The Great Perhaps: A Novel

by Joe Meno

  “I thought he made airplanes.”

  “He did. He designed them for a long time. Then he got tired of that. Then he tried a couple of different things, but none of them really worked out. So he was a consultant for a while and then lived off his pension. He wanted to design a plane you could fly into space but no one would give him money to build it. And then your grandma, well…” He pauses here, afraid to watch Thisbe’s expression change. “Once she passed away…we had to move him up here. He’s had a pretty incredible life when you think about it.”

  Thisbe looks at her dad’s itchy whiskers and begins to get worried.

  “Why are you looking at all these pictures, Dad?”

  Thisbe watches as her father smiles, a smile that is not really a smile at all, but a frown struggling with itself.

  “Your grandpa is not doing so good,” he murmurs. “I think…I think we’re maybe going to lose him. He seemed a little better this morning. He was up out of bed for a little while but he’s not eating very much and he’s stopped talking.”

  “That’s why you’re in here?”

  Her dad smiles, scratching his nose. “Yep. I guess so.”

  “Dad, I’m sorry,” Thisbe whispers, touching her father’s hand. “But God is watching over him. And you. I know He is. He wouldn’t forget you in a time like this.”

  “Thanks, Thisbe,” her father says, smiling slightly.

  “Can we go and visit him?”

  “Sure. Sure we can. I think he’d like that. Maybe tomorrow night, how’s that?”

  “Okay. Well, I’ll let you look at your pictures.”

  “Okay.”

  Thisbe touches her dad’s knee with her knee and then, feeling very sad, she kisses her dad quickly on the cheek. She climbs out of the small makeshift tent, then makes her way upstairs to her room and closes her door. She decides to pray again, for as long as she can before dinner.

  DURING CHORUS PRACTICE the next day, Thisbe daydreams, wishing her voice were not the worst in the room. She wishes she could be at least as good as Mary Wesley, who can’t sing anything but the most piercing notes, her voice spinning around the rehearsal space like a sharp-edged butterfly made out of tin. Even then, Mary Wesley is able to find a recognizable melody. As Thisbe considers this, playing the choppy chords to “When a Man Loves a Woman,” and the rest of the girls do their best to follow Mr. Grisham’s coaching—“Your voices need to really growl here, to really show some soul, now I know you girls have soul, some of you, at least, I am quite certain have soul”—she lets her fingers wander aimlessly, mangling the black and white keys. At the refrain, Roxie, looking bored in a blue sweater, opens her mouth and begins to belt out the words, the sounds rising through the small rehearsal room, echoing with confidence and obvious grace. Even Mr. Grisham looks up from his sheet music, while the other girls, Mary Wesley and Susannah Gore and Missy Plotz, all turn, dumbfounded, a little shocked by the petite blond girl’s husky vibrato. Thisbe looks up as well, and sees Roxie is only joking, making fun of the other girls and their weak voices. Roxie’s contempt does not matter. For the first time that afternoon, Thisbe plays the song as it was meant to be played, feeling her heart beating along with the tempo of the song. Roxie and the rest of the girls rush toward the end of the last verse, the last chorus, then one final note, like an exclamation point placed at the end of a very wonderful sentence. Done trying, Roxie stares down glumly at her feet. Mr. Grisham immediately begins clapping, pushing his glasses up, which have slipped during the musical fervor. He winks at Roxie once and then says, “Now, girls, that—that was something. That was sung the way it was supposed to be sung, with raw, exposed soul. Let’s move on to the next one, ‘Love Me With a Feeling,’ and try to maintain some of that enthusiasm, shall we?” Mr. Grisham nods at Thisbe, who, flipping through her sheet music, finds the appropriate song and starts off, her fingers light, expressive on the keys.

  But Roxie is no longer singing. She is standing in the back row, rolling her eyes again, chewing on a large wad of gum. The rest of the girls try to ignore her, doing their best, their voices adequate, not awful, not unpleasant, but certainly not glorious, certainly not the voice of our Lord Jesus Christ coming through the wan frame of a teenage girl. Thisbe stumbles through an A chord, then a second, and by the time the refrain arrives, she has completely lost her place. Mr. Grisham, equally upset, hastily shouts, “If you cannot keep time, Thisbe, I’m sure we can find someone else to accompany us!” Thisbe thinks of screaming back, of cursing him out, but does not. She simply nods, biting her bottom lip, and follows Mr. Grisham’s orders to take it from the top.

