The Invisibles (7 page)

N
ora!”
The voice, soft and slightly hoarse, emerging from the beautiful woman at the top of the ramp was Monica's, but the face, framed with sharply cut white-blond hair and tight, poreless skin, could not possibly belong to her. “Nora!” Monica rolled up on her tiptoes, waving frantically. “Nora, it's me! Over here!”

Nora stared as Monica began to run, her gait steady and pronounced despite four-inch heels, her rail-thin figure accentuating the sharp planes in her face. She was dressed like one of those women Nora had only seen in magazines: a black knee-length skirt secured with a red patent-leather belt, black alligator pumps, and a crisp white blouse. Her legs were gazelle-like, with keyhole-shaped knees and tiny ankles. A silk scarf, smattered with bits of black and red and blue, had been wrapped twice around her neck, the edges dangling in the front, and a handful of thin gold bracelets clattered around her wrist. “Monica?” Nora whispered.

Monica squealed and grabbed Nora all at once, squeezing so
hard that Nora could feel the breath leave her body. “Oh, Nora! I can't believe it's you! I can't believe you're here!” She exuded an expensive scent: good perfume and exotic shampoo, the kind of things Nora found it silly to spend money on and then, for a split second, wished she didn't. A man behind them cleared his throat. They were still in the middle of the ramp, blocking the rest of the plane traffic. Monica pulled Nora to the side with one hand, giggling as she grabbed her bag with the other. Her nails, a perfect square shape, had been painted shell-pink, and a gold ring set with a dime-sized blue stone adorned her right hand. “Baby doll!” she said, bending her knees so that she could make eye contact. “Look at you! You look so wonderful!”

Nora shook her head, still trying to wrap her head around the fact that this was the same Monica who just yesterday, it seemed, had looked like a marshmallowy Pippi Longstocking. Where had the braided orange hair, fleshy frame, and jack-o'-lantern teeth gone? When had she learned how to apply makeup so expertly, the black eyeliner and mascara making her eyes even bluer than Nora remembered? And her nose . . . Nora reached out and touched it with one finger. “Your nose . . .” she said.

Monica laughed. Her teeth were devoid of the previous spaces, shellacked a shiny white. “I got it done,” she said. “I got that horrible bump shaved all the way down. Do you like it?” She turned to one side and threw her shoulders back. “What do you think? My boyfriend, Liam, says it makes me look at least ten years younger. Do you agree?”

Nora studied Monica's new nose again. How could the shape of someone's nose make them look younger? Then again, maybe she was right. Now that it was smaller, Monica's face did have
a more delicate look to it. Or was it just that there was less of her now? The entire scenario left her anxious and amazed, all at the same time. “You're so . . . beautiful,” she said. “Holy cow, Monica.”

Monica laughed again, delighted. “Well, you can buy anything these days. Even looks. You know that.”

Nora blinked, her anxiety rising again. How much of the Monica she used to know was gone now, replaced by this new, fake veneer? What else about her had undergone such transformation?

“Ozzie's flight should be here in about an hour.” Monica slung a brown alligator bag over one shoulder. A large gold buckle gleamed on the front. “I was just on my way to baggage claim when I saw that your flight had landed, so I scooted on over to see if I could catch you.” She squeezed Nora's arm. “I love your outfit. Especially your sneakers. They're great. And so practical! I never dress comfortably for flights, and then I always regret it. My feet are killing me.” Her eyes were shining despite the complaint. “Oh my goodness, can you believe we're all going to be together again? After all this time? You, me, Ozzie, and Grace?”

“I know.” Nora smiled and nodded.

Monica tucked a wedge of hair behind an ear as they started walking. “We're supposed to refer to Grace as Petal now, did you know that?”

“Yes. Ozzie said something about that.”

“She's not even responding to the name Grace anymore, apparently.” Monica's line-free face darkened. “God. We probably should've come a lot earlier.”

“Well, I didn't know.” Nora trotted a little to keep up. “I
mean, I had no idea about anything that was going on with her. Did you?”

“I knew she had a miscarriage,” Monica said. “But that was a while ago, a few years after she graduated from art school. She called me one night to tell me about it. She was a wreck. Actually, I think she was drunk. I talked to her for a long time, but I don't think anything really registered. I called a bunch of times after that, but she never returned my calls. I didn't even know she'd finally had a baby.”

