After an hour, all the turtle had done was stay closed. I knocked on its speckled, mud-colored back, but it wouldn’t answer. I turned it upside down, and since its feet were also pulled in, the million wrinkles covering its legs were gone. I tried to pry the shell open with my hands, but it wouldn’t budge.
I left it alone and went upstairs. I found Lucky in the yard and played the I’ll-throw-the-stick-where-did-it-go-it’s-in-your-mouth game because he loved it. When I returned, the turtle had flipped over onto its back, and something inside me dropped. Earlier, I had run my hand over the turtle’s orange belly and felt how soft it was. Upside down would be a dangerous position if the turtle was outside in the wild. So was it surrendering?
I offered it lettuce and nuts. The nuts were no good— they were from a can. But the turtle still wouldn’t emerge. I brought it back, finally, to the place I had found it. I pretended to be a tree and stood very still next to it. I wanted to witness the initial poke of its head out into freedom. It didn’t budge. I felt like an idiot and left.
After dinner, I went outside again with Lucky, and the turtle was gone. It wouldn’t move while I was there, but it somehow knew when I was gone. It wanted nothing to do with me. Turtles are cold-blooded reptiles.
| | |
I mention turtles because of their shells. The events of the past several weeks have left pieces of me scattered everywhere. What I need is something to escape into. A protective shell. At least this day is over.
At the hospital, once my dad had his pajama top on, my mother told us that the fever and the fire-engine rash he was suffering were part of an allergic reaction to one of the drugs the hematologist had prescribed. At least it helped wake him up, we lamely joked. And even though my father could see it on his own skin, he didn’t really seem to believe what was happening. He said he was fine. We didn’t mention the Schwab’s thing.
In the parking lot before we went home, my mother told us that Schwab’s was a famous drugstore in L.A. where people went to be “discovered.” People who wanted to be movie stars. Well, none of us did. As far as I knew. My father had been delirious. As my mother buttoned his pajama shirt when the delirium was over, my dad said, “No more. I’m not the blood works guinea pig.”
“What do you mean? You won’t try any of the new drugs?” my mother asked. “The head of hematology wants to discuss it with you.”
“We can talk about it at home,” my dad said.
| | |
I lie in bed, watching a curve of the fading moon through the curtain. I think of turtles because they are so slow. My dad told me back then it was a box turtle—he didn’t even have to see it when I described it. It takes turtles forever to get anywhere, though it seems in an instant they are gone. Dying is like this, I’ve decided. My dad’s coming home tomorrow.
When the World Comes Back
It’s morning. I’m waiting for the keys of heaven. Maybe some bleeding hearts or Little Miss Muffets will bloom soon. Bunches of forget-me-nots are up already, I see. Those are the scattered mounds of blue sometimes planted around trees because they flower best that way, with a little shade in sight. Forget-me-not.
Such elaborate names for these lopsided stems that arise in the dirt, and such special care. I see people pruning and watering. But not everybody likes a Forever Pink dwarf hydrangea. I’ll say. Me, for one. Not my style, those pink ones that go limp so easily. A little hard rain and kerplunk. Well. How do I even know the names for flowers? Why am I even thinking this stuff? Because my dad told me.
I’m on the bus. I look out the window. The world and its cut lawns, its careful plantings. Eileen is nowhere to be seen, which is unusual. Is she sick or something? She’s always on the bus. But I’m actually so relieved when I discover her absence that I stumble over Loretta Getz’s purple-sneakered feet as I make my way down the aisle. I just don’t see them. Am I color-blind? Or are they even there as I pass? Maybe she means to trip me. I wonder why there is such mystery in the air now, and when, especially, it will stop.
But there’s Eileen in homeroom, and eureka, she’s ignoring me again. That stupid hat again. That foul rag, symbol of all unspoken. It turns away from my voice when I say, “Hey.” I stare at the back of it for a moment, wondering how fast it might ignite if a match accidentally landed on it. Well, I’ve had it. I say, “Nothing’s up, is it, Eileen? I’m just not really standing here, am I?” When I turn away, there’s Jane, handing me a note.
| | |
After the bell, Eileen stops me in the hall. She doesn’t look sick; she looks mad. Can lips quake? Hers are. We’re standing in A wing. Social studies. How appropriate, since my long-lost friend seems to have become a social reject.
“What’s with you?” she says.
“You’ve got that backward, don’t you think?” I say. You’re the one acting like an ax murderer.
“Cute. How come you haven’t called me?” Her hat quivers too.
“Maybe this is just a bad dream,” I say. “Last time I did, you had no comment, remember? No, wait—that’s not true. When I told you my father was really sick, you said, ‘Oh,’ like, ‘Oh, have a nice day,’ remember?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, Virginia. Just because your father’s sick doesn’t mean he’s going to die, you know, I mean, he’s too young, anyone can see that, for one thing.”
And I finally understand. She simply can’t believe it—she’s too afraid. Oh . . .
My head is full of rocks. “But he is going to die, don’t you get it?” Every word is a rock. I think I just might sink into the ground from their weight. “He’s all sprawled out on this hospital bed, and you should see my mother—she looks like there’re black pits dug under her eyes. . . .”
