The Great Perhaps (4 page)

Embarrassed, out of breath, her hands red and a little dirty, she sprints back to the Volvo and drives off, her legs still trembling.

P. Madeline does not like that she cannot remember the last time someone said something nice to her, even if they didn’t mean it.

Q. Madeline comes home from a bad day and finds her husband daydreaming.
The phone is ringing but Jonathan does not answer it. He is hiding in the den, staring down at a drawing of that stupid fucking squid. Madeline drops a bag of groceries, two avocados tumbling beneath the kitchen table, before she can grab the telephone. By the time she hits the talk button, the party has already hung up. Madeline, frazzled, slams the phone down, then stands in the doorway to the den, staring angrily at Jonathan.

“Hey. Um, why didn’t you answer the phone?”

“I’m sorry, I just didn’t hear it. We just got some big news. Someone found another intact giant squid mantle somewhere off the coast of Japan. Looks like a sperm whale got ahold of it. We’re trying to decipher what species it is. This could go either way.”

Madeline stares at him and wonders if he is stoned. She cannot tell. He is maybe too excited to be high.

“Jonathan?”

“Yes?”

“What planet are you on right now?”

“Earth. Why?”

Madeline shakes her head.

“Your hair looks really nice today,” he says, looking back down at the diagram.

“Great.”

He pauses, then looks up. “I’m sorry for what happened. Yesterday. Forgetting to take my medicine. It was stupid. I’m sorry I fucked up. It was irresponsible and terrible and I’m stupid.”

“Great.”

“Can we be friends again?” he asks. He stands, taking her hand in his.

“Sure. Sure, we can be friends again.”

Jonathan kisses his wife’s cheek. She does not respond, only stares straight ahead.

“But you’re still mad,” he says softly, angrily, upset that he hasn’t been forgiven so quickly.

“Yes. Yes, I really am.”

“About me fainting or something else?”

“That and a lot of other shit. Jonathan, you live in your own world. And you expect me to take care of the things you don’t want to do.”

“Like what?”

“Like…” She thinks, glancing around the messy room. “Like how much money do we have in our checking account right now?”

“I don’t know,” he says, smiling. “But that doesn’t mean anything. I’m talking about real things here.”

“That is a real thing. What about savings? How much money do we have in our savings?”

“I don’t know that either.”

“What about car insurance? Where do we get our car insurance from?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about food?”

“I get groceries, too,” he murmurs.

“How much do we spend on food each month?”

“Jesus, Madeline, I have no idea.”

“Exactly. Because you don’t care. And if you don’t care about something, then that means I have to do it.”

“What’s your point?”

“I am sick of having to be in charge. You have all the time in the world for your work, while I have to take care of you and the girls and everything you don’t want to do. When am I supposed to do my work? When is that?”

Jonathan frowns. “Everything I’ve ever done, all my work, has been for you. And the girls.”

“That is such bullshit. You do it for yourself.”

“Is this about the Talbott grant again?” Jonathan asks.

“Jonathan, I swear to God if you bring that up…this has nothing to do with that.”

“Nothing? You don’t still feel bad about it?”

“Jonathan…you gave the grant to someone else. Big deal.”

“It wasn’t just me. It was a whole committee. You’re my wife. How would it have looked if we awarded it to you?”

Madeline ignores his question. “How long are you planning on staying down here?” she asks.

“I don’t know. Maybe forever. Maybe I’ll just move down here in the den. Then you won’t have to be constantly disappointed in me.”

“That would be okay by me,” she says, slamming the door behind her.

R. Madeline does not like that she has begun to get a little fat.
She does not like to be naked anymore. She thinks her backside is out of shape. She might even use the word “atrocious.” She takes off her work clothes and wonders how she ever became someone’s mother, someone’s wife, how did she ever become forty-five?

S. Madeline does not like thinking that she may be the worst parent ever
. She passes the doorway to Amelia’s room, where her oldest daughter is busily building an explosive device.

“It works on the principles of concussive force.” Amelia points to the empty soda pop bottle. “Gas builds up inside until it explodes. This is the easiest kind to make. I’d really like to figure out how to put together a pipe bomb.”

Madeline slowly closes the door, shaking her head.

