Sunday's on the Phone to Monday (35 page)

The DJ played “Shout!” Noah asked Lucy to dance.
It's spectacular here,
whispered Lucy, crouching low and breathing in flutters, during the
a little bit softer now
moment.
What a place to get married.

Man, I can't believe how I've cried twice already. Once during the vows, and once when Sawyer told me how much easier this was the second time,
said Noah.

Through the windows they couldn't see a foamy cloud in the air, and Lucy would miss this brand of blue. More important, she'd miss everyone else's celebrations. Weddings, babies, graduations, quiet nights at home. She'd miss all of the fun ahead of her family the most.

Through their complacent silence, Lucy wanted to find something that they had in common.
We are all kind of stuck in this web, don't you think? We'll all be gone in two hundred years. Our body temperatures and Heartbeats are all around the same. We all like someone who may or may not like us back. We all have a fear.

They looked out at the guests they loved.
Besides,
Lucy continued,
we all know pain.

Yes,
said Noah.
Is there anything we can do?

Maybe laugh,
said Lucy.

You know how in Shakespeare, comedies end with weddings and tragedies end with funerals? In real life you never know how it will end.

Weddings and funerals don't even mean it's the end,
said Lucy. What people called the end wasn't, except for the lucky or unlucky. -
This sucks, -
she thought.

Seven songs later, a prosperous mixture of Motown and current pop that'd date itself within a year, Lucy reached for her cell phone, dialing the number she'd memorized. She excused herself.
On the corner of the West Side Highway,
she specified.

The appetizers had been served, and dinners were brought out on silver plates. It was an eat-dance-eat-dance wedding, not eat-eat-dance-dance as she'd predicted, so it would be a little bit harder to slip away. But Lucy didn't need dinner, and if her timing went as planned, she'd be back in time for cake cutting. Lucy coughed into an embroidered napkin with a gold-calligraphic
SW & NW.
Sawyer would be taking Noah's last name, which was Whistler. Their initials were no different from directions.

Lucy abandoned her walker by the bathrooms. She wouldn't be walking too much where she was going. She reached into her silk purse for Natasha's credit card, which she'd lent to her the week before on Lucy's request.
Just need to take care of something small,
Lucy had told her sister.
I'll pay you back,
saying this just to say it.

She peered down the long undercurrent of highway. It wouldn't be long before people would start to notice she was missing, as feeble people are also often the center of attention. Finally, she saw what she needed, its yellow lights unblemished, and its window curled down.

Good evening, miss,
said her driver.

B
ecause Lucy couldn't leave the cab without a walker, the driver honored her few requests.
I can't thank you enough,
she whispered. He parked, walked inside, then came out with Jane.
This the woman?

Lucy,
said her aunt,
why?
Jane hadn't recognized the man who checked her out, with nutmeg skin and hair like ricotta cheese curling against his scalp in a cul-de-sac trajectory, but he told her he had Lucy waiting in the car. She didn't know whether to believe him or not, but she had nothing better to do, so she told the staff she knew him.

I wanted to see if you ate dinner yet.

Nope.

Well,
asked Lucy,
you hungry?

Where?

That place you were telling me about,
said Lucy,
the one you went to with Uncle Sawyer. Do you remember the name?

No,
said Jane.
It was orange. It was next to a day care center.

I'll look it up on my phone,
said Lucy. She named some restaurants, and Jane recognized one, so Lucy gave the address to the driver, and the driver took the pair to their coveted café. He waited in the parking lot after Lucy promised to pay for his time. She'd pay for the entire evening.

What a pair Lucy and Jane must've appeared to be: the blind
leading the blind, with what Lucy had left of a body and what Jane had left of a mind. (With symbiotic choreography?)

This is the place!
said Jane, glad to domineer, to have experience.
See the day care center next door? Get a load of all those babies. And here we are, with the orange walls. It looks like there are other waitresses this time, I don't recognize any. Did I ever tell you about my favorite restaurant in New Orleans? It was called Cloquet
.
They had this adorable waiter named Eddie. I loved his tushie.

What's good here?

The croissants, of course. You can't pass them up,
said Jane.

They ordered. The croissants arrived on ceramic plates, thin flaky strips arranged in a lattice art. They delivered their conversation in enriching, simple scraps, talking about their favorite songs and favorite songwriters and favorite words. Jane said her favorite word was
always
. When it came time for the bill, Lucy held out her sister's card, but the waitress told them it was on her.

Why do you think that is?
whispered Jane.

We must look like nice people,
Lucy told her aunt.

I like that,
said Jane.
I love you, Lucy. god should bless you.

Thank you,
said Lucy delicately.
So. I don't want to go home after this.

Do you have anywhere you have to be?

Well,
said Lucy.
I don't have much time. So I'd rather be here.

They walked back to the car, Lucy leaning against her aunt like they were doing a trust exercise—building a team, just the two of them.
Drive us back to the city, I guess,
said Lucy.
But would you stop in front of the highway by Fifty-ninth Street? By Hudson River Park. There's something beautiful over there.
When they got there, they stepped out of the car, anticipating the sunset. The sky was a carnival of ruby and salsa, suffusing into a low point of cobalt. This could have been a nice place for a picnic.

Look at this sky,
insisted Lucy. They looked at the sky and listened to the city.

Lucy, is there anything I can do for you?

