Goodnight Nobody (5 page)

"I'll miss you so much, you have no idea, but I have to do this now." She got to her feet and kept packing, boots drumming against the hardwood floor, skirt belling around her, and as she piled clothes and books and compact discs into her trunks, she explained about biology, about time, about how a singer has only so many years before her tone and control start to go. "First I'll lose my flexibility, and then..." She shuddered, a grimace of distaste pursing her painted red lips. "Character roles and fund-raising."

"Maybe you could come back for the weekend," I suggested. "For
West Side Story.
"

"You know what flying does to my voice," she said. I hung my head. No Reina on opening night, no Reina for the Spring Ball, which I actually had a date for.

She snapped the latch of the trunk shut, then gathered her perfume bottles on the dresser, her long nails clicking against their cut-glass sides. Then she brushed my bangs out of my eyes. I squirmed away. I wanted her to hold me. I didn't want her to touch me. I didn't want her to leave. I didn't want her to ever come back.

The next morning I ignored her when she tapped on my door at six a.m., and pretended not to hear her whispering my name. I lay facedown on my bed, a copy of
Lace
under my left cheek, and thought about whether things could have ever been different. If I'd worn the makeup she'd bought for me, the soft leather boots and suede coat instead of baggy jeans and sweatshirts, would she have stayed? If I'd called myself Maria Katerina instead of Kate, if I'd practiced until sheer force of will had transformed my voice, my instrument, into something rare and beautiful, could it have kept her on the same continent as my father and me?

I pushed myself off the bed and looked down at the street, my forehead resting on the cool windowpane, my knees digging into the milk crates where I kept my novels, chewing at the ends of my ponytail as a limousine pulled up to the curb and my mother walked out the door. I watched as the driver spent fifteen minutes wedging all of her luggage into the trunk. I saw my father kiss her, then step back into the dark little doorway, handing her over to the driver, and her future: another airplane, another country, another opera, another three months of dying every night. The driver held the door. My mother shaded her eyes and looked up at my window.
I love you,
she mouthed. I bit down hard on my hair as she blew me a kiss.

Six

When I walked out onto the porch and into another perfect Connecticut afternoon the next day to collect the newspapers, I heard a car roaring down our cul-de-sac. My heart lifted as a bright red Porsche Boxster veered into the driveway. It was, I thought, the perfect car for a woman who drove maybe once a month. Badly.

"Janie!"

"So much for safety in the suburbs," said my best friend, scowling at me from behind her designer sunglasses. She wore a chocolate brown suede skirt that ended just above her knees, a soft cowl-neck cashmere sweater, and bright red cowgirl boots. Her hair was long and light brown streaked with honey and amber, her small mouth was glossed a shiny pink, her close-set eyes were artfully enhanced with liner and mascara, and her handbag and earrings probably cost more than my first year of college.

She sauntered up the stairs and peered into the house. "Hello, rug rats."

"Aunt Janie!" said Sam, who loved Janie.

"Janie!" crowed Jack, straining forward with his arms outstretched. Jack loved Janie even more than Sam did.

"Hello," said Sophie, air-kissing Janie's left and right cheeks in the manner of socialities the world over. She loved Janie more than both of her brothers put together, but even at four, she was too sophisticated for gushing. I led Janie and the kids into the kitchen, where we were working on a Welcome Home, Daddy banner to hang over the front door.

"Ooh, craft time!" Janie said, picking up a crayon and examining it like it was an artifact from another planet. She brushed glitter off a chair and took a seat. "Can you guess who brought you presents?"

"Aunt Janie!"
shrieked the kids.

"Do you know who loves you more than your mother and father put together?"

"Aunt Janie!"
they shouted.

"Guess who's having dinner at Per Se Friday night with a guy she's been out with three times and suspects might wear a toupee?"

"Aunt Janie!"
said Sam and Jack. Sophie crinkled her nose. "What's a doupee?"

"Pray you never have to find out." Janie tapped Sophie's nose with the crayon and produced three gift-wrapped boxes from her Birkin bag.

The boys got remote-control race cars that they promptly began racing across the kitchen floor. Sophie got another custom-made outfit for her Uglydoll. Uglydoll was a rectangular blob of blue fur with buck teeth, yellow eyes, and small, protuberant ears that Janie had given to Sophie when she was born. I watched in awe as Sophie unwrapped a miniature cowboy hat, a lasso, bandanna, tiny cowboy boots, and a pair of chaps. "Chapter two hundred and thirty-seven," Janie growled in the gravelly southern drawl she'd assigned the toy years ago. "In which I ride a mechanical bull to glory."

Sophie giggled with delight and ran upstairs to dress her doll in his new finery.

