The O. Henry Prize Stories 100th Anniversary Edition (2019)

by The O Henry Prize Stories 2019 (retail) (epub)

  “It’s back.”

  “The orange-breasted hummingbird?”

  “No.”

  “What?” he asked.

  She was silent.

  “I can’t hear you,” Lloyd said.

  “It’s the ghost,” she said. “Why would I call you about the hummingbird?”

  “Because you would,” he said, “and you have. It’s a cool bird.”

  “I have a ghost, and you want to talk about a hummingbird.”

  “Calm down,” he said. “Open a beer.”

  “At three p.m.? Do you not know me?”

  “You’ve been known to drink a beer at lunch. Or after hiking.”

  They kept arguing, first about Liza’s drinking habits and second about Lloyd’s desire to solve everything, until Liza began to cry. She rarely cried. The last time had been Leprechaun Canyon. Lloyd immediately offered to drive down after work, even though it was a Wednesday, because Liza would be too afraid to go to sleep. What if she heard something in the middle of the night? She didn’t believe in anything, except that luck was blind, and when you were dead, you were dead.

  “I’ll be fine,” she told Lloyd, blowing her nose into a paper towel. “No need to burn a boatload of fossil fuel just because the house is getting cleaner.”

  “I have a Prius, sweetie. Remember?”

  “Oh, right,” she said. “I forgot. That’s weird.”

  “You sure?”

  “Are you fucking with me?”

  “No, I meant are you sure you’re okay.”

  “Of course, I’m okay,” she said. “I’m so okay, I’m spiffy.”

  * * *

  —

  That time she’d been stuck in the Leprechaun, after an hour or two had passed, she thought that maybe this was it for her. End of the line. There were plenty of places where the canyon divided. She was certain she’d been going the right way, but being right wouldn’t matter if Carl or Jim had headed down another branch. Maybe their way would peter out and they’d turn around. Maybe it wouldn’t. She tried to distract herself by singing but could only remember marching songs, and it was too depressing to sing about moving when you were stuck. What if it started to rain and the canyon flooded? Then her mind swung around, and she wondered how long she could survive without water. Her mouth got dry. She thought about how Native Americans danced for three days straight without food or drink. Jan had done some ritual like that once. That was the thing they tiptoed around—spiritual shit. Jan, for all her pluck, was a believer. Maybe Liza could last six days if she wasn’t moving or sweating much. It was lucky she wasn’t claustrophobic, or she’d probably perish from fear. What if something came along and attacked her? A mountain lion. A bear. A snake. Bees. It wouldn’t matter if she survived then. She’d lose it, go out of her mind. Could she literally be stung to death? What if nothing happened? No one came, and nobody found her.

  “Hello, Nobody,” she said in a quiet voice. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Nobody, this is No One,” she said, “No One, this is Nobody.”

  The ground was starting to get cold, and her left leg tingled with sleep. Her arms ached from being stretched out in front of her. She tried to shimmy forward for the hundredth time but her shoulders were too broad. Then she tried to push herself backward but she couldn’t lift her arms high enough to get any leverage.

  She screamed and tried to struggle, but there was not enough room. Her hip stung as though she’d scraped it. Maybe she was bleeding. That was not good. Fresh blood would draw animals. Even bugs. If she felt something crawling on her, she would seriously freak out.

  “Stay calm, Liza,” she said, and hummed a bit. Her voice, vibrating at the back of her neck, was friendly and soothing. Stay calm. Calm, Liza. Calm. Stay calm. If she lost her nerve, that would be the end of her. She thought about making decorative boxes, one of her hobbies. Measuring the cardboard. Cutting it. Measuring the paper. Covering the cardboard with a thin layer of paste, applying the paper. She put the pieces between wax paper and placed them under tall stacks of heavy books. She constructed little hinges. When the boxes were finished, she lined them up on her bookshelf, each one empty, each one waiting to be filled. This was one of the few things, besides climbing and canyoneering, for which she had the patience to be precise.

  “Help,” she cried. “Help.”

