Anonymity

by Janna McMahan

  “Why don't you start by picking something you'd like to study? What about architecture? You had a real interest when you were younger.”

  “Too much math. I'd never pass now.”

  “What about photography? Commercial photography pays nicely. All your old equipment is still upstairs in your closet.”

  “I should take that stuff. Might be fun to pick it up again.”

  “Put together a portfolio, even those artsy weird shots you did, and see if you can find a part-time job at a photography studio. Then you could learn the business. See if it suits you. You could still keep your job at the bar at night.”

  Barbara had a laundry list of things she wanted Emily to consider, but she held back. The news about Beth seemed to have loosened some contemplative place inside, but Barbara wasn't going to push. This relationship with her daughter was a delicate thing.

  Gerald said to let go, that she would find herself, but he'd always been the calmer, less involved parent. Emily tried to hide that she preferred her father with his less challenging ways, but Barbara could tell. The hugs Gerald got were always a few seconds longer. Emily's smile was always brighter around him. Barbara suspected that there were times when Emily went to Gerald for money, times when they shared a secret and left her out.

  While it hurt, Barbara didn't really resent Gerald. Certainly a girl should love her daddy. But sometimes it was hard being the stronger parent. Instead of the hugs and kisses, she often got the confused Emily or the depressed Emily. When things got rough, Barbara was the one she turned to.

  Just like today. When Emily had called to say she was on her way home, Barbara had heard something in her voice. It was just a tiny quiver, a tone that a mother can sense.

  She would deny it, but Emily came home to be reassured that she was not alone. She came home to feel safe and insulated. She came home to be loved.

  And Barbara would always love her. Always help pick up the pieces. Always.

  Emily

  UPSTAIRS, IN the back of her old closet, Emily found a black portfolio coated with dust along the top edge. She laid it on her bed and unzipped it. A jumble of photos fell out. She fanned them around and slid one from the bottom.

  It was a self-portrait, a Cindy Sherman-style shot with a constructed set and a costume, part of her experimental self-portrait phase. From the stack she pulled a simple, stark black-and-white. Dark waves of hair twisted around her skinny shoulders in the shot. Her lips were slack and her eyes, icy blue in life, looked eerily clear from the photograph, too round and lonely on her face.

  For a while, she'd been absorbed by the documentary photography of women like Dorothea Lange and Diane Arbus. Their gritty shots made her want to wipe away the dirt. She loved how they made her feel uncomfortable for the humanity of their subjects.

  This interest in strange photography had started with a job at a photo booth in the mall. She had liked the quiet routine. Feed the machines and they spit out images. Simple. And fascinating. For hours upon hours she looked at snapshots of other people's lives—their parties, their vacations, their secrets.

  One day, while she was dumping a disposable camera onto a disc, the fragile face of a dead infant appeared. She couldn't stop looking. Eventually, the dead baby photos moved from the regular file to the late file. When she called, the number had been disconnected. The shots moved to the abandoned file and a month later Emily stole them. That packet of dead baby images was still in the back of her desk drawer.

  Her mother was suddenly at her side, pulling the black-and-white portrait from the pile. She studied it.

  “You look so much like me when I was younger,” she said. “So pretty.”

  “You're still pretty.”

  “Oh, with this gray hair.” She touched her temple.

  “Geez, you've got the body of a yoga instructor. I wouldn't worry about a couple of gray hairs.”

  This made her smile. “Take those with you,” her mother said, waving a hand over the portfolio mess. She reached into the top of the closet and came out with Emily's camera bag. “This too.”

  From the bottom of the portfolio, Emily pulled images of neighbors with their kids at the pool. People jogging. Dogs. There were close-ups of the jumpy anoles that clung to the sides of their house. None of these had ever satisfied her in an artistic sense. They were vanilla, just mundane snapshots of suburbia.

  Barbara perused Emily's display.

  “You should organize them. Put them in a form you can show somebody.”

  “I was never happy with most of them.”

  “They're nice.”

  “Nice?” This lukewarm endorsement showed her mother's lack of insight into art. Barbara was a practical thinker. Art for art's sake had never made sense to her.

  “I don't know,” Emily said. “I always felt that my work lacked that elusive element that makes you feel something when you look at it.”

  “Feel what?”

  “An emotional response. Art should make you laugh or make you sad or disgusted or horny or angry or…whatever. It should make you feel something. Anything. Everything. Indifference is the worst response to art.”

  “These look perfectly fine to me. They show you mastered the basic skills of photography. I never was sure exactly what you were trying to accomplish.”

  Still don't, Emily thought. In Barbara's world, art matched the couch.

  Her mother could not grasp why Emily liked the frayed edges of life, a little dirt in the cracks. Barbara felt life should be pretty and clean and efficient. She would only be happy when Emily was weighed down with a career, a husband, a baby and an enormous handbag with hardware.

  “I've got to go,” Emily said as she zipped the photos back inside the case. “I work tonight.”

  Her mother followed her downstairs and out to her car. The MINI, a sixteenth birthday gift, still got her where she needed to go.

