by Vicki Grant
“’Scuse me.” Judging from his voice, the cabbie smoked a couple of packs a day. “This might be the right time to direct your attention to my list of passenger rules, taped to the back of the seats. Take a moment to read them before considering your next move. Number three in particular.”
Hildy and Paul both made we’re-in-trouble faces, then read the rules.
1. NO DRINKING OR INGESTION OF ILLEGAL SUBSTANCES.
2. NO SWEARING.
3. NO PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION.
4. NO SUDDEN LOUD NOISES. THESE CAN DISTRACT THE DRIVER.
5. PERSONS VOMITING AND/OR URINATING IN THE CAB WILL BE ASKED TO LEAVE THE CAR. A $75 CLEANING FEE TO REMOVE BODILY FLUIDS WILL BE LEVIED.
Thank you for your consideration, Lloyd Meisener, Independent Operator
“Understood?” Lloyd looked at them in the rearview mirror.
“We’re good,” Paul said. “Unless my friend has other plans. Betty?”
She laughed, hoped he couldn’t see her blushing in this light. “No. Fine by me too.”
“Thanks for your cooperation, folks. Wouldn’t have instituted the rules if I hadn’t seen a need. Carry on.”
Hildy looked at Paul. “You were saying? Surprises?”
“Oh, yeah. Close your eyes.”
“I feel much better about this, knowing you’re not going to be taking advantage of me.”
“Honor bound not to. Ready?”
She nodded. He rummaged around inside his jacket, then handed her something. She screamed. Lloyd cleared his throat. “Number four. No sudden noises.”
“Sorry,” Hildy said, and looked down at her hand. Paul had handed her a cold, wet bag. Of Kong. Still alive. Still swimming. She laughed.
“He missed you.”
“I bet he did.” Hildy held the bag up to catch the light from a passing car. Kong did a few turns. His markings glowed neon. “Looks like you took good care of him.”
“We took good care of each other. He’s an excellent roommate. He agrees with everything I say.”
“Don’t you wish you could find a girl like that?”
“Not really.”
Hildy looked out the window. A song about breaking hearts and broken dreams was playing on the radio. Lloyd was humming along. Melting snow trickled down her forehead. She thought she would burst.
“Here she be,” Lloyd said, and pulled up in front of Cousin’s. The lights in the diner were on and the windows fogged up from the heat. “Eight seventy-five, folks. Cash or credit.”
Hildy got out her wallet to pay, but Paul had already handed him a ten.
“No. No,” she said. “You need the money.”
“I got a job,” he said, and jerked his head like let’s get out. “That’s where I was going the other night.”
“As in ‘maybe’ at eight thirty?”
He waved at Lloyd and closed the door behind her.
“Yeah, exactly. Turned out to be ‘for sure’ at eight thirty.”
“What kind of work starts at eight thirty?”
“Drawing. Someone hired me to do drawings at a party.”
“That’s a thing?”
They stepped into Cousin’s. The place was noisy and smelled like sausage and wet clothes. No lineup tonight but almost every booth was full. Brown melting snow pooled on the checkerboard floor.
“Yeah. Some fancy fund-raiser. People all dressed up. I sat around doing these fast sketches of everybody. Some guy auctioned them off at the end of the night.”
“Wow. Drawing for a living. That’s what you wanted to do.”
The guy at the counter waved at Paul and pointed them to a booth near the back.
“Hardly a living, but thirty-five bucks an hour, and she wants me back. Doing a convention next weekend. Bunch of plastic surgeons in town.”
“That’s fantastic!” Hildy resisted the urge to say something about his nose. That joke was dead. And anyway, she liked his nose.
“Don’t get too excited. It’s a start. Know what you want?”
They checked the menu written on the paper placemats. Hildy realized she was starving.
“Full all-day breakfast. Eggs over easy, ham, home fries, hold the beans,” she said.
“No beans? I would have taken you for a ‘beans, no home fries’ type of person. No offense.”
She pulled off her mitt, unwrapped her scarf, and laughed. “Why would I be offended? I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a no-home-fries type of person.”
“You know. People who won’t order them themselves but then eat yours. Drives me crazy.”
“You’re safe with me but you sure wouldn’t like Xiu.” But he’d just have to get over that, she thought. They wouldn’t be here without her.
