The School Bug was parked at the curb when I walked out the front door of the school that afternoon. I waved good-bye to my teacher like always. Then I opened the car door and exclaimed, “Where’s my seat?”
Uncle Dan smiled and said,“I gave it to a hitchhiker who was tired. He’s probably resting on it right now on the side of some highway.”
Order restored. I relaxed.
I stepped onto the floorboard, deposited my belongings on the front passenger seat, and then pulled the door shut. Uncle Dan wrapped a bungee cord around my waist and attached it to the handle on the dashboard. Then he started the car and drove slowly out of the parking lot. I extended my arms high over my head until they just peeked out the sunroof. Uncle Dan switched on the music. Bruce Springsteen sang “Born to Run.” As we picked up speed on the open road, I closed my eyes, held my arms straight against the force of the wind, and let my hair whip around my face while singing loudly to the open sky the words I didn’t understand. My uncle bobbed his head to the music. For those few moments we drove, the lines on his face melted and the weariness disappeared.
We pulled into the driveway. He unhooked me and said, “I wish this old Beetle were a ’57 Chevy, but aside from that, another perfect day.” My uncle’s cloudy eyes belied his smile. We concluded every day with these lines, and I knew this was the last time he’d say them to me. I started to cry. He slid his legs around
the stick shift, put his arms around me, and whispered,“It will be okay.” Then he held me out before him and said gruffly, “Maintain your routine, soldier, and you’ll be okay.”
I saluted him and got out of the car.
Early the next morning I woke to the sound of the VW idling in the driveway. The clock numbers glowed from Sarah’s nightstand. It was just past four. I heard a door slam.The blackness of the morning rolled over me like the tires rolling down the driveway. I closed my eyes as the sound of the engine faded. When I woke up later I saw a man holding the Boy’s hand. He had a scar that started at the corner of his jawline and disappeared down the neck of his white T-shirt. I recognized the military duffel bag over in the corner.The label on it read SARGE.
I rolled over on my side and watched Sarah sleep. I listened to her steady breathing, knowing that tonight I would be in my own room. I closed my eyes again and whispered, “Sarge?” The man nodded his head. I pushed back my covers. It was time to get up. My uncle was right; I was going to be okay.
I stood there on that Thanksgiving-empty Manhattan street watching a different Volkswagen chug past me. It was yellow, not blue like my School Bug. I sighed and turned back toward home.
I called Sarah when I got in. “Hey, it’s me,” I said.
“You sound sad, sadder than usual.” She sighed. “Did something happen? Why aren’t you somewhere for Thanksgiving?”
“Where would I be, Sarah?” In past years, I always said I went to friends to avoid going home to California.The truth was after I left home I celebrated the holidays with the Committee. One Thanksgiving Sarge burned the turkey, and every year Betty Jane got drunk. The memory brought on an ache that was so deep
tears couldn’t find it. I sighed and said,“Pam invited me, but I was afraid Peter would be there.” Ironically this year I really had had an invitation.
“Did you break up?” Sarah sounded hopeful.
“Yeah, a while ago,” I said. I wanted to tell her exactly five weeks, two days, and twenty-one hours, but that sounded obsessive.
“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.” She sounded betrayed. I couldn’t believe I didn’t tell her either. I told Sarah everything. What was happening to me?
“I’m sorry. It’s all been so stressful and . . . I don’t know . . . I’m so tired of talking about things.”This didn’t excuse me for shutting her out. “Maybe I’m just angry, Sarah.”
“At me?”
“At everyone and everything,” I said. We both were quiet for a moment. My foot throbbed. I looked down and noticed dried blood. I must have done that while my feet were in a state of ice cube. “Hey, I heard an old VW bug today when I was out walking.”
“Uncle Dan,” Sarah said softly.
I swallowed hard.The golf ball lodged itself in the middle of my chest and started to expand. I got up to clean my bloodied foot and sandal while I waited for her to speak.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Cleaning the blood off my sandal.”
“Sandal?” Sarah exclaimed.“When did you buy sandals? Wow. And you wore them? In November?”
