Tips for Living

by Shafransky, Renee

  Both my parents had secret lives back then. Sally the Country Club Wasp née Sasha, the Russian Jew from East New York. Nathan, the bookie, gambler and money launderer.

  So did I. Another life I lived only at night. A potentially dangerous one.

  Chapter Five

  Dark. I’m standing in the dark in my pajamas. My whole body tingling like a sleeping foot. Confused. Scared. Dad? Mom? Where am I? Start to rub my arms and legs to stop the tingling, but there’s something in my right hand. A metal stick. Thin and long. Squeezing it tight. What is going on? Eyes adjusting. I recognize this place. The downstairs hallway by the front door. But this makes no sense. How did I get here? No one carried me. I must have walked out of my bedroom, across the hall, all the way down the stairs and down another hall. I don’t remember any of it.

  You woke and had to go to the bathroom. You were sleepy; you got confused in the dark.

  But the bathroom was only a dozen steps from my bed. No. I hadn’t been sleepy. Or confused about where the bathroom was. I must’ve actually been asleep. Sleepwalking. And the stick in my hand? A golf club. My mother’s golf bag was leaning against the hall closet. I was standing at the front door clutching a golf club. But why?

  I was almost twelve the day my symptoms started. My mother had already left for her beauty salon appointment that Saturday morning when my father tapped on my bedroom door.

  “No bowling alleys today, kiddo. We’re going to the movies. They’ve rereleased The Pink Panther Strikes Again. You’ll love this one.”

  We were movie nuts, my father and I. His “work hours” were flexible, so he would treat me to matinees after school or on weekends—whenever the mood hit him. We’d seen Top Gun the week before, and I fell in love with Tom Cruise. We also shared a love of big band music. He introduced me to Benny Goodman and taught me to swing dance by the time I was seven. My father was fun and spontaneous. Unlike my mother, who was beautiful but rarely relaxed enough to smile.

  Halfway to the movie theater, I noticed my father was driving fast and glancing in his rearview mirror every few seconds.

  “What are you looking for, Dad?”

  “Nothing, kiddo.”

  When we reached the theater, he pulled into the back lot and surveyed our surroundings nervously before parking the car.

  “Really, what are you looking for?”

  “Let’s hurry so we score some popcorn before the trailers start,” he said, ignoring my question.

  We went into the lobby and joined the concession line. The men walked in seconds later. There were two of them in sharp-looking overcoats, sunglasses and shiny shoes. The tall one unhooked the velvet rope. Nobody behind us said a word when they cut the line, I think because of the bullying energy they gave off. I grabbed my dad’s hand, intimidated.

  “Hello, Nathan,” said the short one with the newspaper rolled up under his arm. He had a small, pointy head with a lot of dark, fine facial hair. Like a rat. How did my father even know this man?

  “Hello, Brizzi.”

  “Have we done something to offend?”

  “No, not a thing. We’re all good here.”

  Brizzi leaned down until his face was inches from mine. He stank of cigarettes, and his teeth had brown stains. There were tiny pimples on the pale skin around his wispy moustache. My father tightened his sweaty grip on my hand. I squeezed back, afraid.

  “You think your father is telling the truth?” he hissed.

  “Please. Leave her out of it,” my father whispered, sounding desperate, which only increased my alarm.

  “He says he’s not upset with us. So why do you think he’s been avoiding us? Not answering our phone calls? Not showing up for our appointments? Not very polite, is he? Could it be he’s forgotten his debts?”

  Now I was petrified.

  “She’s only a kid. Please.”

  Brizzi straightened up and touched his sunglasses. He sucked in air between his teeth, took the rolled-up newspaper and tapped my father’s chest.

  “Because you asked nicely, we’ll just have a brief mano a mano out there,” he said, aiming his paper across the lobby toward a metal door marked EMERGENCY EXIT.

  The taller man, who had a shiny, hairless head and was built like a giant thumb, unhooked the black velvet rope from the stand again and gestured for my father to walk through the opening.

  “Wait here, Nora.” My father released my hand. I tried to take it again, but he waved me back. His voice was sterner than usual, his face tight. “We’re just going to talk for a minute.”

