by Miriam Toews
Don’t you guys know the song? I asked them. You know, “Get your kicks on Route 66…”?
Drawing a blank, said Logan.
Kicks? said Thebes, do you mean, like, shoes?
fifteen
WE WERE SITTING IN A NAUGAHYDE BOOTH in a restaurant in Kingman. I ordered a large pot of coffee for myself and the kids played Hangman while we waited for our food. Our waitress told us this was her last shift because later that day she was going to get on a plane for the very first time and fly all the way over to North Carolina to hook up with a guy she’d met online. Her friends had all told her she was crazy to do it but she didn’t care, she hadn’t even purchased cancellation insurance for the flight. She’d given up her apartment.
So, then, do you think you’ll stay there forever? I asked her.
If all goes according to plan, yeah, she said.
And this’ll be the first time you meet him in person? I asked.
Yeah, she said. Do you want to see a picture of him? She took a tiny photo out of her apron pocket and handed it to me.
Oh, he’s really cute, I said. And he seems nice? I passed the photo to Logan, who didn’t look at it, just passed it to Thebes, who stared at it.
Oh, yeah! said the waitress. Real nice. I’m so excited I keep spilling things, I’m sorry.
Hey, no problem, I said. It’s understandable. I hope it all works out.
Yeah, thanks, she said. It just…really has to this time.
Thebes handed the waitress her photo. What do you mean this time? she said. What happened last time? Do you want to sit down?
Logan astrally projected himself out of there and I gave Thebes a tiny kick under the table.
No, said the waitress, thanks, but I have to keep working.
Yeah, but, said Thebes, why didn’t your last relationship work out?
Oh, you know, said the waitress.
No, said Thebes.
Oh, well, you know, she said, there were certain things that he wanted that I just couldn’t give him.
The waitress looked at me and asked me if she could tell Thebes something straight up.
Yeah, of course, I said. I was waiting for the worst type of confession, something that would send Thebes racing to her dictionary to look up fist-fucking or dirty sanchez.
He really wanted a baby, she said.
And you didn’t? said Thebes.
No, she said, I really did too, but my Fallopian tubes were scarred from an abortion I had when I was eighteen and now I can’t get pregnant.
Oh, I said, that’s too bad, I’m sorry.
Yeah, that blows, said Thebes.
Yeah, said the waitress. But, so, now, this new guy? He doesn’t care about babies. He doesn’t want them. He just wants me.
Oh, that’s so sweet, I said. You’re lucky. Sounds like he’s—
Yeah, but, said Thebes, so what happens if you do, somehow, end up getting pregnant with this new guy and then you have this baby and the new guy still doesn’t want one?
Thebes, I said. That’s not—
Yeah, no, said the waitress. She was smiling. I won’t get pregnant, she said. I don’t have a uterus any more.
What! said Thebes. Why not?
Logan had by now asphyxiated himself with his hood. The waitress told us about her hysterectomy and then said she had to go, she was getting dirty looks from her boss.
Yeah, but, said Thebes, he’s only gonna be your boss for five more minutes or something, who cares? Let’s talk. She slapped her hands down on the table, palms up, like, go ahead, fill me up with your stories of reckless gynecology, and I caught a glimpse of the faint, so-called meaningless scratches on the inside of her wrists.
No, the waitress had to go. I said good luck in North Carolina. Thebes got up and gave her a hug and told her to keep it real. Keep it strong. She hoped the guy turned out to be as sweet as he looked in his photo and would never want to have a baby.
I decided to call Marc. I’d been trying in countless futile ways to disengage, to detach and drift away from him, from thoughts of him, but I was having moments, like this one now, where he managed to slip back in and wrap himself around my brain and there was nothing I could do about it. I thought I loved him. I think I did love him. I wanted him to love me, I knew that. But that may not be the definition of love, wanting someone else to love you and then deciding whether you love them back. Logan and Thebes were racing backwards in the ditch. They had let Rajbeer out of the steaming hot van and tied him up to the bumper so he could lie in the shade. Seniors were roaming around the parking lot in slow-moving packs, propping each other up and taking tiny, tiny steps like they were walking on tightropes.
Marc?
Yeah. Hey…hey! How are you? Wow!
Fine. How are you?
I’ve been trying to reach you, he said.
What? Oh! You mean telepathically?
Yeah!
Really? I didn’t…
You didn’t sense it?
Um, not really, I don’t think so…What were you saying?
I was saying I really miss you, you know?
Really? No, I…no, I wasn’t getting that at all…but, really? You do?
Yeah.
Well, and…hmm…
Are you at your sister’s? he asked.
No, I’m in Arizona, I said.
Why?
Because it’s on the way to California.
An old man tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I’d be much longer on the phone. I shook my head and held up two fingers. The man nodded but didn’t move.
Are you going to California? said Marc.
Yes, yeah, sort of…I miss you too. I smiled at the old guy and he patted my shoulder and smiled back at me again, a little sadly, maybe with some turn-of-the-century memory he couldn’t shake, like of a World War I candystriper. Or maybe he just really wanted to use the phone.
What are you doing in California? asked Marc.
