Aftermath of Dreaming (33 page)

It has gotten to the point
that no matter why I am on the 10 freeway, the minute I pass the 405 interchange heading west, I feel it. Fear, really. Dread. A kind of internal backing up. My body thinks it is going to the boxing gym, where I've been going twice a week since November, even if I'm not. Because I am going to get hit at the gym, and my body knows this. I can think all I want about mouth guards and body pads, big pillowy gloves that will never break skin, but the reality is that I am going to get hit. On purpose. Repeatedly.

The fear and dread feels kind of like as a kid when I had to learn how to swim. I was terrified of that. Though I loved playing in the water. I just didn't want to learn how to swim. “Put your face in the water,” the swimming teacher would say. But I didn't ever want my face in the water. To this day, I cannot take a shower without a dry cloth nearby. God forbid I am ever on a sinking ship—I'll be grabbing towels to take to the lifeboat. Just keep my face dry. I have no idea why.

And not only am I going to get hit, but I am being trained to stay forward, closer to the hit. To move, certainly, away from the hits—run and hide is what I want to do, but I ignore that logical instinct and choose to believe my coach as he repeatedly yells to me that the closer I am to my opponent, the less effective his punches will be. No time or space for their impact to build up in. “For it to become something,” he always says.

 

So if something happens only once, it could be a fluke, an odd beat out of sync with time, but if that same thing occurs a second time, then a rhythm is established and from that I can kind of tell when it will happen again. This works for anything: scream dreams, right hooks, sex with someone. Andrew and I had been on an eight-week rhythm method thing, established by that first night we were together in December and then the second time in February that made the weeks in between those two dates mean something. Eight weeks without him that moved interminably forward through time suddenly landed and connected me on him. Him on me. Again. But now we have skipped what should have been our third time of seeing each other according to the eight-week rhythm we were on. Now there is a long, silent ten-week pause, which, God knows, rhythms can have—thank you, John Cage—but I am stuck waiting for the beat and hating this rhythm of waiting.

 

On my third try, I finally get the manager of Greeley's jewelry department in Honolulu on the line.

“Right, Broussard's Bijoux, that's that line of pearls and semiprecious stones?”

That's encouraging—maybe since she's familiar with the line, everything flew out of there, too.

“Well, I hate to tell you this, but your line's just been sitting in the display cases, not budging at all.”

For the first time, maybe to distract myself from the horror of her
words, I can hear her Chicago accent. I imagine her gladly abandoning that wintery land with fantasies of starting a new life, only to have a similar one, sans snow, on the big island.

“It's not a very sophisticated crowd we get down here. In L.A., I can see how this stuff would work, but Honolulu is mostly tourists and they aren't going to spend upward of five hundred dollars for a piece of jewelry. And the locals, well, pearls are everywhere. Tahiti's so close by, this market's pretty flooded. I don't know what that buyer in the forty-eight was thinking. I told them when they hired me to open this store to let me do my own ordering, but you know how these big stores are.”

“So will you put them on sale? What's going to happen?” I want to fly down there and rescue them, as if they were a child who was left at an inappropriate house over night.

“I have to wait and see what they decide. They usually give stock a three-month cycle, so you have a couple more weeks till the end of May. And who knows, one customer could come in and buy the whole thing. Not that I'm counting on it.”

I hang up the phone and immediately call Reggie.

 

Driving on the 10 at one-thirty
A.M.
is like being among the die-hard dregs of a crowd after a rock concert has ended. Not many other vehicles are around, but the ones that are appear just as needy for this experience not to end as I am. I've made the loop past the downtown skyscrapers three times now and even that hasn't made a dent in the despair and almost physical pain I am in, so I am flying on the 10 heading west to the beach. I'll take the PCH up to Topanga, cut through the canyon, then pick up the 101 in the Valley and take it home. Hopefully that'll be a long enough drive. I told myself that I couldn't sleep because of the godforsaken news from Honolulu, but really it's because I haven't talked to Andrew in eleven weeks.

I can barely face what I am terrified this means. Maybe he isn't ever going to call me again. He can't be in New York this long. I've scoured newspapers and magazines for some hint of a project he or his wife could
be doing, but there's been nothing. I could just call his cell phone and hope that he can talk, but that feels risky for his situation and desperate about mine. He's always called before. Even when I walked out on him that night at his house and stopped answering my phone, he called for a month, so why this silence now? Maybe he really did decide that we shouldn't see each other. I just can't believe he didn't say goodbye.

Every time I check my phone messages, I automatically pray to hear that little “hunh” that means that Andrew called. Instead, this morning I get “Hi, Yvette, it's me. There's an opening at the museum tonight and I figured you might wanna go. Call me.”

For a split second I think how sweet of Michael to invite me, but then I am wearied by it. I wonder what will have to change in my life for him to stop calling out of the blue. Maybe getting married. If I ever do.

