In Case of Emergency (15 page)

Much like the perceptive areas of your tongue being divided into sweet,
sour, spice, and salt, different receptor cells in the cochlea are oriented to specific pitches. Sound vibrations cause fluid to sway against receptor cells, producing nerve impulses that travel to the brain.

Perhaps your inner ear is a leftover piece of your evolution, a souvenir from the oceans that cast you on their shores 365 million years ago. A fish with four legs, sliding onto land, breathing air through the spiracles in its skull, was somehow unable to shake the object lodged in its head: a fluid-filled snail shell that maybe even now carries the scent of salt water.

This organ isn’t responsible just for translating sounds into electrical messages. The archways of the semicircular canals sit at three different angles so your brain can distinguish up from down, left from right, and the tilt of diagonals. It can tell these three different types of motion apart because while the inner ear stays fixed in place, moving as you move, tilting as you tilt, the fluid filling its chambers always stays upright, like water trapped in a rolling cylinder.

Your inner ear tells you where your body is in space; it orients you even when your eyes are closed. But if small crystals float freely in these tunnels, you lose your horizon. These particles knock against these receptors, signaling that your head is moving no matter how motionless you are. Likewise, if the hair cells that serve as sound receptors get damaged, you’ll be plagued with constant, albeit nonexistent, noises.

Hearing and balance sit so close to each other, and intertwine so carefully. It’s not surprising that sounds themselves can change your sense of center.

20

My phone vibrates from its position on the passenger seat. My father is calling. I don’t answer. I’m headed into my old neighborhood today, the
grungy part of Hollywood, flat and residential. I drive past boutiques and kitsch-loaded storefronts until I see the corner strip malls that used to greet me daily, the ones that have store names so generic they seem to address only the most basic human needs. Chinese Food. Flowers. Barber Shop. Car Wash & Star Tours Maps.

Over the last few weeks I finished all my requirements for A & O Ambulance—the driver’s training, the last of the physical testing and immunizations—and picked up a few shifts on 12-hour “day cars” out of headquarters while I waited for my permanent spot at Station 710 to open up. I’ve been told that before I start working my regular 24-hour shift I should get a navy blue zip-up jacket for the calls after midnight. Today I have a new basic need. Uniform Store. Although A & O doesn’t issue these jackets, nothing else is company approved. Purchasing a work-related clothing item is especially painful right now. Depositing my first paycheck actually made me feel more broke than before.

Whenever Dad calls, we have the same conversation: “How’s work?” “Work’s fine.” Even when I was unemployed he would ask, “How’s work?” And I would answer, “Fine.” But if Dad leaves a message, he always closes with one of his sayings, usually Irish, some joke or idiom, some blessing or toast or one-liner. Some of the sayings are funny, some are not, some I have heard a hundred times since birth. He’ll attempt an accent now and then, his voice growing deliberate and robust, the syllables rolling and multiplying, and it always reminds me of being a kid sitting in his lap, how over the years I learned the timing, could recognize by the intonation and tug of his smile when I was supposed to laugh, at which line comprehension should be dawning on my face. By the time I grew old enough to understand, I no longer knew if these sayings were funny. They were already broken in, comfortable, a piece of my childhood; Dad’s comic delivery was a measuring stick for my aging. It’s my favorite thing my father does.

After picking up the jacket, I stop by Hollywood High to watch a
cluster of skateboarding kids stare down the famous Twelve Steps. They sit or stand, leaning on their boards, simultaneously awkward and cocky, working up their will. I watch a teenager take flight—he has that glorious mid-air suspension—but then his body tips at the wrong angle and he’s spilling and rolling by the time he meets the ground again. The board speeds away merrily. He stands up and walks it off. Never has it been so clear to me that this form of glory also involves convincing your brain concrete won’t hurt.

The sun is setting by the time I get to Ayla’s neighborhood in Silver Lake and park my car on one of the narrow, all-but-vertical streets.

