Ready to Fall

by Marcella Pixley

  “Okay,” I say through my teeth. “I’m leaving.”

  I grab my things. I pull my hood low over my eyes and walk out the door.

  BROWN-RICE SUSHI

  According to our friend Lydie Grossman, gluten is an addictive drug sold cheaply by mass-market food stores to keep the consumer bloated and thus less likely to rebel against the tyrannical culinary monopolies plaguing our society. Along the same lines, white rice has only a tenth of the varied nutrients contained in God’s own ultra-wholesome, whole-grain hippie-dippy wild rice, which, by the way, is better for digestion and neuroplasticity. Grains are our friends. You know that, don’t you? Besides wild rice, there are other delicious, albeit gassy substitutes, including grains with names that sound like they belong to Iranian rock stars: Freekeh, Kasha, and Quinoa.

  Organic vegetables are better than regular vegetables because no one needs the carcinogens they put in those pesticides. Only eat free-range chickens and grass-fed beef. Only eat mercury-free fish and free-trade chocolate. Make your own juice. Whenever possible, add flaxseed or lemongrass. It is better to spend two hundred dollars at Whole Foods than fifty dollars at a regular supermarket, that horrible hegemony of classist dogma.

  “Ugh,” says Lydie, “I can’t believe you’re still buying groceries at Stop and Shop.”

  She says the words Stop and Shop as though it were a well-known den of iniquity, and then she wrinkles her nose and makes a worried face.

  We met Lydie and her pint-size blond daughters at the Caregiver Family Support Group that was held in the basement of the local JCC every Tuesday and Thursday, but now we know her from the Bereavement Family Support Group, which is down the hall on Wednesdays and Fridays. They don’t put the caregiver-support people on the same day as the bereavement-support people because they don’t want the caregivers to lose hope or the bereavement people to feel jealous.

  Sometimes, after group, Lydie takes us all out for lemongrass-and-ginseng smoothies. Dad and I pretend to like them, but mostly we are just thankful for the company.

  Tonight we’re home making vegetarian sushi with brown rice because Lydie wants to show us how to make an organic, nontoxic meal with a very small carbon footprint, a plan that makes me think of tiptoeing dinosaurs. She has everything set up on the kitchen counter in bowls. There’s a stack of dried seaweed. Then there’s a bowl of brown rice, and a plate with radishes, spinach, ginger, and carrots, all cut into slivers. Finally, there are scrambled eggs from her backyard, free-range, feminist yoga hens, Gertrude, Camille, and Gloria.

  We join her at the counter, making five of us. First there’s Luna and Soleil, Lydie’s New Age, freaky, feral, four-year-old, late-in-life twin daughters. There’s me and my dad. And then there’s Lydie, smelling of patchouli and peppermint with her long gray hair down her back in a braid.

  Lydie gives us each a square mat made of thin strips of bamboo. She shows us how to put the square of seaweed on the mat, how to scoop on the brown rice so it only covers half the seaweed, how to pat down the rice with a wooden spoon so it makes a thin layer across the bottom, how to place the vegetables in a pyramid on top of the rice, and when that’s finished, how to lay down the pièce de résistance, the eggs, courtesy of the fussy triumvirate of feminist yoga hens, fried to perfection. We roll up the seaweed and rice and veggies and eggs with the bamboo mats, squeeze them so they stick, and then chop them into pieces with a wetted knife. Luna and Soleil are masters at sushi making. They work quietly with their little fingers and their little knives.

  “All done,” says Lydie. “These look good. Don’t you love the color of the carrot and the spinach against the eggs? It’s just beautiful.”

  “Bee-you-tee-full,” sings Luna.

  “Beautiful,” my dad agrees.

  “Not as beautiful as steak tips,” I say.

  Soleil jumps up and down and pants like a hungry dog.

  Dad elbows me. “Try it,” he says.

  We bring an assortment of plates to the table along with a bottle of soy sauce, five tiny dipping bowls, and five pairs of chopsticks. Luna and Soleil climb into their chairs. I sit down. Dad pushes in Lydie’s chair for her. Then he sits down as well.

  We all look at one another.

  No one knows what to say.

  Dad clears his throat. “Eat up,” he says.

