Hansel & Gretel

Hours passed as sunlight struck the metal gondolas of the red Ferris wheel at Tybee Beach. Minutes dissolved as cotton candy, seconds dripped my ice cream cone down as I lazily tongued it, vanilla spread on my chin.

Dad tried to win a giant stuffed unicorn. I watched sun emboss the quarters he handed the booth attendant so he could attempt to knock down bottles with soft cloth balls.

As they fell, light spilled on the floor and over my feet. You got four balls for fifty cents. Each game, he gave me three red balls to hold, then knocked or didn’t knock down a bottle, reached for another ball, another, until I held only one cupped in my hands. The fabric was silky over hard beans. I found a tooth-sized hole, pushed three beans out and pocketed them. Then Dad asked for the ball. I made a wish, staring at the unicorn’s iridescent horn, and gave it to him.

He had enough quarters to win if he knocked down every bottle. The first game he won a pink comb with a mirror on the back, which we traded in after the second game for a badly painted bird. After the third game the attendant put the bird back on the shelf, and said I could have a plastic baby doll or a painted wooden sword. I picked the sword; I didn’t like the doll’s red-circled cheeks. When the attendant laughed, I stared at his gold tooth. My Dad won a plush dog.

I was six, certain the dog would be put back and my unicorn brought down at the end. I snapped off and re-fastened the dog’s collar, staring at the unicorn’s glass eyes. My Dad lost the game, lifted me and said, ‘But look, we have a new doggy. What will you call him?’

‘Unicorn,’ I said, wishing I could have the sword. I wanted to see—if I held it up would it make a reflection on the windshield of our station wagon? I rode in back when we went places; Dad rolled the carpet and opened a latch and pulled out two seats.

We were out of quarters.

*

Asa and I went to a carnival once; I shot a roll of film on the Ferris wheel, though she protested she was a terrible subject, and blushed when I took a photograph of us kissing.

We ate funnel cake and she made me go on a roller coaster—my first time.

‘Of course you’ve been on a roller coaster before,’ she said. ‘Everyone’s been on roller coasters.’

‘Not me,’ I said. ‘I never have.’

‘How did you live to be twenty-nine without ever riding a roller coaster? That’s impossible, and I find it offensive.’

The only carnivals I’d been to were with my parents, who wouldn’t go on roller coasters, or let me go by myself. I’d liked Ferris wheels best. At the top, I pretended the cable would break and my car would crash. I wouldn’t die, maybe break my leg, but it would be worth the moments of falling. I told Asa.

‘Do you still think that at the top of the Ferris wheel? Did you think it just now?’

‘No, just now I thought about what F-stop and what shutter speed would work best, and how to frame skyscrapers around your head.’

*

In the station wagon, I understood the dog needed me more than the unicorn or sword. That was why he had become mine, so that I could undo his collar when he was indoors, and put it back on when he was outside and might need it. I would ask for a leash and take him on walks. Dogs needed walks, though we never had a dog since Mom was allergic.

In the back of the station wagon, I faced every thing we left behind. The first time Mom and Dad took me for a ride, I sat in my fold-up seat and waved at everything. People in other cars thought I was waving at them; they waved and smiled. Really, I waved at the fast food restaurant’s sign, street sign, stoplight, blue and red post office drop box at the corner, cat crossing the street. But when people waved, I waved back, so they’d think I’d meant it.

We stopped at a beach side restaurant for hamburgers. When my cheeseburger came, the cheese was a plasticy square, not melted.

I couldn’t eat it, so Dad took it to the counter and brought it back with melted cheese. Now the bun was soggy and spotted pink. I thought of a dying cow .

Mom said, ‘If you don’t eat that, you can’t have French fries.’

But when Mom was in the restroom, Dad fed me fries and gave me cola. He ate part of my cheeseburger. When Mom came back she looked at the cheeseburger and said, ‘Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?’

I said it wasn’t, then she gave me some of her fries too.

*

She isn’t coming back.

When she was here, in this room, she told me about when she was small. How she poked her Mom’s fat arm to see if she was still breathing, her Mom smelled of vomit and beer.

I traced the knuckles of her hands as she told me.

Asa said when her parents got divorced she told the court she wanted to live with her Mom, though she liked her Dad more.

‘Why tell them that,’ I said, ‘if things would have been better with him?’

‘Because someone had to look after her,’ she told me. ‘I knew nobody else would.’

‘But how old were you,’ I said.

‘Eight.’

