A Notion of Pelicans

by Donnna Salli

  “Don’t press,” I said. “Please. I’m doing what I have to. I promise.”

  She saw I wasn’t going home and offered me a bed. I knew she would. “For a few days,” she said—like she might really care if I overstayed my welcome.

  Dear Marcus was unsurprised and totally gracious. I guess a person would get used to things living with Lucy. As he tended the fire, rearranging logs, blowing into them, he said, “Lucy and I were raised on wood smoke. I wouldn’t make it through a day without it. Warm weather, we grill out. There’s nothing like steak cooked over an applewood fire. Cool weather, it’s the fireplace.” He put the screen into place, dusted his hands off one against the other. The flames rose up suddenly, the wood snapped. “Look at it. Isn’t it beautiful? And listen to that wind in the flue. We get a lot of wind up here on the hill. It’s why we bought here. Now—drinks.” He turned to me, taking out an imaginary pad, and stood awaiting my order. “What’ll you have, Claire? We’ve got everything.”

  “A Manhattan,” I said.

  I’d never had one in my life, and it seemed like something to try. When I’d finished the first, while Marcus was mixing the second, I excused myself, took a deep breath, and called Paul. He wasn’t happy. But there wasn’t much he could do. I said, trying to sound firm, not vague, “Lucy needed me. Have lunch with me tomorrow. I’ll meet you. Mariani’s, 12:30.”

  He agreed, though not enthusiastically. I knew it was the best plan. I’d tell him where he couldn’t throw a fit. I spent the night rehearsing the script—what I’d say, what he’d say back. I felt as small as a baby in Lucy’s nightgown and big sleigh bed. Around four, I slept a little.

  Over lunch, I told him, “I’m not coming home.”

  He didn’t believe it. He said, “What do you plan to do?” When I said, “Work, take some classes, and next year, I hope, grad school in acting,” he snorted. It wasn’t the most charitable response, or the most reasoned. The way I did it had pulled the room out from under him. But I couldn’t have done it any other way. Facing him and saying those words took everything out of me. Paul knew that about me—how hard it is for me to stick to decisions. The things I can’t predict or control rear up, with teeth, and I crumble. Even as I backed the car out of the parking spot when we were leaving, he stood there with a skeptical look in his eyes.

  I had to steel myself. I rolled the window down. “Find somebody else,” I said. “Have the life you want.”

  Lucy was a godsend. The next afternoon, I told her I needed to pick up a few things and asked if she’d drive to the house with me. “Happy to,” she said. “I’ll run interference.”

  It was good she’d come, because just as we were leaving, Paul showed up. Poor guy. He wasn’t ready for Lucy. Her ears went back, her lips thinned, she fixed him with unblinking eye. “Collier,” she said, “if you even think of bullying this poor child, I’ll call the cops.”

  I can’t say Paul ever bullied me. In fact, if anything, he took too much care. But I was glad to have reinforcements with me, just the same. All’s fair, you know, in love, in war.

  After Richard made his boat-jumping comment, I said, “I want you to know—other people weren’t a problem with Paul and me. There was no one. It was just . . . us.”

  “Okay. That’s a start. You used the plural pronoun. Us. Both of you, in your own ways responsible—I don’t like the word ‘blame.’ Some of us have a way of wreaking havoc very passively. It makes us look good in our own heads, but the result is the same.”

  The thing I most love about Richard is he talks to you like you’re a human being and he is, too. He doesn’t drone at you, like some counselors I’ve seen. I like that. I like that he’s open and careful at the same time, how he’s serious but then he’ll laugh at himself. His eyes are so dark, but they light up. I love to watch him speak—his whole body becomes an expression of what he’s saying.

  I hadn’t been exactly forthcoming with Richard. There’d been no other man when Paul and I broke up—that’s true. But by the time I began talking to Richard, there was. I had a sound in my head like a too-tight guitar string. It needed release, and one night after rehearsal the man offered it. After that night, I’d lie in my wasteland of a bed and remember his hand cupped to my breast. I’d taste and feel his lips. It was torture, it was good. I was a blackbird riding a wind-flung branch, wings spread, wanting more.

