Afloat

by Jennifer McCartney

  Hearing the sound of a car door, I go quickly to the living-room window. The sky to the north is dark now, almost black above the rooftops and a small V of Canadian geese flies overhead and disappears. I look to see if, perhaps, because of the weather warning and my guest’s subsequent determination to ensure an arrival, he has come early.

  Across the road and the fading green lawn, Alison and her teenage daughter Amy are getting into their van, quickly, both wearing winter jackets. I lift my hand to wave, even though the van is already backing out and I’m sure they can’t see me anyway. Lowering my hand I cross my arms, leaning slowly forward until my forehead rests on the glass.

  Anna used to baby-sit for Amy; the two of them spent all their time outside, throwing baseballs at one another, rollerblading, biking. Amy loved Anna, the two of them so alike. Now I never see her without a short skirt, jewelry flashing from across the street. Anna didn’t approve of this transformation, her sporting protégée transfigured from tomboy to tart. I loved it. One night a few years ago when I couldn’t sleep I saw Amy, maybe fifteen, spread-eagled on the front lawn of her house, her body covered by a man wearing a bright-blue shirt. I watched, fascinated, wondering if my white face in the window was bright and visible from where they were lying. An hour they were there, fully clothed, first him on top, then the other way round. I watched to make sure she was okay, the neighborly thing. I felt proud of her. This secret we now shared was important; she was unknowingly connected to me. To her I was just the woman across the street who picked the gravel from her hands so long ago when she fell off her bicycle. In fact it was Anna’s old bike, stuck in the garage for years, offered to our young neighbors just starting out with new jobs and struggling with money. An old BMX, smooth and quiet with a bit of grease.

  The first bicycle was invented in Scotland, in 1840 I think it was. I’ve seen pictures, a big monstrous thing made of wood and metal, the seat curved way up in the back like a chair. Not the penny-farthing, not the one with the giant wheel in front, that came later. After this came a version with no pedals, everyone just scooted around using their feet. Aristocrats in Germany and France snapped these up, using them to coast along almost as quickly as a horse and carriage. Everyone was able to go places faster than they had before. Women were free to self-propel themselves wherever they liked. They wore bloomers; the bicycle forced the invention of women’s pants. Though I never thought about it back then, I think the bicycle deserves more credit as an integral part of the women’s movement.

  After leaving the island that summer, I was determined to ride my bike more often. But that feeling of wild alive-ness was impossible to recreate. Without the place that made it all real a bicycle is boring, useless on the streets of a modern city except for bike messengers and women that don’t mind wearing helmets or taping one pant leg so it won’t catch in the chain. I never rode one again. Not once. When Anna learned to ride I ran behind her with my hand on the seat of that purple BMX, waiting until the wobbles had stopped, letting go. Does anyone after the age of ten look at a bike as anything other than a toy? They are impractical really. Cars are affordable and gas is plentiful again. The vast Athabascan oil sands at twice the size of Lake Ontario are the largest in the world, and our northern neighbors have been generous if only because of NAFTA. The massive RWPs and violent weather patterns are everything we were warned of, I suppose.

  Do I get nostalgic when I look at bicycles? Of course. I am a stupid old woman that stares misty-eyed at children as they rush past, feet pedaling furiously. I am especially moved by the older models, the ones with baskets, like my own taken from the airport so long ago. As I watch the children getting smaller, disappearing from me, I imagine these bicycles as metaphors, and pretend I’m the only woman wise enough to have ever thought of this.

  But there are no bicycles today; the children are kept at home using websites for lessons. Anna did a safety unit once on what to do in case of an RWP. ‘Duck and cover,’ she explained, the instructions never going out of style. Smoke rises from every chimney except my own in anticipation of a disruption in electricity.

  Alan used to stop and chat with everyone on his daily walk. Once around the neighborhood every day after he retired, I think it reminded him of work. Even in winter when it was icy, I think he took pleasure in everyone saying, ‘Alan, what the hell are you doing out today in this weather, you’ll kill yourself.’

