It was the oddest sensation. She was one of those people who disappeared, like oar ripples through water.
It had been a good five weeks since I’d last seen her. Had I missed her? Had anyone missed her?
Flanders who?
She picked up right where she’d left off. In fact, she began diagramming the same sentence she had left with: “The writer uses a comma to set off a definition, a restatement, or extra information.”
“Bring back the old dude,” Steph’Annie said loudly enough for Flanders to hear.
Flanders’s eyebrows knitted together. “What are you talking about?”
Steph’Annie didn’t follow up.
The AP wannabe pulled out his notebook.
A girl up front began painting her fingernails. The smell of the acetone filled the room immediately.
Next period, Rosetti’s “hot Italian temper” was acting up at Larry Carlson. Rosetti got red in the face, and even from my third-row post I could see his pupils dilating.
Larry Carlson didn’t have a book.
“Why didn’t you bring your book?
“Where is your book?
“You call yourself a student and you don’t have your book!”
Larry had his head low, trying to look inconspicuous. One thing was for sure: with his lax attitude, Larry wouldn’t have a heart attack anytime soon. Rosetti might. He had a wedding ring, so I was sure he had a wife and kids—I couldn’t imagine breaking the news to his family if he did up and go into cardiac arrest over a student not having a book.
“Why is it so difficult for you to do something so simple?”
I had to turn away. Through the barred windows, I eyed the tops of trees and their quivering leaves. Birds twittered.
I raised my hand and asked if I could use the bathroom.
Mr. Rosetti barked, “Go!”
When I got to the hall, I embarked on my Houdini maneuver.
I was back to my old ways, heading straight for the zoo. Dru’s soulful eyes lit up when I marched up to her cage. But before I buddied up to her, I wanted to get this one thing off my chest.
“You could have told me you were a chick,” I said nonverbally.
Dru’s eyes widened. “I tried.”
My eyes narrowed. “You led me on for weeks!”
Dru made a sad face, and I realized that I had scolded her enough. I changed the subject. “I want to tell you that I met someone. You know him! He was here. Talk about coincidences. Remember the guy with the midlength dreads flailing like he was having a fit? Well, turns out he’s a Method actor.”
Dru looked at me with disappointment. “So that’s why you haven’t been by to see me!”
“That’s not why.” My eyes also told her about my part-time job at Rocket and the blessed departure of Q. I asked her what was new with her.
She told me that she’d just turned four years old.
“Happy birthday, Dru.”
After she was all caught up, I turned to leave.
“Wait,” I sensed her cry out to me.
I faced her.
Her eyes asked, “Can’t we be friends?”
“Of course,” my eyes answered. For old times’ sake, I placed my lips to the glass, and Dru followed suit and pressed. I felt a warmth from my chin to my nose.
It was still early, and I knew if I hustled I could get to the hospital before afternoon visiting hours were done.
I was going to see Mr. Brook whether he liked it or not.
There was a cluster of people waiting for the elevator, which was on the twelfth floor. I couldn’t wait. I turned to where there was a shorter line and snuck into the service elevator to the fourteenth floor with a moaning man on a gurney. He was sandwiched between two interns, who both spoke about last night’s basketball game.
“The Pistons really cleaned the floor with the Sixers, didn’t they?” the shorter one asked.
The supine man groaned again.
They wheeled him out at the tenth floor. For the rest of the ride, I was alone with my pounding heart and my galloping thoughts.
At floor fourteen, the door opened, and I leaped out. I ran like an impulsive heroine from a romance novel toward her forbidden love. I didn’t have the kind of hair that flowed behind me, nor did I wear that kind of long billowing dress, but the intent was there.
I ran right into his room, only to find an empty bed.
I rushed into the hall and waved down an orderly. He had round shoulders and a droopy uniform.
“What happened to the man who was in this room?” I asked.
“He’s been gone a week,” he said.
My heart gave a lurch; I took a step back.
My body went so cold, I was surprised my heart didn’t stop beating. After a long silence, I asked, “Gone where?”
My question went to no one in particular because the orderly had already gone off down the hall, busy with his duties.
