Things Not Seen (8 page)

And I have to laugh a little, and I say, “Yeah, that too.”

“And…and you're not some creep, like you're really Bobby Phillips and you go to the lab school and your mom teaches literature, just like you said? And this is really happening to you? Like, for real?”

“Really,” I say. “I'm not making this up. How could I? You heard that guy. He couldn't see me. No one can if I don't wear clothes. And I came out without clothes today because, well, because the only other way is to get completely covered up—like I was on Tuesday. Except earlier today, it wasn't cold enough for that. And I had to get out of the house for a while. I had to.”

Then I say, “Look, can we move over closer to the buildings? Because people keep coming past us, and you look funny here talking to no one. Over here.”

She nods and follows my voice, tapping with her cane until she reaches the wall, looking sort of dazed. She's shaking her head. “But how…did it happen? Like, why you?”

I give an involuntary shrug. “That's what I've got to find out, and I have no idea.” And again, that fact hits me like a bus. “I have no idea—and neither does my dad. He's a science wonk. He sounds a lot like your dad, maybe worse. He's real smart, and he doesn't even have a theory. Only me and my mom and my dad know about this. And now you.”

She's standing there next to a drugstore window, the sharp breeze blowing her hair across her face, and she's trying to get her mind around it all. And she's doing a lot better than my parents did.

A sudden blast of frigid air hits us from the east, and she shivers. Then this look comes over her face. It's a mom look. And in a mom voice she says, “You must be freezing.”

“Yeah, but everything's pretty intense for me right about now, so I don't think about it much.”

“You want some cocoa? They have good cocoa at Starbucks. Really, you need to warm up. Here, put your left hand on my cane out there in front of mine, and you can just walk in with me. Everyone gets out of my way. Let's go.”

And she turns toward the coffee shop, and I hold the cane, and in we go. She buys a tall cup of cocoa and asks for two straws. I steer her to a pair of stools against the wall. She pops the top off the cup and puts both straws into the drink. I start to bend toward the right-hand straw, but she whispers, “Too hot. It's always too hot. Just stir it for a minute or two.”

There's a man at a small table about three feet from us. He glances up when he hears Alicia whisper, but immediately looks back to his newspaper. I guess blind people are allowed to whisper to themselves if they want to. Probably anybody is.

When the cocoa's drained down to the sweet dark stuff at the bottom of the cup, we get up and walk back outside, then to the corner. The clock on the bank across the street says it's 4:28, 58 degrees.

Alicia says, “Sorry I got so mad. I'm always getting mad.”

I say, “Me too.” Then I say, “I've got to get home. My mom's probably tried to call about ten times, and I've got to let her know I'm okay before she calls the National Guard or something. Except she can't, because we're not telling anyone about this. My dad thinks I'd get abducted by the government or something, and he's probably right. He'll go nuts if he finds out I told you. So you've got to keep this a secret, okay?”

She nods, dead serious. “Absolutely.” Then a thought runs across her face and she grins. “But don't worry. 'Cause if I go to my mom or dad—or anybody—and I say, ‘Hey, guess what! I drank some cocoa today with this invisible boy,' who do you think is going to have a problem—you or me?”

I laugh a little and then say, “Listen, I've got to go.”

She says, “I'll be in that room again tomorrow from one to three. And if you want to call sometime, my last name is Van Dorn.”

“Good. I'll try to come tomorrow. Maybe about two, okay?”

And she smiles and says, “Good.”

“See y' Alicia.”

“Bye, Bobby.”

When I'm on the other side of Ellis, I look back. Alicia's walking away, working the long white cane, heading home.

I turn and start jogging, and I feel strong. I am the Greek warrior. And I know exactly what this soldier is going to do when he gets back to the barracks.

He's going to take a long, hot bath.

And as I trot along, I'm doing something I haven't felt like doing for at least two days.

I'm smiling.

I
come in the side door, and the phone's ringing.

“Bobby? What's going on? Are you all right? I've called six times during the past two hours, and your father's tried too. Where have you been?”

“Out.”

“What does that mean? Out where?”

