Nobody, Somebody, Anybody

by Kelly McClorey

  “She’s a citizen of the world,” Gary said sarcastically. He patted her arm.

  “As we all are. Or should be. There’s nothing more arbitrary than borders. And yet we like to act as though they were ordained by God himself.” Gary groaned. “We better change the subject or my son will pop a blood vessel. He says I try to make traveling seem like some noble act, when the truth is I’m just—what was it? Bored and self-righteous, I think it was.” She thumped her empty glass down onto the table. “And he’s not completely wrong,” she whispered, “but don’t tell him I said that. What’s the difference anyway? It makes me feel alive—kind of like video games do for other people.” Now she patted his arm. They were needling each other but in a toothless way, as though this was how they showed affection, and it was nice, witnessing that, but also left me with a hollowness in my gut. I wondered if it had always come so naturally to them or if it was a later development, one that all adult children eventually reached with their mothers.

  “My brother’s in the Peace Corps,” I said. “In Burkina Faso.”

  “How exciting!”

  “But for who?” Gary said. “Sorry, I just wish people would be more honest about that kind of thing. They might do some good here and there, but mostly they’re just patting themselves on the back and paving the way for more Coca-Cola products. It’s arrogant, if you ask me. Not to mention completely counterproductive. I read that some people are actually giving up their kids to orphanages, just so more volunteers will come to town and bring their tourist money—” He cut himself off. “No offense to your brother.”

  “Expert cynicism. Perfected over many years,” his mother said. “So, do you plan on visiting while he’s there?”

  “We aren’t that close anymore. Not that I don’t want to be, I do . . .” I could sense my lips wavering and moved my hand in front, pretending to have an itch under my nose. I knew my detachment was hard for my brother, and my father, though they tried not to show it, so as not to scare me off more. This had always made me feel guilty but also more certain of my obligation to protect them from what they didn’t understand: that it would be much worse to have me around. I’d told myself I would rejoin their lives just as soon as I could trust myself not to destroy them. But now, as I imagined explaining that to Gary and his mother between bites of tagine, it all sounded so flimsy.

  “But I’d like to visit, maybe, one day,” I said. Those thoughts would drown me right here at the table if I let them. I sipped my wine and searched for a new topic. “So, are you happy Gary’s marrying someone from another country?”

  They both laughed. “Sure,” she said. “Even if I did just find out about it. I mean, not because of where she’s from. That makes no difference to me. I have some concerns about the whole thing, of course. But any parent just wants to see their kids happy and getting what they want, whatever that is.” I felt my eyes cut away, as though she meant it as an accusation. “And for Gary, that’s always been the traditional life, white picket fence, station wagon, two and a half kids. I was worried he’d never put himself out there again. He’s very talented and he’s got a big heart, but he’s always been sort of a late bloomer.” Gleefully, she plucked a chunk of lamb from Gary’s plate and dropped it into her mouth.

  “I’d say I’m doing pretty well,” he said. “For someone who was raised by the ‘gravy lady.’” He looked at her expectantly, and a laugh shot up her throat so fast that she had to clap her hand over her mouth to keep from spitting out the bite.

  “Oh my god,” she said. “I haven’t thought about that in years.”

  I shifted my focus between them, realizing they weren’t going to explain anything for my benefit but still content to be among them and feeling soothed by the radio and its steady churn of music, one song leaking into the next. This was a new side of Gary. No more agonizing over what Irina would think of this or that or blabbing on about how perfect she was; he was relaxed and comfortable, he had opinions and interests, he was sure of himself—and being around his mother and me had brought that out of him. Maybe Irina wasn’t such a positive force in his life after all.

  “I almost forgot,” Gary said, standing. “Don’t fill up.”

  He got a square box from the fridge and held it so I could look through the plastic window on top. “Store-bought, obviously. So I couldn’t mess it up.” Inside was a cake with icing piped into the shapes of a stethoscope and a Band-Aid and cursive letters that read Congratulations, Amy! “I know it was a while ago—I kept meaning to pick one up. Better late than never, I guess. I told them just to draw whatever medical stuff they could. Though I can’t imagine you’d use too many Band-Aids.”

