Taking It

by Michael Cadnum

Okay, I told myself. It was over. But I stayed where I was.

  “I know how your mind works,” Maureen said. “You don’t think there’s anyone else. You see us talking, moving around, but it doesn’t really touch you.” She didn’t say this like someone delivering criticism. She sounded frank, dead calm.

  I could leave now.

  “Wait.” Maureen gave Lincoln the Frisbee, and he threw it into the air himself, and caught it. “You have to explain something.”

  There was a rattle and a creak from behind me. Her father came through the side gate, wheeling his decrepit bicycle. “I think—heh—the university wants to get rid of me,” he said.

  Maureen and I must have just stared at him. I was glad for a break in the action, but at the same time I wished he wasn’t there.

  She kept the frog wrapped in the white paper. He couldn’t see what it was. He looked at Maureen and he looked at me, and must have realized he was interrupting. He went on, “The chairman bought me a turkey sandwich—heh—and all he talked about was early retirement.”

  I wanted to tell this kind man what I had done. I wanted to tell him that I had never wanted to hurt him.

  “Red polka dots,” said Mr. Dean, smiling at me. “I used to have a tie like that. I wore it on my twenty-first birthday.” Then he gave a little nod, an apology for interrupting, and leaned the bike against the back porch.

  When her father was inside, I took Maureen’s arm. She pulled herself away. I knew: It would be different between us from now on.

  “Do you think people are happy to see you, Anna? Do you think people are hey, Anna’s coming, she’s always so much fun?”

  All this in a tight, quiet voice. I kept quiet.

  “Everything you do is—everybody, look at me. You don’t have any right to hurt my family.”

  I was at the gate when she said, “Don’t come over here anymore.”

  She didn’t say this like someone who was angry. She said this like someone who saw the truth, sure she was right. But I could see something else in her eyes: She wanted me to say something. This was one fight she didn’t really want to win.

  I managed a smile. She didn’t have to worry. I was never coming back.

  19

  The pool van was there, right behind the Mustang.

  I was surprised at how much I did not want to see Barry. Even from my bedroom I could hear the whine of the Pool Vac, residue being sucked off the bottom of the pool. Dad paid extra for him to come twice a week and fine-tune the chlorine.

  I sprinkled some fish food into the tank, leaving the cap off the container so Dad wouldn’t feed them later that evening. You feed them too much, something bad happens, gill rot, or you have to buy those snails that eat green scum off the inside of the tank.

  I didn’t know what Mother had planned. Maybe I was going to pick out my own bedroom furniture. I was going to sit with a big book of wallpaper in my lap while she and Adler looked over my shoulder.

  No, Adler would say, she doesn’t want that little flower pattern wallpaper. He would close the book. Anna doesn’t want an antique walnut dresser, Adler would say. She doesn’t want a big pink bowl of cloves and crushed rose petals to make her room smell nice.

  Adler would be right.

  I put on a sandwashed silk sundress, sleeveless, with a button front. I wore shoes I had found under a sign that read FLATTERY FOR YOUR FOOT, navy blue slip-on espadrilles, imported, handmade, not cheap.

  The purse I tugged off the shelf in the closet was a tight-weave straw classic, wide-bottomed, with coiled straps. I had money—a little—aspirin, Tums, cigarettes.

  I put some panties and some roll-on deodorant into a gym bag. I made myself not look back at the house. I got into the car, started it up, and rolled down to the end of the street.

  A dog ran from the sidewalk, bounding in front of the car. My foot was slow, my reaction time terrible, reflexes rusty.

  I found the brake pedal and the wheels locked. The car slid briefly, and then came to a rocking stop.

  “Lincoln!” I shoved against the door until it opened.

  I stood in the street. Lincoln was unhurt, gazing at me with mild, friendly curiosity. His mouth was open, tongue hanging. He was trailing his long length of gray rope.

  “Lincoln, get in the car,” I said.

  He obeyed at once, not even hesitating. He even knew where to sit, the passenger’s side, eager to go for a ride.

