“I think so; she didn’t say goodbye yet, sweetie.” Mom was moving as quickly as she ever did, back toward her bedroom. She didn’t like to be away from her own bed for longer than absolutely necessary. “I’ve got to take my pills now.”
“Okay, Mom,” Mary said, noticing the line of bright yellow light beneath Ellen’s door that meant her sister was in there. “Thanks.”
And would it kill you to say happy birthday?
Apparently it would. The bedroom door swung shut, the noise echoing in Mary’s still-aching head, and she was alone in the hallway. She turned to Ellen’s door, pushed it open without knocking and propelled herself inside.
“MY GOD, GIRL!” ELLEN stared at her in surprise, smiling with her eyes wide. “What the hell happened to you?”
“That,” Mary said, nodding weakly as she collapsed into Ellen’s desk chair, “is definitely the million-dollar question.”
“But what happened?” Ellen was covering her mouth, obviously trying not to laugh. This was Ellen Shayne every single morning before school: facedown on the bed, her feet resting on her pillow, her head at the foot of the bed, thrift-store book in her hands, pinky in her mouth and her secondhand laptop open next to her for intellectual blogging. The laptop had been slowly crumbling to pieces, but she managed to hold it together with gaffer’s tape and vintage David Bowie stickers. For some reason, Ellen had recently switched from listening to those unbearable old Kate Bush albums to David Bowie. Even her musical tastes leaned toward ancient history. “Nobody had any idea where you were! I had the usual suspects”—Ellen’s cute term for Mary’s friends—“all calling me, all evening. Amy Twersky called; Joon Park called….” Ellen ticked them off on her fingers. It’s almost like they’re her friends, Mary thought bemusedly. Ellen was so used to fielding Mary’s calls, she’d developed her own rapport with the popular seniors Mary hung out with (even though they absolutely weren’t Ellen’s type). “Even Patrick couldn’t find you.”
So I wasn’t with any of them, Mary realized. Who was I with?
“They each called twice, as usual. You should see yourself,” Ellen went on. “You look like—I don’t even know what you look like.”
“I know, I know. You wouldn’t believe it. I was—”
“Where were you?”
“At Crate and Barrel—I woke up in one of the damned display beds at Crate and Barrel. Listen, can you help me figure out—”
Ellen was laughing uncontrollably. “I’m sorry,” she told Mary, shaking her head. “I’m sorry; I don’t mean to laugh. But that’s—I mean, that’s pretty spectacular even for you. A display bed? Why are you dressed like that?”
“I borrowed this from some cleaning lady. Listen, Ellie-belle, this is serious—I can’t figure out what happened to me. I mean, I can’t remember any of—”
“‘Borrowed’ like you’ll return it, or Mary Shayne—borrowed?”
Mary shook her head impatiently—which was a mistake, given the lingering, painful fog inside her skull. “We had dinner with Mom at Eduardo’s; I remember that part. But after that”—she spread her hands helplessly—“who knows.”
“Poor Mary.” Ellen pouted, slapping her laptop shut. When Ellen did that, when she made a face like that, Mary could see the ghost outline of her sister’s attractiveness hidden behind her glasses and boring hair. She’s not as pretty as I am, Mary thought—she tended to dispense with false modesty inside the privacy of her own mind—but she’s definitely got something, if she only let herself realize it.
Mary really didn’t get it. The only crushes her sister ever had were on yellowing history books that she’d found in the dollar bin at the Strand bookstore. The only clothes she ever wore were solid-colored hoodies and cords from the Gap. It was a shame, too, because Ellie could have been pretty if she’d just been willing to try the tiniest bit. She actually looked a little like Mary, but with her dark hair always cut in a shapeless bob (Ellen called it practical), and her refusal to wear makeup (Ellen called it naturale), it was hard to see the similarity.
It wasn’t the first time Mary had thought that, but she’d learned not to bring it up. Ellen didn’t react well to discussions of her appearance. She didn’t think it was important. She wanted to be judged as who she was, damn it, she kept telling Mary, not by what she looked like. The hidden rebuke was hard to miss, but Mary politely ignored it. Ellen wasn’t interested in boys or clothes or anything like that, and Mary had stopped trying to change her mind.
