Phoenix Rising

by Grant, Cynthia D.

  “What’s the matter, Jess?”

  There wasn’t time to explain. I had to get out of the mall. The walls and roof and people squeezed me, threading into my ears like steel.

  “Jessie!” Bambi’s round, worried face goggled at me. We were outside; I was sitting on a cool stone bench. My breath was coming in gasps and chunks.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I finally managed. “I was starting to feel funny. It must’ve been all those perfumes I sampled.”

  “You scared me half to death!” Bambi pouted. “Now can we go get an ice-cream cone?”

  We didn’t get an ice-cream cone. I made her take me home. The windows were open but I was sweating. The ride was an obstacle course. Cars unexpectedly cut into our lane, bicyclists popped up by the front bumper, pedestrians threatened to somersault across the hood.

  I was sure we were going to be killed any second.

  Bambi dropped me off. “I’ll call you later,” she promised. I ran up the walk, up the stairs, into my room. It was a good half hour before my heart stopped pounding.

  This wasn’t the first time this had happened, but the worst. A few days before, Lucas had taken me to a movie, and I’d started fritzing out while we were waiting in line.

  “I have to go,” I told him.

  “There’s a bathroom inside.”

  “I mean home.”

  “What?” Lucas groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re having another attack. We’ve been waiting in line for an hour.”

  I made him leave. He dumped me off, then split. When Mom asked what was wrong, I told her cramps.

  I don’t know what to make of this development. This sort of thing never used to happen. Since Helen died, I’ve been experiencing … technical difficulties. Please stand by. No adjustment of your set is necessary.

  Any second the picture is supposed to come back.

  But it doesn’t. Nothing comes back.

  When I fall asleep that night, I dream I’m driving. I’m driving Lucas’s Impala. The ocean’s on my right, shining like steel, almost blinding me.

  There’s not much traffic. None at all, in fact, which is odd. It’s such a perfect day you’d think the traffic would be thick.

  There’s a hitchhiker up ahead. He doesn’t get closer, no matter how far or how fast I drive. The speedometer inches up; I’m doing sixty, seventy; whipping around curves that are sheer cliffs.

  Now the hitchhiker’s close. It’s a man. A dog. A man; I know this although he has no face, just white eyes in a dark hood. He runs into the road in front of the Impala—My God! He’s on the hood of the car, that faceless face pressed against the windshield, his empty eyes only inches from mine.

  I floor the gas pedal. He loses his grip; his fingers streak the glass as he rolls onto the roof. Then he crashes off, bouncing down the cliffs, hundreds of feet—God, I didn’t mean to kill him!

  But when I turn the corner he’s dead ahead, eyes burning, his thumb stretched out.

  7

  March 13

  I’m sitting for the Harrises tonight. It’s late. I just tiptoed in to check the boys and Sara. Her mouth looked like a piece of pink candy. So sweet! She comes over to the house and calls: “Hel-le-en! Hel-le-en! Can you come out and play?”

  Sara Rose is my favorite favorite.

  Thought I’d bring this with me and try to catch up. As usual, I’m way behind. Life in the fast lane (in a slow car). When did life get so speeded up? I’m tired. I’m tired of being so tired. I look like death on a dinner roll lately.

  Enough complaining.

  We seem to be embarked on a family campaign to achieve Normalcy In Our Lifetime. It’s exhausting, not to mention impossible. We don’t seem normal but then, who is? The polished people in the TV sitcoms? Bloomfield’s Popsicle parents? Bambi’s folks, Mr. and Mrs. Godzilla?

  It’s comical. We’re Going Places Together all the time now: Mom and Dad arguing about which route to take; Lucas in the backseat, rolling his eyes; Jessie by the other window, in case she has to puke or jump out. (She’s so WEIRD lately, so uptight, as if she could burst into tears any second. Jessie never cries.)

  Then there’s me, in the middle, like peanut butter, sticking everything together.

  Poor Helen.

  They never say that, but I know that’s what they’re thinking.

  I’ll tell you something: I’m not going to die. I’m going to stay alive to see a million mornings, and play with Sara Rose, and write some really good stories, so good that other writers like them, not just my family.

