by Lauren Karcz
“Mercedes,” Lilia says, “enjoy the music.” She turns away and walks back down the hall.
I finished tonight’s red wall. And Angela will be fine. And I am wearing my purple sandals.
Moving forward.
“Hey!” The voice comes from behind me, and I turn and it’s her—the girl I met in the hall last night. She’s behind the kitchen counter, with glasses and bottles in front of her. It’s an oddly comforting sight. Ah, so this whole shindig does have something in common with a Bill Stafford or Connor Hagins party.
“I thought I’d see you again. Can I make you something?” the girl asks. Tonight she’s wearing her same black clothes, but with a blue-and-white-striped necktie, and no makeup besides a shock of red lipstick.
“What do you have?”
“Anything you want.” She opens a cabinet door to show me the selection.
“Um.” What did Tall Jon make me that one time that I really liked? I told him I wanted a glass of whiskey, and he laughed and told me I’d hate it, but that he could mix it up in something and I might not spit it out. And I didn’t. And that was the night I made out with Callie.
“There was this thing I had once, with whiskey and lime. Do you know what I’m talking about?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” She winks at me. “Give me a minute. I’m Edie, by the way. Tell me about you, while you’re here.”
I’m Lilia’s new friend, and I paint walls for her, and that’s currently my main contribution to the world of art. I’ve destroyed everything else. My sweet abuela is too asleep to care about me right now, and my mother is far too awake and knows too much about me and still doesn’t care. And I know this amazing girl named Victoria, and I’ve always thought I shouldn’t tell her I think she’s amazing, but now I’m not so sure. My little sister is a musical genius, and I don’t understand how Lilia is bringing that out of her. I’m at peace here, by the way. Maybe because no one knows about it. Because whatever expectations Lilia has for me, I guess I’m meeting them by painting walls. Because I don’t have to show those walls to anyone else.
“Eh, that’s okay,” Edie says. “Plenty of people come through here whose names I never even know.”
“I’m Mercedes Moreno.”
“Well, Mercedes Moreno, I’m curious about what you’re working on down there on the second floor.”
“Me too.” I don’t mean to smile, but there it is. “I don’t know what it is yet.”
“Hmm.” She mixes my drink with a metal stick. “I think you’ll like this. Try a sip.”
It’s sour, and it’s got a bite. I guess my face gives all that away.
“Hand it over. I’ll add some orange zest. That should do it.” She flings her tie over her shoulder and starts grating an orange. “So who are you thinking about tonight?”
“What?”
“You have that look.” She pushes the sweetened drink toward me. “Wistful, sort of. Like you’ve got people on your mind. Maybe just a person.”
“People, I guess. People in my family. But also this girl.”
The drink is perfect.
“A girlfriend?”
What would it be like to say yes?
“No.”
“Tell me about her.”
“Um, she’s from New York.” A gulp. “Her family’s Italian. She’s a dancer. She’s one of those people who’s good at everything.” Another gulp.
“Tell me what the nicest thing you ever said to her was.”
The first time Victoria and I went out for coffee was also the first time we played “How Many People?” It was a Starbucks in downtown Sarasota, toward the middle of fall semester, sophomore year, and we both laughed ourselves into a state of happy diziness. I think we knew at that point that we were going to be good friends, that soon we would stop counting who owed who money for coffee, that we were going to learn (most of) each other’s secrets.
I kept thinking that I needed to tell her one very true thing: “I’m glad I met you.”
I couldn’t get it to come out.
And then Vic said it, like it was the easiest thing in the world. She twisted the cap back on her water bottle and said, “Mercedes, I’m so glad I met you this year!”
“I am, too,” I told her.
If the heart of “How Many People?” is infinite possibility—that, yes, any bizarre theory you suggest in the game either has happened, or will happen, or is happening right now—then maybe that was the heart of our friendship, too. I would have a million more things I would want to say to her, and a million more chances to say them.
And the possibilities are here, as well. Each room, each step, each floor, each person. I feel them all.
Edie slides another drink toward me. “I think you need this.”
The party dwindles. The three women I talked to earlier wave at me as they leave. Everything softens and slows, and the only conversations happening are the low-voiced ones that are too close to their end to be able to join. A few more people come by for drinks, and so Edie helps them. She glances at me every time she serves a drink, and I keep thinking she’s going to ask me more questions. She doesn’t, though now I’d probably be more likely to answer.
Then Edie places a cup of hot coffee at the spot next to me on the counter.
“You good for now?” she asks.
“I think so,” I tell her.
It’s Lilia who saunters up and grabs the coffee.
“Oh my God,” I say, “so you do caffeinate yourself!”
Lilia looks sideways at me and smiles.
I know I’m drooped over the counter. I know the whiskey has gone to my head. But I can’t leave here just yet.
“There’s a secret painting.” The music is quiet enough that I can whisper over it. “In the red room. There’s like a freaking secret painting on the white wall. Did you know that, Lilia?”
She’s quiet for longer than she should be. “You might not want to go back to that room.”
“But I love that room.” I say this too loudly, but so what? It’s nice to realize that. It’s nice to finally love something I’ve created. “It gave me exactly what you said it would. Why shouldn’t I go back?”
