A Job You Mostly Won't Know How to Do

by Pete Fromm

  Midge leans even farther over his shoulder, watching the mystery of the fish swim down into the pool, and Taz sticks the hook of the fly into the cork butt of his rod and looks up at the cliff, the sketch of trail along its face. He could set her down at the beaver ponds. Cast without fear of hooking her, really show her a fish, let her hold it, just block it from her mouth. Maybe even build a fire. Much as she liked the water’s tumble, the flames would put her into a trance.

  He breaks the rod down, slides it back into the tube, shoves the tube under his belt so he’ll have both hands free on the cliff, and then sweats through the stretch along its face, which really isn’t more than ten yards, maybe fifteen, but he clings like never before, wondering how hard it would be to get the pack off, whip her around front, out of the water, if he were to take the plunge into the pool below. Marn whispers, I know, Taz, our spot, but still. God, be careful. Don’t step on that one rock, the loose one. It just wobbles, has never fallen, but Taz steps around it, goes full gecko along the whole wall, and as the trail widens and the cliff eases back, he laughs, says, to Marn, “Easy peasy,” what she’d said the first time they’d done it. Then to Midge, he says, “You’ve been here before, but it was kind of dark where you were hanging back then. We’ll see if you recognize it,” and like a magician revealing his greatest trick, he turns backward, sweeping the pack off and around front, undoing the harness and pulling her free, carrying her into the holy ground. The North Fork.

  “Voilà!” he says, stepping around the last of the cliff, the end of the little canyon, the opening holding their ponds.

  He stops, staggers back to keep from falling over. Instead of the ponderosas dotting the hillside, the cottonwoods and aspen pushing in on the pond, their leaves still gold beneath the water, dotting the beaver dam, only trunks of seared pine and fir jut into the chill blue like blackened spear points. Even the cottonwoods are just ghosts of themselves, clawed fingers holding nothing. The ground is black. The ponds look slicked, greased. There is nothing left.

  Behind the beaver dam, beside the unscorched mud and stick hump of their lodge, a trout rings the surface, and Taz turns, stumbles away, manages to get Midge back into the pack, strap her in, ease it back onto his shoulders. The blood pounds so hard in his ears, he can’t hear if she’s squawking or crying. Ash puffs away from his steps.

  DAY 136

  He stares at her jerky image, seven thousand miles away. He had to answer sometime. “I never said I was coming down, Mom,” he says. “I was just wondering.”

  “That’s what he told me, that you’d never had a plan in your life.”

  “I had a plan. It just didn’t turn out exactly like I’d planned.”

  Yeah, Marn says, on the other side of the table from the computer. Sorry about that one.

  “So, you don’t think you’re ever coming down?”

  He looks away, to Marnie. She raises her hands, like, Don’t look at me. He closes his eyes.

  “I can’t, Mom. You know what he’s like.”

  She starts and he says, “Not to you, Mom. Just with me.”

  She goes back to her defense of him, same as ever, and he says, “So, what about you? You ever think about coming back here?”

  “You know he’d never—”

  “You, Mom. I’m asking you.”

  He watches her, sees the way she grabs one hand with the other. “It’s awfully hard,” she says. She’s not looking at him exactly. “You know, the airfare.”

  “I’ll send you a ticket.”

  She jumps like she’s been stung.

  Taz looks around his kitchen. Three in the morning. Midge’s been getting way better, but got up tonight, had to be fed. He wasn’t sleeping anyway. He holds her in his lap, just under the lip of the table.

  He doesn’t want to. He holds her up. Turns her to the screen.

  His mom starts to cry.

  “She’s your granddaughter,” he says.

  And suddenly his father is there, in his boxers, gut still tight and hard, chest hair as gray and wild as the hair on his head. He reaches toward the screen, says, “We’ll call you back at a better time. When we can actually talk. Not the middle of the night.”

  “Dad,” Taz starts, but his father lifts his arm, thrusts his finger at him, the shut-your-mouth point.

  “Say good-bye, Serena,” he says, and the screen goes blank.