  Emily flung her portfolio in the back and got in. The windows were down, so her mother came to stand next to the driver's door.

  Emily reached for the key, then she paused and looked down the street past her mother. “You know, when I was really young, I noticed that every house on this street is the same brick, that every front yard light pole is a replica. Every fourth house has identical dormers and shutters, every third house has stockade fencing around the backyard.”

  “So?”

  “Everyone's grass is the same height because Mexicans mow on Mondays.”

  “Ah, your powers of observation astound me. Guess it's the artist in you. Drive safe. Love you.”

  On the way back downtown Emily passed big boxes—Costco and Target and Sam's. As a child, fifteen minutes of every shopping trip had been spent swimming oceanic parking lots of SUVs looking for a space. Juniper people ate in chain restaurants where neon signs called from both sides of raised super highways. They drank shocking green cocktails from the spouts of margarita machines bought at deep discount price clubs. They had theater rooms and game rooms and patios with built-in barbecues.

  Everyone in her childhood had lived by the law of acquisition. She'd learned early that most of Juniper parents lived leased lives, even hers. Juniper families didn't own their homes or their cars or their children's cars. These people took alcohol-fueled Corpus Christi vacations, drove pricey, gas-guzzling vehicles, and when it came time to send their entitled children to college, they took second mortgages on their suburban homes.

  Her parents would say she was unappreciative of a perfectly lovely childhood, but Emily had grown up feeling like just another one of their projects. Another task they had to manage in their hectic lives. They exhausted her with their perfection and expectations.

  By the time Emily graduated from high school, all she really wanted was a way out of the pancake flat crescent of planned living that fanned the edges of Austin.

  Lorelei

  SHE SLEPT hard, not waking until nearly noon. Tucked into untamed shrubbery, her back against the cool stone foundation of the church,
she was invisible, actually comfortable except that she had to pee. She rolled her blanket tightly and trussed it to her pack with a dirty string she kept twisted around her wrist for just such a purpose. She used another string to tie back her hair before she pulled her hood forward over her face.

  A line of people had formed along the sidewalk that snaked around to the back of the church. She was relieved to see a gate open that had been closed the night before. She wouldn't have to scale the fence a second time and chance being noticed.

  Although her need to urinate was painful, she walked to the end of the queue to wait. She didn't want to cut line and risk a confrontation. Inside the church, she slipped into the bathroom and found an open stall. The prickle of relief rushed her. Somebody banged on the door, but she took her time. The toilet paper dispenser was one of those irksome kinds that stopped short of a full rotation. She doggedly yanked it around and around until she had collected a thick wad of grainy paper that she shoved into her pack.

  She washed her hands and face and brushed her teeth with her new toothbrush. She spit and was wiping her mouth with the back of her hand when the girl next to her met her eyes in the mirror above the sink.

  “Wow. That's a wild tattoo.”

  Lorelei had come to expect the stares. The questions.

  She raked her things off the sink's edge into her pack and pushed out the bathroom door. There was a lull in the food line. A tired looking guy plopped a large scoop of spaghetti on her paper plate. Farther down the line, she filled the rest with torn lettuce in some sort of yellowish dressing. At the end of the table she drained a glass of orange juice and picked up another to take with her.

  Outside, she went around the corner of the church and sat back against a wall. An adult approached with a girl about her age. She'd been spotted. This was usually how they worked it, using another kid to break the ice. But once Lorelei saw her up close she realized that this girl was probably older.

  “Hey,” the girl said. “You're new.”

  It wouldn't get her anywhere to be rude to these people.

  “Did you get enough to eat?” the man asked. He looked like Santa Claus, in shorts and sandals. He wore a T-shirt that had the Tumbleweed Young Adult Center logo over his heart.

  “Name's Steve. This is Fiona.”

  Fiona had a nose ring and dirty white-girl dreads sticking out from under a dusty black bowler hat. A tangle of old-fashioned watches wrapped her wrists.

  Lorelei liked the girl's style and the man seemed nice enough. Still, she didn't have anything to say to them.

  “I don't like to eat alone.” Fiona sat on the grass without waiting for an invitation.

  “I got to go do something. I'll talk to you later,” Steve said and walked away.

  “I haven't seen you on The Drag before,” Fiona said.

  Lorelei hoped this girl wouldn't be an annoying motor-mouth. She decided to guide the conversation. “What's The Drag exactly?”

  Fiona motioned with her fork. “This part of Guadalupe. The shopping strip down this side. See that tower? That's where that crazy dude picked off all those people with a rifle back in the sixties. Stood up there and killed like a dozen people or something, people just walking along The Drag. Real whack job. They said he had some major brain tumor or something.”

  “That's convenient.”

  Fiona looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean?”

  “Just that people would think that's a legit reason for going postal. Some mega tumor would mean being crazy wasn't your fault.”

  “Like a free pass to off a few people?” She grinned. “I like it. You're all right.”

  “Where does everybody hang out around here?”

  “Different places. Some people hang in the alley back here because it's close to the drop-in. There are some parks around. Most of us walk down to Pease Park on Shoal Creek. People squat down there.”

