You Have Never Been Here

by Mary Rickert

  Immediately the two babies grinned at each other.

  “Shreve,” Emily called, “come quick. You have to see this!”

  Shreve ran into the room. “I told you not to touch him,” she said, stopping short when she saw that Michael remained in the carrier.

  Emily decided to forgive Shreve’s odd behavior. She pointed at the brothers. “Look,” she said, “it’s like they recognize each other.”

  “I can’t believe he can do that already,” Shreve said.

  “What?”

  “Lift his head up like that.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Emily shrugged. “He’s really strong.”

  “Look at them,” Shreve said.

  “It’s like they’re old friends.”

  Shreve walked back to the kitchen and returned with the tray, which she set on the table next to the futon. She poured a cup for each of them. Emily sipped her tea, still focused on her baby’s back. That’s when she remembered that there had been a paper mill in Voorhisville, years ago. She’d heard about it once, she couldn’t remember where. Maybe there were chemicals in Voorhisville, in the soil, or perhaps in the water. “Have you ever heard anything bad about the city water?” she asked.

  “Oh, I use bottled water,” Shreve said. “He’s beautiful. Have you thought of a name yet?”

  “Gabriel.”

  “Like the angel?”

  “I guess it’s old-fashioned.”

  “I like it,” Shreve said, but was thinking, Does she know something? Is she trying to trick me? “Why’d you choose it?”

  Emily shrugged.

  The two women sat sipping their tea and staring glumly at their beautiful children, Michael and Gabriel, who continued to coo and gurgle, occasionally even thrusting little fists in the other’s direction, as though waving.

  “Emily?” Shreve asked.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Do you believe in miracles?”

  “Now I do,” Emily said. “You know, I’ve been thinking. Let’s say that we found out there was some kind of chemical, oh, in the soil, or something—you know, from the paper mill, for instance. Let’s say it was doing something to the people in Voorhisville. Would we call it a miracle? You know, if it was a chemical reaction or something? I mean even if what happened was, well, miraculous? Or would we call it a disaster?”

  “What are you talking about?” Shreve asked.

  “Crazy thoughts, you know. I guess from the hormones.”

  Shreve nodded. “Well, you know what they say.”

  “What?”

  “God works in mysterious ways.”

  “Oh,” Emily said. “That. Yeah. I guess.”

  The two mothers sat on the futon, sipping green tea and watching their babies. The sun poured into the room, refracted by the chakra wind chimes. The babies cooed and gurgled and waved at each other. Shreve took a deep breath. “Do you smell that?”

  Emily nodded. “Sylvia’s roses,” she said. “They’re brilliant this year. Hey, did you know she’s pregnant?”

  “Maybe there is something in the soil.”

  “I think maybe so,” Emily agreed.

  On that day, it was the closest they came to telling each other the truth.

  Theresa Ratcher had joined the library book club with her daughter Elli right after her fifteenth birthday. They left the house at 5:20 p.m. with the car windows rolled down, because the Chevy didn’t have air-conditioning. Elli sat in the front seat, leaning against the door, which Theresa had told her a million times not to do, in case it popped open. Theresa drove with one elbow sticking out the window, the hot air blowing strands of hair out of her ponytail. Elli had been humming the same melody all week. Theresa reached to turn on the radio, but thought better of it and pretended to wipe a smudge off the dashboard instead. She knew they would just have an argument about what station to listen to. The news was depressing these days.

  “Maybe you could think of something else to hum?”

  Elli turned, her mouth hanging open, a pink oval.

  “You’ve been on that same song for a while.”

  “Sorry,” Elli said, her tone indicating otherwise.

  “I like to hear you hum,” Theresa lied. “It’s just, a change of tune would be nice.”

  Elli reached over and snapped on the radio. Immediately the car was filled with static and noise, until she finally settled on something loud and talky.

  Theresa glanced at her daughter. Did she really like this sort of “music”? This fuck-you and booty-this and booty-that groove-thing stuff? It was hard to tell. Elli sat slumped against the car door, staring blankly ahead.

