Summer in the Invisible City

by Juliana Romano

  “People from places other than the city know stuff, too,” I say sincerely.

  Noah looks at me like I’ve spoken in gibberish and then he cracks up. He laughs so hard that I can’t help but laugh along, too, although I’m not totally clear on what’s funny.

  “You’re hilarious,” he says when he can speak again. He finishes his second beer in a big gulp. “Omigod. That was priceless.”

  —

  I couldn’t finish my second beer so Noah had it, and now we’re back outside and we’re drunk. The alcohol is making time collapse. The air is lava hot. The city is a volcano of color and noise. A woman pushes past me on the sidewalk, and I laugh. Why is she in such a hurry? Why is everyone so serious?

  “Being drunk during the day is really amazing,” I say.

  Noah snorts. “Well, maybe you will like college, after all.”

  “Why? Is that what college is like?” I ask.

  “No, I dunno,” he says. He starts walking across Second Avenue and I follow him. The alcohol makes it easier to not stop doing things. We’re hanging out. Stopping would be harder than not stopping. Talking is easier than not talking. Moving is easier than staying still.

  “School’s fine. Whatever. I’ve met some okay people, I guess. I took one class that was pretty good. But my best friends, and all my best memories, are still from here,” he says.

  I’m staring at Noah. He doesn’t seem drunk, just sad. When he talks about his best memories, I can’t help but wonder if he’s talking about me and him. Does he remember us? Maybe all this time I was just too stupid to realize he liked me back.

  “Hey,” he says, looking at me and smiling. “Don’t look so sad.”

  “I’m not sad,” I say.

  “You’re feeling better? That’s good,” he says. “You have one of those faces that always seems a little sad.”

  “Do I?”

  He’s looking at me again, and it makes me feel beautiful.

  Then, he resumes walking and I follow him, even though I don’t know where we are headed. Our bodies knock into each other a little, sweaty forearms, and I step on his heels by accident a few times, but it’s warm and easy, because we’re drunk.

  “I hate my father,” I say.

  Noah nods.

  “He made me feel so small,” I say. “And so stupid. Like I don’t know anything. He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know who I am.”

  Noah smiles approvingly. “Let it out.”

  “I. Hate. Allan,” I say, with so much conviction I’m almost yelling.

  Noah laughs.

  “He’s so full of himself,” I continue, talking right to Noah, as if he knows everything that’s happened. The words are coming so easily now. “He could disappear and I could never see him again, and I wouldn’t care. He’s nothing. He’s a washed-up old desperate loser with a snotty girlfriend and all they do is try be hip and smart. What’s worse than a sixty-year-old man trying to be hip?”

  “Damn,” Noah says. “That’s pretty real.”

  And my mom, I think. But the words freeze in my throat. I can’t vent about my mom. I can barely think the words, let alone whisper them. Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me you knew?

  “Hey, don’t cry,” Noah says gently. He pulls me toward him, sealing the gap between us with a hug.

  I didn’t realize I was crying, but I touch my face and it’s damp from tears. I must be very drunk to not know I’m crying. I’ve never been this drunk. I lean into Noah, at first to steady myself, but then something changes. I am suddenly aware of how close to him I am. How close to all the parts of him that are hidden in his clothes. I pull myself away from him and we look at each other. Everything is different: I’m not crying and he’s not laughing.

  “You’re good?” he asks, and his voice has none of that sarcasm in it. It’s a simple, quiet voice. It’s the voice he used that one night.

  —

  I follow behind Noah, looking up at his silhouette.

  If this isn’t fate, then what is? Today, on this cosmically bad day, it’s Noah who has swooped in to make me feel better.

  Sometimes life is a messy chaos, and sometimes it’s a figure eight, with all the points circling back to the center.

  Noah is leaning against a streetlight pole. Shade falls across his face. He waits for me to look at him. His eyes are magnets.

  “It’s so funny that we are hanging out right now,” I say.

