Have You Met Nora?

by Nicole Blades

  “Why . . . why would you do that?” Nora felt the tremble in her chin. She could smell the fury on Dawn’s breath.

  “Why do you keep asking questions that you already know the answer to? I don’t have time to play these slow games with you. I’ve got to get myself ready for the big day. And you should be pleased. Now you’ll have some family—someone from home—sitting on your side of the aisle.” Dawn hopped up from her seat, clutching her cup. She slung her bag over herself with her free hand and smiled down at Nora. “See you in a week, buddy.”

  Dawn could have sprouted wings and flown away for all Nora knew, because she was in a tunnel or dropped into a well, wrapped in complete darkness. Everything felt uneven and turned around, her bearings thrown off to the side. She had listened to what Dawn said, but couldn’t bring herself to really hear it. All sound melded together into a muffled groan right then.

  She had pushed Dawn, her dedicated enemy, over a cliff and it was clearer now like never before that she had every intention of dragging Nora down to the rocky bottom with her. The only choice left for Nora was whether to keep her eyes open or shut as they plummeted.

  Hannah buzzed back around the table asking something or another. Nora couldn’t hear; it was all a murmur. She stared up at the young girl, studying her face, noting the swath of enlarged pores and faded pockmarks along her cheek, tracing each line, bump, and speck from her brow bone to her chin. Hannah started to look harder, more menacing and apathetic to Nora as each quarter of a second slipped by. Hannah’s moving lips soon curled and she waved her hand around. She was holding something and fanned that, too.

  The room’s sound began to crystalize and Nora’s thoughts floated back down to earth. She noticed that Hannah was now stooping by the side of the table and mopping up a small puddle.

  It was her tea. She had dropped the cup to the floor. Although, clearly, it must have happened a half moment ago, Nora had no memory of the cup slipping from her hand. “I . . . I’m so sorry,” Nora started. “It slipped and . . .” Hannah was not interested. She didn’t even bother to acknowledge Nora’s bumbling in any way.

  Looking around the café, the few sets of weary eyes bobbing between her and Hannah’s cleanup, Nora slipped back into her former self and did the only thing she could: grabbed her things, hopped over the bent server, and scrambled out the door.

  CHAPTER 18

  The bile seemed never-ending. Nora had been hunched over the toilet since the night moved into the small hours. When Fisher knocked on the door letting her know that he was home, she managed to squeeze out “bad fish” and “food poisoning” from behind the locked bathroom door.

  “Aw, Mack. Do you want me to get you something? Ginger tea—your favorite?”

  “Un-uh.”

  She heard him try the door.

  “Babe, at least unlock this in case you faint again. I want to know that I can get to you this time, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said beneath a belch.

  “Jesus. You poor thing. I’m going to camp out here.”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not. I’m grabbing the quilt and the pillows. End of story.”

  A tiny smile had started to creep up. She wanted to tell him thank you, to tell him he was the sweetest, to tell him she loved him more now than even yesterday. But all that came out was more vomit and sick.

  * * *

  From the light sliding through the bathroom windows, Nora could tell it was proper morning. She had survived. Her insides were long flushed away, and her lips were so cracked and peeling she winced each time she ran her wooly tongue along them, but she was alive. Nora uncurled her body and crept over to the sink, pulling herself up with the counter. She used the little energy remaining to lift her head and look in the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot, her face sallow, and parts of her hair were dry and crunchy, while other spots were damp and stringy. More than death, she looked like misery and torture warmed over a grease fire.

  She pumped out a wide circle of soap into her hand and lathered it over her face. She needed to scrub off whatever she could from the horrible last twenty-four hours, if only just the thin first layer.

  “Mack?” Fisher called out, his voice morning-raspy.

  The sound of the water must have stirred Fisher awake, Nora thought. Her mind clicked on fully and she remembered that he had promised to sleep on the floor just outside the bathroom door. She wanted to smile, but it hurt.

  “Nora, you okay in there?”