  ‘Been out in worse than this,’ he’d say cheerfully, always cheerfully. ‘Neither rain nor sleet nor snow!’

  Then he’d come up to the front porch and stomp the snow from his boots, always two hard stomps for each foot. It annoyed me one day, that he was so predictable.

  ‘Why can’t you switch it up a little?’ I asked.

  The next day he waded into the house with all the snow still stuck to his boots. ‘No stomps today, your highness,’ he said. The white mounds became tiny lakes filled with bits of gravel, cold and isolated on the carpet and tile. We stepped in wet puddles for the rest of the afternoon.

  Sometimes I laugh when I remember these things, but not today.

  I can feel the draft standing close to the window, but there won’t be snow yet for ages. That reminds me we’ve still got the garage to do, with the snow blower, the lawn mower, lengths of wire, patio furniture, sheets of wood, the tools and tins of paint, it’s too much. There are too many things collected, waiting. I look down at the beige sofa covered in boxes, no room on the cushions for sitting. Anna’s marked one of the boxes MINE, and it’s too much for me, to wonder what’s in it.

  Through the window the street is still quiet, and though I wait, and watch, no one comes.

  Mackinac

  My time is divided into shifts. Every day I fold swan napkins and break glasses and try to remember my orders correctly as we are not allowed to write anything down. When asked, I always recommend the most expensive bottle of wine and ofer everyone dessert to ensure the bill is as high as possible. Every day I work, watch the waves, complain about the heat and sometimes have a table of guests worth talking to. These guests will be interested in where I live during the summer or where I’m from or where I got such an unusual name. They will not ask if the Tippecanoe’s arugula is organic.

  Outside the streets are filled with men in suits wearing badges and smiling at everyone, as the Republican convention is in town. Rumor has it that last night a senator from out west was beat up on Main Street. (The man had propositioned Neil’s wife; Neil owns the Whisky Bar and like most locals has no tolerance for tourists who get loud after a few drinks, regardless of their rank in the outside world.) The Democrats come next month for more of the same. The grass on the island is dark green even though it hardly ever rains anymore and the clouds move across the vast expanse of sky while more arrive to take their place. The flow of people is constant, and last night outside our apartments someone hung Brenna’s pink bike from the lowest branch of a pine tree, making her late for work this morning. It is August.

  Bryce appears in the doorway of our bedroom with a box of Q-tips in his hand. I look up from my place on the bed, waiting for an explanation.

  ‘Guess what time it is?’ he asks.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Operation Earwax!’

  He shakes the box beside his ear like there’s candy in it.

  ‘No way,’ I say.

  ‘Here, you sit on this.’ He pulls up a chair and stands behind it, motioning me into it.

  ‘Fuck off. What’s wrong with my eardrums?’

  He opens the package, and patiently motions to the chair again. ‘They’re dirty,’ he says.

  ‘They are not.’ But I sit in the chair. I tilt my head to offer him the best access to my ear canal. ‘Don’t burst my eardrum,’ I warn.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he says.

  Holding the opposite side of my head gently with one hand, he starts in the large ridge where the top of my ear is pierced. The cotton is dry and sounds loud. He sweeps down and around the outer ridg
es, around all the parts that probably have names, but I don’t know them. He switches to the clean end before going in all the way, twisting the Q-tip as it plunges into my ear.

  ‘Not too far in,’ I say.

  He doesn’t answer. After a moment he pulls the swab out and holds it up for me to see. ‘Look at your disgusting earwax.’

  The swab is yellow at the end.

  ‘Gross.’

  ‘Next ear,’ he announces.

  ‘I only have two.’

  He switches sides and begins again. ‘Any news about your mom?’

  The hand holding my head begins to feel hot, making my hair damp. I can’t move away.

  ‘Can we open a window?’

  ‘I take it that means no?’

  I don’t say anything. I’d rather be here than there. Where I would know instantly, how everything was, when something new happened. Where my whole life would be that. But I’d rather be here. And so I know nothing.