T. Madeline does not like to think about the war in Iraq.
She does not know if it is good or bad. She can see points on either side. She hates to mention this ambivalence to Jonathan, or Laura, her research assistant who sends an angry email to the White House every day. Everyone else seems like they can make up their minds up without having to think. Maybe the war really is a terrible mistake. Maybe it is an awful display of military power meant to threaten an entire religion. Maybe it is only for oil, after all. But maybe, in the end, it might make those peoples’ lives a little better. Maybe it might bring some sense of order to the region. Maybe it’s something awful right now that might become something astounding later. Madeline does not know and she does not like that everyone acts like they already have the answer. She thinks about this as she folds her daughters’ laundry down in the basement, glancing at the small television, which is now on CNN. The anchorperson, a woman with dark hair and glossy red lips, is explaining that an American soldier, a PFC by the name of Daniel Harkins, has been kidnapped somewhere outside of Baghdad. He has been videotaped and his captors are threatening to cut off his head. The soldier is very young, nineteen or twenty at the most, and his face is dirty, his forehead lined with cuts and scratches. He is crying. He is blond and handsome and shaking visibly before the video camera. Madeline feels sick to her stomach. She switches the television off, closes her eyes, and tries to imagine the soldier being safely returned to his family. But she cannot. She tries and tries and all she can see are his soft, wet eyes.

U. Madeline does not like smug people who go around thinking they believe in God.
God might be a million different things, and who knows what the answer might be? At dinner that evening, Madeline notices that Thisbe is once again praying. The idea is enough to make Madeline go absolutely nuts. Before dinner is served, while the rest of the family argue, detail the major hassles and minor triumphs of their day, pass their plates, Thisbe lowers her head, closing her eyes, going very still in a pose of contemplative prayer, her lips moving slightly as the words thought privately in her brain echo upon her lips. Madeline glances out of the corner of her eye at her youngest daughter, feeling something go tight in her chest. When, finally, Thisbe opens her eyes, smirking a little to herself, Madeline realizes that the person she is glaring at is her own daughter. She looks down at the food on her plate and wonders if she has lost her mind, giving her daughter a dirty look like that.

V. Madeline, that evening, putting away Thisbe’s laundry, notices her daughter praying again, lying in bed, her eyes closed in serene penance, like a painting of a young nun from the Middle Ages
. Madeline does not know why, but out of anger, she quickly piles her daughter’s clothes at the foot of her bed and then slams the door.

W. Madeline picks Thisbe up at school the next day, after chorus practice, both of them running late.
In the backseat of the Volvo, Madeline notices that her daughter’s hands are folded carefully in her lap. Driving, she glances in the rearview mirror and sees Thisbe muttering to herself.

“What are you doing back there, Thisbe?”

“Nothing.”

Thisbe opens her eyes and her small white face goes flush.

“Were you praying?”

Thisbe nods but does not say the word.

“Yes?” Madeline asks.

“Yes.”

Thisbe glances down at her lap. When the car pauses at a stoplight, Madeline turns around in the seat.

“You’ve been doing that a lot lately, huh?”

“I guess.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Why?”

“Because I worry about you.”

“It’s no big deal,” Thisbe says. “It’s just something to do.”

“Oh,” Madeline says, searching through the radio stations. “I think it’s nice.”

“No, you don’t,” Thisbe says, glancing out the window.

“Of course I do. I think it’s fine. I think it’s better than fine. I think it’s great.”

Thisbe’s brown eyes meet her mother’s in the rearview mirror.

“Well, it’s no big deal. It’s not like I’m doing drugs or having sex or something.”

“Wow, that’s a relief,” Madeline says, trying to make a little joke. Her daughter barely smiles, turning back to glance out the window.

“It’s not like it’s anything. It just makes me happy.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Madeline says, though she is not, not at all.

The station wagon pauses at a stoplight. Cars blur in different colors back and forth. Madeline switches off the radio and glances in the rearview at Thisbe again. Her eyes are closed but she is pretty sure she isn’t praying.

“Thisbe?”

“Yeah.”

“When you pray, what are you asking for?”

Thisbe’s face goes red again. Her tiny eyebrows scrunch up. “I don’t know,” she says. “Different things.”

“Like what?”

“Like I dunno, personal things.”

“Is it about us? Your father? Or me?”

“No. I dunno. Sometimes. But it’s not like supposed to be anybody’s business.”

“Do you pray because you’re worried about something?”

Thisbe shakes her head. Her eyes begin to look cloudy, like she might start to cry. Madeline sees the light has turned green and accelerates through the intersection.

“I just want to be sure you’re okay,” Madeline says.

Thisbe does not nod or respond. She is looking out the window again.

“Are you okay?” Madeline asks. She glances into the rearview and sees her daughter has started to cry. “Thisbe?”

Thisbe nods. “It’s fine. I’m okay. It doesn’t matter.”

“I know things have been a little weird at home. But your father and I are fine. I just want you to know everything is okay.”

Thisbe nods, wiping the tears away with her fingertips. “I know. I’m not dumb,” she says.

“I know you’re not dumb. I just wanted to let you know you guys are still the most important thing in the world to me.”

“Okay.”

“And I just want to make sure you’re not praying this much because you…because you think you have to worry about Dad or me or anything.”

Thisbe looks shocked. Madeline can’t figure out what she has said that causes such alarm in her daughter’s face.

“Thisbe?”

“What?”

“Why are you giving me that look?”

