For a moment I thought Dad had run out somewhere and left Quentin in charge. I thought Hence’s lateness for work was the whole problem. I tried to slip past Q and through the front door.
“Not so fast,” he said, his voice ominously still, and right away I knew what was wrong: One of those bitchy girls from school had told him about Hence showing up there, and about how we had kissed in front of everyone—a serious kiss, and not a mere peck on the lips. A lot of the girls at school had their eyes on Q, and would welcome a chance to score points with him.
But even if we’d been told on, it still didn’t strike me as such a big deal. So Hence was my boyfriend. Why should Q care? I waited there, hands on my hips, for whatever he would say next.
He sputtered for a moment, as if he didn’t know how to begin. “Not in front of the whole world,” he said finally. “Get inside.”
“I was going inside. Until you stopped me.”
The moment we were through the door, he laid into me. His first question was shocking enough: What kind of slut was I, making out in public, in front of the whole school? But what came after was even worse: Was I sleeping with Hence? Or planning to? (I didn’t answer either question; my love life was none of Q’s business.) And things went downhill from there. How could I stoop so low as to involve myself with “some bottom-dweller busboy who had come out of nowhere to work for minimum wage and sleep in our basement”? Those were his exact words, and they shocked me. I’d had no idea until that very moment how much of a snob my brother was.
As much as that last question stunned me, it was nothing compared to what came out of Q’s mouth next: “He’s not even white.”
My jaw dropped. “What does that mean, Quentin?”
“Look at him. No way he’s white. He’s part black or Indian or Mexican or something.”
I’d never given a second’s thought to Hence’s race. “So what?” I said. “Jackie’s been my friend forever, and she’s black. You never cared about that. What does it matter?”
But Q didn’t respond, probably because he knew there could be no good answer. “He doesn’t even have a last name. You’re the daughter of Jim Eversole, owner of one of the biggest nightclubs in Manhattan. You’ve got this bright future ahead of you. You still want to go to Harvard, right?”
I didn’t answer.
“So why would you get involved with some nobody who’s only going to drag you down? A musician.” The expression on Q’s face could only be described as a sneer.
“Who are you? Seriously, Q, how long have you been such a racist snob?”
He ignored my questions. “What do you think Dad will say when he finds out you’ve been sneaking around with Hence?”
My laughter came out as a snort. “This is our dad you’re talking about? The guy who lets me go clubbing?”
Quentin’s frown deepened. “Dad’s only a pushover because he thinks he can trust you. You think he’ll keep Hence on here if he knows you two are up to whatever it is you’re up to?”
“You’re going to tell on me?” This was yet another shock. Hadn’t Q and I always been on the same side? “Hence and I are not sneaking around. If we’d been sneaky, you wouldn’t know about any of this.”
“Is there anything else you want to tell me? Because Dad will definitely want to know if you’ve been screwing the help.”
I froze. Dad wasn’t a bigot; I couldn’t imagine he would care about Hence’s race, or what kind of family he came from. But the ugly way Q made his last point gave me pause. The more I thought about it, the more I knew Quentin was right about one thing: Dad might care whether or not I had sex. Not that he’d ever told me I shouldn’t, not in so many words. But he still thought of me as his little Cupcake. He’d always trusted me, and I’d never given him any reason not to. And if Dad thought there was a chance Hence and I were heading in that direction, he might fire Hence and kick him out of the building. I couldn’t let that happen.
“I’m not sleeping with Hence,” I told Q. “I’m not sleeping with anyone.” I adjusted my tone, trying for something more conciliatory. “Please don’t say anything. Please, Q? We’ve always looked out for each other.”
“I’m looking out for you now,” he said.
“What if I promise to stay out of trouble? Not to…” I couldn’t even bring myself to say it. “You know.”
Q looked at me closely, his eyes that steely shade they took on whenever his mood turned sour. “That’s not good enough,” he said. “It’s him I don’t trust, not you.”
I thought for a moment. What could I say that would keep Q out of my hair? There seemed to be only one answer. “What if I stop seeing Hence? I’ll stay away from him. I swear.”
