“Why hast thou forsaken me?” Anna manages to ask before the cloud subsumes her.
33
THREE AM. ANNA AWAKE, AS usual, wandering from nearly empty room to nearly empty room throughout the Goldschmidts’ house. Living without the comforts of an ordinary home has been surprisingly difficult. The Goldschmidts don’t possess a single comfortable chair. In the kitchen, molded plastic stools are grouped around a pressed pine table. The living room holds four metal folding chairs, a hard, unwelcoming couch. The only soft materials are the blue-and-gold embroidered throw pillows Anna brought from her parents’ house. Her grandmother’s handiwork, elaborate loops and curlicues fray at the ends. Anna’s mother had used one as a cushion for her piano bench.
Anna had mistakenly thought the austerity of the Goldschmidts’ home would focus her mind, force her into a purer meditative space. The Goldschmidts seem inspired by the lack of amenities, the discomfort. They can sit for hours at their kitchen table arguing minute points of scripture. Anna used to listen in awe. No longer. Informed by her own reading, she finds their discussions vacuous, based on erroneous information and full of illogical or outright silly conclusions. It has been a sad awakening. She refuses to go to meetings at Reverend Michael’s church any longer. Tired of his bombastic grandstanding, she instead spends hours researching on the Internet, reading everything she can find, drawing her own conclusions.
His servants have turned out to be poor specimens indeed. Although she still has confidence in Fred Wilson, in what he is doing. That is something she can hold on to.
Anna’s dreams are as vivid as ever. The less she sleeps, the more she remembers. Rich canvases teeming with fantastic images. She dreams endlessly about her parents’ accident, understands now that it is her fault, her fault only. Anna’s parents come to her room, but will not speak to her, their tears fall, wet her pillow and blanket. Who are they crying for? Sometimes she sees them naked, sitting calmly in their old living room, the sunlight streaming through the windows. Her mother’s breasts, her father’s genitalia fully exposed. No fig leaves, no modesty. Anna wakes up deeply ashamed.
For the first time in weeks, Jim Fulson’s rec room light is on, a light in the wilderness. He has been neglecting his parents. Anna had watched his mother pulling the garbage to the curb, his father warily climbing a stepladder to change the porch lightbulb. Yet the more flaws he reveals, the more beautiful Jim Fulson becomes.
Anna steps outside and closes the door quietly behind her. She is not dressed warmly enough for mid-November. With no set plan, Anna walks toward the light in C-A-R-O-L-I-N-E.
She crosses the street, steps off the pavement onto the grass, walks around to the right side of the Fulsons’ house. The California autumn night is so unseasonably cold that the grass is stiff, pricks her bare feet. The yard is no longer as well kept as neighborhood standards dictate. Jim Fulson has been letting it slide. Deep in the pleasures of his love affair. Besotted. Anna recognizes the bitterness of her word choice. Surely love is a good thing. Anna walks toward the rec room window.
Light slices through a gap between the curtains. Enough of an opening for Anna to crouch down and look inside. She’s never seen Jim Fulson’s lair before. It is very much like the rec room of Lars’s house, its mirror image across the street. The furnace in the far right corner. Structural steel poles rooted in the cement floor at six-foot intervals. No remodel happened here. The only concession to improvement is that the rough cement walls have been painted a neutral cream. Nothing adorns them. Moving boxes overflow with clothes, books, and kitchen utensils. Electronics are stacked in another corner. The only light is emanating from a floor lamp leaning crazily at a 30-degree angle. The shadows it casts are not friendly. It is not a friendly room. On one side of it, a mockery of a bedroom: a dresser, a table with a lamp on it, a low bed. On the bed, Jim Fulson and Ms. Thadeous.
Ms. Thadeous’s naked torso is surprisingly long and lithe for someone so petite. She is in fact beautifully proportioned, her clothed figure does not do her justice. The hollow dimples of her buttocks are deepened by shadows cast from the lamp. Jim Fulson, underneath, is mostly in the dark. This is a good thing. For the tableau is an awful one. Awe-ful. Do not worship false gods. A dangerous vision.
