The Nobodies

by Liza Palmer

  “Say goodnight, sweetie girl.” Billy brings Poppy over to me. He knows I can’t be mad at him when he comes armed with a cute baby. Poppy rubs and swipes at her eyes, but attempts to give me a kiss goodnight. A little reaching hand to Thornton and they’re down the hall in search of bedtimes.

  “We should get going,” I say. Thornton gives me a nod. Dad stands.

  “Nice meeting you,” Dad says to Thornton.

  “You, too,” Thornton says. Once outside I feel the need to explain everything.

  “I didn’t know how to tell you I lived at home and I know I should have, but … it’s temporary. It’s been a weird year,” I say. Thornton walks up to the passenger’s side door and creaks it open.

  “I know.” He waits. “You’ve got it.” I can feel my face flushing. His chivalry makes me queasy. “But maybe every once in a while, you can let me get it.” He motions to the passenger’s seat.

  “You were this close to saying ‘let me get it,’ weren’t you?”

  “How dare you,” he says. I laugh and grunt a thanks as I sit down in the passenger’s seat, my gray sling bag still tight around my body. Thornton extends a hand. The sling bag. I dip my head forward and untangle myself from the bag. He takes it and shuts the passenger’s side door.

  He crosses in front of the car in all his Top Gun glory. I don’t know in what world this exact moment is allowed to happen. I find myself holding my breath, careful not to spook these suspended seconds where I let myself get swept away in the idea that Thornton would want to be an us.

  Do I want Thornton and me to be an us?

  Thornton opens his door, slides into the driver’s seat, and pulls the door closed behind him. All of the sudden I am very aware that Thornton and I are alone together on a Friday night outside of work. Something about this knowledge paralyzes me in my seat.

  “I can put the address to the place into my phone,” I say, realizing my phone is in my sling bag. I look into the back seat. Reach an arm, then pull it back. “This is why I do the bag thing.” Thornton hands me his phone. I push the Home button. Locked screen. I hold it up for him and he inputs a series of numbers that I try to act like I’m not memorizing: 8793. As I input the address to the totally hip and cool Elks Lodge somewhere in the belly of Burbank, I talk myself off the ledge that 8793 is probably Thornton’s birthday. August 7, 1993. That would make Thornton Yu twenty-four years old, almost twenty-five, but right now? This is a twenty-four-year-old man sitting next to me in this car … being thoughtful and kind and chivalrous and like I said, he’s way out of my league and oh looka there, that fleeting moment of being swept away with the idea of An Us has evaporated.

  “Your family seems nice,” Thornton says, backing out of our driveway.

  “They’re pretty great,” I say, honestly. The phone tells us to turn left at the stop sign. “You’re just going right down here to the freeway.” Thornton nods and flips on his blinker. “So, did you grow up here, or…” Oh, god. It’s so painful. Usually Thornton and I have a work-related topic to discuss.

  “I actually grew up just outside Indianapolis, moved out here for school, and then got the gig at Bloom.” He shifts into fourth gear as we speed toward the freeway.

  “Which school?”

  “Caltech,” he says.

  “You went to Caltech?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jesus.”

  Thornton laughs.

  “You’re just super smart is all.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “Nowhere.” Thornton looks over at me. “Yeah, no college. I got an internship right out of high school with The LA Times, so I went there instead.”

  “That’s not nowhere, though,” he says.

  “But it is not Caltech,” I say. We are quiet. “So, you knew Chris before you worked at the video game place together?” Thornton nods. “I bet we could probably use that connection to get access to Chris and Asher’s school stuff.”

  “I thought of that too. I sent a few scouting emails, and apparently we shared a professor. I sent her an email last week, so we shall see if it bears fruit.” Thornton rumbles to a stop at a red light. This old car has no sound system, so just the clattering of the engine and my awkwardness fill the silence. The light turns green; Thornton puts the car in gear and glides down the street.

  “What’d you say to her?” I ask, wondering why he didn’t talk to the team about this connection or said that he’d emailed her or that that’s where he knew Chris from. I hear the clipped, slightly annoyed tone of my voice and immediately feel regret. I don’t know how to be soft or generous with someone while working on a story that I am way too invested in. Picking up my tone, Thornton looks over at me.