I ran to the nurses’ station and found a woman in her forties with caked-on makeup. She looked a lot like the intake attendant from ICU.
“I have to know what happened to Mr. Jerome Halbrook,” I said.
The nurse made no motion toward her notes or the computer. “Have to?” she asked. “Why is that? Who are you?”
“I’m—I’m—” I stumbled, unable to get the daughter or granddaughter or niece lie going.
“Don’t you know who you are?” she asked me.
“Look, can you help me?” I pleaded.
“Not until you can tell me what relation you are to that patient. HIPAA laws prohibit—”
She was still rattling on about HIPAA, whatever that is, as I walked away, suddenly exhausted. Suddenly empty. I didn’t know how I found the strength to walk, to put one foot in front of the other.
Where was Mr. Brook? Was he alive? Was he dead? What was I supposed to assume with no one giving me a straight answer?
I ran back down the hall, where the orderly was now sweeping, and asked again. “What happened to Mr. Jerome Halbrook?”
“I told you, miss, he’s gone from here,” he said, and he went right back to his sweeping. Sweeping at a time like this. All around me, people were chatting on the phone, scribbling notations.
Before I knew it I was on ground level, then outside waiting at the bus stop. There was one way to know.
I got on the bus. The driver drove, and the world just spun on its axis like nothing substantial had changed.
People scrambled for a place. I stood. What difference did sitting in a red seat with blue trim make? The bus pitched its way down Walnut Street. There was no comfort to be found with all the honking and screeching.
The bus jerked its way deeper into the city. I was heading for Rittenhouse Square. His spot. I thought of the vigil Steph’Annie and I’d held there.
I stood and weaved my way from the middle of the bus to the front. I was close when I got off: his apartment was a mere two blocks away.
He had to be there.
Walking in the opposite direction, I encountered cell phones ringing, leashed dogs barking, and traffic cops whistling.
I just had to see something of his one more time. I spun on my heels and began sprinting toward his building. As I approached, I searched the fifth-floor windows. I saw a figure moving. The light was on.
A man in a gray warm-up suit was checking his mailbox. He held the door open for me. I slid in, bypassing the elevator. I took the stairs.
Panting, I crept toward his door. I heard movement inside. I smelled flavored coffee. Vanilla almond? No. Amaretto? No. I felt the door before knocking.
All at once, it opened.
I saw him.
twenty-one
“You’re alive!” I exclaimed.
His eyes rested full on my face. “Sharp as ever.”
Calm and steady, he returned to folding a white shirt and placing it in a steel trunk.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Packing.”
“I thought you were d
ead.”
He stopped folding for a moment and said, “I’m not.”
I stepped inside, caught my breath. My eyes took in his apartment and boxes stacked by the window. “The people at the hospital almost had me believing you were dead.”
“They’re overworked and underpaid. They can’t be expected to get everything right,” he said.
I got the joke, but how could I laugh?
“I hope they gave you the letter,” Mr. Brook said.
A letter? I couldn’t even get my mind to process that. I looked around with my head still swimming from the run and lamented that I would never know how he had laid out his apartment. The walls were bare and beige. I had missed it.
“Samara, did you get the letter I left for you?”
“No, I didn’t,” I said plaintively.
He sighed. “Well, would you like something? I have coffee on.”
“No thank you.”
“You don’t like coffee?”
“I don’t want any. What did the letter say?”
“I can’t believe they didn’t give you the letter. I wrote you an apology for being so rude the last time we saw each other. It said everything. It explained that I’ve been in remission for the last five years, and I thought I was home free. So when they said it has come back, I felt so defeated. I didn’t want you to see me like that.”
“So it was better that you push me away.”
“I’m sorry that it seemed like that. Well, that was what the letter said, more or less, but in better words. . . . No one wants to be seen at their weakest.”
“I could never see you as weak.”
“Samara, everyone has weakness and doubt. It’s easy to put up a brave front when you know there’ll be a happy ending, but I didn’t know how things would turn out. And all that talk about hope seemed as far away as the moon.”
“I could never see you as weak, Mr. Brook,” I repeated, spilling my pet name for him.
