The Truth of Right Now Page 2

  Jesus. He’s beautiful.

  I decide to go for the brownie.

  “Do you guys know that new kid?” I ask when I return to the table, projecting my voice well above a whisper this time. For a moment, they all appear dumbstruck, as though they’d forgotten I was their lunch companion for the day.

  “What new kid?” Jackie asks.

  “The one by himself. The black guy.” I hate doing that, describing somebody using just their race. I wouldn’t do that if I were pointing out my mother in a crowd. I wouldn’t say, “She’s that white woman over by the salad.” In this case, my description works because our school isn’t exactly overflowing with black kids. (It’s so bad there was a New York Times article about it.)

  They all look in his direction.

  “I don’t know him,” Tracy mumbles.

  “Me either,” Marie offers.

  Jackie nods dubiously. “Yeah. He’s in my homeroom. And history. He has a weird name. Dariomitochondria? Dunno. Something with way too many syllables, if you ask me.”

  I didn’t ask you.

  “Think he might’ve been kicked out of his old school. That’s what I heard anyway,” Jackie says. “Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  The bell rings, and we all start to go our separate ways. With no warning, Jackie attacks me with another hug. In the midst of this embrace, I assure her that I’m fine and that she shouldn’t worry.

  She releases me.

  “Let’s get together and talk soon, okay? Like really talk.”

  I nod.

  “Promise me, Lily,” she says.

  “I promise,” I lie.

  She smiles and walks away. We were just at the same table for forty-five minutes, and she had no interest in talking to me then. Probably just keeping up appearances.

  As I grab my backpack, I look toward the table next to the wall by the doors, but he’s already gone. I didn’t see Tara McKenzie in the cafeteria at all.

  * * *

  The wind has picked up, and instead of kissing me all over, it whips my hair in my face and tries to lift my shirt like a kite. The ferry rocks back and forth and I feel slightly queasy. I know it will pass. It always does.

  My phone vibrates. I don’t need to check it to see who’s calling me. To be fair, I am late. A good two hours late. But today, the beautiful part of today, passed with me indoors and unable to be a part of it. I also needed some time. All summer (not counting the bad days), my time belonged to me. Mom was always in her office, ostensibly writing, or attending luncheons and giving talks to disheartened but hopeful women. I could walk all over the city if I wanted to. I could sit in my room and stare at the hardwood floor if I wanted to. I got accustomed to the quiet of my mind. Now I’m back to the regiment. Now I’m back with the people.

  A text. I read the screen: Where r u? Pizza, Chinese, or Indian? I sigh and text her back: Indian. Home soon. The ferry is heading back to the city from Staten Island. I have already ridden back and forth twice, but it’s time to get off the boat and go home. Maybe Mom had a good day. Maybe she’s finally had a breakthrough on the book that she’s been writing for nine years. It’s possible.

  When I get home, I turn my key and open the door, and there she is: right where I left her, as though she’s been standing in this spot all day.

  “How was it?” she barks at me, and I jump out of my skin. After I recover from my mild heart attack, I tell her it was fine.

  “Where were you?” she asks with more intensity than she probably intends.

  “Nowhere, Mom. I just needed some time. Everything’s cool.”

  She exhales a little.

  I get out some plates and put the vegetable korma on the coffee table. I spoon out some fish curry while she searches through the Netflix options.

  “Documentary? Movie? TV show? Look. Nine to Five ! Have you ever seen this? It’s a great flick.” She chatters on about the brilliance that is Lily Tomlin as an evil Snow White, and I look at my fish and my papadums and my pakora and I pick up my fork and it feels so cold and familiar and nothing. And I just start sobbing like an idiot.

  “Oh, Jesus,” my mom cries, and she throws her arms around me. “Baby, what’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

  Through hiccups comes “I don’t know.” Those three stupid words. I’ve said them so many times.

  But I do know. For a minute, I felt content. Satisfied with my delivery food, the prospect of watching Nine to Five, and the thought that this was the best I could ever expect from life.

