Stay With Me

by Garret Freymann-Weyr

  I miss Ben the way I miss my parents—as if I am the one who has gone on a trip. Not to an actual place, obviously, but to my version of what Clare calls the new now. She says it started for her when she landed at JFK, seventeen hours after Da's call to Budapest. She thinks it's the place you go to after the shock of Before and After wears off.

  "You're my best friend," I say to Ben, wondering if that's still true.

  If I've told a lie, I'll find a way to make it up to him. It's important to me that I never make him feel bad.

  Eleven

  I WRITE DA A LONG LETTER telling him about Acca and how when I'm not working, I'm doing "lots and lots" of homework. This is not a lie, and in fact, the school part of school has improved dramatically since Raphael appointed himself my full-time homework assistant. This makes exactly the kind of difference that experience has taught me it will. Up until eighth grade (a stretch of time I think of as B.T., for Before Tutor), I dreaded every second of school, with its dark, confusing cloud of information. Now I tend to think of the information as falling into two categories: hard and impossible.

  In spite of Raphael's best efforts, English (but not math) has morphed from hard to impossible. We've been reading books and short stories by E Scott Fitzgerald. Originally we were supposed to read Tolstoy and Chekhov, which I thought would be great because I've already read the Chekhov plays. But the teacher changed the entire plan after the city was attacked.

  "I think we need to look at something purely beautiful," she told us. "There's despair here, make no mistake, but beauty is his main aim."

  Ben thinks she's going to get fired because she didn't ask Mr. Nordman, our headmaster, for permission to change the books. I've heard other students complain that she overuses words like beauty and despair. I like her because I always know what she's talking about. And, I like Fitzgerald.

  Before January, we'd read one novel and a ton of short stories. They're all kind of the same. People are rich. People are beautiful. They're frequently cruel. And they always lose the one thing that's most important to them. Often a blonde girl is the precious thing that gets lost. How could any blonde girl on the planet not like this kind of stuff?

  My tutor says I'm needlessly simplifying Fitzgerald's work and not reading it properly. Maybe so, but I like it. The stories are, if unhappy, also yummy. So it's a shock to discover that I can't understand the second book, which we started reading at the end of January.

  It's doubly humiliating because I am about a hundred pages in before I realize that I don't know what the book is about. Ben says not to worry, that the book is boring, who cares what it's about. The thing is, the book isn't boring. It's something else entirely. Something I don't get, which is misery inducing. My tutor, however, is happy to hear it.

  "Now we're finally reading," she says, and comes up with a plan of action.

  I'm to read the book twice. Once to have read it and then again to have understood it. I don't know that it's working other than to make me feel like I have two part-time jobs. One waiting on the small round tables at Caffe Acca, and one reading Tender Is the Night.

  When my shift at Acca is extra slow, Hal lets me stand in the back and read. I put my book up against the wall next to the pay phone and mark every passage that I think is important. My book is littered with pencil marks, which can't be right. Not everything can be important. I'm beginning to suspect that what matters is what happens between the events which are written down. Happens offstage, if you can say that about a book the way you do a play.

  The story also goes backwards in time and then forwards again, which does not help my inept dyslexic self. I'm very close to deciding that people are like theater sets, some designed for certain things but not for others. It's as if I'm interested in stories more than I'm designed to read them. Perhaps they have to be attached to a real person in order for my brain to work.

  For example.

  There's a man who comes into Acca every Monday and Wednesday. He always orders chocolate raspberry cake and rarely eats any of it. He usually gets a coffee as well and drinks all of that. Black, one sugar. Like Raphael, but not Clare, who says putting sugar into coffee is a crime.

  I've cleared away five practically untouched pieces of cake before I start paying close attention to him. As if other facts will explain what the deal is with the cake. Or, more specifically, what his story is. On his middle finger he wears a ring with raised hieroglyphic markings. Right hand, not left, which of course gives me fits to figure out. I can't decide how old he is—much younger than Gyula and who knows what in relation to Rebecca's T., who I'm still hoping will walk in one afternoon.

