Was that true? Was the weather right for the ascent? And aches? What kind of aches? Was he following directions? Would he turn back if the team leader told him to?
Seven climbers had died that season, but Truman reached Everest’s peak, only suffering from a frost-bitten pinky toe.
Before his return, I stocked the refrigerator with Ben & Jerry’s, Brie, and pounds of green apples—his favorite foods. I even drove to Costco—a store I hate more than sin—to buy a crate of Red Vines because he loved licorice. And because I loved him.
He had returned to the States two weeks later, enervated by his success, convinced of his immortality. He reminisced about the cold and the coughing, and the sound of tents flapping in thin wind. He remembered the thrill of it all, and he told me that he would return to Everest, and then, he would climb Denali, where nighttime temperatures dropped to forty degrees below.
I ignored the pad see ew Monica had dumped on my plate, and nibbled instead on a spring roll. Monica and Leilani talked and kept me in the conversation with Can you believe that? and Remember him? I would say, “Oh yeah,” and “No way,” not really listening.
But then, the time came and Monica retrieved the thick envelope my attorney had sent.
“Nic, I can’t believe that you didn’t call Harvey earlier about this,” Leilani said. “You don’t know when you’re going back to work. You have bills and expenses you don’t even know about yet. You need that money to live.”
“Yeah,” I said, near tears. Then, I reached for the red string tied around her left wrist. “So what’s this for?”
Leilani slapped my hand away. “Don’t change the subject. And it’s a Red String.”
I offered a tiny smile. “I see that it’s red and that it’s a string.”
“Ain’t that a Kabbalah whatchamajig?” Monica asked.
“Yeah,” Leilani said.
“So what’s it for?” Monica asked.
“It protects me from the evil eye,” Leilani said in all seriousness. “Other people’s negativity can keep me from realizing my full potential. There’s some other stuff about Rachel the matriarch but…” She shrugged. “I don’t know all that much about it. Way too much stuff to read. And then they want you to go to all these classes and crap...”
“Amazing that you actually tied the string around your wrist,” I said. “Seems easier if you would’ve just kept it in your cheek.”
“Ain’t all this Jewish?” Monica asked.
Leilani nodded as she plucked a spring roll from the carton.
“But you believe in Jesus,” I said.
“Minor detail,” Leilani said.
“Our Lord and Savior is a minor detail?” I asked, eyebrows lifted. “Is this the same woman who told me back in college that I was going to Hell cuz I listened to Prince and wore jeans, and that this was a Christian country and we Americans shouldn’t have to learn anything about Ramadan or listen to some heathen rant about some false god that lives in some rice paddy in the jungles of east Asia?”
“Lei, you did say all of that,” Monica said.
“I’m an adult now,” Leilani said. “And I believe in what I wanna believe in.” Then, she turned to me, and added, “Maybe if you wore one of these, you wouldn’t need to pop Paxil and Valium.”
Monica smirked. “So this Red String is helping you with your… you know?” She sniffed with exaggeration, then swiped at her nose.
“That’s for recreational use,” Leilani explained. “Not for psychological issues. And I don’t need drugs to function. I can stop whenever I want.”
Monica rolled her eyes. “Spoken like a true coke-head.”
“Stop saying things like that,” Leilani said. “It demeans us all. Are you gonna read the will or are we just gonna sit here and mock my religion?”
“Yeah, Mo,” I said. “Stop mockin’ and lollygagging, will ya?”
“Fine.” Monica pulled out the documents, and began. “I, Truman Shepard Baxter, a resident of Los Angeles, California, hereby make this Will…
He had left me both cars, audiovisual equipment, stock in FOX, Disney and Microsoft, three insurance policies totaling a little under $950,000, liquid cash assets totaling a little over $275,000, and his 401(k) and IRA accounts. He had willed Leilani $30,000.
Leilani, eyes bulged, whispered, “Wow.”
Monica turned to her, and said, “Guess you should call Harvey.”