“You’ll find out,” Lilia says. “I know you can do good work here, but you have to trust me when I tell you these things.”
“Oh, you sound like my mom.” That’s my loud laugh over the music, isn’t it? Shit. “Sorry. Sorry, Lilia. Where are your mom and dad?”
She gives me a strange look, and I cringe. Maybe that’s a raw question for her, for some reason. Edie pokes her head in and places a glass of water in front of me. “We’re her family. This whole wonderful motley crew we’ve got going on here. Wouldn’t you say, Lilia?”
Lilia seems to be taking in the scene the same way I was a few minutes ago. The sliver of gulf you can see from the living room window. The other party guests sighing out their last words. The old, scratched-up glasses we’re using as partyware. My water glass has Ronald McDonald on it.
“My parents don’t live around here,” Lilia tells us. “The last time I saw them was back when I lived in Miami.”
Edie shrugs and goes to wipe down the counters. It’s probably a hint to leave, but I’ve got one more thing to tell Lilia.
“Beethoven,” I say. “What’s the famous one—the Moonlight Sonata.”
“It’s a nice piece of music.”
“Angela’s gonna play it. I know she will.”
“She’s not at that level yet.”
“But she will be.” I can see in Lilia’s face that I’m right. “She will be, and maybe then, there’ll be, like you said, a place for her here.”
The music has become kind of disjointed: a line of notes from the saxophone here, a few drumbeats there. I push down the hallway, holding my water glass up, trying not to spill it, trying also not to make eye contact with the few people still here. Don’t ask me about my work, don’t ask me what I’m doing here, don’t ask me who’s on my mind. I stumble into an
empty bedroom—the second one on the left, just like in Lilia’s studio—and its walls and carpet are comfortably beige, and I settle onto the carpet, in the corner of the room, where I can have a view of the uncovered window. It’s strange how close together the buildings look when I’m driving by, but from inside, it’s as though the condo tower across from this one is a mile away. Its windows are dark—the old women have gone to sleep.
I finish my water.
Somewhere in San Juan, there’s a hospital room. With monitors beeping their monotonous ballad of green and life. With too much light streaming in from the doorway. With nurses breathing out too hard and whispering in Spanish. With Abuela unmoving in the bed.
But tonight, I think, it is different.
I think my mother was right.
I think Abuela’s fingernails are still painted purple and I think one of her fingers moved earlier and I think another is moving now. And I think her knuckles are wrinkling and I think she still needs her sleep for a while but I think, I think, she will wake up.
It’s insistent.
She will wake up, she will wake up, she will wake, she will.
ten
WHEN I’M OUTSIDE, in the parking lot, I’m absolutely alone yet again. The waves crash on, not bothering to include me in their conversation anymore, and as far as I can see down the beach, the lights in the other buildings are out. Behind me, the Red Mangrove Estate is dark, too, each floor of windows a slice of the night sky. No one else goes in or out. The leftover music from the party can’t be heard. Plus, it’s like I never had the drinks at all. The flavor of the orange mixed with sour mixed with booze is gone. And the dizziness I felt in the beige bedroom is gone. There’s no real urge to sleep—I could probably go to school feeling like this.
Well, maybe physically. Not mentally. Who knows what weird shit I would create at the Orange Table right about now.
My body’s relaxed, but my mind is all over the place. It’s not a good combination.
I need to talk to someone.
And there’s only one person I know who’s usually awake at this time of night.
“Moreno, good God.”
Okay, so this one time, Tall Jon was actually asleep sometime before two a.m. I’ve never seen his apartment completely dark. It looks strange, but no stranger than the place I’ve just been.
“Can I come in?”
“I mean, I guess so. You need a place to stay or something? Did Angela claim the Moreno castle as her own?”
“I won’t stay long. I need to talk to you. And do you have a cigarette?”
We smoke on the balcony. I keep waiting for total silence, but it’s broken by the clatter of college kids coming home and talking about how fucking late it is. Yeah, guys, we know.
Tall Jon stubs out his second cigarette. “Did something happen with you and the Vicster?”
I laugh. “I—wow, no one has ever called her that. I’m going to think of that next time I see her.” A deep breath. “But, no. I have to tell you about my new art studio.”
I’m ready to tell him about everything, from the burned-dust smell of the lobby to the feel of the roller in my hands to the sweet taste of the drink. I’m ready to tell him about how scary it was to walk into that party at first, but how I felt like a queen when Edie served me a drink and when people knew I was Lilia’s friend. And I’m ready to tell him about Lilia herself, the way she comes and goes, the way she creates so effortlessly.
Wait a minute.
The Estate is my secret. If I let out anything about it, will that dim its light for me? Will it even let me back in?
“You know Firing Squad?” I say to Tall Jon.
“Yeah, I know Firing Squad. Did you really come here to talk about music? I’m not sure I have all my synapses working on that topic right now.”
“You know how Firing Squad just lays it all out there, like they kinda sound like they’re crying out all their wants and fears right there in the music?”
“I guess so.”
