swann's Way
by Marcel Proust, intrigued by the first line:
“For a long time, I went to bed early,”
but she was having a difficult time getting through the rest. It was dull and too dense to sustain her attention. She kept her head down and reread the same sentence a third time, trying to convince herself to continue.

“I'm not staying here, you know.” It was early evening on the third day when Grace finally decided to speak. Nora looked up, relieved at having been interrupted and curious to hear what this strange girl had to say.

“My mother's at a hospital,” Grace said by way of explanation. “But it's totally temporary. She's coming back in, like, a month, and then we're going home.” Her arms were wrapped around the purple pillows, her fingers clutching the edges the way a child might hold a favorite doll.

Nora blinked.

Grace waited.

Nora pressed her lips together.

“You don't talk?”

She looked back down at her book, shook her head.

“Why not?”

Nora shrugged.

Grace rolled her eyes. “Great.”

The door banged open then, startling both of them. Ozzie strolled in, glancing around the room with quick, eager eyes. Nora had seen this girl at nightly dinner—a requirement for all of them living at Turning Winds—noting how she always sat at the head of the table and directed the conversation. Nora hadn't dared meet
her eyes. Now she couldn't take them off her. Ozzie was a picture of nonchalant authority, arms crossed over the front of her denim jacket, long legs encased in a pair of dark brown corduroy pants and heavy black boots. A red cap sat atop her head, trapping all but a few wisps of black hair beneath it, and her ears were pierced with tiny gold hoops. She was pretty, but in a hard sort of way, with deep-set eyes and an angular chin, as if someone might have to take a chisel to get to the soft stuff underneath.

“Hey.” Ozzie walked over to Nora and stuck out her hand. “Ozzie Randol. I've been meaning to give you a formal introduction since you got here, but I haven't had the chance 'til now.”

“Ex
cus
e me.” Grace had raised herself from her mattress and was eyeing Ozzie with an indignant gaze. “Have you ever heard of
knocking
? This is our room, you know.”

Ozzie leveled a gaze at Grace and then turned and walked back over to the door, where a chubby pale-faced girl lingered, picking at the edge of the doorjamb with a thumb. Nora had seen this girl before too, hanging around the outside of Ozzie's door, or occasionally sitting on the wicker rocking chair on the front porch, leafing through an old, worn copy of
Madeline
that someone said she'd brought from home. Now, dressed in sneakers and an ill-fitting blue sweat suit, Nora thought the girl looked a bit like a bruised marshmallow. Her orangey hair, braided and secured with rubber bands, hung like tails over her shoulders, and her cheeks were as smooth as a baby's bottom.

Without taking her eyes off Grace, Ozzie knocked once on the back of the door. Twice. And then a third time, with great deliberation. “Better?”

Grace slit her eyes as Ozzie walked back across the room.

Nora suppressed a small smile.

“That's Monica,” Ozzie said, jerking her thumb in the marshmallow's direction. “She came last year, two days after me. We're roommates.”

“Nice to meet you,” Monica said, taking a few steps into the room. Her teeth were too widely spaced, and there was a large bump on the ridge of her nose. “What's your name?”

Nora reached around for the little notepad she kept in her back pocket at all times. It had a blue unicorn on the front and was full of lined paper. “Nora,” she scribbled.

“Nora,” Ozzie read aloud. Her eyes flicked from the paper back up to Nora. “You don't talk?”

Nora shook her head.

“Why not?” Monica asked.

Nora stared at her the way she always did whenever someone asked her a dumb question. After a few seconds, Monica looked away again.

“Nothing wrong with not talking,” Ozzie said. “Shit, I know about a dozen people who should keep their mouths shut at all times.”

“Is one of them you?” Grace shot from the bed.

“Depends on who you ask,” Ozzie replied without turning around. She settled an arm on top of Grace's dresser, studying Nora for a moment. “So when did you get here? Monday, right?”

Nora nodded. Today was Wednesday. The last two days had disappeared in a blur, consumed with curious stares, endless questions (all of which Nora had answered with a nod or a shake of her head), and forms to be signed. She was glad that part of things was over.

