Things Not Seen Page 19

  But I don’t think that’s going to happen. There’s some other stuff I need to take care of.

  chapter 28

  LOOKING AGAIN

  It’s about 9:00 A.M., and I spend at least five minutes in front of the mirror after my shower. Which is about ten times more time than I ever spent back then, back before. For a month there was nothing to see. It’s like I have to remember how I look again.

  Mom doesn’t want to go teach her ten o’clock class. She wants to stay home and moon around, find some more excuses to sit and look at me. She wants to fix me another breakfast, maybe go with me to the barbershop. She wants to be the new, improved Mom. Which is actually quite nice.

  But I don’t want to go the barbershop. I like my hair this long. Maybe even longer. It looks good. Only time will tell. Time. Now I have time for things like growing my hair.

  When Mom finally leaves at the very last second, I’m glad. I’ve got stuff I’ve been waiting to do.

  The first thing is to call Sheila. She answers on the third ring.

  “Sheila? This is Bobby Phillips. We talked about your blanket a couple days ago?”

  “Hi, kid. How’s it going?”

  “I’m back.”

  “No!”

  “Really. And it was so simple. I promised I’d let you know, so…I’m letting you know.”

  “And it was simple?”

  “Easy as falling asleep. But I think you might have to go north. And you have to wait for the right conditions. I made some notes for you, about how it works. Should I mail them, or send you an e-mail?”

  There’s a pause. Then she says, “Did you keep your promise? About not telling about me?”

  “I only told Alicia, the girl I told you about. My dad wanted to talk to you himself, but I didn’t tell him.”

  “Good. Now I have something else I need to ask you to do for me, okay?”

  “What?”

  “Forget you ever found me. Forget my name. Forget we ever talked. Don’t tell anyone about me, don’t ever call me again.”

  “What about—”

  “Don’t tell me anything else. I’ve been thinking about this ever since you called.”

  “But—”

  “Listen. Don’t talk, just listen. I’ve thought about this a lot. And what I figured out is, I started disappearing a long time before this happened to me. If it hadn’t been this, I would have disappeared some other way. Booze or drugs maybe, maybe three more bad boyfriends—that would have done it. I was already disappearing, a little bit at a time. It was better happening all at once. And now I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to start worrying about my weight and my hair and all that junk again. I like who I am, and I’ve got a life that works fine. It’s fine for me. So I’m going with it.”

  I don’t say anything.

  She says, “You don’t understand that, do you?”

  “I think I do.”

  “It’s just as well if you don’t. Listen, kid, I’m happy for you. Really. I hope it all works out the way you want it to. So take care, okay?”

  “Okay. So long. And you can call me anytime, if you want to.”

  But she’s already hung up. She’s gone. And I put the phone down.

  Sheila thinks I don’t understand her. But I do. That’s the thing. I do understand. Because a week ago, back when there was no hope of a comeback, I didn’t have any responsibilities. None. I was a floater. A week ago it was all about living, just living, minute by minute. No tomorrow, no future. No tracks. No expectations. Not really here. Mostly gone. And there’s a kind of freedom in that. And I wonder if I’ll miss it.

  And now that I know how it’s done, would I do it again someday, on purpose? So I could take a vacation from life?

  And what about my dad and Dr. Van Dorn? Are they going to be able to let it lie? Or are they going to team up and try to win the Nobel Prize in physics one day? Publish their findings on the Internet? Where’s it really going to end?

  Sheila’s already decided where it ends. It ends with her. She’s made a life that she likes. She’s like the guy who spends sixteen years in jail, and then gets out, and hates having to make all the decisions of regular life. So he steals a car or something to get himself sent back inside. Back where it’s warm and dry, where you already know about all the dangers, where you don’t have to make any decisions.

  Sheila likes her prison. It won’t surprise me if she moves to a new town in a week or so. She’ll probably change the name of her business, cover her tracks. I’m not her rescuer. I’m a threat.