They are not looking at each other. Her face is turned to the side. Her eyes are open. He is staring unblinkingly, at the ceiling. Once he turns his head and appears to look right at Anna. She draws back, but his gaze continues traveling back and forth across the wall, as if reading a script. Anna would have thought they were just holding each other, torso to torso, except for the slightest movement of her hips, and flexing of her buttocks, the slight parting of her thighs. Anna does not want it to stop. She wishes she had the words to describe it. But the image is seared into her mind and will haunt her the rest of her life. That she is witnessing something holy and blessed by Him, Anna has no doubt. His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely.
34
ANNA HAS BEEN AVOIDING LARS. They pass in the hallway, Anna alone, but Lars accompanied by an ever-larger throng, girls as well as boys now, and no longer just the fringe. Lars is going mainstream. Usually Anna keeps her eyes down, avoiding any contact. But to her surprise, today he stops, waves his disciples to continue on without him, and pulls Anna out of the stream of other students to a quiet corner of the hall.
“Have you been corresponding with Fred Wilson?” he asks.
Anna is startled. She has said nothing of the email exchanges to Lars. “We’ve written,” Anna says.
“Without telling me?” Lars asks. His tone is almost hostile. “I thought we had plans.”
“We did,” Anna says, then pauses. “We do,” she corrects herself. But she has been thinking ahead to Christmas, to the pending move to Columbus, and how she will survive in her Uncle Bob’s house until her birthday at the very end of May, when she’ll be free to join Fred Wilson’s outfit in Nebraska.
“Make sure to inform me of any developments,” Lars says. “Fred is working on a matter of extreme importance. I need to be involved.” He has grown grandiose, pompous.
Anna thinks about what Ms. Thadeous asked her, and asks the same of Lars. “Why? Why hurry things? Can’t He be trusted to do things in His own time? Why does he need to be rushed? If the time is right, the time is right.”
Lars is silent. He refuses to answer. When he does speak, his manner is stern.
“Have you changed your mind?” he says. “The Red Heifer was your particular interest. You thought you had a mission to fulfill. We’ve discussed all this at length.”
“That’s still true,” Anna says. She doesn’t say what she’s thinking, which is that her parents’ deaths have more than satiated her hunger for death. Lars is watching her closely.
“I am still as resolute,” he says. “I will be ready to go to Nebraska on May 30th . . . I’m beginning to prepare my parents, and you’ll be free of your guardians. That’s still the plan?”
“That is the plan,” Anna says. She adds, “Although I’ve always made it clear that you were coming with me. Fred Wilson insists on sending emails to me alone. He doesn’t seem inclined to notice your involvement.”
“That’s not negotiable,” Lars says. “I must be there too. Our work is bound together.”
“Still?” Anna asks.
“I’ve been temporarily giving you time and space. I had other tasks to complete,” says Lars.
“Your disciples,” Anna says, and something in her voice causes Lars’s face to become even colder. Is he taller than he was before? He seems more imposing.
The same deep voice, but it is less incongruous. He is growing into it. “My converts,” he says.
Anna shrugs.
“Make sure you copy me on your next emails to Fred Wilson,” he says. “Make sure he understands I’ll be coming, too. That we will be working together to fulfill His prophecy.” And Lars leaves Anna wi
thout waiting for a reply.
35
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24. MRS. GOLDSCHMIDT has obligingly called the attendance office every day for two weeks now to tell them Anna is ill. Anna sneaks into her old house to watch quiz shows. The cable has been shut down, but she can still get local channels, mostly soap operas and game shows. She learns many things from the latter. The thickest part of the human skin is in the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet. The coconut is a drupaceous fruit that Hawaiian women were once forbidden by law to eat. James Buchanan was the only bachelor president of the United States. Knowledge does not soothe. Anna switches to one of the few Christian channels in the Bay Area. Another quiz show. Moses was 120 years old at the time of his demise. A halberd killed Matthew the tax collector. A halberd? She looks it up. A two-handed pole weapon that came to prominent use during the 15th and 16th centuries. But surely the halberd didn’t kill him? Surely an angry mob did? Halberds don’t kill people, Romans kill people.
