The Border of Paradise: A Novel (36 page)

“It’s complicated,” I say. I can barely deal with it myself—only this afternoon did I slip out my bedroom window; only this afternoon did I leave my brother in my childhood home to do who knows what by himself. And who knows if I’ll ever go back to that place, which is a notion that I can’t entertain without panic—since the honeymoon week, I have managed to preserve my sanity only through making the mind into boxes and rooms, and entered hardly any of them.

He says, “I can deal with complicated. Cassie was very complicated.”

Somehow I managed to sleep without moving my hands at all in their configuration on the Bible. When I open my hands to look at my palms I see that there are deep red impressions from the hard cover.

“You’re very mysterious,” Randy says. “Like a runaway.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep. Though I’ve never met a runaway before. It’s more of a concept that I’m familiar with.”

“How long is it going to take for the train to move again?”

“It really could be hours. So is it a guy you’re meeting?” Randy asks. “Do you have a boyfriend you’re trying to get ahold of or something?”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“You can tell me to stop, if it’s bothering you.”

“Please stop.”

Randy goes quiet. He reminds me of Sarah, Sarah who wanted to be adored and whose body vibrated with that desire. I wonder where she is now.

“There are certain things that I can’t talk about,” I say.

Next there is a strange wailing sound, and I whip my head around without meaning to and don’t see anything except for parts of people through the windows between cars, reading newspapers, and couples leaning into each other, heads on shoulders, and people reading books, and then, finally, a mother and child on the other side of the dining car.

“Babies hate storms,” Randy says. “I should know. I grew up with five brothers and sisters.”

I sit on my hands. How could I possibly tell him, or anyone, that I’ve lived my entire life without hearing a baby cry? And then: How can I tell
anyone
about the house, the two pianos, the life without playmates, a destiny without the possibility of exes?

Randy says, gently, “You okay?”

The baby is being soothed by its mother, who coos: “Yes, good boy, aren’t you my good boy—you’re my good boy, good boy, shh, my good boy, aren’t you, aren’t you?” and the baby is quiet, for the most part. I smooth my skirt with my hands and wonder why the baby must be told that it is good—a baby must be told that it’s good so that it knows that it will naturally be quiet and not grow up to love a dog that kills its mother, or run away. I turn my face toward the rain-slicked window and I cry some more, not caring that I look abominable, because who knows anyway if I’m a beauty; I’ve been told, but telling is just words, and I have learned better than to believe in words, and who is this Randy anyway? What does he want from me?

A godlike and scratchy voice comes on from above: “Hello, folks.” Everyone except for the baby is silent. “Looks like it’s taking longer than we thought it would to get this tree moved. The estimated time of departure is now—eh, it’s about ten
P
.
M
. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

“Worse than I thought,” Randy says to the back of my head, as my forehead is pressed against the glass. I begin to hiccup. “Ten
P
.
M
.”

I’m still thinking about the voice, the top of the train car; thinking about where the voice came from and if every car could hear it, what made the voice scratchy.
Hiccup.
I can’t wonder about too many of these things or I’ll make myself crazy.

Randy says, “I have a trick for the hiccups.”

Cold glass, cold heart.

“What you do,” he says, “is to say the name of someone you love, but really pissy, like they’re in trouble or you’re angry with them.”

“I’m not going to do that.”

“Why? Just someone. Anyone. It doesn’t have to be, like, a
romantic
thing.”

“No.”

“Hey. Sarah. I don’t want to be… presumptuous. But if you don’t have a place to stay—you can stay with me, if you want. We have a spare bedroom, and I doubt my parents would mind. I can do that, if you want.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“My mother,” I say, “would hate it.”

He pauses. “We could call your mother. I could explain, or you could explain, and put me on the phone.”

“She barely speaks English.”

“Oh.”

“I told you. It’s complicated.”

“I’m trying to help you.”

“I lied. My mother is dead.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was terrible.”

“I’m sorry.”

Still talking into the window, I say, “Tell me about your brothers and sisters.”

“Sure. I’ve got a brother who’s older, one younger brother, and three younger sisters. The littlest sister is about six or so, though I may have missed a birthday recently. I call them the Ghastly Trio. In good fun, of course.”

“Why ghastly?”

“Oh, because they’re
really
well behaved. Impossibly so. Do you want to hear a story?”

I move from the window, turning abruptly to face him. “Yes.”

The train car lights up white, and the thunder sounds with frightening enthusiasm. “Um. Okay. Christmas is a big deal in the O’Brien household. My mom goes crazy over decorations. I always complain, because she almost kills herself doing it, but everyone would secretly have a meltdown if she stopped. This is
actually the first year I’m not going to be around to see her put it all together, because of school. Anyway, so one year my brother Thomas—Tom, the older one—thought it would be
hilarious
if he woke up really early one morning and took the good stuff out of the girls’ stockings and put lumps of coal in them. I don’t even know where he got the coal. It’s not like we grill or anything. Are you getting this?”

I nod. I know a little about Christmas.

“I didn’t know about this, by the way. I would have never let him do it. Anyway, so it’s Christmas morning, la-di-da, and we come into the living room and people are going to their stockings. Bridget is the first one to go into hers, which my mother had hand-embroidered with a small Nativity scene when Bridget was in the womb, and Bridget pulls out this coal. She stares at it and then she looks up and says, really bravely, ‘Well, I perhaps put my elbows on the table more than I should have this year.’”

“What did the other girls do?”

“I don’t remember, exactly. I just remember Bridget, who was eight at the time, with a very thoughtful, serious look on her face and saying that she put her elbows on the table too much. Who
does
that? Even Tom felt bad when she did that. It was worse, he told me later, than if she’d just cried like a normal kid. So I call them the Ghastly Trio. They love each other.”

