This Book Does Not Exist (25 page)

“Naomi was here, and she left. She was supposed to come back. Maybe she isn’t coming. Maybe she acquired some sense. We can only pray as much, you puny child.”

The
despondent-looking wedding guests jeer. Attendees on the opposite side of the issue counteract the derision by clapping, but their numbers are small, and their volume is soft. Hostility overwhelms support. The cheers are drowned all the way out.

I parse through the shouts of hatred: “You’re wrong for each other… You didn’t move when you could have… You put your career first… It’s too late… The world has changed… You can’t retreat from what’s happened… You can’t go back after
the Door
…”

“We’ll start fresh,” I shout back. “We’ll learn from this.” To Naomi’s mother, I say, “I don’t know whose idea it was for a wedding, but now is not the right time for this
…”

She laughs at me. Everyone laughs at me. “Too soon for this?” Mrs. Price snarls. “It’ll never
happen. It should never happen. My daughter is smarter now. She left. She’s gone. She’s never coming back to this stupid church, or to you. You and your pathetic, confused self
…”

“I’m going to find her,” I pronounce, and then I walk up the aisle and out of the church.

Standing
in front of St. Theodosius, seeing nothing but a wasteland ahead of me, I walk sideways and call Naomi
. Twice it rings… I think about what to say if she answers…
When
she answers. “She’s going to answer,” I say. The phone
rings a third time, a fourth… I close my eyes and brace myself. I don’t doubt. I hope.

She picks up.

“Mike…”

“You answered.”

“I did?”

She’s being funny. Even
in the middle of a war zone, she’s making me laugh. I’m reminded of Joey
Danko
staggering on top of the movie theater and the first time we met.

“Tell me you’re here. On the other side of the church.”

My speech is shaky.
I’m pacing. I’m tense.

“Which side of the church are you on?” she asks.

“I’m at the front.”

“Then yeah, I am on the other side.”

I shoot along the side of St. Theodosius, picturing her high cheekbones, her round eyes, her typically sly smile, the curtain of brown hair that sweeps across her forehead, and as I turn the corner, I see her. I really, truly see her balled up against the side of the building. I say her name, and I run to her. She doesn’t stand to meet me. I bend down. I put my hands on her. I feel her shoulders and our eyes connect.

“I found you. I really did. I found you.”

Naomi doesn’t speak. She isn’t smiling. Her eyes examine my face, my neck,
my
arms. She touches my cheek
.

“Is it actually you? I mean, really. Is it really you?”

“It’s me. It is.”

“Then I think I found you as much as you found me.”

Finally, she smiles, and she stands, and I rise with her. She
holds me. I put my arms around her and ease her head into my chest

“Are you okay?”

“I’m not sure,” she says. “I’m tired.”

“I want to kiss you. Can I kiss you?”

I lean back, and she looks away. Her body moves away from mine. The hug disintegrates. I try to understand. I have to let things breathe. Let us both breathe.

“Okay, alright,” I say. “There’s so much I want to talk to you about, that I want to ask…”

“I’m happy you’re here. The war was… It was
the first time I really thought I was going to die, so it put things in perspective.” She hasn’t been looking at me, but she does now to say, “Terrible things happened.”

“
Did you really not want to move to LA?”

She looks away from me again.

“What? Naomi, what happened?”

“What happened? I found
the Door
, that’s what happened.”

“How?”

“How did you? It was the same thing for me. I was on my way to the airport and it just kind of happened.”

“Were you at the World Trade Center? I heard you were.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’ve been trying so hard to find you.”

“I didn’t always make it easy.” She pauses. “I hurt, Michael. It took you so long to say you’d come with me for med school. You should’ve said it right away. There’s no reason you have to stay in LA. There never was.”

So this is it. The truth.

I tell her I never lied. I’ve always wanted to be wherever she was.

“You could’ve moved to New York so many times,” she counters. “But you didn’t. You left it up to me.”

“You know how complicated my career is. It takes time…”

“We fought so much. Why did you even want to be with me?”

“I love you,” I say.

“You only came after me now because you thought something bad had happened, didn’t you?”

“Of course that was part of it, yeah-”

“I knew you didn’t leave LA because you wanted to. You left because you felt like you had to.”

“Naomi, I don’t know what- Obviously I was going to come when I thought something was wrong. Why would you not want that?”

“You could’ve come sooner.”

“How much sooner? You were supposed to be flying to LA!”

“I wanted you to show me you loved me. You said it all the time. You didn’t show it. Not enough. Not like I needed.”

I can’t tell her she’s wrong. Not here, in this moment. She needs what she needs, but… So much has gone on. Nothing has been resolved. Our minds aren’t clear. We made it to this point. I know we can work though everything. We have before. We just need time. But now… What we need to do now is destroy
the Door
.

