We Run the Tides

by Vendela Vida

  My classmates spend the assembly sneaking peeks at Maria Fabiola, and she spends the assembly staring out the window. I once watched an after-school special where a girl did this when her parents were going through a divorce. With a jolt I realize I saw this special, with Maria Fabiola, at her house.

  Ms. Mc. is sick so our classes are combined for science and we have a substitute teacher. Maria Fabiola stares out the window. Midway through class, the substitute walks to the side of the classroom and positions herself in Maria Fabiola’s line of view. “How many chromosomes does each human cell normally contain?”

  “I don’t have to answer that,” Maria Fabiola replies.

  “Excuse me?” says the sub.

  “The police say I don’t have to answer any questions that make me feel uncomfortable.”

  The sub’s face contorts itself and her eyes squint for a minute until . . . bam. I can see the very instant that she recognizes Maria Fabiola from the news. Her eyes widen, her posture straightens. “No, of course not,” she says. “Of course you don’t have to answer that.”

  Then the sub calls on Stephanie, who lives near Dianne Feinstein in Presidio Terrace.

  “Okay, good,” the sub says to Stephanie, even though she’s gotten the answer wrong. The sub’s eyes are still on Maria Fabiola, and she’s too distracted by the presence of fame to notice.

  As for me, I am invisible.

  * * *

  FOR WEEKS AFTER MARIA FABIOLA’S RETURN, a busy, bustling feeling takes over Sea Cliff. The gardeners prune the plants and hedges with more zest and precision, dog owners take their dogs on longer walks, with longer leashes, and the mailman delivers letters and packages with renewed energy, often while whistling an old-timey tune.

  I go home directly after school each day so I can intercept the mailman before my mother returns from work. He arrives at the front of the house at 3:15. She usually kickstands her bike in the garden by 3:25. In the wake of my newfound solitude I’ve contacted several boarding schools and requested applications. I don’t want my parents to know that it’s my intention to go away for high school. My goal is to see where I’m accepted and then convince them my life here is intolerable. Application deadlines are approaching so I have to work fast.

  It is with his new vigor that the mailman bounds up the steps one day shortly after the New Year with a cream-colored envelope addressed to me. The envelope, with my name written in calligraphy, contains an invitation to a celebration “in honor of Maria Fabiola’s safe return.” The party is being thrown by her godmother and will be held on a Friday night. I have never personally received an invitation like this before—one that’s addressed in calligraphy and contains a stamped postcard for my RSVP. I leave the invitation on the marble table in our entranceway where I place any correspondence I want my mother to see but don’t want to personally hand to her. My grade on my Salinger paper, for example.

  “Well, this is nice,” my mother says. She’s standing on the threshold of my room, the invitation in hand. I’m on my bed reading Kundera.

  “It’s a strange party idea, don’t you think?” I ask.

  “It’s an unusual circumstance,” my mother says.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right. When you go to the stationery store there’s the section for ‘birthday’ and ‘anniversary’ but not one for ‘return of people who went missing and were suspected to be dead.’”

  I smile, hoping my mother will laugh. Instead, she looks at me with a tilted head.

  “I want to go,” I say. “I just don’t really think she wants me there.”

  “Of course she wants you there.”

  I stare at my desk as though there’s something of particular interest on it. I haven’t told my parents that Maria Fabiola hasn’t talked to me since her return. She wasn’t talking to me before her disappearance either, so that means that it’s been three and a half months of silence.

  “I think her mom must have invited me,” I say.

  “Well then you should go for her mom’s sake. Unfortunately, we can’t make it,” she says. “Your dad has a big auction that night—Danny Glover will be coming to the gallery.”

  “I don’t think you were invited anyway. The envelope was addressed to me.”

  “Oh,” she says. “Well, why don’t you go mail the RSVP now before you change your mind?”

  “Okay,” I say. I wonder how she knows this about me—that today I want to go but I’m worried that tomorrow I won’t.

