by Nina Solomon
Chloe’s apartment was a half mile from the restaurant in Buck-town. They took the long way home, walking along streets named after famous authors—Shakespeare and Dickens Avenues—that were lined with Victorian row houses and unadorned, low brick buildings with high fences surrounding them, which Chloe told her had been built before the area had become a designated landmark.
On the way, they made a stop at Myopic, a tiny independent bookstore with aisles barely wide enough for two people to stand without touching. The floor was covered with pencil shavings. Unvarnished raw wood shelves were crammed with titles that Grace had never heard of. Plaster statuettes peeked out from tiny nooks. A black cat nudged Grace’s ankles and followed her around the store as she browsed. In the back, there was a garden with a round table and three chrome chairs. Chloe went upstairs to find a book about the subject of loss. Grace could hear the creaking of the floorboards above her, and she imagined the entire inventory of A through F crashing down on her.
She walked over to the register to wait and glanced at the assortment of notices, mostly ads for sublets or part-time jobs, that had been stuck up with pushpins. Grace was about to go in search of Chloe when a yellow flyer caught her eye. It was a listing for an open pottery class. The bottom of the sheet was cut into a fringe on which there was a drawing of a tiny potter’s wheel and a telephone number, written in calligraphy. It had been such a long time since she’d thrown a pot—the wheel spinning as she centered the clay, lifting the clay upward, and hollowing it until it seemed almost too thin to hold. The black cat played at her feet, scampering after a fallen pushpin, then Grace saw Chloe coming down the stairs. Be fore she knew it, Grace found herself tearing off one of the slips of paper and stuffing it into her pocket.
CHLOE UNLOCKED THE door to her second-floor apartment, turning the dead bolt and fastening the chain once they got inside.
“I never used to lock my door until after Mom died. I don’t want anything else to be taken away.”
“I know the feeling,” Grace said as she walked into Chloe’s kitchen. The floor was an old-fashioned, peach-colored linoleum tile with gold flecks that matched the countertops. The walls were painted a sunny yellow, and every available wall or surface was covered with artwork or knickknacks.
Grace thought of her grandmother as she looked around at the assortment of clocks, each with a different time. Antique dolls were displayed on top of the refrigerator, as were pieces of miniature furniture that could have fit in quite naturally with the Damien Hirst exhibit. Magnets and black-and-white photo strips covered the front of the refrigerator door. Grace saw a photo of her and Chloe from their senior trip to Rye Playland. The photograph was curled at the edges. In it, Grace was wearing a frayed jean jacket with a bandanna tied around her neck. Grace barely recognized herself. Even her smile seemed alien to her.
She thought of the drawer under her bed, where she suspected most of her high school paraphernalia still lay undisturbed. It would never have occurred to her to try to incorporate one part of her life into another. When one stage ended, she’d been taught to pack things away like old clothes into a camp trunk and move on to the next. Whatever didn’t fit was left behind or sent to Goodwill.
When Grace first began dating Laz, her mother had taken her shopping and to get a new hairstyle. For the first time, they paid full price, trying on clothes with the solemnity usually reserved for a rite of passage. It was the culmination of all those years spent at places such as the Barclay School in preparation for this very moment. Like a shtetl bride who’d been shipped off with a goat and the family linens, Grace had a modern-day trousseau—hers from Bergdorf’s, which secured her access into Laz’s sphere. It wasn’t what was included that had made the ultimate difference, it was what had been left out. With the aid of her mother’s skilled hand, Grace had been delivered to the threshold of a marriage with one important thing missing. As she looked around Chloe’s kitchen, she knew what it was. Here—in the clutter and the accumulation—was an uncensored life.
“Would you like a cup of chamomile tea?” Chloe asked. The question broke Grace’s reverie and she found herself back in the false world that she’d been inhabiting all too easily over the past six weeks.
“Can I use your phone to call Laz?”
Chloe gave Grace the same look that she’d given her outside of Soul Kitchen, but this time she was shaking her head.
“Grace . . .”
“What?”