  I gaped at it, my mouth completely dry. Even my eyeballs felt dry when I blinked. “It looks amazing. Wow. You really didn’t have to do that.”

  “And what are we congratulating exactly?”

  “Amy passing her EMT exam.”

  Gary had ordered this magnificent cake just for me and shared my news with his mother, and that meant it was all working, better than I could have hoped. There was no room for hesitation or second thoughts now. Simply feel, believe, soak it in.

  “Congratulations,” she said.

  “Thank you,” I replied. Feel, believe, soak it in. “Here, I can cut it.” I took the knife from Gary. I was no different from any other newly certified EMT cutting a cake a proud friend had purchased in recognition of my significant accomplishment, one that marked the start of an exciting and fulfilling new life that I’d worked hard for and deserved to celebrate.

  “I could never handle all that life-and-death stuff on a daily basis,” Gary’s mother said. “I do everything I can to avoid thinking about mortality. Especially my own.”

  “Nobody likes to think about mortality,” he said. “But we’re lucky that some people are willing to confront it. For the sake of the rest of us.” He tipped his head to me in deference. The two of us ate big slices of cake, while his mother shooed it away. “She knows everything,” he said to her between bites. “Seriously. Ask her. Any medical question.”

  “You know I get all my medical advice from traditional Chinese healers.” She got up and tousled the hair on Gary’s head. “And The Today Show.” She planted a playful kiss on his cheek. “We don’t agree on much, but I wouldn’t change a thing. My baby.” She tugged on the skin she’d just kissed.

  She wheeled the dial on the radio through blips of static and voices and tunes until she found Kiss 108, a pop music station. “Top Forty countdown. My guilty pleasure. Gary’s a real music snob, as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now. Has he shown you his record collection upstairs?”

  “Right, because having any kind of taste automatically makes you a snob. I can appreciate plenty of music, just not this crap. Makes me feel like my teeth are rotting.”

  “Why mess with a formula if it works? Give the people what they want!” She turned up the volume and swayed and grooved to a sugary song. She moved naturally, like someone who knows she’s magnetic. From what I could gather, the song was about staying up all night and having no regrets and being addicted to somebody’s love. It switched to a commercial for a local water park, and she took a pack of cigarettes from her bag. “Quick smoke,” she said, and went out onto the back deck, the screen door rasping closed behind her.

  “That’s probably what’s killing her appetite,” I said.

  “I think that’s the point.”

  “Doesn’t it concern you, though? Smoking’s responsible for one in five deaths in the United States.”

  “She’s heard it all.” He licked frosting off his fork and scraped it across his plate. “It’s not any more dangerous than carrying all this around.” He caught the flab of his stomach between two fingers, jiggled it.

  “Well, that’s—maybe.” I looked down at my own stomach, invisible behind the drape of my T-shirt, my cheeks flaming. Of course I nitpicked parts of my body and my face, especially as a teenager, but I’d always been smaller than average, without t
rying.

  “Yeah. I used to try out a new diet every couple of years. But it never stuck and then I’d wind up feeling even worse than before. Then when I met Irina, it turned out she liked me the way I was. She says in other countries, being overweight can be kind of a good thing, especially for men, since it’s a sign that you’re probably well off. Hopefully she doesn’t change her mind once she’s living here.”

  “What did that mean, ‘gravy lady’?”

  “Oh, that’s just an inside joke, from a million years ago. Long story.” Gary huffed as he got to his feet and cleared our plates.

  “The cake was delicious, thank you so much. That was so nice of you.”

  “I’ll put some in a Tupperware for you. I shouldn’t be left alone with the rest of it.”

  A song with a catchy, upbeat chorus came blaring through the radio, and we could hear Gary’s mother outside singing and stamping her foot to the rhythm. “Your mom is cool,” I said.

