Your father and aerodynamics are still on your mind an hour later when you find Liam at the baggage area and he throws his arms around you in an awkward man hug.
“You ready for the start of the rest of your life?” Liam asks, excitement and promise seeping from every pore.
And even though you’re still lost in a world of jet engines and family, you have to nod and agree; Liam has that effect on you, always has. Since that first conversation on the deck of the Jezebel Jones, when he said the two of you were astronauts, not knowing that you had actually worked alongside people who designed things for NASA (of course, you hadn’t told that to the skipper either, had simply said you’d done extensive work on engines, implying those engines were ones that powered boats).
Indeed, you had felt like an astronaut all that first season on the Jones, your life so much different than would ever have seemed possible. Liam became a true friend on that boat, and after the season—when you took off to see the world and he went home to Seattle and whatever he was majoring in at UW—the two of you worked it out so you’d be on the same boat again the next spring, and every season after. He proved better at finding the gigs, and you were a huge selling point; it turned out boat and airplane engines weren’t really all that different.
Now the two of you are shuffling through Hong Kong International Airport to the Turbojet ferry in pursuit of the latest opportunity he’s unearthed.
“We’re making Asian Vegas,” he’d explained on the phone. And from what you found on Internet searches, that seemed about right. Though significantly less publicized than the Hong Kong turnover, the Polynesian colony of Macau was also handed to the Chinese in 1999, and a few years later a handful of casino licenses were given to American developers. Liam’s father was once an official, or knows someone who knows some official of America or Macau; the specifics aren’t quite clear, though you’re only a few slim degrees removed from importance. And there’s gold in them there hills if Liam is right.
But as the two of you purchase tickets and board the ferry crossing the Pearl River, you find you’re still dwelling on the intricacies of airplanes. Something that you hadn’t realized you missed. Maybe it truly is something genetic, something in your blood?
“What did I tell you?” Liam asks, and the two of you slide into the waiting car and whiz from the dock over the Cotai strip. On both sides, Western hotels sprout like weeds—the Grand Hyatt, Hard Rock, the Venetian Resort—construction crews and scaffolding everywhere.
Actually, Liam hadn’t told you much. What exactly you’re supposed to be doing here is fairly cloudy. Liam knows you’re good at stacking nets, were a tidy roommate, and can keep a seiner’s inner workings from overheating; you’re not sure exactly how he’s sold you this time.
“Here we are,” he announces as you round the gate of the Four Seasons, all marble and stone fountains and beautiful. You’ve barely gotten out of the car when a statuesque woman of vague ethnicity nods at you. “Good afternoon, Mr. Wing, Mr. Ryan.” She smiles, introduces herself as Petra, and tells you she’s come over to train with a team of people from the Four Seasons Hong Kong.
For a second you think of Mai and her weird little Vietnamese hotel that was really more like a hostel, where the guests had backpacks and were charged twenty dollars for a night’s stay, including full breakfast.
“Our director can meet with you at noon, but I’m sure you’d like to freshen up first.” She points to a young man in a blue uniform who’s materialized from nowhere. “Joao will show you to your rooms.”
The junior suite they’ve given you is, without a doubt, the classiest hotel room you’ve ever been in. King-size bed with pillows on top of pillows and a bench at the end with still more pillows. A dining table in the corner offers a basket of brightly colored French macaroons and fruit, and the enormous bathroom boasts not one, but two televisions and a Roman soaking tub.
Waiting for the stone shower to adjust, you strip off your pants and shirt, give yourself a once-over in the mirrored wall of the dressing area. Muscles from hauling lines and scars along your torso and arms, the most impressive from a salmon shark you tried to free from a net your first season—when the experienced guys had laughed and told you to kill it because it was eating half the catch.
Running fingers over the red stubble on your face (you’d cut off the beard when fishing season ended), you debate between a shave or a nap before this mysterious meeting.
Your cheeks are smooth an hour later when you, Liam, and Petra from the Hong Kong hotel reassemble in the lobby.
“So when you came in, I’m sure you saw the construction of our sister hotel,” Petra is saying, gesturing toward a hallway.