The only boy Ellen ever spent time with was Dylan something, a quiet intellectual type she’d met at—big shocker—a book fair near Columbia University. On those few occasions when Mary had seen Scruffy Dylan in the kitchen, he had been so painfully quiet that she’d thought he was an exchange student. Mary had repeatedly explained to Ellen that having a male best friend—even if Scruffy Dylan was, technically, an Ivy League freshman—was the absolute kiss of death if she wanted to land a guy, but Ellen didn’t care, since she wasn’t in the market for a boyfriend.
“Okay, let’s be systematic,” Ellen began wearily. “You remember Eduardo’s—”
“Yeah.” Mary’s memory focused, now that she was facing Ellie again. “And Mom left first, right? She got into one of her—”
“We talked about Dad.” Ellen put it matter-of-factly, as she always did, and Mary had to force herself to remember that her sister wasn’t upsetting her on purpose—she just didn’t seem to realize how uninterested Mary was in that endless, ongoing argument. “You remember? Mom said that she wished he was here to see you turn seventeen, and you couldn’t—”
“All right, all right.” And can we drop it? Morton Shayne had been in the ground for ten years, but his absence was always a fresh topic for her mother and sister at precisely the moments that Mary was trying to have a good time. “I didn’t say the right solemn thing and Mom got all sad and left. Can we not—”
“Whatever, whatever.” Ellen waved a hand impatiently. “Sorry—it is what it is. Anyway we stayed another ten minutes, and then you had somewhere to go.”
“Where?” Mary tried to concentrate, but she couldn’t recall anything about what her motives or whims had been—besides, of course, getting away. “Did I say where I was going? Did anyone call me?”
Ellen shook her head serenely. “You got in a cab and took off. You were in some kind of hurry, but you didn’t say anything else.”
“Ellie, this is serious—I’m freaked that I can’t remember what I did.”
“Oh, you’re fine—come on,” Ellen said dismissively. The lamplight gleamed off her glasses as she checked her watch. “Nothing happened—you met some people and killed some brain cells and—”
“Ellie—”
“—partied somewhere until you did a face-plant and stumbled home in the morning just like a million other nights. Honestly, get over it.”
“Mary …? Ellen …?”
Both sisters’ shoulders slumped, in unison.
Even though their mother’s voice, muffled by two closed bedroom doors, was barely audible, it still cut through to Mary’s ears like a surgical scalpel. That voice, with the double shot of eternal tragedy and helplessness, like she was calling her daughters’ names through mosquito netting as she lay dying in a Ugandan leper colony.
“Mary-fairy? Ellie-belle? Can you come here?”
Every morning was exactly the same. Before the girls left for school, rain or shine, Mom had to have her broncho-dilating drugs for her emphysema and a glass of diluted orange juice (two parts Tropicana, one part Fiji). She needed it all brought to her in bed, followed by her pack of Virginia Slims from the dresser and her antidepressants and mood stabilizers for the bipolar disorder and her OxyContin and B12 for the chronic fatigue syndrome. It had been the same nearly every day for a decade—for so long that Mary could barely remember what her mother had been like before, when Dad was still alive. It was like she had been a different person altogether.
Ellen and Mary stared at each other, hopelessl
y.
“Can you take this one?” Mary asked.
Ellen gave her a nasty smile. “What’s it worth to you?”
“Come on, Elle! Look at me! It’s already like eight o’clock and I’ve got to take a shower and figure—”
“It’s only seven-forty-five.”
“—out what to wear. I will buy you a pony, I will steal you a new laptop, I will do your dishes for a month….”
And you don’t really mind, she added silently. It was true. Ellen obviously got some kind of codependent satisfaction from taking care of Mom. If Ellen ended up doing it more often, Mary had determined, it had to be because, on some level, she wanted to; it made up for not having a boyfriend to take care of.
Not that Mary would have ever said that to Ellen.
