An Ocean of Minutes

by Thea Lim

  She stopped only when she had to, when the soles of her feet were burning and sweat was dripping from her chin. She had reached a small park. She came to her senses. She had to find Frank first. A kiosk next to the park was selling used paperbacks, heaped in color-coded pillars and fanned like exotic feathers to belie their age.

  “Do you sell current maps?” she asked.

  She spread out her map on a bench. The map was hand-printed and duplicated with some kind of imprecise, smudgy technique, but as far as she could tell, it was accurate. It even had an index. She looked under G. Using her finger to measure the inches, she found that she was about a mile and a half from Grape Street. She had never heard of Grape Street. She could not picture the neighborhood, which was just as well.

  A nearby sandwich board advertised a swimming pool and public baths. It cost two dollars to go swimming and five dollars for the deluxe package, which included a swim, shower use, towel rental, and soap.

  She scrubbed the soap bar in her hair. It made her smell like chalk. She put on her new clothes and untangled her hair with her fingers as best she could. She put on the lipstick and the blusher, her hand shaky. The makeup felt like wax.

  It was as if she were wearing some sort of absurd camouflage. She wiped off the makeup, washing her face three times, and even then a pinky shadow stayed. She wanted to get her coveralls out of the garbage, but other women were filing in, and she couldn’t go through the trash in front of them. She had forgotten to get the cookie too, before she ditched her old clothes.

  She sat in the bleachers by the pool and looked at the map again, memorizing the turns, so that she wouldn’t have to take it out and consult it later on, like a tourist in her own home. She put her head back and leaned weakly against the steps. It was humid, the air tanged with the smell of chlorine. She watched strong women do the butterfly, up and down and back again. The pace clock read nearly five o’clock. She wished she didn’t have to go alone. She wished Frank were with her on this journey to find him. What was in the corner of her eye almost slipped to the center, but she got going on her way before that could happen.

  It was rush hour. Trolleybuses ran on electrified poles, looking like puppets. They idled behind the masses of cyclists, their motors revving aggressively whenever a gap opened. Trishaws went by, with as many as three passengers tucked within. On a highway flyover, she saw dump trucks and cube vans, but hardly any cars. Her new shoes were made of nothing, and she could feel every crack in the sidewalk. She was sure she was lost again, then she reached an archway over Carlton Street and Michigan that said, The Fruit Belt.

  Past the archway, it got very quiet, as if a cloth had been dropped over the city squawking behind her. Big, ropey maple trees lined the street and old, grand houses were set back behind winding driveways and laboriously constructed gardens. Sometimes there were smaller houses, thoughtfully appointed quaint cottages that must cost just as much. There was no one on the sidewalk or in a yard. She passed Lemon Street. There were only two more streets until she reached Grape.

  She was overcome with stupor. She had the idea that it would be lovely to lie down on the pavement and go to sleep just for a few minutes. She was as tired as if she had traveled here on foot from 1981. Maybe she should come back when she was feeling better. She had the money for at least a few nights’ lodging. She could manage on her own for a while.

  It was a big white house on the corner, with four-pane windows and rosebushes. There was no cover out front, no hedges or benches. Anyone looking out the window would see her in plain view.

  She rang the doorbell. She imagined it ringing and ringing and no one coming, but almost right away the door opened. It was a teenage girl with a sleek ponytail and pressed clothes.

  “I’m sorry,” Polly said. “I have the wrong address.”

  When she was almost away, back at the curb, she saw a fancy stand-alone mailbox with carved birds. It had Casa Marino printed across it in scrolling script.

  Polly rang the bell again. The same girl opened the door; this time her face clouded with irritation.

  “So sorry. I’m looking for Frank?”

  “Frank’s not here,” the girl said in a weird, almost mocking monotone. “He’s out of town and we don’t know when he’ll be back.”

  “Oh. Are you . . . his housekeeper?”

  “No!” the girl shouted, offended.

  Not his wife, Polly thought, bile rising in her throat. You can’t be his wife.

  “I’m his daughter,” the girl snapped, and slammed the door.

  * * *

  She found herself at a bar on Main, in a single-seater booth in the window, with no recollection of having walked there. The server came over to take her order. Polly unthinkingly asked for water.

  “That’s all?” the server said, sighing.

  Polly thought for a second. “A beer?” she said, racking her brain for the name of a beer.

  “How about a Bud? Would you like a Bud and a glass of water?” the server said, with weary helpfulness.

  Dusk was falling and crowds were going home for the night. The sun was pouring its last breath in through the window and directly into her eyes, but she didn’t turn away.

  She felt the bite of the bubbles on her tongue and remembered that she had never really liked beer. Within five minutes the alcohol had intensified her stupor to an agonizing degree. If she could just sleep, if she could just put her head down and close her eyes and sleep, everything would be fine. But the server kept glancing at her suspiciously and she did not want to do anything that would get her kicked out, because she didn’t have anywhere else to go.

  Polly was aware that something was wrong with her, but she was not able to put her finger on what it was or what to do about it. She imagined this was what it was like to be in a car crash, where you can’t quite figure out if it’s your leg or your arm that’s pinned, but the shock of it keeps you serene. Shock—that was what this was. Yet knowing that did nothing to lift the fog.

