Shout Her Lovely Name (23 page)

“Valium?”

“Even I need to relax.” Ruby slid behind the wheel, adjusted the rearview mirror, touched the sides of her lips. “Do you like the car?”

“You were in an accident.”

“I’ve been getting in fender-benders my whole life. Don’t be so self-righteous. This time, I recognize I could use a little help. That’s what makes me a grownup, self-reflection.” She turned to Nora, her gaze frank and open. “Look at you, so beautiful and naive and, even if you can’t admit it, young. Lots of men are going to love you. I’ve told you that before.” She sighed. “And I love you and I hope you love you. You do, right?”

Nora’s eyes stung. Ruby always did this, knew exactly what to say to make it seem like she was an amazing mother. “Don’t rate my life.”

A tiny smile, superior and sympathetic, played at the corners of Ruby’s mouth. “It’s hard being twenty.” She closed her door and rolled down the window. “Tell me, where should a girl go to buy a bikini? I’m going to need a new bikini for camp. I was thinking gold . . .”

At the stop sign, Ruby tooted her horn, called a final “Bye, Beanie.” Then she turned the wrong way. Nora cried out, “Right, go right!,” but her mother with her terrible sense of direction was gone. Behind her, Thad said, “Alone at last, chicken.” Nora blinked. She would not turn to look. Thad standing in the frilly green shade of the jacaranda trees, the sun beaming its cheery light down on him: she would now see it all with her mother’s eyes. Nora felt stuck in a sliver of space, pressed between panes of lovely sky-blue glass. The middle of the street was the only place she could be herself.

“Another amazing, boring May-blue sky,” Aaron observed.

Nora leaned toward the windshield, looked up and out over the ocean. She couldn’t agree more. They were parked in Aaron’s VW camper at Butterfly Beach. Supposedly they were studying for the final. Nora had her books zipped in the backpack at her feet. Aaron’s elbow jutted out his window and he held a perfect Granny Smith in his hand. A jar of peanut butter rested between his thighs, which were thicker than Nora’s.

“What kind of art do you make?”

“Conceptual stuff. I’m interested in the universality of foibles.”

Nora nodded as if she knew what he was talking about.

“I had a piece in a gallery in downtown LA, it had this found object, like an arthritic finger, only it was driftwood. It was totally amazing—like an arthritic
what-the-fuck?
—and I painted the canvas with these vague, blurred flags from the G Seven and then I copied random candy and alcohol ads and repeated images of Ronald Reagan and then wheat-pasted the whole thing together.” Aaron removed a Swiss army knife from his glove box, and while he spoke, he sliced the apple against his palm, dipped a crescent in peanut butter, and passed it to her. “I’m only in school for the parental aid. I try to take classes that will inspire my vision, like satire, because art is about disruption.” His clear violet eyes, magnified by his glasses, remained fixed on her face. His voice, confident and sonorous, was perfect for a make-out song.

The assured way he spoke about his ideas made her nervous. If he asked about her, like why she was in school or what she wanted, Nora would have no idea what to say. School and work were ends in themselves. She liked baking. She was good at it. So good, in fact, that her boss wanted her to help open a new bakery. Plus, she liked reading things she wouldn’t have known enough to choose on her own. Thankfully, Aaron never asked, which was fine because nearly the entire rear of his van had been converted to a sleeping platform and Nora could feel its insistent presence, like a cat rubbing against her shin. Aaron slept beneath that orange Mexican blanket. His clothing, stuffed into the net hammocks slung along the windows, gave the van a musty, animal smell. Three saucepans hung from hooks behind the driver’s seat and she imagined the friendly clatter every time he turned a corner. He had a case of Top Ramen tucked under the bed. Aaron was a gypsy.

“So, Nora. I’ve been feeling artistically gummed up. After the G Seven piece, I haven’t really been able to make anything. And this satire class, it’s so—lower division. It’s like,
meta.
Self-parody. Then I saw your amazing shoulders, and your amazing student-ness. I bet you had a gap between your teeth, corrected with orthodontia.”

Nora was so enthralled by his passion, by his penetrating stare, that she didn’t correct his assumption. She watched the green sliver of apple peel in his teeth as he went on about his plans.

“My next piece is coming from that reductio ad absurdum talk. You know, like the lecture hall and the professorial professor, and you, so coed, and I’m this, like, visionary. My art has to do more than masturbate reality onto a canvas. I want to expose singular foolishness.”

