The realities, I’ve spent far less time considering.
“I wonder if I could get him to Chicago,” says Beck.
I stop mid-bite. “Really?”
“What do you suggest? We just drop him back off in the woods?”
I swallow the bite, suddenly tasteless. “I’m not suggesting that. God, that’s—why would you even think I’d suggest that?”
Beck runs a hand through his hair. “Listen. Ultimately, you’re trying to . . . I don’t know . . . figure out home, right? What about his home?”
I say nothing.
“Mim?”
Walt rejoins the table, his plate piled high. “Hey, hey,” he says, tucking in.
I feel Beck watching me. “Mim,” he whispers.
“I’m not hungry,” I say, pushing my plate away.
Minutes later, the waitress comes by with the check. It’s on a little tray with a handful of fortune cookies.
Suddenly, I can’t breathe.
I pull a twenty and a ten out of Kathy’s ever-dwindling coffee can, toss the money on the table, and slide out of the booth, pulling my bag behind me.
“Mim, wait,” says Beck.
I don’t answer. I can’t. All I can do is put one foot in front of the other, faster now, head down, trying not to faint, trying not to cry, trying not to vomit, just trying to breathe—God, just to breathe.
September 4—late morning
Dear Isabel,
Some Reasons come up and bite you in the ass when you’re least expecting it. This one is odd, because while I can’t quite trace how it’s a Reason, I know it is. It’s like that tiny middle piece of a puzzle, the one you know is important, if only you could find the corners first. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but this Reason feels like that tiny middle piece.
Reason #8 is the tradition of Kung Pao Mondays.
Before the divorce, the move, the shit and the fan, Monday was my favorite day of the week. Mom and I would hop in her beat-up Malibu, crank Elvis, and roll down to Evergreen Asian Diner, proud purveyors of the best Kung Pao chicken this side of the Great Wall.
One Monday, Mom told me about the time she hitchhiked from Glasgow to Dover and almost fell into the river Thames. I listened like a sponge, pretending not to have heard this one before, just happy to soak in the magic of Mondays. She finished the story, and together, we laughed the bamboo shoots off the roof. (In the history of History, no one has laughed like my mother, so fiery and thoroughly youthful.)
She cracked a fortune cookie against the side of our table like an egg, then unrolled the tiny vanilla-scented paper. I waited patiently for the celestial kitsch: the doors to freedom and the dearest wishes and the true loves revealed by moonlight. But her fortune wasn’t nearly as fortuitous as all that.
Just then, staring at the paper, Mom did three things.
First, she stopped laughing. It was tragic, really, to watch it evaporate like that.
Second, she sipped her beer and held the fortune across the table. “Read it, Mim,” she whispered. She never called me by my nickname. From her lips, it sounded strange and guttural, like a foreigner mispronouncing some simple word. I looked at her fortune, flipped it over, flipped it again. There was nothing written on it. No words of wisdom or dire predictions, just . . . nothing. A blank strip of paper.
The third thing she did was cry.
Signing off,
Mary Iris Malone,
Darling of Celestial Kitsch
31
Liquid Good-byes
I SHUT MY journal with a pop and climb down off the hood of the truck. Across the parking lot, Beck and Walt exit the restaurant, and immediately, I can tell something is off. Beck has his arm around Walt, who appears to be walking gingerly.
“What happened?” I ask as they approach the truck.
Beck opens the door, helps Walt get inside. “Midway through his last plate, he just stopped. Said he was all wrong.”
“I’m all wrong!” groans Walt from inside the truck.
“See?” says Beck.
I climb in on the passenger side while Beck hops behind the wheel. “What’s wrong, buddy?”
“My head, my stomach, all of me. I’m all wrong.”
Up close, his face is pale and clammy. I put my hand on his forehead for a few seconds. “Shit. He’s burning up.”
“Okay, well . . .” Beck pulls out his phone.
“What’re you doing?”
“Looking for the nearest hospital.” A few seconds later, he says, “We’re in a town called Sunbury. Looks like there’s a neighborhood clinic just down the road, except . . .”
