Tripping Back Blue

by Kara Storti

  “What’s the name?” she asks, clasping her hands in her lap. Right now she seems to be the only person who seems genuinely interested in what I’ve got to say. Like what I say actually matters, and she’s picking up what I’m putting down, because what I’m putting down isn’t half bad.

  “Panophobia,” I reply. She nods and presses her lips together so they disappear. She takes a breath, a story-mode anticipatory one.

  “So I’d help him—through his fears, you know? He and Stacey are so different. Stacey’s a doer and a worker, she’ll get rid of her anxiety by doing more homework than she has to, studying harder than she needs. Billy’s an analyzer, to the point where it becomes debilitating. It would really eat away at his confidence, seeing his sister excel in school while he barely squeaked by. I told him that he could find his own way of coping—he loves to read, so I’d give him a bunch of Louis L’Amour paperbacks. He was crazy for those westerns. I always saw a writer in him and suggested he get a journal and write out all his emotions, even if they didn’t make sense.”

  “Did that idea go over well?” I ask doubtfully. It’s the kind of advice that would make me go crazy.

  “Not at first. He thought having a journal showed weakness. Teenaged girls aren’t the only ones with diaries, I told him. I bought a leather-bound notebook that was as masculine as it gets. He used it too. Very discreetly.”

  “Sounds like you guys were friends or something,” I say, after a little bit of silence.

  She sighs. “Oh, as adults, we’re not made to be your friends, Phineas. We pretend we know better than you, and sometimes we do and sometimes we don’t. Maybe for a while I stepped in as the mother figure for Billy, since Page had passed when he was so young. Every boy needs a mother, and maybe Billy saw me as a calming force. Storytellers like myself tend to be that way—and Billy was a listener, was he ever, so he took it all in. The stories were an escape. Those worth telling always have some kind of message to relay.”

  I nod my head in agreement. That’s how I feel about Orah. Her stories calm me, take me out of the story of my own life, which, as it stands right now, is all types of black-colored birds: grackle, ashy storm petrel, Brandt’s cormorant, Eurasian jackdaw—each name harsh and choppy, each wing a black slash against thunderous sky.

  “I’m not really close with my parents,” I say. “They’re not around a lot. Mom’s always working at the restaurant, and Pop’s checked out. I don’t really care, you know? They can go and have their fantasies and regrets, but I really don’t give a shit.”

  She nods slowly. “You’ve got some anger in you.”

  “Aren’t you perceptive,” I say, leaning back on the couch. I play with a pull in the fabric.

  “There’s a way to let it go, I think.”

  Let it go, right. Wouldn’t that be nice, having these balloons of emotions we could release, ah, good-bye angry red balloon, I feel so much better! I grit my teeth and blurt out, “But what if you have every goddamn right to be mad, and it would be goddamn disrespectful to yourself and the rest of human existence not to be mad about it?”

  I trust Orah enough to tell her about how Faith lost her eye, but I don’t trust myself to keep my shit together long enough to tell it. So I don’t.

  And I don’t know why she’s smiling tightly, but she is, and it’s doing nothing but pissing me off until I see that smiling is just the beginning of another story. I think it’s going to be an important one.

  “We were up at the lake house, one weekend. Now, how old was Billy . . . he was around eleven years old, that’s right. Took him up there, and it rained all day, so we played cards and drank iced tea and read magazines. Reader’s Digest. We would read the joke sections out loud. Some of them were a hoot.”

  “Nice,” I say, calming down. “I like those too.”

  I take another sip of tea, and my body relaxes again. I see why the Brits like their afternoon tea; it slows time down. Taking out a tea set and rushing through that shit isn’t going to fly. What person have you seen hurrying it up with tea? Can’t speed up boiling, steeping takes a while, don’t want to pour quickly, cream and sugar can get complicated especially when you’ve got someone like Orah who likes both in different proportions. It’s a party, but it’s a take-your-time party, the world isn’t going anywhere, so sip and stay awhile.

  Orah’s looking at me over the rim of her cup, eyes lit up, like she knows my thoughts.

