Tizita Page 15

  His use of the phrase “my people” gave me a moment’s pause. “Mmm, yes, sounds pretty outrageous. But why aren’t you on the plane with them?”

  “That’s why I’m calling, Fleur. I’ve got a bit of sorting to do.”

  “Sorting?”

  For a moment the line went silent. Despite my earnest attempt not to, I began to spin, which was how I discovered that Bob had come up behind me. As I swung past him, he mouthed, “Is anything wrong,” but I just kept turning. I had to hand it to Bob. Rather than politely averting his gaze, he observed my whirling with an air of mild curiosity.

  But on my next turn, I saw he’d given up. He was heading toward the curving food counter, undoubtedly seeking another multi-grained something to add to the lonely seed between his teeth.

  Now Assefa was speaking again, albeit haltingly. “Well, here’s the thing, Fleur. I’ve been visiting this orphanage. You wouldn’t believe what this country has been through. Really, for more years than anyone could possibly count. And these children—so many orphans. War, AIDS, well, it’s ridiculous. There aren’t nearly enough doctors to begin to address their needs. It’s shaken up everything I thought was settled. I don’t know if I can go about my plans as if I hadn’t seen this. I need a little time to think.”

  I don’t recall how I’d got there, but I found myself sitting with my legs stretched before me on the checkered linoleum floor, a catsup-streaked napkin and a few withered French fries just to the right of my knee. I responded in a mortifyingly whiny voice, “But why can’t you come back and think here?”

  “Well, that’s the thing, Fleur. There’s so much more I need to find out. It would be foolish to leave and then to have to come back again to get all the data.”

  “All the data on what, Assefa?” And why did he keep referring to “the thing?”

  “On what it would take to transfer my studies here.”

  I could barely breathe. “Why in the world would you do that? You’re interning at one of the best university hospitals in the world. Surely, if you wanted to volunteer some time in Ethiopia, it would be so much better to finish your education here first.”

  “Yes, but here’s the thing,” he interjected. “What if it isn’t actually volunteering I’m thinking about but something more ... permanent?”

  I have to admit, that one caught me up short. It was as though he’d just turned my head upside down and given its contents a serious shake. I fought to regain equilibrium. “Assefa, what are you talking about? What about your life here? What about us?” My head was beginning to pound. “What about me?”

  I’d never heard Assefa’s voice so stiff. “Fleur, I know this is a shock. I’m a bit shocked myself. But maybe there was a meaning to my father going on his wild goose chase. Maybe he was called to do this on my behalf. Something that was never resolved. Well, anyway. You have to understand, everything’s under the microscope right now. I can’t just leave all this as if it were a bad dream.”

  Why not? This was fast turning into my worst nightmare.

  Anyone with any sense would have gotten the message by now, but I can be dense at the best of times. “Assefa, you didn’t answer my question.”

  “Fleur,” he pled, “please. I need a little space to think.”

  Space? Think? He who only a week before had told me that he couldn’t imagine life without me? Who liked to call me his little lamb? His dukula? A vast pit opened up inside me, and, unable to find purchase, I was tumbling down. Eight days after toasting my birthday at Casa del Mar, Assefa had evidently excised me from his heart as casually as a host in a crowded restaurant crossing a name off his list. I knew now what “the thing” was. The thing was me.

  Before the void enveloped me completely, I pushed up from the floor and brushed off my jeans, looking across the room to see that Bob had evidently decided to order a second lunch. He was stuffing a sandwich into his mouth with hippopotamic gusto.

  I felt something nasty and reptilian climb up the back of my neck as I switched my cell to the other ear. “Thanks so much, Assefa,” I hissed, “for asking how I am. And your grandfather. Last time we talked, he was being treated for dehydration. Thanks for asking about Medr, too.”

  “Ah. I’ve already phoned Enat. She’s reassured me that he’s fine. And she is so relieved that my father is coming home.” The feeling of betrayal nearly gagged me. “But you’re right. I should have asked about you, Fleur. I really am very sorry. Very. I know this must be hard for you. I can’t tell you how terrible I feel for—”

  “Oh, don’t worry about me, Assefa. I’m just fine. You know what they say. It’s all good.” I turned off my cellphone and stared at it, full of wonder that a tiny gadget with a circuit board at its heart could so effectively sever meaning from a life.

