The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

by Aimee Bender

  It was probably eight o’clock. The sun, down. The house was dark, because our father, along with cutting his restaurant meals in half, also believed strongly in only lighting the room one was inside. Something to do with bills. I, in contrast, enjoyed sitting in a fully lit house when they were away, and I was minutes from running through the rooms and switching everything on. Light is good company, when alone; I took my comfort where I found it, and the warmest yellow bulb in the living-room lamp had become a kind of radiant babysitter all its own. But that night I wanted to locate my assigned guardian, and I hadn’t given up yet, and against my usual instincts, I pushed in. The door creaked open. Crrrrk. Had he rusted up the hinges deliberately? No lock in place, and no light on inside—only a crossbeam through his back door, from our neighbor’s backyard lamp-pole, angling downward to the floor like a shaft of moonlight. It was a cave, in the house, a basement that had risen. I stepped inside. My heart picked up a beat. No movement, no stirring. Piles of books on the floor. A to-go container of romaine lettuce on his desk. He wasn’t in the room, but it felt, faintly, like he was in it. I peeked in the closet. His shirts! His shoes! Bare hangers; umbrellas. Joe? I said, trembling. Are you here? All silence. Empty but not empty. Was someone watching me? The walls? Joe? I whispered.

  It was so eerie a feeling that I ran out of the room and ran around the house, flipping on lights, calling his name, opening closet doors, calling, turning on every switch I could find—over the oven, TV on, flashlights on, closet lightbulb pulled, starting to get actually scared, calling—and when I roared back to the now wildly yellow-lit hall outside our rooms, there he was, tall, leaning, looking like someone had socked him in the face. I’m here, he said, thinly. You don’t have to shout. But where WERE you? I asked, still too loud. Sssh, he said. Nowhere. Just busy. But where? I said, jumping a little, in place, and the glare of the hall lights revealed the bags under his eyes and the lines in his cheeks, a face too lived in for someone who had not yet lived all that long.

  I was in your room, he said.

  I squinted at him. What? I said. He hated my room, all its girl things. Really? Are you okay? Why?

  He took a long moment to scratch the side of his nose.

  I needed a pink Pegasus pen, he said.

  It took me a minute to hear him. A blankness, while we stared at each other. The words disintegrating around us. Pin. Nk. Peg-a. Sus. Pen. Then he made some kind of sneezing snort sound, and we both started to laugh. I held my stomach. He sat on the floor, and laughed and laughed. My stomach cramped. I pulled at the carpet, to stop. I was laughing through mouth and nose at the same time. I can’t breathe! I said once, and then we both dropped into laughing again. His: low and almost silent and throaty. I hugged my body to the wall, to calm down, and when he let out a raggedy sigh, I exploded for another ten minutes.

  Stop! I said, wheezing, pressed into the wall.

  When we finally stopped, spent, coughing, Joseph lifted him self slowly up off the floor. As if each joint and bone was more weighted than usual. With deliberate steps, he walked through the rooms and turned off every light, one by one. I listened from the hallway as he clicked the switch on each flashlight. As he pulled the metal chain in the hall closet to ink out the bare bulb. Across the house, blocks of light darkened, like a miniature city going to sleep in neighborhoods.

  Something inexplicable had exhausted us both, so by 9 p.m. we were in our beds, asleep.

  19 I didn’t hear my parents come home. Monday morning broke in with my father’s usual honk, and I stirred in my bed, and listened. Quiet from my parents’ bedroom, where Mom slept in. A bird outside, calling a trill across the neighborhood.

  From the kitchen, I could hear the sounds of breakfast, as performed by my brother: a crash of cereal into a bowl, a sloshy pouring of milk.

  I pulled myself out of bed, and found Joseph in his usual spot at the kitchen table.

  Hey, I said.

  He kept chewing.

  At the base of the dishwasher, Mom’s high black heels tilted against each other, kicked off her feet. Her jewelry glinted in a little pile inside one of the shoes. Most likely this meant she’d stayed up after they returned, to make tea and sit in the orange-striped chair and stare out the window.

