Invisible as Air

by Zoe Fishman

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Teddy looked at the digital clock on the stove. His parents had left for their party fifteen minutes prior, and Krystal was due to arrive in four. They had never said to Teddy, Don’t have anyone over when we’re not here, so technically he wasn’t breaking any rules, but he still knew he was being bad. Which kind of felt good.

  There was a firm rap, rap, rap at the door. She was here. It was happening.

  Be cool, be cool, be cool, he repeated to himself as he strode purposefully to the door. You’re Indiana Jones. Hans Solo. Harrison Ford. A young Harrison Ford, yes, that was it. He opened the door, trying desperately to assume his best well-what-do-we-have-here? smirk.

  “Did you just barf or something?” Krystal asked, looking concerned.

  “No.”

  “Oh good, I was about to hightail it out of here. Stomach bugs are the worst. I had one once that lasted five days. I looked like a skeleton in flip-flops.” She paused. “In case you couldn’t tell, it’s my signature shoe.”

  Teddy took her in. A plain white tank top and pink shorts, her wild hair piled on top of her head like a woven basket. The left strap of her purple bra peeked out slightly, curving over her freckled shoulder. It took every ounce of restraint in Teddy not to reach out and touch it with his finger.

  “Are you going to invite me in or what?” she asked. “I know your mama raised you better than this.”

  “Yes, of course, sorry, come in,” replied Teddy, tripping over his words. Harrison Ford, he reminded himself. But it was no use. He was Teddy Snow, like it or lump it. He closed the door behind her.

  “Woweeeee, this place is nice,” said Krystal, as she moved through the downstairs. “It’s so cool, how open it is. Did you say that your dad designed it?” she asked over her shoulder as she passed by the television, running her hand over the back of the couch. Her nails were not painted this time, Teddy noticed, and he felt a pang of appreciation for the beauty of their simplicity.

  “Yeah,” he mumbled, glancing again at a clock, this one on the far wall over the benched side of the dining table.

  According to his estimate of what normal adults did at parties, he had given his parents two hours to socialize. But then again, his parents were not normal, so who knew?

  “You’re as nervous as a pig at a barbecue,” Krystal announced, eyeing him.

  “I know it,” said Teddy. “Sorry, it’s just if my parents come home unexpectedly, I’ll be screwed.”

  “Don’t worry, I can make a quick getaway. You can hide me in a closet and then when they go up to bed I’ll just slip out, like I was never here in the first place. It’ll be exciting.” She smiled at him, her eyes twinkling like Christmas lights.

  “But what about your mom? Isn’t she coming to get you? Like, what if she’s coming up the driveway at the same time my parents are or something?” Teddy felt faint. He hadn’t thought any of this through. He slumped onto the bench.

  “Good lord, Teddy, pull it together,” said Krystal, opening the fridge and not seeming even the slightest bit fazed by the prospect. “I took an Uber here. My mom thinks I’m at my friend Nia’s house, and technically I am, since that’s where I’m headed after this. Relax.”

  She pulled an orange seltzer from the shelf and closed the door, opening it with a loud hiss.

  “You’re like a secret agent or something,” he remarked with admiration.

  “That’s me.” She held back the can and guzzled from its lip for a moment.

  “Secret Agent Krystal Plaaaaattttt,” she said, burping her last name loudly and then erupting into a fit of giggles. Teddy laughed too, freed from his anxiety by her wicked nonchalance.

  He was a goner, he realized, not for the first time, wiping his eyes. Madly in love with Krystal Platt.

  “Let’s see the rest of this place,” said Krystal. “If that’s cool?”

  “Sure,” said Teddy, standing up. “I’ll give you the grand tour. Wait, do you want anything to, you know, drink drink?”

  He did not really want to ask Krystal this question since the taste of alcohol did not agree with Teddy—from what he’d experienced from offered sips from his parents’ glasses on various but not many special occasions, he thought it was vile—but he felt like he had to. There was wine and beer in the fridge, a pantry shelf filled with bottles of clear and brown liquids. The memory of the pill bottle in his mother’s purse came back to him suddenly, and he felt nauseated again.

