The View From Who I Was

by Heather Sappenfield

  Clark read step two on the board. “You want to do this?” he said.

  Corpse held out her right hand, just a couple Band-Aids masking the healing gaps now.

  “So what?” he said. “It’s not rocket science. You just slide this brush with the FlyNap inside the rubber stopper.”

  Ash’s giggle drifted to them, and then her voice saying “Ew!” Corpse glanced her direction, and their eyes glued. For a second, Ash’s expression matched the one when she was six and had fallen from an aspen tree in Chateau Antunes’s front yard. Corpse wanted to rush to her, but Ash straightened and turned away.

  “How about I do the first one?” Clark said.

  “Okay.”

  He lifted out a tube and read its label: “Female Wild, Male Vestigial.”

  Corpse checked the heading at the top of the paper to make sure it matched. Clark took the Q-tip-like brush and pinched back the stopper at the top of the tube as he slid it in. They leaned close to watch the flies conk out; they were supposed to pull out the brush when 90 percent were asleep.

  “Clark,” Corpse whispered, “how did you become my partner?” She could feel him concentrate on the flies to keep from looking at her.

  “Bonstuber stopped me after class. Asked if I wanted to switch.”

  “You’re not afraid of me?”

  Clark grinned. “I’ve never been afraid of you, Oona.” He turned quiet, and she could hear him worrying that he’d insulted her by referring to when she was gorgeous. “I’d have been a fool not to switch. Come May, you’re undoubtedly valedictorian.”

  Corpse snorted. “Was valedictorian. Was everything.”

  Was. Our life had become past tense. I hovered just above everyone, had learned where to linger so I’d be nowhere near a touch. It was trippy looking down at all those black tables from above. The tops of all those heads we’d known most of our life but never seen.

  Clark shrugged. “Fact is, you’re super smart and a whiz at science.”

  Corpse grimaced. “I’m not a whiz at anything. Not anymore. Anyway, thanks for doing this.”

  “They’re ready.” Clark read step three on the board. He pulled out the stopper and inverted the tube onto a petri dish. “Tap that, will you?” He reached for the dissection microscope and a tool like a fine paintbrush.

  Corpse tapped the tube with her two fingers.

  “Besides,” Clark said, “missing fingers are sexy.”

  Corpse laughed.

  “Don’t tell Gabe I said that. He’d kick my ass, and considering his kicking abilities, well … ” Clark looked into the microscope, craning his neck and tilting his head the funny way people do when they peer into that invisible world. “Wow!”

  Corpse noticed Mr. Bonstuber watching them and understood exactly why he’d made Clark her partner. She smiled at Mr. Bonstuber and scooted her stool closer to Clark.

  I thought about the smallness of things making them invisible, and I wondered if the bigness of a thing could make it invisible too.

  “Okay, ready?” Clark said.

  She picked up her pencil, poised over the paper.

  “The red eyes are wild, remember?” he said.

  “You just said I was smart.”

  “Okay, okay. Female wild, female wild, male wild, female wild … ”

  Corpse made a hash for each type of eye color and then for each type of wing.

  They repeated the process for the second tube. When she faltered before sliding the brush inside the stopper, Clark said, “They’re fruit flies,” and her hand steadied.

  She looked into the microscope to count, and was stunned. Fruit flies equal annoying black specs, right? Wrong. Their bodies were almost translucent. The males had darker abdomens, the females striped, yet they were still far lighter than she’d expected. Their thoraxes and heads were orange. Most of their eyes were brick red. Their wings were what transfixed her, though. Gossamer, with four curved veins, they reflected rainbows. Fairy or angel wings.

  “Oona?” Clark said.

  “Sorry. Male wild, male wild, male vestigial, female wild … ”

  They compiled their data, determining what was dominant, recessive, sex-linked. Later, Corpse would make two graphs from their data and Clark would make two—graphs that would “predict the passing of traits to future generations,” according to number eight, the last step on the board.

  Finished, Corpse opened the “morgue,” a bottle of alcohol clogged with flies. She couldn’t move her eyes off all those dead bodies with rainbow wings. Her hands started to shake.

  “Can you do this part, Clark?” she said.

  When the bell rang, Clark and Corpse gathered their textbooks and folders.

  “Yep, missing fingers. Sexy,” he said. “That was good for me. How about you?”

  A laugh burst from Corpse, and Ash glared at them from the door as she was leaving. That glare felt good, yet Corpse remembered Ash’s injured expression.

  Gabe was waiting in the Student Union. “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey, Gabe.” Clark mugged a guilty face as he kept walking.

  Gabe chuckled. “How was the lab?”

  “Really cool. Clark’s a great partner.”

  “He’s a lot brainier than your last one,” Gabe said.

  “That’s for sure.” Corpse thought how Ash’s grade would probably drop now that they weren’t paired, thought of how mean she’d been when playing LIFE. That glare as Ash left class started feeling even better.

  Gabe assessed Corpse’s lingering grin and put his arm around her. She leaned her head against his shoulder. “Should I be jealous?” he said.

  “Don’t be silly. I’m not dating you for your brains.”

  “Oh really?” Gabe grinned.