  She could smell the worry through the door. “Yeah.” She cleared her raw throat and grimaced. “I’ll be right out, hon.” Nora smoothed her hair back, but it made little difference. She stripped out of her gamy clothes, brushed her teeth, wrapped her hair in a towel and her body in a robe, and stepped lightly toward the door. He loves you, she whispered to herself, and opened the door with all her might. She needed to see him and feel him; it was urgent.

  Fisher was sitting cross-legged, leaned back and propped up on a fat, square pillow. He looked tired, worn. Next to him: the first-aid kit from the hallway closet. The picture of him cracked Nora’s hollowed-out core into pieces. She started taking three of the six steps to reach him, but couldn’t keep it together and crumpled where she stood. She landed in his arms. He kissed the top of her forehead and said nothing more; or he did, but she couldn’t hear anything above her own wailing. And they stayed there, Nora draped over him like a sheet, only moving to breathe and sink deeper into each other. She cried until the tears refused to come anymore; then it was just her low whimper lulling her into a dream where, at last, she slept.

  * * *

  Nora woke up in a sweat not on the floor with Fisher, but tucked into their king bed alone. She pulled herself to sit up. Her eyes darted around the room. The robe was gone and Fisher’s shirt—one of her favorites—was hanging off her shoulders, held together at her middle by a couple of done-up buttons. The room was dim, but light still leaked through a part in the drapes. Is this a new day? Did the last one really happen? She reached for her phone. There was a note stuck to the top of it.

  Mack—

  Ginger tea in kitchen. Had to leave.

  Prep for last board meeting before it breaks for summer. Call when you get up.

  Sleep more.

  FCB

  As sweet and charming as Fisher is, his missives were dearly lacking. Nora never enjoyed receiving notes from him and, in the beginning, would always make fun of them with Jenna. They were typically cold and stiff, not unlike the average business memo. He regularly signed off his emails to her with Regards. And she would regularly roll her eyes reading it. But this time, this note, she cupped it in her hand like a rare bird and stared at it, rereading the three lines over and again.

  This time, this note, took her back to the ones her mother often left for her on top of whatever book Nora had fallen asleep reading. They were mostly instructive—Daughter, do this, make sure that, mind you don’t whatever, and I’ll be back soon, Your mother—but Nora treasured the notes all the same. They were almost like small, thin pieces of her mother captured and recorded on paper for posterity. Nora also loved the woman’s penmanship. It was beautiful.

  When she first moved to New York to the lonely apartment with windows that looked out at a dingy brick wall, Nora would often pull out The Box from way under the bed and fish around for some of the stacked notes. Once out, she would sniff the backs of the papers and note cards, hoping for the even slightest hint of Mona Gittens. Nora would run her fingers along the lettering, tracing each line and curve of the ink against the still-white paper. It was her version of prayer, her way to sing a hymn to what used to be, when she had a mother who was alive and never failed to love her. But as she moved further into her newest life, the more obvious it became that The Box should stay hidden. It got pushed under beds, then into locked-up chests, and finally to the unseen underbelly of a deep closet, camouflaged by quilts and fabric and other boxes. As it stood, Nora hadn’t looked at one
of her mother’s notes in over four years.

  She slipped Fisher’s note into the breast pocket of his shirt that she wore and, as if a starting pistol had sounded, Nora grabbed her phone and bounded out of bed, down to the hallway closet near the guest bathroom.

  Things were not how she left them. Boxes were shifted, silk scarves were bunched up, and end pieces of suiting fabric hung off shelves.

  First-aid kit, she remembered. Fisher had rummaged through the closet last night to find it.

  She dropped to her knees to check on the state of The Box. It was undisturbed beneath its layers of disguise. She let out a long, stale breath. But Nora knew it was still too close for comfort. One curious poke around and it would be over. Questions she couldn’t answer quickly enough would follow, and the shroud would fall away soon after. It would be the destruction that her enemy had guaranteed, but this way the detonator would be in her own hand instead of Ghetto Dawn’s.