  Sometime I’ll sit down and try to figure out why I’m not like Sheila. But not today. Too much to do.

  I don’t take the bus to Alicia’s house. It’s a long way, but the sun is out, it’s in the mid-fifties, and I am wearing a shirt, some jeans, a jacket, Nikes—everything. It’s a great day.

  I walk past school, and I think maybe I should go in and say hi to the nurse. I could do some push-ups for her, let her know I’m fine, tell her that I’ll be back in school soon. Or maybe not. Maybe I really will take the rest of the semester off. Might make me graduate late, might even set me back a whole year. So what? Years don’t scare me much anymore.

  I made Mom and Dad promise not to call Alicia’s parents. I wanted to tell Alicia myself, in person. And the closer I get to her house, the more nervous I feel. Because things are different now. And how do I talk to the person who just gave me back my life?

  Mrs. Van Dorn answers the door and looks at me, her eyebrows up. “Yes?” she says.

  I guess I thought maybe she’d be able to recognize me, like maybe some weird sort of intuition would kick in and she’d give me this big smile and say, “Wait—you must be Bobby!”

  It’s not happening. She has no idea who I am.

  “Mrs. Van Dorn, I’m Bobby Phillips.”

  Her mouth drops open, and her eyes bug out, and she says, “Oh! My goodness, you’re…you’re here! Bobby, I’m so happy for you—and for your parents! This is wonderful! Of course, I feel like I know you, but it’s very nice to…to see you this way. Please, come in, come in!”

  And I know that what she really likes best is that she doesn’t have to imagine me walking in her front door naked anymore. And she’s glad that I don’t look like some complete Neanderthal with my knuckles dragging on the ground. Mrs. Van Dorn is into looks, and now she can relax because she knows what her daughter’s friend looks like. In my head I’m getting ready to launch into a lecture about appearance versus reality, but I hear Alicia call, “Who is it, Mom?”

  And her mom calls back, “It’s for you, Alicia,” and she smiles a scrunchy smile at me and whispers, “I’ll be in the kitchen.” Because now that she knows what I look like, it’s safe to leave me alone with her daughter.

  Then Alicia’s at the top of the stairs. She’s wearing the green sweater and red corduroy pants she wore that first day I talked to her in the listening room. Her head’s tilted, her hair falling away from her cheek. She’s trying to pick up on what’s happening. “Hello?”

  Using a neutral tone of voice, I say, “Hi, Alicia.”

  She’s coming down now, stepping surely, right hand on the railing, her face a flurry of emotions. “I was so worried about you last night.” Then accusingly, “And it was just mean the way you signed off. I was going to call you, but it was almost midnight.” She’s stopped about two feet from me in the entry hall. Her face brightens, and she says, “But I’m glad you’re all right—everything is okay, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, “fine. Except for one thing.”

  Her face clouds over again, genuine worry. About me. And I feel like a jerk for playing things up this way. So, real fast, I say, “But it’s a good thing—because now I have to wear clothes out in public again. You were right last night—two negatives make a positive!”

  Alicia doesn’t get it for a second, and when she does, for another second she doesn’t believe it, and then I can see she knows I wouldn’t kid about that, and she ligh
ts up with this huge smile. “You rat! Really?! You did it, with the blanket? And you…and it worked?”

  And she’s coming toward me, reaching out, and I stand still and meet her hands with mine, and she feels my jacket sleeves, then quickly up the arms to my shoulder and neck, feels my collar, and then runs a hand down my shirtfront to my belt. It’s a clothes check, to make sure I’m really wearing them.

  And then she brings her hands up again, this time toward my face. And she gets a shy smile on her face and says, “I have to do this, okay?” I guide one of her hands to my cheek, and she feels me nod as I say, “Okay.”

