Part 11 (1/2)
”That was such an odd question. Who else would it have been from? Are you still on that medication?”
”That was years ago.”
”So no more seizures?”
”I've never had a seizure. That's like calling every lump a tumor.”
”Fine, then. 'Fits.' ”
”That's even worse,” I say.
Julie is misinformed, as usual. She's referring to the beta-blockers prescribed for a funny heartbeat that turned up during an annual corporate physical a few months after our father's funeral. I was tired at the time, surviving on diet cola while shuttling between Denver, LA, and Houston as part of an effort to smooth the troubled merger of two mid-size regional advertising agencies. Worn down by my grief and the gloom of the a.s.signment, which consisted of identifying redundancies and recommending layoffs, I suffered a kind of segmented collapse marked by bouts of irresistible sleepiness during several key meetings and lunch appointments. Because of the politeness of my a.s.sociates, who declined to mention my little naps after I came to, and because no single individual witnessed more than one of the attacks, weeks pa.s.sed before I caught on to what was happening. I imagined I'd dozed off for a few seconds, when in fact I'd been falling asleep for a few minutes. I finally learned what was wrong at LAX, where I nodded off at a pay phone in the Compa.s.s Club and missed a flight. I was granted a paid leave. I grounded myself for seven weeks (a record), took a few cla.s.ses to refresh my spirits, and made an adequate recovery. Other than the minor arrhythmia, there was just one lingering complication. It happened that during one of my brief blackouts-at a downtown Denver oyster bar-sneaky Craig Gregory had played a trick on me, slipping my wallet out of my back pocket and inserting a scribbled-on business card for one Melissa Hall at Great West Airlines. ”Fantastic meeting you. Call!” the message read. There was also a row of X's and a heart. I found the card while reorganizing my Rolodex, puzzled over it for a day or two, then thought what the h.e.l.l and gave a ring. a.s.suming the woman was a flight attendant, I left a sweet, if tentative, voice mail, and received a call back from a mannerly Melissa-Soren Morse's executive a.s.sistant and, I found out later, his sometime mistress. Here's what was strange, though: after much embarra.s.sment, and after we'd identified the trickster-Craig Gregory knew Melissa through a cousin-she told me that she'd seen my name while making up invitations to a Christmas party Morse was throwing for Great West's heaviest flyers. We agreed to say hi to each other at the party, which was just a month away, but my invitation never arrived. I called to inquire, but Melissa wouldn't speak to me, and I could only conclude that Morse himself had struck me from the guest list. Jealousy? I tried my theory on Craig Gregory, who laughed it off but no doubt wrote it down for the ”This is your life” file he keeps on everyone.
All in all, a murky time for me. But I repeat: there were never any seizures. My sisters spend too much time on the phone together erroneously filling in the blanks of their brother's life.
This matter of having sisters. I've done my best. When Kara was born after years and years of trying-in Minnesota you weren't supposed to have to try; babies were supposed to come like crops-my parents already considered themselves old. My arrival surprised them. My father was as pleased as any man to have a son, but he was busy by then, with a growing gas route to attend to. In helping him I saw my opening. By five I was riding shotgun in the propane truck, learning a business that, if it had survived, I'd still be in today, with no regrets. The secret was providing added value with every refilled tank-carrying the news from farm to farm, adjusting and reigniting pilot lights, delivering packages for s...o...b..und widows. My apprentices.h.i.+p secured a spot for me in my father's everyday routine and in the larger life of the community.