  Somehow I made it back to the table and sat down. I have to hand it to Bob. He might have been a bit dim at times, but right now his eyes telegraphed nothing but concern. “Is there anything I can do?”

  I couldn’t possibly recount my phone conversation to Bob. On the night of Chin-Hwa’s murder, he’d finally confessed his crush on me, at least in a Bob-ish sort of way, but completely unlike his namesake Uncle Bob, who’d been an utter chicken during the traumatic episode with the Boy Who’d Called Me Beautiful. That shrinkable imaginary uncle of mine had disappeared into my pocket as soon as the young stranger had dared me to remove my clothes and immerse my body in the pond near Sleeping Beauty Castle, resulting in me having a police gun stuck in my face and being put in a jail cell nearly as proportionally confining as Jillily’s cat carrier. And if you’re wondering, as I have, why cowardliness is called being chicken, you’ll have to content yourself with the fact that William Shakespeare first coined the phrase in his play Cymbeline, which happens to be about jealousy. Into whose pallid landscape I’d pretty much been thrown, for I knew quite well that the orphanage where everything was needing to get re-thought was the one presided over by Makeda, whose name muttered under my lover’s breath had been an omen I’d been foolishly trying to ignore.

  So when Bob asked again if he could do anything, I eyed his plate appraisingly and responded. “Yes. Yes, you definitely can.” I held out a hand. “Will you let me have the rest of your Herder?”

  It was Bob’s idea to take me to the beach. I’d broken down in the midst of stuffing the remainder of his oversized sandwich into my mouth, tears and snot drizzling down my face to make the taste of corned beef, pastrami, turkey, salami, cheese, and Russian dressing even saltier. Bob helplessly watched me cry for several minutes, finally thinking to reach into his shirt pocket for an unrealistic shred of Kleenex before I retrieved a more intact version from my purse.

  As I swabbed my cheeks and chin, I could almost see a light bulb go off in his head. “I know,” he offered, “we should go to the beach.” He stood, gathering Poplawski’s paper and stuffing it into his briefcase. It didn’t seem to occur to him that I hadn’t agreed to go. But before I knew it, I was rising out of my chair like a zombie and following him out of the café.

  He was talking the whole time. “It’s where I go when I don’t like what’s happening in my life. Nothing feels as bad when I’m near the ocean. Must be something about all life coming from there. It’s like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.”

  I shot him a confused look. “You know,” he prompted. “‘There’s no place like home.’ Actually, she said it a few times, didn’t she? Clicking those shiny shoes of hers. I’m addicted to that movie.” He scratched the top of his head with an air of mild embarrassment, sending an avalanche of dandruff onto the shoulders of his navy T-shirt. “Actually, I watched it a few days ago and couldn’t help but wonder if the writer wasn’t secretly suggesting Dorothy had dissolved into a wormhole that took her right where she needed to go. That wouldn’t be too far from what we’re aiming for with dematerialization, would it?”

  So, our Bob was a closet philosopher. If I’d been in a state to laugh, I would have. Here I was, the archetypal jilted lover, curren
t president of the Red Nose and Wet Booger Club, and Bob was zipping along the cosmic highway.

  Bob shot me a paranoid look. “What?”

  “Oh, Bob, I don’t know, but anybody who could actually make me smile right now deserves his own Academy Award for kindness.”

  Bob blushed so intensely I imagined his toes turning bright red.

  “Actually,” he replied, managing to skirt my praise, “they lost the award to Gone with the Wind.”

  I have to admit, the diversion momentarily rescued me from my apocalyptic loss. “You can’t be serious. That piece of revisionist crap?” Bob looked taken aback. “Sorry,” I pleaded, embarrassed. “I do believe I just channeled Gwennie Fiske. You know how she likes to rant about the insidious impact of racism in books and films.” I paused. “But, you know, it was Sammie who first taught me about racism. I’d never imagined such a thing could exist. You met her, so you know that beautiful olive skin of hers. One time we spent a week with her grandparents in Orange County, and her dark skin prompted a disgusting volley of nasty racial slurs from a mischief of mall rats at the South Coast Plaza.”

