The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac (29 page)

Ginger was used to the question. She had been asked it by many people: her classmates here, even her own mother, who met Cort and did not at all understand why Ginger glorified him so. She had an answer to it, as she had an answer to everything involving Cort. She was not proficient enough in Spanish to give her answer in full, so she offered the short response.

“He has sad eyes,” she said, and then stopped, as though the explanation would suffice. She did not go into how Cort's own brother had died of testicular cancer a few nights after their first drunken hookup or how she had traveled at first hesitantly and then passionately with him to what was a gut-wrenching and beautiful funeral. She did not say that Cort was majoring in both physics and literature, indicating a general well-rounded intelligence. And she didn't mention that he was very kind, even if he refused to ever mention the word
love,
a word that would cure Ginger immediately of all of her deep woe. No, Ginger did not mention these details. She felt very much that her simple words—
tiene ojos tristes
—said everything.

The cobbler and his mother sat silently, watching her for a few moments.
“Qué lindo
,” breathed the cobbler. “I would like a girl to love me this way.”

“You love him,” the woman said. “For his eyes. For his eyes you would do anything.”

“Oh, yes,” Ginger said. “Yes, yes.”

“You would endure great pain and suffering.”

“Yes,” Ginger said. “I have been. I have been doing this.”

“You would kill yourself for him. All for this
rubio.
” Her jaw tightened, her eyes challenging, punishing. “You would do anything for him in the world.”

They were not questions. They were simply statements that Ginger fluidly agreed with, no hesitation, not even at the word
kill.

“You would kill your family for him.”

Ginger stopped nodding. She stared balefully at the Gypsy woman, at her sleek dark hair and cruel eyes.

“Basta ya,”
the cobbler said angrily. He stopped working the leather and frowned at his mother.

She glanced at him witheringly, and he fidgeted and stayed silent. Then she turned back to Ginger. “You have parents? Loving, rich parents?”

Ginger admitted this was true.

“You have a brother?”

“A sister.”

“And you would let them suffer for your love, too, no? You would let them suffer and die. All for this
rubio
's sad eyes.”

“Mamá,”
demanded the cobbler, rising to his feet.
“Déjala sola.”

“Just say the word. Tell me yes, tell me you love your
rubio
and would see them all suffer great pain. Tell me this and he will always love you. I'll change the avenue in your palm, the avenue of your
vida
. You will be with your
rubio
forever, if you want it so.”

Ginger brought a hand to her throat, considering. It suddenly seemed to her that she was the only person in this room who breathed, sucking in great breaths and letting them out. Of course, she told herself sensibly, they are speaking, so of course they are breathing. You have to be able to breathe to speak. This was what her father had told her when she was struggling with her panic attacks.

“I'm going to die,” she'd told her dad, sobbing, phoning him on her third day here. “I'm going to suffocate.”

“You can speak,” he'd said calmly. “Can you sing?”

“I think so,” she'd said, and had hummed a few bars of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”

He'd laughed, and she had been relieved to hear his laughter. “Then you have plenty of breath. You're hyperventilating, Ginger. It's a simple panic attack. Next time the panic attack starts, sing a little song. If you can sing, you can breathe, and you'll be just fine.”

And from then on, when the panic attacks would begin to take over, when she felt that she might suffocate and die, she would sing softly to Charlie the unicorn to prove that she was just fine, that she was not at death's door but alive and young and well. She chose the songs her mother used to sing to her throughout her girlhood, twinkling stars, or the one about the cradle falling and the poor baby with no one below to help her. And slowly in the coming weeks the panic attacks disappeared.

But why, then, were her companions' chests not rising and falling with the same ferocity as her own? Why were their nostrils so still, their nose hairs so undisturbed, their mouths clamped shut, watching her, one face challenging and cruel, the other soft and compassionate?

She saw now that these weren't real people—they were the ghosts of people. Not real people at all but demons.

God, to be with Cort again. To rest her head on his chest, to listen to his strong noble heartbeat. She would give anything, anything, for that comfort.

