Quentin woke with a start as soon
as I do. He was lying on the otherwise unoccupied bench, an enormous
indentation where his right cheek had slipped through the wooden planks. He
checked his watch. Ten o’clock. He bolted upright and sprinted to the apartment.
Around this time Samuel would be finishing up a few poems for publication. Samuel
had clearly not minded Quentin’s presence. He certainly would not mind the lack
thereof.
Quentin got to the apartment to
find it as empty as it had always been, though Samuel was not there either. He
opened the fridge. There was enough eggs and milk and bok choy to feed Samuel
for weeks. There was a huge pile of freshly made paper. But there was no
charcoal. There were no poems. And on Samuel’s floor was a ballpoint pen. Quentin
picked it up. He didn’t even know Samuel used ballpoint pens. He had seen him
bring them to his house by the handful each day, stealing them from random
department offices, but he never used them.
Quentin dragged the nub across his
thumb. He had used this one. He hurried back to the office. If he could find charcoal he could find
Samuel.
I can’t stop thinking about Froid.
I check the bathroom, the kitchen, and within ten seconds it’s clear that she’s
not in the apartment. Her phone is still in the bedroom, fully charged and on.
I check the screen. No messages. No threats. The phone is as placid as I wish I
were. I sit on the bed and rub my temples. I close my eyes. Hopefully I can see
where Froid is.
Running. She’s running through a
forest. Where? There aren’t any forests around here. The trees are bare and
there is heavy snow on ground. She must be on a mountain. But how? How did she
get up there so quickly?
Her running dissolves into trudging
as the snow grows thicker. It is then that I notice what she’s wearing: a ball
gown, a bright coral, full-length hoop skirt and a stiff corset. She breathes
heavily. Her hair is done up in a loose bun. She marches dutifully up the side
of the mountain, the trees thinning out as the sun shines brighter.
At the top of the hill is the
outline of a man dressed in a tuxedo. His hair is brown, but his build is not
of a Coldridge. Callahan. He is slouching, his hands over his face. Agony.
Froid runs faster until she comes
up to him. He removes his hands from his face and watches her approach.
“Callahan,” she whispers as she reaches
for his shoulder.
He jerks it back. His eyes show too
much anguish to warrant comfort, especially hers. He hisses at her.
Froid is determined though. She
reaches for him again and touches his face. For a moment there is silence. He
looks at her in shock, the shock diluting his anger towards her. She looks at
his face softening.
But then he begins to scream. Steam
escapes through her fingers. She tries to pull her hand away, but it has welded
itself to Callahan’s skin.
Callahan screams more, his face turning
red, then his neck, then his entire body. Froid finally releases her hand but
he bursts into flames. There. In the middle of the forest.
Froid staggers backwards. Callahan
writhes against the wind, the little left of him fluttering out from behind his
clothing. Froid cannot look away. Her eyes do not stray as Callahan
disintegrates into ash.
A dream. Is Froid sleeping
somewhere? Or is she projecting a dream so I can’t see where she is? Clever
girl. I get dressed and fed and head over to the office. She can’t stay away
from me for long. Without me she has nothing. I reassure myself as I drive to
the office.
The rest of the day passes slowly.
I try switching between Quentin and Froid. Quentin is sitting in Samuel’s empty
office, wondering if Samuel went elsewhere, or if he just missed him and he was
back at the apartment. Quentin slowly got up and crawled to the door,
hesitating briefly before turning the knob and jogging out.
Froid on the other hand is
unreadable. All day I get dreams, every dream I’ve seen, playing out as they
had before I invaded them. Samuel is everywhere and Froid is destroyed in so
many ways that I can’t bear to watch.
By this time Quentin returned to
the apartment. Still empty, the ballpoint pen exactly where he left it. Strange.
Samuel was nowhere to be found. Quentin ran back to the office as if Samuel
were hiding there like a lost watch.