Nora felt a pang as she listened to Monica speak. Had Grace called Ozzie too over the years? And if so, why had she been excluded? Why hadn't Grace called her?

She followed Monica to the escalator, settling in on the step behind her as the machine made its steady ascent to the second floor. Above them, neon signs advertising coffee and cinnamon buns blinked on and off, and a green Starbucks sign shone like an emerald in the distance. Nora's stomach growled as she realized that she hadn't eaten yet.

“Did you know about the . . .” Nora let her voice drift off, unable to meet Monica's eyes. “What she did, I mean,” she finished. “Over the summer?”

Monica stepped off the escalator. She adjusted the brown leather strap over her shoulder and winced before answering. “Ozzie told me when she called. I just . . . I still can't believe it. Why wouldn't she have reached out first?” She looked pained, as if her stomach hurt. “To us, I mean. To any of us?”

“Maybe she didn't think she could,” Nora said.

“You really think so?” Monica fiddled with the army of gold bracelets, aligning them just so along her thin wrist. “I know it's
been a long time, but Grace of all people had to have known we would have tried to help. I would have dropped everything. Honest to God, I would've. In a heartbeat. Any of us would have.”

“Maybe it wouldn't have mattered,” Nora said.

Monica's fingers stopped moving over the bracelets. “Of course it would have mattered.” Nora could hear the hurt in her voice. “It would have mattered a lot.”

“Maybe.” Nora looked away, feeling as though she'd just been reprimanded.

“Or maybe you're right,” Monica said slowly. She reached down and grabbed Nora's hand. “What do I know anymore?”

O
zzie was already at the baggage claim, hauling an enormous duffel bag off the conveyor belt as Nora and Monica approached. She was in blue jeans and hiking boots and an oversize sweat shirt with the words
MY MOM ROCKS!
printed on the front. A thin ponytail stuck out of the back of a Red Sox baseball cap, swinging from side to side like a tail. She'd put on some weight around her midsection, and her face looked fuller too, but there was no mistaking those mile-long legs, the insouciant swing in her hips as she moved.

“Ozzie!” Monica screamed and darted ahead, arms out straight in front of her. “Ozzie! Ozzie!”

Ozzie looked up, dropped her duffel bag on the floor, and caught Monica around the waist. She spun her around once and then again. Monica shrieked. Her legs flew out like a propeller, and one of her shoes went spinning across the room. Several people still waiting for their bags looked over and grinned.

“Where'd you come from?” Monica said breathlessly as Ozzie
put her down. “I thought your flight wasn't getting in until ten twenty!”

“Who knows?” Ozzie said. “The flight gods were with us. Or maybe we just got a good tailwind.” She held Monica at arm's length, her eyes roving up and down the length of her. “Damn, you look good. Holy shit, Monica. What the hell did you
do
?”

Nora had caught up to them now and stood next to Ozzie's other arm, waiting.

Monica giggled. “You mean what
didn't
I do?”

Ozzie noticed Nora then and put her arm around her, enclosing the three of them in a wide hug. “Norster,” she said, pulling her close. “Hi, you.”

Somewhere nearby, a faint ringing sounded.

“Oh, my phone!” Monica said, pulling away. “I'm sorry, hold on.” She dug inside her purse, and pulled out a white iPhone with gold interlocking
C
s on the back cover. “I have to take this,” she said, stepping off to one side and putting the phone to her ear. “One minute, okay?”

Nora had not moved. Ozzie's sweat shirt smelled like a kitchen—macaroni and cheese, beef vegetable soup, maybe even a little bit of baby vomit—and she lingered, as if trying to place it.

“I'm so glad you're here,” Ozzie said, kissing Nora hard on top of her head. “I can't even tell you how glad I am that you decided to come.”

Nora ducked her head, moving in an inch or so more. Ozzie's arm was strong around her, the way it used to be, the way she wished in that moment it had remained—and would always remain—for the rest of her life.

“How are you, really?” Ozzie stepped back, giving Nora a once-over.

Nora pulled on her earlobe, feeling her face flush. “I'm good,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Ozzie grinned, chucking her under the chin. “You look good.”

“So do you.”

“I got fat,” Ozzie said. “My husband calls me Chubbers.”

“He does?”

“Sometimes.” She laughed. “I've probably put on thirty pounds since high school.”

“It doesn't show.”

