Nobody, Somebody, Anybody

by Kelly McClorey

  A pounding on the door interrupted me. I glanced at my red nose and wet eyes in the mirror and tried to quickly fan my face, imagining Valerie must have returned to collect something. But the pounding turned more furious, much too harsh to come from Valerie’s knuckles. I seized the handle of my dustpan just as the door sprang open. Roula. I’d never seen her in shorts, and her bare legs were a grisly sight, covered with squiggly purple varicose veins. As she barged into the room, they seemed about to erupt, to tear through her skin and spill across the floor.

  “How many times,” Roula said over the music. She went to the television, assuming the sound came from there, then halted, the pressure building in her veins as she stood looking around. Finally she figured it out and hit the power button on the radio. “How many times do I have to say it. You attack the room, in and out, then on to the next. Going down the checklist. You’re not getting paid to watch TV. Or listen to the radio.” She shook her head and narrowed her voice. “You’re lucky, you know. I could walk down right now and tell Doug about what happened last week.” She gave me a searing look and disappeared, leaving the door ajar so she could spy on me—that was what humiliated me most.

  I retreated into the bathroom and collapsed in the tub. The week before, I’d neglected to swap out the sheets for a new check-in, and though I’d remedied it as soon as the guest arrived, it was a careless mistake that I lamented and that Roula insisted on holding over me, even though she’d probably made the same mistake or worse a hundred times over. I made fingernail marks up and down my thighs. Why hadn’t I shown her the way I’d dug every last cobweb from the air-conditioning unit, or how I’d thought to carry up an extra set of fresh towels, just in case Valerie had a need for them? I never got the chance to redeem myself, she made sure of that.

  Roula had no idea what it was like to have a calling. Not many people did. Even when I’d finally saved up for an EMT training course, I glanced around the classroom and saw yawns, cell phones, absentminded doodling. I wanted to shake them and scream “The precious gift of life will be placed in your hands!” During breaks, I’d follow them out to where they chewed loud snacks from the vending machine, licking their fingers and shaking the bags over their mouths to get every last crumb. I went along to try to understand them and how it was possible we could share the same goal and yet be so different, but I could never understand, and sometimes I’d catch myself wishing that I would be the one to change. But all the most successful and inspiring people—Florence Nightingale and Marie Curie and Peter—vowed to be conscientious, devoted, indifferent to nothing except the opinions of others. I would choose suffering over indifference any day. As Florence Nightingale said, out of nothing comes nothing, but out of suffering might come the cure—give me pain over paralysis!

  From the bedroom came a terrible, jingling thud. I dashed out to find Valerie’s heavy lock box capsized on the rug. With my certification card displayed in my palm, I took a deep breath and pronounced, “My name is Amy Hanley, and I’m an EMT. I’m here to help you.” I couldn’t do a proper top-to-bottom assessment without first moving it, so I lifted the box with all the care I would give a patient, wincing as the precious items inside shifted and chimed, and set it back on the dresser. The combination lock was secure, but the scallop shell had a chip missing and a horrifying jagged line running down the middle of it. I could not be held accountable here—it wasn’t the music but Roula that had disrupted the flow of my work, and she’d disturbed Valerie’s belongings with her unnecessary pounding as well. She kept saying I should attack the rooms, in and out and whatnot, but this kind of work, even if just for the summer, should be approached like an art, not an invasion. I was the one who’d gone to college and who strived to treat the guests like family, only better, and meanwhile she continued to ignore all my advice. Maybe Doug would have something to say about that.

  I felt around the carpet until I located the chipped gold piece, not much bigger than a kernel of corn. If it had been an amputated finger, I would’ve sealed it in a sterile bag and kept it on ice on the way to the hospital, but in this case there was no hospital to rush to and no obvious course of action. The rough edge of the gold piece cut into my palm, reminding me of all the ways I’d let myself down. Without an exact plan, I slumped down to Doug’s office, meditating on the sacred Hippocratic oath, which demanded I preserve not only the finest traditions of my calling but also a measure of humility: Above all, I must not play at God.