  The men flanked him as the three walked across the royal-blue carpet. I looked on helplessly, my heart thundering in my chest. Before they reached the exit, my father glanced back at me. He had that look in his eyes, like the soldier in the Tarzan film who slipped into a pool of quicksand. When the sand reached his chin, he stopped yelling and struggling, but his eyes still screamed—the way my father’s were screaming right then.

  I felt like I was going to explode and collapse all at once. I wanted to save him, but my feet were lead. My skin felt hot, and then someone turned the lights out. The next thing I knew, I was floating on my back in an ocean of blue carpet looking up at concerned but unfamiliar faces. Until my father pushed through them. He knelt down and cradled my head, searching my eyes with a pained expression.

  “Kiddo, kiddo, kiddo,” he said.

  I’d been afraid to wake my parents the night of that first sleepwalking incident. They’d ask a lot of questions. It could lead to telling them how anxious I was about those horrible men. My father was in enough trouble already. He’d begged me not to say anything to my mother about what happened at the movie theater. How could I speak of it without betraying him? I went back to bed, but I lay there with eyes pinned open. The next day, I was sapped.

  The following night, I woke up standing in the kitchen. The house was dark except for bright moonlight coming through the white eyelet curtains on the windows. So quiet I could hear the crickets outside and the faint hum of the clock on the wall oven. The clock said 1:12 a.m. There was an open kitchen drawer. On the counter above it, something slender and silver glinted in the moonlight. My mother’s favorite Wüsthof carving knife. Her largest and sharpest carver of flesh. Someone had taken it out of its velvet-lined case in the kitchen drawer. Did I do that, too? My twitching gut said yes. I put the knife back and tiptoed up to bed.

  I stayed awake and worried again. If I told my mom, she would be so angry with my father, she’d divorce him. Maybe I should talk to Aunt Lada? I would be staying at her apartment in the city that weekend—one of the rare occasions my mother let her babysit. She thought Aunt Lada was a questionable influence. “That Ukrainian boyfriend of hers? Does he even work? And they both smoke those disgusting cigarettes.” Balkan Sobranies. “God bless the stink of Minsk,” Lada would say whenever she lit one up. Lada has never been to Minsk. She’s only seen pictures my Minskian grandfather took.

  But I didn’t speak of it to Lada when I arrived—you can’t just launch into something like that. I’ll try at dinner, I thought. No. I’ll say something after we watch our television shows. The big perk at Lada’s was staying up late with her, watching television shows.

  Sybil. Of all the movies that could have aired that night, an old TV movie called Sybil was on. The story of a woman with multiple personalities. A woman who had other people living inside her who did things she never would.

  “You’ll get nightmares. She’s bezumny,” Aunt Lada explained as she turned the television off before the second commercial—after Sybil had punched her hand through a glass window during one of her episodes.

  “What is bezumny, Aunt Lada?”

  “A nut. A cuckoo lady. She has mice running around in her head.”

  I took the movie as a sign. I was like Sybil. That cinched it. I couldn’t tell anyone. I was convinced I’d be locked away if they found out how crazy I was.

  My mother took me to the doctor a week later to figure out what was causing
the worrying symptoms I’d developed. But I didn’t give either of them the whole story. I guess I was too frightened . . . and confused. I was young.

  I sat on the edge of the exam table in my jeans and T-shirt, hugging myself. The white paper crinkled under me as I nervously kicked my sneakers at the base.

  “Stop fidgeting and sit up straight,” my mother said. She pointed to my feet. “How did your sneakers get so scuffed?”

  “Where?”

  “That black mark on the side. Right there.”

  She frowned from her post in the white plastic chair next to the door.

  “Can’t you keep anything nice for five minutes?” she scolded.

  That was another reason I wasn’t entirely truthful. My mother had a lot invested in perfection. She wasn’t the easiest person to confide in when something was wrong. She had a way of making the problem your fault. I started kicking the exam table unconsciously again.

  “Nora!”

  She eyed me angrily. But the neurologist didn’t seem to mind my nerves. Nerves were his business. He stood at a counter studying the papers attached to my chart, obviously pleased with the results.

