Songs of the Humpback Whale: A Novel in Five Voices Page 12

  My mother has just caught a fish, I have no idea what kind it is. Its spine is a series of spikes that grow shorter and shorter; the hook seems to be caught in its cheek. My mother holds the fishing line while Sam smoothes the spikes of the fish and gently removes the hook. As he does this I hear a faint pluck. He holds the fish into the water and they both watch it swim away at an amazing pace. I myself did not know fish could move that quickly. When I look up at my mother and Sam, they seem quite pleased with themselves.

  Sam has propped the oars on my mother’s seat. She has her hands on the gunwale of the rowboat and is leaning back slightly. Sam, balancing, comes forward and catches his arms around her waist. When she sits up she doesn’t look startled. She leans forward and kisses him.

  I feel my heart beating faster and I think about leaving, but they will hear me then. I consciously try to think of my father, expecting him to jump to mind. But all I can remember is my own reaction, last Mother’s Day, when my father cooked breakfast in bed for her. He woke me up to ask about my mother’s favorite type of eggs and I looked at him as if he were crazy. He was married to her, after all. Didn’t he know she doesn’t eat eggs?

  Sam cups his hand around my mother’s right breast and kisses her neck. He says something to her I cannot hear. His thumb keeps rubbing and like magic I see her nipple appear. My mother tightens her grip on the edge of the boat. She opens her eyes to look at him. As the boat turns in the wind I see Sam. His eyes-well, they look like they are growing deeper. I can’t describe it any better than that. He kisses her again, and from this new angle I see her mouth meet his, her tongue meet his.

  They move so slowly. I do not know if this is something that has to do with the balance of the rowboat, or with what is happening. My head is pounding now and I don’t know why. I cannot decide if I should be angry at her. I cannot decide if I should try to leave. All I know for sure is that I have never seen my mother like this. It crosses my mind: maybe this is not my mother; check again.

  I turn around and run as fast as I can through the swamp. I trip across the chained “KEEP OUT” sign and cut my thigh. Ignoring the lifeguard’s whistle I dive into that cool, anonymous pond. I open my eyes as wide as I can. I imagine water rushing into the back of my head. When I reach the other side I hide under the dock until I am ready. Then I throw myself down on my towel, beside Hadley, as if I really do not care at all.

  20 JANE

  It’s seven in the morning and I’m driving on a humming highway with no other cars around me when suddenly I see a big pink truck approaching in the rearview mirror. I think, Oh good, some company. And this thing, this thing, gets closer and pulls next to me and-honest to God-it’s a hot dog on wheels. Well it’s a car, I suppose, but it’s covered with a papier-mâché façade shaped like a large frankfurter in a roll. It has a squiggle of mustard on it too. Etched on the side of the bun is professional sign-painter’s lettering, which says OSCAR MAYER. “Incredible,” I say.

  The driver, whom I can see through a little square cut out of the papier-mâché for side visibility, grins at me, showing all his teeth.

  “Rebecca,” I say, nudging her. “Get up. Look at this, will you? If you don’t see this you won’t believe me.”

  She sits up a little and blinks twice. Then she closes her eyes again. “You’re dreaming,” she tells me.

  “I am not, I’m driving.” I say it loud enough to make her open her eyes again. This time the driver waves at Rebecca.

  Rebecca, alert, crawls into the back seat. “My bologna has a first name,” she sings. “It’s O-S-C-A-R.” She doesn’t finish the song. “What is this thing?” She is looking for a telltale freezer door, a disclaimer, anything that explains this vehicle.

  “Maybe I should slow down and let him pass.”

  “No way!” Rebecca cries. “Go faster. See if he can match us with a wiener on the roof.”

  So I push the gas pedal a little harder. The hot dog car can keep up with us at seventy-five, eighty, even ninety miles per hour. “Remarkable. It’s aerodynamic.”

  Rebecca climbs back into the passenger seat. “Maybe we should get one.”

  Then the driver of the hot dog car cuts me off, which makes me really angry because the tail of the hot dog grazes the luggage rack of my station wagon. Then he swerves into the breakdown lane so suddenly I shoot past him, but he quickly catches up to us. He rolls down his window and motions for Rebecca to do the same. He has a nice face, so I tell her it’s okay.