  His eyes sparkle.

  “So funny,” he agrees. And then he steps toward me and kisses me. In broad daylight on a public street corner. His face is pressed against mine, holding me close to him tightly. Just like last time. This is what I’ve wanted. Noah. The one who could complete the circle of my mind. My brain goes momentarily blank and then fear seizes up inside of me and all I can think is SAM SAM SAM.

  I put my hands on Noah’s chest and push him away.

  He steps back, touches his lower lip with his hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, not sure what I mean, or what he’s apologizing for.

  “That was crazy. I just, you were looking at me like . . . and you’re so . . . I’m sorry, I know that’s not right,” he says.

  “No,” I say quickly. He’s leaving again. And even though I don’t want him to kiss me, I really really don’t want him to leave. “No. No. Don’t leave.”

  Noah looks at me crookedly. He looks ashamed and sorry and cute again. Maybe I do like him still. Maybe I just need a little more time to get used to him.

  “Let’s go somewhere,” he says. “Let’s go sit down. We’re too wasted to be walking around.”

  On Fifth Avenue, we sit on a bench in the shade with our backs to the park. It’s breezy and quiet. An old woman with a walker inches down the sidewalk across the street.

  I look at Noah. My thoughts keep swimming through the mess of everything and settling back on him.

  “Noah,” I say. “The Noah.”

  He looks at me sideways, maybe nervous. “Yeah?”

  “Do you remember?” I ask.

  He smiles lopsidedly. “Of course I do. Don’t be crazy.”

  “I mean, what happened. Do you remember?” I ask. “That night?”

  He shifts uncomfortably. Stares across the street then looks at me, giving me his best smile. He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. He says gently, “Don’t.”

  “Don’t what?” I ask.

  “Don’t make it weird,” he says.

  That makes me laugh. But not because it’s funny. More like, it makes me laugh because it makes me so mad. Then I stop laughing. I fold forward, resting my chest in my lap so my fingers graze the sidewalk.

  Noah puts a hand on my back.

  “I’m sorry if I said the wrong thing,” he says. “We’re here now, you know? It’s good to see you.”

  I sit back up, blood swishing around my head. My hands melting in my lap. I look at Noah. He has flecks of green in his eyes. Sweat forming around his hairline. He’s handsome. I know he’s handsome.

  I want to feel something. But all I can see when I look at him is just a regular person, not the magical Noah I’ve dreamed of. I can’t believe I let this person touch me. I can’t believe I longed to be around him.

  As if he can feel me shrink away, he takes my hand and massages it with both of his.

  I pull it away. “I should go.”

  “You’re too drunk to be alone. I’ll wait until you’ve sobered up,” Noah says. “We’ll just talk.”

  “I don’t even know you,” I say. “I can’t talk to you.”

  “Hey,” he says, flirty and sweet. “I think you’re amazing. I thought it back then and I think it now.”

  He pulls me toward him and I try to be glad that I’m finally hearing all the things I wanted to hear.

/>   Noah kisses me again and this time I let him. I lean into him. I climb up onto my knees on the bench and he holds me tight. We’re teenagers making out on a bench in the summer. This is perfect. This is Henri Cartier-Bresson. This is sunlight bleeding in my veins and alcohol fizzing in my brain. Izzy and Phaedra would be so jealous. Phaedra Bishop, the prettiest girl in the world, wants to kiss this boy. But how come I’m kissing Noah and I’m thinking about Phaedra?

  I go limp in Noah’s arms. Turn my head away. Force myself off of the bench with the slow painful effort of waking yourself up from a bad dream and walk away.

  Chapter 31

  In the stairwell up to my apartment, the walls warp and curve, and each step wobbles beneath my feet, as if I’m stepping on stones floating on a river. I wish I could become undrunk.

  “Hi, honey. My evening private canceled so I’m home early,” my mom says when I walk inside.

