Help Yourself

by Rachel Michael Arends

  “Oh,” I say. “Well, frankly, I do like to shop for myself. But shopping with you isn’t my idea of a vacation, Merry. Nor is any other aspect of this project.”

  “You don’t want to be here?” she asks, looking suddenly worried.

  “No, I don’t,” I answer. I feel badly for hurting her feelings and alarming her so early on. But I’m a bit relieved, too, because I want to be as honest as the situation will allow.

  Her eyelashes have an auburn tint that I hadn’t noticed before. The sunlight filtering into her window makes me wonder how her unruly mop of dirty blond hair would look dyed a sophisticated shade of red. Once it’s chopped off, obviously.

  I wish Victor were here to help me. He’d enjoy the role of fairy godmother far better than I do. But he’d likely fashion her after his Bandmaidens, with tight black clothes and combat boots, black fingernails, and eyeliner enough for a dozen. Merry will undoubtedly be better off with my more conservative sensibilities.

  “You won’t quit halfway through, will you?” she asks.

  “No. I’ll see this project through to the end,” I tell her, not only renewing the commitment I made to her father, but also making a new promise to Merry. “Whether I want to or not.”

  I take my briefcase from the console, remove a few sheets of paper, and hand them to her. “Here is your first official task. You’ll see that your father fancied himself to be a bit of a philosopher. I apologize in advance.”

  Merry takes the papers and reads the following letter:

  Hello again, dear Merry.

  Forgive me for conducting business before pleasure, but time is (was), as you might imagine, of the essence. Here is your first assignment, which by the way is the only optional task you’ll receive, my dear.

  Task #1: Let the past fall away in order to fully embrace the next epoch in your life. In other words, get some new clothes and a haircut. Fritz will assist you.

  There; now that that’s settled, I want to more fully prepare you for your destination. I mentioned in my previous missive that I truly loved the home you may, with hard work and perhaps a bit of luck, inherit. In fact, I mentioned that I actually found it easier to contemplate death while looking out from it upon the sea. I’d like to expound upon that a bit now. Perhaps I can sufficiently explain what I mean; more likely I’ll only muddle it. Nevertheless, here I go.

  It occurs to me that a city house, even one that has stood for three hundred years, may fall apart or burn to ashes. The entire city that contains the home might be ravaged by bombs and rebuilt again. Certainly an ocean home can be leveled or carried off in a hurricane, and the truth of the matter is that it probably will be at some point in time. But the ocean house isn’t the point, really.

  It is the ocean itself that calls to me. Of all the wonders, natural or man-made on this earth, the oceans seem to be the most enduring, the least changed by time, the strongest, and the most captivating. Oceans comprise the pulse of the planet, the churning lifeblood. I believe that they are the mirror of our collective souls, the home of mine. As you see, I rather liked it before I died.

  I’ll digress further to say that my mother (how she complained of her hemorrhoids!) used to tell me tales of heaven. She made me cower with the idea of that unremittingly perfect place, where one would live on and on, forever. And ever, and ever, and ever.

  I always felt nauseous at the idea of so much sameness. If I thought of it for too long at a stretch, I would invariably vomit.

  My mother said that to get to heaven, I must behave well on Earth. Though I never considered myself truly bad, I admit that goodness wasn’t something I pursued very doggedly. Heaven was never the lure to me that Earth was, and I blamed my mother’s description of that high holy place for containing altogether too many “and evers.”

  Then, somehow, as an old dying man coming back to the dune on Topsail Island, where I had built a house long ago, I found myself looking out at the ocean one day. This is what I thought: if I could watch this water, even for that nauseating span of forever, I would never get bored of it. It changes every day, every hour, every second. It grays up and then blues and greens and aquamarines. It reflects the sun or absorbs the clouds; it flattens out, ripples, rolls, or roils mightily. I could watch it forever, and ever, and ever, and ever.

  If I could choose my heaven, and if I weren’t deemed too earthly a man during my lifetime to gain admittance, you would find me standing on my deck now, a happy shadow, looking out at the water and waiting to finally meet you.