  “Want to stop for breakfast?” he yells across the rushing air. He points to a blue highway sign that indicates food is available at the next exit.

  “I don’t know,” I say to Rebecca. “What do you think?”

  “I think maybe he’ll let us drive the car. Okay! ” Rebecca yells to him, and she smiles like she has all the charm in the world tucked into her back pocket.

  We follow his car into the parking lot of the Pillar O’Salt diner. There are two windows boarded up, and only one other car, the chef’s, I imagine. However, there does not seem to be a warning from the Department of Health. Do they have one out here, I wonder?

  Rebecca gets out of the car first and runs over to touch the material that makes up the bun of the hot dog truck. It is rough and stubbly, a disappointment. The driver gets out of the cab. “Hello,” he says, in a voice that sounds oddly prepubescent. “Nice of you to join me for breakfast. I’m Ernie Barb.”

  “Lila Moss,” I say, offering my hand. “And my daughter, Pearl.” Rebecca, somewhat surprised, curtsies.

  “Pretty nice truck, eh?” he says to Rebecca.

  “Nice isn’t the word.” She reaches to feel the lettering on the bun. The O itself is larger than her head.

  “It’s a promo truck. Not real functional but it gets people to notice.”

  “That it does,” I tell him. “Do you work for Oscar Mayer?”

  “I sure do. I drive across the country just drumming up interest. Recognition is a big factor in the sales of processed meats, you know.”

  I nod. “I can imagine.” Ernie touches my shoulder to lead me towards the diner. “Have you eaten here?”

  “Oh, lots of times. It’s better than it looks.” Ernie walks first, then me, then Rebecca, through the swinging saloon doors of the diner. I find myself wondering how they lock them at night.

  Ernie has a yellow crew-cut spiked in haphazard halo around his face. Although I can only see the stubs of his hair it seems to grow thicker in some patches than in others. His skin is oily and he has three or four chins. “Annabelle!” he calls, and a short fat woman in the clipped dress of a waitress lumbers out of the men’s room, of all places. “I’m back, sugar.”

  “Oh,” she says, in a gravelly voice that makes Rebecca jump. “And to what do we owe this honor?” Then, as if on second thought, she kisses him directly on the mouth and murmurs, “It’s good to see you.”

  “This is Lulu and Pearl,” Ernie says.

  “Lila,” I correct him, and he repeats the word, rolling it around his mouth like a marble. “We were together on the highway.”

  “Good for you,” Annabelle says, another mood shift. She slaps three menus on our table and leaves in an unexplained huff.

  Except for Annabelle and an absent chef (unless, I think, she is the absent chef . . .), we are the only people in the diner. It’s early, but somehow I get the feeling no one ever really comes to the Pillar O’Salt. Its decor is just a little off: homey ruffled curtains, but cut in a sick green plaid; sturdy wooden tables that have been painted the hazard shade of orange.

  “It’s nice to have a meal with people for a change,” Ernie says, and Rebecca and I smile politely. “Lonely on the road.” We nod. Rebecca tries to explode the beads of water on her glass with her finger. “Pearl,” Ernie says, but Rebecca doesn’t need the clue. “Pearl!” It is the noise, not the name, that sparks Rebecca’s attention. “How old are you, girl?”

  “Almost fifteen. I’ll be fifteen next week.” She looks at me, askingif
this, like our names, is privileged information she shouldn’t be telling a stranger.

  “Glory,” says Ernie. “This calls for something.” He squeezes out of his chair and walks into the men’s room, which from Annabelle’s actions, I’ve deduced, must connect to the kitchen. He comes out a minute later, carrying our meals. Rebecca’s scrambled eggs support a birthday candle that systematically drips onto her hash browns. Ernie sings “Happy Birthday” by himself.

  “Isn’t that nice, Pearl,” I say. “An early present.”

  “And it truly is,” Ernie says. “This meal’s on me.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Barb.” Rebecca picks up her fork and Ernie tells her to make a wish-which she does, blowing the candle onto a napkin and starting a small fire that Ernie douses with tomato juice.