Q’s expression softened, but only slightly. “Give me a reason to think you’re lying and I’ll go straight to Dad. Don’t think I won’t. And your boyfriend will be out on the street… or worse.”
While I hated letting Q have the last word, I knew from long experience that there was no winning an argument with Bad Quentin. I punched the elevator button, but the car was off on another floor, and there was no way I was going to stand around waiting for it in Q’s presence. Instead, I stomped up the stairs to my bedroom and slammed the door behind me. It was a kind of hell, being trapped in my room when I knew Hence was downstairs somewhere, probably being further abused by Q. I wanted so badly to throw myself between them, to stand up for Hence, but how could I get involved without making Q even angrier and more suspicious than he already was? While I didn’t know what he had meant by “or worse,” I didn’t want to find out.
One thing was clear: Hence and I would have to stay apart at The Underground and avoid doing anything to cause suspicion. Of course I had lied to Quentin. Nothing would keep me away from Hence now that I was sure he felt the same way about me that I did about him. Because I was sure. I lay on my bed a long while, replaying the events of that afternoon, remembering how we’d held each other in front of China Yearnings, how Hence had taken my face in his hands, and how, into the tent made by my hair, he’d whispered that he had loved me almost from the moment we met.
Chelsea
That night while I slept, my mind whirred along without me. When I woke up, two words I’d read the night before were pinballing through my mind, lighting up bumpers and bouncing off of each other: Jackie and sculpture. So I flew out of bed, grabbed my mom’s journal, and paged through it to find the place where she mentioned Jackie’s after-school sculpture class at the 92nd Street Y. It was a long shot, but it was something.
Back at my laptop, I typed the words Jackie Gray and sculptor, but not much came up. So I tried Jacqueline Gray, hoping I was spelling the first name right, and sure enough, there she was: Jacqueline Gray—American Sculptor. Finally, I was getting somewhere.
I scrolled through photographs of her work: marble statues of women, their forms blooming from—or maybe melting into—backgrounds of chunky rock or glossy polished walls. Dad used to drag me to museums to “civilize” me (his word, not mine), but as soon as I got old enough to have some say, I put a stop to that. I don’t get most art, but Jackie Gray’s statues were cool—scary and beautiful all at once.
I clicked on a link that read “Biography” and arrived at a page titled “About Jacqueline Gray,” complete with a photo of a woman about my mother’s age. Jackie’s multicolored scarf held back a thick cascade of dreadlocks, and she wore a floaty tangerine blouse over a black tank top. I skimmed her biography. She had grown up in Manhattan and earned a degree from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. I breezed through a ton of information about all the awards she’d won and the galleries she’d shown at, hoping to find clues. Near the bottom of the page, my attention snagged on a single sentence: Jacqueline’s work has been exhibited internationally, and a statue from her groundbreaking sequence, Missing Person, was acquired by the Miami Institute of Contemporary Art for its permanent collection.
The words Missing Person caught my attention. I followed the link to a photograph tha
t stole my breath—a woman cut from black marble, her arms flung wide before her, her loose dress billowing. Her straight hair spread out into the air behind her as though blasted by a powerful wind. Her face—the narrow nose, the big eyes, the full lower lip—was my mother’s. From the hips up, the statue looked like any normal portrait, but below that her body morphed into a gnarled tree trunk, as if she had been caught in the middle of a transformation. Was my mother turning into a tree? Or was she a tree turning human? The statue’s mouth gaped with horror or sorrow.
Jackie’s phone number wasn’t listed, but a link on her web page led me to an address in the East Williamsburg section of Brooklyn—close enough to get to by public transportation, if I could navigate the spaghetti tangle of the New York City subway map. Or if I could enlist a local to help me.
I found Cooper downstairs, lugging a dolly loaded with cases of beer. “Whoa. Where are you running to?” he asked. It was hard to tell if he was still annoyed with me for the previous night’s adventures.
“Looking for you,” I said. “Is there a show tonight?”