Suddenly in Froid’s mind I see a
familiar scene: my apartment. I smile. She did find her way back, no matter
where she went. I leave my office and begin my commute home, looking into Froid
every now and then. She’s seated on the ottoman and rubbing her feet. Blisters
dot her sole. She winces as she pulls her socks off and picks at the loose
skin.
That is when the doorknob turned.
But it’s not me. I’m still ten blocks from home. I can’t see who it is. Froid’s
sight vanishes from my mind.
I check in again on Quentin, who
is driving his Prius in neurotic circles between the office and Samuel’s
apartment, praying to catch a glimpse of Samuel. But he won’t. It all adds up
in my mind like lightning. I step on the gas and run through every red light. I
know exactly where Samuel is.
I swing the door wide open and
storm into the apartment. Froid is still sitting on the Ottoman, but her
blisters are all picked off and she’s bleeding profusely. She’s shaking back
and forth, constantly wriggling out of my grasp as I try to sedate her. She
hyperventilates until her face goes gray and she slumps over. I set her
unconscious body down on the sofa.
The fridge door is open, and I
can see someone behind it.
“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING
HERE?” I yell.
He closes the door, a gallon of
milk in his hand. My brother.
Quentin the publisher is sitting
in the middle of the parking lot in his Prius, gripping the steering wheel and
twitching. He’s lost Samuel. He had one task to do and he brazenly failed. He
unbuckles his seat belt and unlocks his door. But it won’t budge. He leans on
it harder, putting all of his scrawny weight into it. He’s no match for this
door. He relocks and unlocks it again and toggles the handle. Nothing. Quentin the
publisher blubbers into hysteria. He will have a lifelong phobia of doors now.
That is, if he were to have much
more of a life.
The Prius spontaneously combusts
in the parking lot. The body of the car flings into every corner of the parking
lot as the flames leap passionately into the sky.
This is how Quentin the publisher
dies.
Samuel sees the preoccupation in my
eyes and catches them drifting towards the door. Once Quentin the publisher is
incinerated beyond recognition I turn to look at Froid.
“Am I down a publisher?” he asks me,
not a glimmer of intonation in his voice. This is my brother. No accent. Complete
monotone. His diction sounds like reading text in one’s head.
I growl at him. “How dare you come
here!”
Samuel shrugs his shoulders and
sets the gallon down on the table and opens my fridge up again.
“For God’s sake, you just came into
my apartment to take my food?”
Samuel says nothing as he takes out
a carton of eggs.
I grab his hand and twist it
backwards, taking his shoulder with it. He collapses onto the floor but his
face betrays no pain. This is my brother. I could stab him in the gut and he
wouldn’t react because I’m not stabbing his poetry. I’m just stabbing his body.
“I cannot decline free food,” he
finally replies.
“Who says it was free? Get out of
here before Froid wakes up.”
He stands up and looks at Froid, a
bright white against the ottoman, her arms folded up around her neck. His
expression doesn’t change as he turns back to me. As if he didn’t hear me at
all he turns back to the fridge to grab some spinach.
I take the carton of eggs and slam
it on his head.
“GET OUT! NOW!”
The eggshells float on his black hair
as albumen and yolk trickle down his cheeks, his chin, his collarbone. My
brother has never done a sport in his life. I rowed crew as an undergrad. Physically
I could break every bone in his body, but since I’m not his poetry and nor are
his bones, what can I do?
Samuel stands up and faces me. He
looks bored. I grab his shoulders and calibrate his gaze so that he looks right
into my eyes. He knows what I’m doing and looks over to Froid.
“What is she doing here?”
“None of your business.”
Samuel doesn’t even care that I’m
withholding information. He looks back at the milk.
“No. Don’t you dare take it.” I
grit my teeth. “Get out. For the last time. Just, leave.”
Samuel stands in front of me until
I release my grip on his shoulders. He turns around and grabs the spinach and
walks out of my apartment. I’m on the verge of chasing after him and taking
back my spinach but I hear Froid let out of a cough.
