THE MAILMAN IS late.
I’m trying to pay attention to the Jack the Ripper special on PBS, but my eyes keep roving to the clock on the wall. It’s 1:17. The mail comes every day between 12:00 and 12:30.
And I’m worried about him. The mailman. Even though I’ve never once talked to him. And I don’t even know his real name. I call him Earl, because one time I heard him through the door, belting out in his baritone: “Duke, Duke, Duke . . . Duke of Earl, Earl, Earl.”
Maybe he witnessed a purse-snatching and chased the would-be robber down on foot, tackling him to the ground to retrieve a stranger’s bag. That seems like something Earl would do—he has that kind of face. Decent. Good.
But what if it’s something worse? Like a stroke? Or a blood clot that traveled up his leg and went straight to his heart? He could be lying helpless on the street right now, under the vibrant blue sky, envelopes and packages spread beneath him like flotsam haphazardly floating in the sea.
Just as I begin to panic, I hear it. The unoiled hinge of the metal mail slot on my front door eeking open and the cascade of envelopes and advertisements as they slide through and fall to the floor below.
I jump up from the couch; tiptoe up to the door, careful not to slip on the slick coupon circulars that now paper the foyer; and peek through the peephole at Earl’s backside as he walks away.
I’m so elated to see him, alive and breathing in his blue shorts and knee-high socks that end in those unflattering medical-looking walking shoes, his mail bag slung over his left shoulder and crossing his body to fall on his right hip, that part of me wants to rush out the door and throw my arms around him.
But obviously I wouldn’t do that.
As I bend down to gather up the mail, I see them: the red stamps screaming at me from the envelopes.
PAST DUE
LATE NOTICE
SEND PAYMENT
I knew they would come. Of course I knew. Lenny was true to his promise and though he did mail the deed to the house, and a final mortgage statement marked “paid,” he has not sent one check since my mother died six weeks ago—so I haven’t paid one bill, hoarding the little money I had left for daily necessities like food. I’ve spent most of my days researching jobs I could do without leaving home. I applied to be a virtual assistant, an online tutor, and even a phone answerer for an off-hours call center, though I wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being awake at three a.m. But I didn’t get as much as a call back. Maybe because in the “experience” section of the applications, I wrote “none,” but do you really need job experience to answer phones?
And now, I’m staring at letter after letter announcing that my electricity will be cut off, and the water, even my Internet.
And how would I look for a job then? Or order groceries? Or survive?
I need money.
For that, I need to get a job.
For that, I apparently need to leave the house.
And at that thought, the giant fist that first clenched my heart six weeks ago is back, and it becomes difficult to breathe.
I HATE WHEN people self-diagnose. I watched my mom do it for years—she had everything from rabies (even though she’d never been bitten by an animal) to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease to syphilis (although, in retrospect, that diagnosis wouldn’t have been exactly surprising). But after conducting a pretty thorough Google search, I think it’s safe to say I’m suffering from an anxiety disorder, which may or may not be agoraphobia. (Other fact I learned in my search: Emily Dickinson didn’t leave her house for most of the last fifteen years of her life—and she only wore white, and made friends and visitors talk to her through her front door, which makes me feel a little better about my situation. At least I’m not crazy.)
What I don’t understand is why no one else finds it ironic that the recommended treatment for agoraphobia is to leave your house and seek the counsel of a therapist.
I know I need to leave my house, but knowing something and putting it into action are often two different things.
Fortunately, my Google sleuthing yesterday also produced the Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT, which uses psychological acupressure to remove emotional blocks that you may be experiencing, according to the website.
That’s why this morning I stand at my front door gently tapping the top of my skull with my fingertips. Then, I move on to:
my eyebrows
the sides of my eyes
under my eyes
my chin
my collarbone
my armpits
my wrists
I glance back at the paper I printed out yesterday. Shoot. I forgot to do under the nose before tapping my chin. I begin the process over again, tap all the requisite body parts, and then look back to the instructions.
While you’re tapping, say this phrase out loud (fill in the blank).
Even though I have this __________, I deeply and completely accept myself.
While I’m tapping? I’ve already done the tapping twice. I don’t want to do it a third time. I crumple the paper and throw it to the floor in anger. It hits the hardwood with an unsatisfyingly light scraping sound. So I stomp on it, crushing it under my heel.
Then I stand at the door, staring out the single glass panel set in the wood. It’s an overcast day and the world has a grayish tint, as if the clouds are shedding bits of themselves into the air like a shaggy wool sweater.