Leilani crossed her arms. “But I’ll only inherit that if I find a full-time job.” she said. “Truman must be losing his mind if he thinks… Full-time? My people were freed 100 years ago.” She flapped her hands near her face to cool down, then took a deep cleansing breath. “It’s okay. I’m fine. Money makes people lose perspective.” Perspective? She wore Dior, a perfume she couldn’t afford until Jonathan’s slip in Sauces and Condiments.
“Welcome to the real world, my dear.” Monica glanced at me, and said, “You’re not talking.”
I shook my head—there was nothing to say.
Monica and Leilani went back and forth about beneficiaries and work, Truman and the ocean. But I found interest in the tiny gray spider skittering across the face of the New Yorker.
Leilani grabbed her shoes from the floor. “It’s Flex’s fault that he’s dead. Maybe we should sue him for wrongful death or something.”
Blood drained from my face, and my skin turned cold and immobile as marble. “Flex is his friend.”
“Friend? Flex was the professional on that boat,” Leilani said, pointing her stiletto at me. “He should’ve known Truman wasn’t ready to go down there. He should’ve put him with somebody more experienced, not with that bitch who got him killed.” And then she ranted about Flex’s irresponsibility, more about Truman not being on that boat in the first place, and something something something.
I didn’t have the energy to defend Flex. Hell, I didn’t even know if I wanted to defend Flex. Because maybe Leilani was right. Maybe all of this was his fault.
Before leaving, my friends cleared away the food and placed cartons filled with leftovers in the refrigerator. They offered kisses, hugs and promises to call me the next morning, then they hopped into Monica’s Range Rover.
“I’ll call you when I get home,” Monica shouted out the window.
I waved good-bye as the truck pulled away from the curb.
Alone again, I leaned against the front door. “What now?” My reflection in the foyer’s mirror appeared fuzzy, as though God’s thumb had smeared my edges.
Maybe I should stay in the foyer tonight. Why leave? Leave and do what? Shower? For whom? Watch television? And talk about it with the air? Sleep, eat, shit: that’s all I did, and sometimes I forgot to do all three.
John Denver wrote, “Some days are diamond. Some days are stone.” I forced a smile to my face, and avoided looking at my smudged reflection. When Truman comes home, I’ll make every day diamond.
Then, I grabbed the mandala from Tibet and made my way upstairs.
26
I stood at the dresser in my bedroom. Lingerie—mostly lacy things—had spilled from the open drawer. I had been pawing through the heap, searching for a pair of cotton briefs when I found a blue box. The ClearBlue Easy pregnancy test.
Light-light blue because the pregnancy hormones in my body were dying.
The telephone rang, a cannon in the quiet.
Startled, I fumbled the box, and rushed down the hallway to the den and found the phone on the computer desk.
“Hope I didn’t wake you.” It was Monica.
I settled onto the couch and muted the television’s volume. “Nope. Still awake.”
“Just wanted to check on you,” Monica said. “I’ll let you get some sleep.”
“Thanks for everything today. You’re making this less painful than what it could be.”
Monica told me to call her if I needed anything. “If you want, I’ll drive back over and I’ll sleep there.”
I thanked her, but refused the offer. “I’m cool
.”
“I’ll call you in the morning,” she promised.
I tossed the phone to the foot of the couch and turned on the television.
Seinfeld.
J.F.K. Jr. at Elaine’s gym.
I lay there, waiting for sleep to come, with my protective machete beneath the couch cushion. I did this every night now: watch reruns of Taxi and I Love Lucy, Cheers and Futurama, no longer able to watch films like Seven and Alien, thrillers I had loved before life changed.
Maybe something’s wrong with you. Maybe you have insomnia or something neurological and dangerous.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I muttered as I shifted on the cushions.
How do you know? Are you a doctor?
I kicked away the blanket and settled at the computer a few steps away. After a quick Google search—sleep disorder—I clicked on IWant2Go2Sleep.com and took the site’s sleep deprivation quiz:
I wish I had more energy. Yes.
I anticipate a problem with sleep several times a week. Yes.
I often feel like I am in a daze. Yes.
I have dreams soon after falling asleep or taking naps. Uh huh.
