Under My Skin

by Lisa Unger

  “You’re not even listening to me,” my mom says finally, grabbing my attention.

  “I am,” I lie. “Of course I am.”

  “You can come home, you know,” she says. “Whenever you want.”

  I find myself smiling. I’ve always known that, that I can go home. That my mom will tuck me in and make some amazing chicken soup. I could curl up in my old bed and stay there for as long as I needed to. I’ll never hear the end of it, but I can go home. That’s not what I want.

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  “You should listen to Layla,” my mother says. “She’s a sensible girl.” Unlike you, she doesn’t say and doesn’t have to—flighty, head-in-the-clouds. What was the word I heard her use that night? Fragile. Layla and I need to have a conversation about running her mouth off—especially to my mother.

  “I have to go,” I say. “Sorry. Love you. Bye.”

  “Poppy,” she says. Something in her tone stops me from ending the call. “Honey, you don’t sound like yourself.”

  I’m not myself, I want to say. I’ve never been further from the person I used to be.

  “I’m fine,” I say instead. “Really.”

  There’s that pregnant silence, so full of meaning between mothers and daughters.

  Then: “Remember, sweetie, no one knows you better than your mother does. Like it or not.”

  After we end the call, the phone rings again mere seconds later; I answer without looking at the screen.

  “What is it, Mom?”

  There’s a pause, then a throat clearing.

  “Poppy?” A male voice—deep, familiar.

  “Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t think you’d answer.” A quick glance at the caller ID reveals a number I don’t recognize.

  “It’s Noah,” he says in the awkward pause that follows.

  A rush of recognition, embarrassment. “Noah,” I repeat, biting back the urge to apologize again. I remember my conversation with Grayson, how I turned over the names and phone numbers of the people I’ve dated. Has Grayson been in touch? Is that why Noah’s calling? How embarrassing for both of us.

  Ben’s at the closed glass door, pointing at his wrist, which doesn’t have a watch on it. But I get his point. My next appointment.

  “This is not the way it works, right?” Noah says when I stay silent. He laughs a little. I like the sound of it, easy, throaty. “When someone doesn’t return your calls these days, you’re supposed to just drift away. Ghosting—that’s what they call it now, right?”

  “Um,” I say stupidly.

  “You’re not ready for anything real—you said so in your text. Which I also get. And you didn’t answer my last text. So, I should just disappear. I just...can’t stop thinking about you.”

  I don’t say anything, feel frozen. Grayson and I were just talking about this, about him. No one aggressive? he’d asked. Calling and calling? Showing up? Does this qualify?

  “Too stalker?” he says into my silence.

  “No,” I say. My heart’s fluttering a little. “Unless you are. Stalking me?”

  “Uh—”

  “Are you?”

  “What? Stalking you? No.” He sounds mortified.

  The man on the subway, the cracked picture of me and Jack, that drooping orchid blossom. The images flash rapid-fire.

  “Did you recently send me flowers?”

  Another pause where I think he may have hung up.

  “Did someone send you flowers?” he asks.

  I think about Noah, what he looked like. He was a big guy, muscles lean and developed from his work as a sculptor. I remember how he looked, lying there with his arms folded behind his head. But, no, he wasn’t hulking like the man I’d seen—or thought I saw. Noah and I had lain in bed and talked about people we’d lost. When he left his last message, he said he felt a connection. If I’m honest, I felt it, too. But I wasn’t looking for a connection, that wasn’t the point of my newfound “dating” life. I was looking for an escape, a doorway out of feeling.

  “My life is a little complicated right now.” It sounds short, dismissive.

  He lets out a breath. “Life’s always complicated, isn’t it?”

  Not this complicated, I want to tell him. “I guess you’re right,” I say instead. “But—”

  “How about just one more drink? Tonight?”

  Grayson’s warning bangs around my head: Be low risk for a couple of days, okay? Somehow in my memory it takes on the tone of a dare. You’re not my daddy, Detective Grayson.

