Black Eyed Susan

by Elizabeth Leiknes

  If I could turn back time,

  If I could find a way …

  As the music blared and we ran down the giant staircase, we must have looked like the musical montage portion of the Scooby-Doo episode where Scooby and friends flee from an evil mummy in the bowels of a gloomy castle. When we reached the bottom of the staircase, we headed straight for the large, gothic double-doors in front.

  Mono, Clyde, and I stood in the marbled foyer and listened to Cher’s voice, still belting out her anthem, echoing in the lonely, empty space. “I need to make a call,” I said. “Do either of you guys have a cell phone I can borrow?”

  They looked at me like I was speaking another language. “Sell phone? Why we sell dee phone?” Mono said.

  Just then, I remembered I had put my mother’s phone, the one she’d kept in her car, in my purse. It was the same phone that had never worked since she’d gotten it. I dug into my purse, though merely looking for it there was a pure act of faith. I pulled out the small red phone, put it in my palm, and held it tight. I knew it was red because my fake mother always said every woman needs a cute red phone.

  When I turned it on, a “Welcome” sign flashed across the screen, as it always did. The problem always developed when you tried to make a call. I remembered the card Will had given me back in Grand Rapids. I took it out, dialed his cell phone number, and secretly prayed my phone would work—for once.

  I pushed SEND.

  NO SIGNAL blinked in defiance.

  This was when I normally would give up, but I tried a second time, while Mono and Clyde said their own personal goodbyes to the life they’d known for twenty years.

  SEND

  NO SIGNAL

  “Fuuuuuuucccccccckkkkkkkk!” I yelled as a tribute to Will, and then tried a third and final time.

  SEND

  Just as I was about to throw the phone onto the unforgiving marble floor beneath me, I heard a voice coming from the small speaker in my phone. At first, I couldn’t hear him over the crooning of Beelzebub herself—Ms. Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPiere—but during a lull in the melody, I heard him call out to me.

  “Susan, is that you? Jesus, where are you?” He was mad, but at least he was still talking to me.

  Cher made one last, honest plea to turn back time as we all stood in front of the double-doors to freedom, and I made an honest attempt to answer Will’s question.

  “I’m in hell.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  If truth be told, I fancied being in hell. Maybe it was the newfound freedom from Abigail, or maybe it was Will’s voice—it made everything seem better.

  “Susan, where are you? You don’t have amnesia or anything, do you? What happened? I almost called the police,” Will said. “Calliope said she was pretty sure you were headed to New York, something about some White Plains newspaper, and she convinced me you’d call, so we kept driving.”

  So she’d seen what I’d thought was hidden. “I’m in Salem, New Jersey—with Mono and Clyde,”

  “Those hairy guys? Did they hurt you?”

  “No. They kidnapped me … and then they rescued me.”

  “Kidnapped you?”

  “Yeah, but everything’s fine now. We’re on our way to my sister’s,” I said.

  Will was confused. “Sister? I didn’t think you had any—”

  “Sister? I knew it!” Calliope yelled into Will’s phone.

  “Look,” I pleaded, “I don’t have time to explain now. Where are you guys?”

  “We’re getting gas in Elkton, Maryland,” he said. “We’ll come get you. Just stay put.”

  “No,” I said, stepping into Mono and Clyde’s Taurus, “meet me in White Plains. We can be there in a couple of hours.”

  I gave Will the address from the newspaper article and told him to meet me there at five o’clock. He didn’t want to hang up—I could hear it in his voice.

  “I’ve always had a hunch that hell was in New Jersey,” he said. “Was Cher there?”

  “As a matter of fact, yes … and Jon Bon Jovi, too.” His voice changed. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too,” I said. “You and me, we could tear it up in hell, don’t you think?”

  “What makes you so sure we’re not going to heaven?” he laughed. “Are we that bad?”

  I revealed my theory. “It’s not that we’re that bad. It’s just that it’s so much harder to get to heaven.”

  AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and Bob Dylan had helped me form this opinion. There’s a “Highway to Hell,” and it’s easy to find. Just listen for “Hell’s Bells.” But heaven’s another story. There’s no freeway for swift travel. In fact, you can’t even drive there. You have to take the stairs. And after a long, arduous journey on the “Stairway to Heaven,” you have to “Knock on Heaven’s Door” until someone answers.

  But before I could explain any of this, I looked at the phone screen, and it said LOST CALL.

  “Damn,” I said, throwing the phone on the floor of the car. Exhausted from terminal illness and terminal bad luck, I decided I had to get some sleep. “Do you guys mind if I take a quick nap? The whole kidnapping thing really wiped me out.”

  When I woke up, the car had stopped moving, and Mono and Clyde were fighting—albeit in whispers. We were sitting in some parking lot, watching people enter and exit an enormous building. I smelled gas, so we must have filled up, only to have gotten distracted by God knows what.

  “Yes, it ees!” Mono said, looking out the passenger’s seat window.

  “No, it ees not!” Clyde said, still in the driver’s seat, shaking his head. “No wake Mees Spector, Mono. She need to rest!”

  “But I know it ees him, and if we are dis close, it would be dee shame not to see him before we left America, Clyde. Come on!” Mono said, jumping out of the car.

  “Mono! Get back here!” Clyde said, running after him. “Ees not Meester Bon Jovi, Mono!”

  But as I watched from the backseat window, I could tell Mono wasn’t slowing down. I got out and followed them into the building, which looked like some sort of tourist attraction. Above the entrance it said, “Welcome to Camden’s Exploration Aquarium.” The minute I stumbled through the entrance, I was confronted with a choice, to either go left—the nice, family-oriented choice, where big colorful fish swam in a large tank and children pointed with youthful wonder—or to the right, where I saw the beginning of a long walkway with a sign that said, “This Way to the Thrill-Seekers’ Tank of Death.”

  And just as my body, in defiance of what might be lurking in the Tank of Death, turned to take the friendlier Disney-clownfish route, I saw Mono and Clyde way ahead, making their way down the other corridor.

  “Shit!” I yelled, knowing this little escapade was going to put us behind schedule by at least a half hour. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!” I yelled again, picking up my pace, while five real thrill-seekers gave me a dirty look. “What?” I said, throwing up my arms, ready to pick a fight. They all kept walking down the corridor, and so did I, until we came to a small ticket booth at the entrance to a changing area and a giant pool the size of a football field.

  Pool = Tank of Death.

  As people paid for and took their tickets, a cranky woman handed each of them a clipboard. “Read and sign the waiver. If you’re having any second thoughts, don’t wait until we have to drag you out of the pool.”

  I wanted to leave right then, but Mono was about fifty yards ahead of me, and he had the car keys. Mono continued to chase the man he thought was Jon Bon Jovi, and since I was too far away to get a good look at the man, I couldn’t tell if it was really him or not.

  As I looked over the release form, certain words jumped out at me, making my chest tighten.

  Nurse sharks

  Sandbar sharks

  Sand tiger sharks

  No sudden movements

  No taunting

  If situation arises, stay calm

  The irritable lady handing out the death waivers said in a sarcastic and unenthusiastic t
one, “Remember, folks, they’re a lot more afraid of you than …” She snickered. “Actually, that’s not true.”

  One of the prospective thrill-seekers asked, “Have they ever attacked? That would be awesome!”

  The lady sneered. “Not this week.” After a condescending sigh, she said, “Unlikely odds.”

  Uh-oh.

  I craned my neck around the ticket line to try to see Mono and Clyde. For a second, I thought I’d lost them, but then I spotted them about fifteen yards ahead of me, walking into the shallow end of the giant pool, a.k.a. the Tank of Death. Clyde was shaking his head and following Mono, who was ahead of him, still on the trail of his rocker idol. They both slowly sank into the pool, until all that was left of them was their rented snorkels jutting out of the pool’s surface and two mullets swaying in the water like unfashionable seaweed.

  Swimming with sharks was supposed to be cathartic, but all I felt was fear … and delusions. What happens if a shark eats a person with cancer? It can’t get cancer … It repels cancer … Its cartilage has anti-carcinogenic properties. Hmmm. Maybe I could eat the shark.

