Mad Love

by Suzanne Selfors

  What Realm didn’t know, but what I knew, was that a sparkling silver cloud floated around the man’s and woman’s heads in the photo, just like the cloud I’d seen so many times around my mother. And around Lily’s head was a soft green cloud.

  Her aura’s clear, Errol had said. Some people have clear auras because they shut themselves off to love.

  Realm used to have an aura, a soft green one.

  I closed the journal, then shoved it back under the bed. A queasy feeling spread over me. Maybe I should have been nicer to Realm. Would it have killed me to read a few pages of Death Cat rather than throw it on the recycling pile?

  But then I saw it. Not Errol’s manila envelope, but a piece of paper—a single lined sheet that had fallen behind Realm’s door. The scrawled handwriting described a temple that had been built for Venus. “I knew it!” I said, grabbing the paper. “I knew it!” All the pity I’d felt for Realm instantly disintegrated. “She took it!” I searched the bedroom again, then started to search Mrs. Bobot’s living room. But craft supplies cluttered every corner. It would take forever to search.

  Errol didn’t have forever.

  Evidence in hand, I flew downstairs and grabbed my backpack purse. Archibald was busy mashing hard-boiled yolks for deviled eggs. “Can I borrow twenty dollars?” I pleaded. “I need to get a cab.”

  “Of course. You’re going to try to make the sermon?” He handed me a crisp bill. “Go wait out front. I’ll call Yellow Cab for you.”

  “Magnolia,” I told the driver when he arrived five minutes later. “The Magnolia Community Episcopalian Church. Go as fast as you can.”

  Impeded by stoplights and pedestrians, the flow of traffic along Broadway was so slow I thought I’d explode. “Can’t you go any faster?” I squirmed, a giant clock ticking in my head. Errol was dying. Every minute that passed brought him closer to the end. I’d promised to write his story. What if he never got the chance to finish?

  “Why are you stopping?” I cried when the taxi slowed.

  “You want me to hit a bike rider?” the driver asked. “What could be so important?”

  What could be so important?

  Over the course of that week, three stories had defined my every waking minute. All were love stories. One had been lived, very long ago. One was still being lived, though a ferry ride and an illness separated us. One had yet to be lived.

  “What could be so important?” the cab driver repeated.

  “My destiny,” I said. “Hurry!”

  The dark clouds were on the move. I flung myself from the cab and ran up a walkway that was bathed in filtered, gray light. A gust of humid wind swept across the path, pushing me sideways and blowing into my eyes. Spitting a strand of hair from my mouth, I stumbled toward the church.

  The Magnolia Community Episcopalian Church sat on a bluff overlooking Puget Sound. The old wooden building used to be an Elks lodge. My mother and I had listened to many of the reverend’s sermons over the years. I always suspected that what my mother liked most about going to this church was the horde of church ladies who would surround her afterward, admiring readers each and every one.

  The kid who’d been handing out programs was just closing the door as I pushed my way in. “The service already started,” he told me. I hurried past the coatroom, past a table covered in pamphlets about various community projects and services.

  Rows of worn pews faced a stage, where a man named Reverend Miles stood at a podium, addressing the congregation. I stopped at the end of each pew, searching for a head of sheared blond hair. “Beloved in the Lord,” Reverend Miles said.

  “Amen,” the congregation chanted.

  “Please stand and sing hymn number seventeen, ‘Thou Only Light, Thou Only Life and Joy.’ ”

  Everyone stood. Hymnals were lifted, pages turned, and a cacophony of voices filled the room. I listened for Mrs. Bobot’s soprano, but didn’t find it among the voices. Finally, it was a radiant blue dress that drew me to the third aisle. Mrs. Bobot stared out the window, a distant expression frozen on her face. Realm stood next to her, still plugged into headphones, chewing on her black-polished fingernails.

  “Please be seated,” Reverend Miles said. Everyone sat.

  “Excuse me,” I whispered, stepping over knees and thighs as I made my way down the row.

  “Alice?” Mrs. Bobot looked up. “Whatever are you doing?”