 

“We think your line will do better in other stores.” Linda Beckman's voice over the phone is explaining Greeley's decision to me.

“Stores? So the line's going to be split up?”

“White Plains, Miami, and Houston. Those markets are much better for your work—more sophisticated. I'll figure out who gets what. Don't worry, I won't leave it to the people in Hawaii to ship whichever pieces to whatever store.”

“Thanks,” I say, trying to sound like that's a relief, though this situation is making my stomach sick.

After finding out from Linda when the stores will each get a third of my line, like a head here, the torso there, arms and legs way over there, I hang up.

Oh, Jesus God. A horrible remembered vision of my jewelry in Lizzie's shop comes to mind. A few pieces in a jumbled display case with no context, just jammed up next to any old jewelry. I tell myself that Greeley's, known for their high-end fashion, is not going to dump pieces somewhere and not display them well. I hope.

I walk into my studio to tackle my work for the day, and decide to check my e-mail while I finish my third cup of coffee. But instead of
some wonderful, life-altering news, it is the usual spam, customers checking on commissions, and one “inspirational” note forwarded from Suzanne saying, Don't tell God how big your problems are, tell your problems how big God is. Then it goes on about a little boy in Phoenix who had leukemia and wanted to be a fireman, and how he got to be one for a day, and then a week later as he lay dying, the fire chief came to his hospital bed, held his hand, and told the little boy that he was a real fireman now, because the big chief, Jesus, was waiting for him in heaven.

I feel even worse after I read it. Why does she send me these things? I never know how to respond. “Thanks for the reminder that innocent children are dying terrible, senseless deaths every day—hope your day is going great, too.” I don't think Suzanne would appreciate that. Then I feel shitty because I know she means well, and I guess if she were capable of a simple, “Hey sis, what's up?” e-mail she'd send that, so I guess she's not. I suddenly feel so separated from her. And from my jewelry that is being sent all over the country. And a whole, whole, whole lot from Andrew. As I shut down the e-mail program, I have to fight the urge to go to the couch, lie down, and not ever get up.

It has been fourteen weeks
since I've heard Andrew's voice and all I want is to see his face in front of me. Instead I am looking at big, pillowy gloves coming straight at my head. Not at the same time. My partner's first combination is right jab, left hook, right hook, which I am supposed to swerve from. Okay, it's not called “swerve.” Or “duck,” which is the only other word I can think of, but something that I can never remember what they call it when you move out of the way, but in that very specific boxer way where you're gone, but still near, so you can hit them back. It has to do with the rhythm of your weight. How quickly and easily you can shift so you're gone when they're there, but right there before they're gone. I'm still learning.

And the worst part is that I can't hit back. We're taking turns—my partner, Dave, and I. He's on offense, so I'm defense. Dave's a seventeen-year-old…kid, I guess you call them. I don't know. I never hung around one that age before because I jumped over that group when
I was fourteen, and going to that all-girl Catholic school, I just never saw one this close up. But here Dave is, with legs like a man, hands still young, every part of his body looking a different age, like someone hit the random button on the CD player of his growth. It's his turn to punch and my turn to shift my rhythm and move my weight toward him, which is the trick, see, because that's when you can switch from just being in the getting-hit-but-trying-to-cover defense role to the yes-your-punches-are-so-in-my-face-but-I'm-moving-toward-you-backing-you-up-while-effortlessly-missing-your-hits-ready-to-make-my-own position.

But that is not happening. What is happening is that Dave's punches are hitting me. Not hard. He's got big, pillowy gloves. I've got a mouth guard. I'm able to do some swerving-duck, but still I am getting hit. Repeatedly. On purpose. And I start getting annoyed. He's seventeen. Energy comes out of nowhere on him like growth spurts shooting out his hands, but I'm trying. I'm stepping forward, shifting the weight, moving my head. It's very hot. My face is melty and wet. I swerve another duck, glance up, and catch Dave smiling at me. Hard. Happy about all this. And suddenly, I start to cry. Silently, but cry. Which I realize is a tactic Tyson and Ali have never used, probably because it doesn't work, although maybe Dave can't tell I'm crying because my face was already quite wet, but now tears are adding lots more, then my nose joins in this liquid fest, but still I try to change my rhythm and shift my weight, which is right when his left hook nails me, busting my lip against the safe mouth guard.

I can tell he feels rotten. So does the coach whose back was turned when it happened. I consider sticking around to make them feel better, but all I want to do is leave and maybe never return. I promise them I'll go to Cedars Hospital, but, honest to God, I just want to go home. I take the towel they give me with the ice wrapped in it, get in my truck, and speed to the 10 where anything can get blotted out if I ride it long enough.