“The whole world does not revolve around you guys,” Thisbe says. “That’s not why I’m praying.”

“Oh,” Madeline says, feeling her heart beating heavily. “I just. I just wanted to be sure…”

“I’m praying because I’m trying to come to an understanding with God. I’m trying to figure out how to see Him, like in everyday situations. Like at school and around people I don’t like. I’m trying to be like thoughtful.”

“Well, I think that’s really wonderful,” Madeline says, more flatly than she would have liked. Then adds, “I mean, I think that’s incredibly mature of you.”

“I don’t even care about you and Dad right now. It’s like not even on my radar,” she says. “I’m just trying to get through high school without killing somebody.”

X. Madeline pulls the Volvo into the garage.
Thisbe races into the house, closing the back door behind her so quickly that Madeline can’t even call out to her to finish the conversation. Madeline turns, grabbing her purse, then climbs out, locks the Volvo, and closes the automatic garage door. Standing there in the dark, Madeline feels as if she is going to cry. For no reason. Just because everything is so junky. She holds her hand over her eyes, feeling the soft moisture building there, trying to calm herself. When she steps out of the garage, slamming the door closed behind her, something catches her eye.

Y. The cloud-figure is standing in the treetop.

Z. The cloud-figure seems to be moving.

A
MELIA
C
ASPER, AGE SEVENTEEN, IS DOING WHATEVER
she can to overthrow the evil empire of capitalism, day by day. Mostly by writing long rants in her high school paper about how awful capitalism is. Mostly by only listening to French pop music. Mostly by wearing her black beret.

W
HENEVER
A
MELIA IS ALONE,
she may hear the sound of mass-produced objects crying. If she listens carefully, closing her bright blue eyes, holding her breath, pressing the soft, fleshy ridge of her ear beside whatever object is now screaming—a yellow pencil, a glowing lamp, a furry, stuffed animal lying on her bed—she will be overcome by the urgency of these foreign-made products weeping for her help.
Liberate me
, each of them will beckon.
Liberate me
. For this reason, one of her dresser drawers is nearly filled with a number of useless and consumable objects, objects that she has either found or stolen, each of them manufactured in a faraway place like Taiwan or Indonesia, all of them molded from a variety of plastic and metal—a key chain, a rubber doll, a miniature American flag, made somewhere in Asia, which she decided to steal from a nearby convenience store. She does not know what she is supposed to do with these things. But whenever Amelia is alone in her room, whenever she is trying to think about the future of the world and the end of the capitalist system, she will hear this deranged chorus, this unmistakable, otherworldly aria, resounding from the back of her bottom dresser drawer.

A
MELIA GETS HIVES
whenever she’s nervous or afraid. The hives—which are medically known as urticaria—can occur at almost any time, but they most often appear whenever she has to give an oral report in school. On paper, she can say whatever she wants, the words are as familiar, as trustworthy as her hands and arms and feet. But in front of her peers, in front of the drooling stares of her troglodyte classmates and her ineffectual teachers, she will instantly break out in a formidable rash, the skin of her neck and forearms and stomach popping with bright red blisters. As an agent of agitprop, as a high school editorial-page dissident, she thinks she is amazing. As a Patty Hearst, as a Fred Hampton, in front of a cluster of imaginary microphones and a disinterested crowd, she is totally unconfident, a zero, an absolute no one.

A
MELIA IS MAKING
an anticapitalist movie for her history class. It begins like this:

EXT. BATTLEFIELD—DAY

A film clip from
The Charge of the Light Brigade
(1936) featuring Errol Flynn shooting a turbaned Thuggee.

CUT TO:

EXT. BATTLEFIELD—DAY

An F-4 Phantom jet drops a payload of bombs on a small Vietnamese village.

CUT TO:

EXT. WAL-MART—NIGHT

CUT TO:

EXT. DESERT—NIGHT

A hydrogen bomb explodes in the distance, shadowing the desert with its enormous gray cloud.

CUT TO:

INT. WHITE HOUSE—DAY

President Bush stands before the press corps, answering questions.

CUT TO:

INT. MALL—DAY

People walk around shopping happily.

CUT TO:

EXT. PARK—DAY

A close-up of a statue of President Lincoln.

CUT TO:

INT. MALL—DAY

Clip from
Dawn of the Dead.
Zombies attack mall visitors, amid screaming and shouting.

CUT TO:

TEXT flashing on-screen: CAPITALISM IS LAME…CAPITALISM IS LAME…CAPITALISM IS LAME…GEORGE BUSH IS A TERRORIST…GEORGE BUSH IS A TERRORIST

Amelia, sitting in her room, stares at the computer screen happily. She adds the last piece of text to the editing program and then figures out how to make the text look like it’s flashing. Then she starts the movie again from the beginning. She imagines the look on Mr. Anson’s face and nods to herself, proudly, adjusting the beret on the top of her head.

