Yellow Lies

by Susan Slater

  “And your solution is to get married?” She was still teasing, but Ben thought he detected a hint of seriousness.

  “Yup.” He watched her.

  She stared back. Considering her answer? He couldn’t tell, but plunged ahead. “You’re doing research now for the program. Why couldn’t you continue to do that? You could put in an appearance on the show every now and then. Nothing says that you have to be in New York all the time, live there. Computers and cell phones have changed that. Unless you prefer New York ...?” He stopped. Unlike Hannah, Julie’s living out here didn’t mean being caught out here. She could fly back East, tape a series of shows, then come back. But, would it be enough?

  “You’ve given this some thought,” Julie said.

  Ben nodded. The ticking of the clock bounced off the walls as the silence stretched on. Finally, she said, “Where are you going to get a ring out here?” She was teasing again.

  “Give me until tomorrow night.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay as in yes?” Was he hearing correctly?

  “This will teach me to accept a fertility fetish. Then even buy more of them.” Julie laughed.

  It crossed his mind to ask her what she was talking about, but he didn’t. He stopped thinking of anything else but how happy she looked as she threw her arms around his neck. And then he kissed her, quickly and lightly on her eyes, forehead, nose—then lingering on her mouth. Getting lost in her warmth and eagerness, he pulled her close. With all his being, he wanted this relationship to work.

  CHAPTER NINE

  It had been stupid to promise a ring in twenty-four hours, but Rose helped him. Her brother did fine inlay jewelry and knew where to go in Gallup to pick up a half carat diamond of good quality for the center—and didn’t mind doing it on a Saturday morning. Ben gave him the money after looking at a number of settings and deciding on a wide gold band superimposed with a narrow raised band of polished slivers of turquoise, coral, shell, obsidian and pipestone—all the colors of the Southwest set to look like bright multi-colored stripes. One of a kind. Wasn’t that what Rose called it? And if her brother worked on it for the next eight hours, it would be ready by that evening.

  Hannah and .22 were already waiting on him when he got back to the clinic. Dr. Lee was talking with Hannah; .22 had dumped a box of toys in the middle of the waiting room floor and was making revving noises for the engine of a red plastic Ferrari before he sent it spinning across the waxed tile. Ben had never seen him play before. .22 mentioned something about frogs, but there were no toys that Ben could think of at the boarding house—or books, or dogs and cats. Those things would be stimulating and helpful, encouraging him to use his faculties. He’d remember to suggest a few acquisitions to Hannah. In fact, he wondered what .22 did all day. Surely setting the table three times a day didn’t take up all his time.

  “My car fast.” .22 looked up at him.

  “I can see that.” Ben stepped to one side as .22 crawled after the toy. “Would you like to bring your car with you? We’re going to visit in my office.”

  “Where’s that?” .22 sat on the floor, the corner of his mouth twitching spasmodically.

  “At the end of the hall.” Ben pointed through an archway next to the receptionist’s desk.

  “Okay.” .22 struggled to his feet but paying attention to Ben was short-lived when he spied the pop machines. “Me want orange.”

  “Would it be all right? Or too much sugar under the circumstances?” Hannah turned to Dr. Lee.

  “It shouldn’t make a difference. Let me.”

  Ben waited while Dr. Lee found two quarters and produced an orange soda. .22 made car noises all the way down the hall when he wasn’t slurping his drink. Some were quite realistic. One would think .22 had lived next to a raceway. But then maybe he’d watched television. There weren’t any sets at the house, but, perhaps, there had been one where he had been staying. Not that Ben was a proponent of TV, but under the circumstances it might be something else Hannah could add. There were programs on the educational channels that could be helpful.

  “Here we are.” Ben held the door open.

  “We play now?”

  Hannah must have described what they were going to do as ‘play.’ It seemed a good enough explanation. .22 appeared comfortable.

  “Yes.” Ben had set up a card table and two chairs in front of his desk and pulled out one of these chairs now and motioned for .22 to sit. Ben wished he’d thought to bring a box of Kleenex as a sneeze produced lots of nose-wiping on .22’s shirt sleeve.