  “Have you heard of place called Morpheus?” I ask.

  Another pause.

  “A club, right?” he answers finally. “On the Lower East Side.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Are you up for it?”

  It’s quiet again. A nightclub probably wasn’t what he had in mind.

  “Have you been there before?” he asks. His voice is masculine without being deep; there’s something soothing about it.

  “No,” I say, then add: “I don’t think so.”

  He’s going to make some excuse, beg off.

  Then, “Sure,” he says. “Why not?”

  12

  My dad had this shed in the backyard, big enough for his desk, his chair, shelves of engineering texts, stacks of magazines, boxes of I don’t even know what. My mother called it “The Junkyard” because it was a maze of broken things scattered and stacked throughout the space—old computers, ancient phones and appliances, boxes of wires, coaxial cables, parts of power tools.

  Tucked into the far corner, completely hidden from view, was a cot. My mother ruled the house—a spotless showroom of chintz and floral patterns, breezy draperies, plush carpets—but the dank and musty space, located at the end of a path through the trees belonged to my father and me. I used to lie on the cot and read, the bare rafters water-stained above me, my dad click-clacking on his keyboard, or leafing through the pages of some text. He was an aeronautical engineer who dreamed of building a robot.

  That dusty, dangerously cluttered old hut was hot in summer, freezing in winter. But there with my dad—reading, doing homework, talking about his robot, our conversation ebbing and flowing, rain sometimes leaking through the roof into a metal pot kept there for just that purpose—it was the favorite space of my childhood. Though my princess bedroom with its pink walls, four-poster bed, window seat, walls of books, toys, stuffed animals and dolls was the envy of all my friends, I never felt quite as if I could be there.

  That shed, my dad. They were my first subjects as a photographer. Him with his head bent over his notebooks, the way the light shone in through the milky window, him dozing with a robotics text on his lap, a tilting pile of broken parts. He let me take pictures of him in any state, ignoring me completely, like all the best subjects. My mother wouldn’t let me near her with my camera.

  Layla was my other favorite subject. She preened and vamped before my lens, loving every minute. But she was the most beautiful—as are we all—when she forgot about the camera. When she caught the photo bug, too, we learned together, my dad picking up the tab for classes at the local community college, renting darkroom time for us and shuttling us back and forth. Then I was her favorite subject.

  The girl I saw in the mirror was awkward—her nose too long, too many freckles, eyes too close together—something just off enough to never be quite pretty. Too tall. Shoulders too hunched. Stop slouching, Poppy! Flat-chested, breakout on my chin.

  I never recognized the person Layla saw through her lens, the one who turned up in the darkroom, dreamily appearing in a chemical bath. Someone lithe and dark, with sparkling blue eyes—lying in the grass, dreamy, or staring directly at the lens—serious or teasing, laughing or thoughtful.

  Maybe you can tell how someone feels about you by the image they capture, the moment they choose t
o snap the shutter. Layla loved me and thought I was beautiful, and so in her images, I was. Likewise, Jack’s photos.

  The photos I thumbed through this morning—the night we met, pictures he took of me in Riverside Park that afternoon he met me outside the gallery, a picture he snapped while I was reading, lounging on his bed after making love—that was a woman I’m sure only existed for him, with him. Our faces, our body language, the changing light of a room, every second is different than the one before or after. The photographer chooses one among the infinite. It’s both a lie, a trick of light, and an irrefutable truth.

  These thoughts tumble, mingling with Mac’s words about how maybe all we ever know of each other is a sliver, a fraction of the real person.

  “I need my space,” I say to Layla, who finally caught me on the phone. “I can’t stay with you forever, Layla. You have a life, a family.”

  “Not forever,” she says. “Just until we get this all figured out. And you are my family.”

  It’s true; Layla couldn’t be more my sister if we were biologically related.

  “I’ll think about it.” But I’m not going back there tonight. “And, hey, can you not call my mother and tell her everything about my life?”

