Where'd You Go, Bernadette(18)

Oh my God, can someone please stop me before I write more about Cliff Mass?

Here’s my point: first, because of the re-raping, and second, because Mom and I were so in love with Cliff Mass, of course we didn’t talk much on the way home that day, so I couldn’t have known she was traumatized. We pulled in the driveway. There were a bunch of giant trucks on the side street, and one was parked on our loop to keep the gate open. Workmen were coming and going. It was hard to make out what exactly was going on through the rain-smeared windshield.

“Don’t ask,” Mom said. “Audrey Griffin demanded we get rid of the blackberries.”

When I was little, Mom brought me to see The Sleeping Beauty at the Pacific Northwest Ballet. In it, an evil witch puts a curse on the princess, which makes her fall asleep for one hundred years. A gentle fairy protects the sleeping princess by enveloping her in a forest of briars. During the ballet, the princess is sleeping as thorny branches grow thicker around her. That’s what I felt like in my bedroom. I knew our blackberry vines were buckling the library floor and causing weird lumps in the carpet and shattering basement windows. But I had a smile on my face, because while I slept, there was a force protecting me.

“Not all of them!” I cried. “How could you?”

“Don’t get all peevish on me,” she said. “I’m the one taking you to the South Pole.”

“Mom,” I said, “we’re not going to the South Pole.”

“Wait, we’re not?”

“The only place tourists go is the Antarctic Peninsula, which is like the Florida Keys of Antarctica.” It’s shocking, but Mom genuinely didn’t seem to know this. “It’s still zero degrees,” I continued. “But it’s a teeny-tiny part of Antarctica. It’s like someone saying they’re going to Colorado for Christmas, and then you ask them, How was New York? Sure, it’s the United States. But it’s just totally ignorant. Please tell me you knew that, Mom, but you forgot because you’re tired.”

“Tired and ignorant,” she said.

*

From: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal

To: Audrey Griffin





Before you write me off as the Girl Who Cried Real-Time Flash!, listen to this.

As I told you, Elgin, Pablo, and I had a lunch meeting downtown. Elgin insisted we take the 888 Shuttle. (Which, it turns out, is no different from the Connector. All these years I’d imagined the doors opening and it looking like the inside of a genie’s bottle or something.) There was construction downtown, so when we got to the corner of Fifth and Seneca, traffic had completely stopped. Elgin said it would be faster to walk. It was pouring buckets, but it wasn’t my place to argue so I followed them off the shuttle.

Now, Audrey, you’re always talking about God’s plan. For the first time, I understand what you mean. I would have thought God was forsaking me when he made me walk three blocks in the pouring rain. But it turns out there was something on that third block that God intended me to see.

Elgin, Pablo, and I were scurrying along Fourth Avenue, heads down, clutching closed our hoods over our faces. I happened to glance up, and what do I see? Bernadette Fox asleep in a pharmacy.

I repeat, Bernadette Fox just lying on a couch with her eyes closed in the middle of a compound pharmacy. She might as well have been in the window at Nordstrom for all of Seattle to see. She wore dark glasses, trousers and loafers, a men’s shirt with silver cuff links, and some kind of vest underneath her raincoat. Also, she was clutching a fancy purse with one of her silk scarves tied to it.

Pablo and Elgin were up ahead on the corner, turning in circles, wondering where I had gone. Elgin spotted me and marched over, looking irate.

“I—” I stammered, “I’m sorry—” It was my first day on the job. Whatever was going on with Bernadette, I wanted no part of it. I ran to catch up, but it was too late. Elgin had already looked in the window. His face went white. He pulled open the door and went inside.

By this time, Pablo had come over. “Elgin’s wife is asleep in there,” I explained.

“It’s really coming down,” Pablo said. He smiled and refused to turn his head toward the pharmacy.

“I already know what I’m going to order for lunch,” I said. “The salt-and-pepper calamari. It’s not on the menu, but they make it for you if you ask.”

“Sounds good,” he said. “I’m probably going to have to check out the menu before I order.”

Finally, Elgin came out, looking shaky. “Change my flight to D.C.,” he said. “I want to leave in the morning.”

I wasn’t completely up to speed on Elgin’s schedule. But I did know his presentation was in D.C. at four p.m. I opened my mouth to explain that with the time difference—

“Just—” he said.

“Fine.”

Then, wouldn’t you know, a Connector passed by. Elgin darted into traffic and stopped it. He conferred with the driver, then waved me over. “He’s taking you back to Redmond,” Elgin said. “S-plus me my new itinerary.”

What choice did I have? I boarded the shuttle. Pablo did bring me back an order of salt-and-pepper calamari, but it didn’t travel well.



*

From: Audrey Griffin

To: Soo-Lin Lee-Segal