The Memory of Light

by Francisco X. Stork

  “I like your hair. It’s so … Vicky.”

  “Thanks.” Is that good or bad? I wonder. “Mona wants to paint it green.”

  “Like your journal. Now that I think of it, Mona didn’t tell us what personality trait green stood for.”

  “Bitter?” I say. “Envy? Immature? Not ripe? You know, as in green bananas.”

  “Mmm? No. Have you ever seen a green rose? They exist. They’re very, very rare. I saw some once. They were in a garden surrounded by roses of all colors. The greens were hard to see at first, but once you saw them, they were the ones you looked for. So amazing. Green is such a common color. I always took it for granted until I saw that rose. Green stands for life, the kind that’s all around us, that we don’t notice.”

  We are quiet for a moment. Green, the color of life. I like that idea.

  “Hey,” he says suddenly. “My birthday is in three days. I’m trying to get Dr. Desai to let the four of us go to a birthday party at my house. Will you come?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I should go find Mona.”

  Gabriel moves out of the way to let me through. “Vicky,” he says.

  “Yeah?”

  “Swimming and roses and writing. That’s three things.”

  I don’t understand.

  “To live for,” he says.

  Mona and I walk to the cafeteria for a Coke after she’s done with my hair. Somehow I managed to get out with the same color hair I had going in. “Not bad,” Mona says of her efforts. “You look like one of those skinny models who starve themselves and wear airy dresses.”

  We have just gotten our drinks when a man who works in the cafeteria sits next to Mona. “Hey, Rudy,” she says. He’s one of those thirty-year-old men who tries to look eighteen: greasy ponytail, jeans two sizes too small, gold necklace. I’ve seen him before in the cafeteria and delivering the food trays to the fifth floor.

  “Hello, Mona,” Rudy says. “How goes it?”

  “Oh, just dandy,” Mona answers. “You know Vicky.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ve had the pleasure.” Rudy nods and I nod back. I get the feeling he wishes I weren’t there. “Listen,” he whispers to Mona, “wanna go to the patio and have a smoke?”

  “I would, but it be rude to leave my friend here all by herself, wouldn’t it?”

  Rudy looks at me. “I don’t mind,” I say.

  “She don’t mind,” Rudy repeats.

  “You sure?” Mona asks. “I’ll be right back.”

  “No, I’m sure.”

  “I can get you a free piece of pie to go with your Coke. We got some nice apple pie,” Rudy says, halfway out of his chair.

  “Thanks. I’m good,” I say.

  Mona grabs her Coke and winks at me. It’s obvious that Rudy is interested in Mona, but it’s hard to believe that she would be interested back. I have spent all of fifteen seconds in his vicinity and I already feel like taking a shower.

  I sip my Coke and touch the back of my head. It feels different, smoother. No jagged peaks. I kept my eyes closed while Mona was trimming my hair, and when she was finished and asked me to look in the mirror, I refused. I haven’t looked in a mirror for going on three weeks, ever since I cut my hair myself, and I’m not about to start. You would think it would be difficult to avoid looking at yourself in the hundreds of mirrors that are out there, but it isn’t. After a while you don’t even have to try too hard.

  I can see Mona out the back door of the cafeteria. Rudy seems to be asking and pleading for something, and Mona seems to be coyly considering it. Then he says something that catches her full attention. She flicks her cigarette away and crosses her arms.

  Gabriel said I was spying on him. Maybe I do like to spy on people, only I don’t know if I’d call it spying. I watch people because I want to know what animates them, what makes them take life so seriously. What did Gabriel say? Green stands for life that is all around us, that we don’t see.

  I slurp the last drops of Coke from my glass. It’s so hard to figure Gabriel out. Why is he in Lakeview? What was the name of the little elephant guy? Gilgamesh? How did Gabriel know that? I wish I had told him that I admired how comfortable he is with himself. I wish I could be that way. But I’m split. There’s two of me. The person I carry around like a dead carcass inside of me and the one I show to others. This constant effort to be someone else, to pretend to be lively and give people the kind of person they’re expecting, is not so bad here at Lakeview.