  I want to make love and get married (maybe). I want to have a baby or two. I can’t imagine not having a child. I mean, they’re a pain in the behind sometimes, but they see things fresh and new. Tonight Sara Rose said, “The stars are like night lights.” She told me I’m her favorite cook. What about your mom? I asked. “She’s my favorite, too.”

  The thing is, I have to keep fighting the cancer. Sometimes I’m afraid that if I fall asleep, I won’t wake up; I’ll sleep forever. But if I don’t get enough rest, I won’t be strong enough to handle the chemo. It’s murder. The therapist says, Visualize your healthy cells as brave knights on spangled horses, striking down the bad cells, conquering the cancer, on the red field of battle. My bloodstream.

  Sometimes it’s like watching a movie: What will our heroine do next? How will she save herself?

  Then I remember: This is real. This is me. Why is this happening?

  I’m rambling. I was talking about THE FAMILY.

  THE FAMILY! In all their heartbreaking glory. I love them so much. They drive me crazy. We’re all such characters, playing ourselves, locked into our stubborn roles. I wouldn’t have Dad’s; it’s too demanding. He’s always working. I guess he likes it. I hope so. There seems to be a lot of anxiety connected to the office, not to the work itself, but to the back-stabbing and buck-passing; the politics. Some people will do anything to get ahead, Dad says. He doesn’t step on anyone’s toes, which takes some fancy footwork. If only he would be more diplomatic with Lucas. But Lucas is just as bad.

  Dad: In the coming years—

  Lucas: Which years? They’re all coming.

  Lucas is such a grouch these days. He’s trying to start a band and grow a mustache simultaneously, which apparently is a tremendous strain. I shouldn’t tease him but I can’t help it; I love to see him play his part. His face grows red, his eyebrows whiten.… He looks pretty handsome when he’s not geeking out, and he’s the best guitarist I’ve ever heard. I’m not saying that because he’s my brother. It’s true. At Christmastime he played a carol for me, an instrumental version of “Joy to the World.” Acoustically, not electrically. It was so holy it made me cry.

  Sometimes he sings songs I think he makes up. About love and longing and loneliness. I wonder if Lucas has ever made love. I wish we could talk about that kind of stuff. That would be helpful for me, in regard to Bloomfield, who is on my mind all the time.

  I was talking about the family. I keep wandering away from them, like Lucas does whenever the five of us are out in public together. He stands at a distance, a store detective, keeping an eye on the escaped criminals. Or he acts like it’s spring break at the institution; the lunatics are out for the day and he’s our attendant.

  I just remembered the time a million years ago when we were on our way to the beach, and Lucas wrote that sign and held it up in the back of the car: HELP! I’VE BEEN KIDNAPPED. A squadron of Highway Patrol cars flagged us down; guns were pointed at Dad’s head.

  He was just kidding, Lucas said.

  He’s not crazy. But he’s in between normal and nuts. The same with Dad. They’re so intense! Those guys are like the tide; the arguments keep coming but the beach is still there, no matter how many waves crash on it, and it always will be, as long as there’s a sea.

  The main difference between them is thirty years.

  Today we had lunch at Wally’s Harbor House, overlooking the bay. We made it through the meal without an argument (a miracle!),
but Lucas and Dad started as soon as we got back in the car.

  Dad said synthesizers serve a musical purpose and just because they’re not instruments per se is no reason to write them off.

  Lucas said Dad thinks everything new is good, simply because it’s new, and the bigger the better. Synthesizers are machines, Lucas said. He cranked up the radio. Can you tell me what kind of instrument that is? Flute, strings, guitar? Sounds a little bit like everything and a lot like nothing. That’s a synthesizer, Lucas said. Just plug it in and it plays itself. No need to hang around making music.

  In a normal family the father would push the traditional stuff while the son led a revolution into the future. Not the Castles. Lucas is on a one-man crusade to bring back the past.

  I imagine seeing him on the evening news, arrested for blowing up the Institute for the Study of Advanced Technology. His parents claim, “He’s always been spunky.”

  Lucas is a human cowlick.

  Why must he argue with Dad all the time? He’s never going to change him; Dad’s been Dad for fifty years. Lucas should let things ride sometimes. He jumps on everything Dad says. THE COMING YEARS? EXACTLY WHICH YEARS DO YOU MEAN, MR. CASTLE? AREN’T THEY ALL COMING? ISN’T THAT, IN FACT, HOW YOU WOULD DESCRIBE THE FUTURE? I REST MY CASE!