Nora bit her thumbnail. “So, you want to satire satire.”

“Bigger. I want to hash it up.” He set the peanut butter jar behind him on the tiny stove. “Let’s go to the movies.” He leaned in close to her, his hands resting on her knees squeezing her flesh. He smelled mostly like peanut butter, but also like his van, only stronger, and wild, as if he spent his nights on the forest floor. After the kiss, he pulled out his wallet. “Let’s upset the paradigm.” Forehead to forehead, he extracted a glassine envelope from between receipts and taco coupons. “This, my little friend, is windowpane. LSD.”

Nora leaned away and Aaron followed, holding her wrist in the same gesture Thad used. Only Aaron didn’t call her chicken, and Nora did feel the plummeting-elevator sensation in her spine.

“I love that you’re afraid. That’s perfect. It’s totally mild . . . you know, it will just open vessels in your brain.” He made a sound like a small boy imitating a bomb. The sun angled in the van, lemon yellow and sweet. His large hands drew together in front of her face like two leggy spiders, fingertips to fingertips. “Everything will
zzzp,
connect and make sense. I promise.”

Nora’s heart boomed in her chest. She’d never thought of taking LSD. Her main knowledge about hallucinogens came from a prevention film with a terrible song that she’d seen in sixth grade, and a story she’d overheard her mother tell at parties; something about peyote and nearly driving off the road in pursuit of a moonbeam. The movie was a joke. Her mother’s story always garnered a laugh. Aaron leaned in to kiss her again. He told her it would be the most intense morning of her sweet young life. “Say you will. Be my muse.” She glanced at her watch—ten thirty—then at the cracked clock on his dashboard, then at the boring blue sky. Thad was on his century bike ride and wouldn’t be home until well after six. Though she couldn’t quite believe it, Nora was basing her decision on time. When Aaron demonstrated sticking out his tongue, Nora responded with hers, and felt a bitter prick like Parmesan cheese where the gelatin dissolved.

They stretched out on the sleeping platform and Aaron instructed her to be alert. Coming on was always the tingly best. Looking up at the sagging water-stained liner of his van, Nora felt hyperaware. She noticed the weary
zzzz
of a fly hitting the window, the itch of the blanket against her bare arms, the heat of Aaron lying beside her, not touching any part of her but the back of her hand. Aaron told her it was important to set a tone, to build your base of happy thoughts, like drinking milk mixed with a bit of olive oil before a night of partying. So she told him about her mother’s new rehab bikini.

“Have I heard of her? Is she a celebrity?”

Nora shook her head. “She called me with the address, told me to send her a SWAK package so people know she’s loved.”

“Wow.” He squeezed her hand, said in a solemn voice, “That’s tragic and absurd.”

She rolled onto her side. Aaron curled around her. He got her. When she’d told Thad about Ruby’s bikini, he’d roared,
Perfect!,
as if they were talking about someone else’s mother. When she didn’t laugh too, Thad said,
Come on . 
.
 . what did you expect? It’s your mother. Exactly,
Nora had thought.

“What does SWAK mean?”

“Sealed with a kiss.”

They lay together, Aaron mouthing the words
Sealed. With. A. Kiss. Sealed with a kiss. Sealedwithakiss.
He whispered it between kissing her, fast then slow; he sang it into her mouth, shouted it, said it with an accent, cried it, punched it at the air, smooched it out, and barked it like a seal. They both barked, laughing and rolling around on the bed. “Arf. Arf. Sealed with a kiss.”

“Stop.” He pressed his finger to her lips. “Now say
yellow.
”

She did, over and over, until the word ran together in a long string of nonsense. Aaron pressed his palm against her heart. “Everything important will happen right here.”

