Fishbowl: A Novel

by Bradley Somer

  “There,” Garth says, returning to sit on the couch. “Anything else?”

  He has to smile at Jimenez’s expression. There’s nothing else. Garth recognizes the song, “Military Madness,” but not the cheesy Graham Nash version; it’s the Woods remake. It’s a jaunty, midtempo, lo-fi number with a drumbeat fit for some neo-hippie fantasy, skipping across a grassy hill covered in wildflowers.

  And without further delay, Jimenez begins to dance, slowly for the first few steps but then coming up to double-time the music. Two steps to the one side, a heel up and toe-to-ground shuffle with his leading foot. Two steps back to the start and a quick rock-step back.

  A jive, Garth recognizes. A solo jive.

  Jimenez’s hips drive the movement, and his ankles are springs to compensate for their push. Two steps, two steps, and then a rock back onto his heel. Then arms to one side, legs kicking out to the other. Then arms stiff on both sides and legs moving a flurry for a while. A little Charleston thrown in. Then a smooth transition to a twist, his arms held out, elbows tucked to waist, palms down but fingers daintily arcing toward the ceiling. His hips pivot, but his body stays still. The whole thing unrehearsed, nearly perfect, and completely wonderful, to see him move and the happiness that the movement brings him. When Garth sees the expression on Jimenez’s face, he also notices that Jimenez has been watching him the whole time.

  Jimenez’s cheeks become flushed with the effort. For as unexpectedly agile as he is, he’s still a big man, and the exertion brings a sheen of sweat to his brow. Yet he doesn’t stop moving, working the whole floor from windowsill to kitchen counter. He doesn’t stop smiling at Garth. Garth smiles back and they hold each other’s eyes for a few moments.

  Then the song ends and Jimenez stops.

  Garth claps, and Jimenez smiles and dips his chin in acknowledgment.

  On the radio, the DJ babbles a quick weather forecast and then introduces Deerhunter’s “Basement Scene” as the next song in the “commercial-free rock-and-roller coaster.” The new song begins, and Jimenez holds out his hand to Garth.

  “Dance this song with me?” he asks.

  Garth shakes his head. “You’re too good a dancer for me.”

  “That’s not the point,” Jimenez insists. “Come dance with me. I’ll teach you.” His invitation arm is outstretched and unwavering.

  Garth stands and begins to shimmy his way around the coffee table again. His attention is drawn to the window, to a quick movement, a shadow that flashes through his peripheral vision. But when he looks, there’s nothing but the expanse of buildings. Nothing outside, and here, here’s Jimenez waiting to take his hand and join him in a dance to the music coming through the alarm clock radio’s tinny speakers.

  And that’s what Garth does, dances with Jimenez. They share a slow sway to the billowing lyrics and the occasional psychedelic interjection. During the sauntering dance on the parquet with his head on Jimenez’s sweat-dampened shoulder, his gaze focuses on nothing in the fuzzy middle distance out the window. With the smell of Jimenez’s cologne in his nostrils, Garth feels happiness spreading in his belly like a gulp of hot cocoa.

  51

  In Which Petunia Delilah Gets a Fucking Ice Cream Sandwich

  Her body has never been so truly spent, and her mind has never been so completely calm. Petunia Delilah floats in that spot for a minute, the one where there is no world outside her consciousness. Her eyes are closed, and her brain basks in the deep-red light filtering through the delicate skin of her eyelids.

  The apartment air is warm and comfortable and smells homey, like the quiche baking in the oven. The linoleum she lies on is cool and soothing on her back. The constant stresses, both physical and mental, have passed.

  Her baby is alive. She can hear her daughter fussing in the boy’s care. Her arms long to hold her, but she waits for a moment.

  She is alive. She can see it through her eyelids, her blood feeding her body. She feels the air going in and out of her lungs. A bead of sweat tickles its last lines across her skin, seeking the lowest places it can find before it will rest, evaporate, and then disappear into the air.

