Have You Met Nora?

by Nicole Blades

  “It’s not about what I want, Nora. It’s about what you deserve.”

  “Look.” Nora softened everything: her eyes, her voice, her back, the muscles in her neck. “I get it, all right? What I did, getting you in trouble like that, it was shitty. No, it was fucked up. And I’m sorry. Really.” She took a long breath. “But we were seventeen, Dawn. Ten years ago is ten years ago. We came out of all that okay—for the most part.” She giggled and gave Dawn a half smile, the one that set her green eyes to their brightest. It was the sweet, teasing grin that she would set loose on unprepared men and women alike, who would invariably bend her way. Fisher was helpless to this particular beam, transmuted into melted butter before her eyes.

  Not with Dawn.

  Nora’s allure and golden dust fell flat to the uneven sidewalk around Dawn’s feet.

  “Except it’s not all okay. And ten years ago feels like ten minutes ago in my book.” Dawn released her gate lean and stood up straight. “You don’t get it, do you?” She huffed and glanced at the skies. “You ruined. My. Life,” she said, punctuating each word with a jabbed finger into the heated air between them. “Destroyed. And then ran away like some weak bitch.” She shook her head and huffed again. “I’ve been looking for you for years. Each time I think I’ve let go for good, moved away from all of it enough that I can start to live a life, it comes back to me, like some fucking boomerang to the face. Start looking all over again. And then, one random, nothing day”—she laughed deep in her throat—“I look up and there you are, in black and white in the goddamn newspaper. One rich white dude was getting sued by some other rich white dude, who turned out to be your rich white dude. And watch you: hanging off his arm with your snake bag and your serious face, and I couldn’t believe. I found the yeti! Right here in New York City, my new, clean-slate home. What are the chances? Shiiitt. And now you want to try to bench me?” A slanted grin went wide across Dawn’s face. “I just got in the game.”

  An ocean of sick roiled in Nora’s stomach. She could feel her heart beating in her ears, her neck throbbing and tongue going mossy. This was it: the house engulfing in flames and she had no choice but to jump from the roof to her death. She didn’t want to collapse in front of Dawn, but her knees were soft and her head spinning. Nora carefully scanned the street behind Dawn, tracing an exit strategy. The truth had become too big, too unwieldy and harrowing to leash and walk it through her life. She didn’t want to run again, but Ghetto Dawn had left her with no alternative. Standing outside the imposing home of her soon-to-be mother-in-law with a small, but superb team of prominent, exceedingly wealthy women inside waiting to greet her, Nora knew this was the biggest stage on which to trip and fall. Trusting Dawn to play by the rules she herself had set out was asking too much, Nora thought. What if she decided to spill the truth anyway, no matter how closely Nora followed the pretense?

  “Don’t do this,” Nora said, the words scratching their way out of her mouth.

  “What? Bitch, it is entirely too late for all of that. You’re wasting everybody’s time, and we’re mad late as it is. Let’s get on with it.”

  “How do I know . . .”

  “What are you mumbling?” Dawn said, annoyed.

  Nora cleared her throat and finally looked up. “How do I know you’re going to hold up your end? How do I know you’re not going to fuck me once we clear the door?”

  Dawn sighed. “You don’t. You’re going to have to trust me.”

  Nora shook her head and took a few steps back. She checked over Dawn’s shoulder, scoping out the street again.

  “All right, look,” Dawn said, and gripped Nora rough by the elbow. “If we go in right now”—she rolled her eyes—“I’ll stick to the long-lost BFF bullshit. But I swear to God, if you take even one more step away from me and try to bounce, it’s a fucking wrap. Feel me?”

  With her words steadily clogging her throat—colluding to choke her to death—Nora could only narrow her eyes at Dawn and nod, stiff and targeted like a headbutt.

