by Dyan Sheldon
“So anything exciting happening at school today?”
Ruben reminds her that school hasn’t started yet. It’s still Summer vacation.
“Of course it is.” She gestures to the sheet of paper in the machine. “I get so involved in what’s going on in my novel that I forget what day it is.” And sometimes what hour and what year.
When they finish their drinks Sylvia goes back to her paragraph and Ruben goes out to the car.
On Monday, one of his days off from the bookshop, Ruben drives into Peakston to the nearest market that sells organic produce, grains, dairy and meat substitutes. Among the many things Ruben has researched online is food, and he’s learned enough to convince himself that food that’s overly processed, flooded with hormones, steeped in pesticides and packaged in plastics or aluminium can wreak havoc on the body’s chemical balance – causing all sorts of things you don’t want like cancer, depression and dementia. His mother’s chemical balance is delicate enough as it is – it doesn’t need help from outside agents to achieve havoc.
His mother is, of course, the reason Ruben worries about his sanity. What if it’s hereditary? It could just be a matter of time before he’s wrapping himself in foil and crawling past windows on his stomach. Not that Sylvia was always like this; she used to be just a regular mom. Went to PTA meetings, threw him birthday parties attended by other children, went shopping, had friends, worked part-time as a secretary, talked to the neighbours, turned on the lights – all the usual stuff. She gradually started to change after his father died. She didn’t see her friends as often, went out less and less, wrote more and more. But there was still the veneer of normality. She slept at night and was up in the day. People came by, she went to the supermarket and the stationery store, she talked on the telephone, she cooked meals, she watched TV with him, the lights were still on. And then, last December, on the day that would have been his parents’ twenty-first wedding anniversary, Ruben came home to find the living room was dark. He shouted out for her. “Mom!” He was late getting home; there should have been lights on by then, smells of cooking, the radio playing classic rock. He dropped his things on a chair and called again. “Mom! Where are you?” From where he stood he could see that the kitchen, too, was dark. He tried the nearest light switch but nothing happened. It took him a few minutes for his eyes to adjust before he realized that she’d taken every bulb from its socket and covered the windows in aluminium foil. “Mom?” There was still no answer, so he went upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. She wasn’t in her bedroom or her office. He kept calling. And at last she answered. “I’m in here, honey.” Feeling slightly nervous, though he wasn’t sure why, Ruben opened the door to the bathroom. His mother was sitting in the tub, dressed to go out, with a helmet made of aluminium foil on her head instead of a hat. “Did you have a good day?” asked Sylvia. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
Of course she was still upset about his father – they both were; it hadn’t been even a year, a very short time in the world of death – but he hadn’t realized just how upset she was. Hadn’t understood that Enzo being struck by lightning had made the whole world so threatening and unsafe for his mother that she finally had to retreat from it. Since that first afternoon, her symptoms have changed from time to time (she’s come out of the bathtub, stopped wearing the helmet, replaced the foil on the windows with space blankets and no longer stays beneath window level when she crosses a room), but she hasn’t got what he would call any better. Not so you’d notice. She won’t use electricity (no computer, no phone, no lights – although she has never suggested shutting down the kitchen appliances or the central heating and will use his laptop, unplugged, if she wants to look up something or check her emails or for the occasional online shopping trip), but it’s okay if he uses electricity so long as it’s not too near her. A woman named Eliza handles her website and answers her fan mail, and Ruben handles her server account. When he has to be out of the house all day he leaves her a flask of coffee, a flask of herbal tea, a bottle of spring water and her lunch in a cool box. She’ll use the landline if she has to (she only has to press one button if she needs to talk to him), and occasionally will leave the house for short periods (but only if Ruben is by her side). Sometimes she’s afraid of being either brainwashed or abducted by aliens, other times she’s terrified of being kidnapped or blown up by terrorists, still others it’s being shot by some random psychopath or being killed by falling space debris that keeps her indoors. If she were willing to travel any distance she wouldn’t take a bus, train or plane; wouldn’t eat in restaurants or stay in a hotel. Which, if she were willing to travel, would limit her destination options considerably.