  “I know.” He watched her through the screen door. “I think coolness always skips a generation. It’s like they have to balance the scales or something, cosmically. Make sure things even out over time.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.” In my observation, coolness seemed more like a dominant trait, passed down as readily as brown eyes or curly hair. But as I watched him watch her, it occurred to me that this idea was gravely important to him, one he’d spent years willing himself to believe, and I regretted contradicting it. “Anyway, a lot of the time I think being cool looks better than it really is,” I said.

  “No, I don’t mind. Really. It just means my kids will have it easy. They’ll fit right in.” He sounded resolute, if not especially cheerful. Still, I couldn’t help smiling—I felt honored to have a friend like him.

  Six

  The next morning marked exactly four weeks and four days until my exam. So, after I read my congratulations letter and tucked my certification card in my pocket, I ordered the supplies for the third and final phase of my obecalp treatment. I strutted to the clubhouse feeling like the mastermind behind a brilliant, trailblazing therapy that would be discussed in textbooks for years to come. “Can you believe it,” I said to the plumpest raspberry on Magnolia Street, its tiny hairs tickling my palm. “Can you believe how this summer is just flying by?” As it turned to sugary juice on my tongue, I realized I’d forgotten what that felt like, for time to “fly by.” It could be nerve-racking, but I recognized that above all, it was a privilege.

  Room 1 was currently being occupied by the same old woman I’d watched stride down the dock with her clanging, singing jewelry during my very first week on the job. Some of that jewelry now sat, I assumed, in the heavy box on the dresser, secured by a combination lock. You could feel the delicious secrets inside it straining for air. The lid had a large gold scallop shell in the middle, rising up like a crown, which meant she shared an impulse with Florence Nightingale, who, when she wasn’t saving lives, enjoyed strolling the beach to collect rare shells that she polished with oxalic acid and cherished for years.

  I’d learned that the old woman’s name was Valerie Calvano—a beautiful, singsongy name—and I’d seen her up close while she stood in the hallway examining the rosewood clock, one face for telling time and another for tracking the hours between high and low tide. She had soft, spongy cheeks painted with rosy circles of blush and two ripe pearls dangling from her earlobes, and I thought, Here is someone who deserves to say “This is my city,” and probably has said it at least once before. I was so captivated by her face that I had to remind myself of what Florence Nightingale believed: you can’t trust a face like you can trust a kidney or a lung, since the face is the part of the body most exposed to outside influences.

  After Valerie had finishing examining the clock, she walked to the staircase, then backpedaled to the clock again, at which point she looked over at me—I was pretending to contemplate the dirty linens in my basket—and said, “I take a few steps and the numbers have already floated right out of my head! It’s a wonder I ever make it anywhere on time anymore. Sometimes I say to myself: Now, Valerie, you’re leaving the room. Where on earth are you going?” She glided off again before I could respond.

  Instead of turning on the television, I tuned the alarm-clock radio to Kiss 108 in honor of Gary’s mother. The music instantly perked everything up, even the alarm clock itself, which blinked its festive green light and seemed to almost bop along from its spot on the nightstand. In recent years I’d listened strictly to instrumental music or music sung in a foreign language so I couldn’t get too emotionally entangled, the further from English the better, nothing too easily deciphered. A melody could be overwhelming in itself. But now I understood why Gary’s mother considered pop music a guilty pleasure. She was right, the formula worked. It filled you up just enough to make you hungry for more. I wondered about Gary’s record collection, when I might get the chance to see it, and why he’d never mentioned it before—probably because he was always so preoccupied with talking about Irina. It would have been nice to spend more time with his mother, to hear more about her tastes and her travels, and about many other things, but that was just our initial introduction. Gary had wanted me to meet her, had invited me to stay, and so there would be plenty of other chances for us to get to know each other better. She might even let me persuade her to quit smoking, and she’d have to start calling me at all hours of the day and night to talk her through her cravings, and I would be patient, never indifferent or unbelieving, not even for a moment. She’d tell me I was like the daughter she’d never had, and we’d start making plans, just the two of us, if Gary was busy—I’d forgotten to ask where she lived, but it probably wasn’t far, seeing as she’d shown up out of the blue, but even if it was, she loved to travel, she would go a distance if necessary. She’d stick her fingers in her ears whenever I tried to tell her about what I’d seen on the ambulance that day, saying “No, no, no! I prefer not to think about mortality,” teasing me the same way she teased Gary, and I would tease back, and soon we’d have our own set of inside jokes to make us laugh and reminisce.

