Adverbs (9 page)

“Was it fun?” Mike asked. “A movie star? I bet you got to go to parties.”

“It’s funny you should say parties,” the Snow Queen said sadly. “I had this part over there, taped up near the light switch, where I was sort of a ghost grandma. I had a line, ‘It’s a party!’ They had me do it fifteen times, ‘It’s a party! It’s a party! It’s a party! It’s a party! It’s a party! It’s a party! It’s a party! It’s a party! It’s a party! It’s a party! It’s a party! It’s a party! It’s a party! It’s a party! It’s a party!’ And it never even made it into the picture. Nobody wanted to hear it. You can say something and say something, but still nobody wants to hear it.”

“I want to hear it,” Mike said, his soaking socks off.

“I was in love,” the Snow Queen said. “That was the last thing I was in, and the director fell in love with me, or anyway we had a baby. But the baby passed on.”

“My baby sister passed on,” Mike said.

“It’s a terrible thing,” the Snow Queen said. “I’ve barely got
ten out of bed since, and the director too. He couldn’t think of anything else but all those monster stories. I ran away from him and wasted away all my money to forget, and if I had one wish now, it would be for that baby back, something to love on these cold days alone.”

“If your baby was alive,” asked Mike, “would it be my age?”

“Oh goodness no,” the Snow Queen said, and then slapped her strong hands on her knees. “If you could have one wish, what would it be for your turn?”

Mike looked out the window down at the street. Most of the signs were dark, and some of the rain was almost hail. “I guess calamari,” he said, blushing because he knew it was dumb. “I had it in Santa Cruz and I really liked it, but probably I can’t have it now.”

The Snow Queen smiled and walked over to her freezer. Inside it was so covered in frost there was only one thing in it. She pulled it out and threw it on the table in front of him. It was a bag of calamari, frozen and pictured on the packaging. Everything she said was coming true. She was a prophetess, something from elsewhere, and this is part of love too. You must believe what is happening, every pronouncement the love is making, or you might as well go back to the diner and wait for someone who has forgotten you completely. “I have a microwave,” the Snow Queen pronounced grandly. “It’ll be ready in three to five minutes.”

In three to five minutes the world can change, and three to five minutes might even be a generous estimate for a relationship
between a young boy and an older woman from the netherworld of Kata, if you know what I mean. But all love gets over, and we must get over it. Even Mike, young as he was, knew that the guy he was waiting for at the diner wasn’t going to show. The whole world seemed up in that apartment, like the freezer of the Snow Queen might give them a limitless menu if they could just wish for everything they wanted. They grinned at the microwave, Mike especially because he was the one who loved the calamari, but the Snow Queen too, because she was the one who loved him. He was innocent, a rare commodity, and some might say she should leave him alone. But she’d been left alone too long, and who are those people anyway, bickering in the corner and saying such things? Love like this, it was better than sitting in a diner doing nothing, because look what has arrived for Andrea! A man who will treat her badly! Tony!

“Are you open?” Tony said. “I can’t tell.”

“We’re always open,” Andy said. “Any diner worth its salt is open twenty-four hours a day.”

“I’m in the mood for a drink,” Tony said.

Andrea twirled all the way around on her stool, as the diner was the sort of place where that could be done. She was not going to see the Snow Queen today, not again, but in the meantime here was something who could help her through three to five minutes. “I recommend the Suffering Bastard,” she said. “It’s four parts gin, three parts brandy, one part lime juice, sugar syrup, Angostura bitters, ginger ale, and it’s garnished with a slice of cucumber.”

“Sounds good to me,” Tony said. “Somebody give us two of
those.” He would treat her badly, but in the meantime love like this was better. Better something poured over ice, than just the ice outside in a heap by itself.

“We don’t serve party drinks like that,” Andy said. “This is a diner, and even if we did I wouldn’t serve you two that. I’ve seen a miracle today, and I want to see more of them, so I’m spending the rest of the evening scraping the paint off these windows of mine. I’d make the cook make you a drink, I guess, if we had such things.”

“Idaho,” said the cook, lost again to us, but nobody heard him because Andy had already started scraping. The scraping was such a horrible sound that the woman in the corner looked up and for the first time realized that she was in this story too, not just the one where she bickered with her ghost of a boyfriend.

“No need,” Tony said. “Let’s get out of here and go to a bar. You ever been to the Black Elephant, Andrea?”