They took off their coats, even Hildy.
Paul said, “Wow. There’s a real person under there.”
“Or close enough. What did you expect?”
He pulled back his chin and shrugged. “That’s the thing with you. Never know what you’re going to spring on me.”
“Oh, like you’re Mr. Predictable. Loving the smell of baby heads and everything.”
The waiter came by with another table’s orders balanced on his arms.
“Hey, Paul. What can I get you?”
They both ordered the same thing, only Bob got the beans, too. The waiter nodded and headed off.
“You come here much?” Hildy said.
“Whoa. Lame pickup line. That the best you can do?”
“I already picked you up. I don’t need one. It’s just the waiter called you Paul. I figured he must know you.”
“My mother used to work here.”
“She got around.”
“She did indeed.” He looked away. She hadn’t meant it to sound the way it no doubt sounded but it seemed weird to apologize.
The neon OPEN sign buzzed in the window by their booth. Part of the P was missing.
“I brought the questions.” She made her voice sound perky. “Thought we could do them tonight. We only have three to go.”
He turned back to her. He didn’t look upset. “Five.”
“No, we’re on thirty-four.”
“Yeah but we didn’t do eighteen or twenty-eight.”
“That’s why you’re the ump, I guess.”
The waiter brought coffee without asking and a little rack full of jam and peanut butter packages. “Orders will be up in a minute.”
Hildy got out the cards. The snow had collected around the zipper of her satchel and was melting now. The cards were damp and limp. “Which first?” she said. “Eighteen is… Oh, god. I forgot about this. What is your most terrible memory?”
She thought of that day in the kitchen. One month and a thousand years ago. The look on her mother’s face when Hildy’d pointed out the pop-up on her screen. The silence after she’d said it. Her father suddenly turning toward the stove and not turning back. Gabe bewildered. Totally innocent. A bystander, caught in the crossfire.
“Do we have to do that one first?” she said.
“Sooner or later ya got to face the music.”
“But on an empty stomach?”
“What’s number twenty-eight then?”
“Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest, etc.”
He lifted his eyebrows, rocked his head back and forth. “Might need a little warm up for that one, too.”
“Thirty-four is pretty inoffensive. Sounds like something you’d hear on a game show. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?”
Hildy had to lift the card halfway through the question so the waiter could deliver their meals.
“Sure. That one.” Paul waited until she took her first bite before he dug in. He had surprisingly nice table manners. Napkin on his lap and everything. She remembered he’d grown up in restaurants. She knew so little about him.
QUESTION 34
&n
bsp; HILDY: So. Me first I guess. What would I take out of my burning house? Really only one answer: The Italian shoes my mother brought back for me from a conference in Milan last year.
PAUL: Very funny.
HILDY: Seriously… Sorry, mouth full… No, I mean it. First thing I thought of.
PAUL: That’s bad. Or sad. Or maybe both.
HILDY: I know, but just trying to be honest here.
PAUL: Are not.
HILDY: I am. I mean, a lot of what I’d normally risk my life to save is already looked after. We’ve stored our photos in the cloud. Mom and Dad have a safety deposit box where they keep Grampa’s medals and the family papers and whatever. The question specifically ruled out loved ones and pets. What else do I care about? What else do I even have? Clothes? My laptop?
PAUL: Tweezers?
HILDY: You never forget an-y-thing.
PAUL: That’s why it’s important you give me a good answer. Whatever you say is forever. So. Really? Italian shoes? That’s what you’d take?
HILDY: So much pressure.
HILDY: Hmm.
PAUL: You can’t do worse than your last answer so just say it.
HILDY: Okay. The diary I kept as a little kid. My friends all had them. Pink plushy vinyl with the little lock. You know the ones.
PAUL: You needed to lock it? Jesus. What skeevy things were you up to at six years old?
HILDY: Nothing. I’m sure it’s boring-boring-boring—just My Little Pony cartoon updates and what I did at recess, that type of thing—but I’d still hate to lose it. It’s—I don’t know—a record of something that doesn’t exist anymore.
PAUL: Yeah, well, everyone grows up.
HILDY: No. Not just childhood. I guess I’m talking about, I don’t know, happiness. My family was happy back then. I remember my parents actually saying how “blessed” we all were to have such a happy family. All the silly diary stuff feels like happiness to me… What about you?