  Later, the bar filled behind her. It sounded like a party of old friends. She thought of her own friends, Cookie, even Norberto. Cookie had risked her neck to help her. Norberto had sold his dream to get her here. And for what? If her own suffering was inaccessible, theirs was not. They had given so much to send her to this very moment because they wanted to believe that love endured, and she had failed them.

  She put one hand over her whole face. She felt her breath whistling between her fingers, getting faster and crazier, and she gulped down the remaining beer to make the stupor return. The cacophony of the crowd built to a sudden peak. A man in a dark suit had come in and the bar staff were greeting him. He accepted a kiss on the cheek from Polly’s server before he took a stool, tapping a pack of cigarettes on the rail, patting his pockets for a light.

  She knew that back. It was changed, more bulging at the shoulders, a different curve to the spine. But she would recognize it anywhere. The back of his hand. The line of his jaw.

  She waited for him to turn around. She sat absolutely still. She could wait forever.

  The server leaned over and whispered something in his ear. She cocked her head in Polly’s direction. And he turned around, and he saw her.

  How many times had she thought she’d seen those eyes?

  And then he turned away.

  There was a frantic beating in her throat, and she realized that she had stopped breathing. She tried to take a breath but couldn’t. Her face was burning as if she had been slapped.

  But then he stood. He took a step. He was walking towards her, the love of her life, and he was saying her name.

  * * *

  She saw his arm coming towards her and his chest pulling level with hers as he bent, about to embrace her, and her shoulder cried out for his palm. And then their breastbones met and her arms made a halo around his ribs and his chin docked against her ear. At last they were back in that beloved space, the circle of each other’s arms. And all the days and all the trouble were blanked out b
y the pealing of her heart.

  Then he stepped away.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  She laughed, giddy. “What are you sorry for?” She stepped towards him, to reclose the space.

  “I don’t know.” He laughed too, but it was a courteous, impersonal sound. “That was forward of me.” He stepped away again, until the table was between them. “Please, sit.” His words were alarmingly formal.

  His hair was longer, blacker, slicked straight back, like a banker’s. His features were more strained, as if they had outgrown his skin. She concentrated on how his face was still his face. Under his suit jacket, he was wearing a crisp, white dress shirt, with the neck unbuttoned at the collar. When he sat down, he positioned himself far from the table, and he had to reach to grab her glass of water. He took a drink, a fat, hasty swallow, and then his eyes widened.

  “That was your water, wasn’t it? God, I’m sorry!” He smacked his hand to his forehead. He waved the server over and ordered more drinks and another glass of water, explaining that he had accidentally drunk hers, could you believe it?

  “It’s okay,” she said, and then, puzzled by his fuss—imagining that maybe, in his post-flu life, he’d become a germophobe—she said, “I only had a sip.”

  “So embarrassing,” he said. He apologized again. “I don’t know what I was thinking. What an idiot.”

  “It’s me!” she cried. “You can drink my water!”

  He made a face like the inside edges of his eyebrows were trying to touch each other.

  At the clinic, in August in 1981, when she finally arrived at his bedside after reams of bloodwork and red tape, they had touched hands through the isolation tent and his eyebrows had reached to catch each other as he tried to smile. A face like a dissonant note, the look of someone who has just made an indelible mistake.

  Or had he made that face? Was it probable that she’d remembered such a traumatic moment so clearly? Her memory could just be filling in gaps, transposing his look from some other, minor time onto the clinic. Maybe it was a face he made when he used the last of the milk, or spilled water on her book.

  There was no way of ever knowing for sure.

  Then, in a wink, like a hologram, his face changed. It took on an opaquely cheerful, blank expression.

  “Well!” he said. “How’ve you been?”

  It was the strangest question she’d ever heard.

  She rubbed her fingers across her temple and heard their rustle through her skull. When they had been in each other’s arms, it was as if the world had gone into a softer focus. But now she was back to the dreadful sharpness of reality.

  “You have a daughter,” she said, because it was the only thing to say.

  His hand had been lying open on the table. He took it away, buried it somewhere below.

  “Yes. Felicia.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Fourteen.”

  Only ten years younger than Polly.

  “You aren’t surprised I know you have a daughter?” She had nothing left in her, nothing to act as a buffer or a filter, and the words were flopping out of her mouth any old way, as soon as they came into her head.

  “Okay. How do you know I have a daughter?” He cleared his throat and stuck his chin out to scratch his neck.

  He looked like someone else wearing Frank’s skin. But she knew this movement well. She could read his gestures as clearly as if they were players on a baseball team. He was pretending.

  “I went to your house. She said you were out of town.” Could he read her too?

  “Did she?” Again he stuck out his chin.

  Then she saw what had happened, as clear as if his skull were made of glass. He had been at the house. He must have told his daughter to say he was away. But why would he do that?

  Her knees were trembling and she couldn’t make them stop.

  The server placed two drinks in front of them: something clear and fizzy in a rocks glass for him and another Bud for her.

  “Cheers!” the server said.