“Do not do it,” the kind man warned her in English. “She plays with you. Do not do it.”

She did not want him to see, did not want him to hear. Ginger leaned in to the cobbler's mother and cupped a hand around the woman's bejeweled ear. She whispered her answer and then withdrew. The woman cackled.

“Sí, sí,”
she said, looking triumphantly over at her son. “It is done already.”

Ginger waited for the woman to say the word. She did. Then Ginger whispered her thanks and returned to the street, avoiding the terrible reddened eyes of the cobbler, which groped after her like a pair of bloodied, scrabbling hands.

In the street outside the bar, her friends had gathered, drunker now, ready to dance. They noticed her dazed expression and asked what was the matter.

“Nothing,” she said. “I have to make a phone call. I have to go back.”

She ignored their reproaches. She ignored the courageous girl's mocking, “Off to call Cort. Figures.”

Ginger ignored them all and followed the meandering cobblestone streets back toward La Macarena, leaving the throngs of tourists behind, glad to be somewhere quiet again, or relatively so. The streets, after all, were never truly empty. Mopeds rocketed past, motors shrieking and then receding. Children played with one another or with their dogs. Entire families gathered together, dressed in fine clothes, parading their clan, digesting their late dinners. A young girl grasped the arm of her grandmother, and they bowed their heads at Ginger as she passed them. They were enjoying their evening stroll, the same stroll they enjoyed every evening at this time. The grandmother watched Ginger carefully with black eyes and a firm mouth. The young girl gave her a shy smile, a smile almost of forgiveness.

In the Plaza Pelícano, Ginger dialed the long number with shaking hands. She murmured to herself quietly while the ringing gonged in her ear, a strange and wordy prayer. What relief she felt when the man picked up, when he said lazily, “Roebuck residence.”

“Daddy,” she said. And she began to cry.

Her father was awkward with this immediate onslaught of emotion. He fell silent for a moment, then asked her if she was okay.

“I'm fine,” she lied through her sobs. “Are you guys okay? Are you well?”

Her dad skipped over her question, worried. He passed the phone along to her mother, who, no doubt registering her husband's tone, answered with a bright flurry of concern.

“Ginger,” she said urgently. There was so much love in her voice that Ginger sobbed harder. What a disappointment she was! What a wretched daughter she had become!

“Tell us what's wrong,” her mother was saying. “What's the matter? Have you been hurt? Are you safe? Do you need us there with you? We can be on the next flight.”

Through her sobs, Ginger burbled that she loved them.

“Well,” her mom replied, relieved, “we love you, too, sweetie. I wish you'd tell me what's wrong.”

Ginger's panic began to subside.
See?
she told herself.
Nothing is the matter. Nothing is wrong. It was all a ruse, all a performance. Everything will be okay.

“I'm okay,” she said. She had control of herself now. “Just missing you guys. So much.”

They talked a little bit longer. Everything was so normal back home, so boring, and Ginger relaxed. The palm reader had been toying with her. That was all.

“I almost forgot to tell you,” her mother said, just before the call ended. “Cort called a few minutes before you. He would like to pick you up at the airport. Instead of us.”

Despite her mother's disappointment, despite the dark thing that she had done to them, Ginger was overjoyed. It was unlike Cort to make such an effort. But now, yes!
He loves me,
she exulted.
Here, again, is proof!

“Oh, yes!” Ginger said. “Please. He'll get me, and I'll see you later. Soon. I promise.”

On the other end of the line there was a long pause.

Then, abruptly, came a loud and violent sneeze.

 

2003

 

 

THAT WILL TEACH YOU

Put yourself in Cort's shoes.

Imagine returning home from work to what you assume is an empty house. Your wife's car is missing from her spot in the garage. There is no toddler tearing up the place. All of the rooms are dark and quiet.

