Feel Me Fall Read online

  “And the other thing,” she said. “You may not think it, but you have it better than me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, waiter?” She smiled and he smiled back (probably for a tip), but it was like catnip to her. “Can I get a lime in my water?”

  “Sure thing.” He knew just how to work her. “I have to ask: are you sisters?”

  Soooo lame.

  But my mother ate it up. “Oh, I wish. I’m her aunt.” I don’t know why she lied. Maybe not to scare off potential suitors who were scared of dating moms. The waiter left.

  This was supposed to be about me and like usual she made it about her.

  “What was I saying? Oh, men.”

  “No, that I had it better.”

  “Right. See, being average is a blessing. You’ll never have to deal with problems that beauty brings. The lies and complications from men. The jealousy and cattiness from women. You must know by now that some women are the worst. There are those in the Sisterhood and those in name only. Always be a sister, Emily. There’s nothing worse.”

  “Not Hitler?”

  “Yes, Hitler. Of course he’s worse, smarty-pants. But honestly, not by much.” She bowed her head, grasped the armrests of her chair and let out a few breaths.

  “Mom?”

  She dug through her purse, finding a small orange medicine bottle and popped a pill. “Nothing. Just felt an anxiety attack coming on.”

  Minutes later, our food came, noodles and sauce, meatballs and bread, lots and lots of bread. I pondered my future of being non-threatening to my girlfriends and in the perma-Friend Zone with guys. Wonderful, I thought. What a life.

  As we ate, I could tell my mom settled into the calm haze I recognized that came from too many Ativan. Her eyes got glassy; her gaze, unfocused. She smiled more and acted ditzier. It wasn’t unpleasant, really; just not real. Not the truth. She was a fake version of herself.

  I was never sure if my mother suffered from anxiety or not. I know it’s what she told me, but I think she just didn’t want to seem like an addict.

  She twirled her fork in her pasta, circling and circling, making slow rotations. “You know, Em, sometimes I wish I wasn’t pretty.” Her voice was soft and dreamy. “Beauty is like wearing a mask. People only see the mask and nothing underneath.”

  “Mom, are you going to eat?”

  She seemed to notice her twirling for the first time. “Oh.”

  She might have said she wished she wasn’t pretty, but I could tell she missed the way men used to look at her. My mother was beautiful once—I’ve seen the pictures—though life has clearly sucked the youth from her. She still holds up well, but her dark hair has slivers of grey, her face is prematurely aged (cigarettes, stress), and though she’s still thin, it’s not a flattering thin. Maybe it’s her posture; she always carries herself like someone’s about to steal her purse. Apparently, I didn’t get her genetic promise. I got my unknown dad’s: small breasts, stumpy legs, and a face that gets passed over.

  Watching my mother, I didn’t know what was worse—being beautiful and then aging out of it, or like me; never having been beautiful at all.

  Sometimes I feel like I’m the embodiment of her failed dreams, the reason she works at a dog boarding facility and is nowhere near being famous. Or rich. Or any of the other reasons a person craves attention from strangers. Whatever hole she needed to fill only grew deeper as I grew older. I sensed the growing promise in my life contrasted to the dying promise of hers.

  And when your mother’s life is more chaotic than yours, you find you don’t rebel. At least not in the traditional sense. I rebelled by not rebelling.

  I grew up on my own. I took care of myself. I survived.

  After a lifetime living with my mother, surviving in the jungle should’ve been easy.

  Mosquitoes swarmed around my head. Clouds of them. Their whirr was relentless, an earworm with no melody. There was no relief: nowhere to run, no house to escape inside, no bug repellent, and I began flailing like Ryan had earlier. I looked like a whirling dervish.

  Nico saw me—he was always looking at me—and said, “Em, what’s wrong?”

  “The bugs! The bugs!” I just wanted it to stop.

