All Over Creation (6 page)

“You know,” he prompted. “When he walked though the plate-glass window.”

You still didn't get it.

He sighed and lit a cigarette. “Larry was tripping, and he wanted to go to Europe. So he walked through the window, as though the physical laws of gravity and, like,
glass,
didn't apply to him anymore. Like he'd transcended all that. But he hadn't. And he fell. And he died.”

Wow. You took the cigarette from his fingers and dragged, hoping that this was an adequate response. You worried about other girlfriends. Surely he must have had lovers, way more experienced than you, who would have known how to participate in a conversation like this. Had he ever been in love with them?

“‘Made for each other, made in Japan.'”
He crooned the lyrics of Grace Slick's song, grinning as he wound a strand of your long black hair around his finger. When he sang, sometimes it sounded like love, and you imagined it at night, under the glow-in-the-dark stars, where the air was thick with your dreaming. He would look deep into your eyes. “I love you,” he would say. “I love you, Yumi.” And you would sob and hug your diary, where you were writing it all down, doubled over with a heartache that was the closest thing you knew to a body's pleasure. “Oh, Elliot,” you whispered under your father's starry sky. “I love you, too.”

“Woman with a greasy heart,”
he sang.

What was he talking about? Your heart did not feel greasy, but you wished it could be, if that would make the song be about you.

You faced each other, naked and cross-legged on the mattress, and he reached out to trace your nipple. He moved his fingertip up the center of your rib cage, like a zipper to your mouth, and you sucked on it like a lollipop to make it wet.

“Mmmmm, Yummy,” he murmured, as he drew the finger back down your stomach and slipped it between your legs. “You're so open. I love that about you. . . .”

And there it was. He'd finally said it. He loved you.

You threw your arms around his neck. “Oh, Elliot,” you breathed. “I love you, too!” Pressed your cheek against his, feeling the tickle of his mustache, the rasp of his unshaved skin, holding him for a long time. Then, slowly, you realized that something was wrong. That you were the only one doing any holding. That he was not holding at all. In fact, he was merely sitting there, his arms at his sides. You let go of him, sat back, hugged your legs to your chest. If you could have died, you would have done so, gladly.

“Oh, wow,” he said.

You had nothing more to add.

“Of course, I love you, too, Yummy,” he said. “It's just that there are so many different levels of love, you know. . . .”

You didn't know, but you were finding out.

“What a downer. I don't want to hurt you, Yummy. Maybe we should just—”

“No!” you cried out, too loudly. “I knew that. That's what I meant, too.” You pressed your chin into your naked kneecap. You were shivering, so you pulled his sleeping bag up around your shoulders. The metal zipper was ice cold and bit into the skin of your neck as you wrapped yourself tight in the grimy flannel with the hunters and the ducks. The bag was so old that the waterproofing was peeling off the surface fabric. You concentrated on scraping the flaking plastic with your fingernail. It came off like dead skin. He reached over and placed his hand on yours, to stop you fidgeting.

“Yummy?”

You snatched your hand away. “Don't call me that.”

He was surprised. “Why not? It's your name. . . .”

“My name is
Yumi.
”

“Yummi?”

“No. Not like
gummy.
Like
you.
And
me.
”

“You-me.”

“Say it quicker.”

“Yumi.”

“If you can't pronounce it right, don't say it at all.”

He laughed. “You're fantastic. This is what's so great about you. You're very mature for your age.” He reached for your hands again. “Yumi, Yumi, Yumi. . . . Life can be complex, but you understand that.” He played with your fingertips. “I'm glad we can talk about this stuff. It's so important to stay open.” He lay back on the pillow, pulling you toward him.
“Don't ever change, lady,”
he sang.

Your heart swelled. You couldn't help it.

“Mmmm,” he whispered, nibbling your neck. “You'll always be yummy to me.”

How do you tell a story, after so many years? How do you peer into other people's hearts, when life is so complex, and your own heart has grown over, close and impervious?

Lloyd's heart, multiply bypassed by now, had once again been jump-started, leaving him in a rehab ward, curtained off from the other beds. He lay there, an old Bible heavy in his hands, its spine digging into his stomach. He struggled to keep it propped up. His stiff hands fumbled with the pages. The skin on his fingertips was so callused he could barely feel the softness of the paper, and as the book slipped once again and he grasped for it, the tissue-thin pages of the psalm tore under the clumsiness of his touch.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

That was it. He wanted to roar.

Momoko sat next to the wall, in a reclining chair on wheels. Her head lolled back, and her mouth gaped open. Her woolen hat, which she wore indoors even with the heat on, had tipped off and was lying on the floor by her feet, upturned like a beggar's. Her white hair was tamped down. Her cheeks glowed like old wax.

Maybe she will die before me, Lloyd thought, and no sooner had the notion crossed his mind than he reproached himself for the relief it brought. He closed his eyes. He was very tired.
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.

The nurse snapped back the curtain.

“How you doing there, Lloyd? Hope you're good and hungry!”

