breaking the surface of water—blades of light cutting Jay into pieces with moving lattice shadows. He gasps for air. Then finds darkness again, above, as the elevator rises rises rises and everything goes black.
He woke confused.
Came awake in a car not his, empty downtown parking lot, framed inthe fork of two elevated freeways gridlocked with morning traffic. Leaden roar of the essentially motionless cars. Shimmer of heat waves, light glinting off glass and chrome, dawn crawling over east L.A., the sun an insult, the air heavy with the brown sick—
“She wants you to help her with some clouds.”
Surfacing from a fitful nap to the inverted face of Helen: feline enhancements resulting from face-painting at an after-school birthday party.
This upside-down cat Helen peers quizzically at Jay sprawled on his sofa, stirring fully clothed and clammy from angry, troubling daydreams.
“She what?”
“Clouds,” Ginger says, unseen, calling out to him from the dining room: “For a school play.”
Jay sits up, groggy. Helen just stares at him like Magonis does, but both her eyes work fine. It’s like she can see right into him. Not through him;
into
him.
“They’re doing a musical,” Ginger elaborates.
“With first-graders?”
“And Helen is making props.” Squeak of wooden chair in the dining room. Ginger’s ignoring his question.
Jay shakes the cobwebs out of his head. Not convinced this isn’t more dreaming. “What musical?”
“The Pied Piper.”
“Guy with the rats.”
“Roughly,” Ginger says. She’s come to the archway to check on Jay and her daughter, who hasn’t moved.
“I didn’t know there was a musical.”
“There is now.”
“Look,” Jay begins, “no offense, but I’m not really familiar with—”
Ginger explains that one of the teachers wrote it. Book and lyrics. Jay wants to make a snarky observation about grade-school teachers and musical theater, but doesn’t even know where to start. Ginger wonders if “ambitious” is the word he was looking for?
“Well—or fucking impossibly
grim
, excuse my French.”
“It’s German, actually. Sixteenth century. And there’s a suitably happy ending in this telling.”
She surprises him with this comment. Slowly, their more sustained conversations since Helen’s night terrors have been filled with similar surprises. A passion for Korean barbecue. A superstition involving frogs. Jay has grown so accustomed to Stacy’s easy two-dimensionality, Ginger’s raveled, mercurial presence is alternately scary and exhilarating. Sometimes both.
The sum of this—Ginger—the puzzle of Helen’s willful silence, the craziness of his ongoing internment, and the stress of his sessions with Magonis, is that he has never felt so alive.
Again, Jay starts to say something, but Ginger’s eyes tell him to shut up, shifting discreetly to Helen and back. Apparently, in another life, she explains, in language she hopes Helen can’t follow, the author had Broadway ambitions. But some combination of crystal meth, bad boyfriend, forced prostitution, and involuntary manslaughter has resulted in her being available here on Catalina to share her talents with the children.
Jay, translating: “She’s in the program.”
Ginger reminds him that they’re not allowed to ask.
“How many people on this island do you think are—”
Ginger cuts him off, repeating that they’re not allowed to ask. “What difference does it make?” she adds. Then shifts gears, upbeat, “Parents are encouraged to get involved.”
Jay decides that it’s not worth taking the position that this invitation to parents does not, technically, apply to him. It’s ungenerousand, in truth, he’s interested. “I don’t remember clouds in the
Pied Piper of Hamelin
,” he says instead.
“Are you kidding?” Ginger smiles slightly. “Clouds are everywhere,” she says. “You’ll see.”
Clouds.
Clouds, barely moving, in a ghostly blue sky.
Wickedly hungover, Jay
He woke confused.
Came awake in a car not his, empty downtown parking lot, framed inthe fork of two elevated freeways gridlocked with morning traffic. Leaden roar of the essentially motionless cars. Shimmer of heat waves, light glinting off glass and chrome, dawn crawling over east L.A., the sun an insult, the air heavy with the brown sick—
“She wants you to help her with some clouds.”
Surfacing from a fitful nap to the inverted face of Helen: feline enhancements resulting from face-painting at an after-school birthday party.
This upside-down cat Helen peers quizzically at Jay sprawled on his sofa, stirring fully clothed and clammy from angry, troubling daydreams.
“She what?”
“Clouds,” Ginger says, unseen, calling out to him from the dining room: “For a school play.”
Jay sits up, groggy. Helen just stares at him like Magonis does, but both her eyes work fine. It’s like she can see right into him. Not through him;
into
him.
“They’re doing a musical,” Ginger elaborates.
“With first-graders?”
“And Helen is making props.” Squeak of wooden chair in the dining room. Ginger’s ignoring his question.
Jay shakes the cobwebs out of his head. Not convinced this isn’t more dreaming. “What musical?”
“The Pied Piper.”
“Guy with the rats.”
“Roughly,” Ginger says. She’s come to the archway to check on Jay and her daughter, who hasn’t moved.
“I didn’t know there was a musical.”
“There is now.”
“Look,” Jay begins, “no offense, but I’m not really familiar with—”
Ginger explains that one of the teachers wrote it. Book and lyrics. Jay wants to make a snarky observation about grade-school teachers and musical theater, but doesn’t even know where to start. Ginger wonders if “ambitious” is the word he was looking for?
“Well—or fucking impossibly
grim
, excuse my French.”
“It’s German, actually. Sixteenth century. And there’s a suitably happy ending in this telling.”
She surprises him with this comment. Slowly, their more sustained conversations since Helen’s night terrors have been filled with similar surprises. A passion for Korean barbecue. A superstition involving frogs. Jay has grown so accustomed to Stacy’s easy two-dimensionality, Ginger’s raveled, mercurial presence is alternately scary and exhilarating. Sometimes both.
The sum of this—Ginger—the puzzle of Helen’s willful silence, the craziness of his ongoing internment, and the stress of his sessions with Magonis, is that he has never felt so alive.
Again, Jay starts to say something, but Ginger’s eyes tell him to shut up, shifting discreetly to Helen and back. Apparently, in another life, she explains, in language she hopes Helen can’t follow, the author had Broadway ambitions. But some combination of crystal meth, bad boyfriend, forced prostitution, and involuntary manslaughter has resulted in her being available here on Catalina to share her talents with the children.
Jay, translating: “She’s in the program.”
Ginger reminds him that they’re not allowed to ask.
“How many people on this island do you think are—”
Ginger cuts him off, repeating that they’re not allowed to ask. “What difference does it make?” she adds. Then shifts gears, upbeat, “Parents are encouraged to get involved.”
Jay decides that it’s not worth taking the position that this invitation to parents does not, technically, apply to him. It’s ungenerousand, in truth, he’s interested. “I don’t remember clouds in the
Pied Piper of Hamelin
,” he says instead.
“Are you kidding?” Ginger smiles slightly. “Clouds are everywhere,” she says. “You’ll see.”
Clouds.
Clouds, barely moving, in a ghostly blue sky.
Wickedly hungover, Jay
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