Long Division Page 27

  “Uh-huh,” I say, and I snake my feet around the legs of my chair.

  “Okay. I remember this one time when you and I cooked pizza in my dad’s kitchen. It was the summer right after we graduated college. Right before I left for the Peace Corps. You were cleaning mushrooms, I was rambling on about something stupid like I do, and you told me to shut up. You said you wanted to hear the sound of the mushroom stem being pulled from the cap. That it was such a great sound.”

  “I do love that sound.” My hands are resting in my lap like an obedient child at a dinnertime lecture.

  “But you said it wasn’t nearly as wonderful as the sound of a mushroom being harvested. Then you mentioned this episode of Mister Rogers you once saw where he goes to a mushroom farm and picks them himself. You said that the gentle plucking/popping noise of the mushroom being pulled from the soil was probably your favorite sound of all time.”

  “It was amazing. I’ll always remember it. They never show that episode.” I’m whispery and serious.

  Gus takes a big breath.

  “And ever since, every single time I eat a mushroom or clean a mushroom or see one growing in a lawn, I think of you, Annie. And I think of that sound. And how much you love it.” Gus wiggles his chair closer to the table, pulls along the collar of his T-shirt, and looks me straight in the eyes. “And how much I fucking love you.” He lifts his arms to his head and throws them down. “Crap. I shouldn’t have said fucking. I meant, I love you.”

  And before I can even think or process or respond (or smile!), he’s standing up and moving toward his shopping bag on the counter. In a very serious voice he asks, “Do you have a VCR?” I nod, still silent. He pulls a VHS cassette from the bag and extends his other hand to me. I take it and stand up. He leads me soundlessly to the living room and I sit on the coffee table. Gus crouches and slides the tape into the machine. He fusses with the buttons. “Nearly every weekday since I got back from Dominica, I’ve turned on PBS at eight A.M. to check the show. And you’re right; they almost never show the episode. But last week they did show it. And I got it. And it’s yours to watch and hear and listen to whenever you want forever.” He turns to me and beams with pride and truth and affection. He fast-forwards to the scene and comes to sit beside me on the coffee table.

  Mister Rogers is wearing a hard hat with a headlamp.

  “Oh my God,” I say. My voice is low, awed. “I totally forgot that the mushroom farm is underground.” Gus takes my right hand between both of his.

  “Yes! It’s an old mining cave! There are tons of farms like this in rural Pennsylvania!” He is so excited. I am so excited. Mister Rogers is so excited. He’s talking to the main farmer about the ideal temperature conditions for mushroom growing. I slide my other arm behind Gus’s back, and Mister Rogers is telling the viewer that some kinds of mushrooms are poisonous and one should never eat mushrooms found in the wild. And then it happens. We both stop breathing and watch the kind, sweet man push up the sleeves of his red cardigan and gently tug the mushrooms one by one from a waist-high trough of dirt. The sound is clear and lovely and just how I remember it. I realize that perhaps the acoustics of the cave contribute to the exquisite tones of Mister Rogers’s mushroom harvest. He says that it doesn’t feel like picking any other vegetable. He says it’s such an “interesting sensation.” And he articulates each syllable in “interesting” in a way that has the power to curb the speech impediments of every child on earth. It is so so so beautiful. I love love love it. I love Gus. I’m taking quick, shallow breaths when the program switches back to Mr. Rogers’s home. I feel a tear swell in the corner of my left eye and I turn to face him. “Thank you so much.” I lift my hands to his cheeks and pull my face to him and we kiss. And it’s a million times better than the ridiculous cotton candy kiss I’d imagined. There are no sad elephants or evil lies in this kiss. It is only pure and genuine and ours. Our arms bump and reposition; the legs of the coffee table wobble slightly. Minutes later I am still kissing Gus, but more comfortably so on the sofa. He is stopping every few moments to open his eyes and smile at me. Mister Rogers is singing now. Now I’ll be back / when the day is new. I don’t have to look to know that he’s already changed his shoes and is buttoning the three buttons of his single-breasted sports jacket. And I’ll have more ideas for you / and you’ll have things you’ll want to talk about. And it’s like Gus and I are both saying it and promising it to each other. I’ll be here. Back tomorrow and the next day and the next day. I’ll bring questions and ideas and discoveries.