  Throughout the meal Ernie discusses his job: how he got it (an uncle in corporate); how he likes it (he does); how he’s been rewarded (HOT DOG! Publicity Award, 1986 and 1987). Finally he asks us where we’re from (Arizona) and where we’re headed (my sister Greta’s in Salt Lake City). Rebecca kicks me under the table every time I lie, but she doesn’t know any better. Oliver can be a very smart man.

  This is what Ernie eats: a stack of raspberry pancakes, three eggs, with sausage, a side order of hash browns, four slices of toast, an English muffin, two blintzes, two grapefruit halves, smoke mackerel. It is only during his mushroom omelette that he says he feels stuffed. In the kitchen, Annabelle drops something that breaks.

  In the end, Ernie doesn’t even pay for the meal; Annabelle insists it’s on the house. She stands at the doorway as we walk back to Ernie’s hot-dog car. “Ladies,” he says, “a pleasure.” He gives me his card, which has no home address, only the number for his car phone.

  Rebecca and I stand in front of the diner, watching the fabricated hot dog disappear at a point on the horizon. We stand just far enough apart to not be able to touch each other.

  “It was too red to look real,” Rebecca says, turning. “Did you notice?”

  21 JANE

  Rebecca is looking out the window at the flat field of white. It’s mesmerizing. “Do you think this is what Heaven is like?” Rebecca asks.

  “I hope not,” I say. “I like a little color.”

  It would be easy to be fooled into believing the Great Salt Plains are covered with snow, if it weren’t for the ninety-five-degree temperatures and the gusts of hot wind that hit my face like someone’s breath. Salt Lake City, dwarfed by the huge Mormon Church, is not a place where I feel comfortable. In fact, I feel like I am sinking deeper into this different religion, this different climate, this different architecture. My clothes stick to me. I want to get Joley’s letter and leave.

  But the postmaster, a thin middle-aged man with a sagging moustache, insists there is no letter for a Jane Jones. Or a Rebecca Jones. No Joneses at all, he says.

  “Look again. Please.” Rebecca is sitting on the front steps of the post office when I come out. I could swear I see heat waving up from the pavement. “We’re in trouble,” I say, sitting beside her. Rebecca’s shirt is stuck to her back, too, and there are circles of sweat under her arms. “Joley’s letter isn’t here.”

  “So let’s call him.”

  She doesn’t understand the pull of Joley’s words like I do. It’s not his directions I need, it’s his voice. I don’t care what he says, just that he says it. “There are two branch post offices. I’m going to try there.”

  But the two branch offices have no mail for me either. I think about throwing a tantrum but that won’t do anyone any good. Instead, I pace the anteroom of the post office, then I walk out onto the blazing sidewalk, where Rebecca stands, accusatory.

  “Well,” Rebecca says.

  “It should have been here.” I look up at the sun, which seems to have exploded in the past minute. “Joley wouldn’t do this to me.” I feel like crying and I am weighing the consequences when I look at the sun again and, hissing, it comes hurtling down at me and my world turns black.

  “She’s coming around,” someone says, and there are hands; hands with cool water pressing against my neck and my forehead, my wrists. This face, too big, looms into view.

  Oliver? I try to say but I can’t remember where my voice is.

  “Mom. Mom.” It’s Rebecca, I can smell her. I open my eyes wide and see my daughter leaning over me, the ends of her hair grazing my chin like silk. “You fainted.”

  “You hit your head, Mrs. Jones,” says the displaced voice I heard before. “It’s just a cut, no stitches needed.”

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re in the post office,” that other voice says, and then a man squats in front of me. He smiles. He is handsome. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Okay.” I turn my head. Three young women with washcloths are on my right. One of them says, “Now don’t sit up too fast.”

  Rebecca squeezes my hand. “Eric was nearby when you collapsed. He helped me carry you in here, and his wives helped you cool off.” She looks frightened, I don’t blame her.

  “Wives. Oh.”

  One of the women gives Rebecca a little jar and tells her to hang onto it in case this happens again. “The heat is dry here,” Eric tells me. “This happens to visitors a lot.”

  “We’re not visiting, we’re just passing through,” I say, as if it matters. “What did I do to my head?”

  “You fell on it,” Rebecca says, matter-of-fact.

  “Maybe I should go to the hospital.”

