RSS 2.0 FeedAdam and Eve on a Raft
At 6 a.m. the Seattle airport bustled. Jerry had wandered about for three hours, watching people and planes come and go and listening to the noise level rise; he had another three hours to kill before his plane would leave. In the rush to make his now-missed flight, he’d cursed the hotel’s desk clerk for forgetting his 1 a.m. wake-up call, the cab driver for taking his sweet time, and the airline steward, a blank-faced kid with too-short sleeves, for not letting him board the plane – the damn thing was sitting on the runway, the boarding tunnel still in place. Still fuming, he hadn’t even flirted with the blonde at the counter who told him the next plane to Oakland was at 9. Her lips curled; she’d said, "We'll upgrade you to first class, Mr. Ammons. Have a pleasant day."
So he'd checked his luggage, had a drink in the bar, wended his way through a couple of shops, and sat, finally, in an uncomfortable blue chair in one of the dark little side rooms. Like a cave, he thought, studying the pebbly ceiling. Stalactites or stalagmites – he never could remember. An old man, newspaper on the floor at his feet, sat in the corner, head back, mouth open, snoring softly. One shoelace was untied. Jerry looked around, got up, tied the man's shoe, and sat again. He dozed, jerked awake, looked at his watch. It was 6:25.
He walked into the restaurant and saw her sitting next to the window, sipping a cup of coffee, reading. He'd noticed her upstairs when he was arguing with the guy with too much wrist showing about getting on the 3 a.m. flight. She had walked by; he saw her profile for a split second – slim figure, brown bangs, hair wavy and loose around her shoulders – but nothing registered. Here she was again, and he remembered. Not quite remembered at first – rather, recognized with that part of memory that functions before the eye and brain can complete the connection and provide detail.
The scene was like a painting: brown-haired woman against dawn-lit window; bamboo-patterned wallcovering; copper salt and pepper shakers; thick yellow mug, half-filled with coffee; plate with English muffin, cantaloupe sliver, mint sprig; knife, fork, spoon; bud vase, empty; opened book, hardcover, thick and old-looking.
He remembered her name, started to say the wrong name, Daffy, caught himself and said, "Daphnia. Daphnia?"
She looked up, her eyes pulling away from the page, her arm moving to hold the book open, hand resting on the tabletop, a dancer's gesture, middle finger and thumb almost touching.
She said, "Jerry. Of course," glanced down to finish reading a sentence, and looked up again, smiling. "Jerry. Ten years? Fifteen."
He shook her hand and sat across from her. They'd been a threesome in college: Jerry, his girlfriend Shirley, and her roommate Daphnia, Shirley's "country cousin." Shirley and Jerry were juniors and, to Shirley's dismay, she was forced to share a dorm room with her uncle’s only child. Shirley had groused, "She's from Hayfork, Jerry! Hayfork! The sticks. The middle of nowhere." Daphnia was seventeen, a freshman – in more ways than one, Shirley moaned.
"Well," Jerry said. "You're looking good. Has it really been fifteen years?"
"Afraid so," said Daphnia. She folded her hands.
Jerry studied this Daphnia, squinted and tried to see the old one. Daphnia squinted back. He laughed, "You used to wear braids!"
"I did," she said.
"Do you ever see Shirley? We lost touch after I transferred to Northridge."
"Not in years. She's married now, two or three kids, lives in Cincinnati, I hear."
The waitress brought another mug of coffee and stood at Jerry's elbow. "A couple of eggs, basted, rye toast, fresh orange juice," he said.
The waitress said, "No basted. Over easy?"
"Over easy." He shook his head. "Cincinnati!"
Daphnia nodded. "Yes, the middle of nowhere." She laughed. "You two gave me a hard time, you know."
Jerry smiled, put on a sheepish, bad-little-boy look. "I guess we did. But, you were fun to tease, big-eyed country girl, wet behind the ears, first time away from the farm. You showed up with your braids and your John Denver records."
Daphnia wasn't smiling. "I never lived on a farm."