  But before I had a chance to ponder any more shark questions, or even think about whether or not I actually wanted to go after Mono and Clyde, I was absently standing behind a curtain, changing into a rented wet suit, walking toward the pool, sucking air through a plastic snorkel, and looking at my dismal life through foggy goggles. Experiencing some sort of trance, my body was in motion, but in auto-pilot mode. In fluid movements, I moved forward in the water until my body no longer felt tense and heavy, but light and floating.

  Totally letting go, I did a somersault in the water, careful not to suck any in through my snorkel, and I felt like the astronauts must feel in outer space—free.

  And close to death.

  After a few minutes, I was in the middle of the giant tank, skimming the water’s surface, seeing nothing but fish, other swimmers, and then, all at once … one set of dark, beady eyes.

  Face to face with a six-foot sand tiger shark, I envisioned myself flailing in the water, screaming a muffled, underwater shriek, like the girl from Jaws, but instead, I just stared back. The shark darted away for a second or two, and then came back for another look at me.

  When it returned, I was happy to see it again. It wasn’t the evil, scary enemy I’d imagined my whole life. It was graceful and strong—the product of thousands of years of evolution, warding off disease, wars, bad breakups, fad diets. It was a sleek and invincible torpedo shooting through the water, and I wanted to embrace its strength. But as soon as I reached out my hand, it swam away, leaving me alone, drifting, to wonder where my courage had come from.

  Within a few seconds, I’d swam a few more strokes until I finally caught up with Mono and Clyde, who were in the middle of the pool, facedown, flippers flipping away. Mono had swam up next to a man bobbing in the water—the same man he thought was Jon Bon Jovi—and was tapping him on his (Slippery When) wet-suited shoulder. And when he did, the man jerked back, startled, which started a chain reaction, culminating with a nurse shark getting agitated and nipping me in the ankle.

  When I saw the blood, it looked like food coloring being poured into an Easter egg bowl for dyeing (or dying). Several sharks began to circle around me.

  None of them looked graceful anymore. They just looked like mean, slippery bodies designed for holding sets of razor-sharp teeth. One of them blasted right toward my face, so I made a fist and popped it in the nose, remembering a Shark Week episode on shark attacks.

  The next thing I remember, three Death Tank workers were dragging me out of the tank and flopping me down on the concrete. As I tried to catch my breath, I also attempted to relieve them. “Don’t worry … I’m not … gonna … sue.”

  But they weren’t mollified. Instead of kissing my ass, they yelled at me. “We saw what you did,” one of them said as she wrapped gauze around my ankle. “Animal cruelty is a federal crime, you know. The waiver clearly states to remain calm, and not to make any sudden movements.”

  “It bit me!”

  Just then, I saw Mono and Clyde standing above me. Clyde poked him until a sorry, sheepish, and wet Mono said, “Eeet was not the Meester Bon Jovi.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  Mono and Clyde, still arguing, walked several paces ahead of me while I limped back to the car thinking about the kinds of odd things that always happen only to me. I imagined how different musicians might respond to a streak of bad luck like mine.

  Madonna would switch religions. Again. Bono would organize a charity relief concert. Britney would have another baby. Sean Combs would start another clothing line. Prince would choose a new symbol for his name. Sting would engage in Tantric sex. Whitney would visit a lawyer.

  And I would visit a shaman who also happened to be my twin sister.

  “Mees Spector, you okay?” Clyde hollered back at me.

  I smiled and gave him a thumbs-up.

  When we got to the car, Mono apologized for the delusional detour and helped me into the backseat. He hung his head. “I, how you say, wanted so muches for it to be Mr. Jovi. It was dream for me.”

  I knew about wanting dreams to come true, so I gave his hand a squeeze to say it was okay.

  “Sleep now, Mees Spector. We tell you when we get to the Plains of White,” Mono said, squeezing back and tucking me under a blanket in the backseat.

  I was exhausted, but I wanted to hear my sister’s voice, so I snuck her letters under the covers and I turned to where I’d left off.