"Got anything to drink around here?" Janie asked, rummaging through the frozen peas and chicken parts until she found the vodka she'd left on her last visit. The refrigerator yielded an empty carton of orange juice--a carton I swore had been full that morning. I waited until Janie's back was turned, mixed her a vodka and Pedialyte, and led her into the living room.

"So let's review," Janie said. She sank into the couch. (The decorator Ben had hired turned out to have had a vastly different view of what the word
overstuffed
meant than I did. I'd been thinking something comfortable in nubbly, washable linen. I'd ended up with a nine-foot sectional with taupe cushions so wide and deep you had to practically swim your way out of them.) Janie took a long swallow of her drink and winced, but luckily didn't ask me what it was. "You abandon me in Manhattan in favor of this hellhole."

"Give it credit," I said, smoothing the tassels on a throw pillow. "It's a hellhole with an excellent school district."

"The women here are a bunch of dopes who can't stop reproducing--and talking about it," Janie continued with a shudder, "like the whole world wants to hear about their sore nipples."

I made a noncommittal noise, knowing what had my friend so freaked out. On her first visit to Upchurch, Janie had been cornered at the nursery school craft fair by Marybeth Coe, who'd described to her at great length how she was raising her newborn son without diapers by "getting in touch with his natural rhythms" and placing him atop what had formerly been a salad bowl when she sensed he was ready. Janie had proclaimed herself scarred for life by the experience. It had taken her weeks, she'd told me, before she could eat vinaigrette again.

"You're at least twenty miles from the nearest Saks, not to mention good deli," she continued. "Oh, that reminds me..." She rummaged in her bag and tossed me a gift-wrapped knish. I opened it up and took a big, blissful bite as the rant continued.

"You ditch me for bucolic little Bumblefuck, this allegedly safe haven, and the next thing you know, you're stumbling over dead bodies."

"I didn't stumble over her, I found her."

"Same difference," said Janie, shiny lips pursed in distaste.

I shrugged. It was so good to have Janie around that finding a dead body almost seemed like it wasn't too high a price to pay. "Can you stay?"

"Well, I think I should," Janie proclaimed, taking another swallow of her drink. "I don't think you guys are safe here all by yourself."

"And you're going to defend us?"

She reached into her bag again. "Mace," she said, showing me the spray can. "Straightening iron. All-day lipstick. BlackBerry. If the killer shows up, I'll just CC him on all my edit memos and bore him to death."

"Sounds like a plan," I said.

Janie and I had met nine years ago, when we'd both landed interviews to be fact-checkers at
New York Review,
the nation's preeminent literary magazine (at least, that's what the masthead said).

"In here," whispered the mousy woman administering the test. There were two desks in the stuffy little room. The one closest to the door was occupied by a slender girl in a chic black suit that, unlike mine, probably had not come from the clearance rack at Century 21. She was bent over her pages so that I could only see the tip of her nose and her beautifully streaked hair.

The woman handed me five paper-clipped pages, two blue pencils, a dictionary, and a thesaurus. "Use standard proofreading marks, please," she whispered. "You have thirty minutes."

I sat behind the desk on a chair covered in stained gray fabric, tucked the novel I'd been reading on the subway into my purse, and tried not to be disappointed. I'd majored in English at Columbia and then, because that didn't make me quite unemployable enough, I'd picked up a master's degree in American literature and done all of the course work toward a Ph.D. Ever since leaving Columbia, I'd been temping in law offices, living at home, sending off resumes to any magazine that I thought would have me, and dreaming of writing a book of my own without actually doing any writing. On Friday nights I'd go to the library and take out a dozen novels from the new release shelf to last me through the week. On Sunday nights my father and I, and Reina, if she was home, ordered in Chinese. I'd date every once in a while--an SAT tutor I'd met in the video store, an MBA candidate whose mother played bassoon with my dad. It was a quiet kind of existence, not unhappy, but not particularly exciting. Sometimes at night I'd turn off my lamp and lie motionless in my bed, in the darkness, listening to the sounds of buses and taxis on the street, the sound of voices calling and laughing, and I would think,
I am waiting for my real life to begin.

I wiped my hands on my skirt and looked around the
Review
's offices. I'd expected something more impressive from the magazine that had published some of the most important fiction of my lifetime: a cozy, dimly lit sanctuary with mahogany desks and secret nooks, hidden corners and shabby armchairs where the geniuses would sit with their deep thoughts and their tumblers of whiskey. Instead, I'd found a falafel cart guarding the door on Forty-fourth Street and, up on the seventeenth floor, grids of humming fluorescent lights and cheap-looking blond wood desks, which lent the space all the romance and mystery of a podiatrist's office.

The test turned out to be an essay on the geography and climate of a place called Pago Pago. Was that even a real place? Was this story something the
Review
would publish? Had published?

The girl with the great hair pushed her chair back from her desk. "In
Beauty and the Beast,
" she asked, "did Beauty ever sleep with the Beast?"