That’s when you notice the comely woman crossing the corridor connecting the Four Seasons to the Venetian and do an enormous double take.
You’ve never met Phoebe’s mother, but in the year when you and Phoebe were in love, you saw the picture of Phoebe, Chase, and their mom in Hawaii so many times, it was almost as if you had. Diligently, you’d studied it—a time machine revealing future Phoebe (well, if she hadn’t changed her nose). It’s been more than a decade since that picture was taken, but Michelle Fisher (or whatever her last name might be now) looks completely unchanged, minus the lei. Black hair hitting at the shoulders, matching eyebrows in perfect arches, cheekbones regal and piercing.
The resemblance to her daughter is still so striking that, for a half second, you’re convinced it’s Phoebe herself (never mind that Braden had mentioned hearing about Phoebe living with some actor in LA). Convinced that three decades and not five years have passed since you last saw her that Thanksgiving.
No, it’s Phoebe’s mother.
Of course. The hotel’s team is from Hong Kong, where Michelle Fisher was working.
All the things in the world that you’ve experienced: the cold, endless waters of the Pacific and twitching slippery fish, more creatures from a dream than anything in the animal kingdom; blood pouring from cuts on your raw hands, the color so complex and fascinating that the pain didn’t really register; pyramids in Mexico and the Sphinx reclining on the Giza Plateau; your own tears of awe and faith (though you claim to be an atheist) as you said a prayer for your mother at the marble statues of St. Peter’s Basilica; the broken teeth of jutting rocks in Ha Long Bay; ornate Buddhas presiding over Thai Temples; otherworldly delicacies that upset your digestive system in ways you hadn’t imagined possible and fabric so fine you wanted to taste it; the smooth thick lids of Mai’s eyes closing right before you entered her, entirely different than Phoebe’s pale skin, than Maura’s paler skin.
The whole universe that opened up when you left Illinois and stopped unconsciously waiting for everyone else to return.
Phoebe’s mother turns toward you, and something like recognition streaks across her face. Maybe Phoebe had shown her your prom picture or another photo from that other life?
You could go over and offer condolences about her son. Fifteen months ago, Braden had e-mailed Chase Fisher’s obituary, and you’d cried for the first time in years, thinking about the fourteen-year-old kid who’d tagged along on your first date with Phoebe. You’d sent a sympathy card and donated two weeks’ salary to the Pediatric AIDS Foundation in Chase Fisher’s name.
But you don’t go over to Michelle Fisher and say you’re sorry. Instead you break eye contact.
Five years and so many thousands of miles, other places, other worlds.
And there are things in that old life that could be worth a return trip. Turbines and exhaust nozzles, stuffed-crust pizza, a visit to your mother’s grave, the Cubs, bumping into Braden’s parents at Osco, regular chats with your sister, the quiet after the first snow, and maybe your father.
“You still with me, Ollie?” Liam is asking beside you.
It occurs to you that you’ve seen all the parts of the world that you want to see for a while. That Chicago is merely a place, and all places have their ghosts, no matter where they’re laid to rest
.
“I’m sorry,” you say to Liam, knowing that he will strike gold out here, but it won’t be with you. “I’m not an astronaut.”
CINCINNATI
Sharon Gallaher was confident she’d never return to New York.
Relatively quickly, however, she realized she was going to be all right.
It didn’t seem that way when she was in the bathtub with the box cutter and the Post-it note and Chase Fisher’s sister called. Didn’t seem that way when she said “thank you,” threw the phone across the bathroom, and fled the Madison Plaza wet, shaking, and crazed. Not when she lost a day and a half wandering around the frigid city in a blank haze before finally taking a cab to LaGuardia and booking a flight to Cincinnati because she couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. TSA officers had practically strip-searched her when she took off her coat, revealing the bloodstained sleeve of her sweater. It hadn’t helped matters that she had bought a one-way ticket and brought no baggage. Frankly, it was somewhat amazing that they let her get on a plane at all. Even years later the whole experience remains a splotch of lights and colors, the taste of copper in her mouth, her heart in her ears the only sound she remembers. No, it hadn’t seemed like she would be all right then.
