Notes on a Near-Life Experience

by Olivia Birdsall

  Until I get my license, I'm only supposed to drive with my parents, and no one else is allowed to be in the car with us when I drive. It's California law. Apparently, Allen is above this law.

  “Nobody obeys that rule. You need an enema,” Al tells me. “Listen, if you fail your driving test, I'm not going to drive you anywhere anymore. And I am sick of being the only one

  who can drive Keatie around.”

  “But if I get caught, they won't let me get my license.”

  “It's like two point eight miles from the school to our house. You won't get caught. And even if you do, just act like you didn't know the rule and they'll give you a warning. C'mon, get in.”

  He hands me the keys and walks over to the passenger side of the VW bus. I fumble with the keys and open the door on the second try. I get in and reach across the car to open Allen's door. He hops in and immediately puts on his seat belt.

  He's been doing stuff like this a lot lately, acting like now that my dad is gone, he needs to do the things Dad would do: teach me to drive, tell me to go to bed, make sure I'm not hanging out with anyone sketchy.

  “Let's just take it easy, okay, Meems? No fancy stuff.”

  “If you're so nervous, why are you making me drive?”

  “I'm doing this for your own good, little sis. I'm older than you. And wiser. And I know that even if it means I have to put my life on the line, you have to learn to drive and begin your journey into womanhood.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Okay, I'm going to have to ask you to take some deep breaths and count to ten. I can't let you drive angry. It isn't safe.”

  “This coming from the king of road rage? The boy who followed an eighty-year-old woman for twelve miles because she cut him off? Give me a break.”

  He ignores my comment. “Now that you've relaxed a little, you may start the car and back out slowly, checking your mirrors and looking over your shoulder to make sure that no one is behind you,” he says in a slow, nasal voice.

  “I know all that already. I swear if you don't stop acting like a driving instructor, I am going to drive this thing into the nearest light post. Stop talking and let me concentrate.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  I begin to back out and immediately a horn sounds. I look over my shoulder. Kiki Nordgren and her best friend, Gabi Huang, are right behind us in Gabi's car, waving their hands in the air and giving us dirty looks.

  “Well, at least you almost hit someone worth hitting. Good form,” Allen says. “Now use your mirrors and check over your shoulder this time, and pull out slowly.”

  I turn the car off, take the keys out of the ignition, look at them, turn to Al, and say, “Keys can be dangerous weapons, you know.”

  “No more driving instructor, I promise.”

  I start the car again, check the mirrors, look over my shoulder, and pull out slowly.

  I'VE STARTED TO FEEL LIKE A GHOST. LIKE I'M ALIVE AND DEAD at the same time. Like I can see things but people can't see me as much. Like things happen but I don't feel them the same way I used to.

  I'm not as excited these days when good things happen— we were invited to a regional dance competition that only twelve teams in the state get to attend, but it doesn't feel like a big deal.

  I'm not as disappointed when bad things happen—I forgot that I had a midterm in my science class, I didn't study for it, and I got the second-lowest grade in the class.

  Once, on Oprah, she had this panel of guests who had all died and then come back to life, like they were resuscitated after they hadn't breathed for a couple of minutes, stuff like that. They called what had happened to them “near-death experiences.” And they talked about how amazing it was to know what death was like and still be able to live. I feel like I'm having a near-life experience, like I used to be alive and I know what that's like but now I'm doing something else. I don't want to die or anything. I just feel like I'm not as alive as I used to be.

  I SAW THIS TALK SHOW ONCE WHERE ONE OF THE GUESTS WAS this man who was such a compulsive liar that he'd lost the ability to distinguish between the lies he told and reality. His wife said that to save their marriage he needed to get help. His psychiatrist made him start making lists of what he knew was true and what wasn't, and he had to learn what the truth was and how to tell it all over again. The guy said that sometimes he still lied for no reason, just out of habit; that sometimes he'd tell his wife a story and then immediately he'd have to tell her he was lying. I sit in Lisz's office and wonder what would happen if I lied to her. Would I forget what was real and what wasn't? Do I really even know the truth anyway?