She wakes up moments later,
clutching her throat and scratching the sides of her neck. She won’t slow her
breathing, even when I wrap a blanket around her and surround her with my arms.
I try to hush her, telling her that
Samuel can’t hurt her, that as long as I’m around he won’t ever bother her. He
may be around for whatever reason, but he’ll be gone again as soon as he came—I
promise her that I’ll get rid of him—and she has no reason to be afraid of him.
She doesn’t quiet though. She
doesn’t speak. She bites her tongue accidentally, and blood colors her front
teeth. There’s no blood in her head though. She looks like a corpse. I fear
that if she sleeps again she won’t wake up.
I bring her over a glass of water
but she won’t drink, and when I force it into her mouth she aspirates it,
coughing all over the ottoman and me. She doesn’t apologize. She doesn’t look
at me. Her eyes are wide open but she sees nothing. I try to look at her
through her point of view but I see nothing. It’s like earlier when Samuel
first came.
I’ve lost her. Everything I’ve
worked so hard for, everything I’ve done to make her attached, gone. I’m a
stranger to her.
“Ambrosia.” I try saying her name
again. It feels even more hollow than last time. “It’s okay. I’m here. You
don’t need to be afraid. Everything is going to be alright.”
“Luke,” she finally says, her voice
harsh and hoarse. “Who exactly is it you think I’m afraid of?”
After Froid goes to bed I survey
the damage. In a fit of pique I’ve killed Quentin the publisher. Samuel is in
Seattle for whatever reason, and I have no idea when or how he will appear
next. I can’t see into Froid’s mind at all anymore. Even when I see her moving
her lips as she dreams, gripping her pillow as she sweats, I don’t know which
nightmare. I smooth her hair but she doesn’t improve.
I stand at my fridge and take out
the guava juice. It’s nearly empty. I assume Froid has been drinking it. I’ll
pick some up tomorrow on my way home from work. After
a few hours Froid stops moving. She’s stopped dreaming I suppose. She is so
still I think she’s dead until I hear her breath ruffling up the pillowcase. I
touch her cheek. Cold. The coldest they’ve ever felt. Colder than my windowpane
that has been assaulted with freezing rain for the past couple of hours.
I work a bit in my chair, looking
up sparingly to check on Froid. She hasn’t even changed her hand position. Her
lips are in the same position as they were the last time I checked on her.
Before long I fall asleep in my
chair, an article in my lap. The two of us stay perfectly still for the night.
I don’t dream, and as far as I know nor does Froid.
Callahan had marginally finished
his finals, so he immediately got into his car and drove up to Maine again. He
had heard nothing of Froid; in fact, he had hardly thought about her in between
calculus and Camus and trying to write a poem about frogs. None of these
endeavors were successful, but he had no time to care about his shortcomings.
Right now the only thing that drove him to leave his dorm, eat regularly, and
sleep decently was looking at Froid again, the satisfaction in retrieving her
from whatever darkness she had immersed herself into.
I wouldn’t classify myself as darkness,
though I must admit I am in a sour mood thanks to Samuel’s unwelcome appearance
and the subsequent stealing of my groceries. Froid is also void of energy,
spending the day alternating between sitting on a bar stool, my chair, and the
bed. She doesn’t look up at me. She stares at an invisible wound on her arms. I
put my arms around her but she doesn’t see my arms. She only sees her own.
I’m not going to help Callahan on
his way up to Maine. If he runs out of gas and remains stranded in a township
with a name from the eighteenth century, then so be it. I don’t need another
player to lose to Samuel.
Or do I?
With Callahan close to me, I could
even the playing field very easily. Callahan would naturally maximize his time
with Froid and unwittingly bring her back to me. I don’t care about Callahan
going to Samuel. Whoever has Froid wins it all. And at this point Callahan is
the best means.
I pick up Froid’s phone. Her
contact list is minimal: only me and her home phone. I frown. I wanted to be
subtle about this, but I guess it can’t be helped.
