by H. M. Ward
Clutching my purse under one arm and my Vera Bradley ginormo bag under the other, I step outside and maneuver the fussy lock on the old door. The house had stood here for over eighty years before the hurricane took a bite out of it and left the lower half rotting in water.
This house was a dream once. Zach and I loved this style and since the bones of the home were still good, we bought it. I push the thought of him away. Try not to remember the dark hair and bright blue eyes. But it’s still there, along with his voice. I can hear his deep timbre slide over me as the memory hits me hard. I force it back, shoving it away.
Swearing under my breath, I twist the key harder. The brass bites into the side of my finger and I slip, leaving a thin gash on my skin. The rusty lock doesn’t like to turn and slip into the opposing jamb. It’s not usually this bad, but when the humidity is high—like now—it gets stuck.
The driver is perturbed, and I’m sure my star rating just dropped a point. If I get one more bad rating, no one will pick me up anymore. I should talk to him, smile, be nice. I don’t look like a total trainwreck this morning. My dark hair is smoothed back into a low ponytail at the nape of my neck. Coupled with a floral print dress, I look a little cute. Even though I’m sure I’m twice his age. Stop thinking. Just smile.
When I turn, I step right into a lanky man in a KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD tee-shirt. The scent of pumpkin spice is wafting off of him. I stumble back into the door, shocked, and murmur, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you were there.”
The man presses his fingers to his chest and bows as if we’re in a different century. “My name is K’Teal, Ms. Sabba. Let me help you with that.” He reaches for the key still hanging in the door, presses his other hand to the frame, and twists. The lock slides into place effortlessly. “Beautiful house, by the way.”
I gape at him, forgetting to speak. I know he got my name from the app, but hardly anyone uses that name anymore. I didn’t have the heart to change my legal identification, but somehow when the rings slid off my third finger and found their place in my chest of drawers, the maiden name slipped back into place. Unofficially of course, because actually doing it, saying what happened when people ask—and they always ask—would pull me down faster than being encased in concrete.
K’Teal reaches for my shoulder bag with my brick of a lesson plan inside. “I can grab this. It looks heavy.”
Snapping out of my stupor, I clutch the strap and pull away from him. The hem of my skirt flutters by my knee as my hair comes over my shoulder. “That’s okay, I’ve got it.” Then I add, sarcastically, “I didn’t realize Uber offered valet service.”
The guy has a young face, and is in serious need of a shave. Some guys can grow a mountain man beard that all others of their sex unabashedly envy. We’re talking Santa territory with thick, shiny hair that’s full and long. With these men, there’s so much beard that they’ve got to use product that no self-respecting guy would ever put on his head. That’s what causes beard envy amongst males. I’m not a fan of facial hair, so I don’t get it at all. It looks like putting testosterone on display for all the world to see how virile a man is without actually exposing his junk.
Zara and I used to laugh, call it ‘junk face.’ God, I miss her.
The Uber driver standing in front of me, he’s no mountain man. Splotchy whiskers pepper his cheeks in calico colors, from a reddish blonde to dark brown. It’s as if patches of hair were singed off, because those bare spots are totally smooth. No stubble. Other places on his jaw and neck have unequal patching of various lengths and colors.
A backwards ballcap covers his sandy hair. Dark roots peak out from behind his ears, along the line of the baseball hat. He kicks the toe of his sandal on the sidewalk and then grins up at me, sheepishly. “I overstepped.” He raises his hands at me, showing he meant no harm. “But, it’s all about personalization. I mean, that’s what Uber is all about, right?”
Getting into a car with this guy seems a little silly. I could drive. I think. That lightheaded feeling isn’t so bad anymore, but the slight tilt when I turn my head too fast holds me in place. I shouldn’t drive. If I hit someone, I’ll never forgive myself.
All inflection has left my voice. The crazy vibe leaks off of this guy in waves. I think his main cylinder is cracked. “I thought they were about giving people rides?”
K’Teal turns and walks me back to the relic of a car, and then opens the door to the passenger side. To the front seat. Maybe I’m antisocial, but it’s weird. Fuck. I can’t take another hit on my rating or I’ll have to switch to Lyft and they’ve got fewer drivers here.