I was nonplussed. "Is that what your test is about?
Beauty and the Beast
?"

"Nope. Pago Pago. I was just wondering. Do you know?"

I set my pencil down. "The fairy tale or the TV show?"

"TV show." She was petite, I saw, with close-set hazel eyes and a lower-case letter C of a nose that I recognized as the work of Dr. Kornbluth, an Upper East Side plastic surgeon who'd performed nose jobs on at least half a dozen members of my high school's graduating class. The nose was set in a lively, mobile, intelligent face, with a flashing grin that promised mischief.

"Sorry, I never watched it."

"Oh, well," she sighed. She kicked her crocodile pumps onto the floor and cracked all the joints in her toes. I gave her a look that I hoped combined cordiality and
please be quiet and let me concentrate.
I still couldn't believe I'd landed this interview, and I wasn't going to let myself get distracted. A few minutes went by. "In Pago Pago," I read, "the median temperature is seventy-two degrees."
Median or mean?
I wondered, grabbing my dictionary.
And was that different than average?

"If you had a gay bar," the other girl mused out loud, "what would you call it?"

"I. Um. I'd have to give it some thought."

She twirled a lock of honey-streaked hair around her blue pencil. "I'd call mine The Glistening Pickle," she said.

"That's a good one."

"Or The Bent Whisker," she said. "That'd be good too. Or--"

"Okay!" I said heartily. "Well, listen, this is very interesting, but I really need to concentrate."

"Why?"

I set my pencil down and took a deep breath. Maybe this was part of the test. Maybe there were cameras hidden in the ceilings. Maybe this weirdo was a plant, and somewhere down the hall, the
Review
editors were watching to see how I'd respond. If I handled the situation with dignity and aplomb, I'd be whisked through a secret passageway to the real offices, where John Updike and Philip Roth would offer me whiskey and congratulations, and two first-class tickets to Pago Pago.

"Because I really want this job," I said, speaking slowly and distinctly, in case the ceiling was listening.

"Really?" she asked, as if the concept of wanting a job was novel to her.

"Yes. Don't you want to work here?"

"I guess," she sighed, twirling more hair around the pencil. "My father thinks I should find something. He says it's a disgrace that my only job's been my nose job," she said, touching the feature in question. "But the way I see it, any job I get is just a job that's been taken away from someone who really needs one." She smiled at me brightly. "Like you!"

"Yes. Right. Well..." I bent back over my pages.
Tuna canneries provide the principal employment in Pago Pago.

"He's the Carpet King," said the girl.

I looked up with my hands balled into fists.

"My father," she said, and cracked her toes again. "Sy Segal. The Carpet King."

My hands unclenched as the name registered. "Doesn't he own this magazine?"

"I think so," she said. She'd slipped her pumps onto her hands and was making them dance a jig across her desk. "Or maybe it's that he owns the company that owns this magazine. It's hard to keep track."

"So he could just tell them to give you a job."

"And you too!" She grinned, pulled her hands out of her shoes, and wheeled her chair over to my desk so we could shake. "I'm Janie Segal."

"Kate Klein," I said. "And I should really get back to work."

"Oh, sure. Of course. Go right ahead," Janie said.

There was silence. I picked up my pencil again.
Tutuila's harbor is surrounded by dramatic mountains which plunge straight into the sea.

"But first can I ask you a question?" Janie inquired. "Why do you want to work here?"

"Please! Are you kidding? It's..." I breathed the name with the reverence instilled by nine years at Columbia and an equal amount of time spent poring over its annual Young Fiction Issue with alternating waves of jealousy and awe rolling over me. "It's the
Review
!"

"Feh," said Janie. "I'd rather read
People.
In fact, I'd rather work at
People.
" She fixed me with her hazel eyes. "Do you think they're hiring?"

"Um..."

"Wait!" She stabbed one finger in the air. "Idea!" She crossed the room to my desk and picked up the telephone with her manicured, long-fingered hand. "Yes, in New York City, the editorial offices for
People
magazine." While she was holding, she grabbed a memo pad. "Write down your phone number," she whispered. "Managing editor, please," she rapped into the telephone, and then paused. "Voice mail," she stage-whispered to me.

"You know, I really don't think we should be--"

She silenced me with one upraised hand. "Yes, hello, I'm calling from the offices of the
New York Review.
I've been working with two very fine researchers who, regrettably, we won't be able to hire. They're both experts in popular culture and modern celebrities and, as you know, we at the
Review
pride ourselves on never writing about any celebrity who isn't a politician or a dead transcendentalist."

"Oh, my God," I groaned, clutching Pago Pago to my breast.

"Their names are Jane Segal and Kate Klein, and their home telephone numbers are..." She recited our numbers. "Thank you in advance for your help," she said, and set the phone down. "There!" she said, looking pleased with herself. She picked up her purse and her coat.