  “I told her I started working at Bloom and that Chris and Asher were my new bosses. I said it’d be much appreciated if she’d mind sharing any insights that could help me get ahead,” he says.

  “Hm,” I say.

  “Does that pass muster?”

  “It’s … ugh.” I scratch my forehead and, sighing, look out the window.

  “What?”

  “Okay, here are my thoughts. Why wouldn’t you tell the team about this connection? We have daily check-ins, three weeks of them. How have we never heard about this person?” Thornton is about to speak. “I’m the journalist here. I know I’m a junior copywriter at work and you’re my manager. And that I told you I’ve been struggling a bit. But I do know how to be a good journalist or at least be a journalist, as opposed to you. So why wouldn’t you talk to me about what to put in that email? That way you could get the most out of her, protect us, and not send up any red flags if she happens to be, I don’t know, maybe working with Chris and Asher?” I cross my arms across my chest, hating every second that this night couldn’t remain lovely and dreamlike. “Did you ever think of that?”

  “No.” We are quiet. Thornton speeds up as we get onto the freeway. He merges and threads through the traffic with ease. “I didn’t want to bring her up, because I didn’t want you guys to know I went to Caltech.”

  “What, why?”

  “It’s complicated,” he says.

  “Aren’t we past complicated?”

  “We’ve only known each other for three weeks. How could we even begin to be past complicated?”

  “I meant past complicated when it comes to the story,” I say, weakly.

  “But, this is … it doesn’t work like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “What did you mean about this being a weird year?” Thornton looks over at me. A quick glance before his eyes are back on the road.

  “We’re going to do this now?” I ask.

  “Now’s as good a time as any,” he says. I look down at my hands and start picking at my fingernails. I take a deep breath and look up at him.

  “I got laid off and then tried to freelance, but couldn’t find anything.” Thornton nods. “And then I worked really hard on this story that I thought was compelling enough to restart my career. But my fancy newspaper contact read it and said it wasn’t even good enough to run on someone’s online blog.” I put the necessary air quotes around Tavia’s exact words. “I thought I’d lost everything. But a fun byproduct of all these realizations was finding out I really didn’t have anything to lose, so…” I try to put my arm onto the edge of the window, but the window is up so I just slam my elbow into the glass and watch as it slides down the passenger’s side door.

  “How are you defining ‘everything’?”

  “That’s a good question … Great question, Thornton. Yeah, thanks for that, um…” Thornton laughs. “Everything would be … my apartment, my car, my cable, I had some great saved BBC mysteries that are now lost, my TV, my electricity bill, gas bill, all utility bills actually.” I stop. It’s … ugh, fuck it. “My good credit, my journalism career, self-respect, pride, what other fun things have I lost, oh, the illusion that I was a good writer who gave everything I had, lost that … Turns out I’ve been in a slump for probably years a
nd come to find out, my writing is definitely boring, soft, and shallow—because I’d become boring, soft, and shallow. Um, lost all the goals I set for myself when I was seventeen. I don’t know where all this is going or what it’s all for. I don’t dig deeper or ask any uncomfortable questions of myself because I’m pretty sure I’m terrified about what I’ll find down there. Lost the hope that something out there would make me feel complete or enough. And you can see the Catch-22 between that and the not digging deeper thing. So, it’s pretty much up to me now to make that happen and whooeee is that a bucket of cold water thrown on my face, I’ll tell you what.” I am quiet. Thornton waits. I pull the sleeves of the droopy black cardigan down over my hands and try to swallow the sadness and loss and grief and hurt that comes crawling its way up my throat with every word I let out. Thornton is quiet for a long time. I shift in my seat, look out the window, and try to not leap out onto the freeway.

  “I’m sorry,” he says.

  “No. I did it to myself. This is my fault and no one else’s.” I look over at him. “I did this.” Thornton looks over. His brow furrows as he focuses back on the road. The silence expands. Finally—“What’s complicated about Caltech?” Thornton slides his gaze over to me. In a mere moment, I see his face go from curious and open to flat and weary. He turns away from me and focuses back on the road. He gives an imperceptible nod, an unhurried swallow, followed by a clenched jaw before he speaks.