Cooper jutted his chin at me. “Don’t even think about sneaking into the club again. Hence has been in a terrible mood all day, thanks to you.”
I thought of the girl scratching on the window and Hence’s off-the-charts bizarre reaction. Had Hence told Cooper about that?
“I won’t,” I promised, crossing my heart. “Anyway, I’ve got more urgent things to take care of. I figured out where my mother’s best friend lives.”
Cooper leaned against the beer dolly, waiting.
“In East Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I’m going to go knock on her door. Want to come along?”
He gave me a look I couldn’t quite read.
“The subway lines are confusing. I could really use your help.”
Cooper let out a sigh that ruffled his bangs. “Right,” he said. “I’m on the clock. There isn’t a show tonight, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have work to do.” And with one monumental push, he and the dolly vanished around a corner.
“Whatever,” I said to the empty hallway. Had I done something to make Cooper dislike me? How did I manage to rub everyone I met the wrong way? I was still standing there, frozen, wondering what to do next, when I heard footsteps coming toward me.
It was Cooper again. “Okay,” he said, sounding grumpy and reluctant. “I’ll take you there.”
“You will? Tonight?”
“You heard me say I had to work, right?” He inclined his head toward Hence’s office. “Tomorrow morning.” Cooper lowered his voice to a whisper. “Until then, would you please get upstairs before Hence sees you? He’ll come up with even more busywork to torture me with, and then I might not be able to get away tomorrow at all.”
Stupid Hence. Why did he have to make things so difficult? Without another word, I ducked off toward the elevator and punched the button.
While it annoyed me to have to hide out in my room, a lot of my mother’s journal still needed to be read. I spent the rest of the day stretched across her bed, reading much more slowly than usual so I wouldn’t miss the one crucial bit of information that would make everything fall into place. I was puzzling through one of her poems, trying to figure out what it meant, when I noticed the smell of food—something hot and delicious rising from somewhere in the building. All at once I was starving, not to mention a little loopy from spending so much time alone. Beyond the window, the sky had darkened to an electric blue. How long had it been since I’d spoken to a human being, or eaten anything that wasn’t a Pop-Tart?
As I was tucking the journal into its hiding place, someone knocked on the apartment door. I pressed my eye to the peephole and saw Cooper on the other side, looking less exasperated than I’d seen him in a while. “Coming,” I said as I undid the locks.
“Want some dinner?” he asked. This was a surprise. A few hours earlier, I could have sworn I’d exhausted the last of Cooper’s patience. Now he was inviting me for a home-cooked meal?
“I’m starving.” I followed him onto the elevator. He hit the button for the second floor—Hence’s apartment, I guessed. “Is His Majesty going to be eating with us?”
I was relieved when Coop shook his head, his bangs falling into his eyes. I had to restrain myself from brushing them back. His eyes—an unusual blue-green and fringed with long lashes—deserved not to be hidden. “Hence is out somewhere,” Coop said.
This was welcome news. Coop undid what seemed like seventeen locks and swept into the apartment ahead of me. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting—a dungeon full of cobwebs and spiders?—but I found myself in a stylish living room done up in earth tones and leather, with a faded Persian rug on the gleaming wood floor. Glaring from the far wall was an Andy Warhol–style portrait of a punk rocker with spiky red hair and bugged-out eyes.
“Who’s that?” I pointed.
“Johnny Rotten. Front man for the Sex Pistols. A seminal punk-rock band of the seventies.”
“I know who the Sex Pistols are.”
“And do you know this band?” Cooper pointed to the wall behind us, which bore a large, silver-framed professional shot of four now-familiar skinny dudes in black, the most familiar one brandishing a V-shaped guitar.
“That’s Riptide.”
“Very good. Now you should try listening to their music.”
“How do you know I haven’t?” I asked, though of course he was more or less right.
“Just a wild guess.” Coop led me through a dining room—also surprisingly posh—into a kitchen full of shiny appliances and black granite countertops. A cookbook was splayed open on the counter, and the sink was full of dirty pots and pans. “I hope you eat meat.”