  As usual, his door was open. I could hear him saying “Personally, I always wanted three girls and a boy. I figured you need the one boy, but girls are what you want. My very own Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria. Of course it turned out the exact opposite.” I veered away as quietly as I could.

  “Amy!” he called. Reluctantly I entered, avoiding eye contact with him and the man he’d been talking to, who lurked in the corner. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said. “Tell me I don’t have to add that to my list. I’ve got enough trouble here with the living.”

  “No.” I fiddled with the sweaty gold piece in my pocket.

  “Did Roula give you the rundown of events for August? Feels like the Fourth of July was just yesterday, yet here we are. It’s all up on the events board. The main thing is the regatta coming up in a couple weeks, then we finish out with the big Centennial Cruise—our humble little operation hit a hundred years this summer, if you can believe it. Nothing gets you in the festive mood quite like figuring out the logistics for a massive three-night private charter that you will not have the pleasure of attending. At least I get to be quality control for the rum tasting.” He struck his knuckle against a fat amber bottle on his desk. “Maybe Peter here will give you a taste. Best in town. You look like you could use it.”

  The name startled me, and my eyes darted up and over to the man in the corner. Of course it wasn’t Peter Peter—why would the most remarkable professor I’d ever had be in the clubhouse giving Doug samples of rum?

  “Amy here,” Doug said, wagging his finger at me. “Don’t let this quiet act of hers fool you. You wouldn’t believe all the stuff she’s got in her head. Like a walking encyclopedia. You remember those?”

  “I remember.” Peter’s hand trembled as he suspended the bottle over two glass tumblers and filled them one glug at a time.

  Doug dumped sugar from his ceramic camel into both glasses. “Keeps it smooth,” he said. “We deserve this.” I clinked mine against his and threw it back, thankful.

  I paused at the events board to glance at the flyers for the regatta and the Centennial Cruise. Roula hadn’t given me the rundown of events—she must really want the worst for me. I wanted her to know what that felt like.

  Back up in Valerie’s room, the rum whirling in my head, I crafted a letter in which I took full responsibility for what happened to her shell, expressed my sincerest apologies, and declared that if she wished for me to leave my post, I would do so willingly and immediately. I signed my full name, including my postnominal letters: Amy Hanley, NREMT. Thankfully it was time to go home then, so I trudged to the closet to collect my things.

  Roula had taken her purse and left her caddy of cleaning supplies in the corner, meaning she’d left for the day. She and I were the lowest people at the clubhouse, yet she acted like her position as head housekeeper gave her an advantage over me, rather than what it actually meant: that this was the best she could ever hope for. Her three plants sat on the table by the window, lush and green in their ceramic pots. A breeze came through the window and set their leaves into an obnoxious, hyper little dance. I watched them, a wrenching in my chest, until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I picked up a pot and squeezed, my fingers turning white. Before I knew what I was doing, I’d lifted the window screen and tipped the pot upside down, shaking until the dirt released in a block and fell into a patch of grass outside. I rushed to do the same with the other two, reveling in the sudden change in weight as the dirt went tumbling out.

  When my frenzy had passed, I looke
d down at the three empty pots and felt surprised, as though the principle of cause and effect wasn’t meant to apply here. In a panic, I sprinted outside, a wall of hot air rushing back at me. One of the waiters, the boy with the pigeon-toed feet, was standing next to the pile of dirt. I peered down at it, unable to find my voice. “Was that you?” he said. “I thought the sky was falling.”

  I stared at the ground.

  “I was just out here waiting for my ride,” he said.

  “It was an accident,” I said, scooping up whatever leaves and roots I could find intact. What had I expected?

  “How’s everything up on the third floor? You don’t come around on your breaks anymore.”

  “Fine.”

  “It seems like it’s nice and quiet up there. There’s always stupid drama going on with the servers. Sometimes I wish I could switch places with you.”

  “It’s not like it’s easy.”

  “No, I know. I didn’t mean that.”

  “I’ve got to go,” I said, and took off back up the stairs, my hands cupped together with dirt and plant remains. Maybe I could still reassemble them somewhat, get some fresh soil, prop the stems upright.

