Traveling Light (12 page)

Paula didn’t believe in luck. Perhaps the Moirai had put blinders on her, laughing at her evaluation of Roger as husband material. He’d passed every suitor test as she stumbled headfirst onto the biggest land mine of her life. She never would have predicted that, weeks after the wedding, Roger would stop sleeping and eating. She had to walk him up and down the street at night to calm him. Trembling, he’d cling to her arm as she told him, “It’ll all be fine; it’s just a rough patch; you really should go see someone.” She’d become his best friend, his comforter, and she shut up about the sleeping arrangement, the squalor in the house. It would have been like beating up a puppy. “For better or for worse,” maybe she’d gotten the worse part up front, she’d reasoned. Soon their sleeping arrangement became institutionalized. Divorce was never a thought, so she’d backed off, squelched her desires, shut down and turned her attention to the Center, accepting whatever hand the Moirai had dealt.

The first sign of trouble materialized on moving day the week of their wedding. Before leaving for France earlier that summer, Roger had neglected to give her a key.

“I’d like to start moving some things in,” she’d said a month before his departure.

“Well, I’ll need to do some rearranging.” It sounded perfectly reasonable. “I’m reorganizing.” He’d smiled sheepishly. “I have a lot of stuff, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Why don’t you let me help?” she’d offered, scooting up to the edge of her seat. “If you give me a key I can work on it this summer.”

He’d looked at her in a way she couldn’t read. “Uhhh—I’ll clear out as much as I can, but some things’ll have to wait till I’m back.”

“I can help clear it out.”

“It’s not the sort of thing you can do for me.” He flushed. He wouldn’t look at her. He’d looked embarrassed or ashamed. “
I
need to sort through things,” he’d reiterated. “My parents’ things.”

“But you won’t be back until the week of the wedding,” she’d protested. “My lease is up. I have to move.”

“Sweetie,” he’d crooned. “I’ll be back in time. I’ll do what I can before I leave, but it can wait till then.”

She couldn’t stop worrying about it. “Hey—if you changed your mind, Roger, that’s okay,” she’d offered her get-out-of-jail-free card. But Roger laughed the whole thing off. She’d even phoned overseas, afraid he’d met somebody else. “No, of course not,” he’d say. “You’re my dream girl,” he’d reassure her. “What’s a summer when we have our whole lives?” True. Sensible as always.

“You worry too much, Paula,” he’d said from France. “You gotta have faith in life. Trust the future, our future.”

Move-in day finally came after he’d airmailed a key from France days before the wedding. “Oh thank God,” she’d muttered, and laughed nervously.

The three movers (cousins of a Malaysian graduate) had stood with their work gloves on, sizing up the ornately carved front door.

She depressed the thumb latch and pushed. It budged a sixteenth of an inch. With her shoulder she gave it a hefty shove. It opened a full inch, just enough to register the smell of musty paper and the briny sting of mildew.

“Phew, it stinks,” she admitted, thinking it might lessen the embarrassment. The door opened finally. “He’s been gone all summer,” she’d offered. “Give me a minute—I’ll air the place out.”

It would take longer than a minute. The movers shot glances at each other; one of them looked at his watch and then out to the moving van, double-parked on the narrow street. He said something in Malaysian to his partner.

“Lady, we got three more stop,” he said.

“Oh,” was all she said. She stood there, stunned. Roger had sworn that he’d cleared it out. Decorators were scheduled for tomorrow. Her eyes watered. What was she getting herself into? Why would Roger lie? She thought of hijacking Eleni’s car to speed out to Montauk, stand at the end of New York and smell the salt air, dilute her terror. She felt twisted. Her apartment was rented, the dress bought, tux rented, invitations out.

“He’s been gone all summer.” She began climbing over debris and boxes, searching for windows, coughing. She unlatched the ones she could reach.

The movers listened politely, having seen it all before. Two or three times a week they’d worked on contract with the Department of Health to evict hoarders.

“You
sure
this right house, lady?” one of them asked

She’d nodded at him—what a strange thing to ask.

“This look like hoarder live here.”

“What?” She wrinkled her brow.

They covered their mouths with their hands and stepped outside, their heads shaking.

“Place is full,” one of them said. “No space.” He’d motioned like an umpire at a Yankee game:
You’re out.