  I’m afraid that my ramblings have stolen my energies, Merry, and I must go.

  Godspeed on your first task, my dear. Fritz has impeccable taste, so fear not. He has accompanied me on more trips to the haberdashery than I can count, and I believe I have been a better man for it.

  Yours sincerely and posthumously,

  Claude Pershing

  Chapter Four

  IN WHICH MERRY SAYS GOODBYE AND HELLO

  As told by Merry Strand (a.k.a. Cinderella)

  By the time I finish reading the papers Fritz gave to me, Mom and Grandma have shuffled outside to stare at Fritz’s SUV in the driveway.

  I wave to reassure them as I climb down from the passenger seat. Looking very relieved to see that it’s me, they inch closer, twitching like timid white mice, until they get to the edge of the porch. There they stand so close together they look like a two-headed, four-legged, tent-dressed lady.

  The house I grew up in is made of unpainted cedar. It has a green metal roof, which starts out high but angles down sharply to hang low over the porch. I’ve lived here all my life, so I can’t even try to imagine how it all looks to Fritz. I suppose the house seems pretty worn-down when viewed by a stranger who never laid eyes on it before.

  But I see the old place as a whole series of memories. Every pine tree, rhododendron, or azalea, as well as every deckboard and windowpane, recalls a story or two. Not just for me: my mom grew up here, and my grandma did, too. So did grandma’s mom, my great-grandma, who I only know from faded pictures. This little house has stood for a long, long time, and there has always been a female who stayed on here. Right on down the line. I always thought I’d break the chain, since I’m this generation’s only child and I knew I didn’t want to stay.

  On occasion since I moved back, though, I have had the same unsettling dream. I think I’m waking up as usual, but then I look in the mirror to find that I’m suddenly old and gray, wearing a big cotton dress, and trying to wedge another UPS box into a closet or under a bed. In my dream, I realize that I stayed on here at the house. Not because I meant to, or wanted to, but because I never seized the chance to leave.

  Fritz’s shoes are sure to be a terrible mess by the time he reaches the path. Every step he takes in the dusty driveway steals a little of the shine away. He tries to pick his route carefully, but it doesn’t matter; he can’t keep the dust off. It just goes to show that you can’t stay perfect around here even if you try. I suppose Fritz wouldn’t be so fussy if he had grown up in this house.

  My mom and grandma seem to think that Fritz has come here especially to slice them up into tiny pieces. While I’m not in the habit of being wary, my mom and grandma are just about the wariest set of ladies you’ll ever see. They seem downright terrified of a stranger appearing out of the blue, even if he did bring me along. I might tease them about their lack of hospitality if I wasn’t about to break the news that I’m leaving.

  “This is a friend of mine,” I call.

  I motion for Fritz to follow me into the gate and across the flat front yard. It’s knitted in by a split-wood fence, which sort of zigzags along. It used to make me think of skipping, so I’d skip along it, tracing a dirty rectangle path in the sparse grass that’s always been too shaded to grow vibrant. I’m told that my grandpa used to keep a beagle out here before I was born, and when I was a kid, our big old dog, Carlton, slept out here on a nice day. The fence stops on either side of the house because that’s where the flatness ends. T
he back yard is open air, the house being perched on the side of the mountain.

  Fritz makes an effort to smile at the ladies, and I’m glad for it.

  “Mom and Grandma, this is Fritz Forth,” I say.

  “What’d she say?” Grandma asks Mom.

  Grandma has grown hard of hearing. It’s gotten so bad recently that they crank their game shows, and my nerves along with them, right up to the brink.

  “Francis Ferdinand, did she say?”

  “Fritz Forth, ma’am,” my mother says. She’s got good manners. “His name’s Fritz Forth. That’s what Merry said.”

  “Oh, I see. I see. Fritz Forth. But who is he?”

  “He’s a new friend of mine,” I tell them, loudly enough for Grandma to hear. “Let’s go on inside and I’ll explain.”