Her face twists. “So he really is.”
“There’s nothing else they can do. He’s coming home today.” The rocks are in my mouth. He’s coming home to die, my mind says. Maybe I’m already sunk.
In an instant, both her arms are around me, her breath in my ear: “I can’t believe it’s true, V, it just can’t be.” But it is. No sooner has she hugged me than she disappears; the warmth of her breath goes cold in my ear. It’s true, I want to shout. But she’s gone. Until this moment some part of me has been rock hard with disbelief; yet now that I’ve actually said it out loud, all of me can hear it. I might throw up. My hands are sweating. The back of my neck is soaked. He is going to die. Maybe I finally believe it. Because I feel like I’m choking, like my mouth is full of dirt.
When the world comes back into focus, it’s the wall I’m staring at. What wall? Here in A wing. I hear a voice, glaring as the sun in my eyes.
“How’s your dog?” It’s Sullivan’s voice.
“Are you talking to me?”
“Well, yeah.” He glances around the empty hall. “We’re the only ones here.” He shrugs and laughs. I look at his eyes, which are open wide, like whatever it is that’s on his mind is too big for them. My eyes are wet. I don’t trust him. “What do you care? How do you know about my dog?” Sullivan shifts from one foot to the other, as if his shoes are the wrong size. “I’m just asking. . . . It’s a small town, you know, that’s all.”
My eyes are wet. His are on fire.
“So what’s it to you?” I say, blinking, all traces of anything soft, like fog, away. I feel my fingers trembling. I can smell something in the air. I know that smell. What is it?
And then his smile fades. “Dunn, I thought you were a clever babe, but something is preventing you from seeing. Where was your pal when your dog got hit?” As Sullivan walks away, his feet don’t leave the floor. He slides, as if his shoes are too big.
The late bell rings. What? Where was Eileen? But that lingering smell, what is it? The burnt stuff at the bottom of a cup. That’s how I connect it. Danger. I can taste it.
This is nuts. I shake my head to clear it of Sullivan, which is not hard—dumb coward hasn’t talked to me in a year. I’m late. I have to get to class. I have to get to my locker and get my
books. My hands shake so bad I hide them in my pockets even though nobody else is in the hall. As I reach in, my fingers close around the note Jane has given me. I don’t have time to read it, but I read it anyway:
Hey, V! Listen to this one—
‘Do I care anymore about the world’s noises and the study hall’s sounds? What will I do with the others around me . . . each head, weighted with sleep, hangs over the desk before it . . . My head leans into my hand, listens to my heart beat with Thimothina.’
Brought to you by the great R. It’s not a poem—it’s a letter Rimbaud wrote—but a fake one. Fiction in letter form, get it? Guess he had study hall too. And that’s about what it’s like last period as I wait to walk home with you. Are we walking home today? You are my Thimothina. J.
I walk into social studies. It’s the wrong class. I have English first. All of me is shook up now. That feeling of somebody else’s life in my body. And who is this Thimothina?
At the Path
Everybody leaves me alone. I make it through English and math unscathed. The only snag I hit is in my elective, Western philosophy.
“So, Virginia,” the teacher, Mr. Burr, says, “which chapter from The Varieties of Religious Experience did you choose?”
“ ‘The Sick Soul,’ ” I say.
| | |
People, of course, laugh. I guess the title would be funny—if it was, that is. But we’re in philosophy, so it’s not. People can be so stupid sometimes; I wonder if they’ll ever change. Mr. Burr, since he’s smart enough to have read the entire book, ignores them.
“So if I were to ask whether you believed in God, based on your experience with that particular chapter, what would you tell us?”
“Seems to me it’s more about what’s inside people than about God.” I’m not in the mood for God.
The chapter was full of discussions about different people struggling to make decisions about what they believed in—dust-to-ashes kind of stuff, like destiny and religion. That’s where the piano-strings were.
“I see.” Mr. Burr nods his head. “That’s a chapter with an interesting story about Tolstoy in it, for those of you who don’t know. In which Tolstoy forgets ‘how to live,’ or, if you like, finds that life has no meaning.” Mr. Burr looks at me.
“It is,” I say. “Life lost all meaning until he was transformed spiritually—until he heard the piano-strings again, I think.”
“And do you disagree with his experience?”
“I don’t think it’s possible to disagree with somebody else’s experience. I mean, if that’s somebody’s experience, how can someone else say it isn’t? That’s illogical, so it’s not the question.”
“That’s true.” Mr. Burr nods again.
And the moment miraculously unsnags, because he doesn’t ask me what the question is. What a relief, since I don’t have an answer. Instead, he starts talking about Tolstoy.
| | | | | |
In French class, Jane asks me to walk again, and I almost say no. I want to get home early because my dad will be there today. But that doesn’t make any sense, really, because we’re going to pick him up later, anyway. And I want to go with Jane, so what’s wrong with me? It seems like I’m scared. Of what?
