by Lydia Netzer
It’s not possible for a six-year-old to carry a woman out of a burning house, whether or not the woman is on fire. Therefore, Bernice must have saved herself. Even if she didn’t remember. Even if she never meant to. What the firefighters and neighbors saw coming out of the door, along with belching smoke and hot air, was a woman crawling and a child kicking the woman and pulling at her burning hair. The child was shouting angrily, “You don’t die! No, you don’t die! You don’t die!” If you’re dying in a fire, sometimes the best thing for you is a person who will stand there kicking you, telling you not to.
The only remnants of the fire on Bernice were the bubbles of scars on her neck and back. Her dreadlocked hair burned all away, leaving wounds on her head that were awful to see, but some hair grew back. Who knows what really happened, in that burning house? Irene’s memories began the following day. She could not remember the fire or anything that came before. She had learned to get by with something adjacent to forgiveness: forgetting. She tried to forget that her mother had burned them up in a fire. But she could never, ever forgive.
*
On the weekend visits during college, Bernice and Sally studied astrology together. Sally was enamored of it—soon they were both doing star charts and reading Manly Hall. Sally learned the art and philosophy of it, Bernice the science. Sally said her dream was to return to Toledo and open a psychic shop with Bernice. They could do a radio show. They could write a book. Summer of sophomore year, they apprenticed themselves to the infamous “Witch of Toledo,” an ancient woman rumored to have descended from Esther Birchard, who lived on a creek offshoot of the river in Maumee and took in clients for psychic readings, curses, cures, and charms. So many people had crashed in cars on the road beside her house that there were hexes and wards hung from the trees, yes hexes and wards even in a highly sophisticated scientific center like Toledo. After all, she called herself a witch. Never mind it was a blind curve with no guardrail.
Sally and Bernice worked for her for free through the summer of ’82, cleaning her house, ordering her appointments, and being allowed to listen in on client visits. Sally learned how to talk about the way the winds move through time, and Bernice learned how to apply statistics to an individual, so that holding a client’s hand and gazing at her palm became a riddle of mathematics, a rigid flowchart of possibilities. Sally got really good at talking and believing, and Bernice got really good at tricking and pretending, until together they could captivate anyone they practiced on. By the summer of ’83, she was allowing them to practice on clients and giving them a cut of the fee. By the summer of ’84, before their senior year, they were practically running the place, and Witch told them she would give them half her business, were they to set up shop on their own.
“I’m done,” said Witch sadly. “All these people are wearing me out.”
*
In their senior year, Sally got engaged to Dean. She did try dating other people, but then she would get back together with him in a mad, tantric affair. Bernice said it was like she kept getting on lifeboat after lifeboat, but then when the lifeboats got too far away from the ship, she had a panic that she would never find land, yanked the oars away from whoever was rowing, and paddled right back to the sinking vessel. Bernice didn’t care for Dean much. But Sally couldn’t live without him.
As Sally approached graduation, Dean switched from the philosophy department to visual arts. He painted large canvases with scenes part science fiction and part mythology. His form was graphic and dark, like a comic book in paint.
“I love him,” said Sally. “I know it’s crazy. I mean, he’s an artist. But I love him. And you know what? I think he’s really talented. He dazzles me.”
“That’s stupid,” said Bernice. It was the weekend of the first basketball game of Sally’s senior season, and Bernice was in Ann Arbor to see it. Sally and Dean had a place off campus, a little half house that Sally’s mother had insisted on purchasing and furnishing. “You’re just drunk on fucking him. Tantric this, tantric that. That’s no reason to marry the guy.”