“Out. You know, out. Outside. Like not inside. It's a nice day, so I went out.”

“But…but how?”

“Well, I walked down the steps to the side door, then I turned the doorknob, then I pulled on the door, and then I stepped over the threshold, and there I was. I was out.”

Mom is quiet. Sarcasm makes Dad get loud. Mom gets quiet.

“So…where did you go?”

“All over.”

“Did you walk?”

“On my very own feet. They work just fine.”

“But how did you deal with—”

“With my little problem? Simple. The sun was shining earlier, and it didn't feel that cold, so I just stripped down to nothing and I went out.”

Silence. “I wish you had told me. Or your dad. We need to know where you are, Bobby.”

“You need to know where I am? Because you don't think I'm a responsible person? Well, I am. I know how to take care of myself. I'm actually pretty good at it.”

Silence again. Plus a sniffle. “I should be home tomorrow, Bobby. Probably about noon. They've decided my nose won't need surgery, so that's good, I guess. Not that my nose has ever been some grand thing to be admired.”

Mom wants to have a conversation, but I don't. “So you'll be home around noon?”

“Yes.”

“Then I'll see you when you get here.”

“Good.”

“Okay. Well, I got kind of cold outside, and I just got back, and I need a bath now. So I'll see you tomorrow.”

“All right, Bobby. Have a good night. And call if you need to talk to someone. Bobby…your dad and I love you very much. We do.”

“Yup.”

“Good-bye, Bobby.”

“Bye.”

As I hang up, I know I should have been nicer. I know she's just trying to be a good mom. But that's not what I need right now.

It's later, after a great bath, after some microwave lasagna and two root beers, after I've played my trumpet until my lips hurt, after I've watched the last half of
The Terminator
on cable: The phone rings.

It's right next to me on the couch, but I let it ring. Mom. Maybe Dad. I don't want to talk to either of them. I grab the handset just before the answering machine kicks in.

“Yeah?”

A pause, about three seconds of silence. “
‘Yeah?'
Is that how you answer the phone?” It's Alicia.

“Oh! Well, no. I mean, no one calls except my mom and dad. And I'm pretty tired of talking to them.”

She says, “Then I'll try again.”

And she hangs up.

Fifteen seconds later the phone rings. And I'm ready.

“Good evening, this is the Phillips residence, Bobby speaking.”

She giggles. “Much better. Dignified, yet not too stuffy. Now, if you'd said ‘Robert speaking,' that would have been too much.” Then, in a quieter voice, “So, how are you? Did you thaw out?”

“Yeah. Completely. I love our hot water heater. It's one of the greatest inventions.”

“Could be.” There's a smile in her voice. “But I think the toilet ranks higher.”

I'm nodding. “Right. Plumbing in general. Very good ideas. So, how are you?”

“Bored. My ears are worn out. You can only listen to so many audiobooks before everything starts to sound like mush.”

Then I don't know what to say. I haven't had much practice talking to girls, not this week—not ever, really.

But I ask, “So, how bad did I scare you today?” Because that's something I want to know. Like, how big a freak am I, really?

Alicia's quiet for a few seconds. “It's all I've been thinking about, I mean, about no one being able to see you. And I still don't know if I totally believe it's true—but it has to be. That guy didn't see you, and I know you were there. I waved your arm right in his face, and he didn't see a thing.”

She asks me about when I bumped into her on Tuesday, like, what I was doing and how I got to the library, and I tell her about my first trip out, and about the two men in the fifth-floor bathroom, and then about the accident and me going to the hospital.

When I tell her about tube lady in the bed next to my mom's, she starts laughing and tells me I'm making it up. She laughs so hard that she makes those funny little snorts when she tries to breathe in.

Then she stops laughing. And she says, “I think you're so brave, Bobby. Really. Like, to go and visit your mom? And this afternoon, telling me about what's going on? That was brave too.”

I can see the look on her face when she says that, and I can feel myself blushing. “Nah, you just got me mad, that's all. You were calling me a pervert, remember? And I didn't want you to think that.”

Another dead end, both of us feeling awkward. Or maybe it's just me, blushing my patented invisible blush.