The old guy puckered his lips and blew me a kiss and nodded knowingly and pointed at the phone. I smiled again and shook my head.
Oh, nothing, I said. Well, some things. Just…checking it out. Mining for gold. What are you doing?
So Marc’s new relationship had worked out and then it had stopped working out and now he wanted me back. He wanted me to return to Paris and we’d start fresh, with less weirdness and more honesty. This was the perfect opportunity for a homeless woman with low self-esteem and mild addiction issues. He did tell me he loved me and I told him that I appreciated that, as though he had offered to carry my grocery bags out to the car. He asked me if I loved him too, and I told him I didn’t really know. I wanted to say yes but I wasn’t sure. He considered that for a few seconds and then he asked me if I thought that maybe, in time, I would love him again, because hadn’t I loved him once and wasn’t that proof that it could reoccur. I told him I wasn’t sure that he was the one I was supposed to be loving at the moment and he said that love didn’t work that way, we didn’t choose who to love or when to love. I told him he was probably right, ninety-nine per cent. We left it at that, more or less. He asked me to call him again when I got a chance and I told him I’d try to. He asked me what I wanted him to do with all my psychology textbooks if I decided I wasn’t coming back. Well, you could read them, I told him. Or give them away. I didn’t care. I was planning to develop my own form of psychotherapy, like Freud or Jung. Marc was skeptical. He reminded me that I had no formal training in the field of psychiatry. I know, I said. That’s true. I told him I was planning to save my sister’s life, but that I needed a bit more time to figure out just how. Is she dying? he asked me. Yes, I said. He said he was very sorry but that I was sounding a little crazy and should probably leave her care in the hands of medical professionals. I know, I said, that’s a very rational and time-proven theory, but I don’t think it’s going to work this time.
We were driving out of Kingman and Logan saw an ancient basketball court next to a bombed-out school. We stopped so he
could shoot hoops for fifteen minutes and I could smoke a cigarette outside the van, new Theban rule. We let Rajbeer run around. Thebes and I took turns pushing each other around in circles on one of those old-timey, spinny wooden things. I sat cross-legged in the centre, smoking, feeling nauseous, but also, in spite of spinning around in circles, quite focused. Thebes ran faster and faster until she was practically horizontal, and then she flung herself on and sat next to me while we spun around and around and around and then slowly, slowly, came to a stop. After that we walked over to the court and I lay in the grass next to it and Thebes stood on the sidelines coaching Logan.
Get open, Troutman! she yelled. Box out! Baseline! Arms up! Arms up! Do I have to get down on my knees and pray? Who’s your man!
Logan was trying not to laugh.
Keep your head in the game! Stay with your man! Christ! Do I have to get out my dictionary and show you the definition of open? Who do you have, Troutman, who do you have?
Logan stopped shooting and came over to where Thebes and I were standing.
What do you think about when you shoot? I asked him.
Nothing, he said.
Oh, really? I said. You just concentrate entirely on shooting?
Yeah, I guess, he said.
Do you worry that the ball won’t go in? I asked him.
No, he said, I always believe that it will. Every time.
Seriously? I said. Even when you’ve missed a bunch of shots?
Yeah, I think it’s gonna go in every time, he said.
And then, so, when it doesn’t go in do you feel all disillusioned? I asked him.
No, not at all, he said, ’cause I’m always sure the next one will go in.
From Kingman we dipped down, straight south, and drove through a town called Needles, childhood home of Charles M. Schulz and a pit stop for the Joad Family in The Grapes of Wrath. We kept on driving and then dropped farther south to a narrow, virtually empty road through the desert that would take us right into Twentynine Palms. It was over a hundred degrees, even with the sun going down, the AC was on full blast, the highway was shimmering and the shadows were rippling like waves. Tiny rodents ran back and forth along the highway and I tried really hard not to hit them.
The kids were yawning and falling asleep, the dog had been fed and was quiet and staring out the back window, the boy’s head was back on the dash—Thebes had made him a hat, too, a pirate hat—the cooler had been restocked with ice, and it really was getting late.
Our family once went on a road trip and my father drove two hundred miles in the wrong direction. The moment of realization, for him, was a low point in the holiday. I had seen him defeated on many occasions but this was the major leagues. Min and I, for some reason, not because we enjoyed seeing our father suffer, not at all, but because it didn’t really matter to us where we were going, thought it was the funniest thing that could ever have happened. While our dad stared at the map in disbelief, our mother took us aside and said okay, girls, I know you’re going to want to laugh until you throw up, but let’s all try to think about how Dad feels and keep a lid on it. If you can’t help yourselves, please pretend that you’re laughing at something else. So for two hours Min and I pretended we were laughing at un funny things like clouds and trees and fences until finally our father said to our mother, are those two complete morons or what?
Is that supposed to be a story? asked Thebes.
Well, I don’t know, I said. What did you want? I panic when you ask for a story.
Okay, said Logan, was that last part supposed to be like a joke? Because if it was, we’d need more information, just a tiny bit, like about how Grandpa, said it, what he was implying, you know what I mean?