  Valerie poked her neck out of room 1 as I raced by. “You,” she said, extending her long, knobby finger toward me.

  “Um.” I tried to shield the mess in my hands. “I’ll be with you in just a minute.” I dropped the remains into a pot—they didn’t fill it even halfway—and dusted my palms over the top. I wanted to linger in the closet, to stress and mope and brainstorm. But I had another disaster waiting for me.

  Valerie was holding her door open, so I followed her into the room. “You left me this note, is that right?” she said.

  I nodded and then hung my head, feeling exhausted and beaten down.

  “Is it sarcastic?”

  “No!” My head rose up on its own, to show her. I tried to push the image of those empty pots aside and let my general integrity shine through.

  “You’re far too wound up, my dear,” she said at last. “Don’t give that old shell another thought. You could break the whole thing, for all I care. In fact, it would probably be best. No shell is preferable to a broken shell, wouldn’t you agree?” She hoisted up the box and tilted it toward me like a platter of hors d’oeuvres. “Go ahead. It’ll be good for you. Cathartic.”

  She urged me on with a bob of her head, inching it closer. I searched for a hint of wickedness in her face but found nothing conclusive. The box looked massive and unwieldy in her arms. I imagined the sound Roula would make when she found her pots in the morning, how she might put a hand over her mouth to trap it. I gulped down the sting in my throat. Finally, there was nothing to do but make a fist and strike it down onto the chipped gold shell—but gently, only very gently, to avoid knocking Valerie over.

  “That won’t do,” she said. “Here, my wrists are shaky. Set it down.” I took the box and placed it on the rug. “Good. Now you can use your foot,” she said.

  Again I gawked at her, waiting for some revelation. Then I decided what the heck, what was one more act of vandalism on a day like this, and plunged the heel of my sneaker into the shell. There was a pleasant crunch as it shattered, and I released a long, satisfying breath. But then, as I stared at the gold fragments—I’d really done it, desecrated the property of one of our guests—fear came creeping back. Perhaps I’d let myself fall for a mean and mysterious trick.

  “Aha! Much better. Didn’t that feel good?” She brushed the pieces off the lid with her foot, scattering them into the carpet. “I suppose we’ll let the maid clean that up.” She grinned.

  “You really don’t care that it’s ruined?”

  “The valuable stuff is inside.” Valerie floated toward the dresser and turned busy, sifting through papers. “I haven’t read the news in days,” she said.

  “I should probably clean this up now. Those tiny pieces are a hazard.”

  “True.”

  In the closet, I averted my eyes from the three pots. At least I hadn’t smashed them, I thought—but no, that was a desperate reach, since here was another case where the valuable stuff was inside. I peered into them for a moment, as if I might find one sprout still alive. Then I squeezed my eyes shut and stood immobilized, full of anger at myself, with no way to exercise it. I might’ve cried had I not had a job to do. I snatched up my gloves and a plastic bag and the cordless hand vacuum, determined not to keep Valerie waiting.

  She was already on her way out. “Well, I’m headed down for dinner,” she said, holding the door to her room open for me. “Cook is making his famous lobster salad sushi. Have you tried it?”

  “Not yet.”

  I stood in the doorway with my equipment, listening as she descended the stairs. There was so much more I wanted to say, to ask her. I had a sense we were connected, and I wondered if she felt the same, seeing as she’d forgiven me and invited me in, allowed me to break her shell, even insisted upon it. I wanted her company, her approval; I felt she could teach me important things. She had abandoned me here with the mess she’d forced me to make, but while I might’ve resented that with someone else, I trusted her implicitly.

