On her descent into Phoenix, Helen lifted her window shade to see a
spectacular, fluorescent pink sunset, a 3-D postcard that made her snort
out loud. A cliché already and she hadn’t even landed. In baggage
claim, she was the only Asian person. She hoisted her heavy wheelie off the
carousel and walked toward the car rental counters. The agent had a head of
white hair and matching teeth, which he flashed as he gave her the keys.
“Here you go, Miss,” he said, though her driver’s license showed she was
forty-two. Buckling herself into the compact blue Nissan, she thought
wistfully of her wheels back home, the sleek grey Prius she could no longer
afford to lease. Even this rental was only for one day. Once she got to her
destination, she’d been told there was a car she could use.
It took her twenty minutes just to get outside the airport loop. Her GPS
kept steering her back onto Sky Harbor Boulevard instead of the 10 Freeway.
“Fuck you!” she yelled after the third attempt, gunning through a yellow
light and swinging wildly into the furthest left lane, regardless where it
took her. If Soojin were with her, she’d say in her most calming voice:
“Relax, Hae Jung. You’ll get there.” Then she’d call Helen’s mother to pick
apart every nuance of her behavior and what it suggested about her mental
condition. Soojin was the only one besides her parents who called her Hae
Jung. Helen was indebted to her, but it didn’t change the fact that her
cousin was a judgmental, meddling snitch. And for all her ethnic pride, her
disapproval of Helen living with Derek all those years, she’d ended up
herself with a white guy named Barry (though that was different; they were married). Barry’s parents owned a vacation home in a gated
retirement community in Scottsdale, where
Helen would be living for a few months under their charity.
“Stay as long as you need to,” Soojin told her. “Until you get back on your
feet.” She’d been sincere about it. That was the thing about her: sometimes she could surprise you
and be a real person. Also, she was good to Helen’s parents, stopping by every few weeks to visit, always
leaving some pears or mochi she’d picked up in Koreatown. Soojin lived only
twenty minutes away from their home in West Covina, and Helen did not—but
even if she did, she knew she’d be less diligent about checking in.
By the time she turned onto the wide long stretch of North Scottsdale Road,
the sky had darkened. She
could only see the shapes of palm trees and jutting saguaro on either side,
with low rocky boulders in the distance. The night air was balmy through
her open window, and the drive uneventful, until she reached the
intersection at Pinnacle Peak. Striped orange cones cut off one lane, where
workmen bent over sparks flying from their welding gear.
Slowing down, she heard an onslaught of tiny pellets battering against her
car. A second later, a large gust of dirt sprayed through her window and
into her face. “What the hell?” she cried, pressing hard on the brake as
she coughed and shielded her eyes. Her car swerved briefly into the
opposite lane before she could steer it back on track and come to a full
stop. She rolled her window up, grateful there’d been no oncoming traffic.
The workmen covered their faces with their shirts. The dust storm thickened
and swirled around for a full minute before it cleared. Lowering her window
a few inches, she stuck her hand out. The air was calm and still, as if
nothing had happened. She’d never seen such a fierce dust storm, or one
that came and went so quickly. The driver behind her honked. Squirting her
windshield clear, she drove on.
Just past Lone Mountain Road she turned east into the gated entrance of
Dunecrest. There was nobody at the security station. She waited a moment,
then killed the engine and got out of the car. Another car pulled up behind
her, and the low mechanized gate started to swing open. The driver’s window
rolled down and a man poked his head out. “Are you visiting someone, Miss?”
She approached the car, a silver BMW coupe, blinking against the glare of
its headlights. The driver looked to be in his mid-sixties and was handsome
in a roguish, John Huston way. “Hi,” she said, “I’m staying at the
Connelly’s on Sidewinder Lane? There was supposed to be a guard here to
give me the keys.”
“Oh, we know Brian and June!” He turned to a woman in the passenger seat.
“We have the main security number, don’t we honey? Tell you what,” he told
Helen, “why don’t you pull in and let us call? He’s probably on a break.”
“Thanks, I really appreciate it.” She ran to her car and drove through the
gate, and they pulled in after.
When they got out of their cars she could see the woman was striking too,
with chiseled features and silvery-brown hair in a shoulder-length bob.
They were tall and fit, moving with the languid ease of the wealthy. They looked like they could be in a Cialis commercial.
“Mark Seabrook,” the man said, extending his hand. “And my wife Laura.”
“Helen Park. Thanks again for helping out.”
“It’s absolutely no bother,” Laura said. She pulled out her phone and
pressed some numbers. When no one picked up, she left a polite and detailed
message. “Someone will call soon, I’m sure. Why don’t you follow us home
and wait there?”
