Then I get started on prepping tomorrow’s menu.
The doorbell rings and I step out onto the streetside deck to see down to the front door. “Hi, Jack!” I sort of squeal before I catch myself and try to sound calmer. “I’ll be right down!”
I pat my hair and neaten my blouse on my way. I know I must look a mess because I’ve been working since dawn. I skip down the stairs anyway and give him a big smile when I reach the door.
He smiles back.
“Hi there, neighbor,” I say. “You’re just in time. I have one serving of chocolate cake left. So come on in!”
I move aside to make way, but he stays put.
“I don’t want to get spoiled,” he says, like he’s a little shy. “The piece I had with my dinner was a slice of heaven,” he adds.
“What can I do for you?”
“This was in with my food, but it wasn’t meant for me.” He hands me a piece of paper in my Help Yourself signature green color. The printer threw in a few notepads as freebies.
I feel my face turn red as a beet when I realize that I must’ve put his note in the box that I sent off to my mom and grandma in Peaksy Falls. Which means he read what I’d meant to say to them about my handsome neighbor.
“I’m sorry for the mix-up,” I say quietly. I’m so humiliated I could just cry. “I got up so early, I guess maybe I wasn’t awake yet.”
“How is business going?”
“Really well,” I say.
“I hope not so well that you stop taking the little jobs, like feeding me.”
“I wouldn’t do that.” I’m still too embarrassed to look him in the eyes. I can’t believe I gave him the wrong note!
“Good. Well, I better get back home. Chaser will be jealous that I saw you and she didn’t.” He turns to go. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
I chatter like a mortified magpie to Uncle Max on my way up the stairs, telling him about the dumb mistake I made. “…so Jack got the note I meant for them! Oh good Lord. And I’m sure those little ladies will be scratching their heads over why on earth I sent them an Abraham Lincoln quote. They’ll probably believe it’s a clue to the game show they think I’m working on…” But when I get to the top, I see that Uncle Max has already disappeared into his room.
Cake and all.
When I finally make it downstairs and am fixing to fall into bed, I notice an envelope on my pillow. It has Fourth Task written across it in Fritz’s neat-as-a-pin writing.
I’m so tired that I’m tempted to just wait until tomorrow to open it up. But I have my alarm set for 5:00 a.m. as it is, and tomorrow is going to be filled to the brim. I stifle a yawn and take out two typewritten pieces of paper, figuring I may as well see what I’m up against.
Hello, Merry.
I hope that you are enjoying your stay at the ocean and that you are not working so hard that you forget to take time out to smell the air, to listen to the wild calls of the various sea birds, to feel the salty breezes, and to keep a keen watch out for dolphins.
I will make a posthumous confession to you: whenever I saw a dolphin jump out of the water (which often happens in what I can only believe is playfulness in its purest form), I made a wish. Because I loved to do so and because I wanted to believe in the efficacy of doing so, I made it a point to only wish for things that I was relatively certain would happen anyway. An example: “I wish for nice wine with my dinner this evening.” This was a safe request, since I had an ample supply shipped from a lovely wine shop straight to my door each time I arrived on the island. Another: “I wish to sleep well tonight.” This likewise was a virtual given, since I never slept as well as I did after spending a day at the sea.
I wished for easy things, in short, because I have always believed in setting myself up for success. Had I known about you earlier in your life, my dear Merry, I certainly would have wished to meet you, and I would have gone to the ends of the earth to ensure that my wish came true. And you can trust me when I say that, had I known about you earlier, I would have made it one of my life’s highest priorities to help set you up for success as well.
I am tired and weak tonight, so I’ll get on with it.
Task #4: Find out your mother’s secret and see how far the apple falls from the tree.
I apologize that I cannot elaborate. As I said, I am tired. You have the energy of the young and the living, and I know you will wisely endeavor to figure the task out on your own or to enlist help where practicable and appropriate.
Yours belatedly, and with love,
Claude Pershing
(a.k.a. Dad)
Now what in the heck does that task mean, I wonder? I wish Fritz was here because I know there’s got to be some mistake: there is absolutely no way in the world my mom has a secret!
Sometimes I get so frustrated because I feel like getting through these tasks is really life or death for me. A life of satisfying work in a place that I love and helping my family out of their terrible predicaments, or a slow death of going back to Peaksy Falls a failure, wondering if I could’ve succeeded if I would’ve just tried a little harder, worked a little longer.
A note in Fritz’s handwriting at the bottom of the page doesn’t help at all: I e-mailed you a link to another one of your Aunt Betty’s podcasts.
He’s got to be kidding me! Leaving me a cryptic task when he’s not even here to answer questions and then saying, “By the way, you should hear what your kooky Aunt Betty has been saying on the radio.”
Though I really, really don’t want to hear it, I turn on my laptop and click the link to the podcast of my Aunt Betty’s show. Because, let’s face it, I won’t be getting any sleep until Fritz gets home and I make him explain what in heaven’s name I’m supposed to do before he’ll check off task number four.