Callahan glanced at his phone. He
had a text from a number he didn’t recognize.
“This is Froid. I’m in Seattle.”
He nearly crashed his car when he
dropped his phone on the mats under his seat. He tried to steer and accelerate
on the windy highway and grope for his phone by his feet.
I lead a deer to the road.
Callahan slammed his breaks,
thrusting himself into the steering wheel and accidentally honking. The deer
scampered away as Callahan looked down and finally grabbed his phone.
“This is Froid. I’m in Seattle.”
The message was still there. He pulled over and forwarded the message to
Caracolle. She didn’t see the message right away, but Callahan was very aware
when she had.
“U better be on ur way!”
“omg get here plz”
“wtf is she doing there?”
“Y R U DRIVING SOOOOO SLOW? :(“
Callahan tried to reply and drive
at the same time. It was not successful to the point of being almost fatal. I
lead opossums, more deer, and for the finale a bull moose to the road. Callahan
felt like he was decimating the wildlife of New Hampshire as he evaded almost
each animal. He did hit an opossum. His wheels reeked of opossum entrails for
weeks.
That was the first thing Caracolle
complained about when Callahan finally rolled into the Starbucks. She then
complained at length about her sister and how she was getting fat from all of
the mochas she had been drinking on her shifts.
With a hyper-caffeinated Caracolle
in the car, Callahan sped to the Froid house. Caracolle was talking and texting
simultaneously, and her monologue melded into an indeterminable combination of
the two. Callahan drowned her out as he hurried along.
Mallory Froid hadn’t anticipated
Callahan’s arrival, but she was more than happy to heat up some seaweed puree
to celebrate the assumingly happy occasion. Callahan tried declining, much more
out of comfort than politeness, but Mallory insisted. She told him that if he
liked the yeast cakes he’d love this.
“They’re not quite as bad as the
cakes,” Caracolle whispered to Callahan when her mother skipped off to the
kitchen. “Just pretend you’re eating spinach.”
Callahan hated spinach. And he
hated the yeast cakes. Mallory returned with a gravy boat full of puree that
she poured over some flatbread. She smiled at Callahan expectantly, and
Callahan just smiled at Caracolle. Caracolle was texting five people at the
same time.
Callahan’s phone buzzed as he put a
flatbread-ful of puree in his mouth. He looked at the screen.
“just said it wasn’t AS bad… still
tastes like @$$. sry lol”
Callahan agreed. He almost gagged
but played it off as a cough. Mallory stood up to get him a glass of water.
Callahan spit the rest of the puree out and wrapped it in a napkin. With no
wastebasket in the room he had no choice but to put it into his jacket pocket.
“So
you have heard from Ambrosia after
all?” Mallory asked as she clamped her palms together. “Ah, good, good! We miss
her so very much, don’t we, Hamline?”
“Of
course we do!” Hamline called from the kitchen. Callahan hadn’t even heard him.
He came out with a tray of kale ginseng juice.
“How
do you do, Mr. Froid?” Callahan said politely as he stood up to greet him.
“Please,
it’s Hamline. Don’t fuss with titles. We’re all humans here.”
With no warning, Hamline grabbed
Callahan and hugged him tightly. Hamline felt the napkin squish into his skin
and the puree crawl through his jacket and later his t-shirt.
“I’m glad she’s in Seattle. If she
were anywhere else, we’d be worried sick!” Piped up Mallory.
Hamline nodded in accord. “Imagine
if she had gone to some barbarian city in the south. Like Nashville or Atlanta
or Salt Lake City…” Hamline shuddered. “She’d probably forget that women have
the right to vote!”
“Oh, Hamline, don’t say such
wretched things. Be grateful for Seattle. Such a center of civilization and
culture! Ambrosia sure has good tastes in freedoms. I’m sure she’s thriving in
utopia, making her life for herself, calling the shots in her life, becoming a
beacon of linguistic evolution like Samuel!”
