by Nicky Singer
“Jess, please, tell me, just tell me.”
Zoe is back in my house.
“Whatever it is,” Zoe says, “we can work it out.”
We.
We can work it out.
“Look, okay, I know I haven’t exactly been, well, oh, Jess . . . you know what? You scare me. You’re so wrapped up in yourself right now. I can’t reach you anymore. I don’t know who you are anymore, Jess. Are you hearing me? Jess!”
I’m hearing her and the other noises, the screeching ones, they’re getting a little quieter. She’s come. She didn’t get the letter and she’s come. Anyway.
I stop running.
She puts out her hand, touches me on the shoulder.
“Jeez,” she says, “you are so cold.”
She slips off her boots and her jacket and pushes me through to the kitchen.
“How can anyone be that cold?”
I stand there and suddenly, like Roger the Wreck, I just rattle. My teeth rattle, my bones rattle, my mind rattles, and shivers go up and down my body in continuous waves.
“You’ve got to get warm,” Zoe says, and she tries to hold my hands in hers, but even the faint difference in temperature (Zoe’s hands are not warm, but they’re warmer than mine) makes me cry out with pain.
“Get those clothes off,” says Zoe. “Get those stupid socks off.”
But I can’t bend and my fingers won’t work.
She makes me lie down, right there on the kitchen floor, and she pulls at all the wet clothes and still I shiver.
“Rug,” she says. “You need a rug. Where’s a rug? No, bed. You’d be better off in bed. Or a bath. Yes, that’s it. You should go in the bath.”
I don’t resist. I just let her push me up the stairs and I sit on the bathroom stool while she runs the water. I notice I still have my underwear on, but that seems wet through, too.
“Take it off,” she says, nodding at my underwear, and when I just continue to sit there, she comes to help me.
And then I’m naked.
Which is okay.
With Zoe.
“Get in.”
I try my toe in the water and shriek with pain.
“What is it?”
“Too hot.”
She puts her hand in the water, stirs it about. “It’s not that hot. It’s fine.” But she puts some more cold in anyway. “Maybe your body . . .” She doesn’t finish the sentence.
And then I get in. Then I lie in the warmish water and let my body thaw.
Tears well out of my eyes.
“Don’t cry,” says Zoe. “Why are you crying?”
And I don’t know if it’s the warmth of the water or the warmth of we, or whether it’s just my body giving up, giving in.
“I don’t know,” I say.
She sloshes some water over my stomach. “It’s not about Easter, is it?” she says. “Or Paddy. It’s not about any of that stupid stuff, is it?”
I look right into her mirror eyes.
“Did you like going to the movie with him?”
“With who?”
“Paddy.”
“When did I go to a movie with Paddy?”
“Yesterday. When you couldn’t come with me—to the Buddhist Center.”
“Who said I went with Paddy? I went with my cousin—Savvy. I went with my family.”
The water is lap-lap-lapping around my body. Or slap-slap-slapping. Stupid, stupid, stupid Jess. Jumping to conclusions—that’s what Si calls it. Sensible people, says Si, do not jump to conclusions.
“Though I don’t see why I shouldn’t go with Paddy. Not if I want to.”
“No. You’re right,” I say. “You’re right, Zoe. I mean, a person can like two people at the same time, right? Like just because I love Clem, doesn’t mean I have nothing left over for Richie, does it?”
“Huh?” Zoe stares at me. “I’m not sure where love comes into this. Not with me and Paddy, anyway. I mean, he’s funny, he’s good to have around, but . . . well, if I wanted to go to see a movie, I’d probably rather go with you.”
“With me?”
“Yes, with you, stupid.”
Water slaps around me.
“And just for the record,” continues Zoe, “I didn’t tell Paddy about the babies being joined either. Alice did that.”
The water slaps some more. “Alice?” stupid Jess repeats.
“Yes, Alice. You told Em and Em told Alice.”
