The Shelf Life of Fire

by Robin Greene

  twenty-five

  I wake to a ringing phone. Actually, I was awake but not up. Although it’s Monday, not Saturday, when Cal usually calls, I immediately know it’s him. Like the last time we talked—on a Monday. At thirty-one, he’s an early riser, though I remember as a teenager, he could sleep, if I let him, until 2:00 in the afternoon.

  I find the phone in my darkened bedroom, catching the call before the ringing stops.

  “Hello.” My first word of the day.

  “Hi, Mom. Were you up?”

  “Just lying in bed. How are you? What’s doing?” I rise from bed, walk downstairs to fix Jake’s breakfast, make a pot of coffee. I can use the bathroom and brush my teeth in the hall bathroom by the kitchen, where I have an extra toothbrush and toothpaste stashed.

  “Nothing much, just thought I’d call. I’m back from Chicago and have the morning off. Work in town this afternoon, then tomorrow I’ll be driving down to Albany. Got stuff with the state for the rest of the week.”

  “Great. How was Chicago and how are you? Jess at work?”

  “I’m good. Chicago was good. Everything’s good. Jess is at work and definitely applying to Boston U’s Masters of Public Health program. She found out that she can basically do it for free.” I hear a plane roar overhead and wait until it passes before speaking.

  “Will the bio-statistics class she’s taking count?” Jake now has his food, the pot’s heating on the stove, and I’m quietly brushing my teeth.

  “Oh, yeah. She’ll have that out of the way and then take another summer class.”

  “It’s a lot to manage with her job, yes?” But my real concern is the subtextual message I’m hearing: they won’t try to get pregnant again. Commitment to a demanding academic program suggests that they’ve given up trying for now.

  “I told her that, but she wants to do it. One or two courses a semester. Hang on, Mom.”

  I hear Cal talking to someone, background voices. I hear someone say “Grande.”

  In a moment, however, he’s out on the street. I hear the exaggerated sound of wind through the phone.

  “Okay,” Cal says.

  “Where you off to now?” I ask.

  “Headed back home, do some work there. I have a 1:00 appointment at MIT. Walking distance.”

  “How’s the weather?” I ask.

  “Overcast today, and it’s chilly, actually. How are you? Heard from Dad?”

  “Fine,” I say. “I’m good. But no, I missed Dad’s calls a few times,” I lie. “So we haven’t caught up lately.” I’m now pouring boiling water into the Chemex.

  “You lonely? What you been doing?” The wind is gone, and Cal’s voice is clear.

  “I’ve been writing. I’m fine.”

  “Well, I should go, get to work. Just wanted to say hello.”

  “Sounds good,” I say. “Appreciate the call.” Now, sitting on the sunroom couch, coffee in hand, I’m feeling deflated, a balloon with a loose knot, air escaping. “I love you,” I say.

  “Yeah, Mom. Love you, too.”

  I hit the end-call button, put my cell phone on the low table. The morning cool is quite lovely, and Jake now joins me. But I’m feeling lost again. I was feeling good with Cal on the phone, but that energy has dissipated.

  Outside, two blue jays bathe in our little poured concrete bird bath. I imagine that they’re a couple. One stands on the ledge, like he or she is in charge. The other stands in the middle of the bowl, preening itself, fluffing its wings. A squirrel runs along our privacy fence and jumps up to a longleaf pine branch by the back shed. The limb sways, shakes. The squirrel is gone. A summer day. I think again of Mary Oliver’s “The Summer Day,” this time focusing on her remark that although she doesn’t “know what prayer is,” she does “know how to pay attention, how to fall down on the grass.” I agree. The world closely observed offers us grace.

  Then remember another Oliver poem, “The Journey,” remembering its first lines:

  One day you finally knew

  what you had to do, and began,

  though the voices around you

  kept shouting their bad advice—

  I think of all the bad advice bombarding me now—from the dead and the living. They’re no longer whispering but rather shouting.

  Oliver goes on to write:

  though the whole house

  began to tremble

  and you felt the old tug

  at your ankles.

  “Mend my life!”

  Each voice cried.

  But you didn’t stop.

  You knew what you had to do…

  But do I? Can I mend my mother’s life with money? Or my brother’s with forgiveness? Or my own?

