The Noah Confessions

by Barbara Hall

  We pulled out of the parking lot and she said, “Anywhere you want to go before we hit the water? We could get subs or something.”

  “It’s barely eight o’clock.”

  “Yeah, time is not such an important thing in my world.”

  She turned up the volume and drummed the dash.

  I thought, Wow, there’s a whole world where the accepted structure just doesn’t matter. Getting good grades, playing by the rules, pleasing people, none of it mattered. I wondered what did matter in a universe like that, but I didn’t feel brave enough to ask.

  “Well,” I said, “since we’re on the road, there’s somewhere I want to go.”

  “Yeah? Name it.”

  “Westwood,” I said.

  “Westwood? What’s there besides movie theaters and chain restaurants and creepy UCLA students?”

  “There’s a cemetery,” I said. I was about to elaborate but I didn’t need to. She got it. After all, I was one of the few kids at Hillsboro with a dead mother.

  “Sure, I’ll take you there,” she said. “But don’t get all morose. We’ll stop off. But the point is, we’re surfing.”

  “I’m down with it,” I said, feeling automatically embarrassed. She didn’t have a big response to my outdated vernacular. Either she wasn’t listening or I just didn’t register on her radar.

  Jen parked the truck on a side street, right behind the cemetery. It was hidden away behind a Presbyterian church on Wilshire Boulevard, and most people didn’t know about it. A few film buffs knew it existed because Marilyn Monroe was buried there. Occasionally you’d see tourists in clumps with their cameras, but mostly it was empty and serene. It was completely devoid of people this time of day. I walked past various graves and Jen lagged behind. I glanced back and saw that she had lit a cigarette and was staring at the clouds. I didn’t know what I was doing with her. I didn’t know what I was doing at all.

  As we approached the grave markers, she suddenly stopped and called out to me.

  “Hey, I’m parked in a red zone,” she said. “I’ll hang by the truck, but don’t be too long.”

  I watched her heading back to the street. Her profile looked cool and sophisticated. But she was afraid of the cemetery.

  I found my mother’s grave without trying. I visited it frequently, sometimes with my father but most times without. It was a small gravestone, off-white marble, and it said nothing more than this: Catherine Russo. Beloved wife and mother. May she rest with God. 1960–1997. I had stared at that headstone a number of times, trying to recall something of my mother while standing in front of her grave. It was still hard for me. She was in the kitchen, making cookies, or she was in my bedroom, singing me to sleep. Dead was a thing I still could not imagine her being. They hadn’t let me see her in the coffin. I was too little. Sometimes I tried to imagine it, but the scene always looked like it did on TV, an alive person trying not to breathe.

  The message on the stone seemed phony. Even though we talked about God, we never went to church, and nobody could be sure my mother was resting with God.

  I felt it should say, “Bad Car Wreck, Bad Drunk Driver.”

  “Okay,” I said to the stone, “here I am on my sixteenth birthday and Dad won’t buy me a car because you died in one, so I’m doing this unpredictable thing that I know is bad but I have to do it and you’ll just have to understand.”

  I heard the edge in my voice and for the first time I realized I might be mad at her, too, for dying, for not leaving better instructions, for not telling my father how to raise me. I was sure she’d planned on being around. But she wasn’t. And no one had told him how to be a mother.

  “If you are where they say you are, and if you have any magical powers there, could you please help change his mind? Dad, that is. About the car. It would mean a lot to me.”

  There was no answer.

  I glanced up and looked around, and I didn’t see anything but a boy about my age sitting nearby, under a tree, drawing in a sketchbook. Our eyes connected and he smiled and I wanted to smile back. His hair was long and too much in his eyes, and it had been years since rocking the army jacket was in style. I thought about saying something. Our looks converged and our expressions stalled and I wanted to walk right up to him. I wanted to say, “Hey, you skip school? I skip school, too.”

  But he dismissed me and looked back down at his drawing. He could tell I didn’t skip school. I wasn’t really a bad girl.

  I turned back to the stone.

  “Thanks for the bracelet, Mom. I have to tell you, it’s kind of ugmo. But I’ll wear it because it’s yours. I miss you.”

  “Are we done here?”

  This was Jen’s voice from a distance. She was pointing at her watch.

  I walked to meet her, glancing just once to see what the boy was doing. He was drawing.

  “Yelling in a graveyard,” I said to Jen. “Now, that’s classy.”

  She said, “Dude, enough with the dead people. Let’s hit the waves.”

  • 4 •

  She parked the truck in an open parking lot near the beach. She had extra gear, including an extra board and a wet suit, which she taught me how to put on. It was like climbing back into the womb, but as soon as I had it on, I felt official, as if I would automatically know how to surf.

  She put her hand up like a shield against the sun and watched the waves.

  “It’s closing out fast, but the wave itself is slow. You can learn on this.”

  She jumped on her board and started paddling into the waves. I climbed on mine and it squeaked and squirreled under my body. It was all I could do to stay on top, and every time I paddled, a wave would come and push me off. The board would shoot out and I would go chasing it like a dog after a giant Frisbee. This went on for a while and I could hear Jen laughing beyond the break.