  He picked up both drinks and clinked them together and put hers in front of her, unsmiling.

  She wanted to touch him. She wanted him to come and sit next to her and put his arm around her so badly she was in actual pain. Her stomach was cramping and her knees just wouldn’t stop.

  “Do you mind if I smoke?”

  She saw that his hands were shaking.

  They sat in appalling silence, the ice in Frank’s glass melting to a film as he smoked a cigarette, and then another.

  “Why did your daughter say you were out of town?”

  “I don’t know. Being a teenager?” He blew smoke out of the corner of his mouth, and then he gazed after the trail.

  Why are you acting like this? she wanted to shout. But that would be to behave with intimacy, tantamount to saying this was the person she’d loved.

  “Where are you staying? Are you staying with Donna? Is she the one who told you where I live?”

  “Donna?”

  “Yes.” He laughed. “You’ve forgotten your aunt?”

  His smile plunged as she put her head in her hands and, at long last, began to weep.

  “I thought she must be dead.”

  “No. She lives around the corner.” He touched her elbow gently.

  He led her up the street. The rain had started again, a drizzle misting their faces with wet. His gait was different. It was looser, sleeker.

  “You’re married,” she said, those flopping words coming again.

  He shook his head. “Separated. In the midst of divorce.”

  “You’re rich.”

  “I’m in real estate. I opened some bars too.”

  “Do you own that one? The one we just left?”

  He nodded. “It was just timing. Louisa, my ex, her parents got us across the border. They have money. A lot of people were moving to Buffalo then. We had power, because of the dams, when lots of other places didn’t. Her family was good at taking advantage of that opportunity. I started off working for them, and then I got my own company. It was sort of a fluke. Could have happened to anyone.” Of all the things to apologize for, he was apologizing for being rich. “What do you think of Buffalo?” he asked.

  “I don’t recognize any of it.” The desire to cry came again, but she managed not to.

  “What was America like?”

  She would get this question over and over, for the rest of her days, the chummy, innocent asker never understanding that it was an impossible question.

  “It was okay.”

  He paused, and she thought he was about to throw off this awful disguise and become himself again. Then he said, “Did you know that we’re a closed system?” He explained, in great detail, how the United States had to supply all of its own goods and services, either because of strict trade regulations to prevent the spread of disease, or because import and export partners of the past had not yet reached the level of solvency necessary to resume trade partnerships—an unstoppable, vomited monologue.

  They arrived at an apartment building set off on its own, fenced in wrought iron, milky lights illuminating the cornices from below.

  Polly eyed the opulent facade. “Is Donna in real estate too?”

  “I bought her this apartment.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “Because. I owed it to you to take care of her.”

  Polly tried to open the gate but it was locked.

  “You need the access code. Wait, Polly—wait. When did you get here?”

  “Last night.”

  “I mean, when did you get here, to now?”

  “Last September.”

  “I tried to find you. But they didn’t know when you were going to arrive until you actually arrived.”

  “I know.” The cramps were now so acute that it was difficult to stand up straight. “Frank. Do you remember . . . things?”

  “What things?”

  She wanted to ask something that would uncover him, like testi
ng for a replicant.

  “You put a photo of us in my bra. Do you remember that?”

  He blew out his cheeks. Another tell. Nerves. Discomfort.

  “I can’t recall. Why did I do that?”

  Where was the man who rescued the rocking chair, who darned her socks, who loved his mother, who saved bottle caps, things she had mocked, to force the minutes to stay? She would study his eyes and hands and the inside of his wrist, but she was no longer allowed to stare.

  “Can you tell me how to get in?” She shook the gate. “Please tell me the code.”

  “It’s your birthday.”

  The foyer was ablaze with dynasty lamps and crammed with sofas and beefy rugs. A suited security guard waved when he saw Frank climb the stoop.

  “Now what do we do?” Frank said when they reached the top.

  There was a shriek from behind the glass. Donna was in the foyer, her fist at her temple, crying out. The security guard averted his eyes and they ran to each other and put their arms around each other and held on for dear life. Polly was gulping and trying not to suffocate and Donna’s flowered sweater was in her mouth. Then Donna took Polly’s face in both her hands and said, “How long have I waited for this day?”

  Frank had left them at the elevators. “Maybe I’ll come by on Sunday?” he’d said, but Sunday came and went, and he never showed.

  Polly didn’t notice Donna’s limp right away. Her aunt pulled up her pant leg and tapped her ankle with her cane. It made a hard, hollow sound. She removed her sock to show Polly her artificial foot. “Looks like a picture of a photograph,” Donna said. “Managed to avoid getting the flu, did not manage to avoid getting sepsis.” She blew raspberries at concern. “I’ve still got the other one!”

  Donna had taken up sewing. From cut-up scraps of abandoned dresses and T-shirts, she made blouses and trousers and tracksuits, in splendiferous colors with gold piping and sequins. She sold them on consignment at the markets. Her sewing machine buzzed and whizzed while Polly lay on the rug in the sewing room, which doubled as her bedroom, listening to her cabin mate’s radio station. It took a few days, but eventually Donna got comfortable enough around Polly to go without her prosthetic.