  She called out for five minutes and then rested. She had enough sense to preserve her voice.

  It grew colder and then dark. She had no idea how much time had passed. Night came much earlier in the canyon. It could still be hot and bright up above. It could be cocktail hour. Maybe Carl and Jim were mixing camp margaritas. Lloyd loved tequila. Liza loved Lloyd. The only reason he wasn’t on this trip was because some bigwig was being audited. The other guys would be opening their Nalgenes of scotch. She licked her lips, pretending she was sucking the salt from the rim of a margarita glass. She was so thirsty. Her whole body was sore, her left calf was cramping. She flexed her toes as much as was possible in her boots. Would it get cold enough that hypothermia was a risk? The instant she thought about trying to stay awake, her eyes were closing.

  * * *

  —

  The things that kept happening, inexplicable and also mundane. A cocktail shaker appeared. (She and Lloyd found that a mason jar and a fine sieve were adequate.) A six-pack of beer vanished. The silverware drawer seemed more organized. The toilet looked cleaner. When a new packet of wheat biscuits went missing, she went to Whole Foods the next day, clutching her receipt for the wrong date, and accused them of sloppy bagging. When she couldn’t find something, she wasn’t sure whether to blame herself or the ghost. Then something would show up that she hadn’t seen for years: a photograph of her grandmother in a halter top; a small bowl carved from black walnut; her mother’s engagement ring. She’d suffered intensely when she’d lost that ring. She was wearing it, and then she wasn’t. She was impulsive. Unappreciative. Crap at taking care of things. Lloyd took apart the kitchen sink plumbing just in case it had slipped down the drain, but all they recovered was a slimy wishbone. And now some seven years later, it turned up in her top dresser drawer inside the case meant for her mouth guard, except she had lost that on a backpacking trip years ago.

  “Are you sure someone’s not sneaking into your house?” Jan asked several weeks later over tacos and horchata at the one taqueria that was authentic, but not too authentic for white people. Liza had never seen the point of eating cactus. “Isn’t the side door always unlocked?”

  “Why would anyone sneak into my house?”

  “Why wouldn’t they?” Jan said.

  “I would never sneak into my house.”

  Jan said nothing.

  “What?” Liza said.

  Jan sighed dramatically, “Never mind.”

  * * *

  —

  When she woke up, and she didn’t remember where she was, and she tried to move, and she couldn’t, and she tried and she couldn’t, and she tried and she couldn’t, she really lost her shit. She was stuck in a canyon somewhere in southern Utah. She screamed, and because she could not move she dug her fingernails into her palms until the skin broke. It was pitch-dark, and she couldn’t move, and no one had come for her, and maybe no one ever would. She struggled to stay awake, but sleep pulled her back into oblivion again and again.

  Finally, conscious as light sifted down into the canyon, she heard the hopeful crackle of twigs and pine needles catching fire and then tumbling rocks that gradually morphed into the sound of footsteps. “Hey,” she cried. “Hey, here I am. I’m here.” The sound seemed to come from in front of her. Though her neck was stiff, she lifted her head and in the distance saw a pair of boots and red-socked ankles coming toward her. “Thank god,” she said. “I’ve been here all night. I’m stuck.” She rested her head for a second and when she lifted it again, th
e boots were gone. “Where did you go?” she screamed. “I’m here. I’m right here. I’m stuck. Please help. Somebody, please help me!”

  Before she realized what was happening, someone had grabbed her ankles and was pulling her out. “Take it easy,” she cried again as her body scraped against the rocks. “Thank you, but take it easy. There’s no rush, right?” And then she was freed, except that it was like she was still stuck because her body wasn’t working. She lay there for who knows how long, trying to move her limbs. Her breath suddenly sounded very loud, and she realized she was panting. “Carl?” she said, but no one answered. Turning over to her left side, curled like a shrimp, she tentatively bent one leg, then the other. When she got back to civilization, she was going to have a chocolate milk shake. And a large order of fries covered in ketchup and mayo. She heard someone talking about sweet potato fries. Onion rings. “My god, I’m happy you came along,” she said. “Dinner’s on me.” When she finally managed to sit up, she was alone, the smooth canyon walls rising on both sides, the pale blue sky slashed above her. Someone had dragged her from her rocky tomb. She didn’t think about everything she would do differently. She wept, and while she was weeping, she popped a stone into her mouth, a trick she’d learned for making more saliva, and started the long limp back, still crying until her body stopped producing tears.

