by Joanna Scott
She watches the gray surface bulge and flatten, the ice transforming into mist and swirling away. In the center of the lake, a dozen or so white gulls have tucked in their wings and float lazily, draped by the silky mist.
Ann has never been superstitious, but she can’t help remaining open to the possibility that she’ll be given some direction from her mother. She needs her mother to tell her what she is supposed to feel. She stands a distance from the activity on shore and concentrates on salvaging what is left of daylight, tries to hold the images with her eyes so she will find what is hidden. The half-frozen lake, the mist, dusk pressing in, a world of shadows and uncertainty. She watches a diver’s slick head bob up and disappear. The divers will keep searching for the body until nightfall, and if they don’t find her today, Joe Simmons has promised Ann, they will find her tomorrow. But Ann is determined to find her mother on her own and learn what she needs to know in order to feel again.
Marge? Are you there? Ann is waiting.
Oh, Ann, I’ll tell you what it’s like to be a musty chlorella drifting through the water below glimmering discs of ice, no place you have to be, all of winter to get there, no noises to bother you, no one drawing you into conversation, nothing but the weak bursts of minute bubbles rising from the deep mud and dissolving, the echo of motion when a fish passes nearby. And then after the thaw you can look forward to joining the surface film and feeling the footsteps of a strider dimpling your skin. It’s a fine way to wile away the time. And then to dissolve and take your place on the tip of a philonotis. Then the next thing you know your head is buried in the mud and your tail is wagging above, crooking like an index finger in invitation, then straightening and disappearing all at once into the mouth of a hungry leech. And after awhile, there you go, you’re silt again, settling into the rich humus and then traveling up and up and up on the spike of an unfurled water lily, then flattening into a rubbery carpet on the surface, where you take a nice sunbath and sag a little beneath the weight of a tiny frog.
Yes, it’s wonderful here in the lake, so don’t be afraid for me. As for the cold, well after the first shock you just stop feeling it, you stop feeling any discomfort, instead you’re treated to the very simple certainty that you should be exactly what you are, even as you’re changing.
PART SEVEN
Look at me!” He clutches the bar and in a fierce wriggling motion lifts himself up until his chin touches the metal. Then with a nimble turn he curls his legs around the bar and hangs from his knees, stretching his neck so his face is horizontal with the ground. He grabs the bar with his hands again, unfolds his legs, and he’s right-side up. Then upside down, swinging wildly. His gran calls, “You be careful!” He is swinging from his knees, pumping with outstretched arms, arcing up toward the clouds and then falling back toward the earth and then twisting up again in the other direction so forcefully that for a second his legs bounce off the bar and he recognizes the bright familiar feeling of helplessness and in the next moment the bar is beneath his knees again and he is swinging back and forth and back and forth, oblivious to danger.
He does not bother to remember what he used to be and understands only that his escape from before was lucky. Maybe he’ll go on being lucky. Maybe not. Luck, smelling of smoke and lemons. Luck, the magician who turns soon into now. One minute you think you’re in trouble, the next minute you’re fine, thanks to luck. And best of all, yesterday can never be today, not even in your dreams. The time before just goes away, like a moving van full of furniture, and you have only now and the mystery of what will be.
Here’s luck: he reaches up to grab the bar, lets go with his legs, curls within the frame of his locked arms, and drops into the mud, splattering his jeans.
“You, Bo!”
Here’s luck: running and running across the soccer field, falling and climbing to his feet and running some more.
Here’s luck: a yellow tennis ball hidden like an egg in the grass.
And now here’s his cousin Miraja coming at him, tackling him, stealing the ball. The wonderful gush of tears, just like that. And then the tennis ball in his hand again, and Miraja running in the opposite direction.
He’s lucky to have the ball in his hand. He’s lucky to have the ability to throw the ball so far. He’s lucky to find the perfect stick to use to stir the mud puddle beneath the swing. He stirs the black water into a thick mud soup. He drapes himself over the plastic seat of the swing and keeps stirring the soup until it is the consistency of chocolate frosting. In the distance he hears people chattering. He listens to their voices with pleasant indifference, as though he were listening to sparrows.
