Summer in the City of Roses

by Michelle Ruiz Keil

  “We need to get ahold of ourselves, people.” It’s Dad’s voice again. Dad’s phrase. Orr sits up straighter, stretches. His neck is sinewy in response to the new weight of his head. He has to forget about what’s there, or the panic will keep whipping his insides like a black-ops helicopter landing in his stomach. What would Mulder do? Or no, forget Mulder—he needs to channel the smart one. What would Scully do? Or, wait! He smiles. In this scenario, Iph is Scully.

  “What?” Iph says.

  “You.” Orr’s smile widens. He feels almost normal.

  “No, you!” Iph says.

  “You guys are adorable.” Plum’s voice gets thin at the end.

  “Why are you sad?” Orr wants to touch her hand but is suddenly very aware of how naked he is under the blanket.

  “Why are you psychic?” Plum sticks her tongue out.

  “Now who’s adorable?” Iph says.

  “Tell us the plan, Agent.” Orr sits up very straight.

  “That’s what it was. I know I’m not Mulder here, so that means I’m the hot one!”

  “The hot smart one,” Orr says. “Yes. Tell me!”

  “Fine, but go get dressed,” Iph says. “I have a feeling there will be clothes for you in the room where you were sleeping.”

  19

  The Transition

  to Embodiment

  The Furies circle with their instruments on the periphery of the carpet—Jane’s two guitars, one shiny new, the other battered and plastered with stickers. Allison holds her tambourine, and Mika places the percussion instruments and hand drums she’s gathered from the shelves of the cottage.

  With Jane, Iph goes to the garden. They snip rosemary, a large basketful. They snip roses, peonies, daisies, lavender, and bright, old-fashioned flowers whose name Iph doesn’t know.

  “Thank you,” Iph says as she and Jane head back to the cottage. “For taking care of him.”

  “It’s been my pleasure,” Jane says. “Your mom and dad must really be something.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Just . . . with you two. I see it.”

  “They’re all right,” Iph says. “Even my dumb dad.” She wonders—when will it be time to call them?

  Inside, Plum is giving Lorna a tarot reading. Mika and Allison and Cait help Jane and Iph line the edge of the carpet with the rosemary and flowers. Iph keeps back a few stems for the fire. George and Orr are laughing about something. Scout is crashed on the hearth. This place, Iph thinks, trying to reach for what it is or represents, but her thoughts are slippery, and she finds herself staring at the bright coals in the fireplace instead.

  “Um, Iph,” Jane says.

  Iph looks up to find that the round rug has transformed into a woodland stage with moss for carpet and real mushrooms dotting the soft green. There are a few stumps and a rough carved step for entrances and exits. Really, the perfect set for a Shakespearean romp. If only this were Midsummer or As You Like It. Iph can’t forget—the magic that’s making all this happen is also swallowing her brother bit by bit. She takes a deep breath and gets to work.

  Plum pulls a card from her tarot deck—The Wheel of Fortune. Noting the circular image on the circular card and the circular stage, Iph places Lorna, Josh, Cait, and George in the cardinal directions. Plum sits in the center with her tarot cards in her lap. In middle school they learned about a classic dramatic structure called Freytag’s Pyramid. Diagrammed on the board and described, even seventh graders saw the embarrassing parallels in the formula—inciting incident, a series of rising actions, a big climax, and then falling back to rest with the denouement. A few of the boys illustrated with a pencil and exaggerated panting. Iph was incensed. Was there nothing the patriarchy hadn’t tried to wreck? She argued that this was only one way for a play to operate. The teacher told her she was wrong. She said he was a misogynist and proposed a vaginal story arc. “What would that look like?” she demanded. “Something new, right? Not the same old play we’ve all seen a million times!” She may have actually stomped her foot. It was the only time she ever got sent to the principal.

  What she sees here, now, is not a rise and fall, but a spiral—circles in circles in circles.

  She asks them all to sit. To start by telling their dreams. “Furies,” she says, “anytime the mood strikes you, play to the narrative.”

  “Iph?” Plum asks. “What about Orr?”