I thought this, but didn’t tell her; it seemed unfair: When I was eight, my Mom lost her wedding ring. I helped her look when I came home from school—we didn’t find it. She thought she’d lost it at the swimming pool so she called to ask if anyone had turned in a ring. No one had.

Dad saved for six months and on their anniversary, he brought her a pink cake. The new ring made ‘O’ in the word ‘LOVE.’ I noticed before Mom. She cried, gave the ring to me to lick the frosting. I cleaned it and slid it on her finger.

The next day, they found the old ring when they lifted a couch cushion. Dad had it made smaller so I could wear it to church.

*

The vinyl was hot when we got in the car but I liked to feel it stick to the backs of my legs, burning me. Brown vinyl might cover my skin, and I wouldn’t have to be white anymore—my friend Alisha at school was brown. I wanted to be like her.

I fell asleep thinking about Alisha. At recess, we sat in a corner—she braided my hair, recited Rapunzel. In the car I dreamt I was high in a tower with my new stuffed dog. Alisha called, ‘Let down your hair,’ but it wasn’t long enough.

When I woke we were in the city and it was almost dark. I called to Mom and Dad, ‘What time is it?’

They said ‘Eight o’clock.’ That was bedtime, but if they didn’t mind, I wouldn’t either.

I couldn’t tell where we were or where we were going. We passed old houses, ‘Victorian gingerbread’ houses Mom called them. Could you eat them like in Hansel and Gretel? I hoped not, for the people who lived there.

Mom said, ‘We’re taking you to a park that has ducks.’

‘Can we feed them?’ I asked.

‘We don’t have any food. But we can watch them swim.’

*

We walked to the park, me carrying checkers and a bottle of wine, her with checkerboard and her dog on a leash. He pooped, she scooped it into a plastic bag using a twig; I was impressed.

Two kids were using our usual spot—a red rusted table next to a pond. We found a tree stump and set up. Then neither of us felt like checkers, it was too hot. We made up a new game. You moved one game piece, asked a question. The rules were hazy—no one won or lost. Summertime logic.

I went first. ‘All right, Asa, tell me, what were you like when you were fifteen?’

‘Bored. Using drugs, painting my face white, dying my hair black. Used a different name.’

I considered. ‘I think I can see that,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’

Sometimes, when you know someone, you can look behind them and see what they scattered on the way to where they are now.

Smart people leave stones not breadcrumbs, so they know where they’ve been. If they go to the same place twice, they look down and see one of their stones, and can say, ‘Yes, I’ve been here before, and I didn’t like it the first time, so now I’m leaving.’ Or, ‘I’ve been here before, and I liked it, so I’ll stay.’

I am a person who leaves behind breadcrumbs. I walk in circles, experience the same thrills and bang-ups in wide, repetitive hoops.

*

‘Are we going to the park where that kid threw up?’ I asked Mom.

Dad laughed. Last week, they’d taken me to a park where a kid was sick on the tire swing. I told them I’d never go to that park again, and worried they’d try to trick me into going. I’d had nightmares about them forcing me to sit on that swing.

*

When Asa was sick once I took a taxi to her apartment. Packed a bag with some of her clothes, her toothbrush, the book she was reading at the time—something by Wodehouse, I don’t remember. From bed she reminded me to bring her dog. He carried a chew toy.

We rode back to my apartment. On the way she threw up onto my lap, I pressed my legs close together so it wouldn’t get on the seat.

She wouldn’t stop apologizing. The driver threatened to force us out and asked if we were drunk. I talked him down as I stroked her hair. When we got home, I forced her in bed but four times she tried to sneak out to wash my jeans until I took the laundry downstairs.

In the middle of the night she woke with a blotchy face and high fever. ‘I think I could eat some gingerbread,’ she told me. ‘I think I could keep it down.’

I put on my slippers and baked. She dragged a quilt into the kitchen, fell asleep with her head on the table. I sang as I pressed the cookie cutter into dough. When the first batch cooled, I touched her forehead to wake her.

‘Do you want a gingerbread man now?’ I asked.

She shook her head and was sick in the sink. She cried because she couldn’t eat the cookies. She felt cold, so I wrapped a warm cookie and gave it to her to hold as she slept.

*

‘No,’ Mom said. ‘This is a different park, you’ve never been there before.’

‘Where are we?’ I asked.

‘Downtown.’

‘By the Waterfront?’

‘The Waterfront is nearby, but we’re not going there.’