How to Be Your Own Worst Enemy. Zoe is right, I’ve been so wrapped up inside my own head I’ve forgotten that other people exist, that they have lives and thoughts of their own. I’ve blamed Zoe and hated her and all along it was just me. Jumping to conclusions. Making stuff up. They’ve always said that about me. I just make stuff up.
I think I’m sobbing now. “I’m so sorry, Zoe.”
“Well, don’t be. And stop that crying, too. You have to stop, Jess. And you have to tell me what this is really all about. Please.”
She hands me some toilet paper on which to blow my nose. And after I’ve done that, I tell her.
I tell Zoe everything.
57
It pours out of me like I’m some waterfall that just fell over a beautiful rock. I’m rushing and rushing to tell Zoe about the color of the skin where the babies join and how I felt when I saw it that first-ever time, and about the operation being moved up and the light in the flask guttering and about the snow babies and the Sidewalk Crack Monsters, and how if the snow babies ceased to exist before the operation, then both boys would die.
Will die.
Temporarily, I keep back the bit about how I also chucked our friendship over my shoulder like salt, for good luck.
Zoe doesn’t laugh once, not once.
“That’s all right, then,” she says.
“What?”
“If it’s about still existing—did you say still exist or not melt or not be destroyed?”
And I look at her hard, to see if she’s just humoring me. But no, there’s something intense and piercing in her eyes, as if she really wants to be in the same crazy space as me, because she knows how important it is to me.
“I don’t understand,” I say. “What are you getting at?”
“Just tell me,” Zoe orders. She fumbles in her pocket and brings out her phone. “Exist or not melt?”
“I said they had to exist,” I say.
“Well, they do,” says Zoe. She flicks her phone to the camera. “Look.”
I lean out of the bath. The heat is making the screen hazy. “Look,” Zoe repeats, flicking through some pictures. There’s a winter wonderland panorama of the whole park, a picture of a pink scarf tied around a pole, a shot of Paddy sledding with Sam on a tray, a close-up of a giant snowball (“Alice and I made that,” she says), and then, finally, there are the snow babies on their bench, their little heads nestling against each other.
“I don’t believe it,” I say.
“Believe it,” says Zoe. “They exist. I captured them.” She pauses. “And do you want to know why I took the picture? Because when I first saw them, they reminded me of me and you. You know, when we were about four or five and we used to . . .”
“. . . snuggle up on a sofa together,” I say.
“Yes, and watch . . .”
“The Snowman,” we say together.
I want the moment to last forever, but there’s something else I have a pounding need to know. I start scrambling out of the bath.
“Where are you going?”
I grab for a towel and run down the hall. Zoe trails after me.
“Where are you going now?”
In my room, on my bedside table, is the flask.
I’m stumble-running all over again, stretching out my warm—trembling—hands. I clutch the flask close, and look and look. Through the transparent whorls of glass the colors shine. The threads of yellowy gold, deeper now, more intense, intertwined, curled together into this light, bright mist. And there’s a seed fish swimming. No. No! Two seed fish swimming—the
re they are, sparking the air.
“Two!” I shout. “Look, Zoe, two!”
“Two? Two what?”
“So you’re right, you must be right. You’ve done it. They’re going to live. They’re going to be all right. The babies. Both of them. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Zoe. Thank you forever!”
I fling my arms around her, feel my head rest a moment on her shoulder, my chest flush with hers, and, because I am smaller than her and all curled up, my heart beats against hers.
“Thank me,” says Zoe, “or that bottle?”
Which is when I realize that there’s something I’ve left out.
“It’s a flask,” I say, and I pull away a little.
“Yes,” says Zoe, “I remember. Big as a storm wind, tiny as a baby’s breath. Right?”
“Yes.”
She raises an eyebrow, but I’ve started now and I have to go on and I want to go on. I want to share with Zoe the most difficult thing of all.
“This bottle, this flask . . .” I begin.
“Yes?”