  I try to focus on her but my vision keeps distorting.

  “You’re not home,” I say. “You’re at work.”

  And then I’m sinking down onto the armchair by the window, trying to get as close to the air conditioner as possible. Air is good. Cold is good. I’m sweating everywhere.

  My mom’s hand is on my forehead.

  “What’s wrong? Are you—oh my God. Have you been drinking?”

  My mom grabs my shoulders. She’s trying to get me to stand, or sit up, or look at her.

  I open my eyes wide. There she is. All lies.

  “How could you?” I ask.

  My mom doesn’t understand; she just blinks.

  “You knew,” I say. I want to explain but I can’t find the words. All I can manage is, “You knew I was seeing him. You knew about his show.”

  My mom gives me a glass of water with ice cubes in it that bang around. I don’t know where it came from. When did she get it?

  “No,” I say, pushing the glass away. “Talk to me. Tell me why you did it.”

  “I can’t talk to you like this,” she says, and she doesn’t sound happy.

  “You never talk to me,” I tell her.

  And then I stand up to go to my room, but I don’t make it. I crumble, hitting my knees hard on the ground, and then my palms on the floor and I’m on all fours. And then I’m throwing up on the rug.

  —

  An hour later, I wake up lying on the floor of the bathroom, my head in my mom’s lap. She’s got a cold towel on my forehead. There’s a bottle of coconut water, her favorite kind, on the floor next to me. Next to that, a tray of melted ice cubes and a stack of crumbling saltines.

  I reach for the coconut water, but my hand is shaking too hard so I give up.

  “You’re awake? How do you feel?” my mom asks.

  “Better, I think,” I say. I remember throwing up until my insides were so empty it felt like twisting a rope. I remember resting my forehead on the cold porcelain of the toilet bowl, and it was the only relief in the world.

  I remember curling up on the tile floor and closing my eyes.

  Now, I’m sober and weak. The taste in my mouth is rancid.

  “I need to brush my teeth,” I say. And then I see that a strand of my hair that’s lying on the floor in front of me is waxy and bound together with throw up. So I add, “And shower.”

  My mom helps me sit up, and when she sees I can hold myself upright she nods.

  “Shower. We’ll talk after,” she says.

  And I can’t read her face because there are too many different codes written on it, spelling out a story that I can’t reconstruct.

  —

  After my shower, I feel a little better. When I go into my room, my curtains are open and I can see that the sky is only just getting dark. It’s seven thirty. Early. And I’ve already had the longest day of my life. I thought at seven thirty today I’d be walking home from Phaedra’s party with Allan, talking about my plans to go to IACA. That’s the life I’m supposed to be living. This, what’s happening, is just some accident. It’s a black hole I stumbled into and took hold of my life. I wish I could rewind and start the day over.

  When I’m dressed, my mom comes in.

  “That was quite an episode,” she says.

  “I know,” I say, eyes closed. And then I mutter, almost more to myself than to her, “I know, I know, I know.”

  My mom doesn’t respond, so I open my eyes.

  “That,” she says, pointing to the bathroom, “is absolutely not okay.”

  I groan. I lie down and put the pillow over my ears so I don’t have to listen.

  She crosses the room, yanks the pillow off, and throws it on the floor.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she demands.

  Now I sit up. “With me? What’s the matter with you?”

  My mom looks confused. “What are you saying?”

  “How could you do that to me?” I say, and I’m yelling now.

  She stares at me blankly. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “I saw Allan today. I know you know he’s here and that I’ve been seeing him. He told me you’ve been talking to him about me,” I blurt.

  “I’m sorry you found out that way,” she says innocently. “But I thought if you wanted me to know, you would have told me yourself. It’s pretty clear you wanted me to stay out of it.”

  “Exactly!” I hiss. “I wanted you to stay out of it. You just need everything to be all about you. You hated that I was seeing Allan without you so you had to meddle. You had to come between us.”