“Oh, I couldn’t—”
“Nonsense!” Mark insisted. “Come, we’ll have drinks and be neighborly.”
Helen felt the start of ridiculous tears. It had been so long since she’d
been welcome anywhere.
The Seabrooks had a spacious adobe house at the end of a cul-de-sac, with
white curved walls and a kiva fireplace. It was decorated in a tasteful
ethnic mix of Kilim rugs, Indonesian wall hangings, and Native American
pottery placed inside niche shelves. They sat on leather sectionals around
a low teak table, sipping Chardonnay.
“So,” Laura asked with a smile, “Do you know the Connellys or are you…?”
She let the word renting float in the air.
“Yes, they’re…friends of the family. I’ll be staying a few months as
their guest. Do you know them well?” Helen was suddenly paranoid that the
Connellys might have gossiped about her.
“Oh, in a neighborly way,” Mark said. “We say hello at the pool or see them
at Marley’s—we just came from there, matter of fact. Wonderful restaurant!
Anyway, we’re always out here in March and April. The dry season’s the best
time. In May we head back to Minneapolis.”
“You say you’re staying on a while?” Laura said. “My dear, you might
reconsider. The summer is scorching—and the dust storms can be terrible!”
“I was just in one of those driving here! It seemed to come out of nowhere.
I almost got into an accident.”
Mark nodded. “You should keep your AMBER alert on in case. You don’t want
to breathe in that stuff. People get bad allergies, asthma, not to mention
Valley Fever.”
“What’s that?”
“You haven’t heard?” Laura said. “It’s fairly common out here. Dust spores
get into your lungs and make you cough up blood. For some it’s no worse
than the flu, but for others it can be serious, even fatal.”
Mark rolled his eyes. “Don’t get her started. Next she’ll be talking about
rattlesnakes and javelinas—”
“Don’t remind me!” Laura shuddered. “That was the most frightful thing.”
“What are javelinas?” Helen asked with alarm.
“They’re a wild boar that live in the desert,” Mark said, with obvious
relish. “One night last year, we came home and found three of them munching
on our prickly pear right outside the front door.”
“We couldn’t get into the house!” Laura said. “We had to call the wildlife
department and wait in the car. I had that plant cut down the next day.”
Helen shook her head. “Well, this is all pretty new to me.”
Laura gave her a bright, curious smile. “Where are you from, Helen?”
When people asked her this, Helen assumed they meant her ethnicity but
always gave a geographic answer. “L.A. originally, then Portland the last
eight years.”
“Oh, we were in Portland three summers ago and had so much fun, didn’t we,
Laura? Talk about some amazing restaurants!”
“Yes,” said Helen, feeling her throat constrict. “I know.” Next
would be the inevitable question, And what do you do in Portland?
She hadn’t thought about how she would answer that, or even the possibility
of being in a social situation. In her mind, Arizona had seemed both a
salvation and purgatory, one she’d be facing alone. She wondered how these
nice people would react if she were to tell them: “My ex and I used to own
a restaurant, Plate—you might have heard of it? It was written up
in The New York Times. Turns out he was doing some creative
accounting and got us busted. We lost the restaurant, our condo, our
friends—and one day I lost my mind.”
It really had only been one day, this past January, shortly after they got
their foreclosure notice. She ended up on a park bench by the Willamette
River, for how long she couldn’t say. After a while the cold became so
numbing she couldn’t feel anything, and that was alright. She slumped over
to the side and nodded off. When two young women woke her to see if she was
okay, she shook so hard they thought she was having a seizure. The EMT and
police came and she grew hysterical, convinced they were taking her off to
jail. In the ER, they gave her a sedative that calmed her enough so she
could call her parents—a memory so surreal and shameful she could hardly
believe it happened. She’d never forget their tense, disappointed faces
when they picked her up at LAX.
The Seabrooks looked at her now with similar expressions of concern. Helen
had forgotten what they were talking about. She noticed in the bright
indoor lighting that they’d each had some work done. Laura’s skin had a
flushed, plumped glow, while the area around Mark’s eyelids seemed
unnaturally taut. Their smooth faces were a jarring contrast to the loose,
mottled texture of their necks and veined, leathery hands. Looking back and
forth between them, she realized they were actually older than she’d
initially thought. Mark’s eyes met hers sharply and she quickly glanced
away.
Laura asked with a smile, “What do you do, Helen?”
Oh, right. “Well…I used to have a business, but now I’m out of it and
just uh…figuring out my next move.”