  “.22, I want you to listen carefully. I’m going to give you a word, and I want you to tell me what it means. Are you ready?”

  .22 nodded vigorously.

  “Winter,” Ben said.

  “Cold.” Ben waited, but that seemed to be all that was coming.

  “Breakfast.”

  “Morning eat.”

  “Good. Now let’s try ‘calendar’.”

  .22 looked around the room, then became agitated, stood and walked behind Ben’s desk. “On wall. On wall.” He was pointing but couldn’t see one.

  “You’re right. A calendar is usually hanging on the wall. I don’t have a calendar, do I?”

  .22 shook his head and walked back to his chair.

  Ben made a notation on a yellow legal pad. “Now I’m going to ask you some questions. I want you to think carefully before you answer.” Ben waited until .22 had settled down.

  “What color is the American flag?”

  “Red. Blue.” .22 blurted out.

  So much for careful thought. “Is there another color?” Ben prompted.

  .22 shook his head, then brightened and said, “Stars.”

  “How many months in a year?”

  “Birthday month, Santa Claus month, fire-cracker month.”

  “How many eggs in a dozen?”

  .22 rocked gently and stared at the table.

  Ben waited, then asked again, “Do you know how many eggs are in a dozen?”

  Finally, .22 shook his head but didn’t look up; his thumb had crept into his mouth.

  “Do you know why we cook our food?”

  “Tastes good.” His head came up and the grin was ear to ear. His thumb left a moist trail along the edge of the table.

  “Why do we wash our clothes?”

  “Socks smell.” .22 put a tennis shoe on the table and pointed to the ragged top of a stained red sock.

  “That’s good. But we need to keep our feet on the floor.”

  .22 obeyed immediately, plopping his foot down, then looked up to stare, mouth slack, eyes slightly watering but eagerly fixed on Ben. He’s starting to enjoy this, Ben thought.

  “Why shouldn’t we fight with others?” Ben asked.

  “Black eyes.”

  Ben smiled. .22 seemed to be relaxed now. Each answer that he considered right elicited a little bounce in his chair or the clapping of hands.

  “What would you do if you saw a fire in your house?”

  “FIRE. FIRE.” .22 shrieked and pushed to his feet tipping his chair over before he opened the office door and yelled one more “FIRE” into the hallway.

  Ben had no idea what Hannah and Dr. Lee thought, but no one came running down the hall. Ben closed the door and waited until .22 had returned to sit at the table.

  “If I had ten apples and you ate three, how many would I have left?”

  “Me sick.” .22 rubbed his stomach. “Apples hurt tummy.”

  “Let’s play with a puzzle.” Math didn’t appear to be a long suit and Ben decided to try something else. He put an opaque plastic screen between them and then dumped a half dozen large wooden pieces—the legs, body, head, and tail of a goat onto the table arranging them in mixed order before he lifted the screen.

  “Can you put these together to make an animal?”

  .22 leaned forward. A spasm in his right forearm scattered three of the pieces, but he grabbed the back legs and put them on the front of the body, the front legs
on the back and then put the tail under the goat’s chin.

  Not bad, a basic understanding of goatees, Ben thought, but not exactly what the test asked for. Ben then used flash cards for colors and numbers. .22 did fairly well. He couldn’t remember more than three digits, but Ben had suspected that. His reading was barely beyond pre-primer and caused agitation, but he figured out “dog” and “run” and “red” and “boy” among others. And did better than Ben had anticipated on the Dolch list.

  Ben then put three story cards on the table—a child standing in the snow, a child rolling a ball of snow, and a child standing beside a three-ball snowman—in reverse order and asked .22 to tell the story. He was quick and correct and very pleased with himself, pausing long enough to gulp the rest of the can of orange pop, some of which dribbled down the front of his shirt.