  I opened the refrigerator and looked inside. The evening with Joseph replayed itself in my mind. A little chuckle bubbled up.

  While serving myself an orange juice, made from Florida oranges, picked by workers plagued with financial worries, fruit piled in trucks that drove overnight across the country, I sat down at the kitchen table across from my brother and started a monologue about the previous night that ended in the retelling of the pink Pegasus pen joke.

  While toasting and eating my waffle, the circle split into small indented squares formed in a factory in Illinois, each square equipped to hold the maple syrup collected and boiled by a hardworking family in Vermont who had issues with drug and alcohol addiction, I made the joke again. I made it at the sink, while we were washing our dishes. It was my job, as annoying younger sibling, to beat that joke to death. Each time, I spluttered the sentence out and held my body still, waiting for that tickle in my throat, the uncontrollable overtake.

  Joseph didn’t laugh once. His mouth a line, while he watched me slap the table.

  It was a one-time thing, he told me, going to grab his backpack.

  Our respective schools extended down the same block of Wilshire, so we rode the bus together as usual, several rows apart. Outside, men stood on a billboard ledge pushing up rolls of paper to construct the shape of a woman’s giant chin. Clusters of teenagers stood at a fence around Fairfax High. I’d stopped waving to passengers in cars by then—I’d grown suspicious of people and all the complications of interior lives—so I sat and watched and rode and thought, and as soon as the bus doors opened, we all rolled out the door and split apart like billiard balls.

  In third-period Spanish, I settled into my seat behind Eliza. As our teacher started to hand back last week’s quizzes, I moved in close, to whisper in her ear.

  I had an amazing weekend with my brother, I said. We laughed so hard I nearly threw up, I said. Vómitos.

  She turned to smile at me, distantly. She had an iridescent star sticker attached high on her cheekbone.

  How was your weekend? I asked.

  While our teacher roamed the aisles, Eliza’s eyes moved past my face and out the open doorway. The late-morning sun was turning the hedges outside the classroom a steely helicopter green. When I went over to her house, her father, on breaks from doing stock-market work at home, would sometimes bake a batch of cupcakes to clear his head. Each little chocolate muffin packet burning through with fullness.

  We were thinking of a movie, Eliza said. But everyone was tired, so we stayed home and played Yahtzee instead, she said. She yawned, out the doorway. Excuse me, she said. It was fun, she said.

  I drew a star on my desk, in pencil, and then crossed it out with slash marks. Mrs. Ogilby returned my quiz. B plus. I’d missed the past-perfect conjugation of “to go.” Everyone in my quiz was going in the present.

  Was that guy George there? Eliza asked me, sliding her quiz into her notebook pocket.

  Where?

  At your house? she said. With your brother?

  I sat in, closer. George? You mean George Malcolm? I said. He’s over all the time, I said.

  She sighed. Her cheek glinted in the light.

  He’s like my second brother, I said. Except I could marry him.

  Eliza ran a finger along the pencil moat on my desk. He seems nice, she said.

  He hates Yahtzee, I said.

  What?

  Just he said that once, I said. He finds it despicable.

  Excuse me? Rose? He said what?

  Nada, I said, when the teacher glared at us both.

  Going, going, going, I said.

  My presentation was due in fifth-period current-events class. We were supposed to write on something in modern society that we val
ued that was not around in the time of our grandparents, and then read a paragraph or two aloud. I went after a girl talking about the advantages of mountain biking, and before a guy who had a whole three-part cardboard presentation on the treatment of malaria.

  I cleared my throat. Ahem, I said. My paper is on Doritos, I said.

  The teacher nodded. Nutrition is important, she said.

  This is not about nutrition, I said.

  I held up my page.

  What is good about a Dorito, I said, in full voice, is that I’m not supposed to pay attention to it. As soon as I do, it tastes like every other ordinary chip. But if I stop paying attention, it becomes the most delicious thing in the world.

  I popped open a supersize bag—my one prop—and passed it around the room. Instructed everyone to take a chip.

