Out of Orange: A Memoir

by Cleary Wolters

  I imagined living up in Vermont as living with a modern-day Da Vinci and Mona Lisa. The Kurzweil keyboard was Da Vinci’s new toy. Larry was reciting something to a tune he had slapped together and was now recording, so Piper and I didn’t bother him. We went straight to the kitchen in search of coffee.

  “Welcome home!” Melony stuck her head out from the pantry. She was feeding all the animals at once: an old black Lab they called Gramps; a young and spunky chocolate Lab named Hershel, who had tried to lick Edith the night before; and a gigantic blond wolfhound named Teddy. There was also a tiny nine-hundred-year-old Siamese cat named Tiki, who tapped when she walked, her nails were so long; Blackie, the big black tom that had crashed in my room; Chiggers, a really big tiger-striped gray guy; and Stewart, an orange tabby. “There’s a fresh pot of coffee. Help yourself,” Melony yelled over Larry’s music from back inside the pantry.

  “Thank you!” I followed Melony’s example and spoke loudly over the music instead of the whispering Piper and I had been doing with each other as we’d made our way through the house and past Larry’s so-called recording session.

  “You should go grab Edith and Dum Dum.” Melony had stepped back out of the free-for-all with a big can of dog food in one hand and a spoon in the other. “They should come out and eat with these guys. They’re part of a big family now.” She had a great laugh, making a sweep with her spoon over all the hungry beasts at her feet. It sounded like a recipe for disaster, but she was right. It had to happen sooner or later, and I’d feel better if I was here when it did. So far, they’d been pretty good with the new animals. Piper and I ran back to the room. She scooped up Dummy and I grabbed Edith. Edith was the bigger and stronger of the two. She was also the most likely to flip out. I thought it would be better if I handled her.

  When we got back to the kitchen, Melony had placed two more bowls of food in the row of dishes now occupied by chomping jaws. Piper put Dum Dum down and she looked at the little Siamese next to her, then started eating. I’d expected that. I put Edith down next to Dum Dum, and Edith hissed and growled at Dum Dum, as if this was all her fault or she’d forgotten Dum Dum was her daughter. She leapt onto the counter, then from the counter to the top of the cabinet, then from the top of the cabinet to one of the large wooden beams that spanned the main room. I could only see her tail flicking madly back and forth.

  Melony laughed. “She has to come down sometime.”

  We sat down with Melony and drank coffee while she asked us questions about where we had just come from. I kept my eye on Edith’s tail hanging limply over the side of the rafter. I whistled loudly once and the tail started flicking again. That was not an ideal place for a narcoleptic cat, and all cats are, but it was especially dangerous for one who regularly dozed off and fell from the back of her sofa.

  Dum Dum had finished her breakfast and was following Tiki, the oldest cat in the world, sniffing at her tail. Dummy was using her tip-toe walk for invisibility and it appeared to be working; Tiki was oblivious to the curious cat on her tail.

  “I wonder if I should call her over to the loft,” I said after Edith walked down the rafter and positioned herself more comfortably at the juncture of two beams that was right next to a loft she could easily jump to.

  “I would just let her come down when she’s ready,” Melony suggested.

  “It could be a long wait,” I warned. Melony must have thought that I felt obliged to stay there until Edith came down or that I was too worried to go away.

  “I’ll be here. You should ignore her. Let her come down when she’s ready. Trust me, if you stop worrying so much, she will too.”

  “Let’s go look at your house.” Piper stood up and stretched like a cat herself.

  “Definitely get outside. It’s so beautiful.” Melony was at the sink now, looking at my Miata in the driveway. “It’s a great day for a convertible. You should take Piper for a drive, get a look at the neighborhood. Go get some pumpkins,” Melony added. She was right too; it was a perfect fall day: sunny, warm, but with just a touch of morning coolness lingering. People drive for miles to come see the leaves change colors here, and we were surrounded by beauty. The “neighborhood” was the woods full of huge bursts of red, orange, and yellow. It was early in the season too, so not many of the trees had turned fully brown or dropped their leaves yet and some were still green.