Andrew has been out of my life as fast as he came in. I keep telling myself this is for the best. He's married with two children. Stay away.

He must have come to that decision, too. He told me that first night we were together in December that he had been good, his word for not sleeping around. Until me, I thought. So it's good that he hasn't called me in three and a half godforsaken months. I just wish I completely felt that way.

I skipped my exit. The sign snuck by me like those subliminal ads you hear about in films, so I get off at Hoover to turn back around. I decide to check my messages while pretending to myself that I'm not hoping one from Andrew is miraculously there. I hook back onto the 10 as my answering machine clicks on.

Suzanne's voice is telling me that she tried to reach me on my cell phone, Jesus, she wishes I would leave it on, just call her immediately. I am almost at my exit and consider waiting until I'm home to call her back, but she sounds angry, frantic, and scared all at once so I punch in her number, as trepidation makes a wider space in my stomach than I can hold because Suzanne's voice sounded exactly as it did when she called to tell me about Momma's—

“Hello?” My sister is practically shouting.

“Hey, it's me, what's wrong?” I try to sound normal, hoping my tone will force her answer to be normal, but my words are hindered by the towel-wrapped ice and my enlarged lip getting in the way.

“Why are you talking like that?”

“It's nothing, I'm fine. My lip got hit in boxing tonight, but it's nothing, I'm—”

“Boxing?” Like I said I was in the Arctic, she made it sound that far-fetched.

“Suzanne, what happened, why'd you—”

“Daddy died.”

“What?”

“Dad-dy died.” She spit the syllables out.

“No, Suzanne, no.” The trepidation has kicked itself inside out and is knocking me down from within, as fear, panic, and dread shoot out from it.

My sister is silent as I move my truck over to the shoulder of the 10.
I am astonished that some part of my brain was untouched enough to heed a long-ago-heard safety advice—when in danger on a highway, pull to the side.

“Where? When? From what?” It is too impossible. Time and distance from my father have disappeared, leaving the irrational thought that I was just about to see him, was finally going to get to see him. I suddenly realize I have been dreading this news for years.

“Florida somewhere, a few months ago, I think. Heart attack on the kitchen floor. That woman called to tell me.” Suzanne doesn't have to tell me who she means. Ever since Cousin Elsie called Momma to say she saw Daddy in Sarasota, she has been referred to as “that woman.”

“Said it had taken her weeks to find me,” Suzanne continues. “She wanted to know how Momma died, but I wouldn't say. What a ghoul that woman is—forever calling and bearing bad news.”

“Oh, God, oh, God, no. Now I'll never…” The silent scream inside me pierces through my skin. I can barely feel my tears. I try to breathe around the panic and fear and dread that are taking all the room inside. Only small areas of my body—fingertips, elbows, heels—have room for my breath to enter and leave. I gasp air in while dispelling sobs, but the two collide. Oxygen squeezes by, just enough to keep me alive. My body is screaming against this information, fighting with punches and hooks and jabs not to know what it has heard.

The silence on the phone is thunderous. If my sister had been speaking, I wouldn't have heard it so clearly.

“I need to finish driving home.”

“Are you okay to do that? Maybe you should wait. Where are you anyway?”

I assure her that I'm fine by regulating my breathing to coincide with emitting words—a task so monumental that I have new found awe for our ability to do it without thinking.

I just need to get off the 10, I tell myself as I punch the button to end the call and pull my truck back into the flow of traffic. If I can get home and call her from there, I am sure this news will have changed. A fluke is what it was, like an accident on the highway that will be all
cleared up by the time I reach home, the updated report from Suzanne assuring me of Daddy's noninjury.

I immediately listen to my messages again when I get home. I hear Suzanne's first dreadful one that I hung up on without erasing, then I wait to hear a “Call me back; the news I told you was wrong” message from her, but it isn't there. I take the towel off my lip and open it up. The ice has mostly melted; small chips of it are stuck in the white thread among specks of my blood. My lip feels pillowy large, but hard. The pain is forming a concrete mass inside. I dial Suzanne's phone number with a mixture of hope and dread. She picks up on the first ring.

“Good, you made it; I was worried.”

I wait for her to say something else, but she doesn't. The news about our father hasn't changed.

“Should we go home?” Then I immediately realize that was dumb.

“Home? Where and to what? He's not there anyway. Who knows what plot of land in Florida he's buried in.”

Oh, God. The body. My father's body is no longer him, hasn't been since he died God knows when, yet that is what I want. The body to bury, to watch it go in, to throw myself on it one last time, one last contact since when? To honor it at its end, a goodbye to his physical self. The self that I derive from. I have no idea where my father's spirit is, nor where what it inhabited is. He is displaced in his death from me, just like in life, but I guess not for him and that feels even worse.

“I'm gonna go.”

“Do you want us to come over? You don't sound good. Or want to come stay here?”