  I noticed Tanesha scowling from across the room, and Corpse straightened. “You know,” she said, “I have to make graphs of the lab data, so I’m just going to get it done now. In here.”

  “Okay. See you,” he said.

  She looked at Gabe’s relaxed face and realized how tense it usually was with worry. She touched his dimple.

  “Did you get this from your mom or your dad?” she said.

  “Neither.”

  “Recessive.” She kissed it. “See you.”

  The passing bell rang seconds after he left, but all his teachers were being lenient with him in these first days that Corpse was back.

  She retrieved her laptop from her locker and settled at a table in the Student Union. The graph was fascinating, and I hovered at her shoulder, watching it take shape.

  “Good morning.”

  I shot to the ceiling, which was littered with gum wads and pencils from guys having contests to embed them in the Styrofoam tiles. Beside me stretched a brown spray, probably from a can of soda.

  Mr. Handler stood at Corpse’s elbow. He sipped from his coffee mug. “What are you working on that has you so engrossed?”

  “A genetics graph for Bio.”

  “You do love science.” He patted Corpse’s shoulder. “Have a minute?”

  “I need to finish this.”

  “It will only take a minute.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll be there in a second.”

  He strolled to the Counseling Center and disappeared through the door.

  The Counseling Center had a wall made completely of one-way glass that looked out on the Student Union. It made the office feel open, but everyone knew the glass was really for policing activity. I wondered if he’d been watching her.

  She finished the graph and closed her laptop. Now that she wasn’t focused on the drosophila, she felt eyes assessing her every move and wished she could shrink into that invisible world. She gathered her papers and tried not to limp as she walked.

  The reception area in the Counseling Center was hung with posters—som
e for colleges, most just cheesy inspirational sayings with solitary people strolling down forested paths or on beaches with seagulls winging against sky. One, of a kitten hanging from a tree branch, proclaimed Hang in there! Mrs. Peña, the secretary, smiled at Corpse as she passed through.

  “Good,” Mr. Handler said as Corpse entered his office. He closed the door but for a crack, and I retreated to a corner near a window. He sat at his desk and crossed his hands. “How are you faring?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “And your parents? How are they?”

  Corpse shrugged. “Mom’s okay. Dad?” She looked out the window at bare aspens in a courtyard that nobody ever used because there were no doors to it. Dad’s eerie, she thought, and pushed it away.

  “Are you seeing the prescribed therapist?”

  “Therapist?”

  “I take that as a no.” Mr. Handler looked at his hands, pressed them flat against his desk, then recrossed them. Corpse saw that he’d already known this. He was building toward something. “You’re eighteen, so you can make your own choices, but if you or your family need counseling, let me know.”

  Corpse snorted.

  Mr. Handler was still for a minute.

  “Listen, I know college is probably the farthest thing from your mind right now,” he said, “but have you checked your email lately?”

  He was right. College?

  Miles from our mind. Corpse turned shivery. She concentrated on Mr. Handler’s green golf shirt, couldn’t quite read the little logo on its breast. Did he get all those shirts from tournaments? Did he buy them from courses he liked? How many golf shirts did he own?

  On his hand was a wedding band, and she heard herself ask Mom, “Are you going to divorce Dad?” I wondered if Mr. Handler was a good husband. What made a good husband anyway?

  Corpse noticed a desktop photo of him with his two sons when they were both in high school, each holding a golf club and standing in front of a black-and-white checkered flag on a putting green. Blinding smiles on all three as the younger son, who graduated last year, held up a golf ball. Where had that son gone to college? Where had his older brother gone? I couldn’t remember.

  “I haven’t checked my email,” Corpse said, sensing Mr. Handler was about to rock her world.

  He took a deep breath. “I was copied on an email they sent to you. You’re accepted to Yale. Hearing from them this soon without requesting Early Action is unusual. Congratulations.”

  “Yale,” Corpse said.

  “Yes, an accomplishment,” he said.

  She laughed, this weird sound, like stumbling over rocks. “Not for me.”

  Mr. Handler’s brows rose.

  “My dad got me in.”

  “I see,” he said. “You shouldn’t have a decision from Princeton and Cornell for a month or two.”

  No decision. More like our life right now.

  “I hope this isn’t overwhelming, but I thought it might help. Knowing.”

  “I’m not sure if I want to go to college anymore,” Corpse said. “I don’t know what I want.”

  “If you do go, decide what’s important to you. Not to anyone else, just to you. You’re strong and you’re smart, Oona.”

  Her eyes shot to him, and I heard Sugeidi telling her a similar thing. What did these two see that I didn’t?

  Mr. Handler nodded. “I leave in two weeks to be a guest counselor at that Native American school. Remember? The one from the convention last fall?”

  Corpse straightened, sensed something like a train chugging toward her. Her heart seemed far away, and she strained to hear its thread of beat.

  “I wonder if you’d like to come along.” It sounded like he was speaking underwater.

  “Pardon?” she said.

  “I’ve inquired, and you’re welcome there. I’ve also checked with Dr. Bell, and he’s granted permission for you to be gone. Your parents would just need to sign a release. I think it could be beneficial for you. You could help the juniors research colleges, attend a few classes if you feel up to it, or just hang out in a different environment.”

