by Rachel Cohn
“I’ll be right back,” Very said. She darted off to the nearby kitchen to prepare Aunt Esther a tea. She dreaded the next two hours. What could the two of them possibly have to say to one another for that long a period? Very hardly knew anything about her aunt and what was going on in her life, which was probably Aunt Esther’s fault, for refusing to learn to use e-mail. How else could Very be expected to maintain a relationship with this woman whom she appreciated, but who was essentially a stranger to her?
Ugh, tick-tock, tick-tock, please let the next two hours go by quickly.
“How did you get here?” Very asked Aunt Esther when she returned to the crafts room with her aunt’s tea. Her aunt no longer drove more than short distances; the only places she drove now were all within a five-mile radius of her house—primarily to the grocery store, and to her card games with the New Haven Benevolence Society ladies.
“I took the train from New Haven to Burlington. A friend of mine used that Global Spider thing …”
“The World Wide Web,” Very said.
“… the interconnectivity thingamajig, right. She used that to find a car service to take me from the train station in Burlington to here. The driver will be waiting for me at the main gate promptly at four, so we must be careful not to let our time run over. I have a train to catch back to New Haven, and a friend picking me up at the train station there to take me home tonight. I don’t drive in the dark.”
It had taken rather a huge effort for this octogenarian to make the pilgrimage to see her, Very realized. “Thank you for coming all this way to see me,” Very said. She sat down opposite Aunt Esther at a worktable. Aunt Esther’s eyes widened. She started to say something, but Very spoke first. “Please don’t say ‘Who knew?’ again. I’m perfectly capable of expressing thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” Aunt Esther pronounced. “I’m glad to see you looking so … calm. For you, that is.”
Very took a medal from her jeans pocket to show her aunt. “My Two Weeks medal. It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
Aunt Esther said, “We should sew that to your sweater!”
Now that Aunt Esther mentioned sewing, Very realized how they could spend their time together. “There’s a box of clothes in the corner over there, left behind by former residents. Dr. Joy stores them in the crafts room so that people can make art therapy projects out of them. Most people choose needlepoint—it’s all the rage here. But I’m sick of needlepoint. Want to make some projects out of the old clothes? Pick some fabrics to put together new sweaters?”
“Really?” Aunt Esther said, clearly touched. “You’d want to make sweaters with me?”
“Love to!” Very said. Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Very lugged the box of old clothes to their worktable, and together she and her aunt sifted through old flannel shirts, jeans, sweaters, and T-shirts to identify the garments that could be turned into the best sweater pieces.
“We could bedazzle, too, you know,” Aunt Esther said.
“Huh?” Very said.
“Add pretty pieces to spice up old things.” Aunt Esther held up a pair of old Levi’s. “See where the pants are ripped at the knee? We can fix that.”
“The jeans are supposed to look like that.”
“Nonsense,” Aunt Esther said. She reached for a pink and turquoise raincoat from the reject box. “We can cut out pieces of this jacket into the shape of a flower and sew the flower over the knee. And maybe add some parts of the jacket lining—look at that gorgeous pattern on the raincoat’s lining—to embellish the back pockets, and add lining pieces to the leg bottoms to hem them?” Aunt Esther held up the pair of jeans. “Yes, I think these will fit you. A bit too long, so the hemming will work perfectly.”
“Awesome!” Very said.
As they cut and sewed and buttoned and trimmed, Very figured now was as good a time as any to ask her aunt a little question: “Do you know who my father is?”
Aunt Esther didn’t look up from her sewing, but she answered matter-of-factly, as if she’d been waiting for this question at just this bedazzling moment. “I have some records of your mother’s that were given to me after she passed. His name is on your birth certificate and some other documents. And she had a few letters she’d saved from him, from when you were a baby. I don’t remember his name. But I’ve got that box of her things in a safe place for you in the basement at home.”
“Can I look through the box?”
“Of course you can look through the box! I’m not hiding anything from you.”