Dad’s voice rambles on about traffic on the freeway, an accident on the road that made him think of me—he hopes I’m being safe out there on the ambulance. “And Piper,” says the recording. I’m waiting for it, already smiling, ready for the same buildup as always, the slowing of syllables, the deliberate pauses, the much-treasured coda, ready to form the words along with him and mimic the intonation, my father’s particular brand of gruff-and-pleased delivery. “Remember, my dear, try to turn the hearts of your enemies. And if you cannot turn their hearts, at least turn their ankles, so you will see them coming by their limp.”

It’s with excitement and a slight sense of dread that I propel my body up the narrow, winding stairs that lead to Ayla’s bungalow. As is my habit, I count as I climb. I admire the view—snaking freeways, the blurred red and white of speeding cars, all blooming under the kind of colors a smog-filled sky only enhances. This is what beauty looks like in Los Angeles.

Lately I’ve been watching a lot of nature shows, at work if it’s slow, or late at night when I’m winding down. There are some species that don’t just procreate, they mate for life. The albatross attends a breeding dance every year, observing its elders, imitating the steps, posturing, and vocalizations, and after years of practice, finally woos the mate of its choosing and settles down. Great hornbills sing duets to assure compatibility, seahorses link
tails and flutter side by side, and elephants wander off from the herd in pairs to taste trunks and wrap tusks. But I relate more to the horror stories of insects who eat their mates during or immediately after copulation. Every time I walk up these stairs, I find myself thinking it’s not too late to run away, and then I have to remind myself that if I never saw Ayla again, there are so many things I would miss. I have never found falling in love anything less than terrifying.

She answers the door and we have an awkward moment where we figure out how to greet each other. Whenever I see Ayla it’s like we’re meeting for the first time. She can be restless, distant, distracted. Vigilant even. But she softens eventually. Her focus settles, her voice finds its wry cadence. During our half-hug greeting, I kiss her on the cheek.

The setup of her studio is simple enough—the bedroom is the kitchen is the dining room—but the space feels large because of the hardwood floor, the windows, the minimal decorations in shades of orange and brown. A round table with two chairs occupies the middle of the room; a queen-size bed extends out from one corner. Along the wall that faces the hill, a two-burner stove and a refrigerator act as bookends for the kitchen sink; along the opposite wall sits the careworn centerpiece of Ayla’s home, a bedraggled yet inviting coffee-colored leather couch, onto which Ayla and I now sink.

“I lost my job,” she says.

She’s seated but not comfortably—it looks as though at any moment she’s going to spring from the couch and run laps around the room. I ask her what happened.

“There’s this customer, comes in every single day, little angry man, always wears a khaki jacket. He’s got this mustache—” She raises her hands as if to show me the shape of it but then continues. “He always goes to the coffee bar and orders the same thing. A cherry Danish, a quadruple latte. Every day except weekends.”

I ask what kind of person needs that much caffeine.

“Right? Anyway, it’s actually a double latte with two extra shots of espresso, and he calls it a ‘red-eye,’ all proud, as if it’s something he invented. He gives explicit instructions, no matter who’s working, no matter how many times they’ve made it for him. He wants a double latte in a
medium
cup, don’t burn the milk, add two extra shots of espresso
after
the foam—”

I make a sound like a buzzer going off and she laughs.

“Yeah. My friend Lettie got me that job, and before he left the place, Lettie started a… tradition.”

“What?”

She grins. “Decaf. The past year or so I’ve been working there, most of the time he gets a completely decaf red-eye. Four shots of non-caffeinated espresso.”

I burst out laughing. “They fired you for that?”

“No. I don’t even work the coffee bar. They fired me because I agreed to switch shifts with someone and then forgot to go.”

“But I don’t—”

“It’s not the first time, Piper. I’m sure you’ve noticed by now I don’t have the best memory.” I follow Ayla’s gaze to the quivering AC unit across the room from us, built into the wall by her bed. Small gray strands of dust splay out from the vents, rippling in the refrigerated air. “It’s a dumb job,” she says. “I didn’t want to be there forever. But I’m going to miss that little angry man.”

