Still Life

by Christa Parrish

  The clerk snickers. “For reals?”

  “I need to make a call.”

  “Why?”

  “Taxi.”

  Evan decides this is an emergency. He’ll take a cab to Trent and pay by credit card. His father can ground him when the statement comes.

  The clerk, about twenty, ears gauged but otherwise quite boring looking with his short, lawyer hair and Cumby’s polo shirt, squinches his face. “Aren’t you Howie’s kid sister’s boyfriend?”

  “We’re just friends,” Evan says.

  “Yeah, right.” The clerk offers his cell phone. “Here.”

  “Um, phone book?”

  “Duh, Internet?” The guy mumbles something else, snatches the phone back, and fiddles with the screen. It rings, the image of a face flashing, and he answers it. “Your ears burning, dude? I was just talking about you . . . your sister’s boyfriend is here . . . I don’t know. That skinny, blond kid she’s always with . . . dude, that explains some stuff, he’s trying to get a cab to come get him . . . yeah, hold it.” He tosses the phone at Evan. “Your lady wants you.”

  “Hello?” Evan asks.

  “Your parents are flipping out, Evan,” Grace says. “They’ve called me, like, eight times already. What is going on?”

  “I can’t explain now.”

  “At least come hide here. Howard can come get you.”

  “That will last until, oh, I don’t know, your mom sees me?”

  “Well, then at least tell me why you need a taxi?”

  “Grace.”

  “Tell me or I’ll call your parents and let them know where you are.”

  Evan sighs. “I need to get to Trent.”

  “What?” she shouts, and he holds the phone from his ear. “And you’re taking a cab? Do you know how much that will cost?”

  “No.”

  His response silences her, and then she says, “Don’t move. I’ll call you back.”

  She doesn’t call, but shows up twenty minutes later while he hides behind the snack racks, making himself small each time the door opens, string of sleigh bells jingling in announcement. Fortunately, with the snow, the only people coming in are the few whose tanks are too low to make it home from work without pumping a couple bucks of gas, and those desperate for cigarettes. When Grace sees him peering out from behind the Funyuns, she grabs his arm and drags him outside, into the backseat of her stepbrother’s car.

  “Evan.” She says it as if she’s his mother.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Well, we told my mom we were going out looking for you. But really I’m saving your butt.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  “Right. Because taking a cab in the middle of the night to some city you’ve been to once is a great idea. Do you know how much it will cost? Like six hundred dollars.”

  “It’s not even seven. And how would you know?”

  “You can figure out the fare online. You don’t have that kind of money.”

  “Dad’s emergency credit card.” Howard steers the car onto the highway. “Where are we going?”

  “There is a Greyhound that leaves from the Bayton station at quarter to eight. It will put you in Trent just after eleven, if the roads aren’t too bad.” She looks at him. “Are you sure you don’t want to do this in the morning?”

  He shakes his head.

  “I didn’t think so. You have that look.”

  “What look?”

  “Your stubborn one.” She takes his hand onto her lap, pinches the tip of each finger. “You can’t tell me what’s going on?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, then at least say thank you.”

  “Thank you,” Evan says, obliging.

  “You’re welcome.” She pries open his fingers and matches her palm to his.

  The snow continues, flapping toward the windshield like a swarm of frozen, white-winged moths. Howard changes lanes, moving from behind a plow. The adrenaline dissipates, lulled away by time and mile markers. Evan’s head throbs, deep inside, at the ends of his ear canals. He should have waited. Julian Goetz’s wife won’t let some strange teenager into her home at midnight, not if she has any sense at all. And yet, he can’t not go. He’s pulled by an invisible cord radiating from his solar plexus, tugging, tugging, urging him to look this woman in the face and beg forgiveness for his mother’s sins.

  The tire of the car catches the rut on the shoulder as Howard pulls off the exit, the grooves intended as a safety, a way to wake sleeping drivers should they drift off the pavement. He sees the bus station, lit like Christmas, like hope, glass and neon and fluorescent bulbs attracting those beginning their travels, repelling those at journey’s end. Grace presses money into his hand. “A loan, you hear me?”