  Nora pulled the box all the way out, and the mix of scarves and swatches landed wherever they wanted. She didn’t care about any of that. Keeping things tidy and organized didn’t have even a quarter of the urgency that dealing with the contents of this box did. She ripped off the top and looked into it with the same sense of foreboding she would staring down a dark well in the middle of the secluded woods at the pitch-black of night. Nora reached in and dragged out the first handful. There were notes and scraps of papers and cards, plus a few stray puzzle pieces and even fewer pictures. She let the bulk of it drop to the floor and across her lap, and focused on the three photographs left behind: one with Nora grinning, missing her two front teeth, and holding up an enormous cupcake with a thick number-six candle jutting out the middle; another had Nora and her mother, one arm wrapped around each other, standing outside their junky old apartment building. Nora was giving a thumbs-up. And the third photo was the Christmas one with the black thumbprint splotch covering Dr. Bourdain’s face.

  She had thought about destroying these pictures—and everything else in the box—back when she first moved to the boarding school. Burn it all; that was the plan. Even the scarves that had belonged to her mother, the bright ones she wore over her bald head during those last weeks. Nora was going to put a flame to it and dust the remains into the large garbage bins behind the school by the kitchen’s rear doors. But each time, back in those early days at Immaculate, something would distract her, sidetrack her, or make her think twice about scrapping the remaining bits of her mother for good.

  But now these weren’t sentimental keepsakes. They were evidence.

  Nora felt a familiar wave of flutters in her stomach and a flickering in her chest. The thoughts that came next were quick, but clear. She stuffed everything back into the box and got to her feet in a rush. The latex gloves were there next to the first-aid kit’s empty space. She slipped a pair of them on, snatched up the box, and bolted to the small pantry off the kitchen where Fisher kept the lighter fluid for his backup grill, and minutes later was out on the terrace setting her former self on fire. Nora didn’t want to watch, so she stepped back and let the flames devour each letter and card and strip of her mother and Montreal.

  This was a good first step, she told herself, and leaned back on the table waiting for the right moment to cover over the grill and smother everything. It was a good first step and it was also the easiest one in her new—and final—plan that was both intricate and severe.

  When it was over—the lukewarm ashes swept into a large trash bag—Nora took off the gloves and the shirt and crammed them into a separate garbage bag and poured some old wine in after them, followed by that empty bottle. Standing on the private terrace in the nude was oddly refreshing. Nora paused to breathe in the smoky air and feel the soft breeze that started to pick up; it tickled her bare nipples.

  Her phone rang out. She hustled inside to get it.

  “Hey, Nora. Sorry to bother you so early, but we’re still doing calls over emails, yes? And sorry to bother you on the weekend,” Oli said. “The last weekend before the big—”

  “What’s up, Oli?” Nora wasn’t in for the chitchat. She kept the call on speakerphone and walked with it over to the bathroom.

  “Oh, yeah . . . um, so, Jay Schuyler. Small problem: the tailor jacked up his Prada suit, like majorly, and he’s doing a TED Talk today.”

  Nora pulled a towel around her and sat on the side of the tub. A stringy strand of hair fell over her face; it reeked of smoke. “How did Niccolo jack things up? That doesn’t even sound possible. He was basically born on Savile Row.”

  “I know, I know, but”—she exhaled loudly through the phone—“um, this mistake is on us. We didn’t go to Niccolo. We were trying to get time on our side with this and skipped the custom clothier treatment. This other guy we went to, he was supposed to be a master tailor, too. Comes highly recommended.”

  “Who did the recommending?”

  Another pause and long sigh.

  “Mateo knew this guy and—you know what? It’s a totally useless story. Doesn’t matter. We fucked up. That’s the basic scoop. So sorry.”

  “What happened to the suit? Can it be saved?” Nora sat up out of the slouch.

  “The pant is fine enough—I can fix that, no problem. It’s the jacket. Jay’s got short arms—”

  “Yeah, yeah, and a long torso. Did this other guy try to alter the sleeve?”

  “Alter is generous,” Oli said. “It looks like Jay’s wearing a toddler suit jacket. Completely fucked.”

  “Did he open it up from the shoulder?”

  “You already know the answer there,” Oli said, exasperated. “Just tell me what to do and I’ll fix it.”