  “No, I’m cool,” she answered, and relief washed over Teddy like an ocean wave.

  “’K.” He slid off the bench and walked to the fridge, next to Krystal. She smelled like raspberries. He took a seltzer of his own, guzzled half of it down and burped, “Aaaaafter youuuuuu.” Krystal smiled at him, and his entire body burst into fireworks.

  “Wait, just one second,” he said, pulling out his trusty notepad. Fireworks as special effect, he scribbled quickly.

  “You and that notepad,” she said, shaking her head before leading the way.

  “So this is the upstairs,” said Teddy. “A guest bedroom that no one stays in because we never have guests.”

  They entered it. A queen-size wooden platform bed, a yellow quilt with pillowcases covered in gray. A small colorful rug lined with jagged blocks of purple, beige, emerald, navy and turquoise. A gray bedside table with a small brass lamp and eggshell-blue shade. A bureau. A window looking out onto the front lawn, shuttered with closed white slats to keep out the light.

  “It’s pretty,” said Krystal. “How come no guests?”

  “I dunno. My parents aren’t much for entertaining, I guess.”

  “They don’t have friends?”

  “My dad has some,” Teddy explained. “My mom, though, not so much. Or she used to, but not since—” Teddy stopped abruptly.

  “Not since what?”

  “This was supposed to be my baby sister’s room,” Teddy offered, surprising himself by acknowledging it out loud, to another person. To Krystal Platt, more specifically.

  “Supposed to be?” she asked.

  “She died,” said Teddy quietly. “Well, she was born, but she was dead.”

  His explanation hung in the air, and the room transformed into what it had been three years ago: a nursery for a baby girl. A white crib, a yellow-and-white-striped rug, a gray chair that rocked back and forth with a silver leather ottoman.

  “Teddy, that’s so sad,” said Krystal. She took his hand and held it, both of them still looking at the room but not at each other. “I’m so sorry for you and your family. That must have been awful.”

  “It was,” agreed Teddy. “It still is. Her name was Delilah.”

  “That’s a beautiful name,” Krystal said softly.

  “Thanks. It was my great-grandmother’s name.”

  “Life can be very sad sometimes,” said Krystal. She was still holding his hand. “My dad, he just took off when I was two. Left me and my mom and never looked back.”

  “That’s terrible,” said Teddy. “What kind of person does that?”

  “A shitty one,” said Krystal, finally turning to face him. Her blue eyes were wet underneath her purple eyelashes. “And a drug addict.”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Teddy. “For you too.”

  Krystal shrugged. “Thanks, but it’s okay. My mom says we’re better off without him. But sometimes I think it would be nice to have a dad.” She sighed. “Anyway, what can we do? Bad stuff happens every day, to every kind of person, you know? This is proof, this conversation we’re having right now.”

  “I wish it hadn’t happened to us,” said Teddy.

  “Me too.” She unfolded her hand from his. “You’re cute, but your hands are like lava mitts, you know that?”

  I’m cute, thought Teddy. “Yeah, sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about. My feet smell,” she confessed. “Let’s see your parents’ room. I bet it’s enormous.”

  “It’s pretty big,” Teddy agreed. “It’s down at the end of the ha
ll.”

  “Dang,” said Krystal, taking it all in from the doorway. “This is like some Kate and Wills shit.”

  “Kate and Wills?”

  “The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge? In England?”

  Teddy had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Do you do anything besides watch movies, boy? They’re the future of England’s aristocracy. And very chic. Also: rich.”

  Teddy blushed. Was he rich? He guessed he was. And he knew that Krystal was not.

  “Wow, look at this bathroom,” gushed Krystal, her flip-flops slapping against its marble floor. She opened a drawer. “Oh my God, the makeup!” She scanned the bottles, picked up a compact and opened it to reveal a shiny mosaic of peach and bronze.

  “Does your mother wear all of this?”

  “No. At least I don’t think so. Her face looks like her face.” Not like the other moms he saw at his school or on television. Most of them looked like clowns, Teddy thought.