“Ellie? Mary-fairy?” Mary heard Mom’s stricken voice, that patented deathbed voice, calling for them again. “I need you, honey….”
“Please, please, please,” Mary chanted, gazing yearningly at her sister. “You’re already dressed! I’ve got to change, I’ve got the worst hangover in the history of America, I’ve got a Shama test I haven’t even studied for—”
“And it’s your birthday.”
“What?”
Ellen was smiling at her, gently, sweetly, but her eyes were flat and expressionless behind her glasses. “What’d you think—I forgot?”
Mary hadn’t thought that Ellen had forgotten. But hearing her mention it, Mary felt a familiar wave of anxiety passing over her. My birthday, she thought, with a sinking feeling. All the attention, all the praise … all the pressure to be perfect, to give everyone the little bit of me they need. All the energy it took to play the part—to be Mary Shayne for another day—was going to be amped up double, triple, today. Gorgeous! Bold! Raven-haired! Stylish without trying, cynical without being too dark, smart without being intimidating, funny without pissing anybody off, sociable but unapproachable … all those qualities she had to effortlessly exude, all the responsibilities of being the senior class’s very own superstar for another day. And she hadn’t even begun to figure out what to wear, which was a major struggle in and of itself. It was the kind of thing Ellen would never understand.
“You don’t have to do the dishes—that’s silly,” Ellen said. “But there’s one thing you can do for me today.”
“Anything,” Mary pleaded desperately. “Anything, I swear.”
But the desperation was an act—Mary was already relaxing. Ellen was going to do it; she was going to take care of Mom and let Mary off the hook. Mary could tell.
“What I want you to do”—Ellen had leaned crazily to one side and was reaching down for her canvas book bag, on the book-cluttered floor beside her bed—“is have a wonderful birthday.”
Mary stared at Ellen, who held out a small object—something wrapped in a pretty cloud of bright purple tissue paper with a gold ribbon. A birthday present.
“Where are you …?” Mom called plaintively.
“Go ahead,” Ellen said. “Take it. I’ll totally handle Mom; don’t worry about it. I’ve got three free periods anyway—I was going to skip homeroom and chill. You go ahead and I’ll see you at school.”
“Oh, Ellen …” Mary lunged over and grabbed her sister, pulling her into a bear hug. It should have lasted only a few seconds, but Mary found herself not wanting to let go. “Ellie-belle, you are a goddess.”
“Yuck!” Ellen’s voice was muffled by Mary’s crazy, matted hair as she firmly hugged back. “You smell awful, girl. Hurry up and take a shower while I do Mom.”
“Thank you,” Mary whispered, giving Ellen a final squeeze before letting go. “Thank you.”
“Here,” Ellen said awkwardly, pressing the gift into Mary’s hand. “Now, come on—stop wasting time. You’re seventeen—go out there and seize the day.”
“You’re a goddess—truly,” Mary repeated, rising to her feet. One part of her mind was already scanning through her wardrobe, facing the terrifying challenge of figuring out what to wear. “You’re sure you’re okay with this?”
Ellen smiled serenely. “Of course I am, dear sister. Now get out of here.”
2
9:06 A.M.
WALKING SOUTH DOWN PARK Avenue under the pale white sky, right thumb beneath the faded strap of her familiar book bag, Mary tried to tell herself that she felt better—that everything was back to normal.
It almost worked.
She definitely looked better—but then, that wasn’t saying much. She had probably never looked worse than the crazed, polyester-and-tennis-shoes-clad vagrant she’d been just ninety minutes before, climbing out of the taxicab (and, as expected, facing a $24.99 fare—before tip—that she had to pay for with the Crate and Barrel cleaning lady’s twenty-dollar bill and the sweetest, most apologetic smile she could muster). After a three-minute power shower and a few minutes at the mirror, cleansing her poreless vanilla skin and blowing out her shoulder-length jet-black hair and applying Givenchy Illicit Raspberry to her full lips and Shu Uemura Basic around her ice-blue eyes, she’d begun to feel almost human again. The steam had been billowing from the Shaynes’ tiny bathroom as Mary riffled through her overstuffed closet full of size zeroes, impatiently hurling useless couture across her hatefully cramped bedroom. The discarded tops and trousers and dresses on their store hangers cascaded loudly against the thin, cracking wall, while behind that wall, Ellen was ministering to Mom—Mary could hear their muted voices and the clinking of glasses as Ellen struggled to get the orange juice mixture just right.
