April 17
Tonight I prepare a jellyfish feast.
? Jellyfish salad, Thai-style
? Jellyfish soup
? Jellyfish fritters
? Jellyfish pickles
Jellyfish spaghetti, with jellyfish noodles and jellyfish sauce. The eaters are not exactly enthusiastic, but they are, at least, polite.
April 18
Theo is at the door. Through the peephole I can see he is holding a container of yogurt.
“Your dad home?” he asks me.
“He isn’t,” I say. He’s at the gym with John.
Theo opens the yogurt lid. Inside there is what looks like ruffles of a party dress, bright and green and metallic, all bunched up at the bottom of the container.
“It’s Actinodiscus,” he says. “It’s a good beginner coral.”
“It’s beautiful,” I say. “Thank you.”
“Thank my brother,” Theo says. “He grows corals.”
“Grows corals?”
“He grows and sells corals. This one is really special. It’s priced per polyp.”
We put the coral into the tank, where it looks very glamorous.
He takes a book off the shelf and starts flipping through it.
“Hey,” I say, “do you want to come to LA?” I’m supposed to see Reggie perform some art.
He says it sounds like fun. He gets in my car and we go. He switches the stations on every commercial but pauses on KOST 103.5. He calls in to try to win tickets to an exclusive acoustic Alanis Morissette show.
“It’s ringing!” he says.
They’re looking for the fifth caller, but he is the second, and we feel a very specific, bittersweet disappointment.
This is Reggie’s performance: he’s painted gold, like a Buddha. He peels the wrappers off little banana candies, licks each candy, sticks it to himself. This takes an hour.
Once he’s covered in candies and there are no candies remaining in the bag, he begins to dance like a god, and sings sweetly.
Reggie can’t really say hi, and we can’t really stay for his whole performance, but he looks appreciative. I think.
Outside the gallery, in the gutter, there’s a ball of black hair.
“I think it’s called a coleta,” Theo says. “I just read about this somewhere. It’s a clip-on bun. Matadors wear them.”
I’m always seeing hair everywhere, I tell Theo, who is unimpressed—doesn’t think this is special.
“You could start paying attention to socks, for example,” Theo says. “Socks are everywhere. Especially baby socks. Seriously, look.” And he points to something baby blue on the sidewalk—a little blue sock for a baby.
April 20
Today is Dad’s birthday, so class is at home. Mom’s skipped book club; she’s here, too.
I’ve baked a cake. I’ve bought Dad another goldfish—a fancier one. At the pet store, I picked one with pretty but modest, unshowy fins. In the tank he (or she?) gulps and gulps and gulps.
Theo comes over with a different coral and a birthday card for my dad, and a book for me. He’s loaning me a book with the same size spine as the one he borrowed, to patch up the hole in the shelf.
All the male students are flirting with my mom, asking for embarrassing stories about Dad. Joan, I notice, only smiles politely and avoids her. Joan’s in some kind of animated conversation with the class’s two other women, who don’t appear to see that Joan’s heart’s not really in it.
I can only fit thirty candles on the cake—a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, and some walnuts on it, for good measure. Thirty lit candles turn out to be rip-roaring enough.
“Happy thirtieth to me,” Dad says, and blows out the candles, which are terrifyingly ablaze. He eats a slice and then cuts another.
“I have no memory of eating that last slice of cake,” he says, “except that it was delicious.”
April 22
Joel calls while I am at the dollar store considering packages of athletic socks, and I let it ring. But who am I kidding? I can only pretend to be interested in the socks for so long. I choose black ones and chuck them into the shopping cart. I check to see if Joel has left a message, and he has.
“Ruth,” it says. “I just met a pygmy goat. His name was Noah. Anyway”—Joel pauses—“I don’t know why I called. I guess I thought you’d like that. I forgot that their pupils are kind of square.”
At home, trying the socks on, I see that they have ON THE GO! printed, in pink, on the toes.
And though I try really, really hard not to, later, alone, I re-listen to Joel’s message about the goat.
Their pupils are kind of square!
I guess I thought you’d like that.
April 25
“Could this be true?” I’ve called Grooms, and I’m asking. “Every day, we lose one hundred thousand brain cells.” I’ve read this in the Los Angeles Times.
“Yes,” she says. “True.”
April 27
In 1860 and 1861, before the telegram, the Pony Express was the fastest means of communication between the East Coast and West. There used to be celebrity mailmen! Of course the actual Pony Express went over the Sierra Nevadas, and not to Southern California. But wouldn’t it be educational to have class on horseback? we suggest to Dad. He agrees happily.
On horseback, Dad attempts to shout educational details about the Pony Express. It’s difficult to hear him over the clickety-clack.
There’s a couple, also on horseback, in front of us, sauntering. The horse in front of us is speckled. Some shit falls out of its butt and we avoid it. The man turns his head. My heart falls straight down. It’s Levin.
“Howard,” Levin says, then looks at me, then Theo, then Joan, and the rest of the students. “What’s this?” he says.
“We’re learning about the Pony Express,” Dad explains, sheepishly. “A little unconventionally,” he says, with a laugh.
“What do you mean?” Levin says, evenly.
“It’s so nice to run into you!” I interject, panicking.
“My California history class,” my father says.
“What California history class?” Levin says. My dad looks at Levin, then back at me. And suddenly he understands.
“How do we stop these things?” Dad asks, gruffly. His horse jerks forward.
His horse stands and sways. Dad looks all around him, for the exit.
Theo dismounts. “Move your hands up his neck and lean forward,” he says. “Swing your right leg around, and slide down.” All of us watch as Theo reaches up to help.
“Now slide down,” he says. “I’ll spot you.”
Theo puts both hands on Dad’s waist. Dad slides off clumsily. He almost falls backward, but Theo catches him.
“Howard,” Theo says, holding our horses’ reins. “We can explain.”
“Let’s go, Ruth,” he says, avoiding everyone’s penitent gaze, in the tone he used to use when I was in high school, having done something that displeased him.
He says nothing during the car ride home, and nothing afterward once we’re at home. He only makes a pot of coffee, and takes the entire pot into his office.
April 28
We hadn’t planned for this.
Everyone calls; everyone writes.
We meant well!
We love you!
And on and on.