  “You would know if she did,” said Krystal. “Although I guess this stuff is so, like, nice”—she held up a different black compact and pointed at the word Chanel with her finger—“maybe the point is that you don’t know. Like, you just think your mom looks rested and glowy and perfect naturally, but really it’s this stuff.”

  “Nah, she doesn’t wear it,” Teddy announced, confident after Krystal’s description. Glowy was definitely not a word he would use to describe his mother. “Tonight I think she was, though. For the party. She had lipstick on, that much I know.”

  The pills again. Teddy’s mind kept circling back to them. Should he ask Krystal what she thought? She seemed to know everything.

  “And look at this closet!” Krystal said, switching on the light. “Damn. This is like Neiman Marcus in here.” She faced him, her arms folded across her chest.

  “Teddy Snow, you are really rich,” she announced accusingly. “How come you didn’t tell me that?”

  “I don’t think about it,” said Teddy. “I mean, no one has ever told me before, ‘Teddy, you’re rich,’ like you just did. And anyway, it sounds like you’re trying to make me feel bad about it.” He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his shorts.

  “I’m not trying to make you feel bad about it,” said Krystal. “Well, maybe I am a little. I’m just jealous. Let’s be real, though.”

  “Don’t be jealous. Having money doesn’t make your problems go away. Or keep bad things from happening.”

  “True.” She unfolded her arms. “But you can at least look better while they happen. And come home to your fancy bed to cry. My bedroom is the size of a shoe box. My whole house could probably fit up here, come to think of it.”

  “I think you look better than good,” said Teddy quietly. “I think you’re beautiful.”

  Krystal gave him a small smile. “You do?”

  “Yeah.” Teddy looked at his sneakers, embarrassed.

  “Thank you,” said Krystal.

  He could hear her approaching, those damn flip-flops, but he didn’t dare look up. The smell of raspberries was all around him, enveloping him like a fog.

  “Look at me,” she said.

  Teddy looked up, and Krystal Platt kissed him softly on the lips. He had been certain she would taste like cotton candy for some reason, but her lips just tasted like skin. Soft, wet skin.

  “Let’s see your room,” she said, brushing past him, back through his parents’ bedroom and into the hallway.

  If he died right now, right this very second, he would have lived, Teddy thought, and then immediately chided himself for being the corniest person on the planet. But he got it now. He really got those cheesy romance movies, with people crying in the rain and making googly eyes at each other. This is what requited love felt like. Total and complete satisfaction mixed with terror that it would be taken away from you at any second. For now, Teddy would focus on the first part of that feeling.

  “Looks like you found it,” said Teddy.

  He stood behind Krystal at the door to his bedroom, trying to see it through her eyes and hoping, hoping, hoping it looked interesting. A room was such a clear indication of a person’s character, Teddy thought. A porthole into their soul, really. It felt deeply personal, for her to see it. To be inside it. The whole night did, and it had only been—he looked at his alarm clock next to his bed—thirty minutes. He had an hour and a half left, an hour to be safe.

  “I love it,” said Krystal, and Teddy’s heart did a flip. She sat on his bed, facing him.

  “Did you call Twilight Manor yet?”

  “No.” Krystal made a face at him. “But I will. Tomorrow.”

  “You have to do it. I mean, come on, Teddy. Movies are your passion. You have to share that with people who could use a little passion in their lives. That’s the mitzvah.”

  Teddy smiled.

  “Yeah, I looked it up. I know what a mitzvah is. And washing dogs’ butts isn’t it. At least for you. You have to do it, or the whole thing, this whole project, is just a joke. And then your Bar Mitzvah is a joke. If it has nothing to do with you, how is it yours?”

  Teddy perched on the bed next to her, his hands practically faucets. Sitting on his own bed next to Krystal. He slid them under his thighs.

  “You sure are fired up about this,” he told her.

  “I am! I mean, the project is a nice idea, but not if it’s bullcrap. Promise me you’ll call tomorrow.”

  “I promise,” said Teddy. He would. She was right.