  He caught me and put his shirt over my head so that I was nestled next to his chest. I didn’t want to be next to him. I wanted to run away, but I was away from the awful bugs. With light streaming through his cotton shirt I could pretend I was in bed, hiding beneath the sheets. Around me, I heard the others slapping away mosquitoes, too.

  Molly asked, “Do these things carry malaria?”

  Nico shushed her and said to Viv before she could freak out, “Let’s worry about that later, okay?”

  Derek said, “Know what’ll help?”

  Ryan deadpanned, “Not being here.”

  “Mud. Put it on your skin. It’s nature’s repellant.”

  I would’ve smeared feces on my face if it stopped the biting, such was my vanity.

  I emerged from under Nico’s shirt, and Viv threw me a look. I couldn’t tell what—concern? Jealousy? I ignored it and reached into the mud and slapped it on my face, arms, and neck. Everyone else followed. It dried, forming a barrier, and amazingly, the bugs left us alone.

  This was only our second day, and the longer we walked, the more I felt we were going deeper into the jungle and further from rescue. I was still wet, my skin pruning, and I could smell my own breath, sharp and sour. I assumed Ryan knew the way. I vaguely knew moss only grew on one side of trees and I think he used their growth pattern as a guide.

  My stomach rumbled, interrupting my thoughts. We were starving, to the point I could almost feel my stomach eating itself.

  “I need food.” I almost laughed out loud. I sounded so caveman: me need food. Yet, that’s how my brain was starting to operate, as if I was getting dumber.

  Food, food, food, food.

  “Booyah!” Ryan stopped near a bush and found a scattering of yellow berries.

  He started picking them off the bush, about to pop one in his mouth when Derek yelled, “Stop!” Ryan held the berry near his mouth; it looked so fresh, so enticing.

  Derek said, “Don’t eat any yellow or white berries.”

  Ryan said, “Why not?”

  “They might be poisonous.”

  “Might be?”

  Derek said, “Then be my guest.”

  Ryan hesitated. “You got any other ideas?”

  “You’re not going to like this.” Derek searched the ground and found what looked like a large walnut. Then he used his “hatchet” and cut it open. I expected the shell to fall away, revealing something akin to an edible peanut. No such luck.

  Inside, there were two or three holes, a few centimeters wide. Something white burrowed inside them. Derek knocked the nut against the tree—clonk, clonk, clonk—trying to force them out. Little by little, the white things slid forward. When there was enough to grab, Derek took ahold of one.

  It was a grub, about the size of a small thumbnail.

  My stomach turned before he even did anything.

  Derek popped it into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. He let out a satisfying ahhh. “Tastes like chicken.”

  Nico said, “That is some sickness right there.”

  Ryan still held the berries in his hand. “You want them to eat worms?”

  Derek said, “At least they’re not poisonous.”

  We looked at the berries, such a tease of nature, and the grubs.

  “Does it really taste like chicken?” Viv asked.

  Derek picked out a couple more. “Try it.” He handed Molly one. “Eat up, Molly. You’re eating for two.”

  She took it, cringing.

  When Viv hesitated eating, Ryan snatched hers. “It’s protein. Protein we need.” He slammed it into his mouth. He didn’t even chew, just swallowed. Ryan looked at us standing around. “Well, what are you waiting for? Grab some nuts and let’s eat.”

  We gathered and D
erek chopped open nuts with his hatchet. We clonked the nuts against the ground, bringing forth the little grubs from their hiding places. I didn’t know what they’d one day grow into and I didn’t want to know. I took the white thing, and it wiggled in my fingers.

  “I’m gonna need this,” Nico said and broke off another bud from his marijuana stash. He ate it with the grub and joked as if talking about wine. “A good year, yes. A faint hint of earth with a gritty mouth-feel and an aftertaste of puke.”

  Viv held hers. Like trying a piece of sushi, she bit off a small piece. A mistake, as the grub leaked a viscous gravy, and she gagged. “Blech. Tastes nothing like chicken.”

  Don’t think about it. Just do it.