That was too bad, because you could buy shells and stones in a store where the cashier gave out rock candy.

I waved as we passed an Elementary school that had a nice jungle gym. I touched my dog’s soft back; tilted his head and tapped one brown glass eye.

*

It was better at her grandparents’ house, they had ribbon candies in crystal jars on the end table, gave her pink lemonade. For dinner, matzo ball soup, liver and onions, cheese, no bottles of olives or cans of whipped cream, like at home.

When she rode in their car, she sat between them in front, touched a wobbly hula doll on the dashboard her granddad glued for good luck, despite her grandmom’s insistence that it was an insult to her.

‘When did you go to your grandparents’ house?’

‘On weekends, and during the summer.’

I kissed her. I imagined how small she must have been as a child. She was still small at thirty-one. Her size frustrated her, she said, ‘I want to be a boy.’

I told her, ‘You aren’t that small, it’s just me; I’m too tall.’

*

The park was opposite a cemetery we walked through. No one else was in the cemetery, Spanish moss hung down from live oak trees. I told myself it was the hair of all the buried people. Tree roots poked into coffins over the years to suck white hair from heads.

I touched the beans in my pocket—if I planted them, would they grow a beanstalk like Jack’s? I would go straight for the singing harp, and the giants wouldn’t catch me.

Mom pointed at the moon and said, ‘Look, a crescent witch moon.’

I tried to see. A tree was in the way.

The sky was the same color as Dad’s dark blue jeans. ‘Orion is a zipper,’ I told Dad, who laughed, and said, ‘The Big Dipper is a zipper, kiddo.’

I repeated this phrase to myself. I liked that when I spoke softly, Mom and Dad couldn’t hear me because they were higher up in the air. I was glad not to have a brother or sister; I liked telling myself stories without being interrupted, without being heard.

*

She made pink lemonade while I edited copy at my desk. In the kitchen, she opened the refrigerator to get lemons, the door creaked—a noise I couldn’t stand when I did it myself. When she did it, I liked the sound.

There were moments like this. I looked back and forth at the dark varnished door and at the white walls until inside of me was a brimming blue pitcher. I’d get up, creep up behind her in the kitchen, breathe her scalp smell through her dark messy hair, and weep.

She turned around, touched my face. ‘Why do you cry so much?’ she asked.

‘I’m made of more water than most people,’ I said. ‘Also I love you.’

She pressed her hand on my left breast.

*

The pond was deserted by people but not ducks. I’d never been in an empty park; the prospect thrilled me. No one could push me into gravel or yank off my birthstone ring, which sometimes happened at the park by our house if Mom talked to a lady next to her on a park bench.

If they left me alone for a minute, I could wade in the pond and try to touch baby ducks. Maybe catch one, tuck it into a pocket and not tell them until we were home. They’d be too tired to drive back, so it could be my pet.

‘Look at the ducks, honey,’ Mom said.

I thought the pond was filled with moon instead of water—it was true silver, not fake like the carnival sword.

But I wanted to see their feet. I knew ducks had orange feet, but I thought these would have blue—it would go better with silver. They were magic, I knew like I knew I could say the alphabet without missing P.

They started to talk about Mom-and-Dad things, who would go to the grocery, who would they pay to fix the refrigerator, should they hire a lawnmower boy to take care of the lawn, should Dad start jogging again, should Mom smock or buy my Easter dress, when were the next parent teacher conferences.

When I was certain they had gone fully inside Adult World, I stuck my feet in the pond. It wasn’t deep. Silver water lapped my knees. If I pushed my skirt hem into my shirt, I could walk. So I did, though it felt funny showing my underpants to ducks, with the gate to the cemetery open so a ghost could see.

There were funny things at the bottom of the pond that squished under my feet. I told myself, ‘That’s what silver feels like.’ Ducks paddled to the middle, where a tall angel statue poured water forever from a big vase.

Mom and Dad held hands and talked loudly about how the neighbors had us to dinner last week and served Hamburger Helper. She was still upset because last time we had the neighbors, she made manicotti and a dessert I didn’t like called trifle. I didn’t see what the problem was. Hamburger Helper tasted better.

‘Do you see me,’ I whispered. ‘I’m nice, don’t be afraid. I wouldn’t hurt you.’

I’d left my dog back on the pond ledge. He might want to see ducks up close too. Should I get him? No, ducks were afraid of dogs.

One baby duck didn’t see me, and I stood very still and watched her black eyes flash out moonlight.