  God, he wanted to tell her about the pills he had found in his mother’s purse. But he had already laid so much on her. And what if her response was the one he didn’t want to hear? That his mom was in trouble? There really was no other response; he realized that. But hearing it out loud from Krystal Platt, who was this beautiful sage, wasn’t something he was ready for. Because if she said what he knew she was going to say, then Teddy would have to do something about it. And he didn’t want to. Not right now. Right now he wanted to kiss Krystal Platt.

  And so he did.

  Chapter Twelve

  Paul

  Paul stared at the ceiling fan going around and around, early-morning light peeking through the blinds. The air conditioner hummed softly.

  His head throbbed slightly; he should have said no to his second whiskey, but when your friend hands it to you, saying no to a drink is just unnecessary martyrdom. He sighed and shifted slightly, noticing his wife’s dark curls, the olive skin of her naked shoulder against the white sheets, the slow rise and fall of her back as she slept. He reached out to touch her hair but pulled back, remembering that he was angry.

  She had disappeared for what had felt like hours during the party, returning to wake him up with nary an explanation. She’d been nice upon her return, sure, but to be frank: too nice. Something was going on with her. And damnit, he was going to find out what. Tobi had texted him back, as he knew she would, but he had deleted the string. And her number. It was ridiculous, what he was doing. And sad. And Sylvie’s fault.

  There was a rustling of the sheets beside him as Sylvie stirred. Paul kept his eyes on the ceiling fan. The bed shifted slightly beneath him as she turned over onto her back.

  “Hi,” she croaked.

  “Sylvie, I have to know what’s going on with you,” he demanded, hoping he sounded commanding and not desperate.

  “Good morning to you too,” she replied, rubbing her hand over her mouth. “Jesus, my breath. My head. I drank too much.”

  “Sylvie, goddamnit, I’m serious!” Paul sat up, looking at her with disdain.

  “Okay, okay.” She sat up too and pulled the blankets around her chest.

  “Where did you go last night, during the party?” he demanded. “You left me for hours, just sitting there like a buffoon.”

  “I thought you said David was there. And it wasn’t hours.”

  “That’s not the point!”

  “I was upstairs,” she said.

  “Upstairs? What were you doing upstairs?”r />
  “At first I was snooping,” she confessed. “But then I found Agnes’s room.”

  “Oh.”

  “I just meant to peek in, but once I saw all of her little-girl things, I couldn’t help myself. I closed the door and climbed into her bed.”

  “You did what?”

  “I know, I know. Creepy.” Sylvie pushed her pillow against the headboard and leaned against it, pulling the covers even farther up, to her neck. “I thought about Delilah and what kind of girl she would have been, if she had lived.”

  “Oh,” said Paul quietly, not expecting any of what she was telling him. “Well?”

  “I don’t know, I guess. But it was interesting to think about. I don’t think she would have been a girly girl. More of a tomboy, I think.”

  “You think?” asked Paul, his anger fading ever so slightly. He considered a three-year-old Delilah. “I can see that. Because of Teddy, maybe.”

  “And you. I think she would have been a lot like you.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. You know, Teddy looks like you but has my personality, for better or worse, so it just makes sense that she would be the opposite.”

  Paul nodded. “Yeah, I’ve always thought that too, actually,” he said.

  “You’ve considered her, you know, as an evolving person too?”

  “Of course. All the time. I see little girls everywhere, ones with your coloring, and have to catch my breath, thinking about what could have been. What was supposed to be but wasn’t.”

  “Yeah,” said Sylvie. “So that’s where I was.”

  “Were you sad?” asked Paul.

  “Sure,” said Sylvie. “I cried a little, I think. But then I realized that I was very much in danger of passing out drunk in a four-year-old’s bed and got my ass up.” She sighed. “But it was nice, to give myself permission to think those thoughts.”

  “You’ve never done that before?”

  “Maybe sometimes I’ve started to, but I always cut myself off. Or I did, anyway,” said Sylvie.

  “But why?”

  “Because they’re useless thoughts, Paul. What good do they do?”

  “Thoughts don’t always have to have a purpose,” said Paul. “Sometimes thoughts are just a subconscious release.”