“How come you never mentioned the box before, then?”
“You never asked before. You always preferred to go straight to the attic. And you’re always so distracted by your machines. I figured when you were ready, and able, you’d ask. And now you have, and I think you are, and the box will be yours. When you come home.”
“Is that what I’m doing next?” Very asked. “Going back to your home?”
There was no chance for Aunt Esther to answer over the loud arguing that now was coming from the next room.
“YOU ARE IMPOSSIBLE!” yelled Dr. Joy.
“YOU ARE COMPLETELY INFLEXIBLE!” yelled Jones.
Dr. Joy and Jones must have assumed that the crafts room next door to where they were arguing was empty; it usually was, since the Resistance Movement people preferred to do their needlepointing near to where they could do their smoking, at Jones’s house, and the Acolytes didn’t dare try new crafts projects without Dr. Joy present to tell them how their creative minds were supposed to work.
Very leaned in to Aunt Esther, excited. “Jones and Dr. Killjoy are going at it! The best entertainment to be found here!”
Aunt Esther dropped her sewing materials on the table and turned her ear sideways to give the argument in the next room her full attention.
“I JUST WANT TO TAKE THE GROUP OUT FOR SOME FLY-FISHING! YOU OF ALL PEOPLE SHOULD RECOGNIZE HOW GOOD THAT ACTIVITY WOULD BE FOR THEIR, WHADYACALLIT, ‘SOUL CLEANSING’!”
“FISHING IS FINE, JONES! IT’S THE MOTORBOAT I OBJECT TO! THE RATTLING SOUNDS WILL THREATEN THEIR RECOVERIES! I DON’T WANT TO LEAD THEM INTO TEMPTATION!”
“A MOTORBOAT IS NOT GOING TO LEAD THEM INTO TEMPTATION, JOY!”
“YOU ARE THE ONE WHO IS IMPOSSIBLE, JONES!”
Then, the sound of a door slam and footsteps. A book being thrown against a wall. Then, another door slam, and the sound of more footsteps following the first ones.
Aunt Esther nodded and said to Very, “You’re right. Quality entertainment.” Very was pleased to have so pleased Aunt Esther, who hadn’t found a “story” she liked on the television since Passions had been canceled. Aunt Esther picked her sewing materials back up and resumed her work. “And yes, your home in New Haven is there for you, should you choose to come after your time here in Vermont.”
It was funny to hear Aunt Esther use the words “your home.” Very had never thought of it as more than the place where circumstances had forced her to take refuge. She’d never considered that she had a real home.
Aunt Esther added, “I’ve got a letter for you in my pocket-book. I wanted to see how you were doing before I gave it to you. It’s from Columbia. I can tell you what it says if you want.”
“You read my mail?” Very asked. She should have known better than to think she could start trusting her aunt.
“Of course I didn’t open your mail. I had a phone conversation with the dean, who told me he’d send an official confirmation by mail. I understand the boys from something called the Green Team are also receiving this letter.”
“May I see the letter?” Very asked, trying to sound casual.
Aunt Esther took the letter from her pocketbook and handed it to Very, who opened it and skimmed it quickly for the target phrases. The highlights: “regret to inform you …,”
“concerns have been raised regarding improper use of university facilities,” “academic suspension pending a disciplinary committee hearing,” and “Yours sincerely, Robert Dean.�
��
Very placed the letter down on the table.
“Are you mad?” she asked Aunt Esther.
“Livid!” Aunt Esther said. She didn’t look up to meet Very’s eyes, but her sewing hands shook more furiously than usual, and Very could see that her breathing was faster. “I’m a retired old lady bound for an assisted-living home soon enough. My resources are limited. I’ve tried and I’ve tried with you. Hoped for you. Prayed for you, even. But this, too, now? You’ll lose the New Haven Benevolence Society scholarship funds. I can’t in good faith advocate that money going to you any longer.” Her eyes finally looked up to meet Very’s. The eyes weren’t so much mad now as sad. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with you. I’m at wits’ end.”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with me, either,” Very said. She paused. Then added: “I’m sorry, Aunt Esther.”