  At some point earlier that summer, I had made a vanity purchase, a car phone for my Miata. I had also bought a huge battery pack and transmitter thing that made it possible to use the phone outside of the car. I guess you could say I had a cell phone, though the bag it had come in was as big as a large shaving kit and had weighed about five pounds. Although Piper and I were way out in the woods in the mountains in Vermont, and I didn’t have my own landline yet, Phillip could still call me.

  Our peaceful escape to Vermont and from reality didn’t last very long. I had enough time to check out the progress on my carriage house’s renovation. Piper wasn’t interested, though, not to the extent I was. This was my baby, my house. It had been a leaning pile of potential kindling when I’d first seen it; now it was standing up straight, waiting for its new foundation, its solid footing. There were gaping holes where the doors and windows would be, and no stairs inside to get from one level to another, but the chimney had been built and the guts of the hearth installed. If I wanted to, I could build a fire in it. Unfortunately, there was not enough time for that.

  Edith came down from the rafter while I was out interrupting the contractor so he could give me a quick tour of everything he had under way. When I came back into the office through a door that led into it directly from the backyard, I found Edith sleeping on the window seat again and Dum Dum was in bed with Blackie.

  “She’s a little young for you, mister.” I had no idea how old Blackie was and Dum Dum was actually middle-aged, but not the way Edith and I saw it. She was always going to be our little girl.

  Blackie looked at me and meowed, as if to snub my warning, and I laughed, lay down on the bed next to them, and called Edith over. I dozed off almost instantly, being surrounded by my purring pals. Then the phone rang.

  I was instantly irritated. This was a repeat of my last visit home, more like pushing off a wall between laps than an actual visit. It was time to gather the troops and go back to Brussels. I felt much restored after sleeping only one night in my neighbor’s house with all my stuff and cats in one place. But I wanted to stay so much longer, watch the leaves turn, watch my house get finished, stack my firewood, drink wine, cook dinners with Piper, and sit with her by my fireplace in the new house. She would never want to leave there if we had time to do all that.

  Piper and I threw our bags into the trunk of my Miata, cranked up a Lenny Kravitz CD, and put the top down. Lenny Kravitz, Everything but the Girl, and Terence Trent D’Arby were queued up in the changer; they were our soundtrack, and I expected they would lift my spirits instantly. But I just stared at the house past Piper, then at Piper, then at the house, and I didn’t want to put the car into drive.

  I had several cords of wood that had been delivered at some point before our coming there. I had arranged this through the contractor doing the work on my house, which was late getting completed. The pile sat in the middle of the circular driveway like a mountain, dwarfing my little car. “Shouldn’t you stack that before we go?” Piper asked. I laughed as we pulled away. I hadn’t really thought about having to stack all that wood in my little fantasy. Piper was going to be good for me.

  When we were driving down the road into Brattleboro, Piper pointed out all these beautiful little sights we had passed on our way to Newfane—a big rock face, a covered bridge, some people in a canoe. The road we were on followed the north bank of a river that leads directly into Brattleboro. The water was crystal-clear where there were not white rapids. Had it not already been October and were we not already on our way to the airport, I would have pulled the car over and we would have gone swimming. Piper must have read my m
ind. She leaned over, kissed my cheek, and whispered in my ear, “Next summer, honey.” Her warm, soft face and her mouth in my ear gave me shivers, and I was sorry we hadn’t stayed awake later the night before or gotten up earlier. Stacking wood was not the only thing we should have done before we left Vermont.

  10 Hurry Up!

  Brussels, Belgium

  Still October 1993

  I HAD BEEN HOME for no more than twenty-four hours again and had already learned there were going to be two deliveries, one week apart, starting immediately. There would be four units each, or so we were told. This time instead of getting everyone over to Europe right away, as Alajeh instructed, Phillip and I gave everyone a general idea of when they would be expected, about a week. We decided we would make sure nothing was going to create a delay before the meter started running on expenses this time around. It was time to make some money; Alajeh had said so with great excitement. But we had been here before.

  Phillip and I flew to Chicago. I think Piper took the time to visit her family. We were glad we had handled it this way. The urgent call to get everyone ready and move at least four to Europe was a little premature. It took a week of hotel time in Chicago for Phillip and me to even collect the money for their airfare and expenses.