Bo pushes off with his feet and glides back and forth, dragging the stick through the mud, which separates in ripples and oozes flat. He kicks with his feet again and watches the ground blur beneath him. His sneaker skims the puddle’s surface, scattering little dollops of mud across the grass. The mud smells of spring, but the air still has a sharp, wintery tang.
“Bo, stop that!”
Okay, he’ll stop. He bounces off the swing and runs to the ladder, climbs three rungs at a time to the top, and then hurtles headfirst down the slide. By pressing his palms against the bottom lip of the slide, he manages to stop before he swoops into the mud.
“Uh-uh. That’s not the way.”
Like this?
He’s back at the top of the slide. He slides on his belly, feet first, slips down the dented metal sheet, bumps off the slide onto the ground, his legs buckle beneath him, and the next moment he’s sitting in the mud, and a boy at the top of the slide is grinning in contempt at him.
So what? He can hop on the shaky bridge and make it impossible for anyone else to pass. He can descend in a fast spiral down the pole. He can round his arm into a plump little muscle — see!
Bliss, disdain, vanity, cheek, timidity, recklessness, glory — he’s lucky to know what he feels, even if he doesn’t know these words. He’s lucky to know so much and so little at once. To be here doing what he’s doing, to be able to do whatever he wants to do. He can hold his breath for the count of ten. He can burp and fart and throw mud at Miraja and when his gran comes over to scold him he can burst into tears and then won’t she be sorry she got mad. That’s luck. So is this: a spiderweb spun across the links of the fence, a tiny dead bug magnified by a single bead of water, its pinhead body wrapped in its own black lace wings. And this: a fluffy orange dog with the tennis ball in its mouth.
“That’s mine!”
The dog running. Bo running. The dog circling and dropping the ball, nudging the ball with its snout, panting, darting hopeful glances up at Bo and then turning to gaze with glassy eyes into the distance. Who needs words when you can say everything you need to say with your eyes? Still, Bo is grateful to know the meaning of the word luck and to have the powerful confidence generated by understanding how lucky he has been. And there’s no reason to think he won’t go on being lucky. Look! He can throw a tennis ball over a chain-link fence. He can lead a dog through the open gate and into the scruffy woods separating the field from a backyard. The weeds are ankle high on the other side of the fence, but Bo — infinitely lucky — has never broken out in a rash from poison ivy. Nor has he ever been stung by a bee. And all he has to do is look through the grass and he’ll find something lost by someone else: a yellow tennis ball, here it is, or, over here, a rare treasure, a plastic sheriff’s badge half buried in the dirt. The dog can have the tennis ball. Bo prefers to keep the silver star and as he walks back to the field he tries to hook the star to his shirt.
“You stay in sight, Bo, you hear! Wandering off like that…”
Run run run as fast as you can, you can’t catch Bo, no one can catch Bo, Super Bo, hero of the day. Miraja, look what Bo found.
“What’s that?”
“A star.”
“A badge. Cool. I’ll trade you. Here, you can have this ring.”
“That old plastic stupid ring.”
“Look, it’s a diamond, a r
eal diamond.”
“That’s not a real diamond.”
“Sure is.”
“Sure’s not.”
Miraja is lucky in this way: she’s so much bigger than Bo that she can pry open his fingers and steal the star and run. But Bo is lucky to have a voice loud enough to scare the crows from the tree-tops.
“Give it back!”
And Bo is lucky to have a gran capable of scoping out a situation and figuring out who’s to blame.
“Mir, you come back! Come over here! You’re in for it, girl!”