CHAPTER 28
Keisha would know what Very should do with Very.
Their first session together, in which Very had given up some of her most intimate secrets within minutes of meeting her therapist, had left Very feeling like she’d put out too quickly on a first date. But somehow that first date had turned into a relationship that looked like it might be a keeper—at least for the duration of Very’s ESCAPE time. Talking to Keisha had become the most meaningful aspect of her stay, besides doing laundry.
“The irony,” Very explained to Keisha on Day Eighteen, “is that the university has called a disciplinary committee hearing for me for the wrong offense. I totally did worse things than hang out with the Dreams guys in a secret room below the East Asian Library”—Very rolled her eyes—“while ‘utilizing unauthorized university bandwidth.’ What. Ever.”
“What worse things?”
“Like, that party I told you about, the night before my meltdown.”
“Why was that worse?”
“It was held in the observatory. It’s, like, in a famous building, where nuclear physics or something was invented.”
“That probably would be considered a more severe crime, yes.”
“And all the alcohol for profit. With underage kids in attendance.”
“Yep. Pretty bad.”
“If those buttfuckers only knew …,” Very said.
Keisha didn’t respond.
“What?” Very asked.
Keisha said, “I don’t know if you realize you do this, but you tend to revert to vulgar language when you’re confused about an issue.”
“Am I confused about this issue?”
“Are you?”
“Keisha! Please. Don’t answer a question with a question. Tell me what you mean.”
What Very liked especially about Keisha was that when called upon to call it straight, Keisha would do exactly that. And so she did. Keisha said, “I think that, if you looked deep down, you might have ethical concerns about this adjudication matter, and you use vulgar jokes to deflect that. I don’t mean to suggest this to you, but from what you’ve been telling me, I wonder if perhaps you want to tell the dean about the irony of the disciplinary action, to come clean about everything?”
“You mean, now that I’m clean of being online all the time and will acknowledge that I’m addicted to my iPhone and all, I want to wipe the whole slate clean?”
“Something like that. You tell me.”
If she was being honest with herself, Very would admit that the idea of wiping the whole slate clean had appeal. “I do have a filthy mind that could probably use extermination,” Very said.
“‘Extermination,’” Keisha responded. “That’s a harsh word. Do you think you’re perhaps being rather hard on yourself?”
“I’m not being hard enough on myself, Keisha. My mind thinks of the most disgusting and crude things. You’d be shocked if you realized how depraved I am.” Very wanted to be a Miranda, but forget it; she was a Samantha, just without the Botox. There probably wasn’t really hope for her. “Once a hoochie, always a hoochie, I guess.”
“And how exactly do you consider yourself to be a hoochie?”
“Well, when you start having sex when you’re not even thirteen yet, for one thing …”
Keisha looked down at her notepad and shuffled back several pages. “Shall I note that you originally told me you were sixteen when you first became sexually active?”
“Lied.”
“Care to tell me why?” This was another thing Very liked about Keisha. Very could flat-out admit she’d lied about something important, yet not feel like Keisha was judging her because of it. Keisha seemed to want Very to figure out the reasons instead of punishing her for the reasons. That was cool of her.
“It’s just … sort of embarrassing, is all. That’s way too young to be starting up with all that stuff. If I had a daughter, I would never let that happen to her.”
“So do you think your mother should have prevented it from happening to you?”
“Well, she’s dead, and I’m the reason, so she can’t really defend herself from that accusation.”
“That’s quite a statement. And I didn’t intend to make an accusation. But since you’ve opened up what sound like some heavy issues, do you want to tell me the story of what happened when you became sexually active so young? Or how you think you may have contributed to your mother’s death?”
Very fidgeted on her chair. “The two things are sort of connected.” If the beast was to be unleashed, it needed to be coaxed out as gently as possible. “Can we listen to music?” Very asked. Music, and not the usual chocolate recourse, was what she needed to get through this particular discussion.