  He sometimes reads the front section of the paper by folding the pages in half, lengthwise. Mostly though, he studies whatever is in a black binder he carries tucked up under his arm. He keeps a pen and small white pad in his jacket pocket and often makes notes about what he's reading.

  It's a Monday when he sits at one of the tables in the window. Not the one Rebecca was at when I last saw her, but I still take it as a sign of some sort and bring his cake before he's asked for it. Up until then, I've always approached him as if I'm really wondering what he'll order.

  I put the plate down, asking, "Do you want coffee today or iced tea?"

  These are his two usual choices, and he looks up from his perfectly folded paper with a smile.

  "Does this mean I'm predictable?" he asks.

  "It means you know what you like," I say.

  He leans back in his chair so that he doesn't have to look up at me so much. I tend to tower over everyone sitting down.

  "You're right, I do," he says, and something about the way he's looking at me makes my blush start its spread up toward my scalp. What's wrong with me? I smile, hoping he won't notice the change in color.

  "Coffee today?" I ask, firmly putting blushing and other unprofessional topics out of mind.

  "That would be great," he says. "Thank you."

  There are water glasses to be filled and orders to be placed and tables to be wiped and people who need things and very quickly, just as my tables are emptying into the lull between coffee and dinner, I'm bringing him his change. After giving me a smile that doesn't quite meet my eyes, he's gone.

  I bring his cake again on Wednesday, determined to withstand however he looks at me. He puts his hand against his heart and says,

  "You remembered."

  I laugh because he looks at once sweet and silly with his head cocked to one side and his hand like that.

  "It's not a job that requires much," I say.

  "Just a certain charming intelligence," he says.

  And there goes my face—up in flames—but this time I know why. He's flirting with me, which would be a lot nicer without the blushing. By the time I get his coffee, I've stopped being such a twelve-year-old.

  "So," he says, when I put his cup on the table. "May I ask your name?"

  "It's Leila," I say. "Leila Abranel."

  I love my last name. It has an elegance that Leila by itself can never attain. He looks suitably impressed, and although it's pretty quiet today, I'm away from his table until I bring the check.

  "Leila means 'dark as night,'" he says. "Right?"

  "Yes," I say. "No one ever knows that."

  "It doesn't really fit you."

  I'm never telling him my middle name. Nothing sounds less fitting than Gwendolyn. But I always thought Leila was a good name. For me. And then I see myself as if in a photograph with the caption Dark as night.

  "Oh, you mean because of the blonde," I say. "But my personality is dark. Very dark."

  "I'm not sure I'd believe that," he says.

  "Don't let the smile fool you," I say, amazed at myself.

  I'm just flirting away here. Dial it down, Leila. He's not that good-looking. And it's more the attention I like than him, which is rude of me. I pull myself into the how-do-you-do expression I use when meeting friends of my parents.

  "My cheerfulness is a façade," I say,
glad to have found a place for one of my SAT vocabulary words.

  "No, it's not the smile," he says. "It's ... no, you're translucent."

  He's in luck that this is a frequent adjective from Tender Is the Night. I've had to look it up and figure out that in the book, when a person or an event is described as translucent, it isn't a good or a bad thing. It's more that the someone or thing is important. Prized and rare. This is quite possibly the nicest compliment I've ever gotten, even if he doesn't mean exactly what the book does.

  "Thank you," I say. "That's lovely."

  He just looks at me.

  "Anyway, my name's Leila," I add. "Even if it doesn't fit."

  "Eamon," he says, standing up and holding out his hand. "Eamon Greyhalle. It's very nice to meet you, Leila."

  I shake his hand and take my tray to the kitchen, ignoring the zing-zang-zoom which his skin sent shooting up and across my body. That I did not expect, as I've been shaking hands since forever. Until I was thirteen, I had to shake hands and curtsey with everyone I met. My sisters had had to do this too and always thought it was ridiculous.