“I see.” The flicker of interest behind Laura’s eyes fizzled. “Well, this
is certainly a nice place to do that,” she said politely. An awkward pause
followed that Helen felt helpless to divert. Then Laura’s phone rang. It
was the guard, back from his break. As they stood to say their goodnights,
Mark became jovial again. “Well, hope to see you around! Come by anytime!”
“Yes, do come by,” Laura echoed, the corners of her mouth lifting. But
Helen couldn’t help feeling that something had gone off in their short
acquaintance.
#
The pool was full of screaming children. Their parents ignored them as they
splashed water, waved Styrofoam noodles, and chanted ‘Marco Polo’ with
endless fervor. For five straight days, since the third week of March,
there had been a steady influx of these nearly identical families with
their doughy, exuberant offspring. Helen figured it would continue for at
least another week, until everyone’s Spring Break was finally over. One of
the kids did a cannonball off the diving board, causing a large splash to
land on Helen’s magazine. “Fuck,” she hissed softly, glaring at the
culprit. She toweled the pages dry and leaned back in her lounge chair.
Six years ago, she and Derek briefly considered having a child. Then they
got distracted with plans to open the restaurant. When that took off so unexpectedly, there was no more
talk of babies. Her parents pressured her on the subject—she was their only
offspring, the end of the family line—though neither of them approved of
Derek. Once, a year into their relationship, she took him to her parents’
house for dinner. Her mother had dressed up but her dad greeted them in his
undershirt and shorts, a can of Coors in his hand. He glared at Derek and
blurted out, “Why you not marry my daughter?”
Derek shrugged. “Ask her.”
Helen said, “For chrissake, Dad,” and stalked out of the house, furious.
Her parents had never visited them in Portland, and when Helen made her
brief annual trips to L.A., she went alone. The irony was that since she
and Derek split, her mother asked about him constantly in a tentative,
hopeful manner that made Helen’s jaw clench. Apparently, having a lying,
bankrupt, tax-evading boyfriend was still better than having none.
Well, she thought, looking around the pool, don’t think
I’ll find anyone here. There was old Mr. Geffen leaning over his
walker with his shorts falling down, exposing his pale, humble buttocks. Or
portly Mr. Priven, fully reclined and bronzed as a rotisserie chicken.
Every man was at least twenty years older or married. It didn’t matter, she
was over all that. What she needed to do was figure out how to make a
living—and where. She’d earned a liberal arts degree to appease her
parents’ insistence on higher education, but for the last twenty years, all
she’d done was work in the service industry: as a waitress, bartender,
manager, and finally, co-owner. She could try to be a GM somewhere, or
worst case, go back to bartending, though she wouldn’t get the tips she
used to. All her youth and spunk were gone, and she’d never been a beauty.
Her eyes were small and narrow, her nose a flat smudge, her mouth full but
shapeless without lipstick. Her best feature was her long straight hair, a
concession to the Asian stereotype, she knew—but a woman had to work with
what she had.
Someone hovered over her, blocking her sun. “Hello, Helen.” It was Laura
Seabrook in a floppy hat and linen cover-up, with Mark standing next to
her. Helen sat up and raised her knees, feeling self-conscious in her
two-piece. She’d worn it hoping a tan might camouflage the flab on her
belly, thickened from inactivity over the last few months.
“Hi! How are you? I haven’t seen you since I arrived.” That had been two
weeks ago.
“We’ve been golfing at the Boulders this week,” said Laura. “And you, are
you all settled in?”
“Yes, everything’s great. And you can’t beat the weather,” Helen said
lamely.
“Told you,” Mark said with grin. “March and April are the best.”
“By the way,” Laura said, “was that you the other day in the Connellys’
Lexus? Over on Cave Creek Road?”
“Yes,” said Helen, blushing despite herself. She had the sudden suspicion
Laura’s main purpose in talking to her was to ask that question. “They want
me use the car, so the battery won’t die.” It was the truth. Why should she
feel defensive?
Mark said, “Well, that’s just swell! Works out best for all parties.”
Laura nodded, then looked around and sighed. “My goodness, it’s so crowded.
So many new people every year. Look, Mark, there’s an umbrella with some
chairs over there.” She gave Helen one of her bright smiles. “Enjoy the
rest of your afternoon.”
“You too.” No more pretending they would socialize. Helen wondered what
she’d done to freeze their initial friendliness. Then she had a horrible
thought: what if the Connellys had talked to them and worse, asked
them to keep an eye on her? She watched them through her sunglasses cross
to the other side of the pool. They stopped to chat with another couple,
apparently no longer in a rush to nab their shady spot. To hell with them,
she decided, putting on her headphones and closing her eyes.