  I watch the blue jays, still in the birth bath, and breathe deeply. Do birds have lives that need mending? I look closely at them. One is much larger than the other and is more deeply colored. The smaller bird has a wider, shorter beak and now stares at the larger one on the ledge. One chirps; the other remains silent. Then, as if on cue, they take flight together, rising into blue sky. No mending. Just flight.

  I’m going to have a good day, I tell myself.

  Upstairs, I write. Three hours, without interruption. I’m feeling better. I’ve completely abandoned the earlier novel I had planned during the semester and had worked so hard to outline. It’s all okay. Just good that I’m writing....

  About remembering—stuff from childhood, adolescence. Now, with six new pages, I’m feeling satisfied, ready to stop. I think, in fact, I’ll reward myself with a trip to the outlet mall in Smithfield, about fifty miles up I-95. A little retail therapy in some new places. I’m feeling better about myself for the first time in days. I deserve a reward for my six pages.

  Soon, I’m in Ruby, traveling on the interstate, listening to NPR. A female host is discussing something with a male guest. He’s a soldier who’s written a book, and although I can tell he’s got something important to say, I’m not in the mood. The hot bright sun penetrates the windshield as I cruise past the Wade exit. The Carolina blue sky overhead is cloudless, open, inviting. Everything is possible.

  I hit the tuner, scale up and down the FM dial until I find an oldies station. Yes. There’s Mick Jagger singing “Satisfaction.” Yes, yes, yes. I blast up the volume as Ruby’s interior vibrates to Jagger singing me back to 1969. I lock in the cruise control at seventy-three.

  I-95 is a straight shot; there’s little traffic. In the left lane, I shoot past a gaggle of slower moving vehicles—a UPS truck, a Walmart semi, an old white Cadillac—and the road opens.

  I can’t get no…satisfaction…I can’t get no girl-reaction, ‘cause I try, and I try, and I try, and I try…I can’t get no, I can’t get no…

  k

  I’m on the Island Railroad now, rattling through Queens on my way to Penn Station, where the Stones will be playing at 9:00 tonight. It’s late November. I’ve fought with my parents to let me attend this concert—and won—mostly because there’d be no subway ride late at night as I’d only need to get from Penn Station downstairs to Madison Square Garden upstairs.

  Three-fourths of the train commuters this evening are concert goers, so I’ve purchased a one-way ticket, suspecting that the train will be packed on the return trip, that the conductor won’t ask for tickets.

  At the concert, Tina Turner struts onto stage: the first warm-up act. She’s done up with a spectacular Motown hairdo, a tight leather mini-skirt. But the audience isn’t pleased. A Black guy with a bandana across his forehead sits next to me, shouting out that she looks like one of the whores working 42nd Street. She dances around, singing a few songs; then she’s gone.

  Next, B. B. King comes on—warm-up act number two. He’s completely fabulous, but no one is really in the mood for his slow rhythm, his electric blues. He sits on a chair center-stage, a relic from some other time. The audience listens politely, though still impatient.

  After King, the stage goes empty. The crowd, having waited long enough, begins t
o chant like an oversized tribe of hungry cannibals. I’d been sitting in the far back of the center mezzanine, close to the aisle, having bought a relatively cheap seat. But when someone off-stage finally yells, “And here they are, the Rolling Stones,” the crowd surges forward in a wave of mad energy. I’m lifted by the crowd, carried to the center, directly in front of the stage. We all stand on top of the theater-style seats, on the flat wooden arm panels, bodies raised, everybody screaming.

  When we’d surged forward, the guy next to me almost got trampled, but now I see that he’s gotten to his feet. One woman, I notice, has climbed onto another guy’s shoulders, standing up as if she’s performing some weird cheerleading routine.

  Then, Mick Jagger dances onto the stage as the crowd shouts, “Mick! Mick! Mick!” Jagger launches into “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” while everyone goes absolutely crazy. I too am caught up in the frenzy, the chaotic madness. The new guy next to me wears a tie-dyed tee-shirt, ripped low-rise bellbottoms. He’s extremely hairy, and as he lifts his arms, his belly hair and chest hair are so thick that I think—yes, we’re definitely descended from apes.

