Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots (18 page)

Now I tried to remember if I’d said the word
sad
and made Blot think twice about me. I whispered it, wrapping my mouth around letters.
Sad.
It didn’t ring a bell.

“Wow,” Blot said and sighed. I waited for more. His eyes followed a pigeon as it moved from a lamppost to a tree and back again. He took off one half-glove and then the other, folded them into two perfect squares. It occurred to me that I’d been totally selfish, talking about myself like this, about all my good things.

“I like slime,” he said. “And octopus is in my top ten.”

I laughed out loud. I covered my mouth, afraid that I might not be able to stop. A couple walked by and smiled at me smiling. Blot’s face was open and unbothered.

“Is that gross?” he asked. “My dirty secret is that I love tripe. Now you know. My grandma was Portuguese and used to make it with butter beans.”

I thought of his grandma, pictured her huge and barefoot with a little girl wrapped around her muscled calf. Greta.

“It is gross,” I said. “But who am I to judge?”

“Hold on,” he said. He actually stopped walking. “Did you get the recipe? For masgouf?”

“Oh, fudge,” I said. I slapped my own cheeks. “I totally forgot.”

Without thinking, I turned around as if to go back. I had to go back. Though my mother knew nothing of my grand plan, I imagined her with her hands on her hips, and no breath passing through her.
What were you doing with that woman, then, if you weren’t getting the recipe? Just hanging out with an old lady? Call your grandmother, if that’s what this is about. I don’t care.

“Wait,” Blot said. And I turned back to him.

“Next time,” he said. “Right? You can just get it next time.”

It was something about the stern calmness in his tone that made me not go racing back to Victoria’s, made me see that it would have been nuts to go, that I would have been letting myself down and him too.

“I guess so,” I said but realized that I wouldn’t see Victoria till next Monday: a full week from now. I was suddenly exhausted in my shoulders and knees. For the first time in a few days, I had that itchy, desperate feeling. I’d betrayed my plan. I didn’t have time to make mistakes. Worse, I had forgotten my mother.

“Hey,” he said, looking at me. Apparently, I couldn’t keep my feelings to myself. “It’s okay,” he said.

We stopped at a crosswalk and I turned away, feeling like I might cry. I needed a moment to catch my breath, get a hold of myself, but just as I moved, he grabbed my wrist. I spun around. For a second, I thought he was about to kiss me. I was ready for it, but also not ready. He wasn’t looking at me. He was holding my wrist still, nodding to some dog poop I’d nearly stepped in.

“Careful,” he said and I yanked my arm back, remembering myself. I held it tightly to my side. Heat zipped through my body and landed in my face. Suddenly, my eyes were puddles. I tapped at them. I couldn’t look at him. I wondered what he’d felt—stickiness or scabs or something like the cool exterior of a hard-boiled egg. I couldn’t remember where exactly I’d put the Band-Aids. I put my hand in my pocket. I was shaking. Something sore echoed in my wrist. I must have grimaced. I’d forgotten myself so deeply. I’d forgotten how easily I could ooze out.

“Sorry,” he said. “Did I hurt you?” Concern overwhelmed his face. I had to shake off the itchy feeling to tell him. I wanted to, I swear, for a second, I wanted to. I didn’t.

“Yes,” I said. “No. I mean, I’m okay.”

Stop. I used all the strength in my fingers to reach around and feel my wrist for what he felt. It wasn’t bloody, at least not yet.

“You sure?” he asked, reaching for me again. I staggered back. His arm was stretched toward me as if he were afraid I might fall backward into a freezing pool. I wouldn’t.

We stood there staring. I would have run away but I couldn’t feel my feet. I had no idea if they were hot or cold or what shoes I was wearing. I couldn’t look down either. I couldn’t tell if I was being strong on the outside and concealing what was on the inside, or the other way around. My arm felt leaded, so heavy. Blot’s face disappeared into the movement of the city. All I could see were his eyes, sparkling like a candle that had just been lit.

“I have to go,” I said. I turned around. I began walking away. I didn’t run. My feet were numb-ish.

I thought of my mother, imagined her covering her face, like I’d done it again. I’d not turned out the way she wanted. She’d be heartbroken, I knew, that I couldn’t be myself. Any good mother would feel the same.

