Come With Me

by Helen Schulman

  He was a fragile ally at that point, that’s what Maryam said, when they later reevaluated that initial meeting. “You were a fragile ally then and you are a fragile ally now, Dan,” she said. “For all your best intentions, you’ve done nothing to earn my respect or trust.”

  Here, he remembered her giving him a little pat, but was that literal or figurative? Did he remember the pat, even if it never happened, because it was psychically accurate?

  “You have to vote with your feet, Dan,” said Maryam.

  Dan had felt desperate at that moment to do anything to win Maryam over. But in actuality, he’d done nothing. Zip. He confused himself. He felt totally at sea. Like he had, at times when he was young, and more recently, increasingly, since he was jobless. For so long, because of work, love, family, Amy, Dan had been found. He’d forgotten what being lost felt like.

  Maryam, unencumbered by marriage or family, financial responsibilities toward anyone but herself, wasn’t lost and wasn’t young, but she had the feeling of youth, her hair still black, her strong sculpted face held taut by the ferocity of her cheekbones; she didn’t traverse a hamster wheel day to day; there was a floating free spirit element to her, even though she was physically the opposite of ethereal—she was no Ophelia, but Diana! The huntress. Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of Ptolemaic Egypt. She was, he saw almost immediately, as he tried to suss her out, infused by the glow of inner purpose. Her pursuits were saturated with meaning. It took her five minutes to tell him what was what, not boasting exactly, but immediately making certain he knew that her life didn’t suck. She’d practically handed him her résumé, when he’d asked her gently where she was from, as she passed him the complimentary chips and dips Palo Alto Sol was so famous for; the server had just replenished the baskets and silver salsa bowls on the bar.

  “I was born in London to a Palestinian mother and a British father,” she’d said, like she was introducing a documentary about herself on PBS; he could hear the authority in her accent. “My mother, lonely and in exile, estranged from my father and befuddled by me, hanged herself when I was twelve. My father, a barrister, sent me off to Eton.”

  She continued in voice-over, turning the opening pages of her biography. “Eager to embrace my Arab heritage, I attended St. Joseph’s University in Beirut, where I received degrees in law and journalism. From there I went to art school in Berlin, studying experimental media design.”

  Since then, she’d traveled the world, writing and filming, living everywhere, Paris, the West Bank, Southern California, where she’d had gender-affirmation surgery, before returning to Berlin. A stint in San Francisco and she fell in love with the Bay Area. Hence the Knight fellowship at Stanford.

  Dan nodded his understanding when she delivered this monologue, obviously not for the first time; she’d sounded somewhat rehearsed.

  He’d wondered. Now he was sure.

  “I am a woman,” said Maryam.

  There was no room for doubt. Dan did not doubt her. He responded to her the way he’d always responded to a beautiful woman who fascinated him. It’s just it had been such a long time since he’d been hit like that—he’d almost forgotten what it was like. And being that jacked up now, not just remembering it, but being it, made him feel animated and dynamic and like someone he’d gotten used to missing, but still recognized. Dan felt like Dan.

  You learn something new about yourself every day, Dan thought. Although it was not true. He had not learned anything this elemental and complex at the same time, about himself, in a long time, if ever. He had not known before that he could be attracted to a woman who had once been a man.

  “I was born a woman. The surgery released me from my cocoon.”

  That was when Maryam introduced him to her butterfly tattoo by a graceful pointing of her foot.

  Dan wasn’t much of a tattoo enthusiast, but he thought that this one, with its vivid blues, red, orange, and teal ink was striking, not corny, and fully suited her. It was regal and gorgeous, too.

  When he’d queried, careful to control the excited, covetous wobble in his voice—because he envied her position at the university—she’d said her Knight fellowship was in experimental storytelling, immersive journalism, and interactive design. It reminded him of how Miles replied when asked what he wanted to be when he grew up: “a baseball player/VC/chocolatier.” Maryam would use any tool available to tell a story.