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
“Of course not. I just wanted to let Laz know I’ll be late.”
“Give me a break. I know what’s going on. Maybe you think you can pull this off with everyone else. But Grace, please, with me? I’ve known you forever.”
Suddenly, after a day of shivering, Grace was sweating. She wasn’t sure what or how much to say.
“What do you mean?”
“Grace, Laz was in Chicago last week at a symposium on human rights, but he spent most of his time trying to defend his book, if you can even call it that. I think he even believes his story that he was in that concentration camp. It was in all the papers. He still claims he spent six weeks impersonating a prisoner. Paying one off is more like it. I even went to see him at the symposium.”
“You saw him? Did he say anything about me?”
“Yes. But it was all a bunch of crap. And between the two of you, I don’t know who’s got the bigger problem. He had no idea that you were coming to Chicago. He wanted all the flight information. Like I’d ever give it to him. He hasn’t changed one bit. I knew it from the first time I met him. I’m sorry, but I’ve never been a big fan of the guy.” So Laz must have been the one responsible for the upgrade.
“I never meant to lie to you,” Grace said, sinking into a chair.
“Why don’t I make some tea and you can tell me what’s been going on?” Chloe went to the cabinet and took out two unmatched mugs with floral patterns and set them down on the table, shoving aside a thick, marked-up manuscript and several back issues of The New York Review of Books.
Grace sighed. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“Wherever you want. We can edit later.”
THAT NIGHT, LYING on the futon mattress in Chloe’s second bedroom, Grace was unable to sleep. The talk with Chloe had been like a summer storm on a hot August evening that does nothing to unburden the night. The room was filled with sewing things. Chloe’s mother had taught her how to sew and knit and embroider. A pair of gingham curtains hung from brass rods on the window and a hand-quilted blanket covered the bed. On a wooden table, an old Singer sewing machine that had belonged to Chloe’s mother was set up with bobbin and thread, as if poised to begin whirring away. Next to it was a clear, plastic sorter stocked with buttons, hooks, thimbles, and metal spools.
Grace had a childhood memory of writing her name on the sides of her white saddle shoes while she was in grammar school. When her mother picked her up from school that day, she was beside herself. “Your brand-new shoes!” she’d cried. It hadn’t been the first time Grace had written her name on things. She’d inscribe entire pages in her notebook with her name, etch it into her desk at school, scratch it on the upright piano in the living room. Her teacher had taken her mother aside and in a low voice suggested they set up a meeting. Grace caught the words identity crisis, and although she hadn’t understood the meaning, from the way her mother reacted, she knew it was worse than the time she had to go to the speech therapist.
“She knows exactly who she is, and if she doesn’t, I’ll be the one to tell her, thank you,” Grace’s mother said in a high-pitched voice, zipping up Grace’s coat and leading her down the limestone steps. When they got home, her mother handed Grace a brush dipped in peroxide and detergent. Grace’s fingers turned white as she applied three thick coats of Kiwi shoe polish, setting the shoes to dry overnight on sheets of newspaper.
Tomorrow was her birthday. She would be celebrating without Laz. Suddenly, like a homesick child at camp, s
he felt a longing—but not for her father’s beige argyle sweater, climate-controlled rain showers, or her mother’s elixirs, not even for Laz. It was a longing for something she could not yet name. When she returned to New York, she decided, she would tell her parents everything.
25
GRACE’S INTERVENTION
Chloe was already up and working on her laptop at the kitchen table, wearing jeans and a purple sweater and slippers, when Grace walked in. There was a pot of coffee on the counter and the kettle was on.
“Hey. How did you sleep? Did the gunshots wake you?” Chloe asked.
“Gunshots?” Grace sat down at the table.
“It happens all the time. I’m so used to it now that I barely notice it; but the first time I heard them, I dropped to the floor and rolled like I was on Miami Vice or something.”
“I guess I was out cold,” Grace said, though she had no sense of having slept at all.