“See you later, Andy,” Andrea said.

“You owe me like twenty-six dollars for all those half carafes,” he said, over the scraping.

“She’ll pay you later,” Tony said, and they walked out together like they were going to a masked ball. Out in front of Andy’s was the frozen figure of a man with his hat on, his face icy in the middle of some terrible speech. Toppled, he looked like one of the victims of Pompeii, a city destroyed in a volcano studied by Mike in his classroom a while ago, although now, in the Snow Queen’s apartment, Mike was reciting the three common words, beginning with the letter A, often used to describe magpies. Magpies are artful and aggressive birds who are often
attracted to shiny things, which is maybe why Tony turned from the dull gray-white of the man on the sidewalk to the brightening shine of Andrea’s pretty eyes.

“Who’s that?” Tony said, shrugging to the guy.

“Looks like an ex-boyfriend to me,” Andrea said.

“Somebody treated him cold,” Tony said. Although there was plenty of rain, there was no more sunlight on the street, which meant this lousy day was pretty much over, if you know what I mean. If you know what I mean that’s what was happening to them.

“Happens all the time,” Andrea said. “It’s not the end of the world.”

S
altwater taffy is I guess made from salt water and a whole bunch of sugar, spun or woven or beaten into a substance they sell down by the boardwalk. If you’re in San Francisco, as this love story is, you can head south and see it being made in a shack, next to the shack where they sell tickets and next to the shack where they fry up calamari and give it to you for a price. Just follow the signs. You can’t miss the signs they put up.

This is love, saltwater taffy. Pretty much everybody has had some. Somebody offers it on a day when you have nothing to do, and most likely you’ll take it and put it in your mouth. It unites us, saltwater taffy, but whose favorite is it? Who likes it best? Just about nobody. So why do we eat it? This love story is about this style of love, this sweet thing that exists unasked for, that everybody eats out of the same bag. But also it is about what it says on the shack. I was there myself, and the large sign said:
COME IN AND WATCH US MAKE IT
.

I did not want to. Some things are private, no matter how many people know about the sugar and the spinning and such, and this love story is about that part of love too.

There’s a song called “Please Mr. Postman” or maybe it’s just “Mr. Postman.” The postman always had it in his head. It
was one of the downsides of his job, that and vicious dogs. He explained this to his son as they reached a flat part of the hill, which like a bunch of things was a false ending. If you had a bird’s-eye view you could see there was more to it. The postman in effect had a bird’s-eye view, from all the days of climbing this hill with mail for everybody.

The son’s name was Mike. It was Bring Your Daughter to Work Day, which after much debate had been changed to Bring Your Child to Work Day, to make it more inclusive. It was fairer this way, it united more people, so the postman had Mike with him on his route.

“Most people think it’s just delivering mail, just finding the right house and slipping it into the slot,” the postman said, “but there’s more to it than that.” He started to list some things about his job Mike might not know, more or less off the top of his head. Mike sort of listened. “Everybody gets mail, is the thing. No matter where they live. Mail unites us, son, and at a time like this with volcanoes and wicked men we need that.”

“My teacher says the volcano thing isn’t true,” Mike said.

“She would, that teacher of yours,” the postman said. “Teachers used to be city employees and they never got married, and now look. They still are. But in my day we all had to stand up and say the same thing to the flag on the wall. Do you do the pledge?”

“I don’t think so,” Mike said. “I don’t think we’ve had that yet.”

“In my day you always did,” the postman said. “We would all stand up and say the same thing about indivisible. Blah blah the
state of this country. Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah, Mike. Blah blah blah blah business addresses, or blah blah blah private homes.”

Mike wasn’t listening, except perhaps a little bit. His father’s voice was like the dull sound of the sea. “What?” he said. “What’s private homes?”

“You know what private is,” the postman said, slipping some mail into the slot. “You can’t go in unless you ring the doorbell and someone lets you in.”

“Like vampires,” Mike said. He was going through a thing about vampires.

“
Not like vampires
,” the postman said. “You’re not listening, Mike. We’ve talked about this. We hope this guy will let us come in and—”

“What’s the best part of your job?” Mike asked. This was part of the report he had to write, which would be read halfheartedly by his teacher as she shared a bottle of chianti with her spouse whom she loved.