  Bob flushed with anger. “Assholes!” But then he cocked his head quizzically. “A mischief of ...?”

  I laughed. “Never heard the expression a ‘mischief of rats’? How about a ‘murder of crows’?” He shook his head. “How about a ‘shrewdness of apes’ or—actually, I hate this one—‘a nuisance of cats’?”

  By the time I’d described to Bob the running contest Stanley H. Fiske and I had over who knew the most elusive group names, we’d arrived at Bob’s car, a bird-poop-bedecked dark blue hatchback that proclaimed itself a Festiva.

  Now, we physicists might just be ranked as royalty in the realm of absentmindedness. Which is why I wasn’t insulted when Bob proceeded to unlock the back door with a click of his key, throw his briefcase onto the back seat and shut the door, open the driver’s door to slide inside, and glance into his rearview mirror as he started up the motor. Only when he heard me tapping on the passenger side window did he peer over at me, still standing outside the locked passenger door. Mouthing his mortification, he hurriedly exited the car to open my door for me, fussing around to make sure I was belted in and inadvertently brushing his hand across my breast, which made me reflect upon how readily Bob’s complexion transmuted from pale pink to neon red.

  Returning to the driver’s seat, he shot me a look that said something like, I’m hopeless, aren’t I? and then valiantly started up the car again, exuberantly breaking into the familiar tune, “We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz.”

  Who could be depressed around a guy like this?

  Under the circumstances I certainly could, but since he was being so kind at a time that Assefa most definitely was not, I felt I owed it to him to tie my misery to the mast. I resolved to keep myself from jumping overboard until I got home.

  Bob wasn’t a freeway kind of guy, so I had a lot of opportunities to distract myself on the way to Santa Monica Beach. Since Adam and the gang had taken me to the beach numerous times during my first summer in SoCal, this drive was like being in a time warp, tracking bits and pieces of my history. Here are some of the more memorable neighborhoods we passed through:

  1. Griffith Park. Actually, as soon as Bob’s car neared the vicinity it occurred to me that the last time I’d been there was with Assefa. My heart rate accelerated as I recalled dragging Assefa to the park’s world-class observatory on a Friday night for a book signing by Harvard’s Lisa Randall, who’d responded to a question about multiple universes that our own universe might be merely “a three-dimensional ‘sinkhole.’” Which made a heck of a lot of sense to me now.

  2. West Hollywood. The first time I’d seen it was when I was twelve years old. I’d been in the car with Adam, who was driving me to my first interview with a local paper about my discovery of C-Voids. We’d passed two blue-jeaned men with John Edwards hair walking down the street with a hand in each other’s pockets. I’d started screaming, and Adam had to explain to me that the men weren’t trying to pick each other’s pockets, but were actually demonstrating affection.

  3. Beverly Hills. The only people out on the sidewalks fronting rows of imposing Spanish, Tudor, and Mid-Century Modern homes were brown-skinned gardeners, brown-skinned nannies pushing fancy prams with white-skinned babies, and two alarmingly skinny, sunburnt female runners—one who looked to be older than Mother, wearing a canary yellow tracksuit and a sequined baseball cap, and the other with the biggest mouth I’d ever seen outside of a National Geographic issue that featured the plate-like adornment fashioned for the lips of Mobali women of Northern Congo. Which, when I pointed it out to Bob, elicited from him an excited, “Yeah, but have you seen pictures of what the Mursi and Suri women do to themselves? Their lips get stretched so far from their faces that you could serve drinks on them!”

  Frowning, I felt around inside my mind to see if I recalled any knowledge of the Mursi and Suri tribes. Failing, I asked Bob what country they inhabited.

  Clearly pleased to know something I didn’t, Bob shot back an exultant, “Ethiopia.” At which point, despite my best efforts, I burst into tears all over again, Bob pulled to the side of the road and, looking like a lost dog, muttered pathetically, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. How dumb can I be?”

  It took seven minutes and thirty-five seconds for me to calm down. I knew, because I’d been staring at the digital clock on the dashboard to avoid Bob’s eyes, which were full of enough pity to fuel a day’s worth of non-stop tears.