Dinner turned out to be lasagna with sausage. Sitting side by side at the kitchen island, we wolfed down our first helping, not even talking, and when he asked if I wanted seconds, I nodded and held out my plate. “This is surprisingly not bad,” I told him.
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He fished a couple of Cokes out of the enormous refrigerator.
“You cook like this when Hence isn’t here? It looks like a lot of work.”
“He’ll eat it when he gets home.”
“That’s not going to be soon, is it?”
“You’re that scared of him?”
“I’m not scared. I just can’t figure out why he doesn’t want to help me find my mother.”
“You really don’t get why you bother him?” Coop got to his feet and beckoned for me to follow. “Put that plate down. I’ve got something to show you.”
Intrigued, I complied. Hence’s bedroom was huge, decorated in shades of tobacco and cream, with a Bose stereo system and a heavy king-size bed. The sight of it brought a new and distressing thought into my head: Did Hence have a girlfriend? Did he bring her here? I had an uneasy feeling I was about to see something I wouldn’t want to.
Coop hit a switch, illuminating track lights trained on the wall beyond the enormous bed, and I got the answer to my question. From waist height to the ceiling, the wall was covered with framed photographs. I looked from one to the next until it became clear: Every single one contained my mother. In the center hung a large photo I recognized—my mother’s high school graduation portrait, her black hair gleaming against the white gown, a gold honors tassel draped over her shoulder, a mischievous smile on her lips. To its right hung a grainier, more candid shot of her in front of an ice-cream store, smiling over a triple-decker strawberry cone. In the photo beneath, she wore braids, a navy-and-white-plaid school uniform, and knee socks, and her arms were flung around a young version of Jackie Gray, both of them laughing. I let my gaze travel to the next photo and the next and the next: my mother in a tank top and cutoffs; my mother sitting on the edge of a fountain; my mother in front of CBGB in a belted trench coat and a pink beret. The come-hither look in her dark blue eyes told me all I needed to know about who had taken that picture—who had probably taken most of the shots on the wall.
My gaze landed on a strip of black-and-white photo-booth shots—matted, framed, and under glass—of my mother kissing a young Hence, his hands on her waist and her arms wrapped around his shoulders. In the last of the four frames they had pulled apart and were looking sideways at each other, their expressions identically naughty, as if they were getting away with something unspeakably delicious but forbidden. They certainly looked like they were in love—or very seriously in lust. Had she ever looked at my father that way? I took a giant step back from the wall and was surprised to find Coop watching me. I’d forgotten he was in the room. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something, but I couldn’t think what it might be.
“Did you see this one?” He pointed at the photograph farthest to the left, one I had missed. I walked over to it and recognized a portrait of my mother on her wedding day, clutching daisies, a wreath of baby’s breath in her simply done hair. I had always loved that photo; we had a copy of it on a shelf in our living room. Though my mother’s dress was nothing special—just a simple white sundress—in it she looked supremely confident and regal. Beside her my father looked proud, and a little afraid, in his navy-blue suit. But unlike the version at home, this one had been scissored down the middle so it contained only my mother, like those snapshots I’d found at home with Hence cut out. An ornate silver frame surrounded the portrait as though it were an ordinary, unvandalized wedding photo.
“That’s creepy,” I said. “Like something a stalker would hang on his wall. I feel dirty just looking at these.”
Coop snapped off the light, and I followed him into the kitchen. My appetite had disappeared, but he went back to eating. “You know why I showed you those pictures,” he said after a while, not looking up from his plate.
He was right. Suddenly it all made sense: why the very sight of me seemed to make Hence angry. Before tonight I would have guessed that Hence hadn’t completely gotten over my mother. But now I knew it was more than that: He was positively obsessed with her. Even if he did have a girlfriend, he certainly couldn’t bring her to his bedroom, where she would be faced with his shrine to Catherine Eversole Price. How had he even gotten that copy of her wedding photo? Had she sent it to him to make him jealous? And why had she married my father if she still cared enough about Hence to bother? I was so preoccupied I barely heard what Cooper said next.