When the World Tips Over, page 43
I also realize from the retelling that history might be one long, chaotic, fluky game of telephone.
Before long, we pull up in front of The Blue Spoonful, where Felix wants to apply for a job as a line cook after I told him about Bernadette’s aphrodisiacal soufflés and her Michelin Star. He swings his bag over his shoulder. “I’m now entering your saga of the Falls, I guess,” he says, gesturing toward the restaurant.
“Me too,” I say, my stomach roiling.
After I say goodbye, I pull into the spot where I sat in Sadie Mae for one of the last times, my mother and me passing the chocolate soufflé back and forth, swearing to each other that after spending years and years looking for The Town, we will never, ever come back.
I look out over the square, at the waterfall catching the sun so it looks like light, not water, is tumbling down, and something clicks into place inside me like it did the first time we visited. I can’t explain it any other way: It’s The Town.
It’s home.
I look at the café that used to be Sebastian’s Spanish Bakery, then became Christophe’s Soufflé Shop, and now is a dog grooming store. I imagine Bernadette on the fire escape waiting for my father to walk across the square playing his trumpet in his sleep. I imagine Alonso and Sebastian floating around inside Sebastian’s bakery, Maria galloping by on a horse, her red hair whipping in the wind. I think she’s my favorite one of us, a role model for me – so when I told Felix the story, I gave her wings on her back.
After much trial and error and some research on my phone, I find my way to Dave Caputo’s father’s glass house, but it’s been sold. The name on the driveway says The Aglins. I sit outside the glass house for a long time missing my mother, hating my mother, loving my mother. The usual.
Then I’m ready for some serious stalking and sleuthing. I’m still thinking I’ll intuitively be able to tell if Miles and Dizzy are my siblings. Won’t I have a feeling of sameness in their presences? (I didn’t have that sense with you all those years ago, Wynton. You felt entirely other. Thank the lordesses.)
I remember passing the middle school on the way into town. So, Dizzy first.
I park by the athletic field where kids are playing dodgeball. I watch two gym classes before a waif of a girl I recognize, with a riot of hair on her head, walks onto the field, looking lonely as a leaf. She’s heartbroken, I think, and it stirs something new in me. “My sister,” I say under my breath just to try out the words. But is she? The possibility makes my throat tighten. Even though it’s hotter than Mars, I lower the window, hoping I’ll hear her voice. I can’t believe this is the same commotion of a girl I met years before. Why is she so unhappy now? And then I’m observing with horror as some bully reams a ball into her stomach and then puts his ass right in her face. Um, excuse me? I have to grip the wheel to restrain myself from getting out of the truck, jumping the fence, and taking that ball and crushing it into his face.
Then Dizzy’s running away, bounding over the fence, so she misses what happens next.
A boy with gelled strawberry-blond hair rushes the dick-weasel bully and punches him in the face, telling him he better apologize to Dizzy. The bully, blindsided, is knocked off his feet. Even while the gym teacher is blowing a whistle, our ginger-haired hero sprints to the fence after Dizzy. Is it her boyfriend? If not, maybe he should be. There’s a gallantry about this hero kid I like. Sadly, he doesn’t get over the fence. He’s halfway up when the gym teacher pulls him back down and escorts him across the field and inside, I assume, to the principal’s office, while another teacher takes the bully, I assume, to the nurse.
I light up the truck and go after Dizzy. I can’t help myself. And thank God, I get to her in time.
With all my might, and maybe some extra force from who knows where, I push her out of the way of a speeding truck. In that moment, I feel like one of those mothers who lifts a car to save her child, like I could’ve stopped time itself to save this girl. My little sister? Even though Dizzy and I only have a split second together with that truck barreling straight for us, it feels eternal.
Even so, I can’t say I know for sure if she’s my sister or not during our brief encounter.
After I shove her out of the way, I dive under the eighteen-wheeler as the trucker screeches to a halt over me. The sun in his eyes must’ve prevented him from seeing me because he has no clue why Dizzy flies into the air. As you know by now, Wynton, I have a lot of experience hiding under large vehicles, but it’s broiling out and the asphalt is so hot, I have to keep rolling over so as not to blister my skin. While I rotate like a roasting chicken under the truck, I listen to Dizzy charm the pants off the driver and realize how much my father (our father?) is going to adore her if she is indeed his, much more than he adores me because she’s so much more adorable. She’s not damaged, like I am.