"I know. I know. But we weren't completely terrible, were we? We took you for a cable car ride, a walk across the bridge, a hike up Mount Tam, bike rides in Golden Gate Park. That was fun – you were like a little kid with a new toy."
Daphnia smiled again, leaned back in her chair, and thoughtfully chewed a bite of muffin. She wore a nubby gold sweater that matched the gold flecks in her brown eyes; Jerry wondered whether she knew that. He thought she might. The old Daphnia had paid no attention to her wardrobe – she always wore jeans and a t-shirt, her thick brown hair in braids or hanging straight, pulled back in barrettes.
Nowadays, Jerry always wore something blue. He'd had his colors done, though at first he felt foolish letting Angie talk him into it. She’d said, "Put your best foot forward. Dress for success, Jer. You'd better believe all the CEO's have had their colors done."
He had to admit that it was worth it; he felt better, looked better; the job went better. The color girl said he was a Winter. She told him, "Find your blue, Jerry Ammons. Find the right tint of blue, and wear something with that tint every day as a kind of signature.” Then, her eyes serious, her voice quiet as if letting him in on professional secrets, "A tint is a color with white in it."
His signature tint was a pale robin's egg blue, a tad lighter than the blue of his eyes. Sometimes the only robin's egg blue he wore was in his argyle socks; no one else could see, but he knew it was there. Once he'd forgotten, rushed off to work without his blue, turned around halfway there, changed his shirt, and got to his meeting half an hour late. But everything turned out fine; he made the sale.
Daphnia said, "Yes, we did have fun. To tell you the truth, I was grateful to you and Shirley for letting me tag along. When we were kids, every couple of summers or so, she'd come to visit for a week. I was in awe of her; she was so sophisticated, so old. It's funny how parents always want their kids and their friends' kids, brothers and sisters, cousins, to be friends; it hardly ever works. Shirley and I never hit it off. Things were too dull in Hayfork for her. A trip to the library or the park just didn't do it. She hated the heat, sat around with a damp washcloth laid across her forehead. Poor Shirley. And then she got stuck rooming with me that first year." Daphnia laughed.
Even her voice had changed; it was smooth, silky. He told her, "You're different, aren't you? Your voice is different, your clothes. You." Daphnia was probably an Autumn, he thought.
She shrugged, "Maybe you just weren't really seeing or listening to little Daffy, the hick from the sticks." She pushed at some muffin crumbs with her fingers.
Jerry ran his thumb and forefinger down the edge of today's blue, a woolen tie set against a soft gray oxford-cloth shirt. He reassembled his sheepish grin. "You knew we called you Daffy."
"Of course."
"You were 'Daphnia, the crustacean, not the flower.' We teased you about that. What was that story again?"
"Not much of a story. My father's hobby was – is – entomology. A daphnia's a water bug. Never met anybody else with my name. We always had bugs around – live ones, dead ones, bugs in glass cases, bugs in plastic sleeves in binders. Shirley didn't like the bugs; maybe that’s why she resented me. I remember I brought a particularly obnoxious-looking beetle to hang on the wall in the dorm room – partly for Shirley's benefit."
The waitress approached, carrying Jerry's plate. Daphnia leaned forward. "Listen, she's going to say, 'Here you go.' Why do waitresses always say 'Here you go'?"
The waitress set down the plate. "Here you go," she said. She refilled their coffee cups and walked away.
Jerry and Daphnia laughed. Jerry held up a bite of egg. "Adam and Eve in a boat!" he exclaimed. "Remember that? We went to breakfast at the Red Roof, and you ordered Adam and Eve in a boat."
"On a raft," she said, not smiling now. "Adam and Eve on a raft. Soft-boiled eggs on toast. That's what I'd always called them." She shook her head. "I guess I was pretty green."
Jerry reached across and patted her hand. "That was part of your charm, Daphnia. Really. So, how about you? Married?"
"Not yet. And you?" Daphnia sipped her coffee.
He thought about Angie, about the triangle of sweat on the back of her leotard, just below her waist. He fingered his tie. "Not exactly," he smiled. "So what do you do? Where are you living?"