  “I think you’ll be fine,” says the middle wife. She has long black hair woven into a French braid. “I’m a nurse, and Eric’s a doctor. A pediatrician, but he knows about fainting.”

  “You picked a lucky bunch to fall in front of,” Eric says, and the women laugh.

  I try to stand up and I realize my knees aren’t up to it. Eric grabs me quickly and loops my arm around his neck. The sky is spinning. “Sit her down,” Eric commands. “Listen,” he turns to Rebecca. “Let us take you to the lake. We’re on our way anyway, and it might do your mother some good to cool off.”

  “Is that okay, Mom?” Rebecca says. “Did you hear?” She is shouting.

  “I’m not deaf. Fine. Great.” I am lifted to my feet by Rebecca, Eric and two wives. The third carries my purse.

  In the back of Eric’s minivan are rubber floats and towels that get pushed out of the way for Rebecca and me. Eric positions me lying down, with my feet propped up on an inner tube. From time to time I take sips of cold water from a thermos. I have no idea where this lake is and I’m too tired to find out.

  But when we stop at the shores of the Great Salt Lake I am impressed. You can see across it for miles; it might as well have been an ocean. Eric carries me to the lake down a steep embankment, surprising for someone who is relatively slight. There are many people swimming here. I sit on the sandy bottom of the lake, in a shallow spot that wets my shorts and half my T-shirt. I beg not to go in farther than this; I don’t like to swim, or to feel that my feet cannot reach the bottom.

  I am wondering how my clothes will ever dry, when it occurs to me I keep floating up to the surface. I have to bury my arms in the sand to keep sitting. This takes all the energy I have. Eric and two wives paddle past me on a raft. “How do you feel?” he says.

  “Better,” I lie, but I am beginning to cool off. My skin no longer feels like it is raw and splitting. I duck my head under the water to wet my scalp.

  Rebecca runs past me, splashing. “Isn’t this excellent!” She dives and surfaces like an otter. I’ve forgotten how much she loves to swim, since I hardly ever take to the water.

  Rebecca moves a little farther out and says, “Hey Mom, no hands.” She sticks her arms and legs into the air, buoyant on her back.

  “It’s the salt,” Eric tells me, gently helping me to my feet. “You float better than you do in an ocean. Not bad, for a landlocked state.”

  Rebecca tells me to lie on my back. “I’ll swim you out. I’m a lifeguard, remember?” She wrap
s her arm across my chest and vigorously scissor-kicks. Because I am in her arms, her care, I don’t try to protest. Also because I am still feeling fairly sick.

  After a second, when I have the courage to open my eyes, I see the clouds passing by, lazy and liquid. I listen to the way my daughter breathes. I concentrate on being weightless.

  “Look, Mom,” Rebecca says, dancing in front of me. “You’re doing it by yourself. Yourself!” She is no longer holding me. In the center of this great lake, forces I can’t even see keep me afloat.

  22 REBECCA July 21, 1990

  “What’s the matter with you!” I shout at Hadley. He walks down the hill out of my range of vision. For the life of me I cannot figure out what I have done.

  This is the way it has been all day. Hadley was already out when I woke up. He was with the sheep, feeding them. Sheep grain, Hadley said, is made of oats and molasses and corn and barley. Stick your nose in the bin, he said, it smells great. So I held my head in the cool metal storage trough and I breathed in this honey smell. When I lifted my head, Hadley had gone without saying goodbye.

  Just now I came upon him on the hill drinking from an army canteen. All I did was put my hand on his arm, real light, so I wouldn’t startle him. But Hadley jumped a foot and spilled water on his shirt. “For Chrissake,” he yelled, and he shook his arm away. “Can’t you just leave me be?”

  I don’t understand. He’s been so nice to me the three days we’ve been here. He was the one who offered to take me on a tour of the orchard. He showed me what the different types of apple were. He let me wrap grafting tape around his hand to practice at it. He showed me the way to make cider. I didn’t even ask, and he did all this for me.

  Yesterday when he took me out on the tractor I told him about my father. I told him the kind of work he does. I told him what my father looks like when he talks about his work. His lips twitch and his cheeks flush. When he talks about me, it is like he is talking about nothing at all.