You see, Bo is always right and always innocent. That’s his star. Give it back! He wants his star back. “Mir, you better…!” Fine then, Miraja will give it back! She throws it at Bo. The badge flies over his shoulder and disappears into the grass. Disappears forever. His star, gone. A lucky star, a magic star. He’s been lucky until now, but his luck just ran out on him. He’d bite and kick and pull his cousin’s hair but she’s already on a swing, pumping furiously. Bo shakes with sobs. He might as well die. Forget about going to kindergarten and learning to read and growing tall enough to dunk a basketball. Forget about all the tomorrows. He wants none of it. He lost his confidence when he lost his lucky star. Super Bo. Miserable Bo. There is only now, luckless empty now. Nothing really good has ever happened to him, and nothing good will happen soon. If only he hadn’t been born.
“All this fuss…” Gran says, her voice trailing to silence as she parts the grass with the toe of her rubber boot.
She doesn’t understand. No one understands. What are they supposed to understand? Even if Bo could explain, he wouldn’t change anything. He collapses in a heap.
“We’ll go to the store and I’ll buy you another one of the same, whatever it is you lost. You stop crying, child. There’s no reason to get so worked up over… over this itsy-bitsy trifle. Huh!” She straightens with some effort, pushing off her bent knee. “Is this here what you’re wanting?” She holds the star by an edge as though it were a dead mouse she meant to toss away. Bo opens his hand to accept it. A star with ornate embossed letters and a cowboy hat in the center. A lucky star dropped long ago by a hero who must have had no more need of luck. Five points, the plastic curling around the tips like the skin of a starfish. If you stare at it long enough the star will begin to glow with a cold silver light.
With his free hand Bo wipes his wet face, smearing mud over the bridge of his nose. Super Bo, once more poised for the rest of his life.
“Look at me!” He holds the star with both hands and spins around the axle of his arms, turns around, turns faster, faster, his heart a churning motor, the funnel of air as smooth and dense as the inside surface of a balloon. If he spins fast enough maybe he will rise from the ground like a helicopter. He spins and spins, as convinced as ever of his good fortune. He has been lucky and he’s still lucky. He’s lucky to be spinning. Spinning. That’s all. He’s a kid spinning across the grass. Just spinning. He can turn in perfect circles, lifting one foot before the other even touches the ground, his head pounding with the colorful blur of the here and now.
He has not forgotten the past, exactly. Nor does he have to work at stopping the unpleasant surge of memory. It’s just that the was of his life is confusing and he has no interest in sorting through the clutter in search of explanations. Maybe someday he will begin to wonder about those years and try to understand what happened. Or maybe not. Maybe it will be enough to know that he was lucky, luckier than everyone else. For now, he cares only about staying upright for as long as he can and will keep spinning across the open field, spinning and spinning until either he gives up or gravity relinquishes its hold.
Now the ground is spinning. Now he is on his feet again, spinning. Now he is revolving in synch with the earth. Now he is spinning and the ground is stationary. Now he is floating on a raft in the middle of the sea. No, he is soaring in a red balloon toward the sun. He is right-side up. He is upside down. He is spinning, and the world is out of kilter. Up is down, down is up, the world revolves, keeps turning and at the same time turns in reverse, the ground swells into a crest, and Bo falls. He clutches tufts of grass to keep himself from sliding off the tilting plateau of the earth, feels himself slipping feet first and flattens himself against the ground in a thrilling effort to stay put. He holds on long enough for the earth to level, then he scrambles to his feet and starts twirling again, bouncing against the air and spinning across the field and around the corner of the building.
“Bo, get over here!”
She’s mad now, really mad, she’s had it up to here, Bo, the way you keep running off, disappearing into thin air, one moment you’re where you should be and in a split second you’re gone, leaving only the space that should have contained you.
And then, of course, here he is again, you Bo, Ho-bo-bo, you stupid kid, you good-luck charm, spinning around and around, demanding, “Look at me!” simply because he’s doing what he can do so well.