  * * *

  —

  Here she is in the Arizona Room, lying on a red couch that belonged to her mother and used to be nice until the cat scratched it up good. The room seems less cluttered in some way that Liza can’t quite put her finger on. Are the screens cleaner? Are there fewer cobwebs hammocking the corners? Where has all the dust gone? She thinks back to Leprechaun Canyon. Maybe if she had stayed in the canyon, the ghost wouldn’t be here. Does the yard look different? Is the air cleaner? Someone bangs on the side door and then it is opening. The windows chatter in response.

  “Scram!” she yells. “Amscray!”

  Grabbing a brass candlestick that she’s been using for a doorstop and a broom that is collecting dust, she steps into the house to confront her intruder, to fell him, to tell him to leave her the hell alone. Stop your meddling. She likes her house just the way it is, thank you very much. She winds up to swing the candlestick, but the man, dressed in a plaid shirt and khakis, is busy pulling a carton of half-and-half from a plastic bag. Plastic bag! She hates plastic! Why didn’t he bring his own bag, or at least get paper! And how does he know her half-and-half went sour that morning so that she has been drinking her coffee bitter and black all day?

  “Shit, are you trying to kill me?” The man takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  “Lloyd?” Of course it’s Lloyd.

  “I told you I was coming,” Lloyd says.

  “You did?” she asks.

  “I think I should move in.” He reaches and pulls her into a big Lloyd hug. “It’s about time.”

  “You want to move here,” she says, “into this haunted shithole. You think it’s going to improve, but it’s not. It’s all going to fall apart.”

  “Funny,” he says, except that it’s not funny, not for now at least. The house is changing so much, she barely recognizes herself.

  Alexia Arthurs

  Mermaid River

  THE SIGN READ, WELCOME TO MERMAID RIVER, and in smaller print, NO SWIMMING, THE ROCKS ARE SHARP, but my grandmother remembered when the river was just a river. Nobody called it any name or took photos in front of it, and the rocks were sharp but it wasn’t anything to keep anyone from swimming. When my grandmother was a girl, the river used to be fat. The day I sat with her across from Mermaid River, it was thinned down and half dried up. And the stones were sharper, angrier than my grandmother remembered, as if the river rebelled when the resort wanted to stretch and the surrounding land was bought up. The river became Mermaid River, and what wasn’t bush to be chopped down were houses where country people lived. The houses were torn down, replaced by vacation cottages. But I haven’t seen Mermaid River in years, not since I left Jamaica. I only have my memories to go on.

  These days I ask for fried plantain between two pieces of bread for breakfast. Sometimes I ask for scrambled eggs on the side, or an egg sandwich with fried plantain on the side. I always drink tea. The cereal boxes sit on top of the fridge, barely touched. They are the sugary kind I see advertised on the television. My mother bought them four years ago as one of many introductions to America. Sometimes, after she’s put my breakfast in front of me and I sit eating alone, my eyes will catch on the boxes sitting on top of the fridge and it will occur to me to throw them out. They must be expired by now. But I never do, I always forget, and now they almost seem to belong in our kitchen.

  My first morning in this country, I ate the bowl of cold cereal and drank the glass of orange juice my mother put in front of me, and my stomach cramped and pained and finally I vomited. The night before, sleeping in my new bed, all of it felt strange, as though I had stepped out of my skin and was watching myself from outside myself. When I was little I used to show off to my classmates that my mother was in America and would soon send for me. But the story began to seem far off, less true, almost as though it belonged to someone else, so I stopped telling it. That first night, the woman who resembled a woman I used to know—that’s how my mother seemed to me in the early days—showed me to my room. She opened a closet and showed me new clothes. She rubbed her hands against the dresser, pulling out drawers to reveal new socks and underwear. She explained that the entire bedroom set was new. In the woman’s face, I recognized the roundness of my grandmother’s face.