She woke abruptly when the edge of her towel slapped her face. Only two
other women were still at the pool besides her, struggling to collect their
things before they blew away. She’d gotten used to these sudden gusts,
which happened on occasion, though never as severely as the first time. The
wind subsided quickly into a pleasant breeze, but when she stood, she
shivered. It was just past five. She’d slept for over an hour. Long mid-day
naps had become a daily routine. To compensate for being so sedentary, she
took the circuitous route walking back to the house. Aside from swimming,
it was her only form of exercise.
This time of day there was always a somnolent golden stillness, enhancing
the fabricated prettiness of the compound with its stucco adobe houses, all
in earthy tones of clay, slate, and sage. Day or night, she rarely saw
people coming out of those houses. She’d once traversed the entire gated
community and not encountered a single soul. Along the gently curving
pavement palo verde trees stood tall, their frail branches swaying, with
saguaro and other cacti arranged in neatly graveled yards. Rounding the
bend leading to her street, she stopped short before the expanse of large
black bins lined up at the edge of each driveway. They were just a reminder
of trash pick-up the next day—yet the sight of them always struck her as
ominous. Perhaps it was their eerie regularity, emblematic of the place
itself. There was a sameness to the days, the people, the landscape, a lack
of distinction so disorienting that, for the first week, she’d actually
needed her GPS to find her way home.
The Connellys’ house was slightly smaller than the Seabrooks’, filled with
a hodgepodge of floral chintz furniture, Lladro figurines, and a wall
display of collectors’ plates commemorating selected U.S. Presidents:
Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan. Shelves and
end tables were crammed with gilt-framed pictures of the Connelly clan,
including Barry, Soojin, and their two boys.
It felt odd for Helen to be surrounded by personal mementos of people who
were practically strangers to her. She’d only met the Connellys once, at
Soojin’s wedding eight years ago—and until she saw the pictures, had
completely forgotten what they looked like. Even now, living in their home,
she never spoke with them. She had their phone number but all their
communication was through email or Soojin. This arrangement, while a relief
in some ways, made her feel even more like an interloper. Most unsettling
were the evenings, when the darkness from outside seemed to seep through
the walls of the house and into her thoughts, provoking questions she had
no answers to. Questions others had asked as well. How could she not have
known what Derek was up to? How could she have been so blind—and stayed
with him for so long?
In the end, she was heartbroken not so much over him as the restaurant. Its
success had been sweet, proving everyone she’d railed against in her youth
wrong, until Derek proved them right again. He actually expected her
gratitude when he took the full blame for what happened, as if telling the
truth made him heroic. It made little difference to the people that
mattered. They owed money they could never pay back to their investors,
staff, and suppliers, many who had been friends. None of them would look
her in the eye now.
During the day she let the sun bleach her thoughts away, but at night she
anguished over these humiliations, nursing bottom-shelf vodka tonics. She
found herself leaving the TV on for company, eating her dinner in the den
while watching marathon episodes of Dateline and Forensic Files, sometimes falling asleep on the Laz-E-Boy
recliner. Waking up some hours later, she would rise and stumble into the
small guest bedroom, pulling the unmade covers over her head with the
blurry thought that soon, maybe even the next day, she would decide upon a
course of action.
#
One morning, on her way back from the community mailbox, she saw a snake at
the bottom of her driveway, lying on a large flat rock. “Oh Jesus Christ!” she yelled, leaping
back. The snake glistened under the bright sun, coiled in a reverse
S-shape. It lay still, yellowish in color, with brown dappled spots and a
white head. She stared for several minutes, fascinated despite her fear. So
far, the only creatures she’d seen besides birds were jackrabbits, gamble
quails, and the occasional iguana. But she’d been warned about scorpions
and rattlesnakes. This one at least had no rattle. When it refused to budge
she finally walked away, figuring it would eventually slither its way back
into the Sedona Desert.
As soon as she entered the house, her phone rang. It was Soojin, sounding
stressed. “Listen, is this a good time to talk?”
“Uh, sure, what’s up?”
“Well, I don’t even know how to ask you this,” Soojin started, and sighed.
Helen felt her stomach drop. The Connellys had changed their mind, and
she’d have to leave. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how much she’d
relied on staying at Dunecrest. It was boring but in a weightless way that
felt healing. Where would she go now? Her parents were the only option, but
thinking of it made her want to crawl into a cave.
Soojin was saying, “…so June’s brother Charlie’s in a nursing home in
Phoenix. He’s a widower and eighty-something, not in great health. Anyway,
when she’s there she visits him every week or else his son in Tucson
does—but Tom broke his wrist the other day and can’t drive on the freeway
and, well, don’t get mad but I told June you could check in on him. It
would mean a lot to her.”