I assume Froid is exactly as I left
her: sitting idly on my bed. I had left for work and told her to stay in the
apartment. As a precaution I locked the doors so that Samuel couldn’t walk in
again. She acted as though the doors were locked from the inside as well.
Callahan couldn’t imagine Froid having
any joy, regardless of where she went. All he could picture was her lying on a
bench and practicing making smoke rings. For all he knew, her parents probably
knew and just didn’t care about her lifestyle. They just wanted their child to
be the greatest artist in the world so they had something to talk about with
their other yuppie friends.
But of course, he just felt like
making sure. “Has Ambrosia always been… on the sullen side?”
Mallory laughed. “Oh, she was such
a serious little child! I remember when she was very little and she had a
picture book of artists throughout the ages. All of them geniuses: Poe,
Picasso, Van Gogh, Da Vinci… All of them just totally off their rocker. But
that’s what gave them inspiration. And if that’s what it means to be an artist,
then so be it! It’s done wonders for our little Ambrosia. She won poetry awards
all throughout grade school and middle school and high school! We’ve framed all
of her poems. Would you like to see?”
Callahan got up with them and
examined shadowboxes on the walls that led up the stairs. Each contained a poem
of Froid’s from basically toddlerhood to her last months at Murkvein. Each of
them was signed by her parents with the age of when Froid created them. They
even had her first poem that she had done when she was so young she hardly knew
how to write. It looked more like an abstract painting or a finger painting
project. There were even craft feathers stuck bluntly on the corners. It was
nearly illegible.
“After she made this,” Mallory
began, “We told her she had to become
a poet. We were just blown away by the genius. The simplicity, organic text
that resembles a pictograph. It’s a poem almost without words! It's the bridge
between the visual and literary arts. That’s when we got her the picture book
about artists.”
They all sat down in the living
room again. Mallory and Hamline were beaming with excitement. Callahan didn’t
know how to react, but he turned to Caracolle for guidance. She had stayed
sitting on the couch and texted relentlessly until she looked up at Callahan.
Her expression was so conflicted that Callahan stopped analyzing it after
picking out her envy, despair, and smug complacency. Caracolle was much smarter
than anyone gave her credit for.
“So, I was planning on going out to
Seattle just to visit Ambrosia and make sure everything’s alright. I mean, you
do agree with me that her decision was impulsive, and that you were worried
when she didn’t come home, right?”
Hamline guffawed, and Callahan was
disgusted with how ugly it sounded. “Of course we were worried when we didn’t
know where she was, and that was mostly that we didn’t want her to fall prey to
those horrible Republicans in the
south that think that God wants them to have five wives and that gay people
have the same rights as chimpanzees!”
Callahan held his tongue. He was a
Republican, as a matter of fact. He was becoming slowly more liberal in
college, but these two had effectively killed his desire to become any more so.
Mallory continued, “We’ve gotta
hand it to her. She’s being very proactive in seeking a Bohemian lifestyle! But
if that’s what it takes for her to become an artist, then so be it. For her to
create is of the utmost importance to us.”
“No matter the cost?” Callahan
asked pointedly.
They nodded simultaneously. “There
is no nobler a deed than to make art. It advances civilization. Every piece of
art created moves humanity forward. Our daughter is on the frontier, and so is
our dear Samuel!”
“You know that the two broke up,
don’t you?”
They nodded again, though they look
offended. “Of course we do!” Mallory retorted. “What do you take us for,
neglectful parents? She was so torn up about it. She didn’t write for months,
but once she started writing again in secret we knew she was okay. What doesn’t
kill you makes you stronger, right? What an experience for her to write about.
It will only make her a better artist!”
That was when Callahan stood up,
took his coat, and walked out the door without saying a word. Caracolle watched
him eagerly before running out to meet him at his car.
“See what I have to deal with?!”
she nearly shrieked, tossing her hands in the air multiple times. “No one
believes me. Everyone thinks my parents are so cool and hip and understanding, but they’ve got their head stuck up
their own asses so much that they don’t know shit!”
