There Is No Long Distance Now Read online

  Tessa’s mother finally called back. “Go see her at Methodist; I’m up there most of the time. She fainted while riding and fell off her horse—we are very lucky she didn’t break her neck or back. They’re doing tests, but right now it looks like a tumor that may not be operable.”

  “What does that mean?”

  There was a big silence.

  Jane thought about the body, its mysterious hallways and little banging doors. All her life she’d considered how her heart, her very best friend, was completely unseen to her, chugging away, doing its duty, keeping everything else going, but invisible. No applause. When you were well, scooping ice cream into an endless stream of sugar cones for whiny kids, you didn’t think about the heart. You thought about the wrist, how much it hurt when you went home. You wore one of those tight bands like tennis players wear, to make it feel better. But the heart, the kidneys, the liver, the arteries and veins, they were sort of on their own.

  You did not worry about tumors showing up.

  You did not worry about suddenly falling off an escalator or into a pond.

  You did not worry about the heart hanging up its small white towel and saying, I’ve had enough of this. After long days at work, Jane often thought, This is not my store. I could do something else. If everything really did melt, it wouldn’t matter to me.

  “You will get well!” Jane said, sitting close to Tessa’s bed, twirling her friend’s long brown hair around one of her own fingers against the pillow. “They’ll do something! You will! You have to!”

  “I want to,” Tessa whispered. “We just have to see how this thing goes.”

  In the hallway outside Tessa’s room, a huge heart monitor or regulating device was being delivered, its head covered in a plastic bag. The men pushing it laughed and joked about it having a mind of its own. It was hard to turn it through the door and park it at the foot of Tessa’s bed. Probably they didn’t have any friend or relative sick in the hospital right that minute.

  Jane didn’t like how Tessa was talking—as if “the thing” were in charge, not her.

  “What did the horse do when you fell off?” Jane said. Tessa was not chatting much, so she kept asking things.

  “Well, another rider nearby told me it came back and looked at me,” Tessa said. “Leaned over into my face and stared. It was really good my foot didn’t get caught in the stirrup.”

  When they were younger, Tessa had once told Jane, “I feel closer to animals than to people,” which hurt Jane’s feelings. Jane had wished she could say, “So do I,” especially when people let her down, like right that minute, but even her cat scratched her.

  The door to the room opened again and Tessa’s mom entered with tomato bisque soup and sour cream muffins, their favorite foods. But Jane didn’t want any. “C’mon, you’ve had lunch with us a hundred times!” How could she be so cheery? Maybe she was just good at covering up. She was wearing a necklace.

  Tessa said she’d try. A few bites. Tessa’s mom was winking at Jane like, Be a sport.

  Jane peeled the paper off a muffin for Tessa. She arranged it on the side table where Get Well cards were stacked next to a Kleenex box. The cart had wheels. Everything here had wheels.

  Jane poured a little soup into the top of a thermos. It was still steaming.

  Tessa said, “Feed me,” and grinned devilishly.

  Jane picked up a spoon, then paused. Did she mean it?

  Tessa had fed the horse some carrots and apples that morning she fell. Noticed how his jaws opened so elegantly, how he took the carrots between his teeth and bit clean through. One moment the world was your friend. You knew where you stood, what happened next. The horse understood the feel of the ground beneath him, the meadow when it was muddy, or drier and dusty, the screech of the gate every morning when Tessa walked through. He liked her hand on his neck, scratching beneath the mane, he liked pleasing her, galloping back toward the barn with the slightest of nudges. What he didn’t understand was the day she was lying on the ground, the sudden lightness, how she didn’t speak to him then, or press him with her knees, or pull a rein either way, and when he looked into her face, the stillness. He lifted his head into the wind and the wind was cool and he waited.

  See You in Ireland

  Liyana heard Omer was in jail by accident.

  She was back in St. Louis with her parents and brother, visiting their grandmother, Peachy Helen, who’d had a mysterious collapse. Liyana read an e-mail from their friend Khaled, sent to her brother Rafik, and copied to her.