  But—he had a wife.

  She hovered at the back of my mind, unsuspecting, grotesque, until one night in a dream I got rid of her. I shoved her against a concrete wall and mashed her head into it. I pushed with all my might, held her by the hair and ground her face into the wall with all my will. Pulp ran down the wall.

  Even in the dream, the coldness of my desire, how venomous it was, shocked me. But . . . what’s done is done. I ran my hands down my hips, to cleanse them, and then I turned from the wall. My lover was beside me, and he took me in his arms.

  “Now we can be together,” I breathed.

  He said nothing. We sank into a soft, enveloping chair and began pulling one another out of our clothes. A button was an ecstasy—a buckle, an explosion. I climbed into his lap, knees bent, head bowed, and I rode him. His breath was hot waves in my ear, his hands were seared to my hips. I was out of my head for it . . .

  So out of it—I broke it off the next day.

  You’d think I’d know how to feel about the divorce. After all, I was the one who ended it. It’s not like I got dumped for somebody. And as I told Richard, it’s not like I left Paul for somebody. I’d spent my young life searching for the perfect love, the perfect lover. I tried guys out, one after another, tried them on, looking for that fit. It was a shock, after I’d been married awhile, to realize I’d tied myself to someone imperfect. Worse, that I was a good deal less than perfect myself.

  I have mixed-up feelings about the marriage. The whole time it was nickel-and-diming us to death, I had this impression doors were opening and closing. I kept walking through them like a headstrong steer going to slaughter. By the time I decided to leave, it was the only decision possible. I somehow voluntarily became a divorcée against my will. Once I’d decided on the guy, it was forever. I never wanted to get a divorce, I would never agree to one. Life sure upends a person. In a way—I know this sounds strange—the whole scenario was out of my hands, like some big dark angel was pulling the strings. I can’t explain it. You can’t know until you’ve been there. But I do know this: People have no right to be judgmental like they are, when they find out.

  I’ve changed since Paul and I met. I was so naïve I can’t help but laugh about it myself. My head was somewhere else. Not that I knew it, though. I moved to town right after high school, with my life plotted out. I was starting over, no one had ever seen my picture or read a word about me. I figured I’d get a med-tech degree and take care of myself.

  It was one of my lamer ideas, and Paul didn’t mind telling me. He was my advisor my first semester of college, though I didn’t meet him until late term when we registered for spring semester. The way my life’s gone, I should have been more cautious. About men. But I met Paul and began dreaming up reasons to drop by. When we got together eventually, he said it had been obvious I had a crush on him.

  Obvious was right. One day I presented him with an apple-shaped candle in cellophane. A golden apple, gold cellophane. Then I emptied my book bag all over his floor. Paul sprang out of his chair to help me pick everything up. On my way out, I backed into the doorpost. I’d planned the dropped books, but not the door. I walked away euphoric and feeling like a klutz.

  Paul kept his distance. He was professional, even blunt.

  “Claire,” he said, when I’d been coming around awhile, “doesn’t it worry you that you can’t stand the sight of blood?” He knew I’d failed the chemistry midterm but didn’t bring it up.

  I shrugged. “I wouldn’t be touching it. Would I?”

  Paul calls the shrug the freshman salute. He’s always bemoaning the clueless first-year look
. Things went terribly in chem. After months of pathetic lab work, I clawed my way to a D on the final. As I looked at the big, fat F posted on the professor’s door, I saw an imaginary beaker puff its chest, point to the exit, and yell, “Out, out!” I knew I’d be an ex-science major when the new semester started. Better to face reality sooner than later, I suppose. I’d decided on medical technology only because it would give me an income and security. Awful reasons for doing anything long-term.

  Theatre was where I needed to be.

  I had my first inkling in fourth grade Sunday school. Mortified at being taller than most of the boys, I couldn’t believe it when the teachers told me I’d be playing a Wise Man in the Christmas program. I found my parents in the narthex and, after a long, melodramatic moan, said, “I have to be a Wise Man—”

  “Not now, Claire,” Dad said. My parents are the introverted, unassuming type—a potent mix of Scandinavian and Minnesota Nice. They do their complaining behind closed doors, or if they’re really unhappy, vote with their feet.