He nodded and smiled a little. “Are you sure I can’t offer you something to drink? Do you want to sit down?”
I shook my head and looked at his luggage. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going home.”
“Home?”
“Columbia, South Carolina. Maybe I’ll even get my accent back. Then I’m off.”
“Off?”
“To the islands.”
“Which ones?” I asked.
“Greece. You know, they have over a thousand there.”
“That does sound like something. But are these Greek islands known for great medical care?”
“That doesn’t matter. I want to see them, Samara. I’ve always wanted to. So many years ago, I had them circled on a map. Funny, how sixty years goes by like a long weekend.”
“I hope you’re exaggerating.”
“The older you get, the faster it moves. You mark my words. . . . Well, they ought to be around here any minute now.”
“They?”
“The Goodwill people. They’re about the only ones who’d want an old man’s bed.”
“Don’t you plan to sleep when you get down there?” I asked him.
“I hate shipping. Nothing’s ever in the right condition when it arrives. Some things are always altered. It’s better to start—”
“Clean?” I interrupted.
He nodded. “Yes, clean.”
I looked out the window to where an office building stretched, punching into the sky. Dusk was falling.
He was taking only a moderate-sized steel trunk, one bag, and a cup.
He puttered about the room with the energy of a toddler. Him just out of the hospital. Shouldn’t he be sitting? Resting? Conserving his energy for all those days on the beaches? That long, languid eternity staring at the neon blue skies with the same radiant eyes with which he’d looked at me that first day. That day when I’d had nothing and he’d given me everything.
“You have the right idea. I’m sure Southern life will agree with you,” I muttered. “I hope you have a safe trip. I hope no weirdos sit next to you. You know what I mean. The people who just want to talk and talk and talk.” I could have gone on forever like a weirdo myself but my mouth went dry.
I’d gone for the door in the hopes of saving both him and me more embarrassment when I remembered. “I still have your book. Immortal Poetry.”
“Good.”
“I want to read it again. And again. And then again and again.”
“Take your time, Samara.”
“Right,” I said, whirling again to leave.
“Samara,” he called.
I looked back, my eyes moist, my body having quakes, miniquakes, little emotional tremors in my limbs.
“I’m going to miss you,” he said.
My eyes welled up. Tears tumbled down my cheeks.
He reached out his hand. Of course, I took it and held it.
His hand felt so warm, it was like being kissed.
I stepped away first and turned, feeling his eyes on my back.
I clutched the knob and opened the door smoothly. I continued to walk, placing one foot in front of the other, as I’d been doing since I was ten months old. But it was harder now. I went down the steps. Head down.
I dried my eyes on the heel of my hand. Taking the stairs one heavy, lonely step at a time, I came to the front entrance and stepped outside.
I patted my jacket for my cigarettes. I took one out and put it in my mouth, then spun around.
He had come to the window. His blue eyes sent invisible sparks to me even from this distance. He was holding a cigarette. This cancer patient was about to light up. Defiantly. Earnestly.
He smoked as I watched from five stories below. I closed my eyes and smelled the world. Strangely, it now smelled of possibilities.
I shook my head and put the cigarette away. My dry eyes were open now. I turned back around and began walking.
The rest of my life eased before me like ice cream in July.
poems mr. brook read
TO HIS COY MISTRESS
by Andrew Marvell
Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long love’s day;
Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side
Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood;
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv’d virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave’s a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am’rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp’d power.
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
AFTER GREAT PAIN, A FORMAL FEELING COMES
by Emily Dickinson
After great pain, a formal feeling comes—
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs—
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?
The Feet, mechanical, go round—
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought—
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone—
This is the Hour of Lead—
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow—
First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—
LIFE IS FINE
by Langston Hughes
I went down to the river,
I set down on the bank.
I tried to think but couldn’t,
So I jumped in and sank.
I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn’t a-been so cold
I might’ve sunk and died.
But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!
I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.
I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn’t a-been so high
I might’ve jumped and died.
But it was High up there! It was high!
So since I’m still here livin’,
I guess I will live on.
I could’ve died for love—
But for livin’ I was born
Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry—
I’ll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.
Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!
Life Is Fine Page 8