“It's all under here.” Ozzie slapped the front of her sweat shirt. “Thank God I still have a decent pair of legs. Otherwise I'd look like a doughnut.”

Monica came back over and slid an arm through Ozzie's. Her face had lost some of its previous excitement, as if a lightbulb behind her eyes had been dimmed.

“Everything all right?” Ozzie asked.

“Everything's fine.” She looked over at Nora and smiled brightly. “You ready?”

Nora nodded. “Let's go.”

M
onica's boyfriend Liam had left one of his cars in the long-term parking lot of the airport the last time he was in Chicago and had told Monica to use it for the trip. It was a dark blue Cadillac Escalade with white leather upholstery and a digital dashboard. So many silver buttons ran the length alongside the CD player that it looked like a keyboard, and the windows were tinted. Nora wondered if she would feel claustrophobic behind the darkness of them, or if the strange-smelling, vacuous space would bring on her nausea.

“Jesus!” Ozzie said, hopping into the backseat. “Who exactly are you dating again, Monica? Jay-Z?”

Monica hesitated for a moment on the driver's side of the car and then got in, settling her alligator bag on the seat next to her. “I already told you his name. Liam Sondquist. Besides, you don't have to be a rock star to have money these days. Liam's just doing what at least ten thousand other businessmen in New York City do.”

“What, selling coke?” Ozzie leaned back against the vanilla
upholstery and pretzeled her arms behind her head. Three plum-colored marks, each one the size of a dime, dotted the soft skin just above her left elbow. “No, seriously though. Sondquist. I've heard that name somewhere, haven't I?”

“Probably.” Monica was staring at the dashboard with a puzzled expression on her face. “He's pretty well known in New York. He's one of the top hedge fund managers on Wall Street. He takes home about a quarter million just for his monthly allowance.”

Nora slid into the front seat next to Monica—and immediately regretted her decision. It was much too wide up here. There was an inordinate amount of room to bounce around in, which would make her stomach go haywire. Maybe she should ask to switch places with Ozzie. She turned around—just in time to hear Monica whisper, “Dammit,” next to her.

“What's the matter?” Nora asked.

“I don't know where to put the key.” Monica kept her voice low. “There's three different holes up here. They all look the same.”

Ozzie's feet clunked against the floor as she sat up. “Monica. Tell me you still don't know how to drive. Or that you haven't gotten your driver's license after all these years.”

Monica drew the tip of her index finger along one eyebrow and glanced out her window.

“Monsie!” Ozzie pressed.

“Okay, fine, I still haven't gotten my driver's license.” The skin along Monica's neck turned pink.

It had been a big joke back then that Monica was the only one of them who would graduate from high school without a driver's license. Even Nora, who doubted she would ever own a car, had gotten hers in her senior year. For years, Monica had insisted that
she had just never felt the need to get it. But Nora knew it was because Monica was afraid to take the driver's test. Monica was a terrible test taker. She had failed almost every test she had ever taken. The fact that she had graduated from high school with all the rest of them had been something of a gift—or a miracle.

“For Christ's sake!” Ozzie looked incredulous. “How do you get around?”

“I live in Manhattan!” Monica said. “I walk everywhere. And if I have to go any kind of real distance, Liam's guy takes me.”

“You mean you get chauffeured,” Ozzie said, grinning. “Gimme the keys, princess.”

Monica smiled apologetically and tossed the keys over her shoulder. Ozzie caught them with one hand and then crawled over the seat. Her hiking boots clunked against the ceiling, dislodging bits of dried mud onto the seat.

“Ozzie!” Monica half laughed, half scolded as she pushed her way out of the driver's door. “God, we're not kids anymore. You're a mother now! Use the door!”

“You think I don't crawl around like this at home?” Ozzie asked. “Please. I'm on my hands and knees every day, picking up baby shit or crayons or something. I'm an expert.”

The ease with which Ozzie fell into conversation with them filled Nora with a warm, sleepy feeling. The first time she'd ever remembered having that feeling was when she'd stayed late after school to make up a test. Afterward, she had come back to Turning Winds and found the three of them in the kitchen. Ozzie was sitting on the table, her feet resting on one of the chairs, fiddling with a Rubik's cube. Grace was balanced on the edge of the counter, picking at the edges of a pan of lasagna, and Monica was
standing in front of the refrigerator, her free arm resting on the open door. They were laughing at something Nora had come in too late to hear. But she stood there anyway, listening to the music of their voices rising and then settling in the way she had come to know so well, and she had felt a swell of emotion that she could not name. Later in bed, she realized that it had been something as close to home as she had ever felt. Now, listening to Ozzie, she felt a glimmer of that feeling again.

