Edna in the Desert (18 page)

“Hi, Edna. I had a great time at the party,” Ken said as he approached the cabin alone with Grandma’s packages. Edna tried not to look at him as though he was as disappointing as she found him.

“I’m glad.”

She hoped nothing was wrong with Johnny, and she also hoped there was a good explanation for his absence, one she was about to find out.

“Is Johnny all right?”

“Yes, oh, I almost forgot.”

He turned back to the truck, but, his arms filled with groceries, he decided to make a second trip.

“I got something for you. Let me set these down.”

He went into the cabin. Edna heard Grandma say, “Hi Ken.” She didn’t sound surprised to see him, but she probably wouldn’t even if she was. Ken came out and stuffed money in his pocket, which slowed him down while he went over to the truck to get whatever he had for Edna. It was an envelope.

“What’s this?”

“Well, I’m not sure. You have a wonderful day, now.”

He got into the truck and drove down to the garage. Johnny always walked down. The envelope was sealed, and Edna opened it. Inside was a postcard of an oasis, a drawn depiction of lush, green palms around a little blue pond. On the back, it said:

My dear Edna, You know why. J

Edna didn’t know what to do about loving Johnny so much, about thinking that he was such a beautiful person. Would she never see him again? Her eyes burned with tears, and she was blinded by a sudden, fierce hurricane in her head and heart. Ultimately, he was honorable and right. In a few weeks she’d be going home and to eighth grade. What could she really do about being in love? She smeared her makeup and saw the black on her hand. She was a wreck. She couldn’t look like this if Ken came back, so she dashed inside. Grandma was putting away the groceries. Edna ran into the pantry and slammed the door shut. She fell into another cry, one just as bad as when she first came to the desert. She’d probably cried more this summer than in the rest of her entire life.

She didn’t know if she’d ever see Johnny again unless she got lost in the desert and needed to be rescued. She considered this, but it was too risky, and Johnny would only think it was stupid (it was) and then leave again after he found her, just like the last time. That is, if he found her and she didn’t die first.

She was at her lowest point when she stepped onto the porch later. The rest of the world sat before her unchanged. It was just another day. It was just another day to a lizard doing nervous push-ups on a rock, and to the eucalyptus trees swaying in the wind. Grandma separated laundry in the back. Grandpa was silent in his chair. A cactus was silent across from him. It was just another dull day that was never going to end. Even if it did, tomorrow would just be another one. Edna was still too emotional to become one with all this nothingness. She needed a sense of closure, someone to fight with and someone to blame. Grandma was all she had.

“Did you tell Johnny not to deliver the groceries here anymore?”

“No, Edna.”

“Well, don’t you think it’s strange that Ken came today?”

Grandma took a moment.

“No.”

“Johnny comes every week. Why is it all of a sudden Ken?”

“Ken usually delivers the groceries. Johnny only does it in the summer, this year and last.”

“Well, there’s a few more weeks left of summer. Why did he stop now?”

“You tell me, Edna.”

If she’d been arguing with her parents, she would’ve had immunity from the romantic element of the scenario because they’d want to act like it didn’t exist.

“Touché, Grandma.”

Grandma could have said something to the Bishops about Johnny kissing her. Her parents would have, but Edna suspected Grandma was telling the truth simply because she had no need to lie. She was impervious to Edna’s verbal combat, tears and temper tantrums. It wasn’t clear if this was because she didn’t care that Edna was suffering, or because she knew it wouldn’t do any good to indulge these tactics. In any case, it worked, and Edna didn’t waste her energy. She wasn’t entirely sure if she knew the whole story about Bishop’s, but she had a feeling there wasn’t anything to do about it. There was only going to be another week until Ken delivered the groceries again, and everything else should be perfectly clear.

If she wasn’t going to see Johnny again, Edna didn’t know what to do with the rest of her life. She sat next to Grandpa on the porch. Did she really have to do anything with the rest of her life, anyway? Maybe she could just sit here like Grandpa and that could be the extent of it.