  I nursed my distress through the coffee hour. The second we were out the door, I picked it back up. “I’m already eight feet tall, and they’re going to make me wear a turban!”

  “A turban?” my brother said and started to laugh.

  “Collin,” Mom warned. “Drop it.”

  Collin did, but I didn’t. While Mom was making lunch, I followed her around, complaining.

  “Honey,” she finally said. “You’re going to be tall. Accept it. You’ve got tall parents. Someday you’ll be happy about it.”

  “I’ll never be happy about it.”

  “Claire. The boys won’t stay short forever. Someday they’ll grow, more than you. Wait and see—you’ll be just right, even in a turban. Now, am I supposed to be making this costume?”

  My first taste of true theatre came a few years later in public school. I looked at the audition announcement for a musical and debated. Should I? Shouldn’t I? In the end, I tried out. I knew I’d get a part. Then of course was astonished when I did. I got cast as the female lead. Backstage, I listened to the audience before the show. It was alive. It rustled, it murmured. I breathed in the smells of fresh-sawed wood and paint and the hot odor of the lights. I wondered what it would be like to pass out under them. But I didn’t pass out, I didn’t even come close.

  I love the stage.

  With that spotlight in my eyes, I’m changed. I can do whatever the script says. I can be a knife. Then I can pierce like an arrow, or resist like a rock. It doesn’t matter that the real Claire cries at the drop of a hankie, or at least she used to, that she’s run through by glances and remarks others just blow off.

  I had a solo scene. I sang and danced and had the planet in my palms. I was so powerful. Maybe it was the red skirt and crinoline, or the makeup that gave me incredibly large eyes. Maybe it was the ponytail that swung like a blade every time I turned. It was a delicious shock to discover that, just by being a different me, I could bring the house down.

  But when the makeup came off and my hair came down, a demon perched on my shoulder. Are you crazy? it whispered. Calling attention to yourself? What if you forgot a line, and everyone looked at you? What if you fell? Or did a piss-poor job? After I’d let it nag me for a while, I couldn’t believe I’d done such a dangerous thing. I swore off future auditions.

  I applied myself at school. I kept my nose clean.

  It was no use. Sophomore year, something happened, something so bad I still don’t like to talk about it. It flattened me for a while. But when I got back up, I knew what I wanted and when I wanted it. Nothing was going to interfere with my life ever again.

  Who’d have guessed that a simple line on my spring registration form—“Academic Advisor: Paul Collier”—would prove so fateful? I had decided I’d better check in with Dr. Collier and had a late afternoon appointment with him in his office in the biology department, second floor of Burnham Hall. Worried that I wouldn’t find it on time, I got there early. Three students were already waiting outside his open office door. The four of us sprawled bored and impatient on the marble floor, listening to him talk. He went on and on in his deep voice about degree requirements and closed courses. We eyed each other nervously. Were we about to get bad news from some grizzled old prof?

  At last, it was my turn. The girl ahead of me came out wearing a look of exasperation. Though it was almost winter, she was in Birkenstocks, with the addition of wool socks. She pushed her black-framed glasses up and lifted her bag to her shoulder. It was tie-dyed, every shade of pastel. I took in her dated look and thought, What year does she think this is? She was oblivious to my poisonous thoughts. She said, “I only got one of the courses I wanted. The rest were closed. Good luck. You’re going to need it.” There were never more oracular words. The Prophetess of Burnham stumped off down the corridor.

  Paul stuck his head out.

  The sight of him jolted me. He didn’t look the way he sounded—he looked young. Not as young as me, but clearly not yet thirty. He had coffee-colored hair in a Beatle cut, and a trim mustache. He said, “I thought there was one more. You must be Claire.”

  I stood up, awkward suddenly. “I am.” I was wearing clogs, which added to my height and leveled my eyes with his. But I found myself extending my neck to its longest and slenderest.

  “Come on in.” He chuckled. “Let’s get you squared away before there aren’t any classes left.”

