Things Not Seen

Bobby misses his electric blanket. The quilt his mom gives him doesn’t warm him enough. He tosses and turns. In the morning, he wakes to a new idea: Lots of people bought the same blanket. If there’d been a product recall, there’d be a list of names of purchasers. Among them might be another invisible person.

Before she leaves for work, Emily tells Bobby that his dad stayed up late running more tests, then left early for the lab. Bobby jots down the product number of the blanket, then calls Sears customer service on his mom’s phone. He waits on hold through “a lot of bad music” (166), then gets a service representative who tells him that people with pacemakers are advised not to use the product, and that anyone who calls with an issue should get it exchanged. She offers repeatedly to arrange a pickup of his blanket but can’t give him any information about other people who have had problems with the product.

Bobby calls Alicia. She suggests he call the Sears legal department—her mom used to do this sort of thing all the time when she worked in corporate public relations—and pretend he’s a researcher who needs names and addresses. Bobby proposes instead that Alicia call them because she knows more about how to do that and would do a better job of fooling them. They bicker a moment, but she agrees to do it. Twenty minutes later, she calls him back and reports that the Sears legal department connected her to an Amber Carson who refused to tell her anything.

Bobby decides they should steal the information. He can sneak into the Sears offices—they’re out in the suburbs—and get information out of their computers, but he needs her to carry any printouts. He says she can tell her mom she’s going to the library, then the two of them will take a cab to the Sears offices. Alicia’s uneasy, but he talks her into it, and tells her to meet him in town shortly.

He grabs his roll of cash, strips, leaves a note for his mom, and heads out to meet Alicia.

Bobby sees Alicia walking toward him, but her mom follows quietly behind. He whispers to her about her mom, and she says she knows. They decide to go to the university library and wait it out. There, her mom sits outside for a while, looking like she’s thinking sad thoughts. Her expression reminds Bobby of his own mom’s occasional look of sadness. Eventually, Mrs. Van Dorn gets up and walks home.

Bobby and Alicia find a cab. As they ride, they talk quietly about what she’s to do when they get there. Bobby suggests she ask for a job application, which will make her look legitimate: “Companies love it when… um… people like you apply for jobs” (176). Alicia, irate, tells him to call it what it is, a “disability.” He calms her—the driver watches while she apparently scolds nobody—and they figure out the minor details of their upcoming caper.

Bobby gazes out the window at the cars and buildings and airplanes, and he feels bored. He glances at Alicia, who’s alert, all her senses awake to every motion of the car and the sounds and smells through the window. He realizes she’s getting more out of the ride than he is.

The Sears offices are spread out like a college campus. At the main building, Alicia meets a staffer from the personnel department who understands disability issues; they walk off to talk. Bobby, meanwhile, has scanned the office directory and knows which building houses the computers he needs to search. He heads across campus in that direction.

Bobby enters the building by walking in behind someone with a card key. He finds Amber Carson’s office. Her computer is still open. He searches “Recent Documents” and finds a database with information on his blanket. Over 9,000 were sold, and some had bad resistors in their circuitry. There were a few hundred complaints, but fewer than half traded in for new blankets. One customer complained of a problem with his pacemaker, but he didn’t sue.

Bobby prints out the information about the people who complained. He folds the pages tightly and sticks them in his armpit, holds his arm firmly against his body to hide them, and heads back to Alicia. He finds her in the personnel building having a meeting with three other people, including a woman employee who’s blind. Bobby’s impressed at how Alicia has turned her visit into an opportunity. He waits until she’s at the rendezvous point, taps her cane, and she arranges for a taxi.

They wait outside on a bench. He puts the printout in her backpack. The cab picks them up; on the way home, she seems happy not to have to talk. Bobby feels cast adrift: “I feel like something has ended. Or maybe begun. Or maybe both” (187).

At home, Bobby goes through his stolen customer list and makes calls. The first 58 reach husbands or wives who don’t even know that their spouses bought an electric blanket, elderly people who just want to talk, people who hang up, kids who don’t know when their parents will be back, and several answering machines. A handful remember the blankets but have no strange events to report.

