Page 56 of Bend
I roll my eyes. “K, you’re totally over-reacting.”
She’s not.
My latest plan involves buying a bus ticket to Florida, where it’s always warm and I can sleep under a dock. I’ll use the free WiFi at coffee shops to apply for jobs. Maybe the Peace Corps.
So I’m surprised when I blurt out, “I’m going to see my grandmother.”
“Gertrude?”
I nod slowly. “Yeah.”
This will be the easiest way to disappear. So Katie won’t worry. I’ll find a job in Florida, find a fresh start.
Over the next few hours, I convince Katie this is true. We read Gertrude’s poems aloud, and Katie orders Chinese food, which I devour so quickly I puke it all back up once Katie leaves.
Late that night, I’m curled up on a blanket in my empty bedroom, wearing the pink iPhone ear buds I used to wear when I wrote at work. I’m lying on my back, my face striped by the streetlight streaming through my blinds. I’m listening to Lana Del Ray, surfing the internet for what will be one of the last times ever on my phone; I’ve just sold it on Craig’s List for $90.
My leg itches and I reach down to scratch it. One of my nails is jagged. I scrape my calf just a little, and it stings.
I start to sob. I tug at my hair.
“How did this happen? What the fuck is wrong with everything?”
I rip the ear buds from my ears and toss my phone down. I jump up and tug my sneakers on without socks. I stab my arms into my coat and run toward Beacon Hill, where the bar crowd’s out in full force and creepers stand in alleys with their heads lowered. The air is so cold it feels like a corporeal thing.
I continue toward Boston Commons, and when I reach the pond, I spend five bucks on skates, because why the fuck not? I skate furiously in circles, until the dim stars that wink through spindly tree branches are nothing but a blur, and the faces passing by and the strings of lights and crying of a child and icy wind that slaps my cheeks seem like slivers of some dream.
This is not my life. It cannot be my life.
I skate until my feet are numb, and by the time I make it home, my hands are so frostbitten they burn terribly.
I take a hot shower and bundle up in my blankets. I check my Facebook, my e-mail, and feel the morbid compulsion to check my bank account. I do this fanatically now, sometimes like every five minutes. I’m not sure if I’m trying to motivate or torture or…holy shit.
The page has loaded. I blink. And blink. And wipe my eyes and blink.
My heart is pounding hard. Blood roars inside my ears. This can’t be right. It just…can’t be. But there it is. In simple, sans serif font, black on a white screen underneath my bank’s emblem:
$30,377.12
I can’t believe my eyes. I must be going crazy. I log out, in, and out again. Twice. Four times. Six.
My phone vibrates: an e-mail. [email protected]
She has written only one word: “Come.”
Attached is a photocopy of a hand-drawn map, sketched with an ‘X’ on one Rabbit Island, a blip about two miles off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. At the bottom is Gertrude’s e-signature.
I’m pretty sure my “FUCK YES! HELL YES! FUCK!” is heard all through my building.
I throw my snow-damp sneakers back on and dash all the way to Fred’s Coffee & Bagels, where I order a grande latte and four extra-fattening, buttery, cinnamon-crusted bagels.
I walk slowly home to my nearly empty apartment, thanking God and sleet and smog and dirty snow for what this night has brought me. I’ve made some stupid choices, but e-mailing grandma is not one of them.
As I climb behind the wheel of my new-to-me ’04 Camry the next afternoon, I’m beaming from ear to ear. I’m going to meet my mom’s mother, and after that—or maybe before if I’m extra lucky—I’m going to find a way to end this two month dry spell.
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WOLFE