  Theresa glanced at her pretty daughter leaning both arms on the open window’s ledge, as though trying to get as far away from her mother as possible. She resisted the urge to tell Elli to make sure her head and arms weren’t too far outside the car; this was the sort of stuff that deepened the wedge between them. Still, Theresa argued with herself, she had heard that story about the two young men driving home after a night of drinking, the passenger, his head hanging out the window, hollering drunken nonsense one minute and the next—whoosh, decapitated by a guide wire. “Stick your head back in the car this instant.”

  Elli gave her one of those you’re-ruining-my-life looks that Theresa hated.

  “I just don’t want you getting your head chopped off.”

  “This isn’t Iraq,” Elli said.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I was making a joke.”

  “It’s not funny. That’s not funny at all.” Theresa glanced at her daughter, hunched against the door, arm crooked, elbow hanging out the window. “Billy Melvern died over there. The Baylors’ daughter is leaving in a week.”

  “It was Afghanistan.”

  “What?”

  “Billy Melvern didn’t die in Iraq. It was Afghanistan.”

  “Still,” Theresa said.

  Elli sighed.

  Theresa snapped off the radio. Elli snickered loudly. They drove the rest of the way to Voorhisville in silence.

  What was it about him? Later, Theresa would spend many hours trying to name the thing that made Jeffrey so attractive. He arrived late, and, with a nod toward the moderator, sat down. That was it. He sat there, nodding, occasionally recrossing his legs as they talked about Faulkner, Hemingway, Shakespeare, and Woolf.

  Theresa felt like she was in way over her head. She thought this would be like Oprah’s Book Club. Well, before Oprah started doing classics. To Theresa’s amazement, Elli was talking about one of Shakespeare’s plays. That’s the first time the stranger spoke. He said, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,” and Elli smiled.

  It was just a smile. There was nothing extraordinary about it. Well, other than that Elli had smiled. Theresa didn’t give it another thought after that. Certainly she hadn’t thought it meant anything.

  Afterward, when they were trying to decide if they would all go out for coffee, Mickey Freedman showed up and invited Elli to spend the night. “Are you sure it’s okay with your mother?” Theresa was perpetually suspicious of Mickey Freedman who, though only Elli’s age, always acted so confident.

  “Yeah, it’s no problem,” Mickey said. “You wanna call her?”

  Theresa considered the small purple phone the girl dug out of her backpack. The truth was, Theresa had no idea how to use these portable devices. She turned to Elli, who was chewing gum as though it was a competitive event. “Well, have a good time,” Theresa said, trying to sound breezy, fun.

  The girls didn’t wait a second. They were gone, leaving the scent of gum, as well as something Theresa only noticed after the fact: a worrisomely smoky scent, wafting in the air behind them.

  At that point, Theresa discovered everyone had left without her. There were only two places in Voorhisville where a book group could meet for coffee and conversation: The Fry Shack, out on the highway, or Lucy’s, which was a coffee shop in the pre-Starbucks sense of the word—a diner, really; though Lucy was fairly accommoda
ting of the new fashion for only ordering coffee, as long as it was during off hours. Theresa walked out of the library and took a deep breath.

  “Smells nice, doesn’t it?” the stranger said.

  He was standing by the side of the building. Almost as though he’d been waiting.

  Theresa nodded.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  What could she do? She couldn’t be rude, could she? He seemed perfectly nice, it was still light out, and it was Voorhisville, for God’s sake. What bad thing could possibly happen here?

  “I’m not going to Lucy’s,” Theresa said, turning away from him.

  “Neither am I,” he said, and fell in step beside her.