  My second morning in this country, my mother asked what my grandmother usually gave me for breakfast. I didn’t tell her porridge, which my grandmother prepared every school day, ignoring my complaints. My grandmother believed porridge was “proper food” for learning, since it was the kind of meal that kept a belly full until lunchtime. But I hated how full cornmeal porridge left me—I liked to run to school and it interfered with my speed. I also disliked the lumps and the fact that porridge always made me need to go to the bathroom in the middle of my morning classes. I hated shitting in school, because if you took too long somebody would always make notice of it and ask what you were doing, and then everyone in the class would start laughing.

  So I told my mother what my grandmother made on weekends, and since then I’ve basically eaten the same meal every weekday morning. On weekends my mother prepares pancakes from a box—another “introduction to America.” I would prefer plantain and bread and eggs, but I don’t want her to feel bad. She already worries what I will eat when I start college next fall. She says if I can get a little hot pan in my dorm, she will ship me plantains if I end up someplace where I can’t find them. I tell her she doesn’t have to worry. I will eat American food when I have to.

  * * *

  —

  I have on my coat, my hat, and I’m pulling on my gloves when my mother walks down the stairs. She has rollers in her hair, and she’s wearing the lavender nightgown. Months ago, when my mother stood in front of the nightgown rack at the department store, she was running her fingers along the pink version of the lavender nightgown. She asked me which one she should get, and since the pink reminded me that there was already too much pink in her closet, I picked the lavender one. Not long after, my mother was drinking a cup of tea while I ate my breakfast. When she got up to wash the breakfast dishes, my eyes were pulled to the back of her nightgown. It took me a moment to realize that I was looking at blood. And it took me another moment to realize it was probably period blood. I quickly turned my face away, begging my mother to see the blood herself because I didn’t know how to voice those kinds of things to her. I heard her walk up the stairs, and before I left for school she had changed into another nightgown. Whenever she wears the lavender nightgown, I always remember the blood, and sometimes I look for evidence, the dull imprint of an ol
d stain. There isn’t any. My mother comes over to put some money in my hand, as she does every Monday morning since she knows I like a beef patty and a cream soda from the Jamaican restaurant after school. She also gives me the letter to show my teachers. I fold it without looking at it and put it in my coat pocket. Then she is wrapping her arms around me and whispering a quick prayer because she watches on the news the ways in which America can swallow black sons. She still worries, even though I’ve done well in Brooklyn for so long already.

  Last night it snowed but only left a dusting. I watch where my boots make prints in the snow. The thing I hate most about winter, besides the cold, snow, and extra clothes, is how dark the mornings are. Because there isn’t light shining through my window, I stay in bed longer. I’m always tired until spring comes. The first year, I explained how tired I was and my mother thought maybe I had worms, so she bought a special drink for me. The drink was meant to clean me out, which is why my mother asked me if I saw any worms when I used the bathroom. I told her I didn’t see anything, and because she asked when my stepfather and I were eating dinner, he began to choke because he was laughing so hard, and it took him a long time to finally say, “Why are you asking the man his business for?”

  There is an old woman in a wheelchair waiting at the bus stop, smoking a cigarette with gloved fingers. There are also the regulars, a mother with six children huddled up next to her. All of them look exactly like each other, and nothing like her. The oldest boy helps the mother huddle the smaller ones, since her arms are busy holding the smallest one. All their names start with “Jah”—the mother is calling their names because the bus is pulling up. “Jahzalia. Jahmalia. Jahmajesty. Jahmarie. Jahzal. Jahdan.” The oldest boy is hauling the stroller onto the bus and the mother calls the names of all her children, worried that she will lose one of them. The eyes of everyone on the bus are forced wide open because the mother is loud and everybody is wondering at those names and all those children.