One morning she wakes to a perfect day. A gift. She thinks, a beautiful day, wait until I tell Mom, and the ache that inevitably accompanies such a thought is less than it has been. She is buoyed by possibility. The temperature is so mild she wears her summer workout clothes when she goes for her morning run. No need for jacket or sweats, feeling light as she runs through the streets. The lack of tree canopy is for once not a curse but a blessing, showering warmth and light upon all. Everyone is finding excuses to be outdoors. People are actually taking walks—something that never happens in Sunnyvale, the mechanical city—or biking, or basking in the sun. Even Lars’s parents have dragged the molded white plastic chairs from their kitchen to the front yard, and are sitting there observing the scene.
For the first time in weeks Jim Fulson’s truck is parked outside his house. Anna gathers her courage and knocks on the door. She remembers the run they went on the day of her parents’ memorial party. She thinks about it often, enjoys the memory more than the actual experience. She wants a repeat, wants to pound down the sidewalk with Jim Fulson by her side on this beautiful, beautiful day. She wants to share it with someone. With him.
Jim Fulson’s mother puts a finger to her lips as she unsteadily opens the door. “Still sleeping,” she whispers. Two hours later, Jim Fulson emerges from the house. He stands on the small porch, stretches high, lifting his T-shirt up over his stomach, revealing a small paunch. Love has taken its toll. He glimpses Anna sitting with the Goldschmidts on their lawn and waves, but in a way that makes it clear he is not open to conversation. He has held himself aloof since the night of the memorial, the talk in the bar. This stings. Jim Fulson launches himself on his morning run. Anna prevents herself from running after him.
The For Sale sign in front of Anna’s old home rattles slightly in the breeze. An insultingly low offer has come in from a childless couple. The realtor rejected it. Anna is glad.
Today, no place for morbid thoughts. Everything in Sunnyvale is shiny and new in the sunshine.
36
ANNA RUNS FARTHER AND LONGER than usual. Another Saturday to get through, not that weekends are any different from the weekdays now that Anna has pretty much quit school. Christmas is approaching. Just two weeks left to the term. Anna’s aunt and uncle have already set the date for her to fly to Ohio. Just sixteen more days here. Then five months to endure until freedom.
Running back down her street toward K-A-R-I-S, Anna notices Jim Fulson standing next to his truck, one foot inside. “Hey,” he calls in a friendly voice, as if they haven’t been virtual strangers for more than a month.
“Hey yourself,” Anna says, cautiously.
“I was thinking of going to the beach,” he says. “Want to come along?”
“But it’s so cold,” Anna hears herself say. Why does she hesitate? After all, she’d be sitting thigh to thigh next to Jim Fulson in the tiny cab of his truck for the hour-long ride to the coast.
“No, it’ll be great,” Jim Fulson reassures her. “The coast is at its most beautiful on days like this.” He hoists himself into the truck, settles in the driver’s seat.
“Come on, keep me company,” he says. “Clara has papers to grade.”
Anna, displeased at being second choice, shakes her head, and starts into the Goldschmidts’ house.
Jim Fulson shrugs, slams his door, and starts the truck. Then he hesitates. He rolls down the window, and leans out.
“Come on, it’d be good for you. Fresh air and all that. And you can tell me all your secrets.”
“What secrets?” The question startles her.
“Why you and Lars are on the outs. What you think of going to Ohio. What will happen to the rest of us when you go,” he says.
His upbeat mood is infectious. He is too charming. She climbs into the truck.
The drive to Half Moon Bay is quiet but not uncomfortable. Jim Fulson turns the radio on, occasionally leaning forward to push a button to a different station. The music he seems to like is what Anna has always despised—abstract jazz tracks without apparent key signatures or discernible beats. Yet today she finds herself drawn into the cool lines, feels the power in the dissonance, the shape-shifting of the notes and rhythms. When they finally reach the beach, and are walking along the shore, barefoot and slightly windburned, Anna asks Jim Fulson the question that has been on her mind.