Okay, I said, yeah, by asking if Min and I were morons, Grandpa was making fun of himself for having driven in the wrong direction for so long. He was acknowledging that he had been the moron and that now it could all be funny and we could all just relax. That is what I was trying to convey. And that it was sweet of him to let us off the hook like that.
Okay, said Logan, then cool. I think it kind of works.
God, I feel like I’m defending my Ph.D. thesis, I said.
Did you even finish your B.A.? asked Thebes.
I smiled and told her to shut up.
I had this dream, she said. I was talking to Min on the phone but while I was talking to her I could hear this other person talking about something totally different at the same time, and then I figured out that the other person was also me, but I didn’t really like that me. And then I decided to take the bus to the hospital and see Min but when I got there my other self was already there.
Logan and I were quiet for a few seconds.
Thebes, said Logan, you should stop using hair dye. That shit can seep into the brain.
A tube of LePage’s glue flew around the van for a while, front to the back, front to the back. Rajbeer threw up a ball of duct tape and a marker cap.
After a few minutes Thebes said she had a problem. She said she didn’t know, now, if she really wanted to see Cherkis after all. It was making her too nervous. She didn’t know how she felt. She was confused. She said we’d come all this way and now she was wondering if it might be okay if she didn’t see him and was I mad. I told her I wasn’t mad and that she could see him or not see him, it was her choice. She could do exactly as she pleased.
Whatever you want, Thebie, I said. You don’t have to decide right now.
We got to Twentynine Palms in the middle of the night and checked into a motel. Thebes had fallen asleep in the van and wouldn’t wake up, so Logan and I carried her in, he took her legs, I took her arms, like we were going to count to three and throw her into the pool. We had to sneak Rajbeer in too, under the sign that said No Pets or Parties Allowed.
Logan and I sat at the table in the room in the dark and smoked a joint while Thebes and Rajbeer slept.
So what if he’s not actually here? said Logan.
I don’t know, I said.
We both started to laugh, quietly. Then we stopped, and then we started again.
sixteen
HEY, MIN, I WHISPERED. The kids were sleeping and the sun was rising. I’d finally managed to get through to her.
Hattie? she said. It was only my name but hearing her say it killed me.
Yeah, I said. Yeah, it’s me.
How are you? she said. How are the kids?
We’re all great, I said. How are you? Are you okay?
Yeah, she said. I’m all right.
Really? I said. You are?
Yeah, she said. Well, you know…yeah, I’m fine. The kids are okay?
Totally, I said. They’re great. They’re fine. They miss you like crazy.
I miss them too, said Min.
I know, I said. Hey, is Superman still your roommate?
No, she said, Lex Luthor came around and…
Yeah, yeah, I said.
They’re really okay? she said.
They are, Min, they really, really are. Rock solid. You too?
I am, yeah, she said. I’m fine…well, you know, I’m here…but yeah, I’m fine. You’re sure they’re all right, Hattie? said Min. Are you telling me the truth?
Positive, I said. I’d let you talk to them but they’re sleeping right now.
But it’s…Shouldn’t they be getting ready for school?
What? I said. Oh, yeah! Damn. You’re right. I should get on that.
I promised myself this would be the last time, or very close to the last time, that I would lie to Min.
Okay, but, Hattie? said Min.
Yeah? I said.
They said I could probably go home soon.
Really? I said. That’s fantastic! That’s great. Wow. That’s really great.
Yeah, said Min. I seem to have gotten through to the second lieutenant. But they’ll only discharge me if there’s someone at home to help out.
Yeah, I said. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah! I’ll be there, obviously, right? I mean, of course I will b
e.
Are you at home? said Min.
Mmmhmm, I said.
We listened to each other breathing. I heard someone coughing on her end. I heard some other things.
Hey, um, Min? I said.
Yeah, she said.
Why aren’t you at the beach? I said.
Nice, she said, why aren’t you?
Good question, I said. I’ll meet you there.
Where?
At the beach.
Okay, she said, which beach?
You know the one, that very large one with all the sand, I said.
Oh, yeah…, she said, the one next to all that water?
Yeah, that one.
Sounds good, said Min. Sounds like a plan.
Scissor-kick, I said.
I am, she said.
Like crazy? I said. Ha ha?
Shut up…yeah, she said.
I am, too, I said.
We should maybe float on our backs for a minute or two, she said. Like, rest…
Yeah…I said. Very soon. We should try to get a little bit closer first…
More breathing, more treading. I heard a public announcement, something about breakfast being over in five minutes. I heard Min’s name being called.
What the hell is that? I asked her. You’re being paged?
They want me to eat, she said.
Oh, I said. You should go?
I guess so, she said.
Or like forty lashes or something? I said.
Worse, she said, I’d have to share.
Oh, like in Group?
Yep, she said.
You fail breakfast, I said.
I know, said Min. I fail Crafts, too, spectacularly.
Yeah, I said, I hear those skills skip a generation. Thebes is a master.
Yeah, said Min, what’s her latest project? Has she made you a novelty-sized cheque yet?
No, not yet. She’s more into performance art lately. I looked over at the kids, both fast asleep.
I told Min I’d call her later, the kids were great, the kids were happy, the kids were aces, and we’d all be reunited in the sweet by and by when we met on that beautiful shore…