I’m not proud of what I feel in this moment: I don’t want my dad to have another daughter. Not one bit. My father is all I have, and I decide then that I can’t share him with you all, that I won’t. Despite how much I want to see you again, Wynton, when Dizzy and the trucker part ways, I slip out from beneath the truck, dead set on driving back to Whispering River and locking all this away forever. I know I’m being a coward, but I also know that you guys have a mother, and I don’t.
On my way out of town, I spot a big white house in the distance. Even before I see the winery sign, from both Maria’s and Bernadette’s descriptions, I know immediately it’s the Fall house, and around it, the Fall vineyards. Curiosity gets the better of me and I take the turnoff and park on a utility road and look up at the house, imagining Alonso, Sebastian, Maria, and Bazzy sitting on the porch. Imagining Theo and Clive as teenagers. Imagining my poor father heartbroken, fleeing in his truck, and imagining you, Wynton, Miles, and Dizzy growing up there without him. Soon fatigue begins to overtake me; I didn’t sleep at all the night before because I was reading everything. I decide to nap for a minute before hitting the road again. I empty out my backpack of books, looking for something to read (even when I’m exhausted, I can’t fall asleep without reading, even a sentence or two). I choose a reread of East of Eden, in honor of all the cursed Fall brothers. I begin to read as dusk settles over the valley, and before I know it, it’s the next day and I wake to Miles and Sandro outside the window.
That morning with Miles is one of the best times of my life. (I know there must be some explanation for the Dumpster incident he told me about. I can’t imagine you’d do that to him. Could you, Wynton? Have I so misjudged you?) Anyway, there’s a Dutch word: Dauwtrappen. It means to walk barefoot in the dew-covered grass; that’s how I feel talking to Miles that morning, sitting beside him, reading beside him at the waterfall, floating together on our backs like sea otters. The whole time I kept thinking: No way we’re not related. No way. He rights me, like I was a painting hung crooked my whole life. And he makes me feel expansive, like a never-ending girl.
I’ve since done some research into siblings who meet not knowing that they’re related – it’s often described as a mystical experience. Meeting Miles, I feel this, feel an immediate, profound, and almost otherworldly sense of recognition, belonging, peace. Like I’m suddenly walking around in a prayer. I become convinced that morning he’s my half brother and I have to stop myself from telling him the whole time we’re together. But maybe it’s wishful thinking. And I’m really uncertain about Dizzy.
Still, after I say goodbye to him and Sandro (whom I hear talking in my head!), I’m committed to leaving The Town, only when I’m about to cross the town line, by that bar, Better Luck Next Time, my tire goes flat. Yes. Again. Just like with Sadie Mae. I know The Town wants me to stay, and as I’m putting on the spare, I decide The Town is right this time. The need to know for sure if I have siblings in this world, and to meet you again, Wynton, is more powerful than the fear of sharing or even losing my father.
Metanoia, n. a transformative change of heart. Tattooed now on my left shoulder. I get the tattoo that afternoon at a parlor on the square. The whole time the needle drums into my skin, I look out at the statue of Alonso Fall, wondering what the hell happened to my great-grandfather’s head. I can’t believe I have a heritage now, a history to belong to, one that started long before The Great Adventure with Marigold. Like I’ve always wanted. And I might have siblings too! A real family! And who knows what you’ll be to me!
That night is your show, Wynton, and I arrive early. Luckily I have a fake ID in my wallet that my friend Summer got me when we spent a weekend in San Francisco. When you walk on stage with your shades on, your ripped black jeans, your tattoo of a blue horse coming out of your sleeve, I know for sure you’re the boy in the time of forever who was once a lightning bolt. You don’t say a word, just smile at the crowd. (That smile when I was thirteen confused me, how it sent my stomach on a roller-coaster ride. At nineteen, it doesn’t confuse me at all.) Yes, it’s a heat wave, but it’s like I’ve become the heat wave. I tell myself again and again: We are not related! Your father is Clive, your mother is Bernadette. My father is Theo, my mother is Marigold, and Clive and Theo are not related by blood. This becomes a mantra the whole mind-blowingly awesome show as my feelings for you gallop around inside me: We are not related! We are not related!