A
MELIA WEARS THE
black beret everywhere, even to school, where kids think she is uptight and a lesbo and a bitch. Her mother warns her that wearing that beret all the time might cause her to go bald but she doesn’t really care. She prefers to get to school one hour early. As the editor-in-chief of the school paper, the
Midway
, she has keys to the newspaper office. Mr. Wick is sometimes there by then, sitting behind his diminutive desk, in his dirty white dress shirt and yellow tie, his nose sniffling, quickly editing the last page of copy before handing it to Brice Jackson, a lanky senior in charge of getting the copy to the printer. The
Midway
does one issue a week, and Amelia must edit her fellow writers’ work as well as contribute to the Campus Politics page. Here her main duty is to report on the student council’s meetings and activities. She loathes the student council; she believes they are all incompetent babies whose only concern is racking up extracurricular activities for their lackluster college applications. The ideas of truth, of justice, of revolution, mean nothing to these kids. Amelia is not afraid to voice her disdain. Mr. Wick, the faculty advisor for the school paper, an old leftist himself, refuses to censor her, and takes a certain amount of joy in seeing the principal and other members of the administration criticized. Most of the time her columns are more than a simple report from the student council’s last meeting; usually she issues strongly worded threats to William Banning, the effete, spineless student council president, such as:

D
URING LUNCH,
A
MELIA
does not usually eat. Instead, she sets up a folding table protesting the lack of vegetarian options, the school’s uncaring administration, and American imperialism in general. She has made a different pamphlet for each cause she is championing. The pamphlet about the lack of vegetarian options is green, the one criticizing the school’s administration is purple, and the one describing the horrors of imperialism is red. At lunch, two seniors, passing a football back and forth between each other, look at Amelia—short, dark-haired, wearing her black beret—and call her a fag.

“I’m a woman,” Amelia says, sighing. “I know it’s hard for you two Cro-Magnons to understand, but it’s not physically possible for me to be a fag.”

“Whatever, fag,” they say, laughing, walking away.

I
F
A
MELIA SEES
her younger sister, Thisbe, walking down the hallway of their high school between classes, Amelia will ignore her. If someone asks if she has a little sister in the freshman class, Amelia will say
no
without thinking.

A
MELIA HAS NOT
shaved her armpits in three months. The hair there is dark and wiry. Both of her legs are also covered in dark, wiry fuzz.

A
MELIA IS INSULTED
that a Starbucks has opened so close to their house. She has many, many different ideas about how and when she will blow it up.

A
MELIA’S ONLY FRIENDS
happen to work for the school newspaper as well. They are also honorary members of clubs that Amelia has started—Young Environmentalists Club, Young Socialists Club, Young Atheists Club. They do not actually attend any of the meetings because Amelia has elected herself president of each and would rather handle the business of these clubs herself. Amelia sometimes gets high with these friends from the school paper—Max and Heather—after school, hiding in the darkroom of the photo lab. Max is an eighteen-year-old white kid with long black dreadlocks who is planning on going to Yale next fall. Max wears a different Bob Marley shirt every day. He is the music and sports editor for the school paper. He supplies the marijuana, which he gets from his father, an entertainment lawyer. Heather may or may not be a lesbian, no one really knows. She wears overalls all the time and has been trying to start a Gay/Lesbian/Bi Club at the school for two years, but no one seems interested in joining. Her hair is red and short and she wears sandals throughout the winter months.

Amelia and her two friends sneak into the darkroom—ignoring the many signs warning of hazardous, combustible chemicals—to get high. Max is the first to speak, handing the joint to Amelia, who holds it like a princess, her pinky raised. She lights it using Max’s stupid pot-leaf Zippo lighter, the spark a quick flickering of light reflected in all of their eyes.

“I heard they’re cutting off people’s heads in Iraq,” Max says.

“What?” Amelia asks, coughing.

“I heard they’re kidnapping people, like aid workers, and cutting their heads off. On videotape.”

“They’re being occupied by the world’s largest and most powerful military force,” Amelia hisses. “It’s all they can do, trying to frighten their oppressors.”

“Fuck that noise,” Max said. “I can’t sympathize with people who cut off other people’s heads.”

“Sometimes violence is the only answer,” Amelia whispers.

“What?” Heather coughs, her white face turning red.

“Think of like all the great revolutions in history. They were all violent.”

“What about the civil rights marches?” Heather asks.

“Besides those. Like the Revolutionary War and all those other ones.”

“Gandhi. He wasn’t violent,” Max says.

“Besides him.”

“Like who?” Max asks.

“Like I dunno, like the revolution in Cuba. Or like Malcolm X.”

“Malcolm X got shot,” Heather whispers, taking another drag.

“I think it’s totally naïve to think that you can accomplish something that big, that important, without hurting other people.”