The 59th call reaches a man in Denver who says his daughter, Sheila, used the blanket and one day disappeared. She contacted them later for some cash, and she also sent an email wishing them a Merry Christmas and apologizing for leaving them, saying, “I think it was the best thing for all of us” (192). The man gives Bobby her email address: “eilash@glowz.net.” The “eilash” is clearly “Sheila” shifted around. Bobby uses the downstairs computer to do a reverse lookup on Sheila’s email and gets a Miami street address, phone number, and a last name: Borden.

It’s late, so he calls Alicia but gets her mom, who wants to know if he went somewhere with Alicia today. He says he saw her at the library. She asks if he knows more; Bobby replies, “I don’t think it’s my place to get between one of my friends and her parents” (195). It works, and she calls for Alicia.

Bobby tells Alicia about the new lead. She asks why he doesn’t simply call Sheila. He says he wants her advice, but Alicia says he already knows what to say. He admits that he was troubled by Alicia’s silence in the taxi on the way home. She says it was a very encouraging meeting, yet it made her feel alone.

Bobby says maybe the real payoff of their trip is her good encounter with the Sears personnel department. He wonders silently if she’s using “her real eyes” that can see right into him (198), and if she knows how he feels about her.

They thank each other for the day and hang up. Lying in bed, Bobby thinks, not about call #59, which got him Sheila Borden’s contact info, but about call #60—the call to Alicia.

Bobby dreams that Alicia is tied to a chair, beams of green light erupting from her eyes while a man named Hoffman turns dials on a machine and, behind him, Bobby’s mom and dad are trapped in jail cells.

Downstairs, his mom talks again with Ms. Pagett, who reports that the authorities in Florida can’t find Aunt Ethel or Bobby. Emily says they probably went to Orlando. Ms. Pagett again threatens her with legal consequences; Emily reminds her about being innocent until proven guilty and shuts the door on her.

Bobby calls Sheila Borden. She answers, and he says he spoke to her father. He asks what happened to her when she became “gone.” She becomes irate and hangs up. He calls back and confesses to the answering machine that he became invisible, and she picks up again. Sheila says, “You can’t just call someone up and say, ‘I turned invisible one day,’ can you?” (205).

He tells her about his electric blanket theory and all the people who complained, and Sheila says they should sue and make millions. She says she suddenly became invisible three years earlier but couldn’t bring herself to tell her parents. Instead, she stole $4,000 from their account and set herself up in Florida, where the warmth makes it much easier to walk around naked.

Otherwise, she dresses like a Muslim woman in a full veil. Internet deliveries help, and she makes money online designing websites. For friends, she has two women she trusts. If her health ever deteriorates, she’ll find a “rich woman doctor” (208), make her sign a confidentiality agreement, and reveal her situation. She wants Bobby to tell no one, but he admits he’s already told Alicia. He assures Sheila that Alicia can be trusted.

Bobby now knows there’s another like him, and it involves an electric blanket. It’s not much, though.

Via instant messaging, Alicia wants all the details. She also wants Bobby to tell his dad, but Bobby needs to keep his promise. She says he can give details that don’t reveal Sheila’s identity. Bobby calls his dad, who wants to know everything, but Bobby insists on protecting the woman’s privacy. His dad finally relents, and he compliments Bobby on the discovery: “This is first-class work, son” (216). To Bobby, that means a lot.

Leo takes the few hints they’ve got so far and plugs them into a program that uses supercomputers to run a relational database analysis of masses of scientific data. He interrupts the Phillips’s dinner with the results: A solar storm struck the planet on the days when both Bobby and the second person (Sheila) turned invisible. The excess energy, combined with the electric blankets’ overactive magnetic fields, created invisible people.

Emily wants to know how to reverse the invisibility. David and Leo look at each other and say it might take a week or more. Bobby says they’re lying, that this is something that requires months or years of research, and that they should simply fess up to the authorities so David and Emily don’t end up in prison.

