The Suburban Strange (21 page)

“I’ve heard that a couple times.” She smiled.

“There’s a much better song, by the Motels, and it really is your name,” he said.
“Celia, see what you’ve done, see what you’ve done to someone . . .”
He sang the line easily, and she thought that she couldn’t remember ever having heard her own father sing anything, except to mumble “Happy Birthday” in a crowd.

“I don’t know that one.” She looked around, and the others didn’t seem to know it, either.

They approached the long, low dinner table, around which stood an assortment of upholstered chairs that were all different but somehow matched. Mrs. Fourad took the head, and Mr. Fourad the foot, and the Rosary filled in the sides. Celia found herself between Brenden and Marco, which pleased her.

“What is this music?” Marco asked. “It’s beautiful.”

“I’m glad you like it!” Mrs. Fourad beamed. “It’s Vivaldi, and it’s sung by a countertenor.”

“That’s a man singing?”

“Yes! I had this same conversation when I heard it the first time. When I was in Paris last August, I heard it in a store.”

“A music store?”

“No, a clothing store. Should I tell this story? You have to know it’s there. From the outside it looks like a private residence. But if you ring the bell, they buzz you in. You step into this dark hallway, and while your eyes are adjusting, a pleasant, soft-spoken person approaches you and asks you to turn off your cell phone. Can you imagine?” Mrs. Fourad looked around at them amusedly.

“And the whole place is dark?”

“In that hall it is, but you follow the salesperson farther in and it opens up into this raw space, with exposed stone and brick, and ancient rafter beams, and a few skylights way up in the roof, and it looks like it hasn’t changed since the French Revolution. But there are racks and racks of the most exquisite clothes. I spent an hour looking at things, and I wound up buying that gorgeous hammered silk blouse I wore on Thanksgiving, you remember?” she asked Liz, who nodded. “At any rate, they were playing this music in the store, and I couldn’t believe it was a man singing. They were nice enough to write the name of the recording down for me, and I picked it up first chance I got.”

“That doesn’t sound anything like any store I’ve ever been in,” Marco said.

“When I got back out on the street, I felt like Alice, fresh back from Wonderland.”

“I want to go to Paris,” Brenden said.

Mr. Fourad said, “It’s so fun to find things like that—things a guidebook wouldn’t tell you. Do you remember that door we found on the Aventine Hill in Rome?” He asked his wife, who nodded enthusiastically. “We were on our way to hear these monks sing vespers at St. Anselmo’s, and we got there a little early, so we were strolling around the neighborhood, and there are all these high walls outside the private homes. Well, for some reason I decided to look through the keyholes of these huge doors in the walls—they’re eight or nine feet tall—to see what was inside.”

“You’re lucky you didn’t get arrested!” Liz said.

“If they didn’t want people looking through the keyholes, they wouldn’t put them there.” Mr. Fourad said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, and everyone laughed and protested. “Anyway, there wasn’t much to see through most of them, only a glimpse of a house or a car. But I looked through another one and there was this view down a gravel walk, with a row of topiaries on either side, and at the end, framed like a picture, was the dome of St. Peter’s! It was like looking into a snow globe. I nearly fell over. And then of course I made her look.”

“So you should go to Rome, too.” Mrs. Fourad smiled at Brenden.

Celia looked around her friends, feeling almost like an adult, sitting at this table, speaking of art and travel and ideas, and she felt their shared dream of always having new adventures, as long as they lived. If Celia’s July self wouldn’t have recognized her September self, she would have been completely flummoxed to see herself now, in January. The thought made her smile.

They reminisced about the previous semester, and Celia was grateful no one brought up curses or virginity. But Liz took pleasure in telling her parents about Celia’s mysterious admirer. “He was beautiful, and he would stare at her so intently. Then he showed up at the bookstore where she works—he’s the one who recommended that awesome book,
The Awakening
. And then he disappeared.” It was gratifying to hear someone else describe Tomasi as beautiful. From the beginning Celia had been struck by him, but it was only recently, when she had glimpsed his nervous, softer side, that she really had considered how handsome he was. She wondered again what had happened when he had returned home after their star-crossed date.