  “Also, Eulabee,” she says. “I’ve been thinking that now that you’re not doing ballet anymore, or dancing school, maybe you want to take some other kind of lessons?”

  I stare at the book I’ve been reading. “I want to take lessons in Czech,” I say.

  “Czech,” she says.

  “Uh-huh,” I say.

  She looks at me as though she’s about to say something. But she decides not to. Instead she nods and leaves the room. “Open or closed?” she says about the door.

  “Closed,” I say only because I want to exert this new power I have over my parents, who are cautious not to upset me.

  I read for ten more minutes and then fill out the RSVP postcard. I write my name very, very neatly. There’s a small box by “Yes, I will be there to celebrate!” I fill in the box completely, as though it’s a multiple-choice test.

  As I’m walking to the mailbox I see Keith. He’s out by himself on Lake Street, with his skateboard.

  “Hey Keith,” I call, and he doesn’t respond.

  Shit, I think. He’s turned on me, too. But then he pivots on his board and I spot the bright yellow Walkman case attached to the waistband of his pants and see he’s wearing headphones. I get closer and he looks at me and waves. He removes the headphones so they circle his neck.

  “Hey,” he says. “What are you up to?”

  “Mailing something,” I say.

  “Is that for Maria Fabiola’s welcome-back party?” he says, nodding toward the postcard in my hand.

  “Yeah, you going?” I hope I don’t sound too excited.

  “I don’t know. I’ll check with my parents when they get home. I think we’re supposed to go away that weekend for a wedding.”

  “Where?”

  “Yosemite.”

  “In the winter?”

  “Yeah. We’re not camping. We’re staying at this hotel. The Ahwahnee.”

  “The Ahwahnee? That’s where they filmed The Shining.”

  I expect him to say “Cool,” the way most guys would, but instead he shares my response. “That’s a little scary,” he says.

  I nod.

  “Don’t you think it’s kind of weird to have a party for her?” he says. “I mean, I’m glad that the kidnappers brought her back but it’s just . . . I mean what’s going to happen at the party? Will there be party favors?”

  “Maybe they’ll give out blindfolds,” I say.

  He stares at me for a second. My sense of humor really is not for everyone. Then he smiles. “Or maybe they’ll give out suitcases of cash.”

  “Was there a ransom?” I ask. “Did her parents pay?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “But why else would she suddenly be returned home?”

  “How much money do you think?” I ask. “What’s the going rate?”

  “For a heiress, a lot.” He pronounces it like hair-ess.

  I consider sharing my theory that she wasn’t kidnapped at all, that she planned her own disappearance, but I decide this isn’t the time. I don’t have enough proof; in fact, I don’t have any. Besides, I’m tired of Maria Fabiola being the only topic of conversation. It’s been that way for months. Even when people are talking about other things, they’re talking about her. When my parents ask me what time I’ll be home, or when teachers wish us “a safe weekend,” it’s all because of her.

  “What are you listening to?” I ask.

  “The Furs,” he says. “You like them?”

  A few months ago, I would have lied and pretended I knew a ba
nd even if I didn’t. But I want things to be different now. I want to be different now.

  “I don’t know them,” I say.

  I expect him to scoff, to say “You don’t know them?” But instead, he removes his headphones from around his neck and places them over my hair. He presses “play” on his Sony Sports Walkman and I hear a raspy British voice singing about swallowing tears and putting on a new face.

  I remove the headphones and hand them back to him.

  “You don’t like them?”

  “No, I do like them. A lot.” I can’t tell him that the reason I’m giving the headphones back to him is because the song has moved me so much, so instantaneously that I’m afraid I’ll start crying right then and there.

  “They’re really good,” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say. There’s an awkward beat. “I guess I’ll mail this now,” I say, holding up the postcard.