  DAY 137

  He sits with Elmo’s piece of notebook paper, the one she’d left the first day she came into his house. Name, address, phone. As if the number’s not the only one speed-dialed. She’d done that herself, later, seeing how good he was with numbers. He pushes the paper away, starts clicking through his entire contact list, again and again, top to bottom. Over and over, not a name registering.

  Until finally he sees MARN. He blinks. His heart skips. Breathing fails. He pushes. Straight to voicemail. “Hi, this is Marnie, you know what to do—” He snaps it off. Gasping.

  He dials again. Listens to the whole message. Calls again as soon as the tone beeps. Her voice. His hands shake too hard to call a fourth time. He can’t see the buttons anyway.

  He wants to hurl the phone off a cliff. Into a mine. Leap in after it.

  He rubs away the tears, but, blindsided, only cries harder as he fumbles. He drops the phone. Picks it up. Goes back to contacts. Is sick as he brings hers up. Just the four letters emptying him. He glances all around the kitchen, as if something can save him. Anything.

  He chews his lip bloody. Scratches furiously at his head, squeezes his temples. Pounds them.

  He’ll call just one more time.

  He can’t.

  He pushes Erase.

  Erase contact? He wavers, pushes No.

  He brings it back. Erase.

  He pushes Yes.

  He can never, ever go there again. Not ever.

  He shoves away from the table, the chair tumbling.

  He walks into the living room, beating fists on his thighs, biting his lips shut so he does not howl. He moans. Wounded-animal noises. He cannot believe this is him. Knows he cannot wake Midge. Cannot ever let her see him like this.

  He lies down on the floor. Stares up. The blades still. No motion anywhere. He listens for Midge. Prays for her to wake. To bring him back.

  The phone, that evening, is still like kryptonite. He can hardly hold it. But he finds the name, right under where MARN used to be. M’s M. He taps.

  She answers just as he’s about to shut it off, give up. She says hello, then says it again.

  “Lauren,” he says.

  “Ted?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Is everything okay?” she says. “Midge?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “She smiles now. Laughs.”

  They both go silent. Listening. Taz fights not to pant. “I was just wondering,” he says. “You know? How you’ve been holding up?”

  She waits, then says, “I have no idea what to say. What to tell you.”

  “Well, I know, it might be hard for you to ask, you know. About coming out.”

  She says nothing.

  “It’s going to be her first Christmas next week,” Taz says, hardly a whisper.

  He can hear every molecule she breathes.

  “Come for the holidays,” he says.

  DAY 140

  Rudy calls, from California, on his way up, but still two days out. “You might be on tree duty on your own. Maybe Elmo’d help.”

  “She’s in Idaho.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  He and Marnie had always gone with Rudy for the tree, but Taz bundles up Midge and heads out. Even before he gets close, he can smell the warming fire they always made, taste the hot chocolate, Rudy’s bracing schnapps additive, smell Marnie’s first cut into the trunk, down on her knees in the snow, nearly swallowed by the low branches, these huge grand firs, big around as the whole living room. Three times he starts out, and three times he turns around, just c
an’t go without her.

  He ends up at a lot, in town, Marn saying, No way. Saying, Really? Saying, You’re just going to buy it? Her first tree? He feels the breath of each word against his ear.

  He sneaks it in at midnight, as if Marnie might not notice that way. He winds the light strings that still work until after two. Replaces the fuse with a blinker. Midge sleeping through another night. Her very own Christmas gift.

  But, once the lights are on, he can’t not go in and get her. He hesitates, watching her sleep, then eases his hands in under her and slips her out of the crib without waking her, his own Christmas miracle, and then sits with her in the swivel rocker he’d found out by the curb, just down the block from the last job. He rocks and turns till dawn and when she wakes, she doesn’t cry. She hardly moves. He thinks he can hear her blink. The ceiling fan spins forgotten. She can’t take her eyes off the winking lights. Like a campfire in the living room, only maybe better.

  The ornament boxes are scattered in the dungeon of a basement, but he doesn’t know if he needs anything more than the lights.

  Lauren knocks. Early. He wonders if she’d be bunking here. Then he remembers her insisting on the motel, saying she’d never interrupt his life that way again. Her words.

  He looks around once more. Stands, Midge in his lap, wrapped in her blankie. He feels her twist as he moves, her gaze locked to the lights while he walks to the door.

