So recently, I’d begun to suspect a different reason for the resentment. Observing her over the past two years, I’d noticed certain things about Veronica—how she blushed when any man addressed her directly; how she’d never once mentioned a boyfriend, or an ex-boyfriend, or even a date, but talked about the lives of her parents (with whom she lived) with an attention to detail that bordered on obsessive; how (according to one of her assistants) she’d nearly swallowed her own tongue when a girl in her class asked her what a penis was. At thirty-five, Veronica Bliss was still a virgin. I was pretty sure she resented most of us who weren’t, but, since my classroom was right next to hers, I was the most convenient target.
“Wasn’t that actor you used to date named Nate Gundersen?” she asked.
My stomach flopped over like an empty hot water bottle. “You have an excellent memory.”
“Well, my memory was jogged a little bit this morning.” Veronica’s smile grew to chilling proportions as she opened the New York Post she’d been clutching and placed it on the desk in front of me. “No wonder you were so upset when he dumped you. He’s dreamy.”
Just in case I didn’t notice the forty-eight-point type or the breathtakingly shirtless photo of Nate, Veronica had outlined the article—which graced the front page of the entertainment section—in red Magic Marker. “Nate Gundersen,” the headline read. “TV’s Newest, Hottest Heartthrob.”
Veronica said, “You can keep the paper if you like.”
I grabbed the bathroom key out of my desk and ran down the hall. Fortunately, I made it into the girls’ room before I threw up.
The hangover wasn’t Yale’s fault. Neither was the strange image that continued to haunt my brain; nor the sadistic virgin with whom I worked; nor the news—courtesy of the sadistic virgin and her overzealous Magic Marker—that Nate hadn’t become suicidal or penniless or even fat since I’d left him, but quite the opposite. He’d become a soap star—Live and Let Live’s Lucas, a.k.a. TV’s Newest, Hottest Heartthrob in forty-eight-point type.
The one thing I could pin on Yale, however, was the agonizing string of syllables I was now forced to wrap my acid-tasting tongue around: “I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jennyanydots/The curtain-cord she likes to wind and tie it into sailor knots.”
I’ll tell you what I’d like to tie into sailor knots . . . Five months earlier, Yale—whose then-boyfriend was understudying the part of Rum Tum Tugger—had snagged free matinee tickets for me and my class to one of the last performances of Cats. I was never much of a musical theater fan to begin with, and I found the concept of grown men and women frisking around a stage in whiskers and spandex disturbing. But I’d figured the kids would love the show, and my instincts had proven correct. During recess, several of them regularly reenacted scenes, leaping around the jungle gym like crazed, miniature theater majors. Ever since I’d told them that Cats was based on a book, they requested Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats at least three times a week for story hour. (The book was also courtesy of Yale, who’d been only too happy to donate it to my class after Rum Tum gave him the heave-ho.)
Terry thought it was marvelous that the kids enjoyed T. S. Eliot. So did I, most of the time. But on this particular day, with my hollow stomach sucking up against my spine and my mind tied into tighter sailor knots than any Gumbie Cat could ever hope to create, “The Wasteland” would’ve been far more appropriate reading material.
“She sits upon the windowsill. Or anything that’s smooth or flat/She sits and sits and sits and . . .”
“Ms. Leiffer, read slower!” shouted Kendrick, who was not heckling but making a legitimate request. I was rushing through the poem, in the hopes of speeding up story hour and the day and my life. If I had to say Gumbie Cat one more time I thought I might scream. And, as Daniel knew all too well, that wasn’t a sound any child should hear.
“Louder please!” said Nancy.
“I want a cat,” said Daniel.
“I am a cat,” said Serena, licking her palm. “See?”
“No, you’re not,” Nancy protested.
“Am so. A Gumbie Cat.”
“Gumbie Cats smell.”
“Okay, listen up! You guys settle down or else I close the book.”
“Sorry, Ms. Leiffer,” Serena said.
