Let me know, I said, rinsing my hands of dust. If you ever want to give anything away. Just let me know, I said.
I won’t give anything away, said my mother.
Because of all this-all the goods crossing the household, all the resettling of room assignments, all the discussions in cars, all the nights of jogging-it wasn’t a good time for their only other child to leave home. We needed to be in the same house then, as a kind of checkpoint, or performance of permanence, and if my father didn’t actually call roll at the dinner table, ticking off a box for my mother, and then one for myself, it was only because he thought it would make him look like he couldn’t count.
All here! he said, on a regular basis, as we passed around the dishes.
36
Shortly after Joseph’s final disappearance, George packed up his own things and drove the three thousand miles across valley and slope in his chugging gray VW Bug to Boston. He was starting his graduate program at MIT, and for the first few months, he called at least once a week.
Any news? he always asked at the end, and I always told him no, no news.
We said goodbye, and have a good night, and talk soon.
After summer deepened into fall, after hearing about the mounds of work and lab time he’d been assigned, over the sounds of frantic rummaging at his desk and even, once, an alarm clock ringing, I sank down by the phone base in the kitchen and told him we were fine, that all was fine, in case he was just calling out of obligation.
The rummaging halted.
What do you mean? he said. I call because I want to.
I lined a pile of yellow phone books into a tower.
I mean, you don’t have to take pity on me, I said, getting the phone book corners all matched up. That’s gross, I said. You helped me so much, that day. Thank you.
Rose, he said. His voice was tinged with annoyance, and the activity sounds subsided as he settled into a chair. I don’t pity you, not at all. What are you talking about?
Outside, our neighbors turned on their sprinklers for a late-afternoon lawn watering. They were trying to grow an avocado tree from a sprouted pit.
Please, I said. George. I never expected anything more than the one time, I said.
Ping, ping, against the side windows.
Why not? he said, after a minute.
Why not what?
Why not expect more than the one time?
Water droplets smeared, on the windows. No one else home yet. I could just picture him sitting in his chair, listening. With his concentrated listening face. With the just-reddening October leaves outside. Elemental in our kiss, for me, had been its property of one-time-ness, which I had told myself even as it was happening: kissing George was a little like rolling in caramel after spending years surviving off rice sticks.
I mean, I said, in a small voice. Right?
Well, he said, louder, it was meaningful to me, he said. Okay? It was not nothing.
No, I said. I pulled the pile of phone books into my lap. For me too. I didn’t mean that-
I mean, I’m here, he said. You’re there. You should have your own life. I have my own life. That’s smart. But you’re
I leaned my cheek on the top phone book. Five-thirty. Water pinging. Parents home soon. It had never felt so wrong to be having such a conversation in their house, an hour away from making dinner for my mother.
George, I said, as softly as I could.
Through the wires, his breathing quieted. For a few minutes, we just stayed there on the phone line, together. Stillness, on his end. I stared at the shelf of cookbooks across from the phone base and mind-moved the black garlic-cookbook to lie on top of the wider-based green pasta-book.
Hey, I said. So. I ate my own spaghetti, I said. I laughed a little. First time I ate anything I made, I said.
And? he said.
Big neon sign in there, I said. Big orange letters. Saying that I am not ready for George.
No, he said.
Nearly, I said.
That was the first time you ate your own food? he said. In all these years?
First time, I said.
And?
Tastes like a factory, I said, spitting out the word.
From where?
I don’t know, I said.
You mean that made the pasta?
I don’t think so, I said, mind-sliding the horizontal books shoved into the top of the shelf back into their vertical slots.
Huh, he said, and his voice stretched and moved upwards, as if he were standing. Well, you go figure that out, then, he said. I don’t want to call up to have a conversation with a factory. I do that enough with the automated bank guy.
Tall books at the sides, short books in the center. Wide books on the horizontal plane, leaning books straight.
I hate that automated bank guy, he said.
You going out?
I guess, he said. There’s a study party.
Downward steps of cookbooks, gradated rows.
Okay, I said. Thank you. Good talking to you. Have a good night.
He grunted. Pity you, he said. Ridiculous.
When we hung up, I just sat in the chair for a while with those phone books in my lap. Heavy-weighted paper. All the shelving urgency dissipated. It had felt of utmost importance during the call, this re-shelving, something I was reminding myself to do just as soon as we were off, but now that the phone call was over the urge evaporated. It was comfortable, to sit. Something about being pinned to the chair by all those pages upon pages of phone numbers.
37
That year my brother disappeared, I knew very clearly what I could not do. I could not bear college, the ache packed in the assembly line of trays. I could not yet make the move out of the house. I could not buy a plane ticket to go see George and walk by his side hand in hand against a backdrop of brilliant yellow bursting sugar maples. Could not.
But there were things I could manage, smaller things, and so, on my own, I decided it was time to meet the various cooks of Los Angeles County and to find some useful meals that way. I would eat out as often as possible. This was about all I could handle, and it was the one important thing I figured I could do while living at home. There was a whole lot to consider, and some things need to be considered slowly.
Besides everything else, it had been no small surprise, the Sunday after Joseph disappeared, when I made that spaghetti dinner for my parents and ate it myself. There had been way too much to sort through right away, but I was left with two particularly disturbing first impressions. One was the sickly-sweet nostalgia, in the taste of a tantrum, the longing for an earlier, sweeter time with an aftertaste like a cancer-causing sugar substitute. And the