“Can you walk today?” she says. “We can go to the pond again.”
I stand by her desk on my way down the aisle. “I’m not sure,” I answer. “But you can; you remember the way.
“Not without you,” she says.
There’s a new lump in my throat.
“It’s so soothing at the pond, like a massage for the senses, you know? I need it, and so do you,” she says. Soothing is a good word for it. I think I smile, though I feel I might start choking; I can’t imagine saying a word. But I don’t have to speak, because she keeps talking. I like that about her. Even though people are walking by and making noise, Jane doesn’t care. It’s her world. She’s so comfortable in it. And then there’s me, thinking that Loretta Getz’s purple sneakers are trying to trip me for no reason.
“If I wanted to be idiotic about it, I’d even decide the pond was serendipitous,” she says.
“You don’t feel like being idiotic?” I manage to say. What else would I say? Does she really mean she doesn’t want to go without me?
“Not if I’m the only one,” Jane says.
“I guess it’s hard to find serendipity on your own.” Serendipity is the gift of finding desirable things by accident.
Jane smiles like she knows exactly what I mean, though I’m not sure I do. Somehow I say I’ll meet her outside later, by the path at the edge of the woods.
| | | | | |
It’s another momentous day in May, when the wind lifts the air in an ardent rush. It’s warm enough to take my jacket off, and I do. I let it drop to the ground, and it’s such a good sound, the leather hitting the dirt, a nice, thick thud, that I drop down on top of it. I stretch out, on the field behind the school. Close my eyes. Unwind me. Soothing was Jane’s word for the pond. I can’t wait to get there—it’s less than a mile away. Soothing, calling my name. I look up. It’s the sun in my eyes.
“Hey,” Jane says. Some people come up behind her, on the way to the woods.
“Hi,” I say, squinting as I look toward the bright sky.
The people pass.
“Such a great day, huh? Do you want to stay here for a while?” she says.
“Too much traffic for me.” I stand.
“Okay, let’s get to the pond, then. What’s the name of it, anyway?” Her books are in a knapsack on her back.
She’s got her thumbs hooked into the front pockets of her jeans.
“There is no name,” I say. “In my head I always just call it Quack Pond.”
“Next stop. Quack Pond.”
We start plodding down the dirt path until we’re running. Too bad we can’t fly, because that’s what it feels like. We start to laugh and can’t stop even after we get to the bottom of the hill. I can’t run anymore because my sides are hurting. Not used to laughing, I guess. But Jane keeps going.
“Stop, stop!” I say, “please.” I try to keep up, gulping air. I have no wind. Let the wind in.
“Only if you tell me something. Promise?” She turns, runs backward now, but slow, since we’re in the woods.
“I give up.”
“Say it!”
“I promise!” I say, and stop.
She whirls around. “Why do they call you Le Chien?”
“Oh, shit,” I say.
“You promised! If you don’t tell, that’s the end, Virginia!” Jane tosses her knapsack to the ground.
“The end of what?”
“Don’t try it; don’t change the subject.”
“Nice jacket,” I say, and point to her motorcycle jacket. “Have I said that before? I mean it.” And I do. I grab the knapsack from the ground. “So what’s in here?”
“Look, you promised.” She lurches for the knapsack, but I’m too quick.
“What’s in here?” I say. “Secrets?”
“I don’t keep secrets.”
“Oh, no? What do you do—give them away?”
We both start to laugh.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I say, and toss her the knapsack.
“Hey, I didn’t say anything about deals,” Jane says. “But okay, Dunn, let me guess . . . You guys did a play in French class, and . . .”
I interrupt. “Don’t bother guessing. It’s stupid, really. . . . It’s just that there was another Virginia in my class, so when we were getting renamed in French, Madame Audroue, the teacher, told me to open my French book and pick out a word. So there it was—chien. ‘Chien, merci,’ said Madame. ‘Les chiennes, le chien. And so we shall call you Le Chien and avoid confusion with Virginie, n’est-ce pas?’ And that’s how I got to be called the dog. Humiliating enough?”
Jane is laughing. “It’s kinda nice, I think.”
“Sure it is. But I am not a dog. . . .”
“Not in this lifetime.”
We walk.
“So did they do Romeo and Juliet in your old school?” I finally say.
“ ‘But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?’ ” Romeo, in the form of Jane, is before me. We are leaving the woods now, coming to the paved road about a quarter of a mile from school. We have to cross that and then a field to get to the pond.
“Oh, how I go for that line, you know? But soft . . .”
“What do you think of the play?” I ask.
“Now that’s a simple question,” she says.
“Get this,” I say. “ ‘The foundation of any romantic attachment is passion.’ ” I repeat Sanders’ phrase.
“Foundation? Is love a building?”
I wish I’d thought of that. What did I think? Oh yeah, attachment is what stuck in my mind. The foundation part made no sense to me. We cross the road. We’re almost there. But the play is stuck in my head. “ ‘Romeo come forth, thou fearful man. Affliction is enamor’d of thy parts, and thou art wedded to calamity,’ ” I say. It’s a phrase we read this morning.
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