“That’s . . . all right. I’m just a little tired today, kids.” I am a hungover, dried-up, gay-bar-frequenting preschool teacher. And Nate is a heartthrob.
I cleared my throat, forced a smile. “She sits and sits and sits and sits and . . .”
Since I’d more or less memorized this poem, I kept reciting it—as slowly as I could—as my eyes meandered from the book to my watch and back again.
On the facing page, over the title of “Growltiger’s Last Stand,” was a handwritten word. It hadn’t been there on Valentine’s Day. I knew this because I’d read “Growltiger’s Last Stand” on Valentine’s Day after the cops had left and, faint as the word was, I would have noticed it.
“And that’s what makes a Gumbie Cat,” I said.
As I paused between stanzas, I squinted to make out the four ghostly letters—letters written by an adult, with a pencil that had barely touched the page.
I must’ve stretched out the pause a little too long because Daniel said, “What’s the matter?” In an attempt to appear calm, I opened my mouth to say, “Nothing,” but my breath caught in my throat and no sound came out.
The word on the page was hide.
“Peekaboo, teach!”
Yale’s voice, achingly cheerful. The kids had finally left for the day and I’d been cleaning the room up slowly, avoiding the Book of Practical Cats, which sat, sprawled open, at the center of my desk. I looked up and saw Yale standing in the classroom with a poorly concealed grin and cheeks that were flushed for reasons other than the cold weather. “I’m in love and I’m taking you out to lunch!”
Oh, Christ almighty. “I still have some stuff to do around here . . .”
“I’ll wait.”
I collected a few unused scraps of modeling clay and rolled them into a ball.
“Need help?” Yale asked.
“No.”
“So . . . why don’t I tell you who I’m in love with.”
I tightened the lids on the jars of water-soluble paint and lined them up on their long, plastic tray as he launched into a monologue about his significant-other-of-one-night-so-far. The guy was a waiter named Peter Steele, but beyond that information, it was just a bunch of words to me, irrelevant as the brand names on the sides of the jars.
“. . . took him home from an after-hours bar, Sam. I haven’t taken anyone home from an after-hours bar since they arrested Jeffrey Dahmer . . .”
I placed the paint tray on top of the VCR, wheeled the entertainment system into the closet.
“But, God, he was flawless . . .”
I shoved the ball of modeling clay into its container, closed the lid, stuck it on a closet shelf.
“. . . Drop-dead, soul-swallowing gorgeous as a fucking Venetian opera. Don’t look at me like that. You would’ve done the exact same thing.”
I closed the closet door. Bolted the three locks. Click, click, click.
“Cat got your tongue?”
I looked at him. “You have no idea what a poor choice of words that is,” I said, and showed him the T. S. Eliot book.
Yale squinted at the word. “Who wrote that?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Okay . . . Let’s retrace your steps. Exactly where have you and the book been lately?”
After reading “Growltiger’s Last Stand” at story hour on Valentine’s Day, I’d marked the page and stuck it into my shoulder bag. I often did this with Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats as it was so frequently in demand and—replaceable though it was—a potentially catastrophic disappointment for my class if stolen.
Since I hadn’t removed it from the bag until today’s story hour, the book had been everywhere I’d been: the University
Diner, where I’d had lunch, the box office, the abandoned construction site, the Happy Face deli, where I’d bought the food that had sustained me through the weekend, Great White and, finally, back to Sunny Side again.
I told him about all of it—except the abandoned construction site.
After I was through, Yale strode up to my desk and leaned against it like a TV attorney interrogating a witness. “What about Miss Jean Brodie?”
“Veronica? Not her style. Too subtle.”
“That principal of yours is a little odd.”
“Terry would never go into a woman’s purse, and he’d never deface a book, even with a pencil. Besides, I think he’s sort of scared of me.”
“Why?”
“Because I screamed at a cop.”
“Excuse me?”
“Terry didn’t write hide in my book.”
Yale paced a full circle around my desk, then reversed direction.