  “I’m happy to say there’s no sign of a head injury. And Nora’s wiring looks completely normal. EEG, EKG. Her brain. Her heart. Blood work. All normal. Reflexes. Everything.”

  “That’s a relief,” my mother said. “I was worried it might be a concussion.”

  The doctor turned to her. She crossed her shapely legs and smoothed the skirt of her turquoise mohair suit full of little poodle-like nubs.

  “And her symptoms began a week ago, you say? She fainted twice in one day?”

  My mother nodded and tugged at her pearls.

  “I wasn’t there the first time. She was at the movies with her father. She fainted again when they came home. At first, she seemed normal otherwise. But then I noticed she was more and more tired every day. Exhausted.”

  “Any headaches?”

  “No. Just tired.”

  He looked at the chart again and shook his head. “Her blood work is normal.” He looked at me. “Talk to me about the blackouts, Nora. What did you feel?”

  “I got dizzy. Then I fell.”

  “Did you eat or drink anything before they happened?”

  “No.”

  “Were you hungry or thirsty?”

  “No.”

  “Did the movie scare you?”

  “We hadn’t seen the movie yet.”

  “Anything unusual you can tell me about?”

  I glanced at my mother and heard my father’s voice. She’ll leave me, Nora. She’ll go. You don’t want the family to break up, do you? I promise you I’ll fix this.

  “Think for a minute,” the doctor urged. “Anything at all?”

  “No, I don’t remember anything special,” I told Dr. Nerves.

  He kept watching me as he spoke to my mother. By then I think he’d figured out I was holding back information.

  “How is Nora sleeping?”

  How did he know about that? Get out of my head.

  “Fine. No problems there,” she said.

  “No problems,” I echoed.

  Fainting twice was one thing, but these other . . . what to call them? Zombie spells?

  “I’ll need you to step outside for a minute, Mrs. Glasser,” the nerve doctor said.

  “Oh?” My mother looked surprised and a little put out, but she stood up and smoothed her skirt again. She fiddled with the delicate pins in her strawberry-blonde, perfect French twist.

  “I’ll be out there, Nora. Right outside in the hall.”

  She left and closed the door. The doctor stood next to the exam table, but behind me so I couldn’t see him. What was he up to? I wouldn’t tell him my secret, even with my mother out of earshot. I didn’t want to wind up being committed to a mental institution.

  “Raise your right hand,” he said.

  I put up my hand. “Is this another reflex test?”

  “Quiet, please. Do as I say. Raise your right hand.”

  I checked my hand. Yes, my right hand was in the air.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” he asked, impatiently. “The right hand.”

  My face flushed. I felt confused. I stretched my fingers. I pledge allegiance to the flag . . . Right crosses to heart on left. This was definitely my right hand. I lifted it higher.

  “Are you telling me you don’t know your right from your left?”

  Why are you being so mean? I’m trying.

  “Dammit. Just do it, Nora. I’m waiting.”

  My eyelids fluttered. The fluorescent lights dimmed. Heat blossomed in my chest and spread to my limbs. I leaned forward, almost falling off the table. The doctor’s arms caught me.

  “It’s okay, Nora. It’s all right. I apologize. I had to see if I could induce a fainting spell.”

  He put two fingers to the side of my neck and stroked my forehead with his other hand. How soothing his touch felt. A balm for my distraught state.

  “You’re fine now. Just lie down here.”

  He eased me back onto the table and then walked over to the door. Cracking it open, he beckoned. “Come in, Mrs. Glasser.”

  “What happened?” my mother asked, alarmed to find me lying there limp.

  “Nora just had another fainting incident. A ‘neurocardiogenic syncope.’ Her vagus nerve went into spasm and cut off the blood flow to her brain. The situation rights itself after the person falls and blood pressure equalizes. How do you feel now, Nora?”

  “I feel good,” I said. And I actually did.

  “That’s likely what happened in the movie theater and at home afterward. The biggest danger lies in getting hurt from the fall itself. This is the typical age for the start of the problem. Sometimes it’s paired with other symptoms like sleep disturbances, which may indicate a more serious psychological disorder.”

  Sybil?