It’s Saturday, so there’s no chance of running into the garbage truck, which loosens the giant fist squeezing my chest just a smidge. But what if a neighbor comes out to get their paper? Or walk their dog? Or what if Earl comes early?
The fist curls tighter.
Maybe I am as crazy as Emily Dickinson.
I take a deep breath. I have to get out of the house. I have to get a job.
I take another deep breath, shake out my hands, and start tapping the top of my skull again with my middle fingers.
“Even though I have this fear of speaking to the garbagemen, I deeply and completely accept myself,” I whisper.
Then, my eyebrows.
“Even though I don’t want to run into my neighbors, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
I repeat the phrase, remembering under my nose this time, and move all the way down to my wrists.
Then I open the door and step out onto my porch.
I steel my body and turn my head, scanning the street from right to left. No neighbors. No dogs on leashes. No mailman.
Still, my heartbeat revs to that now-familiar galloping pace.
And then, a fat raindrop falls out of the sky and onto my head. From the looks of the foreboding clouds above, it’s the first of many. And I don’t have an umbrella with me.
My hand never left the front door knob, so it’s easy to turn it to the left, push the door inward, and step back into the dry cocoon of my home. The dead bolt makes a satisfying click as I turn it into place.
I’m both defeated and relieved. And then I feel defeated for feeling relieved.
“I’ll go tomorrow,” I say out loud, thinking of my sixth-grade math teacher, Mr. Walcott, who had a multitude of catchphrases he’d repeat ad nauseam, including “A promise spoken can’t be broken.”
But even back then, I knew that was a lie.
I DON’T REALLY believe in auras or energies or any of that psychic stuff, which means I’m pretty sure EFT is bullshit. So I can’t explain why I repeat the ritual the next morning, and every morning thereafter. But the farthest I’ve made it so far is my front porch.
On Friday, over my eggs and cut-up toast, I decide that today is going to be the day. I’m going to get in my car and drive away from the house. That is, if I can remember how. I only had my license for a year before my mom left and I wasn’t exactly skilled at the task. I hit something more often than not: the trash can, the curb. One time I nailed a bird and in my rearview mirror I saw its partner swoop down, squawking in horror at the demise of its mate. I didn’t drive for two weeks after that and can still hear the high-pitched caws if I close my eyes and try hard enough.
After breakfast, I get dressed and slowly walk back down the stairs, delaying the inevitable. At the landing, I tap my wrists a few times, pick up my handbag, slip on my gloves, and step out into the crisp October air.
When we first moved to New Jersey, my mom drove me into Manhattan for an appointment with the country’s most prominent allergy expert, Dr. Mei Zhang. I’d never been to a large city before and when she dropped me off at the building’s entrance, I tilted my head up, and up, and up some more, my eyes searching for where the brick met the blue sky. But before I could find it, I felt as though the sidewalk were giving out beneath me, my body swaying, my stomach dropping to my toes. I had to look away.
It’s the same way I feel now, as if the world is too big. As if the space around me is never-ending like the brick of that building. It’s dizzying—my vision blurs, my heartbeat thuds in my ears, my palms become slick with sweat.
I grab the iron railing in front of me to steady myself. I swallow past the hard lump in my throat, willing my eyes to focus, my head to stop swimming, my hands to stop shaking. They don’t obey. I feel like I’m going to pass out. And what then? Not only will I be outside, but I’ll be unconscious, vulnerable. I’ll be Gulliver and the neighborhood children will descend on me like Lilliputians, clawing at me with their tiny fingers and toes, me helpless to stop them.
My heart thuds harder, but I refuse to give up.
I lower my butt onto the top step, taking deep lungfuls of air. Then I start tapping. I concentrate on the monotonous drumming of my fingertips until my heartbeat slows, my vision clears.
I glance up and down the street, scanning it for garbagemen, neighbors walking their dogs, kids on bikes. It’s empty. And I realize I’m surprised that it’s empty. I mean, I wasn’t expecting a parade or anything, but this is a monumental event. And I think I did expect at least a few slack-jawed neighbors, holding a rake midsweep, staring at me in disbelief, their thought bubbles ranging from: There she is. She does still live in there. To: I thought she was dead. But I’m alone. Maybe I’m not Boo Radley. Maybe no one has thought of me at all.
I stand up on quivering legs, clutch my handbag tighter with my fist, and set my sights on my mom’s Pontiac in my driveway. I can picture her behind the wheel so vividly, I have to double-check that she’s not in the driver’s seat.