  Evan counts it. One hundred dollars. “Where did—I can’t—”

  “Birthday money. And yeah, you can. You’ll be able to pay me back when you turn sixteen next month. It’s a gold mine, really.”

  “Grace,” he begins.

  “Yeah, yeah, and all that. Just go.”

  He kisses her cheek, dry and soft the way he imagines it, her skin yielding to the pressure of his lips.

  “Hurry up, Romeo,” Howard says. “Bus leaves in five.”

  Evan stuffs the cash in his jeans and hooks his backpack over his arm, rushes into the tiny bus station, and buys his ticket without wait; there’s no line at the window. He settles onto the Greyhound, in the same seat he occupied when he and Grace went to the memorial. No one sits in her place.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  He’s surprised to find Julian Goetz’s address listed—the terminating bus station has a pay phone and phone book—since Evan imagines him a celebrity. But he supposes the photographer isn’t the kind of celebrity people go searching for, not like rock stars or supermodels or athletes. Two taxis wait outside the depot, and he pays the fare to Goetz’s apartment because he doesn’t know where it is, is too tired to read a map or walk or come up with some other plan to get there. It isn’t far and costs twenty-seven dollars. The cabbie doesn’t wait.

  Evan rings the doorbell of the brownstone, hands in his jacket pockets, less for warmth and more to have some way to keep from fidgeting, from picking the scabs from his knuckles. He bounces to stay warm and then rings the bell again.

  No answer.

  Again, he realizes he didn’t plan well. It’s nearly midnight, temperatures hovering a few degrees above freezing. The snow has stopped, for now, but his feet are soaked and his nose drips despite all his sniffling, and he’s a skinny white kid in a city where he knows no one. He passed an all-night laundry a few blocks back, already filled with people and with a few dryers spinning. He couldn’t find his way back to the bus station if he wanted to.

  Why didn’t he listen to Grace and leave in the morning?

  “Dumb, dumb, dumb,” he mutters.

  He pushes the letter slot open and peers in, spots a scattering of envelopes on the floor, a few catalogs and magazines. A postcard. The home is dark, except for a small nightlight plugged into a low outlet near the foot of the stairs.

  “Dude’s dead, man,” Evan hears, and quickly stands. A kid in jeans and a black ski cap rolls a snowball in his bare hands. He nods back across the street. “My ma saw you from the window. Told me to go tell you how it is.”

  “I was looking for his wife.”

  “Nobody ain’t seen her in days. She ain’t dead in there, though.” He rolls his hand toward his wrist and holds it there, as if it’s crippled, and flails his arms in big, awkward circles. “The horses lady checked it all out. Told my ma to call if we seen her.”

  Evan doesn’t know if he’s confused from cold and hunger and illness, or because he can’t understand how this kid speaks.

  “Horses? I’m not—”

  “See where that plow just turned up the hill? That’s Burnett. Go up there something like a mile and find the purple building. Big ol’ plum right there touching the street. Probably lo
ok black in this light. Some picture something place. You’ll find her.” He waggles both his wrist bones toward Evan, hands tucked down, arms stiff as a black-and-white movie’s Frankenstein monster. Then the kid skids across the slushy street and into his apartment building.

  Evan has no choice but to walk. He stays in the street, most vehicles safely tucked away due to the storm and the time, following the salty tracks of the plow. If a car happens to come up behind him, he jumps onto the curb, where feet have trampled a thin path through the snow, but most of the sidewalk is still piled high with the stuff. Had he worn over-the-calf socks, he would have tucked his jeans into them by now, to keep the crystalline white shards from sneaking up there and stinging his legs. But, again, anger doesn’t make for the best premeditation and his socks are the ankle kind, his favorite kind, offering no warmth beneath his wet pants.

  He huddles deeper into his coat. No longer behind the tall downtown buildings, the wind cuts over him, burning his face and slinking down his collar. Finally he sees the place the kid told him of, set at an accidental angle, one corner of brick so close to the street a car parked at the curb can smash the passenger-side door into it, if someone opens too quickly. Evan doesn’t see a light, but some of the windows shimmer warmly, as if lamps may burn in the belly of the building and spill light outward. He hopes that’s the case, anyway.

