Glaciers

by Alexis Smith

  Architecture

  Isabel had never smelled incense before she walked into her aunt’s house. She was nine and Agnes was thirteen. Their mother had brought them from their home in Alaska to visit her older sister in Seattle. Their aunt taught astrology and couples communication at the Free School; her husband was a carpenter. Years later, a waft of nag champa would send her back there: a big old house on a hill near Green Lake.

  Isabel was weary and followed Agnes across the threshold into the house, watching the backs of her sister’s aqua jelly sandals. The heady odor made her blink and look around. They were in a living room with a saggy sofa, batik tapestries, books crammed into built-in shelves around the fireplace and in stacks on the floor by the TV. Worn oriental rugs overlapped on the beaten wood floors. The Astrologer led them to the guest room, where they heaped their bags on a mattress and box spring on the floor.

  Pictures of the Astrologer’s guru—a smiling woman with short dark hair and a red bindi at her third eye—were in almost every room. Isabel nudged Aggie to ask about them, but Aggie gave her a warning look, as if it would be rude to ask. A patchouli plant in the front window stretched across the top of the television, tendrils through the rabbit ears. Their aunt and uncle left their doors open for the breeze and kept the bamboo blinds down over the windows, dicing the sunlight.

  The Astrologer served them tea and coffee on a dining table she said had belonged to their great-great-grandmother Gigi, who had been a flapper and was married four times.

  Gigi and her sister had a little hair salon in their house in Mount Vernon, the Astrologer said. During the week, ladies would come to get pin curls and have their finger waves set. Then on the weekends, Gigi and Nell would drive all evening to get to the speakeasies in Seattle.

  Isabel drank her chamomile from a delicate porcelain cup and after each sip carefully placed the cup back onto its saucer, trying not to spill. On the table sat a jar of honey with the comb suspended inside, sunlight suspended in the comb.

  She had never seen a house like this before and she had never met people like the Astrologer and the Carpenter. The Astrologer wore long skirts and hand-dyed scarves around her hair, which was dark and curly, just like Isabel’s mother’s hair, but with more gray. She wore a rose quartz on a ribbon around her neck.

  The Carpenter walked around barefoot, in threadbare T-shirts and running shorts. He asked Isabel lots of questions about herself—questions no one had ever asked her, like whether she liked living in Alaska and whether she would ever want to live anywhere else. She told him her grandmother had just gone to London and Dublin and sent her postcards. She wanted to travel to these cities someday. He nodded seriously when she answered, saying, Right on, and holding eye contact long after both of them had finished speaking, until Isabel felt awkward and looked away.

  They both treated Isabel and Agnes as if they were much older, as if it were okay to say shit in front of them and to offer them sips of wine. They let Isabel play the piano in their dining room, though she didn’t know how, and she felt obliged to make up songs on the spot; then they enthusiastically praised her musical talent.

  At dinner they ate a vegetarian stew with eggplant and artichoke hearts. Their mother made a point to explain to Isabel and Agnes that these were vegetables that they couldn’t get at home in Soldotna.

  Mmm, said Agnes, pretending to like it.

  Oh, said Isabel, trying to sound impressed.

  Is that the bathroom faucet? the Astrologer asked suddenly, setting down her glass of wine. They all listened intently. Isabel heard the faint trickle of water down a drain.

  We have a ghost, the Carpenter said. He turns on the bathroom tap.

  Isabel and Agnes stared at them.

  Why? Agnes finally asked. Why would it do that?

  He’s just doing what he did when he was alive, the Astrologer said. Things he did over and over again, like walking the hallway to the bathroom and turning on the faucet.

  Isabel went pale and dropped her fork.

  Belly’s afraid of ghosts, Agnes reported, as if she were not.

  Well there’s nothing to be afraid of, her aunt said, giving Isabel a sympathetic look. Ghosts are just energy, like an echo of someone’s life.

  Someone dead, Agnes said to Isabel.

  Their mother elbowed Agnes to stop and forked a piece of eggplant from her younger daughter’s plate.