  “Good,” Dawn said, letting loose her grip on Nora, leaving a hand hovering by the elbow. “Now, pull out that smile and get the twinkle poppin’ in them green eyes and let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 13

  They walked through the gate and up the first set of steps in a slow-moving procession. Nora kept sneaking looks at Dawn’s hand balancing in the air, ready to grab at her if she dared to veer even an inch off course. This is how a hostage must feel, Nora thought, as Dawn nudged her to pick up the pace. All that was missing to make this scene in the thriller complete was Dawn’s gun, hidden beneath a draped jacket, pointed directly at Nora’s left kidney. She shook her head to try to rid her mind of the movie scenes. Real life was proving horrifying enough. Nora wanted to vomit; she also wanted to let her knees buckle and lay herself down on the cool concrete. The trapped animal feeling returned, and now there was no question about what would happen next: She wouldn’t gnaw off the snared tail or paw. Nora knew that she would give in, submit, let the pain from her lesions take over and just wait for death.

  When they reached the building’s oversize front door, Dawn eased up her fire breathing and gave Nora a bit of space. “Play it right,” she said, and motioned with her head for Nora to go in first.

  The main doorman greeted them both at the formal entrance and showed them to the private elevator. He pressed the button to the floor they needed to go to and bowed to them ever so slightly, tipping his pretend hat, as the doors closed.

  “This is fancy,” Dawn said, looking over at Nora leaning on the other side of the cab. “I can see why you want to be up in this mix so bad.”

  Nora said nothing and kept her eyes trained on the backlit onyx elevator panels behind Dawn. They were pretty, she thought, each panel with its own special veining pattern. The effect—an amber glow throughout the elevator cab—seemed more potent and regenerated to Nora’s eyes now than ever before. She noticed how the light of it bounced off of Dawn’s deep brown skin, making it radiant and beautiful. Nora found herself staring at Dawn, her coldhearted enemy, and admiring her. The ding let her know that the smooth elevator ride was over—and so was her life, as she knew it.

  The doors opened to a bright parlor, and a waft of hyacinth filled Nora’s nose. She recognized the scent anywhere, because of her middle name and also because of how much her mother loved the way the flower smelled. It was actually the impetus for the one time Nora ever remembered her mother splurging on something for herself. It was one of the last of their annual Mother’s Day brunches. After church, as usual, Nora and her mother would go for special breakfast at the lavish Café de Paris at the Ritz Carlton. Her mother had dressed up for the event, beyond her usual Sunday best, donning her thick gold bangles, linked chain, and sparkly clip-on earrings. Her ears had been pierced when she was a child back in Barbados, but she had started wearing clip-ons a few years after immigrating to Canada. She told Nora that she noticed all of the most glamorous women on TV, especially those who played roles in the “stories,” wore clip-on earrings, and she liked how they would slip them off when it came time to talk on the phone. “Them is real finessers, all of them,” Nora’s mother would say about the soap stars nearly every time she watched.

  This breakfast tradition involved Geo driving them from church to the restaurant (Nora’s mother as always sat up front with him.). Her mother considered it the height of luxury—and laziness, if you wanted to hear the truth—to be chauffeured around this way, having someone wait outside in a car for you like it’s a horse and carriage. She would always have to be talked into it, assured by Geo himself that it was not an inconvenience. But this one time, this last time, she didn’t seem too troubled about having Geo wait on them. After the church service, Nora’s mother even lingered around afterward in the rec room with the other congregants sipping coffee, tea, and juice and nibbling homemade butter cookies. She took her time at the restaurant, too. Ordering more than usual, and only taking a few, nothing bites of everything. And though
the day was about honoring and celebrating mothers, Mona still insisted on paying for the two of them. “You ain’t working nowhere, Ra-Ra,” she said when Nora cringed when the check was placed between them. “You are my gift,” she told her daughter. “Pay me a compliment, if you want to pay something.”

  After the breakfast, after the third cup of tea, and it was time to go, Nora’s mother asked Geo if he wouldn’t mind making one more stop before home. She needed to pick up something at The Bay, she said. It was a small, expensive bottle of perfume that smelled of hyacinth and gardenias.

  “It cost more than it should,” her mother said, as they got ready for bed in their basement later that evening. “But in life, sometimes you do things to make you happy, no matter the cost, even if it’s just for the one day. Always remember I said so.”

  There were tears brimming in her eyes. Nora figured she was just tired, sleepy—she had been so easily spent those last few months. She didn’t give it another thought, not until thirty-eight days later when her mother was dead and in the ground. It clicked then, and it was too late. The night after the funeral, Nora made sure to wrap the tiny bottle of perfume in a padded envelope and slide it into her box with the other keepsakes from her terrible, truncated, Montreal life.