  THISBE LOPES TO where she has locked her bicycle up, embarrassed, trying not to think of how awful she was in chorus practice today. She unlocks the bike and slings her book bag over her shoulder, feeling sulky. As she begins to pedal off, she hears someone calling after her. She turns, almost falling off the seat, and sees it is Roxie, in her dark skirt and blue sweater, unlocking her own bicycle.

  “Which way are you headed?” Roxie asks, and Thisbe immediately says, “Down Fifty-ninth Street.” Thisbe stares at the other girl’s face, so small and lovely, not a mark or blemish, not a single pimple. There is something in her haughty nose and green eyes that seems a little hard, a little bossy, a little petulant, but her mouth—wide, the lips large and animated, her voice hidden within, just behind her small white teeth—makes Thisbe feel both jealous and slightly smitten.

  “Well, I’ll ride with you, then,” Roxie says, hopping onto her bike. Together, the two girls begin to pedal off, away from the shadow of the rectangular high school, down the Midway along Fifty-ninth Street, the grassy stretch rolling beside them, the world suddenly much more broad and forgiving. Thisbe tries to ride next to Roxie at first, but then Roxie pulls ahead, speeding away, laughing. Thisbe does not know if she should try to catch up and, feeling a little embarrassed again, she decides she should not. Roxie, still giggling, slows down beside her and asks, “You don’t like to race?” to which Thisbe replies, “I do. I just didn’t know we were racing.”

  “Oh,” says Roxie, still grinning. “Next time, I’ll say go, then.”

  “All right,” Thisbe says, smiling.

  “So do you always ride your bicycle to school?” Roxie asks.

  “Sometimes. Sometimes my mom drives my sister and me.”

  “Wow, you’re lucky. I wish my mother would drop me off.”

  Thisbe glances over and sees the other girl’s cheeks are now flushed pink. Something comes unwound, some stitch somewhere. “Why don’t you ever sing in chorus?” Thisbe quickly blurts out.

  “What?”

  “Why don’t you sing? Like for real. Like most of the time, you’re like only mouthing the words.”

  “So what? What do you care?”

  “It just seems like you’re not even trying.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Well, why are you in the chorus, then?”

  “Because Mr. Grisham said if I was in chorus again this year, then he’d give me a good history grade.”

  “Wait a minute, you don’t even want to be there?”

  “No. I hate it. It’s so stupid.”

  “Well, I think you should quit, then. It’s not fair to the rest of us who want to be there.”

  “Duh,” Roxie mutters. “I almost failed history last year. And since Mr. Grisham’s my history teacher this year, he said if I sang, he’d help me get a good grade.”

  The two girls slow to a halt at a stoplight. Roxie looks over at Thisbe and smiles. “You really like it, huh? Chorus, I mean.”

  Thisbe is silent for a moment, then says, “I would give anything to be able to sing like you.”

  “Yeah, well, I’d give anything not to have to be there.”

  ON THEIR BICYCLES, the two girls pedal from the high school through the east part of the University of Chicago campus, the squat brick buildings rising up along Fifty-ninth Street, some surrounded by wrought-iron fences, some covered in ivy. T
hisbe glances over her shoulder and wonders what her father is doing at that exact moment. Is he standing in front of a classroom or at home, looking through pictures in the den? Roxie pedals up beside her and whispers, “I love the way those old buildings look. Like they’re haunted or something. They look like they’re from some old movie. Like if you went to college there, there’d be like all these movie stars there or something. Like Gregory Peck and Angela Lansbury would be your teachers.”

  “Yeah,” Thisbe mutters, still wondering about her dad.

  “I’ll never get into college,” Roxie announces. “I just can’t get myself to study hard enough.”

  “You could go. Anybody can go if they want to.”

  “I guess I just don’t want to.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, do you want to ride down to the lake?” Roxie asks.

  “The lake?”

  “Yeah. That’s where I go every day after school. I ride down there and just stare at the water.”

  “Okay, I guess,” Thisbe says.