Finding something to wear hadn’t been easy. All the clothes were wrong: the silver Badgley Mischka dress from Amy was too much; the floral Nela dress that Joon bought her at the Bendel preview party was too pretty; the Dior shirts from that sample sale were utterly ridiculous and needed to be burned in some sort of voodoo bonfire. Mary tugged down more hangers, scanning each outfit within milliseconds, asking the same embarrassing question over and over—the question she had secretly asked herself every morning and every night out for the past three years: What would you wear if you were Mary Shayne?
She never asked it out loud because she knew what Amy and Joon would say if they heard it: “What do you mean, if you were Mary Shayne? You are Mary Shayne.” They just didn’t seem to get it. There was no Mary Shayne—there was just this skinny, wet-haired girl who happened to have been born pretty, standing in her last pair of clean white panties and a black Victoria’s Secret bra that she’d dug out of the middle of the hamper and sifting anxiously through un-returned loaner dresses in her musty closet.
The worst of the hangover seemed to have washed away with the sweat and dried blood that had spun down the shower drain beneath her feet. You met some people and killed some brain cells and partied somewhere, Ellen had said, dismissing all her fear, all her confusion about the night before. Mary tried to believe it. Whatever had happened, she was determined not to let it ruin her birthday. The shower felt like it had cleansed her completely, and she vowed not to worry anymore—especially since she had to concern herself with the far more pressing issue of what to wear to school.
The outfit had to be birthday presentable without drawing attention. It couldn’t be too dressy or it might convey the promise of a late-night rager to the sex-crazed seniors, but it couldn’t be a Strokes T-shirt and some get-away-from-me sweatpants or it might draw a totally different kind of attention. She didn’t want anyone asking, “What’s wrong with Mary today?” She couldn’t have anyone thinking there was anything remotely unusual about this birthday—that was essential. She’d finally settled on a black FCUK tee, True Religion jeans from Patrick, black leather Frye boots and her black Michael Kors trench. Another minute and a half to snag a banana and swap in her spare BlackBerry battery, and she was gone.
For the next hour—as she’d done once a week, without fail, all senior year—Mary tried to restore her sanity. Her first class on Fridays was a free period, and using that precious hour as her own private time was practically the
only thing that got her through the end of the week and into the weekend. She’d seen an old movie called Breakfast at Tiffany’s once and fallen in love with it (and with Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, the luminous, vulnerable, adorable, perfect main character). The movie’s title wasn’t hard to figure out, since the opening scene showed Holly standing in front of the perfect limestone facade of Tiffany & Co. on Fifth Avenue (in a perfect black gown she was obviously still wearing from the night before), eating a danish and drinking from a paper cup of delicatessen coffee while looking in the famous jeweler’s windows at the diamonds on display. Later in the movie, Holly explained how good those windows made her feel, and Mary understood exactly.
Ever since then—all senior year—Mary had spent her Friday mornings the same way: after getting off the crosstown bus, she would buy a Starbucks cappuccino and wander down Madison Avenue for the next hour, looking at the clothes in the fashionable store windows and making her peace with the universe. She had never tried to explain it to anyone (except once, to Ellen, who, predictably, sympathized without really understanding), but her solitary, peaceful, Friday-morning Breakfast at Tiffany’s routine actually kept her sane. She even found herself humming “Moon River” under her breath, like in the movie, as she gazed through the plate glass at the tall, skinny, perfect mannequins in their perfect clothes, their lovely, sculpted cheekbones catching the morning light, radiating serenity and self-confidence and perfection that Mary imagined she could soak up like a recharging battery, preparing herself for the hours and days to come.
7 Souls Page 3