  “It was late at night. Billy was sleeping on the couch. Loved it in the living room because of the large windows that overlooked the lake. When I say large, I mean gigantic. Don’t see windows like that anymore.” She had told me about the windows before; the woman is getting more forgetful. I’m not sure how much of her behavior has to do with getting older and how much of it has to do with the effects of indigo. The day we packaged up the drug for the indigo-go girls, she seemed completely with it, and then some.

  Her voice lowers. “I had taken more indigo than I should have. I was looking out those windows, standing next to the couch Billy was sleeping on, when I came out of it. I had a steaming cup of tea in my hands, suddenly. I don’t know where it had come from. It frightened me and I dropped the mug, big mug it was, and it spilled all over Billy. His face, his neck. He woke up screaming.”

  “God, Orah, I—” She silences me with a slight motion of her hand.

  “After the hospital and the healing, he didn’t talk to me. He was so angry with me. Hated me. Especially when I told him I was . . . high. Dan didn’t let him come visit me, not that I was expecting Billy to want to visit. So it was just me, and I was fine with it, but I was—I was angry. Like nothing else. And that’s hard. Knowing that Billy probably won’t ever forgive me.”

  “Orah,” I say, placing a hand on her shoulder. Oh, how I can relate. It’s a relief that life is a disaster for all of us. “You didn’t mean it. It was an accident.”

  “Come on now, I shouldn’t have been using around a child. I shouldn’t have been using at all.”

  “I know about guilt,” I say.

  “I know you do. That scar of yours,” she says, gesturing to it, like she knows all about it. But she doesn’t. I turn my face so she can only see my profile. The skin of my scar always feels twenty times hotter than the rest.

  “I’m strong because of it. You don’t fuck with me. People know that. You don’t fuck with me,” I repeat. I’m getting all worked up again. My hands are grasping the edge of the couch, holding on so tight, like it’s the only thing between me and a sixty-foot drop. Orah places her hand on top of mine, and I flash a don’t-you-dare look, but she isn’t scared of me, she’ll be taking my dares and calling my bluffs all day long. The pressure she puts on my knuckles, it kind of reminds me of Faith, what she used to do to get me to pay attention. Look. Listen. See, goddammit. Orah’s trying to get me there too, or maybe she’s also doing it for herself, who knows, things are never just about you. That’s why there are two cups in a tea set. You can’t do this shit alone.

  “Hi,” a voice comes from the doorway. It’s Stacey. Great. Grand. The last time I saw her was in the school hallway when she told me about the evils of indigo in her family. Her light-pink button-down blouse looks delicate and soft. I glance at the time—should have left an hour ago to avoid seeing her after school let out. How did I lose track of time? Her eyes flit over Orah’s hand on mine, before I’m able to slide away.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks, irritation in her voice. I’m assuming she heard that last part of our conversation about my scar, and it’s humiliating. She’s not supposed to see that side of me.

  “I’ll go,” I say.

  “He was here to see you,” Orah says, lying. It’s awkward city, because Stacey’s not moving and neither am I, and Orah’s just sitting there. We’re all set on pause. I don’t think Orah is aware that Stacey and Dan know about our indigo arrangement.

  Stacey breaks the silence. “I’ve never heard you tell that story before. I heard it from Dad and Billy
, but not you.” She sets her backpack down and waits for a response. The sunlight through the window dashes across her white sneakers. She doesn’t seem altogether pissed. At least I got that going for me.

  Orah gently smiles up at her. “I guess I thought you had heard it enough times.”

  “Actually no. We never wanted to talk about it. And now Finn hears it?”

  I raise my hands. “I don’t want to cause any problems—”

  Orah cuts me off. “I brought it up.”

  “It’s fine,” Stacey says. “I just wasn’t expecting Finn back here . . . bonding. And such.”

  Trust me, I want to say, I wasn’t expecting it either. It’s probably pathetic and definitely bizarre that I’ve never felt so open with a woman—an elderly one at that—besides my sister.

  Orah stands up and brushes off her pants. She turns to Stacey. “Your father won’t be home until late. I’ll make salmon for us. We can talk. How does that sound?”