  “I came to Stanford to study the neurobiological effects of cyber-connectivity. But recently, every cell in my body has been crying for Japan.” She paused, her eyes so dark it really was hard to discern the exact border of her pupils. “The people of Fukushima, they are not being seen. They have been so hurt, so abused. And no one cares really. I guess I am obsessed with invisibility,” she said. “The pain of it.”

  After that, Dan was obsessed, too.

  Tonight, she was sitting at the bar when he walked in. Of course, that is where she would be. He had Snapchatted her from his front hall.

  I might be stopping by PAS Picking up dinner

  Still, it seemed magical that he could ask and then receive.

  Dan walked toward her and sat down next to her, his stool by her stool, bright as day. His family’s meals had been ordered online. Maryam had already requested a drink for him. Hector had just made his margarita and it was sitting, sweating, an exciting proposition on the bar. Dan took a sip. Wow. The citrus was so alive on his tongue; it woke him up. He leaned both arms on the cool stone tiles on the counter.

  “I’ve made my arrangements,” said Maryam.

  “I think you’re insane,” said Dan.

  “You do?” she said, her whole face crinkling into a smile.

  “Yes, I do,” said Dan.

  “I’ve been there before, you know,” she said.

  “I know,” he said. “But suited up. You were suited up during the first shoot. And it was still fucking scary. If I’d known you then, I would never have let you go.”

  “Who knew you could be so macho?” Maryam said, slyly. Then to drive him nuts, “A nice Jewish boy like you?”

  “Mar,” said Dan, almost like he was begging her. Her ribbing was impossible.

  “Four years has made a difference,” said Maryam.

  “It’s your body,” said Dan.

  “Yes,” said Maryam, “I am well aware of that. My body. My vehicle. My instrument.”

  “Sometimes you sound like a goddamn yoga instructor.”

  Maryam pursed her lips. She was wearing red lipstick, which he liked and she knew he liked.

  “You roil inside, don’t you, Dan.”

  Dan stopped and thought. It was true. He roiled and roiled. “Well, I know that,” Dan said. “Nothing new. I think I’ve always roiled.”

  “Not like this,” Maryam said. “Not to the point where you feel like you just might ‘roil over’ and die.”

  That was exactly how he felt. Maryam intuitively understood him. Why? Was it the quality of her observer status or more powerfully her ability to empathize? Or was it that he was in the presence now of someone who simply wasn’t sick to death of him?

  “Well, yes and no,” said Dan, trying to cover up the sheer panic and joy of being recognized. “It’s sort of what I do. Usually all that self-torture leads to something. Or once upon a time it did.”

  Her smile grew until it was a shit-eating grin.

  “Why are you smiling like a fool?” said Dan.

  “Because I know something you don’t know.” She smiled even wider.

  “What?” said Dan. “Go on,” he said. “I’m interested. It’s been a long time since I’ve been the topic of anyone’s conversation.”

  “When I go to Japan this time, you’re coming, too,” said Maryam. She sucked her margarita through her straw. “I’ll shoot and you’ll report. You can suit up if you want to be a pussy.”

  “I can’t,” said Dan.

  “Why not?” said Maryam. “You’re unemployed. Think of this as employment. Although I can’t exactly pay
you. Think of this as an investment in your career. Something will come of it; I can promise you. Something always does.”

  Dan did not know what to say. Some existent inside him heated up and melted, and flooded warmly throughout his arms and legs.

  “I’m dying to work,” said Dan.

  “Of course you are. You’re a storyteller, so you need to tell a story,” said Maryam. “I tell you what, you really are going to die when I tell you this one. It’s pretty fucking good.”

  “A good story?” Dan said.

  “An excellent story,” said Maryam.

  “I love good stories,” said Dan.

  “Once upon a time,” said Maryam, “there was a woman who fell in love with a man she met in Japan.”

  Back at the house, Dan parked in the carport and then he texted his eldest son: Give me a hand downstairs. Dan was capable of carrying two full bags of restaurant food, but he wanted to teach Jack responsibility. He also maybe didn’t want to enter the house alone.

  Jack, bare-chested, leaned out his window and shouted, “Okay, Dad, I’m coming down.”