She breaks the vacuum with a question. “So, will you come to the library tomorrow?”

“I said I'd try, remember?”

“Yeah, but how hard are you going to try?”

“Have to see. My mom's coming home from the hospital about twelve. So I don't know what's gonna be happening here around two. Could be all hell breaking loose. But I'll try to come, I really will.”

“So it's a definite maybe.”

“Yup.”

“Okay. Bye, Bobby.”

“Bye…. Oh—Alicia?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for calling.”

“You're welcome.”

“Bye.”

I'm sitting on the couch next to an empty lasagna tin and two root beer bottles, but I'm a million miles away. Or maybe only about ten blocks away. I can see what Alicia's face looks like, and I can see her smile, and then the phone rings.

Another courtesy test.

I grab it on the first ring and say, “Good evening, Miss Van Dorn. You've reached the Phillips residence again.”

“Bobby?”

“Dad! Hey…hi, Dad. How's it going?” I try to sound cheerful, but I didn't want it to be Dad. Because talking to Dad snaps my missing body back into focus, and for a few minutes I'd forgotten all that.

“‘Miss Van Dorn,'” Dad says, “who's Miss Van Dorn?”

“Someone you don't know, Dad. A friend of mine.” I talk to Dad for about five minutes, but I'm not thinking about what's he's saying.

I'm thinking about what I just said about Alicia. About how she's a friend. And about how it's true.

Because, already, that's what Alicia is. She's a friend.

I
t's Friday about 12:45 when Mom gets home from the hospital. I'd like to go help her out of the cab, but I can't, so the driver holds her arm and helps her up the front steps. I don't like seeing her move so stiffly, like an old person. I open the door for her, and when it's shut, we hug. And I'm actually glad to see her.

Then Mom walks slowly around the first floor. I can tell she's not happy with the way the kitchen looks. Or the TV room. Or anything. That's because she had to call from the hospital and cancel our cleaning service, and she had to do that because of me. But Mom is good. I can tell she wants to start giving orders, but she doesn't, and I'm impressed. All she says is, “Maybe you could help me get things straightened up a little.”

So I do. I get out the vacuum cleaner and go to work.

But about 1:30, I tell her I'm going out. We're standing in the kitchen, and she's got a sponge mop in her hands, slowly working on a little spilled ice cream. She looks in my direction.

“What do you mean?” And her tone of voice is like the old Mom, the Director. So I shoot off some sarcasm—old Mom, old Bobby.

“Remember what I told you yesterday, Mom? Out means out. Outside. Out of the house. Somewhere that is not here. I'm going out.”

“But why?”

Before I think, I say, “Because I'm going to meet someone at the library.” The look on Mom's face shows me how stupid I am.

“Who? You haven't told anyone about what's happening, have you?”

I'm a rotten liar, even when people can't see my face. And besides, why should I have to lie? So I take a deep breath and say, “Yes, I have. I met a girl, a blind girl. And she knows about everything, but it's okay. She's not going to tell anyone, and like she said to me, no one would believe her if she did.”

Mom grabs the back of a chair with both hands, and the mop handle clatters to the floor. She starts shaking her head. “Robert, Robert, Robert…you promised your father you wouldn't tell a soul, right here in this room. He's going to be so upset about this. And, and I'm
very
disappointed in you. Why in the world did you tell her?”

“Why? Because
I
decided I needed to tell her. It was a special situation, and
I
decided
I
could trust her.”

“Have you known this girl long?”

“Since Tuesday.”

Mom almost shouts, “Since Tuesday?
This
Tuesday? Oh, Robert. This…this is like trusting a total stranger with your life!”

“Exactly! And that's the part you and Dad still don't get: It's
my
life! And if I want to talk to someone and trust someone, then I'm going to, no matter what you think. It's
my
decision, not yours!”

So that's the mood I leave the house in. And I'm stupid again, because I just yank off my clothes in the back stairwell and run outside. Stupid, because even though it's the warmest part of the day and it's sunny, the temperature's only about 42 degrees. It's a case of run or die, so I cover the half mile to the library in record time. And by the time I get my breathing under control and go up to the third floor, it's almost two.