You had this evening with me,
said Lucy,
and that's more than enough.

I mean, to help you heal.

I'm not sure.

I tried before,
said Jane,
but nobody would help me.

Tried?
asked Lucy.

Well,
said Jane,
I know my brain isn't too good, chemical imbalance and such, and I wouldn't trust my lungs or my liver, on account of my drinking and smoking way back when, but I think my Heart's okay. Nobody ever told me there was anything wrong with it. And I figure, why not give a perfectly good one? They have those operations nowadays, don't they?

What?
asked Lucy.

I mean, it wouldn't be so bad, I even tidied up before I did it and wrote a little love note, saying good-bye, in poem form. In the poem I don't write about what I'm about to do, I write about other things. That's how you write a poem, you know, it's a kind of code. Of course you know—you're a better poet than I'll ever be. Before I was even allowed to meet you, your father would always talk about what a brilliant writer you were. How you loved your English class. You made me want to write. You made me want to get better. Better at writing, I mean. The poem's still underneath the picture frame in my room, the one with the couple and the dog. I slid it behind the picture so those hospital worker fuckers wouldn't steal it. It's still there because I'm afraid to move it.

Anyway, I wrote the note and there was no other weapon in the room, they're real strict about that sort of thing, so I used the only thing I could have used. Next thing I know, I'm awake in a hospital I don't recognize and your father is there, telling me I disappointed you and the whole family, and I just can't fucking explain a thing. I hear you're in the hospital too, two floors above me, and I don't know why. And I think that maybe god's decided to punish both of us because I tried to take care of my dying and your living all on my own.

Lucy trembled. Earlier she'd figured this was going to be the last time she'd ever see Aunt Jane, and wanted to make it special, and now there were too many things she had to understand. Most important, that this was what Jane had been trying to do last time. The time she was almost successful, but the doctors found her and stitched her up in the hospital before she'd been able to die. Jane hadn't hid this. Anybody could have found out the reason why Jane tried to kill herself was to save her niece, but as it was, nobody had asked.

L
ucy is gone,
Mathilde noticed nearly right away,
anyone see her?

She'll be back,
Carly knew. Lucy had briefly told her sisters of the plan, and they'd honored it as confidential, for what else is sacred if not a secret kept among blood? At once Carly felt the thralls of a widespread alarm throughout her body, her legs jellied. -
Will she? No. Lucy can't die. She's not going to die. She'll come back. She has to come back. -
Every moment that Carly had spent with Stephen had been a moment away from her sister. What if Lucy and Carly had a finite number of moments together, and this stretching out of discrete events prolonged them, separated the seconds? What if Carly's actions were selfless, not selfish? What if Lucy came back? What if she could always come back?

And then Lucy came back.

How'd it go?
asked Natasha.

It was very sad and wonderful,
said Lucy.
And I'll never forget it.
She yawned.

They're just about to play the last song, and then we'll call it a night. Daddy's calling a car service to take us back home. You almost missed dessert,
said Natasha.
Instead of a bride's cake and a groom's cake, they just used two of the grooms' favorite desserts. I saved you a tiny pie and a cupcake. Which one do you want?

Lucy took one in each hand, alternating between bites. The
cupcake was drenched in fondant and sprinkles. She felt drowsy, thinking, -
everybody loves me. -

Did anyone ask where I was?

Mommy and Daddy, but Carly and I calmed them down. Because what else are sisters for?

A lot of things,
said Lucy.
Last wishes are just one of the things.

G
ood night, ma'am,
said the driver, parked in front of Lincoln. But Jane didn't leave the cab.

What's wrong?

What else do I do?
asked Jane.

Your friend took care of it,
said the driver.
We're all good.

Are you sure?
asked Jane. There were a lot of things she would have done. She didn't even know what she would have done them for.

I'm sure.
The driver laughed stormily. Jane didn't like him laughing at her.
You take care, and have a nice night now.

Okay,
said Jane.
I did, and I'll keep trying to.
She shut the cab door, and she traipsed back to the hospital, and she got home alive.

Love

The night of the party, at three am, nobody knows if you're using the bathroom or lying in a ditch five hundred miles away. You call 9-1-1 and hear she's leaving home after living alone for so many years. You call Sanctuary but you can't use electricity today. Shabbat Shalom. The ditch looks like you can fit two or three people inside. Writing this means you're not healthy anymore. It's a pretty good party. Everyone's drinking gin buckets. The last time they made gin buckets you lost your underwear.

—Jane (Simone) Spicer

F
our days before Lucy died, the trifling time came for god, and then it was over. During that point of severe poverty, Carly prayed to every god she ever heard of and knew in her life: Allah, Jesus, the Jewish g-d, Buddha, Confucius. Eventually the only god left was the passive god, which is maybe all that god is in the first place. Carly read the last poem her sister wrote, in her tireless and sans serif scrawl, back when she was conscious, attached in a note for her mother.
- Written like there is no tomorrow, -
she thought.

What Makes Me Anxious

the sound of sneezing, the fact that the Heart

is slightly inclined to the right. I'm right-handed. I have just a few hours

to live. Stephen has a crush on me and he thinks I'm joking.

Come on a date with me
, he keeps saying.
Young people don't die.

The life expectancy test told me I'm going to die

young because I sleep ten hours a night

and keep my thermostat high. That was in the midst