At first he thought this would be temporary. That it was no more than a very delayed reaction to the shock and grief. He was sure it was the anniversary that triggered it – their first without his dad – bringing the shock and horror back in full force. Ruben believed that once his mother had fully processed her feelings, once she’d completely recovered and had moved on emotionally – had accepted that special occasions no longer included Enzo and never would again – that then the space blankets would come down, the lights would go back on and things would return to how they’d been. But, of course, this has yet to happen. The only thing his mother has got over is being normal; the only thing she’s settled into is her ever-changing and wide-ranging catalogue of anxieties.
Ruben doesn’t want anyone to know about Sylvia. He’s afraid that if it became public knowledge she would be sent away for treatment. He can’t bear to think of her in some institution, lonely and frightened; can’t bear to think of losing her, too.
In the happier past, the Rossis’ bright red door had always been open to Ruben’s friends. Come on over … hang out … stay for supper … spend the night. When Ruben and Orlando were younger there was a tree house and camping in the backyard, picnics and barbecues, birthday parties and fireworks on the Fourth of July. When they were older and the girls joined them, there was a firepit and a finished basement with a ping-pong table, a foosball table and a TV. But then Enzo Rossi was electrocuted by Nature and all that stopped. Ruben has never discussed his mother’s state of mind with anyone, not even Orlando, the brother he never had; he simply shut everyone out. His official story is that his mother is working and can’t have any disturbance. “Writers,” says Ruben, “they’re delicate geniuses.” When he and Sylvia are invited somewhere as a family – a barbecue, a party – or there’s something at school parents are expected to attend, he always says his mother’s away promoting her books. “Half recluse, half performer,” says Ruben. The invisible woman; mother of a boy who is half liar, half magician.
It took his friends a while to realize that things were different. Orlando was the first. After his brother was killed, Orlando lived as much at the Rossis’ as he did at home – possibly more. He slept on the fold-out in Ruben’s room and they did their homework together at the kitchen table; he helped around the house and played Scrabble with them. It was inevitable that sooner or later he’d notice that the drawbridge was up on Castle Rossi. “What’s going on, man?” Orlando asked one rainy afternoon when he called for Ruben and found him already waiting on the porch. “Do I smell or something? You never let me in the house any more.” Ruben laughed (chuckled, Really, hohoho, man, you are funny) and mumbled something vague about his mother, work and stress. “I get that,” said Orlando. “But it’s not like she has to hang out with us. She doesn’t even have to see me. We can go downstairs or to your room.” Ruben said it was complicated. “Complicated,” echoed Orlando. “Complicated like astrophysics? Or complicated like you don’t want to talk about it?” Ruben said, “Both.”
Ruben always enjoys the drive into Peakston. Alone and unlikely to run into anyone he knows, this is as relaxed as he gets without being knocked out. There’s a programme on the radio about the national parks. Ruben’s father used to talk about taking a family trip to Yellowstone one Summer. They’d get an RV and th
e three of them would drive across the country, stopping wherever they wanted along the way, Ruben and his father sketching the mountains, trees and skies, his mother full of songs and reading out interesting stories in local papers. Enzo saved up for years; the trip of a lifetime. But not in his lifetime, as things turned out. Ruben doesn’t think about that now. The presenter’s voice is soft and soothing, and, as autumn days go, this one is a five-star, top-of-the-line day. The air crisp, the sun strong, the leaves like vibrant brushstrokes of colour against the pale blue sky. It’s almost as if he’s on the road – he and his mother and his father – taking the trip that never got taken. He’s reminded of a song his mother used to sing before the music went out of her life, something about mountains and God painting the scenery. And then he pictures Sylvia in her dark, stuffy room; decor courtesy of the Devil himself.