  And I lost my shit.

  SECRETS OF THE BOURGEOISIE

  Dariomauritius Raphael Gray is bored as fuck. High school sucks. He hates it. He hates anything that is a waste of his time. This is supposed to be AP History, and he already knows half of this stuff from the History Channel, and the History Channel is “edutainment.”

  I can feel myself getting dumber every day. He raises his hand because he’s feeling ornery. The teacher sees him and rolls his eyes.

  “Yeah,” he answers, ready to do battle.

  “Are we ever gonna get more than just facts in this class?” Dari asks.

  Sweetly.

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “Who were the native tribes at Jamestown? Did any settlers protest the whole barge-in-and-seize mentality?”

  He narrows his eyes at his least-favorite pupil.

  He has hated me since day one, Dari thinks, and I don’t blame him. I’m smarter than he is. Fat bastard.

  “We only know so much from the evidence we have available.”

  “We have brains, though, right?”

  “If you’re interested in fiction, perhaps you should take AP Lit. In the meantime, I’d love to do my glamorous job, if that’s all right with you.” The ass-kissers laugh at this excuse for humor. Dari slumps down in his seat. That’s his reward for taking an active role in his education. He’s been here two whole weeks, and he’s certain that his mind is shrinking. So much for bourgie schools and their bullshit reps.

  He patiently waits for the bell to ring like all the other sheep, then he grabs his essentials from his locker and leaves.

  No one notices.

  The 1 train is a carnival of freaks this morning. A woman dressed as Michael Jackson—loafers, white socks, and glitter glove—moonwalks to the song blasting out of her boom box. Dari’s 99 percent sure that it is a Billy Ocean song and the incongruence of this choice bugs him. He has half a mind to tell her so, but no one wants to hear from the peanut gallery. She also could be packing heat. Who knows? This is America. An elderly man in a fairy princess costume about two sizes too small sucks on a lollipop and winks at him. A younger man in a heavy winter coat (unnecessary in balmy September) warns an invisible person about the dangers of crack because, in his head, it’s probably still 1991. There are two youngish women who seem normal, but Dari knows better than to assume that. One reads a book; the other a Kindle or something. You always have to watch out for the quiet ones.

  He gets off the train and walks up to the movie theater.

  “One,” he says at the ticket window. The girl eyes him for a minute.

  Really? You really got nothing better to do than worry about how old I am?

  But she says nothing. She takes his money and he walks in and remembers that the popcorn here tastes like feet.

  No one is in the theater other than Dari. No one. It’s cool, but it’s a little spooky, too.

  He makes himself comfortable, taking up a few seats with his stuff, and propping his feet up on the one in front of him. He’s ready for some education.

  Dari likes to think of Godard as a mentor. Not that he’s interested in filmmaking. Just the images. His stories. The commentary. He prefers secret mentors from afar. Dead ones are his absolute favorites.

  The lights go down and the film begins. No previews. Even though the popcorn here is offensive (dry and wrong), he grins, thinking about the suckers still sitting in class being crammed full of mediocrity. How c
an anyone live in this city and honestly believe that more education happens inside a school as opposed to outside of one? If somebody lives in the middle of nowhere, then yes, in that case, they’d better go to school. For real. What choice do they have?

  Watching the silhouettes on the screen, he looks around again to see if anyone has joined him in the theater. Nope. Not even noon and this weird, barely lit scene about a threesome and an egg breaking in an unconventional place is giving him a monster erection. To avoid stroking something else, he takes out his sketch pad and makes some broad strokes in the dark. He attempts to render Mireille Darc in all her chilly French beauty and as the movie leaves this moment, he remains toiling on his drawing. Freezing her in time. Her head bowed down, knees bent into her chest, describing her unusual sexual escapade to her husband who wasn’t invited.

