Milo looked back to Christine, hoping for some cue. The idea seemed a little ridiculous, but if Christine approved, he would as well. After a moment, Christine sighed and said, “We can give it a try,” and Milo agreed. They set a time to reconvene with the doctor in a week and committed to at least one date before that time.
Milo felt that the meeting had gone well, but he knew that Christine would feel otherwise.
As they exited the building together into the uncommonly bright sunshine, Christine turned to Milo and said, “That went well for you, didn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Milo lied.
“I bet you just love him, don’t you?”
“If he can help us fix our marriage, you’re right. I’ll love him. But it’s not about who wins or loses. It’s not a contest. It’s about us. Right?”
“Did you know that he was going to be a man?”
“Christine, you made the appointment. I just showed up. I had no idea who the doctor was until I saw him. But who cares if he’s a man or a woman as long as he can help us? Right?”
“Yeah, right.” Christine turned and walked to her car without saying another word.
Milo had the urge to shout at his wife, remind her that there were no cameras rolling, no histrionic music playing in the background. “We’re not in a movie!” he wanted to bellow. “We’ve got no audience!” He wanted to remind his wife that her dramatic exit would only serve to make their next conversation more awkward and difficult, whereas a simple exchange of farewells would have made things so much easier.
Instead, he played his own clichéd role in her melodrama, turning with head down back toward his car. Better to keep the train from thundering down the track any faster than necessary.
Once he was sure that Christine was well on her way home, Milo reentered the doctor’s office and tore from the magazine the poem that he had been reading and memorizing.
He had no idea why.
chapter 6
Milo stopped at a RadioShack on the way home from Dr. Teagan’s office, provided his credit card and zip code to a middle-aged clerk who seemed under the illusion that he was a genuine electronics expert, and purchased a cable that would allow him to watch Freckles on his television rather than the tiny camcorder screen. Milo had intended to pay cash for the item, but after seeing the silver pen in the clerk’s pocket protector, the kind that required the user to click a button on the end in order to eject the ink point, he switched to a credit card, suddenly consumed with the demand to click the man’s pen at least once, but probably many more times.
When the clerk pointed to the pen already on the counter, one without an alluring retractable point, Milo was forced to pretend that this pen wasn’t working by pressing down with diminished force on the sales receipt. “I’m sorry. This is out of ink. Can I use yours?” he asked, making sure to point to the pen in the clerk’s pocket lest he offer another pen behind the counter.
Milo was forced to click the pen a dozen times before the demand was satisfied. In order to maintain possession of it long enough to do so, he asked the clerk about purchasing a warranty and service contract on the cable, even though he knew that such a request was absurd.
On his drive home, he reflected back on his session with Dr. Teagan. Though he was happy and relieved to discover that his understanding of the concepts of space and time apart had been normal, he wasn’t sure if it was worth the anger that the meeting had engendered in Christine. Though the two had committed themselves to at least one date before next Wednesday, they had hardly parted on good terms. Milo wondered how long he should wait before calling his wife.
Then, as if on cue, the phone rang. Milo answered, expecting to hear Christine’s voice. Instead, it was Andy, informing Milo to bring his laptop to the Wednesday-night meet-up.
“I’ve got a new game for us to try out. It runs online, so bring your machine. There’s a thirty-day free trial that we’ll all sign up for and play. I think we’re going to like it. A lot like D and D online.”
Andy was one of a foursome of guys, Milo included, who got together every Wednesday night for what Christine referred to as Nerd Time. Though she had initially intended the moniker to be endearing, she had begun to use it more acrimoniously in the past year. Milo never told his friends what Christine thought of their get-togethers, but he couldn’t disagree with her estimation. Among the many activities in which he and his friends would engage were video games, Sabermetric baseball, Dungeons & Dragons, and the occasional game of setback or poker. They rotated homes each week, with the host choosing the activity and supplying the food. Video games and D&D often vied for the top spot, with Dungeons & Dragons, a game Milo and Andy had played since they were kids, usually winning out.
Milo looked forward to Wednesday nights with great excitement and loved the time that he spent with his friends. He and Andy had been friends since high school, and Danny had joined their group several years back. Since then, the three of them had been inseparable, and rarely did they miss a Wednesday meet-up. Andy owned a comic book store in Bristol (where he and Danny had met) and Danny worked as a dog trainer and part-time landscaper and gardener. Both were in their early thirties, living alone as bachelors, and occasionally involved with women, though not nearly as often as either would prefer. They reminded Milo (and Christine) of a couple of grown-up teenagers, and Milo loved them for it.
Christine’s opinion of the boys was somewhat less appreciative.