“It isn’t empty.” I’m still afraid; I’m afraid of saying it out loud. “It contains something.”
“What?”
“Well, I don’t really know. I know it has something to do with Clem, because when Clem’s not well, the flask howls.” I tell her about the pulsing blackness. “Or it goes very dim and defeated. It gutters.” I tell her about the flattened flame.
“But that could have to do with me, because sometimes, I think, if I’m bad, the flask suffers.”
“Suffers?”
“Yes.”
“But you’re never bad,” says Zoe simply. “You haven’t got a bad bone in your body.”
“Huh?” That would be something to think about, but I don’t have time because I need to get to Rob. “It’s also got to do with this person—Rob. In fact, the flask can sing, a song called ‘For Rob,’ which is really beautiful, but sad at the same time. It makes you want to cry, hard as rain, beautiful as a rainbow.”
“You’re really losing me now,” says Zoe.
I can see how ridiculous it all sounds. Especially Rob and his song. Rob, who I still don’t know anything about, except that he’s got something to do with Aunt Edie. And I haven’t even got to the fizz-heart blue and the strips of paper moonlight yet.
“I’m not explaining this very well,” I say.
But Zoe is, for once, all patience, and I know how difficult it must be for her so I try harder.
“You remember,” I say, “when we were at the Buddhist Center and Lalitavajri talked about consciousnesses and how they have to wait around and . . . well, sometimes I think that the thing in this flask is, um, like that.” I finish lamely.
“What?” says Zoe. “You mean—a soul?”
And so it’s her who finally says it, lays it like a jewel between us.
“Yes,” I say, relieved. “A soul. One that maybe hasn’t found its place yet.”
“You mean it missed its sex slot?”
Trust Zoe to mention that. “Sort of. Or one that just got left behind. Lost.”
“A lost soul,” says Zoe, and she’s still not laughing.
There’s a silence.
If I’m crazy, she’s crazy, too, now.
“Zoe,” I say, “will you tell me something truthfully?”
“Of course.”
I put the flask in her hands. “Tell me what you see.”
Zoe turns the flask over. And over. Just like I did the first time I held it.
“Well,” she says carefully, “I see a bottle, a flask, which is very beautiful, really, with little silvery lines and whorls and stuff in the glass that looks like little seeds.”
“Or fish,” I say.
“Yes, or fish.”
“And are they swimming? Are two of those seed fish swimming?”
“Swimming?” says Zoe. “No, I don’t think so.”
“What about inside?”
“Inside,” says Zoe, “it’s sort of misty, but bright, too.”
“And is that misty-bright something ordinary—or not?”
“Well,” she says again, “I think it’s just the light, the way the light plays through the glass.”
“You don’t see colors?”
Zoe looks up at me. “What colors?”
“Yellow? Gold?”
“No, not really.” Zoe pauses. “But you do, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Same as you heard the howls and Rob’s song.”
“Yes.”
Another silence.
“Am I crazy, Zoe?”
Zoe puts the flask down very carefully, and then she turns to me and puts her hands on my shoulders. “I think you’re extraordinary,” she says.
“That’s not the answer to the question.”
“I think it is. I think maybe some people have, I don’t know, thinner skins than other people. Feel things differently. I think you’re one of those people. Like you and music. You feel it differently from everyone else.”
“No, I don’t,” I protest. “You feel just the same about dance.”
“No, I don’t, actually,” says Zoe. “I dance to other people’s tunes. You—you sing stuff that comes right from deep inside you.”
“Does that mean I can spot a soul when I see one?”
“Not necessarily. But you are open to possibilities. I don’t know about this Rob, or how the flask tells you when stuff is wrong with Clem. I don’t know anything about that. But I believe you.”
She believes me.
“And I think you should believe yourself. Trust your instinct. That’s all. I can’t really say any more.”
But she has said enough.
I hug her tighter than I ever did over any Cadbury Creme Egg. This time, she hugs me back. So there we are in my bedroom—totally separate, yet joined.