  His phone rings. He always forgets to turn the damn thing off at the movies. He gives it a glance to see who’s called. It’s Kendra. Two missed calls. Dari’s baffled by her definition of “space.” When he requests space from someone, he expects to get it. This is a difficult concept for Kendra. Apparently.

  As the lights come up, he’s still alone in the theater sketching. It’s been a while since he’s gotten this hooked. At the new school, he has yet to find a worthy subject—known or unknown. Back at his old school, he had several. Kendra was one until she became boring. Unknown subjects are the best ones. He’s sure it isn’t an invasion of privacy or a stop on the road to stalkerville. It’s a compliment and a challenge. He looks around his classes, the halls, and all he sees are different versions of the same person. Nothing special.

  His favorite subject ever was an old homeless chess player in Washington Square Park. He eventually told the old dude about the series he was doing and the guy asked to see one of the drawings. He was not impressed. He said, “You made me look like a duck.”

  A young woman with frosty blond hair and deep laugh lines enters and sweeps. He reaches a stopping place and leaves. Outside he turns his phone on again and it rings.

  “What is it, Kendra?” he asks.

  “Coffee. That’s all. I just wanna see you.”

  “Why aren’t you in school?”

  “I don’t have class today.” Oh, yeah. She’s in college now. “Why aren’t you?” Well played, Kendra.

  Ten minutes later, the two are sitting in Caffe Reggio waiting for their drinks. Double espresso for Dari and a latte for Kendra. The usual.

  “What’s the new school like?” she asks.

  “It’s school. How’s college life?”

  “All right, I guess. Overwhelming. It’s so different,” she says, and she shakes her head as if she couldn’t possibly make him understand the difference. “How’s your sister?”

  “I don’t feel like doing that. Just tell me what you need to tell me.” It sounds harsh. He has a problem with that. Often his words sound much nicer in his head. Something corrupts them during their trip to his mouth.

  She looks down at the table and fiddles with her napkin. “Did I do something to you?”

  The waitress brings their drinks. He starts to add some cream to his when Kendra grabs his hand.

  “Can you answer me first?”

  Dari glances out the window toward the park. Still under construction.

  Seems like it’ll never be finished.

  “No. You didn’t do anything,” he says.

  “Then what happened?”

  “It didn’t seem fair. To you.”

  She takes this in as he creams and sugars his espresso.

  “Why?”

  “It’s just . . . how you are. Calling every day. Several times a day. Making me gifts. Saying I love you all the time. I’m not like that,” he tells her.

  “So?”

  “Don’t you think you deserve to be with someone who is?” Now, that sounds amazing. Saintly even.

  Kendra sips her latte thoughtfully.

  Is he being completely honest with her? Not exactly.

  Let’s be real. Kendra is stunning. Short, dark curly hair. Mocha skin. Black eyes that shine like onyx stones, and a body to kill for. How hot is she? So hot that random men on the street—white men, Asian men, business men, homeless men—sometimes call her Beyoncé. She doesn’t actually look like Beyoncé, though. That’s their liberal racism. She’s softer, more curious, more intelligent. She’s also sweet and smart. But sometime during their ten-month relationship, Kendra stopped being Kendra and started becoming the girl version of Dari. His interests became her interests. She wouldn’t read a book without his approval. She started drawing. She started to become cynical. He loathed the effect he was having on her. And it made her a whole lot less attractive. She became a bore.

  “Dari?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you with someone else now?”

  He shakes his head, annoyed that she asked. “It’s not about that.” He briefly wonders if he should’ve lied and said he was with someone. Would that make it easier?

  Kendra raises her cup to her lips slowly. Please don’t start crying. Please, please, please don’t start crying. . . .

  “All right,” she says. She drops some money on the table and walks toward the door.

  “Hey,” he calls.

  “Hey what?” An edge to her voice.

  “Nothing. Just . . . bye.”

  And she’s gone. She’s never left Dari’s presence without a long hug or more. Perhaps she finally got the message.

  He thought he’d feel relieved. Instead, he just feels like an asshole.