Ruben pulls into the car park and grabs his canvas tote bag from the passenger seat. You might imagine that thinking about his mother would cast a cloud over Ruben’s morning, but he’s whistling what he remembers of the song about God painting the scenery as he strolls to the market. His life is a little weird, he’s not saying it isn’t, but it’s not that bad. Sylvia may not be the prototype of mental health, but she isn’t unhappy. She feels safe on the upper floor of their house, wearing her husband’s old shirts and writing her novels that take place in a faraway and much better world, where she is the heroine, his father is the hero and things always end well. But she doesn’t hurt anybody; and she doesn’t hurt herself, which is the important thing. He’s no longer afraid of being orphaned.
Bread and Land is a small, hippie kind of store – the store that time forgot – all brick and wood and everything unpackaged. The clerk has blue hair and a tattoo; there’s a small red Buddha next to the till and a sign over the chilled case: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. There isn’t an inch of unused or wasted space in the room. Four customers at a time make it look busy; this morning there are six people inside, making it look like a mob scene. Ruben grabs a basket and shuffles through the narrow aisles. He fills paper bags with rice, beans, pasta and nuts. He’s standing in front of the produce section, trying to choose between the broccoli and the cauliflower, when a voice beside him says, “Why not get both?”
It’s a familiar voice, but not in a good way. More in the way that someone who flees to a remote island to escape pursuit would feel if he got off the ferry to find his stalker waiting for him, holding a piece of cardboard with his name on it. Ruben looks over. Sorrel Groober is standing beside him, juggling two stalks of broccoli and a cauliflower – one, two, three, one, two, three – seamlessly as a circus performer. He hasn’t seen her since that afternoon in Curiosity, and, as the days put that incident behind him, has managed to convince himself that this absence of Sorrel would continue. That whatever had made him imagine her in the first place had passed. He should have known better. He should have known that as soon as you have a few minutes’ peace something’s going to ruin it. In this case a talking apparition. One dressed for a snowstorm in a heavy, hooded parka, woolly mittens and knee-high boots. Is there climate change in Heaven or has Hell finally frozen over? He should never have thought about his mother not hurting anyone and him not winding up an orphan, that’s probably what put Sorrel in his head.
Another thing Ruben has researched extensively online is apparitions. Spectres for dummies. He thought it would give him some control over whatever was going on in his head. Turned out that there’s a lot more information out there than he’d imagined. “Ghost sightings” got him over five million results; “hauntings” another five million plus; “ghost visitations” fifty-one million and still counting. Some of the sites and blogs are obviously bogus, the gibbering of delusional or desperate minds. But some of them are impossible to disbelieve. People see things, hear things, smell things; their pets see, hear and smell them, too. Unfortunately, the result of all this new knowledge has been not to empower him, but to make him feel that he’s locked in the boot of a stranger’s car and has no idea where they’re going. So that now, although it’s still hard for him to believe that she’s really there, juggling vegetables, he does have to acknowledge that there’s a chance that she is, and it’s that chance that makes him hiss, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m helping you.” One, two, three – she tosses the broccoli and cauliflower into his basket.
He glances around; no one’s looking his way. “I don’t want your help. Go away!”
“But you need my help.” She picks up a tomato and sniffs it. “Smell that, it’s gorgeous. It smells just like a tomato. My mom shops in supermarkets. The tomatoes don’t smell like anything much.”
“I don’t need your help. Put that down.”
She puts the tomato into his basket (which, technically, is putting it down), but doesn’t go away. “I didn’t know you did the grocery shopping. That’s very evolved of you.”
“You seem pretty evolved, too,” whispers Ruben.
She gives him a smile that a few months ago would have been like a punch in the heart. “Where’s your mom?”
“Where do you think she is? She’s home.”