  Bite in! I said.

  The sound of crackling. Eliza giggled in the back. Her parents did not allow her to eat Doritos. I was her drug dealer, in this way.

  See? I said. What does it taste like?

  A Dorito, said a smartass in the front row.

  Cheese, said someone else.

  Really? I said.

  They concentrated on their chips. That good dust stuff, said someone else.

  Exactly, I said. That good dust stuff.

  What I taste, I said, reading from my page, is what I remember from my last Dorito, plus the chemicals that are kind of like that taste, and then my zoned-out mind that doesn’t really care what it actually tastes like. Remembering, chemicals, zoning. It is a magical combo. All these parts form together to make a flavor sensation trick that makes me want to eat the whole bag and then maybe another bag.

  Do you have another bag? asked a skateboard guy, licking his fingers.

  No, I said. In conclusion, I said, a Dorito asks nothing of you, which is its great gift. It only asks that you are not there.

  I bowed a little, to the class. Eliza clapped. The same skateboard guy, reeking of pot, asked if I had any Cheetos to compare. Please? he begged. If the teacher allows it, I said, maybe we can take a quick field trip as a class to the snack machine? The class was up and at the door before she could protest. We spent fifteen minutes in a huddle, pushing all our quarters into the slots, tasting every bag available, reading unknown unpronounceable ingredients aloud. Sure, sure, said the skateboard guy, chewing. When I concentrate, it’s all different, he said. He closed his eyes. Eliza hugged me three times, her hands dusted with ranch-flavor powder. We returned to the room buzzing, and after class, the teacher called me over and handed me a printout of the food pyramid, telling me I did a good job but it was important that I eat protein as a growing girl. Thank you, I said, and she dipped her head, and we both nodded in admiration at her helpfulness.

  20 Joseph had a test to re-take after school, so I took the bus home by myself, stopping at the small magazine-shop on Melrose at Fairfax to buy my usual bag of chips as a celebratory finale to my paper. The streets were quiet as I strolled. Fewer cars on the road in the middle of the day. A man with a leaf blower steered clumps of grass into the gutter.

  I came home to another delivery from Grandma. A long slatted box containing a gray folding chair and a refrigerator-sized box inside of which was an old bookshelf and a broken stool wrapped in newspaper. They’d all arrived together, in a delivery van.

  Mom was in the kitchen, starting in on a new recipe from the newspaper.

  How old is she now? I said, wandering in.

  Eighty-one, Mom said, waving hello with a wooden spoon.

  And what is she sitting on?

  She shrugged. Beats me, she said.

  She flattened the newspaper, peered at the ingredients.

  Today’s recipe was ripped from the Metro section, something of a southern-Italian mushroom-tomato sauce, slow-cooked, with good fruity olive oil as the base. My father loved Italian food the best, and my mother made it on days when she was feeling guilty. She’d taped the recipe to the cupboard, for easy viewing. Her eyes were creased with lack of sleep, but she was wearing a new pink lipstick and there was still a clear elevation to her mood.

  Want to help? she said, as I washed my hands.

  She set me up with a knife and a cutting board and a pile of green peppers. My mind still clear from the chip bags. I liked this aspect of cooking, being a distant hard-to-identify participant, all so long as I didn’t compile or stir anything. Way too scary, to eat a whole meal I’d made myself, but I did enjoy the prep: chopping and dicing, mincing and paring, shredding and slicing, just attacking all these objects that dominated my days even though I knew that nothing would take away the complexity for me, nothing short of not eating them. Still: it gave me such pleasure to grate cheese, like I was killing it.

  While I picked seeds out of a green pepper, Mom stirred onions in the pan and told me about the party and all the funny lawyers. She asked about school, and when I told her I didn’t know what class I liked the best, she nodded. I understand, she said, bobbing her head. You have trouble picking, like me. Too many choices!

  I don’t know if that’s it, I said, sweeping seeds into the trash. To change the subject, I told her a little about Joe’s disappearance. I didn’t describe anything in detail—just that during the babysit, he had vanished for twenty minutes or so and I hadn’t been able to find him.