58
We are so involved in our conversation that we do not hear the front door open, and we are still hugging when there are footsteps on the stairs. So we hear nothing until the bedroom door opens, and standing in the doorway, still in her coat, is Gran. She is not towering, she is not angry, in fact, she just looks old and frail and exhausted.
“I’m sorry,” I say immediately. “I’m really sorry, Gran.”
And she doesn’t shout. Not at all. She just presses her lips tight together, as if she’s trying to hold in some emotion and her eyes squeeze up, and despite the outdoor coat, a big shudder goes through the whole of her body.
And then I go over to her, one hand holding the towel around me, one hand around her neck.
And she kisses the top of my head.
Kisses me.
There’s a long moment of silence and I feel (but cannot see) her looking out over my head and finally noticing Zoe.
“Hello, Mrs. Walton,” says Zoe.
“Hello, Zoe,” says Gran.
“Zoe helped me,” I say. “It was Zoe who got me home, got me warm.”
Gran looks at Zoe and then at me and she nods. “Thank you, Zoe,” says Gran. “Thank you very much.” Then she adds, “Why don’t you put on a robe, Jess, while I make us some tea and toast. Would you like toast, Zoe?”
And it’s the robe that takes me by surprise. Gran is not a robe person. More particularly, she is not in favor of people eating breakfast in their robe. She calls it lazy. Gran thinks people who are going to make something of their lives get dressed in the morning.
Gran escorts Zoe out of the room and I slip on my pj’s, robe, and slippers. In the pocket of the robe, I put the flask.
Then I go downstairs and we all sit around the kitchen table and the mugs of tea steam and I eat four slices of hot buttered toast.
Eventually Zoe says thank you and that she needs to be getting home, or her mom will worry (at this Gran flashes me a not-quite-so-benign look), and then she turns to me.
“Bye, Jess,” she says.
“Bye,” I say, “my best friend in the whole universe.”
&nbs
p; Zoe smiles.
When she’s gone, I expect Gran to turn around and ask me to explain myself. But she doesn’t. On top of that, she allows me to stay in my robe all day and all evening.
I think I love my gran.
59
The next day it’s as if the snow never existed. I look out the window and I am astonished. The whole world has turned green and the sun is out. The sun is shining brilliantly.
I go downstairs (dressed) to see Gran staring out the kitchen window.
“It’s an omen,” she says.
And I nod, because neither of us has to say the word operation, it just hangs in the air of the house. I imagine the babies being wheeled down the long corridor toward the operating room, Mom and Si walking close behind, holding hands, joined. I see the anesthesiologists checking charts and flicking syringes and Mom and Si just looking at the babies’ faces as though it could be the last time.
Which is what you would feel if you didn’t know how brightly the flask is shining this morning.
“How can it all have just gone?” I ask Gran about the snowless world.
“I’ve only seen it once before like this,” says Gran. “When I was a little girl, about the same age as you. Only that time it was only one day. It snowed in the night, really heavy snow, and in the morning we went out sledding with a sled my father made himself, and then, by the afternoon of the same day, there was nothing left at all. It was like a dream.”
Gran opens the back door. “Feel it,” she says. “Feel how warm it is.”
And I go and stand outside and feel the sun on my face and that reminds me of the mesembryanthemums in Aunt Edie’s garden and how their faces opened to the sun, and I feel something open in me, too.
“Shall we go out?” I say to Gran. “Before breakfast?”
There is no before breakfast in Gran’s life. Nothing can be achieved before breakfast.
“Yes,” says Gran. “Let’s.”
We put on jackets, but we could almost have gone out in T-shirts. We walk down the cul-de-sac and take great gulps of air.
“It smells of . . .” I begin.
“. . . of summer,” Gran finishes.
“What is that smell?”
“I don’t know,” says Gran, sniffing again. “I’d like to say it’s flowers. But it isn’t. It’s just . . . a kind of warmth.”