Ayla hasn’t talked much about her memory problems, except to say she’s been “off the notes” for about two years. She used to tape reminders on every surface—every wall, every cupboard, every door—to help her remember basic things, like to lock the door at night and take her keys with her in the morning, to set the alarm, to water the plants she kept killing off, and also to remind her of the order in which to do things, like put water in the oatmeal before putting the bowl in the microwave. Eventually
she was able to switch to putting reminders in her planner, and most of the notes came down.

“Ayla, I’ve hardly even noticed your memory problems.”

“Because I’ve been doing so well. That’s what kills me. Katrina—my ex back in Wisconsin—we were together about a year before she couldn’t take it anymore. I was so forgetful all the time, needed help with so many—” She jumps up, grabs her planner off the round table, waves it at me. “I’ve been doing so well with even the little things, like trash day and watering the cactus. Then Mark had to go and ask for a shift trade because it was his kid’s birthday—she wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up and has a hard-on for some stupid monkey at the goddamn San Diego Zoo—and I was in a rush to catch a bus, and thought I’d remember to deal with it later, and I didn’t”—she tosses the planner on the couch, it bounces and lands near my hip—“write it down, I didn’t motherfucking
write it down
.”

On the open pages of the sprawled planner I read my own name. In the rectangle representing August 5: “Piper mom left ii you told banshee.” August 6: “Piper heli full code cookies.” August 9: “Piper 28 movie hand swim nerd.”

“I’m in here?”

“Well, yeah.”

“I’m a nerd?”

She looks caught. “That must have been something you told me, maybe something someone else…” She notices the heat in my face. Sitting down, she picks up the planner and looks at it. “Swim nerd,” she says. “I think you were telling me about what’s his name, your hero—”

“Michael Phelps? He’s won twenty-two Olympic medals.”

“Right, him.” She flips through more pages, the vein on her neck standing out. “On our fourth date, you told me about your brother’s birds, last week you said you’ve never been to Europe but you want to go to Spain, and—I can’t read this. After your first full arrest, you ate cookies?”

“Ice cream.”

“Well, there you go, I wrote it down wrong, another fucking—”

I grab her face with both hands and kiss her. “No, Ayla.”

She tilts her head back. I rest the side of my face on her shoulder, my nose almost touching her neck. Eventually she says, “Someone told me once, you don’t get better, you just figure out how to deal. I thought I’d figured it out.”

I think of the teenager at Hollywood High, the way he kicked up the back edge of his skateboard while hanging midair above a flight of concrete stairs, how his arms stretched to either side of him for balance, the board pirouetting underneath high tucked legs. I could see it in his face, the moment he took off, he knew he’d never nail that landing, yet he took off anyway and almost did.

“Let’s go on a road trip.”

At first there’s no response, then she lifts her head. “What?”

I don’t tell her the truth, that although my regular shift doesn’t start for a few more days, for me to leave town I’ll have to give away the shifts I just picked up to make some extra cash.

“You don’t fool me. I know how much EMTs make.” She’s considering it. “I’m not broke, you know. This is my uncle’s place, I rent it for cheap. Plus I get disability.”

I haven’t ever thought of her as disabled. “Is that a ‘yes’?”

She’s watching me closely. “Listen, Piper—oh,
crap
.”

“What?”

She places her forehead on her knees and wraps her fingers around the back of her neck.

“Ayla, what is it?”

“I don’t drive,” she says, her voice muffled.

I try to remember the dates we’ve been on, how she arrived and left from each of them, slowly coming to the conclusion that not once have
I ever walked her to her car as a way to say goodbye. “But everyone drives in Los Angeles. You mean you don’t have a car?”

“I mean I don’t
drive
.”

“Ayla?” I want to touch her somehow but feel so awkward. I squeeze her shoulder. “Why not?”