  Lady Beaumont’s secondary butler met Nora at the elevator doors; his face registered something that looked like a smile. “Welcome, Miss Mackenzie and Miss . . .” The butler’s eyes drifted over to Dawn.

  “Nwad,” Dawn said, smiling and dipping her head to him.

  “Very well, Miss N—”

  “First-name basis works fine,” she interrupted. “Just Nwad.”

  Plainly uncomfortable with the informality, the butler furrowed his brows and folded his already thin lips. “Very well, Miss Nwad. Welcome.” He turned his attention back to Nora. “Lady Beaumont has been eagerly awaiting your arrival.”

  “Great. Same here,” Dawn said, looking between the butler and Nora, amused.

  “Oh, this is my friend from school. High school,” Nora said, trying to temper the rising awkwardness. “And we just . . . ran into each other recently. It’s all very exciting.”

  “Indeed,” the butler said, barely raising his brows and nodding. “If you’d like to leave any personal items with me,” he said, gesturing to their purses. Dawn clutched at hers tight and glared at the butler. “Or you may hold on to them on your own and follow me to the ballroom.” He spun sharply on his heel and started his stiff-back glide deeper into the house.

  “The ballroom? Oh, I’m into this,” Dawn whispered into the back of Nora’s head. “Could’ve done without the purse-snatcher routine, though. Better wayfinding system needed, STAT.”

  “Shut. Up,” Nora said through the side of her tight, plastered-on smile.

  “He can’t hear shit,” she said, again into the back of Nora’s head, but louder.

  Nora shot her an icy stare.

  “Oh, relax,” Dawn sighed, and rolled her eyes. “That’s the only way this is going to be any fun.”

  There was nothing fun about any of this, Nora thought and shook her head. She checked to see if the butler was paying any mind to the murmuring commotion behind him.

  He wasn’t.

  They entered the ballroom. It was opulent: swathed in a muted green silk, the perfectly balanced satin curtains that honored the right flecks of deep colors knotted into the Savonnerie carpet, and all of it illuminated by the French chandelier hanging in the center of the home’s most elaborate room. Nora caught the wide-eyed look on Dawn’s face. She remembered having a similar expression sweeping her own face when she first saw the room. She had to actively work at not staring up at the walls and that chandelier and try to appear unruffled, breathing easy through her nose instead of loud through her open mouth.

  The butler disappeared into the drapes or into thin air, Nora couldn’t tell, and she and Dawn were left standing in the bright glare of all the room’s eyes on them. The women, nearly all of them bony and creased with their unnaturally flaxen hair stiff and tall or dark, sleek, and brushed back with streaks of white-gray, were dressed to perfection in limited variations of the same outfit: rich-colored, elaborately patterned, cropped blazers over simply detailed, high-necked shift dresses with sensible shoes that cost more than a cross-country airline ticket. And everywhere, pearls the size of mothballs and shimmering diamonds in gold battled for your attention.

  “Nora,” Lady Eleanor called out in her light, honeyed voice that she pushed through a clenched jaw. She had her arms already extended and hands reaching for Nora’s from clear across the room. “Welcome, welcome.” She connected with Nora’s hands and squeezed them lightly in hers, then pulled Nora in for a kiss on both cheeks. Nora liked that the pecks actually landed soft on her face, real contact, not the flighty air kisses that everyone else in her world relied on. The kisses felt like home, like the pleasant two-cheeked ones from Montreal that harmless strangers and friends alike dispensed when they’d encounter you on the street corner and at front doors for entrances and exits. Nora leaned into the embrace and tried to inhale Lady Eleanor’s signature fragrance, but the hyacinth was still tickling her nose.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” Lady Eleanor said, smiling. She pulled back from the hug and her eyes fell on Dawn standing just behind Nora. “And you brought your work collaborator with you, then?”

  “Oh, no,” Nora said, forcing a chuckle. “This is”—she struggled to say the name, it sounded ridiculous and fake—“Nwad . . .”

