by R. A. Nelson
“Hey, that wasn’t my fault. Pinkeye is extremely contagious. Just call the CDC.”
“Nine.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll be there.”
Oh, well, such is life. When I settle the phone back in its cradle, I spy Mr. Mann’s blown-up photo. I study it again, snuggle back into the covers.
He’s there, holding a jar of Seville marmalade and a spoon.
deeper
April in Alabama:
The air is full of sunlight. There’s a warm, blustery breeze. The clouds are hanging like planets.
And all I’ve got to look forward to on this gorgeous Saturday is eight hours of paintbrushes, cleansers, hammers. Maybe day-old Tater Tots for lunch, if I’m lucky. I’m stuck at the elementary school, Schuyler’s work-a-thon.
Sigh.
The sign-in man is boldly asexual, thick around the middle and balding to boot. I bet his tan Dockers won’t see a single smudge all day. He glances at his watch when I come up, makes a brisk architectural notation.
“Name?”
“Carolina Livingston.”
“Work partner?”
“Pinky Lee.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry. Schuyler Green. But he had to go to Nashville for a chess tournament. Allegedly. So I guess I don’t have anybody.”
Dockers lines through Schuyler’s name with a ruler and looks around. A pudgy boy jumps up from a box, citrus cleaner in one hand, booping Game Boy in the other.
“Well, Robbie, looks like we found you a—”
Please, no.
“I’m her partner,” a voice says behind me.
Degreaser Boy sags. My mouth hangs open; I force myself to clop it shut.
Mr. Mann.
He’s coming up the walk behind me wearing jeans and a UMass T-shirt. Scruffy white sneaks. His hair is tangling and untangling in the wind.
He extends his hand to shake with Dockers, bare arm almost touching mine.
“Richard Mann at your service. Of the Boothbay Harbor Manns.”
“Says here your name is Green,” Dockers says.
“That was before the operation.”
“Huh?”
“Just kidding. It’s Mann; it’ll be on the next page.”
Dockers finds his name, makes another time notation. “All right, let’s see what we’ve got for you here.”
A rush of cold horror floods my chest.
Shorts!
I’m wearing shorts.
My legs are so winter pale, you could use them to signal the cavalry. What does he think of me? My blow-away hair? And who showers when they know crushed milk cartons are on their horizon?
A quick, terrifying Systems Check: Tic Tacs, no; blackheads, yes; bra that fits like a busted slingshot. Stunning.
Mr. Mann doesn’t seem to notice my wobbling knees. Dockers consults his paperwork, makes a couple of neat engineering marks on his list. “All right. Let’s see what we’ve got left here—baseboards or trees?”
“Huh?”
“Which do you want? Scrubbing baseboards or planting trees?”
Mr. Mann and I glance at each other sideways, partners in crime. Dockers taps his pen impatiently. “Hmmm,” Mr. Mann says. “There’s dirt and then there ’s . . . dirt. What do you think, Carolina? Knees or trees?”
“I—um—I’m—”
“No doubt struck dumb to be teamed with such an experienced work-a-thon . . . er. All right, trees,” he says to Dockers. “I spend too much goddamn time in places like this as it is.”
Dockers touches a pen to his flabby lips and nods at the Booper. “Big pitchers have little ears.”
Huh?
Two minutes later we’re escaping down the hillside with a shovel, a posthole digger, and a croker sack full of pine saplings. The school grounds loom before us, empty of people, not even a car in sight.
Is this possible?
A whole day alone with Mr. Mann.
I suddenly realize I’ve forgotten how to walk.
As we descend the gentle slope, each step becomes a conscious act, a series of jerky mechanical movements preceded by careful thought. I’m a stumbling idiot, a giraffe. Is he watching my legs? My butt? Say something, anything!
“My prince.”
Except that.
Mr. Mann grins. “Glad to oblige, my queen.”
I somehow manage to feign a pout. “So you’re my son?”
“No, milady. Knight at arms. Together we have just vanquished the Tan Lord and the bleeping Duke of Orange.”
I giggle like an idiot, clap my hand to my mouth to stifle it.
Thirty seconds down.
Only 28,770 to go.
What’s wrong? Why am I so nervous? I’ve talked to this man practically every weekday for months. What’s so different about this place? Being alone together for the first time? Am I afraid something’s going to happen?
Or terrified something isn’t.
We’re there.
“Along here?” I say.
“That’s what the man said. You want me to do that?” Mr. Mann touches the wooden handles.
“We can take turns. I kind of like it.” It’s also keeping me standing.
“I kind of like that you kind of like it.”
I raise the posthole digger—“I claim thee in the name of Sir Guy of Gismond!”—and stab it violently in the trampled sod.
Stop being stupid. Calm down.
I lever the metal jaws shut, lift, pull away a bite of turf, pile.
“Hey, you’re pretty good at that.”
I feel myself flushing pleasurably and stab the hole again. “My dad taught me. We used to build stuff. So what are you doing here?”
“Hey, can’t a new guy join the community? Actually, I promised Britton and Kelly—they pledge, I work.”
I feel myself bristling.
“So how much did they give?”
“Completely confidential! Dollar an hour.”