‘Only diamonds reflect light like this,’ Mom told me once, holding her ring up to the microwave. ‘When you’re older, a man will buy you a ring like this too.’ Her ring flashed and sparked the microwave light like tiny men were inside throwing matches.

I wanted to show her that baby duck eyes do the same thing with moon, but couldn’t risk scaring the duck. If she came closer, I might be able to see her feet.

*

Both of us fit in my bathtub, so I sometimes talked her into a bath with me. She’d only do it if we used a lot of bubbles—she was ashamed of her body.

‘Because you’re not a boy?’ I asked.

‘Because I’m more me, and less like a Greek god,’ she said.

‘I think you’re more than enough like a Greek god. Get any closer to the real thing and what use will you have for me—you’d be able to have Aphrodite.’

'Don't I already?' She said, pushed three fingers inside of me, bubbles on her shoulders and chin.

*

Mom and Dad were deeply engaged in a discussion about whether or not to invite the neighbors back. If so, what would they serve for dinner, and should they put away my Wizard of Oz dolls and Emerald City playset since last time Miranda put the Wizard’s crystal ball in her mouth? I hoped they’d put it away because I didn’t want a baby to ruin Dorothy’s perfectly curled hair, or accidentally break off Toto’s legs, which were already wobbly.

I saw the security man come in through the cemetery gate, and I was interested because at first I thought he might be a ghost. Reflective material on his uniform glowed.

‘What is this child doing in the duck pond?’

Mom jumped, knocked my dog into the pond. I tried to run, slipped and fell. Silver got in my mouth and didn’t taste good. I got up.

Four ducks hopped to the ledge but I couldn’t even see their legs because it was so dark. I felt my dog’s ear brush my ankle and pulled him out.

‘Get her out of that pond,’ the security man said, coming closer.

I splashed to show off and sat down, my legs in the water. Moon made them blue.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

She wrung my dog’s leg, looked at me, and said, ‘You’re in trouble.’

Dad looked funny, maybe it was too dark to tell, but I thought he was laughing.

‘Park closes at eight, y’all aren’t supposed to be in here,’ the guard said. ‘Go along now.’

Dad carried me through the cemetery. I wanted to walk, so I could step on a headstone with my wet shoes and make a squishing noise for ghosts.

*

Six months ago she came over, made pink lemonade. We took her dog to the maple tree on the corner, he relieved himself, we went back inside. For an hour she sketched at the table while I edited copy. She threw her sketch in the garbage and put her hands on my shoulders.

‘Come with me,’ she said.

‘I’m working.’

‘I know. Take a break.’

I turned my head so she could kiss me. We got in bed, she pulled the quilt over us.

The lights were off and a whirr of cicadas made me drowsy. I reached for her hand, she was crying.

‘What’s wrong?’ I said.

She rolled over to bury her face in a pillow. I rubbed her back through her shirt, lifted it to her shoulder to kiss her side.

‘What’s wrong.’

‘I have to break up with you,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘I have to break up with you.’

‘But… what?’

In my head she climbed the beanstalk, higher, higher until she vanished.

‘I’m terrified,’ she said.

‘Of what?’

‘You need me too much. I need you too much. This isn’t what I’m for. We’re not compatible. I’m only going to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you…’

She listed reasons I didn’t hear for ten minutes. Contradictions want and desperation falling like stones from her pockets I could not pick up.

I waited. Was she serious? Would she let me touch her? She wouldn’t. When I tried, she cried harder, stood up, kissed me on the lips and left.

‘Please,’ I called after her.

She wouldn’t look at me.

I thought about that day with the stuffed dog.

When I tried to call, her phone was disconnected. I called her only friend, that number was disconnected, too. When I sent a letter, it came back undeliverable. I wore a new dress, bought a bouquet of red tulips and went to her apartment. Someone else’s name was on the mailbox, but I thought maybe she was just trying to fool me. A pregnant woman answered, the furniture was different and the apartment smelled of diapers.

When I lifted her sketch from the garbage, she’d drawn her dog on a Ferris wheel.

I planted those beans after all. Mom helped me do it in Dixie cups.

I heard her tell Dad, ‘They aren’t going to grow, and she’s just going to cry when they don’t.’

Dad said, ‘Let her cry. At least let her see if something will come of it.’

So they let me plant the beans, and one of them did grow, though there was no singing harp.

About the station wagon. I thought I was sure about what we were leaving.