  We had Garrett, Edwin, Donald, and Piper ready with us in Brussels for the first group. We had been told the first group would leave on the twelfth and the second group wouldn’t go until a few days later. We took that to be longer and held off on bringing the second group over prematurely. Of course, the twelfth came and went, then the thirteenth and fourteenth, and then Alajeh finally called to say he was coming to Brussels. Phillip and I thought we knew what this meant—more delays.

  On one of these days in Brussels, Piper, Phillip, and I went out to dinner together. The weather was getting colder, so Phillip wore his long black dress coat, and Piper wore one of her confident, worldly businesswoman’s costumes I loved so much. I was feeling very insecure that day. Maybe it was the change of season that did it; autumn closing in has always had a deleterious effect on me. It’s the ominous beginning of my new year, the back-to-school-blues season when summertime dies and the pool closes. I was way overdue for this seasonal bout with the universe, probably due to all the travel back and forth through time zones and hemispheres. My seasonal meltdown clock had been jammed, until now. I felt blue, jinxed, ugly, and hopeless, and then it went downhill.

  Phillip and Piper were guilty only of being the same height, wearing nice clothes, and being beautiful. Walking alongside them, I felt like a tagalong, like it wasn’t Phillip who would leave and go back to Meg. It was me who was supposed to go away. I felt the idea blossom while we were at dinner.

  We all ordered drinks when we arrived at DNA, a Belgian version of perhaps a hip San Francisco club or restaurant—maybe a Hamburger Mary’s with more neon and less food. The crowd was a mix of thirtysomethings and fortysomethings. It was a Thursday night and the place was hopping with its way-after-work crowd. A fortysomething of the male variety started flirting with me while Piper and Phillip were trying to talk to each other over the loud music. On another night, I would have understood that it was impossible to have a three-way conversation in a nightclub, but on this night, I felt excluded. So I responded to the flirtation of the man who wanted my attention.

  He was drunk. He didn’t speak English very well and I spoke only the most basic French. He asked me to follow him and I did. I was furious when I walked away from the table and neither Phillip nor Piper even seemed to notice. The guy led me into the bathroom and into a stall, where he kissed me passionately. He was a handsome guy for his age, but I wasn’t interested in sex with him, certainly not in a bathroom stall, so I walked out and went back to the table.

  Phillip and Piper were standing and putting on their jackets when I returned. I had intended to tell them I wanted to leave. The fact that they seemed to be getting ready to leave me behind, without telling me, infuriated me. The reality of the situation will forever be a mystery, because instead of just asking if they were really going to leave me there and finding out why, possibly apologizing for my ridiculous behavior with the strange guy I had left the table with, I invited the drunk Belgian to come along with us.

  We walked back to the hotel, me and my drunk date behind the two of them. There was a chain-link fence along the way that the guy stopped alongside. He turned, and with one arm over his head, he grabbed onto the fence for support and remained there. I took it that he was out of breath or something and stopped to wait for him, but he waved me over and I went to him. He leaned in for another kiss, but he had been peeing. I yelped when I realized he was still peeing—and on me. Phillip turned around and came back to see what was going on when I yelped. He didn’t walk right up on us; he was being protective but from a distance.

  I didn’t want this guy coming to the hotel anymore. He was also much drunker than I had given him credit for, so I told him to go back to the club. When he objected, he did so in a less than gentlemanly way, spewing in his bad English that I was a cock tease.

  Phillip did walk up on us then. “Hey, buddy, I think it’s time for you to go.”

  The guy puffed his chest and cursed Phillip. Then he punched Phillip square in the jaw.

  Phillip reacted so calmly. He rubbed his face and told me and Piper to go to the room. “Now!” He waved a cab over that had been parked out in front of our hotel. The taxi went around the circle and stopped beside him. Piper and I went into the hotel and to the room as he had asked, or ordered, us to do. She didn’t say a word to me and appeared to be very irritated with me.

  When we got to the room, she walked over to the window and looked down to see if the taxi had pulled away with my rude date. “Oh shit! They’re fighting.”

