“You again,” he says.
I cover the mouthpiece of the phone. I don’t want him to hear my mother. He’s already looking alarmed and she’s sort of shouting through the phone.
“I’m fine,” I say, before he asks if I am or not.
“You’re outside the Social Security office again, behaving . . .”
“Emotionally?”
“Fine. We’ll go with that. What seems to be the trouble now? They’re open. There’s not even a line.”
“I know.” I nod, my head bobbing up and down so hard that the horse is getting startled. “Yes, it is. I’ve been in there already. My morning is not working out as I had planned. I prayed for a parting of the Red Sea at the Social Security office and indeed, the sea was parted, but I wasn’t specific enough, I guess, and I should’ve asked that he also raise me from the dead.” I know, I know . . . total wrong choice of words and metaphors and, accompanied by my gestures, body language. That statement alone has probably put me on a federal watch list.
“Ma’am”—he uses the kind of tone that makes you realize he has a badge and a gun and the authority to use both—“I am going to need you to leave. Now.”
I can hear my mom, she’s calling my name, wondering what’s going on, thinking we’ve got a bad connection. There’s a metaphor in that, too, but now’s not the time for metaphors, obviously.
I sling my bag over my shoulder and walk. I glance back once and he’s watching me, so I take the first corner I can to get out of his line of sight.
“Hope? Are you there?”
I sigh and turn my attention back to my mother. “I’m here. Sorry. Listen, what I was saying is that the Social Security office told me a passport and driver’s license isn’t enough. I need my birth certificate. Can you please overnight it to my work address?”
“Well, um . . .”
“What? What??”
“. . . I’m going to have to find which souvenir box that might be in.”
“What? You put my birth certificate in a souvenir box? Mom, that belongs in something like the safe-deposit box. Look, never mind. Just please find it, as soon as possible, and overnight it to me, okay?”
“I’m praying, Hope. I’m praying. And I will keep praying until you come back to me.”
“Mom! This is important! I am going to lose my job if you don’t help me.”
“Does that mean you’ll come back? That’s what I’m praying for. I still got your couch bed.”
Tears are stinging my eyes. I cover my eyes as I talk. “Mom! For once in your life, can you listen to me? I know you don’t care about my cards, but Dad did.” And then I do a despicable thing. I know it’s wrong, but I do it anyway. I play to Mom’s delusions. “If Dad comes back, don’t you want him to know you supported me in this?”
There is silence. Silence is uncomfortable anyway, but when it’s coming from my mom it can be utterly terrifying. Silence is usually followed by a shout to the Lord in the most socially unacceptable way possible. I brace myself. At least she’s not here in person.
But there is nothing, and suddenly I’m overwhelmed by guilt. I shouldn’t have played the Dad card, for her sake or for mine.
“Mom, I’m sorry, I—”
“You’re right. I’ll find that birth certificate, Hope, and I promise on the grave of Abraham that I will get it to you.”
I nod. I’ve just resurrected the most useless form of hope in my mom and I feel terrible. I thank her and get off the phone. I’m on a side street, leaning against the brick wall of a building that stands eleven stories high. I’m engulfed by emotion. Tears stream down my face. People walk by, taking no notice of me, and I am thankful. You can’t cry on a side street in Poughkeepsie and keep it a secret. It’s going to be in the town newspaper the next day and in the gossip of half the dinner tables that night.
I wipe my tears with the back of my hands and glance up just in time to see her.
It’s hard to describe, but it’s like everyone else is a blur and she is in full and complete focus. Nobody else even looks my direction, but she does. As she passes by me, she turns her head and looks straight into my eyes. I recognize her immediately—she’s the waitress at the diner that I first arrived at after I left the church. I was still in my wedding dress, and coincidentally probably looking the mess that I am now.
Stranger still, she is not wearing her diner uniform. Instead, she is wearing a nurse’s uniform. She smiles at me. Fluorescent pink gum sticks out against shiny silver fillings.
