Mosquitoland (2 page)

Northbound Greyhound

September 1—afternoon

Dear Isabel,

So I'm bored. On a bus. Stuck next to an old lady who keeps leaning over like she wants to start up a conversation. To maintain sanity, I shall write.

Labor Day is Reason #2.

Now, I know what you're thinking.
Really, Mim? Labor Day?
And rightfully so. What's so special about the first Monday of September that the government would shut down the country in its honor? Honestly, if it weren't for school closings and extended happy hours, I'm not sure anyone would know it exists.

But I would.

One Labor Day, six or seven years ago, Mom stood up in the middle of dinner and asked if I'd like to go for a walk. Dad kept his head down, toying with the food on his plate. “Evie,” he whispered without looking up. I remember laughing because it looked like he was giving his food a name. Mom said something about the digestive benefits of exercise after eating, grabbed my hand, and together we walked out the door, down the hushed streets of our subdivision. We laughed and talked and laughed some more. I loved it when she was like that, all young and fun and eager to keep being young and fun, and it didn't matter what happened the day before or the day after, all that mattered was the Young Fun Now.

Such a rare thing.

Anyway . . .

That's when we found it. Or rather,
them
. Our people.

They lived on Utopia Court, if you can believe it—a little cul-de-sac tucked in the back of the neighborhood. When we turned the corner, it was like stepping through Alice's looking-glass, only instead of the Jabberwock and a Red Queen, we found revolutionaries and idealists, people who damned the Man, people who refused to bow to suburban mediocrity. While the rest of the neighborhood watched TV or played video games, that little cul-de-sac set off explosions for the ages.

They understood the Young Fun Now.

Every Labor Day, Mom and I came back for more. We took part in their pig roasts, lemonade stands, and beer buckets, their loud stereos and rambunctious kids, their flag wavings and fireworkings and food gorgings. We did so with gumption and hunger and thirst, knowing full well it would be another 364 days before those offerings came back around. (That first year, we went back for Memorial Day—
bupkis
. Nothing. Like an empty baseball stadium. Same with Fourth of July. I guess Utopia Court was more like Narnia than the looking-glass in that respect. It was never where—or rather,
when
—you thought it would be.)

Bottom line: in the face of suburban mediocrity, Utopia Court provided an honest-to-God mutiny, and we loved every mutinous minute.

So there's the setup.

Now for the teardown.

Last year, just as the fireworks were picking up steam, Mom set down her beer and began saying thank-yous and good-nights. Something was wrong—we'd never left so early. But I didn't argue. What mattered to her mattered to me. Reluctantly, I followed her back to the other side of the looking-glass. We admired the fireworks from a distance, holding hands as we walked (yes, I held hands with my mother, but then, nothing about our relationship has ever been traditional). Suddenly, Mom stopped dead in her tracks. This image—of my mother's silhouette against a black sky backdrop, as majestic fires exploded all around—is a memory I have tucked in my back pocket, one I can pull out and examine at will, to remember her like that forever and ever and ever and ever and ever . . . infinite forevers. “Mary,” she whispered. She wasn't looking at me, and I could tell her mind was somewhere I could never be. I waited for whatever it was Mom wanted to say, because that's how it used to be with us. There was no need for prodding. For a few minutes, we stood there on the quiet sidewalk, stuck between mutiny and mediocrity. As the distant fireworks dwindled, our sidewalk became darker, as if Utopia's pyrotechnics had been the city's only source of light. Just then, Mom let go of my hand, and turned. “I was lovely once,” she whispered. “But he never loved me once.”

Her tone was familiar, like the lyric of some dark-eyed youth singing tragic clichés. But Mom was no youth, and this was no cliché.

“Who?” I said softly. “Dad?”

She never answered. Eventually, she began walking toward our house, toward mediocrity, away from the glorious mutiny. I followed her the rest of the way in silence.

I remember this like it was yesterday.

I remember because it was the last time we held hands.