  Claire’s talking to the emergency operator, the thread of their conversation rambling away, over there near the oven, where she checks to see how her quiche survived the whole ordeal.

  Petunia Delilah opens her eyes. She can’t keep herself from smiling. The boy kneels beside her, and he cradles her daughter in his arms.

  “She’s so little,” he whispers, the wonder transparent in his voice. He’s an odd sight, Petunia Delilah thinks, merely a baby himself, with her daughter in his arms and his eyes transfixed on her. She thinks he might cry; his face betrays that even though the wells of his eyes remain dry. She wonders if he has a little brother or sister. She hopes so because she can tell he would be a great big brother.

  A tea towel is wrapped around her baby. There are others, stained and crumpled on the floor beside the boy. He must have wiped her daughter clean before swaddling her. He’s the reason she is here, safe and gurgling in his arms. He has delivered her. He brought her from peril to safety, and Petunia Delilah feels a love for the boy swell in her.

  She lays her hand on his forearm.

  “You probably want to hold your daughter,” the boy says in response to her touch, his eyes never leaving the little girl in his hands.

  “I do,” Petunia Delilah says. “But whenever you’re ready.”

  The boy glances at her. Petunia Delilah remembers Claire calling him Herman.

  “Herman,” she says, “how old are you?”

  Herman shuffles closer and offers her her daughter. Once the baby has been transferred into her mother’s arms safely, he replies.

  “I’m eleven,” he says. “And a half. I’m actually closer to twelve.”

  Petunia Delilah nods. Her daughter peeks out from a hood of tea towel. Embroidered on the waffled fabric is a sprig of lavender flowers, purple and curving around a brown teapot. A few curls of blue-gray stitching denote steam coming from the spout.

  “Herman, you were the first person in the world to meet my daughter. Her name is Lavender,” Petunia Delilah tells him. She hadn’t discussed the name with Danny, but Danny isn’t here, and she can’t stand to let her daughter live nameless for a second longer. They had discussed names but couldn’t narrow it down beyond some two hundred choices. To Petunia Delilah, “Lavender” is fitting to both the baby and the situation. Danny will just have to agree.

  Herman smiles. He leans forward and inches a finger back and forth on Lavender’s cheek.

  “And,” Petunia Delilah continues, “you probably saved her life. And mine too. Thank you, Herman, for being the bravest guy I’ve ever met.” Petunia Delilah starts to cry from a mix of exhaustion and relief. It’s over, they had all fought so hard, and now everyone is safe.

  Thoughts become things.

  “You’re our family now,” Petunia Delilah says in a few choking sobs. “You’re Lavender’s brother and my hero. If you ever need anything, if I can ever do anything for you…”

  Herman sits back on his heels. His hands rest in his lap, his fingers interlaced, fidgeting. The corners of his mouth twitch downward. His eyes are fixed on his fingers.

  “I have to go now,” he says. “There’s something else I have to do.”

  Herman gets Claire’s attention and asks her to have another ambulance sent to his grandpa’s apartment. He tells her the buzzer number.

  Claire waves her hand and nods, pointing that she’s talking on the phone.

  With that, Herman stands and walks out the door.

  Before Petunia Delilah can say anything, he’s out of sight. Moments later, a short way down the hall, she hears the stairwell door’s hydraulic arm hiss and the latch click shut.

  Petunia Delilah will find Herman again. She wants to be his friend and to know him. She wants Lavender to know him as she grows up. Herman is going to be a part of their lives for as long as they all last. She will make sure of
it.

  Then she’s left listening to one side of Claire’s conversation but doesn’t hear any of the words; they’re just background noise. She watches Lavender and is struck: Kimmy was right all along. Women have been doing this for hundreds of thousands of years without modern medicine. Petunia Delilah is sure it isn’t always such a shit show, and she’s also sure that, most of the time, things work out. And when they don’t, you salve your scars and pick up the pieces and do the best you can.

  “Hey,” Petunia Delilah calls to Claire.