  Just think of it as an echo, their aunt said. An echo can’t hurt you, Isabel. Isabel was skeptical.

  She avoided going to the bathroom all through dinner and dessert, until she couldn’t contain all the tea in her bladder anymore. She trod quietly into the dark living room, then the hallway, and to the bathroom door, ajar. She took a deep breath as she placed her hand on the crystal knob, reached inside for the light, and filled the room with a comforting yellow glow. She shut the door and hurried to the toilet, then sat there, staring at the pink and black beehive tiles, begging her suppressed bladder to obey. Night had come, and the dark loomed outside the frosted glass window. She decided against washing her hands.

  The next day, the Astrologer took them to Pike Place Market. They wandered through the sea of people, the shouts and reek of the fishmongers, the bright clutches of sweet peas in coffee cans. Then down the stairs into the belly of the market, a great hollow space like the inside of a ship, with varnished wood plank floors that creaked and groaned with the waves of tourists.

  There, in a long gallery of little shops, Isabel spied a sign that said EPHEMERA MAPS & PHOTOGRAPHS.

  What’s that word? she asked, pointing to the sign. What word? her aunt looked up. Ephemera? Isabel nodded.

  Ephemera means old paper things, old printed things. Do you want to see?

  When they entered the shop, Isabel thought of her photographs, and the shoe box at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. But this was a whole store full of old photographs, newspapers, magazines, postcards, and even packets of letters. Isabel found a box of postcards and flipped through them, counting the cities she saw—Paris, Rome, Barcelona, Vienna—but couldn’t decide which she wanted most.

  She moved from box to box, picking up postcards and turning them over to read the captions. Agnes and her mother moved on to another shop, but the Astrologer stayed, striking up a conversation with the man behind the counter. Isabel wanted to leave with something, but she wasn’t sure what to choose. She had never seen such a selection of ephemera before.

  In the back of the shop, she found a box of postcards of Washington and Oregon: the Columbia Gorge, the Space Needle, trees and animals and coastline, the Canadian border. Then Isabel flipped to a scene she recognized: three Tlingit totem poles against a backdrop of spruce trees. She turned the card over: Totem Bight near Ketchikan, Alaska. She took the card to the counter, where the Astrologer and the shopkeeper looked at her expectantly.

  Did you find something? her aunt asked.

  Isabel nodded and laid the postcard on the counter in front of the shopkeeper.

  How much is this postcard? she asked.

  Let me see, he said, and picked it up carefully, turning it over and regarding it seriously from all sides.

  This one is one dollar, he said.

  Would you like it? her aunt asked.

  Isabel pulled her beaded change purse from her pocket and counted out one dollar in quarters and dimes.

  The man slipped the single postcard into a thin paper bag and handed it back to her.

  Thank you, she said.

  Enjoy, he said back quietly.

  When Agnes saw Isabel’s postcard, she laughed at her sister and called her silly.

  When you go on vacation, you buy postcards of the place you’re visiting, not the place you’re from, Agnes told her.

  Isabel was embarrassed, but stubborn enough not to show it.

  I picked this one on purpose, she said. It reminds me of home.

  Me, too, the Astrologer said, putting her arm around Isabel. I love things that remind me of where I came from.r />
  That night after dinner, while the Carpenter worked in the garage, the Astrologer brought Agnes, Isabel, and their mother to her bedroom. They all sat on the bed while the Astrologer went into her closet for something. She emerged with a small wooden box. It had been decoupaged with colorful images of flowers from old greeting cards: violets and pansies and forget-me-nots.

  This was Grandma Gigi’s, she said, resting it on the bed. She took a framed picture from her dresser and handed it to Agnes. Isabel leaned in to look. It was a matte print from the 1930s of a woman about their mother’s age. The family resemblance wasn’t obvious, but the shape of the eyes and the nose looked like their mother and their aunt, and somewhat like Agnes.