  Iph planned to let him watch as the stories unspooled, but maybe Plum is right. “What do you think?” Iph asks her brother. “Do you want to sit in the middle with Plum?”

  “I want to stay here for now,” he says. Scout is in his lap. “If I need to join you, I will.”

  “I kind of want to sit on the side,” Plum says. “If that’s all right.”

  “You guys,” Iph says. “This is devised theater. We’re making the story together. If I say something, it’s just a suggestion. We need everyone’s intuition. Everyone’s voice.”

  Allison has her bass in her lap. She plucks the lowest string with her good hand, and now they have a heartbeat.

  Iph inhales and exhales. They mirror her, already starting to sync up. Mika’s hand drum joins Allison’s bass.

  One after another, they speak their dreams aloud. There is a theme here Iph is trying to understand, something cathartic and elemental. Jane plays a harsh progression of chords on her electric guitar that resolves to melancholy, even bereavement. Loss is part of this story; that much Iph knows for sure.

  Allison sings, her voice shockingly angelic, in a language Iph doesn’t know. Maybe Allison doesn’t even know it. Iph opens her mouth to take in the high notes; they taste like the purest water.

  Something about Lorna’s dream makes Iph think of banked coals or a dormant volcano. “You’re holding our fire,” Iph says to Lorna.

  “What about your dream?” Lorna’s voice is sharp, but she is fully present for this. Willing, Iph senses, to expose herself in a new way—but only if everyone else does.

  Iph sits next to Orr, takes his hand, and tells him her dream of their parents.

  “Whoa,” Lorna says. “Your mom—I guess it explains the gold stripper shoes.”

  “Her mom was a stripper?” Allison’s whisper to Jane carries like her soprano singing voice. “Sorry!” she says when heads turn. “I always used to get in trouble at church for loud-whispering. But it wasn’t a your-mom joke or anything. I was just curious—some of my best friends are sex workers.”

  “Our mom is a huge proponent of your-mom jokes,” Orr says. “She’s the queen of them. And I know your dream about Dad is right. His brother did die, but I didn’t know it was suicide.”

  “It might not be a perfect interpretation of what happened, but I’m not sure that matters.”

  “Me neither,” Orr says.

  Jane picks the guitar up again. She hums a low, simple lullaby. Then the song changes to something familiar Iph can’t place. Maybe it’s not usually done on the acoustic guitar.

  “Remember, babe?” Jane says in her ten-packs-a-day rasp. For a moment, Iph sees her and Allison as cigar-smoking old ladies.

  “Nirvana,” Orr says. He joins the circle with the musicians. Grabs Jane’s acoustic guitar. They play together. Suddenly, Orr stops. Jane keeps playing, a song that gets soft and sad, like the wind blowing through an empty house.

  “I’m going to tell you about the mountain,” Orr says.

  Iph rises. Brings Cait to the center. Is it cruel to cast her, with her lost sister, in this role? She asks Cait, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m all in,” Cait says.

  Orr looks at her. These two haven’t connected until now. “George told me about your sister,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m glad you got away from that place,” Cait says. “Britta was a badass, but even she never managed to escape from the girls’ side.”

&
nbsp; Orr directs them. “Lie down,” he says to Cait. “The house is empty. You’re in your bed. You’re thinking about The X-Files.”

  Cait giggles and it’s the cutest sound. Iph realizes it’s the first time she’s heard Cait laugh.

  The others play the transport team. Someone fetches a pillowcase, and Iph says, “Scene!”

  They go through the motions as Orr describes them: The abduction, the van ride. Arrival. When Orr reaches the part about running from the men, Cait explodes into fury, kicking and screaming and spitting like a wild animal.

  Lorna stalks forward, hunching her shoulders to shape the Minotaur man who shaved Orr’s head. George and Josh are the chair that holds Cait as Orr tells of the taking of his dark sentinel locks—his only protection.

  He stops there. “Please, do it again.”

  They repeat.

  “Again!” Orr says.

  They are switching roles now, rotating until they come back to Cait.