  He failed two other picture-story tests—in one .22 had a man with a flat tire open the trunk after he had used the jack. But he copied three geometric figures correctly only going outside the lines when he was asked to put a circle inside a square. He could repeat certain tapping sounds made by drumming fingers against the table top and follow-the-leader when Ben held out his own hands and opened and closed his fists or turned his hands palms down, then back to supine. .22’s hand strength was awesome; he tied and untied his shoes, hopped on one foot, but couldn’t stand on one foot with his eyes closed.

  He drew the arms coming out of the head in a picture of himself; produced a respectable “Harold” with the d and r reversed; but excelled at putting round pegs in round holes, nuts on bolts and matching green wires with other green wires.

  “So what does all this mean?” Hannah nervously picked at her cuticles. Ben had asked .22 to wait in the reception area while he talked with his mother.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard some of this before, and I think you want me to be honest. Harold is impaired. We both knew this before we tested, a 60-65 IQ, somewhere in there. He will always need supervision. But group homes would offer this. The positive side is how well he did on the vocational screening. Harold would be a good candidate for any number of assembly-line jobs—simple tasks, nothing intricate—things that take matching, some concentration, moving large objects ... he’s amazingly strong. He may not always make the right decision if left on his own, but in a controlled atmosphere, he’ll do fine.” Ben paused. “I do think he lacks stimulation. He needs to practice putting things together, taking them apart—to play with toys that provide problem solving. I don’t know what he does with his time all day, but he could watch television—educational channels.”

  “I’ve never let him watch TV. Violence and sex didn’t seem to be the sort of thing I’d want to encourage.”

  “I understand. But some programs would give him an idea of the outside world, how people react to different situations.”

  “He does have a hobby. A few years back he began to collect frogs. He takes care of them, does all the feeding, cleaning of the aquariums. He’s even earned some pocket money by selling some of the big ones to restaurants.”

  “Really?” Ben remembered .22’s comment about his bedroom being too loud. He hadn’t made that up.

  “Would information like this help in the evaluation? Should I tell the examiners?”

  “Of course. Anything that indicates he can adjust.”

  “Dr. Pecos, will you be perfectly honest with me. Do you think he’ll pass the other test? Do you think other examiners will find him trainable, too?” Hannah was grasping the edge of his desk, knuckles white.

  “I would be shocked if they didn’t. I really don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

  If he had thought there might be another emotional outburst like the night before, he shouldn’t have worried. Hannah simply began to sob, her head in her hands, shoulders convulsing, almost no sound except for her gasps for air. Ben tried to comfort her, but she pulled away. It was obvious that all the years of wondering had taken their toll.

  + + +

  Ben checked the picnic basket one more time. Champagne, a wedge of Camembert, crackers, a cold pasta and shrimp salad from the deli at Furr’s in Gallup—Rose had done a pretty good job at following his list but not without a lot of teasing. Had he forgotten anything? The ring was in his pocket. He’d told Julie that they were eating out. Out wasn’t a misnomer. He’d planned an evening under the stars, a dinner on a mesa. It would be different, romantic. He’d even thought to pack candles.

  For once, it hadn’t rained that afternoon. The temperature had risen to the mid-eighties by four p.m. and would drop into the forties that night. Maybe, they’d need another blanket.

  Which meant he wasn’t planning on returning to the boarding house much before dawn. He hadn’t consulted Julie. Maybe he was assuming too much, but instinct told him it would be all right.

  And it was. When she met him at the door in heels and strapless sundress and he’d said they might need a blanket, she’d simply asked him to wait a minute and she returned in hiking boots, jeans, and flannel shirt, with two blankets under her arm.

  “More like the dress code of this special restaurant?” Julie asked. She had tied her hair back with a green ribbon that matched the shirt’s Black Watch pattern, but red-gold wisps escaped and softly framed her face. And she looked eager as she slipped a hand in his. In a rush he realized that he was going to make promises to this bright, vivacious woman—had, already. It made him feel good. He fought a temptation to kiss her; he knew the hall had eyes of its own. Instead he simply said, “I think you’ll pass,” and grinned.