  The concert continues, song after song, a frenzy of energy and magic, until the final couple of encores.

  After the concert, I’m electrified as hordes of young people pour onto the escalators that carry them into Penn Station, onto LIRR trains, back to our homes and beds so that tonight we may sleep, and tomorrow resume our uneventful lives.

  The conductor, as I predicted, doesn’t collect tickets in the standing-room only train, leaving the station well past 1:00 a.m. I stand next to a burly guy with a full beard and long hair. He introduces himself with a joint, which is being passed around to all riders. In fact, lots and lots of drugs, most visibly pot, are being consumed.

  The guy tells me that he’s a college student, that his name is Strike. I like him. He asks for my phone number, which I give to him. I tell him to call me Ramona, my new nickname, and that I’m eighteen, a high school senior, planning to graduate in spring.

  Even now, riding in Ruby on this stellar morning, I can see Strike’s face, feel his large sweaty body next to mine as we balance, our hands holding the same pole as the train leaves the Garden, rattling down the tracks to one of its first stops, Laurelton station, where Strike gets off. He’s wearing a red plaid flannel shirt, blue jeans, and a thick black leather belt with a huge silver fish buckle. He’s got on hiking boots, no jacket. A large-faced Timex is strapped onto a studded black leather watchband. His hand, eye-level with my face, grips the pole as the train shakes to a stop. I look at it, see that it is rough, grizzled but clean, and that moment—as I stare at Strike’s hand—becomes a short video clip that I replay now, as I’ve replayed it so many times before, although it is unimportant.

  “Satisfaction,” is over. My thinking has taken me far away. I feel my hands on Ruby’s hot, black leatherette steering wheel. Tears well up. I pull the visor down, hoping the culprit is the strong sun, not the memories. Why can’t I escape my past? But maybe that’s the wrong question.

  I near my exit, move to the right lane, turning on my blinker. The mall is actually a collection of strip malls with gaping black parking lots in between. The spaces closest to the stores are filled with vehicles, and I drive around the two main areas to get the lay of the land. I’ve only been here a few times before, with Nick, when we purchased some baskets and a wicker papasan chair for the sunroom at Carolina Pottery.

  I park out a way, but in the lot closest to Banana Republic and Talbots. I wander in to Talbots first, and a saleswoman asks, “What can I help you with today?” Startled, I look at her, an older woman with teased, well-coiffured dyed-blonde hair, a wrinkled and made-up face, and wearing black slacks that make her butt appear strangely flattened.

  “Just looking,” I reply, and touch a rack of blouses.

  “We have some excellent sales today,” she continues and walks, assuming I’ll follow, down a twisted trail between round and linear racks to one against the back wall, where a sign reads “75% off lowest ticket price.” She stops, opens the palm of her hand, like a magician. “Our lowest prices of the season.” And steps back.

  “Thank you,” I say, moving toward the two racks—one high, one low—beginning to riffle through the shirts. I find a blue button-down one, check the label to see the fiber content. The shirt feels like a cotton blend, but it’s mostly polyester, so I return its hanger to the rack.

  Ultimately, I do buy a few things: a light blue cotton sweater, something I know I’ll enjoy wearing to work, along with a deep pink tee-shirt that fits well-enough and can be worn either under a jacket to school or with jeans.

  The day passes swiftly; at some point, I realize I’m enjoying myself. I speak to other women shoppers in dressing rooms—a sort of instant camaraderie, as we offer opinions about the success or failure of the pants, the shirts, the sweaters, the skirts we try on. When I come out of the dressing room in Chico’s with a beige, classically designed pencil skirt, one woman looks me over. “I like that,” she says, to which I ask, “Not too short?” to which she replies, “Perhaps.” I nod, telling her, “No knees,” and point to them. The stranger laughs. “I know what you mean,” she says.

  I love this dressing-room intimacy. How a strange woman’s opinion, offered at the right moment, seems so sisterly, so connecting. I feel oddly solid, a physical feminine presence.

  My secret: I am in disguise as a real woman. I look the part, and everyone reacts to me as if I am the real deal. Have I fooled them? But I am a woman, aren’t I?

