“Can I go home with you?” she asked. “I’m hungry.” Her voice was low, confident, and too mature for a child. As though she knew her eyes alarmed me, she half-closed them and looked away. A feeling of dread fell over me, my instincts whispered she is something other and I made a decision.
“No. Leave us alone.” I turned my back to her, tugged Connor from his swing, and trotted to my car. Usually he was limply docile, but he could be a handful when he was balked, and he struggled, kicked me and wailed. Adrenaline made me shaky and I fumbled as I buckled him into his seat.
The girl stood close behind me. “Please? Take me with you.” Her thin body drooped, her voice a hoarse whisper.
“Get away.” I slid into my car and locked the doors. She leaned toward my window, and her dirty gold hair fell about her pale face, framed her solid black eyes. As I drove away, I looked in the rearview mirror, then scanned the parking lot and beach. Like that old cliché, she’d vanished into thin air.
Connor’s wailing intensified. He had an eerie cry, a high-pitched “eeeee” so painful you’d do anything to make it stop. He cried all the way home, where I had to hold him tight and rock him for almost an hour before he quieted down.
When I told Greg about the girl, he was skeptical and made jokes about broomsticks, aliens, and spaceships. I brooded, wished Greg had been with me to see what I saw. I locked all the doors.
IN THE AFTERNOON we took Connor to an appointment with his occupational therapist, where we watched him roll around in a ball pit, then refuse to button his shirt.
When we returned home, guess who was sitting on the porch?
“Oh, dear God. That’s the girl from the park,” I said. “Don’t stop. Just drive off.”
“Naw, she’s a kid.” He pulled into the driveway, and I shrank into my seat.
She came to Greg’s side of the car. “I would like something to eat, please,” she said, in her strangely adult voice. She studied Connor, who was asleep, with her coal-lump eyes. “Just a little something. I like cereal.” She was so close I could see the dirt rings on her neck, her bumpy skin.
I grabbed Greg’s arm. “Her eyes, Greg. Put your window up and lock your door.”
Greg looked at me impatiently. “We can’t sit here all day. And what’s a little bit of cereal?”
He got out of the car and motioned her up the steps. When she followed him into our house, I slouched down and waited for my heart to slow its thumping. As minutes passed, I wondered whether I should check on them, but I didn’t want to leave Connor sleeping in the car. To be honest, I didn’t want to leave the car, period. The girl scared me. Greg feared very little; he was a big man, a cop, and didn’t seem to sense what I did. And he took care of people, that was his nature.
By the time Connor woke up, writhing to be let out of his car seat, I decided that maybe I was a neurotic mess, afraid of someone who looked a little different, a dusty homeless girl with an unusual eye disease. Maybe this was the breakdown the therapists had warned me about: a caretaker’s collapse, the result of ignoring myself for too many years. Feeling numb, I unbuckled Connor and took him inside.
The house was silent and cold. In the kitchen, a cereal bowl held a few soggy corn flakes and a trace of milk. I looked all over the house but they were gone. I tried to be calm, rational. Maybe she needed Greg’s help, or had something important to show him. Surely he would return soon.
Connor rocked and hummed, his chair squeaked. I paced, sat, turned the TV on and off. I had a bad feeling and it got worse as the hours passed. I fixed a simple meal of chicken nuggets and green beans, but I couldn’t eat, my stomach was like cement. Something had happened to Greg, but what? If I called for help, what would I say?
Darkness fell. When I pulled back Connor’s blanket to tuck him into bed, on his pillow was a scarlet splotch the size of my hand that looked like blood. And a coarse gold hair.
I phoned the police. They came quickly; Greg was one of theirs.
IT WAS HARD to keep an eye on Connor; the cruiser’s flashing lights lured him outside and he twirled around in the darkness while they questioned me. I was well aware the police didn’t share my belief that the black-eyed girl was an evil being, an other. I knew how it sounded—my husband had gone off with a girl half my age. I was describing her for about the twentieth time when I sensed a blur of motion along the beach path, a glimpse of white dress, and saw my son run, flying to meet her, disappearing into the black vacuum of a moonless night.