  Thinking about Gabriel reminds me of Jaime, maybe because they’re so different. Both my father and Becca mentioned him when they were listing possible reasons for my suicide attempt. It must have been Cecy or maybe Jaime himself who spread that rumor. Now that I’ve had time to reflect, I think maybe Jaime did influence that final decision, the tipping of maybe into yes, but not in the way people think.

  Early in the fall semester, Mrs. Longoria, our English teacher, paired me with Jaime to discuss our reading assignments. I think it was the first time in my life that other girls have been jealous of me. Jaime was popular with boys because he was the school’s star tennis player, and he was popular with girls because of his good looks and friendly personality. His family was also very rich, but that was not unusual at Reynard.

  Cecy asked me if it made me nervous to be Jaime’s partner, and I had to tell her that I didn’t give it a second thought. Then Cecy proceeded to lecture me about how I was thumbing my nose at a gift the Fates had given me, which was dumb, as they had not been too kind to me so far.

  “Ask him to your house to study. Meet him in the library. Do something to take advantage of this,” she said. “Vicky, listen to me. You gotta go out and open the door to happiness when it knocks. Happiness is knocking, Vicky. You may not have another chance like this.”

  But I didn’t take advantage of the situation like Cecy suggested. I expected Jaime to ignore me like everyone else did. By my sophomore year, I had gathered that the general impression of the student body was that I was allowed to stay in the school only because of my father’s money and the memory of Becca, who was class valedictorian. So I had pretty much given up on any kind of friendliness from my Reynard classmates.

  One time, Mrs. Longoria had us read “Tintern Abbey” by William Wordsworth. When we finished it, Jaime took his book and pointed to a phrase in the poem. He asked, “Have you ever felt that?”

  “Felt what?” I asked.

  “You know, a sense sublime.”

  I had to smile. At that point I would have been happy to feel the simple sense that I was alive. “Have you?”

  He smiled back as if he was hoping I would ask. “This is going to sound very weird. But I felt something like that playing tennis.”

  “Really?” I didn’t mean to laugh.

  “No, I’m serious. Sometimes when I’m playing against a very good opponent and I’m really into every point, I get into a zone where every shot I hit is perfect, like I’m unbeatable and I kick ass. There’s no other way of putting it.”

  “Mmm.”

  “You don’t believe me.”

  “No. I find that interesting, actually. I mean, I’m pretty sure that Wordsworth was talking about nature, so, I don’t know, I never thought you could feel those kinds of feelings in a tennis match.”

  “I thought you of all people would understand.”

  “Me?” I said.

  “You think I would share something like this with just anybody?”

  “Are you being serious?” I was suddenly nervous. All along I thought he had been playing a joke on me, maybe something one of my jealous classmates had put him up to.

  “You write poetry,” he said, looking straight at me.

  I felt blood rush to my face or drain to my feet, I wasn’t sure which. “Yes,” I said tentatively, “sometimes.”

  “You’ve published poems in The Quill.” He seemed either impressed or jealous.

  “Yeah …” The Quill was Reynard’s literary magazine. It came out twice a year, and it pu
blished only a few of the many poems, stories, and essays submitted by students. Getting two poems published my freshman year was my one and only accomplishment at Reynard.

  Jaime opened his English book again and took out a folded piece of paper. “I found this on the floor underneath your chair last week. You must have dropped it. I opened it to see what it was. I’m sorry — I didn’t mean to read it.”

  I glanced at the page, and my cheeks burned. I took the piece of paper and put it in my backpack.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s not bad. A little on the gloomy side, but not bad.”

  That night, I received an email from him. The email said:

  Hey Vicky, here’s a poem I wrote. Let me know if you think this is Quill material. Good talking to you today.