“Oh!” said Helen, hugely relieved. “Of course. ”
“Really? So would next week sometime work? I know this is so not your
thing, but it would definitely cheer him up.”
“It’s really okay,” said Helen. “I mean, it’s the least I can do.”
“Great! I’ll email June and copy you, then she can give you directions.”
After she hung up, Helen’s relief at not being ousted spurred her into
action. She decided to drive to Carefree, a Western-themed town nearby with
a shopping center full of restaurants, hoping someone could use a manager
or bartender. It wouldn’t hurt to make a little money. She ate a cheap
lunch at a taqueria, then stopped at Marley’s, the upscale restaurant Mark
Seabrook had mentioned. The owner was in that day and available to talk,
which she considered a good sign until he scanned her resume and shook his
head. “You’re manager-level or higher, but mine’s been with me since we
opened.”
“Well, I don’t mind bartending. Part-time works too.”
“Our mixologists are among the best,” he said, with a brief, cold smile.
“Those positions are competitive, and in any case, I’m set there too. But
have your references call me. If something opens up I’ll get in touch,
though it might not be until September.”
Walking back to her car, she felt dejected, and then angry. Asshole. Pretentious little shit. What was the point in having her
references call when there was no position? By September she’d be gone. Her
body shook with mounting fury. She began to hyperventilate. As she backed
out of the parking space, she felt a wave of dizziness so intense she had
to brake. Sweat broke out on her forehead while the A/C made her shiver.
She shut the ignition off and leaned over the steering wheel with her eyes
closed for several minutes. After a while, the dizziness passed, but she
decided to check out the other restaurants another day. She barely had the
energy to get groceries, which she was desperately low on.
By the time she got back to the house, she felt drained. She clicked the
electric garage door open, pulled inside, and unleashed the car trunk. She
was heading toward the back door, bags in hand, when she remembered the
snake and peered down the driveway. It was still on the rock. She set the
bags down and walked slowly toward it. The snake was in the exact same
position as she’d last seen it, hours before, but now it was bloated.
Worse, she noticed a thin dark leakage from the middle of its body,
dribbling down the side of the rock—and the distinct whiff of rot.
“Fuck,”
she muttered. In the garage she found a shovel and dustbin. Placing the
dustbin below the rock, she steeled herself and tried to nudge the snake
off with the shovel. It moved flaccidly and then deflated like a pierced
soufflé, releasing a gaseous, stomach-churning odor that filled the entire
driveway. “Oh my god!” She screamed, letting the shovel clatter to the
ground. Clamping a hand over her mouth and nose, she reeled away, retching,
almost tripping over a barrel cactus.
At that moment a kid biked past. His head swiveled around in horror at the
stench. He circled back, covering his own nose. “What’s that?”
She felt mortified, as if the smell came from her. Behind her hand she
mumbled, “A snake. It just died,
here in my driveway.”
“Gro-o-o-oss.” But he seemed mesmerized. He was freckle-faced with dark
blond hair, and looked about
eight years old. She couldn’t remember if she’d seen him at the pool.
“Listen, I’ll pay you to get rid of it.”
His hazel eyes widened. “How much?”
“Ten?”
The kid looked at the snake and then, his face scrunching, shook his head.
“Nah, sorry.”
“Twenty then!” The desperation in her voice seemed to scare him. He walked
his bike back a little and rested his foot on one pedal. Then he looked up
and, with renewed interest, asked, “Hey, aren’t you Chinese?”
“What? No, why?”
“Oh,” he said, looking disappointed. “My dad told me Chinese people like to
eat snakes.”
For a moment she was so appalled she could only stare. His face was simply
curious, without guile. But she was enraged. “Did he? Well, I’m not
Chinese, I’m Korean. We don’t eat snakes and we’re not all the same!”
His face turned a bright red. “You don’t have to yell at me. I didn’t kill
your stupid snake.” He pedaled off.
She looked back at the flattened carcass, oozing goo down the side of the
rock. There was no way in hell she’d go near the thing now. She dragged the
stinking tools to the front yard hose and rinsed them off. By the time she
got everything cleaned and the groceries up to the house she was bone-tired
and feverish. Leaning against the back door, she looked down the length of
the driveway to see if anyone had been watching. No one was around. But
whoever walked by would notice the snake befouling the otherwise sanitized
street. Even from a distance of thirty yards, she could smell a faint
rotten odor.
