Carmiel Banasky - The Suicide of Claire Bishop

But what am I doing! I forgot my meds.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m an idiot at times. But I don’t have time to go back upstairs now; Jules lives all the way in the Upper East Side, Yorkville. One pill at lunch and one at dinner each day. But being off a couple hours won’t kill me. I’ll take it later when I get home, if I think of it. In my messenger bag, my other equally important belongings are all accounted for: wallet, keys, Xanax for just-in-cases, stack of café drink cards with almost-free tenth items, and a copy of A Brief History of Time , as many pages ripped out as dog-eared.

As if berating me for my forgetfulness, the smell from the Golden Fortune Cookie Corp. next door drifts after me as I speed-walk to the 6 train. I plug my nose in order not to think of my father.

There I go thinking about him. He wins every time just because I’m trying not to think of him. All because of one measly joke he told whenever we had Chinese takeout. My sister and I would ask what his fortune said and he’d look up at us, surprised. “No, it can’t be, I can’t believe it.” Our mom would yell preemptively from the kitchen, “Don’t you get them wild.” And we’d pretend to fall for it, colluding with our dad to rile our mom, shouting, “What? What does it say?” and he would fall back, feigning heart attack and gasp, “It says…it says here…” We’d dance around his chair and try to snatch it from him, but he’d hold it tight to his chest. “It says, right here in plain letters: Help, I’m trapped in a fortune cookie factory!” And we would die. The last time I heard the joke, before the split, we rolled on the floor in hysterics, forced laughter until it was real and my mom was irate. “You’re teaching them it’s fun to laugh at sweatshops,” she yelled. And Dad yelled back louder, “Better get off that high horse or someone might think you like animal husbandry!” He rose from the table like he’d have lived in that chair if she hadn’t maddened him so. Shoulders bunched, he stormed outside for a smoke, leaving the door open so one of the foster cats escaped. My dad could never keep them straight, since we had ten cats at a time sometimes, and he called them all Bernie. That night, I remember, my mom, close to tears, punched him in the shoulder over and over, then they stood on the porch side by side, my dad calling for Bernie, my mom calling the real name.

The only thing my father ever said about my illness was, “You’re lucky you’re a handsome guy.”

Waiting for Jules to answer the buzzer, I ready a list of excuses for my lateness: stuck on the subway, heatstroke, piano falling from third-story apartment, short-term coma. Julie, Jules, my little sister. I let her think she takes care of me instead of the other way around. She likes to think she has some control over the whole thing, even though she’s only twenty-eight, four years younger than me. She’s always been four years younger, but now I don’t know — it feels like maybe she’s catching up.

Jules grew up convincing me that God didn’t exist and then three years ago she went and married a Hat. I mean a Hasid. She’d get very angry if she heard me say that. A Lubavitcher Hasid, it’s called. She only knew him a few months.

And then the first time I met him — all right, he was a nice guy. I don’t want to say otherwise, but there’s something about him I still can’t grasp. He has a spy’s eyes. His motives are beyond me. But he says Orthodox Jews don’t marry for love, they marry for respect, and, without fail, love blooms from respect. He calls her his ba’al teshuva . She introduced me to him as a computer artist, even though I just make nothing collages on Photoshop for fun, and he always asks to see my stuff but I haven’t shown him anything. I don’t want to scare him. I’m not much of a collagist these days, anyhow.

“What’s for dinner?” I say in the doorway.

“West.” Jules shakes her head as she says my name, they’re the same gesture. “We weren’t supposed to have dinner.”

“What are you talking about? We made plans.”

“Really. I haven’t heard from you in two weeks. How could we have made plans?” She puts her hands on her hips like a mom, but not like our mom. Jules would make a good mother.

“Are you kidding? I got home and freaked out I was going to be late and made up all these excuses on the way up here. Do you want to hear them?”

“Lies, you mean?”

“Well, there wasn’t anything to be late to, anyway.”

Jules just looks at me. Something is off with her. Something has changed.

“So, no dinner.”

“I’m on my way out,” she says, turning around. She does look nicer than usual, though shorter. But that’s not the change I mean. Jules shows no skin even in the dead of summer. I follow her into the main room, where she picks up her hat from the back of the couch. A large, felt purple thing, as ugly as it sounds.

“Don’t say a word,” she says. She knows I hate all of her hats. And her wigs.

“Where’s Dan?”

“He ran out for something at the pharmacy.”

“What did he run out for?”

The brim of her hat curves up into a smile, and locks of her wig curve up at the ends too, mocking me, dozens of fake little smiles.

“I don’t know, he always has to have his seltzer water. I’m supposed to meet him downstairs with the car in a minute.” She’s not telling me something — I can tell by the way she pinches her mouth, locking it inside. Jules has always been a terrible liar. She adjusts her hat in front of me like I’m a mirror, then stops and finds my eyes. “Why do you have to do these things?” She breathes out audibly from her nose. In another world she would have been a dragon, without secrets. “You’re taking your medicine?”

“I’m not stupid,” I say softly. “I went to see an installation today. You should go see it.”

Jules says, “You know what I have to say about that. What do I have to say about that?”

“Where are you going?”

“West, what do I have to say?”

“That I shouldn’t have gone. And she’s not good for me.”

“You shouldn’t have gone. It’s not good for you,” Jules repeats.

“Where are you going?”

“There’s an open memorial service. One of our members’ sons passed away yesterday. A veteran. And another congregation lost two soldiers in Iraq this month. Two young boys. Anyone can come.”

“You’re always going to services.”

“I’m always running late.” She adjusts her hat again and sighs. “It would be nice if you joined us. Since you’re here.”

“You look different. Your face or something. What’s different?”

“Nothing. What? You haven’t seen this wig is all.”

Whatever she’s hiding, I won’t find out with her around.

“Can I stay here and watch TV while you’re out? Don’t make me get back on the train yet. I’ve been on the train all day it feels like.”

Then Dan walks in with his black fedora and a white button-down shirt, carrying a plastic bag, box corners angling through. Dan is a big-boned guy, and he always looks to me like he’s still growing. He’s growing and my sister’s shrinking. “West!” he booms. “What are you doing here?” He says this all jolly-like, even though I know he’s annoyed the second my name comes tripping out of his mouth. But he does a decent job of not showing that he thinks I’ve screwed up his night. Jules pokes me with her purse.

“I thought we were having dinner,” I say down into my neck. Sometimes I pretend I’m embarrassed, mumbling like that so he doesn’t feel bad for treating me like a kid. And I have to be nice because he got me my job. He’ll never let me forget it.

“Did you find everything?” Jules asks, gesturing at the plastic bag.