  I reached down and rubbed Galileo’s neck. I read the poem once and then again, carefully. When I finished, I gently lifted Galileo from my legs and put him on the bed to the side. What could I say about the poem? This is possibly one of the worst things I’ve ever read? But who was I to judge? And maybe Cecy was right. When happiness knocked on your door, you had to accept it. I clicked on my mailbox, found Jaime’s email, and clicked REPLY.

  Dear Jaime,

  Thank you for telling me about how you felt during your tennis game. I’m sorry I made fun of you. I was surprised by your comment. I like poetry. I’m not used to talking about it, but I will try. I liked the poem you sent me. I thought the image of unrequited love as a tennis racket with no strings was certainly unique. With a little tightening up, you could definitely submit it to The Quill.

  Bye,

  Vicky

  The next day, Jaime was outside the building after school. He was sitting on a concrete bench with his backpack by his side.

  “Hey, Vicky,” he said, standing up when he saw me. “I was waiting for you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you.”

  “Why?”

  “Number one, you didn’t come to English class. Number two, I was wondering if I can give you a ride home.”

  “Me?” I was beginning to wonder whether I could speak in more than monosyllables.

  “Come on, I need to talk to you.” He grabbed my elbow and turned me away from my bus, in the direction of the parking lot. I was in a daze. By the time I recovered, he was opening the door of a car and I was stepping in. On the grass field next to the parking lot, two players from the girls’ soccer team stared at us as if they could not believe their eyes. I waved at them. I meant it as a friendly gesture, but I’m not sure they took it that way.

  Jaime got in the car and turned on the ignition. The motor was loud, and I noticed for the first time that I was sitting low to the ground.

  “Do you like it?” Jaime asked. He made the motor rev louder.

  “It’s a sports car,” I said. Brilliant, Vicky.

  “Not just any sports car. A Porsche.” He put the car in reverse and drove slowly out of the parking lot. I was aware of the soccer girls’ eyes following us. “It’s my father’s, but I think I’m going to inherit it for graduation. It’ll be a nice car to have at Texas A&M.”

  I told myself to act normal. I could pretend that being in a car with a boy was something I did all the time, couldn’t I? I mean, how hard could it be? But nothing that I said to myself worked. I was getting more and more nervous as we drove. One uncomfortable long block went by before it occurred to me to ask, “Is that where you’re going to college?”

  “Texas A&M? Yup.”

  “Isn’t that like a science and engineering kind of school?”

  “That’s what I want to study. Civil engineering.”

  “You need to take a right at the next street,” I told him.

  “Do you have time? I want to show you something.” He slowed down at my intersection and turned left instead.

  “What?”

  “You’ll see,” he said mysteriously.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, trying not to sound concerned.

  “It’s a surprise.” He winked. The road we were on was lined with driveways that led to the mega mansions overlooking the Colorado River.

  We turned into a gravel parking lot barely big enough for two or three cars. The edge of the lot bordered a hill that was completely covered with trees and prickly foliage. Jaime reached into the small space behind his seat and pulled out a canvas shoulder bag.

  “Come on,” he said, opening his door.

  “Where?” I was scared.

  “Trust me,” he replied, “you won’t regret this.”

  I stepped out of the car and closed the door as gently as I could. Jaime locked the doors and waited for me. We walked side by side through the parking lot to a path. As we got closer, I could see that the path ascended rapidly up the hill. I hesitated.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m not exactly dressed for hiking,” I said. I was wearing a skirt and sandals.

  “It’s not hiking,” he said. “It’s an easy path. We’ll go slow. I’ll help you.”

  I still did not move. It was one of those moments when you feel that a decision needs to be made. Up to that point I had been carried along, floating in the newness of it all. While we were in the car, I could believe that Jaime was just interested in me for my poetry expertise, but there at the entrance to the trail, I was paralyzed by the thought that maybe he was interested in me the way a boy is interested in a girl. There was no way that Jaime could be interested in me that way. He could have and probably did have any girl he wanted. It was simply an impossibility that he would pick me.

  “You all right?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Sometimes I think too much.”

  “Come on,” he said, “the view is sublime up there. It’ll remind you of Wordsworth.”