  We all played Monopoly the other night. It was like some kind of boring torture. Mom fell asleep in the middle of the game while Lucas was giving a speech about the importance of the peace movement in ending the Vietnam War.

  Lucas had a fit.

  Mom woke with a snort. “I was picturing what you were saying in my mind,” she insisted. If I were her, I’d tell Lucas to shut up, but she always apologizes.

  Bambi is getting on my nerves lately. You’d think I’d be used to her by now. Feeling sorry for someone isn’t the same thing as liking them. It doesn’t matter if I like her; I love her. I have to. But MUST she make every sentence a question? “So we go to the show, you know? And these guys? They’re over by the snackbar? In black leather, you know? And they ask me my name?”

  When someone asks her name, she answers: Bambi Sue Bordtz? As if she isn’t sure. Bambi Sue Who?

  She’s going out with this meathead jerk. When he can’t think of anything to say (most of the time), he picks her up and holds her over his head.

  On the other hand, silence CAN be golden. “That wig looks really real,” Bambi told me. Me: “So how did you know it was a wig?” Her: “You can tell.”

  I’m so glad I don’t have to wear it yet. I was afraid it would fall off during p.e., but I don’t have to take p.e. anymore. Everybody thinks it has something to do with my period. I’m famous for my legendary cramps.

  Something funny happened at dinner the other night. It was Lucas’s birthday, and Aunt Linda, who thinks we’re all still in grade school, sent him a present: a little cloth animal of unknown species, its back slit open, spewing Kleenex.

  Lucas figured the present was inside, so he pulled out all the Kleenex. It turned out the present was the Kleenex and the animal’s a handy dispenser.

  It’s amazing that Lucas is so old. Twenty. After the family party (we gave him music stuff and some shirts he’ll never wear), he went out with friends and didn’t come home until the next day. Mom and Dad stayed up till 1 a.m., arguing. Dad wanted to wait up for Lucas. Mom said Lucas was a grown man now, believe it or not, and they had to trust him.

  I wonder if I can trust Bloomfield.

  Would he go away if he knew about the cancer?

  When I kiss him I worry that my breath smells funny. Do I taste like medicine? Apparently not: We kiss until my lips are puffy (mostly at his house; his parents work), and he runs his hands up and down my back, then squeezes my breasts and whispers, “Helen, why not?”

  Trouble is, I can’t think of a good reason. Besides death and disease and babies, of course.

  I love him and I want to touch him and I want him to touch me.

  The other night I dreamed we were at Foothill Park, in that flower-sprinkled meadow. Bloomfield was wearing a white tuxedo (!) and playing a piano, just grandly. I was dancing, leaping, soaring, iridescent as dragonfly wings.…

  I’d lose my breath if I danced like that now. That’s the lovely thing about dreams. You can be so free.

  There’s too much going on all the time: school & family & clinic & writing. I want to write something perfect for Bloomfield, a story that would knock his socks off, a poem that would kiss his heart.

  I know that the way I feel about him is crazy. I really don’t know him at all. But for some strange reason he makes me happy. When I’m with him I am laughing, dancing, flying.

  O Bloomfield: I love/I’m so scared of you. I wish I had the guts to say: It may be true that life’s in vain, but I would do it all again with you.

  8

  Bambi and I cut class today. We didn’t even discuss it. When she picked me up this morning I tossed my books into the backseat, hard. She looked at me and laughed, then we just cruised.

  I know I should buckle down and study but it’s hard to take the future seriously. At any second the earth could veer off course and slam into the sun. Or a meteorite could land on your head. Twelve tons of them fall every day.

  I was never the great brain, compared to Helen.

  I can’t seem to concentrate.

  We drove to San Jose and toured the Winchester Mystery House. It’s a giant pipe dream of a mansion, built by an old lady with tons of dough. Her husband invented the Winchester rifle, which killed thousands of people, who haunted his widow. She believed that as long as she kept building—rooms, turrets, porches, stairways—she would never die. She was wrong.