Signing off,

Mary Iris Malone,

Mutineer Extraordinaire

“NOW THOSE ARE
some interesting shoes. Where does a person get shoes like that?”

I guess I've held the old lady off for as long as possible. “Goodwill,” I say, stuffing my journal in my backpack.

“Which one?”

“I don't . . . really remember.”

“Hmm. Very strappy, aren't they? And colorful.”

The old lady is right. Only the eighties, with its fuchsia-infused electro-pop, could have produced high-top footwear of such dazzling flamboyance. Four Velcro straps apiece, just in case. There's a whole platoon of unworn sneakers in my closet at home, Kathy's attempts to replace more pieces of my old life. “My stepmother hates them,” I say, leaning back in my seat.

The old woman wrinkles her forehead, leans over for a better look. “Well, I'm quite taken with them. They've got pizzazz, don't you know.”

“Thanks,” I say, smiling.
Who says pizzazz?
I look down at her white leather walking shoes, complete with three-inch soles and a wide Velcro band. “Yours are cool, too.”

What starts as a chuckle ends in a deep, hearty laugh. “Oh yes,” she says, lifting both feet off the ground. “
Très chic, non
?”

I'll admit, initially, I'd been wary of sitting next to an old lady: the beehive hairdos, the knit turtlenecks, the smell of onion soup and imminent death. But as the bus had been packed, I'd had very limited options when it came to a seatmate; it was either the old lady, the glassy-eyed Poncho Man, or a three-hundred-pound Jabba the Hutt look-alike. So I sat. Beehive hair? Check. Knit turtleneck? Check. Nothing to rile the geriatric gestapo. But her smell . . .

I've been trying to place it ever since I sat down. It is decidedly un-geriatric. It's like . . . potpourri, maybe. Abandoned attics, handmade quilts. Fucking fresh-baked cookies, with . . . a hint of cinnamon. That's it exactly.

God, I love cinnamon.

The old lady shifts in her seat, accidentally dropping her purse to the floor. In her lap, I see a wooden container no larger than a shoe box. It has a deep red hue and a brass lock, but what stands out most is the way her left hand is holding it: white-knuckled and for dear life.

I pick up her purse and hand it to her. Blushing, she replaces it on top of the wooden box. “Thank you,” she says, offering a handshake. “I'm Arlene, by the way.”

Her crooked fingers point in all directions, withering under a spiderweb of bulging veins and rusty rings. Not surprisingly, her hand is soft in mine; surprisingly, it is quite pleasant.

“I'm Mim.”

She raises the same hand to adjust her beehive. “What an interesting name.
Mim
. Almost as interesting as those shoes.”

I smile politely. “It's an acroname, actually.”

“A what?”

“My real name is Mary Iris Malone. Mim is just an acronym, but when I was younger, I thought it was acro
name
, which made total sense.”

“Acroname. How clever,” says Arlene.

“Mary was my grandmother's name.”

“It's quite lovely.”

I shrug. “I guess. It doesn't really . . .”

“Match the shoes?” she says, nudging me in the ribs.

Arlene is turning out to be a surprise-a-minute, with her Velcro shoes and phraseology, all
pizzazz
and
très chic, non
. I wonder if she'd be so likable if I unloaded on her—just told her everything, even the
BREAKING NEWS
. I could do it, too. Those bright blue, batty eyes are just begging for it.

“So what's in Cleveland?” she asks, pointing to my backpack. The corner of an envelope is sticking out of a side pocket, its return address clearly visible.

Eve Durham
PO Box 449
Cleveland, OH 44103

I tuck the envelope away. “Nothing. My . . . uncle.”

“Oh?” says Arlene, raising her eyebrows. “Hmm.”

“What?”

“I was just thinking—
Eve
is an interesting name for a man.”

Like a priest during confession, Arlene doesn't meet my eyes. She folds her hands across the purse in her lap, looks straight ahead, and waits for me to tell the truth. We've only just met, but things like time hardly matter when dealing with a familiar spirit.