“What?”
“It’s closed. For—”
“Don’t even say it.”
“—Labor Day weekend.”
I swipe my bangs out of my eyes. “So what, then, people are supposed to hold off on getting sick until after the holiday weekend?” Between us, Walt is moaning, rocking back and forth in his seat. “Well, we have to do something. That fucking buffet probably gave him food poisoning. He probably needs a stomach pump from all that red chicken.”
“The feeding!” moans Walt.
“I think I found a place,” says Beck, staring at his cell.
“Well, let’s go, man.”
Beck stuffs his phone in his jacket and revs up the engine. Walt’s moaning has reached new heights, and suddenly, I realize I don’t know the kid’s last name. How do I not know that? What kind of friend am I? A hospital means paperwork, and paperwork means knowing last names. If this is something serious, we’re in trouble.
A few minutes later, Beck pulls into the parking lot of a strip mall.
“Where’s the hospital?” I ask.
He turns off the ignition and points through the windshield.
SUNBURY VETERINARY
Animal Care Center
(Open Holidays)
“Animal care center?”
“Come on, buddy,” says Beck, ushering Walt out of the truck.
“Animal care center?” I reread the sign, just in case I got it wrong the first time. Nope. Spot-on. “Beck, you can’t seriously be—”
Beck slams the door. I watch through the windshield as he throws Walt’s arm over his shoulder and helps him inside the clinic. (Correction: animal care center. For animals.) Shaking my head, I drop down out of the truck and join them inside.
The front room reminds me of the principal’s office at my school: minimal decor of maroons and browns, cheesy posters, dusty leather chairs, prehistoric magazines.
A youngish girl appears from a back room, and like that, this idea goes from bad to bullshit. Her dark hair is tied back in a bun; she’s wearing a surgical uniform, which appears to have once been blue. But no longer. From head to toe, this girl is covered in blood. Liters of it.
“Hello,” she says, like it’s nothing, like we’re locker partners, like she didn’t just take a blood shower and then come out here all, hello.
“Umm,” Beck starts. He looks to me for help. As if. “Right,” he continues. “Well. Our friend here is sick. We think. I mean, he is, clearly. Look at him.”
The vet—who I choose to believe is in the middle of surgery, and not some ritualistic sacrifice with a host of bloodthirsty minions from the bowels of hell—shifts her focus to Walt. I watch her eyes as the situation dawns on her. Yes, I want to say. We come bearing humans. Please don’t Sweeney-Todd us. The looks on our faces must be obvious—she gazes down at her clothes. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she laughs. “You guys have a seat. Lemme get cleaned up, I’ll be right back.”
The two of us ease Walt into a chair. He’s still moaning, but to his credit, he’s dialed it down a few notches since the truck. I sit next to Beck and stare him down.
“I saw it on an episode of Seinfeld,” he says, avoiding eye contact.
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I say nothing.
He shrugs. “Forget it, you’re probably too young.”
“For what, reruns? I’ve seen Seinfeld, man.”
“Well, did you ever see the episode where Kramer found a dog who had a cough that sounded exactly like his?”
I tilt my head, hold back a smile, and for a second, we just look at each other. “So—I think my best course of action here is to just, you know, let the ridiculousness of that sentence marinate.”
Now Beck is holding back a smile. “Ditto.”
Together, we hold back smiles, marinating in the ridiculousness of our sentences.
I cross my arms. “Anyway, I’m still mad at you.”
“For what?”
“For what?” I mimic.
A few minutes later, the vet returns, and if I was scared of her before, I’m terrified now. Her hair is down, a beautiful mocha with just the perfect amount of wave. She’s turned in her surgical garb for a purple fitted blouse, with a giant bow at the neck, a black pleated skirt—not too short, but short enough—and a pair of Tory Burch flats. Her face, free of animal blood, has that natural sort of put-togetherness only another female can see through. The outfit is complete with a dazzling smile—in Beck’s direction.
