Magnetism Read online

  But I can’t think about that; right now I’ve got to find a location for an indoor shuffleboard conference in seven months’ time. The guy wants just before Christmas and it’ll be easy to slot them in, but instead of taking the booking straight away I’ve got to make like we might not be able to accommodate it, and then phone him back after a couple of hours. Brad says we need to promote the image of a centre under constant demand. I don’t know why when we’re so desperate and this tactic just leaves me hoping that I’ll be able to catch the client later before he opts for elsewhere. Timing is everything.

  When my cell rings it’s Mom. It’s early in Phoenix. ‘Hi. You okay?’ I ask her, on speakerphone, as I continue to look at the computer screen for when the shuffleboard event can happen. I spot that we can manage the week after Thanks-giving. Mr Shuffleboard should be happy enough with that.

  ‘I thought I’d call before I go to the hospital for my surgery.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I knew you’d forget.’

  ‘Remind me of the detail.’

  ‘My toenail. My left foot.’

  ‘That’s podiatry, not surgery. I’m at work.’

  ‘I’m nervous.’

  ‘Mom, it’ll be fine. Call me when it’s done.’

  ‘I just hope I survive. Anyway, I can’t talk now,’ she says, and hangs up.

  On the way home I pick up stuffed eggplant from the delicatessen at the strip mall, to reheat for dinner. Mikey is sitting in his car outside my building when I pull up. He may have been there for hours. He used to have a key but I took it back last year because he started spending all day at my place, doing nothing, and I thought that he should do that at his own house.

  He waves limply, gets out of the car, and drags himself up to the door. He’s scratching his head like a dog with fleas. He looks a mess.

  ‘I got some food,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t know if I can eat.’

  ‘Do you just want to go home?’

  ‘I guess I can eat.’

  The eggplant that looked so appealing in the store is slimy and limp on the plates. The texture makes it hard to swallow, but somehow he’s found his appetite and I watch as he goes at the food with gusto, and then finishes off some from my plate too.

  He has not always been like this. We met when he came to discuss arrangements for an event at the Civic Center to commemorate the first anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. He’d helped with sorting donations immediately afterwards, and had been going to a regular support group for people affected by it. He was socially aware and thoughtful, definitely in touch with his feelings, and I was pleased to be with a sensitive man. I was hopeful for a relationship that might last and was buying books like Building a Relationship for the Whole Nine Yards and Mikey seemed perfect. Over the first few months I met some of his friends and by all accounts he’d had a good job in sales, and been cheerful and confident, before he got made redundant two months before the bombing. That, everyone said, was when he really began feeling depressed; that was the real sequence of events, but somehow Mikey was able to focus only on the bombing. It’s as if that was the point at which he lost everything – which he didn’t. He wasn’t anywhere near when it happened; he just decided to get involved with the aftermath, and hasn’t been able to let it go. He completely gave up looking for a new job the summer after I met him, because one of his aunts died and left him a near fortune. For this reason – the money – alone, he could dress better, I think, but he’s got a thing about shopping for clothes. He says that too much choice is overwhelming for him, but I’ve noticed they always put sports clothes near the entrance. He’s afraid of getting trapped. He also bought a place out of the city, for the same reason.

  The fact that McVeigh is never going to be tried for the remaining 160 charges of murder is his continuing obsession. He was sentenced to death for the killing of eight federal officers and there’s no worse punishment, but for Mikey it’s not enough. He says after all the appeals and delays, in twenty or thirty years maybe, when everyone outside of OK has forgotten what he did, McVeigh will be quietly killed in Denver and he’ll never have to face justice where he should.

  I have decided I have no feelings about the bombing whatsoever. Mikey has enough for both of us. The visit to his shrink, Dr Sayer, is the highlight of Mikey’s week, and I know that I of all people should be more understanding, and I wish I were more understanding, but he’s just not getting any better.

