by Ann McMan
“No metaphor in that,” Barb muttered.
“We’ve had this conversation. I don’t do metaphors. That’s reserved for your crew of wackos back there.” Mavis tossed her head toward the inn.
“At least they’re trying to make a difference.”
“How? By inventing two hundred new sex positions?”
“I wasn’t talking about Viv.”
Mavis laughed.
“That’s it for me.” Barb ground out her half-finished cigarette. “I’m turning in.”
“You go on ahead and I’ll catch up with you. I gotta take a piss.”
“Now?” Barb stood up. “You can’t make it back to the room?”
Mavis got up, too. “It don’t work that way.”
“Ooo-kaay.” Barb collected her smokes and tucked them inside her jacket pocket. “See you in a few.”
Mavis nodded and began making her way toward the cedar trees that lined the cliffs along this end of the property. Barb watched her go until her shape dissolved into the night and the only thing visible was the red-orange glow of her cigarette.
Quinn was rooting around inside the dark kitchen, trying hard to be quiet so Page Archer wouldn’t hear her. Even though the innkeeper lived in a house located on the opposite end of the property, she had ears like a bat. She tended to swoop in like a bat, too—out of no place. Quinn had learned that one the hard way. If this damn retreat were a movie, Page Archer’s theme song would be just like the one that always played before Darth Vader showed up.
She’d been halfway back across the black water tonight when she decided that another one of those funky Canadian bologna sandwiches would taste pretty good. She was hungry from working so hard. People thought fishing was easy. But it wasn’t. Not for her, anyway. Fishing was exhausting. You had to pay attention to everything. And in fishing, everything meant nothing.
Quinn had spent more time in the last week paying attention to nothing than she’d ever done in her entire life. That was because fishing was all about what happened in those quick, fleeting moments when nothing became something. That’s when you knew your luck was going to change.
After she made her sandwich, she was going to try to score some of that aspic to take out with her in the morning. Even if that weird dream was just a result of drinking too many of those pale ales, she had an inkling to try an experiment. Who knew? Maybe those stupid fish really would like that shit?
Stupid. Phoebe wasn’t stupid. Quinn knew that now. How else would she have been able to avoid being caught for two hundred years?
That’s where the aspic came in. Even if that encounter had just been a beer-induced dream, Quinn knew she wasn’t the one who ate that crap. That meant something had happened. It wasn’t her style to worry things to death or fracture her brain trying to work out the details. That’s what those paranormal types like Darien Black spent their time spinning yarns about—all that woo-woo jazz. Walking dead. What a crock of shit. Name one person you passed on any city street at high noon of any day in the week who wasn’t walking dead? They all were. And they didn’t need pancake makeup or fog machines to prove it.
Where did Gwen find those Ziploc bags?
Quinn yanked open a drawer and knocked over a precariously balanced stack of baking pans. She tried to catch them but it was too late. They clattered to the floor like cascading sheets of metal thunder.
Now I’m done for.
The swinging door that led to the service area swung open. She heard the snap of a switch and the overhead lights blazed into life. She stood there blinking stupidly and trying to shield her eyes. It could only be one person.
“What the hell are you doing in here?”
Page Archer. Her dulcet tones were unmistakable.
“I was hungry.” Quinn began.
“You’re always hungry. There’s a deli up the road a mile.”
Quinn’s eyes were finally adjusting to the light. Her scattered sandwich fixings were strewn across the prep board.
“I know,” she explained. “But they close at eight.”
Page walked closer and tsked at the mess. “Maybe you should plan ahead.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll clean all this up.”
Quinn began to reach for the loaf of bread, but Page stopped her.
“What kind of sandwich did you want?”
“Um. Bologna?”
Page strode around the island and nudged Quinn out of the way. The woman was short, but strong. Quinn danced out of her path. She glared at Quinn. The overhead light reflected off the lenses of her glasses, but Quinn could still see her set of piercing blue eyes.
“Pick up those baking sheets.”
Quinn complied while Page took charge of making her sandwich.
“Mustard?”
Quinn nodded.
“There are some dill pickles in the reach-in fridge.” Page gestured toward the large, stainless steel and glass cooler that ran along the side wall of the kitchen.
Quinn didn’t really like dill pickles but she knew better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. She walked over to the massive cooler.
“I don’t see them.”
“Bottom shelf on the left. Behind the aspic.”
That gave her an idea. In for a penny, in for a pound. Why not ask Page about why they make so much of that crap?
“Can I ask you a question?”
Page was slicing the spiced meat with a knife that could have doubled as a hacksaw. She looked up at Quinn over the rims of her glasses. “As long as it doesn’t have anything to do with those sophomoric bondage stories you write.”
“You read some of my books?”
“Against my better judgment. Barb sent me copies of everyone’s work.”
“You didn’t like them?”
“Yours?”
Quinn nodded.
“I won’t deny that there are some good—descriptions—in there. But they get lost in the weeds of all that other drivel.”
“Drivel?”
“That’s what I call it.”