“Sorry about before,” she says, circling the desk. “I was doing an emergency splenectomy on a seven-year-old lab after a tumor, possibly caused by hemangiosarcoma, ruptured the spleen. Poor thing had a distended belly, pale gums, the works. Anyway, the spleen had to go, obviously, and sometimes, you pull that sucker out, and”—she puts her fists together, then explodes them, complete with sound effects—“blood . . . everywhere.”
I look at Beck and remind myself to work out some secret signal for future predicaments such as this, something that means get me the hell outta here.
Beck stands up, reading my mind. “Well, we don’t wanna interrupt or anything. Sounds like you got your hands full.”
“Oh, the dog died,” says the vet, tossing her hair over her shoulder. “You’re golden. I’m Dr. Clark, by the way. Or just . . . Michelle, if you want.”
For a beat, no one says anything. Walt’s voice comes quietly, surprising us all. “Your dog died?”
Somehow, the kid is able defuse even the strangest of situations with nothing but blind innocence.
“Michelle,” Beck cuts in, “this is Walt. We think he has food poisoning, or something, and the . . . people clinic is closed for Labor Day weekend.”
Walt, still slightly hunched in his chair, seems frozen in this girl’s presence. “You’re really, really pretty,” he says. He points to her shoes. “Shiny shoes.” He points to her face. “Shiny teeth.” He lowers his hand, nods. “I like your shininess.”
Dr. Clark tilts her head, smiles, and—curses, even her smile is solid. Kneeling down on one knee, she puts an arm on Walt’s shoulder. “That’s so sweet of you, honey. I’m sorry to hear you’re not feeling well. What hurts?”
Walt touches his head. “I’m not all wrong anymore, but my head is. My head hurts.”
Dr. Clark looks up at Beck, as if I’m not sitting right next to her. “Vomit or diarrhea or both?” she asks.
“Umm, neither,” he answers.
“Really?” She takes his pulse, then stands and helps Walt out of his seat. “Come on, honey. We’ll be right back, guys. Make yourselves at home.”
“You smell shiny, too,” says Walt, disappearing with Dr. Clark into the back.
Beck falls into the chair next to me, leans his head back, and closes his eyes. “I’m exhausted.”
“Sleeping in trucks will do that.”
“Mim, I don’t know what I said to upset you, but I’m sorry.”
Just hearing him say it out loud makes me cringe. He’s only looking out for us, which is nothing to apologize for. I think about his words at the restaurant, about how I’m trying to figure out home. And he’s right, I am. But it’s not just that. All my life, I’ve been searching for my people, and all my life, I’ve come up empty. At some point, and I don’t know when, I accepted isolation. I curled into a ball and settled for a life of observations and theories, which really isn’t a life at all. But if moments of connection with another human being are so patently rare, how is it I’ve connected so quickly, so deeply with Beck and Walt? How is it possible I’ve forged deeper relationships with them in two or three days than I ever did with anyone else in sixteen years prior? You spend your life roaming the hillsides, scouring the four corners of the earth, searching desperately for just one person to fucking get you. And I’m thinking, if you can find that, you’ve found home. Beck’s words at the restaurant cut deep because . . . “I don’t know how to say good-bye to you.”
He opens his eyes, his head still resting on the back of the chair. “I know.”
It’s quiet for a moment while I try to shape these impossible words. “Maybe it doesn’t have to be, like, a solid good-bye, you know?”
“As opposed to a liquid one?”
“Yes, actually. I much prefer liquid good-byes to solid ones.”
Beck smiles, yawns, stretches. “So—I think my best course of action here is to just, you know, let the ridiculousness of that sentence marinate.”
God, I could eat him. “Ditto,” I say.
Closing his eyes again, Beck repositions his head on the back of his seat, and in one sure movement, reaches over and grabs my hand. Even with his eyes closed, he knew where to find me. I want to cry for a thousand reasons, laugh for a thousand others; this is my anomalous balance, the place where Beck and I can let the ridiculousness of our collective sentences marinate, and other things, too. It’s a singular moment of clarity between two people, and rare or not, I’m not about to let go.
I’m done roaming hillsides.
I’ve scoured the corners of the earth.