“See you tomorrow?” Blot called after me. “Come by?”

I turned around.

“Why?” I whispered, but he didn’t hear me. He just gave me the thumbs-up again.

“Bye, Lorca!” he yelled.

As soon as I got home and shut the door behind me, I checked my wrist. There were a couple of scars, maybe two scabs, but it was nothing terrible and most of it was covered. It could have been from a kitten. From a burner. From our old radiators. He didn’t know. He knew nothing. I was making a mountain out of a molehill. And yet, something about that broke my heart too.

The feeling of his hand on my wrist came back stronger then. It was an empty kind of pain, but persistent, like ringing in your ears. I imagined him really holding it, not saying anything but knowing. And it felt like the opposite of holding. It felt like all the bone and tissue had been removed and my arm was as light as a kite, just about flying.

There was a note from Lou and my mother. They’d be out late even though it was a Monday. Usually, they were at high-class bars with their legs crossed, or at least that’s what they told me. But tonight, I imagined my mother on a mechanical bull, and dozens of men staring at her, open-mouthed, tugging at the crotches of their pants. I thought of Blot looking at her. I thought of her looking at Blot. I got queasy.

I tried reading
Saveur.

I reorganized the condiments.

I flossed.

I put on my pajamas.

I cut up an orange peel and stuck it into the jar of brown sugar.

In some ways, I was being punished for not being successful.

This wouldn’t be happening if I had found the recipe.

I went to my room and took a razor from the bottom of a tissue box, careful not to prick my finger. I rolled up my sleeve and sat on the floor and curled over and took it to the crook of my elbow. I had done this before. At first, I thought of what I was doing. I understood. I reminded myself, I was doing this. I wanted to do this. I thought of Blot, of Victoria, tried to think of them harder. It didn’t matter. It did no good.

There was the slant of the razor, the pressure, my skin, my tissue, my bone, the counting of something like seconds or heartbeats or steps up a staircase or times that my eyes blinked that became the rhythm, the sound, the rhythm, the sound, the song of it. And then, when it was about to hurt terribly—it took a while—when I felt that my body had been thinned out to something like stockings swinging from a clothesline, I forgot everything. Everything forgot me. Everything escaped and convened at the sting, at that one sensation, but it was so much more than that. It was like my body had evaporated and reappeared at that one single spot. I’d condensed. I was a tiny drop of red liquid, shimmering like a butterfly’s wing up close.

I thought of what I was doing until what I was doing took over. I didn’t have to push away thoughts. The thoughts let go of me. I leaned back. I dropped the razor. My arm was across me, resting between my legs. There were stripes of blood like someone had just mowed the lawn. You could still see the tracks.

I closed my eyes. Everything slowed. I was weightless. I was a jellyfish. I was free.

T
HE NEXT DAY
, Lorca called—she called!—and I let the machine pick up. I didn’t mean to. I would have gotten it if I’d known. But I didn’t think it was her. I thought,
Let whoever it might be think I’m busy.
No more telemarketers. No more sympathy calls. It had been just four days since Joseph had passed but somehow every collector, insurance company, real estate agent, and estate attorney from here to the Gaza Strip had been notified. I was sitting and tweezing my eyebrows and that was busy enough.

She left a message. I heard her voice, every sentence like a question, and so badly I wanted to pick up. But I didn’t. What would I have said? I’d been too slow, too pathetic and old to get to the phone on time? She must have thought I was on the toilet. I bet that’s what she thought. Old people are always on the toilet. A little dignity. All I asked for was the tiniest little bit.

Lorca said in her message that she wanted to make something for her mother, who had come down with a cold.
Her mother,
I thought. Her mother. I told myself to not be berserk and to cut off that line of thinking. “No soup though,” she said. She said her mother was picky about soup. At the end of her message, she said, “I know our next lesson isn’t until next Monday, but I’m wondering if we can do it this evening instead. I only have this one week off and I want to make sure I learn as much as possible!”

My heart flooded. It just flooded over and then I really did have to go to the bathroom.