“Yale, you’re bringing back my hangover. Why don’t you just forget—”
“I’ve got it.”
“Oh, really.”
He rested both elbows on the edge of my desk and smiled. “The message wasn’t directed at you.”
“Then who was it directed at, Nancy Drew?”
“Your bag, of course.” Yale explained: Since no one in the box office disliked me enough to write hide in my book, and since I wasn’t in the deli long enough for someone to remove it from my bag, write in it and put it back without my knowledge, the culprit was obviously “some nasty queen at Great White.” And not just any nasty queen. A nasty queen with a passionate aesthetic sensibility.
“That’s just so obviously it,” he said.
“Someone is writing threatening notes to my bag?”
“You take that piece of hippie hell into Great White and someone is going to tell you to hide it. Probably thought he was doing you a favor.”
“But—”
“You were bombed, right?”
“Well, yeah I guess.”
“Bombed enough to turn your back on the bag for a few minutes?”
“Maybe.”
“And was there anything else in aforementioned bag, besides aforementioned dog-eared page of aforementioned book that someone with a need to express himself regarding aforementioned desecration of natural fiber could’ve written on?”
“I don’t think so.”
He smacked his hand against the desk. “I rest my case.”
I looked at Yale, tried to smile. I hadn’t told him about the man at the river. And, as I remembered the head with its pencily shadow of hair, turning to reveal those impossible eyes—eyes that could refract light and burn holes through flesh, eyes without pupils—another thought came to me: Maybe I’m the one who wrote the word. “We should go,” I said.
“First, tell me about the cop you screamed at.”
I sighed. “He was here for community outreach, but he didn’t have on a uniform and he showed up early. I saw his gun and—”
“Oh, Sam.”
“He was nice about it. Let’s get out of here. I’ve had enough of these fucking primary colors.”
Yale clasped my shoulder and gave me a look that was much too concerned for my liking. I half expected him to put a hand on my forehead and check my temperature. “You need to relax.” Relax, princess. “You drink too much coffee.” Stop moving.
“I happen to enjoy coffee!”
“Sorry. Just trying to help.”
“I . . . know you are.”
Yale searched my eyes with his own. It wasn’t the first time I noticed how sweet and pure a blue they were—like a baby’s blanket, a few cottony white flecks sprinkled around the pupils. Yale was three years older than me and smoked and drank and stayed up all night on a regular basis, but he still had the eyes of a child—bright and uncorrupted, no lines in the delicate skin around them. He said, “There’s something else bothering you, isn’t there?” and I heard myself reply, “If I told you that I think I might be going crazy, would you take me seriously?”
“Sam.”
“Um . . . Okay then . . .” My mouth was dry, and I was beginning to sweat. I felt like an actor at an audition, only my monologue was unmemorized, unrehearsed. I returned my eyes to Yale’s, let them rest there a while, and realized how lucky his scene partners were. They probably never had stage fright. “I know this is going to sound weird,” I began, “but have you ever heard of Dead Man’s Fingers?”
When I was through with the story, Yale stared at me, his expression unreadable. Please don’t accuse me of being on drugs, I started to say. He cleared his throat. “So?”
“So . . . what?”
“So . . . what do you think was in the ice chest?”
“You mean you don’t think I hallucinated it?”
“Of course not.”
“But . . . the eyes . . .”
“Sam, I moved to New York eight years ago. Since then, I’ve seen a woman with no nose knitting a scarf on the nine train, a man—actually the head, arms and chest of a man—propelling himself down Fifth Avenue on a hand-made gurney, a guy with three balls, Shell Clarion . . . I’ll buy you saw a man with mirror eyes.”
“But he disappeared—more than once.”
“Did you see him fade into thin air?”
“No, but . . .”
“Maybe you were just so afraid, you thought you heard him following you, even though he wasn’t. Did you ever consider that?”
Actually, I hadn’t considered that.