I turn, look out the window as the dense forest zooms by in a blur, a thousand trees becoming one. “My parents got divorced three months ago,” I say, just loud enough for her to hear over the hum of the engine. “Dad found a replacement at Denny's.”

“The restaurant?”

“I know, right? Most people find breakfast.” Arlene doesn't laugh at my joke, which makes me like her even more. Some jokes aren't meant to be funny. “The wedding was six weeks ago. They're married now.” My chest tightens at the sound of my own words. It's the first time I've said it out loud. “Eve is my mother. She lives in Cleveland.”

I feel Arlene's gentle touch on my back, and I'm afraid of what's coming. The catchphrase monologue. The sermon of encouragement, imploring bravery in the face of a crumbling American family. It's all in the manual. Adults just can't help themselves when it comes to Words of Wisdom.

“Is he a good man?” she asks. Arlene, it would seem, has not read the manual.

“Who?”

“Your father, dear.”

Through the window, I see the ocean of trees, now in slow motion: each trunk, an anchor; each treetop, a rolling wave; a thousand coiling branches, leaves, sharp pine needles. My own reflection in the window is ghostlike, translucent. I am part of this Sea of Trees, this landscape blurred.

“All my sharp edges,” I whisper.

Arlene says something, but it's muffled, as if from an adjacent room. The hum of the bus dissolves, too. Everything is quiet. I hear only my breath, my heartbeat, the internal factory of Mim Malone.

I am six, reading on the floor of our living room in Ashland. Aunt Isabel, visiting from Boston, is sitting at my father's old rolltop, writing a letter. Dad pokes his head in the room.
“Iz, I need my desk back. You done?”
Aunt Isabel doesn't stop scribbling.
“I look like I'm done, Bareth?
” Dad rolls his eyes, flares his nostrils.
“What's a bareth?”
I ask, looking over my book.
Aunt Isabel smiles, her head still bent over her letters.
“That is,”
she says, pointing to my dad. I look at him quizzically.
“I thought your name was Barry?”
Aunt Isabel shakes her head.
“You thought wrong, little lamb.”
I love all her nicknames, but Dad is not amused.
“You writing a novel there, Iz?”
She doesn't answer.
“Isabel, I'm talking to you.” “No, you're not,”
she says.
“You're making fun of me.”
Dad sighs, mutters something about the futility of correspondence, leaves the room. I go back to my book for a few minutes before asking,
“Who are you writing to, Aunt Isabel?”
“My doctor,”
she says. Then, setting her pencil down, she turns to me.
“Writing sort of . . . rounds off the sharp edges of my brain, you know?”
I nod, but I don't know; with Aunt Iz, I rarely do.
“Tell you what,”
she says.
“When I go back to Boston, you write to me. You'll see what I mean.”
I consider this for a moment.
“Do I have sharp edges, too, Aunt Iz?”
She smiles and laughs, and I don't know why.
“Maybe, little lamb. Either way, you should write. It's better than succumbing to the madness of the world.”
Here she pauses, glances at the door where Dad had just been standing.
“And cheaper than pills.”

Sound returns. The steady hum of the bus engine, and Arlene's voice, warm and wet. “Are you all right, Mim?”

I keep my good eye on the passing landscape. “We used to make waffles,” I say.

A brief pause.

“Waffles, dear?”

“Every Saturday. Dad mixed and whisked while I sat on a wobbly stool and smiled. Then I poured the mix into the waffle maker and . . .”

Another pause.

“Yes?” says Arlene.

“What?”

“You stopped in the middle of a sentence, dear.”

Aunt Isabel's last line echoes in my head.
Cheaper than pills . . . ills . . . ills . . . ills . . .

I turn, set my jaw, and look Arlene squarely in the eyes. I choose my words carefully, devoting attention to each syllable. “I think my dad is a good man who has succumbed to the madness of the world.”