I hear the intro music I’ve heard a thousand times before and Aunt Betty’s voice opening The Betty Answers Show. Then she launches right in.
My call lines are dark this morning. While we wait for someone to light them up, I’ll philosophize on a question I recently saw in a magazine.
Sometimes I honestly can’t believe that I ever found her interesting or smart at all.
The question was this: Why do you live where, and how, you live? Many people might scoff at such a question and write it off as silly. Those people are victims of inertia—they live where and how they do because life has happened to them and they have let it.
People who nod thoughtfully when such a question is asked have likely chosen their course and can explain it, if not completely defend it.
How do I live?
I live alone.
She can say that again! She’s never even had a cat or a boyfriend that I can recall.
My sofa is modern and too rigid to be comfortable. I prefer to have only one inviting chair in my home: my own chair. The television provides me company, and I watch it almost all the time that I am home. I argue with talk show hosts and participants in dramas. I get to know them all in the limited, one-sided way that callers to my show get to know me.
Wait, she’s telling the truth. And more of it than I’ve ever known her to do. Maybe she’s not in her right mind today. Maybe she has a fever, and Fritz wanted me to listen because he thinks I should check on her or something.
When my head is very full of memories or worries, I turn on a Spanish-language soap opera. It soothes me, probably for the same reason I prefer speaking to nonnative English speakers: because there’s very little nuance to it. All I get are the main ideas, and only if they are conveyed in an obvious enough way. Irony is lost, as is sarcasm and inflection; subtlety dashes out of the picture. I find it refreshing.
I wish I could exist that way in the world, only dealing in main ideas. No background or supporting imagery to muddy things, nothing for anyone to find by digging deeper or looking more carefully. Only the door slams, or the slaps in the face, or the bursting-into-tears of a Spanish soap. Only the surface-level, only the obvious.
J
esus Jenny! I wonder what my grandma and mom thought when they heard this show. I wonder if they were finally glad that she goes by a different last name and pretends she’s not a relative. I know I am.
Someone close asked me a few years ago why I didn’t just go live alone in the desert, or join a nunnery, or move to Antarctica. For how much I interact with other people, she said, I may as well go ahead and officially drop out of society instead of pretending to be in it, but not really.
I remember that show. It was my mom who called in, but of course Aunt Betty referred to her as “Darla.”
I remember laughing lightly; it was on air, of course, and I also quoted her some of the more tolerable lines from my book.
I suppose that person is right, in a way. But only in the manner that someone outside a situation can feel that they know all about it. Though she is the person I have been most connected to in life, she still is not me. She thinks that because she knows all about me, my motivations, decisions, and their repercussions, that she really knows how I feel and what’s best for me.
The problem is that she won’t believe me when I say my life is really how I want it. Though it looks lonely and disconnected to her, it’s my choice. Maybe I’m happy as can be; it isn’t for her to say. I never explain anything, as anyone listening should know by now.
Look here, we have a caller.
Hello caller, are you there? This is Betty Answers, and you’re live on The Betty Answers Show.
I close my browser after listening to the first caller, during which Aunt Betty turned back into her usual weirdo on-air self and stayed that way.
All my life, I never heard my aunt say more than two sentences about herself in a row, then lately she spills the beans every chance she gets. I don’t know what to make of it.
It’s embarrassing to remember, but I used to call in to her show when I was a kid. I’d set a tape recorder going in the loft next to the radio and call in from the kitchen. Later I’d listen to it back and giggle my head off. I used to love being in on the big secret that she was really my Aunt Betty, but we were keeping that fact from the listening audience. I imagined a million people out there, not the handful there really was. Anyway, back then I thought it was fun to playact like that.
I stopped calling when I was about thirteen. That’s when I found out my friends who’d heard of it thought the show was dumb, and I realized it wasn’t cool to call into an uncool show. I made excuses not to go out birthday shopping with Aunt Betty around then, too. Or for our yearly Christmas trip to the theater. I guess you could say I outgrew her.
Some long-forgotten image is sticking in my mind, and I stop to remember it.
There was another night, years ago, when Aunt Betty acted in the same odd way that she’s been acting on the podcasts of her show. It was back when I was about to leave for college, and she insisted that I let her take me out to dinner. We went to a restaurant in the city that was supposed to be really great, but I hadn’t been there yet since Mom and Grandma don’t like going out, and it was too expensive for our budget anyway.
During dinner, Aunt Betty drank too much wine. Way too much wine. I could tell after the second glass that I’d be driving her home, and she still drank two more. That in itself was strange enough because she wasn’t generally a drinker, or at least I’d never seen her drink.
That night she started telling me what it was like for her when she was my age and had moved away to college. I didn’t really get to find out much because I was too embarrassed when she began to cry before dessert arrived, right in the middle of the restaurant, and I couldn’t even eat my crème brûlée, which was supposed to be phenomenal.
I told Aunt Betty she could finish her story in the car and coaxed her out of there, with her leaning on me and still crying the whole way and people staring like we’d just landed our spaceship in the middle of the dining room.