  With some hesitance Stacey says, “All right. Sure.”

  It’s not the most enthusiastic response, but Orah seems satisfied. “I’ll leave you two alone to chat,” she says. “You still do that these days, right? Or is texting your only mode of communication?”

  Stacey smirks; I look up at the ceiling, avoiding all eye contact. I’m not sure I want Orah to leave. But leave she does, and it’s just me and Stacey. I get up and make a move toward the door.

  She steps in front of my path. “Let’s go for a walk,” she says.

  Oh boy, here we go. “I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. Orah and I aren’t doing anything, you know, drug-related,” I say quietly. “It’s just—”

  “She enjoys your company. Come on,” she says, touching my wrist lightly.

  Chapter Forty

  Stacey’s woods out back aren’t half bad, not as dark and pine-treed as what’s behind the trailer park, but it smells good, and there’s a field of wildflowers with trampled paths winding through. Sparrows flit across our path; they are known to like the company of humans. A bunch of purple knotweed and Brown-Eyed Susans, Queen Anne’s lace and milkweed. I pick a sprig of lavender and tuck it behind my ear as we trudge through, colors popping so hard, each flower bud an exclamation. I keep walking in front of her, thinking I know where I’m going, looking like I do, might as well be the inventor of goddamn GPS. Confidence is the key in this life. Bullshit until it’s no longer bullshit.

  “Did you know that lavender comes from the same family as mint? And it’s a great deterrent of mice and mosquitoes?” I ask. I figure if I ramble on about something, I’ll avoid the inevitable. She’s going to bitch me out, and that’s okay, I can’t think of a time in the past month where I didn’t deserve it.

  “No,” she says. She’s not amused, but she’s not dismissive either.

  “Yeah, it was also used in Egyptian times during the mummification process. Don’t ask me how. You’d have to consult the experts about that,” I say, turning around, walking backward so that I’m facing her.

  “How do you know all these facts?” she asks. Her pink sleeves are see-through with the sun hitting her from behind; there’s the delicate outline of her arm, there’s the elegant curve of her shoulder.

  “Oh, well,” I say, shrugging, peering up at the late afternoon sky. “I used to always read those amazing fact books when I was a kid. Amazing facts about foxes, amazing facts about zebras, you get what I mean. The first one I ever had was amazing facts about ants.”

  “Ants?” Her quizzical expression murders me. It really does.

  “Yep.” I’m on edge; I try to squelch the feeling with a hard swallow. “I bet you didn’t know this: ants are capable of carrying objects fifty times their own body weight.”

  “I knew that,” she says, unimpressed. She uproots a piece of switch grass and casts it away. All right, smarty-pants, you want game, I got game. I stop dead in my tracks; she almost runs into my chest.

  “Hey, watch it,” she says, pushing on my shoulder with the heel of her hand, but she doesn’t look at me.

  A warmish wind ruffles the bottom of my T-shirt, whips her hair north, east, south, west. “The total biomass of all ants on earth is roughly equal to the total biomass of all people on earth.”

  “Impossible,” she says, yanking up another piece of grass.

  “Scientists have estimated that there are at least 1.5 million ants on the planet for every human being. Suck on that, sweetheart,” I say, grinning.

  She looks slightly annoyed.

  “I knew you didn’t know that one.” I snatch the grass out of her hand and throw it into the field.

  “It’s a good one,” she grudgingly admits. “Now sit. I want to talk to you.”

  I don’t expect the tug on my wrist. I don’t expect to be so close to her, I’m talking face-freckle close. We sit crossed-legged, our knees almost touching—the path is just wide enough. Her ankle bone peeks out from under the cuff of her pants, and it’s so pale and vulnerable, God, it’s kind of dangerous, such beauty exposed to the elements.

  “I’m not going to tell Mimi I know about your arrangement. I’m pretty sure Dad told you to stop selling.”