"Graphic design. Tell me some more about you."
"Sales. Software. I like it. Still in the city, San Bruno, actually. Not so much fog there, not so many crazies." He raised his glass of orange juice and drank it down.
Daphnia glanced at her watch and ran her fingers around the edge of her book. Jerry felt awkward, uneasy. He'd never felt like this around Daphnia before; she had been the awkward one. He remembered the times Shirley and he got rid of her so they could have the dorm room to themselves for a while. They could always count on Daphnia to go the library; she cheerfully ran errands for them. He'd sit at the desk in the corner, Shirley fidgeting, rearranging the books spread across the desk and the floor. He'd say, "Daphnia-the-Crustacean-Not-the-Flower, would you run to the libe and see what you can find for me about Lithuania in the sixteenth century – politics, especially? Get me five, six books and copy some encyclopedia stuff." He'd give her a handful of change for the copy machine and off she'd go. They knew she’d be gone at least two hours.
"What're you reading?"
"Wuthering Heights. My airplane book."
He raised his eyebrows.
"The perfect airplane book. I've probably read it fifteen times. It's like sitting down for a chat with an old friend; it makes the time fly." She leaned down and tucked the book into her bag.
Jerry scraped some purple jam out of the little plastic tub and spread it on a triangle of toast. The Muzak played a tango. Jerry frowned and glanced at the ceiling. "Care to dance?"
She smiled a charity smile. "Still play tennis?"
"Some. I'm into racquetball, mostly." He gave her a serious look. "We did have some good times. Remember the talk-all-night marathons? We'd tell secrets. Along about four in the morning, we'd get silly or sentimental or both. I remember telling you and Shirley about shoplifting a slingshot when I was a kid, how scared I was, even more scared to take it back. You," he smiled, pointing his fork, "you told us your deepest, darkest secret. Your eyes were so big, I thought you were going to confess to murder or sex in the cloakroom with your Sunday school teacher. You said, 'I've never seen a man naked.'"
Daphnia laughed. "You said, 'I can take care of that right now!' I was so embarrassed, I ran out of the room."
Jerry smiled, thought well of himself and then remembered the night Shirley and he took Daphnia to a party and abandoned her when they got in the door. They watched in amusement as she wandered from the edge of one group to another, nursing one flat beer for hours. She'd worn a red-and-white flowered dress that night. Jerry thought she looked pretty and feminine, but she was still gangly, skinny, out-of-place Daphnia. Shirley, in crisp black wool slacks and gray turtleneck sweater, muttered, "I don't believe that dress." They heard her tell one of the sorority girls, "Daphnia the crustacean, not the flower," and they doubled up with laughter.
Daphnia sighed and checked her watch again.
Jerry asked, "When's your plane leave? You still haven't told me where you live or what you've been up to." He leaned closer, caught her eyes with his. "You’ve changed so much. You're beautiful, Daphnia. I never saw that before."
She smiled. "I still have an hour. Thanks for the compliment." The old Daphnia would have blushed. She tipped her head and narrowed her eyes. "I seem to remember something about a snipe hunt."
"Ah," he said. "I wondered if you'd bring that up."
"It was April, a cold and foggy evening, drizzly. You and Shirley prepped me for days. You said, 'Snipes are small brown birds that can't fly. They make a soft, high-pitched chirp, and they've got bright red tail feathers. They hide in the ice plants and tall reeds in the sand dunes. They're easy to catch, once you spot one. The game is to pull out a red feather; it's painless, honest. First one with a red feather gets slave help for a week.'"
She sat back, one elbow on the back of her chair. "I can't believe I was that naive. You and Shirley dragged me out to Ocean Beach; I didn't really want to go, but I always felt privileged when you took me along. Hah! It was pretty dark, but still early. The ocean waves made white flashes in the fog; the salty air was filled with the sounds of gulls and foghorns, waves rolling. We sat on a log, quiet for a few minutes. It was kind of magical, noisy and wet and cold, yet somehow comfortable and safe. Then we started looking for the stupid birds. We stumbled around in the sand and the mats of ice plant, poking with sticks. I remember getting tangled up in the knots of seaweed, vile, slimy, snake-like stuff."