  Closing my eyes I practice the relaxation technique of pushing out my stomach when I breathe, forcing my muscles to relax, and I think of shrimp cocktails in crystal goblets and clean linen. I think of order and organization, of setting tables and lining the bottom edge of the fork and knife and spoon with the folded beak of the swan so there is a clean line one inch from the rounded curve of the tabletop.

  ‘Would you love me if I had no breasts?’ I ask.

  He thinks for a moment. ‘Of course,’ he says.

  And then, ‘Not as much, obviously.’

  I grab his probing Q-tip and throw it across the room. He laughs and pats the top of my head.

  ‘I’d love you even without any arms and legs,’ he says.

  ‘Ha.’

  He retrieves the swab from the floor. ‘Would you love me if I were a superhero that killed bad guys to avenge the innocent?’

  ‘Only if you wore tights.’

  There’s a knock on our apartment door, and someone has their hand over the peephole.

  ‘I know it’s you, asshole,’ I say loudly. ‘You’re the only one who does that.’

  ‘Open the door,’ the voice demands.

  ‘Who is it?’ Bryce wants to know.

  ‘Trainer,’ I say.

  ‘Let him in.’

  ‘I’m going to.’

  I open the door and he’s barefoot.

  ‘Come see the caterpillar I stepped on,’ Trainer says.

  ‘You stepped on it in your bare feet?’

  He shrugs. ‘It was an accident. Come see.’

  I follow him down the wooden steps. The grounds are quiet today as it’s Friday and most people are working; no music and no voices. There is hardly any wind.

  I’m not wearing shoes either and the ground is hard and uneven under my feet. Trainer pulls up the legs of his jeans before crouching down over a patch of gravel. I get on my knees beside him, and notice the tops of his toes and feet are hairy.

  ‘You have hobbit feet,’ I say.

  He touches the splattered remains of the caterpillar.

  ‘Honey, if you want to talk about hair we can talk about your eyebrows,’ he says absently.

  We keep looking at the ground. The watery yellow innards wet the sharp stones, the skin no longer visible.

  ‘I wonder where its family is?’ I say.

  We look up at the surrounding trees as if it had fallen from them like a pine cone. Nothing moves, not even the highest branches.

  ‘Everything dies alone anyway,’ says Trainer. He keeps looking up, looking out above the trees.

  ‘Thank you, Zen master.’ I bow my head towards him, but he’s not in the mood.

  ‘You’re alone right now,’ he says. He adjusts his baseball cap and stands up. ‘But you just don’t know it.’

  He kicks a foot full of gravel over the caterpillar’s remains. In the sunlight the tops of his feet are gray with dust, and the hair looks silver. I’m about to ask him a question when Bryce opens the window above our heads and leans out.

  ‘I’m not done de-waxing you yet,’ he shouts down at me.

  Trainer raises an eyebrow at me, and shrugs. ‘Wax on,’ he says. ‘I’m going to go throw rocks at some Republicans.’

  He shuffles off towards the bike rack.

  ‘Liberal!’ I yell after him. ‘I’m telling Velvet.’

  He swings a leg over the seat of his red Schwinn, the one with Spice Girls playing cards stuck in the spokes.

  ‘Not really,’ he shrugs. ‘I hate everyone equally.’

  He gives me a salute before pedaling off down the gravel path, yelling behind him as an afterthought:

  ‘Except for the governor though. Her shit is all right!’

  The flapping and flipping of the cards recedes until I can’t hear anything any more.

  Back in our room Bryce finishes my ears and we both want sex afterwards, the plunging of cotton into certain orifices not quite satisfying enough, and this week it is particularly messy.

  ‘At least my sheets are dark blue,’ he says.

  ‘They’re green. I told you that already,’ I say from beneath him.

  After ten minutes he withdraws, only half-heartedly hard. I immediately wonder if there’s something wrong with him. Kneeling on the bed, he flaps his penis back and forth with his left hand while we look at it, concerned. Wet, pink and slightly bloody, he massages it with no result. There are so many things to learn about our bodies – liquids and plasma, hormones, cells containing codes not under our control. Add in the body of another and it seems there are infinite things likely to go wrong. Bryce loses interest in his dick and announces he’s going to buy some beer. Getting off the bed he pulls on a pair of wrinkled khakis, then checks his wallet and withdraws a bunch of notes, tips from his breakfast shift this morning.