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ALSO BY JOANNA SCOTT
The Manikin
Various Antidotes
The Closest Possible Union
Arrogance
Fading, My Parmacheene Belle
Acclaim for Joanna Scott’s
MAKE BELIEVE
“As is made dazzlingly clear in Make Believe, Joanna Scott is a Michael Jordan: she has talent to burn…. Scott inhabits the souls of the least articulate characters and makes them sing…. Perhaps her most impressive achievement is in finding a voice for Bo that is neither twee nor limiting…. What we get is one of the most convincingly impressionistic versions of a difficult childhood that I have ever read…. There are occasions when the author’s ingenuity and command of her craft make you want to laugh with pleasure…. One cannot help urging anyone who loves writing to read this book.”
— Nick Hornby, New York Times Book Review
“Opening with a spookily pitch-perfect description of a car accident as experienced by a three-year-old, Joanna Scott varies the pace but never lessens the momentum in Make Believe.”
—Elle
“A powerful novel…. As Make Believe builds in emotional intensity to its dramatic conclusion, Scott’s narrative probes the psychological states of her characters and explores how a single decision can completely change lives.”
— Joan Hinkemeyer, Denver Rocky Mountain News
“Scott breaks free when the novel goes into the mind of Bo, in one of the finest streams-of-childish-consciousness since Conrad Aiken’s classic short story ‘Silent Snow, Secret Snow.’”
— Bill Marx, Boston Globe
“A strikingly original work…. Joanna Scott is a powerhouse…. She succeeds in creating a vivid portrait of a child sadly misused by the adults who should have been his refuge and strength…. If Joanna Scott’s depiction of Eddie Gantz is a tour de force, then her depiction of Bo verges on genius…. Her ability to capture the complexity of the human condition in prose that dances on the edge of poetry is a gift that deserves wide acclaim.”
— Ron Carter, Richmond Times–Dispatch
“There’s something particularly magical when a full-fledged grown-up author is able to tell a story as if the words were coming directly, innocently, from the mouth or mind of a child.”
— Patrick T. Reardon, Chicago Tribune
“A fascinating, powerful story…. Joanna Scott is a magician…. Make Believe is magical with themes and symbols and wonderful rich characters like the fairy tales we read as children, just as frightening, just as entrancing…. It is a fearsome trip we take with this charming, plucky, and very lonely little boy…. The second-by-second account of Bo’s father’s death, two months before the boy is born, is one of the most harrowing and beautiful descriptive passages I’ve ever read…. Scott’s final pages are very satisfying…. [Bo is] a little boy I will keep with me for a long, long time.
”
— Diana Pinckney, Creative Loafing
“Scott creates some wonderful effects with Bo’s limited viewpoint and embryonic perceptions…. The tactic of revisiting the same event from varying perspectives works superbly…. A risk-taking book, unafraid to court sentimentality and melodrama in an effort to show how profoundly well-meaning people can unintentionally shatter one another’s lives. Scott just keeps getting better.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Joanna Scott is one of the really important contemporary voices. Make Believe marks a departure from her earlier work, one that both preserves and amplifies her reputation. This is vital, passionate fiction about how we live our lives now.”
— Rick Moody
“Gripping…. Scott keeps the narrative tension high throughout.”
— Starr E. Smith, Library Journal
“Scott is a skilled portraitist, subtle and generous…. Make Believe is filled with life’s tragic randomness, the telling split seconds that divide all right from all wrong. Each character clings to the narrow precipice over life’s maelstrom into which, Scott suggests, circumstances may pitch anyone at any moment…. This book is deeply satisfying as one of fiction’s chief pleasures: to see, in literature, events and predicaments that mirror our own deepest uncertainties.”
— Judith Dunford, Los Angeles Times
“A tour de force…. Scott opens her magician’s bag of tricks again and again…. Make Believe is concerned with the power of the story, the saving grace of the human imagination in the face of unbearable realities, the tales we tell ourselves so we can believe everything will be all right.”
— Stewart O’Nan, Minneapolis Star Tribune