Bernice was living in her parents’ old house in Toledo while finishing her degree at Bowling Green. Her father had been only too happy to give her the house, as if her graduation from high school had been some kind of finish line that he was eager to cross. He also bought Bernice a car, and she could drive to Ann Arbor to visit Sally whenever she wanted. This was good, because the only way they could dream together was if they were in the same city. It still worked best in Toledo. Sally said it was because the energy was right. Bernice wouldn’t have said, “Sally, it’s because you suck at lucid dreaming.” But it was true. Sally would lie down and hope for magic every time, where Bernice was learning exactly what physical behaviors would contribute to maintaining control of her dreams. “Just put your body to sleep, but keep your mind awake. It’s not mystical. It’s not even difficult,” said Bernice. But Sally struggled, and could only dream with Bernice if Bernice would come and find her in one of her own dreams. Sally always had trouble sleeping. It was something that troubled her all of her life.
“I thought it was stupid at first, too, this art thing,” said Sally, throwing herself down on the leather sofa her mom had gotten from Finland.
“But then you took him to bed,” said Bernice. “And then it didn’t seem so stupid.”
“Hey, shut up,” Sally said. “You should try it sometime. You might like it.”
But Bernice had actually had sexual encounters with several girls. Her thin dreadlocks, her porcelain skin and large gray eyes, her tiny frame made it easy to pull in someone whose warm mouth would bump against her crotch enough times to forestall the aching need there. Whose fingers would slide around in a pleasing way, soothing her. She did like it. But she was a greedy lover, uninterested in giving back what was given to her, and sometimes she slapped her girlfriends, so she didn’t have a lot of repeat customers. This didn’t bother her. She didn’t want a lot of love.
“You’re leaving disappointed,” she would say to these girls, and then blame it on the liquor. “You shouldn’t have let me get so drunk.” The booze she could leave in Ohio long enough to visit Sally for one day, two days, and then she would be driving south on 75, back to the comfort of gin, back to pushing her crotch into the face of some sad soul who didn’t mind keeping her pants on, who didn’t mind having her hair pulled a little, just to be in company for the night. She wouldn’t say, “Sorry.” She certainly wouldn’t say, “I apologize, but I’m in love with my best friend. And when your tongue is on me, I’m pretending it is hers. And that’s the reason I have such a longing for your tongue.”
“Hey,” said Sally. “I have something to show you. Look in that envelope on the counter and pull out what’s inside.”
Bernice reached over and slid a manila envelope close to her, reached inside and slipped out a bundle of stapled papers and some photographs.
“What do you think? This is the place I picked out. You know. For the astrology studio. When we take over from Witch.”
Bernice spread the pictures out on the counter and looked them over. They showed a strange little farmhouse and some wooded land. Yes, they could appoint this place with all the trappings of a gypsy’s lair. It already had an old well, a busted-down split-rail fence, and plenty of odd outbuildings.
“We could make it really arty and interesting,” said Sally. “Kind of like Witch’s house but even more so. So it’s a real experience, not some tawdry affair in a strip mall in the suburbs or glassy storefront downtown, like next to the cheese store. Or the magazine rack. Let them feel the magic of it.”
Bernice glanced at the map, the survey. She said, “From here we could see the stars. Witch’s house is too close to the city. This place would be perfect.”
“Exactly,” said Sally. “You get it.”
“But what about Dean?” Bernice asked.
Sally rose from the sofa and came over to the counter. She leaned over Bernice and pulled aside one of the photos. It s
howed a little shack, maybe what used to be an old sheep barn.
“This,” she said, “will be his art studio.”
“What about his degree? Won’t he be staying here?”
“Well, he’ll have to come back up, you know, on weekdays or sometimes,” Sally explained. “But of course he’ll be there, I mean, I can’t leave him. I need him, Bernice. This will be our house, mine and Dean’s. We’ll live there,” Sally said slowly. “We’ll live there. You’ll keep living at your house, of course.”
“Oh, of course.”
“I mean, you don’t want to live with us, do you? I just assumed you wouldn’t. I mean, that would be kind of awkward. We’re in love.”
“Of course.”
Sally laughed suddenly. “Whoa, that could have been super uncomfortable!” She tossed her long body onto the other barstool and leaned against the counter.
“Don’t be dumb,” said Bernice. “I think the farmhouse idea is perfect.”
