Erica Orloff - Invisible Girl

Maggie, Danny and their mother made the sign of the cross. Then it was homework time. Around five, Maggie’s father came up from the bar for his dinner break. That was always her favorite part of the day. Not because she got to see him and spend time with him, although that certainly pleased her. It was the strange thrill she got from watching her father walk through the door and the expression on his face when he saw her mother.

Maggie tried to capture the moment in her mind, but it never was the same as seeing it, being there with them. But Maggie was convinced the earth stopped moving—just for a split second. He opened the door, shut it, took off his shoes, lined them neatly next to Maggie’s and Danny’s. Then he came into the dining area, and when he first caught her mother’s eyes, it was there—you could feel it. Her mother’s breath left her and her father’s heart stopped. Maggie was sure of it.

Her mother was always calmer with Daddy around, certain they would all be safe now. She would serve him supper, but she always made sure to touch his hand, to rub his arm as she put his dinner on his plate. And Maggie’s father would not curse, he wouldn’t raise his voice, not even a tiny bit. He wouldn’t do anything loudly. For that time, that meal, he was under her mother’s spell, and they weren’t in Hell’s Kitchen. They were someplace else. They may have been above the roughest bar on Thirty-ninth Street, but inside was a piece of heaven, watched over by Buddha and his brother, Jesus—because, Maggie’s mother said, someone as wise as God would have a lot of children.

Maggie walked away from Charlie and prepared to break down the bar. It was late; she was tired. The phone rang, and she picked up the extension by the register.

“Angel?”

“Hi Bobby,” she said.

“I’m just getting off work. I caught a case. Some guy killed with a pickax. There’s no end to the creativity in this city.”

“You sound tired.”

“I am. I was thinking of coming by, though. I just need to see you.”

“Sure. I’ll be here.”

Maggie hung up and continued breaking down the bar. She had the lone cocktail waitress start stacking chairs on top of tables. The loudmouth with the three girls wasn’t taking the hint, so Maggie raised the house lights and turned off the music. Finally, the creep raised his hand and wrote on an imaginary check in the air.

“Thank God,” she muttered.

She took his money, gave him his change, sent Charlie home and told the waitress she could go. She collected the tips on the bar—the rich guy had left her a single dollar. Charlie, who lived from disability check to disability check, had left her a five.

She was alone. She went to the register to count the till. On top was a big happy Buddha. He smiled at her and she at him. She rubbed his belly for good luck.

Next to the register, taped to the mirror behind the bar, was the first twenty-dollar bill the Twilight had ever earned. It was signed by Uncle Con, who, as the story went, had bought her father a shot of bourbon to celebrate the opening. He’d then signed the bill and up it had gone. Next to that was a photo of her father and brother and her from three years before. Danny was smiling; she was open-mouthed, squealing with laughter. Their father had just told them a dirty joke and someone had snapped the picture, right there behind the bar of the Twilight.

She hadn’t heard from her father in a while. She hadn’t seen Danny in three weeks.

The worry made her want a drink.

She looked at Buddha. “What cosmic mind fuck has a recovering alcoholic owning a bar?” she asked him. Then she patted his belly and poured herself a Coke and waited for Bobby to come. He was the one, and they were right for each other. Like her mom and dad. Every time she saw him, she felt the earth stop for just a moment. When he was near her, she felt safe.

Danny Malone felt around his mouth for the loose tooth. It was the last molar on the right, and if he moved his tongue against it, the thing wiggled, the unique, slightly salty taste of blood intensifying. He couldn’t use his right arm at all. He guessed that shoulder was dislocated. With his left hand, he felt his face and discovered it had the texture of raw hamburger meat.

He slumped over in the driver’s seat of his somewhat battered Lincoln Town Car. The pain was so bad he felt as if he were going to pass out. He looked up at the six-story red brick building and could see the light on in his sister’s apartment on the second floor. All he had to do was get up there. Just get to her, Danny. Like a penitent man on a pilgrimage, he thought only of reaching his Mecca. The one place where his world made a little sense.

All his life, Danny’s sister Maggie had fixed everything. He was older—by two years and change—but she was the one who kept out of trouble—and tried to keep him out of trouble. She was like their mother. After their mom had died, Maggie had been the one to retain the rituals, the Buddha, the crucifix. She was the one who made sure he and his father ate home-cooked meals and had clean clothes.

Danny’s head pounded and he struggled to focus. From the time they were little, Maggie would check out all his scrapes and bruises, surveying the damage. Once they were teens, and then adults, she would look for more serious scrapes. Like bullet holes and knife wounds.

She was like his other half. Anyone with a set of eyes could see they were related. They both had the same jet-black hair, which sometimes, in the right light, took on a bluish sheen, black eyes, slightly almond-shaped and exotic, and pale skin. He was well built, muscular, and had a pair of dimples that belied his toughness; she was delicate, with high cheekbones that carved out hollows beneath them, just like their mother, and hair that fell nearly to her ass. His nose had been broken twice, so it leaned a little to the left, but they were clearly siblings.

Danny opened the car door with his functional hand and climbed out, slamming the door behind himself. He looked up and down the street through the slits of his swollen eyelids. He turned up the collar of his army jacket—his father’s old one, threadbare, with an ancient maroon-brown stain of blood on the arm, either his father’s or a Vietcong’s. Danny knew if anyone saw his face, he’d scare the shit out of them, and they’d call the cops, so bending his head into the wind, he started toward his sister’s building.

Each step sending shock waves of pain through his body, he made it to the building’s heavy door and then up to the second floor and her apartment—2B. He fiddled with the lock, pulling the copy of her apartment key from his pocket.

Suddenly, the door flew open, a male voice shouted, “Freeze, asshole,” and a gun was pointed at his head. He saw Maggie, her beautiful face ashen by the sight of him. He pulled his collar down, letting her fully see his face—what was left of it. She screamed, and then Danny knew he could safely give in to the pain. He fell to the floor and let sweet oblivion overtake him.

Maggie knelt on the floor by her brother, oblivious to the blood that was smearing the flannel pajama bottoms she had just changed into. She took his head in her lap and cradled it, brushing a lock of blood-soaked hair from Danny’s face as she rocked ever so slightly.

Bobby Gonzalez shouted at her to get away. “You don’t know who this fucker is. Call 911. Jesus Christ!” He kept his gun drawn.

“No!” Maggie looked up at him, her chin quivering. “This is Danny.”

“Your brother?”

She nodded.

“Christ!” Bobby put his service revolver back in his ankle holster, his hands shaking from the adrenaline rush, and leaned down next to her. “He needs an ambulance.” Bobby put two fingers on Danny’s neck, feeling for a pulse, then reached for the cell phone at his waist.