  “Don't the cops run you off?”

  “Not so much. Not as long as nobody steals anything or tears anything up. They're pretty cool usually.” She took a bite of her food and chewed. “Usually.”

  “What's the shelter like?”

  She shrugged. “Not many beds. Hard to get into. They only want the kids who are,” she made quotation marks in the air, “transitioning.”

  “What's that mean?”

  “Getting your GED. Getting a job. Getting clean. Getting ready to go home. Getting off the streets.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, what's your story?”

  “None of the above.”

  “Where'd you stay last night?”

  She didn't want to talk about herself. Time to go.

  She stood up and gathered her things.

  “Hey, where you going?” Fiona asked.

  “Is there a trash can around?” she asked, holding up her paper plate and cup.

  “Just leave it here. I'll get it for you. Where are you going?”

  “I don't know. Maybe I'll go check out that Shoal Creek place.”

  “That's cool. I'll go with you.”

  “No thanks. I've got something to do first.” She needed to shoplift some clothes and find a bathroom where she could clean up and change. Afterward, she'd have to hide for a few days, just a precaution in case anybody happened to see her pinch the clothes. She couldn't afford to get picked up. You get busted, you go home.

  “Will I see you back here?” Fiona asked.

  Lorelei heard her, but walked away as if the question hadn't registered.

  “Hey,” Fiona called after her. “You didn't even tell me your name.”

  Emily

  EMILY TAPPED the postcard for the dating site on the bar and considered the canoodling couple on the front. She had dug the postcard out of the trash a few days ago and carried it around in her pack, feeling its energy as if it were a tarot card that could foretell her future.

  Maybe her mother was right. Maybe she did have a crummy people filter. But a dating website seemed so, well, so desperate. She slipped the card into a pocket and reached up to ring an old dinner bell above her head. One clang. Two.

  “Last call for alcohol!” she yelled into the crowd on the other side of the bar. Saturdays were always hopping at Group Therapy. She liked the fast pace of busy nights, the heft of liquor bottles, the rattle of ice, the crack of opened beer. Men would smile and flirt. The tip jar filled. She enjoyed her different roles—DJ, psychologist, peacekeeper.

  Emily cut the music and the mumbling, laughing crowd began to move. Emily kept her head down and her back turned to the customers while she counted tips. She didn't close out her register. There were always a few stragglers who waited until the last minute, insisting that the clock above the bar was fast.

  “Can I still get a beer?”

  She looked at the clock and saw it was clearly 2:15. She formed the word “sorry” but it melted in her mouth when she saw the lean guy across from her. He ran his fingers through a tangle of hair; a few strands flopped back down into his eyes. He had a goatee, a crooked grin, and an aura that made him seem dark around the edges. She had a vague feeling she knew him, but she couldn't say how.

  “Well, I guess I can let you slide in under the wire.” She smiled. “What can I get you?”

  He pointed to a tap. “Lone Star, please.”

  She grabbed a pint glass from the cooler and pulled one with perfect foam. Napkin. Beer. No bowl of peanuts. It was late.

  He took an appreciative drink.

  “Nice,” he said, then, “What's your name?”

  “Emily.” She busied herself with cleaning, trying to seem disinterested in him.

  “Emily. I've liked every Emily I've ever met.”

  “Right.”

  “Seriously. Seems like a name that follows great women around.”

  “What's your name?”

  “Travis.”

  “Travis Roberts?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That's where I've seen you. In that tiny, little headshot on yo
ur column. I read you every week.”

  “That's right. Be Here Now, your local entertainment rag,” he said sarcastically and tipped his beer toward her.

  Travis Roberts wrote about city matters and things at the university. He wrote profiles of people who should be applauded…or shot. He was unapologetic about his liberal social commentary. He was controversial and witty and always interesting.

  Living and working downtown in the capital city made it hard to avoid politics, so most people just embraced it. Travis Roberts was a journalistic rock star in Austin.

  And he looked better in person.

  “What are you working on now?” She finally gave up the disinterested ruse and leaned forward on the bar.

  He mimicked her and leaned in too. “I'm kicking around a story on the gutter tribes.”

  “Street kids?”

  “Yeah, but they don't trust anybody over thirty. I've been trying to get in good with them for a couple of weeks now.”

  “Maybe you can share a needle with them to show you're sincere.”

  He chuckled, but the smile never reached his eyes. She suddenly felt bad for having said it.

  “City council's working on some new regulations. Business owners are complaining again. You ever get any gutter punks up this far?”

  “Some, but nobody would come in this bar if we had a bunch of dirty kids hanging around outside. You can't really blame the businesses for being upset.”

  “It's not my job to assign blame. I just report the story.”

  He took another drink and checked out the bar, his eyes darting around, taking everything in. “I don't know. It probably won't go anywhere,” he said after a while. “My editor wasn't interested in my pitch. They ran a series on homelessness years ago. He doesn't want to cover it again. Says people want to read about happier stuff.”

  “There's always so many of them.”

  “More now that the economy's tanked.”

  “We run a few of them off now and then. They come up to customers with take home boxes and ask for their leftovers.”