Mrs. Fourad said, “Well, as literary as he is, and as laconic, he sounds like quite the Lord Byron: a little mad, bad, and dangerous to know? How very romantic, maybe in a tragic way. What do you think, Celia?”

“That sounds about right.” She smiled, thinking there was no point in telling them about her recent encounter with Tomasi. Mrs. Fourad had described it perfectly, without even realizing it.

After dinner they helped clear the table, but Mrs. Fourad shooed them away from trying to wash the dishes. Celia watched everyone wander in different directions. Ivo and Brenden began looking through Mr. Fourad’s record collection, and Regine tagged along. Liz asked Marco to look at a blouse she wanted him to tailor. Celia was standing in the family room paging through a book of Edward Steichen’s photographs when Mr. Fourad found her. “I don’t know what I did with that Motels album. I hate when I lose things in my record collection—it could be anywhere.” He smiled helplessly. “If I find it I’ll send a copy along with Ivo and Liz for you.”

“Thank you.” Celia never had felt so comfortable with someone new so quickly before.

“So, Ivo and Liz always talk about your beauty and how well you draw, but they never tell us more banal things. How do you like Suburban?”

“It’s good, so far,” Celia said. “I didn’t really enjoy my first year at the other school. I think Suburban would have been more like that if I hadn’t met them.”

“They should have invited you over sooner, but I’m glad you’re here now.”

“Your house is beautiful,” Celia told him.

“Thank you! Actually, tell me this.” Mr. Fourad glanced at the door and then looked curiously at her. “Will you tell me about Diaboliques? My children have forbidden me to go, but it sounds absolutely brilliant.”

“It is!” Celia laughed. “It’s like a jewel box with all kinds of secret compartments. You go through all these rooms, and each one is more interesting than the last, until you get to the room where we spend most of our time, and it’s amazing. The clothes, the music, everything.”

“I wish I could go.” Mr. Fourad smiled. “I guess those days are over for me.”

“That’s a shame. It shouldn’t be like that.”

“Maybe not, or maybe so. I’m not sure I would go back to high school again just to have the chance to go to Diaboliques.” He chuckled. “Some things you have to do at the right time in your life, and I’m just glad all of you are doing it. I have my own memories to cherish.” Then Mrs. Fourad was calling him from the other room, and he took his leave.

Celia wandered into the study, where she had seen the old books, but this time her attention was caught by a piece of calligraphy framed on the wall. She read the angular script whose letters intertwined:

Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might
appear to others that what you were or might have been was
not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to
them to be otherwise.
—
Lewis Carroll

Celia felt someone beside her and turned to find Liz. “What does it mean?” Celia asked her.

“Be what you would seem to be,” Liz told her. “Be yourself.” She looked tenderly at Celia for a moment, and then the two of them turned back to reread the quote, standing quietly together. Celia thought if she had an older sister, she’d want her to be Liz.

They gravitated back to the family room again to exchange gifts. Ivo asked Celia to help him retrieve his presents, so she followed him up to his room and had a moment to be awestruck by the black walls, the bare surfaces, the framed photograph of a man leaping from the top of a brick wall, hurtling toward the street below as if it were a void. But the moment he was sure they were alone, Ivo turned to her with a purpose.

“I haven’t forgotten, you know,” he said.

“Forgotten what?”

“About that poem in your sketchbook.”

“Oh, really? I thought—” Celia broke off, unsure what she thought.

“I know something is happening. And you know about it. And I wasn’t supposed to find out. And I think you tried to make me forget about it somehow. But I remember.”

“What do you remember?” Celia asked.

“I remember the poem has something to do with the curse. I think you’re trying to stop it? You did something to me, because every time I try to remember, it’s all a fog.” He was concentrating, as though he were trying to work out an equation in his head. “You don’t want me to know. And I guess there’s not much I can do about it. Just tell me: are you in trouble? I mean, are you in danger?”