The thought of sitting up front has my stomach in knots. I don’t know if it’s the pain meds making me queasy or the feeling that I’m signing up to be kidnapped. He’s not that bad, is he? I glance at him. Backwards ballcap, mangy beard, flannel shirt over a tee, coupled with denim shorts and socks with sandals. Definitely from Austin?
K’Teal tips his head to the side, catches my eye as I’m about to request the back. “The best seat in the house. This old beast of a car is the least green thing I own, but you gotta see how I counter its massive carbon footprint. Climb in.”
Portland. Totally.
I do as I’m told, curiosity getting the better of me. K’Teal rushes around to the other side and then jumps in with added exuberance and starts the car. He flicks on the GPS for Uber and then turns on a dash cam.
K’Teal points at the mini dash camera, beaming with pride, “My vlog. You don’t mind, do you? Ah, shit. I’m sorry. I was supposed to ask you first and then sit you up front.” He slams his palm into his forehead, and swears softly.
Chapter 7
A vlogger? K’Teal is a video blogger? Does Uber even allow that? I glance at my watch and nod.
“Sure. Why not?”
“Awesome,” the guy trembles with excitement. Think chihuahua going on a car ride.
I lift a finger and add, “As long as I get to work on time.”
I don’t mention that I hate cameras or pictures of myself. Or the fact that this guy seems like he forgot his meds. Or maybe he took them all at once. Who vlogs from a Buick? I offer a sympathy smile which restores the man’s former confidence.
As we travel down the roadways at parade float speed, he tells me about his appreciation for pumpkin spice and sporks. “I used to keep a collection in the backseat, ya know, something for riders to look at while they traveled, but my ranking started to slip.”
“From sporks?” I can’t hide my shock at the direction this conversation has taken. My eyebrows have climbed over my forehead and are traveling down my neck.
“Yeah, I mean what else could it be? The car is pristine and I’m a safe driver.” He bats a finger at an air freshener shaped like a pumpkin hanging from his vent. “And who doesn’t like pumpkin spice? They should make it year-round. I mean, why wait until fall?”
I glance over at him, wondering if he’s for real. “So you like it?”
“Understatement!” Glancing at me, he exclaims something that sounds like 90’s surfer slang, and continues, “I mean, hell, yeah!” Excitement shatters what’s left of his composure and I’m treated to a sincere grin that swallows his entire face. “The coffee is the best, although I really enjoy a good pot of tea. I bought up what was left on Amazon a few months ago. It’s long gone.” He tips his chin up toward the ornamental pumpkin hanging from the rearview mirror and chortles. “I might hafta eat the air freshener soon.”
I snort a laugh. The sound shocks me. I haven’t giggled, chuckled, or done anything that could be considered laughter of any sort since Zach died. The sensation of it shocks me. The foreignness of the feeling, the way my belly clenches as if I am going to hurl, but it’s like joy broke free from somewhere unknown to me and spewed out of my mouth. It’s weird.
I don’t realize I’m smiling until K’Teal beams back at me. I let the slight smile fall, and point to the camera with the red light blinking on top. I know it’s recording, but I’m not sure
why. “So tell me about your Vlog.” We only have three more turns until I’m at the school, which should take less than five minutes -- but at the rate he’s driving, Miss Daisy could walk faster.
K’Teal nods with a sheepish grin. “That’s my moneymaker, dog. All this driving people around just pays the bills, but the vlog is the dream. I can interview riders, we can talk about stuff that matters like whether or not napkins are really important. I say no, but some of the grannies that ride, they use fabric.” His eyes widen and he talks directly to the camera. “Remember that, homies? That was some serious shit.”
I find myself repressing the urge to smile. He tips his head toward me. “So, for posterity, what do you do for a living?”
Shyness chokes me and the normal frankness in my voices lessens. “I’m the art teacher at the high school.”
He nods slowly, bobbing his head like a dashboard dog. “So you teach kids how to make awesome graffiti so they can express their true inner self.”
