Fishbowl (30 page)

With a wave to Claire, she’s wheeled down the hall to the elevator. One of the paramedics presses the button, and the two of them talk quietly about getting a pizza later, “… or did you want a gyro?” The sounds of the elevator descending from above grow louder through the doors.

“Gyros,” the one says and checks his watch.

The other nods. “Good call. We’ll grab them after we drop these lovely ladies off.”

The elevator dings, the button light goes out, and the doors slide open. There is a foot-high step between the elevator and the floor, but with minimal jostling, they maneuver the gurney into the compartment.

Petunia Delilah looks at her reflection. There is ice cream sandwich gunk in the corners of her mouth and on her fingertips. Lavender rests peacefully, her lips working but her eyes closed. Petunia Delilah wonders for a moment if her baby can dream yet. Everything is all right. She’s a mom. She smiles.

One of the paramedics holds the gurney in place, and the other presses the lobby button. Both of them stand with their backs to Petunia Delilah, staring at the number above the door. The doors slide closed, and the elevator starts its descent.

“Smells smoky in here,” says one paramedic.

“Yep,” the other says, shaking his head in disapproval. “Smokers.”

“No, that’s not cigarette smoke,” the first says. “I used to smoke and that’s not it. This smells more plasticky.”

“You used to smoke?” the other asks.

“I did.”

“I didn’t know that about you.”

“Well, it’s true. I used to.”

“That will kill you, you know.”

“Well, I don’t do it anymore, do I?”

They fall silent and watch the number six become a number five in the little display above the door.

“I worry about you sometimes,” the one says. “You’re a risk taker.”

There’s a metallic grinding from outside the elevator compartment. It echoes up and down the elevator shaft. The compartment shudders to a halt somewhere around the fourth floor.

The paramedic jabs at the button, but the elevator doesn’t move.

52

In Which Claire the Shut-In Gets a Job and a Date and Possibly a Life on the Outside

“My name’s Jason,” the emergency operator says.

“Jason? Pig?” Claire says. “It’s you?”

“Yes,” he replies and then adds, “but please, these calls are recorded. You can call me Jason.”

“Okay,” Claire says. “Jason, do you know who I am?”

“I do. I recognize your voice.” Then he says more quietly, “Sometimes I call on my coffee breaks.”

“I know you do,” Claire says.

“I always hope to get you. I like you.”

There’s some bustling by the door, and the baby starts to fuss. One of the paramedics talks into the radio clipped to his shoulder. Claire can’t make out what he says. He stands by the door, chin crooked to shoulder and a thumb hooked heroically through his belt loop. The other paramedic inflates a blood pressure cuff around Petunia Delilah’s arm. He pinches her wrist, his finger pressed against the nook below her thumb as he counts her pulse.

Petunia Delilah’s eyes are on her baby. Her mouth moves, jaws side to side and lips together as she savors her ice cream sandwich. Her eyebrows are raised slightly, and her forehead is smooth. The baby wriggles in her arms. It gurgles and she smiles.

Claire glances around the room. That weird little kid who came in with her is nowhere to be seen. Unless he’s passed out somewhere. She looks around the corner of the island to see if he’s lying on the floor, but he isn’t. No one seems to notice he’s gone, and no one pays attention to her or her conversation.

Claire realizes she needs someone to talk to. She has needed someone for quite a while but has been working hard at ignoring the fact. Normally, she would call her mother and unload a few little burdens from the week, just enough so Mom feels included but not so much to worry her. Claire finds herself disinclined to burden her with the larger complications as she ages.

Mom doesn’t need my problems, Claire thinks, but I’ve kept them all and now … maybe Jason.

Claire ponders for a moment whether this will be too awkward or not and then decides. “It’s been a hard day, Jason. I think I may need someone to talk to.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Jason says. “Would you like to tell me about it?”

“I don’t know. It’s just, things haven’t been overly normal for the last little while even though I work hard to believe they are. When I said it’s been a hard day, what I mean is, it’s been a hard few years,” Claire says. “I seem to have built a routine to my life to add a normalcy that isn’t there. I didn’t notice it before, but I guess that was the point. I do this routine so I won’t have to think about doing anything or trying anything different. I see it now. I want to change it. Now, I don’t know what to do about it.”