  It was so strange how news traveled these days. You could kick a stone on a sidewalk and find a little message to yourself tucked under it.

  She ran into the next room where Rafik was drowsing on Peachy’s old mustard-colored nubby couch.

  “What?” she said. “Hurry, get up!”

  He hadn’t read the message yet, so had no idea.

  “Did she die?”

  “Come read this message—tell me what it means!”

  Rafik looked surprised in his sleepiness. Liyana rarely asked him to explain anything. He staggered into the dining room, where Poppy’s laptop was set up on Peachy’s floral placemat, collecting all their messages from across the sea in its hardworking stomach.

  He blinked.

  “Why are you reading my e-mail?” he asked.

  “I’m not! This was copied to me! But go into your own messages and find out more if you can!”

  Their parents were at the hospital. Peachy was having another CAT scan. She thought she’d had a heart attack or a stroke, but the doctors couldn’t find anything.

  Liyana and Rafik, left alone in Peachy’s familiar lavender bath oil fragrance, had time to transport back to early childhood, before they ever left for Jerusalem, and she used to let them scissor newspapers all over her floor, never once saying, “Clean it up.” Liyana thought there might be shreds of paper still stuffed under the bed.

  She felt sad looking around at Peachy’s rooms—their fatso baby pictures, faded drawings tacked to her walls. Peachy had been brave enough to fly across the ocean and visit them once—she said she could never do it again.

  It was strange to be back in the States and not feel close to their old St. Louis neighborhood. Two and a half years since they were last here, but it felt longer. No one missed them anymore. They were scraps of old weather reports tucked under the dresser.

  And there was too much traffic now, too many people with tattoos. What was up with that? Everything seemed a bit off-kilter.

  Rafik read his own messages slowly, then shook his head.

  “I guess you know now why Omer hasn’t been writing you. Khaled says a bunch of people went to jail. Everything is crazy.”

  They’d been gone five days. Liyana hadn’t heard from Omer once. Very unlike him.

  “Is he your boyfriend?” Rafik asked again, staring at her hard, and she said, “Bigger. You know that.”

  Before they left Jerusalem, demonstrations had been heating up in all directions. Circus performers balancing along the top of the wall had been arrested. A boy was jailed for flying a kite. At least more people were advocating on one another’s behalf these days, everyone wearing keffiyehs so you could hardly tell who was who. Even a Norwegian was arrested—someone thought he was an Arab. So many people saying, Let’s improve these problems right now! Except extremists. Extremists never wanted things to improve. They just wanted to win. They needed psychiatrists.

  “Who can we call?”

  “Could you call his house?”

  But Omer’s mother didn’t speak English, only Hebrew.

  “I could call Khaled’s cell, right? How much would it cost?”

  “Poppy said we weren’t supposed to make calls overseas while we are here, remember?” Their Arab father was very . . . thrifty.

  “Yeah, but this could be an emergency.”

  “Why not just send an e-mail?”

  So Liyana wrote back to Khaled.

  “Why is Omer in jail? Did you se
e him? Can you take him a message from me?”

  Rafik asked, “What is the message?”

  “None of your business.”

  Maybe the message would be, Break out. Whatever it takes, get out of there. And what kind of jail—Israeli? Palestinian? She didn’t know which one was worse.

  Maybe, Let’s run away to Ireland and set up a shop selling Arab and Jewish treats. I’ll speak my pedestrian Arabic and you speak Hebrew and our shop will be papered with peace signs and we’ll get married when we’re twenty-seven. We won’t call it Holy Land Desserts though. The words Holy Land don’t seem to help.

  Maybe, I love you, stay safe!

  Khaled wrote back right away. It was incredible how much time he spent sitting in the computer room at the refugee camp where he still lived. He liked to go there at two a.m. when his neighbors were sleeping. More privacy that way.

  “He made your quote on his sign. They say he crossed a line, or broke rule—he now in Israel jail. Ha! Jewish boy in Israel jail. Everyone talking about it. His mom making hunger strike in front of jail, also she kick a soldier.”