“Well, I think I can do that now. With my art. Something clicked and now I feel—” I don’t know. Powerful? Changed? New? All those words are suddenly huge to me again, like it would wake everyone up if I tossed even one of them out into the quiet night. “I feel like me, I guess.”
“That’s cool,” he says. “What’d you say this place was?”
“Um. It’s more like a state of mind.”
Tall Jon studies my face. He pushes his pack of cigarettes toward me, but I wave it away.
“You look like you’re gonna cry,” he tells me.
“I’m fine.”
“Because, from my perspective, you’ve reached some kind of new metaphysical plain, where the inspiration flows freely and the nights are long. Does that make sense? Shit, I’m tired.” He gets up and opens the balcony door. “I think you’re going to come out ahead in this one, Moreno.”
“Maybe so.”
There’s a weird commotion in the living room. Not a piano. Not the thud of my strange new neighbor becoming a presence in my life. Something that seems more alien than both of those things right now.
It’s the TV.
Angela has the morning news turned up to a horrifying volume. She sits in front of it, while drinking a huge glass of my orange juice and eating cereal. The stock market is up (UP!), and apparently I’ll never guess which celebrity just donated a hundred thousand dollars to a dog park.
I sit beside her on the couch. She doesn’t look at me.
“I want to list all the lies I had to tell Mom about you last night,” she says, her words weaving underneath the pumping music of a Cadillac commercial. “I’ll just write them down sometime today, because I don’t really feel like talking to you.”
The remote is in its usual place between the couch cushions. I grab it and click mute. “Fine. Make a list. Tape it to my door or text it to me or whatever. What did Mom say about Abuela last night?”
“Why are you asking? It doesn’t even seem like you care.”
“Because,” I whisper, “I felt something so strongly about her last night. I was in this . . . place, and I was thinking about her, and it was clear to me that she’s getting stronger. Getting better.”
“Mom didn’t say anything about Abuela. She went on a fifteen-minute monologue about having to walk the dogs, and then she asked me a bunch of questions, which of course resulted in a bunch of lies.” Angela finishes her orange juice. “Why would you even say that you think she’s doing better? How would you know?”
“I can’t explain it yet.”
A thud outside. A taxi has pulled up in front of our mailbox, and Lilia is home. She’s got the rumpled look that anyone who works a night job probably has, but the effects of the Estate cling to her, too. There’s a brightness to her hair and face, like she’s speaking a secret in a language that so few of us can understand.
She sees me.
Our eyes lock.
She’s my neighbor. Rex likes her. We all live within the same walls. She used to live in Miami. (I’ve been to Miami!) She takes taxis and probably watches the news sometimes and maybe cares a little about which celebrity donated to the dog park. She drinks coffee, for fuck’s sake. And I told her about the secret painting.
I push away from the window, stubbing my toe on the piano as I do.
“Gonna get ready for school,” I say, hobbling out of the living room. “I’m sorry if we’re late today.”
I grab my army jacket from where I hung it over my desk chair a couple of weeks ago—the day before the piano arrived, actually. We sit together, the jacket and me, on the floor next to my bed. My knees pulled to my chest, I settle the jacket over them like a blanket and put my face in it. I bought it right after I broke up with Bill, and it was perfect at the time, like every time I put it on I was wrapping myself up in myself.
But it’s not comforting now. For one thing, it smells like stale popcorn and needs to be washed. For another, wrapping up in myself seems uncomfortable and parado
xical today, and maybe every day from now on.
Angela knocks on my bedroom door. We need to get to school. I throw off the jacket.
Sometime this morning, Angela stuck a note inside my backpack. During first period, it flutters out onto the Orange Table:
Lies I Told about Mercedes:
She’s home right now.
She’s just working on a painting.
Yes, it’s that one she left on the porch.
Yes, she’s taking good care of me.
And at the bottom:
Mom wants us to get Abuela a special pillow for her hospital bed after school today. No lie. This pillow better be special.
“Listen to this, Ange. His voice cracks here and it drives me nuts. Like, the first few times I heard it, I thought he was doing it on purpose. But now I don’t think so. I think he just can’t hit the note.” It’s Firing Squad track four, “Head on a Train,” maybe the only good thing about this drive from school to an appropriate pillow-buying location. “It’s cool. I mean, I still like the song. But it’s weird to hear someone’s mistake like that, over and over.”
In the passenger seat, Angela shuts her book. She’s reading A Separate Peace for freshman honors English. It’s one of those hardcover books the school loans out. Someone who probably graduated ages ago drew pointy ears and fangs on the characters on the cover, and so now Angela is stuck carrying around Gene and Finny’s devilish counterparts.
“I never liked that book,” I say. “Needs more girls.”
“It’s set at an all-boys’ school,” Angela says, not looking at me.
“Hey,” I say. “You said something earlier that was really hurtful. You told me it doesn’t seem like I care about Abuela. But that’s ridiculous. You know that Abuela’s one of my favorite people in the entire world. You know that.”
Angela picks at the spine of the book.
I luck into a parallel parking space with no one in front of or behind me. It’s been a shaky day, and I wouldn’t trust myself to use my Advanced Parking Skills right now. “What you meant,” I say carefully, “is that it doesn’t seem like I care about you. Is that right?”
