Page 80 of Still Me
“So when do you get back?”
“The twenty-third.”
“Great. I’ll try and move some shifts. I’ll be working for some of the Christmas period, though, Lou. You know the job. It doesn’t stop.”
He sighed. There was a pause before he spoke again. “Listen. I was thinking. Maybe it would be a good idea if you and Katie met eachother. Then you can see she’s okay. She’s not trying to be anything other than a mate.”
Like hell she isn’t.
“Great! Sounds lovely,” I said.
“I think you’ll like her.”
“Then I’m sure I will.”
Like I’d like Ebola virus. Or grating off my own elbows. Or maybe eating that cheese that has live bugs in it.
He sounded relieved when he said, “Can’t wait to see you. You’re back a week, right?”
I lowered my head, trying to muffle my voice a little. “Sam, does—does Katie really want to meet me? Is this, like, something you’ve discussed?”
“Yeah.” And then, when I said nothing, he added, “I mean, not in any... We didn’t talk about what happened with you and me or anything. But she gets that it must be hard for us.”
“I see.” I felt my jaw tighten.
“She thinks you sound great. Obviously I told her she’d got that wrong.”
I laughed, and I’m not sure the world’s worst actor could have made it sound less convincing.
“You’ll see when you meet her. Can’t wait.”
When he rang off, I looked up to find Garry was looking at me in the rearview mirror. Our eyes met for a moment, then his slid away.
—
Given that I lived in one of the world’s busiest metropolises, I had begun to understand that the world as I knew it was actually very small, shrink-wrapped around the demands of the Gopniks from six in the morning often until late evening. My life had become completely intertwined with theirs. Just as I had with Will, I’d become attuned to Agnes’s every mood, able to detect from the subtlest signs whether she was depressed, angry, or simply in need of food. I now knew when her periods were due, and marked them in my personal diary so that I could be braced for five days of heightened emotion or extra-emphatic piano playing. I knew how to become invisible during times of family conflict or when to be ever-present. I became a shadow, so much so that sometimes I felt almost evanescent—useful only in relation to someone else.
My life before the Gopniks had receded, become a faint, ghostly thing, experienced through odd phone calls (when Gopnik schedules allowed) or sporadic e-mails. I failed to ring my sister for two weeks and cried when my mother sent me a handwritten letter with photographs of her and Thom at a theater matinee “just in case you’ve forgotten what we look like.”
It could get a little much. So as a balance, even though I was exhausted, I traveled to the library every weekend with Ashok and Meena—once even going by myself when their children were ill. I got better at dressing for the cold and made my own placard—Knowledge is power!—with its private nod to Will. I would head back on the train and afterward make my way down to the East Village to have a coffee at the Vintage Clothes Emporium and look over whatever new items Lydia and her sister had in stock.
Mr. Gopnik never mentioned the library again. I realized with mild disappointment that charity could mean something quite different here: that it was not enough to give, you had to be seen to be giving. Hospitals bore the names of their donors in six-foot-high letters above the door. Balls were named after those who funded them. Even buses bore lists of names alongside their rear windows. Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Gopnik were known as generous benefactors because they were visible in society as being so. A scruffy library in a rundown neighborhood offered no such kudos.
—
Ashok and Meena had invited me for Thanksgiving at their apartment in Washington Heights, horrified when I revealed I had no plans. “You can’t spend Thanksgiving on your own!” Ashok said, and I decided not to mention that few people in England even knew what it was. “My mother makes the turkey—but don’t expect it to be done American-style,” Meena said. “We can’t stand all that bland food. This is going to be some serious tandoori turkey.”
It was no effort to say yes to something new: I was quite excited. I bought a bottle of champagne, some fancy chocolates, and some flowers for Meena’s mother, then put on my blue cocktail dress with the fur sleeves, figuring an Indian Thanksgiving would be a suitable first outing for it—or, at least, one with no discernible dress code. Ilaria was flat out preparing for the Gopniks’ family dinner and I decided not to disturbher. I let myself out, checking that I had the instructions Ashok had given me.
As I headed down the corridor, I noticed that Mrs. De Witt’s door was open. I heard the television burbling from deep inside the apartment. A few feet from the door Dean Martin stood in the hallway glaring at me. I wondered if he was about to make another break for freedom, and rang the doorbell.
Mrs. De Witt emerged into the corridor.
“Mrs. De Witt? I think Dean Martin may be about to go for a walk.” The dog pottered back toward her. She leaned against the wall. She looked frail and tired. “Can you shut the door, dear? I must have not closed it properly.”
“Will do. Happy Thanksgiving, Mrs. De Witt,” I said.
“Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” She disappeared back into the room, the dog behind her, and I closed the front door. I had never seen her with so much as a casual caller and felt a brief sadness at the thought of her spending Thanksgiving alone.