  “I didn’t!” Her voice comes up an octave in a mockery of innocence. Then, “Well—she called me. Said she couldn’t reach you.”

  “Okay, regardless of who called who, she doesn’t need to know everything. And—PS—I am not hiring that security firm.”

  There’s a pause on the line where I think I’ve lost her. I am still in front of my computer, so on a whim I enter the name Elena into the search bar. A character from a television show, an animated heroine, a listing on a baby name sight. A Spanish variation of Helen, the name means bright, shining light.

  “Poppy.” Layla’s voice snaps me back. I hate that tone, the “be reasonable” tone.

  “Layla.” I try to mimic it back for her, but she’s the undisputed master of the mom voice. “This is not a discussion.”

  Another pause, then an annoyed “Fine. So, what are you going to do?”

  Ben, who has been hovering outside the door, finally pushes it open. “Your one o’clock is here. Like, in the lobby.”

  “Gotta go,” I say. “Call you later.”

  “Setting a place for you at the dinner table,” she says, her voice growing tinny as I move the phone away from my ear. “Carmelo’s picking you up at the office.”

  I end the call without commenting. Sink my head into my hands. What is the line between caring and controlling? What is the line between being foolish and stubborn, and being independent, take-charge? I try to tell Izzy when she longs for her imagined adulthood full of limitless freedoms that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Hang on to being the beloved, pampered kid that you are. In your grown-up life, there will be more questions than answers.

  Poor Ben looks like he’s about to lose it.

  “I need five minutes,” I tell him, stepping out of my office finally. “Then bring her into the conference room.”

  Fatigue tugs as I head down the hall. I am already thinking about that vial of pills. Is it too soon to take something else? Am I ready to start my new sober life? Uh, no. Clearly not.

  At the head of the long table, I open the file and read through the résumé there—a student at Parsons School of Design, a young woman looking for an internship. We’ve had a lot of students cycle through the agency, aspiring photographers, graphic artists, some business majors, looking for college credit and experience. It was a program Jack instituted and loved, believing that all aspiring artists needed to understand the business side of being a creative, and all people looking to be in the arts business needed to understand the creative personality. Ben was one of Jack’s picks; Maura was, too. Both started working for us when they were still in school and were offered jobs when they graduated.

  I scan through the information in front of me, skim predictably glowing letters of reference. After a few minutes, the door opens and a slim girl walks through, closes it behind her with a click. I take a deep breath, put on a smile.

  When I stand to offer my hand, she takes it shyly.

  “I’m Poppy Lang,” I say. “Welcome.”

  Her hand is cold, limp, which immediately puts me off. Her stare is strangely intense. Eyes dark pools in a fine landscape of caramel skin, set off by a mane of black hair wild around her face, cascading over her shoulders.

  She looks familiar. Where have I seen her before? She doesn’t say anything; maybe she’s nervous.

  I motion for her to take a seat, which she does, keeping those eyes on me. Okay. Weird. My prediction: this is going to be a short interview that doesn’t result in a callback. Silent and sullen are not good qualities in an agent. I glance through her class schedule, looking for some common ground.

  “Ah, I see you have Photography and Cinema with George Pitts,” I say. “He was one of my favorite professors.”

  Silence.

  When I look up, there’s a kind of stutter to the room, a hard wobble. The lights above issue an unpleasant buzz. The girl before me is covered in blood. Her face is bruised and swollen, a thick, viscous line of blood dripping from her mouth.

  “I knew your husband,” she says, her Latino accent thick.

  When she smiles, three of her teeth are missing.

  Lashed to the chair, a scream swollen and lodged in my throat, I roll back in fear and hit the wall hard behind me. Time, the room around me, pulls long, twists.

  “This is what he did to me,” she says, leaning closer to me. I’m pinned to my seat.

  I shake my head. “No.” Just a croak, barely a word at all.

  “Oh, yes,” she says. She rises. “You know it’s true.”