  * * *

  Home by 5:45. Reluctantly. The Führer will come in the door at six on the dot. On. The. Dot.

  Dari washes his hands and grabs some vegetables to chop for the salad.

  Izzy stirs her mashed potatoes and takes the meat out of the oven.

  “Thanks,” she says absently.

  “It’s my job. Sorry I didn’t get here earlier.”

  She waves that off, disinterested.

  “What’s wrong?” Dari asks, not really wanting to know.

  “Had another interview.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  She gives him the thumbs-down.

  “How do you know it went badly?”

  “I find it hard to answer stupid questions like where do you see yourself in five years? from these little white boys that barely look older than you.”

  He tosses the salad with her homemade vinaigrette. “So? What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘Hopefully not in this company.’ I just have a big mouth, Dari.”

  “No, you don’t,” Dari says. She doesn’t. Not really. But she has no patience for bullshit. Her aversion to dishonesty is how she lost her job at Deutsche. She was there seven years, too (if you count her internship when she was still in college). Things went south when she discovered a huge discrepancy in the area of foreign exchange—something she was sure had to be an error. She was told that “price manipulation” was both normal and legal. She didn’t buy it and talked to a couple of reporters from Democracy Now! because investors have a right to know what’s being done with their money. It was pretty badass at the time, but forget landing another job in finance once you’ve been labeled “whistle-blower.” She was lucky multimonth unemployment was her only punishment for bucking the system.

  “Maybe you should imagine the interviewers are old,” he suggests.

  “Maybe.”

  “Or imagine them naked. With droopy balls.”

  She laughs. “You are a fool.”

  Izzy opens the kitchen window, sneaking in a quick smoke before six.

  She smoked in high school and claims she quit when she went to college and didn’t pick up another cigarette until five months ago. That’s when she moved back home.

  “How was your day?” She already seems less tense as she blows a cloud of smoke out into the atmosphere.

  “Fine, I guess. School is stupid. I went to Film Forum. They’re showing Weekend. Have you eve
r seen it? It’s insane.”

  “When did you see this?”

  “Why?”

  Izzy sucks her teeth and shakes her head. “You can’t be cutting school like last year, Dari.”

  He sits in a chair and checks the microwave clock. 5:56.

  “I mean it. I don’t want you to become a slouch.”

  “Come on, I have perfect posture,” he quips. Of course that pisses her off, but he hates how she can talk to him like a full-on adult and then change him back to kid brother over something as asinine as skipping class.

  “It might not feel like it, but if you can stick it out and do well, you’ll have a lot more freedom in the long run. I know what I’m talking about.” She runs her cigarette under the faucet, fully extinguishing it, and once it’s limp and soggy, tosses it in the trash can. She then sprays some air freshener.

  “I was there every day for the past two weeks. Nobody wants to reward me for that.”

  “You don’t get rewards for doing what you’re supposed to do. A tragic fact of life you better get used to.”

  And then the door opens and he’s home.

  “Good evening,” he greets. Izzy says, “Hi,” and Dari nods at him as he walks past, hangs his jacket in the closet, and sets down his briefcase. Always in the same spot: due north of the bookshelf.

  He sits in his chair and watches the BBC World News while the siblings finish arranging the food on the table. At six fifteen, he switches the television off and joins them, his plate already waiting for him. They sit quietly as he says grace in his head. Despite all his rules, he’s long given up on trying to force God into his heathen offspring.

  When he begins to eat, so do they.

  “Ismene?” Izzy winces just a little. She has always hated that name. She legally changed it to Isabel when she turned twenty-one. If their father is aware of this, he pretends otherwise.

  “Yes?”

  “How was the interview?” He asks this between bites of beef. He chews it with some difficulty, as though it might be a touch overcooked. A message for Izzy.

  “Not great. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get it,” she mutters into her mashed potatoes. Dari stares at her, imagining how confident she must appear at her job interviews. Arrogant. But not here. Never here.