  My mom doesn’t speak at first, and when she does, her voice is thin and wiry. “That’s what you think?”

  “You can tell me whatever you want. But the fact is, you kept me and Allan apart my whole life and now we have no relationship. I hope you’re happy.”

  My mom sits down at my desk chair. She says calmly, “You’re angry.”

  “I hate you,” I reply. I watch her to see if she reacts, but she doesn’t. “I wish I’d been raised by Allan and never even met you.”

  “That’s okay,” she says. “You can scream at me. I know everything is a mess.”

  I glare at her and wait for her to continue.

  “I should have told you I was talking to Allan. But what happens between you and Allan is between the two of you,” she says. “You have your own relationship, totally separate from my relationships with you both.”

  “What, so now you and Allan have a relationship?” I scoff. “I thought you never spoke.”

  “We don’t,” she says, sounding exhausted. “We barely do.”

  “Well I don’t have a relationship with him either,” I tell her. “I don’t want anything to do with him ever.”

  “What happened?” she asks.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” I say. “I can’t trust you. You betrayed me.”

  My mom stands up.

  “I’m going,” she says. “I’m here when you want to talk. But I’m not going to force you to share anything with me. You’re seventeen. You’re practically an adult.”

  “So what?” I say. “So I can’t get upset because I’m seventeen?”

  “Sure you can,” she says. “You can act like a baby forever if you want to. But you’re old enough to choose who you want to be.”

  “Just go,” I mutter.

  She opens the door and then she pauses and turns to look at me. There’s something hurt and tired in her eyes that makes me suddenly want to retract all the mean things I just said.

  “I know you’re angry with me,” she says. “And I understand. I’m sorry if I made you feel betrayed. But I want you to know, it’s okay to be mad at him, too.”

  After she leaves, I turn off the lamp and lie in the semi-dark. It’s a dusky, dirty twilight, making everything look grainy. I close my eyes and dissolve into sleep.

  �
�

  I wake up when it’s dark out. I look at the time. Nine fifteen p.m. I have four missed calls from Sam. I’m about to call him back when he starts ringing again.

  “Hey, I was just about to call you,” I say.

  “Are you okay?” Sam asks. “I’ve been freaking out. I came downtown. I’m outside your house.”

  “Why? What are you talking about?” I ask.

  “Those voice mails, and that text, and then you just disappeared,” he says. “What happened to you today?”

  I groan, remembering that I called Sam twice before the armory. After that, I didn’t check my phone for hours.

  “I’m fine,” I tell him. “Today was just a huge disaster.”

  “Oh no,” he says. “I’m here. Want to take a walk and tell me about it?”

  I really don’t want to see Sam right now. Won’t he see my shameful day written across my face? But he came all the way downtown to see me. And it’s Sam. He makes things better. So I say, “Okay. Let me see if I can convince my mom.”

  —

  My mom is sitting in the living room reading a magazine when I emerge from my room. She doesn’t see me at first, and I hover in the doorway and watch her. I’m dreading what I have to do. I almost change my mind. But then I’d have to tell Sam that I can’t meet him, and I can’t stand the idea that he is only a hundred feet away and I wouldn’t get to see him.

  “Hi,” I announce awkwardly. “My friend Sam is here. Can I go get a frozen yogurt with him?”

  My mom slams her magazine down on the couch next to her. It seems like she wanted it to make a dramatic noise, but it lands with a whisper. “Absolutely not. You must be out of your mind.”

  “But . . .” I start. “I just really need to see him. It’s an emergency.”

  “An emergency?” she repeats. “Sadie, you’re not leaving this apartment. You came home drunk today,” she says. “Did you forget? Did you think I was going to forget?”

  I ignore her because I know her well enough to figure out what to do. I make a sad puppy-dog face and plead. “We’ll just sit on the stoop across the street. You can watch us the whole time. And I’ll be back inside in half an hour.”