remy

I look again – it’s a girl’s face that I see staring back. She has her hands pressed to the window in a half-comical posture of searching, although I can’t imagine what she’d need to search for at the window when she can simply come in the café and go about her business. When she catches me staring at her, she flinches visibly and pretends to be fixing her hair, although it’s pretty obvious from the red creeping up her neck that she was doing nothing of the sort. She’s got one of those faces that you see everywhere and think you recognize, but it turns out to be a phantasm from a broken memory eons ago, and you turn away forgetting. I realize that I expected it to be Imogene.

I’m here once again, like déjà vu. Sitting at a booth in the café just like yesterday, wondering what I’m doing with my life and feeling like a useless shit as per usual. By this point, I’m used to being unemployed, sometimes even for month-long stretches. Every job I can manage to get, I expect to lose within a few weeks, if I’m even lucky enough to last that long. It’s been nearly a year since I graduated, and this temporary make-do won’t last much longer as a solution.

I sigh as I scroll through my call log. My mother has left exactly twenty-three messages – a sure sign of distress. I imagine her going through her address book frantically and telling all her best friends about my lack of filial piety. This alone is enough to make me return her calls.

She picks up with “Renée? Oh, sweetie, I was wondering when you’d call me!”

“Sorry,” I mutter sheepishly, but I don’t offer an excuse. I’m too ashamed of myself to even try, after these seven long months.

“Are you still touring the country?”

“You could say that.” I drum my fingers uncomfortably. “I mean, you know how it is. Not much market for an art major.”

“Listen to you,” my mother chuckles. “You didn’t listen in high school when I told you the same thing.”

“I don’t regret it. I’m just trying to figure things out.”

“If that’s what you want, Renée.” There’s a pause before she adds, hesitantly, “You know our doors are always open.”

“I know,” I say, but my voice cracks slightly. I wince at this. “Anyway, I’m in the Midwest now, I’m not even sure which state. A small town. I’ll probably stay here awhile.”

“You’re not coming home?”

“Not now.”

She sighs. “Your father and I would be willing to help you.”

“I know. I need to go off on my own for a bit.”

“Stubborn, as usual,” she says, and laughs.

The memory strikes me like a sudden whisper that erupts into lightning. I’m five years old and running through wild grass that is taller than the sky itself. The marshland underneath my feet almost gives way until I stumble through the clearing of cattails where two boys are poking sticks in the mud. They can’t be much older than me, but they already have the haughty pride of mobsters. My brother stands to one side, bashful but eager to please, and I step forward with the intention of joining them, my scraggly bangs whipping through the air. I can feel the dirt and brackish swamp water in my mouth once again, a fragment that sticks in my mind. I remember being pushed down and taunted, and spitting out a mouthful with defiant, watering eyes.

It’s in this state of mind that I wander outside, shove my hands in my pockets, wait for something to happen. I don’t know why the notion follows me, this feeling that a grand adventure will come along and pick me up, sail me through the deserted alleyways and lush verdure of my homeland. I thought I was taking initiative when I packed my bags on graduation day; what am I doing having second thoughts now? What is it that I want?

For whatever reason, I’m feeling retrospective. I pause at the door of a vintage toymaker and fall through the idyllic pages of childhood again. It’s ironic: I didn’t realize how different I was from everyone for the longest time, and now that I have, I deny it. As if by pretending they have no control over me, I can find a way to control myself.

When was the first time? This I wonder as I watch two girls skipping after one another, red-cheeked and guileless. Perhaps a play date, since they look nothing alike. I imagine their parents teasing about puppy love and young romance and smile wryly. It’s ludicrous, after all. I stop and lean against a lamppost as I watch them go by, even offering a little wave as the mother smiles in my direction. The first time was fourth grade. It was Valentine’s Day.

No one had explained the etiquette of valentine giving, which, frankly, I never knew existed till that year. Our thoughts were still affixed on Legos and afternoon snacks, the next sleepover or a visit to the zoo. Maybe that’s why it came as such a shock. Her eyes found mine amidst the sound of crumpling foil and giggling. In the moment before she started to scream, before she tore my letter to shreds, before she ran out the classroom and had to be consoled by the teacher and finally taken home, I knew there was nothing. They were clammy.

“Weirdo,” she’d whispered with revulsion.