  I was so hungry. It burst in my mouth, earthy and sticky, my hunger rising and I yearned for more, thinking we’re becoming more like savages by the hour.

  Chapter 6

  I press the Nurse’s button. I don’t know what takes them so long. I would get up myself, but I’ve got an IV attached to my arm keeping me hydrated, along with antibiotics. I feel like a human petri dish.

  I press and press and press.

  My mother must be on a cigarette break.

  The door opens and a nurse enters, probably expecting to find me writhing in pain, only to see a normal girl in bed. “What’s the matter?”

  I point at a window, which lets in a flood of light. From outside, I can see trees swaying in the breeze.

  The nurse doesn’t get it. “What?”

  “The fly.”

  “The fly?”

  I point. There is a lone fly buzzing on the window and the incessant zzzt taunts me to no end.

  “It’s just a fly,” the nurse tells me.

  “Can you kill it, please?”

  She considers, and then walks out and I think she’s ignoring me, but seconds later she returns with a stack of paper rolled into a man-made swatter. She approaches the window and with the determination of a predator, swacks the fly. It leaves a small smear.

  “Can you shut the blinds, too?” I ask.

  “But it’s such a beautiful day.” She sees my resolve and the blinds snap shut.

  I used to love nature. Now I want to live surrounded by cement.

  Give me four walls and streets and freeways for as far as I can see.

  Give me traffic thick with rush hour.

  Give me neighbors and their loud music and late-night parties.

  I hear the patter of feet outside my door, and it soothes me for I know with certainty: I am not alone.

  Valentine’s Day. Sometimes I think there is nothing lonelier than being a single girl on that made up Hallmark holiday, that one day where there is no hiding if you’re alone. Where the happiness of other couples is on display like a huge neon sign, reminding you that you’re not good enough. Not pretty enough. Not worthy enough. I hated having to watch everyone else get flowers or cards. Smiles and holding hands and stolen kisses. Ugh.

  Johannes wasn’t my boyfriend, not really. I didn’t know what to call him. So when I walked to my high school locker and opened it, I expected nothing. But inside, caught near the door’s seam, was a red envelope. I slipped my finger gently under the flap and brought out the card. In simple type, it read: Will you be my Valentine? There was no signature, just the letter “J.”

  J for Johannes, I thought.

  He risked getting caught slipping it in my locker.

  He risked it for me.

  I didn’t think of myself as the gushy romantic type, but I found myself beaming, and this simple gesture made me feel loved. The energy in the school seemed to shift, as if the lights were brighter, the air cleaner. I looked down the hallway, taking part in the shared happiness, feeling like we were all part of a love parade.

  Then I saw Molly. She was at her locker. She hesitated, as if by some wish, some miracle, there might be something inside when she opened it. There wasn’t. She always put on a front as if she didn’t care, protecting herself from hurt behind a wall of stone, but looking at her when she thought no one was watching told me everything. She was just a girl who wanted to be special.

  I watched as she slammed her locker and walked off, and I knew what I had to do.

  Near the end of the day, a note was placed on her locker.

  I watched as Molly read the note and I followed her as she went to the front office. Through the glass windows, I spied as she signed for her flowers. They were a dozen white roses, a splash of winter in a vase. I’d had the florist write a note that read: You are Special. From a Friend. Her eyes squinted, puzzled, as she re-read the note. Then she lifted the roses and smelled them. But she didn’t smile. She spoke back and forth with the confused-looking receptionist, motioning at the flowers. Then Molly walked out of the office. Empty-handed.

  I took one last glance through the window. The receptionist took the flowers and placed them on her desk. I didn’t understand.

  In the hallway, I caught up with Molly.

  “Hey,” I said. “Saw you in there. Were those flowers for you?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Just thought they were nice, that’s all. Someone’s a lucky girl.”

  “Nope.”

  That couldn’t be right. I’d seen her go get them after reading a note on her locker. I made sure they were addressed to the right person. I didn’t even want to count how many minimum wage hours I’d spent paying for them.