She’d arrived at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport right before an epic snowstorm. Had she been detained by security in New York any longer, she wouldn’t have made it at all, and everything might have been different in one of those Sliding Doors/Eons & Empires alternate reality moments. It was after nine, and she hadn’t told her parents she was coming, so instead of calling them, Sharon, still trembly and liquid, headed to the row of rental car kiosks. In the Avis line, she’d been behind a bald, distracted guy who was playing with his phone and took forever. As the man asked questions about directions and the clerk took out a map and highlighter, Sharon had felt a tinge of annoyance. It’s late. People are behind you.
That was it. A swell of frustration, and Sharon realized the world was solid again.
The first snowflakes fell as she crossed the Suspension Bridge connecting Covington to Cincinnati. Also designed by John Roebling, the bridge over the Ohio River was almost identical to the Brooklyn Bridge, and it seemed fitting as the arches and cables got smaller in the rearview mirror—a symbol of the city she was leaving behind.
Her house keys still worked, so she let herself in, climbed the stairs to her old bedroom, fell asleep in her old twin bed, and didn’t wake up for nearly fifteen hours. She even slept through her mother’s shriek of surprise at finding her daughter under the same purple comforter she’d had in high school.
After getting over their initial shock at Sharon’s odd reappearance, her parents had been generally pleased to see her. She told them she and Chase had broken up (not mentioning why a reconciliation was absolutely out of the question), and she’d moved out of their apartment.
Had Sharon said Chase Fisher was dead, she suspected she might not have been okay, that her blood and guts and organs would have oozed out through that opening and puddled on the floor.
“You’re welcome to stay as long as you want,” her father said.
Not stay until she got back on her feet or found her own place or returned to the city, but to stay as long as she wanted. In the years since she’d left for school, Sharon had realized just how little her parents got about her. Every choice she’d made—taking out student loans when UC or Ohio State were perfectly good schools, riding the subway, living with her Jewish boyfriend without getting married—baffled them. But when her father told her she was unconditionally welcome, she came to the conclusion that they were actually better than a lot of parents.
For six weeks, Sharon took them up on the offer. She helped her mom make dinner and volunteered to pick up their dry cleaning and put the trash and recyclables on the corner each Monday morning. It was almost like high school, except when her parents came home from work at exactly 6:30 each night, they offered her a drink as they poured their own.
The night Sharon had run out of the Madison Plaza, she had bound her wrist tight enough that there had never been any real danger (the cut hadn’t been that deep to begin with). But perhaps because she didn’t get it properly stitched, it took weeks to heal—a raised scarlet slash that slowly crusted over.
It had been late January, easy enough to hide under cuffed shirts and big sweaters. But one evening, after ten days of helping her mother shake and bake pork chops and boil dry pasta for supper, Sharon accidentally ran her arm under the faucet while washing potatoes. Without thinking, she rolled back her sleeve.
Seeing the red, Sharon’s mom grabbed her wrist.
Her mother looked at the uneven scab, mouth open in something that could only be described as terror—the same look she’d had when Sharon finally made it home after the Eons & Empires movie freshman year of high school.
“It’s nothing, Mom,” Sharon said.
Her mother said her name like a prayer, like it was sacred.
“It was just something that happened; it didn’t mean anything.”
Sharon expected her mother to tell her father or suggest she see a counselor, but her mom embraced her. Bringing her arms around her mother, Sharon hugged back—water from her wet sleeve dripping on her mother’s blouse.
* * *
Of course, back in New York, there were things that had to be dealt with.
Living was a ninety-second phone call the day Sharon woke up from the fifteen-hour sleep. She told the managing editor she was quitting due to a “family emergency.”
“When do you think you’ll be back?” Across the line the ME sighed. “Should we bring in a temp?”
Without elaborating on the specifics, Sharon repeated that she was quitting, not taking time off.
“Well, I hope everything works out for you,” the ME said unconvincingly. No one from the office followed up. It was fine; Sharon didn’t think she’d be going back to New York.
