Wendy

Sometimes I get the feeling that I'm tumbling and tumbling head over heel through the vast blue sky when I'm just standing on the sidewalk waiting for someone who was supposed to meet me ten minutes ago.

I'm just saying, that's all.

It's like the other day my little girl--Louisa--she's just nine--was going to bake me a cake. I don't know why, it wasn't my birthday or anything, but maybe she just had an urge or something. Something was pushing on her. Something pressing down on her. I don't know why.

But it was a good cake. I mean for her age.

I wish sometimes--sometimes I make wishes--that everybody, I mean everybody, the whole world and all, could be happy. And that Louisa, and her daddy and me could always be together and smile at each other all the time. I know that's stupid. Smiling all the time is stupid. I mean, you have to do things too.

But when you do things, they never turn out the way you make them to.

There's some things you gotta do just because you have to. Like once my Louisa got mad at me and said she's going to hold her breath till she died. But she didn't. You just got to breathe.

And my old man, he used to say to my mother, "I gotta have a drink, I just got to. Let me have a drink. There's nothing I can do, woman. Gimme, gimme something to drink." And I think he did 'cause if she didn't sometimes, he would sit and cry and cry, his hands covering his eyes, and he would sob, and I would feel so sorry for him and would pat him on the back, but it didn't do no good. "I just gotta forget," he said, "I don't want to feel no more. Oh God help me." And that's just something else we got to do. We got to forget all the bad things. Everything's that happened to you or all the things that might happen. Otherwise, how can we live?

Bad things like when everybody leaves.

Nobody stays. My mother she left. Said, "Ain't no love keepin' me here. Nothin' tying me down. Swim it till you drown, buzzard. And don't you look at me, twirp. Same eyes as that no good. You don't see me here no more 'cause I ain't your mother, anyways. Not no more."

I went and I grabbed hold on her and I was crying and I said, "Mommy, Mommy!" But she just slapped me and she left. You can't stop it. You can't make it turn out, see? You can't hold on to nothing good. It's like you hold this poisonous snake, and it's stronger than you are, and no matter how hard you hold onto it, onto this happiness, this snake turns around and bites you, and all this sadness gets into your bloodstream and goes everywhere, so that even your toes are sad. You can wiggle them but you can tell they ain't doin' it for fun no more and you might as well of not wriggled them at all.

If you get something good it's only a chance. Like my Louisa. I never planned her. She just happened. She shouldn't of happened. It weren't the right time--least, I didn't think so. But she's the only good thing as has ever happened to me. But it was just time and chance, that's all.

Wishin's good though. It gives you a good feeling to think of all the good that's out there waiting--just waiting for some time when you're not looking so that it can happen to you. Sometimes when you're wishin' you can feel it there, just in front of you, just behind the corner waiting so that it can jump out on you. So I close my eyes and pretend I don't know it's there--'cause, if you see it, it won't happen. So sometimes I try not to notice the good things--I ignore them--so that more good things will happen to me. It's a trick, you see!

When I was little, the neighbor's girl brought out this big wishbone once after Christmas. Said it was from a turkey, but we figured we could make some big wishes with it, not just dolls and clothes and things, but BIG wishes. She said to me, "Daddy says whoever gets the big one gets her wish but whoever gets the small one gets married first." And we was already making wishes even before we broke it, even before we knew we could wish--silly us. But when it broke, I got the big side so I wished that I would get married first, but I never told no one, 'cause then it wouldn't come true. So I was wondering who would get married first since she got the small side and my wish was to get married first, you see? That was a trick too.

And I guess I won 'cause she died a year later in a fire that burned down their house--I saw it burn but there wasn't nothing I could do, but I didn't hear no screamin' nor nothing 'cause a big fire like that makes a lot of noise of its own.

I think wishbones work because they're the bone nearest the heart, but I don't know exactly.

Anyway, I lost my job the other day 'cause there was this machine and it was spurting out papers. I couldn't stop it you see. I tried everything. But I kept trying and I finally got it stopped but they said I broke it and that they couldn't have me there breaking their machines and that it was worth a whole lot more than I was 'cause I couldn't pay the damage even if I paid everything I got for the whole year. But I'm not worried. I know something good is about to happen 'cause I'm not expecting it to. I'm so excited. Maybe it'll be a better job! Then I can buy Louisa some presents like I said I would.

**************

A girl is working in the kitchen with a knife, cutting an onion into pieces; she is pulling the knife toward her, toward her wrist. The onion makes her cry. The phone rings. She answers it but it is the wrong number. She continues to cut the onion. She finishes. She turns the stove on. It is a gas stove. She doesn't notice that the fire didn't catch because a big pot is over the eye. She begins to cut a chili pepper. She accidentally scratches her eye and it begins to water and burn. Suddenly, she notices that the stove eye isn't working and turns it off. She turns the dial on quick several times. The fire catches. There is a whoof. The fire blazes briefly, but returns to its normal size. She adjusts it. She has water in the pot to cook noodles for chili and noodles. Soon the water boils. She cooks the noodles, stirring and occasionally splashing water. The noodles are done and she lifts the large pot to the sink. The pot slips in her hands. She grips it firmer. She drains the noodles, puts them in with the sauce, and supper is ready.