  Propped against the car, with the smells of the Mexican food, tomatoes, chilies, melted cheese, grilled meat wafting up toward him, Dan took a moment to assess his life. There were more delicious things out there than what he had upstairs, in his room, on his bed, on his own, online.

  The back door to the house opened and Jack came out, pulling a Yeezus T-shirt over his head.

  “You take a shower?” Dan asked.

  “Naw. No. Just whatever,” Jack said. He picked up both bags of dinner and went back through the open door inside.

  Dan followed him through the laundry room into the kitchen.

  “Your mom home?” Dan said.

  “Sí, señor,” Jack said. “She’s in the shower.” Then, after a brief pause, “Hogging the hot water, Dad.”

  “Okay, so let’s set the table.”

  “The Things,” Jack said.

  “The Things can clear,” Dan said.

  “‘I’m giving it all she’s got, Captain,’” Jack deadpanned in a Scottish brogue, another Star Trek quote, as he carried the bags into the dining room. The glass doors overlooked the nighttime jungle of the yard. Not much to see in the dark but the shadow of leaves in the background, the furry bark of the redwoods, maybe. If they were lucky, a raccoon’s yellowish eye shine.

  Dan swept up yesterday’s crumbs into his open hand. He walked back into the kitchen. He threw the crumbs into the sink. He opened a wooden cabinet and pulled out a stack of dishes.

  “Silverware,” Dan said.

  “Sure,” said Jack.

  They passed each other coming and going. Dan walked out to the table and started distributing the mismatched plates, like a croupier.

  Amy came in, her hair still wet from the shower. Makeup free and fresh-faced. She was wearing sweats and a faded Cal T-shirt. She looked like an undergraduate. An old undergraduate. She had the Mexican cloth napkins in her hands.

  “Cloth?” Dan said.

  “It’ll feel festive,” Amy said. She laid out six napkins. “I don’t know. Whoo-hoo. It’s Friday night.”

  “I don’t know why you set a place for her,” Dan said.

  “Force of habit,” Amy said. “She’s a person.”

  “But she isn’t here,” Dan said.

  “She is and she isn’t,” Amy said. “If she really wasn’t here, believe me, you’d feel it.”

  She called out: “Miles and Theo, wash your hands and come to the table. Jack, is Lily all set up on her end? Come on, boys, you must be starving.”

  She finished with the napkins and wrapped her hair into a wet topknot.

  Jack came in with the knives and forks and chopsticks. The Things loved chopsticks. Sometimes they even insisted on using them to eat cereal, shoveling the soggy flakes up like sodden leaves, drinking the milk down from the side of the bowl. Amy took two and used them to anchor her hair. Jack started emptying the food bags, reading the notations on the cardboard covers of the individual silver foil plates. He pulled out two wrapped burritos and set them in the corner. His phone began to vibrate in the front pocket of his jeans. He retrieved it.

  “You’re tickling me,” he said to Lily.

  “You’re ignoring me,” she said.

  “Hi, Lily,” Amy called out. “Jack, put down the phone, and put your computer on the table so we can all see her.”

  “Yes, boss,” Jack said, and started off to his room.

  “Give it to me.” Amy motioned toward the phone. He handed it over as he walked back through the kitchen toward the stairs.

  “Family dinner,” said Amy, into the phone. “I want everyone at the table. You know what all the articles say. Your SAT scores will go up.”

  “Ha-ha,” Lily said. “Amy, you’re adorable.”

  Amy stared at the phone. “It’s been a long time since anyone called me that,” said Amy. Then she hollered, “Milo and Theo!”

  Like two red clouds of prairie dust, the twins tumbled into the room.

  “Sit,” said Amy.

  They sat opposite Jack’s and Lily’s seats. “Lily, I’m going to put you down now next to Jack,” Amy said. “Do you have your meal there? All good?”

  “All good,” said Lily, and Amy set her down.

  “We’re going to have to get you one of those Beam robot things Donny told me about. They’re like an iPad on top of a machine on wheels. We’d be able to see you on a screen, but you could navigate around the room on your own from home. So, let’s just say you got sick of Jack, you could come sit closer next to me.”