  “Roo-Kayes. Nwad Bea Roos-Kayes,” Dawn said, and gave the older woman her hand. “Nora can’t seem to remember my new married name.”

  “Right,” Nora said. “It’s all very new to me.”

  Lady Eleanor’s grin went wider as the handshake ended. “Well, how lovely that you could join us.”

  “Yes, this is kind of a surprise, and I apologize for not letting your staff know that she would be tagging along. It was rather last minute. Actually, we just ran into each other a few days ago after not seeing one another for ten years.”

  “My, my,” Lady Eleanor said, her voice filled with wonder.

  “Again, my apologies about this. It’s inconsiderate, I know,” Nora said. “And I’m sorry.”

  “Nonsense. No apology needed, dear.” She touched Nora’s forearm and squeezed it. “Any friend is a friend, isn’t that right?”

  “Thanks for having me,” Dawn said, looking around at some of the other faces in the room. “Thank you all. This is . . . nice.”

  Nora tucked her lips into themselves. It was taking everything not to roll her eyes or scream or punch Dawn in the neck.

  “May we get you something to drink?” Lady Eleanor said, moving her thin arm out, a beck to the closest server. “Sparkling water, coffee, tea? There are also delightful cocktails, if you so choose.”

  Nora tilted her head and opened her mouth to answer the kind offer, but Dawn’s voice broke in. “That would be great. A cocktail for lunch sounds like old times, doesn’t it, buddy?” Dawn said, and nudged Nora’s side. “It’s like we got transported back to high school, right?” Nora’s eyebrows yanked themselves to her forehead and she felt the flutter in her stomach start to inch up her throat. Dawn busted out in a hollow laugh. “I’m just kidding!” she said, looking around the room of old women. “There was no underaged drinking at our school. We were all very good girls. Right, Nora?”

  “Of course,” Nora said, and gritted her teeth at Dawn in a tense smile. “But that was then, as they say. And we could probably gossip forever about those old high school days.” She noticed the older women hobbling over to them, interested. She had hooked them and continued to pull. “Let’s get back to the now, why don’t we?” Nora faded the nosy circle to the background and set her glare directly on Dawn. “Why don’t you share with all of us a little bit about what you do now? I had asked you before, when we had coffee the other day, but then we got distracted by I don’t know what—talking about that geography teacher we a
ll had crushes on, Mr. Jarrett?” Soft, polite laughter ballooned out around her. Nora had been in rooms like this before and knew exactly how to work them. She turned her charm levels up a few more notches. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say it’s almost as if you’re trying to keep your new life a secret,” Nora said, chuckling and smiling more naturally. She turned back to the women. “Dawn was always particularly untalented at keeping secrets.”

  “That sounds like our Tilly,” said one of the ladies with the tallest, whitest hair. “We all know she couldn’t hold a secret even if it had handles.” The women all laughed, a feathery, sprinkle of a laugh, and nodded.

  “May she rest,” another woman said, prompting the others to shake their heads, their laughter going listless.

  “In the spirit of the late great Tilly Montgomery,” Nora said, and opened her hand to Dawn, gesturing for her to take the imaginary stage before them, “do tell.” More of the women moved toward them, closing in the sloppy circle. Most of them looked earnest and curious, taking in Dawn from head (especially) to toe. Some looked on with cardboard faces and pursed lips, seemingly unconvinced whether they should place their consideration anywhere near Dawn. “From the little you did tell me,” Nora continued, “it sounds pretty fascinating.” She signaled to one of the servers moving around the room in their artful waltz, and in a stage whisper told him, “I’ll have some tea after all. No sugar, no cream, no honey. A bit of lemon. Thank you.” She looked over at Dawn—her eyes were slightly narrowed at Nora. “And my good friend here will have . . . Nwad, would you like some tea, too, before you get started?”

  “Just coffee,” Dawn said. Her face was suddenly serious.

  It was the meekest Nora had seen Dawn so far. She knew it was a big chance, giving Dawn the floor, but looking at her now, it felt like a big gain. Turning the spotlight back on Dawn was the first sign of leverage, and Nora wanted to play it through. She was also intrigued: Would Dawn let any of her own real story spill out? What happened to her after she got expelled in high school? And how did she find her way underneath Nora’s skin again?