“I could’ve done better,” I say. “I’m sorry I didn’t. I wish I had.”

I let these words linger, hoping time and silence will allow them to resonate. When I speak again, it’s in service of lightening the mood.

“What’s not fair,” I say, “is that you can still be beautiful even when you’re pissed off.”

“Yeah, well, you would know.”

I catch her smiling. I should have guessed she would say something like that. As her smile retraces, mine lifts, and I ask her to help me destroy
the Door
.

She begins to walk away. Watching me, she asks, “How do you know I’m real?”

“Funny,” I say. “Where are you going?”

Still walking, she answers, “I think
Geppetto’s
inside the church.”

Naomi and I approach the entrance to St. Theodosius. I can’t stop looking at her, as if I’m afraid she’ll disappear the moment I do.

“Why do you think
Geppetto’s
here?” I ask. “What about your guide? Was her name Toni?”

“We had a falling out. But really, I never needed her.”

Surprised to hear this, I put
my hand on the door and push. I slide through the doorway. Hesitating, I look back. Naomi hasn’t moved. She has gone completely still. The candlelight from inside the vestibule dribbles out through the entrance, mixing with the moon-glazed darkness of the night, making her appear frail and hollow.

“I don’t actually know if Geppetto is in there,” she says. “I don’t even know why I said that.”

All of a sudden, she’s shaking. I go to her. Our bodies clasp together. We give each other warmth. Perversely, in a way, I am thankful for her fear as it allows me to be this close to her again.

“I’m lost here, Mike. More lost than you were. I kept trying to get away. I know what I want, but I couldn’t get away…”

“It’s okay. I know what I want, too. We’re almost there.”

“That’s not really my mom inside. It can’t be.”

She buries her face deeper into my sternum, unwilling to meet my eyes. I whisper, “Geppetto is a good idea. I need to make sure of something with him, something that can help us.”

“But he’s not in there, Mike. He’s not in there.” She’s crying now, and she pushes me.

“I think I can get him to show up.”

She stares at me and cries. She’s losing it. I’m losing her.

I hurry to direct message
Geppetto
on Twitter:

“Meet me inside St Theodosius. I know you will.”

Once the message goes through, I lean forward and kiss Naomi on the forehead. I ask her, “Please don’t leave me.”

Turning back inside the church, I remember what happened to the last girl I kissed.

The door thumps closed. Everyone turns and faces me. Naomi’s mom, who has remained at the center of the aisle, picks up her previously discarded shoe and bashes it into the ground, one strike after another, repeatedly muttering “my stupid daughter.” Her fury is gone. Instead, she spaces out her words with mournful ellipses.

I head down the aisle, searching through the crowd for Geppetto. Not one person says anything to me. They stare. They whisper. The crumbs of chatter seem to be about Naomi, about where she went and when she returned. I don’t know what they’re talking about. She hasn’t returned – she’s outside, invisible to these people.

As my eyes move from one side of the church to the other, I notice my feet are enshrined in black hard bottom shoes. I’m wearing suit pants as well. I’ve acquired a tux…

This is what I’d be wearing if I were getting married.

The incident within the incident has progressed.

The wedding has started. My wedding to Naomi…

I need to find Geppetto. If he’s here, it should be easy. He
is
here I tell myself, cycling through faces in the pews. People won’t stop staring at me. I become unnerved. My search turns scattershot. I can’t let the incident dictate what I do. I have to dictate what the incident does.

Continuing down the aisle, I near Naomi’s mother, half-expecting her to batter me with the heel of her shoe. Over the din of her refrain, I say, “Your daughter isn’t stupid.”

She stops talking. She places her shoe back on her foot and returns to the pew she came from. Her husband, Naomi’s father, isn’t waiting for her. I approach the base of the altar, where I should have the best possible vantage point on the entire congregation.

While I’m in the midst of pivoting to face the crowd, non-traditional organ music begins to play. The song is not “Here Comes the Bride.” By the fourth bar, I recognize it as “Heartless” by
Kanye
West, and the organ player – wherever he or she is hiding – is playing it like a dirge. Commiseration is the organ’s sole accompaniment. All those who are against the wedding grovel, and in this case… I agree. Today is not the day
for me and Naomi to be married
.

Everyone rotates towards the entrance. Suddenly, I realize why Naomi’s father isn’t with her mother – he’s been waiting to walk his daughter down the aisle.

I panic.
The other world is taking over. Desperate to get control of the incident, I shout over the loud, echoing organ stabs. “
Geppetto
! Geppetto! Geppetto!”

Naomi enters the cathedral. She is adorned in an
immaculate wedding dress, and the man walking her down the aisle is not her father.

It’s Geppetto.

Naomi is beautiful.
Her countenance, luminescent.
Her joy, potent.