Imagine that you have been working in a hospital obstetrics unit for the past twenty-eight hours, caring for patients and struggling to impress your new colleagues, and imagine that you have been existing, like all medical residents, in a twilight coma of exhaustion and excitability. Imagine that the silence is like a warm, silken rain falling on you, cleansing you of the hospital's bright and terrible otherness. Imagine sinking into the couch, beer in hand, mind empty, leaning back, and putting your feet up on the ottoman, which appears newly anointed with smears of purple crayon. Imagine that you have taken but one sip of your smooth, black, cold beer and that the tight bands in your neck have just begun to release, when you hear, coming from the first door in the hallway, a long, low wail.

Imagine your surprise.

Why, it sounds like a baby crying.
Your
baby. Your newborn, the one who was born seven (or eight?) weeks ago, a pretty little girl named Ruby, who, compared to her wild cyclone of a sister, is usually quite serene. But it can't be the baby, you think, because your wife is not here. And who, in her right mind, would leave a newborn all alone in the house? Not your wife, who is normally frantic and responsible, so overzealous in her watchdog approach to motherhood that you feel both jealous and critical of her impenetrable scrutiny.

Then again, Ginger has not, of late, been her normal self. She has been extremely haggard, unnaturally quiet, both wide-eyed and numb. She has always suffered from internalized, irrational guilt issues, but she now seems crippled by them. She blames herself for everything: her mom's pneumonia (easily cured, once diagnosed), her dad's mild heart attack (he fully recovered), Blythe's fall in the driveway (more your fault, really, as you were watching the kids when it happened), her sister's many sinus infections (“Sinus infections can kill you, you know,” Ginger told you, and you struggled not to laugh).

“We've caused all of this pain,” she tells you, and she is tearful, glutted with regret. “It's because of me, of what I did in Spain. Because of us.”

You don't know what to say to this. You try to remind her that she's always felt guilt, always, only now she has something concrete to pin it on.

She tells you she needs help. You assumed, at first, that she meant a babysitter or a nanny, but what she meant was therapy or drugs or both. You agree.

Imagine considering all of this, with the knots retightening in your neck, as you set your smooth, black, cold beer aside and journey to the nursery, where your daughter lies kicking and sweating in her swaddle, looking somewhat like an electrocuted burrito. Imagine your anger and frustration at seeing the poor baby abandoned and alone here. Then, perhaps, you'll be able to understand Cort, to forgive him, for what he did next.

He is like us, after all: only human.

Cort packed the baby up and carried her outside. It was a beautiful day in an uncommonly cool June, when the rains had just ended and the clouds had parted and the sun was warm but not uncomfortable. The trees were greener on a day like this, the lawn sparkling, newly anointed. The sky, radiant blue and bright, appeared freshly scrubbed. Cort was even delighted to see a large eagle—a rare if not implausible sight—sitting on the telephone pole near their neighbor's yard. The eagle was watching them with a noble posture, as though approving of Cort's train of thought. And Cort's train of thought—despite a distant sort of appreciation for the fine sort of day it was—clattered along a track of revenge. It would have been a wonderful day for a walk, and Cort even considered retrieving the stroller from the garage and ambling about the neighborhood with his tiny charge (and how excellent that walk would be if he had been able to finish his beer, if he had worn, like a soft helmet about his head, a comforting and expansive beer buzz), but his incredulity and anger with his wife had yet to pass, and he decided, instead, to teach Ginger a much-deserved lesson.

What use was it, Cort thought, to be so guilt-ridden if you were also going to be so irresponsible? Why set yourself up, he wondered, for future episodes of guilt? It was maddening.

Cort opened the swaddle on the grass in the backyard, close to the house, and let the baby lie freely on top of it. Released from her confinement, Ruby became cheerful, and she kicked and gurgled appreciatively.

Ginger's car pulled into the garage then, and Cort, after bending over to give Ruby a kiss on the forehead, straightened and slipped back into the house, unseen. He returned to the couch and resettled his feet on the ottoman and took up his beer and quickly chugged half of it down before his wife entered the room.