“No, Ivo, I’m not. I promise you, I’m not. I thought I told you. It was just a scary poem my friend Mariette wrote around Halloween. It’s not real. It’s just a scary poem.”

“Who’s Mariette?”

“Mariette? My chemistry lab partner?” Celia saw the blank look on Ivo’s face again. “You don’t remember meeting her?”

“No, when did we meet?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“If you say so.” They looked at each other for a long moment. He gave her the same expression she must have given Mariette for weeks before she found out the truth. It was a look that said,
I can’t put my finger on it, but something is going on here.

“A scary poem?” Ivo said finally.

“It’s just a scary poem,” Celia said. “Let’s go back to the party.” She picked up two of Ivo’s gifts, and he picked up the other three.

The Rosary sat down in the family room with mugs of cranberry tea.

Celia reached for her stack of gifts. “I’ll go first, since I’m the newest.” She passed them around and waited as they were opened carefully.

“I feel like I’m looking at a photograph,” Brenden said, marveling at his portrait. “A really good photograph.” They passed the portraits around.

“They’re not just our likenesses—you captured our personalities,” Liz said. “You are really talented.”

“Well, you were all great subjects, even if you didn’t realize it at the time,” Celia said, thrilled.

“Were you looking at us when you drew us?” Marco asked.

“No. But I made quite a few sketches of each of you before I was ready to do these.”

“You must be as bored in art class as Marco is in home ec.” Liz smiled.

“We get to do what we love. It’s not that bad.” Celia smiled at Marco, who winked at her.

“The senior class is raising money for a mosaic to go in the new computer wing they’re going to build this summer. We should have you design it,” Liz said.

“That’s a great idea,” Brenden said.

“I’ve never done mosaic work,” Celia said.

“You wouldn’t have to install it. We just have to give a sketch to the mosaic woman.”

“I’d love to help with that. Just let me know what you have in mind.”

Marco had made each of them black beaded bracelets that resembled short rosaries, with a simple square cross on a short beaded strand. “I know we haven’t been wearing rosaries much, but I thought maybe it was because they were a little too long.” Immediately the bracelets went on everyone’s wrists. Regine had created collage books for all of them, and again, they were passed around for everyone to see. No one was surprised that Brenden had made everyone a compilation CD. “It was so hard keeping these tracks from you.” He laughed. “There is some great stuff on there.”

Liz gave them each tiny shadow boxes. “What’s inside?” Marco asked.

“Well, look and see, but you have to keep it a secret. Everyone’s is different.”

Celia looked through the hole in her shadow box and found a short poem, lit from behind:

One night I shall be awakened
by the horn from the driver
and know before my eyes are fully opened
that the signal is for me.

Then I shall descend those stairs,
going out onto the avenue
to ride away in the passenger’s seat
without so much as a glance at the driver.

Celia caught her breath and looked around the room. Everyone had a similar expression. “I can’t wait to read your first book,” Brenden said to Liz.

“Neither can I!” Liz said, smiling. “If I want to be a novelist I’m going to have to start writing longer things than poems and short stories.”

“Well, mine aren’t as personal as the rest of yours, but hopefully they symbolize something,” Ivo said, handing them identical boxes. They each unwrapped a black metal lantern with a single candle inside. “Let’s go for a walk.”

They collected their coats and carefully lit the candles, and then they stepped out into the night. The street was quiet, and a brilliant, nearly full moon easily outshone the corner streetlamps. “It really does give a luster of midday to objects below,” Brenden murmured.

Lanterns in hand, they walked down to the boulevard and then followed it as it curved through the neighborhood. The lawns rose sharply, lifting the houses above the sidewalks. During the spring and summer a row of trees shaded the sidewalks and street on either side. Now they were lonely coatracks, broken umbrellas spread against the sky. The air was still and warm enough that Celia didn’t shiver in her coat, and she was enraptured by the poetry of the surroundings and the procession.

“Is it all right if there’s no music? We always have music,” Marco said.

“Every once in a while the best soundtrack is silence,” Brenden replied, taking Marco’s free hand in his.