  At the register, just as I’m putting away my credit card, offering my last smile to the nice saleswoman who has helped in my selection, my cell phone rings. “Thanks again,” I say, exiting quickly with my purchase folded neatly in white tissue paper, packed so nicely in a shiny white plastic bag with the store’s signature ribbon curled around the handles. Outside, I open my messenger bag and say “Hello,” trying to glance at the name appearing on my screen.

  “Hey,” I hear. “How have you been? Sorry I haven’t been calling. Can you speak?” I recognize Nick’s voice and trot out to Ruby, where I plan to sit with the driver’s side door open—in relative privacy.

  “Yeah, good to hear from you. I’ve been a little worried.” I cross the parking lot, the asphalt wavering in the late afternoon heat.

  “Nothing to report, really. I’m fine. Writing every day. Finally got to meet some of the other writers here, so that’s good.”

  “Oh,” I say. I click open Ruby’s doors, throw my few purchases onto the backseat, then fit myself behind the wheel so that I face the open door, legs and feet dangling. The car’s interior, however, must be well over a hundred degrees, and I’m immediately sweaty. I sit down anyway.

  “How about you? You doing okay? What’s new?” A long pause.

  I decide not to tell him that I’m out shopping although I can’t think why. Suddenly, I have little or nothing to say. “Everything’s fine. It’s just good to hear from you.” I feel my face grow super-hot as heat spreads through my entire body until I’m experiencing a full-blown hot flash. I’m melting, and now something more—tears again. I strain to hold back sobs, sitting miserably on Ruby’s black interior cloth, just wanting to get off the phone.

  Nick is quiet for a long time. Then he says, “You don’t sound okay. What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” I insist. I’m angry, but I can’t tell if I’m angry at Nick or at myself. A young mom carrying a baby in a chest papoose walks by. The baby, I see, is sound asleep, head jostling loosely as the mom walks by—a paper bag in her hand, an enormous blue diaper bag slung across her shoulder. I think of myself—my self—in young motherhood, twice—each time a life-changing experience in which my idea of self was altered.

  “You still there?” Nick asks. “What’s going on, Rae?”

  Instead of lying, I tell him. “I’m shopping at the outlet mall in Smithfield. I’m in the car. It’s very hot.”

  “
That’s all?” he asks. “You sound upset.”

  “Nothing. Just hot. Hot and tired. End of the day.” I’m fighting many strong emotions, and it’s urgent now that I hang up the phone. “I guess you didn’t catch me at a good time.” Immediately, I regret my words. I really do want to speak to him. So, I say, “Tell me about your friends there, what you’re doing. What you’re working on.” But as I ask, I realize that I don’t want to know. I’m just asking for the sake of keeping him on the phone. Though I’m not even sure I want to talk.

  “Look,” Nick says, “I’ll call you later,” a note of dissatisfaction in his voice. “Anyway, I got to go; someone needs the phone.”

  “Okay. Call me again. I love you,” I say, grasping, wanting something but not sure what.

  “Yeah. Love you, too. Take care. Take care of yourself,” Nick adds.

  “Right. You too.” I hit the end-call button, lean back on the seat. Tears fall as I ready myself for the big cry I’ve been holding back. But then, in a second, the feeling is gone.

  I slam the driver’s side door closed, start the engine, turn up the a/c, buckle myself in, and off I go. Home? Right now, I’m not sure.

  k

  Does Nick love me? I turn onto the I-95 entrance ramp and descend into rather heavy but fast-moving traffic. I merge into the left lane, increasing my speed until I’m going 70 in the 65-mph zone, and hit the cruise control.

  Well? I ask myself. When he’s with me, yes. But connections need to be immediate; neurons need to fire all the time for love to stay. I think about my father—who was my original model for the man I married.

  In some sense, my father abandoned me late in his life. But no, I think, that’s not fair. I try to remember the last time I saw my dad. I can’t. Was it during a visit to Florida? Or the time my parents drove up to North Carolina for a weekend visit?

  As I think back, I switch to the right lane so that I can float behind a huge mail truck and drive a little less mindfully. I begin to craft memory from small moments. Ordering dinner—where were we? Yes, I remember, the trip to the Georgia coast.