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(Continued)
"Honey, it's okay if
you don't have a job. We'll be all right. Our finances are better
now," Carl reassured her.
"I know, but I don't
want to be a burden."
"Don't be silly. You
should do whatever you want to do. You worry too much." He
smoothed hair out of her eyes.
"It's only for a little
while, I suppose. I can be home with Mira."
And the books went on the
shelf. And it wasn't for a little while. Mira grew up, and now she
wore a pink sequined belly shirt that her mother hated.
***
Ellen's hair had started to
dry into frizzy waves because she had forgotten to apply her
twenty-dollar styling gel. Today it didn't seem to matter. She
yanked it roughly into a ponytail and pulled the elastic tight.
Ellen pulled on jeans and a
faded t-shirt that said "Take Back the Night." She
dropped to her knees and shimmied under her king-size bed on her
belly until she could reach the small suitcase shoved underneath.
She slid back out and threw the suitcase open onto the bed. A
striped sham fell to the floor, where Ellen left it. Into the
suitcase went clothes—Ellen wasn't exactly sure which ones, some
still on hangers—and her travel toothbrush with the blue cover.
On top went the diploma and her daughter's sequined shirt. She
laced up her sneakers and violently zipped the suitcase closed
over the tangled pile of belongings.
Then Ellen paused, ran back
to Carl's office and pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk.
For a doctor, he was a mess, but she could always find anything
she needed. She clawed through stacks of papers, folders, old
journals, until her palms closed around a small spiral-bound book
with a bent cover. She sat on the floor, legs crossed in lotus
position, behind the desk with the curtains still drawn, and
furiously flipped through the pages of names and addresses written
in her old curvy handwriting. A single shaft of morning sunlight
escaped through a gap in the curtains, cutting across the notebook
and bisecting Ellen's face with piercing brightness.
She found the phone number
she was looking for and folded down the page. The dog wandered
into the room and gave the stranger on the floor a curious
once-over, then plodded back to his bed in the kitchen. Ellen
raced back to the bedroom, shoved the notebook into her purse, and
grabbed the packed suitcase. As Ellen started her car, she felt a
glimmer, saw a wavy image of herself with a ratty green backpack,
rushing off to class, the world rolled out at her feet like a red
carpet.
***
Ellen sang along to the
radio as she drove, the two-story brick Georgians and Colonials of
her neighborhood slowly morphing into strip malls and gas station
convenience stores. She didn't really know all the words to the
song, something by The Who, well before her time but so full of
life she couldn't help herself. Her suitcase sat on the backseat,
humming along. She rolled down the front windows of her sedan and
for the first time enjoyed the feeling of the wind tossing back
her ponytail.
Ellen thought of her old
roommate Naomi. They hadn't kept in touch very well in the past
five years, save a breezy, impersonal Christmas card or occasional
mass email. She and Ellen had been inseparable once, sharing ice
cream and favorite books and political commentary. Naomi now lived
in Australia. She took a job there and left her husband behind,
tra la. Ellen had been shocked as she listened to Naomi excitedly
ramble on about what she needed to pack and how she would have to
hurry to get her passport renewed in time.
"But what about
Mark?" Ellen had asked.
"Oh, he's fine. He'll
visit. I'll visit. It's only temporary." They were divorced
within the year. Naomi never came back.
Ellen turned down the radio,
eased her foot off the gas. A wispy white cirrus cloud floated
across the sky.
Big glass city buildings
sprang up ahead of Ellen. She and Carl rarely drove into the city,
an hour away from their carpeted suburban enclave. Once they had
gone in to see some idiotic musical a friend had given them
tickets for, and sometimes Carl went to a basketball game with his
buddies. Ellen had never gone in to the city by herself. Her
stomach flipped a little with fear. She had forgotten to bring a
map with her. But that hardly mattered; she had no clear agenda.
Ellen steered her sedan
aimlessly up and down the gray one-way streets and eyeballed the
men and women in business suits hustling to lunch and hailing
cabs. She watched her distorted reflection bounce off of the
glossy office buildings, stretched out long then squeezed short
like an accordion. Though she had been to the city before, she was
struggling to recognize landmarks; every building looked
anonymous, tall and square and forbidding. The people seemed to
move more and more quickly, a movie in fast forward, and she
imagined the rapid clip clop of their polished shoes echoing
loudly off the sidewalks. Armpit stains began to darken her washed
out t-shirt, and Ellen was suddenly very aware of her frizzy hair.
(Turn
the page)
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