  TOGETHER, THE TWO GIRLS ride past the tall high-rises and the Museum of Science and Industry, following the narrow sidewalk along Lake Shore Drive where it abruptly slopes downward, disappearing beneath the highway. The breeze blushes both of their faces as they pedal underneath the rumbling traffic, then reappear on the other side. The green fields of the lakefront seem to open up in all directions as they ride past the stone fieldhouse, following the curve of the lake farther south, winding above the glistening black rocks. The sun beats tiny freckles along their bare necks and noses. Finally the sidewalk seems to stop, and a thin dirt path extends through some high field grass and clover, where Roxie yells, “Go!” then hops off her bike and suddenly starts running. Thisbe begins to laugh, careful not to stumble, laying her bicycle beside Roxie’s, before following her through the tall grass. The sound of the wind whispering through the field is a song, a simple poem, with one sustained note. Thisbe catches up with Roxie, finding her lying down on her back, staring straight up at the blue sky.

  “Look,” Roxie says, pointing. “Look how big the sky looks.”

  Thisbe nods, lying beside the strange blond girl, staring up at the cloudless field hanging above them.

  “Sometimes I come here and lie on the grass and pretend to fly,” Roxie says. “I just lie here and listen to the wind and hold my hands out and fly off, like there isn’t anything above or below me.”

  Thisbe blushes a little, happy to be taken into Roxie’s confidence. She stumbles, trying to think of something to say, and then whispers, “When I was little, I used to wish I was a bird.”

  “Yeah?” Roxie sits up a little, tugging at the dry grass around her. “I used to wish that, too. I wanted to live in the trees and fly around all the time and never have to land.”

  “I used to wish I was a dove,” Thisbe whispers. “So I could sing.”

  “You can sing.”

  “No, I can’t. I’m not any good.”

  “You’re fine. Grisham doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  “No, I really can’t. I’m really awful at it.”

  “You can’t be that bad. Go ahead and sing something,” Roxie says.

  “No, I can’t.”

  “You just have to not care about what other people think. If you’re afraid, you’ll sound like shit. Go ahead. Try it.”

  “I’m just not as good as everybody else. I wish I was but I’m not.”

  “Here,” Roxie says, leaning beside her. “Go ahead and sing something. I want to see how you do it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I bet you’re singing with your nose. Just sing something.”

  Thisbe shakes her head and says, “Fine. But don’t make fun of me. Okay?”

  “Okay, stop being so gay and just sing something.”

  Thisbe closes her eyes, holding in a breath, trying to concentrate. She opens her mouth and begins to sing “Ave Maria,” but what comes out is discordant, harsh, lacking any melody. She opens her eyes and sees Roxie, kneeling beside her, smiling.

  “You’ve got to sing from your diaphragm. Didn’t Mr. Gris ham go over that?”

  “Yes,” Thisbe says. “I am singing from my diaphragm.”

  “No, no, like this,” Roxie says and holds her hand over her own belly, belting out the first few notes of “Ave Maria.” What, only a few moments before, had sounded so much like heavy, leaden bricks, now seems easily turned to silver, floating up into the sky, whole and unreachable. Thisbe closes her eyes, placing her hand over her own stomach, and tries again. The notes give a little, bending slightly, as if they are really trying to find their spots in the air, but after a second or two, all of them come tumbling down awkwardly, not a single one taking flight.

  “No, no, like this,” Roxie says and places her hand over Thisbe’s stomach. Thisbe immediately shudders, then relaxes, closing her eyes. The backs of her knees begin to tingle nervously. Roxie says, “Try it again,” and presses lightly on Thisbe’s belly. Thisbe opens her mouth and tries “Ave Maria” a third time, and all of a sudden the first note seems to ring out, like the sound from a peculiar and brilliant organ, the melody finding its way for a single moment, and then, blinking her eyes with excitement, Thisbe forgets herself and the rest of the phrase tumbles out hopelessly from her open mouth.

  “See, you almost had it,” Roxie says, smiling. Her hand is still on Thisbe’s stomach and Thisbe does not know why. There they are, both of them still lying in the grass, the sky open before them like a still and bottomless lake. Thisbe’s heart is beating hard, pounding with the joy of very nearly succeeding. The sound of the breeze rushes around her head, the other girl’s fingers still pressing against her flat belly. Roxie’s hand feels warm, the palm cupping the shape of her stomach, not moving, and then it is gone. Something flutters in Thisbe’s chest. Roxie turns toward her and smiles.

  “Pretend you’re flying,” Roxie whispers. “Pretend you’re a million miles above the earth and you are as light as a feather.”

  “Okay,” Thisbe says, grinning.

  “No, go ahead and close your eyes.”