  Lydie pours some soy sauce into her dipping bowl, picks up a piece of sushi with her chopsticks, dips it into the soy sauce, and takes a bite.

  “Mmm,” she says, chewing, eyes closed. “This is fabulous. You must try this, girls. Max. Joe. Come on. It’s good.”

  “Namaste,” says Luna, closing her eyes and pressing her palms together like a small blond monk.

  Soleil meows.

  They dig in.

  Luna uses her chopsticks perfectly.

  Soleil puts her head down and laps at the sushi like a cat.

  Dad picks up a piece with his fingertips, plunges it into the soy sauce, wiggles it around until it’s drenched, and then chews and smiles so Lydie will think he likes it. “Wow,” says Dad, still chewing. “That’s really something.”

  “You like it?” asks Lydie.

  “I do,” says Dad. “Very flavorful.”

  “Now you try it,” Lydie says to me.

  “I’m not hungry,” I tell her.

  “What did they serve you for lunch today?” she asks me.

  “Pizza.”

  “It’s all the gluten they’re giving kids at the public schools,” Lydie tells Dad. “Keeps them bloated and docile. Max, you really need this. It’ll clean you right out.”

  I look down at my brown-rice sushi and imagine myself sitting on the toilet excreting it.

  “Just try it,” says Dad.

  I take a piece of sushi from my plate with my chopsticks, dip it in the soy sauce, shove it in my mouth, and chew. It’s not so bad, actually. It’s crisp. Fresh. Kind of nutty. I love the eggs from the free-range, feminist yoga hens. I love the crunch of the carrots and the texture of the rice. I am about to swallow and tell Lydie all this when something catches my eye. The pattern on my plate, the plate my mother used to love best. There is a strange blue geometric pattern all along the rim. And then inside, a scene. A bridge over a river. A pagoda on a mountain. A path. A tiny woman holding a walking stick. I cough and spit my sushi into the napkin.

  Soleil giggles and spits her sushi into her napkin too.

  I run to the sink and dump the sushi into the garbage disposal. I flick the switch. The kitchen is filled with a sound like grinding bones.

  “Oh, come on,” says Dad.

  “That’s okay,” says Lydie. “He doesn’t have to like it.”

  I rinse the plate and look at the little woman. I remember when my mom found this plate in an antique shop. She loved Blue Willow china. All the tiny details. The willow tree, the path, the waterfall, the pagoda. She always wanted to travel, but she never got the chance. I imagine her walking down a path in China with a stick in her hand. A little blue mother.

  “It’s not just this,” says my dad quietly to Lydie. “He doesn’t like anything these days. He’s been having a terrible time at school.”

  “I know what you mean,” says Lydie. “Soleil is having a really rough time in preschool too. She used to sleep on her own during nap time, but her teacher tells me she suddenly needs to hold on to Luna in order to fall asleep. She climbs onto Luna’s mat, grabs her around the waist, and refuses to let go.”

  When I was little and Dad worked late at the frame shop, Mom would lie down with me to help me fall asleep. She smelled like lemons and honey. I gaze into the plate. All the blue patterns. There’s the tiny blue woman on the path. Walking past the mountains. Way down there. So tiny I almost can’t see her. I turn on the hot water, drip a few drops of lemon soap, and fill the sink with bubbles. I squint my eyes and trace the willow path with one soapy finger.

  “I’m so worried about him,” says Dad. “The school’s been trying to help, but it just seems like he’s get
ting lost.”

  I keep my back turned and busy myself with following the path. There are thousands of tiny details. Hello, all you tiny blue details.

  “Have you thought about transferring him to a smaller school?” asks Lydie.

  “The school year’s already started,” says Dad. “What school’s going to accept a sophomore at the end of October?”

  “You should check out the Baldwin School,” says Lydie. “I work in the office. Some families moved away this fall and they’re looking to fill those spots. The teachers are amazing, Joe. Max would love it.”

  “I’ve heard good things about it,” says Dad.

  “It’s a pretty special place,” says Lydie. “It’s very progressive. They value creativity and self-expression. It’s primarily a boarding school, but there are day students as well. It’s great for artistic kids like Max who are just a little offbeat.”

  “Max isn’t offbeat,” says Dad.