Jason is silent.

“Are you there?” she asks.

“I’m here. I’m listening.”

Claire appreciates his silence. A lot of the guys she dated always tried to fix everything. She would confide in them, and in a sentence, they would offer a solution. Then they would dismiss the issue as a problem that now had a solution should she only choose to correct it. They always turned it back on her, fixed her and moved on. She doesn’t want Jason to solve all of her problems. She just wants him to listen to her, acknowledge what she says, and, at a stretch, maybe understand that things aren’t perfect. She appreciates his silence.

“A woman gave birth on my floor today.” Claire sighs. “I felt two things. The first was terror that she was in my apartment. The second was pride that my floor was clean enough to give birth on. I haven’t left my apartment for years, and no one has been in here either, and now I’m staring at three strangers—no, four now with the baby, four strangers in my apartment. And I’m most worried that there’s a splashy blast of afterbirth on the linoleum and that the paramedics’ shoes are dirty.” Claire’s voice cracks. “I know I should have felt fear for the woman and her baby. The fact that I have to think about how I should feel scares me. Doesn’t it just happen for everyone else?

“I should have opened the door with no question, yet I asked questions. I should have gone out to get my own groceries this week. I should go to a bookstore and touch the spines of every book on the shelf without worrying who touched them before and whether or not they washed their hands. I shouldn’t want to tell the paramedics to take their shoes off at the door. I should kiss someone. I haven’t been touched in years, by anyone. I should go visit my mom. I should—”

“Claire,” Jason says, “it’s okay. Everyone’s okay, but I think you may need to talk to someone about it. Tell me everything now, yes, but you have to tell someone else too. Maybe a professional. Someone who can help you.”

“I just never thought I needed help,” Claire says.

“I know,” Jason says. “But you do.”

They listen to each other breathing for a moment.

“I lost my job today too. They’re outsourcing the PartyBox to Manila, and we all got laid off,” she says. “It’s been a hard day.”

“Claire,” Jason says, “we’re hiring, here at the call center. There’re two positions available on the switchboard. What system does the PartyBox use?”

“Linksys 9000.”

“That’s the same one we use,” Jason says excitedly. “You should apply. I can put in a good word for you.”

“Surely I don’t have the education.”

“You have call experience. That’s the big one. You’re good under pressure, I can vouch for that. Ideally, they like some related postsecondary education like criminology or nursing or something, but they do most of the training on the job.”

“I have a diploma in Theoretical Human Anatomy with a minor in Managerial Accounting for Non-Accountants,” Claire says.

“Perfect,” Jason says. “Email me your r
é
sum
é
and I’ll turn it in to HR. If you get an interview, you’ll have to come here to the call center though.”

“I know.”

“Can you do that?”

“Maybe.”

Claire watches the paramedics secure Petunia Delilah and her baby onto the gurney. They cover her with a blanket, and one of the paramedics looks at Claire and gives a quick wave. She waves back as they wheel out of the apartment. The other paramedic pops his head back through the door and mouths a “Thank you.” Then he’s gone, closing the door gently behind him.

“What else, Claire?”

Claire’s emotions wane for the moment. She thinks it odd to unload her thoughts on her past client and grows a bit uncomfortable.

“Nothing, Jason. Thanks for listening.”

“Claire, I hope this isn’t too out of line, but I’d like to get to know you better. If I won’t be able to call you anymore, I don’t know what I’m going to do. And I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t ask,” Jason says. “Can we grab a coffee or something sometime?”

“Well…” Claire pauses. She closes her eyes. Her hand shakes. The receiver quivers in front of her mouth, and she draws a deep breath. “When do you get off of work?”

“My shift ends in fifteen minutes.”

“Do you like quiche?” Claire asks.

“I do,” Jason says.

“Would you like to come over to my place for some quiche?” Claire asks and then rushes to say, “I know it’s short notice. If you can’t, if you’ve already got plans, that’s okay, I get it, we can chat some other day or something,” she says and then adds, “if you want.”

