Lorelei's Secret (6 page)

mattress factory, where I once saw a man jump down the elevator shaft looking for a lost pencil, catch an elevator on his back, and live. I told her the name of the first girl I ever kissed. I told her things I hadn’t thought about in years.

Somehow, the subject of dreams came up. Lexy told me that she had kept a book of her dreams by her bed since she was a child and that she wrote each new one down as soon as she awoke. She sometimes thought, she said, that to read this book was to know everything about her, all of her fears and strange wishes, all of the places she could not go when she was awake. One night, when she was no more than four or five, she told me, she met a king who yelled at her for hiding behind his throne. Another night, when she was twelve, she found herself naked at one of her mother’s dinner parties. She told me her dreams, the most vivid ones, the ones that still came back on occasion and made her catch her breath, in a list, offering me her life in small pieces. She crawled through a basement on her hands and knees. She saw a horse cut apart until it was no more than a pile of bloody pieces, but still it lived and breathed and looked at her with one wide eye. She gave birth to a baby, but there had been no father. She fell from a great height. Her name changed from day to day. She planted a garden in her bed and awoke to find lush roses and daisies and ivy tendrils wrapped snug around her body.

She wandered through a mansion, and her mouth was

filled with broken glass. She swam underwater all the way to England without having to take a breath. Her

arms grew long and her legs grew short. She visited an ice cream shop and ordered a flavor called Fury. The ice cream was greenish-red, cold and strong and meaty; even now, she could remember its taste. She told me how, once, her teeth had fallen out one by one, and how, another time, she had had the strength to lift a man over her head. She got married in a cathedral whose walls collapsed before she could meet her groom. Wild dogs chased her through a field. A horrible rash covered her from head to toe. She walked barefoot through the streets and grass sprang up before her. She was being chased but could not move. A swarm of butterflies landed all over her body.

The day was warm and we drove with the windows

open. Breeze on my arms as I drove. Savor it now, the day, the breeze. Run the memory of it over your tongue.

Speak it aloud; there’s no one listening. Say ‘sun’ and ‘hot’

and ‘day.’ Close your eyes and remember the moment, the warm pink life of it. Lexy’s body in the seat next to mine.

Her voice filling the car. Let it wash over you. It ends soon enough.

I have heard that sometimes when a person has an operation to transplant someone else’s heart or liver or kidney into his body, his tastes in foods change, or his favorite colors, as if the organ has brought with it some memory of its life before, as if it holds within it a whole past that must find a place within its new host. This is the way I carry Lexy inside me. Since the moment she took up residency within me, she has lent her own color to the way I see and hear and taste, so that by now I can barely distinguish between the world as it seemed before and the way it seems now. I cannot say what air tasted like before I knew her or how the city smelled as I walked its streets at night. I have only one tongue in my head and one pair of eyes, and I stopped being able to trust them a long time ago. There’s nothing new I can say about Disney World, nothing you haven’t heard already or seen for yourself. All I can tell you is that I was there with Lexy.

We pulled into the parking lot of the Magic Kingdom about four-thirty that afternoon. I had suggested we find a hotel before making our way to the park - this was a popular vacation week, and I was a little worried about finding a place that had vacancies - but Lexy insisted.

‘This is the best time,’ she said. ‘All the kids who have been here all day are getting cranky and leaving to take naps and have dinner. The lines are much shorter, and it’s starting to get cooler.’

‘You’re the expert,’ I said.

The closer we got to the park, the more excited she got.

She talked in a rush, filling me in on all the unwritten rules she’d learned from a lifetime of Disney entertainment. ‘But the big rides, like Space Mountain, the ones with the really long lines, we don’t go on those until the Electric Light Parade starts.’

‘Don’t we want to see the parade?’ I asked.

‘Not when there’s no one in line at Space Mountain.’

We parked in the Goofy lot, took the tram to the ticket gate and the monorail from the ticket gate to the park. I have to admit, I was getting excited, too.

‘So where to?’ I asked when we finally reached the park proper.

‘It’s a Small World,’ she said. ‘You’ll love it. It’s naive but well intentioned.’