  I stalk back to the table with my clean plate clutched to my chest like a baby and my hood over my eyes. I place my plate on the table, drop my forehead down onto the cool, smooth surface, and rock my head back and forth because sometimes even a rotting frontal lobe needs some loving. I take deep breaths in and out, rocking the tumor to sleep on this plate that my mother once loved.

  “Okay,” admits my dad. “Maybe he is a little offbeat.”

  I rub my cheek against the plate, close my eyes, and sigh. At night I used to curl up with my face resting against Mom’s soft hands.

  “I’ll bet it costs an arm and a leg,” says my dad.

  “They have financial aid,” says Lydie.

  “Still,” says my dad. “We don’t have extra money lying around.”

  “Maybe someone in your family can help you,” says Lydie.

  “Maybe,” says my dad. “Everyone’s been through so much. I just don’t know how I’d ask for something like that.”

  “Yeah,” says Lydie. “I get it.”

  I rest my head against the blue plate and breathe.

  Soleil gets out of her chair and moves wordlessly to my side. She takes off my hood, puts her hands in my hair, and starts petting me. She leans her warm little head against my head. Soleil smells like lemons and honey. It is the warm smell of my mother’s healthy skin. I put my arms around her and she leans into me. It feels good for just a moment. Just one blessed moment. I close my eyes and hold my breath because if I breathe right now I am going to lose it completely. I am frozen in this moment with honey-lemon skin that smells like my mother and hands on my head and my horrible secret twitching inside my brain like a frenzied bat looking for a window.

  BALDWIN

  The acceptance letter comes in a thick envelope with the school crest stamped on the front. Inside is a note of congratulations from the dean of students, a course catalog, and a load of different forms that we have to fill out ASAP, including an elective-request form, a financial-aid form, a health form, a family-information form, a booklet of rules and regulations, and a tour-request postcard to be filled out and returned immediately.

  Dad lets me skip school to go on the tour. Our guide tells us that her name is Felicia Santacroce, but everyone around here calls her Fish. She has long pink hair. When I say pink, I don’t mean cherry pink, like the girls at my school who sometimes dye a lock of their hair with Kool-Aid for a psyche before a soccer game or something. I’m talking about hair the color of cotton candy, a pink so wonderfully pink that it’s hard to notice the campus, especially since Fish is whirling breathlessly from one place to the next so fast we have to hustle to keep up with her.

  Fish whisks us up a brick walkway, past a line of ancient bare trees, up a set of granite steps, and onto the landing of a huge stone building, past clusters of students who move out of the way as they argue amiably about some book they must be reading for class. There, next to the door, is an engraved plaque. She brings us close and then stands back to speak her script while we watch.

  “This is Trowbridge Hall,” Fish recites dutifully. “Trowbridge is the main building, which houses most of our academic subjects at the Baldwin School. Trowbridge Hall was erected in 1880 by Thomas A. Trowbridge the First. It was originally set up as a seminary for Episcopalian boys who were interested in becoming priests. Every student had to take Greek and Latin. They studied the classics: Ovid, Homer, Plato, and Marcus Aurelius. Carved on this plaque by the front door is our time-honored motto: Ipsa scientia potestas est, which means Knowledge Itself Is Power. Wise words, don’t you agree?”

  “I do,” says Dad, right on cue.

  Fish smiles at him and then goes back to her script.

  “In the early 1960s, Baldwin expanded and became known as a progressive school, adopting a more relaxed but still rigorous whole-child approach. Now there’s more student freedom. More hands-on learning. More discussions. Less memorization. Now the school is known for its commitment to the arts. Students are encouraged to express themselves through drawing, creative writing, painting, dance. There are several different art studios on campus, music groups, theater programs, and a student radio station that plays awesome alternative rock. Sound good?”

  “Sounds great,” says Dad. “What do you think, Max?”

  “I like it,” I say, but my stomach is twisted in knots because it sounds glorious, it sounds fabulous, it sounds perfect, and this makes me nervous because nothing is perfect.

  “Are you interested in any kind of art, Max?” Fish asks.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I like drawing. Actually, I take a sketchbook with me wherever I go.”

  “Me too,” says Fish. “Ever think of taking an art class?”

  “Nah,” I say. “Taking a class would ruin it.”

  “How long have you been drawing?”

  “As long as I can remember,” I say. “I started my first sketchbook when I was five.”