I clicked the last box to calculate my sleep score: symptoms of insomnia, sleep apnea and narcolepsy.
How the hell could I be an insomniac-narcoleptic?
Get an evaluation from your physician, the site suggested.
No, thanks. Because eventually, I’d have to fall asleep, right? The longest someone has stayed awake is eleven days. I’d be asleep long before then.
I padded to the bathroom. Chugged a capful of Nyquil, then popped a Valium even though the pill had lost its potency. I returned to the den, and settled back on the couch. The midnight episode of Home Improvement flickered on the television screen.
The house creaked and settled into the earth. A strange, cool draft brushed across my face. My eyelids fluttered…
“Nicole.”
My eyes popped open, and I glanced across the den.
Truman sat in the chair at the computer desk.
I shrieked, then hid my face in the pillow. After catching my breath, I peeked at the man who had been missing for a week.
Water drenched Truman’s khaki shorts, making them tree-bark brown. His face glowed silver from the television’s light. Swipes of blood stained his wet Body Glove T-shirt. Drops of water plinked off the tips of his bent elbows and plopped onto the floor. Ocean sand muddied his Vans and the hardwood floor, making the den smell like late-night cemetery.
My face flushed, and heat spread like brush fire across my cheeks. I forced myself to breathe slowly, but my head wobbled—moments away from fainting. I stuck my hand beneath the couch cushion and my fingers grazed the blade of the machete.
This is impossible. It can’t be… Is it…?
Truman leaned forward and exhaled. His breath smelled of seaweed and fish. A clump of sand thudded to the floor, and water dripped from his shorts on top of it to make mud. He stared at me with eyes lighter than before. Sea water beaded in his hair, and trickled down his forehead into those unblinking, strange-colored eyes.
“Truman,” I whispered, “is that you?”
He said nothing.
A nervous breakdown—that’s what this was. I knew this like I knew my name. And this obvious collapse had led me to hear and see strange, impossible things. And it made my heart beat too hard and too fast, causing the room to seesaw.
I closed my eyes and waited for the world to right itself, waiting for impossible things to cease.
A breeze brushed against my cheek.
I opened my eyes.
Truman had abandoned the desk.
I hopped up from the couch. Where did he go?
Home Improvement flickered on the TV screen. The red numbers on the clock said 3:16.
My mouth filled with spit and bile, and the back of my throat closed. I stood there with rubbery knees, unsure of what to do.
A door slammed.
Someone’s here. Oh crap. Someone’s here.
Another breeze drifted through the den, bringing with it the scent of citrus.
I sniffed—Truman’s cologne.
My feet freed themselves, and I tiptoed to the couch and pulled the machete from the cushions. The rubber grip was notched—better to hold in my sweaty, uncertain clutch. The steel blade was clean and sharp, and glistened in the dim light. I had watched Truman swing it through the fronds of our neighbor’s creeping banana palm. Effortless and uncompromising in its execution. He had grinned back at me, and had said, “It’s the weapon of choice for guerillas.”
And for insomniac-narcoleptic court-mandated widows, too.
I slipped to the door and glanced up and down the corridor—empty. I crept down the hallway, sniffing like a bloodhound until I stood before my bedroom’s closed door.
Wasn’t this open?
I twisted the doorknob and pushed open the door. Flipped on the light switch, and the lamps on both nightstands popped on.
There he was. In bed. Hidden beneath the comforter.
The room was cold and damp, like a window had been left open during a winter storm.
I inched towards the bed, tapping the machete against my calf as I watched the sleeping figure beneath the comforter.
If this was Truman, why didn’t he wake me? He knew that I had been worrying. That I was terrified. He wouldn’t just stare at me, would he? Leave to take a shower, then climb into bed without saying ‘hello’?
I’m sleepwalking. It’s the Valium and Nyquil cocktail…
“What, babe?” Truman asked.
I yelped, nicking my shin with the blade. I scrambled back to the door, panting as I waited there, wincing from the cut on my leg. Breathless, I hit the light switch, and the bed fell back into darkness. I hurried to the end of the hallway to check the security panel—still armed—then rushed back up to the den, to the couch and the television.
