Page 13 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
E:Sorry?
K:What’s wrong with you two? You’re acting like you barely know each other.
M + E[in unison]: No, we aren’t.
Logically, it was then my turn to ask Manuel about his life. And there wasso muchI wanted to ask. So many questions that had built up inside me over the years.How are your parents? How is Valentina? What are you studying? Do you still refuse to go to the movie theater unless you can sit in the very last row? Do you still think Tater Tots are just overweight versions of French fries?But I couldn’t ask a single one. Not without clueing every other person in the room in to the fact that I hadn’t spoken to him in three full years.
Of course I wanted to ask Manuel about his life. Of course I wanted to tell him more about mine. He’s my best friend.Wasmy best friend. He was my best friend, and I used to tell him every idiotic, mundane thing that popped into my head. Soof courseI wanted to tell him everything, starting with the moment my foot landed on the pavement of New York City. I wanted to tell him about being homeless for the first time in my life because I’m a stubborn Trust Fund Baby who wouldn’t ask her parents for money. I wanted to tell him about living for a month with our family friend, a Scientologist named Carl. I wanted to tell him that Carl was a filmmaker, that he was completely normal, that I couldn’t believe my good fortune. That his apartment had tall, gorgeous windows that overlooked theterra-cotta building across the street, painted the same cherry-lip pink as a home in the Italian countryside. That in the mornings, I bought cheap coffee and stood on the apartment’s windowsill, back pressed to the wall, craning my neck to try and catch that small sliver of the Empire State Building poking up in the distance.
Manuel would understand. He would understand why the first thing I did after Carl left was to search the apartment top to bottom for evidence of Scientology—to open the cabinets, scour the closets, shake the cereal boxes, flip open every book in the library to see if the pages within had been hollowed out. Manuel would know why I had to do it. He would get that it wasn’t snooping; it was my right—no, myresponsibility—as an outsider invited into the home of a member of the most secretive religion in the country. I had to discover what I could. And, of course, he would laugh when I told him that all I found were expired peanuts, ten identical pairs of eyeglasses, and a fridge filled with stacks of unopened camera film.
I didn’t tell Manuel any of that. I couldn’t. To speak candidly with my best friend would open a door into that darker passage of my mind, the one walked by only those most terrifying of thoughts and desires. The ones Dr.Droopy once labeled “intrusive.” I fought like hell to lock them out, and I could feel how easy it would be to let them back in. The door floated before me, clouding my vision, begging me to grab its handle and pull.
—
“YOU EXPECTING AN IMPORTANT EMAILor something?”
I looked up, shaken from my reverie. Almost without realizing it, I had pulled out my phone and checked it for messages, having forgotten that I was in a different country and that every gigabyte of data cost more than I could afford.
“Nope,” I said, pocketing my phone and spearing a mouthful of salad.
“So, Manny.” Karma leaned over my dinner plate. “What’s happening with that girl you met at the Spee?”
I nearly choked on the piece of lettuce in my mouth. My eyes snapped up to see Manuel’s response.
He cleared his throat.
Karma went on. “Your last text said she was getting pretty clingy.”
As Karma spoke, a fleck of spit flew from her mouth, landing on the left side of my burger. The spit droplet bubbled over and dripped down the side of the patty. I tore my eyes from my plate, reminding myself that it didn’t matter, that I no longer concerned myself with those obsessions. But even in my peripheral vision, I remained aware of its presence.
“Yeah.” Manuel shifted his pile of French fries around with his fork. “To be honest, she ended up being pretty fake. I think she just wanted to say she was dating a Mexican.”
Karma snorted. “Of course she did. How many times did you have to explain that you’re Colombian, not Mexican? That not all Hispanic people come from the same coun—”
“You guys text?” I blurted out, interrupting.
An awkward pause. Then Manuel asked, “Me and the girl?”
“Of course not,” I snapped. Then I drew back.Rein it in, Eliot.With two fingers, I plucked off a chunk of meat from the clean end of the burger and popped it into my mouth. “I meant you and Karma.”
They glanced at each other. My sister pulled her lips into a tight bundle, raising her eyebrows at Manuel. I was struck, as she did, by the pronounced concavity of her cheekbones, her smooth jaw, the lone freckle just above her lips. Her dark curly hair permanently styled into a chic pixie cut. I had forgotten how beautiful my sister was. How naturally thin, even when the primary ingredient in her diet was chocolate chip cookies.
As I admired my sister’s face, I felt—to my utter horror—a sudden pulse.Down there.
Oh God, I thought.No.No.
Beneath the table, I clenched my fists and squeezed my toes, an action that would sometimes make the sensation, thearousal—my chest constricted at even the thought of the word—go away. As if the tightening of other muscles could distract from the one that terrified me most.
And then I heard it. That little voice. The one that was me but not me, the one I’d spent years learning to shut out.
You’re attracted to her, it whispered.You’re attracted to your older sister.
No, I thought as firmly as possible, as if I were a small child in need of scolding.No, you’re not. Those are the Worries talking. Don’t listen to them. You know who you are.
If Dr.Ahmed were here, I know exactly what she’d say. “Your body’s response has nothing to do with sexual arousal,” she’d recite, crossing her legs in her fancy heather-grey armchair. My eyes would flick up to the gigantic Jackson Pollock painting behind her that might very well be an original. “It’s Pavlovian. You check your groin to see if you’ll find a response, and you always do.”
Checking.A classic internal compulsion. One that I’d been performing since I was ten without ever knowing that that’s what I was doing.