Weird segue. I glance at the camera, and then at K’Teal. “Uh, no. We focus on more traditional art—drawing, painting, sculpture, and that kind of thing.”
“Oh, so encouraging our viewers to show up and help spray their visions onto the building would be—”
“A misdemeanor. Don’t do that.” I’m pointing at the video camera sternly, the way I would if a student did something out of line.
More head bobbing from K’Teal.. “What advice would you give my viewers, for those who wanted to find their inner artist?” He finishes his question as he pulls up into the circle drive at the school. The big yellow buses are already there, releasing students en masse.
“Work in a medium you love.” I hastily add, “in a place that’s legal. For you K’Teal, I could see a spork sculpture that somehow embraces what pumpkin spice means to you. I gotta go.” As I reach for the door, he applauds my answer and talks to the camera.
“Wasn’t she an amazing rider? She really was. We don’t get artists in here every day. You inspired me, Ms. Sabba. I’m going to live my art.” He pumps his arm in the air as I slip out of the car. When I’m on the sidewalk, ready to slam the door shut, he adds, “Do you think you could give me five stars for this ride? I bet you’ve never had another one like it. What do you say, Ms. Sabba?” He tips the camera toward me as he asks.
“Yeah, sure.” I hold up my phone and press the rating.
The man explodes with mirth and then tries to act like it’s no big deal. His expression returns to forced professionalism and he nods gratefully. “You made my day, Ms. Sabba. Now go in there and win over the future minds of America and tell them why they only need one utensil.”
Chapter 8
After getting through the school day, Vi offers to drop me at the doctor’s office. I’m sitting shotgun in a cherry-red Mustang Cobra that is not a midlife crisis car, at least according to Nonni. It’s living.
Vi pulls into a parking spot, and throws the car into park. “You sure you don’t want me to wait?”
Shaking my head, I push open the door and stand, bending at the waist to see inside the low profile car. “No, don’t be silly. I’ll grab a car. There’s no reason for you to wait around.” I slam the door shut as she slides the window down.
Leaning across the car so she can see me, Vi points bright red nails at the door to the doctor’s office. “You sure this guy is helping? I mean, it’s been a while.”
Vi refused any help when Zara died right next to her. She wears a plastic smile and keeps going so fast that she can’t stop to think. I’m the opposite. All I do is think.
“It helps, Vi. Or I wouldn’t go. Tell Nonni I’m fine.”
Vi laughs, knowing I don’t believe in Nonni, but she adores me anyway. “Nonni says stop lying to your friends!” The engine revs and her car disappears from sight before I’m to the door.
***
Dr. Patel’s office is testosterone themed. Everything is brown leather from the supple couch to his impeccably upholstered chair. Even the walls are sheathed in panels of hand-stitched hides, tanned to the perfect shade of copper, to make the room feel warm and appealing. The feint scent of leather and sweet tobacco comes from a lit candle by the post-modern slit of a small, narrow window. The natural light slices through the rectangular shaft and stains a bright spot on the dark wood floor. It’s the only hue in the place that is toward the upper end of the shading spectrum. Near white. Almost.
I’m sitting at the far end of the couch, fingers folded, hands in my lap, waiting for Dr. Patel to look up from his notepad. I’ve been seeing the man since I buried Zach on Grand Cayman and came home without him. His family was pissed, and since Zach’s family was my only family—and my best friend Zara died months prior—I needed to find a way to endure their grief while I battled my own. In the end, we decided my action of burying my husband down there was a childish thing to do—selfish even. When I said this to Zach’s mother, she finally dropped the open hostility toward me. Although, it’s still there, every word barbed like she still thinks I’m Satan’s spawn. Since my parents died decades ago, there’s no one else. No other family. No one to say that I’m not Satan’s lost heir.
Even after coming to that conclusion with Dr. Patel, that burying my husband on the island was selfish, and believing it, there’s still a part of me that feels like it was all right for me to mourn my husband the way I wanted to without anyone’s permission. He was my soulmate. I was the person who was ripped in half when he died. Zach was the happiest I’d ever seen him during our time in Grand Cayman. I didn’t care for the raised concrete bins that the locals consider graves, it felt like leaving Zach in a cellar, but he’s at rest in a place that brought him joy. That’s the reason I did it.