Screaming Connor’s name over and over, I ran after him, but in the pitch dark I tripped over a clump of roots and fell hard onto the sand, knocked breathless. Someone lifted me up. “My son,” I gasped, pointed, “out there.” They ran toward the beach.
I AM ALONE now. I hate this house because she was in it, but I can’t move away because what if they come back?
Every day is the same. I fill a baggie with corn flakes, tug on my floppy blue hat and walk the narrow path that leads alongside my house, down to the beach where fishermen chat over bait buckets and the first beer of the day. Wave at the bowlegged, leathery jogger running barefoot along the tide line. Stoop down to pet the bulldog inspecting the spiked shell of a horseshoe crab.
The crystal hangs from my neck, sending rainbow flickers onto the sand, into the wind.
I walk. I walk for miles, past surfers, sunbathers, and couples, under boardwalks, around sand castles and tidal pools. I’ve become a fixture on the beach, the woman in the blue hat who walks all day and into the evening, and sometimes people join me. I tell them my husband and son are missing, and show them pictures of Greg and Connor.
I ask if they’ve seen the black-eyed girl. My memory has a blank hole, her features elude me and I can’t tell you what she looked like, other than her solid black eyes, dirty gold hair, and pointed, scaly toes.
But that should be enough.
Snow Day
TOM AND I huddle close together in the bus stop shelter. Damp icy air, murky gray clouds. I hold out my hand to catch my first-ever snowflake. A real blizzard will churn across the state tonight. We expect a foot of snow and a deep freeze. Missouri winters are brutal. Coming from Florida where I never even wore a jacket, I have no doubt I’m about to experience a frosty death. I shiver, wish I had a winter coat, but after filling the propane tank and car repairs my parents are tapped out.
“Lulu, put this on.” Tom tucks his heavy wool jacket over my shoulders.
It’s warm from his body and I cover my face with it, inhale. “What about you?” I ask. My lovely boyfriend shrugs, hands in pockets. His tee-shirt won’t keep out the cold. The snow picks up and begins to come down serious. I wrap my arms around him to keep half of him warm.
“Wish I could buy you a coat,” he says. Tom is the best, but more broke you can’t imagine. No jobs for teens in this town. His parents are splitting, it’s high drama, wah-wah-wah all day about money. We’re poor. It sucks.
The snow falls thickly, frosting his hair. He grabs my hand. “Let’s get something to eat.” He can eat every half-hour and my stomach’s empty too.
I dig into my pocket. Eleven pennies and a dime, plus four quarters for laundry. “Uh, a donut?” Downtown shops are fancy, don’t tolerate broke high school kids coming in to get out of the weather.
He laughs and shows me two dollar bills. “Tiffenee’s Grill. It’s warm and cheap. We’ll share pancakes.”
He pulls me around the corner and down a side street. Snowflakes float soft onto my face. We’re jogging to keep warm when he stops at a lime-green door. Jet Rag, the store’s called. In smudged windows, worn-out mannequins are wearing pilly Christmas sweaters, hideous with reindeer antlers, Santas and jingle bells. Did I say hideous? “My mom shops here,” Tom says. “Maybe . . .”
The place smells funky. Old, sour, unwashed. It’s even colder than outside—I can see Tom’s breath. I don’t care because the first thing I see is—omigod—a hand-lettered sign: “COATS 4 SALE $3” and I dive into the rack, searching for anything
in size two. Or at least in that ballpark. I try on a down coat, puffy and red. Makes me look like a pillow with feet. An embroidered denim jacket—cool but hardly blizzard-proof. A stained trench coat hangs to my ankles.
“What about this one, Lu?” Tom holds up a gray wool coat, double-breasted, with nipped-in waist and flared skirt. Four fat black buttons. I put it on and gasp. It’s vintage, warm, perfect. He kisses my forehead. “You look like Audrey Hepburn.”
We hand over all our worldly cash. Even the pennies but it doesn’t matter. I’m aglow with the thrill of the buy, the way I look and feel in the soft heathery tweed. From pitifully freezing to posh and warm, for three bucks.
I hand him his jacket, he slips it on. Outside, falling snow makes a whispery sound, turning the world a shushed white. I twirl, humming. Happy.
“Where to now, my elfin waif?” he asks.