“This was his parents’ place,” she’d said. “We’re combining multiple households,” she’d explained. “You know, from two into one, getting married,” out tumbled the excuse.

“You probably see this every day.”

Their expressions worried her. Different from when they’d loaded up her things, joking, trading jabs as they’d packed up her old apartment. Her nature always put people at ease, especially immigrants. Paula’d never forgotten that Vassili had been a waiter, Eleni a seamstress.

One of the movers pointed to the space between the front window and the wrought-iron fence bordering the sidewalk. “We unload you here.” He pointed. “Your husband help you move later, okay?” he said, looking at his watch.

“No, wait—tell you what.” Paula looked up at the swollen rain clouds. “It’ll take me a second to clear a spot—I swear.” She lifted a finger. “Please wait—it’ll take me a second,” she assured.

She stepped inside and quickly began moving boxes; shoving piles of cartons onto other piles, she heard the clanking of bone china, the chiming of a pendulum clock. She tripped over a pile of folded Oriental rugs to clear a footprint for the contents of her life.

She’d had no furniture except for a couch she’d purchased just before meeting Roger; everything else she’d tossed. “You can build a whole room around a couch like this,” the home décor specialist had advised.

Paula and Roger would decorate and remodel the kitchen and bathrooms, make it “Our Home,” Paula’d glowed to Eleni and Celeste, turning her cheeks pink in a way no one had ever seen. A girly happiness she’d finally allowed herself. “This is the real marriage,” Eleni had sworn to Celeste during the bridal shower, pointing to goose pimples on her forearm. “See? It’s a sign. This one’s gonna stick, you better believe it.” Even with Paula, a forty-year-old bride, Eleni had bragged, “The older the hen, the thicker the juice.” And she had stood to dance as the priest’s wife popped in a CD of Greek music.

It had all seemed too good to be real. Your stars align, the right people are there and your time has come. But according to the Old Ones, that’s precisely when the Moirai come hobbling along to crack open the book of your fate. So went Paula’s longing for a loving home. Lovely, elegant wedding, not a dry eye in the house—Roger’d cried; she’d cried; they’d all crooned, “After all she’s been through, at last she’s found love.” She’d felt absolutely transcendental as the Greek priest placed one floral wreath upon her head, the other on Roger’s, connected by a satin ribbon to symbolize eternity.

It took little time for the movers to pile Paula’s boxes on the spot she’d cleared. They’d balanced her couch up on one end, propped it against a pillar in the foyer where it would remain for a decade.

One of the movers was on the verge of speaking up when the other tapped him and motioned with his thumb to the truck. In the time it took for Paula to pull out an envelope of cash for a tip, the men had left. She’d stood on the porch with money in her hand, wondering why they were in such a hurry to leave.

She’d planned the entire wedding that summer in Roger’s absence. “Do whatever you want,” he’d say. “I know it’ll be beautiful.” And while she found his confidence reassuring, it felt a little like she was marrying herself.

*   *   *

From the curb in front of the hotel, Paula waved down the Escape the minute she spotted it, followed by a dealership car with advertising stenciled along its sides. The driver pulled over and parked, handing over two sets of keys and a packet with a car manual, certificate of insurance and registration. “Any questions?” he’d asked.

Temporary license plates had been affixed to both front and back bumpers. She was legal enough for now. On the passenger seat lay the GPS manual and a road atlas with a red bow and a note from Alex. “Have a great trip,” he’d written in quasi-Cyrillic script. It made her smile; she hadn’t thought to buy a map.

She lowered the backseat, tucked it down flat as she’d seen Alex do and then unrolled Fotis’ bed. “Kano.” She patted the bed. Fotis jumped up. She rolled down the window just enough for him to stick out his head.

After tossing in the duffel and shopping bags, she climbed in and adjusted the driver’s seat. The instrument panel lit up brightly in the dim morning light.

“Bye, New York.” Her voice was a whisper as she put the car in gear. She lowered her chin. “See you in a few weeks.” Her stomach didn’t believe her. The rims of her eyes stung.
Eonia I mnimi.
She slipped on the knockoff Hermès sunglasses. Butterflies took flight in her stomach, a mix of sadness and relief.