  “No, wait,” Plum says. How did Iph forget about Plum? “I should do it.”

  “No,” Orr says. “Not you. Maybe Josh can be me this time. You be the mouse.”

  Plum nods. Jane squeezes her hand.

  Orr tells of waking in the tent. Of the mouse, played by Plum. Of the coyote, obviously George.

  Iph doesn’t have to direct them now; they are choosing their own roles perfectly.

  When Orr gets off the mountain and meets Jane at the campfire, Iph signals for them to stop.

  “Orr,” she says. The music stops suddenly, too. It’s as if they all know what she is thinking. “Orr, what about you? Can you do it?”

  A bell chimes. Allison has amazing timing. Again, the bell. And again. A little voice calling Orr. Mika’s heartbeat drumming resumes. Orr moves to the center, lies down, and pretends to be in bed. Jane is playing the guitar again, peanut-butter-thick blues. Where the movements were fast and raw before, they are now stylized and deliberate, more choreographed dance than theatrical improvisation.

  Orr is deep in concentration, a look reserved for the cello. Something flickers at the edge of Iph’s attention, but she releases it. She has to be here in every sense. She is the psychopomp. Orr’s witness and guide.

  Everything goes well until the shearing. George and Josh hold Orr. Cait is weeping and can’t wield the imaginary shears. Once again, Lorna plays the villain. The moment she touches Orr’s head, the wind whips up in the trees outside, and Orr’s body convulses so hard someone screams. Scout barks and barks.

  Orr is changing, too rapidly to track.

  Deer to brother. Brother to deer.

  They are all frozen. Watching.

  Deer to brother, brother to deer.

  Orr’s strobing form flickers with the firelight, transforming faster and faster.

  The cycle begins again, so fast Iph worries Orr will fly apart. She throws herself on him and holds with all her might.

  He is now the fish from Plum’s dream, the embryo in her belly. He is the tiger! The white hound, her arctic minion. A redwood tree. He is teenage Mom on the slide and Dad mourning his brother on the shore.

  Iph holds him through every change until finally Orr is still.

  The others are holding hands in a circle around them.

  Applause sounds from an invisible audience in the house.

  A spotlight shines in Iph’s eyes.

  Orr stands. Holds his hand out to her as if they’re preparing to take a bow.

  The antlers are gone.

  She presses her forehead to his forehead. They stay this way for a long time.

  The applause dies. The cottage is silent. The trees are still in the breathless night.

  Iph knows before he even moves. Before he says a single word.

  “No!” she says.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

  He holds her close again. “I love you,” he says.

  Then he turns and walks out of the cottage. When Iph reaches the doorstep, there is a pile of clothes on the flagstone path.

  Orr is gone.

  20

  Voice &

  Speech

  Iph makes the call from a laundromat on Northwest Thurman, a few blocks away from the trail leading to the Witch’s Castle. Being in the real world is decidedly surreal.

  “Hello?”

  Mom! Iph can’t speak. She can only cry.

  “Orr?”

  “No—Mom! I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  “Where are you? We’re coming right now. I’m putting my shoes on. Theo!” Mom yells, forgetting to cover the receiver. “It’s Iph! Get the keys!”

  “How are you home?”

  “Later,” Mom says. “I have to find my other shoe. Here—tell your dad where to go.”

  “Macleay Park,” she tells him. “Bring Orr’s cello.”

  Cait’s purple BMW and the Furies’ van are next to each other in the laundromat parking lot. Lorna has to work, and Cait is looking rough. The night has been hard on her.

  “I don’t even know how to thank you guys,” Iph says. She has phone numbers for Cait and Lorna. “Where can I find you?” she asks Josh.

  “Around,” Josh says, opening his arms for a goodbye hug.

  “No bardic comeback?” Iph smiles a little.

  “Too tired,” Josh says.

  “Come stay at my house,” Cait says to him. “My parents left for Europe two days ago.”

  “See you soon, Iph.” Mika smiles and shakes Iph’s hand. She and Allison are cramming into Cait’s car, too. Mika also has to work, and Allison needs her pain meds. Her broken arm has been throbbing all night. “Too much bonus rocking,” she says, looking like a debauched empress in her disheveled red toga and raccoon eyeliner.