And then, just like that, she disappears into the crowd and is gone.
I stand there, tears now dry, determined, above all else, to make things right with Jake. What good is saving his company if he gets wounded in the crossfire, lost in the jumble of it all? I take my cell phone out of my pocket and dial his number, but there is no answer.
It doesn’t surprise me that he won’t take my call. I’m going to have to find him in person. I return to the main street and enter the rapid current of the stream of people. I’m aware, suddenly, of how lonely a crowded street can be, and how far away one human can be from another even while our shoulders brush against each other. I stand and wait at a crosswalk and dial the office number. I ask for Ruby.
“Hello?”
“Ruby, it’s Landon.”
“Hi, dear.”
“Listen, I’m trying to find Jake. He’s not answering his phone. Do you know where he is?”
“Well”—Ruby’s words are as slow and aged as she is—“let’s see here.” Long pause. I can hear her breathing. I try to be patient. I wonder how scary the world around her must seem, how fast it moves and how different it is from how she grew up. “Oh, that’s right . . . what, Pearl? . . . Oh, I thought you were talking to me . . . who is this again?”
“It’s me, Hope. Wondering about Jake.”
“That’s right. Yes, I remember now. Some cute little girl came in crying. She was looking for you.”
The crosswalk light glows white and the crowd pours into the street, heading for the other side, but I don’t move. My heart sinks at the thought of Mikaela crying. She seems like such a strong kid, but a kid can only take so much. She was obviously upset last night and I dismissed her. Then she sought me out again and I wasn’t even there.
“Jake talked to her and I think I heard him say he wanted to take her skating at Rockefeller.”
I look to my right. I am a mere five blocks away.
“Thanks, Ruby!”
I hurry, weaving in and out of an already fast moving crowd. A light but hardly cold snow begins to fall. The air is crisp and cool but not unbearable. By the time I hit the skating rink, I am out of breath. My hands are braced on my knees and I’m trying to recover. I realize I must make myself exercise, but that is a task for another day.
When my lungs finally recover, I stand and notice the sign: Early Season Special Today: $10. I pull out the wad of cash in my pocket. Wad is not the right word. It’s two five-dollar bills. It’s the last of my money.
Then I spot Mikaela. She is alone on the ice, spinning in a circle, her arms wide and open, her tongue catching the snowflakes as they come down.
I pay at the window and am issued skates. I sit on the bench, tie them up, and glide onto the ice. It’s been a while, but I always liked to skate. It brings back good memories almost instantly. As I skate toward Mikaela, I notice Jake on the other side of the rink. I skate past him, but he doesn’t notice me. He’s giving money to a mother and a child who look like they’ve come and watched and never skated themselves. Their faces are filled with delight.
I come along side Mikaela. “Hey, kiddo,” I say with a friendly grin.
She scowls at me, her expression a cold mess of anger and sorrow.
“What’s the matter?”
From her jacket, she pulls out a crumpled envelope and then what looks like
a card. She tosses it to me and I slip a little trying to catch it. She then skates off. I stand there while others skate by me on my left and right. On the envelope is Mikaela’s name written in pen and spelled wrong. I turn the card over to the front. I immediately recognize it as one of mine.
The front reads: Do I like you?
Inside, there are options with little boxes next to each one: No, Nada And Never. All the boxes are pre-checked, but someone has circled them for emphasis. And then the punch line: the Bible says God works all things together for good. Trust me. This rejection is for your good. And it’s signed David . . .
Her crush.
My heart stings with guilt and sadness and anger. She’s been nothing but nice to this kid. I’ve witnessed it firsthand. I turn to find her but she has now skated up right next to me.
“Mikaela, I’m sorry he did this.”
“It’s not your fault, right? You didn’t give it to me.” Her cheeks are red from the cold but I suspect that’s not the only reason they’re glowing.
“Look, it’s a joke, okay? It’s supposed to be funny. It’s . . .” How to explain this to a child? “Trust me, this is for your good. Stay away from boys and especially don’t kiss them. It messes up your senses.”