  The Astrologer went to her closet again and pulled out a dress—the dress Gigi wore in the photograph—brown silk with ivory beadwork along the collar, long sleeves cinched at the wrists, pleated skirt. It looked so small—too small for either of her mother or aunt to wear—but small enough that Agnes might.

  They spent the evening looking through old photographs and reading letters. Before they went to bed, their aunt opened up the little decoupaged box and revealed a few pieces of jewelry nestled carefully on a silk scarf.

  She let the girls gaze into the box, then told them to pick one thing each for themselves.

  The girls looked at their mom, then at each other. There were glittery costume brooches, a mother-of-pearl bracelet, and a gold watch. But Agnes chose an amber pendant that the Astrologer said had been a gift from Gigi’s third husband, Vern. Isabel chose the smallest thing in the box, a garnet ring. It was too large for her, but she put it on her middle finger and spun it round and round.

  That night as the sisters lay side by side on their mattress, they talked in hushed voices about what it must have been like to live back then, and how lovely the clothes were, and how exciting to have an adventuress in the family. They said that someday they would have daughters, and they would save precious things for them, too.

  On the last day of their visit, they went for a walk in the Astrologer’s neighborhood. They all enjoyed looking at the older houses, with their roses and wisteria and other flowers that you didn’t see in yards in Alaska. The Carpenter pointed out different architectural features of the houses and how differently houses were designed today.

  Most of the houses in this neighborhood are called Foursquare, he said, because of the rooms in each of the four corners of the house. They call them Seattle Boxes when the porch is under the second-story overhang like this (he pointed to a house in the middle of the block). You could order a house from Sears, Roebuck and Company in those days—it came with everything you needed to build the house, from plans to shingles and floorboards to doorknobs. You could build it yourself or with your neighbors, or hire someone like me to do it for you.

  They were back at her aunt’s house, looking at the cracked cement stairs that curved up to the porch, the roses clambering over the picket fence, the lawn gone to seed and white clover.

  You can always tell when something is handmade, the Astrologer said, sighing. They just don’t make things like they used to.

  Details

  Next to the adult bookstore, a small door says VEGETARIAN HOUSE, and underneath ALL VEG NO MEAT. A window on the street displays the menu and a few Bible verses in Chinese and broken English. On the other side, one door down, is another restaurant with a steamy window and a case of rotating roast ducks.

  Isabel steps inside the Vegetarian House and feels the moist quiet of the place. Clean, with a whiff of mothballs. The first time she and Leo came here, a small cockroach walked down the wall nearly to their table, then scurried at the last minute onto a fake apple tree in the corner. The hollow papier-mâché apples and silk leaves glowed luridly beneath the insect. They watched it throughout their meal with good-humored detachment, calling her Oolong and addressing her in conversation. Whenever Isabel recounts this story, people are astonished that she returns to eat here. But there is something about the place that she finds cozy and private. Off the crowded track of food carts, she can disappear.

  As she walks toward the tables, Isabel becomes aware that someone in the corner has looked up at her. She looks toward the apple tree and there is Spoke, staring at her, caught. He smiles, but Isabel feels caught as well. She smiles back and mouths hello, but realizes that they are alone in the restaurant. The waitress, the owner’s wife (Isabel has always assumed), recognizes her and gestures to Spoke.

  Are you together? she asks.

  Isabel looks from the woman to Spoke.

  Yes? she says, to Spoke.

  He nods and she sits across from him at the small table. They shrug at each other almost simultaneously. They have never, in the last year, gone to lunch together—at least not alone, not to a restaurant. Everyone goes to the food carts sometimes, of course, and sits together in the park.

  Spoke has already ordered, and his big bowl of rice and mock duck arrives. Isabel orders the tofu special and tucks the menu back in the napkin holder.

  Though they often sit in the kitchenette, at the same table, with the saltshakers between them, where she can believe that the silence they share is mutually agreed upon, now, in a public place, mere inches apart, Isabel hopes one of them will start talking.

