Once Upon a Time, There Was You (12 page)

11

S
unday mornings are given over to God, as Irene understands him. Which is to say that, on Sunday mornings, Irene attends open AA meetings. She is hurrying to one now. Then she’ll head over to the brunch she’s working today.

Irene is not an alcoholic, but one of her friends, named Carl Palmer, is, and a few years ago, she attended her first meeting with him. They had made plans to go to Angel Island one Sunday, but Carl said he had to go to his meeting first. Irene asked if she could come along and he said sure, this was an open meeting. Irene had been curious about those meetings for a long time. A few people she knew went often, and seemed to profit immensely from them.

The meeting was held in a classroom of a church in Presidio Heights. Irene and Carl arrived late, and sat in the back. A young woman was standing at the front of the room, speaking, and Irene had to lean forward to hear her. Her voice was ravaged-sounding, and Irene thought that she would make a good blues singer. She had dirty blond dreadlocks, and she wore an oversize navy hooded sweatshirt over blue jeans and work boots. She held a cup of coffee in one hand, and there were rings on every finger. “So I was home that night,” the woman said, “and the kids were sleeping—they’re two and three—they’d been sleeping for a
couple hours, and I was trying to watch TV, but it was starting, you know, I just needed a drink so bad, and I had nothing in the house. I started pacing around, and finally I just couldn’t stand it, I busted out and went to the bar at the end of the block. I told myself I’d just get one quick drink.”

There was a kind of murmuring among the crowd, a lot of knowing
uh-huhs
.

“I know, right?” the woman said

Busted
out
?
Irene thought.
You left your two- and three-year-old children
alone
?

“Anyways, I got home at one o’clock in the morning. And I right away went into the kids’ room and they were okay, they were sound asleep, but I sat on the floor and just fell over crying. That was my low point, and the next day I went to my first meeting.

“And I’m doing good, I haven’t had a drink for over a month now.”

The woman was applauded, but Irene sat stiffly in her chair, trying to think of how she might climb over the people who had come in after she, and get out of there. She wanted out of there. That woman had left her children alone! For hours! And come back drunk! Irene looked left, then right, trying to see which was the best way to go. Carl grabbed her arm. “Sit tight,” he said quietly. “You don’t walk out when someone’s presenting.” He wasn’t angry, but he was firm, and so Irene sat still.

The woman said, “This morning, my son told me about a dream he had last night. I’m not going to tell you his dream, even though it was a good one. But him telling me his dream? It made me want to tell you mine. I know most people don’t like to hear other people’s dreams, but I would like to share this one. Hope it’s okay. It’s
short
,” she added, and the crowd chuckled.

She drew in a big breath. “So what it was, is I dreamed I was
at the head of this birch-bark canoe, same kind we had when I was a kid growing up on a lake in Wisconsin. But I wasn’t in a lake, I was at sea, and it was real foggy and the waves were really high, and the water was so black. I was scared to death. And I couldn’t move my hands to row, I couldn’t unclench my fists. I thought,
My God, I can’t move, I’m going to capsize
. I didn’t know why I hadn’t capsized already. I looked behind me, and I saw that the boat was real long, I mean
real
long, like I couldn’t hardly see the end. And it was just packed with people. I didn’t know ’cause I’d been sitting with my back to everybody. But the boat was packed with people. And
they
were rowing.

“Like a lot of you have said before, I was so ashamed to come here the first time. I was so afraid to admit to my weaknesses and my wrongdoings. One thing is, they were so bad. Other thing is, if I admitted to them, I’d have to do something about them. But that dream reminded me that
a lot of us are in the same boat
, right?” She joins in the laughter, then says, “Okay, I’m done, but I just want to end by saying I can’t wait for my hands to start working so I can row someone else. And also I want to say that I think it’s our salvation that so many of us are in the boat together.”

Some man on the other side of the room called out, “Our
salvation
is that there’s nobody who’s
not
on the boat!”

Carl looked over at her then, and Irene nodded.

12

S
adie starts awake. Outside, there is the distant sound of a dog barking. The night has passed; sunshine is pushing through the cracks of the shed. It’s cold.

He didn’t come back.

