Hide Your Eyes by Alison Gaylin Read Free Book Online

goddamn wad of cotton candy stuck to my head and I’m on AM Los Angeles first thing tomorrow morning and the passive-aggressive bastard won’t return my callspolturn my.’

    ‘I’m sure it doesn’t look that bad.’

    ‘You should see me, Samantha. I swear to God you could insulate a house with it. He’s violated me. The overpriced son of a bitch has violated—’

    ‘Mom, I need to talk to you.’

    Click . ‘That’s my call waiting. Hold on a sec. It might be him .’

    When she returned to the line, announcing, ‘Well, I think Vito and I may have reached an understanding . . .’ I said, ‘Does seeing people who may not exist make you insane?’

    ‘What?’

    ‘I saw a man with . . . mirrored eyes.’

    ‘You mean mirrored sunglasses.’

    ‘No. I mean mirrored eyes. They refracted sunlight, just like a mirror.’

    ‘Okay . . .’

    ‘And he and a woman, they were . . . putting something in the Hudson River.’

    ‘Samantha, what were you doing at the Hudson River?’

    ‘I was at a construction site, trying to relax.’

    There was a long pause - so long that I’d thought our connection might have died. ‘Hello?’

    ‘You’re on drugs.’

    ‘I am not on drugs.’

    ‘Don’t tell me that. I am an expert in human behavior and I know what “trying to relax” means, and let me tell you I am deeply disappointed in you.’

    ‘Mother . . .’

    ‘What kind of drugs are you on? Special K? Ice? Methamphetamines?’

    During the next half-hour, I somehow managed to convince Sydney not to fly out to New York and stage an intervention. By the time we hung up, my voice was hoarse and my head was pounding. But for the first time that weekend, I wasn’t afraid of what was going on inside it .

    I left my apartment and walked six blocks in the freezing cold to the nearest place to get a drink - a nautical-themed gay bar called Great White. There, I’d downed three Scotch/rocks and watched abnormally gorgeous men interacting with each other amidst the billowing fishing nets, dotted with sequined shells and starfish, that had been suspended like fake ghosts from the high ceilings. No one seemed to notice me, which was nice. No one seemed to have mirror eyes, which was nicer.

    s aont sizHalf a Scotch more, and I gave the abnormally gorgeous bartender a huge tip, walked home in the dark and passed out on top of my pull-out couch with my coat still on.

     
    This morning, I’d awakened with throbbing eyes, tapioca-colored skin and a tongue that felt like it was wearing a sock.

    I knew it could only get worse. A nursery school classroom is no place to be when you have a hangover. And dependably, the bright red table, taxicab-yellow chairs, electric-blue bookshelves and whitest of white walls made me squint as soon as I opened the door and flicked on the fluorescent lights.

    I’d collapsed into my desk chair, leaned back and closed my eyes gingerly, craving a cold compress and praying that Daniel wouldn’t show up any earlier than he normally did.

    That’s when Veronica had barged in, screaming, ‘Do you have any extra chalk?’

    ‘Take all the chalk you want, Veronica,’ I said now, as she continued to eye me enviously. How could anyone be jealous of a hangover? ‘Just leave me one piece. And some aspirin if you have any, please.’

    ‘I don’t have any aspirin!’ she said. ‘Try water. You should be drinking eight glasses a day, anyway, for your skin. My mother’s been doing that for years, and she looks a lot better than you do.’ She smiled. Her teeth matched my walls.

    Veronica had always resented me; I couldn’t figure out why. There wasn’t anything about my life that was remotely resentable - except, possibly, for my hours. I taught an eight a.m. to noon class for kids whose parents could pick them up in the middle of the day, while she went straight through to five o’clock. Her class was a good deal bigger than mine was, but she had two assistants to help her out, plus she