“Cheapskates.”
“You get what you pay for.”
“So they say.”
Is this turning into small talk?
Quiet.
I dig steadily, trying not to grunt. Praying my deodorant is a shining example of Truth in Advertising. I need something to occupy my hands, my flaming attention. I watch my feet to keep from glancing at his back, his shoulders, his arms. The ground is reasonably soft; the hole grows in satisfying pinches.
For a while we don’t speak. I appreciate the lack of mindless chatter. We set the first tree, shovel in the fill, pat the cool earth. When our fingers briefly touch, an electrical impulse riots up and down my spine. When I get up again, my hands and legs are shaking. I grip the digger harder. We move along the edge of the field, slowly emptying the sack. I refuse to trade for the shovel.
After an hour or so of this, things are feeling a little more comfortable.
Now:
Start with the easiest question.
“There’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you.”
Mr. Mann leans on the shovel, top lip beaded gold. I love the fact that he hasn’t shaved today; his stubble is dark and bronzed at the tips.
“Sure.”
“Why Emily? You could have picked so many poets. Whitman, Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Frost, Langston Hughes, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Wouldn’t longer poems have been easier to dig into?”
“And you said you didn’t know poetry.”
“I don’t. But when I learn something, I learn it. What’s the internet for, anyhow?”
“EBay. I’m looking to score a set of Clackers.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” He stretches, making me nearly gasp in wonder, arms reaching over his head, broad chest pulling at the material of his shirt. “Whew. Haven’t done anything like this in a while. Okay. Why Emily.”
He brushes his eyes with a shining arm. I’m glad I’ve got something to hold on to.
“Because she’s the Queen of Almosts,” he says.
“Almosts
?”
“Almost beautiful. Almost married. Almost published to fame and fortune. Almost, almost, almost. That’s even the title of one of her poems, ‘Almost.’ The closer she would get to a thing, the more she would cut herself off from it.”
“That sounds so quantum,” I say without thinking.
“Yeah, you know, you’re right. It is.”
I don’t know what to say next. I’m too busy thinking. We move on to the next hole.
Bang.
I’m suddenly paralyzed by a terrifying thought:
Is that what this is, this thing with Mr. Mann? Quantum theory?
Am I trying to discover what’s really real there?
A quantum physicist chops hunks of matter into smaller and smaller bits, atoms, neutrons, electrons, quarks, hadrons, leptons, gluons, etc. Looking for what they call the God particle—it has been so hard to find, some physicists call it the Goddamn particle—that final piece of matter that really, truly, concretely exists.
That final piece of something you can actually, physically Touch.
But it’s never really there. You can slice away forever and not find a single piece of solid ground to hang on to.
A burning starts behind my eyes, the sudden need to bawl.
No.
I drive the posthole digger viciously.
I’m a Deep Sky astronomer. Deep Sky astronomers are used to dealing with stuff that seems impossible: quasars, black holes, event horizons, bubble universes.
I set my jaw. My voice is a little trembly; I can’t help it.
“But what if some of those Almost things were beyond Emily’s control? Forced on her by life?”
Mr. Mann blows air between his lips. “You mean, did she have a choice? Do we get to choose? On the really important things? I don’t know.”
I do. I’m rolling now. “Maybe she wanted to take things all the way but couldn’t. That doesn’t mean she didn’t want to. Maybe she needed somebody else to help her. That’s the answer.”
Mr. Mann considers this. “Maybe we’re not supposed to know the answer. It’s a mystery. Life. Maybe it’s supposed to be. With Emily, I believe the answers are in her poetry. I can relate.”
“How?”
“Because I’m the king.”
“Prince.”
“Nope. The King of Almosts. Almost had friends. Almost a poet. Almost married.”
I silently beg him to keep going, but he stops.
A blue Wal-Mart bag tumbles by, snags on one of the trees we’ve just planted. I pull it off and crumple it in my pocket. The moment feels inexpressibly sad.
Good. There will never be a better time. Ask him.
“But why didn’t—?”
“Look at you.” He suddenly touches my cheek with his warm hand, brushing at something there. I feel the blood moving to my face. “You really throw yourself into it, don’t you?”
I will his hand to stay there—please, please, just keep touching me—but it goes away. “I’m focused,” I manage to say. “I’ve always been focused.”
“I like that. Teach me, huh?”
I start to say something, but he’s already moving on to mark the next spot.
The rest of the day the conversation somehow expands in every direction away from him, like a gamma-ray burst from a star. No matter how I try to steer it. What is he thinking? Why does he come so close, then pull away? Is he holding something back? Why? What is he afraid of?
By the end of the day we have planted sixty trees.
I have dug every hole.
physical observations
I’m cunning.
He’s not going to get away that easily.
I’m too focused. I’m gathering too much data.
I know the speed of his walk, the corners he likes to round at certain positions of the clock. His lunch table. The way he shakes his salt, crosses his legs. Like a good engineer studying heat tiles on the Shuttle, I even know the pronation of his feet by the wear on the bottom of his shoes.
It’s not enough.
I’m thinking about the work-a-thon. What it felt like when he touched my cheek.