  I will too.

  31

  Today I’m calling my book Arachne vs. Penelope: Live on Pay-Per-View! It’s early September now. A good month and change since Gus found the mushroom episode and since I owned up to what I really wanted. I just spent about an hour researching on the Internet. I was trying to figure out what this stupid weaving Greek lady was actually doing. It really seemed important to know the real truth about her. So I plugged terms like “greek woman weaving husband mythology” into Google, and it was actually quite easy to find her. But before I did, I was distracted by the story of Arachne from Ovid’s Metamorphosis.

  Arachne was this superstar weaver who claimed to be better than Athena, the patroness of weaving. Athena heard of this, disguised herself as an old lady, and coaxed Arachne into admitting she wanted to take on the goddess in a full-out weaving smackdown. So of course this was arranged. Athena made something marvelous. And Arachne also made something marvelous, but it was an amazingly detailed depiction of all these infidelities the gods had committed against mortals. Athena was enraged at the blatant disrespect and destroyed Arachne’s tapestry and her precious loom in a mega display of power. Arachne then realized how horrible it was of her to express such ego and create such an offensive piece of art. She became so overwhelmed with guilt that she eventually hung herself. But then Athena took pity on her and loosened the noose by turning it into a spiderweb and transfiguring Arachne into a spider. This is more of a rivalry story and not the one of romantic loyalty that I was looking for. But as soon as I’m done typing this, I’m totally e-mailing Max Schaffer about it. That is, of course, if he doesn’t already know.

  But now for Penelope. I’m kind of embarrassed that I didn’t figure it out or remember on my own. Yeah, I’ve never actually read the Odyssey, but I feel like it should be implanted in my literary subconscious from hanging out with English majors in college and from playing a fair amount of Trivial Pursuit with my family. Penelope is the wife of Odysseus. He goes off to the Trojan War and doesn’t come back for twenty (20!!!!) years. While he’s gone Penelope devises a bunch of clever plots to ward off eager suitors who suppose that Odysseus is never coming back. Even a few of the gods meddle and try to lure Penelope into shacking up with someone else. In one of her more ingenious methods of man deterrence, she announces that she will be weaving a burial shroud for her father-in-law, and as soon as she finishes it, she will choose a suitor. She weaves every day, but at night she sneakily unweaves much of the day’s work. So she never has to finish. And it works! She remains faithful, and sure enough, eventually, old O. comes hobbling back from the war. She’s leery that it’s actually him, and they have some adorable battle of wits before she believes him and they lovingly reunite.

  After I discovered Penelope’s story, everything started to make much more sense. David left for a war and I started weaving. Except I wasn’t weaving, I was writing this motherfucking, self-indulgent, wannabestunning memoir confessional. But unlike Penelope, I just kept going and going and going. Never looking back to erase and keep my focus on how great things were before David left. I just couldn’t stand still. And without him here, it became obvious that the textile holding us together was one crafted during our relative youth. Not exactly shoddy, but perhaps ill-fitting and definitely not all-weather. So I kept weaving my ugly word web and thinking and changing in his absence. And I’ve probably failed in Penelope’s eyes because I let myself be wooed by someone else. I was unfaith
ful and impatient and definitely not her. But I like to think I discovered more about myself and launched into a relationship that is laced with more shared curiosities, fervor, and thoughtful inquiry. Blah blah blah. This is a different war, Penelope. And what was my Trojan horse full of? Third graders? Beanie Babies? Ice cubes? Shiny caps of white mushrooms?

  So school starts tomorrow. I’ve picked out my outfit for the first day and laid it carefully across the chair in my bedroom. I have a mere twenty-six kids this year: an even thirteen/thirteen boy/girl split. David is returning in one week.