  “Anything you want to talk about today, Mia?” Lisz asks.

  I stare. “I want to talk about condiments and their classification in the food pyramid.”

  “Well, I don't know a lot about that topic, but if you'd like to discuss it, I'd be more than happy to listen,” she says.

  It's not easy to be contrary when someone is so willing to agree with you. I don't think I have fifty minutes' worth of condiment talk in me.

  Lisz has made a jar full of topics to discuss, like she said she would. She's taped a neon pink piece of paper to it that says, LET'S TALK ABOUT …, and filled it with different-colored slips of paper that I assume all have “interesting topics” written on them. It sits conspicuously in the middle of the coffee table that separates her chair from the couch I sit on.

  I grab the jar and take out a bright orange slip of paper: your first experience with divorce. How convenient, I think. I wonder if every single slip of paper in that jar says the same thing, or some variation of it, so that we can talk about whatever Lisz wants to. Maybe she'll change the papers every week depending on what she wants to talk about.

  “Okay. It says, ‘your first experience with divorce.’ ” I decide that I might as well get this topic out of the way, because it'll probably keep coming up. But I give her a look to let her know I'm on to her, in case there is something to be on to.

  “It's important to share as many details and feelings as you can remember and feel comfortable sharing. You don't have to worry about my passing any judgments; just let it all hang out.”

  Ri-i-i-ight, lady; I'm just going to bare my soul to you after having known you for a week; I can't talk to my best friend or my mother about this, but I'm going to talk to you. Sure thing. “All right. Let me think. Okay. In second grade my friend MaryBeth's dad left his wife and four children for another man and moved to Connecticut. For a really long time I didn't know that he'd left with another man, because everyone in the family explained why he'd left by saying, ‘He went to be gay.’ I wasn't sure what that meant, or I didn't really think about it, I guess, until sixth grade… and then something just clicked when I was watching that TV show about a woman who one episode is dating guys and then one day decides she's a lesbian or whatever, and the show becomes a lesbian show?”

  Lisz nods and looks a little confused.

  “Anyway, I think that was my first experience with divorce.”

  I don't tell her how MaryBeth's dad never calls and seldom writes, how they never visit him in Connecticut, how when he actually remembers their birthdays he sends them a lame card with five dollars enclosed and tells them to spend it wisely, how MaryBeth's mom always looked so old and tired after he left, how she didn't do her hair or wear makeup for a long time. That kind of stuff hasn't happened to my family— not yet, at least—and I don't want Lisz to think I think my family is anything like that, so messed up and sad.

  I also leave out how after her dad left, MaryBeth's family couldn't afford their house payment anymore, and they had to move to a smaller house in a dumpy neighborhood and lie about their address so they could still go to the schools in our district.

  I forget to mention the fact that her family only recently purchased a new car after driving a Buick that was old in second grade and was pretty disgusting nine years later. Nothing like that is going to happen to us. Things are barely going to change at all
. I mean, we hardly ever saw my dad before, so his moving out isn't going to make a big difference.

  “Is that all you want to say about that memory, that experience?” she asks.

  “That's it.”

  “So, how do you think this experience has affected your perception of divorce?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you feel that some of your fears or concerns about your parents' divorce are influenced at all by MaryBeth's fam-ily's story?”

  “I don't think my father left us because of another man, if that's what you're asking.”

  I look at the clock. We still have thirty-five minutes left and I don't want to discuss my feelings about MaryBeth's gay dad, so I improvise. “Here's something interesting, though: last night I dreamed that my father and Mr. Bingler, my history teacher, made my family sit down on the couch because they had an announcement to make. They tap-danced and sang about how much they loved each other and then they told us about their plans to move to Connecticut. What do you think that means?”