  We walk through the doorway in a line: my grandma and mom in their cotton dresses, me in my pajamas, and Fritz in his city clothes and dusty shoes.

  As soon as we reach the kitchen, my grandma brightens up. She claps her hands together. “Is he here about a contest?” she asks my mom.

  “Y’all aren’t trying to sign me up for game shows again, are you?” I ask. They look guiltily at each other.

  I shake my head, but try and calm down quickly; I don’t want to make a fuss only to turn right around and leave. But, so help me, these ladies have gotten stranger and stranger over the past few years. They’ve filled every nook and cranny with items from eBay and QVC, making gifts of them to anybody and everybody, without ever even opening the boxes. I suppose I should have asked more questions, but they called it their hobby, and it seemed harmless. They always bragged about the bargains they were getting and made it sound like the packages arrived practically free of charge.

  Especially over the recent months, I should have sat them down and had a serious talk. They’ve become downright fixated on how they can get money—actually not them, but me—by winning this contest or that one. They also scratch off as many lottery tickets as they can get. I thought they were just having some innocent fun, but since Fritz said the house is being foreclosed, I know it’s a lot more serious than that.

  Since my mom and grandma spend almost all their time together, and I’m not at home much anymore, I suppose they don’t get enough reality checks. It might be like twins developing their own language since they’re never apart, or Tarzan being raised by gorillas and picking up their habits, or what have you. These ladies may have created their own fantasy story, based on the hope that some windfall will come along and save their home.

  This train of thought makes me very uneasy about leaving them.

  When I went away to school, I worried like crazy. Don’t get me wrong, my mom and grandma can manage the house chores just fine, and they know where to find Grandpa’s old hunting rifle if they need to scare a bear. But they’ve always been so nervous about anything and everything beyond our little town—I have been their ambassador, messenger, gopher, and adviser on all things relating to the world beyond Peaksy Falls, certainly for the past two years, but before I went away to college, too.

  I remember being scared for them the first time I ever left for more than just a sleepover at a friend’s house. I was set to attend a two-week summer camp in Asheville that my Aunt Betty had given me as a fourteenth birthday present. I almost backed out, but Aunt Betty convinced me to go. She told me not to worry and promised that she’d watch out for the “old girls,” as she always calls them. I remind myself now that she did watch out for them. Then as well as during the four years when I was away at college. I suppose she’ll watch out for them this time, too.

  “I can explain the situation to your relatives, Merry, while you collect your things,” Fritz says, like it’ll just be as simple as that. He has his smile back on, but it looks like a mighty big effort to keep it there.

  My mom and grandma exchange frightened looks. Grandma wrings her apron.

  “Remember not to bother packing clothes,” Fritz adds.

  My mom puts her hand to her heart like she’s about to drop dead.

  “I’ll explain things, don’t worry,” I tell my mom and grandma.

  I put the teakettle on the stove and take the cookie tin down from the top of the refrigerator. That’s the signal for everybody to sit at the table. I remember the cookie tin used to be kept high so that I couldn’t reach it, but I don’t know why we still put it up there. I suppose it’s out of habit, like so much of life around here.

  I set some pretty dessert plates and napkins on the table and get the teacups ready. All the while, I’m thinking about what I should say.

  Mom and Grandma sit on one side of the table and stare at Fritz without blinking.

  He looks at his cell phone. “I’ve got to make a call, Merry, so I’ll step outside. But we shouldn’t dally too long.”

  I give him some cookies and watch him walk out of the kitchen. When I hear the front door shut behind him, I know I have to start talking.

  The teakettle whistles before I’ve thought of anything to say, though.

  “Who is that man?” my mom whispers. Then she has to shout it anyway because Grandma didn’t hear.

  “His name is Fritz, like I said.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “Well, he came to find me. He told me some really great news. I might actually get a beach house and some money.”

  “In a contest?” Mom asks.

  “No!” I reply. I’m sick of them being so fixated on game shows. “Ma’am,” I add quietly.