She wondered what Grandpa would be doing with his life, if he could do something. Based on her father’s personality and the stuff in the garage, Edna guessed that Grandpa could host an outdoor/adventure show on Discovery Channel, but she couldn’t really imagine what he’d be like. She was sad about her grandfather’s condition for the first time, rather than repulsed or bewildered by it. She’d like to have a nice grandpa to talk to. She tried to imagine what he might say to her that would be comforting, but she didn’t know this guy at all.

Dinner was at the same time as usual, but the late summer days were getting shorter and the sky was noticeably darker.

“What do you think Grandpa would think of me?” Edna asked.

Grandma considered it.

“He’d think that you’re a smart, courageous girl, and he’d be very proud of you.”

Edna snorted her juice through her nose.

“Edna!”

“Seriously—”

She choked.

“I am serious, Edna. Don’t be cynical about your grandfather. Or yourself.”

Edna caught her breath. She didn’t think she’d inspire Grandpa’s pride because she didn’t see how she had anything to do with him.

“Is that how you think he would say it?”

“Something like that.”

“What happened to Grandpa in the war? No one told me.”

“Well…”

Grandma trailed off, and she focused on eating.

“Grandma?”

“Edna, I don’t know if I know all of it. I don’t think I ever will. I don’t think your Grandpa remembers it anymore, either. It’s all gone.”

“What’s gone? Grandma…?”

“Your grandpa was missing for a time.”

“What does that mean?”

“When he was a prisoner, in the war.”

“In the same war as Raul and Freddy? In Vietnam?”

“Yes.”

“For how long? How long was he a prisoner?”

“About a year.”

“That’s horrible.”

“It was. Still is.”

It took a moment for Edna to absorb these answers. Grandpa must have been tortured. Edna had seen torture in movies, but she always hated those scenes and shut her eyes and ears. She never knew that her life had been touched by a war. If it wasn’t for the war, she might be able to talk with her grandfather. If it wasn’t for the war, her grandparents might not even be living here. The gravity of Grandpa’s situation finally revealed itself to Edna for what it was. Grandpa wasn’t some creepy old man, some mentally sick guy she should be ashamed of and try not to think about. He was a man who got hurt, badly. It wasn’t the usual kind of sad news that could be twisted with a positive spin and ultimately thought of as for the best later. This was just bad, and there was no other way of spinning it.

Edna realized that Grandma was probably depressed and had been for years, taking care of Grandpa with no one to talk to and nothing to stimulate her. She was probably so used to it, she didn’t realize how weird she was. If she lived with them in L.A., she’d be in therapy and on some kind of medication, but Edna wasn’t sure if that would be a good thing. They had plenty of room for her grandparents to live with them in Brentwood, if anyone wanted that. Edna didn’t know if her imagination could be worse than what had happened to Grandpa, but she wouldn’t force Grandma to talk about the war. She hoped Grandma was right and that Grandpa couldn’t remember it. Not remembering it was the only good thing about it.

“He got sick slowly, you understand, and then it got quick. He played with you when you were a baby. He couldn’t see your brother the same way by the time he was born.”

Grandma’s eyes filled with tears that didn’t shed. Maybe this was as close as she came to crying. Edna had never tried to before, but she wanted to give Grandma a hug. She came around the table, but Grandma didn’t move. Edna hugged her from the side, and Grandma held her arm. It was a kind of a hug.

Edna spent her final weeks in the desert doing chores, eating meals with Grandma and watching sunsets with Grandpa. Johnny and the war were always on her mind. She hoped Grandpa had really forgotten what happened when he was a prisoner, and she tried not to think about what it was. She tried not to think about the people who tortured him, if they were still alive and who they were. She had nightmares about people intentionally hurting people and about being tortured herself. A gaunt Vietnamese man with breasts sharpened a knife. He was more freakish because he wasn’t trying to be feminine in any other way. He was going to cut her fingers off in a dark room without windows. Edna always woke up before anything happened and then was terrorized by the thought that Grandpa hadn’t been so lucky.

She had to get out of the pantry after these dreams, and she sat with the stars on the porch. She used to think her mind was tumultuous and that Grandpa’s was a crystal-clear lake, but if he had gone through torture, maybe it was the other way around. Or maybe there was no lake.