When we got to the car and I had made her get in the passenger seat—I mean, duh—she became quiet. It was like she flipped a switch and was suddenly a different person. She went from saying too much to not saying anything at all in an instant.
All the way home that night, Aunt Betty refused to say another word.
Not even goodbye.
Tonight I figure I don’t have anything to lose by calling her again. She said I could once, and I’d sort of like to make sure she’s OK since she’s been acting so loony. And maybe she might even have an idea about what secret my mom could possibly be keeping.
She answers her home phone on the first ring.
“Uh, hi, Aunt Betty. How are you?”
“I’m fine, thank you. And how are you?”
“I’m fine, too, ma’am. Are you sure you’re well?”
“Yes, Merry.”
“OK. Well, I wondered if you could help me with something then?”
“Possibly. What is it?”
“It’s a long story, but basically I have to figure something out. I know this probably sounds funny, but I wondered if you happened to know of any secrets my mom might have?”
“Secrets?” she asks. She sounds a little worried, but it’s hard to tell from a disembodied voice on the phone. Maybe she’s staring at her television screen and some Spanish-speaking lady is about to faint or shoot someone.
“Yes. Apparently my mom has a secret, and I’ve got to find out what it is.”
“Why is that, Merry?” Aunt Betty asks slowly, like I’m a really dumb caller to her show.
“Because that’s what my father wanted me to do.” I instantly regret saying it because I don’t want to get into the whole story, but it just slipped out.
“Your father?” she asks. “Are you with him now? Is that where you’ve run off to?”
“I haven’t run off,” I tell her.
“Is he there with you now?”
“No, ma’am, he isn’t even alive anymore.”
“Your father is dead?” she asks, like she’s suddenly trying to act a part in one of her dramas—excited one second, then nervous, then demanding, then sad.
I wish I had never called.
I sigh like Fritz.
“Yes, ma’am. I don’t want you worrying Mom or Grandma about it because they don’t really know the whole story, but basically he left some riddles for me to work through so I can earn an inheritance. I know it sounds pretty odd, but I have to find out about my mom’s secret. I guess I should have called her, but she doesn’t like talking on the phone much, except when she calls in to your show. And if she does have a secret, she won’t necessarily want to tell it just because I ask. So do you know anything that might qualify as a secret?”
“Merry, where are you? The young Englishman who whisked you away refuses to tell me anything and doesn’t even return my calls. I have been worried sick. Merry! You’ve got to tell me where you are and who you’re with,” Aunt Betty demands.
“I’ve got to?” I know I sound sassy, but so does she.
“Yes!”
“I’m a grown woman, and I’m safe, and I’m doing some good, honest work. That’s all you need to know,” I say before I hang up the phone.
I should have realized it would be a waste of time to call Aunt Betty. She never has good answers anyway.
Chapter Fifteen
IN WHICH JACK ACTS ON IMPULSE
As told by Mr. Morningstar, with an assist from Mr. Copperfield
Chaser whines at the door. I let her out and she races down the steps to catch up with a lone, familiar figure walking in the distance. Of course it’s Merry.
I have at times suspected Merry of slipping aphrodisiacs into my food. Why else would I find myself daydreaming about her?
It started with the note she mistakenly left in my cooler a week ago. It was effusive and funny and showed her to be a thoughtful and caring daughter. It also said, “I finally got to talk to my neighbor last night—I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man so handsome.”
It struck me as incredibly strange at first: the idea that someone might th
ink of me that way. I haven’t felt handsome, or even particularly human, in a long while. I wouldn’t be surprised if I were completely invisible to others; I so often feel like a shadow.
Maybe that’s why I felt the need to bring the note back to her. I wanted to make sure she could still see me. And I wanted to see her—to prove I hadn’t imagined her somehow.
My days have been filled with long work hours. Since we delivered the Langdon proposal and are waiting for an answer, I’ve been catching up on other design work that has been piling up during these past few months. I’m plugging away, day by day, trying to regain my footing as well as my clients’ confidence. Perhaps Merry also puts Prozac into my food because along with my satisfied stomach, intrusive thoughts of her, and a renewing work ethic, I feel less of an urge to exhaust my body and mind in the ocean.
Thoughts of Merry have not displaced thoughts of my wife. Katie is always somewhere in my mind. Often in the forefront, but sometimes in the background, when I’m only aware that she is there because I accidentally type her name in the middle of a business letter or hear myself say something out loud that makes Chaser perk up her ears and look at me with worried eyes.
Usually it’s, “Why?”
Lately I’ve had to study pictures to remember certain details of her face. Sometimes I get up in the middle of the night to look at her.
Through the window I think I see Merry climbing the exterior stairs to my deck like she did a week ago. I’m not sure it’s really her, though. Sometimes I have imagined her out there, only to become either relieved or disappointed to discover I was mistaken, depending on my mood. I have caught glimpses of her walking along the beach or entering her house again after dropping off my meals. At times, I have found myself watching for her without intending to.
Merry knocks on my sliding door. She’s really there. This place is a pigsty, so I step outside and shut the door behind me.
Help Yourself Page 15