“I’m surprised, that’s all,” says Sorrel. “I thought she did the shopping. She always had that box of coupons in the car. I mean, my God, your mom’s like supermom. Always baking and cooking. And remember that year my parents were in Florida for my grandmother’s funeral and Sylvia invited me and the twins over for Thanksgiving? There must’ve been thirty people there and she made all that food and she was singing the whole time she was in the kitchen. It was awesome.”
The last Thanksgiving as opposed to the first. “Thirty-eight,” amends Ruben. She used to like a crowd.
“See? That’s exactly what I mean. My mother? My mother thinks ordering takeaway is cooking and paying the housekeeper is cleaning. But your mom—”
“Yeah, well, today she’s really busy. Working.”
“Oh, that’s right. She works a lot.” A statement that sounds like a question. “I remember that, she was always working. She must write like a book a week.”
Is she probing? She’s probing. Sorrel always was the nosey one, the one who pried. Celeste pretty much believes what you tell her and Orlando respects a person’s privacy. They both accepted that they didn’t go to the Rossis’ any more, or that, if they did, they didn’t go past the front door. But not Sorrel. She was always pushing, always looking over his shoulder when he came to the door. Putting on her how-can-you-say-no-to-me smile. The smile that worked with everybody else, but not with Ruben Rossi – not any more.
“Go away, Sorrel. Now.” He is firm and unyielding. Whether she’s a genuine restless soul or an early sign of hereditary insanity, it can’t hurt to at least act as if he’s in charge. “Everybody’s going to think there’s something wrong with you, dressed like that in the middle of August.”
And here comes the smile. “No they won’t.” She holds up a bunch of purple carrots. “No one can see me but you.”
Is that good or bad? If they can’t see her, what can they see? Can they see broccoli, cauliflower and tomatoes leaping into his basket? Carrots dancing in the air? Ruben talking to no one?
“Put those carrots down and leave.” He’s trying to talk without moving his lips but not with much success. Ventriloquism isn’t one of his natural talents. “People are looking at me.” Are they? He can’t risk checking, just in case every other shopper in the store is staring at him, open-mouthed, phones in hand, fingers ready either to film him or to call the police to come and get the boy who’s talking to himself and levitating vegetables. Do they think he’s on drugs or just crazy? Are they afraid he may be dangerous or do they just feel sorry for him? “I mean it, Sorrel.”
She makes a little-girl face and puts on a little-girl voice. “‘I mean it, Sorrel,’” she mimics. “Or what, Ruben?” The carrots start swinging in an alarming way. “What are you going to do if I don’t do wh
at you say?”
This is, of course, a very good question. What can he do? He can hardly frogmarch her out the door. “Please, I’m begging you. Just go away and leave me alone.”
“No,” says Sorrel. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Okay. Have it your way.” This may be establishing a pattern – Sorrel turns up, Sorrel won’t leave, Ruben retreats – but he can’t see what else he can do. He wrenches the carrots out of her hand and puts them, the tomato, the cauliflower and the broccoli back. He retraces his steps and empties the bags of rice, beans, pasta and nuts back into their bins, neatly refolding the bags and putting them back as well. And all the while he does this he is aware that not only is Sorrel watching him, but that other customers are watching him, too. The clerk leans against the counter with an amused smirk on her face. With as much dignity as he can muster, Ruben walks out of the store. Once on the pavement, he half turns, as if his attention has been caught by something up the street, but really he is looking through the window of Bread and Land. Sorrel is standing in the produce island, reaching for the onions. She winks.
It’s all he can do not to wink back.
Mercifully, Officer Gwinnet has been very busy lately, which has taken some of the pressure from his son, but today Orlando gets home later than usual to find his father waiting for him. “Where’ve you been?” demands Bernard. “Don’t you get off at three?” Orlando says he had stuff to do. “Well, better late than never,” says his father. “There’s still time to shoot some baskets before I have to go to work.” He eyes him accusingly. “It’s been a while.”
A while is not necessarily long enough. “I’m kind of tired, Dad,” says Orlando. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Tired? How can you be tired? You’re still a boy. Your brother used to—”