FISH FROM YOUR By Jane C. Carlsen Lo asked. Regaining her composure, she thought herself in a position to confer favors. The woman shrugged and her nylon shoulders wrinkled audibly. “ I couldn’t get any wetter. How far are you going?” Lo reached to the dashboard for a cigarette. “ I’m not sure.” She really didn’t have a clue. She had left the Golden Gate behind her as a suicide would, leaving everything, including her future. She imagined her life flapping on the steel railing like a bright buhdle of rags. Lo was view mirror. “ I'm telling true stories,” the woman scoffed, and Lo looked across in surprise. “ My sister was mad at me for getting married first. She figured she’d leave before me because she was oldest. But I was pretty then.” The woman patted her ribs and her short, bony fingers continued to caress the blue nylon absently as she spoke. “ My husband had a little house of his own a couple miles away. I got my clothes and I told my sister she could keep her “ I know you,” he explained laughing. He spread his fingers and placed his hands, thumb to thumb, over the top of her head. All the magical concord they had shared fell suspect. She had shaken off that warm grip through sheer momentum. Now she itched to rid herself of the chattering stranger. “ My name’s Gini,” the woman said quickly, as though sending a flare to the grey sky. "What’s yours?” “ Lo,” she sighed, irritated at having to give it away. o thought she was a ch i ld h itchh ik in g , and so she slowed way down. Lo certa in ly d id n ’t w an t a who le woman, not one whose life would leave her on this deserted coast road, abandoned to the beating rain. By the time Lo realized her mistake, i t was too late to speed past, p re tend ing she h ad n ’t seen. So, irrita ted at herself, she slipped the station wagon into park and reached across to open the passenger door. “ I was praying you’d stop,” the woman exclaimed, throwing a day-pack onto the car floor. “ I’m not much of a believer, but times like these. . . ’’ she chuckled as she slammed the door “ . . praying can’t hurt.” Lo felt as though she’d let the whole storm into her insulated car. She brushed drops of water from where they’d spattered on the back of her hand and curled her fingers more tightly around the steering wheel. “ Had you been there long?” now caught in the current of her own momentum. She found a strange and lofty power in this self abandonment. “You mind if I take off these wet shoes and socks?” Lo shook her head, too hastily, her mind having been on the bridge, dizzy with movement. “ Some people mind,” the woman said. “ They got somethings marked off just for themselves and you can’t go spreading yourself around those places. She peeled the wet cotton from her foot. “My sister was like that. We shared a room and since she was the oldest she got all the drawers.” Lo caught a glimpse of a bare foot, bony and pale, and was seized with embarrassment. She turned away and watched the road. She wished the woman wouldn’t talk. “She wouldn’t let me touch them. I had to keep all my clothes on pegs on the wall.” “Well,” Lo said. She wasn’t sure she understood; she didn’t want to try. “You could have used crates? Or cardboard boxes?” “Years ago,” the woman laughed, as though Lo were simple. “ I figured she’d grow out of it.” The woman shook her head emphatically. “ The b itch," she added. “ It’s frightening to change.” When Lo’s car had merged with the traffic on the Golden Gate, she had thought she would faint from the impossibility of leaving. A strange pressure in her chest grew until she could not breathe and despite the rain she frantically unrolled the windows and gulped the cold air, feeling sick. “ People do what they can to avoid change. ” And yet, just as she crossed the Marin line, still beneath the orange fog lights, she was stunned by a feeling of weightlessness. She had crowed to the storm and thumbed her nose at her rearpegs. She just stood in the middle of the room and didn’t say a word.” Lo, who had been startled by the woman’s claim of truth and had been listening carefully, was left standing in the little room with the older sister, watching hope and power evaporate. Where do you go when there’s nothing left to leave? ad a fam ily he wouldn ’t f7 had the fam ily He s t ill went to war. A fte r that, y more use fo r me and the kids. ” “ She did get married eventually?” “ For all the good marriage did either one of us. My husband never loved me,” the woman challenged. “ He thought if he got married and had a family he wouldn’t have to go to war. I was dumb,” she confessed. “ He wasn’t any smarter. Sure. I had the family. He still went to war. After that, he didn’t have any more use for me and the kids. You have a boyfriend?” “ No.” Carl, standing at the foot of the driveway was quickly lost in the fog as Lo had driven away. “You’re looking for him, I’d bet,” the woman nodded slyly. “Or another one.” Lo shook her head. “ He’s out of the picture.” For years Carl had held her when she cried, amused her when she was bored. When Carl gave her presents, they were always just exactly what she wanted, even though she would not have been able to name them beforehand. For years she had thought this was sweet and uncanny. Then she realized he was surprised at her surprise. The rain had eased to a light shower. Gini chuckled as she unrolled her window. The air was cold and smelled of damp soil and rotting leaves. “ I haven’t seen my husband for years,” she announced suddenly. “ He’s probably dead. But it’s because of him that I’m here with you. to thought i f he go Lo didn’t comment. She lit a cigarette and stared ahead, feeling comfortably removed from everything. “After he left me, I didn’t hear from him for a couple of years. I stayed in Minneapolis taking care of the kids, but I thought about him. I didn’t miss him,” she added hastily. “ I just wondered where he was. He was in Korea during the war. That’s very far away,” she told Lo solemnly. “ I figured if I were a man and didn’t have the kids and had been to Korea, I’d be curious about all the other places in the world. I thought he’d joined the merchant marines. “Then one night there was a big rainstorm like yesterday,” Gini said dreamily. “The kids were in bed and I was doing the dishes. I heard a noise and turned around and there he was. I asked him where he’d been and do you know what he said?” Lo shook her head, but Gini wasn’t watching. “ St. Paul! After all that he was only in St. Paul!” Gini collapsed against the 30 Clinton St. Quarterly—Summer, 1988
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