“Bought them and bled on them,” I said.
“How appropriate,” she said with a snort.“Do you remember the day you cut your foot? Just another fun day with the family.”
“As I recall, the only fun part about it was the doughnuts.”
“I’m impressed you remembered,” said Sarah. “Oh, how I
loved pulling one over on her,” she continued. “She was so draconian about our diets. Well, okay, you needed it then. But I didn’t.”
“Right now, I would love to eat. Just eat and eat until every corner of my body is filled.”
“Sorry. I am still reeling that you bought sandals. And now you, the ascetic, are talking about eating. Let me get my breath.” I didn’t tell her I’d bought these sandals two months ago. “What are you doing now?” said Sarah.
“Right now?” I said.
“Yes, right now.”
“Right now I am talking to you.”
“Before you answered the phone,” came her exasperated reply.
“Oh. I was looking for Aslan in the closet.”
“Did you find him?”
“What do you think?”
“Shit, Holly.” The silence over the phone mixed in with the sound of cars rushing by outside.“Are we always going to talk in circles or talk about it?” Sarah said quietly.
“Okay. I didn’t find Aslan in the closet. But I am thinking of taking a walk up to the neighborhood church. It’s a better place to find him. But all those crosses, and bleeding feet and hands. I always thought that was kinda creepy—”
“Holly, stop it. Just stop,” said Sarah.
“Stop what? I have to go.”
“And do what?” she said.
“Nail myself to a cross,” I said.
“Christ, Holly.”
“Christ is what we started with. He excuses everything. Please forgive me while I—”
“Ground control to Major Tom—”
“Check my Prozac pills and put my helmet on—”
“Come on,” said Sarah.
“I really don’t want to talk,” I said.
“Are you okay? I mean really okay? How’s therapy going?”
“Just like this phone call: too much talking about the past. I don’t do the past, remember?”
“Seems like you
are
doing the past, Holly.”
{ 20 }
T
he first week in December, I started to wonder if I should wear socks with my sandals. It hadn’t snowed yet, but my feet were so numb all the time I was certain I had frostbite. I began carrying socks with me so I could change when I got to the theater at night. I didn’t care about blue feet in Milton’s office, but I did care what a group of adolescents thought about a supposedly sane adult wearing sandals in thirty-degree weather.
I’d just socked my feet and rubbed them to a nearly numb state when Pam yelled, “Okay,” as she clapped rapidly. “Everyone up on the stage.” She turned to me. “Including you, Holly.”
“What are we doing?”
“I thought tonight it would be nice to spend some time just talking and mingling, since a lot of the kids don’t know one another outside our rehearsals.”
“Wow, they all seemed like friends to me.”
“One or two of them maybe, but for the most part, they come from all over the city. So tonight we have a well-earned
break with some sodas and snacks. Talk time. You know, this is the fun part.”
Says who?
If she’d warned me, I would have called in sick.
I wandered around the stage muttering hello to the different packs of kids for about ten minutes.Then I saw one of the standout girls over in the corner reading a book. I felt her pain. Or maybe she felt mine. Either way, reading seemed better than mumbling, so I walked over to her. “
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe—
that was one of my favorites.” I pointed to her book. We’d been rehearsing for almost four weeks and I didn’t remember her name. Like I said, I’m bad with kids.
She turned the book over and looked at the cover. “I like it too.”
“I hope so; you are reading it, after all.”
Oops, too much sarcasm.
She smiled.
Maybe not.
I sat down next to her. Out of nowhere three kids appeared on the floor in front of us. I wondered how they appeared and disappeared like that.This ability would be handy to have.
“Come on,” I said, sliding onto the floor, “let’s join them.” I patted the ground next to me and the girl reading the book moved to the spot next to me.
“My uncle said that book is about Jesus,” one of the boys said, pointing at the book. “He’s a priest.”
“I heard that,” I said with a derisive snort. Then I took the book from the girl and held it in my hands. “Still, in spite of that falsehood, it was my favorite book as a child. I loved all the Chronicles of Narnia.” I stuck my hand in the bowl of Ruffles that sat in the middle, grabbed a handful, and popped them into my mouth.