  Mikey eats a bowl of ice-cream for dessert while I describe my day to him. The noise he makes as he slurps up the Baskin-Robbins is like an animal. I also tell him I’ve got to find out about Mom’s toenail. He helps himself to seconds from the freezer and I wonder if he’s going to want to stay over. If he does, I wonder if he’ll remember about the stupid outfit and whether there’s any way of skipping the get-up.

  I pre-empt any request for sex. ‘God, I’m exhausted.’

  ‘Phone your mom. She might be dead.’

  ‘Mikey, the relationship is not working for me.’

  ‘She’s your mom, for God’s sake.’

  As he helps himself to a third bowl of ice-cream, I leave to make the call and she answers after the twentieth ring. ‘I can’t talk long,’ I say, ‘Mikey is here.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mikey.’

  ‘That one with a baby name. Another one with a baby name.’

  ‘What’s up with your foot?’

  ‘The doctor was wonderful. I can’t feel a thing, though. I’m sure it should have come round by now.’

  ‘What can’t you feel?’

  ‘The toenail.’

  ‘Can you feel your foot?’

  ‘I can move it.’

  ‘When are you going back for a follow-up? Is he going to see you again?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Let me know how it goes. I’ll speak to you then.’

  Then she hangs up the phone again without saying goodbye, just like they do in the movies. I’m not putting up with that. I call her back. ‘You didn’t say goodbye.’

  ‘I can’t talk,’ she whispers. ‘And you said you were in a hurry.’

  ‘Okay, goodbye.’ I say. ‘Goodbye, Mom.’

  But she’s already hung up again. I am left looking at the phone, annoyed with her, and disconcerted. I know her. Something’s up.

  The next day Helen is at work before me. She’s flustered. She says, ‘Thank God you’re here. Did you know that ovaries just shrivel up when they’ve finished being needed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s like, as a woman, when you’re done procreating, then you’re no longer a woman.’

  I ask Helen why she’s thinking about this and she says it’s something that Tom, her husband, has mentioned. ‘I figure he’s getting ready to dump me.’

  ‘You’re solid. Why’d you think that?’

  ‘He used my hairspray.’

  ‘Hairspray, huh?’

  ‘Yes, and he bought hair dye.’

  ‘Dye, huh?’

  ‘And … ’ She takes a deep breath. ‘He’s been going to the gym.’

  ‘Hey,’ I say, ‘it’s all good. He wants to look good. That’s good.’ But I think she’s probably right. Her marriage is headed for the rocks and maybe she should take note of the blinking lighthouse.

  ‘Do you think my ovaries are shrivelled up?’ she asks. ‘I should have had kids.’

  I remind her that she still gets her period, and say that I doubt it and that she could still have kids if she wanted them. I suggest that it’s Tom’s brain that has shrivelled up, that it’s his problem, not hers. ‘You two are great together,’ I say. ‘But maybe check out a lawyer anyway. Keep your options open. Have you thought about storing your eggs?’

  She’s still crying when Brad arrives. Fortunately we don’t see him in person all that often and Helen manages to pull herself together. He asks about bookings for next January and I have to say we don’t have any yet. ‘We never have any regular bookings
for January.’

  ‘Think about a strategy. We need to expand our horizons,’ he says.

  ‘Sounds like Tom,’ Helen says, as soon as Brad has left the room.

  In the afternoon, I speak to Mom and she tells me that she’s seen the podiatrist again; her toe is healing up and she has no pain any more.

  ‘You didn’t have pain.’

  ‘You are so pernickety.’ Then she tells me that she and her friend Philip might come for a visit. We could do some stuff together.

  ‘Who? No one wants to come here for vacation. Why would they? Downtown is a bombsite,’ I say, which, of course, is exactly the opposite of what Brad tells us to tell all our customers.

  ‘Well, I want you to know that I’m just fine and very, very happy,’ she says. ‘There is no need to worry at all about me.’

  ‘What are you saying, Mom? What’s going on?’

  ‘Got to go. I’ve got plans,’ and she puts down the phone.

  I’m on the phone again with another client, and in the middle of agreeing a booking for a Barbie Believers Convention next summer, when the sirens go off. Gretchen, the Barbie-lovers organiser in California, can hear it her end of the phone line too. ‘What the hell is that?’