  She could bring up the party, she thinks. Some words form themselves in her mouth. They regard each other. She feels all of her abandoned places— in her mouth, the tilt of her lower back, the bottom of her lungs—but she cannot fill them. The space around the two of them, sitting there together, accumulates details in her mind. She imagines the scene as if they were in a play: the laminated menus, hard vinyl chairs, plastic plants, spicy pickle in glass jars with little metal spoons, partial light through the window and fluorescent gleam from overhead. Her looking at him, that same inscrutable expression on his face, the way he looks her in the eye, his parted lips not quite saying what he could say. All the buttons running down his untucked red and blue plaid shirt. His sweater hangs on the back of his chair.

  It’s so warm in here, she thinks. Say something.

  Spoke isn’t eating, and she realizes this is probably because she doesn’t have any food yet, and he’s being polite. So she pours them both tea, and they drink.

  I didn’t know you were a vegetarian, she finally gets out.

  I’m not, Spoke says sheepishly, scratching his temple. I just feel like I ought to be sometimes.

  Why do you think you ought to be? she asks.

  Aren’t you a vegetarian?

  Since I was twelve, she says. But I guess I don’t feel like everyone should be. Unless they feel compelled.

  I guess sometimes I feel compelled, he says.

  By what?

  I spent a lot of time on farms, as a kid. I’ve seen a lot of animals up close.

  Did you raise livestock?

  No. I spent a lot of time—school vacations mostly—at my grandparents’ farm, a few miles from Chippewa Falls, where I grew up. My grandpa was a veterinarian. He converted a barn on the family farm and had a practice there. For years he was the only vet for miles. People brought animals to him, and he drove around in an old pickup visiting farms, treating livestock. When I was staying out at the farm, I rode along.

  You watched him treat the animals? she asks.

  Sometimes. Mostly I played with whatever kids were around, or sat in the back of the truck, waiting, reading comic books and Jules Verne. I guess it was just seeing what my grandfather did all day, caring for sick animals. He respected the animals—not like he ever talked about it, but I think he felt for them. I think he understood how powerless they were, how, ultimately, everything is up to humans. We choose where they live, and how long, and, you know, what kind of sausage they become.

  Isabel’s food comes, and they begin to eat.

  Spoke looks out the window behind Isabel while he chews. They eat silently for a while, Spoke staring out the window, occasionally looking back to his bowl, then up at Isabel. Just when Isa
bel thinks the conversation is dead, he starts again.

  It wasn’t just animals, now that I think about it.

  Isabel, mouth full of rice, cocks her head to the side and gives him a confused look. Spoke takes another bite and swallows.

  We used to pick up junk off the side of the road—not actual trash, but dumped stuff. Washing machines and lamps and bicycles. We’d haul them back to my grandpa’s shop and work on them till they were fixed—that’s how I learned to fix things. If he didn’t know how to fix it, he would send away for manuals and we would figure it out together. He just . . . wanted everything to last, or at least be given a chance.

  Sounds like someone I would get along with, Isabel says.

  She smiles at Spoke, but he just nods and looks seriously back at his lunch. The waitress brings the little plastic tray with the bill and two fortune cookies.

  Take your time, she says. I wish I could, Spoke says mostly to Isabel.

  Isabel looks up, surprised. He reaches for the bill.

  I’ll get yours, he says.

  Thanks, she reaches for her wallet. But you don’t need to do that.

  I know I don’t. But I want to, okay?

  She gives him a questioning look, but he looks away.

  Okay, she says softly.

  He gets up and puts his sweater over his arm. His lips are red from the spicy pickle.

  They have the best fortunes here, he says, picking a cookie from the tray.

  Really? she says. She has never thought so.

  They look at each other. She notices the buttons on his shirt again, pearly red buttons.

  I’d better get back, he says, resolved. I have a meeting to get to.

  She manages a small wave.

  She sits by herself, unable to eat. She pours the last of the tea from the metal pot and sips. It is lukewarm, now, and she holds it in her mouth and lets it roll over her tongue. She cracks her fortune cookie and thinks of buttons. Small, pearly shirt buttons. The way they feel between your fingertips, against fingernails, slipping through cloth.