  I didn’t see the humor in the situation. I sat on a very hard chair across from his desk and looked around as he studied the schedule I wanted. His office was spare, cerebral. There were masks on the walls, scary and African in origin, and a large print of Edvard Munch’s The Cry over his desk. What is it about a desk that makes people want to hang something odd over it? The print’s jagged lines and haunted face kept drawing my eyes to it.

  “Doesn’t look too bad,” Paul said. “We’ll have to switch you to a different section for comp, though. Any objections to being in class by eight?”

  “Uhhh. No.”

  I’d been avoiding eight o’clocks. But I didn’t tell him that. In those days when someone pushed, I folded. Like a sheet. When Paul told me he hated even the idea of cream in coffee, I switched to drinking it black.

  “No problem there, then,” he said. “I don’t know about Marriage and the Family. It’s a popular class. Last word was it was close to full.”

  “Oh,” I said. I was deflated. Marriage had been my only fun class.

  Paul did a double-take. “Listen,” he said. It was clear he felt bad, and I wondered how many times that day he’d had to say the same thing. Beyond the four I’d heard. “If we get this signed and to the registrar, you might be okay. I know it’s a drag not to get the classes you want, or at least some of them.” He reworked the form like he’d done it a million times, signed it with a scratch, and handed it to me. His lips turned up at the outside, in a quirky smile. “Scoot now,” he said. “The race belongs to the quick.”

  I scooted, all right. I ran, one eye watching where I was going, the other staring at the way he’d signed his name. It was in dark blue ink, a signature forceful and bold. Paul Collier. The sweep of the letters said, Take this man seriously. I ran a finger across the script, to feel his power.

  When I got to registration, I handed the form to the woman behind the counter, expecting quick action. I got it—she looked the form up and down, stared at me over pink half-moon glasses, and said, “Marriage and the Family is closed. You’ll have to find something else.” If I’d known then half of what I know now, I’d have seen it for the omen it was. But all I could think was, I get to see Dr. Collier again.

  Out on the set, Mariah spoke a line that brought my mind back to the present—it came sloshing through deep water. At that point in the script, Mariah and Biff are squaring off, and Mariah’s line signals a turn for the worse. I knew what was coming. The muscles in my neck began to tighten and twist. Then the poltergeist twins really started messing with my head.
r />   Doing the play had been risky. The script is hilarious, but a first read set me to wondering what hidden things would be dredged up if I was cast—things I maybe didn’t want dredged. I had no business auditioning. Still, the day of, I went for it. I put it to myself this way: You’ve spent years ducking. It’s time to face down whatever comes up.

  That was before the Talbots didn’t show. Before Richard went missing. My cue was coming up, and signing on to do the play suddenly seemed stupid. I dream a couple times a year that I’m in a play where I can’t remember, or haven’t learned, the lines. It’s enough to make me nearly pee myself. As I listened to the conversation onstage, I couldn’t stay focused, I couldn’t keep my lines in my head. I said to myself, If dropping lines is the worst that happens, you can count yourself lucky.

  Lucky. The poltergeist twins like that word. They tapped me on the shoulders, one on either side. Lucky, they echoed. Very. You’re a very lucky—

  I shook them away. Not that, not now. “Jesus Christ,” I said, under my breath, “Son of God, have mercy . . .”

  The show does go on. I’ve seen people perform sick out of their minds, or just out of them. I’ve seen the stage manager fill in at the last second, trundling around with the script hidden in the pages of a book. Maybe she’ll remember all the blocking, maybe not. It’s hard to play against someone like that—and it looks ridiculous. I mean, who reads in private anymore, let alone walks around bumping into things, their nose in a book?

  Some nights on stage can be a nightmare. I didn’t want to be responsible for tonight being one of them. I crossed myself. My mood didn’t have to bring disaster. I’m playing Mariah’s younger sister, Ariana, who’s a bit thin between the ears. If my performance was scattered it would seem natural. And anyway, small-town audiences will forgive just about anything as long as there’s no swearing in it.

  Ariana, I thought to myself. Ariana. Start thinking like Ariana.