  Ben had remembered a road that left the main highway some five miles back and disappeared into the El Malpais, the badlands to the south. The rough terrain was dotted with huge humps of hills that reared out of the desert. If his timing was right, they’d be able to climb to a rock outcropping overlooking the valley and have dinner while the sun was setting. He put an arm around her and pointed out their destination in the distance, a wide, level expanse of basalt a quarter of the way up a towering mesa already turning rose-purple in the late afternoon light. And then he shared his day—an old habit—but it felt comfortable.

  “I know you don’t want to believe anything good about Hannah but I think you’ve misjudged her.” Ben shared how .22 had done that morning, explained the circumstances and the test.

  “Poor woman. What a tyrant her husband must have been. So you think .22 will do all right in front of strangers?”

  “He should. He may not be as socially awkward as I think. Of all things, Hannah said he collected frogs. He must have more than one or two in his room; she mentioned something about his cleaning aquariums.”

  “I’ve seen them. I was treated to a tour. It’s a horrible place. I don’t see how he sleeps in there, but believe me, he has more like two hundred.”

  “Two hundred frogs?”

  “I’m not a good judge, but most seem to be toads.”

  “People don’t eat toad’s legs, do they?”

  “What?” She grimaced.

  “Hannah said .22 has sold to restaurants. I just assumed that his collection was all frogs.”

  “Hmmm. Most of the ones I saw had bumps on their backs, warty protrusions—”

  “Yuck. Let’s think of something a little more appetizing to talk about.”

  Julie laughed, kissed him lightly on the cheek, then sitting close, comfortably slouched so their shoulders touched.

  He left the highway at the County marker, and they bounced along a barely discernible two-track road. Buffalo grass caught at the bumper and crunched under the tires. The windshield was coated with dust by the time he pulled the truck close to the base of the sloping wall and parked beside a clump of piñon. Green and brown, vegetation and dirt, a person had to see the beauty of the desert to like it out here. He looked over at Julie and felt a twinge of fear. Was he expecting too much? Slip a ring on her finger and she’d become a homesteader? Was he being foolish?

  Julie stepped out of the truck and stood
gazing up at the flat-topped mountain.

  “Any guarantee my deodorant won’t fail before we get there?” Julie had shaded her eyes and was studying the sheer rock climb in front of them.

  “Hold that romantic thought.” Ben laughed. “There could be a path around to the right—if we’re lucky we’ll find stepping stones right to the top.”

  “You’re putting me on.”

  But he wasn’t; they walked to the back side and there they were, steps winding upward disappearing among the boulders. The first inhabitants of this land considered the area sacred and regularly made pilgrimages, wearing moccasin-smooth niches along the rock face. Hideouts like these had been life savers when the Spaniards had attacked. Where the going was steep, the old ones had flinted away grooves in the stone forming footholds as the path wound among shoulder-high boulders, making ascent fast when it had needed to be.

  Ben took the picnic basket, Julie the blankets. They climbed in silence.

  “This is perfect,” Julie said, a little out of breath, but almost reverently as they reached the level outcropping of rock. Ben watched as she walked near the edge to enjoy the panoramic view. They were only a hundred feet above the truck and still some three hundred feet from the actual top but the valley rolled out from the base of the mesa and stretched as far as they could see—a sharp contrast of emerald squares to rough, black eruptions that had burst through the earth’s bubbling surface in some prehistoric age. In fact, these odds and ends of mountains were huerfanos, orphans and outcasts, stranded edifices destined to stand alone, separated from what was called the Rockies.

  “I want this to be your home.” It wasn’t what he had planned to say. But it was the truth. They stood together and he turned her toward him tipping her head back to look him in the eye. “But I want you to be happy,” he said.

  “I haven’t had second thoughts, if you’re worried. I know what I’m doing. And I’m marrying you, not the landscape.”

  “I worry that you’ll be too isolated. These aren’t skyscrapers.” His hand swept across the view to the west. Pinnacles of rock worn wind-smooth to a pale tan striated sandstone, some towering hundreds of feet in the air, jutted out from the base of the mesa.