For a second, I couldn’t believe it. I stood up. I sat down. This young girl, whoever she was, so lovely, so adult, wanted to come back to see me. Despite me, despite our apartment, despite Joseph being gone and Joseph being the one whom everyone wanted to visit. I imagined that somehow this would have made Joseph proud and he would have nodded with his eyes closed.
See?
he’d have said.
I told you all along that you’re a wonder.
I smiled and moved into a bit of sunlight near the window, where I lifted my face toward the sky. As if he could see me better there. As if that way, he could see me smiling back.

I needed to decide what we’d make—Lorca and I. And quickly. I needed a recipe. I needed something perfect. No soup. No soup
. No soup,
I thought. I couldn’t blame her. I liked sweets when I was sick—something light, nondairy, easy to nosh on in bed. So I decided on
shakrlama
. Delicious little almond and pistachio cookies. I didn’t even have to shop. I had everything we needed in the pantry and the freezer.

Joseph had loved
shakrlama
. I hadn’t made them in ages. Toward the end, I had stopped baking. I started buying Sara Lee. If Joseph had known, his heart would have given out. He would have put his hands over his mouth.
Let me die,
he would have said,
just don’t feed me that poison.
He didn’t know. He opened up. Said ah.

The Sara Lee cakes had ridiculous names: Chocolate Peanut Butter Thunder, Strawberry Cloud, Seven Layers of Heaven. Absurd. Did they think it worked? People fell for names like that? Did they think we were imbeciles? Apparently. I’d just wanted the calories in him. The more the better. It didn’t matter what it was. Bring on the butter. Bring on the frosting. Bring on the Thunder. In the end, the calories kept him alive. And I told him I’d made the stuff. I know what a horrible lie that was. He couldn’t taste a thing. Chemotherapy had ruined his taste buds. Imagine that. I could have fed him canned meat. He wouldn’t have known. But he just looked at me, smiling. Some nights, I’d find myself in the kitchen trying a bite of each just to be sure. Just to be sure I wasn’t making it worse. I wasn’t poisoning him. How he must have missed the taste of cumin. He never said a thing. Breaks my heart.

It occurred to me that I didn’t have Lorca’s number. There was no way for me to call her back and confirm. It must have been obvious, I thought, and shrugged, that I had nothing else to do but wait for her return. And wait for her I would. She was the only thing I had to wait for except the end.

Lorca buzzed right on time and I told myself,
Don’t act like an idiot. She’ll want to unfind you if you do.

I let her in without saying so much as
Who’s there?
into the intercom. I knew what Dottie would have said: that I was asking to be shot point-blank in the head. Any last words? No, thank you. I’ve had two trillion years of listening to my own voice.

Lorca flew up the stairs like there was a fire down below. I heard her before I saw her. I wondered if the hurry had anything to do with me. I hoped. Her feet went
pop pop pop
.

When she saw me, she put her head down apologetically, as if she’d kept me waiting. She hadn’t. I wanted to tell her that she hadn’t.

“Are you taller?” I asked.

She gave a little laugh, and walked in. “No,” she said. “May-be.”

She didn’t say, bless her heart, that maybe it was me. That I was shrinking, which I was.

It amazed me how her face changed. Today her hair was back. Her face was longer. She wore white. Her face was brighter. She had a Band-Aid along the left side of her jaw and she seemed suddenly young—a child who’d fallen off a slide. During our first lesson, as I was salting the meat, I looked at her, her hands in her lap, chin up. She watched me as if peering into a tub of alligators at the zoo. I could have sworn she wasn’t a day over ten. But when she was leaving, right before she walked out the door, she zipped up her coat and let out a giant, weary puff of air, like she just had a little way to go, just one more push and then, finally, she could rest.

“Have you ever had
shakrlama
?” I said and my accent came out.

“No,” she said. “But I bet my mother will like it.”

“She will?” I asked.

“What is it?” she said. Bless her. She didn’t want to break my heart.

“Cookies,” I said. “Made with pistachio, rose water, and citrus, and each one stuffed with an almond.”

“She likes sweets,” Lorca said and I sighed out loud. I had no other plan, fool that I was. I was a million miles ahead of myself.
The tables have turned, Joseph,
I thought. Look who can’t keep up with her emotions now.

I moved into the kitchen, and Lorca followed. She climbed onto her stool in two graceful motions. She crossed her legs. She folded her hands in her lap, as if about to pray. Already, I was acting like this was our routine. I didn’t have the right. I couldn’t help it.