  “Well, I'm not really one for dream interpretation—”

  I cut her off. “And I've had several dreams where my mother and Justin Timberlake run off together. But they always leave a note for us—very considerate of them, right?— talking about their great passion for each other and how they can't deny it any longer, stuff like that. Does that mean anything?”

  I get her talking for a while about dreams, how not all of them mean something.

  “Sometimes they are manifestations of our own fears and anxieties, or of our fantasies. You can't always find a literal interpretation, really. Sometimes they show what we're feeling at a certain point in our lives, and sometimes they're just a crazy jumble of nonsense,” Lisz says.

  Then she's back to MaryBeth's family's divorce.

  “Do you think your parents' divorce will be like Mary-Beth's?”

  “I've never compared the two.”

  “I see. Well, that might be something to consider. Often our past experiences have an impact on the way we perceive and deal with new experiences.”

  “Hmmm. Okay. I'll think about that.”

  The hour is over.

  Thinking about MaryBeth's family depresses me; it makes me feel like the world is covered in some kind of film, the way I used to feel after my grandmother took me to breakfast at this pancake house where the entire dining area seemed to be coated in maple syrup and bacon grease.

  JULIAN, ALLEN, KEATIE, AND I ARE WATCHING JEOPARDY! AND eating pizza. Mom called to say that she won't be home until nine, so Al picked up pizza with Julian and Keatie on the way home from her orthodontist appointment. Pepperoni.

  “What is Papua New Guinea?” Allen yells at the TV. “Shouldn't the question be ‘Where is Papua New Guinea?’ ” I tease. “Shut up, smartass,” Allen says. “I don't want to miss the next question.” “You want another piece, Meems?” Julian asks me. “Sure.” I pass my plate down the couch to him. It takes him a while to pass it back. When Keatie hands me the plate, I notice that there's no pepperoni on the piece.

  I hate eating pepperoni, but I like the way it makes pizza taste—the chewy, fatty, meatiness just grosses me out—so I always order pepperoni pizza and then pick off the pepperoni. That way I can still sort of taste the pepperoni, but I don't have to eat it.

  I lean over and look down the couch to where Julian sits with a small stack of pepperoni on his plate, yelling out answers in the form of questions.

  He's never touched my pepperoni before.

  I want to frame this piece of pizza and hang it on my wall. I want to call Haley and tell her that Julian knows how I feel about pepperoni; he cares about my pepperoni needs, and he has met them.

  But he isn't looking at me longingly while I eat my pizza or anything….

  If I were a seventeen-year-old guy with a stack of pepperoni on my lap and the girl who the pepperoni belonged to was sitting two cushions away from me on a sofa, what would I be feeling at this moment?

  WHEN I LOOK AT MY PHONE AFTER DANCE PRACTICE, I HAVE three missed calls from Keatie. She has a cell phone she's only supposed to use in emergencies, so I'm kind of freaked out. I call her back without listening to the messages she's left.

  “Mia?” Her voice is shaky, like she's crying. “Nobody came to get me. I finished violin and there's nobody here.”

  Keatie takes violin lessons at a music academy after school. There's this sort of cab service for kids that picks her up and takes her there, and then my mom, or sometimes Allen, picks her up. Since Mom started working more, she's had Allen pick Keatie up more often.

  “Who was supposed to pick you up? Mom or Allen?”

  “I don't remember. But nobody came. I've been waiting and waiting. I called Mommy and Daddy and Allen, but no one answers. I called them at work, too, but they said Daddy's showing property and Mom is with a client somewhere.”

  “Let me see if Ana and I can swing by the academy on our way home. Just a sec.”

  Ana has been half listening to my conversation while talking to some other girls and waiting for me. She nods when I look over at her.

  “Yeah, Keatie, we'll come and get you, okay?”

  “All right. I'll wait outside for you.”

  When we get to the academy, Keatie is sitting on the cement steps that lead to the entrance, hugging her violin case; her face is tearstained.