After unceremoniously quitting her job, Sharon called Kristen to apologize for not showing up and to explain that she wouldn’t be moving to Astoria after all.
“Do you know how worried I’ve been?” Kristen screamed, and Sharon apologized again. “I even called your dumb magazine looking for you.”
In the eight years they’d known each other, Sharon couldn’t recall Kristen being so enraged. Could almost envision her friend’s pixie face blotchy and contorted and redder than Sharon had ever seen.
Sharon tried to say she’d send money until she could find Kristen a new roommate, and that Kristen could throw out her boxes of clothes and CDs if she didn’t want any of it. Sharon got as far as “rent” before Kristen hung up. She sent Kristen a check and an apology (which made no mention of Chase Fisher’s death) and diligently searched NYC Craigslist postings for possible replacement roommates. A week later, all of Sharon’s boxes arrived at her parents’ house, and Kristen called back.
“Um, I saw something on Myspace,” Kristen said, unsure. “About what happened to Chase.…”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” It was actually that Sharon couldn’t talk about it. Despite all her degrees in writing, she lacked the vocabulary. Saying the words would cause some giant snake to come through the floor and devour her whole. “I have nothing to say.”
She was sure Kristen and other people in New York had lots to say about it, and that they probably said it. Sharon was okay with that; she didn’t think she’d be returning to New York.
* * *
After two weeks of dinners and 6:30 P.M. drinks with her parents, Sharon determined she needed to get another job. And despite spending much of her youth alienated in Cincinnati, the Queen City seemed as good a place as any to settle into.
She thought about doing something completely different—nannying or picking up composition lecture sections at Xavier—but scrolling through online job posts, Sharon found herself repeatedly coming back to a listing for a features writer at one of the city’s alternative weeklies. Her longes
t Living stories were two hundred words and most dated back to her earliest days at the magazine (when she’d been hesitant to blatantly write her novel at work), but Sharon suspected the simple fact that she’d been on the editorial staff at a major national magazine would carry a little weight. So she dug through the boxes Kristen had shipped for her clips and résumé, included a couple of the entertainment columns she’d written for Washington Square News in college to show range, and crossed her fingers Cincy Beat wouldn’t actually contact anyone at Living for a reference.
Within an hour of e-mailing her materials, Sharon got a call from Alice in features, asking her to come to Clifton for an interview.
The Cincy Beat office was cramped and dusty, with depressingly low ceilings and various newspaper articles taped to the wall. Set up on long folding tables were about eight workstations, each with an old iMac, stacks of paper, books, and used food containers. Sharon instantly liked it worlds more than the shiny Living offices on Avenue of the Americas, which were always kept pristine for when celebrities would come by. A handful of casually dressed young people were typing or talking on their phones, and she was glad she’d worn a black wrap dress and boots instead of the suit she’d briefly contemplated.
At most a year or two older than Sharon, Alice in features was dressed like a forties housewife in a vintage jumper and cat-eye glasses. Apologizing for the mess, she led Sharon to a couch very similar to the one in her old NYU dorm.
“So Living, what was that like?”
Sharon told her it was fun but fluffy. “I’m looking for the opportunity to do longer pieces.”
Nodding, Alice said they could definitely offer that, “a great salary, not so much, but you can pretty much get tickets to anything in town.”
Telling Sharon they liked her old columns, Alice sent her to interview an area artist opening his own gallery on Fourth Street for a trial story. Though Sharon hadn’t brought anything useful, such as paper or a recorder, she diligently headed out with the kind of drive she hadn’t had since her early days at Living. The gallery owner/artist was in the space setting up for the show and was happy to talk at length about his mission: promoting his own work, which had been rejected by the city’s established galleries. Sharon was able to twist Warhol’s quote about fame into the lead—“Billy Franklin is creating his own fifteen minutes”—which worked well, as his pieces were all pop art prints of old comic books and starlets like Paris Hilton. By day’s end Sharon had e-mailed the article to Alice in features. Within the hour, Alice called to offer the job.
In Some Other World, Maybe: A Novel Page 18