“Well, that’s good.” The kettle whistled. Chloe turned off the burner on the old gas stove and picked up a yellow watering can, then went over to water a flowering plant that was in a hanging basket by the window. She reached in to pick off what she thought was a dead leaf. “Damn it,” she said, wiping her hands on a dish towel.
“What’s wrong?” Grace asked.
“There are moths in my petunias!” Chloe unhooked the hanging basket and carefully held it out the door to the porch, giving it a vigorous shake, which caused at least a dozen gray moths to fly out and flutter away. “We’ve been having a real moth problem lately,” Chloe said. “I’ll spray later. I love my petunia, even though according to my grandmother, they’re low-class flowers.”
Chloe poured herself a cup of coffee. She brought over a tea strainer and some fresh mint and poured boiling water into Grace’s cup.
“I want to take you to the Bongo Room for breakfast. For your birthday,” she said, sitting down at the table. “They make the best eggs. A few of my friends will be there who I think you’ll like. Then we could hit the vintage stores.”
THE RESTAURANT WAS packed when they arrived. At first, Chloe didn’t see any of her friends. The hostess, who wore a tight black turtleneck and low-waisted chinos, told them that the wait would be at least an hour.
“I don’t mind waiting, if you don’t mind,” Grace said. But before Chloe could answer, three people at a big booth in the back waved them over.
“Oh, look. They’re over here.” Chloe pulled Grace by the wrist to the back of the restaurant and introduced her. “Guys, this is Grace, my friend from New York I’m always telling you about.”
“Nice to meet you,” Grace said, as she squeezed in between two girls named Kym and Sela, who were wearing matching llama-wool sweaters. Chloe sat down next to a guy with diamond studs in his ears and wearing a red velvet jacket over a worn blue T-shirt.
“Jeff, you wore your Kris Kringle jacket,” Chloe said.
“Just trying to spread a little holiday cheer,” he answered. Another friend of Chloe’s arrived late, brought over a chair, and sat down at the head of the table.
“Hey, Ian,” Chloe said. “This is Grace.” Ian nodded to her. He kept on his navy blue pea coat and scarf, undoing only the top button. He drummed his fingers on the table, his hair filled with static electricity, almost as frenetic as his temperament. After they all ordered, Grace noticed that Ian was staring at her. She tried not to look back, but every so often she would check to see if he was still looking.
“So, have you been to Chicago before?” Jeff asked, picking a piece of lint off his crimson jacket.
“No, it’s my first time,” Grace answered.
“Chloe says you’re a sculptor.”
“No, I used to teach art, but I’m not a sculptor,” she said, thinking about the notice for the pottery class and the block of clay in her closet. Besides modeling some Christmas ornaments out of plasticine, she hadn’t sculpted anything in years.
“She is, too—she just doesn’t remember,” Chloe interjected.
“You know, I heard someone once say at a meeting,” Jeff began, “‘Leap and the net will appear.’ It helped me get over my fear of auditioning.” When he finished speaking, he had an expression on his face as if he’d just uttered a statement of profundity.
Grace had no idea what meeting he was referring to, or why he was addressing her as if she’d solicited his opinion. Anyway, the thought of leaping was unappealing enough, but the idea of doing so without the assurance of a sturdy net, harness, and a well-thought-out contingency plan was unfathomable to her. She began to feel slightly claustrophobic and took a deep breath to keep herself from scrambling over the two sweater girls to seek refuge in the ladies’ room.
“Jeff, Grace doesn’t know about Near West,” Chloe said. Everyone at the table nodded gravely in a manner that made Grace feel slightly paranoid. “It’s an AA meeting I’ve been going to since I moved here.”
“Alcoholics Anonymous?” Grace asked. “You’re not an alcoholic.”
“I’ve been there, too,” she heard someone say. Grace suddenly felt as if she’d stumbled into some lodge meeting and she didn’t know the secret handshake.
“Grace, I’ve been sober for almost five years. And I think you knew.” Grace couldn’t recall the last time Chloe had gotten drunk. Of course, there’d been more than one occasion in college that she’d thought Chloe had overdone it with the melon ball shots.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Grace asked.
“I tried to on several occasions. You wouldn’t hear it.”