  “Lizard,” she called out, “just arch up and the wave will go under you.”

  So I tried it and she was right. The board lifted right up like a little boat and the white water sprayed my face, but I stayed on. A few more of those and I was right next to Jen, where the water was calm, right before the waves re-formed. We had a minute to rest and she spoke quickly.

  She said, “You’ll hear the wave before you feel it. Look back to make sure it’s a good size. Then paddle as hard as you can.

  As soon as you get a ride, arch up, then stand up, and let the wave do the rest. Watch first.”

  I let the next wave wash over me but she caught it, and I watched as she jumped up and rode it like a magic carpet all the way to the shore. It looked easy and natural, but when I tried to imitate her I found myself barely able to stand. When I did, the nose of the board went down and then I was in the spin cycle and I had sand in my mouth. I came up spitting and Jen was paddling by me and she just said, “Stand farther back on the board.”

  We spent most of the day like that, her sailing in like a pro and me blowing the move in some humorous or painful way. Once I rode in to the shore on my knees. That gave me an idea of how great it was going to be when I finally made it. But on the next two tries I missed the waves altogether and I was starting to get exhausted.

  Jen paddled up next to me and straddled her board. I was taking a breather. I was cold and I was starting to feel guilty and the surfer’s high had not hit me yet.

  “You’re just scared, Lizard,” she told me.

  “Oh, is that all it is?”

  “Yeah, the ocean freaks people out. It’s too real.”

  “It’s also loud and mean.”

  “It’s none of those things. It’s just in charge. Soon as you realize that, you’ll be fine.”

  “Great,” I said. “Yet another way to feel powerless.”

  “Why did you want to learn this? Was it really to piss your dad off?”

  “I don’t know. I think I wanted something that could be mine. That didn’t have to do with my mother or him or school or the future. Just a moment in time when I get it, you know?”

  “You
’ll get it. It’s called the click. One minute, it all just makes sense.”

  “I wish I could find the click in life.”

  “You, me, and everybody. Come on, last set. Just let go and ride.”

  The last wave lifted me up and I felt empowered and I scrambled to my feet. For a few seconds I was walking on water. I stood tall and saw the shore rushing toward me and felt the rest of the ocean fading behind me, and I was completely suspended in time and space. It didn’t last long. I fell off into the restless water and it churned me around. When I came up spitting, Jen was grinning at me.

  “That’s how it’s done,” she said.

  She drove me home and we were both quiet from exhaustion. I was feeling mildly euphoric. I had surfed. I was going to surf. I was a surfer. And I wasn’t feeling stupid at all. I still had room to think about things. I could see my new life, my own special persona unfolding across the horizon like the ocean itself.

  It wasn’t until we pulled up in my driveway and I saw my dad’s car that reality showed up like an obnoxious guest.

  “What’s he going to do?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. He can’t kill me. Anyway, it was worth it.”

  She smiled and gave me some kind of surfing hand gesture that I didn’t attempt to return. I didn’t need to fake it anymore.

  I turned and the bubble of euphoria burst.

  My father’s face was at the door and the birds were digging into my wrist.

  • 5 •

  He was still in his work clothes and his arms were crossed. He hadn’t even touched his glass of Scotch. He was too busy staring. His ears were red.

  “Who the hell do you think you are?” he asked.

  “That’s not a real question.”

  His ears went redder. “Oh, you want a statement? You’re grounded until college.”

  “You knew I was upset.”

  “So that’s an appropriate response to being disappointed in your birthday present?”

  “It’s not just a present. It’s a milestone and I missed it. I had to do something for the occasion.”

  “Yes, I don’t think you’re going to forget this occasion. Ms. Gardner called. You got two demerits. Another one and you’re suspended.”

  “I won’t get another one. I’m the good kid. I never get in trouble. Remember?”

  He stared at me and his breathing started to slow. He took a sip of Scotch. My hair was dripping on the rug. I sucked the salt water out of the ends.

  “What did you do? Go swimming?”

  “Surfing,” I said.

  “Surfing.”

  “Yes, and I got up, which is rare your first time, and I think I might actually be good at it.”

  “Surfing. By yourself.”

  “With a friend.”

  “With a friend and the undertow and the riptides and the sharks.”

  “Dad, seriously. Life isn’t safe. You can’t lock me up.”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “But it’s why you didn’t get me a car.”

  He took another sip of Scotch. “Is that what you think?”

  “Well, isn’t it?”

  “No, in fact, it isn’t.”

  “Then tell me what it’s about.”

  “I’m not sure you’re ready.”

  “I’m two years from being an adult. Don’t you have a clue? Dad, I love you, but a charm bracelet with birds on it? Really.”

  He said, “You just don’t know what that bracelet means.”

  “Then why don’t you tell me?”

  “It’s important,” he said.

  “So tell me.”

  Another hit of Scotch and the glass was empty.

  “You want to know? Even if it changes your whole perspective?”

  “Yes.”

  He stared at me for a long time. Then he turned and climbed the stairs and went into his room. I heard him moving around the room for a while and then he came back, carrying a manuscript box. He dropped it on the table and gestured for me to sit down. I did.