  “C’mon, they were for you. I saw the note on your locker earlier.”

  She turned to me, mocking, “Are you stalking me?”

  “Why lie?”

  “Why ask if you already know?”

  “No reason,” I stammered. “They were beautiful.”

  “They were a joke, okay? Someone’s idea of a joke.” Molly tried to push away, but I caught up with her again.

  “What if they weren’t?”

  She stopped. “Why? Did you send them to me?”

  I hesitated.

  Molly’s voice made my answer easier. She asked, her voice laced with sarcasm, “Why, did you feel sorry for me?”

  “No,” I said. “I didn’t send them.”

  The bell rang, and Molly sighed. “Great. Now I’m late for class.”

  I watched her walk off alone, unsure if I’d done the right thing after all.

  The projector’s cylindrical light streamed above me, dust motes floating within it. Charlie Chaplin in his herky-jerky manner as the Little Tramp worked on an assembly line, and the line kept getting faster and faster. He wasn’t wearing his usual costume of hat, black suit, and cane. Instead, he wore overalls and a white T-shirt. The black & white film was accompanied by quirky music, sound effects, and occasional dialogue. It occurred to me my life had been a kind of pre-ordained assembly line of its own: school and summer, rinse and repeat.

  I’d never seen a Chaplin movie before, only bits and pieces on TV, and never in a theater where it was being shown as part of a retrospective at the Silent Movie Theatre. Though the film was decades old, it still held up, and I liked it. It reminded me of an “I Love Lucy” episode I’d seen growing up. The theater was small and intimate, the seats comfortable and cushy, and it seemed to smell like old upholstery and secrets. I sat alone. Waiting.

  As Chaplin got thrown from one mess to another, a figure in the dark appeared, along with the wafting of buttered popcorn. It was Johannes, dapper in his professorial sport-coat. He squeezed past a few moviegoers near the aisle, and into the open seat I’d saved for him. We were near the back, off to the side, and away from everyone else in an island of privacy.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he whispered, though he intentionally came late and separately, so that we wouldn’t be seen together. The movie date had been his idea, something different than CIA-ing to his apartment, not that I minded camping out at his place. I enjoyed being his refugee.

  We watched the movie and held hands. The Little Tramp had a nervous breakdown and was thrown into a hospital. Then he met an orphan girl. The cops were
after her because she stole a piece of bread. To save her, the Little Tramp told the police he was the thief.

  I wondered if a man would ever do that for me. Love me enough to do anything.

  I asked, “Am I your girlfriend?” Johannes’ face crinkled in a way I’d seen him when a student asked a ridiculous question. “Or am I…something else?”

  “Like what?”

  “Someone you see. On the side.” When he didn’t answer, I added, “I’d understand, you know.”

  He lifted my hand and kissed the back of it. “So mature, aren’t you?”

  “I’m serious.”

  Someone turned in the audience and gave us side-eye, an unspoken request to stop talking.

  Johannes spoke quietly into my ear, his lips nearly touching my lobe, his breath warm. “You’re my girlfriend.” After a beat, he said, “Feel better?”

  I admit I did.

  That is until the movie ended, the lights came up, the spell broke, and people stood to go home. Immediately, we stopped holding hands. We rose from our seats, awkwardly seeing if we recognized anyone. He went one way down the aisle and I another. Then he melded with the stream of theater-goers and walked out the door. As was the plan, I waited a minute, loitering near the women’s bathroom, and then exited. Outside, he was already in his car, a used Ford Escort, practical and egoless, pulling into traffic. As he passed in front of me, he didn’t even wave.

  I’d never felt so invisible.

  We stopped to drink water from a hole. I got on the ground, digging in the mud, having a memory of being at the beach making sand castles. I’d always mocked the pollution in Los Angeles; the brown layer that hung over the basin, a sickly cloud of yellow air. Yet the brown water that pooled in the hole made L.A. seem like an oasis.