  Claire bolts upright. She holds her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and looks at Petunia Delilah expectantly.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have an ice cream sandwich, would you?”

  A puzzled look crosses Claire’s face. Then she nods and says, “I do.”

  She opens the freezer, pulls one out, and crosses the room to hand it to Petunia Delilah. Then she goes back to the phone and continues her conversation.

  Petunia Delilah doesn’t know whether to savor or savage the ice cream sandwich. She rests Lavender on her belly, tucked against the crook of her elbow, and runs the package between her fingers while she contemplates how to consume it. The plastic wrapper is velvety and cool. The sandwich contained inside is firm but has the slightest give to it under a gentle squeeze. It isn’t frozen solid, and Petunia Delilah likes it that way. The cookie parts will be slightly gooey on the outside. It will leave chocolate gunk on her fingers, which is perfect. She opens the package with her teeth and gazes upon the wonder inside.

  Two paramedics arrive at the door. The burly men in blue uniforms announce themselves. One is trailing a gurney loaded with equipment.

  Claire sweeps a hand in Petunia Delilah’s direction, as if they would miss her lying on the floor in front of the door, as if to say, “Clean that up, there.” She keeps talking on the phone.

  Petunia Delilah starts devouring the ice cream sandwich before they can find reason to stop her.

  With practiced ease, the paramedics set about examining her and Lavender. They check blood pressures and listen to hearts beat and ask questions about family histories and medications and if there’s pain and where on her body it is. Petunia Delilah answers through mouthfuls of ice cream sandwich. She licks the wrapper and accidentally drops it to the floor when they load her onto the gurney.

  With a wave to Claire, she’s wheeled down the hall to the elevator. One of the paramedics presses the button, and the two of them talk quietly about getting a pizza later, “… or did you want a gyro?” The sounds of the elevator descending from above grow louder through the doors.

  “Gyros,” the one says and checks his watch.

  The other nods. “Good call. We’ll grab them after we drop these lovely ladies off.”

  The elevator dings, the button light goes out, and the doors slide open. There is a foot-high step between the elevator and the floor, but with minimal jostling, they maneuver the gurney into the compartment.

  Petunia Delilah looks at her reflection. There is ice cream sandwich gunk in the corners of her mouth and on her fingertips. Lavender rests peacefully, her lips working but her eyes closed. Petunia Delilah wonders for a moment if her baby can dream yet. Everything is all right. She’s a mom. She smiles.

  One of the paramedics holds the gurney in place, and the other presses the lobby button. Both of them stand with their backs to Petunia Delilah, staring at the number above the door. The doors slide closed, and the elevator starts its descent.

  “Smells smoky in here,” says one paramedic.

  “Yep,” the other says, shaking his head in disapproval. “Smokers.”

  “No, that’s not cigarette smoke,” the first says. “I used to smoke and that’s not it. This smells more plasticky.”

  “You used to smoke?” the other asks.

  “I did.”

  “I didn’t know that about you.”

  “Well, it’s true. I used to.”

  “That will kill you, you know.”

  “Well, I don’t do it anymore, do I?”

  They fall silent and watch the number six become a number five in the little display above the door.

  “I worry about you sometimes,” the one says. “You’re a risk taker.”

  There’s a metallic grinding from outside the elevator compartment. It echoes up and down the elevator shaft. The compartment shudders to a halt somewhere around the fourth floor.

  The paramedic jabs at the button, but the elevator doesn’t move.

  52

  In Which Claire the Shut-In Gets a Job and a Date and Possibly a Life on the Outside

  “My name’s Jason,” the emergency operator says.

  “Jason? Pig?” Claire says. “It’s you?”

  “Yes,” he replies and then adds, “but please, these calls are recorded. You can call me Jason.”

  “Okay,” Claire says. “Jason, do you know who I am?”

  “I do. I recognize your voice.” Then he says more quietly, “Sometimes I call on my coffee breaks.”

  “I know you do,” Claire says.

  “I always hope to get you. I like you.”