“You kissed Jake?”
“What? No? . . . No.” The first denial came out as a question, so that never really bodes well for believability. The next one should’ve been followed by an exclamation point, but it honestly barely deserves any kind of punctuation. It’s more of a raspy, unconvincing croak.
“He kissed you?”
“Mikaela!” I am so flustered I’m trying to shush her but I can’t even get my finger to my lips. It’s sort of waving around like it has no place to go.
“Is he a passionate kisser?”
I almost faint right there on the ice. I’ve lost sight of Jake. For all I know, he could be standing right behind us. “I am not talking to you about this!” I whisper, managing the exclamatory ending while flashing casual smiles to passers-by.
“So he is!” Mikaela says. I notice she is momentarily distracted. I turn to see what she is looking at. It is a father skating with his daughter. “My dad used to take me skating at a lake near our house. We’d go every Saturday.”
I’m filled with emotion for my little friend, so much so that it knocks me right on my backside. No, wait. That wasn’t emotion. Turns out it was Jake. I’m splayed out on the ice with Jake halfway on top of me. He rolls off and Mikaela is standing over us, laughing, while Jake is profusely apologizing and helping me to my feet.
We all skate together for a while, Jake and me quieter than normal. I watch him with Mikaela. He has a way with her—she seems to drop a lot of her facade and acts like the kid she is when she’s with him. It also seems, for now, she has forgotten about David.
After about an hour, we lose Jake again. He’s found someone else to help, a young woman sitting alone on a bench, distraught over something. I don’t catch much of the conversation, only what I can hear while skating by. But he’s in card quoting mode for sure.
“. . . never lose hope. You’ll find what’s missing . . .”
Mikaela and I circle back around. We don’t have to admit it to each other—we’re both fond of eavesdropping. At our next pass she is talking.
“How can you say I’ll find it? This is the fourth time I’ve been stood up!”
I didn’t know it was possible, but she stomps off the ice with skates on her feet. She’s wobbly, but she makes it to safe ground. Jake returns and I playfully hold my hand out. He smirks and slaps a one-dollar bill in my hand.
“Best three out of five?” I ask, but he skates on. I don’t suppose we’ll ever see eye-to-eye on this matter.
As I’m stuffing the dollar in my pocket, Mikaela looks at me. “He’s going to lose heart if you’re not careful.” I sigh and roll my eyes at her. “He’s waiting for your cognitive instincts to kick in.”
“Cognitive instincts? Who says that? Did Jake slip you that special dictionary he uses?”
“I think he wants to believe what he tells you. But it’s hard.”
“You guys talked about this?”
But she skates off to join him, giggly and small again.
* * * *
I go to work later, but my heart is not in it. I have trouble concentrating and nothing I write is coming out funny. I leave early and go buy a candy bar. I am two cents short but the cashier waves off the pennies.
Back in my room, I close the door and collapse with even weight distribution onto my bed. Before I’m able to draw my feet on there as well, there is a knock.
“Mikaela . . . I’m tired.”
There is a knock again. I know her. She’s going to stand out there and knock until I open the door. I pull a few strands of hair out of my ponytail, just to try to make myself look as ragged as I feel. Maybe she’s a visual learner.
I yank open the door, but it’s not Mikaela.
It’s Jake.
He doesn’t wait to be invited in. Instead, he steps right past me into my room. I close the door and stare him down, embarrassed by my situation. I can’t even offer him a glass of water. Or a toilet. He stands and looks at the Murphy bed for a moment, his hands in his pockets.
“This is where you live?”
“The Milford Plaza was booked.” I cross my arms. I should probably fix my ponytail but right now but I need my body language to make a few things clear. “Why are you here?”
Jake sits down at the desk. The chair creaks beneath him. “Who made you so untrusting?”
“You came all the way over here to ask me that? I don’t want to talk about it anymore than you want to discuss how your wife died.”