“Help!” Sadie cries. She gets up off the mattress and goes to the door of the shed. “Help!” She presses her ear to the door: nothing. She pounds on the door, kicks at it. “Help! Help!
Heeeeelp!
”

The word seems ridiculous.
Help
. She’s said it so many times, it’s starting to lose its meaning. “Help!” she says, one last time, and then laughs. Laughs!

Maybe she’s starting to crack up. People do crack up, under circumstances like these. She has to get a grip. She can’t think about the fact that no one will find her. She can’t think that he is coming back. She has to make her thoughts small and immediate.

She goes to the corner of the shed she peed in before, and pees again. Not much there; she’s not had much to drink. And she’ll need to ration what little water she has left, just in case. It hurts, thinking again about Irene putting that water bottle in her backpack, taking care of her in spite of the fact that Sadie keeps pushing her away. If she gets out of here,
when
she gets out of here, she’ll make it up to her mother. Somehow. Although she’s said that before, that she’ll make things up to her mother, and then has
done no such thing. Has, in fact, made things worse, in the ongoing and escalating battle that has developed between the two of them. She tried to talk about this to her dad, but he seemed only to want to defend Irene. To the extent that Sadie said, at one point, “Well, why’d you get divorced, then?” He started to respond, but then did not. And she did not press him. Him, she does not press.

But. Now is not the time to pile on guilt. Now is the time to think practically.

She tries to remember what she learned about how long people can go without water: Three days? A week? She won’t drink any water yet. She’ll wait until she is even thirstier.

So. She has peed. Now what? If she were home, she’d shower and brush her teeth. She rubs vigorously at her face, checks the corners of her eyes for sleep. She gets out her toothbrush and toothpaste and brushes her teeth, then spits in the corner where she peed—the bathroom, she supposes. She thinks about using a little water to rinse her mouth but decides not to waste it. Instead, she uses her index finger to run across her top teeth, then her bottom, then sucks the paste off her finger. Next, she shakes her hair around and runs her fingers through it, combing it as best she can. She feels a pressure in her bowels, and tries to ignore it.

She goes back to the mattress, sits down and holds her knees to her chest. Pulls harder. Exercise. She stands and begins doing jumping jacks, she’ll do one hundred, and then she’ll do sit-ups and then she’ll do push-ups. Then she’ll have a bite of PowerBar, only one bite despite the fact that she’s really hungry.

Sadie is beginning her push-ups when she hears something outside. Footsteps?

She rushes to the door, starts to call out, then stops herself. It could be him. She holds her breath, listening. Nothing, now.

She feels a great drop into despair, into helplessness, but then
just as suddenly feels a great rush of anger. “Let me out, you asshole!” she shouts. “I’m not afraid of you! Let me out! LET ME OUT!” Nothing. She stands there, panting. Waiting. Nothing.

“Are you there?” she says. And then, “I’m sorry. Could you let me out?”

Nothing.

She will not cry. She will not. She goes to her backpack and takes the tiniest sip of water. The tiniest. Puts the cap back on tightly. What if it spills? She puts the bottle in her backpack. Takes it out again. Takes everything out of her backpack and then puts it all back, neatly. Housecleaning. She puts the backpack in the corner opposite the bathroom.

She goes over to the mattress she slept on and brushes the dirt off it. Maybe it’s cleaner on the other side? She lifts the mattress, then drops it. Shudders. Definitely not, definitely not cleaner on the other side. She sees a weed growing at the edge of the shed and goes over to examine it. She strokes the tiny green leaves. A pet? Art? Something she might be able to eat? What if it’s poison? What if someone comes to rescue her and she’s dead because she ate something poisonous?

If she picks it and puts it on the mattress, she can look at it through a little hole in her fist and it will be like her bed is covered in vines and will be pretty and that will cheer her up. But then it will die.

So the weed will be a pet, another live thing, stuck in the same place as she.

“Help!” she yells, but it is not very loud. Useless, really.

She might be able to chart the passage of time by the angle of light that makes its way in. When the light seems overhead, lunchtime. Maybe there won’t be a lunchtime. Maybe she’ll be rescued by then. Or the other.