  He knocks, at first with his knuckles on the glass front door, the gold lettering advertising hours of business long ended. He rotates his hand, pounding now with the side of his fist, then an open palm. Let someone be here. And there is, a dark-haired woman in leggings and an oversized brown cardigan, sleeves flopping over her hands.

  “What’s going on?” she calls. “Are you hurt?”

  “No. Please. Someone sent me here from Julian Goetz’s building.”

  The woman crosses to the door, pushes her face to the glass so she can see Evan more clearly. Swears softly and then twists the deadbolt between her two covered hands. She turns the knob the same way. “It’s after midnight.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Evan steps inside, shivering.

  She swears again. “I thought my husband was being mugged, or worse.” She looks at him with a lopsided, alien gaze, one eye soft with oil, lashes short and clean, the other shadowed with lines and smears of peacock colors and lengtheners. “You’re not from around here.”

  “I came from Wynson. It’s about, well, a lot of miles north. I need to—” As he speaks, the woman raises her arms, shakes them so the cuffs of her sweater fall back over her wrists. She has no hands; she uses the stubbed ends of her arms to bunch the sleeves over her elbows. “No. Way. It’s you. Still Life with Invisible Hands.”

  For a second, there’s no response from the woman, and then she laughs. “Seriously, kid?”

  “I can’t believe it. I mean, I have number seven framed in my room.”

  “Now I know you’re harmless.” She jerks her head toward the open door behind a narrow Scandinavian-styled table. “Come on.”

  They pass through a framing workshop, and then up the enclosed stairway to an apartment, into an open, eat-in kitchen where Evan can see straight through to the living room and the television, tuned to some home decorating show. The woman motions to the mat and says, “Shoes.”

  Evan wriggles his sneakers from his feet, like loosening teeth, and then peels back his socks, exposing white, puckered skin. He rummages around his backpack, finds a dry pair and puts them on, rubbing his hands over the cotton to warm his toes. He removes his coat and zips a sweatshirt over the one he wears already, keeps his hat on. “I’m Evan.” He coughs. His throat burns like road rash.

  “Hortense. Sit. You want hot chocolate?”

  He nods. “Thanks.”

  She moves through the kitchen, hooking the teakettle over one wrist, bumping up the faucet with the other, turning knobs, opening drawers. She slips a packet of cocoa mix across the table to him, and a spoon. “I’d make it up for you, but I’m not sure you’d want me ripping it open with my teeth.”

  “It’s fine. I mean, either way. I mean, I don’t—”

  “I know what you mean.” She pours the water into a mug and brings it to him. “Food too?”

  He didn’t have lunch or dinner today. “Uh, no, I’m good.”

  Hortense sits in the chair next to him. “Look, kid—”

  “Evan.”

  “Evan. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “I need to talk to Julian Goetz’s wife. It’s important.”

  “You run away?”

  “No.”

  She lifts an eyebrow.

  “Not exactly,” he says.

  She stares.

  “Sorta.”

  Nodding, Hortense sighs and drums lightly on the table with her wrist bones. “Okay, k—Evan. How old are you?”

  “Fifteen,” and when she gives him the one-eyebrow look again, he says, “Really. I’m just small.”

  “Yeah,” she says, touching the nape of her neck with the ends of both arms, arching her spine and rolling her head backwards. “Drink your cocoa.”

  She leaves the table, and he dumps the chocolate powder into the mug, stirs, picking up the miniscule marshmallows that fell onto the table and tossing them into his mouth instead of the water. They crunch, flattening into his molars; he scoops them out with the tip of his tongue and swallows.

  Hortense returns, both eyes bare and matching, her face flushed, the tips of hair around her ears damp. She squats, clatters in a low cabinet, removing a canary-yellow pot, which she fills with water and sets on a burner to boil. She manages to pry open a box of capellini and slide it into the pot. When the pasta bends, she presses it beneath the water with a plastic ladle, drops on a lid.

  “I don’t know where Ada is,” she says finally. “I haven’t heard from her in a couple weeks.”

  “I really, really need to talk to her.”

  “Want to tell me what about?”

  Evan seals his mouth in a lipless crease.

  “Right. Well, then, you can stay here tonight and we’ll figure this out in the morning.”

  “You’re not going to call the police on me, are you?”