My stomach rumbles. “A hot meal.”
He raises an eyebrow. I laugh and show him the piece of paper I found in the pocket of my beautiful new coat. A picture of Andrew Jackson on one side, the White House on the other. “Take me to Tiffenee’s, darling. For breakfast.”
Side Effects
MY MOM POINTED to the wads of bandages on my wrists. “We were just getting used to the gay thing, and now this.”
“Young lady, what’s up?” The doctor leaned toward me. I held my breath to avoid inhaling his after-shave and looked away from the tufts of black hair sprouting from his ears.
“She’s always been gloomy,” my mom said. “She sees the worst.”
I glared at her. I hated it when she talked about me like I wasn’t in the room. “Life sucks,” I muttered.
The doctor nodded. “Life does suck, sometimes.”
“And then you die.”
“Whoa. What about joy and pleasure?”
“Raindrops on roses? Humans abuse their gifts. Don’t get me started on how they treat animals.” I rubbed my arms where the adhesive itched.
“That is not your problem to solve. You are responsible for yourself only. And not doing so great a job of that.”
North Carolina’s Amendment One, denying the right of people like me to marry, pushed me to the edge. There I teetered until Mary Bee dumped me, fed up with my gloominess, dire predictions, and lack of humor. She’d told me to get help and when I argued with her she slammed her door in my face.
At the memory I wept, choking on the tears running down the back of my throat.
Dr. Klein said I needed electroconvulsive shock treatments to fry away my memories.
“You’re treating my symptoms,” I snuffled. “Not my disease.”
“Dear child, your symptoms are your disease.”
I couldn’t argue. He was fifty-eight and his wall was papered with credentials. I was seventeen and failing high school. “I’ll be a vegetable.”
“No, no. You’ll be a happy girl.”
“Cabbages feel nothing.”
My mom opened her pink trifold organizer and they selected a date.
A SMILING WOMAN with short brown hair sat on the foot of my bed. She wasn’t a nurse or a doctor. She offered me a brownie. I knew what brownies were, but I didn’t know who she was. My mind was working poorly—as though files were missing. My thoughts buzzed, searching for this person. She pulled out a pink trifold organizer, showed me the date, and said I’d been hospitalized for two weeks. Her hands looked familiar and it came to me then, that she was my mom.
“When can I go home?”
“When Dr. Klein says you’re ready. He’ll be along in a minute, we can ask him.”
I closed my eyes. I was cured. I was fine. I practiced smiling and raising my eyebrows a bit. I wanted to look happy but not manic. Sunlight poured through my (barred and heavily screened) window and I got out of bed and pulled a chair into its warmth. But what was I wearing? Ruffle-trimmed pajamas with a teapot print?
“Mom, what the hell?”
“Sweetheart, they are lovely and comfortable.”
“Sweats are comfortable. These are creepy.”
She crossed her hands over her heart. “Thank God, you’re better. Last week you didn’t care what you wore.”
A knock on the door, and the doctor poked his head in. His hairy knuckle beckoned my mom into the hall. My hearing was acute, and he wasn’t even whispering. So I heard him say I needed another series, three more treatments, another week.
“She’ll be so unhappy to hear that,” my mom said.
“My point exactly,” said Dr. Klein. “She’s still unhappy. There’s an alternative, no guarantees. A drug trial. It’s up to you.”
My mom looked at me and I nodded like a bobble doll. The doctor handed me a bottle of little green pills from a pharmaceutical company called Psylex. Take one a day with food. I accepted a brownie and popped a pill.
AT HOME, LYING on my bed, I studied my posters. Apparently my causes were the environment (a coral reef), gay rights (Matthew Shepard march), and revolutionaries (Mandela). Coral was dying, Matthew and Mandela dead. My newly electrolyzed and medicated self needed fresh issues, an update. Something more activist, more media-savvy.
A dog wandered in, a black lab with a whitish muzzle. Tail a-wagging, she laid her head on my knee. I stared at her for a while, finally remembering her name, Sydney. I searched my mind carefully, like you’d probe a tooth after a trip to the dentist. The pain was gone. My mind was filed off, filled in and smooth. I decided to take Sydney for a walk.