“What you said before,” Anna says. “Why do you care about my secrets anyway?”
Jim Fulson smiles at her with affection, much like Ms. Thadeous does.
“Haven’t your ears been buzzing?” he asks. “You’re a popular topic of conversation.” He stops smiling. “Seriously. We’ve been concerned. Are concerned. We wonder how you’ll fare in Ohio, living with that brute.”
Anna doesn’t want to talk about it. This time is too precious. She has learned above all things to savor those rare moments when the weight lifts from her shoulder, like now.
The coast is magnificent, Jim Fulson was right. The overcast skies cleared at the summit of the hills dividing the peninsula from the coastal plain. The wind is high, whipping the waves into white caps, but so temperate that many of the others on the beach have shed their coats and shoes, rolled up their sleeves and pants. Children are digging holes, trying to catch the seawater that ebbs to and fro with each wave. Dogs run free under the Keep your dog on leash signs, stealing balls from infants and carrying bunches of dripping seaweed to their owners. Everyone is taking care, however, not to go near the water. This beach is notorious for its steep drop-off, and for rogue waves that have pulled even experienced surfers out to sea. Danger hazardous waves signs are posted every hundred feet.
Jim Fulson and Anna walk without speaking, gazing at the expanse of blue and white.
Anna finally breaks the silence. “What about Ms. Thadeous?”
“What about her?” Jim Fulson asks.
“Are you getting married?” she asks. She doesn’t know how to get this information other than by being direct.
Jim Fulson throws back his head and laughs, but it feels contrived, like he’s been waiting for this question, and scripted a response long ago.
“When you’re my age, love affairs don’t necessarily end in marriage,” he says.
“Is that what you have going, a love affair?” When what Anna really wants to ask is so it’s going to end? What has blossomed between Ms. Thadeous and Jim Fulson seems stranger, more precious, all the more extraordinary because of its origins in high school chemistry classrooms and suburban rec rooms.
“She is the love of my life,” he says, without a trace of cynicism or embarrassment.
Anna is startled. Whatever she expected, it wasn’t this. She feels a brief rush of sadness, of longing.
“But isn’t she awfully old for you?” Anna asks.
Another false laugh.
“You sound like my mother,” he says. “Annie, she’s exactly four years and one month older than
me. She just turned twenty-nine and I’ll be twenty-five in January.”
“It just seems odd,” Anna says.
“But I thought you liked Clara,” he says. “She’s very concerned about you, about your missing school, moving away.”
When Anna is quiet, he says, “I know you haven’t seen a lot of us lately. We’ve been . . . busy.”
A cry rises up. Jim Fulson and Anna see people pulling their children from the shoreline, rushing to put distance between themselves and the ocean. “Sharks!” a male voice shouts. Fingers are being pointed, everyone is straining to see. All other activities on the beach cease. About thirty feet out from the surf, three fins can be seen. They go under water, then come up again.
“Relax!” a man calls out. There’s a moment of silence as everyone waits. “Those are dolphins,” he shouts with convincing authority. “Everything is okay. There aren’t many in California. This is a rare treat.”
The mood rapidly changes to one of excitement. Dolphins! Their sleek curved backs and their snouts arc gracefully out of the water. Three of them, in perfect alignment, heading against the current and against the wind, pushing southward toward San Gregorio and Pomponio beaches. The miracle of sea creatures, everyone is pointing, still exclaiming. Jim Fulson is equally enthralled, he’s taken out his cell phone like the others, is snapping photos, typing in an email. She has no doubt whom he is sending the photos to. She wants to hurt. She wants to inflict pain.
“You’ve been busy? How’s the job hunt going?” she asks.
Jim Fulson stiffens as he finishes typing. He sends the message, puts the phone back in his pocket. “It’s not.”
“So who pays for everything?” Anna asks. She sounds spiteful. She feels spiteful. She wishes that the animals in the water had been sharks, bloodthirsty, looking for prey.
Coming of Age at the End of Days Page 14