Edna decided that she’d rather know the truth about Grandpa because then she might stop making up ghastly things. She’d ask her father about it when she got home. Men were never so much in the forefront for Edna. She was usually only occupied with women; she was always in a fight with her mother and spent all her time in activities with girls. She didn’t think about what men did. She’d never shot a BB gun or ridden a dirt bike before. She didn’t know what it meant when people told her that her grandfather had gone to war.

Edna had already read all the books her parents left for her; Mrs. Anderson and the pioneer women had successfully traversed the country in spite of their many hardships. Edna got the impression that there were many more like them who didn’t make it. Apparently there were many cruel hardships in life. Edna had less than ever to distract her from her haunting thoughts about them.

She wanted to talk to Johnny. She missed him. It wasn’t fair that he was living his normal life and she was completely isolated without him. She knew it was wrong, but she called Bishop’s. The rotary phone took forever to spin back before she could dial the next number. How did people ever live like this?

“Bishop’s.”

Jenny answered the phone, so Edna hung up. Even if Johnny had answered, she had nothing to say. She couldn’t think of anything, even about Grandpa, that would eclipse the fact that Johnny didn’t want to see her anymore, and that he’d gone ahead and made arrangements to that end. Edna would hate for him to have to reiterate this in front of Jenny and anyone else who might be within earshot. She wasn’t sure if Johnny had a cell phone or how she could find out without asking, announcing to someone that she was looking for him. In all the times she’d been with him, Johnny had never held a phone. It was part of what was so different about him: he wasn’t on an electronic leash, always typing into some device like everyone else she knew.

There weren’t many names in the residential section of the phone book, but there were lots of Bishops and one John. As much of a man as Edna thought Johnny was, he was still a high school student, and he probably didn’t have a phone bill in his name. Still, Edna called John Bishop first. That evening she proceeded to hang up on the nine Bishop families listed in the Desert Palms phone book. Grandma was in and out of the room. Edna noted that she wouldn’t mind getting back to her former amount of privacy at home. She almost never had to be on the phone in front of her parents if she didn’t want to be.

There was no reason for these calls other than the childish fantasy that Johnny might pick up a phone and she’d get to hear his voice. He’d say, “Hello?” and then she’d say “Johnny?” and then he’d say “Edna…” and drop whatever he was doing to rush over and kiss her again. Then she could talk to him about Grandpa. He might know more than she did. It was an unlikely scene made up by a desperate mind, and Edna was embarrassed to admit to herself that she was doing anything in the hopes that it might happen, only she didn’t know why else she was doing it. It was a new low, but these came along so often lately, they no longer surprised her.

She wished she’d thought quickly enough to write a note back to Johnny when Ken gave her the postcard. Someday she’d send him a postcard. She’d mail it to the store if she couldn’t find his address, and she’d put it in an envelope so no one but Johnny could read it, just like he did with hers. It would be some consolation if they communicated that way, with drawings and letters written on paper like pioneer people. It would be personal and more private than any other friendship. Edna liked the idea, but at the moment staying in touch with Johnny was just another figment of her imagination. She moped, and eventually settled into a stupor in the dead, August desert. She slept on the couch in the hot afternoons, and watched the sun drop with Grandpa before dinner. A few days and nights passed this way though it seemed time stood still. Slowly, and without her noticing it, Edna’s stupor was broken by a growing curiosity about Grandpa.

Grandpa always just sat there. Did he want to move but couldn’t? Was his mind tranquil, like the basin he looked into, or a frantic place paralyzed with fear? Maybe there were so many wires crossed that nothing could be deciphered. When was the last time he was more than twenty feet away from this cabin?

Edna tried, with what she’d seen of the town of Desert Palms, to think if they could take him somewhere. That Inn might be nice, as long as they didn’t run into any drunken volleyball players or Johnny. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. She wasn’t sure if they could get Grandpa into the Bronco or if it would be good for him to go somewhere, but Edna thought it was worth a try. Grandpa might enjoy a ride.