Ozzie shot out of the garage, tires squealing, and then came to an abrupt halt at the stop sign on the corner. She looked over at Nora as she gripped the seat rest with one hand and pressed her fingertips against her mouth with the other. “Oh shit, I forgot you get carsick!” Ozzie reached out, her eyes wide, and touched Nora's elbow. “Don't worry, babe. I'll go slow.” She eased the car out onto the highway and settled in among the traffic. “Okay, this isn't a real long ride. Henry gave me the directions. We should be there in about thirty minutes if I don't get us lost.”

“Use the GPS,” Monica said. “It'll tell you exactly how to get there.”

“You'll have to set it up,” Ozzie replied, swiveling around in her seat. “My husband's got one of those things in his truck, but I've never used it.”

Nora grabbed Ozzie's arm as a tractor-trailer sailed past on the left. “Ozzie,” she said. “
Please
.”

“I got it.” Ozzie turned back around. “It's all good, Norster. Don't worry.”

“Here, gimme that little black thing on the dashboard, Nora,” Monica said. “It snaps off, right at the base.” She turned to Ozzie. “How is it that you've never used a GPS?”

Nora handed the instrument over the seat and sat back to listen.

“I live on a farm,” Ozzie said. “If I want to get somewhere, I ride my motorcycle.”

“You have a motorcycle?” Nora wasn't sure why this detail surprised her. “Really?”

“Damn straight.” Ozzie clenched her jaw as she pressed down hard on the gas. “A vintage Harley-Davidson. I've got to keep something of my former life.”

Her former life. She was referring to a part of her life after Turning Winds. Another part Nora didn't know about. Couldn't possibly know about since Ozzie hadn't stayed in touch.

“Where'd you get it?” Nora asked.

“New Mexico.”

“New Mexico?” Nora was impressed. “When were you in New Mexico?”

“Oh, I dated this guy for a few years who loved to do road trips,” Ozzie said. “We crossed the country twice on his motorcycle.”

“Oh, you got your road trip!” Monica said fondly. “Remember how you always wanted to do that?”

“I wanted to do one with
you
guys,” Ozzie corrected. “It's a whole different story going on a road trip with someone you're sleeping with. I can't tell you how many times I ended up with dirt and grass in my mouth.”

“Ozzie!” Monica looked up, laughing.

“It's true.” Ozzie shrugged. “Anyway, I got sick of riding behind him all the time, and he never let me drive the damn thing, and one afternoon, when we were cruising through New Mexico,
I saw this little red beauty propped up on the porch of an adobe house with a
FOR SALE
sign strung across the handlebars. I told Cesar to pull over, and the rest is history.”

“
Cesar?
” Monica echoed from the back.

“Yeah,” Ozzie said. “That was his name.”

“Was he Latino?”

“Argentinian.”

“Mmmm . . . ,” Monica said. “Yum.”

“You remember the road trip we tried to give you?” Nora asked, turning from the window. “Or the feeling of one, at least?”

“Never forget it,” Ozzie said, rearranging her hands on the wheel. “One of the best days of my life.”

They hadn't known anyone well enough to ask if they could borrow a car, and for weeks, Nora and Grace and Monica huddled together whenever Ozzie wasn't around, trying to think of something that might suffice as a road trip. The most important thing, Nora had stressed, was that Ozzie feel something like freedom, that she have a day to herself with only the wind in her hair. No rules, no regulations. When a carnival came to town the following weekend, Nora knew she had found the answer. They skipped school, the four of them, and spent all day on the rides. Monica won a stuffed panda with one eye, and Grace and Ozzie had a deep-fried-hot-dog-eating contest, after which Grace promptly threw up. But it was not until they were crammed into a Ferris-wheel car, the large, rotating structure bringing them slowly to the top, that Monica giggled and flung out her arms. “Ah, I feel so free,” she said. “Don't you guys? I mean, wasn't this day just so completely
free
?”

Ozzie had squinted strangely at her, not comprehending, and
then all at once, the understanding of what they had done settled across her face. “Is this my road trip?” she asked. “Is that what this was all about?”