I can't bear to see Suzanne's face, to see any likeness of him, the likeness I always delighted in: his nose, the shape of his eyes, a certain grin. I can't see them on her, so alive and well, knowing that those on him have been set loose like homing pigeons never to reach their intended end. “No, I'll be fine. I'll call you, okay?”

After a few minutes of convincing my sister that I'll be okay, and assuring her that I am keeping ice on my lip—which I'm not because what's one small injury on my body when my daddy's body is dead?—I
call Reggie. My sadness-terror rushes forward to meet him when the phone stops ringing. I'm reassured to hear his voice, but crushed that it's his machine.

“Reggie, it's Yvette.” There is small comfort in the facts of our names, though I worry he won't be able to understand my lip-busted speech. I realize I'll have to enunciate each word, and just thinking of that is painful on every level. “My…” I can't continue. “Daddydied” has become one word. “My…” My mouth twists out to make the next sound, but a noiseless sob catches it, distorting it from saying what I can't. “Dead.” Okay, that's part of it. I gulp some air. It hits my lungs for the first time in what feels like years. “Dad.” I try to get the “dy” out. I've always hated the word “Dad.” It sounds so done with, so obligatorily child-of. I have never wanted to call my father that ever and definitely not now. The “dy” comes out as “me.” But at least sounds are escaping, if I pause and say nothing Reggie's machine will cut me off, and I know I won't be able to start this message all over again. “Will you call me?” There is meager relief in getting a full sentence out and the routine sounds of that one helped. “Maybe you could come over or I could come there?” I am begging and hate that I am, but I feel a kind of all encompassing insecurity that I never before have. And he did come over when Momma died. “Please call me, okay? Okay, bye.”

I hang up the phone reluctantly. I wish I could just stay on his answering machine, connected to him via the phone line until he comes home and picks it up, then will come here and be with me. But the phone is in its cradle and I am sitting on my couch alone. The clock reads nine-fifteen. What a truly horrendous time to find out my father is gone from this earth. It is too early in the evening for me to know what I know. I am certain that earlier in the day or later at night would have made this manageable somehow.

At least Reggie is fanatical about his phone messages. Maybe before he gets home, he'll check from a pay phone, then drive over here. Please, God. I wish Andrew's arms were holding me in a way that never lets go even when the arms have to.

I curl up on my couch, retreating into it as far back as I can. Like
I'm on a precipice from the world's unendurable drop. The wet, now warm towel is pressed to my lips. It's no longer doing any good, but it's comforting, like holding on to a rail.

I can feel my mind trying to back up and move away from this knowledge that it doesn't want to know. And the knowledge has started moving everywhere inside me, rerouting itself to reach my body's cells, but they are in flight—shooting every which way before this information can catch them. They don't want to know that the two who made them—made me—are dead and gone. Life is not an inextinguishable right. Both of my parents are no longer here, therefore one day, neither will I be and vaporized into where?

I stare across the living room and find minuscule safety in this position, so I hold the gaze, not ever dropping it, while waiting and hoping and praying for my phone to ring, for Reggie to be here, for anything to happen that could somehow obliterate this demise, to see someone who has one parent left, who can still sometimes lie to themselves that the end doesn't come whenever it decides.

 

I still haven't heard from Reggie. It's been twenty-four hours since I left my swollen-lip jumbled message on his machine. Could something've happened to him, too? Jesus, not a one-two punch of tragedy, I think as I dial. As I leave Reggie another message, the speaking reopens my lip and blood comes pouring out. The Band-Aid I put on feels oppressive, a reminder of the risk from any communication I make.

I have just hung up the phone when it rings, so I answer it quickly, hoping it's him immediately calling back.

“Our father's been dead to me for a very long time,” Suzanne says. “This changes nothing as far as I'm concerned.”

Then why'd you sound so flipped out when you told me? I want to ask, but don't because it is difficult to keep thoughts in my head long enough for a second sentence to follow a first.

“So, no, I don't want to do some kind of service with you,” my sister continues. “I've moved on already.”

How very efficient of you, I think as we get off the phone, having nothing more to say to each other, though volumes are being transmitted by the sheer act of our hanging up.

My body is beaten up and stiff from the crumpled pose I stayed in on the couch all night long, and my lips are swollen and throbbing red. I can feel my entire body's internal width and depth fully defined by the aching and soreness. I'm hungry without appetite; exhausted without sleepiness.

 

My mind is stuck. It recoils from what it knows, then moves awkwardly ahead when I have to speak or perform a task. Backward and forward in a herky-jerky mode. I am frightened that if I don't somehow jar myself, I'll stay in this disconnected to-and-fro groove. I need to talk, to walk, to move through a prescribed course of events, and see the specific sight I never have before, my father in a coffin, for my mind to believe and interpret this event. I need family.