PAUL: Me?
HILDY: What would you save?… No. Don’t tell me. Your drawings.
PAUL: First thing I’d throw in the fire.
HILDY: Really? Why?
PAUL: Dime a dozen. I can make more whenever I want.
HILDY: Or whether you want to or not. I’ve never seen anyone draw with egg yolk before. Is that Lloyd’s cab?
PAUL: Yeah. Sorry. It’s like a twitch.
HILDY: Or a way to avoid answering the question.
PAUL: Yeah. That too.
HILDY: So what would you take?
PAUL: A cassette.
HILDY: A cassette?
PAUL: Yeah. I’ve got a videocassette of my parents meeting for the first time.
HILDY: You have? Really? Wow. Where’d that come from?
PAUL: One of those weird things. Got it in the mail a couple of months ago from some lady who’d been friends with my mother before I was born. She tracked me down somehow. Figured I’d like to have it.
HILDY: That’s amazing. What’s it like?
PAUL: Pretty grainy. You know technology back then. I had to have it put on a USB stick so I could watch it. The lady said she taped it in a place called the Pirate’s Den. Scuzzy old bar used to be down by the waterfront. It was open mic night and my mother got up to sing and that’s when the lady took it.
HILDY: You didn’t tell me your mother was a singer.
PAUL: She wasn’t. You should hear her. Worst voice ever, but she made up for it in, like, enthusiasm. She sang “Proud Mary.” You know that song?
HILDY: Course I know it.
PAUL: Anyway, the MC introduces her and she gets up and just starts dancing and belting it out like she’s Tina Turner or something. She’d probably had a few, but she’s having fun and she’s beautiful, and then this guy jumps up onstage and starts singing and dancing with her and the bar goes crazy. The guy can sing. With him there, they actually sound kind of good. Then the song ends and they kiss and the MC comes back on again and says “Molly Bergin, folks! And a surprise performance by Deep Blue’s Steve Hardiman!” And then the video kind of wobbles because the lady put the camera down on the table and you see Mom come back, or at least half of her, and Steve, too, and there’s a bit of “You were great” stuff and Mom introduces Steve to Caroline—that’s her friend’s name—but she calls him Scott and he says no it’s Steve and she laughs and says “You look like a Scott” and asks him where he’s from. And then you hear Caroline go “Oops” and you realize she must have just noticed the camera was still running and she turns it off and that’s that.
HILDY: Steve’s your dad.
PAUL: Yup.
HILDY: I’m guessing they didn’t get married.
PAUL: Didn’t even live together.
HILDY: Did you know him when you were growing up?
PAUL: Not that I remembered.
HILDY: Did you know who he was?
PAUL: Oh, yeah. I knew his name. I knew he was a musician. Knew he was an asshole. A married asshole.
HILDY: Your mother said that?
PAUL: Many times. Every time I brought him up. She’d kept a poster for his band. When I was little, I used to get it out from under her bed and stare at him with his gelled hair and shades and think, My dad’s a rock star! I wanted to see him so bad, but Mom always told me he was on the road.
HILDY: She just didn’t want you to meet him?
PAUL: Yeah. But he probably was on the road most of the time, too. Only way he could survive was to do the circuit. He was just in some crap cover band. I figured that out later.
HILDY: How long were they together? Your parents.
PAUL: Ha! Good question. I thought it was some big love affair gone wrong, then I got the tape. I probably watched it five times before I checked the date stamp and did the math. My guess is they knew each other for one whole night. Maybe two or three. Nine months later I came along. Caroline’s note said something about “Typical Molly. Always so lucky. Gets up to do karaoke and a professional singer just happens to be in town that night.” So he wasn’t even from here. They apparently won three hundred dollars as best act and blew it on Courvoisier.
HILDY: Ever think of looking him up?
PAUL: Sure. He saw me when I was a baby so he knows I exist. Soon as I was old enough to spell his name, I Googled him. Deep Blue’s got a two-line wiki entry. I could probably find him if I wanted. Probably will someday but don’t particularly want to now. Just a sperm donor to me. Not a big deal.
HILDY: And yet that’s what you’d save. The cassette.
PAUL: Yup. Don’t have any Italian shoes.
QUESTION 35
HILDY: The next one’s a bad one.
PAUL: Hit me with it.
HILDY: All right. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?