Jerry remembered slipping away with Shirley and laughing hysterically as they drove back to school.
Daphnia's face was pink now; she wasn't blushing. Jerry leaned back and let her talk. "After a while I realized you were gone, and I knew you'd tricked me. I didn't even call out for you. I was mad, started to cry. Suddenly, I was terrified. There were new noises – hisses, scratchy sounds. I noticed suspicious-looking characters lurking nearby. It was like a nightmare. I ran all the way back to the dorm, freezing, my feet soaked, my arms and legs caked with sand and salt. And you...you both thought it was hilarious." She pointed a finger at him.
Jerry shook his head and raised his hands in an "I give up" gesture. "That was mean. Honest, I didn't know you were so upset. When you walked into the room, you..."
She interrupted. "I was seventeen, Jerry. I was a hick from the sticks. And I was so mad at myself for being gullible. I swore you'd never get me again. And I also swore I wouldn't let you know how scared I was. Or how hurt."
"Well, you got even," he said. "You were pretty cool toward Shirley and me after the snipe hunt, but the last week of the semester we had a good talk. We talked about childhood games, croquet, hide-and-seek, statues. You said, 'Did you ever play runsheeprun? It's like one word, runsheeprun.' And then you explained the rules: 'It' takes somebody to a hiding place, comes back, and draws a map in the dirt with a stick. Then everybody else takes off, and the first person to find the hidee gets to be 'It.' So we decided to play, just the three of us. At three in the morning."
They had sneaked out of the dorm, stuck a matchbook in the front door so they wouldn't be locked out, and went to the tennis courts. It wasn't foggy that night, and the moon was nearly full.
"Yes," said Daphnia, grinning. "I took Shirley and the flashlight; we jogged a couple of blocks up the street, and I left her behind a huge eucalyptus. I jogged back, drew a beautiful map on the back court. I'd remembered to take some chalk along."
Daphnia traced a map on the tabletop with her finger. "Here's the dorm, here's the bike rack. Come back down this way. Go around the telephone pole on the corner – I guess I threw in a few detours – and then straight ahead." She traced an X. "Find her in eight minutes, and I'll buy pizza."
Jerry said, "Well, I couldn't find her. Your map had me going in circles. Shirley got tired of waiting and finally came back to the tennis courts. You were gone, of course, and when we got back to the dorm, the door was locked." Jerry rolled his shoulders back. "Well, I guess we deserved it."
Daphnia grinned again, "Most fun I had all year was seeing you two walk in that morning. I remember saying, 'Find any snipes, I mean sheep?' You weren't amused."
"Well, let's say Shirley wasn't amused."
"Maybe that's why I never hear from her."
The waitress circled their table. "More coffee?"
"Half a cup," said Jerry. "Daphnia?"
"No, thanks."
Jerry said, "Not to change the subject, but do you get up here often? I fly in once a month for a couple of days. Maybe we could meet for dinner."
"Maybe," said Daphnia, still pushing her finger across the tabletop. She gave him a half smile and stood abruptly. "Excuse me a minute. Little girls' room."
Jerry watched the crisscross of luggage carts out the window. He took out his pen; when she came back, he'd get her address and phone number. He should have sent Shirley to the library. Cincinnati, two or three kids. He drank the last of his coffee as the waitress brought the checks on a tray and set them in front of him. "Here you go," she said. He turned to look for Daphnia, checked his watch again, and picked up the checks. On Daphnia's, she'd written in her large childish scrawl: "First one back with a red feather!"
The sky was bright now. He studied the tabletop, the empty coffee mugs, the smile of melon rind on Daphnia's plate; he tucked the pen into his pocket, pulled a twenty from his money clip, smoothed his blue tie, got up and went to catch his plane. He hoped Angie would be there to pick him up.