  “You mean so I won’t be trapped any longer?” said Lily. “Sometimes I feel like the little mermaid. Everyone has legs, but me.”

  “You have legs, Lily,” Theo said. He turned to Amy. “She still has legs, right, Mom?”

  “She still has legs,” Amy said. “Everybody have what they need?” asked Amy.

  “There’s no water,” said Miles.

  “Then get water,” said Amy. “Get some for everybody. I worked hard all day. I’m not getting up again.”

  Miles got up and went into the kitchen.

  “Bring the Brita,” said Dan, calling out after him. Then to no one, Dan said, “I’ll get some glasses.” He got up as Jack entered the room with his laptop open and he sat down.

  Just then the back door opened.

  “Ni hao!” a voice called from the kitchen.

  “Kevin?” Amy asked Jack.

  “No, it’s another hungry rando Asian talking to us in Cantonese,” Jack said.

  Theo took the cardboard top off his tacos al carbon. Steam rose up and hit him in the face.

  “That feels good,” Theo said, luxuriating.

  Kevin, well built and handsome, in blue Under Armour running shorts and a Stanford T-shirt, sweaty from a run, entered the dining room. “Family!” said Kevin. “You’re already eating.”

  “Second son,” said Amy. “Do you want to sit down?”

  “Nope,” said Kevin. “I was at the track and I gotta get home. Do you have my order?”

  “Go out for a pass,” said Jack. He stood up and winged one of the foil-clad burritos at Kevin as he jogged backward. Kevin caught it with ease. He tucked it under an arm and then Jack threw him the other one.

  “Touchdown,” said Kevin, catching it.

  “Come on, cutie, sit for a sec,” said Amy. “The least you can do is talk to me.”

  “Aw, that’s so nice, but Mom’s making dinner, and I’m late.” He unwrapped a burrito and took a big bite. “You know how she gets.”

  “I do indeed,” said Amy. “That’s why she’s so good at everything.”

  “Yup,” said Kevin, still chewing. “Well, thanks, guys, enjoy your night.” He gave a little wave and walked out through the kitchen.

  The back door slammed shut.

  Miles came back in with the Brita pitcher and set it on the table.

  There were three containers of food in front of Jac
k now, and he opened all three. He liked to mix and match. He began to eat his nachos. They were fully loaded. Cheese, beans, meat, guac, pickled jalapeños, tomato salsa, sour cream.

  “Wait,” said Amy.

  “No,” said Jack.

  “Jack,” said Amy and Lily at the same time.

  Everybody laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Dan, coming in with the glasses on a tray.

  Nothing. Nothing was really that funny. Just that everyone had forgotten to wait for Dan.

  “Sit, Dan,” Amy said. “Eat.”

  Dan tensed at the order, but he sat.

  Dan sat down in his seat, and Amy opened a bag of chips and several containers of pico de gallo. She dipped a chip in the salsa and said: “God, would I love a beer.”

  Sighing, Dan got up to get it.

  “Where’s your mom tonight?” Amy asked Lily.

  “She’s out with her high school buddies. She’s into reconnecting.”

  “Like dating?” asked Amy. “That’s interesting.”

  “No,” Lily said slowly. “I don’t think so. I mean, I think they all just go as friends.”

  Dan came back with two sweating bottles of beer.

  “Where’s mine?” said Jack.

  “Ha,” said Amy. “Thanks, Dan.” She took the cold bottle and pressed it against her cheek and then her forehead. It felt so nice. “So, what’s new, guys?” said Amy. “Anything special happen today?”

  “Nope,” said Jack, smiling down at his phone at Lily. Even though she was on Skype next to him, he also held her in his lap.

  “Not me,” said Lily, smiling back.

  “Theo got sent home,” said Miles.

  “Let’s not talk about that right now,” said Amy, giving Theo’s thigh a gentle caress. She didn’t want to upset him.

  Theo grabbed her hand and squeezed tightly. Amy squeezed tightly, too, but when she tried to let go, Theo wouldn’t let her. It felt as if he were stopping the blood flow from her fingers to her wrist.