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One, two, three rings.
Please, please, please answer.
And when I finally heard a voice on the other end, I couldn’t even find the words to speak.
31
Real Time
Rachel’s house was modern, dark, and sterile—a contrast to the people who lived there. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d been in the Smarts’ living room, with its lacquered black furniture and either dove-gray or dove-white fabric tones. Not the most comfortable place to straggle inside, shivering and sniffling and dribbling water.
Not that the Smarts minded. They moved around me like a herd of giraffes, long and quiet, soulful and dark-eyed. Rachel gathered pillows as her mother brought me random offerings from their nearly empty fridge—takeout Chinese sticky rice, some gingersnaps—and her dad attended to the remote control, finally settling on classical guitar.
Rachel had grabbed me a pile of blankets from the closet, and I was bundled up in most of them. She’d also taken a blanket for herself, and now she sat opposite me in a wingback armchair with her legs drawn up, staring at me like when she’d played the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, back in fifth grade and atop a papier-mâché mushroom.
“So you know,” she said quietly. “I want the real story of why you were out there. Just as soon as the ’rents vamoose.”
In answer, I burrowed tighter in my blankets. Was I really ready to tell? The shower I’d taken on my arrival had made me sleepy. I’d already called to tell my parents I’d be staying over at Rachel’s tonight. Now I just wanted to sleep.
Rachel’s house smelled like pine. It had already been decorated for both Christmas and Hanukkah, even though Thanksgiving wasn’t for another week—but her mom must have had some free time in her breakneck career. And when Julia Smart had time, things got done.
“Ember, honey,” she said now, “Rachel’s dad and I are going up, but I’ve got the spare room ready for whenever you want to head off to bed.” She stood over me, long and knobby-boned as Rachel, only with silver streaks through her hair and bifocals perched on the edge of her nose. “You look like you could use a good night’s rest.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “In a few minutes.”
Rachel planted another gingersnap in her mouth. “Mom, I will totally take care of Emb, but right now we want privacy, hint hint.”
“All right, all right,” her mom said as she handed Rachel a napkin. “And I’m not lecturing, Ember, but I do think you should report to your doctor about this episode.” She lifted her palms. “Just one ole mom’s opinion.”
“I will,” I promised.
She nodded and left, closing the door purposefully behind her. Rachel exhaled long, as if her mother’s very presence had been keeping her breath locked in her body. She refurled her bean-sprout limbs into the armchair. “All’s clear.”
My eyes filled with tears. They’d been hiding so long, and I was so ready to let them spill. “I went back to Bowditch Bridge.”
“That I know. That Mom and Dad and I witnessed when we came to get you, when we found you there shaking and soaking wet like a rescue dog. The question is—why the hell?”
I didn’t want to say it. Out loud meant forever. I wanted the clicker.
Don’t click. No more clicks.
“Ember, what’s going on in there? I’m so shut out from whatever you’re thinking! Bottom line! So just tell me, please. Tell me.”
Once I told her, I wouldn’t be able to get him back. He would be gone. I knew that without doubt. But of course he already was gone. I pushed the truth past my last barricade of resistance. “I knew him. Anthony Travolo. I knew him, and I loved him, and he died, and I made him up again inside my head so that I could get back to him.”
“Okay. Now say that in English.” Rachel’s eyes were owlish on me. “Here’s where I make a lame dishrag joke, and I can’t. I think I understand what you’re saying…but how did you do it? And why?”
“Maybe so that I could let go of him on my terms. I could only give him up a little bit at a time. It was easy to believe in it. It was like my brain found a way to loop back. And he was a graffiti tag artist, so he’d marked everywhere we’d ever been together—from the Central Park subway stop to the Cobble Hill Cinema. I’d saved things, too. A matchbook that I found in my coat. A sketch Anthony’d made me that I kept in my jewelry box. And there was a voice mail message from the night before our first date to Coney Island, where I could tell that he was serious about me, that he was going to figure it out, find ways for us to be together, even though there were about a million other things going on in his life. I’d archived the message—so sometimes I’d play it as if it were about to happen all over again. And do you remember the time I left you that voice mail, when I called the cab on Halloween?”
“You said you’d met someone, that night. So…” Rachel frowned. “Was there even anybody else in that cab?”
“No, not on Halloween. But on New Year’s Eve, yes. Anthony and I had left Areacode together.” Waffles, waffles, I’d giggled into Lissa’s voice mail on New Year’s Eve. The joke being that I’d found something surprising and better. I’d found Anthony.
“You were living out memories like they were happening in real time,” said Rachel. “It seems like a horrible thing to do to yourself. Because wasn’t it like losing him all over again?”
“I don’t know. It was always so amazing to be in it, to immerse myself in it. And that New Year’s Eve—it’s indelible, it stands out from everything. He followed me out onto the fire escape. He kissed me at midnight, right as the fireworks went off.”
Rachel was using the long fingers of one hand to crack the knuckles of the other. Her mood had clouded over. “Look, Embie, I’ve got to say this—I knew you were seeing somebody, before the accident. I knew there was a guy, someone important, someone time-consuming—and I should have told you. Especially after, I had to wonder if Anthony and you had been close. But you never mentioned him, so I couldn’t shake you up like that. I wanted to protect you, to keep you moving forward. Not stuck in some tortured nightmare.”
“So you did know Anthony?” I struggled to sit up higher.
“No! I never met him, ever. But sometimes you’d ask me to cover for you, like when your Mom called. I knew somebody was taking up all of your time. The thing was, after the accident, you had so much to deal with when you came home. And this guy, Anthony, he hadn’t been part of anything—of your old life, with me, or with Holden, or anybody. He was your secret door prize, and you weren’t sharing. So I made a deal with myself. I’d bring it up if you brought it up.” Rachel looked miserable. “And now you’ve brought it up. Going back to the bridge—it shook something loose, didn’t it?”
