Mosquitoland(56)

The realities, I’ve spent far less time considering.

“I wonder if I could get him to Chicago,” says Beck.

I stop mid-bite. “Really?”

“What do you suggest? We just drop him back off in the woods?”

I swallow the bite, suddenly tasteless. “I’m not suggesting that. God, that’s—why would you even think I’d suggest that?”

Beck runs a hand through his hair. “Listen. Ultimately, you’re trying to . . . I don’t know . . . figure out home, right? What about his home?”

I say nothing.

“Mim?”

Walt rejoins the table, his plate piled high. “Hey, hey,” he says, tucking in.

I feel Beck watching me. “Mim,” he whispers.

“I’m not hungry,” I say, pushing my plate away.

Minutes later, the waitress comes by with the check. It’s on a little tray with a handful of fortune cookies.

Suddenly, I can’t breathe.

I pull a twenty and a ten out of Kathy’s ever-dwindling coffee can, toss the money on the table, and slide out of the booth, pulling my bag behind me.

“Mim, wait,” says Beck.

I don’t answer. I can’t. All I can do is put one foot in front of the other, faster now, head down, trying not to faint, trying not to cry, trying not to vomit, just trying to breathe—God, just to breathe.



September 4—late morning


Dear Isabel,

Some Reasons come up and bite you in the ass when you’re least expecting it. This one is odd, because while I can’t quite trace how it’s a Reason, I know it is. It’s like that tiny middle piece of a puzzle, the one you know is important, if only you could find the corners first. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but this Reason feels like that tiny middle piece.

Reason #8 is the tradition of Kung Pao Mondays.

Before the divorce, the move, the shit and the fan, Monday was my favorite day of the week. Mom and I would hop in her beat-up Malibu, crank Elvis, and roll down to Evergreen Asian Diner, proud purveyors of the best Kung Pao chicken this side of the Great Wall.

One Monday, Mom told me about the time she hitchhiked from Glasgow to Dover and almost fell into the river Thames. I listened like a sponge, pretending not to have heard this one before, just happy to soak in the magic of Mondays. She finished the story, and together, we laughed the bamboo shoots off the roof. (In the history of History, no one has laughed like my mother, so fiery and thoroughly youthful.) She cracked a fortune cookie against the side of our table like an egg, then unrolled the tiny vanilla-scented paper. I waited patiently for the celestial kitsch: the doors to freedom and the dearest wishes and the true loves revealed by moonlight. But her fortune wasn’t nearly as fortuitous as all that.

Just then, staring at the paper, Mom did three things.

First, she stopped laughing. It was tragic, really, to watch it evaporate like that.

Second, she sipped her beer and held the fortune across the table. “Read it, Mim,” she whispered. She never called me by my nickname. From her lips, it sounded strange and guttural, like a foreigner mispronouncing some simple word. I looked at her fortune, flipped it over, flipped it again. There was nothing written on it. No words of wisdom or dire predictions, just . . . nothing. A blank strip of paper.

The third thing she did was cry.


Signing off,

Mary Iris Malone,

Darling of Celestial Kitsch





31


Liquid Good-byes

I SHUT MY journal with a pop and climb down off the hood of the truck. Across the parking lot, Beck and Walt exit the restaurant, and immediately, I can tell something is off. Beck has his arm around Walt, who appears to be walking gingerly.

“What happened?” I ask as they approach the truck.

Beck opens the door, helps Walt get inside. “Midway through his last plate, he just stopped. Said he was all wrong.”

“I’m all wrong!” groans Walt from inside the truck.

“See?” says Beck.

I climb in on the passenger side while Beck hops behind the wheel. “What’s wrong, buddy?”

“My head, my stomach, all of me. I’m all wrong.”

Up close, his face is pale and clammy. I put my hand on his forehead for a few seconds. “Shit. He’s burning up.”

“Okay, well . . .” Beck pulls out his phone.

“What’re you doing?”

“Looking for the nearest hospital.” A few seconds later, he says, “We’re in a town called Sunbury. Looks like there’s a neighborhood clinic just down the road, except . . .”

“What?”

“It’s closed. For—”

“Don’t even say it.”

“—Labor Day weekend.”

I swipe my bangs out of my eyes. “So what, then, people are supposed to hold off on getting sick until after the holiday weekend?” Between us, Walt is moaning, rocking back and forth in his seat. “Well, we have to do something. That f*cking buffet probably gave him food poisoning. He probably needs a stomach pump from all that red chicken.”

“The feeding!” moans Walt.

“I think I found a place,” says Beck, staring at his cell.

“Well, let’s go, man.”