  When he opens it, they look at each other, their breaths making clouds in the cold, snow coming down in the big flakes he’d always loved, slow-drifting tongue-catchers. Taz says, “Merry Christmas,” and Lauren doesn’t take her eyes off Midge. Taz twists a little, and Midge turns, at last, from the lights, the blast of cold, maybe, drawing her attention. Though she smiles, she leans in tighter to Taz, something he hopes Lauren misses.

  She’s loaded down with packages and, of course, groceries, but still she reaches, and Taz says, “Come in, come in. Before you freeze in place out there.”

  Taz follows her into the house, closes the door shut behind them, has to push on it, knows he should pop the hinges, run a plane over the top corner. Something to do while she’s here.

  He trades Midge for a grocery bag weighing a ton, and Lauren takes her in like oxygen. Hugs her. Smells her. Breathes deep.

  Midge squirms and Taz retreats for the kitchen, sorting and shelving, giving them time. When he does step back out, Lauren is in his chair, his very position, Midge in her lap, unblinking gaze locked in on the tree lights.

  Lauren smiles, says, “Nice tree. Very minimalist.”

  “Yeah,” Taz says. “I’m getting kind of a late start.”

  She brushes her hand across the top of Midge’s head. “I don’t think she minds,” she says.

  “I think she’s missed you,” he says, nodding toward the bag of presents.

  “She doesn’t even remember who I am. So, I’ll spoil her, win her that way.”

  “What grandmas do, right?”

  “For generations now,” she answers, and he watches them both go quiet, staring into the glow of the lights.

  DAY 144

  Taz works every day up until Christmas Eve, Marko riding him like he might vanish any second, Rude stuck in the Tri-Cities. Blizzards, he says, though Taz wonders if his old flame might still be living in Richland. “Feeding off toxic waste,” Rudy’d once said, but the holidays, everything’s forgiven, right? Even Elmo’s one week off has stretched to two, without a word. He’s just lucky Lauren’s there to hold down the fort.

  Nobody wants Taz poking around their house on Christmas Day, though, so he stays home, actually even sleeps in a little, then planes the front door, trying to stay out of Lauren’s way. She’s a dervish in the kitchen, making ham, she says, because it’s just too close to Thanksgiving to do another turkey. She covers it with pineapple. Cloves. Those nuclear-red cherries. A festival all its own. She peels pounds of potatoes, cheesy casseroles full of them, scalloped. No tricks missed.

  Taz checks in on her once, kind of has to if he wants to catch a peek at Midge. He lets Midge hold his finger as she rocks back and forth in the swing Lauren bought for her, the one Christmas present that just couldn’t wait, and something Taz has to admit is maybe the best baby thing ever. In their new game, Taz sways back, then rushes forward as she hangs onto his finger, laughing. Lauren watches, smiles, says, “Yes?”

  Taz turns her way, still swaying, trying to remember the excuse he made to come in. He can’t, so he asks if there’s anything she needs, anything he can do. She shakes her head, but then waves toward the fanged smiley face on the wall. “You know, it might be kind of nice not to have that watching me all day.”

  Taz nods, says, “I know, but, it’s Marn’s,” and Lauren only says, “Okay then,” and gets back to work, spinning lettuce in the giant old sink.

  Rudy barges in in a cloud of snow and frost, Amundsen reaching the pole, dragging in more champagne than any of them could ever drink, or want to. Rolling out stories of death-defying road conditions, the Herculean efforts involved in getting over the passes, he walks back out to the truck, and staggers in again under the weight of an old box television, fiddles with it and converter boxes, a rabbit’s ear, and finally gets some football. He pulls a ragged red bow the size of a watermelon from somewhere inside his jacket and sets it on top, says, “You’re welcome,” makes one more antenna adjustment, then drops into the swivel rocker, and pops the first bottle of champagne, shouts, “Merry Christmas!”

  Lauren looks out from the kitchen, and Rudy jumps up, cries, “Mrs. H., I am smelling some magic in that kitchen!” She just looks at him, and he says, “The Christmas spirit looks good on you, too.” He lifts his bottle, says, “May I pour?”

  She rolls her eyes, a look she could have stripped straight off of Marn, and Taz blurts out a laugh, and Lauren turns back into the kitchen.