“You’re too damn superstitious is the problem here,” said Yale. “I mean, Dead Man’s Fingers. Puh-lease.” I felt a palpable relief, starting at the base of my neck and spreading throughout the rest of my body like clear, warm water—until another thought cut off the flow.
“So, if the couple was real,” I said, “what if something horrible was in the ice chest? I mean, it wasn’t big enough to hold a dead body. But what about . . . body parts?”
“I highly doubt it. A young couple? Dressed up like that? In broad daylight? On Valentine’s Day? They could’ve been getting rid of any number of things—trash, battery acid, old clothes, maybe evidence of an affair, maybe even the ice chest itself. It could’ve had fish or cheese in it for too long. You can’t get rotten cheese smell out of anything, ever.”
“Old clothes?”
“Well, why not? Besides, don’t you think a man with eyes like that would try to hide them if he were disposing of body parts in broad daylight? I mean, sunglasses are not hard to come by.”
“What about the note in my book?”
“A design queen with too much time on his hands, and nothing to write on but a children’s book. You really should hide that purse, though. It’s a point well taken, if you ask me . . .”
“Oh, wait a minute. There is something else he could have written on.” I fished around in my bag. “So. A guy with three balls.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t catch that.”
“I’m assuming it’s not Peter Steele.”
“No, wiseass,” he said. “It was someone I met years ago, at the Spike.”
“I don’t recall you ever mentioning a gentleman friend with three testicles.”
“Oh, hmmm . . . I suppose it just didn’t come up. ‘Hello, Sam, and how was your evening? Watched a documentary on PBS? That’s nice. I fucked a guy with an extra marble in his pouch.’ ”
“I would’ve told you.”
Yale rolled his eyes. “He was a student at Hunter. Adorable. Not as handsome as Peter, though. Of course no one’s as handsome as Peter. Michelangelo’s David is not as handsome as Peter. I can’t wait for you to meet him, I’m taking you to his restaurant for lunch, and I swear you are just going to die when you see him, and not just because he’s the most beautiful man you will ever see in your life. There’s something else about him—something about his voice . . . and the way he uses his eyes. You know what I mean?”
Yale waited for a response, but I didn’t have one to offer. I was t
oo busy staring at a different set of eyes—Sydney’s eyes on the valentine headshot. Someone had drawn X’s over them, pressing down hard with a pencil.
5
Magic Mirrors
Since it was reasonably close to Sunny Side, we decided to walk to Ruby Redd’s Brewing Company, the touristy West Village restaurant where Peter Steele worked. Yale wanted us both to have at least an hour to stare at the Most Beautiful Man You Will Ever See in Your Life before we were due in at the Space, so we were running a little late on his clock. My friend moved fast to begin with, and since the eleven inches he had on me was almost all leg, I was jogging to keep up.
I hadn’t shown Yale the defaced valentine. I figured he’d probably make up more excuses about crazy bar queens and I wasn’t ready to hear them, wasn’t ready to talk about it at all.
“So what exactly does Peter look like?”
Yale responded with dependable creativity. And as he described the waiter’s “lethal” abs, “ergonomic” bone structure and lips “that would be considered a delicacy in most countries,” I did my best to picture him. But, hard as I tried, my mind replaced each of Yale’s images with these: mirrored eyes staring at the back of my head, a man’s hand clutching a pencil.
It was a good thing I was no longer hungover, because the interior of Ruby Redd’s Brewing Company was nearly more overpowering than my classroom.
“There’s so much red,” I said, staring at all of it. Red-and-white checkered tablecloths, tiny bunches of red carnations at the center of every table in red glass vases, brass ceiling lamps with red Tiffany-style shades, red vinyl booths facing red wooden chairs. “I mean, okay, Ruby Redd’s. We get the point. It’s like The Shining in here.”
The waiters wore red-and-white checkered bow ties that matched the tablecloths and red butchers’ aprons that matched nearly everything else. All of them looked cute enough to be on a TV commercial, though none was exactly ready for the Galleria dell’Accademia.
Hide Your Eyes Page 5