  I pushed between Mrs. Bobot and Realm, forcing everyone on the bench to wedge uncomfortably close. Mrs. Bobot frowned at me, but didn’t lecture me about wearing shorts and a T-shirt to church. She simply sighed, and looked back out the window.

  I pulled Realm’s headphones off her head, releasing a blast of angry rap music.

  “May I remind everyone to please turn off all electronic devices,” the reverend said snippily. Realm turned off her music.

  “Where is it?” I demanded.

  “Gross,” Realm said, wiping a fleck of my spit off her cheek.

  “Let us now offer prayers,” Reverend Miles said. Then he read from a list. “Let us pray for Edwina Hortmeyer, who will be having knee surgery on Wednesday. And let us pray for Charlie Miller’s son Carl, who will be facing the parole board this week.” More names were read as Realm and I glared at each other.

  “Let us pray,” Reverend Miles said and everyone bowed their heads—except for Mrs. Bobot, who still stared out the window. And except for Realm and me because we were locked in a tug-of-war over the headphones.

  “Give those back,” Realm snarled.

  “Not until you tell me where Errol’s notes are.”

  “Shhh,” Mrs. Hortmeyer hissed from the end of the pew.

  I let go of the headphones and folded my arms angrily. I’d come for something and I was going to get it.

  Reverend Miles made some announcements and then he introduced Reverend Ruttles. That’s when I grabbed the piece of evidence from my purse and thrust it at Realm. “I found this in your bedroom,” I said. “Where’s the rest of it?”

  Realm’s eyes burned with fury. “You went into my bedroom?”

  “You had no right taking that envelope. I want it back now.”

  “Shhhh!” Mrs. Hortmeyer spat.

  Mrs. Bobot, who would usually be the one to do all the shushing, simply fiddled with her purse, lost in her own thoughts. She wasn’t even watching Reverend Ruttles as he stepped to the podium.

  “Good morning,” he said, his voice rolling over the congregation like the great flood. “I always look forward to my monthly guest sermon. To look out and see so many familiar faces is a delight. Thank you, Reverend Miles, and thank you, everyone, for joining me here today.” Reverend Miles nodded and took a seat near the choir.

  Reverend Ruttles continued. “Earlier this week I was reminded of a glorious saying when I pulled it from a fortune cookie. ‘Love thy neighbor.’ I chose that saying as the theme for my sermon.”

  I poked Realm’s scrawny arm. “Give me Errol’s envelope.”

  “You want the envelope? You write the letters.”

  “Fine.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “Where are you two going?” Mrs. Bobot asked as Realm and I stepped over her knees.

  “SHHHHH.” Foam gathered at the corners of Mrs. Hortmeyer’s mouth. She was on the verge of throwing a fit.

  “Hurry up,” I said, pulling on Realm’s arm.

  Reverend Ruttles stopped talking and cleared his throat. All eyes turned as Realm and I stumbled into the aisle. “We have to hurry,” I said.

  “You can find the words ‘Love thy neighbor’ in the Book of Mark. Love your neighbor as yourself …”

  “Why do you care more about Errol’s story than mine?” Realm wrenched her arm from my grip. “Why do you want to be friends with him? I always wanted to be your friend and you just ignored me, just like everyone else ignores me.”

  “GIRLS!” Reverend Ruttles’s voice barreled down the aisle. Realm and I froze. The reverend looked pleadingly at Mrs. Bobot. “Wa
nda? Can’t you do something?”

  “Girls,” Mrs. Bobot said with as much gusto as a person in a coma.

  At this point, the entire congregation turned to watch the show that was taking place two-thirds of the way up the center aisle and was, by far, much more interesting than any of Reverend Ruttles’s sermons.

  “I never ignored you,” I told Realm.

  “Oh, really? Well, how come you’ve never invited me to do anything with you?”

  I threw my hands up. “Because I don’t do anything. Haven’t you noticed? I have no life.”

  “Wanda?” Reverend Ruttles called. He motioned with the back of his hand. “Do something.”

  Mrs. Bobot looked toward the pulpit and narrowed her eyes. Then she started grinding her teeth.