The second explanation is too dark to mention. I’d rather be thought selfish than a coward, but the way he died was abrupt and horrifying. His family screamed at me for not getting to see Zach and say goodbye, but I saw him—and I wish to God that I didn’t.
The man I loved was gone. The remains were a charred vessel that testified to a painful demise that I would not wish on my worst enemy. I can’t un-see that. There’s no way to remove the memory from my mind. The way his jaw locked open, silently screaming—never ceasing—with no flesh left to touch, to comfort, to wish well in the afterlife. His lips were gone, eyes and cheeks burned away. Maybe I am selfish, but I didn’t think his family should have to endure that pain. That was anything but selfish. Dr. Patel didn’t see him. His death wasn’t normal, but they act like it was the equivalent of a bad car wreck. It wasn’t. It was so much worse.
No, those memories are mine. They haunt me because I was there when he died. I was close enough to feel the ground shake. A cinder block wall divided us, and I was standing in front of a mirror hung on the wall when it happened.
As I sit in his office, my fingers are on my face, touching the scar along my cheek. The nasty gash that was too wide to heal properly. I swallow hard and consider how to tell Dr. Patel what I’ve seen. He’s going to yell at me, but I need someone smarter than I am to explain away that picture.
“Abby,” Dr. Patel’s voice has a velvety, rich sound. He could have been a lounge singer with that caramel skin, dark hair, and those sad knowing eyes. He lifts a perfectly tapered brow at me. He manscapes. He has to. Patel and K’Teal are at opposite ends of the man spectrum with style and hygiene. “What was so urgent that you had to see me right away? What’s happened?” He locks those obsidian eyes on me, waiting for an explanation.
I swallow hard and reach for my bag. I stuffed a school laptop in there so I could pull up my Facebook page and show him. As my fingers brush the cold plastic casing, I start to explain, “It’s the end of the year and I was inviting parents to the Spring Awards and Art Show.”
He scratches something on his notepad. “Yes, the Spring Program, correct?”
I nod and flip open the lid to the laptop. Dr. Patel doesn’t look up from his notes. “Right. Well, the school prefers that we invite parents
using social media since it costs less than printing out flyers to send home. The invites go directly to the parents and we have no—”
His dark gaze lifts and his head cocks to the side slightly, as if trying to mask his disappointment. “You went on Facebook?”
My pulse is pounding in my ears, drowning out the sound of his therapeutic white noise. I hold his gaze and answer firmly. “I did. It’s part of my job, and I was doing fine.”
“You didn’t go looking through old pictures?” His voice is flat. Disappointment is etched across the planes of his face.
“No, I did not. I took care of the invitations and finished setting up the event. When I closed the window, Facebook sent me a ‘remember when’ post.” Damn it, he’s going to say it’s the same thing when I tell him the next part. I plow ahead anyway. The need to say it is too great and someone has to tell me it wasn’t real. I have to hear it.
Continuing, I confess, “I scrolled down for a moment, maybe 4-5 pictures.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose with his long fingers and then exhales slowly. “Abby, we talked about this. You’re not in a place where you can reminisce yet. Every time you look backwards, you start walking backwards and get trapped in your own melancholy. You know this. This will be the fourth time this behavior repeats—”
I’m shaking my head, clutching my laptop so hard my fingers ache. “No, this is different. I wasn’t doing that. Facebook showed me the memories, but the reason I wanted to come in today—the reason I’m so upset—is because I saw him.”
Dr. Patel can’t hide his shock. His head jerks back slightly. He tries to hide it by continuing the movement, glancing at the ceiling and continuing into a stretch. When he relaxes, he tosses the notepad behind him onto his desk and places his hands on the arms of his chair. “What do you mean, you saw him?”
I’m trying so hard not to lose it and start crying. My lips are twitching and my hands feel unsteady, but the more I try to hold still the worse the shaking becomes. Sobs are forming in my chest because I can’t stand the thought of falling apart again, but I have to know why this image came up—what it means.