And I’ve found my people.
God, I’m almost jealous of myself.
Holding Beck’s hand in my lap, I find a courage I never knew I had and drop my head on his shoulder.
“HEY, HEY!”
I wake in a daze. Walt is standing over us, and while he doesn’t look completely like himself, there’s a little more color in his face. Beck lets go of my hand, sits up straight, and rubs his eyes.
“How long have we been out?” he asks.
“About ten minutes,” says Dr. Clark. She’s sitting behind the front desk, typing at the computer, and I may be mistaken, but she sounds a little less Michelle and a little more Dr. Clark. “I hated waking you up at all, you both looked so . . . cozy.”
What I’m thinking: Victory! Your giant bow, perfect hair, tiny skirt, and expensive-ass shoes are no match for the wiles, the skillz of Mim Malone, Mistress of Moxie, War-Crazed Cherokee Chieftess, Conqueror of Voodoo Vets the world over!
What I say: “So what’s the verdict, doc? We need to remove Walt’s spleen?”
Dr. Clark, completely ignoring my (hilarious) joke, pulls a piece of paper from the printer and rounds the desk. She hands the paper and a box of pills to Beck.
“What’s this?”
“Aspirin,” she says. “May I ask—you didn’t happen to eat at Ming’s Buffet, did you?”
It’s quiet for a second—this time, I’m the one who breaks the silence. “I fucking told you.”
Dr. Clark smiles, but it’s not sweet. “Your friend here didn’t get food poisoning. He had an adverse reaction to MSG. My sister got the same thing at Ming’s. You get a hankering for Chinese, you’re better off driving into the city.”
“We ate the same things,” says Beck, eyeing the bill.
“MSG affects different people differently.” Dr. Clark pats Walt on the back. “The good news is, he really just needs sleep and hydration, and he’ll be good as new. In the meantime, the pills will help with the headache.”
Frowning, Beck passes the bill
to me. “I’m sorry,” I say, reading it over. “You’re charging us two hundred dollars? For aspirin?”
Dr. Clark bats her eyelashes. “A diagnosis isn’t cheap.”
Diagnosis. Right.
Beck and I look at each other. “I don’t have it,” he says.
“Me neither.”
“I have a pouch,” says Walt. “My father-money.”
I’d completely forgotten. We’ve been lugging his suitcase around, and not once did I consider what was inside. He’d yet to change clothes. In fact, the only time I’d seen him open the thing was last night in the back of Uncle Phil.
“Walt,” I say, glancing at Beck for some reassurance. “Are you sure?”
Walt nods, looking at Dr. Clark like he’d agree to jump off a cliff should she give the word. I hate taking his money, although . . . it is for his illness.
I stand, make my way for the exit. “I’ll be right back.”
Outside, the sun is at its highest, radiating against the asphalt of the parking lot. I unzip my hoodie, hop in the bed of the truck, and kneel in front of Walt’s suitcase. The silver hinges on either side are hot to the touch; working quickly, I snap them sideways and open the top. There’s not much inside. A few ratty shirts, a couple of blankets, a Ziploc full of tinfoil, paper clips, and other shiny junk, two canned hams, the Reds program, his Rubik’s Cube, of course—I smile when I see the cutoffs. Underneath the torn denim, I find a bulky leather pouch. Sticking the pouch in the pocket of my hoodie, I’m about to shut the suitcase when something under the blankets catches my good eye. It’s shiny, of course. Probably a hubcap, I think. Pulling back the layers of fabric, I find a frame, brass and wood.
Inside the frame is a photograph. Walt is smiling his signature smile, wearing his signature Cubs cap, tilted back, like someone just flicked the bill. Behind him, a woman, probably mid-thirties, has both arms wrapped around his shoulders. She’s planting a kiss right on his cheek. The two of them are standing in front of Wrigley Field, on what appears to be a glorious sunny day. This is, without a doubt, the happiest-looking photograph I’ve ever seen. As the knot rises in my throat, I carefully replace the photo beneath the blankets, click the suitcase shut, and walk back to the office.