  Iph grabs Lorna and hugs her tight. “Thank you for being so strong,” she says.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You held the shadow for us tonight. We needed that.”

  Lorna rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling a little as she reaches into her ever-present duffle. “Here,” she says, taking out the gold shoes. “Give these back to your mom. Or maybe they’ll fit you now. They don’t feel like mine anymore.”

  Iph looks down at the boots that have basically become a part of her body. “No.” Lorna smiles. “Keep those, too. I’ve got my own.”

  Iph waves as Cait’s car pulls out of the parking lot and turns left into the ordinary world.

  In the van, Jane is smoking. “You all right?”

  “Yes, considering.”

  “I’m gonna go call Plum’s dad,” she says. Plum and George stayed back at the cottage. “Be right back.”

  Iph takes one of Jane’s cigarettes and lights it. It goes straight to her head. She puts it out, wishing for water.

  “We should stop at the store for more of these,” she says when Jane starts up the van. “My mom’s going to need them.”

  21

  Struggles

  with Obstinacy

  Iph hears the Volvo before it turns into the Macleay Park lot. She runs from the picnic table where she’s been waiting—Iph, who doesn’t run. Maybe Orr has rubbed off on her.

  Mom gets out before the car has fully stopped. Iph is her arms, heartbeat to heartbeat. Mom’s patchouli perfume, her essential Momness—ursine, soft, and fierce. Like something that’s tamed itself to love her.

  Dad gets out and stops, hesitates. “I’m sorry,” he says. Iph has never seen him so pale and stricken. He looks thin and hollow—like the ghost in him fled when Orr did.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” she says, trying not to sound cold. The reenactment of Orr’s kidnapping was going to be with her for a long time. To her mom she says, “How come you’re home?”

  “I had a dream,” Mom says.

  “Me, too.” Dad’s voice is trembling. “I don’t kn
ow what it meant, but it was the same dream. We both had it. Your brother—”

  “Turned into a deer,” Iph says.

  They stand in the parking lot at the border between worlds.

  “Mom?” Iph says. “It’s like your piece—El Mundo Bueno and El Mundo Malo.”

  “Yes,” Mom says softly, like she already knows where Iph is going with this.

  “El mundo what?” Dad says, his terrible Spanish accent a little extra terrible. A tiny joke, a tactic that is the start of them making up. But Mom isn’t having it.

  She strides toward the path.

  Iph’s stomach flips, full of dream fish. She’s never considered her parents breaking up. Not for even a second. But Mom has never, ever been this mad.

  “They’re the good and bad worlds—but not exactly,” Iph says. “It’s the multiverse, sort of. Except we keep going back and forth between the two. You have a chance to choose if you pay attention.”

  “Iph,” Dad says like he hasn’t heard a word. He’s staring at Mom’s disappearing back. “Where is your brother?”

  “In the forest,” Iph says. “Follow me.”

  22

  Value of

  Childish

  Impressions

  Mom has been gone for over an hour looking for Orr. After quickly greeting Jane and Plum and giving a slightly more interested hello to George, Mom asked for a glass of water and headed back out, Scout at her heels. She promised to keep to the trails and not go too far. She didn’t speak to or look at Dad, who is now asleep on the sofa. The house took one look at him, produced a turkey sandwich, and lured him to the pillows. George is reading in a chair by the fire. Plum is outside picking flowers and talking to Jane while she smokes.

  Iph touches George’s sleeve. “I’ll be back,” she says.

  George grabs her hand and pulls her close. Plants a kiss on her forehead. “For luck.”

  Iph returns the kiss on George’s perfect lips. “See you soon.” She takes Orr’s bundle of clothes and places them in the basket hanging by the front door.

  In the woods, Iph wanders. Soon, she hears something—singing. Mom. The song Iph hummed to Scout on the bus last night—or no, two nights ago. Or was it three? Iph follows Mom’s voice deeper into the woods. So much for staying on the path.