  Nora walked over to the mirror and rested the phone down on the counter. She looked at her reflection, doing a full sweep of everything—the dark circles under her eyes, the straw-like hair, the pallid and homely state of her face. Despite the general unpleasantness of her overall appearance, Nora felt useful right then, she felt needed and essential. There was a purpose for her, and she was proud about it. “Okay. First, did you guys get a chance to pull the Botang and Lo shirts?”

  “Yes, of course,” Oli said. “We have more than we need.”

  “Good. Grab the brightest, busiest one you have and the most basic one of the bunch. Put the shirts and Kazzy in a cab and send her to J. Crew Liquor Store and—what is it, Saturday? —tell her to ask for Gavin. Tell her to say that it’s me, calling in a personal. Get the Ludlow suit in the cobalt in his size. Make sure she asks Gavin to set it up. He’ll take care of everything.” Nora raised her chin in the mirror and brought her shoulders back. “And when you present to Jay, show him both shirts, but angle him toward the busy one. Make it seem as though it was all his choice, though—the change of suit, the color of the shirt—all of it. It’s got to seem like his idea.”

  “Right, right. I know. Thank you so much, Nora. Sorry about all of this. For real.”

  “It’s okay. I’ll deal with Mateo and his toddler tailor later.”

  “Jesus, Nora. You don’t need to. I’m mad I even had to call you with this. You’ve done enough already. Just focus on the wedding. There’s enough to worry about there, right?” Oli said, with a light giggle.

  Nora scooped up the phone, taking it off speaker and lining it up next to her ear. She wanted to be clear, to be heard, to convince Oli—and herself—of the words that were about to leave her lips. “There is nothing to worry about. I’ve got it all covered, and it’s all going to work out perfectly,” she said, slow and mellow. “If nothing else pops up, I guess I’ll just see you next Saturday.”

  “For sure. I can’t wait! And thanks again. You’re amazing, Nor. I can only aspire to be just like you whenever my big day rolls around.”

  “Honestly, Oli? Just be you. It’ll be enough.” Her phone beeped. “Hey, listen. Another call coming through.”

  “Shit. Not Mateo, right?”

  “No, no. Don’t worry. It’s the maid of honor. I gotta go.”

  “
Cool. Talk to you later.”

  “Actually, let’s hope not.”

  Oli laughed. “Exactly!”

  Nora clicked over to the new call. “Hey, Callaway.”

  “What’s happening, hon?

  “About to hop into the shower now and—”

  “No, I mean in the overall sense: What is happening with you?”

  “Jeez. I had a bit of food poisoning last night. Bad fish. That’s all.”

  “Oh, honey, nuh-uh. That can’t be all. Fisher called me again, bright and early this morning. That’s twice in as many days, for the scorekeepers in the back. He made it sound like you’ve completely come undone. Just wrecked. And I’ve gotta say, I kind of see what he’s talking about.”

  “Ah. Nice. Thanks a lot, Jenna.”

  “Come on now. This isn’t like you, with the smudged makeup under the eyes and the ratty bird’s nest hair—none of it intentional, by the way. You’re riding the Mess Express, sweetie, and I’m gonna need you to step off that thing. Plus, the breakdowns. I still don’t know how to explain what I walked in on the other day with you covered in coffee stains—”

  “Wait, is that what he said? That my hair looks like a ratty bird’s nest?”

  “All my words, sugar. I’m not blind. Quite the opposite.”

  “Yeah, just call you Sharp-Eyed Watson.”

  “Sharp-eyed what now?”

  “Nothing. Something my mother used to say.” It wasn’t often that she would bring up her mother in regular conversation like this, but with all traces of the woman burned to tossed-out ashes, Nora felt more exceptions could be made.

  “Ah, okay,” Jenna said.

  Nora could almost see her friend grinning through the phone. “She never meant it as a compliment.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh. Doesn’t feel great, huh? Well, neither does this shit you’re telling me right now.”

  “Aw, Nora. It’s all love, honey. I’m worried about you and so is Fisher. Clearly. The man called me—twice—just to make it all better for you. He’ll do whatever it takes to keep joy in your heart. You know that’s the for-real real. ‘Happy wife, happy life’ is a legit mantra for that guy. No one is trying to drag you down. We want you back to you, so we can hit this wedding and shoot out the lights!”