  What had it been; what had it meant? Over and over again as the leaves fell to the dry flameless burn of that season, Theresa Ratcher asked herself these questions, as though if she asked enough, or in the right mental tone, the answer would appear. What had it been; what had it meant? As leaves fell in golden spiral swirls, on autumn days that smelled like apples. What had it been; what had it meant? As ghosts and vampires and dead cheerleaders carried treat bags and plastic jack-o’-lanterns through town—Theresa had forgotten what day it was—she returned home to find her husband in the living room watching The Godfather again, and she stood in the kitchen and stared out at the lonely, unbroken dark.

  What had it been; what had it meant? When she said, “I’m pregnant,” and her husband looked at her and said, “Are you kidding?” and she said, “No,” and he said, “This is going to be expensive,” and then, “Wait, I’m sorry, it’s just . . . are you happy?” and she had shrugged and gone to the kitchen and looked out the window at the lonely, dark fields of broken corn.

  What had it been; what had it meant? Standing in the frozen yard, snowflakes falling, swirling around her and then suddenly gone, leaving a cold ray of sun and the feeling in her body as though tortured by her bones.

  What had it been; what had it meant? Opening the door to Elli’s bedroom, and seeing her standing there, naked, and realizing that she had not merely been gaining weight. “I’m your mother. Why didn’t you tell me?” Theresa asked. “I hate you,” Elli screamed, trying to cover her distended belly with a towel.

  Elli

  We are running out of the library, giggling because we are free! I see the guy from the library, not the old one with the tie, but the cute one with the eyes like Eminem. He smiles at me and I smile at him and Mickey goes all nuts and says, “Who is that?” and I just shrug. We are walking down the street and Mickey says, “The graveyard,” and I go, “What?” and she says, “Old Batface’ll tell my folks if we have a party or anything, but I know where my dad hides his peppermint schnapps. Let’s go home and make hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps and go to the graveyard. You’re not scared, are you?”

  “I’m not afraid of ghosts,” I say. “It’s real people that freak me out. What if Batface sees us leave?”

  “She watches Seinfeld all night long. We’ll go out the back door.”

  So we walk down the street to Mickey’s house and that line keeps going through my head: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.” I feel like I am in a dream, like I have a body but I don’t feel inside it, like we are surrounded by fireflies, even though it’s light out, like the sky is filled with twinkling; and I feel free. Free from my mom with all her fears and rules and that depressed way of hers, and free from Dad with his stupid jokes, and free from the farm with its shitty smell and the silence except for all the birds and bugs.

  Mickey says, “Who should we invite?”

  “Where’s your brother?” I ask. “Isn’t he supposed to be watching you?”

  “Vin’s got one goal between today and Sunday night, when my parents get back, and that’s to get into Jessica’s pants. He doesn’t care what I do, as long as I don’t get in his way.”

  Sure enough, when we open the door, we see a purse and two wineglasses. Upstairs, there is the sound of pounding, and Mickey looks at me and says, “Do you know what that is?” I shake my head. (We are such stuff as dreams are made on.) “He’s doing her,” she says and we giggle until we are bent over. Then Mickey opens cupboards and says, “Here, make the hot chocolate. I’ll be right back.”

  I fill the teakettle with water and put it on the burner and think, What are we doing, why are we doing this? Then Mickey is back, talking on the phone, saying, “Yeah, all right.” Through the window I can see right into Mrs. Wexel’s living room where she’s sitting in a chair in front of the TV, and in the TV is tiny Jerry Seinfeld saying something to tiny Elaine, and even from all this distance I think how big their teeth are. Mickey puts the teakettle on and says, “They’re going to meet us there.”

  We are such stuff as dreams are made on.

  I pour hot water into the thermos and the light begins to fade and we leave out the back door, cutting across driveways and yards until we are on the road walking past the crooked house with the roses that smell so sweet, going up the hill to the graveyard, which is glowing. Mickey says, “You’re sure you’re not afraid?”

  I say, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”

  “Did you make that up?”