David says they can’t: This knowledge could lead to invisible soldiers and criminals, and Bobby’s life would be ruined. David and Emily have decided to change their story: Bobby ran away, and they want him to have a chance to return without causing blemishes on his school record.

Bobby is angry. He excuses himself and goes upstairs. Once again, his parents have made decisions about him without consulting him. Once again, he’s at home, “And [he’s] alone” (221).

Bobby wakes up from an accidental four-hour nap. It’s close to midnight. He goes downstairs, fires up the computer, and searches for information on solar storms. He discovers that they’re in the midst of a major one that’s “100,000 times greater than normal” (224). The same solar event that turned him invisible is still ongoing.

He messages Alicia; she’s still up. He worries that the cure for invisibility will take forever. He also tells her about the solar event overhead. They banter, he says something sarcastic, and she snarks back at him. He chides her for answering his taunt with a taunt: “two wrongs don’t make a right” (227). This gets her thinking about multiplying double-negatives in math to get a positive number, and idly she wonders if using the blanket a second time might reverse his condition. He likes the idea—things can’t get worse than they already are—and tells her he’ll call in the morning.

He retrieves the blanket from the parlor and sets it up just like it used to be in his room. He switches it on and enjoys the warmth but worries that the conditions probably aren’t exactly the same as they were originally. He turns on his side, thinks about Alicia, and falls asleep.

At 4:30 in the morning, Bobby wakes to loud voices. One of them is his mom’s, filled with protest; another is Ms. Pagett’s. He jumps out of bed, pulls off his underwear, and stands to one side. The bedroom door opens; a police officer enters, puts his hand on the bed—it’s warm—then turns, looks toward Bobby, and asks who he is.

Bobby realizes he’s visible again. Grinning, he gives his name. Emily thinks fast and explains that Bobby got home late from Florida. Ms. Pagett wants to know why she wasn’t informed, and Emily reprimands her for assuming that she must be kept constantly in the loop.

Ms. Pagett and the officer leave, and Bobby and his parents hug and talk. Bobby explains Alicia’s idea and his re-use of the blanket; David scolds him for doing something so dangerous, but also seems proud of Bobby’s boldness. Emily keeps touching her son, pushing his now-long hair from his face and staring at him with a goofy expression.

Finally, he goes back to bed—without the electric blanket. He can’t sleep, though: He has things to do in the morning.

Bobby spends an entire five minutes looking at himself in the mirror, relearning what he looks like. Emily looks for any excuse to stay home and keep staring at him: “She wants to be the new, improved Mom. Which is actually quite nice” (237).

He calls Sheila and gives her the news, but she tells him she’s happy with her new life. She felt herself disappearing long ago: “Booze or drugs maybe, maybe three more bad boyfriends—” (238). This way is better. She asks him to never call again and hangs up. Bobby understands her: He’s felt the same way, and he realizes there are advantages to being invisible.

He walks to Alicia’s and rings the bell. Mrs. Van Dorn answers and doesn’t recognize him until he gives his name. She’s delighted to meet him anew and invites him in. Alicia comes downstairs, and Bobby tells her the news. She checks him: He’s wearing clothes. Then she puts her hands on his face and feels all its details. She takes his hand and pulls him to the living room, where he updates her on the past several hours.

He takes her hand: Her nails are chewed down. He mentions it, and she gets angry, stalks upstairs, and slams her bedroom door. Mrs. Van Dorn comes in, tells Bobby that Alicia tends to get angry a lot, and asks him to call her later.

He goes home, messages Alicia—no response—then puts the blanket and all the research papers in a box that he takes to the post office. He writes a quick note: “Sheila— I wanted you to have this stuff, just in case. Bobby” (248). He places it inside the box, gets the box taped up, and mails it to Sheila.

At home, he finds a message from Alicia. It’s a long letter. She’s sure he doesn’t need her anymore: “you are going on. going away from me. off into the big bright world. a whole life thats not near mine. hurts” (250).

Tears fill Bobby’s eyes. He prints out the letter, pockets it, and heads out the door, on his way to Alicia’s. He wants to tell her how much she means to him. “And I need to be there to see her face when I tell her” (251).