We walked down Main Street, U.S.A., and through

Cinderella’s castle to Fantasyland. Lexy took my hand and led me, half running, to the ride. The sign told us to expect a forty-five-minute wait, but Lexy told me to ignore it.

‘They always tell you it’s going to take longer than it actually will. That way, you’re happy when you get there ahead of schedule.’

She was right. About twenty minutes later, we were

ushered into a row of our own to wait for the next boat.

‘We’re in the last row,’ Lexy said. ‘Very romantic. If you like singing dolls, anyway.’

The boat pulled up. The people in the back row climbed out, and we slid in the other side. But the people in the seat in front of us, a couple with two small girls, stayed put. The man stood and leaned toward the ride operator, a clean-cut teenager in a Venetian gondolier outfit.

‘Excuse me,’ he said in a serious, man-to-man voice. ‘I wonder if you could let us go through again. The little girl in front of us was yelling so loud we couldn’t even hear the music’

The gondolier shook his head and said something I

couldn’t hear. In front of us, the woman started to get up and gather her things, but her husband waved her back.

‘Please,’ he said to the gondolier. It wasn’t a question.

‘We weren’t able to enjoy the ride. It would mean a lot.’

The guy shrugged. ‘Yeah, go ahead,’ he said.

The man sat down, and the boat pulled slowly into

the canal.

‘What’d you say, Daddy?’ one of the little girls asked delightedly.

‘Daddy told a lie,’ the man said in a stage whisper.

‘Daddy was bad.’

His wife was shaking her head and laughing. ‘Yeah,

kids,’ she said. ‘Do as Daddy says, not as Daddy does.’

I looked at Lexy and rolled my eyes. ‘Great role models,’

I whispered.

Lexy’s whole body had turned rigid. ‘I can’t stand people like that,’ she said in a low, furious voice. ‘What makes them think the rules don’t apply to them?’

I took her hand. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said. ‘Look, singing dolls. Naive but well intentioned.’

But she just sat still and stared straight ahead. Our boat sailed smoothly through the wide canals. The cool air felt good after the Florida heat. I watched the doll children go by.

‘What country is that supposed to be?’ I asked, pointing toward an icy-blue landscape peopled by singing penguins.

‘Antarctica?’

Lexy shrugged.

The man in front of us turned to his daughters. ‘Come on, Ashley, Madison,’ he said. ‘You know the words. “There is just one moon and one golden sun.”’ The girls joined him, singing in loud, high-pitched voices.

‘Shall we join in?’ I said to Lexy. ‘Come on, Lexy, you know the words.’

But she didn’t smile. She looked down at her lap.

‘“There’s so much that we share,”’ shrieked the girls in front of us. ‘“that it’s time we’re aware …”’

Lexy was still seething when we reached the end of

the ride.

‘Come on,’ I said, standing up and climbing out of the boat. ‘Let’s go get one of those ice creams shaped like Mickey’s head.’ But she was looking the other way.

‘Excuse me,’ she said loudly to the ride operator. The little family group turned to hear what she was going to say. ‘Can we go through again? The people in front of us were so morally reprehensible that we couldn’t enjoy the ride.’ She got out of the boat and started to walk, her body stiff, her arms held tightly at her sides.

‘What does that mean, Daddy?’ one of the girls asked.

Lexy turned back. ‘It means your daddy’s an asshole,’

she said. And she walked quickly on ahead of me.

She was near tears when I caught up to her. I reached out to touch her arm, but she jerked away from me.

‘We were having such a good day, and now I’ve ruined it,’ she said.

‘You haven’t ruined it,’ I said. I’ll admit I had been a bit taken aback by Lexy’s outburst. I was surprised by the intensity of her emotion, the strength of her reaction to people she didn’t even know. But there had been so much that had surprised me in the last twenty-four hours, not least of all my own willingness to follow Lexy’s lead, to turn myself upside down to be with her. In my entire life, I’d never called anyone an asshole - not to their face, anyway - but it occurred to me now that maybe I should have. Maybe if I’d opened my mouth more often, let my own words come to the surface, I wouldn’t have lived my life so alone.

‘You were right,’ I said. ‘Daddy was an asshole. Let’s go find him and kick his ass.’

‘I don’t know why I get this way,’ she said, still not meeting my eyes. ‘If you want to just leave, that’s okay.’