Everything changed when Julie came along, a month premature but radiant and perfect, with none of that simian newborn homeliness. If I'd been a surprise, she was a shock. Her beauty felt like a judgment on our averageness, and we fell into compet.i.tion for her favor. My father, who'd grown comfortable by then, cut back on his hours to spend more time at home, while Kara and my mother scrimmaged constantly over who would change the baby's diapers and push her in the new stroller through the aisles of the downtown J. C. Penney. I was odd man out again. Whenever I managed to get alone with Julie, I spoiled her with treats and toys and labored to impress her with my manliness. When I was fourteen and she was ten, I knocked down an older boy in front of her. I took her homework when she got home from school and returned it to her in the morning, finished. I was her first crush when she turned twelve, and when I went off to college I sent her letters playing up my successes and achievements and dismissing the girls who supposedly had eyes for me. Our romance crested during a summer vacation when I smuggled her into an R-rated movie and she rested her head on my shoulder during a love scene. A neighbor sitting a couple of rows behind us had a word with my mother. We were finished.
”The wedding present wasn't from me,” I say. ”Kara must have sent something in my name. What was it anyway?”
”A lawn mower. It follows these wires you bury in the ground and runs by remote control.”
My mouth goes dry. I can't swallow my cookie.
”Where was it sent from?”
”Salt Lake City. Here. A store called Vann's Electronics. You signed the card. You're saying you don't remember buying it?”
”I'm not saying anything. I'm going to bed.”
I lie in the dark guest room beside a window that frames the spire of the Mormon Temple, as white as aspirin and topped with a gold angel. I've set my sleep machine on blowing leaves and swallowed a sedative. My left hand is tucked under the waistband of my boxers and in my other hand I hold my phone.
”Talk to her. Build her up inside,” says Kara. ”That's your specialty, isn't it? Be tough, though. Don't tell her she'll be okay no matter what or that she's some infinite bundle of creativity. Don't bulls.h.i.+t her, Ryan. But try to make her feel good. This is a crisis of confidence we're dealing with.”
The side of my face with the phone against it aches. I switch to the other ear. ”I'm on a business trip.”
”Fine. So leave her to run away again. Maybe we'll hear from her at Christmas. s.h.i.+t.”
The air on my chest is heavy, hard to lift. I roll up on my side for easier breathing. ”You're saying to keep her with me?”
”In plain sight.”
”A question. When Wendy saw me in Salt Lake last week . . .”
”Yes?”
”She's sure it was me?”
My sister sighs. ”Out with it. Tell me. You lied to me before.”
”I think she was right. I was here. It slipped my mind, though. The cities don't stick in my head the way they used to.”
”What?”
”There are credit card records. I made a purchase. Kara, I'm not at my best right now.”
A hush. Southerners have an oral tradition, they say. Minnesotans have a silence tradition. Not speaking is our preferred way of communicating.
”You haven't been eating either,” she says. ”Have you?”
”Poorly.”
”Come home. Right now. Come home right now. I know what you're doing. I know what's going on here. This is all about earning free tickets. You need your family.”
”My job ends Monday. I'm leaving before they fire me. I have appointments, interviews.”
”Come home.”
”It's not my home anymore.”
”It's where your mother is.”
”That's why it's not,” I say.
With the earpiece against my cheek I let her rant. One of my nephews opens his bedroom door and I hear him pad down the hallway to the bathroom and tinkle into the bowl. We start so small, and the s.p.a.ce we take up as we grow is gone forever. Not everything is recycled. That s.p.a.ce is gone.
”I need to sleep,” I tell her when she's calmer. ”I'll try to talk sense to Julie. I'll bring her with me. I have a meeting tomorrow, but she can come. I don't want her vanis.h.i.+ng in that van again.”
” 'Take' her with me,” she says.
”I think it's 'bring.' ”
”I'm coming back there. I'll get her home myself.”
”I said I'll do it. I'll bring her down to Phoenix. In the morning I'll put her on a plane back home.”
”Why do I have to do everything myself? Why am I always the glue?”
”I'm doing it.”
”You're telling me you're you're the glue? You're not the glue! There's a the glue? You're not the glue! There's a wedding wedding on Sat.u.r.day.” on Sat.u.r.day.”
”And you're the glue.”
”Die, Ryan. Just get it over with. Goodbye.”