“Something like that.” Nora flushed as she wrote the answer, wondering if the whole thing had been a mistake. It
was
a stretch when you thought about it. Trying to capture a feeling like freedom was a lot harder than she'd imagined.

“Do you like it?” Grace raised her eyebrows. “It was mostly Nora's idea.”

In response, Ozzie had turned her head, staring at the horizon spread out beneath them. From this distance, the green slope of mountain looked half its size, a vast map of the unknown, the streets and houses below like playthings. The sun was beginning to set, and small birds flew overhead, rising and swooping with the wind.

“Oz?” Monica sounded worried.

Nora held her breath as Ozzie leaned over and pressed her forehead against hers. It was something she'd seen Ozzie do only once, after Monica had made a special cake that Ozzie used to eat as a kid. It was a nonverbal gesture that meant simply “I know you. You know me.”

“I love it.” Ozzie's voice sounded hoarse as she straightened back up, and she cleared it roughly. “I more than love it. It's fucking awesome.”

Nora had sat back then, meeting Monica and Grace's satisfied gazes as Ozzie pressed her forehead against each of theirs. She was sure she'd been the only one to see the lone tear that had trickled down the far side of Ozzie's face, and she was glad for it. She already knew it was something she'd keep to herself, tucked deep
inside one of her pockets, a tiny piece of Ozzie that she might never see again.

“Okay, here,” Monica said, handing the GPS over the seat again. “Now snap it back in. It'll tell you exactly where to go.”

“Hell. Oh.” A British female electronic voice drifted out from the tiny box. “You. Are. On. Highway. 56. Take. Right. At. Exit. 98.”

Ozzie sat back against her seat, clearly taken aback by the electronic voice. “Who the hell's talking? Princess Kate?”

“Take. Right,” the GPS commanded. “Exit. 98. Take. Right.”

“Okay, honey,” Ozzie said. “Don't get your panties in a bunch. I'm heading over to the right.” She glanced at Monica again in the mirror. “This thing have a name?”

“Yeah,” Monica said. “GPS.”

“That's not a name,” Ozzie insisted. “Listen to this wench talk. She sounds like that English teacher we had in junior year—you know, the one with the beehive hairdo and the big stick up her ass.”

“Mrs. Ditmer!” Monica laughed raucously, clapping her hands. “Oh my God, it
does
sound like her!”

Ozzie grinned. “What was Ditmer's first name?”

“I have no idea,” Monica said. “I never paid attention to anything in that class except the back of Jeremy Rindle's neck.”

“Myrtle,” Nora said quietly, wondering how Monica and Ozzie could have forgotten how much she loved Mrs. Ditmer, how the teacher had taken a special interest in the way she carried a book to read with her everywhere, even letting Nora stay late after school a few times so that she could finish reading her first edition of
Mrs. Dalloway
. The first line,
“Mrs. Dalloway decided
she would buy the flowers herself,”
was number fifteen in Nora's notebook.

“Myrtle!”
Monica and Ozzie burst out simultaneously.

Nora looked out the window as they laughed.

“Myrtle it is,” Ozzie said, wiping her eyes and patting the GPS. “Myrtle, I'd like to introduce you to the girls. Girls, this is Myrtle.”

Nora blinked rapidly, as if the movement might suppress the knot ascending within her throat. It wasn't often that something reminded her of Theodore Gallagher anymore, but Mrs. Ditmer's name was one such reminder. She'd known him as Theo the way everyone did back then—a tall, thin boy with a quick smile and an easy, unaffected manner—but it wasn't until the end of her junior year that she'd actually spoken to him. It had been in English class after dismissal one day, when everyone had cleared out of the room and was rushing toward their lockers to retrieve their books. Nora, however, had stayed, settling into one of the desks in the back of the room with a book, ready to while away a few hours before leaving for the weekend. Theo materialized out of nowhere, hovering inside the door, looking curiously around the room. Nora glanced up from the book and then looked back down again. “She's not here.” Her eyes skipped over a line. “And no, I don't know where she is or when she'll be back.”

There was a pause and then, “Who?”

She raised her eyes again, taking in his lanky frame, the caramel-colored hair that stuck out beneath a faded blue baseball cap, his small, slightly crooked teeth. “Mrs. Ditmer,” she said. “Isn't that who you're looking for?”