“Of course.”
This was why Very trusted Keisha most of all. She knew when to be flexible. When it mattered.
Keisha got up from her chair and retrieved an iPod attached to speakers from inside her desk. “It’s battery-operated,” Keisha said. “So technically we’re not breaking any rules here. But can we keep this between us?” Confidence begat confidence. If Keisha could trust Very not to tell the other residents about the iPod-playing, Very could trust Keisha to know how she came to be such a terrible person. “What would you like to listen to?”
“Background-music type of thing, preferably. Nothing I have to think about too much.”
“Mozart?”
“Too fancy for a sordid story.”
“Miles Davis?”
“Perf.”
Keisha spun Sketches of Spain onto the player, and despite the album being one of Miles’s not-obscure, mainstream offerings, Very decided not to hold that against him, or Keisha. The sweet trumpet sound instantly soothed Very.
“Talk to me,” Keisha said. She settled back into her comfy chair, sitting cross-legged, without the notepad in her lap, and looking at Very with an intent listening face.
“This song reminds me of the last place my mom and I lived,” Very said. “Goa. It’s a state in India, on the western side, on the Arabian Sea. It had been colonized by the Portuguese, back in those conquering times, and lots of the buildings there, especially the churches, have this Spanish look and style. And the Portuguese-Indian food there! Ohmygod, so good.”
“How did you and your mother end up in Goa, of all places?”
“The usual way. A guy my mom met. He was visiting back home in the U.S. when we were living in Seattle, I think. He owned a little hotel on the beach in a northern town in Goa. He invited us to come visit him. Of course, to my mom, that meant we should move there. So we went to his hotel, and we lived there for a while. Cat worked there, as like a maid or cook or receptionist—whatever needed to be done.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“This guy who owned the hotel, he had a younger brother who’d just graduated from college in the U.S. and wanted to see the world a bit before he returned home to start a job and, like, his adult life, I guess. His name was Carter. He was our teacher. It was a very segregated place. The white kids there, mostly kids of expats from Europe and the U.S., didn’t go to school with the nativ
e kids. There weren’t too many of us expat kids in that small beach town, so we were sort of informally taught by Carter.”
“Did you go to an actual school?”
Very laughed. “Hah, no, that’s funny! There were only, like, ten of us, ranging in age from twelve to about seventeen, and we were a wild bunch. We’d all been moved around a lot, all over the world, and the beach in Goa was so amazingly beautiful. Really, a tropical paradise. We never would have survived being in a real school. So Carter taught us on the beach in the mornings, before it got too hot, or in someone’s house, during the monsoon season. It was pretty informal.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“It was great. Until it wasn’t.”
“What happened?”
Very closed her eyes, to extract the memory. She could see the whitewashed sand and azure sea, the palm trees, the gorgeous old Catholic churches and Hindu temples. She could taste the bebinca—coconut pudding—in her mouth. She could see the flame-red hair of her beautiful mother, who was on the hotel veranda in the distance. She could see her “classmates,” all of them darkened to a crisp by the sun, sitting on surfboards and waiting impatiently for Carter to end the lesson so they could hit the waves. Often, they didn’t wait for Carter to finish at all.
“I was the youngest of the group,” Very said. “The other kids were teenagers, already experimenting with drugs and sex. Most of the parents were wanderers, sort of hippie throwbacks, or diehard beach slaves, and the way they raised their kids was pretty loose and free. There weren’t many rules set down for us. And because I was with those other kids so much, of course I wanted to do whatever they were doing. Also, I looked much older than I was. I got my period when I was eleven, and was totally filled out by the time I was twelve. It was almost embarrassing, the way tourist men at the hotel would look at me. When I was twelve, I looked more like I was twenty-five.”
“So was it another student, or one of the tourists, with whom you became involved?”
“No,” Very said. “It was Carter.”
