course she thought of her father, her sister, but we didn’t worry about that.
Most nights, she leaned back, closed her eyes, tried to imagine the things inside her. She could call them babies, because that’s what they were. She could even call them daughters, because that’s also what they were. Still, it seemed most right to leave them as heartbeats for now, nothing else struck true in Nora’s brain. And, after all, heartbeats was how she saw them sitting there under that gaudy Arizona sky, her eyelids shut tight, her head turned upward, her eyes turned inward, southward, to look squarely at the things that were sharing that folding chair, sharing her body. What she saw was two heartbeats, red and bloody and tiny, tiny. Two little heartbeats perfectly and eerily syncopated. One heartbeat and then another.
What she saw clear as day were those two little heartbeat babies, and they each had exactly one arm and one hand, locked together at the fingers. Imagine something monstrous. Little red chimeras joined at the palm, floating there, not one thought in the world of anything other than themselves. Beastly organisms, selfish for existing in the first place. Sisters, she might have called them, and so defined them by each other and not by her. Because, more than anything, what Nora was sure of was that though they lived in her body, though she alone housed them while they grew, those babies didn’t belong to her. They couldn’t. She was still a child herself, after all. Still freckled and pig-tailed and awkward.
W e liked to imagine that she’d picked Arizona for the Grand Canyon and the warmth. Maybe she’d thought it was possible to live in it, in the canyon. But she never admitted that to anyone, not once she got there and saw how wrong her fantasy had been. The walls of Jack Boyd’s bedroom were decorated with postcards of the Southwest. Postcards his father had sent while traveling with his fourth wife. We imagined Nora just beyond the postcards’ borders. Always out of reach. These were the details of Arizona she now lived among. Open spaces; wood carvings and chalk drawings; gaping holes in the earth; grotesque protrusions upward out of the rock; and turquoise. Turquoise especially. The turquoise was everywhere, and if anyone asked, she would have told them she’d gotten that right at least. The water was turquoise, the sky was turquoise, the jewelry was turquoise. And the people were so used to it they didn’t even see it. The color was so common it was imperceptible. This was exactly what she wanted—to be in a place so unlike the one where she’d been born. Scorched earth, turquoise sky. Extremes.
She picked up waiting tables easily. She was good at it. The manager had said, “Have you waited tables before?” And Nora had shaken her head.
“Then why should I hire you?”
“I’m a blank slate,” Nora said. “Teach me and I’ll do exactly what you say.”
“I like that,” the woman had said. A woman just like you’d expect in a place like this. Tan, wrinkled, two parts chain smoker, one part beauty queen. She was soft somewhere deep down. She was a mother—of her own children, of course; but maybe also of Nora. Someone to guide her, show her how to live.
“You can start tomorrow,” the woman had said.
“You should know I’m pregnant.”
“Who isn’t?”
B ut probably there was nothing friendly between the manager and Nora. Nothing unfriendly, either, but also nothing motherly as Nora might have hoped that first day. The cooks, though, would have been different. They would have taken to Nora immediately, and she almost immediately to them. At first they might have made her nervous, made her blush at the things they said and the way they said them. But soon the banter became something to go to work for, something to help pass the time.
They would have liked that she was pregnant, asking daily about the baby. When the bump grew, they might have asked to touch it. Of course she
Most nights, she leaned back, closed her eyes, tried to imagine the things inside her. She could call them babies, because that’s what they were. She could even call them daughters, because that’s also what they were. Still, it seemed most right to leave them as heartbeats for now, nothing else struck true in Nora’s brain. And, after all, heartbeats was how she saw them sitting there under that gaudy Arizona sky, her eyelids shut tight, her head turned upward, her eyes turned inward, southward, to look squarely at the things that were sharing that folding chair, sharing her body. What she saw was two heartbeats, red and bloody and tiny, tiny. Two little heartbeats perfectly and eerily syncopated. One heartbeat and then another.
What she saw clear as day were those two little heartbeat babies, and they each had exactly one arm and one hand, locked together at the fingers. Imagine something monstrous. Little red chimeras joined at the palm, floating there, not one thought in the world of anything other than themselves. Beastly organisms, selfish for existing in the first place. Sisters, she might have called them, and so defined them by each other and not by her. Because, more than anything, what Nora was sure of was that though they lived in her body, though she alone housed them while they grew, those babies didn’t belong to her. They couldn’t. She was still a child herself, after all. Still freckled and pig-tailed and awkward.
W e liked to imagine that she’d picked Arizona for the Grand Canyon and the warmth. Maybe she’d thought it was possible to live in it, in the canyon. But she never admitted that to anyone, not once she got there and saw how wrong her fantasy had been. The walls of Jack Boyd’s bedroom were decorated with postcards of the Southwest. Postcards his father had sent while traveling with his fourth wife. We imagined Nora just beyond the postcards’ borders. Always out of reach. These were the details of Arizona she now lived among. Open spaces; wood carvings and chalk drawings; gaping holes in the earth; grotesque protrusions upward out of the rock; and turquoise. Turquoise especially. The turquoise was everywhere, and if anyone asked, she would have told them she’d gotten that right at least. The water was turquoise, the sky was turquoise, the jewelry was turquoise. And the people were so used to it they didn’t even see it. The color was so common it was imperceptible. This was exactly what she wanted—to be in a place so unlike the one where she’d been born. Scorched earth, turquoise sky. Extremes.
She picked up waiting tables easily. She was good at it. The manager had said, “Have you waited tables before?” And Nora had shaken her head.
“Then why should I hire you?”
“I’m a blank slate,” Nora said. “Teach me and I’ll do exactly what you say.”
“I like that,” the woman had said. A woman just like you’d expect in a place like this. Tan, wrinkled, two parts chain smoker, one part beauty queen. She was soft somewhere deep down. She was a mother—of her own children, of course; but maybe also of Nora. Someone to guide her, show her how to live.
“You can start tomorrow,” the woman had said.
“You should know I’m pregnant.”
“Who isn’t?”
B ut probably there was nothing friendly between the manager and Nora. Nothing unfriendly, either, but also nothing motherly as Nora might have hoped that first day. The cooks, though, would have been different. They would have taken to Nora immediately, and she almost immediately to them. At first they might have made her nervous, made her blush at the things they said and the way they said them. But soon the banter became something to go to work for, something to help pass the time.
They would have liked that she was pregnant, asking daily about the baby. When the bump grew, they might have asked to touch it. Of course she
Similar Books