  July 23, 1988

  Dear Ruby,

  I’m not sure how to say this, so I’ll just come out and ask. Are you okay? Everything’s fine here, I’ve been practicing new techniques and I think I’ve been helping a lot of people, so that’s cool, but I have this bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, like you’re sick, or somebody’s sick, or a horrible sickness is in someone’s future … I don’t know, I haven’t quite figured it out yet. I wish I knew, I’d like to help.

  I must go to sleep now. Maybe the answers will come to me in my dreams.

  Love,

  Rainbow Warrior

  Until you’re dying, you really don’t know how tiring it can be. I must have fallen asleep reading the letter, because when I woke up, it was lying facedown on my chest and Clyde was asking me for directions.

  As soon as we arrived in White Plains, I grabbed a local map at a gas station and instructed Mono and Clyde how to get to my sister’s house. Our destination was the last house on a dead-end street. My stomach knotted up in anticipation, and my hand trembled as I looked out the window, pointing to the robust oak trees lining my sister’s street. “It’s beautiful,” I said, pretending this was just any old house on any old street.

  But Mono and Clyde weren’t buying my nonchalance. Clyde turned around and leaned into the backseat. “Mees Spector? Ees family, no?”

  I nodded.

  He touched my cheek. “No worries, then. The strong bond of familia is berry … how you say … no conditional.”

  As he said this, I looked at the little brick house in front of us—it was the only brick house in sight. The number 329 hung above an arched doorway, which was inviting, and yet somehow too perfect to approach. The house was old, but solid, unmovable. Exuding a kind of strength nonexistent in the other houses on the block, it was as if the owner knowingly rejected the other houses of straw and sticks to ensure a stalwart safe haven. No one was blowing this house in.

  The three of us grew quiet because we knew we’d reached the end of the road.

  It was time to say goodbye.

  I tried to lighten the mood. “So, are you guys gonna get your money back from Abigail, or what? A million dollars buys a lot of parachute pants,” I said, smiling.

  Clyde smiled back. “We no want Mees Abigail’s money. We just want to go home, see our family.” He stared at me, and with a look bordering on pity, he said, “You want for us to come in weeth you?”

  I shook my head, and when I did,
I could tell they both understood I needed to do this alone. “Will and Cal will be here soon, I’ll be fine.”

  Clyde handed me the seventh, and presumably final, card.

  Mono’s face turned serious, as if he’d just figured out the answer to a riddle. “Normally, we say, ‘You earned dees. You are now free,’ but,” he said, giving me a sweet smile, “you had it all along, Mees Spector.”

  I put the letters in my purse and got out of the car. As I stood in the street, in the shade of a big maple tree, I longed for sun. Mono and Clyde looked at me like parents look at their child left alone at the bus stop. None of us wanted to break our gaze, but then the radio provided yet another necessary diversion. From Clyde’s open window, I heard a fitting song that summed up the moment with eerie accuracy. Too bad we weren’t playing the game anymore. And as a tribute to two Italians saying goodbye to a country they’d grown to love, the radio gave us America singing these words: “Oz never did give nothing to the Tin Man that he didn’t, didn’t already have.”

  Ciao, bella, boys.

  Clyde kissed my hand, and then, waving in unfaltering unison, they drove away, getting smaller and smaller until, finally, they disappeared for good.

  From the looks of the house and driveway, I could tell my sister wasn’t home, so I walked into her front yard and sat under a giant oak tree—a tree similar to the one back in Minnesota, where I’d first found my answers. While I waited for her to come home, and for Will and Calliope to show up, I picked up the letters and noticed there was only one more.

  September 14, 1988

  Dear Ruby,

  It’s three in the morning, but I can’t sleep because I just figured it out. It’s not you. I mean, you’re not sick. It’s that other girl who looks like me, and sort of acts like me. But she is not me. She is sad. She sees the world in black and white.

  And what’s worse is that she is going to die, no matter what I do. Her life will be cut short.

  I forgot to tell you. You know how I’ve been learning lots of new things lately? Well, this week I learned something I wish I hadn’t.