  “No. Not yet.” She stirs the pasta, lifting a tangle of limp strands from the water. Then she turns off the stove top and spills the pot’s contents into a waiting colander, positioned already in the sink. He’s transfixed on her arms, absorbed at her movements, so like all others who have made this meal before her and yet entirely unfamiliar.

  She uses her knees as a vice, tightening them around a jar of marinara, and screws off the lid. She doesn’t bother to heat the sauce, cold from the refrigerator, swirling it into the nests of angel hair she already scooped onto two plates. She gives the first dish to Evan. “I know you’re hungry.”

  She joins him with her own portion, her fork held in place in the center of her plate with one wrist, and she uses her other to spin the utensil, a dancer pirouetting with its partner. He can hardly keep his own pasta on the tines, always a sloppy twister, his fine motor skills underdeveloped from his time in the hospital; years of occupational therapy made it possible for him to button his own shirt and write half-legibly. Food falls into his lap, staining his sweatshirt. Hortense pushes back from the table, reaches for the drawer she minutes ago took the flatware from. She catches something red between her elbows and drops it in front of him.

  A battery-operated noodle-twirling fork.

  “Push the button on the side,” Hortense says. “You need it more than I do.”

  He does. The head turns around and around, whirring like a dentist’s drill. “Um. Wow.”

  Hortense laughs. “The person who bought it for me thought they were being helpful.”

  Evan thinks of the dozens of stuffed animals he’d received, most in the first seven, eight years of his life, each with some sort of heart-themed focus—hearts sewn onto the chest, buttoned into the chest, with Band-Aids, zipper scars opening to hearts or half-hearts, leftover Valen
tine bears with heart-shaped noses or paws, hearts clutched by a kitten or puppy or bunny rabbit and sometimes with added sutures by the giver. His mother bagged most of them for donation so some child in the cardiac unit at Children’s could add another heart animal to her own overabundant collection. As a toddler he cared nothing for the gifts, but as he grew he learned to do as his mother did, smile and thank the giver, despite growing disappointment at his mountain of plush and puzzles and coloring books—sedentary things—while his brother unwrapped the rowdy toys. One Christmas, Aunt Jennifer gave Bryce fifty dollars for new sneakers while Katherine was instructed to use Evan’s money for something that wouldn’t make him stop breathing. His aunt must have forgotten most nine-year-olds could read; Evan found the card in his mother’s purse while searching for gum.

  Well-meaning was a phrase he heard over and over, and he believed it. “People want to do something. They can’t fix it, but want to show they care. So they give out of their helplessness.” Which is why he came home with piles of handmade pillowcases, and blankets, and crochet slippers after each hospital stay, his mother said. Which is why she gave money to Mended Little Hearts and organized bowl-a-thons for other sick children. She felt the same helplessness.

  Everyone does.

  He picks up the mechanical fork, presses the button, overfills the tines with pasta, and sticks it in his mouth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Evan wakes and hears the low murmurs of the strangers on the other side of the wall, the voices warm and buzzing, a comfort to know he’s not alone in this unfamiliar place. Soothing, like air conditioners and running showers and vacuums. For so long noises scared him. How many flat, heavy cakes did his family eat because he cowered at even the idea of his mother running the electric mixer? His parents blamed the hospital, the constant beeping and whooshing, and waited patiently for him to outgrow his fear. He doesn’t remember when white noise switched from foe to friend; like so many other aspects of growing up, one day the world turns upside down.

  He yawns, stretches his arms above his head, the blankets slipping to his waist. His scars greet him as he looks down, one flat, whitish line from manubrium sterni to xiphoid process, and eight puckered stars. He has another thin scratch of a scar under his right armpit extending onto his back, which is barely noticeable now, and most days he pays no attention to any of them; even though he sees them, they don’t register as anything other than a normal part of his body. He doesn’t stare in the mirror and think, Oh, those are scars from my multiple open-heart surgeries for a fatal-unless-corrected and still-most-likely-life-shortening heart defect. In fact, he rarely remembers it at all. He takes his pills and wheezes with excessive exertion and checks his oxygen saturations at least weekly, but it’s become his life. What he does. What is necessary. The reasons behind it don’t matter much.