  “I remember that one,” says Dad. “Seems to me it was filled with dragons.”

  “Mine had unicorns,” says Fish.

  We keep walking, slower now. We pass more Baldwin students talking with each other in animated voices. A few kids wave to Fish and she waves back. One guy, this extremely tall dude with John Lennon glasses, grabs her waist, twirls her toward him, and kisses her cheek. Then he pushes her away and continues to his class.

  “Sorry about that,” says Fish, blushing. “He’s in the drama club. Theater kids are pretty demonstrative around here. But don’t worry. Even if you’re shy, you’ll get along fine. This is a good place for all kinds of people.”

  “Glad to know it,” says Dad.

  I don’t say anything. I’m thinking about how it would feel to take Fish by the waist and kiss her too.

  Fish walks us up a wide stone staircase to a building with stained glass windows and a carved wooden door.

  I whip my sketchbook out of my jacket pocket and do a quick drawing of the doors. There are ghosts of a mother and child escaping from the cracks. The mother has a thin face and willowy arms reaching upward. Her hair rises from her head like smoke. The child is floating above her head, reaching down for her.

  “Whoa,” says Fish, watching over my shoulder as I sketch. “That’s amazing.”

  “Thanks,” I say. I draw the building rising up behind the doors, filled with spires and gables and ornate nooks and crannies.

  “What’s the name of this building?” I ask.

  “Skinner Hall,” says Fish, her eyes still fixed on my sketch. “It’s my favorite.”

  I write the words Skinner Hall on the bottom of the page in twirling letters like ivy. “Now it’s my favorite too,” I say.

  Fish smiles. “I love that,” she says. “I really do.” I tear out the picture and give it to her. She holds it against her heart for a moment, and then folds it neatly and puts it in her pocket. “In the seventies and eighties, Skinner used to be the administration building. Now it’s where they store the records and the old black-and-white photographs of the first headmasters and the founding families. Sometim
es I go down there and rummage around in the crates. I like to pull them out and look at the pale faces. They kind of freak me out. But between you and me, I sort of like being freaked out.”

  “Being freaked out is actually a permanent state of affairs for me,” I say.

  “This is true,” says my dad.

  “Well, I’m glad I’m not the only one,” says Fish. “Most people think I’m a total lunatic. Maybe it’s the hair. I don’t know. So what else do you have in that sketchbook? Can I see?”

  “Sure,” I say. And then I surprise myself by handing it over without even wondering if it’s such a good idea, and Fish starts skimming through the pages and looking at my bizarre imagination. Here is an emaciated woman lying in a bed with her hands folded over her chest. Here is a grinning tumor in a top hat with its tendrils reaching out in all directions. Here is a white face with one red eye bulging, all the veins detailed. Here is a boy cradling his own brain. His mouth is open and his eyes are closed. The brain is in a swaddling blanket. It nuzzles against the boy’s chest. It wants milk, but he has none to give.

  “Oh my gosh,” says Fish. She gazes at that last one. “Oh my gosh, that is so twisted.”

  “Sorry about that,” says Dad. He takes the sketchbook from Fish and hands it back to me, frowning. “Max is a bit dark.”

  “No,” says Fish. “It’s okay. I’m dark too, actually. Don’t worry. Lots of kids are kind of intense here. I mean, this school is known for attracting complicated people. I guess that’s why everyone is assigned a faculty advisor and a student fellow. That’s one of the things that makes Baldwin so great. They really take care of you. Even if hard things are going on. Someone’s gonna watch out for you here.”

  My dad doesn’t say anything. He wipes his eye with the back of his jacket sleeve.

  “You okay?” asks Fish.

  “Oh yeah,” says my dad, clearing his throat. “I’m fine. Just an eyelash in my eye.”

  But I know there wasn’t an eyelash.

  Fish leads us all around campus. From the dorms where the boarding students sleep to the playing field, which was once destroyed by locusts, and inside Trowbridge Hall to the dining room with its long tables where students carve amusing titles into their lunch trays with paper clips (The Tray of Existential Angst, The Tray of Hideous Incurable Diseases) to the possibly haunted library with its stained glass windows and, finally, to the place she calls her “sanctum sanctorum,” the auditorium, with its polished stage and its long, black velvet curtains that smell like dust and sweat and standing ovations.