Where'd You Go, Bernadette(73)

“That I wouldn’t know.” He spit a bunch of pits into his palm.

Another equally tan guide whose nametag said FROG asked, “What’s your question?” He was Australian.

“It’s nothing,” the first naturalist, Charlie, said, and kind of shook his head.

“Were you on the New Year’s trip?” I asked Frog. “Because there was a woman on it named Bernadette—”

“The lady who killed herself?” Frog said.

“She didn’t kill herself,” I said.

“Nobody knows what happened,” Charlie said, widening his eyes at Frog.

“Eduardo was there.” Frog reached into a bowl of peanuts. “Eduardo! You were here when the lady jumped. It was the New Year’s trip. We were talking about it.”

Eduardo had a big round Spanish-looking face and spoke with an English accent. “I believe they’re still investigating.”

A woman with curly black hair piled on top of her head got in on the conversation. KAREN, said her badge. “You were there, Eduardo?—aaagh!” Karen screamed and spit out a mouthful of beige pasty stuff into a bowl. “What’s in there?”

“Shit, those are peanuts?” Charlie said. “I’ve been spitting my olive pits in there.”

“Crap,” Karen said. “I think I broke a tooth.”

And then it all started happening really fast: “I heard she escaped from a mental institution before she got here.” “I chipped a tooth.” “How could they let someone like that onboard? is my question.” “That’s your tooth?” “They’d let anyone on if they have the twenty grand.” “You fucker!” “Gee, I’m sorry.” “Thank God she killed herself. What if she killed a passenger, or you, Eduardo—”

“She didn’t kill herself!” I screamed. “She’s my mother, and there was no way she’d ever do that.”

“She’s your mother,” Frog muttered. “I didn’t know.”

“None of you knows anything!” I gave Karen’s chair a kick, but it didn’t move because it was bolted to the floor. I flew down the back stairs, but I had forgotten our room number and even what deck we were on so I kept walking and walking through these horrible narrow hallways with low ceilings and which reeked of diesel fuel. Finally one of the doors opened, and it was Dad.

“There you are!” he said. “You ready to head upstairs for orientation?”

I shoved my way past him into the room and slammed the door. I waited for him to come back in, but he didn’t.

Off and on, throughout preschool and even the beginning of kindergarten, my skin was blue because of my heart. Most times you could hardly tell, but other times it was pretty bad, which meant it was time for another operation. Once, before my Fontan procedure, Mom took me to the Seattle Center and I was playing in the huge musical fountain. I had stripped down to my underwear, and I was running up and down the steep sides, trying to outsmart the shooting water. An older boy pointed. “Look,” he told his friend. “It’s Violet Beauregarde!” That was the bratty girl in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory who turned blue and ballooned into a huge ball. I was puffy because they’d pumped me up with steroids to get me ready for surgery. I ran to Mom, who was sitting on the edge. I stuffed my face in her breasts. “What is it, Bee?” “They called me it,” I squeaked. “It?” Mom’s eyes were across from mine. “Violet Beauregarde,” I managed to say, then burst into fresh tears. The mean boys huddled nearby, looking over, hoping my mom wouldn’t rat them out to their moms. Mom called to them, “That’s really original, I wish I’d thought of that.” I can pinpoint that as the single happiest moment of my life, because I realized then that Mom would always have my back. It made me feel giant. I raced back down the concrete ramp, faster than I ever had before, so fast I should have fallen, but I didn’t fall, because Mom was in the world.

I sat down on one of the narrow beds in our tiny room. The ship’s engine began to rumble, and the Kiwi came over the PA.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. The sound cut out for a second, like he was about to announce something bad and he had to collect his thoughts. Then, he came back on. “Say good-bye to Ushuaia, because our Antarctic adventure has just begun. Chef Issey has prepared the traditional bon voyage roast beef and Yorkshire pudding to be served in the dining room, after our orientation.”

There was no way I was going to that, because it would mean sitting with Dad, so I decided to get to work. I pulled out my backpack and took out the captain’s report.

My plan was to follow in Mom’s footsteps because I knew something would jump out, some kind of clue that nobody but me would notice. What, exactly? I had no idea.

The first thing Mom did was charge $433 at the gift shop a few hours after she got on board. The bill wasn’t itemized, though. I headed out, then realized this was also my perfect opportunity to toss Dad’s neti pot. I grabbed it, then walked toward the front of the ship. I passed a trash can in the wall and chucked the neti pot, then covered it with paper towels.

I turned the corner to the gift shop, and that’s when—whoa—the seasickness hit. It was all I could do to keep it together to slowly turn around and back down the stairs, one by one, very gently, because I’d vomit if I jerked my body even a little. I’m not kidding, it took me, like, fifteen minutes. When I got to the landing, I carefully stepped into the hallway. I took a deep breath, or tried to, but all my muscles had seized up.