  Later tonight, hours after sunset and once the temperature has dropped a good fifteen degrees, Gus and I will wash his “Fun in the Sun” paintings off the windows of the Dairy DeLite. When we’re done, we will stand quietly—holding hands and drippy squeegees—staring through the clean-ass glass into the dark Tacoma night. I want to say that before we start on the next seasonal cartoonscape, we will first paint a glorious masterpiece. A bold, confident song will play on the restaurant’s loudspeakers, and we will dance and flick our brushes and run each other’s fingers across the windows with smooth, cool paint. But there are broken shopping carts rolling and feral cats pooping in the parking lot outside. Our universe is not quite fanciful enough for that magnificent love dance. Instead, when we are done staring, and the last drops of moisture on the glass have evaporated, we will start to paint the pumpkins again. Yes, it’s a little early for Halloween decor, but the owner of the Dairy DeLite said that it was Gus’s best mural last year and that he’d like to have it up for longer this time.

  Gus will do most of the work: painting outlines and giving me detailed instructions on how to fill them in. Big strokes here. Small, dotted strokes here. Like this. Great. Perfect. You’re perfect. And though it will be just a regular night of regular painting, I will know that it is the end or the beginning of something. A tiny tick on the timeline of Annie Harpers. And therefore, in my sappiness, I will be unable to resist the temptation to foist significance onto the scene.

  See those two ghosts: That’s Flores and that’s Brother Alden. There’s Loretta, an ancient witch in a wooden chair. This small wizard with the raised wand is Max Schaff er. Gus, here you are—a jack-o-lantern with a gaping smile and missing teeth. And David, poor David, he’s this scare-crow. See the post jammed up his back and through his heart? He’ll get down soon; I’m fairly certain of it. And here I am—a witch, naturally. Can we make my grin a little less devious? Can we make my eyes a little more open?

  Epilogueish Thing

  December 18, 2004

  Dear Kind Reader,

  When I started writing, I planned to rewrite. To prettily arrange all my anecdotes and ideas and feelings. To cut and add and present my life as a touching, engaging narrative rather than a mushed-together, steaming pile of moldy Play-Doh. I was going to spend months with my red pen and my red, red heart. Bah! I am so over that. But, should I wish to show this to anyone (publishers, shrinks, George W. Bush, Loretta Schumacher), there are certain things that might be helpful to know. And I think it will be helpful to me (emotionally/spiritually/ridiculously/ psychotically) to get a few more things out on the page.

  So I present . . . THE APPENDICES!! (Annie Harper the First’s journal had appendices, so I can too.)

  I. Miss Harper’s 2003-2004 Third Grade Class List

  II. Physical Descriptions of Humans in This Story and Other Facts of Potential Interest

  III. Known (and Interesting!) Anomalies of Water (Gus wrote this one. ☺)

  IV. Stupid Things I Considered Calling My Memoirs

  V. Cool Facts About Chickens

  Please do note that these were all composed in relative haste. Gus and I are leaving tomorrow to spend the holidays back in Dominica. The town where he used to live suff ered some rather substantial damage from Hurricane Ivan. We’re going to help clean up some of the mess and help one of Gus’s farmer friends put some crops in the ground. Wahoo agriculture! (Edward Harrington, look at me now!) After the miserable election results last month, we really just wanted to do something helpful.

  So we are.

  With all my love!

  Annie Harper

  Appendix I

  Roll Call: Miss Harper’s Class 2003-2004, Franklin Elementary, Tacoma, WA

  Antolini, Marco: A yay-hoo indeed, but actually quite bright and never mean-spirited.

  Atkins, Lacey: Second favorite.

  Bouvert, Alexandra: Mega shy. Perfect attendance! (She got a special award at the end of the year for this.)

  Carlton, Jasmine: Really into drawing, not as much into everything else. Her ADD was diagnosed in February after I recommended her to the school counselor. And though I’m still a little squirmish about medicating children, Jasmine’s academic improvement post-February was astounding.

  Carter, Diondre: Will charm lots of girls in high school.

  Davidson, Lenny: Mediocre student. Laughed at my jokes more than others. I was sad to see after winter break that his parents had clipped off his beautiful rattail.

  Espinoza, Thomas: The better behaved of the Thomases. Started the year chubby but ended it trim. I attribute the weight loss to a growth spurt and his huge interest in Dance Dance Revolution.