“Ain’t just a river in Egypt,” Jeff said.
“What does that mean?” Grace asked.
“Denial.”
“When did you start speaking in slogans?” Chloe asked Jeff, taking a sip of her orange juice.
“Trace it; face it; erase it,” he continued.
“Replace it,” Kym added.
“Enough,” Chloe said, trying to stifle a laugh. “See what I have to put up with here? Maybe I’ll just move back to New York and leave you loonies to fend for yourselves.”
“Grace it,” Jeff said.
“I actually like that one,” Chloe said.
The omelets they’d ordered arrived on oval plates that were the size of Grace’s mother’s platters. Her omelet was so large, Grace guessed that it must have contained at least ten eggs, and with its side of hash browns and caramelized onions, she thought she’d never be able to finish it. Laz usually ate whatever was left on Grace’s plate. She’d become so used to it that sometimes she wasn’t sure if she was actually finished or just in the habit of leaving something for Laz.
Grace remembered a dinner she’d had with Laz at a bistro in Paris. Thick gold curtains had hung from the doorway to keep out the cold. She and Laz had been ravenous, having spent the day walking to Montmartre and the Jeu de Pommes. As always, Grace had left a bite of steak au poivre, a bit of pureed turnips, and a few frites, which Laz ate, dipping his bread in the peppered cream sauce on her plate. During dessert, she’d watched as he took the last spoonful of her crème caramel, now wondering whether he’d even considered that she might not have been finished yet.
“Your friend’s a good eater,” Jeff said to Chloe. Grace looked down at her plate and saw that she’d finished every last bite, while the rest of the group had barely started theirs.
“I didn’t realize I was that hungry,” she said.
“Take what you need and leave the rest,” Jeff said. Chloe rolled her eyes. Again, Grace wasn’t sure if he was talking about something other than eggs.
As Grace listened to the conversation, she began to feel a sense of belonging. Her shoulders relaxed and her breathing came easier. She found in this circle of Chloe’s friends at the Bongo Room a place not to find answers—because, like Kane said, sometimes there aren’t any—but to ask questions. They tumbled out fast, one after another, like somersaults. If she gave up the illusion, who or what would be there to break her fall? And why did she need it in the first place? Grace
looked up to see Ian staring at her again. He unwrapped his scarf and finally took off his coat, throwing it over the back of his chair.
“Grace, I don’t know you,” he said, leaning across the table. “And if you were here longer, I’d probably ask you out. But slogans won’t help you—you just need to take some steps.” Even though his words seemed harsh, Grace was relieved that someone was speaking plainly.
She looked Ian directly in the eye for the first time. His eyes were pale blue, which from a certain angle looked almost silver. “You’re right. I do. And that’s just what I’m doing.”
“Oh, thank God!” Chloe said, obviously pleased. “Everyone—meet my friend Grace.”
AFTER BREAKFAST, GRACE and Chloe made the rounds at the vintage stores in the neighborhood. In one store, which was as large as one of the Price Clubs that Grace’s parents frequented, Chloe pulled item after item from the tightly packed racks. She placed them in a metal shopping cart and proceeded down the narrow aisles toward the western wear department, which was next to the flannel section at the end of the aisle, just before the flowered muumuus.
Grace was struck by the vastness of the store, but what was even more amazing to her was that everything in the store had once belonged to someone else and that no two things were exactly alike. There was clearly more to this process than just finding something in the right size. She wondered what made one thing right for one person and not another. And did the clothes change the person, or the other way around?
When Grace and Chloe came to a rack of faux-leopard coats, Chloe stopped as if she’d just struck gold and looked at Grace.
“I don’t think that’s me,” Grace said.
“Don’t say that until you try it,” Chloe responded, choosing one with a straight cut and checking to see if all the buttons were on. Then she grabbed a set of matching earmuffs and a pair of black motorcycle boots.
“It’s lucky we got here early,” Chloe said, examining the bead-work on a pearl-white cardigan. “You should see the line just to get in after twelve. And then all the good stuff’s gone.”