That night, Sally scored twenty-nine points and her team won. Bernice sat in the stands, watched her friend going left and right, left and right, twitching the basketball jersey forward on her shoulders, folding her waistband over, pushing down her socks. Three months later, Sally missed her period. It was early February, midseason for basketball. Sally took a pregnancy test, and it was positive. She spent an hour crying in the bathroom in the dark, and a day in near silence. Then she called Bernice.
*
“BER-niss,” she said. “BER-niss, what I have to say to you is very SERI-iss.”
“OK,” said Bernice. She closed the book she had been reading and switched on the television. Laverne and Shirley. They both had boyfriends, equally distasteful and equally serviceable. Maybe if there was another Dean, she would, too. Would she, if there was another Dean?
“I’m pregnant,” said Sally. Then she coughed or sobbed. “I’m pregnant; I just found out.”
“Oh, no,” said Bernice. “How did this happen? How did you let this happen?”
“I’m not even sure,” Sally said, not offended. “He’s not even sure. I don’t know how it could have happened. You know how his big sex thing is that he shoots it right back into his balls.”
“Maybe he got distracted.”
“Maybe! I don’t know! Anyway, I’m pregnant; I had like multiple tests and everything.”
There was a pause. Bernice didn’t know how to react.
“Are we like happy?” asked Bernice. “Are you going to keep it?”
“Bernice,” Sally said, skipping over the question. “Do you know what this baby’s due date is? Do you know—can you figure it out?”
“Can’t the doctor figure that out?” asked Bernice. Meanwhile, Laverne answered the door. It was her boss. She clapped her hand to her head and bowed at the knees.
“Yes, yes, I know,” said Sally. “I’m saying, do you know? Never mind. I’ll tell you. It’s November eleventh!”
“Eleven eleven?”
“I know!” Sally gasped.
“That’s auspicious.”
“Auspicious for twinning. For twinning souls.”
“I mean, who knows if the baby will even come on its due date, though … sometimes they—”
“Listen,” Sally jumped in. “Remember when we were kids, and our parents got divorced, and I had that stupid crush on Sam Thomas—”
“He said you wore him out,” Bernice reminded her.
“Yes, exactly, and we were like, bah, boo on love, boo on romance, who needs it?”
“Who needs boys!” said Bernice.
“Do you remember, though, the conversations we used to have about arranged marriage? I mean, really, we were like twelve or something when we thought of it. When did we get so smart?”
“Of course I remember that,” said Bernice. It had been a few years since they’d talked about it. Bernice thought Sally had forgotten. Laverne was putting on her coat and hat and grabbing her purse in a very purposeful manner. She had a ritual for these things—a way to put on the hat, the coat, to clothe herself for the world outside the apartment set.
“Do you remember what we talked about—”
“Oh, no, Sally. No, hold on—” Bernice got up and began to walk toward the front door.
“We wanted to have two babies,” Sally repeated. “And like we would raise them, and then separate them—”
“Yeah, I remember those conversations.” She found herself in the kitchen, pulled out a sauce pan, and slammed it down on the stove.
“And they would love each other. They could marry each other, be perfect for each other—”
“Sally!”
“And now,” Sally went on, breathless and sniffing up her tears, “Look at this? I’m pregnant and due November eleventh! Bernice, we can do it! We can make that happen!”
“No,” Bernice had now filled every burner with a different cooking pot, all empty. Finally, she reached into the pantry, behind the flour and sugar, and pulled out a bottle of gin.
“What?” Sally sounded distracted, like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“No! That was all purely hypothetical.” Bernice drank from the bottle.
“Listen,” said Sally. “All we need to do is get you pregnant right away. No problem, right?”
“But my due date won’t be the same as yours. You’ll be—”
“Doesn’t matter, Dean says,” said Sally. “We can still go into labor on the same night. You just take the herbs or whatever.”
“What?” Bernice scoffed. “Dean says?”
“I told him all about it. He thinks it is a wonderful idea.”