  By now, I’d given up on finding enough tissues to do the trick and pulled up the bottom of my T-shirt to wipe my face. Unsurprisingly, Bob forgot to politely turn his head, and when my eyes caught his staring at the lacy bra barely containing my breasts, he merely shrugged with the hint of a not-overly-guilty grin.

  “Bob!” I chided.

  But Bob was clearly getting more comfortable with me. “You didn’t ask me not to look,” he said. And he was right. I hadn’t. Bob turned on the ignition, I backed away from the void, and we darted into traffic to the sounds of the Shins’ “It’s Only Life,” which should have been depressing, but somehow wasn’t.

  I should probably mention that riding in Bob’s car was a singular experience, and not just because it was being driven by Bob. When I’d first flung my purse into the back seat, I saw it was jammed with books, what looked to be about a hundred loose physics articles, and scores of folded brown paper bags. Unsurprisingly, it smelled of smoked fish, which made me wonder how Bob would respond to the idea of ferrying Jillily and me to the vet the next time she needed to go. The smell might be a comfort to her while she was trapped in her pink jail cell of a cat carrier.

  But the corker was that Bob had hung on his rearview mirror a miniature mobile of Mobius strips made of rainbow-hued satin ribbon that danced to the beat of the music on his CD player. He claimed he wasn’t distracted by it, but I myself found it mesmerizing as Bob and I sang along with James Mercer about going down the rabbit hole.

  After deciding that it might be interesting to park near the palisade and cross the bridge over Pacific Coast Highway to get to the beach, Bob led me through an obstacle course of homeless humanity toward the urine-reeking concrete steps leading to the bridge. We passed several people minus teeth, others minus company, still others clearly minus their minds. Which took my own mind back to the (very) few days when Father and I had actually enjoyed each other. It had been after he’d lost his original mind in his nervous breakdown and before he’d taken refuge in the old one—the one that hated me enough to crusade relentlessly against my scientific research.

  When we’d exited the car, Bob had grabbed a few paper bags from the back seat, and now he let them carelessly dangle from his hand, as if he’d done this a million times before. By this time, realizing I was fighting a losing battle, I’d given up worrying about hurting Bob’s feelings and was so carried away with telling him about Assefa’s call that I didn’t even a
sk what the bags were for. Instead, I took poor Bob with me on every repetitive spin of my mental wheel.

  But crossing the pedestrian bridge over the Pacific Coast Highway put an end to my chattering. For a void-fearer, it was terrifying. The wind was brisk and whipped my hair across my eyes and around my chin with gusty slaps. Bob’s paper bags became low-slung kites flapping from his fingers. Traffic surged beneath us like a herd of steel beasts. A vagrant strain of music reached my ears from the beach below. I made out Jackson Browne’s mournful, “Fly away, linda paloma!” as I set foot on a bottom step layered in hieroglyphs of sand. The words “linda paloma” led, as words will do, to a host of memories: the painful penetration of my virginal tweeter by Hector Hernandez’s bulging member, followed by the murder of Baby X, which in turn handed me right over to the realization that Assefa and I would never conceive the brilliant child I knew we were meant to create. That was, unless our recent condom collapse had proferred its own fateful vote.

  That possibility caused my eyes to release another burst of tears. Looking by now a little wary of my emotionality, Bob shot me a sideways look, but kept on walking, so I did, too, noticing that his bags were brushing against his jeans with a kind of ‘shhh shhh, ba da shhh’ in time to our synchronized steps. Now that we’d shifted from cement to sand, our stride slowed, and the omnipresent roar of the ocean drowned out all other sound. By the time we reached the shore, my monkey mind had pretty much chattered itself out.

  Reaching the shoreline, we removed our shoes to walk on the wet sand. Bob held out one of his bags for my tennies, depositing his own loafers inside. “You know,” he ventured, “my dad always told me I didn’t need to stick around people who treated me badly. He said there were way too many human beings in the world to waste my time with people who weren’t worth it.” Bob squinted up at the sky. “At that point, it was probably somewhere around five-point-three billion.” He shrugged. “Of course, he wasn’t reckoning on the fact that most people didn’t find my company particularly appealing, so I had plenty of practice assessing my worth on my own.”