  I ran over to the window just in time to see Phillip chasing the taxi from the circle, the drunk apparently inside the fleeing taxi. Phillip looked up to see us at the window and made a dramatic finished gesture, like he was washing his hands, and he smiled crazily.

  “Hope you’re happy.” That was all Piper said.

  I tried to apologize, to explain why I had felt as I did, but she wasn’t looking for an apology, my rationalizations, or my ancient history. She claimed she wasn’t mad. I don’t think she wanted to know my deep, dark secrets or hear my excuses. She shut me up by kissing me, and then Phillip bounded into the room, still fired up on adrenaline. He went directly to the little fridge for a beer, then grabbed a whiskey from the minibar—boilermaker, the perfect post-brawl beverage. He flopped down in the comfy armchair and pulled the ottoman over to put his crossed legs up.

  He had been carrying a notebook with him recently, an actual paper notebook. The shocking part was he had been dragging it out and writing all the time, like he used to. He had also recently purchased a Discman, the fat offspring of the Walkman, a relatively new arrival to the electronics age. I could hear Nine Inch Nails leaking from his headphones as he scratched away in his notebook, apparently unmoved by the foreplay between Piper and me occurring five feet away.

  Though we did have our little audience of one, Phillip might as well have been invisible; he wasn’t really with us. He was deep in his thoughts, his music, his pen and paper, writing by the light of one small candle-watt bulb from the desk lamp. He sporadically reminded us of his presence in the room whenever the vitriolic angst of Trent Reznor moved him to sing along and pound his pen like it was his drumstick. “Black as your soul . . . I’d rather die than give you control . . .” I wondered, was it really that he was moved by the music or was he trying to use its lyrics to say something specific to me or us?

  Without the playful presence Phillip brought to our bed, there were no pauses to the mounting intensity between Piper and me. It felt almost awkward for a little while, like somehow we were more naked, and it wasn’t because Phillip wasn’t in bed with us or that he was fully dressed. It had nothing to do with him. Very few things in life are as brutally honest as the way someone makes l
ove to you. You can’t hide things when you’re stripped bare of your decency and lost in the madness of sex’s frenzy. This element gets lost in a ménage à trois.

  Was Alajeh a sadistic psychic, sensing my horrible state and excited by the prospect of speaking to the dead? I don’t know. But I had my third hangover in as many years and his calls had woken me for two of them. Fortunately, this conversation required very little of me, and he was as anxious to get the call over with as I was, since it was bad news. There would be another delay. He projected it would last a couple of weeks and told me we should relax. Something was shifting. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but the rational fear I had of him was numbing, or he was changing. When he spoke, it wasn’t so commanding anymore.

  I put the phone down in its cradle and sat up on the edge of the bed. Piper was dead to the world and Phillip had fallen asleep next to her fully dressed with his headphones wrapped around his neck. His notebook was nowhere in sight or I would have looked at the brilliant literature his street fight, boilermakers, and Nine Inch Nails had bred. From the looks of the minibar, he wasn’t going to be in any rush to greet the new day. I showered, dressed, and put my shoes on, and neither of my two lovebirds woke. I sat in the chair Phillip had occupied the night before and watched them sleep for a little while, then got up and left the room. I wasn’t ready to deliver bad news yet. It could wait. I wanted coffee, lots of coffee, and some warm fresh bread. Piper and Phillip would need something other than gin, rum, and vodka when they woke and that was all that was left in the minibar.

  Later that afternoon Phillip and I called everyone to come down and meet us at the bar in the hotel and we delivered the latest from Alajeh. Piper ordered a grog from the bartender. Grog had become a favorite of ours while in Brussels. It was a mix of hot tea, honey, and cognac. The pub we had discovered the drink in served this alongside a huge roaring fireplace made of the same gigantic stone much of the Grand-Place was built from. It had been a cold, rainy day when we had ducked in there and wanted a warm drink. I was surprised to see our bartender recreate the exact same drink for Piper at our hotel. I ordered the same and watched Piper as she stirred the hot brew with the cinnamon stick with which it was served and blew across the steamy top of the hot liquid in her glass cup.