I saw him. Truman in wet clothes at the desk. Truman in bed. He called me babe.
I stuck the machete beneath the couch, then grabbed a discarded sock to blot the pebbles of blood on my calf.
How is any of this possible?
Pills. Exhaustion. Nausea and hunger. Loneliness and uncertainty. Migraine, aneurysm, neuroblastoma…
How do I know I’m okay?
My mind reached for certainties.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is the governor of California.
A square has four sides.
J.R.R. Tolkien wrote “The Hobbit.”
S-U-P-E-R-C-A-L-I-F-R-A-G-I-L-I-S-T-I-C-E-X-P-E-A-L-I-D-O-C-I-O-U-S.
If I were crazy, if my brain was, indeed, dying, I wouldn’t have been able to recall any of this, right? Right?
27
As dawn crept through the curtains, I sat rigid on the couch, asking myself questions, grasping at mental touchstones—Mick Jagger sings lead for the Rolling Stones—to ensure my sanity, to guarantee normal brain function. The phone rang twice, but I didn’t answer it either time. Could only do one thing—Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota. Outside, a leaf-blower droned—I needed to pay the gardener. I couldn’t remember how much. Couldn’t write a check in my condition. Didn’t even know where I had left my checkbook.
At 8:30, the den glowed with sunlight the color of flames.
I Love Lucy.
My eyes burned and my muscles ached. I stood from the couch and stretched. I sniffed the air—couldn’t smell Truman’s cologne. No one sat at the computer desk and chair. The hardwood floor was shiny and dry. Out in the hallway, golden light spilled through the cupola’s window, and dust motes danced in the sunbeams. My dream of Truman’s visit (it had been a dream after all) dissipated in the light, and as I stood in my bedroom doorway, my fears now seemed puny and irrational.
The bed was empty. The linens were neat and tucked.
I nodded—yes, a dream—then wandered back to the den and to my space on the couch.
Lucy and Ethel were stealing John Wayne’s footprints from Grauman’s C
hinese Theater.
The phone rang again. Out of Area, Out of Area. I ignored the ringing as Lucy tried to pry her foot from a bucket of quick-drying cement. I had seen this episode hundreds of times, knew it by heart, didn’t have to watch to know what would happen next. My eyelids fluttered and my mind drifted towards sleep.
Beep… Beep… Beep…
The alarm.
One beep, then silence. The floorboards creaked.
Wide awake again, I pulled the machete from beneath the cushion and hid in front of the couch, listening to those footsteps come closer… closer… My clammy palms clutched the machete’s handle. I shivered, fear chewing at my calm like termites through wood.
The footsteps stopped outside the doorway. And then, the intruder stepped into the den.
One… two… three…
I erupted from the floor with a scream, with the machete held high over my head.
Leilani screamed, too, and dropped a paper bag covered with grease splotches.
“Oh crap!” I fumbled my weapon, surprised and relieved to see my friend. “I’m so sorry.”
Weak-kneed, Leilani scooped the bag from the floor with shaking hands. “If you don’t want pastrami, just say so.”
“I’m sorry,” I said and took the bag from her. “I didn’t know it was you.”
Leilani, dressed in a micro-mini skirt, a baby T-shirt, and red stilettos (you know, what most women wear on Thursday mornings), turned off the television and fell onto the couch. “What the hell are you doing with a cleaver anyway, and why aren’t you answering the phone? I’ve been calling you all morning.”
“It’s a machete,” I said, “and it’s for protection. And I didn’t answer the phone because Lucy had just met John Wayne.” I took a big bite from the pastrami sandwich, then asked, “Did I leave the front door unlocked?”
Leilani shook her head. “I was scared that something had happened to you, so I used my key.”
“Key?” I asked with a full mouth. “Since when do you have a key to my house?”
“Since always.”
“And who told you the code to disarm the alarm? Truman?”
Leilani nodded. “When you guys moved in, remember? For emergencies. Like today.”
The View from Here Page 10