She balanced a tray on her palm, slid it onto his bedside table. “Just let me do your fluids,” she said, pushing up his sleeve. “Then I've got you a nice piece of Thanksgiving turkey for dinner. You'll enjoy that.”

He kept his eyes shut as she tapped the needle of the intravenous tube.
They pierced my hands and my feet. . . .

She traced the line to the valve and changed the bag.
They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

“Now, how's about sitting up and tucking in to some turkey. Hold on, here we go.” She touched the button that raised the back of the bed.

Lloyd grimaced. “Let us eat and drink,” he said, “for tomorrow we die. . . .” His eyes stayed closed. “Is that you, Grace?”

“Yes, Lloyd. You seem a little peaked today. Anything the matter?”

“Well.” He sighed. “It's dinnertime. What do you expect?” He still kept his eyes closed. “I can't eat that slop. You can take it away.”

“You haven't even looked at it.”

“I don't have to. Take it away.”

“You have to eat, Lloyd.” Her voice contained a warning.

“Let me out of this hospital and I'll eat just fine.”

“Can't let you out until we know you're eating.”

“I'll eat when I get home and get some real food.”

He opened his eyes to stare her down. The nurse leaned a hip against the guardrail of his bed and crossed her arms.

“You don't have anyone at home to take care of you.”

“We'll manage. We always have.”

“Well, that's just what we don't know. Your wife can't manage. I'm sure you realize that.”

He struggled to sit up taller in bed. He looked past her to Momoko, slack jawed and sleeping in the chair.

“Doc says you have a daughter. Maybe she—”

“No,” he said. “I have no daughter.”

 

 

“Why you crying?”

“I'm not crying.”

“Look like crying to me.”

The nurse was gone, and Momoko was awake now. She gripped the guardrail of his bed, raised herself up on tiptoes, and peered into his face. “Mmm. Look like crying. Something wrong?”

“Oh . . .” Defeated. “I can't explain. It's the food. I can't eat it.”

“What's wrong with food? Looks like some good food.” She picked up the fork and patted the instant potatoes. “Mmm. Here. I gonna feed you.”

She brought a bite of boneless turkey to his mouth. He screwed up his face but parted his lips and let her put the fork in. He tried to chew, to swallow, but the turkey tasted like pasteboard.

“Oh!” He shuddered, spitting it into his tissue. “It's horrible! I can't eat that!” He sank back in bed, exhausted.

“You acting like a little kid. How you gonna come on home if you don't eat?”

“Momoko, please!”

She shook her head and frowned. “Shame for good food gonna go to waste. If you don't want, then I eat. Okay?”

Through half-closed eyes he watched as Momoko cut the turkey slices and finished off the vegetable medley. The potatoes stuck to her dentures and made them smack against the roof of her mouth.
The meek shall eat and be satisfied. . . .

She mopped up the last of the gravy with a soft, white bun, then returned to her chair. She spotted her hat on the floor and picked it up and put it on her head. It had a small brim like the flange of a mushroom. She leaned back and folded her hands across her chest. Within minutes she was snoring softly. Lloyd watched her. His mind drifted to thoughts of their seeds and the future, but he brushed away the worry, for now.

He was just glad that dinner was over.

By the time the nurse returned, Lloyd was drifting off to sleep.

“Well, my goodness gracious!” Grace said. “Will you take a look at that! Good for you, Lloyd!” She stood with her hands on her hips, looking at his empty plate. He was too groggy to correct her.

“Good to the very last drop!” she said, removing the tray and giving the table a wipe-down. She leaned over to adjust his sheet, then lowered his bed. She patted his arm. “I'm proud of you,” she said. “You keep eating like that and you'll be out of here in no time.”

He managed a smile. “Grace?”

“Yes?”

“Happy Thanksgiving. . . .”

PAHOA

Cass typed in the letters, then sat back while the search engine churned. With the new high-speed connection, the download was almost instantaneous. When the hits came back, she scanned them quickly.

Hawaii. Pahoa was a town on the Big Island. She selected a site at random.

 

Guavas. Macadamia nuts. Mangoes. Made their three thousand acres of Russet Burbanks seem downright dull. She sighed. Cass could not imagine paradise. In Liberty Falls the weather report predicted cloudy skies with a scattering of snow flurries. Patchy fog. Lows in the mid- to lower twenties. The first hard frost had come early this year, and now the wind was picking up. Outside the window the satellite dish rattled in the Quinns' bare front yard. The cottonwood tree, dry and brittle, creaked the way it did only in winter.

The office was insulated beneath the drywall, but the room still felt exposed and cold, a large, boxlike addition sticking off from the kitchen. They'd built the office when they started to increase the size of their operation, and Cass tried to keep things neat, but it was a challenge. Along the back wall, the shelves piled up with farm reports, ledgers, and all the paperwork. FAQ sheets on seed potatoes and some recent issues of
Spudman
magazine lay scattered on the long folding table they used for farm meetings. Another table held a monitor for the DTN, the network subscription service with data on weather and futures prices.