  “After not sleeping for—I still don’t know the exact number of days—a janitor found me sitting at the top of Milliken Library. It’s where they do the pumpkin drops at Halloween.” Thornton puts on his blinker, looks over his shoulder, and switches lanes.

  “Fun.”

  “Yeah, super fun.” Thornton turns off his blinker. “I actually don’t remember getting up there. That always … I still think about that. That someday this rush of memories is going to come spilling back into my head of stumbling through campus and climbing all the way up there, and I mean, this one girl said I had a two-minute conversation with her about Orion. No idea.” Thornton stops. He looks over at me, then back at the road. The phone tells us our off ramp is coming up. I see Thornton scan the horizon and start getting over. “I just couldn’t do it anymore. The pressure was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, and my parents … they’d sacrificed so much to get me there.” I am quiet. I want to reach out and comfort him, but I don’t think that’s what he wants. I think, like me, he just wants to wrestle these words out from inside his own head. He just needs another human to help carry it. Even if it’s just for a few minutes. “This poor janitor—he wasn’t even supposed to be up there, but … he didn’t know what to do. How to talk me down. Didn’t want to say the wrong thing. I just felt bad for the guy. He showed me pictures of his kids. Nice family. I begged him to leave, that he didn’t have to stick around. I was going to be fine. He knew I was lying, of course. He was quiet for a long time. And I thought he was going to go, you know? I thought I convinced him. But then he asked me if I had a favorite ice cream.” I am quiet. He looks over. “Coffee.” We get off the freeway and come to a stop at the bottom of the off ramp.

  “I love coffee ice cream.” Thornton smiles.

  “Won’t you miss coffee ice cream, he said.” The light turns green, Thornton puts the car in first gear, and we float through the intersection. “I told him I would. He held out his hand and told me to just get down from there. Come back. Called me son.” I wipe my cheek with my cardigan sleeve, trying to erase any evidence that I’d been crying. “I climbed down and we walked away together. I told myself I was going to go back up there, but every night after that I just didn’t.” He pauses. Shifts in his seat. Looks out the window. “It didn’t get better for a long time.” Thornton watches as the addresses speed past. He turns into the driveway for the Elks Lodge. He pulls into a parking space and shuts the car off. The car settles around us. He looks over at me and I hold his gaze. Broken sees broken.

  “Thornton—”

  “You’re not the only one who’s had a weird year.”

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. Thornton and I both jump in our seats to see Hani, dressed up as Elliott from E.T.—red hooded sweatshirt, a crate tied around her neck filled with the glowing alien himself.

  “Maverick! Basket Case! Like, gag me with a spoon, guys! Are we going to this party or what?” Hani situates E.T. in his little crate and waves to one of many Madonnas entering the Elks Lodge this evening. Thornton pulls the door handle and is about to push the door open.

  “Thank you for telling me that,” I say, reaching out to him. I was aiming for his arm, but instead find myself resting a firm hand on top of Thornton’s knee. I will myself, make myself, not jerk my hand back. Just … leave it. It would look weird to pull it back now … as opposed to the spectacular escalating weirdness that’s currently happening.

  And then it gets weird. Because it’s not like he can … do anything with my hand. What’s he going to do, lay his hand over mine with Hani standing just outside his car? I’ve got to peel it off. Peel it off, Joan.

  Take it off. Bring it back. My eyes are darting from my hand to him, to the outside, to the dashboard … I’m panicking. At some point during all this, Thornton sits back in his seat and just watches, the smile breaking across his entire face. I finally tug my hand off his knee. Sit back in my chair and sigh. Thornton grabs my sling bag from the back seat, climbs out of the driver’s side, and slams the door behind him.

  “Get it together, Joan. I swear to god—” I mutter to myself in the quiet of the now empty car. I take one last deep breath and start to grab for the door handle. Instead, Thornton pulls the door open and is standing there with his hand extended. I take his hand, turn my body to the side, and place both feet on the ground. He doesn’t move, so when I finally stand we are inches apart.