“I’ve been
saying
,” the postman said irritably, pointing to the next house. “Pay
attention
. The fellow at 1602 is the best part. You’re gonna meet him. You’re gonna love him. He’s a great fellow. Handsome, and pretty tall, and he’s made something of himself. I can’t wait to see him again.”

“A guy? That’s the best part?” Mike asked.

“Yeah it’s the best part,” the postman said, and stepped up to 1602. The house looked like any other house, home to somebody, not to you. It had paint on the outside of it, and windows on the walls. Mike had scarcely any curiosity about it at all. “We’re all
together on this, Mike. We’re all on the same page. You’re gonna love him. I love him. I love him like a root beer float. And you’re gonna love him like saltwater taffy.”

Mike, like a bird, had headed south once. He had walked down the boardwalk, where the taffy is made in small buildings and shops. The sea had nudged his feet and it had been very hot and sweaty outside. He had read the signs, everything they put up for him to read, but still he was unprepared for the man who opened the door. Love can smack you like a seagull, and pour all over your feet like junk mail. You can’t be ready for such a thing any more than saltwater taffy gets you ready for the ocean, or Bring Your Child to Work Day prepares you for the lonely times of going to work. But Mike wasn’t going to have any lonely times. Not lately, or not in the immediate future. No way, with a door opening like this one.

“Can I help you?” the fellow said, and Mike just loved him. Why wouldn’t you? Mike loved this fellow on the spot, like his father said, particularly his necktie and the way that he grasped his hair with one hand, distractedly, as he looked out at his postman. Love flowed through Mike and stuck to the roof of his mouth like a sticky sticky sweet, this fellow from 1602, this man who suddenly showed up on the route and opened the door.

“Hello!” the postman said. “Hello! This is my son. I wanted him to meet you and he did too.”

“Um, hello,” the fellow said.

“We both totally think you’re a great guy,” the postman said. “We both love you. We just want to come in for a minute.”

“It’s not really,” the fellow said. “It’s not really a good time.”

“Just for a minute,” the postman insisted, and Mike nodded in agreement. “I have to continue my route because everybody wants their mail, but if we could just come in for a minute, so my son here could get to know you. It’s Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. Be a sport, will you be a sport?”

“I guess so,” the fellow said, and gave them the benefit of the doubt with an open door. The postman held the fellow’s packet of mail out and then flipped it back toward himself and his son.

“I won’t give you your mail,” the postman said playfully, “until you let us in for a few minutes.”

“I already said okay,” the fellow said sharply, and Mike flushed a bit. This is love, and the trouble with it: it can make you embarrassed. Love is really liking someone a whole lot and not wanting to screw that up. Everybody’s chewed this over. This unites us, this part of love. Mike walked through the door into 1602 and just beamed at this fellow, all smiley with admiration and liking him a lot.

“Make yourselves at home I guess,” the fellow said, and just past the door was a sort of living room kitchen combo where Mike could see the fellow cooked and ate and sat on a sofa and put his feet up on a table with magazines. Mike didn’t care which ones the fellow subscribed to, because Mike subscribed to the fellow. “I was just going to excuse myself,” the fellow said, adorably, “when the doorbell rang.”

“Okeydokey,” the postman said and led his son into the room to sit. The fellow at 1602 left, and the two visitors suddenly realized there was a woman in the room with them who had been concealed by a floor lamp.

“Hello,” the woman said. Her name was Muriel.

“Oh my,” the postman said, half-rising from the sofa. “I didn’t realize he already had company.”

“Yes,” Muriel said. “We’re having something of a reunion, actually.”

“Reunion?” the postman said.

“Here,” the woman said, and reached over to the pile of magazines. On top was some mail including an opened envelope.

“Oh, I couldn’t!” the postman said. “Not someone else’s mail. Put that in your report, Mike. Don’t read other people’s mail. Your teacher will love that.”

“It’s okay,” Muriel said, handing it over. “Read it.”

The fellow at 1602 washed his face more than necessary, as we all do. First Muriel, now the postman and his son. He looked at his wet face in the bathroom mirror. Why was this happening? Why love, today? But nobody ever answers that one, guy. He reached for a towel as the doorbell rang again.

“Sooo,” the postman said, handing the letter back. “The guy’s name is Joe.”

“I like the name Joe,” Mike said.