She turns to the table, looking out the window, and knocks a glass off the sink counter. It crashes and breaks. She tries to catch it, but stumbles and steps on a piece of glass. Her foot begins to bleed.

**************

A girl is working in a kitchen, heating up several pot pies, and watching a small television which is sitting on the sink counter. She forgets about the pot pies, absorbed in the show. The show ends and suddenly she remembers the pies. She grabs a small towel which she uses as an oven mitt and pulls them from the oven. Perfect. She sets them on top of the stove to stay warm, takes the television into the living room and sits there waiting and watching.

**************

How can you know? I mean, how can you know? It's like there's this big war, and there's some famous warrior, but he's fighting this invisible dragon and all he can see sometimes is the fire that the dragon breathes--and it keeps burning him. How can you know if he's going to win or not? I'm just saying, that's all. He just has to do it without knowing, to try to kill this dragon, and maybe 'cause he's trying he'll do it.

But you can't always do good no matter what you do, partly 'cause you just don't know. You think one thing and then you go and find out it wasn't so. I helped this baby bird once that had fallen out of its nest, so I lifted it up--I held it ever so gentle--and put it back in its nest, but its mother wouldn't have nothing to do with it no more. My daddy told me that's the way birds are, but that people's better. I tried to feed it then, but I couldn't give it enough worms so it died. That's what I mean. If you don't know, how can you help somebody else, 'cause you might be doing more bad to them than good, 'cause you just don't know. I'm just saying.

Sometimes, even if you know, there's nothing you can do. Like when you get old. When my grandma got old, there was nothing I could do and she would scream out awful, but she couldn't hear me when I tried to comfort her and she'd lost her feeling so I couldn't even touch her and make her feel me. She was blind and used to think she was all alone in hell with nobody else just her, but I used to feed her and then she used to think angels brought her food.

It's strange the kind of things you think about when you're waiting.

There's this man coming up to me. I can see his face real clear, but I can't see anything--I mean--I can't see his eyes or his mouth separate, but just his face, altogether, like I can't focus on him. It's just a face like everybody else's with a nose and mouth and eyes and chin. I think he's going to say something to me.

"Mrs. Carmichael, are you Mrs. Carmichael?" I'm looking at him, at this face, but I'm not saying anything. I don't know who he is. Maybe if I don't say anything, there won't be anything wrong. But he just keeps talking. "Mrs. Carmichael, your husband's had an accident," he's saying. I'm not looking at him any more. I don't know why he keeps talking to me. I'm turning away. "He was in his car heading down the way you go toward K-mart, driving down like I do every day." If he would leave me alone, I could stay here and wait. Why doesn't he leave me alone. Just leave me alone. "There was this big semi sitting in the lot, this great big green semi and there wasn't nobody coming down the road but your husband. Then this guy, he pulls out. All of a sudden, he pulls out."

I'm waiting. Why doesn't he leave me alone? Can't he see I'm waiting? There's this woman standing here too. Now she's staring at me. Can't they just leave me alone?

"I can't figure why he decided to pull out." I'm looking at the shop window. It's a bakery. There's cakes in it, frosted and things written on them real nice saying things like, "Happy Anniversary," and "Have a great twenty-fifth." This lady, she's looking at me real hard now, just staring. Stop it lady. Just stop.

"He smashed right into the car, smashed right into it. No scratch to the truck as far as I could tell, but . . . ."

How I hate Sundays. There's no work (even if I had a job), and you have to find something to do. He's stopped talking. And now he's looking down.

"The car was smashed up though, squashed. That car's gone. You don't have a car no more lady, 'cause, well . . . it's, like I say, squashed."

This other woman, all of a sudden, she starts crying.

"Your husband's lucky to be alive, Mrs. Carmichael," he's saying to me, "he's lucky to be alive. But there's not a scratch on him. Not a one."

I'm looking at this man, this face. I look at him, steady. "I'm not Mrs. Carmichael," I say to him. "I'm Wendy, Wendy Tumblin. I don't know what you're talking about."

This woman who's been staring at me starts saying, "Thank God, oh my God, thank God," and she keeps crying. I wish they would leave me alone.

I'm just waiting. Can't they see? Can't they leave me alone? I never even had a husband. Jimmy was supposed to meet me here. He won't though. I knew he wouldn't, even when he was saying it, I knew. Like the others. Like Louisa's daddy. I guess I'll go home. Louisa will maybe have some supper ready.

The End.