The first betrayal in my life was a landmark for all the others soon to come. You’d think they’d hurt less as you get used to it, but it’s not the case. I developed a knack for keeping myself secret, and a habit of cracking my knuckles, quick to anger and quicker to swing.

I sigh and start to head towards Greg and my meeting spot. It’s the parking lot behind the café, but I’ve already walked a circle around a good quarter of the town.

For a visual learner, I have unbelievable coordination. So it’s no surprise that I’m lost – or, well, it shouldn’t be, after the millionth time it’s happened on vacation and even in my own neighborhood.

“Shit,” I mutter.

“Damn straight,” a voice says irritably behind me.

“Speak for yourself,” I tell him, knowing it’s Greg. “What are you doing here?”

“I knew you probably got lost,” he says. “Why you can’t follow a simple set of directions, I’ll never be able to figure out. Come on. Let’s go.”

“I wasn’t lost,” I lie.

“Obviously. That’s why you’re halfway across town and heading into suburbia. Just shut up for a bit, won’t you, Remy?”

I follow him sullenly, scuffing my boots on the sidewalk. They don’t come this clean in New York. They’ve hardly been spit on here, and you can actually see the tannish-gray underneath the soot and sun bleaching. Everything’s laughably quaint here, but even the dorkiness is appealing. I suddenly want to draw it. I shuffle around in my bag for a pencil, but my fingers come out blackened by a crushed piece of charcoal. Another two dollars wasted.

“Hey,” Greg says, slowing so that I’m walking shoulder to shoulder with him. His demeanor is nervous now, which makes me doubly nervous.

“Hey what?”

“I was wondering... do you have any plans after we leave town?”

I stare at him and come to a complete stop. “What?”

He turns with a perplexed glance, and then shakes his head. “God, I didn’t mean... Let’s try this again: where are you gonna go after this?”

“I guess I don’t have any particular preference,” I say warily.

He sighs gustily and starts walking again, but doesn’t reply.

“What is it?”

“I’ll work it out. It’s between me and my girlfriend.”

“You have a girlfriend?”

He shoots his best death glare at me, which makes me smile.

“Really, though.” I catch up easily and try to block his view. “What is it?”

“Well,” he begins uncertainly. “You’re not settled, you know – sort of wandering around. And that’s fine, since you seem to be fine with it, but I have stuff at home to take care of.”

I don’t get it. “So do I. I mean, I wish I were more settled.”

“Oh.”

“What’s the deal, though? What’s going on with your girlfriend?”

“She wants me to go back,” he says. He has this expectant, guilty look, like I should be mad.

“Okay,” I say. “Alright. So?”

“So I can’t drive you around anymore, Remy. I have to go back to Chicago and you have to continue on your own.”

I can’t think. All that comes out of my mouth is, “That’s fine.”

“How are you going to get around?”

“Bus? Train? Levitation? Who knows.” I trudge along numbly. It’s not as if this is a crushing realization – not really. Not when I’m so spontaneous that I might have ended up a street-artist ages ago. The last support has been knocked over; now I’m waiting for the sensation of free-fall. My mind buzzes.

“I’ll take you back to Chicago.”

“Sure,” I say. “What am I going to do in Chicago?”

“I don’t know. Sell your paintings?”

“No one wants that shit, Greg.” I refrain from informing him that I don’t paint.

“I’m sorry, Remy.”

“It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t be imposing on you.”

“You’re my friend.”

“And you’re mine, but I haven’t done anything for you.” We reach his car, just behind the café, and he clambers into the driver’s seat and turns the ignition. I set one foot in myself, but then something shifts, I can see it in the corner of my eye. I look for it through the stale city-life and catch a glimpse of her, walking along the street but moving away. It clicks.

“Come on, I’ll drive you back,” Greg says, but I’m barely listening now.

“Look,” I tell him urgently, digging through my wallet. I pull out several bills of who-knows-what value and shove them in his hands. “That’s for the gas. I know what I’m doing now. And thanks for driving me.”

“What?” His guilt turns to alarm. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to see a friend,” I tell him as I slam the door shut and break into a run. I hear his door open behind me.

“What the hell are you doing, Remy?” he yells over the traffic.

“I don’t know,” I shout back.

All I know is that even though I have nothing left, Imogene is still here.