Then I'm there, and I'm looking in through the glass in the door to the listening room, and I'm glad I came. She's sitting there, right where she was yesterday, her long fingers hovering above the keys of her laptop, head tilted to one side, listening. She's got on a dark green sweater and some reddish corduroy pants. There's a thin strand of pearls around her neck. She looks dressed up, prettier than ever. Somebody knows what looks good on this girl.

Then I gulp. Because she looks like she's dressed…for a date.

I tap and open the door, step inside, shut it behind me.

“Hi.”

“Bobby—hi.” She smiles. A careful smile. She shuts off the tape player. It's still Hawthorne. “So, did your mom get home?” “Yeah.” I feel like I shouldn't be here. And I feel naked. Alone with a blind girl and very naked. Nothing in life prepares a guy for that, not even pretending to be a Greek warrior. I don't sit down. I just stand across the wide oak table from her, my hands on the back of a chair.

Alicia's on edge too. She isn't going to let the conversation slow down. She says, “So, how is she? And what about your dad?”

“My dad wanted to come home too, but the doctors wouldn't let him. Which is good. See, what I hope is that he has to stay away long enough that when he gets out, he can go right back to work. I don't think I could stand being stuck in the house all day with both my folks.”

Alicia is nodding as if what I'm saying is really interesting to her. But I've stopped talking, so she gives me another prompt. “And your mom, she's at home now, right?”

I'm glad for the help, because all of a sudden silence seems scary. I mean, what Mom said was kind of true. I hardly know this girl. And when I talk, I feel like my voice sounds funny. “Yeah, she's home. She's okay, but she's still kind of weak. The taxi guy had to help her up the front steps when she got home. And then the second she got in the house, I had to do some cleaning 'cause I could tell she was grossed out. I mean, I didn't do any dusting or anything while she was gone, but still, it was only three days. It's not like the house was a pit or something.”

While I'm talking, I glance at the door of the listening room. There's a guy there at the window, a man in a tweed jacket, about forty years old with a big head of wild hair. He stops, looks in, sees Alicia, looks at his watch, and then walks on.

Alicia nods. “Yeah, my mom's the same way. And my dad too. Neatness freaks. And now that I can't see anything, it's even worse. They're afraid for me all the time, like if a shoe is lying in the wrong place, they think I'm going to trip over it and break my neck.”

I pounce on that idea. “You said you've been blind for two years, right?” Because that's something we haven't talked about yet.

She nods. “Uh-huh. A little more than two years now.”

“I asked about that yesterday, but you didn't tell me how it happened.”

She shrugs and blushes a little. “It just happened, that's the dumb part. It's not like there was some disease, or a terrible accident or anything.”

“But, like, something had to happen, right?”

Her upper lip curls into a little sneer. She snaps, “Yeah, well, duh, Bobby—I mean,
something
happened. Of course something happened.”

I don't know what to say. Talking with her, it's like walking along on ice, and I think it's safe, and then I take one more step, and everything starts to crack and buckle. And under the ice there's this dark river.

We're both quiet. Then she takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. And she smiles a little. “Sorry. It's just I don't know how to tell about it. I think about this stuff, but I don't talk about it.”

I look at her face the whole time, and I can see her thinking, deciding if she wants to talk. And it's like she's going a long way back somewhere so she can look around and remember. Then in a quiet little voice I have not heard before, she starts talking.

”It just happened. Two years ago. It was night, it was cold, January nineteenth, two days before my birthday. My mom had left the window open. I remember being really cold and waking up without any covers on. I reached over the side of the bed where they usually fall off, and they weren't there, so I reached toward the other side, toward the windows. And I fell out of bed. I just fell and hit my head. I didn't think anything about it. It didn't even hurt that much. I just got up and kind of shook it off.”