  Rudy stares after her a moment, the look a little low for comfort, and Marnie says, Taz, make him stop.

  Taz steps toward the kitchen himself, says, “Want a glass with that, Romeo?”

  Rudy shrugs, and Taz comes back out with two pint glasses, stolen from the brewery. Rudy pours. In the kitchen, when Taz offers, Lauren says she’s not ready just quite yet.

  Taz doesn’t realize anything’s arranged until Marko and his wife ring the bell. An hour later the bell rings a third time, just as they are about to sit, Lauren putting the ham on the table, Rudy refilling glasses. Eyebrows go up. They don’t have another place set. Closest, Marko opens the door.

  Elmo steps in, a cloud of cold right behind her. Elf hat on. Cheeks as red as Santa’s.

  Rudy cries, “Mo!” and leaps up, giving her a huge hug. He spills champagne, gives her a kiss, says, “I knew you couldn’t stay away!” Taz watches, and Lauren watches Taz.

  Midge goes frantic, cawing in delight, heels drumming the hardwood of her highchair, arms thrown wide open, and to Lauren, Taz whispers, “The babysitter,” and Lauren’s eyebrow rises.

  Rudy, still standing, with what Taz thinks might even have been a little bow, does the intros, pointing his champagne bottle at each in turn. “Marko, and, um, his, his . . .”

  “Jeannie,” Marko’s wife says.

  “Exactly,” Rudy says. “Just a pop quiz. And Taz you know, the radiant Miss Midge, and the ever-lovely Mrs. H. Everyone, the equally exquisite Elmo.”

  Elmo says, “What planet are you from?” and Marn almost shouts, I know!

  “The Rude is universal,” he says.

  She takes the bottle from him, says, “The Rude might be over-lubed.”

  Lauren stands, reaches her hand across the table to shake Elmo’s. “It’s Lauren,” she says. Turning to Rudy, she says, “And it’s not Mrs. H. That was Marnie’s father’s name. I’m Mrs. J.” Then she laughs. “No, no, it’s not even Mrs., what am I saying?”

  Elmo takes her hand, gives it a quick shake, says, “Nice to meet you,” and circles the table far enough to get to Midge. Rather than pull her up from the chair
, she kneels, puts her face against Midge’s, lets Midge grab hold of her braid.

  “Really,” Lauren says. “You can’t truly be called Elmo, can you? Or is that just more of Rudy’s—”

  “No, it’s really Elmo.”

  She keeps smiling. “Don’t any of you have a real name?”

  Elmo smiles back. “Elmo’s fine.”

  She stands up, Midge reaching after her, and holds up the bag in her hand, a big-bearded Santa bright on its side, cheeks and nose as red as her own. “I’m sorry to barge in like this. I just got back this second.” She waves the excuses away. “It’s a long story. But I wanted to drop this for Midge,” she says, lifting the bag a bit higher. “A cap. Mittens.” She drops the bag back down to her waist. “I’ve taken up knitting,” she says. “You know, exiled to the thrill that is Idaho.”

  Lauren is already setting another place.

  Elmo puts a hand over the glass Rudy gives her. “Honestly,” she says. “Just saying Ho Ho Ho.” She sets the glass back on the table, rubs her fingers back and forth across Midge’s cheek. First one, then the other. “My brother’s out in the car. Surprise, surprise.”

  “Your brother?” Taz says.

  “The older one. First fam. My car’s up at the pass. Sticking out of a snow drift.” She slips her mittens back on. “He rescued me. Anyway, got to run,” she says. “North Pole, all that.”

  The door, newly planed, whooshes shut behind her, and they sit again, begin passing plates, taking food. Midge rocks in the highchair between Taz and Lauren.

  Lauren says, “Such a pretty girl.”

  “I know, right?” Rudy says, mouth already full of bread. He starts cutting his ham. “Not that she’s got a thing on you, Mrs. H., or J.”

  Taz dips Midge’s spoon into the mashed sweet potatoes.

  Marko takes a scoop, passes the bowl.

  When they sit around the tree after dinner, Taz realizes he hasn’t gotten Lauren anything. Nothing under there for Grandma.