His scent, the way his sweat collected in the middle of his shirt, a dark, liquid heart shape stretching down his stomach. The distance between our skin, the way the world tasted—dirt, sun, sky, leaf—
I flop back in bed and stare at the ceiling, trying to ignore the bubbly tickle in my throat. The phone starts to buzz because I haven’t dialed the last digit of his number. I let it slip through my fingers to thonk on the carpet. This is unbearable. I have to know, does all of this stay right here? I can’t live with that. I can’t. But I have to know:
Does it go on?
I’m ready to make something happen.
Please.
closer
Lunch.
He’s missing from his table today.
I put my tray away, hurry up the hall, rap on the door to his office.
It opens a crack and Mr. Mann pokes his lovely head out. The spiral staircase of paperwork on his desk behind him tells me he’s busy. He remains standing, doesn’t invite me in. But he smiles.
“Carolina!”
In the split second before I speak, I study his face.
Worry? Joy? Fear?
How can I be getting all these signals at once?
My visit is so soon after planting all those trees—he has to see I’m climbing up to the next plateau. Will he take my hand, haul me higher, up to where he is?
Or let me fall.
“Hi! Mr. Mann, I was wondering—could I talk to you for a second?”
“Sure, what do you need?”
What do I need.
The question interrupts important chemical reactions in my brain. Fires up others. What do I need? Whatever you have. Whatever you want to give. Whatever you can share.
“I was just wondering.”
He grins. “You said that.” His hand is still on the knob.
A boy with a book bag banging his butt slouches by, smirking. I can’t help but notice, Mr. Mann glances at the tiles until he’s gone.
“Could I come inside?” I say.
“Well.” His voice drops several decibels. His eyes move left and right. “I’m not so sure.”
I don’t know if he’s serious. “What?”
“Maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea.”
Is this good? Bad?
Is he afraid of being seen with me?
Because he likes me? Because he’s afraid of where this is going? Or only of what people might think.
My fingers are slipping—the route I’m climbing is suddenly crumbling beneath me.
It’s not real, it’s a waking fantasy, the product of an overheated mind and quantum theory.
“Why?” I say.
“Well.”
There’s another noise behind me. Mr. Johnson from agriscience. He’s carrying a wooden toolbox that looks exactly like a birdhouse with no roof. For a very long bird. He waves a silent hi.
“I’ve been thinking,” Mr. Mann says. He watches Mr. Johnson pass with a solemn smile.
“About?”
Touching my face? Telling me you’re lonely? That you dream about me in building 9, room 220?
“Okay?” I say.
“Maybe that’s my problem. I think too much.”
This sounds more promising. I’ve found a fingerhold; I’m pulling myself back up.
“I’ve been accused of that myself,” I say. “What about?” I like this feeling. We’re dancing up a new trail, and I’m getting to lead.
“Things. Anyhow, what did you need?”
Dead end.
I glance at my shoes. There’s a spot of dirt on the toe of my left sneaker. Instantly, I can see the ground between us, the sky, pushing the earth around a new tree, our fingers meeting. Don’t lose that day.
“I just felt like talking. Mars! That’s it! Did you know it’s coming up on its closest approach in sixty thousand years?”
“I didn’t know
that.”
“It won’t be this close again until 2287.”
Smile. “That’s not sixty thousand years away.”
“I know. It doesn’t work like that. It’s variable.”
“Which pretty much means—”
“We’ll both be dead the next time.” Dead. Get it? So let’s do the important things now. I can’t stop it; the words come pouring out. “So this is our only chance, if you think about it. I’ve got a refractor. It’s only a four-inch Meade, but would you like to come over and look sometime? Or we could go farther out where the light is better.”
“Nine.” The door opens wider. He’s wearing a forest green T-shirt—it must have been underneath the sweater I saw in class. “I’d love to. It’s just—”
He stops. His eyes are suddenly sad. Has something happened? Is it something I’ve done?
No. It’s something he wants to do. I can see it. Something he wants to do so badly, it’s eating him up inside. But he’s holding back. He’s a good man. He’s such a good man.
This is my part. This is where I have to make him know it’s okay. That I want him to help me climb. He has to see that, feel it. Understand it. Has to see that I’m old enough, strong enough, smart enough. That he can take it one step more. I have to give him a sign.
“It’s all right,” I say, smiling. “Whatever you want, it’s okay.”
“Yeah. Sure. I’m just—I don’t know. Maybe we could do that sometime. Was there anything else?”
“No. Nothing else.”
“Thanks,” he says. “Thanks for asking me.”
“You’re welcome.”
The door slips shut.
I stand there.
Falling.
wonderland
Why?
“Why are we doing this?” I say to Schuyler.
We’re sitting in my room, lights turned out, on this dead and dying day, watching a computer screen. As if I haven’t already fallen far enough.
The Kansas City Ghost Club.
Schuyler scrolls down the black chat board—the same sad screen names: Mandymoo, clARkaSHton, spookielee36, coldSPOT, TorqueMonkey. A dozen more. Endlessly chatting, flaming, flirting, fighting.
We’re all watching the same long, grungy, empty, dimly lit, paint-peeling hallways in an abandoned hospital morgue.