  Ghate, Somya: Moved here from India when she was five. Well adapted and bright. Doesn’t like math so much.

  Gutierrez, Joey: Wiggles his legs nonstop under his desk. Drives me nuts! But I can take it because while he’s wiggling he’s also a very attentive listener.

  Johnstone, Blake: Has immaculate penmanship. Sharpens his pencil many times daily.

  Jones, Maria: Jessica Marquez’s BFF.

  Lin, Gracie: Very aware of endangered species. Tried to start a club to raise money for Siberian tigers.

  Marquez, Jessica: Loves weddings.

  Martinez-Carbajo, Alex: Big baseball fan. Once ate twenty-four chicken nuggets from the cafeteria!

  Matthews, Damian: Responsible for starting the Yu-Gi-Oh nightmare of late September. Made up for it by being very enthusiastic about Math Olympics.

  McDonnell, Lizzie: Spunky and confident. Major kudos for befriending Lacey Atkins when she was so new.

  Morris, Ben: Whines about nearly everything. Very loud.

  Peterson, Thomas: Not related to Lieutenant David Peterson. Though they do both have buzzed hair.

  Rivington, Jordan: Female. Really good at singsongy patty-cake games, and more importantly, never self-conscious about still playing them as a third grader.

  Robinson, Caitlin: Despite Denise being a bit of a witch, Caitlin is mostly a very sweet kid. She’s very generous with the Avon sample- sized lotions and lip balms from her mother’s business.

  Ryles, Janelle: Probably the only person at Franklin Elementary who actually owns a horse. Admirably, she never boasted about it.

  Schaffer, Max: Favorite!

  Small, Danielle: I had to have a talk with Danielle back in March because she kept braiding friendship bracelets under her desk during class. After I caught her doing it for the third time and made her stay in for lunch recess, later that afternoon when she left I found a green and pink bracelet on my desk.

  Taylor, David: The kid who wears sweatpants every day except for special occasions.

  VanOudenardren, Spencer: Poor Spencer. His parents are über- health nuts and send him to school with gluten-free bread and eggplant polenta. But he does have the shiniest, prettiest hair and beautiful, glowing skin.

  Wagner, Garrett: Despite being a fainter, Garrett has mad four-square skills. Never talks out of turn.

  Wells, Katie: Has the kind of type A personality that will make her either head cheerleader or head of the forensics team in high school. But at age nine, it’s impossible to tell which way she’ll fall.

  Williams, Hannah: Frequently looking at her reflection in the window. The only person who jumped on Gracie Lin’s save-the-tigers bandwagon.

  Wright, Stephen: An excellent artist. Has six older siblings, but never looks awkward or sloppy in hi
s hand-me-downs.

  Appendix II

  Physical Descriptions of Humans in This Story and Other Facts of Potential Interest

  In looking over several scenes, I realize that the physical characteristics of some people were very poorly described. I know them. I know what they look like. But I wasn’t all too conscientious about actually telling and showing what they look like in my writing. People are into that.

  Atkins, Charese: Tall. Very nice legs. A general aura of glamour evident by the frequent usage of designer handbags.

  Atkins, Lacey: Round-faced, but in the way that will disappear with puberty and reveal stunning cheekbones just like her mother’s.

  Barkley, Gene (Barfley): Obviously at odds with his pattern baldness. Muscular legs are often hidden. Sagging gut is not. Prone to wearing beige sweaters with flecks of different-colored wool in the weave.

  Carter, Michelle: Blonder in the summer. Looks hott hott hott in scrubs.

  Chang, Stephen: Half Chinese. Half Irish. Excellent posture. Very clean teeth.

  Harper, Annie: Wears glasses two to three days a week. Fit and smallish. Long, dark hair that spends very little time on her shoulders. Extremely badass.

  Harper, Joyce: Soft, dexterous hands. A fine quilter, hugger, and cook.

  Harper, Greg: Looks healthier than his cholesterol level suggests.

  Harrington, Edward: The sweet kind of man you’d see eating strips of bacon in a TV commercial for a local pancake restaurant. A face that says “safety.”

  Mezzo, Hillary: Never without a French manicure.