  Thornton pulls me clear of the car, hands me my sling bag, and slams the passenger’s side door behind me. And, as we follow Hani into the venue, he doesn’t let go of my hand.

  15

  Maverick, Elliot, and a Basket Case Walk into a Party

  Thornton, Hani, and I walk down a long hallway lined with the portraits of the old white men who’ve led this fine organization over the years. The lighting is fluorescent and the laminate floors squeak underfoot. All three of us look around, wondering if we’re in the right place.

  I imagine Mackenzie’s party bus and all of the cool kids from Bloom walking down this antiseptic hospital-like hallway and my stomach drops. Inviting anyone from that life into mine was a mistake. I love my friends dearly, but we aren’t in our twenties anymore. Happily no longer in our twenties. We throw parties in Elks Lodges, not rock-climbing gyms. Reuben’s party, however amazing, will end no later than midnight. I imagine that’s about when Mackenzie’s after party will be starting.

  There’ll definitely be children at Reuben’s party and more than a few conversations will revolve around aging parents, moving out of LA so they can actually buy a home, and whether or not they’re going to get that couch in gray or tweed. No matter how much I want to bash the millennial generation, the worst thing they ever did was make us feel old.

  I’m just about to start apologizing and giving flight instructions and how maybe we can find somewhere else. And then we see the go-go boys.

  There are two go-go boys dressed in tutus at the end of the long hallway. They’re checking people into the party with clipboards kitted out in neon stickers and feathered roach clips. Bright pink wristbands are being wrapped around the wrists of every iteration of George Michael, Madonna, and Prince. Adam Ant looks like he’s already had a few. We fall in line behind two Jazzercisers. Thornton and I finally let go of each other’s hands without a word or a look. Hani never noticed.

  “Okay, I’m going to need to see your and your IDs,” one of the Go-Go boys says, pointing to everyone but me. Thornton and Hani fish their IDs out of flight suit and red hoodie. They present them to the go-go boy. He leans in. Takes a long look. “You look li
ke babies.” The go-go boy wraps a neon-pink wristband around Thornton’s wrist, then Hani’s. They step aside, situating their wristbands while they scan the growing line. “Don’t they just make you feel old?” he asks me as he wraps the wristband around my ancient, arthritic bone of a wrist.

  “You’re not doing so bad a job of that yourself,” I say with a stern look. He laughs and pats my hand.

  “Sorry, girl,” he says, motioning for the two big-haired, shoulder-padded Working Girls behind me to step forward. I join Thornton and Hani. We look back over at the go-go boy. “Down that hall. You can’t miss it.”

  We hear the music first. Pushing open two large security doors, we are immediately transported to a 1980s school dance. Packed dance floor, tons of neon, sparkling disco ball, streamers, balloons, Salt-N-Pepa piercing everyone’s eardrums as their music screams out of the giant speakers that line the stage. The DJ this evening is Reuben’s niece. She’s dressed up as Ronald Reagan.

  “This. Is. Amazing,” Hani says, beaming.

  “Thank god,” I say with a sigh.

  “I’m going to text Elise, see where she is.” Hani walks over to an empty table, takes off the crate with E.T. in it, and sits down in one of the folding chairs. Her face is immediately lit up from her phone.

  “Let me see if I can find my friends. Introduce you guys,” I say, scanning the packed dance floor.

  “There must be two hundred people here,” Thornton says.

  “Yeah, that’s Reuben,” I say.

  I spy Reuben and Lynn across the room. Reuben is dressed as Marty McFly, and Lynn is Madonna from Desperately Seeking Susan. I shoot my arm in the air and wave them over. Reuben grabs Hugo, who’s dressed as someone right out of Miami Vice, and the three of them cross the crowded dance floor toward us. I don’t know how to introduce Thornton to them. I don’t even know how to introduce him to me yet. Maybe I’ll take a page out of Chris and Asher’s playbook and not give anyone a straight answer. Hani joins Thornton and me, situating her crate around her shoulders.