“I like that story.”

“Yeah. I decided when I started college that the only thing that I’d actually kill anyone over are my siblings. But especially my sisters. I see the way girls get treated at school, with those macho shitheads…” He stops. “Be right back.” He gets up. I notice that he brings his rucksack as he heads out of our car, probably so that I won’t read his notebook.

I look around. Two women, presumably strangers from the looks of their disinterest in each other, walk in and settle themselves. One reads a magazine. We had one magazine in the house: a fashion magazine called
Luxe
that Ma saved from the pre-Polk Valley days. This one looks to be about the same—a slim woman in a strange arrangement on the cover, wearing a fur coat and heels. My dress is childish in comparison with the clothes worn by the women in long coats on the train—my clothes with the floral print, the silly lace collar. The reader looks up at me and glares.

Randy comes back, violently plunks his rucksack on the floor, and sits down. I know boys and their foul moods, so I keep quiet and look out the window at some men who are standing around in the rain in slickers and gesturing.

Finally Randy says, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Okay.”

“Why do girls act like they care—
throw
themselves all over you to show that they care—and then! And they say that
guys
are the assholes. I’m the nicest guy on the West Coast, probably the country.”

“What?”

“Never mind.” He evacuates his notebook and a stubby pencil from his rucksack and begins to write, vigorously, before he says, “I called her, is all.”

“On the telephone?”

“Yes. On the telephone. This is a train with a pay phone in it. Fourth car, if you want to call your… whoever you need to call.”

“Okay.”

“Pay phone. You need coins?” He digs into his pocket and hands me a few. His hand is warm and soft like Sarah’s belly. “You use these in the little slot.”

“Okay.”

He goes back to writing.

“Randy?”

“Yeah?”

“What if you don’t know the number of the place you’re trying to call?”

“Um. Dial zero for the operator. Give her the name and city, and she’ll connect you.” He adds, “Godspeed.”

The phone is demarcated in the fourth car with a sign that reads PHONE at the top of a small booth with no door and no privacy. Already someone—a small, compact brown-haired girl with a cap on—is in it, and when I awkwardly stand around waiting she gives me a sharp look and covers the receiver with her hand. A few minutes later she hangs the phone vertically on its hook before adjusting her cap so that the brim is low over her eyes—I don’t think she can even see—and then she scoots out
of the booth. The slot is there, just like Randy said it would be. I look at the coins in my hand. I sit in the booth, folding my long legs in, and I pick up the receiver, which is still warm from the other girl’s hand. I put in my coin—do I put the other one in now, or later? The other one I return to my pocket. The number is
0
for
Operator.

“Operator.”

“Hi.”

“Yes?”

“I’d like the phone number for the Nowak family. They live in Polk Valley.”

She pauses. I envision an enormous book on her lap, her fingers flipping heavy pages. A book with all the phone numbers in the world must be like an atlas of epic proportions.

Says the woman, “Unlisted.”

“Unlisted?”

“No number. This number can’t be found.”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Some people ask to have their numbers unlisted, so they can’t be called by people who don’t know them. Some people don’t have phone numbers.”

“But I know them.”

She sighs. “That doesn’t do anything for you, hon.”

“Oh. What about Mr. Kucharski? In Sacramento?”

Another pause. “Also unlisted.”

“K-U-C-H-A-R-S-K-I.”

“No. There is no such name here.”

William. Poor, poor unlisted William. Poor, poor unlisted Nowaks. Gone and unlisted Mr. Kucharski.

Back at my seat, Randy looks up at me with his pencil still in his hand and the notebook still in his lap. I take great care not to look at the notebook directly. He has a lovely face. A
beautiful
face like a robin’s, black-eyed and bright.

“Good call?” he asks. He lifts his legs to let me slip by, and the backs of my knees rub against his stocking feet.

“No.”

“Me either. Cassie said that she’s not going to see me. First time we’re home since school starts and she’s not going to see me.” Randy closes his notebook. “Have you ever loved someone so much that you thought it would just kill you? That’s how I feel about Cassie.”

“What does that mean?”

“That it would kill me? I feel like my insides are being torn up. It’s like I’m having a heart attack. I don’t know. I feel like an abortion.” He opens his notebook again. “You should
hear
some of the things she said to me. I’m recording them for posterity.”

I wait for him to read them to me, but he doesn’t. Instead he reads to himself, silently, growing increasingly agitated.

“Maybe you should stop that,” I say. “It’s making you upset.”

“Ugh. I
know.
I can’t seem to stop.”

“Here. Give me your notebook. I won’t look at it; I’ll just keep it from you until we get to Sacramento.”

He looks at his notebook, which has a crisscrossing of pale lines across its front from creases, and a maladjusted spine of wire spirals. Quickly he hands it to me. I put it in my tote.

“Thanks,” he says.

“It’s no good to look at things that will just make you upset,” I say.

“I know, I know. I shouldn’t have called her. I knew that it wouldn’t go well. I’m a real idiot sometimes. Another problem with never seeing Tom anymore is that he’s never around to tell me that I’m being stupid. Hey,” he says, “don’t let me call her again, okay? I sort of feel like calling her again.”

“Why? What would you say?”

“I don’t know. Something to make her change her mind. I haven’t thought it through. I guess I just want to hear her voice.”

“Don’t call her again,” I say—and here is that hook of feeling again in me toward him, a complicated sharpness and softness at once—or maybe he just reminds me of a sillier, less highbrow version of William. At least they have the same passionate sense about them, and I can protect Randy; I can keep his notebook, I can keep him from calling his Cassie. What is it about these boys and their girls?