#
Three days passed before Helen finally stepped outside again. Every day
she’d woken up feeling lethargic, though all she did was rest. The first
night, she took cold medication and knocked out, hoping to kill whatever
bug she’d caught. But the next morning, her chest felt tight and
phlegmy—and when she coughed into a tissue, she saw small droplets of
blood. She stared in shock, then crumpled the tissue, tossing it into the
wastebasket near her bed. She told herself, I’m just coughing too hard . The chills and fever grew worse, and twice she hacked up more
blood. On top of that, she got her period. Finally, on the third morning,
she felt strong enough to take a shower.
Afterward, she picked up the used tissues around her, emptying everything
into the large kitchen trashcan.
Then she washed all the dirty mugs and plates she’d left in the sink. She
pulled on some sweats, opened the garage door, and walked to the bottom of
the driveway. The sky was cloudless and the sun beat down. It was strange
to feel its heat and still be shivering. She was supposed to visit Charlie
at the nursing home in a few days. By then she had to be over
this.
The dried remains of the snake were now encrusted onto the rock. At least
it no longer reeked. She felt winded even after her minimal activity but
made herself walk the few blocks to the mailbox. Inside she found the usual
junk mail: AARP renewal notices, Geico solicitations, supermarket coupons.
On her way back, she saw a woman in a pink jogging suit walking toward her
with a white Lhasa Apso on a leash. She was carrying a sheaf of papers and
to Helen’s surprise, started waving them at her from across the street.
“Hello!” she trilled. “You live around here, right?”
Helen nodded as she approached. “Yes, I’m staying just up the block on
Sidewinder.”
“Then we’re neighbors.” The woman stopped in front of her and smiled, her
blue eyes bright in her tanned, crinkled face. “I’m Rebecca. Sorry, my
hands are full. But take one of these flyers. I’m having an estate sale
next Tuesday, sort of a preview for Dunecrest—Snickers, stop that!” she
yelled as her dog leapt up to sniff Helen’s crotch.
“Thanks. I’m Helen.” She glanced at the flyer with feigned interest.
Rebecca cocked her head to one side. “You’re the one staying in the
Connelly’s place.”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Word gets around. We haven’t seen you by the pool lately. Everyone’s been
asking, ‘Where’s that Oriental girl?’ Oh, by the way,” she added with a
grimace, “you know there’s a dead snake in your driveway?”
Helen felt her face redden. “Yeah…I’ve been meaning to clean that up, but
I’ve been sick.”
“You don’t look well, dear,” Rebecca agreed. “I hope you get better soon.
Anyway, nice to officially meet you.” With that she waved and headed toward
the entrance of another house.
Back in her driveway, Helen found some rubber gloves and filled a bucket
with soap and water from the
garage sink. She carried everything down to the rock. The shape of the
snake with its reverse ‘S’ was like a brand seared into it. Bending over,
she picked at the snake’s skin with two fingers. It peeled off in one long
shriveled strip, releasing a faint fishy odor. She gagged and pushed it
under the loose gravel around the rock. Averting her head, she took a deep
breath. Then she wet the sponge and scraped away at the crusty stain. It
was disgusting work but when the stain disappeared she felt some
satisfaction. The bloody trickle down the side of the rock was harder to
erase and also emitted an odor, different from the other, metallic and
strangely familiar. It struck her that snake blood smelled just like a
human’s.
#
The Pueblo Bonito nursing home was a sprawling one-story compound near
downtown Phoenix, an hour’s drive from Dunecrest. Helen set her alarm for
ten, allowing ample time to get ready, pick up flowers and pastries at
Safeway, and get to the home by one. She was exhausted when she arrived but
determined to put on a good face. The circular reception area evoked the
bland ambiance of a three-star hotel, with tufted leather sofas arranged
around an oval glass coffee table. She walked up to a pleasant-looking
woman sitting at a large desk, a discreet golden nametag etched with Sheryl pinned over her bosom.
“Hi, I’m here to see one of your residents, Charles Jeffers? I’m Helen
Park.”
“Oh, Charlie. Well, that’s wonderful, he doesn’t get a lot of visitors.
Just go through that door on your right and down the corridor to room 311.”
“Thanks, I appreci—” Helen’s throat seized up in a long hacking cough. She
covered her mouth until it was over, balancing her box of pastries.
“Sorry,” she gasped. “Just getting over a cold.”
“Oh dear,” Sheryl said, leaning back. “I hope you’re not contagious. The
residents here are highly susceptible.” Her tone had changed from one of
cheerful welcome to admonishment.