  “Maybe I care more about Errol’s story because he’s not blackmailing me,” I told Realm, giving her shoulder a push.

  “I wouldn’t have blackmailed you if you hadn’t ignored me.” She pushed back.

  Reverend Ruttles cleared his throat. “Wanda, why are you just sitting there? Girls, this is not the time or place. Go sit next to Mrs. Bobot and listen. You might learn something about neighborly love.”

  Mrs. Bobot bolted to her feet. “Learn something about neighborly love?” she cried. Her cheeks erupted. “Don’t you talk to us about neighborly love. We do everything for you and you never appreciate it.” She flung her braid over her shoulder and pushed her way down the pew and into the aisle. Reverend Ruttles’s mouth fell open.

  Realm and I watched, wide-eyed, as Mrs. Bobot stomped up the aisle. Just before reaching us, she spun around and shook a furious finger at the pulpit. “And why isn’t Archibald here? That’s what I want to know! How do you translate that into neighborly love?”

  Reverend Ruttles stood, for the first time in his life, quite speechless. Never in the history of the Magnolia Community Episcopalian Church had such a spectacle taken place.

  “Come on, girls,” Mrs. Bobot said.

  We followed her from the church, a rumble of distant thunder accompanying our exit.

  Other than Mrs. Bobot’s mutterings about the stupidity of men, and other than the honking of impatient drivers who wanted Mrs. Bobot to either go faster or get out of the way, the ride back to the apartment was silent. Neither Realm nor I said a word. We’d never seen Mrs. Bobot so upset. She clung to the steering wheel like a woman hanging off the edge of a cliff. It may have looked like we’d called a truce, but beneath the surface my blood boiled, and as soon as we got out of Mrs. Bobot’s range of hearing I was going to KILL REALM!

  Once the car was parked, we hurried into the apartment building. The unmistakable, succulent, salty smell of Archibald’s Sunday pot roast had filled the building’s every nook and cranny. Archibald, who’d been sweeping the foyer, leaned the broom against the wall. “What’s everyone doing back so early?” Teary-eyed, Mrs. Bobot stormed right past him and up to her apartment. “Dinner’s at five,” he called. The slam of her bedroom door reverberated down the stairs.

  The truce ended. “Go get the envelope!” I yelled at Realm.

  “Fine! But you said that you’d write as many letters as I want. If you go back on that, I’ll tell everyone what I know.”

  “Really, Realm?” I got right in her face. “Are you really going to blog to all your friends that my mother’s insane? Is that really what you’re going to do?”

  “Alice,” Archibald scolded. “Your mother’s not insane. You should never use that word.”

  “What word will you use, Realm? Crazy? Mad? Nuts?” My face felt like it was on fire. “What will you blog? Belinda Amorous, the famous romance writer, is a lunatic?”

  Realm glanced self-consciously at Archibald, then put her hands on her hips. “If you write those letters, then I won’t have to blog anything. It’s your decision.”

  “No, Realm, it’s your decision. You’re the one who sat at my mother’s desk and read her personal papers. You’re the one who took Errol’s notes. You’re the one making all the threats.” I clenched my fists until they ached. “You know, maybe you deserve to be as miserable as you are.”

  “Alice?” Archibald stepped forward but I waved him away.

  “Look at her. She’s starving herself because she hates herself. And she wants us to feel sorry for her. Well, guess what, Realm? I don’t feel sorry for you. I don’t even care about you. Everyone has problems and some are much bigger than feeling like your parents don’t love you.”

  That last sentence hung in front of me like a banner. I stepped away from Realm. The words had flown out, propelled by anger, so they didn’t count—did they? I tried not to notice the shame in Realm’s eyes. But I did notice it, and I recognized it. God, I knew exactly how she felt. Every cell in my body knew. So many years of wondering if my mother loved me. Of convincing myself that she didn’t.

  A sort of suffocating sound came out of Realm, then she fled up the stairs. Archibald stood silently behind me, but I didn’t turn to look at him. Oscar the cat meowed and wound around my feet, but I didn’t bend to pet him.