Nora heard the water sparkle, quivery pops, like a bowl of cereal. “Snap. Crackle,” she said and Aaron nodded. They wandered down the beach where gulls pierced the air with their wings and cries. A red Frisbee trailed long ribbons of light. It felt as if she were standing still and all the dogs, people, and children were gliding past, rolling by for the queen’s pleasure. Her cheeks ached. Her smile was so wide that she worried her teeth would sunburn. Looking up at Aaron, she saw he was talking but his words sounded like rhythmic collisions, wave upon wave. Her heart backflipped in her chest. She took off, pounding the sand with her bare feet, pumping her arms, Aaron beside her. Black oysters of crude freckled the shore. The water, the color of Scope mouthwash, flew up around her ankles in tiny blisters that threatened to cut her open. They swam, they must have, because her hair was damp and when she pulled a clump into her mouth, she tasted salt. It was a great comfort to chew on her hair. She’d been broken of the habit by her first-grade teacher. Lumpy, short Mrs. Hopewell tied Nora’s hair back every morning and gave her a cherry Smith Brothers cough drop at the end of the day if she successfully resisted the temptation. The cherry taste, right this minute, felt huge in her mouth. Nora spit up into the sky and dodged it coming back down. She yearned to hug the little girl who yearned to please Mrs. Hopewell with her conditional smile. She yearned to hug the little girl who arranged lilies in an empty wine jug for her dead cat. Aaron’s fingertips grazed her wet cheeks. She pulled the hair from her mouth and asked for a cough drop. He took her hand and they ran back to the van to rest in the sun beating through his windows. They nibbled uncooked ramen noodles dipped in peanut butter and kissed with food in their mouths, sharing like hungry babies. Taking off their clothes seemed unbelievably complicated. The way the zipper teeth one by one disconnected was funny and sad. They sat forever, cross-legged with their spines growing limp, eyes rigid, and sandy knees touching. A glob of black stuck to Aaron’s instep. Nora thought of cotton balls and felt vaguely sorry and tired. LSD drained from her body, like water from a tub. Aaron dragged his finger through the crude, making a smeary cyclone up his calf.

“Do you believe everything happens for a reason?”

She could tell by his voice, the way it trailed off, that he didn’t want an answer. He wanted nothing from her. She was free to watch his finger or not.

“I’m a baker,” she said.

“You smell like sugar. Remember?”

“Yes, but . . .” She leaned very close to him and whispered, “I have a secret in my pocket.” She dug into her jeans and pulled out wet, crumpled paper. “I’m a very good baker.”

“I know.”

She waved the letter. “You don’t know. If you did, you’d know that my boss wants me to move to Seattle in June. If you knew that, then you’d know that I bake with flair.”

“It rains there.”

“I like rain. My mother says it’s good for your complexion.” She leaned back against the door, which wasn’t fully shut, and tipped backward into the parking lot, her legs flailing toward the now violet sky. The pavement came up fast. Her right elbow broke her fall. Nora was surprised and hurt and laughing. She suffered throbbing jelly pulses.

Aaron fell across the passenger seat on his belly, grasping at the air with his hands, missing her ankles.

“Ow?” She held up her bloodied elbow.

“Elbow, elbow, el-bow, there’s another weird one.”

Her skin was too raw to say any word more than once. From her position on the ground it seemed like she had to look a long way back to before. Her current body felt as if it had been raked over a cheese grater between then and now.

Aaron cleaned her wound with peroxide he found in a first-aid kit beneath his stove. In the failing light, with his head hovering over the pink fizz, his hair no longer smelled like the forest floor; it smelled like hot-dog water. He cleared his throat, a horrible tumbling-rocks sound, and blew on her skin when it stung. In a serious voice she hadn’t heard before, he told her to bend and straighten the joint; he gently prodded.

“Can you raise your arm?” When she did, wincing, he declared that the injury was most likely soft-tissue swelling, a sprain. Then he ripped one of his T-shirts to fashion a sling.

“Nothing’s broken,” she protested.

He hummed a cheerful song and dropped the cotton loop over her head, then gently drew her wrist through. “First we immobilize, then RICE—rest, ice, compress, elevate.”

“Are you a doctor or an artist?”

“My mom’s an orthopod. My dad’s an internist. I’ve had broken bones—fibula, ulna—a sprained ankle, and multiple cases of influenza. My mom’s motto was RICE, my dad’s was BRAT—bananas, rice, applesauce, toast.”

“For?”

“Diarrhea.” He laughed when she asked him to please not say that word over and over.

She wrapped her free hand around her wounded arm, imagined his white-coated parents extending thermometers, applying splints, listening to his heart.

“I was given remedies,” Aaron said.

At Thad’s, in the medicine chest, there were all sorts of remedies: different size bandages, Neosporin, Advil, and calendula oil. He would want to take care of her.

Aaron carefully rummaged through his wallet, pulling out scraps of paper, squinting. His darting insistence from earlier was missing. His voice was now sluggish. “I had coupons for tacos.”