He doesn’t flinch but he does pause. “She didn’t die. I almost think that would have been easier.”
My arms drop to my side. “What?”
“When someone dies, at least you know they loved you. They didn’t choose to leave you.”
“Then . . . what happened?”
“She left me for my cousin. They both worked in the humor department. They wrote together. She said she wasn’t cheating and I believed her. For a long time I believed her. And then one day she told me the truth. And even then I tried to make up with her, tried anything to get her back. But no matter what I said to her, it didn’t help.” He shrugged as he stared at the ground. “Ironically, I couldn’t ever find the right words. I even tried to be funny. She said I wasn’t funny like him.”
He looked so sad at that moment. My heart broke for him. I stepped closer to where he sat. “That’s why you never laugh? Or even crack a smile?”
“I’ve always been told . . . well, she always told me that my smile looks weird.”
I step even closer and sit down on the edge of the bed. “Jake, I’m so sorr—”
It hitches up, throws me on my back, rolls me into the center as it closes up on me. I slide to the bottom and once again, I’m trapped on the other side of this stupid Murphy bed. I pound against the mattress. As you might imagine, it’s not making the kind of noise I was hoping for. I try to grab the edges to rattle the thing, get it opened up, but it’s locked. “When will I live somewhere besides this Y with this stupid bed that wants to kill me?” My face is smooshed against the sheets so I probably sound all muffled and pathetic. But who are we kidding—it’s not the mattress that is making me pathetic.
I can hear him laugh. “I kind of like this. You’re a captive audience.”
I smile in the darkness. I can hear that his tone is playful. “Is there a card for this?”
“Too much of a niche market.”
“I can’t be stuck in here while Jake Sentinel is finally laughing.”
“Gives us a chance to discuss that kiss.” And like that, he’s unlatched the bed and it comes crashing open, with me on top of it. There is no
way to play this calmly and coolly. My ponytail is definitely not cooperating. I can feel it flipped over the top of my head. I roll over on my back. He’s looking down at me as I scrape the hair out of my face.
“You know, the first time you rewrote me, I could deal with it. I mean, your pigtails, they kind of got to me.”
“What?”
“Technically, your check-in-the-box cards, you learned those from me.”
The realization slams into me like a rogue Murphy bed. “You . . . the ‘yes, no, maybe so’ boy?” I remember him now. He was small with glasses, hardly noticeable, especially to a girl who had no interest in boys yet. But that was not the only time he was in my life. I remember now, a boy named Jake, sending me cards through the mail every once in a while. I was just a kid, but my grandmother seemed to think he was something special. She sat me down one day after a card arrived, telling me that boys, in general, needed to be watched carefully, but any boy that sends handmade cards in the mail needs special consideration. I thought she was crazy at the time and dismissed the advice. Eventually, sometime during the first year of junior high, the cards stopped coming and I never thought about him again.
He smiles at me, a warm, familiar smile that flushes my cheeks. “Did you really think I’d hire some stranger off the street just because she’s dreamed of writing greeting cards? You’re practically the only nonfamily member we’ve ever hired.”
“You were the first boy who liked me.” I know, I sound like an eleven-year-old little girl and in case you were wondering, yes, I’m kind of gushing as I say it.
I’m still on the bed, on my back, gazing up at him. It feels very black-and-white-movieish so I sit up. The bed starts its slow rise, but I wiggle my rear to the center and then slowly get up. Except now we’re very close. Maybe it’s not a romantic moment. After all, the room is tiny. There’s hardly room for two people to stand and not stand close. So the goose bumps are less about proximity and more about how he’s looking into my eyes, like he can see my soul.
“You have to go!” I blurt out. “You can’t . . . I mean, we can’t . . .” There’s nowhere to go. I’m cornered by both Jake and Murphy. My skin tingles and I’m afraid my upper lip is soaked in sweat but I’m not sure. I wipe it with the back of my arm anyway.