Remember when my mother met Dave? Remember how I asked if you believed in love at first sight? You are why I do. I think I have loved you since the day we met in the meadow all those years ago.
Once, I found under my dad’s bed, a dog-eared copy of this romance novel called Live Forever Now. I was shocked. Nothing could’ve been more of a departure from my dad’s literary proclivities. I read it in the bathtub that night. It’s so trashy but also great. There’s a couple in it who meet at thirteen and make a promise to marry (like us!). Then they don’t see each other for years until they run into each other on a yacht in the Greek Isles where he is the captain and she a rich socialite. (I know, groan.) He recognizes her and falls head-over-heels at first sight (again), ensures the yacht runs out of gas so he can make her fall in love with him (again) while they’re stranded at sea. There’s all sorts of problematic class and gender issues with the book – but it’s still ridiculously romantic and sexy. In this moment in the club, I am Jericho Blane seeing Samantha Brooksweather again after all those years.
Standing next to me is a burly guy in a hat who seems to be having similar reactions to your playing and person as I am (well, not exactly similar). I think his words when you start to play are, “Holy hellfire!” This makes me laugh. I catch a glimpse of his face and I recognize him as Sylvester Dennis from the band Hell Hyena and the Furniture. I know all their music because Dad is a fan. He smiles at me and says, “Who plays a goddamn sonata in a club and makes it sound like rock ’n’ roll? Only this guy. This fucking guy. He’s joining my band.”
“Lucky you,” I say.
“You’re telling me.”
(Wynton, it devastates me to think you might lose this opportunity. I can’t imagine how you’ll take it when you wake. Know that I’ll be here for you.)
Sylvester Dennis and I get separated after that because I hear my mother’s name being called and turn around to see a sun-leathered man rushing toward me. I gasp. It’s an older, life-weary version of Dave Caputo of The Second Betrayal and he’s saying, “Am I dreaming, Marigold? You don’t look a day older. Not one day.” Only when he’s a few feet away does he realize his mistake. “Cassidy?”
He puts a hand over his mouth and looks at me for a very long time and I learn in this moment that love doesn’t go away when people do. It never goes away, does it? Tears are falling down my cheeks and I’m remembering him swooping me up in his arms in the forest when I got lost. I’m remembering being his sous chef and shouting “Yes!” when he asked my mother to marry him. Then I’m waking to a horizon-less world because his rig is gone. I’m that girl again. I think in this moment how maybe I’m always all the girls I’ve ever been, how the now-me is just all the old-mes thrown together. And maybe you can’t hang on to people, I’ve learned that from Marigold and from this man, but my, how we hang on to our love for them, or it hangs on to us.
Because my heart is shaking with hope at seeing Dave again, the same hope he filled me with when I was twelve, the same unwieldy love. He says, “I left my wife, left my job. I opened a custom furniture shop up here, built a dream shack. Because of you and your mom. I tried to look for you, been back to Sister Falls every year since, stay the whole month. I was hoping you guys would go back there. I never even knew your last name. Had no way to find you.”
We hug then and I smell his same Dave smell. “How is she?” he asks.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?”
“She left me…” I’m about to tell him what happened, about my dad being Theo Fall from this town, The Town, and about you all. I want to, but how can I? How can he be the first I tell? How can I trust this person after what he did to us? I can’t.
But do we ever reminisce outside the club, where it’s quieter. It feels so good to talk about Marigold with someone who yearns for her like I do, and he clearly does, someone who understands the spell she casts as well as the very dark shadow.
“It was real,” he tells me. “That month, man. I lived more with you two than I have in all the time before and since.”
When I go back inside, Wynton, you’re gone. I set out to find you in my truck. Do you remember our meeting in the road? Do you remember you asked me to marry you again? Do you remember swaying together in the moonlight? It might have been the best moment of my life. Its only competition, our afternoon in the meadow.