  Her fingers are light and cool, and I close my eyes just for a second. An involuntary shiver runs down my spine as her fingers trace across my forehead to touch my hair, and then back down across my brow. Her thumbs meet on the bridge of my nose, and I feel like a book being read, word by word. Eyebrows, lashes, cheekbones, nose, lips, chin, jawbone—the oddest ten seconds of my whole life. And watching her face as she takes her mental tour…I’d like to be touching her face too. I watch her and try to imagine her seeing me, watch her try to match up this new physical image with what she already knows.

  She lowers her hands, and she’s blushing, the spell broken. Then she says, “Come on!” and grabs me by the hand and pulls me toward the family room. “Tell me everything!”

  She’s the best audience. It’s so much fun to see her face as she pictures everything I describe. And when she can’t believe something, I have to tell it again and add more and more details until she’s convinced it happened. Like with the cop searching my room at 4:30 A.M.

  “No way!” she says. “This guy’s looking right at you, and you don’t know it? How could you not know it?”

  “Because a month of being invisible makes you feel that way, that’s how come. And then he’s right in front of me looking me in the eyes. That’s the first time someone’s looked me in the eyes for a month. And that’s when I knew.”

  “Didn’t you die, like, standing there with nothing on, and everyone looking at you?”

  “Well, yeah, and I grabbed a shirt and held it in front of me—but really, I was just so blown away. Really. Like, feeling embarrassed was way down the list. And then you should have heard my mom start spinning out this story about how I just got back last night. It was crazy.”

  When I tell her about my call to Sheila and what she said to me, Alicia nods slowly, and her eyes get shiny. Her eyes still work fine for crying. “That’s so sad, don’t you think? I mean, giving up that way? But I know how she feels. And it is her life.”

  “Yeah. That’s what got me so mad last night—your dad and my parents, saying how they’d decided everything for me. They didn’t have the right. Just like we can’t tell Sheila what to do.”

  Alicia nods. “Right. But you can’t help feeling like you should sometimes. The way Sheila’s story makes me feel?” She drops her voice to a whisper and points toward the noises her mom is making in the kitchen. “It’s probably the way my mom feels about me—like she has to butt in and try to help all the time.”

  And then neither of us knows what to say. But the silence isn’t strained. We’re both comfortable, just sitting here on the couch, not touching, but close. I look at her left hand. It’s resting on the dull red corduroy of her pants, palm up, long fingers slightly bent. And all her fingernails are chewed down to the quick. I’ve never noticed that before. And without thinking, I reach down and take her hand and lift it up so I can see it better, feeling the tip of her index finger with my thumb.

  “You almost chewed this whole finger off.”

  She’s turned toward me on the couch, and I’m looking into her face, and it’s hard to believe eyes this pretty don’t work. And I’m feeling like I want to kiss her. Which is not the first time I’ve felt this way, but without a body, with just a shadow-body, it never felt right before. It was one of those things I couldn’t see myself doing.

  I’m starting to lean down toward her face when suddenly she pulls her hand back and turns away. Tears again.

  I ask, “What is it?”

  She swipes at her eyes with her sleeve, and shakes her head.

  “Must be something.”

  “Duh!” she snaps. And then mocking, “‘Must be something.’ Brilliant, Bobby, brilliant. In fact, I think I’ll call you Brilliant Bobby—how’s that?”

  She stands up, tosses her head, feels her way to the end of the couch, gets her bearings, and then stalks out. I hear her footsteps across the tile in the entry hall, and then she stomps up the front stairs. A distant door slams shut.

  Jeez.

  Mrs. Van Dorn comes into the family room. My face must tell her everything. I’m out of practice. For a month I haven’t had to hide what I’m feeling.

  She comes over and puts her hand on my arm. “Don’t take it personally, Bobby. She gets mad at almost anything. Maybe give her a call this afternoon, okay?”

  And she walks me to the front door, and she tells me again how happy she is for me and how great it is that everything’s okay now.