  “Okay.”

  Thisbe closes her eyes and feels Roxie take her left hand. It startles her and her heart immediately leaps, floating from her thin chest, as if gravity has forgiven itself. The wind whistling in her ears, the soft flutter of the field grass rising and falling like unhinged clouds, the remembered weight of the other girl’s hand resting on her stomach, all give Thisbe the feeling she is flying through the sky, weightless, soaring. And then she is. She is sure of it. She is actually flying. She is a few dozen feet above the ground, drifting up into the sky. It is one of the most remarkable feelings in all the world, the feeling of having let go of the confines of the surface of the earth, of being happy, without order or meaning or regret.

  “Don’t open your eyes,” Roxie says.

  “Okay.”

  Thisbe has the sense that God is watching her, her hand in this other girl’s hand, that she is somehow closer now, drifting near the cloudy reaches of Heaven, and His own unearthly love. The sunlight on her face feels like the certain warmth of God’s grace. He is watching me now, she thinks. He is really watching me. Thisbe feels like singing again or shouting out her love of all things to the rest of the world. He is real, she wants to cry out. His love is really real. Thisbe feels the soft grass beside her, grasping it to keep herself from drifting off into perfect cloudless oblivion. Of course He is here, she thinks. Of course He would live in a field like this, hidden but not so very far away. This is the place. This is the place where I can sing, where I can fly, this is the place where God lives.

  “We are drifting off into outer space,” Roxie murmurs. “Wushhhhhhhhhhh.”

  Thisbe is unsure what to do now or what she should say, the other girl’s fingers still gently gripping her own.

  “We are like a million miles away,” Roxie whispers. “More than a million.”

  “It’s like heaven,” T
hisbe murmurs. “We are flying up into heaven.”

  “We are up, up, and away.”

  Thisbe laughs and opens her eyes suddenly. The two girls fall gently back to the earth and face each other, both of them unmoving now and lying in the grass. They are still holding hands for some reason. Slowly, the fingers of Roxie’s left hand are moving along Thisbe’s wrist. Thisbe finds she is no longer breathing. Roxie’s fingers are sliding along Thisbe’s palm, running back and forth over her knuckles. A spot begins to glow somewhere between Thisbe’s legs. She realizes this and feels revolted and dizzy and sickly excited. Her heart seems to unfold, like a handwritten note, like a letter tumbling open. The contents of the note reads, Please…please…don’t move your hand away, please…please, I’d like you to please…, but in her mind, Thisbe has no idea what else the note should say. She does not let go of Roxie’s right hand. She does not know why she doesn’t. She feels ashamed, then quickly ignores the shame, and feels more shameful, having done that. Roxie’s breath is hot against Thisbe’s neck and face, the field grass softly poking the back of Thisbe’s legs. She feels like she is about to come apart, slowly disintegrating into one million pieces of brightly colored glass. Just then Thisbe begins to wheeze, her labored breath coming and going in tiny rasps. Roxie has opened her eyes, rimmed with black mascara, and is looking over at her, surprised at the awful sound coming from Thisbe’s open mouth. Roxie draws her hand back and gives Thisbe a quiet, puzzled look.

  “It’s my asthma,” Thisbe whispers, sitting up. “It’s the grass…I…I don’t have my inhaler. I…I have to go.” Thisbe, feeling her lungs contracting, as tight as her nervous, beating heart, stumbles through the grass toward her bicycle. Then she begins pedaling off, the whole world spinning around her, as if she is riding her bicycle somewhere in the sky, as if gravity has finally just given up.

  ONLY A FEW BLOCKS away and Thisbe is home. She dashes to her room, finds her asthma inhaler on her nightstand, and takes two quick pumps, breathing as deeply as she can. Falling into her bed, her breath returning to normal, she touches her own wrist, still feeling the other girl’s hand moving there. She is disgusted, the shame trembling all across her body. Closing her bedroom door, she lunges to switch off the lights, and then nervously searches through her Bible for some relevant prayer. It has been a test, that’s all. It was only a test, a test of silly thoughts and stupid, useless temptation. Like Job. Or Jonah and the Whale. They hadn’t really flown. Roxie’s hand had not lingered on her wrist all that long. It was all only in her mind anyway. Thisbe thumbs through the Bible, still searching for something, anything, to read aloud. All she can find is the “Act of Contrition,” which she mutters aloud over and over again.