It may have been a mistake. All the houses were identical, all the streets looked alike. We walked and walked, Sydney padding along with her tongue hanging out. I asked a kid to bring the dog some water. I was just about to ask him to call my mom when I saw my brother Aaron washing his car. My twin, the successful one, six feet of prickitude.
“Can I borrow your car?” I asked. I wanted to drive by Mary Bee’s house to see how it felt.
He barely looked up. “No, you’re on medication.”
Probably not the right medication, because I had an overwhelming desire to stab him with something pointy. Instead, friendly-like, I put a hand on his arm. “It’s important. I really need to borrow your car.” The air lit up with a golden glow and a melodic warbling. Dizzy, I put my other hand on his arm to steady myself, and the glow and singing intensified. It filled me with a rush of happiness.
He handed me the keys with a big smile. “Here you go! I’m going to Florida for spring break, so just keep it till I get back.”
Reeling from the unexpected sensations and Aaron’s bequest, I encountered my dad in the garage. Normally I avoided my dad, since it was painful to watch him pretend I wasn’t a loser. “Hi, Dad,” I mumbled, and he gave me a hug. The garage filled with twinkling light, accompanied by ethereal trilling.
I may have been forgetful and depressed, but I wasn’t stupid. On a hunch, I asked him for money, expecting five bucks, but he emptied his wallet into my hand. “Need more than that?” He’d given me eighty dollars.
“Uh, yeah,” I said, curious to see what would happen. He went into the house whistling and came back with a credit card. “Use this, honey. Have a good day.”
EVERY DAY THAT I took a little green pill, my touch cut through people’s bullshit resistance. They paid attention to me and followed my brilliant suggestions.
At first I worked it locally. My mother made me my favorite cake, coconut-lime. For extra credit to bring up my grade, my history teacher let me write about the Stonewall riots. I started a gay-straight alliance group and half the high school wanted to join for the dances and movie nights. A fist bump, a pat on the back, a handshake—and you were on my team.
I avoided Mary Bee though I missed her terribly. The only time I saw her was in American History class, first period. She sat two rows up, three seats over, a thousand miles away. Her hair was always slightly damp from her morning shower but I forgot how it smelled. Would she ever take me back? I wasn’t gloomy any longer but a rejection could send me reeling into Dr. Klein’s electron-rich
clutches.
To take my mind off Mary Bee I decided to tackle some big problems. That was the way I rolled. My mom said that fretting obsessively about the impossible caused my depression. But Dr. K. said the depression was electro-chemical and I agreed. And now that I was better, I wanted to do good with my awesome new mojo. I knew I couldn’t fix the world. But I could transform the minds of powerful people.
Spring break. Sydney and I took off in Aaron’s car, fueled with my dad’s Visa. I’d adjust some attitudes, starting with Buddy Palleson, the biggest real estate developer in New York City.
Palleson had an office in Miracle Towers on Fifth Avenue. I headed into the Towers Grill, pleased to learn they need help. The manager, a haggard smoker named Curtis, liked me. His eyes roamed all over me and he laughed at his own jokes until he choked for air. He gave me a job bussing tables and told me I could sleep on his couch for a couple of nights until I found a place. I’d been clearing tables for about an hour when Curtis backed me against the dishwasher and clutched my ass. “The boss is here and I’ll introduce you if you’re a good girl.” His breath was lethal. I grabbed his wrists and pushed him off me, accompanied by soaring voices, sparkly lights. He led me to Palleson’s private dining room and I shed my apron along the way.
As soon as we shook hands, Palleson was mine. He pulled out a chair. “Have a seat. Curtis, bring us some champagne. “
“I can’t drink, I’m seventeen,” I said. “How’s about some OJ?”
“Put a drop of fizzy in it. Now what can I do for you?”
I laid it on pretty thick. His achievements, his reputation, his success. Blah, blah, blah. He wasn’t bored with this. “What’s left for you, Mr. Palleson? You’re at a point in your life when you’re questioning your purpose. It’s time to give, so that your tombstone doesn’t just say Rich Guy. You want it to say Saint.” I took both his hands in mine, and the choir burst into song. I could hardly hear myself think.
Restless Dreams Page 14