Eric Cushman had recently joined them on Wednesday nights, and since then, the group dynamic had suffered terribly. Cushman was a tall, pale-faced, balding blackjack dealer who worked afternoons at Foxwoods and routinely gambled his paycheck away ten minutes after receiving it. He still lived with his mother (making Wednesday nights at his place especially nerdy), mooched beer off his friends, and insisted on getting his D&D party killed by bursting through doors without checking for traps or taking on monsters well above the party’s level. Worse still, Cushman insisted on dressing up as his Dungeons & Dragons character regardless of their activity or locale, so in the past six months, Milo had found himself eating burgers in Applebee’s, playing basketball at the Churchill Park courts, and attending the latest Spiderman film at the Berlin Cinemas with a guy dressed like Dumbledore from the Harry Potter novels, complete with a crimson robe, tiny spectacles, a wooden staff (ironwood, Cushman insisted), and a four-inch-thick spell book in which he actually wrote down the spells that his Dungeons & Dragons character had learned.
Cushman had also met Andy at the comic book store, and though he had seemed likable at first, he quickly managed to embarrass and annoy Milo to no end. Though there was a great deal not to like, Milo’s greatest problem with Cushman was the flaunting of his eccentricities. While Andy, Danny, and Milo attempted to conceal their love for Dungeons & Dragons from the rest of the world, aware of the stigma that came attached to it, Cushman flaunted his affection and utter devotion of the game wherever he went. As someone very intent on appearing normal despite his many abnormalities, Milo could not abide this kind of behavior, and as a result, he had been looking for a way to get rid of Cushman for some time.
It was also equally clear to Milo that Cushman did not like him and had not liked him from the start, and though he wasn’t sure why this was the case, it made Milo nervous. Though he despised the man, Milo had made every effort to conceal his feelings from Cushman, ever cognizant of the danger associated with an enemy. When one had as many secrets as he did, the best course of action was to maintain friendly relations with all parties, regardless of their stupidity or selfishness, and Milo managed to do this surprisingly well. Though it sometimes required a great deal of effort on his part, Milo tried to ensure that his friends, his clients, Christine’s family, and even the annoying blackjack dealer whose primary form of sustenance was Hot Pockets and Dr Pepper approved of him and liked him, and almost always he had found success in this endeavor. This occasionally meant compromising a belief or ideal, but more
often than not, Milo found that if he simply remained silent when the opportunity to debate or disagree arose, friendships and goodwill could be forged, maintained, and even strengthened over time.
To voice an opinion might invite disagreement, strife, anger, and genuine hatred. This would simply not do for a man who tried to avoid confrontation at all costs. Milo knew how unlikely it would be for someone (even Christine or the ever-accepting Andy) to like him if they knew about his secrets, and worse still, he knew what kind of ammunition an enemy might have upon learning these secrets. Avoiding enemies altogether helped to mitigate this concern. Therefore, Cushman’s reciprocating dislike for Milo concerned him a great deal.
After all, it was more difficult to deceive an enemy than a friend.
Milo assured Andy that he would not forget his laptop and hung up the phone. After a long walk with Skywalker and another dinner of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, he settled down on the couch to finish the first of the fourteen tapes he had found in the bag. Unlike during his previous viewing, he now had a purpose. While watching Freckles’s video diary, he would be looking for clues to this mystery woman’s identity. For this purpose, a legal pad and a pencil sat on the futon beside him and the dog.
Milo debated watching the fifteen minutes of footage from the previous day, concerned that he may have missed an important clue. But, anxious to see more of the tape, he vowed to review the first fifteen minutes in the event that he found no other means of identifying the woman. Connecting the camera to the television via the cable that he had purchased, Milo pressed the play button and watched the last few moments of kite flying before Freckles appeared on the screen.
This time she was indoors, sitting on a patterned sofa of beige and blue. The camera appeared to have been placed on a coffee table; the frame cut off the very top of Freckles’s head. She was wearing a gray sweatshirt with a Champion label, blue sweatpants, and ankle-high white socks. She was sitting cross-legged, and behind her, on the wall above the couch, hung what appeared to be a metallic sculpture of twists and curves, though most of it, like the top of her head, was not within the frame. It appeared as if she had pressed the record button and sat down on the couch, for she was still settling in as the recording started. A moment later, she began to speak.
I just got back from Mira’s wake and it was awful. Dreadful and horrible and so goddamn sad. Her poor mother. And all those people crying and crying, and all of them there because of me. Mira and her mother and her friends and even those funeral home guys, standing outside in their black suits, trying to look sad while getting paid, all there because of me, and they didn’t even know it.
Freckles stopped for a moment, sighed, and craned her neck back as if she were looking at something on the ceiling (Milo knew that she was only pausing to collect her thoughts). Then she resumed.
I felt so guilty standing there. And I never know when to leave. And why do the guys all stand in line with their heads bowed, staring at their shoes, their hands folded in front of them like they’re trying to cover up their dicks? Are they afraid that the Grim Reaper is going to come along and try to castrate them with his goddamn sickle?
Milo paused the tape and stood up, then folded his hands in front of his body as Freckles had described, and smiled with the realization that she was right. He could actually picture himself assuming this pose in the past while waiting to shake the hands of grieving loved ones at his father’s funeral, perhaps adding an embrace when appropriate, and even one of those manly, back-slapping hugs that guys often perform as a public assertion of their heterosexuality.
Before resuming the tape, Milo picked up the legal pad and jotted down the words Mira? Dead? Obits? Surviving mother. Father?