  “Realm!” I called. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  A few doors slammed, then Realm was back, standing at the top of the stairs. “Here. Take the stupid envelope!” With a grunt, she hurled it at my head. I lunged and caught it in both hands. A sense of relief almost brought me to tears as I hugged it to my chest. Finally, one thing would go right. I’d make one thing right.

  Realm wiped tears from her eyes. Her body seemed to shrink beneath the layers of clothing that she wore like armor.

  “I take it that’s what you were looking for,” Archibald said quietly.

  I nodded, then looked up the stairs, but Realm had gone.

  That’s when a cab pulled up out front and Reverend William Ruttles limped up the front steps and into the foyer. “Never been so humiliated in all my life,” he announced, shaking his cane in the air. “Irreparable damage to my reputation. Irreparable.” Then he marched into his apartment, and his own bedroom door slammed shut.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with everyone around here. And now we’ve got a storm coming.” Archibald picked up Oscar the cat. “We’d better not lose power because I’ve been working on that roast all day. Dinner’s at five,” he said again, then walked into his apartment and gently closed the door.

  I stood alone in the foyer, the wind whistling through a crack in the stained glass window. Clutching the envelope to my chest, my heart pounding, shame washed over me. I’m not sure how long I stood there, trying to figure out how to apologize to Realm, when a shuffling sound made me look up. Errol was walking down the stairs, his footsteps slow, his hand gripping the railing. His white hair didn’t glow. “I’m ready to tell you the rest,” he said.

  I needed to push everything from my mind and help Errol.

  He settled on my couch. I didn’t have salon girls delivering my meals and I hadn’t been to the store in a while, so I tore open a bag of Cheetos and poured some lemonade. If I’d known that Cupid himself would be visiting my apartment, I would have cleaned up a little, bought some cookies or something. I turned on the computer. My plan was that I’d type while he talked. This would give me the basic framework for the chapters. Then we’d sort through the pages of notes, assigning each to its appropriate chapter so I could weave it in later.

  “How come you have so many garden gnomes?” he asked, stepping over one.

  “My mom collects things.”

  I dumped all his notes onto the coffee table. Lined notebook paper, paper napkins, Post-its—he’d written whenever the memories arose, on whatever paper he could find at the time. Many had been written during chemo, on hospital stationery. The pile was huge. “There’s a lot of stuff here,” I said worriedly. “How far do you want to get today?”

  “To the end.” He lay against the back of the couch, his eyelids heavy.

  “All the way to the end?” I froze. “Errol?”

  “I’m not dying today, if that
’s what you’re thinking. I still have time. But I just want to finish this. I’m so tired of carrying this story around with me.”

  Maybe he wasn’t dying right then and there, but he sure looked like crap. His hair used to be perfectly white, but now gray flowed from his temples.

  I looked worriedly at the pile of notes that covered the coffee table. Errol wanted to finish the story today. “I’ll be right back,” I told him.

  That’s how I ended up knocking on her door. When it opened, she glared at me with puffy red eyes.

  “What do you want?”

  “Realm, I need your help.”

  “He’s really dying?” she’d asked me on the way back downstairs.

  “Yes. And this is the only thing he wants before he dies. To get his story written.”

  “I can respect that,” she said.

  The wind continued to blow, finding its way through cracks in the window frames and drowning out the usual street noise. I set my phone to buzz. “There will be no interruptions,” I said. “I promise. We’ll work until we get to the end.”

  Realm sat on the carpet, her legs folded. She didn’t complain about having to help with someone else’s book. She smiled kindly at Errol and even ate a few Cheetos as she sorted through his notes, starting to put them in order. I set my fingertips on the keypad, waiting while Errol collected his thoughts.

  “Where did we leave off?” he asked.

  “You’d just put henna in your hair and you were going to introduce yourself to Psyche.”

  “Right.” He took a long breath, then began his tale.

  The first time they spoke, Psyche was carrying eggs to market. “I couldn’t believe how nervous I was,” Errol said. “I told her I was a merchant from a distant island, but the entire time I was near her, I had to hide my hands behind my back because they were shaking. No one had ever made me feel that way.”