“I would love to join you for quiche,” Jason says. “But I should go home and change out of my uniform first.”

“No,” Claire says. “That’s all right. You don’t have to.” She glances at the stove clock ticking backward. “The quiche will be done in four minutes. Then it has to sit for ten minutes before it’s ready.”

“It’ll probably be closer to forty-five minutes or so before I can get there,” Jason says. “I can’t leave early. If I could, I would, but we’re pretty short staffed.”

“No, that’s okay. It’s good warm or cold,” Claire says.

She looks around her apartment. Petunia Delilah’s afterbirth has stained the foyer with goo. There’s a sodden pile of linens. The paramedics didn’t take off their shoes, and while they looked relatively clean, they did come in from outside. Nothing is as it was, not even from five minutes ago, and Claire wonders if she’ll ever feel the complacent comfort she once did. Then she realizes that she shouldn’t ever feel that again.

Her voice wavers when she says, “That’s perfect, Jason. I have to clean up a bit around the place anyhow. You know the address?”

“Yes. It’s in the system here.” Jason laughs. “I can stop and get a bottle of wine, if you like.”

“That would be nice … Pig,” Claire says and smiles.

53

In Which One of an Infinity of Homeschooled Hermans Bids Farewell to His Grandpa

The elevator chimes down the hall as Herman leaves Apartment 805. It’s a quiet and faraway noise in his mind.

What was once broken is fixed, Herman thinks, remembering his earlier misadventures in the elevator. And so it begins all over again.

The elevator door slides open, and two paramedics bustle out into the hallway. The first stumbles because of the misalignment of the floors. He points and warns the other. Navy-blue pants whisper with movement, and the ripples of their pressed blue shirts make the fabric look liquid. One talks in a radio attached to his shoulder, and the other drags a gurney burdened with equipment in his wake. Both of their heads swivel, trying to get their bearings in their new surroundings. Both sport intense looks of determination in their eyes. They spot him.

“Hey, kid,” one calls. “Where’s Apartment 805?”

Without looking back, Herman points over his shoulder to the door he just left. Then, he opens the door to the stairwell and passes through.

The stairwell lights are dim and yellow, casting the space in a hue like an antique photo. The air smells ancient too, trapped in the column that falls below and rises above him, like it has been stuck in there since the building was built. Herman has seven floors to go up and he isn’t in a hurry. His apartment will be there just as it has been in the past and as it always will be in the future. He takes his steps, measured and one by one. There’s no need to run, like he had earlier. Herman isn’t sure he can run anymore even if he should want to. His legs are leaden and his body exhausted from his journey. He uses the handrail as leverage to help out his tired legs.

“Think of that space between the dots as time,” Grandpa said, “not distance.”

I don’t have far to go, just a short time to go, Herman thinks.

It seems an eternity ago, running up these steps from the lobby where he had woken in the elevator. He really doesn’t know if that just happened and he’s still in the stairs, ascending from where he had lain on the tile floor. Everything that has occurred is jumbled up and out of place in his mind. He remembers standing up in the elevator with his reflections fading a million times into the deep infinity all around him, his image bouncing forever, back and forth between mirrors.

Which one of them is me? Herman wonders.

Then he knows the answer: all of them are.

The paper has folded to touch Herman to Herman, and they are one and the same. And as they track his movements, mimicking him as he leaves the elevator, they all step out of different elevators into different lobbies. An infinity of Hermans go their separate ways once they are out of his sight and he is out of theirs.

*   *   *

There’s a jumble of noises a few flights of stairs above him. The clamor grows louder as it comes his way. As he passes the sign bolted to the stairwell that reads “Floor 11,” he’s shoved to the side by an explosion of crying woman. He bounces against the wall and stays there as it seems to be the only solid thing around.

The woman rushes past him, blubbering hysterically, neglecting to acknowledge his presence, oblivious of him to the point that Herman wonders if he’s even there. He leans against the wall and watches her stumble around the landing below and then out of sight. He continues upward, the sounds of her crying fading by the time he reaches the sign that reads “Floor 14,” and by the time he pushes the bar to release the lock to shoulder through the door by the sign that reads “Floor 15,” he can no longer hear her at all.