  On the drive home, she cries a little when she tells us about how scared she was, how no one answered their phones, how long she waited. “Everyone forgot about me,” she says. “No one remembered.”

  “I think they just got confused, Keat. They all thought someone else was taking care of you,” I tell her, trying to convince both of us that that's what happened.

  SINCE DAD MOVED OUT, EVERYONE'S BEEN TALKING LESS. I counted the number of words I said to each of the members of my family today.

  Allen: 43

  Mom: 28

  Keatie: 21

  Dad: 11 (Not to him, exactly; to his answering machine.)

  I don't really have any actual predivorce data to compare this to, but I can confidently hypothesize that we are talking less to each other. Much less. I can say this because my family has mysteriously developed a new language that is more efficient than any previously known to man. We have found a way to say as much as possible in as few words as possible. For example:

  We used to greet each other by saying things like “Hey, Keatie, what's going on? How was your violin lesson?” or “Al, how's the bus? Have you gotten it to run without push-starting it yet?”

  And then we'd talk about things, make fun of each other, make fun of Dad, make fun of Alex Trebek, or whatever.

  Now our “conversations” go a little something like this:

  “Hey,” followed by a slight lifting of the chin.

  To which the respondent often replies, “Erngh.” Chin lift.

  At the dinner table, we used to say things like “Please pass the tofu loaf ” or “Are there any more rolls? ”

  Now we say, “Rolls.” Or we just point at stuff.

  We are like vaults now: just try and get an extra word out of us. I feel like maybe we could train CIA operatives in this language and make a fortune.

  WHEN I WAS YOUNG, I FELT LIKE I NEEDED MY DAD. IN MY mind, he was a human encyclopedia. I'd call him at the drop of a hat.

  “Hi, Dad. It's Mia. Do you have time to answer a question?”

  “Hello, Mia. Actually, I'm with a client right now….”

  “But this'll be really fast. I promise. Allen says that Las Vegas is the capital of Nevada. But my teacher said it's Carson City, and my states and capitals test is tomorrow….”

  “It's Carson City, sweetie. Listen, I'll help you study when I get home tonight, okay?”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  I don't remember if he helped me study that night or not. But we could always count on him to know the answer to any homework question we ever had. Before he moved out, he seemed to answer his phone less and
less, but now I can never seem to get ahold of him on the first try. Keatie's homework questions always go to Al or to me. She sees Dad as the guy who comes on vacations with us, to family parties, to dinner twice a week. I wonder if she has any idea how much he knows. It's like he's become a different dad.

  ALLEN AND JULIAN ARE COACHING KEATIE'S SOCCER TEAM this season because none of the parents volunteered. Plus, they think it will look good on their college applications. They arrive home after the first practice talking and writing furiously on yellow legal pads. They sit down at the picnic table and don't seem to notice me working on my trig homework.

  “Some of those kids suck,” Allen says. “I mean, we've got some little champions, but that kid Mason? I thought he was going to kick himself in the head during drills.”

  “Yeah, and I thought Keatie was going to kick him in the head while they were scrimmaging, she was so mad that he couldn't dribble right,” Julian says, laughing. “Either way, he needs some work.” He scribbles something on his notepad.

  “Keatie, Luis, and Chewy are the best players we've got. We're going to have to set every play up around them.”

  I start laughing.

  “What?” Julian asks.

  “You guys are acting like this is the NBA or NFL or some-thing…. It's just a kids' soccer team.”

  Allen stares at me and takes a deep breath before he speaks, deliberately dramatic. “Listen, Mimoo. You like to dance. You spend hours in the basement making up dances. And then you go to competitions with your little friends to see who has the best dance. And sometimes you get all nervous and sweaty before you do your little dance.” He turns to Julian. “Have you seen her do that, dude? It's pretty gross. Not attractive at all.” Back to me. “Anyway, dancing is a helluva lot more ridiculous than soccer, and you get all worked up about that. And I have been nothing but supportive of your dancing, so I'd appreciate it if you'd show me the same courtesy.”