Page 22 of The Art of Vanishing

Claire

What on earth was wrong with me? I sat in my parked car a few blocks away from the door to my apartment and stared out into the night.

Sure, I was frustrated with Jean for pushing me.

But I understood it, of course I did. It was obvious to him how much I was hiding.

Why couldn’t I just come clean and tell Jean the whole story?

And tell him that I loved him too? I knew I loved him.

I’d never felt this way about anyone before.

I wanted to tell him that. I wanted to tell him everything, I swore to myself.

I was only digging myself in deeper with every question I escaped, each answer I denied him.

It wasn’t that bad—I had blown this so far out of proportion in my mind. Right?

I tried to remember the last time I’d told someone the whole story, someone who didn’t already know me.

I hadn’t made very many new friends in the past few years; I had just been focused on getting by.

I’d even clammed up when Linda started asking harmless questions.

She wouldn’t have batted an eyelash; why should my drama have affected her?

But I didn’t know where to start and once I’d covered it up, I didn’t know how to bring it back up.

Uninvited and unwanted, my mom’s voice popped into my head.

It had been years since I’d heard it, but it rang through clear as day, like she was sitting next to me in the car.

The judgment, the disappointment. If I even began to confide in her about what was happening now, she’d just laugh.

She’d never believe someone like Jean could love someone like me.

He’d said he loved me. And I loved him back, even if I didn’t tell him tonight.

I was too afraid, too frustrated by his pushing.

But I did love him. And because of that, tomorrow, I’d tell him.

I’d start by telling him that I hadn’t seen Jeremy in years; I didn’t even know if he was still in this city, even though I’d only moved here because of him. I hated thinking about that time.

When I first met Jeremy, I was sixteen. That was the first of many things my mother took issue with; I was still a girl, as she told me over and over again.

And he was older, much older. I was too young to see that he was wrong for me but old enough to know others would think that.

I kept him a secret from her and from Gracie for as long as I could.

And when I couldn’t hide it anymore, she let it rip.

When there was no home for me there anymore, Jeremy said there were opportunities in the city and he wanted me to come with him.

I never asked what kind of opportunities.

I just said okay. I didn’t tell her where I’d gone; I didn’t hide it either.

She never tried to find me so I assumed I was right—she didn’t care.

I thought life in the city would be something entirely different from home, that it would be the life I’d always dreamed of, a life of excitement and glamour. That’s what he promised me, and I thought, Okay, this is it.

This was not it. When I was able to work, Jeremy got me a job at a friend’s place around the corner from our apartment.

I worked the counter every morning, ringing people up for their black coffees and breakfast sandwiches.

I got home around noon and he was off to “work.” He never answered any of my questions about what that work entailed and why he didn’t come home until right before I had to leave in the morning.

He never answered my calls, whether during the day or at night.

It was like I was his employee, only good for a check at this point and a meager one at that.

I didn’t know anyone else here; I couldn’t exactly up and leave. I was trapped.

One morning, he just never came back. I waited for him, watching the clock tick closer to the start of my shift and then barrel right on through it.

I sat there for hours, simultaneously shocked that he was gone while also feeling completely unsurprised that this was how it had ended.

I harbored no hopes he’d show up in a day or two.

I knew he was never going to walk through that door again.

Twenty-four hours passed and I was terrified, but finally I was free.

I worked up the nerve to call my mom to tell her he was gone and to ask if I could come home. She didn’t answer. I didn’t know if my voicemail would change anything, but I thought I’d at least hear back. I needed to know who it was she hated: Jeremy? Or me?

Nothing, radio silence, until Gracie showed up by herself a few days later, suitcase in hand. She never mentioned my mother or my message, just said she thought I might need her. And I did. So, she’d stayed ever since.

She took over the work at home and I moved from one job to the next.

The deli refused to take me back after I’d missed almost a week of shifts with no warning.

I moved on to a local bar in the area that always had a help wanted sign in the window.

I wasn’t experienced enough to be a bartender, so they stuck a spray bottle and a rag in my hand and let me pick up dirty glasses, clean dishes when needed, and try to keep the bathrooms in order.

I soon learned why that help wanted sign was perpetually in the window—the clientele was terrible.

Each shift was an exercise in trying to keep other people’s hands off me.

I kept the ring on for whatever protection it might offer me.

Gracie could tell I was miserable and urged me to look for anything else.

Citing my deli experience, I was able to get a job at a trendy new coffee shop that had just opened.

The work was dull, but the space was nice and the clientele was better.

I could have worked there forever, but they announced suddenly that they would be closing up shop.

One day, they were there; the next, they were gone.

I’d always wondered how they’d made enough money to afford the rent until I understood they didn’t.

I looked for something similar but struck out over and over again.

I widened my search, inquiring at restaurants, bars, grocery stores, willing to accept the first job I was offered, until Gracie caught me by surprise.

She sat me down and questioned how I wanted to spend the rest of my life.

She wasn’t asking about my dream job; if I’d said astronaut or princess or even doctor, she would have laughed in my face.

She just wanted me to pick a place, any place, and want to work there.

I said the first thing that came to mind: if I could do anything or work anywhere, it would be at an art museum.

I didn’t care what the job was. She was understandably surprised; I hadn’t mentioned art or museums since I won that contest as a kid.

She asked me to explain and I told her about the picture Mom kept in the kitchen, how it always made me feel happy and safe to look at it and I was kind of desperate to feel happy and safe again.

Three days later, she returned from the library with a map of all the art museums in the area and the addresses and phone numbers of their employment offices. I was so touched, I didn’t tell her I could have looked all of this up on my cellphone.

With each shift in the museum, I felt like I was coming back to life a little bit more.

I still couldn’t believe these nights with Jean were my life—glamorous parties, exciting new people, a never-ending list of places to explore, a love that felt bigger and bolder than I could have ever imagined.

Of course, not everything was a fairy tale.

The days were still an exhaustive list of responsibilities to manage.

And once again, I was in a relationship I had to keep a secret from everyone else.

But maybe that was why I’d kept everything about my normal life so far apart from my world with Jean.

Maybe I just didn’t want all of this to exist in the same place.

I thought of Jean’s mother. Their relationship seemed so different from mine with my own mom.

No, there didn’t seem to be a passionate maternal love there, but she didn’t ignore his existence.

She treated him with care and respect. She was there for him, every day.

Maybe his father was more like my mother.

They’d both abandoned us because that was what was easiest for them.

I knew this because of all that Jean had confided in me.

When I pushed him to open up to me, he answered.

That wasn’t fair, and my feelings were not the only ones that mattered.

Tomorrow, I would start to make things right.

We’d start with Jeremy. It wasn’t everything, but it was something.

And someday, I’d tell him the rest of the story too.

I pushed open my car door and stepped out into the unusually warm night, heading back to my reality.