  After that we had burgers and milkshakes. The waitress eyed us suspiciously. Bambi was done up in her junior hooker outfit: black fishnet stockings and a slinky dress that hugged her like an oil slick. Gulping down the last bite of her wolfburger, she said: “I feel so fat! I must be getting my period.”

  I hope so. Last month she slept with a thirty-year-old guy because she thought it would be rude to tell him no.

  She sets traps for herself, promptly falls into them, and then shrieks, “Who turned out the lights?”

  Nobody, you idiot. Open your eyes.

  It sure is easy to see other people’s problems, but not your own.

  There was nothing to do. That’s the trouble with cutting; all your friends are at school.

  When in doubt, shop. I didn’t have any money, but Bambi had her magic plastic cards.

  It was November in the parking lot and December in the mall. It’s been decorated for Christmas since Labor Day. We went to the Emporium. We went to Macy’s. Bambi bought purple vinyl boots, designer jeans, and perfume. Helen had to give up wearing perfume. The chemo made her skin smell funny.

  I only bought a lipstick. I was feeling nervous. I was thinking about my teachers. They were real nice to me after Helen died, but now it’s business as usual. They’re ticked because I have so much “untapped potential.” I’m not doing my homework, or forget to bring it, and I never raise my hand in class. Helen and I were secretly shy. Together, we made someone brave.

  We drove back to Bambi’s down streets alive with cart-wheeling leaves, the tape deck blasting, the top down although the day was cool. Bambi hates silence and she loves to be looked at. It’s the only time she’s sure she’s alive.

  She lives a few blocks from me in a ritzy development named for what used to be there: Buckhorn Hill. Everybody calls it Big Bucksville.

  Her grandfather founded Bordtz Beer and made a killing during Prohibition. Bordtz Beer eventually went down the toilet, but Bambi’s dad held onto his inheritance and invested in real estate. He owns several tasty chunks of the town.

  Their house is huge. It’s got an indoor pool, a sauna, and a hot tub, all unused. Bambi’s mother was watching the tube in the den. She prefers TV to real life. Mrs. Bordtz is as spooky as a sleepwalker, with eyes like keyholes to burning rooms. She’s always dressed up, even when she’s goi
ng nowhere, as if waiting for the press to arrive.

  “Is that you, Bambi?” she called.

  “No, it’s a blood-crazed maniac. We’re going to slaughter you and torch the house.”

  “Oh, is Jessie there, too? Shouldn’t you girls be in school?”

  “It’s a holiday, Ma. Sid Vicious’s birthday.”

  “Oh. There’s fresh Twinkies in the fridge.”

  We ate some Twinkies in the gleaming kitchen. Twice a week a Spanish woman comes in and shovels out the dirt. I forget her name. She doesn’t speak English. She doesn’t speak to us at all.

  Bambi’s mother floated in and watched us eat. Her hair was newly shorn; but not as if she’d had it styled; as if she’d gone berserk with the scissors.

  “How are you, Jessie?” Her voice was very flat. She always talks like that, no matter what she’s saying.

  “Fine.”

  “That’s good.”

  Bambi poured some 7-Up. It galloped into the glasses.

  “Where’s Rascal?” I asked. Their obnoxious beagle. He’s usually humping my leg.

  “Gone,” Mrs. Bordtz said vaguely.

  “We got rid of him when we got the new furniture,” Bambi explained. “Want to see it? It’s Mediterranean.”

  After I dutifully admired the furniture warehouse that passes for a home, we retreated to Bambi’s bedroom. She shoved stuff off the bed so we could sit down, then proceeded to paint her toenails green while talking nonstop about this jerk she’s seeing. He wants her to tattoo his name on her breast. He prefers black hair, so she’s dyeing it again. She’s getting more holes punched in her ears.

  I will never cut my hair. I will let it grow forever and wear it like a cloak, like a cape. Helen had the longest, thickest, prettiest hair before it changed.

  Bambi thumbed through the Star. “Wow, they’ve taught plants to read! Hey, look at this kid’s nose! He looks like an anteater!”

  “I have to go now, Bambi.”

  “Why?” She looked startled. She never wants me to leave.

  “Mom will be expecting me.”

  Besides, I couldn’t breathe. There’s no air in that house. It smells like the clinic that Helen went to; like flesh, like fading flowers.