  As I stripped the bed, the pop songs roused something else inside me. Soon I was swaying around the room and longing to be in love, to call someone my baby and touch his body, or even to find myself heartbroken, devastated yet determined to prove that I was better off now, I was stronger and sexier and never looking back.

  I had almost been in love once, before I left for college, with a boy named Quinn. He was an all-star cross-country runner but the slowest walker, constantly stopping to massage a thigh or brace a foot against a telephone pole to stretch. Randomly he’d get a spurt of energy and accelerate, sprinting off in one direction without warning, then a few minutes later he’d come striding back with no explanation and a smile on his face.

  Once, before I knew him well, I’d spotted him in a crowded park sprawled on his back on a picnic table, hiking up his legs in an abdominal exercise, while a family loitered nearby with baskets and coolers, waiting to sit down. That was what had drawn me to him at first. He cleared a place for himself, blind in his passion, and saw the potential in every object, how it could be manipulated to meet his needs. His body was just another piece of equipment, and he was both intimately in tune with it and detached from it, treating it as a separate entity to be monitored and cultivated and catered to, so that any odors or waste it emitted could only be a source of curiosity and never a source of shame. In fact, he once lost control of his bowels while running a marathon—I was rooting him on from behind a rope near the finish line—and just kept on running, even with that mass swinging inside his shorts and brown stripes trickling down his legs.

  But after a while, that grew tiresome. He turned out to be more oblivious than bold. The idea that he could do or think or care about anything else never seemed to cross his mind. He had an athletic scholarship, which he valued only for the opportunity to compete, and showed no interest in what my or anyone else’s plans might be, not to m
ention what was happening on the news or out in the world. He was definitively uninspiring, and I couldn’t love a person who didn’t inspire me. Florence Nightingale turned down numerous proposals and remained single her whole life, believing marriage would only stunt her ambitions. Still, it didn’t have to be that way—take Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre. Together they discovered a radioactive element and won the Nobel Prize, and for their wedding, Marie chose a practical blue dress so that afterward she could wear it to work in the laboratory.

  After I broke up with him, Quinn parked his car outside my house every afternoon for weeks and sat there, with no indication why, maybe hoping for me to come out, or building up the courage to come in, or simply monitoring my whereabouts. Soon my mother got in my ear, cooing about how romantic it was and demanding to know how I could be so cold. “I’ll never understand you,” she said for the umpteenth time.

  “Don’t you get it?” I said, pulling back the curtain and gesturing outside to emphasize how unimaginative and pointless it was, sitting blankly in his father’s station wagon until it came time to leave for his evening jog, then repeating it again the next day. “This is the best he can come up with: absolutely nothing!”

  My mother sighed, one of her most hopeless-sounding sighs. “It’s amazing you were born with that turned-up nose,” she said. “Like God was already doing the work for you.” She must have felt guilty afterward because for the rest of the night she was my pet, tiptoeing around me and rushing to agree with anything I said.

  I left Valerie’s bed half made and went to the mirror. I studied the turned-up swoop of my nose, then smashed it down with the heel of my hand. I pressed so hard my eyes watered. It struck me as rather poetic now, what my mother had said about my nose and God doing the work. It made me wonder if she’d had it preplanned. Maybe she’d had a hundred other lines like that stored up in her head and in a diary hidden under her pillow.