  He waited, but I was frozen in place. Finally, he walked over to me and took hold of my left hand. I felt the warmth travel through my body, and when he tugged my arm gently, as if awakening me, I yielded to him. We moved slowly and carefully up the dirt path, holding hands. Every once in a while he would stop to let me catch my breath, but we didn’t speak. I tried to determine whether he was holding my hand like a friend or a brother or maybe a reading partner, but his touch didn’t feel like any of those things. There was something urgent and demanding in it, like a question that won’t go away until you answer it.

  When we got to the top, I let go of his hand and walked by myself to an observation deck. A chest-high stone wall separated observers from the steep embankment. I stood silent and amazed. The dark-green river coiled for miles below us. To the right you could see the Austin skyline with its handful of skyscrapers and the University of Texas clock tower. To the left, hills and houses and open spaces stretched all the way to Oklahoma, it seemed. A small breeze blew a strand of hair over my face and I tucked it behind my ear.

  Jaime came and stood next to me. He put his arm around my shoulder and whispered, “‘And I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns….’” I recognized the words from “Tintern Abbey.” Then he stopped and turned me toward him, and I had one brief moment of panic before he kissed me.

  It was my first kiss from a boy ever, and I wish I could say that my legs went rubbery and my heart beat like a wild drum and everything else that is written about kisses. The truth is that in the four or five seconds that the kiss lasted, first I wondered if I was doing it right, and then I wondered if I was easy for letting him kiss me just like that, and then I felt like crying.

  I turned away from him and opened my eyes wide so I wouldn’t blink. It was a trick I had learned: If you don’t blink, the tears don’t come. I stared in the direction of Oklahoma until I felt safe, and then turned back to him and said, “What was that for?”

  “I wanted to do that ever since Mrs. Longoria put us together.”

  “Why?” I stared at him.

  “Well, actually
that’s not quite true. I made up my mind to kiss you ever since I read your poem.”

  “You made up your mind to kiss me?”

  “Well, I made up my mind to get to know you … and then kiss you. I don’t know anyone like you.”

  “What’s so different about me?” I wasn’t fishing for a compliment. I wanted to know.

  “You’re pretty in a quirky kind of way. You think about things. There’s a seriousness about you. You don’t care about the things that other girls care about. You don’t care what people think, you’re just you. You’re special.”

  “I’m really not who you think I am,” I said.

  “Who are you, then?”

  I’m someone who’s sad all the time. I don’t care about school or grades or college. I’m at Reynard as a fluke. I have no ambition. I don’t like to do anything. I don’t want to do anything with my life. I’m afraid of each day and the nights are even worse.

  But I didn’t say any of this. Instead, I said, “I don’t have the slightest idea.”

  Jaime thought I was trying to be funny. “Hey,” he said, “come here. I want to show you something.” He grabbed my hand again and pulled me toward a flat rock big enough for both of us to sit on. He opened his canvas bag and took out a yellow spiral notebook. He cleared his throat, holding the notebook with both hands. “I’ve been writing poems for a couple of months now. I want you to read them. Let me know what you think. Maybe I can send a couple to The Quill.”

  “Now?” I know it was rude, but I didn’t know what else to say. Maybe it was wrong to feel that way, but I felt put-upon, like I was being used somehow.

  A flicker of hurt crossed his face. “There’s only ten of them,” he said.

  I turned to the first page and read in silence. The title of the poem was “A Hollow Good Bye.” I paused when I got to the end. Then I turned the page and went on to read all of them. Jaime watched me carefully, and I felt like I needed to nod appreciatively now and then and make tiny sounds of admiration.

  As I read, I wondered what I was going to say to him. I didn’t think I was qualified to make pronouncements on the quality of the poems. I never for one second thought the stuff I wrote was any good. I wrote because writing helped me. When I wrote, the hollowness inside was filled for a few moments with memories and images, not all of them happy, but at least there was something living in me … again, when I wrote. I wrote because writing kept me alive.