Pokrewne

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Chelsea Handler Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang (epub
Brit Brinson [Dia of the Dead Dia of the Dead (epub)
Cody Goodfellow [Radiant Dawn Radiant Dawn (epub)
Cate Tiernan [Immortal Belove Immortal Beloved (epub)
C J Busby [Deep Amber 01] Deep Amber (retail) (epub)
Carl Ashmore [Time Hunters 01 The Time Hunters (epub)
Drew Hayes [Super Powereds 02 Super Powereds Year 2 (epub) i
Beth Harbison [Shoe Addict 02 Secrets of a Shoe Addict (epub)
Cara Lynn Shultz [Dark World The Dark World (retail) (epub)
Astrid 'Artistikem' Cruz The Last Superhero (epub)

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.“It’s n-not what you think at all.”He stalked off.I stood there for a while, rubbing the towel through my hair.Drops of water fell on the carpet as I moved my head back and forth.I didn’t mind that he was making a tape and I knew it wouldn’t be for a stand-up routine.It would be for Jay himself.It would be just Jay talking, talking to the air, the empty clicking spool filling nothing up with his sounds.Talking about his daughter, who sat before her breakfast egg crying “Yellow” twenty times in a row, who followed her own feet around herself, around and around in faster, tighter orbits, who wore a painted cardboard box over her head, who chewed her clothes and talked to the sink.“Dream tub,” she said.“Sugar puppet.Drink.Drink.Drink.”I could understand how he’d pour his words onto celluloid, into any receptacle for his terror; what I couldn’t fathom was the silence between us about her.We could not find a path to the familiar descriptives, the words that could represent bent twigs, stacked stones, trail markers to the place where she started, this unprecedented being.Where we could begin to talk about her.And yes, I believed that place was where language itself began, under the twisted tree in the ancient kingdom—far away from the petty despots of syntax, where each new word fell, gold and perfect, unalloyed from the mouth.Something told me Jay and I were not going to find this path.I turned from the burbling sauce and prowled through the cupboards, looking for pistachios.I heard Jay behind me, filling his glass again.More ice rattle, then a shattering sound, cubes hitting the floor.“Shit—doesn’t anybody ever defrost this thing?”“It’s supposed to do it automatically.”I pulled a half-full bag of shelled pistachios from behind a Frosted Mini-Wheats box and shook a handful into the Cuisinart.I poured in some olive oil, added more basil leaves and two cloves of garlic and turned it on—just as Jay started to speak again.He stalked over and snapped the machine off.“I want to t-talk to you, Esme.”We faced each other.Jay set his drink down and put his hands out again beseechingly.“Tell me what’s going on.”I leaned against the counter.“I took her to that school interview,” I said slowly, “and the school was frightening to her.And to me.I took her to the doctor—he wants her on medication.”“Medication.”“To control hyperactivity.But”—I turned around to stir the sauce—“she isn’t hyperactive,” I whispered, “and the doctor will only pay attention to what he calls her symptoms instead of what’s amazing about her.”Jay snorted.“T-tell me what’s amazing about her.”I turned away and he grabbed my shoulder and spun me around to face him.“Esme, t-tell me.Really.” His face was scrunched up, as if he’d sighted me, with my quiver of heretical ideas, taking aim on the horizon.“She thinks in very unusual ways.She figures things out, you know, how things work, and explains them in metaphors or verbal shapes, instead of.conventional language.”Jay set his drink down and put his arms around me.“S-sweetheart.She’s not capable of using conventional language.She can’t put thoughts and words together.”He held me, swaying a little, and I swayed with him.“Jay?” We listed together, leaning to the left, like saplings, two saplings, about to blow over in a high wind.“She embarrasses you, doesn’t she?”He jerked away, pushing me off balance.Then he turned his back on me, hunching over his drink.“Why can’t you just talk about it, Jay, instead of around it?”He whirled around.“Because I’m not the problem, she is.I want to talk about her, what’s wrong, what we can do about it—not my failings, what I do wrong.”He pronounced each word very carefully and touched himself on the chest, identifying himself solemnly.Not the problem.“Come here.Taste this,” I said, “tell me if it needs more garlic.”He opened his mouth obediently and licked the wooden spoon.“What’s that taste, that s-second taste?”“Pistachio.”He licked again and nodded.“I like it.Pis-t-tachio?”“No one’s the problem,” I said.“No one.”“You sure you don’t want a drink?”I watched him refill his glass.Though vodka is supposed to have no smell, the room filled with a high anxious scent, distilled and astringent, lining the moist veil of tomato-oil-garlic.The scent of ethanol solution refining itself, I thought.Bubbling in the copper vat: spirits, pure spirits.I flipped the pasta wheels and ties, like tiny Frisbees, into the boiling water.I turned the Cuisinart dial.The machine droned, E flat, and Jay hummed along with it, nodding.At the molecular level, his cells were humming too, taking an ethanol bath.I found Boston lettuce in the crisper, rinsed some, tore the leaves into salad-size bites.I turned the machine off.He was waiting.“You’re blaming me.”“No,” I said, “there’s no blame.It’s just a fact, isn’t it? You’re embarrassed by her sometimes because she doesn’t act like other kids.”“You’re blaming me, Esme.All this s-stuff about n-not being home enough.”I chopped some more tomatoes.The knife clicked against the board; I felt blindly with my other hand to stir the pasta sauce.“Could you drain the pasta, Jay? The strainer.In the sink.” He started, then moved slowly toward the stove.“I think,” I said, “I’d like to talk to my mother about Ollie.I remember so little from my early childhood—and she’s so reticent when it comes to talking about the past—anyway, I thought maybe she could fill in some things.I’ve been thinking lately that the way Ollie acts is.a tendency toward a certain kind of behavior.”The strainer smacked repeatedly against the side of the sink.“What complete and utter b-bullshit! You think it’s genetic? Your m-mom is going to help you discover inherited tendencies?”“Come on, Jay.It’s my field.And it’s my mother.Can you just help me think this through?”“What about me? What about m-my genetic input? Where’d my genes go, to the laundry?”His shoulders shook with laughter and he reached sideways, left-handed, for his drink.I didn’t laugh.I assembled the salad, mixed vinegar, oil, garlic, and mustard in a glass cruet.I remembered a half baguette in the freezer and fished it out, popped it in the microwave.The TV backed into the room.Then it stopped in the middle of the floor, spun around, and backed out in reverse, Ollie’s face framed by the screen, placid, her lips moving.I poured the sauce over the pasta, grated some Parmesan.Jay reached plates and cups down from the cupboard.We went into the dining room.“So what are you saying, Jay?”“I’m saying, Esme, that she needs professional help and we’ve got to get it for her.”We set the table.I called Ollie.Jay went to get his drink, then sat down.“Jay, listen for a second.When I think back I remember—I’m pretty certain I remember—acting the way Ollie acts.I remember turning.I’m sure I’d walk in circles—you know, you’ve seen me, I still do that when I’m concentrating on something.All my responses to things were.a little ritualized, disconnected.Very odd.”Jay took a long slow drink.Then he scratched his side, yawning.“You know, Esme, all your responses to things are s-still very odd,” he said [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]