  ‘Can I see that?’ I point to his driver’s license.

  ‘What for?’ He doesn’t hand it over immediately.

  ‘Don’t be difficult,’ I say.

  I take his wallet from him, the brown leather turned almost white with wear. On the outside is a round sticker of a pot leaf with the word ‘Heidelberg’ above it, a souvenir from his class trip to Germany.

  I examine the picture on his license, taken almost three years ago: Bryce with much longer hair and rounder features.

  Date of Birth, November 30th, 1978. We have already discussed how Virgo and Sagittarius go well together.

  Address, 45 Old Lake Drive, Grayling, Michigan. Grayling is located about midway up the index finger of Bryce’s right hand, only a few hours south of the island. Home of the world’s longest canoe marathon, he tells me.

  I stop and read the name a second time.

  ‘Lehi B. Russo. Lehi?’

  ‘Yep.’

  I look up at him and back down again at the license.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s my first name. I don’t use it, everyone calls me Bryce.’

  ‘You never told me your real name?’

  ‘Bryce is my real name. My middle name.’

  He takes the license from my hand and casually scratches the end of his nose with it, before returning it to his wallet. We stare at each other.

  ‘I think you enjoy surprising me,’ I say.

  ‘I’m proud of my name,’ he says crossing his arms. ‘You just never asked.’

  I cross my arms back. ‘Fine, Lehi. I’ll tell Velvet to change your nametag.’

  He thinks for a moment and sits beside me on the bed, putting his hand on my knee. ‘Fine. Here. Ask me anything.’

  ‘That’s not the point. You’re missing the point.’

  ‘Take it or leave it.’

  I think for a moment, wondering what I don’t know about him that I need to ask. Who is the blonde woman in your photo album, the one wearing overalls that came before me in more ways than one? Why is your favorite color so predictable? Why did your sister Odette throw her ice skate at you when you were ten? Why did she call you at the restaurant on Tuesday? Why do you want to be an electrical engineer? Why do y
ou keep telling me about the intricacies of testing an electrical current and how the brown wire is always the live wire and the blue wire is always neutral and how easy it is to forget to dry your hands when I don’t give a shit? How can you do all of this work with colored wires when you’re color blind? Why are we both going back to community college in October instead of buying a yacht and living off the coast of Portugal drinking Spanish sangria and imported beers with limes in them and suntanning naked while you bite my skin with your crooked teeth just to make sure I’m real, it’s all real?

  ‘Who’s your favorite author?’ I say.

  He rolls his eyes. ‘Lame question. People with favorite authors are assholes.’

  ‘I have a favorite author. Asshole.’

  He claps his hands and bounces on the bed with sarcastic expectancy. ‘Thrilling! Tell me.’

  I ignore him, and think for a moment. ‘Well, when I was little, it was John Bellairs.’

  ‘Bel Air, like California?’

  ‘No.’

  I don’t explain and he doesn’t ask.

  Instead he says, ‘Books are boring. New question.’

  ‘Fine. What’s your worst secret?’

  He looks out the window and seems unusually serious.

  ‘You’re not interested in my worst secret.’

  ‘Tell me,’ I insist, squeezing his knee.

  ‘Let me think.’

  ‘And kicking cats doesn’t count,’ I add.

  Bryce looks at me as if he’s not sure I’m ready. I raise my eyebrows, waiting. Suddenly, I’m nervous and everything feels sad somehow, sitting together on a bed that doesn’t belong to us on an island we cannot, will never afford, and I don’t want to know what he’s done that didn’t happen here.

  Putting his hand over mine, he tells me the worst thing he’s ever done –

  ‘When I was fourteen, for an entire year I saved all my semen in a two-liter pop bottle.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  He shakes his head. ‘I’m not.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I don’t know. One day I looked at it, on my stomach or whatever, and it was like, potential halves of babies. I wanted to keep them. It was like my own little aquarium.’