  “But Nora seems to have only the one,” he said, patting my arm.

  “Tell me this is curable,” my mother implored.

  “It is, in the sense that children usually grow out of this by the end of puberty.”

  Was he saying this could continue for years? I felt myself growing dizzy again. I closed my eyes and lay unmoving on the table. That seemed to help.

  My mother twisted her pearls. “What causes it?”

  “In Nora’s case, stress. You’ve got a highly sensitive child here.”

  So I wasn’t crazy; I was sensitive. Wasn’t sensitivity a good thing? I’d had a stress reaction to those scary men. My dad promised he’d pay them so they wouldn’t bother us. After he paid, I could go back to being sensitive and normal again.

  “Are there any drugs she can take?”

  “I’m afraid not. The best thing is to try and reduce her tension. Nora needs to become aware of her emotions before they get the better of her. Help her identify anxiety, fear, anger, et cetera. Some kids don’t know what they’re feeling until they’re completely overwhelmed.”

  My fainting stopped as I learned to pay better attention to my feelings. But I had more sleepwalking episodes after my father came clean about his real job to my mother and their terrible fights began. I didn’t confess then, either. I was afraid it would make everything worse. The sleepwalking ramped up again when we sold our house to pay his mob debts, and as my parents went through their divorce. Then it disappeared for six years. Until I was a college sophomore.

  Axel Bartlett, my boyfriend since freshman year, had just broken up with me. He said he thought we’d reached a point where we should stop dating and “just be friends.” I was stunned and hurt. “You’ve met someone else,” I wept. He vigorously denied it. But I saw him that evening in the student lounge with his arm around a girl I recognized from our Crime Reporting class.

  Grace and I were roommates by then. She woke up at three a.m. the following morning and discovered me sitting on the floor of our dorm room in my nightgown with scissors in my hand. Between the blades was the hoodie
Axel had taken off and insisted I wear one night when we were both freezing in Washington Square Park. “Keep it. It looks sexy on you,” he’d said.

  “Nora? What the hell are you doing?” Grace told me she asked, having no idea I was asleep. I woke up then, confused and disoriented. I stared at the giant heart cut out of the front left side of the sweatshirt I held, bewildered.

  “Holy shit,” Grace said. “You must be really, really angry at him.”

  Finally realizing what I had done, I was appalled. I told Grace about my sleepwalking history then, distraught that the problem had returned after so long a hiatus, and that I’d acted with such aggression. Grace was incredulous. “Seriously? You were sleeping? You looked wide-awake! That’s scary. That’s supremely scary, Nora.”

  “Nora Scissorhands,” was how she referred to the episode.

  It was the last one. Nothing remotely like that has happened since. The doctor was right. End of puberty, end of problem. It’s been twenty-one years. If I ever wake up in the middle of the night, I’m at home in my bed like any normal person.

  From the Pequod Courier

  Letters to the Editor

  They’re back! Nora Glasser was right. The Summer People are turning into Fall People. Did anyone else notice how many of them were treating us to their usual rudeness on Halloween weekend? A BMW cut me off for a parking space on Halloween morning. I saw a Mercedes run the red light on Pequod Avenue. (Why aren’t the police ever around when that happens?) They bought out all the candy corn at Corwin’s Market. Next thing you know, we’ll be overrun on Thanksgiving and they’ll raid the pumpkin pie. Will they steal Christmas like the Grinch? Why don’t the Summer People stay where they belong until after Memorial Day? How will we deal with them all year round?

  Dawn Murphy

  Pequod, NY

  Chapter Six

  Mad. Sad. Bad. Glad. Those were the “check-in” words Dr. Nerves recommended to help me identify if I was feeling anger, grief, shame, or happiness. I had nothing to lose by trying the technique again. As I headed toward home, I determined that I was Glad. Glad that a sunny, crisp fall morning had arrived unexpectedly after the storm. A heroic day. Blue water sparkled in the harbor. Light played on the sailboat hulls. Some of Pequod’s citizens walked their dogs on the wharf. The world turns. It really does. But I was also Sad. Hugh had died too young and in such an awful way. Who took his life? Who slaughtered both of them?