She pauses. This is hard for her. But she keeps going, talking in that small voice. “I wasn't really awake, so I just grabbed my quilts off the floor and pulled them around me and went back to sleep. But in the morning…the morning was horrible. I knew I was awake, but it was like I was still asleep, or like I was lost inside this big dark…thing. But I knew I was home, in my own room. I could hear the birds on the feeder outside, and I could feel the sun on my face at the window, feel the cold glass on my fingertips, but…I couldn't see anything.”

The guy in the tweed jacket is back at the door of the room. Must be waiting for a seminar meeting. He looks in, acts as if he's going to open the door, then leaves again.

Alicia takes a long ragged breath, and then wills herself to calm down. “You remember how mad I got yesterday when you said you were invisible?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, part of that was because that's exactly how I felt that first morning, that whole first year when I was suddenly the little blind girl. It was like I became invisible. I couldn't see myself, I couldn't see me going to dances or college or grad school, couldn't see myself becoming an archaeologist. I was never going to get to see the pyramids or the Valley of the Kings. And I couldn't even see getting married or having kids, or anything I used to wish about. Everything just disappeared.

“I could tell other people were looking at me funny, I could feel it, and I could hear it in their voices. It felt like they wished I would just go away. I made them uncomfortable. And I couldn't read the books I loved, I couldn't watch movies, couldn't see sunsets or flowers. It was all invisible, just like me.

“Like a million different doctors looked at my eyes, and they were all real nice, and they explained what happened, but everyone said it couldn't be fixed.

“And it was like my parents couldn't see me either. They just saw this thing that was suddenly helpless. They're better now, but still, I'm not their wonderful daughter they were so proud of anymore. Now I'm a big job, a job they can't get rid of even if they wanted to.” Anger again. Deep and hot and hurtful.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the man again, the guy with the big hair. He's about four feet back from the door, and he looks anxious. He's got an old tan briefcase in one hand. He's standing at an angle where he can see Alicia as she talks. Then he moves, trying to scan the room to see the person who's listening to her. I think,
Get lost, mister. The room's reserved until three, and if this girl wants to talk to the walls, that's what she's gonna do
.

“What about your friends?” I ask. “Didn't they help?”

Her lower lip trembles, and maybe this is one question too many. I really can't take tears. But she pulls back from the edge, and she starts talking again.

“I guess I was popular before it happened, but that didn't help. All the kids I hung around with just disappeared—all but Nancy, Nancy Fredericks. She was great. She came over almost every day after school, and she talked, and she just sat there and took it if I got mad and started calling her terrible names, and when I cried sometimes, she cried too. She could still see me, and she didn't care about the blindness. That first year, my parents had special tutors come to our house and start to teach me Braille and all that blind junk—you know, like, ‘Here's your white cane to tap around with, little girl.' But it was Nancy who kept me from going crazy. She told me about school and the teachers and the boys, and who had a crush on who. We still talk on the phone. It's like she's the only thing that didn't change in my life. Everything and everybody else changed…. It's like I disappeared along with the whole rest of the world.”

She's done. And she's self-conscious again. I don't know what to say. I feel like I've been reading her diary. Risky stuff. So I just say, “Thanks…for telling me all that.”

“Why thanks?” she asks. She sits back in her chair and pulls her legs up against her chest.

“I don't know,” I say, “I guess, because you didn't have to tell me.”

She gets a devilish smile on her face. “Like yesterday, when you didn't
have
to tell me about what's happening to you, right?”

“Yeah. Like that.”

And then I see what she means. Because I
did
have to tell her, just like she had to tell me all of this. I had to trust her. Sometimes you have to tell someone else what it's like. Because if you don't, you'll go nuts.

The tweedy guy is at the door again, and now he's pushing it open, barging right in. Alicia hears the door and turns, putting her feet down as she does.

The man says, “Alicia? What are you doing? Who are you talking to?”

The color drains from Alicia's face. She says, “Wh…what are you doing here?”

“I'm here because your mom called and said she thought you might be meeting someone here today, and—”

“And you thought it would be all right to do a little spying on your little girl, is that it?” Alicia presses her lips together. She's past the surprise already, and now she's mad.

And me? I'm scared. Because I'm shut inside a small room with a blind girl and her father.

And the man is looking for answers.