  20

  It was early evening, the traffic jam a mess of brake lights.

  The radio didn’t work very well, a connection loose, Dad had said, between the antenna and the dash. I could barely pick up KGO, trying to find out if this was all the way to Hayward or just through Oakland. A dump truck had spilled some gravel out across all the lanes, and everyone slowed down to go over the little blue rocks.

  Lincoln put his nose against the window on his side, smearing it with dog sweat.

  Then I was past the gravel, and I headed east, past Castro Valley, feeling that little bit of excitement and happiness that going somewhere gives.

  Sometimes I hate cars. You sit there in a box, looking at the scenery through glass. A car is like television, hour after hour on the same channel, except you can run into something and get killed.

  I’m not that experienced at driving on freeways. The car floats. You think you’ll be aiming the car between the lines and the car will roll straight. But it doesn’t, the car floats one way or another. I had to make minor adjustments, moving the steering wheel a little bit this way, a little bit that way.

  I was having imaginary conversations. I have a Porta-Mom in my head, and when I get bored or tired I have my own talk show: Anna Teresa Charles and her guest visitor, the same one she has every night.

  You know a lot about yourself, but nothing about life, said the Mom-voice. You mean I don’t know what it’s like to work in an office with no windows, I said back. You mean I don’t know what it’s like to sit in a meeting and tell the weatherman what kind of neckties he ought to wear.

  I could imagine her eyes bright, the shake of her head, her sad, bitter You’re so sure of yourself.

  I never get bored with this kind of talk in my head, even though it’s tedious and painful. It just plays on and on, a radio that won’t turn off.

  Lincoln put his nose at the top of the window, savoring the traffic smells, and then the farms and orchards. I couldn’t see the land, but we both knew it was out there. I had traveled to Disneyland with my parents years before, and this was how we went, down Highway 5, past the farmland and the foothills, cattle, orchards, but most of all vacant land with nothing much on it.

  The Mustang held steady, a little vibration in the steering wheel, what Mr. Friedlander, the auto shop teacher, would have diagnosed as bad front-end alignment. I don’t usually drive fast, though, fifty-five is all right. I didn’t like the way the car started to shake even worse when I passed a few trucks.

  After a while the chatter from the Inner Mom shut up and I didn’t let myself think. A few nights of bad sleep had left me empty. The radio reception continued to be trouble. I expected to hear country western music but it was news, when I got anything at all, the stock exchange and floods somewhere in Georgia.

  I felt self-conscious pulling into a Chevron station. It was ridiculous to think this way, but I did. Everyone would look at me and see how far I was from Capistrano Street, in a car I had never driven past Hilltop Mall. There was a self island and a full island and I drove in beside self. I pumped super unleaded. I felt a little clumsy, but only a little. I took my time scrubbing dead bugs off the windshield, wings, thoraxes, all kinds of insect parts.

  There was heat coming out of the radiator. That’s what radiators do, they remove the high temperature from the engine and release it into the air. I could explain this to the least capable student in the class, Harry Luke, a guy who came to school to eat lunch with his girlfriend, and who saw classes as a way to fill in the time before and after.

  Lincoln pee
d on a tumbleweed at the edge of the lighted area, and I let him drink some water straight from the pink hose, getting water on my sundress. I wondered if I should take the cap off the radiator and pour in some more coolant. Mr. Friedlander had warned that taking the radiator cap off a hot car could be dangerous, a geyser exploding as soon as the cap was loose. I left the radiator alone.

  I checked the oil, wiping the dipstick and reinserting it, careful to keep the black syrup away from my dress. The oil was down about a quart, so I bought some forty-weight oil and emptied it into the oil intake, and felt satisfied that I had taken care of things.

  There would be plenty of time to call Dad and let him know I was all right. I paid a man in a booth and asked if there were any maps.

  A vending machine sold maps, and it took only quarters, so I had to go back and ask the man in the glass booth to break a five. I felt awkward, sure he would say that they didn’t give change, the way some stores will if you need to make a phone call.