  There’s some bustling by the door, and the baby starts to fuss. One of the paramedics talks into the radio clipped to his shoulder. Claire can’t make out what he says. He stands by the door, chin crooked to shoulder and a thumb hooked heroically through his belt loop. The other paramedic inflates a blood pressure cuff around Petunia Delilah’s arm. He pinches her wrist, his finger pressed against the nook below her thumb as he counts her pulse.

  Petunia Delilah’s eyes are on her baby. Her mouth moves, jaws side to side and lips together as she savors her ice cream sandwich. Her eyebrows are raised slightly, and her forehead is smooth. The baby wriggles in her arms. It gurgles and she smiles.

  Claire glances around the room. That weird little kid who came in with her is nowhere to be seen. Unless he’s passed out somewhere. She looks around the corner of the island to see if he’s lying on the floor, but he isn’t. No one seems to notice he’s gone, and no one pays attention to her or her conversation.

  Claire realizes she needs someone to talk to. She has needed someone for quite a while but has been working hard at ignoring the fact. Normally, she would call her mother and unload a few little burdens from the week, just enough so Mom feels included but not so much to worry her. Claire finds herself disinclined to burden her with the larger complications as she ages.

  Mom doesn’t need my problems, Claire thinks, but I’ve kept them all and now … maybe Jason.

  Claire ponders for a moment whether this will be too awkward or not and then decides. “It’s been a hard day, Jason. I think I may need someone to talk to.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Jason says. “Would you like to tell me about it?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just, things haven’t been overly normal for the last little while even though I work hard to believe they are. When I said it’s been a hard day, what I mean is, it’s been a hard few years,” Claire says. “I seem to have built a routine to my life to add a normalcy that isn’t there. I didn’t notice it before, but I guess that was the point. I do this routine so I won’t have to think about doing anything or trying anything different. I see it now. I want to change it. Now, I don’t know what to do about it.”

  Jason is silent.

  “Are you there?” she asks.

  “I’m here. I’m listening.”

  Claire appreciates his silence. A lot of the guys she dated always tried to fix everything. She would confide in them, and in a sentence, they would offer a solution. Then they would dismiss the issue as a problem that now had a solution should she only choose to correct it. They always turned it back on her, fixed her and moved on. She doesn’t want Jason to solve all of her problems. She just wants him to listen to her, acknowledge what she says, and, at a stretch, maybe understand that things aren’t perfect. She appreciates his silence.

  “A woman gave birth on my floor today.” Claire sig
hs. “I felt two things. The first was terror that she was in my apartment. The second was pride that my floor was clean enough to give birth on. I haven’t left my apartment for years, and no one has been in here either, and now I’m staring at three strangers—no, four now with the baby, four strangers in my apartment. And I’m most worried that there’s a splashy blast of afterbirth on the linoleum and that the paramedics’ shoes are dirty.” Claire’s voice cracks. “I know I should have felt fear for the woman and her baby. The fact that I have to think about how I should feel scares me. Doesn’t it just happen for everyone else?

  “I should have opened the door with no question, yet I asked questions. I should have gone out to get my own groceries this week. I should go to a bookstore and touch the spines of every book on the shelf without worrying who touched them before and whether or not they washed their hands. I shouldn’t want to tell the paramedics to take their shoes off at the door. I should kiss someone. I haven’t been touched in years, by anyone. I should go visit my mom. I should—”

  “Claire,” Jason says, “it’s okay. Everyone’s okay, but I think you may need to talk to someone about it. Tell me everything now, yes, but you have to tell someone else too. Maybe a professional. Someone who can help you.”

  “I just never thought I needed help,” Claire says.

  “I know,” Jason says. “But you do.”

  They listen to each other breathing for a moment.

  “I lost my job today too. They’re outsourcing the PartyBox to Manila, and we all got laid off,” she says. “It’s been a hard day.”

  “Claire,” Jason says, “we’re hiring, here at the call center. There’re two positions available on the switchboard. What system does the PartyBox use?”