When Paula was eight years old watching her father’s casket being lowered, she’d remembered a joke. “Know how many people in there are dead?” her father would ask when they’d drive between the cemeteries that flanked Grand Central Parkway. Paula would shrug, though she knew the answer. “All of them!” Vassili would exclaim, snorting, wanting her to say the punch line with him. She’d marveled at the knife-edged precision of his grave, all sides looking more like rich brown velvet than dirt. The priest, in a black robe that touched his shoes, flanked in layers of gold-embroidered regalia, led the chant of “Eonia I mnimi.” She’d remembered the priest being aggravated by the November winds that kept blowing out the chunk of incense in the
livanistiri,
the golden jingling incense burner. It had taken two altar boys to prop her mother up through the ceremony.

Paula sat in the Escape, waiting to calm down. A knock on the window startled her. The hotel bellman tapped again and gestured for her to clear the spot.

Okay,
she mouthed.

“Bye, New York,” she whispered. “Eonia I mnimi.”

Tapping the gas pedal slightly, she pulled away from the curb and headed west on Canal Street toward the Holland Tunnel, under the Hudson River, out of the City into Jersey and all points west.

Paula touched the cover of Alex’s road atlas; she decided to take I-80, the northern route to Berkeley. She’d never been near the Great Lakes, the Dakotas and Montana, and she could cut south to Berkeley if she got bored. She’d planned to call Bernie’s office when she got to Pennsylvania, since there was a three-hour time difference. But she was too excited to wait; she’d leave a voice mail, hoping he wasn’t on vacation. During a traffic pause she searched her phone directory and punched Bernie’s office number.

“You’ve reached the voice mail of…” It was someone else’s voice.

“What?” Ending the call, she looked at her phone, surprised. She checked the directory again.
Damn.
That
was
his number. She’d just seen and spoken to him that past March in Montreal. He’d made jokes about retiring, but surely he’d have sent her an announcement.

She looked at her watch, calculating Pacific Time. It was too early to call his home. She’d call the main sociology office later, when it opened. She’d be well into Pennsylvania by then or, if traffic kept crawling, barely into New Jersey.

*   *   *

Paula flew out of the Holland Tunnel into the early colors of the morning. Gas pedal depressed, windows open, her hair blowing, the faster she accelerated the better she felt. Getting up to eighty, then ninety, she thought maybe the wind would whisk her thoughts away.

Jersey was a blur except for periodic traffic congestion; Pennsylvania went on like a past life. The faster she drove, the clearer the sense became that there was somewhere she needed to be. It wasn’t California or New York. It wasn’t a place. The map was nothing but lines, numbers, destinations. Wherever she was meant to be, she’d know it when she got there.

At a McDonald’s in the middle of Pennsylvania Paula bought Fotis three burgers. She fed him all three in the parking lot and then offered him dog food. An obese woman wearing a housedress was sitting in the open door of a minivan watching.

“You gotta eat this, too,” Paula said, holding up the bowl in a conciliatory way.

“Hon,” the woman began. “Pardon me for butting in, but you know if you keep feeding him burgers he ain’t gonna eat his dog food. Make him eat the kibble first.”

“How do I do that?”

“Don’t give him nothin’ till he eats the dog food.”

Paula looked at her.

“You just got that dog, didn’t ya?”

Paula nodded. “Hon.” The woman smiled. “He ain’t gonna starve, you know. Just hold out until he chows on the kibble, then give him a burger.”

“Thanks,” Paula said. “I’m Paula.”

“I’m Evelyn. Good luck with your dog. He’s a cutie.”

“Thanks.”

Paula walked Fotis around on the grassy areas, past the playground where children squealed and she let him sniff and lift his leg. He signaled her by looking and then half-dragging her toward the Escape, waiting for the door to open and then jumping up onto his bed, quickly getting settled into his position at the window. The glass was already smeared and dotted with dried drool.

She drove for another hour and then decided it was time to call. It was nine in California. Pulling over at a rest stop, she sat at a picnic table and looked up the department number in her phone directory.

The administrative assistant explained that Bernie had retired unexpectedly after the Montreal conference. The woman wouldn’t give any more details, but Paula did manage to wrangle a phone number.

She dialed his number and sighed with relief when he answered.

“Paula!” Bernie exclaimed. “So nice to hear from you.”