  Then she’s crawling across the table like a panther, her eyes filled with malice, her face twisted and hideous with rage. I am paralyzed, breathless. Please.

  There’s a hard knock on the door then. Another, louder. I want to scream but no sound comes. Then that hard stutter, like someone flipping the lights on and off. The knock comes again, the door swings open and Ben steps through. He stops in his tracks, his polite smile dropping.

  “Poppy,” he says. His brow creases into a worried frown. “Are you ready? For Ellen Rausch?”

  There’s no beaten, bloodied girl on the conference table. I am alone, a file open in front of me, the surface gleaming, empty.

  I swallow hard, try to orient myself. The room tilts, but I hold on. A young woman stands behind Ben. She’s pretty and bouncy, looking past him toward me with a wide smile. Get a grip, Poppy. For fuck’s sake, pull yourself together.

  “You okay?” Ben asks, moving in a little and shutting the door a bit behind him. Poor Ben, what must he think of me?

  “Yes,” I say, straightening up, slowing my breathing. “Of course. Send her in.”

  I plaster on a smile, rise unsteadily.

  “Mrs. Lang,” says the impossibly young girl as she strides over to shake my hand. She’s slim, dark-skinned with hazel eyes and an exuberant puff of inky curls. The fresh, high energy of youthful ambition comes off her like fairy dust. “I’m so excited to be here.”

  “Welcome, Ellen,” I say, sheer, white-knuckled willpower keeping that smile in place. There’s a siren in the back of my head. What’s wrong with me?

  The world is spinning as we talk about her classes, her passion for photography, her high GPA and her desire to learn about the business side of the industry. On another day, I would have taken pleasure in chatting with someone so young and bright. Jack would have loved her, too, her sincerity, her obvious enthusiasm.

  But I keep flashing on the bleeding girl, hearing her words: I knew your husband.

  I hope Ellen Rausch doesn’t notice my hands are shaking, that I don’t even want to look at her.

  13

  D
r. Nash squeezes me in that afternoon. I hate to leave the office again; it looks bad for me to be gone so often.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell Ben, packing up my laptop. Pictures of Layla and Mac, Jack, the kids, smile up at me from my desk, faces from another time in my life when things were normal and I was happy. Those times—weekends at Mac and Layla’s Adirondack house, afternoons in Central Park with the kids, days at Rockaway Beach—it’s another planet, a home world destroyed, no way back.

  “Don’t worry.” Ben moves in close, lowers his voice and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Everyone gets it, Poppy. I promise. You’ve been through hell and we have it covered.”

  He pulls me into a hug, and I hold on, grateful for him. Then I hustle out before I lose my grip completely.

  The truth is, no one really understands grief, or mental illness (that’s what this is, right?)—not unless they’ve grappled with these things personally. A year ago, I’m not sure I would have understood, either. I wouldn’t have understood how grief takes the floor out from under you. Or how the world can alter itself until it’s unrecognizable. I’m sorry, Jack. I wish I was stronger than this.

  As for our agency—his agency—I know that when no one is at the helm, the ship veers off course. I should be doing a better job for him, take better care of this thing we built together. But really, what choice is there? I am obviously losing my mind.

  On the street, every man looks like an assailant. Even the cabbie’s apathetic silence seems ominous as we snake uptown, traffic heavy, horns bleating. It’s hot again, tricky October edging toward winter but still clinging to summer. Rolling down the window lets in more hot air, and the city stench.

  Finally, in the embrace of Dr. Nash’s office, I feel myself start to calm. I am soothed by the cool, bright space, the nature photographs—a vista of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico, a great blue heron balancing on one slim leg in the Florida shoals, a house nestled in woods by a lake. My breathing comes easier; shoulders drop their tension. I tell her about the man on street, the orchid, my wild dreams, and finally about the bizarre event in the conference room. I can hardly look at her when I’m done. It all sounds so crazy. She’s definitely going to have me committed, right?