  * * *

  I’M UP LATE THAT NIGHT reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It’s a scene with a bowler hat—Sabina is naked in her Prague apartment seducing Tomas with her body and the hat. I try to imagine what a bowler hat looks like. I decide I’ll search for one next time I’m thrift-store shopping in the Haight. When I’m thrift-store shopping in the Haight alone, I think. I feel sorry for myself and then I feel sorry about how sorry I feel. To pity oneself is to reach a new low, I think. I write down those very words in my diary. Reading Milan Kundera, I’ve decided, is good for the brain. It’s made me a philosopher.

  It’s after 11 p.m. when the front doorbell rings. I sit upright in my bed. The front doorbell rarely rings unless it’s someone selling something. Most of our friends come through the back door.

  I walk out into the upstairs hallway and peer down below. My mother is talking in Swedish to a blond woman. I only see the tops of their blond heads, leaning in close but speaking loudly. Something bad has happened. I’ve been around enough of my mother’s friends and through enough Santa Lucia performances to understand a good deal of Swedish, but I’m not fluent. I keep hearing them say the word mjolk, which means “milk,” and milk doesn’t seem to warrant the intensity of their discussion. Or the presence of the two suitcases.

  I descend the stairs and theatrically rub my eyes as I step onto the landing, making sure to trip in my fake-slumberous state. Maybe I’m a born actress, I think.

  “Oh no, did we wake you?” my father says.

  “It’s okay,” I reassure them.

  I look up at the blond visitor as though just taking note of her presence. “Hello,” I say. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Ewa,” she says. “It’s spelled with a ‘W’ but here you say it like a ‘V.’”

  “I’m Eulabee,” I say. “I haven’t yet figured out how to introduce myself so people remember.”

  “Oh, I can help you with that,” she says. Her English is fluent, with a slight British accent. She went to good schools. And she’s much younger than I first thought. When I saw her from above she looked round, approaching middle age. But now, standing across from her I see that she must be in her early twenties. She must be . . .

  “Ewa is an au pair,” my mother says. I knew it.

  “I was an au pair,” Ewa says.

  One of my mother’s unofficial duties as part of the Swedish network is being an advisor to au pairs from Sweden. They’re given my mother’s number in case something comes up. In this case, something clearly has come up. My mom and Ewa resume speaking animatedly in Swedish.

  My father shifts from one slippered foot to another. He clears his throat. “Excuse me. Does anyone fancy tea?” he asks. My father doesn’t speak any other languages than English, and in the presence of foreigners, which, in our house, usually means Swedes, he subconsciously takes on a British accent and a thing for tea.

  “Is it decaffeinated?” Ewa asks. My parents look at each other. It’s clear it’s never before occurred to them to check whether the tea they drink late at night is caffeinated or not.

  “I’ll check,” my father says, and goes to the kitchen. He’s often domestic in the presence of beautiful women. Ewa, while not straightforwardly beautiful, is captivating, with her round, wide face and strangely (for San Francisco in winter) tan skin. She’s plump, curvy. She’s wearing the white pants that all Swedes love. In America women with her body type probably wouldn’t wear white pants. Maybe it’s a mind trick, I think. By wearing white pants she’s signaling that she’s not heavy, even though she is. Her eyes are the violet-blue of a flame and her shoulder-length hair is curly. Maybe a perm, I think. My Swedish cousins are all getting perms.

  My mother and Ewa talk for a minute and the only words I understand are Damernas Värld, which is the name of a women’s magazine. I know this because we have old issues stacked in a basket in our bathroom. Whenever Swedes living in America go “home for the summer,” they bring back as many Damernas Världs as they can carry.

  “Oh, we should speak English with you,” Ewa says, evidently disapproving of the fact that I don’t speak fluent Swedish. Swedes always disapprove of this fact.

  “I’m learning Czech,” I say.

  My father returns with a tray of tea and we follow him into the front room. I know that my parents have a high regard for Ewa because we never sit in the front room this late at night. It’s cold here, with all its windows.

  “So,” I say with fake casualness. “What brings you here?”