Beshert, a word tattooed on my ankle. Dad taught it to me. I was surprised at the time he’d know a Yiddish word, but now since I’ve read your mother’s journal and her cookbook, I know where he picked it up.
Are you my beshert, Wynton? Or am I making all this up?
I’ve been staying in Dave’s guest room in his dream shack, which really is dreamy and a shack this time. No glass walls, no ostentation, except for the top-notch kitchen. Dave’s “restaurant” is still awesome. Marigold would love it there. He told me he built it with her in mind and that he calls the attic room on the top floor Marigold’s Nest. “To write her strange stories in.” Maybe one day she’ll return to The Town and find us both in it.
Each night since I arrived, I’ve snuck into your hospital room so I wouldn’t run into your family, which might be mine too; not ready to tell them who I am. (I bribe the night staff at the hospital with Dave’s incredible Everything Cookies to let me secretly sit with you – they call us Romeo and Juliet.)
At this point, I’m still so terrified to blow up my father’s life, Wynton. A man who’s gone to such ends to start a new one. I know Dexter Brown has no intention of ever running into Theo Fall again. What if he never forgives me for this? I don’t think I could survive losing him after losing Marigold.
But I want to be part of the Falls’ long and winding story. I want to claim Maria Guerrero. I want to sprout wings on my back. I want Dizzy and Miles as my sister and brother. And I want you, Wynton.
I realize my father made his choices and now I need to make mine.
So, just hours ago, after talking to the police and telling them everything I remember about the night of the accident – they still haven’t found the driver – for the first time, I open the door to your hospital room during visiting hours.
Bernadette’s by your side, leaning over the bed, talking to you just like I do. “Oh! You!” she says to me, rising from her chair. “She of the rainbow hair!” She’s wearing a bright floral shirt and jeans. Her hair’s stormy like Dizzy’s. “Cassidy, right?” she says.
Wynton, I’ve seen your mother in photographs, but it didn’t prepare me for the real thing. Her aliveness. How her spirit seems too big for her body. How gorgeous she is.
“My son and daughter, they’re looking for you up north as we speak,” she tells me. Miles and Dizzy are searching for me? How do they know where to look? Are they randomly driving around Northern California? I could imagine that actually, like Marigold and me searching for The Town. I’m about to ask your mother about it when she says, “Thank you for doing CPR and going with Wynton in the ambulance. They say you saved his life. And Dizzy says you saved hers too. Come here. How can I thank you? Can I hug you?” she says, coming toward me, arms wide open.
I know how badly she hurt my father, but it’s impossible not to be swept into her warmth. No wonder he’s so lost without her.
And boy, it’s been a long time since I’ve been hugged by a mother, any mother, and your mother is kind of the quintessential one, isn’t she? I try to tamp down the hunger in me for this exact type of maternal affection but can’t. I also feel guilty, traitorous, deceitful because I’m pretty sure she’s not going to want to hug me like this when she hears what I have to say. Not a chance. Still, I dissolve into her embrace, breathe in her musky scent, aching for my own mother who could never comfort me like this. With Marigold, the threat of her leaving was coded into her every affection. It was her unique awful sleight of hand.
But not your mom. I want to stay in her arms forever.
After a moment, she detaches from me and sweeps her lips against my forehead, a benediction, then drops her head down so that for a split second we’re in Forehead-Noses. I gasp, it’s like Marigold has flown into her body. Her expression is so grateful. How can I tell this woman, who’s already so devastated about you, who I am? Does she even know where her husband has been all these years? Does she know he was unfaithful to her with Marigold? In this moment, I think, I can still make something up about who I am and then get in my truck and leave and not disrupt any lives, not hurt this woman, and most importantly, not risk my father’s love.
“Have you told the police what you know about the driver?” she asks. “I know they’ve been looking for you.” I nod and she says, “I better call my son and daughter and tell them to come home. Dizzy thinks you’re an angel – a literal one – and that you alone can wake my boy.” She regards me. “So how do you know Wynton? Are you friends from high school?” She’s tilting her head, studying me. Is she noticing how much I look like Theo?