  He leaned over the box and touched its corners. He stared at it for a long time and when he spoke his voice was softer.

  “Lynnie, your childhood is so much different from mine.”

  “I know.”

  “No, you really don’t.”

  It was true. I had never asked. I knew they were both from the South. I knew they had met in high school and then again in Los Angeles. I knew I had never seen any of my relatives. Whenever I asked why, they were vague. There had been a misunderstanding. Hard feelings. Grudges. I assumed everyone had disapproved of the marriage and that was where I left it. You don’t miss relatives if you’ve never had them. It’s like missing a place you’ve never visited.

  I knew there would come a time when I was curious about my ancestors, but this wasn’t it.

  “You have a great life, whether you know it or not. Even with losing your mother. You have me, you have friends, you have interests, you have school, and most of all, you have a future. You’re going to college. You’ll pursue your dreams. Nothing is going to hinder that if I can help it.”

  I opened my mouth to respond but he raised a finger.

  “I know you think that’s true of everyone, but it isn’t. Sometimes people are born into problems they didn’t create. Bigger problems than not having a car.”

  “Dad, I got an A in Global Studies.”

  He shook his head. “This is different.”

  He stared at the box for a moment, as if it contained gold or dynamite, and then he pushed it toward me.

  “Your mother and I discussed this moment. We decided it was for when you were mature enough. Or for when you started to lose perspective. I think both of those things are happening now.”

  I took the box and lifted it. It was heavy. Nothing moved inside. It didn’t make a noise.

  “Open it,” he said.

  I lifted the top.

  Inside I saw a bulging manila envelope. It was taped shut and nothing was written on it.

  “Something you wrote?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “No, not me.”

  I opened the envelope and took out the manuscript. It was typewritten and neatly stacked, though the edges were frayed and yellow.

  It was at least a hundred pages, bound by brass brads.

  I glanced at the first page. It said: “September 25, 1975.”

  “My birthday,” I pointed out.

  “A coincidence,” he said, “if you believe in that kind of thing.”

  Dear Noah,

  Please allow me to introduce myself. I’m a girl of wealth and taste.

  I ripped that off from a song. Ten points if you know which one.

  “That’s the Rolling Stones,” I said. “‘Sympathy for the Devil.’”

  He nodded.

  I saw you for the first time today when Ms. McKeever introduced you in English class. My name is Catherine Pittman. Call me Cat because everyone does.

  I looked at him.

  “That’s Mom.”

  “Yes.”

  “But who’s Noah?”

  “He’s the guy who built the ark.”

  “No, Dad, really.”

  “Just read it.”

  “Does Noah realize you have this letter?”

  “He knows.”

  I looked back down at it. I had that creepy feeling you get when looking at old photographs or relics someone dug up in Egypt. All that time had passed but once it had been a shiny new idea.

  I felt nervous. I felt the way I had, earlier with Jen, when I missed a good wave and I was alone in the water and the other waves were going to tumble down on top of me. Here was the voice of my mother, the same age as I was now, sitting in my lap, waiting to tell me something.

  “This is too much. I can’t read it in one night.”

  “Just get started.”

  My father kissed me on top of my head.

  “Is this a punishment?” I asked him.

  “No, Lynnie.
This is your gift.” Then he left me alone with it.

  • 6 •

  I took the manuscript up to my room. I put it on one side of the bed and tried to ignore it. I went online and got my homework assignments. Then I put on my iPod and started to get to work. But the manuscript just sat there beside me, quiet and demanding, like a cat, angling for my attention.

  I turned off my iPod and pushed my books to the floor and picked it up.

  “Okay, here goes. Happy birthday to me.”

  I began to read my mother’s voice.

  It’s 1975 and there’s an oil shortage and a recession and everyone is really bored with it. Music is pretty good—at least we have the Stones and the Who and Bruce Spring-steen and Eric Clapton and there’s always Motown. I wonder if you like any of this stuff or if you’re some kind of Yes or Jethro Tull freak. We’d talk about all that if we ever got to meet, but I don’t think we will.

  There are rumors about why your family has moved here. Your father’s CIA or FBI and is only pretending to be a dentist because that’s his cover. I mean, if you’re a dentist and you could live anywhere, wouldn’t you want to live somewhere decent? Union Grade, Virginia, is as far as you can get from anything decent. There are less than two thousand people here and way less than half of them are our age and way less than half of those are interesting.

  I know the real reason you’re here. That’s why I’m writing to you.

  I know the real reason because I’m a little bit psychic. Don’t laugh. Since I was little, I could hear people’s thoughts and feel their feelings. It’s not some strange cosmic gift. It’s just that in my family, I’ve had to learn how to read and interpret things other than words and smiles. There is so much going on beneath the surface. I’m what you’d call vigilant.

  The more acceptable reason is that I know how to listen to gossip. I hear all the weird stuff and I reject it. I hear the real reason and it just hits home—I know it’s true.

  Your mother grew up here and she came back to settle some unfinished business. That’s what people are saying and they’re right. What you’ll be surprised to learn is that I’m part of that unfinished business.