  “I spilled some milk,” Ewa says.

  My mother elaborates. “Ewa was an au pair for a neighbor on Lake Street. The older girl is named Maxine.” My mother stares at me. “Do you know her?”

  “What school does she go to?” I ask.

  “The Viner School,” Ewa says. “She’s in eighth grade.”

  Viner is the other all-girls’ school. We compete against each other sometimes in sports, and always for boys. We have many choice things to say about Viner girls.

  “I think I do,” I say. I don’t add that I met Maxine before she dropped out of dancing school and that she has a reputation.

  “Maxine’s a little . . . confused but has a good heart,” Ewa says, “but her father . . . it’s a different story. Tonight, he was getting a late-night snack and spilled a whole gallon of milk on the floor. He called out to me because my room is by the kitchen. He ordered me to clean up the milk.”

  “That’s not her job,” my mother says to me.

  “No, that’s not in my job description. If one of the younger kids had spilled the milk that would maybe be my job, but my job is not to clean up after him.”

  “Why was he drinking milk?” I ask.

  “That’s beside the point,” she says.

  “Right,” I say. Her response confirms my hypothesis that he wasn’t drinking milk, but something stronger. Why else would she say it’s beside the point? I also suspect she was not in her room but was drinking with him. But it’s not my position to offer my theories here, now.

  “I think you should go back to bed,” my mother suggests.

  “Okay,” I say. “See you tomorrow.”

  I lie sleepless in my canopy bed, and an hour later, I hear my father placing Ewa’s two suitcases down in the room next to my room, which is called the playroom, though no playing happens there. The furnishing is too formal, the room too neat. There’s a fold-out leather couch, peach in color, where guests spend the night. It’s a strange layout for a guest bedroom because I have to pass through the room to get to my room. Now I hear Ewa getting settled into the bed. The springs of the couch sigh. She sighs. She and the couch sigh together.

  In the morning, I walk quietly past Ewa. She’s moved the mattress to the floor, and she’s sleeping facedown, her arms and legs at diagonals, like an “X,” her white pants hanging on the golden doorknob.

  18

  When I come home from another day of my classmates ignoring me, Ewa is sitting in the guest bedroom, beading.

  “What are you making?” I ask.

  “Earrings,” she says. “Do you
have pierced ears?”

  “Yeah, I have two holes in my left ear, one on my right. I did the second hole myself.”

  “Wow,” she says. “That’s brave.”

  “I have an ear-piercing business,” I say. “I pierce people’s ears. Boys, girls, whoever, with ice and a sterilized needle.” Business is a grand word for what I do. I have pierced three ears at the rate of $5 each. One of them was Maria Fabiola’s.

  “I’m impressed,” Ewa says. “And that’s good that you sterilize the needle.”

  I knew she’d like that part. All Swedes are devotees of sanitation and sterilization.

  “Maybe you can pierce my ear sometime. I’d like to go for a third hole.” She pulls on her right earlobe and shows me where she’d like it.

  “That would look good,” I say.

  I watch her slip a light blue bead onto a wire. I wonder what her plans are now that she’s not an au pair anymore.

  “Do you have a boyfriend, Eulabee?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Is there someone you like?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then you should make him your boyfriend.”

  I let out a quick laugh. “How do I do that?”

  “Well, first you should go on a date. Is there anything you two have in common? Something you both like?”

  “We both like music. We both like this band called the Furs.”

  “The Psychedelic Furs!” She stops beading.

  “Yeah,” I say, hoping this is the same band.

  “I just saw that they’re playing in San Francisco soon.”

  “Really?” I say.

  “Yeah, you have to get tickets and invite him.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “That seems a little . . . like a big leap.”

  “Here’s what I’ll do,” she says. “Why don’t I buy two tickets and then you can tell him that you have an older friend—it’s always good to have an older friend, sounds impressive and makes him realize how mature you are—and your older friend happened to have two tickets to the Furs show and she gave the tickets to you.”