  “No!” Corpse shot up from her seat. “No way!” She lunged to the door, her head shaking nonstop. “No!” She flung open the door and it banged against the wall. That flute seeped up, making the carpeted floor waver. She felt us imploding in that bathroom stall and swayed. Mr. Handler steadied her by the arm but she yanked it away.

  “Just consider it.” His words followed her down the hall.

  Eleven

  From Oona’s journal:

  As the water in the cylindrical measuring jar is stirred with a rod, the ping-pong ball just wobbles at the bottom. It exhibits no quick tendency to rise, but will eventually do so if the stirring is vigorous enough. However, when an egg, which has a natural tendency to spin on its longitudinal axis, is used instead, it rises very quickly and will stay at the top of the jar for as long as the stirring action is maintained.

  —Coats, Living Energies

  Once Corpse had started back to school, the Antunes family began eating dinner together at the long glossy table beneath the dining room’s beamed ceiling. Sugeidi would set three cozy seats at one end, light a candle between them, and flick the switch for the gas fireplace that filled the wall behind Mom and passed through to the kitchen. Yep, Chateau Antunes had three fireplaces. At the table’s other end, a wall of windows displayed the storybook view of the valley’s jagged peaks. This is how we’d eaten for thirteen years’ worth of Saturday nights, the one night Dad had been home. Otherwise we’d eaten at the bar in the kitchen, just Sugeidi and us mostly.

  Now, Dad strolled in late every night. Mom and Corpse would sit at the table to wait as the sun breathed a golden sigh on those peaks, setting the golf course, the pond, anything white aglow. Corpse would study the fire, how those peaks echoed the flame, until Dad arrived. Mr. Suave, smiling and joking. But his body would be rigid, as if two different people lived in him. It gave Corpse the shivers. Mom seemed to ignore it. Each night went something like this:

  Mom: How was your day, Tony?

  Dad: Good.

  Mom: Good?

  Her eyes would study him like a Calculus problem.

  Dad: Good.

  Mom: Can you elaborate?

  Dad, in a technical voice as though humoring a child: I increased a client’s portfolio by 1.2 million dollars.

  Each night, what he’d done would change, but it was always to do with money. Loads of money.

  Mom: That’s great. Your client must be happy.

  Dad: I hope so.

  Mom: Didn’t he thank you or anything?

  Dad: Yes. He thanked me profusely.

  Mom: So he was happy?

  Dad, with an edge of impatience: Yes, he was happy.

  Mom would look at her plate, fingers working the napkin in her lap.

  Dad, like he was thrusting back in a sword fight: How was your day, Muriel?

  Mom would study him again and tell us about her day. This would take a while, because she’d be careful to describe it fully.

  Dad: Good.

  His face and tone: Are we done with this?

  Mom would stare at her plate and eat.

  I had to admire her perseverance.

  The first week, Corpse was so stunned by her new view of Dad that she didn’t speak, just kept her head down at a weird angle. As far back as I could remember, dinners had been like this, but now it was like she saw our world through a microscope and our parents’ sickness was in sharp focus. She could feel how these exchanges had entered her body over long years and settled like accumulating bacteria. The weight of it numbed her. She’d gaze up at the beams and imagine each night’s words gathering there, trapped in a vaporous battle, till they took over the room.

  Now, on the third night of the second week, Corpse felt she might s
uffocate. She blurted, “I heard back from Yale.” Her first words at the dinner table.

  Mom and Dad stopped chewing and looked at her. Mom set down her fork.

  “And?” Dad said.

  “I’m accepted.”

  Dad returned to slicing his steak. “I don’t know why you’re bothering with the others. Yale was a sure bet.”

  “I might want to attend those others,” Corpse said.

  “The others are good schools,” Mom said.

  “Nonsense,” Dad said. “Yale is the best school in America.”

  “I don’t even know if I want to go to college.”

  Dad sighed. “Oona—”

  “Tony!”

  “Muriel, can’t I express my values to my daughter?”

  “Of course you can.” Mom spoke in tiptoeing steps. “But she’s still healing. Just trying to figure things out.”

  Dad nodded. Not like “yes,” but in that not-knowing way. He ate for a minute, but then a battle waged in his face. He set his fork on his plate, his napkin beside it. He stared at his half-eaten baked potato and medium-rare steak like they were something else. It was creepy, yet I remembered that Dad from the hospital, and I felt sorry for him.

  “I’m done.” The sound of his retreating steps lingered in the room.

  Mom and Corpse looked at each other. Mom’s eyes mounded with surface tension again, and Corpse saw reflected there why she, herself, had grown so despondent. Saw Mom had been safer, so targeted with our frustration. Corpse’s shoulders sagged.

  “Don’t divorce him, Mom.” That little-kid voice.

  Mom tilted up her chin, and the arrow of her jawbones was lit by the table’s candle. “We moved here to change things. So he could relax.” She slumped back in her chair. “Relax?” Her voice grew quiet, like she was speaking to herself. “He’ll never relax. Never let me in. I’m afraid I’ll go my whole life without ever knowing love.”