“Get in,” Callahan said.
“Why?”
“Aren’t you coming with me? I’m
going to the airport.”
Caracolle shook her head. “Unlike
you, I’ve got to go to school and stuff. Besides, I’m only 16. Wouldn’t that be
illegal?”
Callahan sighed. “Whatever. Do you
not care about her either?”
Caracolle’s face for the first time
since he met her showed grief. “I told you before. I hate her guts, and I hate
how much my parents love her more than me. I hate poetry because it doesn’t
make sense, I hate Samuel because he thinks he’s not human even though he totally is, and I hate that I’m just
thought of as the ditzy version of my sister.”
She was tearing up and had to stop.
Callahan didn’t know whether or not to comfort her and tried putting an arm around
her. She pushed it away.
“But still… You know how you should
totally hate someone but you just can’t? It goes against everything you think, and
you have so many reasons to want them to just disappear but at the end of it
all you just can’t bring yourself to?”
Callahan nodded. He felt the exact
same way about Samuel. Pity I don’t.
Callahan put his arm again around
Caracolle. She pushed it away again.
“I’m fine, really. Just go find her.
You want to make me feel better? Make sure she’s still the same super artsy
weird friendless girl that she’s always been.”
Callahan smiled and got in his car
as Caracolle went back inside. He turned the key in the ignition. I kill his
engine.
Callahan panicked. He kept twisting
the key to no avail, so engrossed in his failure that he failed to see the taxi
parked behind him.
The cabby got out of his car and
walked over to Callahan’s. He tapped on the window so briskly that Callahan
nearly jumped out of his seatbelt. Callahan got out of his car.
“Taxi cab for Callahan Grossherz?”
He asked.
“I… didn’t order a taxi.”
“Well, somebody did, to Bangor
International Airport. And paid for it too already.”
As Callahan stepped into the taxi I
order his plane ticket as well. He got an email on his phone that gives him a
confirmation for his flight from Bangor International Airport to Seattle. His
reaction was priceless. He dropped his phone on the floor of the taxi and spent
a good five minutes trying to look for it.
Within an hour, Callahan went from
the Froid’s driveway to sitting on a plane in Economy Plus on the way to
Seattle. He was suspicious, obviously, but he had no idea who would do this for
him.
In a little stroke of pride I text
him directly.
“Hello, Callahan Grossherz.
My name is Luke Coldridge. I’m looking forward to meeting you."
All of Murkvein was in mourning
because of Quentin the publisher’s untimely death. Callahan kept getting emails
from his phone thanks to campus-wide announcements of support groups for those
traumatized, and the entire English department promising to cancel the grades
people got on the final exam and round everyone’s grade up almost a letter. For
Callahan, this meant he was going to get at least an A- in two of his classes.
He didn’t care about his grade at all.
I see an article on Google talking
about the sudden death of Samuel’s publisher. Apparently his name was Quentin
Hoakes. The article also mentions that Samuel is here in Seattle at the
University of Washington to do a poetry recital this afternoon. That’s odd.
This is the first time he’s ever recited his poetry in person.
I drive on my way home, and public
radio has a small article raving about how excited people are to attend this
sudden and rare appearance of the poet, and the entire ten minute recital will
be broadcast live once it begins.
A few minutes away from my
apartment the broadcast starts.
I open the door to my apartment.
“Ambrosia, I’m hungry! Let’s go out
to eat, your choice!”
No response. Though I wasn’t
expecting anything different. I open the door to my room.
Froid is sleeping in my bed,
completely engulfed by covers. I walk over to her and put my hand in the middle
of the lump.
Warm. And soft.
I rip off the covers. There’s
nothing else there.
Froid is gone, again. I close my
eyes, but I can’t see her anywhere.
Could she? No, she couldn’t have. I
walk over to her phone, shattered on the tile of the kitchen, the battery
leaking and seeping into the porous cement.
Froid. We had a promise, didn’t we?
Didn’t I make you promise? I guess I never told you.
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