“No, it’s the end of it, I’m sure.” As soon as Helen entered the residents’
ward, she saw that the reception area masked the facility’s likeness to a
hospital. All hospitals had the same sad odors of sour bodies, bedpans,
reheated processed food. This place was no different. What did
strike her as different, after five weeks at Dunecrest, were all the
Hispanic, Asian, and African-American staff walking around. Beyond their
pastel scrubs, their relative youth and vigor set them apart from the few
residents inching along the corridor in wheelchairs and walkers, who looked
at her with dull curiosity.
When she arrived at room 311 it was empty. She stood in puzzlement by the
door until a young Hispanic nurse saw her and asked, “Are you looking for
Charlie? He’s over with the others in the rec area. Someone’s having a
birthday party.” She pointed to Helen’s flowers and pastry box. “If you
want to put those in his room I’ll walk you over.”
Helen thanked her and set everything down. Then she followed the nurse
through a set of double doors opening onto a spacious, shabbier version of
the reception area, with a TV in one corner and several upholstered chairs.
A long narrow table in the middle of the room was decorated with plastic
garlands along the edges. There was a large sheet cake and punchbowl along
with plastic plates, cups, and utensils. From opposite ends of the table,
two Mylar balloons danced under the A/C vents, printed with ‘HAPPY
BIRTHDAY!’ on one side and ‘87’ on the reverse.
Around thirty residents, most in wheelchairs, were gathered nearby. They
looked anywhere from seventy-five to over ninety years old. Most were so
hollow-eyed and skeletal they barely looked alive. Two of them were asleep
in their chairs. It struck Helen that the residents at Dunecrest were
merely seniors. Here they were old. The nurse led her over to a
large-framed bald man in a wheelchair. He wore a plaid shirt with the
sleeves rolled up above his forearms, which were completely wrapped in
white gauze. “Charlie,” she said, “you have a visitor.”
Under his thick glasses, the man’s eyes lit up. “Marisol! I haven’t seen
you all day.”
“You saw me this morning, silly. And you’ll see me later.” She waved at
them both and left.
Charlie looked up at Helen with a puzzled expression.
“I’m Helen,” she said, extending her hand. “We met at Barry’s wedding eight
years ago. I told your sister June I’d come visit.”
His face cleared and he said, “Oh, that’s right! You’re the one staying in
her house.”
“Yes,” she said, chagrined by the reminder but relieved he wasn’t senile.
At that moment a matronly blond nurse wheeled in a tiny old woman with a
fluff of white hair. Following her were other nurses and a group of what
Helen assumed were family and friends. “Happy birthday, Eleanor!” the blond
nurse said, conducting all the residents to chime in. “Happy birthday,”
they echoed faintly, with scattered clapping.
After the birthday song, the nurses cut the cake and passed around slices.
Helen asked Charlie, “Would you like me to get you a piece?”
“Oh yes, please,” he said, smiling broadly. “And get yourself one too.”
For the next half-hour he introduced her to his friends, telling jokes and,
amped up from the sugar, patting people indiscriminately. In the midst of
the party, Helen noticed two men in black uniforms wheeling a gurney
through the rec room. They headed toward the residents’ ward, skirting
around the crowd. Several minutes later, they came back through the double
doors, this time with someone on the gurney, a sheet pulled over the face.
Helen watched, aghast, as they led the gurney out through a side exit. A
faint murmur transmitted through the room, as if someone had dialed the
volume down. Then everything resumed as before.
She had never been anywhere more depressing. She sat hunched in her chair,
barely focusing on the conversation around her, waiting for the right
moment to leave. Finally she stood up. “Charlie, it was so nice to see you
but I have to get going. I left some things in your room—flowers and some
cherry strudel.”
He blinked in surprise, his eyes brimming moistly. “Can we go to my room
and see them? We can say ‘bye’ from there.”
“Of course,” she said, thinking of the long drive home.
When she wheeled him back to his room, he exclaimed over the flowers, a
cheap ‘Spring Assortment’ spray on sale for $8.99. “Wow, look at that! You
would’ve thought it was my birthday.” He lifted the box of
strudel, insisting they each have some before she left.
“But Charlie, we just had cake! Save it for later—it’s all for you.” He
looked crestfallen, and she realized he’d only been trying to stall her
departure. Sympathy mingled with pique at being manipulated.
Just then a young Asian nurse came in, holding a large roll of white gauze.
Her nametag read ‘Mai.’ “Charlie,” she said in a soft, coaxing voice, “it’s
time to change your bandages.” Smiling at Helen, she said, “You can stay.”
As she unwound the old dressing, Helen had to stifle a gasp. The skin on
Charlie’s forearms was severely atrophied, with large maroon-colored sores.
Mai murmured, “It’s looking better.” She put on sterilized gloves and
applied ointment over all his wounds, wrapping the new gauze around them.
