Pia Padukone - The Faces Of Strangers

A boy approached her, holding out his hands. “Welcome home, Nor,” he said. “I really missed you.” He bent over to hug her and the floral smell of Pert Plus mixed with the metallic scent of the oil he used to clean his flute wafted off him. Her brother, Nicholas. She remembered the scent in the hospital room as he had sat by her side, watching her concernedly and narrating the play-by-play of his recent wrestling matches. Her own brother had been distilled to a smell. She found herself hoping that he kept up with flute practice and being that hygienic boy whose sweaty wrestling practices encouraged him to wash his hair every single day. As he leaned in to her she put her arms around him and breathed him in. She wanted to pack this smell, to put it in a little atomizer and spritz it every so often so that everything around her smelled just like him. But that left six others. Behind Nicholas came a tall girl with a cleft chin. She had sandy hair and wore a retainer across her top teeth. When the girl bent down, she whispered, “Claire” in Nora’s ear, like a blessing. Nora looked up at her best friend, grateful for the answer to an unasked question. Claire tightened her grip on Nora then, and Arthur had to put his hand on Claire to remind her that Nora was still very weak.

“Sorry,” Claire whispered, backing away, her eyes glittering with tears, the ridge of that perfect cleft chin quivering with sadness. One by one the others came forward—her friends and classmates from high school, from her childhood, from the building. They each whispered their names in her ear like an invocation, and Nora felt glad that she’d had each of their names on the tip of her tongue as they leaned down. All except one; when the last boy approached her, she flinched and turned her head down. She hadn’t meant to be rude, but she couldn’t place anything about this boy, from his polo shirt to his porcupine hair. His arms were reaching out to embrace her, but this boy couldn’t look more like a stranger to her. He looked up at Arthur before he came any closer to Nora, his eyes beseeching him. Nora couldn’t see behind her, but Arthur had shrugged his shoulders sadly and shaken his head. Stella had whispered, “Maybe later, Jason. She’s probably exhausted.”

Jason backed away, nodding, and joined the group of girls and Nicholas, who were still using the dining table as a sort of barricade between them and her wheelchair. Nora turned her head slightly and whispered toward her parents. Whispering was all she seemed to be capable of right now. It seemed to be the only tone appropriate for the situation. Anything more and everything would appear normal. “I need a minute, Dad.”

Arthur patted Nora on the shoulder and swung her chair toward the hallway. As she passed the group of people, they were all nearly indistinguishable in a huddle. There was only enough time to recognize that her brother was wearing a maroon hoodie with Harvard emblazoned across the chest before she was wheeled down the hall to her room. The late-afternoon light softened the walls, glancing off a window outside to illuminate all the framed photos on the walls and on her shelves.

“Just wheel me to the vanity. I can take it from there. My hands are fine, you know.” She shook them jazzily.

“I know you can do it, honey. I just don’t want you to tire yourself out.”

“I have to get used to it.” He parked her where she had requested and kissed her softly on the cheek. “We’ll be in the dining room. Just call if you need anything.”

Nora nodded and waited until the door had clicked shut. Once she was alone, she looked up. Purple bruises blossomed under her eyes and her lips were red and chapped. Her cheekbones looked all wrong to her, as did even the color of her eyes. They had been brown, she’d thought. But now they looked gray. She was looking at a stranger. This face was unknown to her. This face, this entire temperament was like an arranged marriage to a person she would have to spend the rest of her life with, sight unseen. She shut her eyes, turned her wheelchair away from the mirror and buried her face in her hands. She didn’t want to look at herself anymore. She didn’t want to look at anyone.

Everything felt drained—her brain, her heart, her tear ducts. There was a tentative knock at the door, and when it was pushed gently open, Harvard walked in, wafting that burnished flowery aroma.

Nora looked up. “Nicky...?” she asked.

He nodded. “Here’s how I see it, Nor. I figure that now we’re even. You’re face blind. I’m left-handed. The playing field has finally been leveled.”

“How is that leveled?” Nora said. “Being left-handed is not an affliction.”

“I can’t tell you how many wrestling matches I’ve lost because of it,” Nicholas said.

“Last I checked, being left-handed wasn’t classified under brain damage. And when’s the last time being left-handed ever caused social suicide? ’Cause that’s what this is, you know. I’m fucked.”

“It’s not that bad. It’ll get easier. It’s just hard now ’cause it’s new. Look, I got you this,” Nicholas held out a small black notebook toward her. “I thought it might help.”

“What is it?” Nora took it from him. The pages inside were blank except for the first one, which had Nicholas’s name on top.

Nicholas Grand

5ʹ10ʺ

Hazel eyes

Broad shoulders

Handsome

Stunning smile

“You’re too young to be resorting to the Personals section. What is this?”

Nicholas grinned. “It’s a face book. You make notes on people. That way, you can put the descriptions to the faces.” Years later, when that ubiquitous social media site would seemingly take over the world, Nora would remark that if only her brother had taken his idea to the internet, he might have been the millionaire by his thirtieth birthday.

“And I see this one has been written extremely objectively,” Nora said, arching an eyebrow.

“Well, you can amend those based on whatever helps you remember.” Nicholas grinned.

“Thanks, Nicky.”

“We can go back out and start working on it together,” Nicholas said, nodding toward the door. “Starting with Jason. How about ape-like?”

“I know Mom and Dad did it to help, but I didn’t ask for all that.” Nora sighed, waving her hands in the direction of the dining room. “I didn’t even ask to come home from the hospital. I would have been fine sitting propped up in that bed for the rest of my life, with the doctors shining their little penlights in my face, whispering all around me like I had lost my hearing. Gesturing toward me as though I had gone blind. No, asshole, I can hear and see just fine. The problem is that I can’t remember your face.”

“The mind is funny,” Nicholas said. “Your brain is probably exhausted from everything that’s happened. You’ll be okay, Nor. We’ll all help you.”

She looked at his sweatshirt. “What happened, did you get into Harvard while I was in the hospital, boy genius?” Nicholas looked sheepish.

“No, this is the one Claire gave you. I stole it while you were in there, ’cause it smelled like you.” He raised his arms above his head and peeled it off, offering it to her. She accepted it and buried her nose in it.

“Now it smells like you.”

“Really? What do I smell like?”

“Pert Plus and flute oil.”

He sniffed under his arms. “Add it,” he said, nodding toward the notebook. Nora scribbled down the observation onto Nicholas’s page. “What about me? What do I smell like?”

Nicholas leaned toward her and breathed in. “Raisins.”

“I don’t even like raisins.”

“I know. That’s what’s ironic.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t recognize Jason. That was some mind fuck.”