  I didn't mind it except for when people would look at Da and say, Ob, my, can you make her do that again? As hard as it is to meet strangers, I've always felt protected by my knowing how to do it. You look someone straight in the eye, hold their hand with a firmness that doesn't threaten to break it, and you smile.

  There's no zing-zang-zooming involved. I'm pretty sure that's against the how-to-meet-someone rules.

  When I tell Ben, Clare, and Raphael about Acca, I leave Eamon out entirely. Instead I focus on how the job is easy and fun. I am, as I knew I would be, really good at it. In more ways than I care to count, I tell them, I'm the perfect waitress.

  "It's because you treat people well," Raphael says. "You've always been like that."

  "You're perfect at a lot of things," Clare says, which is nice.

  "You're lucky you haven't dropped anything yet," Ben says, which is funny because I once dropped a cup of soup in his lap and all he said, very quietly, was Hey. Ow.

  A few days after we shake hands, Eamon asks about Tender Is the Night.

  "So you're always reading by the phone," he says. "What has such a hold on you?"

  "You've seen me do that?" I ask. "I'm only allowed to do that when no one needs anything."

  "Well, sometimes I look for you when I don't need anything."

  And we're back to flirting. I like how conversations with Eamon veer around from the normal to the silly.

  "It's a book I'm reading twice," I say.

  "What book is that good?" he asks.

  "I'm not sure it's good," I say.

  "And so you're reading it twice because?"

  He has a way of making me believe that everything I say, from Coffee? to I'm reading, is of great interest to him. When I worked for Rebecca last summer, she told me that the reason flirting was fun was that no one meant anything by it. So maybe Eamon is not really interested in what I say, but I go ahead and tell him how the book happens off the page. How I really liked that he called me translucent because of the book. How I wish the story made more sense to me.

  "I read it in college too," Eamon says. "But I don't remember if it made sense. I'll have to go back and look."

  I want to ask him what he's reading in that binder, what the notes are for. What's written on the ring and why he comes here. But I'm a waitress. And I'm not exactly sure how much one can ask a strange man about himself. About anything. No matter how polite he is or how nice his hands look holding his coffee cup.

  Twelve

  WHAT'S IMPORTANT IN ALL THIS, what makes me attach Eamon to my story, happens the next week or the one right after. He isn't at Acca that Monday, which I don't realize until Wednesday when I see him sit down in the café's other section. I smile hello and then turn my attention to two women trying to decide between an éclair and a napoleon. I gather they're going to split it. They ask which I prefer and I say,

  "Maybe I can ask the kitchen for a plate with half of each."

  I feel a tap on my back. It's Drew, who works the shift with me.

  "The guy at table nine wants you," he says.

  "That's a perfect solution," one of the women says to me. "Do we have to pay for both?"

  "I'll be right there," I tell Drew and say to the woman, "I'll ask."

  "We could take the other halves home," the other woman says. "Maybe Mama would like them."

  "She does love them," the first woman says.

  Sisters! Who call their mother Mama, just like Clare and Rebecca. I want to ask them a thousand things and warn them to stay alive, but there are some things even I know cannot be said. To anyone.

  "Can we do that?" they ask together and then start laughing.

  "I'm sure you can," I say. "I'll bring it right out."

  I pause at table nine and ask Eamon if he needs anything.

  "I'm in the wrong section, aren't I, bunny?"

  He calls me that sometimes, and when I asked him if he thought I looked like a rabbit, he said, No, you look young and worth protecting.

  "You're in Drew's section," I answer. "He's great with cake and coffee."

  "How much commotion if I move?" Eamon asks.

  Hal's looking right at me, and no wonder. I'm not doing my job.

  "The customer is king," I say. "But maybe order something else so there's a reason I'm standing here."

  Eamon asks for a glass of wine and off I go, passing Drew arriving with the chocolate raspberry cake. I check with Hal that it's okay to tell the kitchen to cut pastries in half and then ask him to bring a Merlot over to the man at table nine.