  “How then?” Grandma asks.

  I look at the ladies. One, then the other, and back again.

  I could tell them everything I know, right now. But they used to get so upset every time I asked about my real parents that eventually I just gave up asking questions. I don’t want to worry or upset them and then walk right out the door.

  I’m not a natural liar; my ears turn bright red, and I start to stutter something awful.

  “I guess you could say that it’s s-sort of like a contest,” I tell them.

  “A game show?” Grandma asks, lighting up like she’s had two beers.

  “Not exactly…”

  The ladies exchange concerned looks.

  “What kind of a contest did you enter, Merry?” Mom asks in the tone she usually uses when she wants to say my jeans are too tight or my shirt is cut too low. I believe she’d prefer me wearing cotton dresses that match her and Grandma.

  “I didn’t enter a c-contest so much as I was picked,” I say.

  “What do you have to do?” Mom asks, leaning in and smiling brightly.

  “Well, I go to this house that I could win, and I l-live there while I complete certain tasks,” I say.

  “Are you sure it’s not on TV?” Grandma asks. She looks very skeptical.

  I shake my head a little so that my hair falls over my burning ears.

  “P-pretty sure.”

  “How do you know it’s safe, then?” Mom asks.

  That’s a good question, except the ‘then.’

  I realize that I don’t have any proof that Fritz isn’t an axe murderer, but I can’t see why he’d make up a complicated story to lure me away from Peaksy Falls, first knowing that I never had a father and everything. It’s too strange to be a lie, is what I keep telling myself. Plus, I want the letters Fritz showed me to be real. I want to believe that my own father—a man who wasn’t an admiral or a duke or a horse whisperer, but a Londoner who loved the ocean and wished he’d been able to make my acquaintance—wrote them especially for me.

  Maybe that shouldn’t be enough reason for me to go running off with a stranger. But honestly, I never felt like I had less to lose, and I’ve never won anything in my whole life.

  “Why don’t you need clothes?” Grandma asks.

  “I get to buy new ones. It’s the first task.” That part is true.

  “Oh!” The women look at each other with raised eyebrows, like it’s starting to seem real to them.

  “It m
ust be on TV. You had to have misunderstood that part, Merry. They aren’t giving you new clothes if you won’t be on TV,” Mom says. “That wouldn’t make any sense at all.”

  “M-maybe you’re right,” I say.

  “Probably next season, though. They’re likely keeping it hush-hush because this game will be all the rage next season,” she adds.

  “You said there’s a cash prize?” Grandma asks.

  “Yes, and a house. But now I’d better get going or I’ll miss my chance.” I get up from the table and push in my heavy pine chair.

  “Can’t you tell us more, though? Like exactly what the tasks are…do you have to swallow bugs whole, or answer trivia questions? I hope you don’t have to lose weight, because you’re already thin,” Mom says.

  “I don’t think I’ll have to do any of those things. Fritz hasn’t given me many details, but from what he’s said, the tasks are more about helping me to improve my life,” I say while brushing cookie crumbs from the table into my hand. I drop them in the sink as I pass through the kitchen to the stairway.

  “Oh, it’s all top secret, I bet,” Grandma tells my mom. They both nod thoughtfully. They sip their tea and look at each other. I can see that they’re trying to decide whether this is all a very good turn of events or a very dangerous one. I know I’m clear to go, if I hurry, when they start talking about whether Drew Carey or Chris Harrison might host.

  I climb the spiral stairs to my loft while they chatter like magpies. I gather a few books, my computer, shampoo and makeup, and some shoes.

  Fritz rings the doorbell, but no one answers until I holler down, “Please, for heaven’s sake, let the poor man in!”

  I look at the duffel bag I packed. I’m sort of amazed to see how few things I want to take with me. Over the rail I see Fritz standing with his hand on his hip, holding a small UPS box I’m sure my mother forced on him as a parting gift. Mom and Grandma seem to be coming off their game show excitement. I can tell from their faces that I’d better hurry if I want to get out of here without a fight.