  Well, of course. She would. His mama loved her boy. Everyone loved their boys and girls. Wasn’t that reason enough to make peace? But his mama also loved to eat, so the hunger part was hard to believe. . . .

  Liyana pushed Rafik off the chair and pecked out, “What quote?”

  Rafik said, “That’s selfish! You care more about your quote than Omer?”

  “Of course not. I’m curious. What quote of mine could get someone arrested?”

  Khaled wrote back, “Don’t know.”

  She pecked, “What can we do from here?”

  It could have been anything.

  She closed her eyes and sighed. She’d just remembered the one he liked. Because he rejected “the chosen people” idea so strongly. But jail?

  DEAREST JEWS, PLEASE CHOOSE TO BE NICER.

  Something He Left Me

  San Marcos, Texas, was not a very big city. So surely, Erin thought, she would be able to find her father when she got there. Though his name had not appeared on the Switchboard.com site when she checked it, and his old numbers were disconnected, she felt certain she could stick her nose into a coffee shop or hardware store, and discover him.

  Follow the clattering truck.

  Follow the men with hammers.

  She’d find him building something.

  She’d find him drinking a Coors down by the old gas station turned into a music club.

  “Don’t do it,” her mother had said to her a few months ago, when Erin mentioned she might stop by San Marcos on her way to Austin. “You’re just setting yourself up for pain and anguish if you do something like that.”

  But pain and anguish were everywhere anyway. Might as well put them to good use.

  Erin knew a guy, Sam, from San Marcos—they’d gone to tennis camp outside Corpus Christi together one summer. He’d said she could sleep on his couch if she ever needed to. “Or, I’ll give you the bed and take the couch. You can use all three of my spoons, too.” But somehow she didn’t want to call him unless she had to spend more than one day. She had the crazy idea she could find her dad in two hours.

  San Marcos seemed sweet. Not at all an ominous town. There was a nice library and a drive-thru beer barn. Maybe Erin should just sit in the entry lane and wait.

  “He might not be going by Rusty anymore,” her mom had mentioned. “He said he wanted to go back to Pete.” Rusty had been stuck on him by other people, the old red hair thing. He never liked it.

  “I didn’t really know my dad,” Erin always said, when her friends asked about him. “I was so little when he left. I remember his laugh and the way he lifted me up and twirled me high in the air. But I guess all dads do that.”

  “They do not,” said Genine.

  Erin’s mom had disappointed her by never dating anyone after Rusty/Pete left, except for a few outings with the Fried Oysters man who smelled like breading and grease. Her mom was cute, too. She said to Erin, “I need to focus on you.”

  This was a problem.

  Erin said, “Please, I want to go to college alone. Let me unpack and organize my own room. You’ll try to make the bed or something. You come up to Austin and visit me later, okay?”

  Her mother’s lip trembled and Erin felt terrible. But it had to be said.

  She’d had practice being independent—every day after school, after tennis—coming home to an empty house, unlocking the door, having Molly the dog jump on her and lick her, be her best companion.

  That part would be hard in Austin. No Molly.

  Why did Erin think a simple sit-down conversation with the man who had shadowed her whole life would be helpful, in terms of clearing the air?

  You totally disappointed me.

  We were always waiting and secretly hoping.

  Every time the doorbell rang.

  Mom is still kinda a wreck, you know.

  And couldn’t you at least have visited once a year on my birthday or something, would that have been so hard?

  Could you just comment on my dimples once please?

  Mom doesn’t have them.

  I don’t care if you were never married, you are still my dad.

  She got out of her little golden Kia near the town square. The trunk and backseat were stuffed with luggage—her computer, the giant fluffy teddy bear she could not leave at home . . . so she was a little worried about walking out of sight of the car. She didn’t want to get robbed.

  “Excuse me, do you know Mr. Rusty Fincher?” Erin spoke to men in bandannas cracking a street wide open. They stared at her blankly.