“Who doesn’t?” the postman said. “And you’re Muriel? Well, all I have to say to you, Muriel, is congratulations.”

“Excuse me,” the fellow said, walking through the room. “I have to answer the doorbell.” The fellow kept walking, amazed at his own decision to pretend he hadn’t heard what they were talking about. It wasn’t true, in any case. The fellow at 1602 looked exactly like his father and overall the letter was suspect. Last week he had received a letter on the same stationery telling him he had won a prize and it was signed “Muriel, your prize deputy.” He hadn’t answered that one, and now he was thinking both letters were limp ruses to get into the house. But now Muriel was in the house. She was in the house and all she wanted to do was sit on his sofa and get to know him. Where did he work? Where did he find that tie? Did he grow up happy with his fake parents? This is love, the plain truth once you get inside. Like a peacock, we all show off with the plumage. Come in and watch us make it! But then it’s just the same story, sugar and spice all spun up. We’re all mostly salt water. Love is candy from a stranger, but it’s candy you’ve had before and it probably won’t kill you.

“It’s just hitting me,” the postman said as soon as the fellow was out of the room, “that the name Joe is never on the envelopes I give this guy.”

“I have no idea if his name is Joe,” Muriel confided with a whisper. “I made up the whole letter, just about. I just love this guy. I love him. I love him and I want to get to know him.”

“I know,” the postman said. “Isn’t he a peach?”

“I love him,” Mike said, “and I’ve only known him for a few minutes.”

“That’s how it goes,” the postman said. “It’s like a miracle. You’re lucky it was Bring Your Daughter to Work Day. Let’s look at his books.”

The three lovers shared a look and got a case of the giggles. There was no competition among them but otherwise there was nothing unusual. The books too were nothing unusual: something by Alice Walker, for instance, a very popular author, and several books on things that interested him. They say love is in the details, that it’s the little things that make a person special, but then why are the love songs so alike? It’s your smile, it’s your eyes, I love your eyes and your smile. I like to go to the beach with you, but really the beach is so interesting and pretty that you could take anyone to the beach. The girl singing that song “Please Mr. Postman” just wants a letter from some fellow, and you just make up who the guy is. You’re encouraged to do so, to draw up the details that bring you to love him, so why shouldn’t you go to his house, where the details live? That’s what the guy who delivers the organic box told himself, as he turned off the same song on the radio and stopped his truck at 1602 and rang the doorbell for obvious reasons.

“Just for a minute,” the fellow at 1602 said with a sigh. “I already have three people here.”

“I didn’t want to insist,” said the guy who delivers the organic box. He was holding a box of heavy cardboard, filled with organic fruits and vegetables and other products. The gentle hump of a mango, the perky celery, and a plastic container of yogurt were peeking out of the top of the box like they wanted to be with this guy, just lay eyes on him for a few moments, his pretty eyes. “It’s just that I think you’re totally super and I want to get to know you.”

“Get in line,” the postman said, and nearly everybody laughed.

“Do you guys love him too?” the delivery guy said, putting the box on the counter.

“Hell yeah,” Muriel said. “I love this fellow like he’s my own baby.”

“I like his necktie,” Mike said.

“We’re all on the same page, clearly,” the postman said, putting a book back where it belonged.

“I’ve been watching this guy for like six months,” said the fellow who delivers the organic box, pointing to the fellow at 1602 with an eager open palm. “Ever since I got on this delivery route. He’s a terrific guy.”

“I love him,” the postman said and winked at Muriel.

“Who doesn’t?” the delivery guy said. “He’s the rat’s pajamas.”

“It’s cat,” Mike said. His teacher’s unit on idiomatic expressions had been almost a complete waste of time.

“I knew it was some animal who had the pajamas,” said the
fellow who delivers the organic box. “
Cat
. I’ll have to remember that. Now, where do you keep your blender?”

“Call him Joe,” Muriel said. “It’s a name I made up for him, a term of endearment. Try it.”

“Where’s the blender, Joe?” the delivery guy tried, but he’d already found it, in a cupboard. There are only a handful of places where a blender is kept. If you live with someone romantically, for years even, you could switch to a new person and find their blender within moments.

“Look,” the fellow finally said, and everyone looked. He fussed with his hair in that way people love and gave everyone a little smile like he didn’t really mean it. “All this is very strange for me.”

“Like you’re walking on air?” Mike asked.