  I tossed the map into the backseat after a glance. I steered the car up the on-ramp back onto the freeway. I was worried about the oil, and, now that I was back on the freeway, having to pass a slow truck, I was worried about the other fluids I hadn’t checked, and for the first time I really doubted what I was doing.

  This wasn’t a doubt that originated in the voice of my imaginary mother. This originated in me. I was already two hundred miles south and I was afraid the car wasn’t going to be able to make the trip as far as I wanted to go, not in this heat. The sun was gone, but with the window rolled down I could feel the warm wind. Moths flattened on the windshield, tattered flags that the wind loosened and blew away.

  I turned on the radio again, and even the static sounded calming, sputters that meant there was activity out there in the world, even though I couldn’t make out what it was.

  When I told Lincoln we were doing fine he gave me one of those dog laughs, eyes blinking, mouth wide.

  Maureen thought she understood animals better than anyone else, but I don’t think she took such good care of Lincoln. I even let Lincoln lick my hand a little. He was polite, his tongue hot, but he was more interested in the smells flowing in through the barely open window.

  When I said something to him he would look, wag, and put his snout back to the window. Sometimes the vibration in the steering was so bad I hung on hard, but after a while, I got used to it, driving like a person who did this all the time.

  21

  Interstate 5 intersects with Interstate 10. You look at the map and you think it looks complicated, but I told myself that in real life all you have to do is pay attention.

  It was past midnight. The LA traffic was heavy, cars driving up behind me, all headlights and speed, almost touching my bumper. I hung on hard to the steering wheel, telling myself to stay calm.

  I watched for the sign, and took the turnoff. If you want to go to Covina or La Verne, this is the road to take. I passed by what I knew must be towns of strip malls and gas stations, with the occasional condo complex thrown in for variety. My hands were sweating.

  I took 15 north, feeling the risk I was taking. If I missed a turnoff, I’d drive forever through places where criminals waited for strangers to get out and ask directions. Lincoln slept in the small backseat. The seat was just about big enough for him, and now and then he took a long, deep breath in his sleep and let it out with a comfortable groan.

  I had the directions memorized from an old postcard, a half-joking challenge: Hey, if you don’t have anything better to do come out and see me.

  It was harder than I had thought to keep it all in mind, Foothill Avenue, Colton Avenue, all the way over a long series of hills in the road. I remember he told me once he took them at about eighty in a Honda Accord one night and the little car never once leaped off the road, life not like the movies.

  I turned left at Arroyo Avenue, thinking how foolish I was, like someone marching in to take a test cold, not even five minutes studying, and thinking: None of these questions make any sense.

  I thought he lived in the desert.

  This was a lost, dead town, vacant lots, stucco walls, dark except for streetlights. There was a mountain up ahead, at the end of the road, a canyon opening up, a jumble of white boulders in the bad light.

  Along the street were squat, ordinary houses, plastic tricycles and skateboards on the gravel where in normal places a front lawn would be. Some houses had a car parked right up in front of the house, under the picture window, and two or three cars jammed into the driveway.

  The mailbox was one of the usual silvery aluminum boxes, with the numbers written neatly in Magic Marker, 22219. I couldn’t see the house very well, but I sensed another one-story stucco box behind a spiky, cactus-type plant.

  Lincoln was awake now, sniffing my ear. He scrambled over the bucket seat and put his nose to the window crack.

  I turned off the engine. Everything was quiet. I had lost track of the time, but I had to guess it was one in the morning, or even later. The numbers on the mailbox were drawn in what looked like a familiar way, carefully, by someone who could get a job painting signs if he had to.

  I sat in the car. The pea gravel in the front lawn was pale, and there were old thrown-away newspapers on the walkway up to the house. It had to be a mistake.

  I told Lincoln I would be back. He whined and made one of his half barks, half words, but he stayed put.

  I would either have the right house and everything would be wonderful or I would have the wrong house and it would be embarrassing, but nothing worse than that. I got out of the car, bringing my purse, and holding the car keys in my hand, like they were proof of my harmless intentions.