  "The one who's moving?" Hal asks.

  "That's right," I say, without turning around.

  "Is he bothering you?" Hal asks me.

  "No," I say. "No. He's really nice."

  "Just remember that some people think waitresses are available," Hal says. "Like what's on the menu."

  "Yuck," I tell him and get back to work.

  The sisters act like seven-year-olds over their dessert. They're so happy to be eating it. When I give them the boxed-up remains I tell them both that I hope their mother likes it.

  "Just my mother," says the woman taking the box. "We're not sisters."

  So you never know. Raphael is right. A lot of the things we see are what we wish.

  "I've read your book," Eamon says when I come to clear his table. "It took longer than I thought."

  "You did?" I ask, almost dropping my little tray of dishes. "A week's not long."

  "Well, I was sorry not to see you Monday," he says. "But I thought I should finish."

  I put his bill down and say I'll be right back. I clear the rest of my tables so I can focus on what he has to say about Tender Is the Night. I can't believe he read it. Even Raphael hasn't done that. He just keeps saying he has every faith in my abilities. That's a mistake.

  "So, what's it about?" I ask, hoping this isn't cheating.

  I'm still going to keep on reading it twice, but it'd be nice to know.

  "I think it's about disappointment," Eamon says. "Life has failed everyone in this book. Everything they touch leads them to ruin."

  "Ruin," I say, thinking, of course, about Janie and Julian, but also about Rebecca.

  She wasn't part of a ruined great love, but ... she was obviously disappointed. Even before she killed herself, I knew as much as that.

  "I make and sell cake," she used to say whenever you asked about her work. "It is what it is."

  When she was a hospice nurse, she said, "I watch people die."

  Rebecca said It is what it is more than Clare says Oh, joy. Did life fail my sister? Did she think that?

  And then a thousand things about Tender Is the Night snap into place. Failure and disappointment. That makes sense. Maybe Rebecca, like the people in the book, felt them too much.

  No one ever believed you were a failure. But, of course, it's too late to tell her. And it's not what I would have
told her if I'd known her plan. I try not to get lost in Rebecca World and bring my mind back to the living.

  "You must think I'm so dumb," I say to Eamon. "That only took you a week."

  "I think you're what, twenty-two? Twenty-four?" Eamon asks. "A book about life's disappointments is a bad fit for you. That's all."

  I wonder how come I'm the only one in my class who can't understand it. It would be nice to think I'm too young instead of too dyslexic. And then: he thinks I'm over twenty? For a while now, people have assumed I'm older. I think it's the height and the whole needing an underwire bra. But Rebecca says it's because Da's never stopped expecting me to be older.

  "It's as if you seem older because of how he treats you," she says. "And the height helps."

  She said. Remember, Leila, Rebecca is dead.

  Twenty-two? Well, that makes up for being too dumb to know what I'm reading. Or does that make me more dumb?

  "I'll be twenty soon," I say.

  Twenty actually feels as far away as Poland, but my parents are always talking about how time flies and maybe it does for Eamon as well, whose age remains a mystery.

  "You're not twenty yet?" he asks. "Oh, shoot me. When's your birthday?"

  "June," I say. "Why?"

  "We can talk about that in June," he says.

  "June's ages away," I say, thinking, Talk about what?

  "It'll keep," he says. "I hope I didn't sound too ridiculous just now, talking about the book."

  "No, no. It was really nice of you," I say. "To take the time and all. It was nice."

  I have the worst vocabulary. You're so nice.

  "Well, thanks. It's that, you know, my father can really get long-winded," Eamon says. "I'm terrified of turning into him."

  "Mine's like that," I say. "But you were helpful. I mean, I'd missed the whole failure thing."

  The whole failure thing? Have I lost my mind? I remember how in ninth grade Da charged me twenty dollars every time he heard me use the word like as if it were the verb "to say." I owed him a hundred and eighty dollars by the end of three days, but I stopped saying it so much and Da stopped complaining that it pained him to hear me speak.