Quinn started to raise her hands in protest, but thought better of it and let them drop back to her sides. She really did want that sandwich.
“My readers don’t think I write drivel.” She did her best not to sound defensive.
“That’s because your ‘readers’ are probably twelve-year-old boys.”
Quinn didn’t really feel comfortable trying to refute Page’s suggestion. Especially since she had a sneaking suspicion that her assessment was right. She handed Page the jar of pickles.
“Not all of them,” she suggested.
“You’re probably right. I’d imagine they’d be popular in prison libraries, too.”
Prison libraries? Quinn had never considered that. Images of an untapped retail outlet spread out before her.
“You mean like those Sleeping Beauty books Anne Rice wrote?”
Page stopped spreading mustard on the bread and stared at her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Quinn was shocked by her response. “They’re classics.”
“Classics? Classic what?”
Quinn shrugged. “Erotica.”
Page rolled her eyes and went back to spreading mustard. “There’s nothing ‘classic’ about erotica. It’s porn.”
“It’s not porn.”
“Yes it is.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because any book that is required to begin with a disclaimer attesting that all of the characters depicted are consenting adults over the age of eighteen is porn.”
“Erotic writing can be beautiful.”
“Graphic depictions of sex acts are smut. No matter how beautifully written they are.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Of course.” Page was cutting Quinn’s sandwich in half. The knife made an uneasy shushing sound as it slid across the butcher block. “It’s pandering. A cheap, base way to sell more copies of books to people who are stalled in adolescence and can’t keep their hands
out of their pants.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Everything. It’s part of the same addiction we have to shock value and graphic content in general. Why do you think those videos that show beheadings are always blasted across the Internet?”
“That’s different. That’s news.”
“It’s not news. It’s merchandizing. And it’s an epidemic. The more we see, the more immune we become to the horrors being depicted. So the drive exists to invent new and deeper horrors that will attract even greater viewership—or in your case, readership—all to generate more revenue. What gets lost in the shuffle is any conscious connection or response to the awful realities being depicted. We’ve created an entire culture that is increasingly desensitized to meaning. And that includes what happens when we share love and intimacy with a partner.”
Quinn blinked.
“Have you ever talked with Phoebe?”
“Phoebe?”
“Yeah.” Quinn made an oblique gesture toward the lake. “Out there. The fish.”
Page narrowed her eyes. “Don’t tell me you believe all those ridiculous fairy tales about a two-hundred-year-old bass?”
“Well . . .”
Page sighed. “Is that why you’re still doing this whole tournament thing? Because you want to be the one to catch her?”
Quinn didn’t reply. Mostly because she didn’t know the answer.
Page grabbed a plate off a stainless steel shelf and put a pickle and the two, fat halves of Quinn’s sandwich on it.
“Don’t get caught up in the hype surrounding this. Don’t allow yourself to believe that winning this contest means anything more than getting lucky and tripping over the biggest fish—which, by the way, gets tossed right back into the water. There are no great, hidden meanings in this. There’s just a lot of smoke and mirrors that don’t add up to anything but big profits for the corporate sponsors.”
“So you don’t think she’s real?”
“Who? Phoebe?”
Quinn nodded.
Page opened her mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it.
“Do you think she’s real?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.” Quinn gave Page a shy smile. “Maybe? I’m not really sure.”
“Quinn? When you can describe what it is that drives you to do this—when you can explain why you’re so captivated by the idea of this elusive fish, when you can be honest about your motivations and desires—you’ll be close to understanding the difference between real and inauthentic kinds of storytelling.”
“Did Barb ask you to come in here and talk to me?”
Page handed Quinn the plate. “No one asked me to talk to you.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I know.”
Quinn deliberated. She glanced back at the reach-in cooler.
“Can I ask you about something else?”
“What is it?” Page was piling up items to take to the dishwashing station.
“That aspic stuff.” Quinn gestured toward the big bowl of the red gelatin. “Nobody really likes it.”
Page nodded. “I know.”
“So why do you always have it on the menu?”
Page sighed. “When Doug and I bought this place thirty years ago, it was little more than a fleabag motel with a pint-sized kitchen and eight tables. But even then, there were a couple of things they were famous for serving.”
“Aspic?”
Page nodded. “That was one of them.”
“What were the others?”
“Boston cream pie—and turkey dinner on Sundays.”
“Those are both good.”
“Some people think the aspic is good, too.”
Quinn doubted that, but she knew better than to argue with Page Archer. Besides—Phoebe seemed to like it.
“As long as Doug and I own this place, we’ll always serve tomato aspic—right along with Boston cream pie, and turkey on Sundays.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
Page waved a hand over the scattered food items on the prep board. “I’ll clean this up. You go on and do whatever it was you were going to do.”
Quinn didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything.
She took her sandwich and headed back outside to find a welcoming spot beneath the dark and endless sky.
Essay 5
It started out like any other summer day. School was out, so there wasn’t really any schedule to keep. We could sleep late, but we rarely did. My brothers and I knew that these long, hot summer days were like gifts, and were not to be squandered. Besides, our mother had a propensity for locking us all out of the house after breakfast. I often wondered why she ever had kids: she didn’t really seem to like us all that much.