  ‘Probably nothing. Listen, we’ll firm the dates up tomorrow. Can I call you back, tomorrow? Is that okay? Eight your time?’

  I join Helen to look out the window. Our office is on the third floor and we can look down on the trees. The branches are not swaying. Their leaves are not moving at all. The air outside is deathly still and the sky has gone an ominous green-grey colour. ‘Warning or watch?’ she asks. ‘Which one makes that sound?’

  ‘Whichever, we shouldn’t stay here.’

  We grab our purses and head down the hall to the elevator. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to use it or not. As we walk we each remind the other that there was no warning on TV this morning, nothing. Nothing at all. She says that if it’s a watch not a warning, then this is a pointless thing to do, to go down to the basement, that we should just try to get home. ‘It’ll pass,’ Helen says. ‘I’ll call Tom. He’ll know what to do.’ Then we decide to go down the stairs.

  The vast concrete stairwell echoes. The clatter of our feet sounds back and forth, like a monument to fear, and then we are joined by a few other people that we barely know: two from the ticket offices, the night-shift janitor and a woman from the kitchen. Jackson, the janitor, confirms that a warning has gone out on KATT-FM. He’s got the radio with him, which is good thinking.

  Helen can’t get a signal for her cell and I realise that, though I hope Mikey is okay out in the suburbs, I don’t want to talk to him. I guess I can’t anyway. If Helen’s phone doesn’t work, mine won’t either.

  We get to the basement and proceed along the hallway in the bowels of the building. Bare walls, no carpet. Bare pipes above us.

  I wonder if this evening we’ll go the whole hog and sit with our backs to the wall and knees up and head down between them, like in elementary school: rows of kids lined up in the brace position. Looking around, it’s clear that only Helen and I are remotely limber enough to do that now, so I guess probably not.

  A large woman whose name badge says Doreen and that she works in the restaurant asks, ‘Anyone got any food? I’m starving. We might be here a long time.’

  ‘Nuh-uh,’ Helen says. She gives me a look that tells me she’s also thinking that if anyone should have thought about bringing some dinner to this party, it was Doreen.

  When we sit down the concrete cold seeps up. It’s as cold here inside as it has been warm outside the last few weeks.

  Doreen produces a deck of cards from her apron pocket. The two women from the ticket office, Jean and Janet, scoot up close to join in, and Jackson turns up the radio. There’s a lot of interference, but we can hear some music and everyone lightens up a bit. We might become friends even. Who knows how long we’re going to be here? It’ll be a story to tell.

  Two hours later, the radio starts to report on the fallout of the numerous tornadoes that hit the city outside. People have been killed and a number of buildings flattened. I recognise the name of a neighbourhood near Mikey’s.

  I phone Mom when I finally get home and there is no answer. I phone Mikey and leave a message on his answerphone saying I hope he’s all right, that I’m all right. I figure if his phone is still there, his house is still there. I fix some food and put on the TV to watch the news. I try to get hold of Mom repeatedly during the evening, and by ten-thirty her time I’m getting worried. She should be answering. It rings twenty, twenty-five, thirty times. I hang up and count out the rings again. Then I try her cell phone. No reply, either.

  I phone Mikey again and this time he answers. He says he’s been trying to call, but my line has been continually busy. He’s breathless as he tells me about his tornado experience. He spent it in the basement of his house alone. A building not far away from him was completely demolished. ‘It’s a miracle I survived,’ he says. ‘A goddamn miracle. I’m alive. Amazing.’

  I tell him that I’m worried about Mom.

  ‘Hey, do you want me to come over? I can come over. Keep you company. I’m on my way.’

  He’s hung up before I can reply no.

  By the time he arrives forty minutes later, Mom still hasn’t answered the phone. I’m just about ready to book a flight but I can’t remember which is cheaper, American or Delta. Mikey tells me not to worry about her. Maybe she can’t hear the phone. He says that old people get deaf, that she’s probably asleep. ‘Deaf and asleep,’ he says. ‘Honey, there were no tornadoes near her.’ He moves his head to stare hard into my eyes like he’s a hypnotist. He can be such an idiot.