“That's what I thought.” Ozzie glanced at the top of the dresser and picked up a tiny figurine a few inches from her elbow. “I thought I saw—”

“
Hey!
” Grace's voice was sharp. “You put that down!”

Ozzie eyed Grace the way someone might regard a rabid animal. “Who
is
it?” she asked.

“The Blessed Virgin Mary,” Grace said. “And it's private property. Don't you touch it again.”

“The Blessed Virgin Mary?” Ozzie put the statue back. “Who's that?”

Grace's face paled. “Jesus's
mother
?”

Ozzie laughed. “I'm just fucking with you. I know who she is.” She raised an eyebrow. “You're Catholic?”

“No,” Grace retorted. “I keep a statue of the Blessed Virgin on my dresser because I'm an atheist.”

The left side of Ozzie's mouth lifted into a smile, and then she shrugged, as if determining that the ensuing argument was not worth it. She sat down on Nora's bed instead. “So,” she said, “Monsie and I always come in and check out the new goods. Ask a couple questions, try and get the lowdown, see what the deal is.”

“Could you just leave?” Grace followed her with hateful eyes. “You're really not welcome here.”

“Oh my God. Chill.
Out
.” Ozzie leaned back on her elbows and placed the heel of one foot atop the toe of the other. “You've had your panties in a bunch ever since you got here, you know that?”

Grace sat up a little straighter. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“All you do is snarl at people. You give these snotty, one-word answers when we talk at dinner and—”

“When
we
talk?” Grace burst out. “How about when
you
talk? All you do is hog the conversation! No one else
can
talk at dinner.”

Ozzie shrugged. “Monica talks at dinner. Ella talks at dinner. Samantha and D'Shawn and Roberta all talk at dinner.” She kept her gaze fastened in Grace's direction, tipping her stacked feet in one direction, then the other. Nora still wasn't sure which name belonged to the other four girls in the house, but she had to agree with Ozzie. They had all (except for her, of course) contributed to at least one dinner conversation over the past few days, mostly to tell the others where they were from, what ages they were (almost everyone was in high school; the youngest, Ella, was in eighth grade), and how long they'd been at Turning Winds. D'Shawn, who smoked an endless stream of Newports despite the fact that she was seven months pregnant, had just told everyone yesterday that she'd arrived here when she was twelve. Now, at eighteen, she had only a few months left before she had to leave. She was going to move in with her boyfriend, Frederick, and his mother, who was crocheting a blanket for the baby. D'Shawn's eyes had flashed when she relayed this last bit of information, and Nora couldn't help but wonder what it was about Frederick's mother that had conjured such a look. Whatever it was, she was pretty sure D'Shawn was not going to have an easy time of it.

“Oh please,” Grace retorted. “You fire so many questions at them that they don't even know where to start. I wouldn't call that talking.”

“At least they answer,” Ozzie said. “You just sit there like a prima donna. ‘Yes, no, I don't know.' You think you're too good to be part of the discussion?”

“Seriously?” Grace rolled her eyes. “Just leave, okay? Please. Just
leave
.”

“I will.” Ozzie turned her attention toward Nora. “After I ask the new girl a few questions.”

“Well, she doesn't talk.” Grace rolled over on her bed so that she was facing the wall. “So good luck with that one.”

Ozzie grinned and raised an eyebrow. “But you can write in your little notebook there if you want to answer, can't you?”

Nora nodded.

“Okay, then. I just have two questions. First, do you know what your name means?”

Nora shook her head, puzzled.

“I don't know either.” Ozzie looked aggravated. “Usually I know. I know a lot of names' meanings. Like Grace. Grace means ‘love.' Monica means ‘advisor.' Ella means ‘little girl.' Nora, though.” She shook her head. “I haven't come across a Nora yet.”

Nora bit the inside of her cheek. She felt uncomfortable, as if she had just failed at something she hadn't known she was being tested for.

“Is it just Nora?” Ozzie pressed. “Or is Nora short for something else?”

“Just Nora,” she wrote on the pad.

“Yeah, Ozzie's not short for anything, either. Actually, I think my mother may have mistaken me for a pet when I was born.” She grinned, a gesture so forgiving of whatever her mother had put her through that Nora just stared. “Okay, second question,” Ozzie said. “You get to see her at all? Your mother, I mean?”