  Just he was kind of gone, I said. And then, all of a sudden, he was back. It was really funny, I said.

  Mom pivoted around. An eagerness crept into her face. Do you think he’s sneaking out the side door? she asked, dropping her voice to a whisper.

  I tossed the core of a green pepper into the trash.

  Nope, I said.

  Or, Rose—maybe he has a girlfriend?

  I almost laughed. Um, no, I said.

  She laid the wooden spoon carefully on the counter. Checked the recipe on the cupboard.

  Peppers?

  All set, I said.

  She slipped the cutting board out of the counter and scraped the bumpy squares into the pan to join the golden onions and garlic. We watched the pepper parts crackle in the oil.

  She put an arm around me, our simplest exchange. I leaned against her side. Rose, she said, stroking my hair. Sweet Rose-oh-Rose, she said.

  She picked up the spoon, absently pushing around the parts.

  Well, she said. He is secretive, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

  Runs in the family, I said.

  She smiled at me, eyes unsure.

  I rinsed and replaced the cutting board and began dicing tomatoes.

  I’ll take the stool, I said. From Grandma.

  Do you think he has a boyfriend? she asked, hopeful.

  No, I said.

  I would understand if so, she said, leaning against the stovetop. I could hear her brewing, beginning to form her monologue of understanding. I think that could be very nice, she said, in a small voice.

  Sorry, Mom, I said.

  How do you know? she said. You don’t know!

  She turned back to the pan, to the wooden spoon. Moved around the various bits.

  It’s missing a leg, she said, after few minutes, into the pan. What are you going to do with a two-legged stool?

  I wedged it outside, near that side door, in the narrow strip of yard that bordered the house. If placed against the outdoor wall, it functioned nicely as a half-ladder. At the next babysit, when I could still hear him poking around inside his bedroom, I tiptoed outside and climbed up the stool rungs to peek inside the little window at the top of his side door. The lights inside were out and all I could catch were shadows over shadows, and darkness, and the usual bulky shapes. It seemed he was sitting at his desk, reading, in the dark. Turning pages.

  I watched him for a while, from the stool rungs. My eyes adjusted to the light. He read each page slowly, and when he was ready to turn, he slid a finger up to the top right corner, lifting it as lightly as a wing. He took such care, particularly when alone.

  I went to the bathroom. Wandered around.
When I returned to the stool/ladder, he wasn’t there.

  So preoccupied was I with trying to grab back the laughing lightness with Joseph that I did not think again about where he’d actually gone. When I ran around the house again, knocking on his door, calling his name, circling, opening doors, doing the whole routine over only to finally find him standing outside his room again, with that same unusual weightiness to his eyelids and skin, I skipped right over my former rabid curiosity and returned to the script that had led up to the laughter. I knew my part perfectly. Where was he? He’d been busy? Where? I asked if he’d been in my room, and he said yes, and I said why? and he said, in a weary voice, that he’d needed a pink Pegasus pen. It was around eight-thirty. Over a week since the first disappearance. Parents out, at another dinner. The walls, cool. Joseph, tall, his side pressed against the door frame. I could feel his effort, his playing out of the lines for me. And even I, ever ready to fake the laughing, again, forever, could hear how flat it fell, and we stood, quietly, facing each other, in the planes and stretches of dim hallway. He looked old; he was only five years older, but he seemed then like an old man, a grandpa.

  Are you sick? I said.

  He shook his head. I’m practicing something difficult, he said. And it tires me out.

  What is it?

  It’s hard to explain, he said.

  Oh. Can I help?

  No, he said.

  He rested his head against the top hinge. Closed his eyes.

  Is it illegal?

  No, he said. He smiled a little.

  We stood there together for a while. His breathing deep and measured, drinking the air in slow draughts. Those antenna-like eyelashes and fingertips. I wondered what he knew about the family; what he didn’t know. What family he lived in. My mind wandered around.