“Wait, does Dean know you’re talking to me right now? Does Dean even know you’re having a baby?”
“Say you’ll do it. We even have an idea for who we can get to make you pregnant.”
Bernice drank again from the bottle. “We?”
“I need to know if you’re in this with me or not,” Sally said.
“I can be in it with you, but I’m not getting pregnant beside you, Sally. You have to see this is crazy.”
“I can’t be all by myself!”
“But you have Dean! Right? You’re in love.” Bernice snapped. Then she felt sorry about it, sorry she had sounded so mean.
“Please, Bernice, just think about it. Can you just do a reading? Just look at tea, or dream about it, or something. Please. You know you can see what’s right for us. I’ll trust you; just say you’re with me!”
“No. I can’t see things in tea.”
There was a long pause.
“You can live at the farm with us. I mean, considering everything, and Dean driving up to Michigan all the time, I really do need someone with me. Please. It’ll be just the two of us. No Dean, like most of the time, anyway. Just you and me.”
*
Sally vomited into a snowbank on the way in to Bernice’s house. There was no warning. First she was smiling, then bending, and the vomit came out her face, with barely enough time to lean over. Bernice watched from the window, then opened the door for her and handed her a tissue. When she marched inside saying, “I’m fine. I’m just sick,” Bernice had said, “No, you’re pregnant.”
Sally pulled off her coat and flopped into a chair. “Oh, shit,” she said. “I might barf again. Seriously. This is pregnancy? I feel like I’m about to die.”
Bernice stood behind the chair and put one finger on each of Sally’s temples and began to press and release, press and release. She closed her eyes and hummed softly.
“Shouldn’t you have your hands down here?” Sally asked, pointing to her stomach.
“The baby’s not there yet,” said Bernice. “Anyway I can’t read him yet. I can only read you.”
“Ah, but you know it’s a him,” Sally pointed out.
“Because I’m already reading you. Be quiet.” Bernice resumed her humming a little louder. Sally closed her eyes.
After a few minutes, the teakettle boiled.
“You already have the
tea on,” said Sally. “Thank you, thank you, thank you. I know you can do it, Bernice, and I’ll do whatever you say. Whatever you see, we’ll do it.”
“I don’t see,” said Bernice.
Sally opened her eyes and looked around, and then again without warning she quickly sat up and unleashed a thin stream of vomit into a spider plant beside the chair, barely leaning over in time to keep it from going down the front of her shirt. Bernice went for the teakettle, and for a handful of paper towels. Sally began to cry. Sally rarely cried. Once, on the basketball court, she had taken a vicious kick to the knee that ended in torn ligaments and six months in a metal brace, and never shed a tear. But now, her eyes were brimming.
Bernice fussed with the tea, came back over with two mugs steaming in her hand. She handed Sally a mug, and Sally saw there was a metal tea ball filled with loose leaves sitting down at the bottom. Bernice sat down on the coffee table next to Sally, and held her mug up to her face, blowing on the water.
“Think and drink,” she said. Bernice had said this exact thing to a hundred clients before. As for the practice of reading leaves, she had learned just how to do it, from books and from her training—how to interpret an arrow as anything from an impending miscarriage to the location of a lost dog. Sally put her hand on her belly and opened her mouth to speak but Bernice shushed her. She allowed no talking while the tea was being drunk. Sally drank hers as quickly as she could cool it off, and when she had drained the liquid down to the top of the metal ball, she set the cup down on the low table and said, “Ready.”
Bernice opened the ball of tea and shook the loose leaves into the cup, and began to swirl them.
“We ask a question,” she said. Sally opened her mouth again but Bernice shook her head. “Shhh.”
Bernice swirled and swirled the tea leaves in the dregs of Sally’s tea, and then dumped the rest of the tea out into the saucer, leaving the leaves and twigs stuck around the bottom of the white cup. She watched the leaves and sticks settle and stop in the shapes they would take, and stared into the mug.