But we made the best of it, and we understood that we generally needed to have plans for how we intended to fill the hours between breakfast and lunchtime. This wasn’t hard for my brothers. They pretty much did everything together, leaving me alone to fend for myself. I didn’t really mind. I was just about to turn thirteen, and I was starting to fill out in ways that made me feel uncomfortable around boys. And this was especially true around my brothers and their friends, because they were the ones who pointed out how my tiny breasts made the front of my t-shirt poke out. I hated them for that. And right now, I hated being a girl, too. I didn’t like all the ways my body was starting to change and take on an unfamiliar life of its own—just like the alien that grew inside Sigourney Weaver. I didn’t understand it, and I was too shy and afraid to ask anyone to help me understand it. Even those “films” they made us watch in health class just filled me with fear and despair. After they were over, we’d all walk out of the gym, single file, and nobody would make eye contact with anybody else. The only thing I was certain of was that I didn’t want to have to experience any of the things that were about to befall me.
So most days, I’d ride my bike across town to hang out and play with my best friend, Janis—who lived about half a mile away, off Montgomery Avenue. I wasn’t supposed to ride my bike along main roads, so I had to wind my way through a fieldstone maze of neighborhood side streets to get there. It wasn’t safe to do otherwise: my mother seemed to have spies on every street corner, and I’d been ratted out more than once for daring to cross any street that had more than two lanes of traffic.
Janis wasn’t home on the day that everything fell apart. I rode over there after breakfast, as usual, but when I got to her house, her mother’s light blue Oldsmobile wasn’t in the driveway—and nobody answered when I knocked on their back door.
That was a colossal drag.
I had more than three hours to kill until lunchtime, and I wasn’t feeling very well. My stomach was cramping like I’d eaten something spoiled. I didn’t have any choice but to climb back on my bike and head for home. Pedaling seemed a lot harder than usual, even though I was backtracking along the same route I took every day. After a block or two, I noticed that something was different. My shorts felt wet. When I slowed down to check it out, I was shocked to see that the insides of my thighs were stained dark red. My heart sank. Standing there, straddling my bike beneath a canopy of maple trees, I understood that my life had just changed forever. Somehow, I knew everything without knowing anything. Words whispered behind hands in the lunchroom came back to me.
“She started. That means she can get pregnant.”
Pregnant? I touched my fingertips to the red fabric of my shorts. Is that what this meant? Was I going to get pregnant, too? I started to panic. My hand was now red and sticky. I looked around for someplace to wipe it off. But that meant I’d have to get off my bike, and I didn’t want anyone to see me—especially not that cranky old man who lived in the big house on the corner, and who always seemed to be out on his front steps, watching to be sure I didn’t ride my bike across his grass. So, instead, I wiped my hand on the inside of my thigh, beneath the hem of my shorts. I had no choice, now, but to ride on home and wait for my mother t
o let me back inside the house.
I didn’t want her to know about this, but I didn’t know how I could hide it from her, either.
Like I said, she really didn’t seem to like us all that much, and I was pretty sure she would be angry with me for causing problems.
Then I got an idea.
My grandmother lived about a mile away, and she always liked it when I stopped by for a visit. She’d make iced tea in those tall, skinny glasses, and we’d sit on her porch and watch the bright purple grackles pick at the ground beneath the chokeberry bushes that lined the perimeter of her backyard. She was kind, and she never asked me a lot of questions. Sometimes we would sit together for long periods of time without speaking at all.
It was mid-morning, so I knew that Bubbe would be back from Shacarite. Morning prayer services were held every weekday at her synagogue, Lower Merion. Bubbe usually walked there with her neighbor, Mrs. Klein. After services, the two of them would sometimes stop off at the kosher bakery for fresh loaves of raisin challah.
I turned my bike around and headed back up Melrose Avenue. If I hurried, the challah might still be warm.
I was in luck. When I got there, Bubbe was at home, and Mrs. Klein had already gone. When Bubbe opened her big front door and saw me standing there, I burst into tears. I couldn’t hold it back. She pushed the door open wider and ushered me inside. Bubbe was still wearing her wig, so I knew that she hadn’t been home for very long.
“What’s the matter, Almah?” she asked.
I looked at her lined face with its kind, blue eyes. “I started,” I blurted out.
She looked confused, so I pointed down at my stained shorts.
She stared at me for a moment, then I saw recognition flicker across her features. “You are Niddah?” she asked.
I had no idea what that meant, but I was pretty sure she was asking the right question, so I nodded.
Then she smiled. I couldn’t believe it. My world was coming to an end, but Bubbe was smiling at me like I’d just told her that I made the “A” honor roll at school.
She reached out a bony finger and lifted my chin. “No tears. You are now Ishah—a woman. There is much to celebrate.”
“I don’t want to be a woman, Bubbe,” I wailed. I couldn’t tell her that I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be a girl.