I took her face in my hands and turned it upward

until she was looking at me. I smiled. ‘I don’t want to leave,’ I said.

‘You don’t?’ she said. Her eyes were bright with tears.

‘No. I don’t.’

‘You’re not - I don’t know, mad or freaked out or

embarrassed to be seen with me? I mean, you hardly

know me, and here I am causing scenes with complete

strangers.’

‘Well, I won’t be cutting in line in front of you, that’s for sure,’ I said. Finally, she smiled. ‘But how could I be mad at you? Look where you’ve brought me.’ I spread out my arms to include everything around us, the colors and the music, the rides, the crowds, the Florida sun. ‘You’ve brought me where I needed to go. Now come show me the rest of it.’

I’ve mentioned the books, haven’t I? The books Lexy

rearranged on the day she died? Today I’m going to sit down and begin to make a list. As far as I can tell, Lexy’s work on that day was concentrated on one bookcase in particular; even though every bookshelf in the house has been changed to some degree, with a single book removed here and there and a new one put in its place, it’s only the bookcase in my den where everything is different. Every book that was there when I left that morning has been taken out, although a few of them have been put back in a different spot than they originally occupied. The rest of the space has been filled with books from other places in the house. I begin to type the titles into my laptop, in the order she placed them, making notes about the subject matter and their history in our lives, as well as noting which books were hers and which are mine. So far, I can find no discernible pattern.

I get as far as the top shelf, which is arranged as follows: Mary Had a Little Lamb: Language Acquisition in

Early Childhood (Mine.)

J Was George Washington (Lexy’s. A book about

past-life regression. She always had a weakness for , that kind of thing.)

Love in the Known World (Hers. A critically acclaimed novel that was later made into a truly awful movie.) But That’s Not a Duck! (Mine. A book of jokes I bought for an academic paper I was writing about

punch lines.) That’s Not Where I Left It Yesterday (Hers. A comingof-age story about a girl in 1950s Brooklyn.) What You Need to Know to Be a Game Show Contestant (Mine. I never did get to be on a

game show, but I always thought I’d be good at

it.) I Wish I May, I Wish I Might (Hers. A book of

childhood folklore and customs from around the

world.) Know Your Rhodesian Ridgeback (Hers, although I’ve consulted it quite a few times lately.) Didn’t You Used to Be Someone? Stars of Yesterday and Where They Are Today (Hers.) I’d Rather Be Parsing: The Linguistics of Bumper Stickers, Buttons, and T-shirt Slogans (Mine.) Have You Never Been Mellow? The World’s Worst Music (Mine. A joke gift from Lexy, who always

insisted that I had terrible taste in music.) How to Buy a Used Car Without Getting Taken for a Ride (Hers.)

As I said, this is only the top shelf. As soon as I’ve written down the last title, I begin to question my actions.

What exactly do I think I’m looking for, a message from beyond the grave, arranged neatly in my study? I have a sudden memory of the eerie excitement I felt as a kid when the Beatles’ ‘Paul is dead’ clues started to surface. I was thirteen the year that story broke, and I was thrilled by it, the goose-bumpy feeling of hearing backwards messages, the uncanny idea of secret clues hidden in plain sight. My friend Paul Muzzey, with whom I shared not only a first name but also the small excitement of being a namesake to the corpse in this conspiracy, kept a long list of all the clues published in music magazines and broadcast over the radio. He called me up one afternoon and said, ‘You’ve got to play “A Day in the Life” right now. Go do it while I’m still on the phone.’

‘Backwards?’ I asked.

‘No, just listen to it the right way. I’ll tell you when to stop.’

So I put the phone down and walked over to the hi-fi in the living room. I pulled Sergeant Pepper out of its sleeve and put it on the turntable. My parents weren’t home, so I turned it up as loud as it went, then picked up the phone again.

‘Okay,’ I said as the familiar chords began.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Just close your eyes and listen..’

I sat with my eyes closed, the phone to my ear, and

listened to the song I’d heard a hundred times before.

I heard nothing new. The first verse came to an end

with ‘Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords,’ and Paul said, ‘Did you hear it?’

‘Hear what?’