  “I’m taking care of this situation.” This is not a lie. She doesn’t need to know about how exactly I’m taking care of it. To be honest, I don’t know what I’m going to do at this point. Will Early contact me? It’s been almost a week since I gave the pizza boy the box of indigo. Will Dan find a way to mitigate the situation? Will I have to give up on my plan to help my sister? No. That’s not an option.

  “I hope so. I want this to be resolved by the time I go to Stanford. I want it to be a distant memory I don’t have to worry about.”

  “It will be,” I say.

  She doesn’t look convinced. “I want to trust you.” She pauses. “And I don’t want to like you. But I do.”

  Do I apologize? Do I jump up and down with joy? I think for once I’ll just sit still and let her talk. But she doesn’t say anything right away, so we watch hyper sparrows dart around us.

  Finally she speaks. “I used to come out here as a kid, when we’d visit Mimi.”

  “Oh?” I say, wanting her to talk more about it.

  She sighs heavily. “I didn’t visit Mimi for a long time after Billy’s accident. Mostly Dad came here to check up on her, to make sure she was okay, but even he wanted to keep his distance. For a while she didn’t use indigo, and I think Dad’s visits helped. She knew that if she behaved—for lack of a better word—we might come back into her life. But then she’d fall off the wagon. She’d get that cloudy look in her eyes and get confused for no reason. She’d think my grandfather was still alive. I hated being around her when she was like that. Lately I’d say she’s using less than before. I feel like you might have something to do with it.”

  “She’s turning over a new leaf ever since you guys moved in with her.”

  “I noticed that.” I could bring up that the origin of my partnership with Orah was precisely to get rid of indigo once and for all, but I don’t want this conversation to be about me. I’m sick of me. I focus on some trampled white petals—probably of a hibiscus. She smiles to herself, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “Mimi came out here with me one day when I first moved here,” she says. “The whole walk we bickered; she was convinced there was some red flower growing in the field when I knew for a fact there wasn’t. We arrived right here, where you and I are. Or close to it, anyway. And . . .” she pauses. “And then she started telling me about my mom. I was only a year old when she died, so she feels like a ghost to me. She told me about how good my mom was as a first-grade teacher—always the kids’ favorite. She told me how she made dried flower arrangements in a way that they always looked better than fresh flowers. She told me about how she’d read classic literature out loud when she was pregnant with Billy and me—Pride and Prejudice, Anna Karenina, Wuthering Heights.”

  “You were bound for intelligence.”

  She scoffs,
shaking her head.

  I ask, “So after, it was better between the two of you?”

  “Not so much better, but different,” she says. “Then different eventually turned into a little better. I see she’s changed. We talk more. I want to hear what she has to say.”

  “Glacial progress is better than no progress at all,” I say.

  “I can tell she loves you,” she says. She briefly touches my knee. I feel something akin to electrocution. “When I saw the two of you together back there—”

  “God, how long were you listening in?”

  “Long enough. Long enough to know that there is more to your relationship than selling drugs. And to know that it’s not altogether a bad thing. I wish Billy could see her like this—coherent and healthy. If he hadn’t run away and moved here with us instead, he would have given her a chance. I know he would—even in the years he wouldn’t go see her, he still talked about her. He’d talk about her stories as a nurse.”

  “Have you talked to Billy?” I ask. For some reason I want to know this dude’s okay. Scar brothers, or something lame like that. Has he found it in his heart to forgive Orah? Or forgive himself for not forgiving her?

  Stacey pulls at the flowers around her. Her fingers will be stained green.

  “I know where he is.” Her voice is whispery, secretive, as if someone’s listening in. She looks up over the horizon of weeds. All I see is sky and wisps and dashes of clouds.

  “Where?” I ask before I can stop myself. I’m not sure she’ll tell me. But she does.

  “You know that farm where we think the flower first grew? Where we think the virus started?”

  “Yeah.” Now this is getting interesting.

  “That’s where. No one else knows. Not even my dad,” she says. “Orah told us the location a long time ago. She was high, we were just little kids, and she talked and talked about where the farm is and how it’s no longer in use. It’s just land forgotten and wasting away. But she was so specific about it Billy was able to find it. I don’t think she thought we would ever remember.”