  Before I can answer, Larry is standing there and Mickey says, “Where’s Ryan? Where are the guys?” Larry says, “He couldn’t come. Nobody could come.” He looks at me and nods and we trudge up the hill, weaving through the graves, past the angel, back past where all the dead babies are buried. We spread out the blanket and drink hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps. I feel like one of those body diagrams in science class. I picture a red line spreading to my lungs and my heart and into my stomach as the hot liquid goes down, and I think, We are such stuff as dreams are made on. The fireflies are blinking around the tombstones and in the sky, which is sort of purple, and that is when I realize Mickey and Larry are totally making out, and just then she opens her eyes and says, “Elli, would you mind?” So I get up and walk away, weaving through the headstones and the baby toys, the stuffed animals on the graves. I head up the hill to where the angel is, and that’s when I see him sitting there, and he smiles at me, just like he did at the library, and I am thinking, We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and I must have said it out loud because he goes, “Yes.”

  I thought I saw a light shining out of him, like a halo, but let’s face it, I was wasted and everything was sort of glowing—even the graves were glowing. He didn’t try to talk to me and he didn’t ask me to come over, I just did. He didn’t ask me to sit down beside him, but I did, and he told me I had beautiful bones: “Slender, but not sharp.” I never saw wings, but I thought I felt them, deep inside me. He smelled like apples, and when I started crying, he whispered over and over again, We are such stuff as dreams are made on. At least, I think he did.

  I passed out, until Mickey was standing over me going, “Jesus Christ, Elli, I thought you were dead or something. Why didn’t you answer me?”

  “Did you do it?” I asked.

  “He didn’t bring any condoms.”

  “But you still did it, right?”

  “What are you, nuts? I don’t wanna get AIDS or something.”

  “Larry isn’t going to give you AIDS.”

  “Come on, I feel sick. Let’s go home. You all right?”

  “I had the strangest dream.”

  She was already walking down the hill, the blanket trailing from her arms, dragging on the ground. I looked up at the angel and said, “Hello? Are you here?”

  “Shut up, Elli. Someone’s going to call the cops.”

  I felt like a ghost walking out of the graveyard. “Hey, Mickey,” I said, “it’s like we’re ghosts coming back to life.”

  “Just shut up,” Mickey said.

  Dogs barked and lights came on the whole way back to her house, where the two wineglasses were still there but the purse was gone. Mickey dropped the blanket on the floor and said, “I am so wasted.”

  I said, “Nobody even knows we are here.”

&
nbsp; Mickey rested her hand on my shoulder and said, “Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much.”

  I followed her up the stairs into her room where we went to bed without changing our clothes. It wasn’t long before Mickey was snoring and I just lay there blinking in the dark, and it kept repeating in my head, over and over again: We are such stuff as dreams are made on. I fell asleep thinking it and I woke up thinking it and I’m still thinking it and I just keep wondering, Is any of this real?

  Tamara

  June in Voorhisville. The sun rises over the houses, the library, Lucy’s Diner, the yoga studio, the drugstore, the fields of future corn and wheat, the tiny buds of roses, the silent streets. Pink crab apple petals part for honeybees; tulips gasp their last, red throats to the sun; butterflies flit over dandelions; and the grass is lit upon by tiny white moths, destined to burn their wings against streetlamps.

  The mothers greet the day with tired eyes. So soon? It isn’t possible. The babies are crying. Again. The mothers are filled with great love, and also something else. Who knew someone so small could eat so much!

  Cathy Vecker complains to her mother and grandmother, who encourage her to consider bottle feeding. “Then we can hire a summer girl,” her mother says.

  Jan Morris calls the real estate office where she works and breaks down in tears to the young receptionist there, who calls her own mother, who shows up at Jan’s an hour later with two Styrofoam cups of bitter tea, bagels from Lucy’s, and a pamphlet entitled “Birthing Darkness: What Every Woman Should Know about Post-Partum Depression” as well as—inexplicably—Dr. Phil’s weight loss book.

  Sylvia takes her son into the garden, where she sits in the twig chair and thinks how tired her husband was before he died, and how she feels tired like that now, except alive. She cries onto her son’s shoulders.