Unending Nora

Chapter 3

Julie Shigekuni 27 Chapter 3 Joaquin was a man with a house, a son, and an occupation. He drove the No. 163 bus, the route that cut crosswise through the Valley traversing landmarks that he had, like her, committed to memory. She trusted the things he said, about why he had to leave the place he called home, which was a small fishing town on the California-Oregon border, which was where his son still lived. She trusted what he told her: He didn’t belong here, away from his son, in this house so close to the city (he said he recognized her because she didn’t fit in either). She trusted him when he led her past the front room on a shadow-walk through the hall to the room where he slept, which was cooler than the rest of the house, and dark. He left her alone to feel what it was like to occupy a strange man’s bedroom. From the spot beside the bed where she stood motionless, she listened for him and to the beating of her own heart until he called to her. “Wanna beer?” This time she took one even though she’d never had more than a sip in her life. She knew from memory to plug her nose, but even then the thick, acidic taste filled her throat, and a wave of foam frothed over the top of the can. When she looked up, he was staring at her the way you’d check a piece of fruit for worm holes, which made her think she was crazy. Then she forced herself to remember how her brothers always dared each other to do Unending Nora 28 things. Her mother said that’s the way boys were, and this was just a silly dare. She took another sip and let air out through her nose. “You like beer?” “Mmmm.” The bubbles made her eyes burn, and she tried squeezing her lids shut against them. He smiled as if to say he hadn’t been fooled. “Drink a lot of beer?” “No, not a lot.” She was gaining courage. “Do you?” “A lot?” he said, wiping at his grin with the back of his hand, “Not a lot. Maybe not enough.” The room was dark and smelled a little like fish, which made her remember how she’d never caught one. It’s no wonder that she was the kid who had to be yanked from bed. And how one morning she’d leaned over the edge of the boat hoping to see a fish through the glassy black water and had seen her own ugly face instead. Keep your face in the boat, her father, who didn’t like to talk when he was out on the water, muttered under his breath. Maybe she would try fishing sometime with Joaquin. She took another swallow of beer. It and the heat had the effect of slowing things down, making the connections almost palpable. His dark, thick arms and shoulders shiny with sweat; she alive in his skin. But the toys peeked out from their corners, false emblems that reminded their owner only of a life he did not have, and she began to suspect that no child had ever lived in his house or perhaps even visited. She could see that things were not as they should be, and hear, too, her mother and best friends warning her not to trust what she felt; still, when he smiled she could see in his face the son he talked lovingly about, and when he stripped his clothes down to shorts and a tee-shirt and pulled back the bed covers to expose the spot where he slept, her body longed to join him there. Did it count that she didn’t take her clothes off, or that when he climbed on top of her she barely moved, even to breathe? She spent the entire afternoon in Joaquin’s bed and left with the moon hanging low in the half-lit sky. In a daze of exhaustion and excitement, she returned to her apartment and almost Julie Shigekuni 29 passed her mother’s car, parked in the middle of the long narrow driveway. From inside, Yukari called her name, an arrangement of sound she didn’t immediately associate with herself, but rather with a slow and sad song. Then the locks clicked...