HILDY: We don’t have to answer it.
PAUL: Come this far. Can’t stop now.
HILDY: You want me to go first then?
PAUL: Why don’t you.
HILDY: It’s easy for me. Gabe. I mean, my parents aren’t perfect, but I’d be devastated if anything happened to them. Or to Alec—even though we don’t have a lot in common and he pretty much ignores me most of the time. Mom always says relationships evolve and we’ll appreciate each other when we’re older and that’s probably true, but Gabe—I mean, Gabe. I’m only six years older but he was like my baby! My doll. I’ve spent my whole life looking after him. If anything happened to him, I’d just die.… So, um, the other night? When I missed you? That’s why. He’d disappeared and I was so worried about him. Which is, of course, ridiculous. Gabe’s big and strong. Way bigger than me. But I guess that’s what it’s like to be a mother. You never stop worrying. I’d still carry him if I could.
PAUL: That’s weirdly sweet.
HILDY: Weirdly neurotic.
PAUL: Yeah. Kind of.
HILDY: You didn’t have to agree with me.
PAUL: Sorry.
HILDY: So. You.
PAUL: Yeah?
HILDY: I
mean, the question.
HILDY: If you want to answer it, that is.
PAUL: Whose death would I find most disturbing? That’s easy for me, too. Nobody’s.
HILDY: Nobody’s?
PAUL: Yeah. Because nobody’s left. Not really.
HILDY: Oh.
PAUL: I want to answer number eighteen now.
QUESTION 18
HILDY: Okay. Sure. Eighteen? Um… Let me just find it.
PAUL: You don’t have to look it up. It’s What is your worst memory?
HILDY: Oh.
PAUL: My worst memory happened July third, two years ago. I can actually be more specific if you want.
HILDY: If you want.
PAUL: 9:36 p.m.
HILDY: You sure you want to do this?
PAUL: Too late. Let’s get this over with.
HILDY: You don’t have to.
PAUL: Yeah. I do.
PAUL: Okay.
PAUL: Anyway.
PAUL: I was with my mother. We were driving back from the country. There was a drum set this guy was selling that I wanted to look at. Sad thing is, in the end, we didn’t even get it. We drove all that way in the pissing rain to look at a piece of crap. Anyway, on the way back, we started fighting. Like, screaming at each other. Mom told me she’d met some guy online and he was “the one,” so we were going to pack up and move again. I was near the end of high school. I had a really good art teacher, a bunch of guys I played in a band with. I said no way, and she said it wasn’t my decision and I was being selfish and I was just a kid, what did I know, and this was her one true chance at happiness. She was ranting like that when she took a corner. Too fast. In the rain. Looking at me, not the road. We flipped, slammed into a telephone pole, flipped back. When I came to, there was blood everywhere and Mom kind of murmuring my name. She’d already called 9-1-1. My nose was bleeding like crazy and so was her face, but she kept going, “I’m okay, I’m okay. Head wounds bleed a lot. I’m just cold.” That’s what bothers me now. I should have known things were worse than she was making out. I mean, it wasn’t cold. It was raining and everything, but it was July. I wanted to go flag someone down but she said, “No. Stay with me. Ambulance will be here soon,” all cheery and everything. Then she said, “Why don’t you sing me something?” Which was ridiculous. I never sang to her. I never sang to anyone but she asked, so what could I do? The only song I could think of was “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean,” so that’s what I sang. And she said, “I always loved that song,” which was a crock of shit, but she joined in on the “Bring back, bring back my Bonnie to me” part. Then she said, “I’m tired. All the excitement I guess.” Like it was a joke. And I said, “They’ll be here soon, Mom. You’re going to be okay.” And she said, “I know I am. You be a good boy.” And I went, “I will,” like I was a little kid or something. And she laughed and said, “No. Screw that, Paulie. You give ’em hell. Be brave enough to give ’em hell.” And that made me laugh, sort of, and she moved her hand and put it on my leg, with her fingers kind of turned up, and I was looking at it because I guess I was too scared to look at her face and, just like that, I saw the life go out of it. I looked up and her eyes were half closed and her mouth was sort of open and I knew she was dead. I jumped out of the car and waved my arms and screamed and I could hear the siren and see the lights. Twelve minutes it took them to come. That’s what happened to my mother. And my nose.