He thought that he might be able to locate a recently deceased girl named Mira (a thankfully uncommon name), and that doing so might lead him to someone who knew Freckles. With that thought, he added Need a photo to his legal pad, thinking that he could print a still frame of her face from the video in order to help identify her. Then he pressed play again.
We’re all just standing there, waiting for the awfulness to happen so that it could finally end. Waiting for the moment when we could say hello, sometimes to people we don’t even know, and offer some standard bullshit to someone who’s barely able to listen. It’s like the scoliosis screening we did back in junior high. We all stood in line, waiting to take our shirts off behind the screen so that Doctor Big Eyes could stare at our backs and breasts and tell us we were fine. I hated the wait, I hated the moment when I had to take off my shirt, but I couldn’t wait to get it over with just the same. Like you couldn’t decide which was worse, waiting for the screening or the screening itself. That’s how I felt today.
Milo considered writing down No scoliosis but decided against it.
And then if we’re lucky, like we were today, we get to view the goddamn corpse. Why the fuck does anyone want to do this?
Freckles began to cry, had started to as she described her friend’s body, but now it was genuine weeping: nose running, cheeks reddening, tears streaming down her face. Milo felt like an intruder, trapped in a place that he didn’t belong, a Peeping Tom, a pervert in a Good Samaritan suit. As he watched the woman on screen bury her face in her hands and sob uncontrollably, he wondered how he could ever return the camera and tapes to her now. She would know that Milo had witnessed this private moment, and he didn’t think he could bear this unspoken awareness between the two of them if they were to ever meet.
She cried for almost five full minutes as Milo watched helplessly from his perch on the futon. Unlike the actors in a movie or television show, who Milo knew were only pretending to be distraught (probably doing cartwheels on the inside over the amount of money they were making with each phony tear), this woman was in genuine despair, and there was no one to comfort her. He had the sudden desire to comfort her himself, a yearning that almost took the shape of one of his demands, even though this moment of sadness had probably occurred weeks or months ago, and it pained him that he could not do so.
This desire led Milo to think about Christine, probably back in their home, finished with dinner, watching television or reading at this very moment. How many tears had Milo caused her to shed by moving out? Did she cry at night while climbing into their empty bed? The thought of Christine weeping every night like this brought tears to Milo’s eyes, and for a moment, Milo and Freckles were crying together.
Milo managed to compose himself before Freckles did, but not much sooner. He thought about stopping the tape to call Christine, to check on her, see how she was doing and perhaps set a time and day for their first date. But then he remembered how angry she had been outside Dr. Teagan’s office just hours before and decided against it. Her fury was probably keeping sadness at bay this evening, he thought.
A moment later, Freckles wiped away the last of her tears and began speaking again.
Well, I guess I’m going to have to edit these tapes after all. I can’t let the world see that disgusting display of snot.
Freckles stood up and exited the view of the camera for a moment, giving Milo his first, albeit brief, view of her lower torso. Even though she was concealed by bulky sweatpants, he thought Freckles probably had a good figure. Lean and athletic. A second later, Milo heard the sounds of her blowing her nose, and when she returned to the frame, Freckles had a box of tissues in her hand, which she placed on the sofa beside her.
Anyway, tomorrow’s the funeral, which means that Mira’s last gift to me is a day off from work. Maybe two or three if I decide I’m too upset to finish the week. I should be, right? I mean, one of my best friends is dead.
God, just saying those words is incomprehensible.
Milo continued to watch as Freckles blew her nose one more time, stood up, and exited the frame. A second later the screen went black. Milo fast-forwarded the tape to the end and found the last twelve minutes blank.
Freckles had moved on to another tape. He hoped.
Milo picked up his legal pad and made some final notes. The wake was probably on a Tuesday or Wednesday, because she said two or three extra days off. Milo waited another minute before placing the legal pad down, trying to think of anything else that he might have missed. Satisfied that he had recorded everything of importance, he removed the tape from the camera, returned it to its plastic case, and loaded in the tape marked 2. Though he had hoped to start the next tape before he went to bed, he had been suddenly consumed with the need to go to the grocery store.
He had just opened his last jar of jelly earlier that evening, and he was in need of many more.
chapter 7
Five jars of Smucker’s grape jelly would probably be enough, he thought, but he bought ten just in case. It didn’t hurt to have extra jars stacked in the cupboard in the event that the demand arose again, as it undoubtedly would. Though new demands were not uncommon, old standbys such as the pressure seals on jelly jars could always be depended on to return again and again. Had he still been living with Christine, bringing home ten jars of grape jelly would require an explanation, but now that he was living in the apartment, he had to explain the purchase to no one.
A decade ago, Milo might have been embarrassed to bring ten jars of jelly to a cashier, and so in order to reduce his level of mortification, he might have purchased several other items as well in order to camouflage the abundance of jelly in his cart, much the same way as a teenage boy might pile candy bars, magazines, and soda atop a box of condoms in order to conceal the true reason for his purchase. But now, though he was still not completely comfortable with the oddity of this purchase, Milo no longer felt the need to fill his cart with other items. Cashiers, in his experience, just didn’t care.