  But as I start walking home, everything’s not okay now. All I can think about are those little fingernails, chewed down to nothing.

  Back home I go into the den, turn on the computer, and open up Instant Messenger. I click around to see if Alicia’s online. She is.

  bobby7272: hi alicia. it’s me.

  Nothing. And I try about six more greetings. Nothing.

  So I just leave it on and hurry down to the basement to find a cardboard box. Because walking home, I decided to do something. Something only I can do. I grab a box and run up the stairs to my room because I have to do this fast, like, maybe it’s already too late. Because maybe it’s gone. The blanket. Because I didn’t actually see it this morning. Maybe Dad took it to the lab.

  But he didn’t. It’s folded up on the seat of my desk chair, right where Mom put it early this morning.

  So, I put the blanket and the controller into the box. I grab the sheet with Sheila’s address and stuff it into the back pocket of my jeans. I put the list of names from Sears into the box, and I pick up the cell phone and clear its memory.

  I take the box, trot down to the parlor, scoop up all Dad’s notes and diagrams plus the information sheets about the electric blanket, and toss them into the box.

  Back in the den I check the messenger window. No response yet from Alicia. I open up the browser, find the SOHO page I looked at last night, and then print out a copy and toss it into the box.

  In the kitchen I rummage around for almost ten minutes, but I can’t find any strong tape. But I do find a black Magic Marker, and I put that into my jacket pocket.

  Three blocks away, I hurry up the front steps of the post office. At a table I write Sheila’s name and address on the box. Then I wait in line with the box.

  The man in the blue shirt has a big mustache.

  “Regular delivery or express on this?”

  “Um, surface is okay.”

  “Parcel post will cost…three dollars and ten cents. That’ll take about a week, maybe more. Or you can send it priority. Be there in two days, but it’ll cost you…six dollars and seventy-five cents.”

  “Priority, please. And can you close it up with some of that tape?”

  “Sure.”

  As he reaches for the tape, I say, “Hey—can I put one more thing in there?”

  “Yup, but you’ll have to get back in line.”

  I take the box back to the table, and on the blank side of an insurance form I write,

  Sheila—

  I wanted you to have this stuff, just in case.

  Bobby

  I’m not telling Sheila what to do. I just want her to know that anytime the sun acts up, she has a choice.

  Five minutes later, the box is in the hands of the postal service.

  When I get home, there’s a message waiting for me on the computer screen, very short.

  aleeshaone: check your email

  I do, and a l
etter is waiting.

  dear bobby,

  sorry im such a mess. face it. im a mess. im never going to be fun to be around. ive been kidding myself into thinking we were such friends. more than friends. you were like me. thats how it was. you had a problem, i had a problem. i could even help you. i dont get to help much. everyone helps me. and part of me wanted you to never get back. to need me. not now. now youre back. back to school and friends and girls and prom and college and everything. youre back and im not.

  i was online with nancy when you kept trying to message me this morning. i told her about you, about everything. i dont think she believes it all, but she believes youre real. she asked me if you ever kissed me. i said almost.

  the last time i kissed a boy was 8th grade. tommy seavers. kid stuff.

  you almost kissed me today. i felt you. so close. but it would have killed me. because i dont know if i can see that. i cant see us. i can see you, but i still need to see me. and i feel like you see me. do you? you do. you almost kissed me. so close. with you its not kid stuff.

  i wrote a poem. not about that. about everything.

  basement room

  i think its raining from my basement room.

  but basements make for faraway ears,

  and rain dries up so quickly.

  i still think it was rain.

  i think a wind is blowing up above.

  but wind is such a meaningless thing,

  invisible and always gone.

  i still think it was wind.

  i think im up there in the wind and rain.

  but dreaming is always done in bed,

  and so many winds and rains are dreams.

  i still think it was me.

  like it? nancy thinks its good, and my mom the lit major says she doesnt really get it, and my dad hasnt had time to read it. figures. hope you like it.