  ‘My mom never sleeps,’ I say. ‘You’re just not taking this seriously. Something is going on.’ I burst into tears.

  ‘Well, I gotta say, you are looking mighty sexy right now.’ Mikey puts his arm around me and pulls me closer to him on the couch. ‘Mighty sexy,’ he says. I can feel his breath on my ear. He strokes my neck with a single finger. He slides his hand up my thigh.

  Then the phone rings. Mom’s voice. ‘Where have you been?’ I ask.

  In front of me, Mikey starts to undress. He takes off his T-shirt and slips off his shoes. He unzips his jeans.

  ‘Busy,’ she says. ‘But I heard about the tornadoes.’ She tells me what I know already about the damage and that they expect more people will be found dead. ‘Are you okay, honey? Is your building still standing? What about tomorrow?’

  ‘Of course it is. You’re talking to me now. Where were you?’

  ‘I’ve got to go. Catch you tomorrow. Sleep tight.’

  ‘Is Philip there?’ I manage to say quickly but there’s no answer. She’s hung up on me.

  Mikey is down to his now grey, once white, undershorts. His stomach has grown since the last time I saw it naked. He’s got a hard-on.

  It’s been a long time.

  I hardly ever talk to Helen in any detail about Mikey but the next morning I tell her, ‘Mikey came over last night and we had sex. He stayed over. I left him lying in my bed this morning.’

  ‘So, you think it’s going to work out?’

  I shake my head. ‘No, but I’m stuck with him. The guy spent three hours in the basement of his building on his own last night thinking that he might die, and then found out afterwards that he nearly did. He said that his depression is finally over. Gotta tell you, it’s been ages.’

  ‘Ah … Oh.’

  ‘That’s the only reason why we had sex last night – because he nearly died – and honestly it wasn’t that good.’ I don’t know what else to say. I am stuck. It’s me as much as him. I wish that I were in The Wizard of Oz and whisked away by another tornado, but that’s Kansas. ‘The whole situation is crap,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. I know, it’s nuts and something is going on with my Mom. Hey, this is pathetic. God, Oklahoma really sucks. I’m pathetic.’

  She nods.

  ‘I’ve got to
do something.’

  Her head is still nodding.

  And then I just make a decision.

  I pick up the phone and ask Brad for urgent time off work to visit my mother who has just had surgery, and then I book the flight for the evening. Helen says she’s pleased that I’m finally doing something definite. Apparently I’ve been dithering all over the place for months. ‘Go, girl,’ she says. ‘Go!’ She gets up from her seat and does a little dance and that Ricki Lake thing with her hands in the air. I suddenly feel sorry for Tom. If he doesn’t get his act together soon, he may be stupid enough to lose the best person in the world.

  Now I’m on a roll and am encouraged enough to phone Mikey and tell him the news. The new me. I refuse to use his babyfied name. ‘Mike,’ I say, ‘It’s over. I’m leaving. I’m going to see my mom. I’ve come to a crossroads and need a vacation.’

  ‘Great! I’ll come with you. I woke up happy and I knew it was going to be a fantastic day. Marry me, honey. I love you,’ he says. ‘We’ll do Vegas.’

  I don’t reply. It’s too late. That ship has sailed. I put the phone down, pick up my bag, give Helen a hug and get the hell out of there.

  1995

  On Becoming a Fish

  This is how my mother arrives. She doesn’t come the day before the surgery when I’d expected her, and when I wanted her. She arrives at Mercy Hospital while I am already under anaesthetic and this means that I return, horizontal, from the recovery room to find my mother sitting there alive and well, not killed in a plane crash as I had worried right up until they put me out at seven o’clock that morning.

  ‘Oh, Mom,’ I call out as she comes into view. ‘You’re here.’

  Johnny is there in the room as well. He says, ‘She got the date wrong.’