  “Hey, is Rusty Fincher up there with you?” she shouted to men on scaffoldings on a tall white church.

  She drifted around, glancing back at her parking space frequently. She walked out of sight of the car for a few blocks. She looked down at her own feet. Pedicure, new sandals. Start off college right. Don’t go partying every night like some of the people she knew in high school.

  “Excuse me,” she said to a man in a GET DOWN! T-shirt at a crosswalk. “You wouldn’t happen to know a Rusty or Pete Fincher, would you? Red ponytail, probably?”

  He stared at her. “Both of ’em? Two guys with red ponytails?”

  “No, one guy with two names.”

  “I do not.”

  She asked the waitress pouring coffee at the Little Bucket. She stared into the window of a falafel joint. Someone was mopping the floor in there. He was not her father. She asked the man getting into the next car back on the square. Then she dialed Sam’s number and left a message. Hey, just passing through, moving to Austin today! Check in with me and maybe we can get together some weekend soon.

  Okay, she thought. I give up. For today. She drove around the rim of the San Marcos university campus, then down to a creek where she parked a few minutes. Maybe it was a river, not a creek. Hard to tell in Texas sometimes. Bodies of water narrowed and widened unpredictably. Ducks were curled up beside the stream as if guarding their eggs. They seemed to be in couples, too. Girl ducks with guy ducks, side by side.

  What did she want from him?

  Good job, Erin.

  You made it through with no help from me.

  Your mom did a real good job, too.

  She was a looker back when.

  I’m proud of you though I have no right to be.

  I’m sorry.

  Teeth

  Steven never dreamed his cat would come back after a year and attack him. It was like a horror movie. Your mom sends you out to drag the massive trash can on wheels to the street and a snarling mound of dirty gray fur leaps out of the windowsill next to the can and sinks its longest teeth into the vein in your wrist. Quite unexpected.

  The blood spurted like a fountain all over the fresh striped blue-and-white shirt he was wearing to school. His mom tied a clean rag around his arm, pirate style. They went to the emergency clinic, leaving his hot scrambled eggs on the table.

  The
doc cleaned up the wound, put a few stitches in.

  Steven hadn’t had a tetanus shot in ten years, so Doc said he needed a new one. Kind of embarrassing—I was attacked by my old cat Jesse. The dude looked really bad.

  What the heck? Jesse used to sleep on the foot of his bed.

  The doc asked, “Did he ever attack you before?”

  “Never!”

  When Jesse disappeared on that rare day of snow last year, first snow in south Texas in thirteen years, Steven’s parents thought the cat had become disoriented, been picked up by someone who felt sorry for him, and carted off to a new home. He was a good-looking cat. Steven and his parents had tacked posters on telephone poles but never gotten a call. Maybe Jesse had been trying since then to escape and return home to them. Maybe he blamed them for not rescuing him.

  Most importantly, where was Jesse now? The doctor said he had to be captured and kept at the pound under observation for rabies for thirty days. Great. So now Steven had to start looking for him again? If you don’t find him, the doctor said, I’d recommend you get rabies shots anyway. Right there, boom, in your stomach. Since the cat was acting uncharacteristic, he might well be sick. Terrific news. It was not the best morning.

  Steven didn’t get to school till ten-thirty and missed the quiz on J. D. Salinger. He wished he liked Salinger’s books better. Everyone was staring at his bandaged wrist. “No, I did not try that,” he said. Somehow it fit with Salinger. He wished Salinger had come out of seclusion before he died. It seemed a waste not to tell people, directly, about some of the things going through his mind for all those years. Especially when he didn’t mind telling them early on.

  After school Steven’s mom said he needed to crawl under the house to look for the cat.

  “Mom! What if he jumps on my head? Seriously!”

  “Well, speak softly, see if you can locate him. Jesse knew you best. That’s where he always went, remember? Once you spot where he’s hiding, we’ll call Animal Control to come out with nets. The doctor said it’s important we find him today. And don’t get your wound dirty!” She gave him a plastic bag to tie around his arm.