  The car made cooling, metallic ticks sitting there, giving off heat as I passed it. My feet crunched the white gravel that had crept up over the walkway to the front steps, and every detail about the place was wrong.

  It’s not a good feeling, standing in a place thinking: wrong street, wrong town. There was a far-off television sound, laughter, a voice. Even the doorbell was wrong, a black button encircled by a tarnished yellow metal. I gave the button a push.

  Someone was there sooner than I expected, so suddenly I stepped back and put a hand to my throat.

  A large figure stood behind the screen door, a silhouette in front of the glow of living-room light. There was a long moment when nothing moved. The screen door opened with a dry little creak.

  But still nothing was happening, nothing human, nothing that mattered.

  Arms opened and took me in.

  It was like winning the contest, numbers flashing, applause. Say hello to America, Anna Teresa.

  That’s what he was calling me, with a big hug, my feet off the ground. “Anna Teresa!”

  Only Ted calls me that, my first two names. And only Ted gives those big, breath-squeezing hugs. But I was speechless, looking up at Ted when we were inside, a man as tall as Dad and looking like him, too.

  “You look different,” Ted was saying.

  “Worse,” I suggested.

  “Dad was worried sick. He had an idea you were heading my way,” said Ted.

  “I drove down,” I said, realizing as I said it how dumb I sounded, saying something unnecessary.

  “Any trouble?” People always say this, meaning: How was your trip, meaning: It’s good to see you.

  “I need your help, Ted,” I said, near tears.

  “I bet you’re hungry,” he said.

  “I have to talk to you,” I said, barely getting the words out. But I began to feel a sense of security. I was okay now. Nothing bad could happen to me here.

  Ted was brisk, businesslike, very friendly but also very much in charge. He called up Dad and handed me the phone, and I told Dad I was here and that the car had driven perfectly well, no problems. I told him I was sorry I hadn’t left a note, but it was all right now.

  Dad just kept saying, “God, Anna, if you had only just said something—”

  I told him he was right, but he was
n’t.

  When I was off the phone, I went into the bathroom and peed and after that I took a look at myself in the mirror over the sink. I looked like a drawing in a coloring book, places where eyes and lips would be when you color them in.

  22

  A voice in my head said: You forgot.

  I ran out of the house, car keys in my hand.

  Lincoln jumped up on Ted. Ted half-patted, half-wrestled the dog down with a laugh. “Lincoln, you have no manners.” I sighed. I had further proof that the Deans did not know how to deal with a dog.

  “Why don’t you buy him a leash?” Ted worked at the knot at Lincoln’s collar and tossed the gray rope into a corner.

  “That’s a good idea,” I said.

  Ted cranked open a can of Bonnie Hubbard beef hash. Lincoln wolfed it in thirty seconds. Then he left the room and I could hear sloppy, lapping noises, Lincoln drinking out of the toilet.

  “How long have you had a dog?” asked Ted.

  “Not long,” I said.

  I sat at a small kitchen table with a toaster and a stack of paper napkins still in the package, the top torn open so you could pull out a napkin when you needed one. There was a peanut-butter jar that held pencils, yellow eraser-tipped pencils and the blue pencils for drafting.

  Lincoln made his way in, the nails of his paws making clicking noises on the tiles. He lay down against a wall. Ted was stirring some tomato soup at a stove, an old range with black knobs. He poured the soup into a bowl and crumbled saltines into it without asking, the way we always liked it as children. I hadn’t eaten tomato soup like that since seventh grade, but I didn’t say anything.

  Ted was making a big show of pouring me milk and offering me some Pepperidge Farm chocolate chip cookies, but he was chattering. Ted had never talked like this, filler talk, stuff you say when you are getting used to having a visitor. I had expected to sit down with Ted and start with the important subjects.

  Ted was telling me he knew I could read a map. He hadn’t left the porch light on because it was broken. The landlord was a man who lived in Hemet; all Ted had to do was send the rent check to a PO box. Ted said he was usually asleep by now, but he had stayed up, expecting me.