The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [65]
In a window Phoebe caught her reflection and moved nearer the glass, exchanging with herself a look of such mutual knowledge it embarrassed her. What we’ve been through, she thought. As a child she’d played a game of staring in her bedroom mirror and tempting herself not to recognize the girl who looked back, a delicious fear seeping through her stomach as her own image became another girl’s, a stranger whose presence made her shy. Phoebe stared at the slur of her own dark hair, wide-set crooked eyes gazing back through the murky glass, another girl, another person’s hand reaching gingerly, gingerly out from behind the glass to touch Phoebe’s own, and it was Faith.
It was Faith.
From across the window Faith stood looking out at Phoebe, their two hands meeting on the glass. Behind its chill Phoebe felt her sister’s heat. “My God,” she whispered.
Faith was smiling broadly, mirthfully, and Phoebe, too, felt a plume of laughter rising in her chest, for here was Faith, after all this time, at last—I knew it, she cried, but silently, not moving her lips. I knew it, I always knew you’d come back.
I’ve been here all this time, Faith seemed to say. Couldn’t you feel it?
Sometimes, Phoebe said. But other times you disappeared.
I’ve been in one place, Faith said. You’ve come all this way.
Phoebe studied her sister, aware of some change in how she felt, being near her, but unsure what it was. Then she realized.
We’re the same age, she said, incredulous.
Faith laughed, that big hungry laugh Phoebe had missed and longed for and tried in vain to imitate. We’re two halves of an apple, Faith said. You did it, Pheeb. It’s almost over.
Phoebe gazed at her sister’s narrow eyes and long mouth, a face in constant motion, or else it was just her own eyes moving over it, trying to gather it all in at once. A face so unlike her own.
Two halves of an apple.
How do I get across? Phoebe said.
Faith smiled. You push.
That’s it? Just push? And as she spoke, Phoebe pressed her hand harder against the glass in hopes of parting it, stepping through into Faith’s warm arms, but the window held fast.
When I say push, I mean really push, Faith said. So Phoebe pushed with both hands, palms tingling against the glass.
Come on, baby, Faith said gently, you’ve got to give it more than that.
I’m trying!
Faith shook her head. Crossing hurts, Phoebe, she said. It hurts. Otherwise it would be too easy. You’ve got to be willing to suffer a little.
I’m dying to, Phoebe said.
She set one shoulder to the window and pushed with all her might, feeling the pressure in her spine. Her sister braced herself from the other side to weaken the glass, and Phoebe pushed and pushed, but still nothing happened. Dammit, she said.
That’s not pain, Faith said, not like I mean it, and Phoebe realized with despair that even now she was holding back, even now with only a single pane of glass between herself and her sister, she couldn’t get the job done. But I can, Phoebe thought, I will! And she stood back from the glass and threw herself against it with a massive blow, but no, still no, her shoulder and arm felt bruised, but still she was outside.
Harder, Faith urged, much harder Phoebe come on, we’ll go together at the count of three, and Phoebe moved back almost to the curb; Faith did the same from her side. This is it, Phoebe thought, she would break through this time or perish in the attempt. At a run she threw herself head-first into the glass and Faith did the same; Phoebe’s spine felt severed as she slid to the pavement, her vision stunned to white, yet unbelievably there was the glass, still unbroken, that same thick glass of airport windows—My God, Phoebe thought, how can I get across without killing