  As I raked the carpet clean, I thought of a morning when I was fourteen years old and we awoke to find a kitchen window smashed and my mother’s purse, the keys, and the family car missing. Also a bottle of cranberry juice from the fridge, which amused my brother to no end. We discovered a single black glove on the front steps and tried hard to laugh at that because it was so cliché and obvious, it had to be a prank. The police arrived and informed us that there’d been a string of similar break-ins in our middle-class neighborhood, though my mother balked at that. “But ours?” We had a comfortable house, but the smallest and least impressive on the street. When they showed us a blurry photograph of the man they believed to be responsible, my mother gasped. She claimed the face belonged to a student she’d had in social studies class a few years earlier, though she couldn’t recall his name. With that, the crime turned personal. She was convinced it had been a targeted attack, never mind all the other houses that had been robbed. She put on a big show for the police, saying “There must be some mistake” and repeating over and over how the boy had seemed perfectly normal, really blending in at school, as though afraid they might trace the blame back to her for not having set him on the right path. Once she’d made up her mind about something, especially if it involved an injustice against her, it became vitally, irrefutably true, and anyone who attempted to persuade her otherwise was a traitor, out to make her look bad.

  A week later she and I were waiting in line at the pharmacy when a detective called to say they’d found our car abandoned two hundred miles away with my mother’s wallet intact, though empty. “See,” she said to me after she hung up. “See.”

  “See what?”

  She abandoned the line in a huff. I followed her out to the rental car. On the way, I tripped over a package of sour candies that must have fallen from somebody’s bag and picked it up. She turned the car on and sat staring through the windshield while I inspected the seal on the package. “Ten years as a teacher, and that is the thanks I get,” she said.

  “You were only a teacher for five years.”

  “Why do you have to make everything so difficult?”

  I ripped the package open and gnawed on a handful of candies, suddenly very hungry.

  She reversed out of the spot without glancing in the mirror, and a car beeped behind us. She hit the brake. “That’s disgusting,” she said, eyeing my full mouth. “Give me one.” She sighed aggressively as she chewed—she did some of her best communicating through sighs. Our family learned to pick up on their subtle distinctions, and we’d practice imitating them, which would either delight or irritate her, depending on her mood. There was a day after she was gone when we were together, my brother, father, and I, eating bowls of soup. Out of nowhere my brother did one of her sighs. Somehow it evolved from there, my father offering up various contexts—y
ou’re emptying the dishwasher, you’re stuck in traffic, you’ve just woken up from a nap on the couch—while my brother performed. He was so dead-on that the three of us broke into uncontrollable laughter. My first real laugh, and all I could think about was how it would end, how eventually we would have no choice but to catch our breath and move our spoons around in our soup and somehow, every day, go on.

  I’d finished gathering the shell fragments and vacuuming the carpet fibers, and Valerie still hadn’t returned. I couldn’t stall any longer. I sat on the edge of her bed, feeling a stab of anger toward my mother for not having been more like Valerie and for never growing old, because maybe she could have become more like Valerie in her old age. It was childish, I knew, and despicable. I took the chipped gold piece out of my pocket. It was my only memento, the last link between Valerie and me. Then I dropped it to the floor and vacuumed that up too.

  * * *

  Valerie checked out the next day without leaving a message or clue of any kind, not that I expected it—guests weren’t even allowed to leave tips, all clubhouse expenses were added directly to a member’s account. I’d left home early, didn’t even stop by the raspberry bushes on Magnolia Drive, but Roula had still beaten me there and her empty pots had disappeared from the closet. She kept her distance, which only agitated me more—every footfall or turning doorknob was her charging in to tell me I was a nasty, spiteful little brat who had been fired, effective immediately. And what did it mean for my future if I got myself fired from a job in sanitation, one of the most important factors in the spreading of disease? I might as well give up on Phase III before it even began.

  I stuck to Roula’s commands, attacking the rooms, in and out, never straying from the checklist or turning on the television or radio or even practicing a scene size-up. It was sad and quiet in my head, and I kept bashing my elbows into drawers and bed frames and slipping on my own rags, and once I accidentally sneezed into the microfiber cloth I kept for clearing lint off delicate surfaces. When I began to despair, I’d touch the certification card in my pocket and remind myself that very soon the summer would end and this job would no longer matter. It would be a distant memory, resurfacing only if I crossed the scent of a particular laundry detergent or furniture polish, and then I’d simply give thanks for the fortifying experience, but mostly for all the progress I’d made since.