Her movements were light, careful, efficient. She finished and put
everything away. Helen adjusted her bag onto her shoulder, determined to
leave with her, when another coughing fit came on, wracking her whole body.
She grabbed a wad of tissues from her bag and, bending over, expelled a
large, bloody globule of phlegm. This one was almost the size of her palm.
She stared in shock for a moment, then crumpled the wad into her bag.
Mai looked alarmed. “You’re coughing up blood? For how long?”
“I’m fine,” Helen said through short breaths. “But I really have to leave.
Charlie, it was so nice to see you.”
He clutched at her arm. “You’ll come back, though?”
“Yes, when I can.” Leaning in, she brushed her face against his dry, papery
cheek. He smelled medicinal and a little oily. She felt a collision of
emotions: revulsion, guilt, pity. He was so lonely. How the hell had that
happened? But of course, she knew. She thought of her parents, living all
these years by themselves far away. There would come a time, and soon, when
she would have to make amends. Then one day she too would be old and
abandoned, though she’d have no children, and likely no spouse, to blame
for it.
On their way out, Mai told her, “Listen, you do not look good.
Please get yourself checked out.”
Helen nodded, knowing she wouldn’t. The days of seeing a doctor for a cold,
no matter how bad, were over. She had no idea how she’d even be able to
keep her crappy health insurance. All of it seemed a ludicrous investment
toward a bleak future no one should want, much less have to pay into. Her
mind screamed one word: NO.
By the time she returned home, the sky had just begun to turn a soft shade
of coral. Within the hour there would be another one of those glorious
Kool-Aid sunsets, predictable as the sprinklers turning on each morning,
the pool maintenance on Sundays, and trash pick-up on Tuesdays. Seeing some
of the neighbors’ black bins outside, she remembered that in fact it was
Monday. With her last reserve of energy, she went through the house to
consolidate all her garbage, emptying everything into her own black bin.
Then she pushed it slowly down the driveway, lining it up with all the
others.
#
When Helen awoke the next day it was past two in the afternoon, late even
by her standards. She’d had a horrible night’s sleep interrupted by
coughing fits, fever, and fragmented dreams where gnarled disembodied hands
plucked at her arms and face. She kept fluctuating between hot and cold,
getting up several times to adjust the thermostat. At four in the morning,
she grabbed her comforter and went into the den to watch TV from the
Laz-E-Boy, finally drifting off at sunrise.
In the bathroom mirror, she observed her fallen cheeks, how thin she’d
gotten in just a week, feeling a perverse mix of shock and pleasure. She’d
had no appetite for days but knew she should eat something. She pulled out
a half-eaten loaf of bread from the fridge. Mold dotted several slices.
Disgusted, she tossed the bread into the garbage. Then she remembered she
had to bring in the trash bin. She threw a sweater over her t-shirt and shorts and went to open the garage door.
As it lifted, she felt a strong breeze and clutched the edges of her
sweater across her chest. Down the length of the driveway, she could see
several cars parked along both curbsides. In all the time she’d been at
Dunecrest, she’d never seen so many gathered on one street. The car parked
on her curb looked like the Seabrooks’ BMW. She stared in confusion and
then remembered it was the day of Rebecca’s estate sale. Wow, she
thought, she must have some good stuff. She walked out a few yards
and then frowned. Her trash bin was toppled onto its side several feet from
the driveway, with its lid open. Some of the contents had spilled out onto
the street, and bits of paper flew around in the breeze. Looking up and
down the street, she noticed all the bins from the other houses had already
been taken inside, which meant their trash had been collected. She wondered
why hers hadn’t, and who or what had knocked it over.
At the bottom of the driveway she stopped dead in her tracks. One of the
trash bags from her bin had not only spilled out but was gaping, as if it
had been torn open. She burned with shame and a growing sense of violation.
Up ahead, for half a block, all her tissues lay on the tar pavement,
scattered like breadcrumbs from her house. She walked over to a bloodied
pile of them and stared. They looked like the crumpled brown cactus flowers
she’d seen withering in the desert. At the sight of them she felt stunned
and queasy. It wasn’t possible there could be so many. I’m sick, she
thought. I’m really sick. Down the street, people started to come out of
Rebecca’s house, just a few at first, and then more, becoming a large
group. Watching the sea of grey heads made Helen’s vision blur…she swayed
dizzily and shut her eyes. When she opened them, she saw the Seabrooks.
Panic galvanized her, pushing aside her exhaustion. She bent down, hurrying
to collect everything before they noticed. But the wind had picked up and
kept blowing the tissues out of her reach. One by one, she chased after
them.