“What are they about?” asked one of the kids.
“These children go into a magical world where they meet Aslan, the great lion.”
“Jesus,” said the nephew of the priest.
“Whatever. Either way, they have adventures and no parents.”
“Really cool adventures,” added the girl who was actually reading the book.
“Where Jesus is guiding them.”
“Who
is
brainwashing you?” I said. His face paled.
Shit, this is why I should be in the audience yelling cues and not up close and personal with people half my size and more than half my age.
I took another handful of chips and said, “Anyway, I read these books over and over with . . .” My mind went blank. I shoveled another handful of chips into my mouth and, while crunching said, “We just wanted to get to Narnia.”
Someone refilled the chip bowl and my hand like a little shovel went right back in. “The funny thing is, when I was six, I didn’t know what a wardrobe was. Do any of you?” The girl reading the book raised her hand.
“Of course you know.” I laughed and scooped chips.
“What’s a wardrobe, then?” one of the kids asked.
“I am getting to that. We didn’t know. Right? So, I had this brilliant idea to call Information. 411. My mother used to call 411 when she needed a phone number. Since they were called Information and I needed information, I figured, Why couldn’t we call them about a wardrobe?”
“You called 411 to find out what a wardrobe is?” said one of the kids.
“Yes,” I said.
“That’s dumb.”
“Yes, well, so I sneaked into my parents’ room.” I extended my forearms and made slow walking gestures with my index and middle fingers. I had excelled in the acting classes Mike and Walter had insisted I take.That was how they got my teacher to back
up the publicist’s story that my Emmy collapse was all part of an act for ratings.
“Picked up the phone”—I picked up an imaginary phone—“and dialed four, then one, then one.”
One of the kids made exaggerated pressing motions with her finger in the air. I wagged my finger at her and dialed one number on the invisible phone. She got the idea and dialed the other two.
Holding the imaginary phone, I tried to say in Betty Jane’s voice, “Directory Assistance.” It came out in my voice. I’d leaped off the high dive, and then noticed there was no water in the pool. Either way, I was going to land. “Hi, I need a wardrobe,” I said in the same voice. I waited for someone to say something, but my captive audience waited. I landed fine.
“What?”
I exclaimed loudly. If I had to use my own voice, I’d at least embellish with emphasis.“You need the number for wardrobe?” I brought my eyebrows together in confusion. The kids laughed.
“No,
what
is a wardrobe?” I accentuated
what
to show a change in speakers.
“What is a wardrobe?” I held the imaginary handset in front of my eyes, screwed my face up in shock, and then placed it back to my ear. “
Where
are your parents?” I put the highlight on
where
this time.
“My mother is cooking dinner. I’m looking for a wardrobe,” I said, making my voice a bit higher but still with a matter-of-fact tone.
“What do you need a wardrobe for?” I said, imitating the operator. I had more kids in the circle now.
“I want to get to Narnia, and Lucy got there through a wardrobe.”
“How old are you?” I said it with the previous operator’s voice.
“Five.” I held up five fingers. “I want to find Aslan.”The girl next to me stood up, made her arms into clawed Cs, and opened her mouth in a silent roar.
“
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
I know those books.” I snapped my fingers. “My granddaughter reads them.
“Can you tell me what a wardrobe is then?” I made a sad face like a mime.
“The wardrobe you are looking for is a tall cabinet, closet, or small room built to hold clothes.
“And that, my friends, is what a wardrobe is—a closet,” I said. The kids nodded in unison.
“Anyway, armed with that information, we searched for the entrance to Narnia in each of the closets in our house. At least, the ones that were not off-limits.When that didn’t work, we tried it wearing special coats.” I helped myself to another handful of chips.“We never made it, though,” I whispered.“We never made it to Narnia.”
“Lady, you sure like those Ruffles,” said one of the kids sitting in our circle.
My hand froze over the bowl of chips.
“Do you want me to get some more?”
“No.” I pulled my hand back.The chips turned bitter in my stomach. “No, thanks.”