13

“W
hat have we here?” one of the party guests asks Irene, taking a cocktail napkin from her and surveying the platter she is holding.

“What we have here is grilled flatbread with za’atar,” she says. She rights the platter, which had begun to tip sideways.

“And what is za’atar?”

What
is
za’atar? She thinks for a moment, then recites: “It’s a mix of thyme, marjoram, and ground sumac. Oh! And sesame seeds!” She adds this last a bit too loudly, then, more quietly, adds, “It’s a North African spice mix.”

He takes a bite, nods. “Good!” he says, and little crumbs fly out of his mouth. His face colors slightly, which Irene finds charming. “Sorry,” he says.

“It’s okay.” He’s a good-looking man: tall, blond hair and gray eyes. He hasn’t been a great mixer; mostly he’s been availing himself of whatever Irene brings out and then going back to stand in the corner of the massive dining room to fool around with whatever device he’s holding—who can keep up? He and Irene have struck up a kind of makeshift friendship. Each time she brings out something new, she offers it to him first.

Irene is passing appetizers because two of Henry’s staff members are sick. Normally she likes to stay in the background and work in the kitchen. She hates passing appetizers. She doesn’t like
the way guests usually treat her, especially at the high-end parties, the way they act as though they’re patting her on the head when they take something from her. As if she cares! If they don’t eat the appetizers, well, then, the staff will. Henry is good at letting his employees take home any leftovers the host doesn’t want. And at the more lavish parties, the hosts don’t usually want anything but the leftover liquor. “Oh, no—you go ahead and take that,” they say, puffed up with their magnanimity. But there is always some sort of hawk-eyed proprietary glance at any tray of food they’re giving up, too. As if they’re being generous because their mommy is making them be.

“What’s coming next?” the man asks. And then, “My name is Jeffrey Stanton, by the way. Since I’ve talked to you more than anyone else at this party, I might as well introduce myself.”

“I’m Irene.”

“Irene …”

“Marsh.” For a moment, she worries that Henry will come flying out of the kitchen, saying, “No! No! No! You do not give your
last name
to the
guests
!” It prompts her to spell her last name, too. Which prompts Jeffrey to spell his, and Irene laughs. This makes her tray shift, and a few flatbreads fall onto the floor. Jeffrey quickly picks them up and puts his fingers to his lips. “Nobody saw,” he whispers.

“I’ll take them back to the kitchen and dump them.”

“Oh, don’t do that. Go and offer them to that guy over there.” He points to a man who has his back turned. Silver-haired. Imposing, even from behind.

“Who’s that?” Irene asks.

“My boss. Emerson Cummings. Spelled
A-s-s-h-o-l-e.
”

“Ah,” Irene says.

“Actually,” Jeffrey says, “I wouldn’t want you to give him dirty flatbread. I wouldn’t want you to give him anything.”

The swinging door to the kitchen cracks open, and there is Henry Bliss, giving Irene the Look. “Gotta go,” she says.

When she gets back into the kitchen, Henry can hardly contain himself. “What are you
doing
? We’ve got pork belly skewers that have to go out right
now;
they’re getting
cold
. And you need to pass the
bresaola.
”

“What bresaola?” She puts down the platter of flatbreads, and eats one that hadn’t fallen on the floor. She thinks.

“The
bresaola
with shaved
brussels
sprouts and
horseradish
. It’s over there, Sandy’s just putting the orchids on the tray. We need to get this stuff
out
, Irene!” He puts his hands on his hips. “I swear, I hate to fire people, but I think maybe I’m going to have to fire you.”

“You know what, Henry? No need. I quit.” She’ll go back to speech therapy. Or she’ll find something else. She’s had enough.

“Oh, stop it.” He walks away from her to open the oven door and waves the warm air toward his nose, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply. “I’m going to need the walnut vinaigrette for these beets really soon! Irene, go help make it. Hurry up.”

“No, Henry,” she says, speaking loudly. “I
quit.
” The other workers in the kitchen fall silent: Tommy, the handsome young Asian man who almost never stops giggling. Linda, the aspiring pastry chef who lives in fear of Henry but also worships him. The self-named Cayenne, who’s pierced everything she can and now is after Irene to get herself a nose stud.