I duck my head, somehow will my body down the three porch steps, and then make a beeline for the car. Gravel crunches beneath my heels, and I focus all my attention on the sound it makes until my thighs connect with the front bumper. The contact affords some kind of minor relief. I made it. To the car, at least.
My mom’s skirt, which I’m wearing, buffs the metallic bumper with each step as I walk to the other side of the Pontiac. Streaks of rust and dirt now mar the beige fabric, but I don’t care. I just want to be inside the car.
And then I am. I shut the door with a thwack and lean my head back on the upholstered seat, covered with years of Pepsi stains and cigarette burns—my mom never did quit smoking, like she told that reporter in that Times article. I used to think it was gross, but now I take comfort in the familiarity of it. And the fact that a metal box is now separating me from the outside world. I exhale.
Then, with still-trembling hands, I stick the key in the ignition and turn it.
Nothing.
I try again.
It makes a coughing sound but doesn’t start up. I lean forward and check the gas gauge. The little pointer stick is below the red E. That’s probably the least of its problems after sitting for so long, but it’s the extent of my knowledge about cars. If it doesn’t run—add gas.
I remove the key from the ignition, slip out of the car, and crunch back over the gravel driveway to the front porch. I take the steps two at a time, open the door, and walk inside. I know I should Google it. The car. Figure out what’s wrong with it, how to fix it, like I did when the toilet started leaking in the upstairs bathroom and I had to figure out how to replace the wax ring myself. But I decide I’ll start with the gas first and then go from there. Tomorrow. Right now, I peel off my mother’s skirt suit, crawl into a sweatshirt and pants, and curl up on the chair with my dog-eared copy of Far from the Madding Crowd.
OUT OF ALL the men my mom dated, her most short-lived relationship may have been with the triathlete who wore tight spandex pants everywhere—even when he wasn’t working out. His name was something seemingly British, even though he wasn’t—like Barnaby or Benedict. Considering the only thing he and my mother had in common was their preferred cut of pants, their relationship was over in a matter of weeks—before she could even try out the bike he bought for her. She tried to return it to the store, but they wouldn’t take it without the receipt, so she shoved it in the storage shed behind the house, where it has sat ever since.
On Saturday, I go to the shed, half expecting the bike to not even be there anymore, although I guess it’s a little foolish to think it would have somehow vanished into thin air. But there it sits, next to a metal toolbox and a half-empty bag of potting soil from the one and only time Mom decided she might like to try gardening.
After removing the cobwebs from the handlebars and spokes and filling the tires with air from the pump attached to the frame, I navigate the bike out of the shed and onto the gravel driveway. I try to ignore the now-expected physical reactions that take over my body—sprinting heart, sweating palms, blurring vision.
Mind over matter.
Mind over matter.
Mind over matter.
But my mind is apparently not more powerful than matter. And it takes me a full forty-five minutes of stopping and starting, inching myself and the bike past the Pontiac and finally onto the street. I look in both directions, and my heart lurches when I see a woman a few houses down picking a newspaper up out of her yard. I fight the urge to drop the bike and bolt. Instead, I stand there, watching her tuck the paper under her arm. Then she looks up, directly into my eyes, and lifts her hand in a little wave. I’m too stunned to move. I haven’t been in contact with anyone in nine years. In person, anyway.
That sounds pathetic, but it’s not like I don’t have friends. The Internet is teeming with people who just want to chat. And plenty of late nights when I couldn’t sleep I would seek them out. Granted, some of them were a little creepy, like the policeman in Canyon City, Oregon, who seemed nice until our conversation quickly devolved into his fascination with S & M and he asked me to go get a brush so I could spank myself. (I did not.) But then there was the woman in the Netherlands, who knew like seventeen foreign languages and taught me the curse words in all of them. (My favorite is Bulgarian, “Kon da ti go natrese,” which roughly translates to: “Get fucked by a horse.”)
But being online, and even on the phone, is worlds away from speaking to someone in person. And I wonder if I even remember how—where do I look? What do I do with my hands? Fortunately, the woman doesn’t wait for my acknowledgment of her and just turns and walks back to her front door, as if it’s just any normal day and I’m any normal neighbor. I let out a breath. Then I fix the strap of my handbag across my chest diagonally, ease myself over the seat, push off the ground with a foot, and wobble my way onto the pavement.
Whoever said “It’s just like riding a bike” to convey a skill that, once learned, is never forgotten is an idiot. I learned how to ride a bike as a child and this is nothing like that. There are gears, for one. And I have no idea what to do with them. As I’m staring at the metal knobs, I hear a car coming up the street behind me. Even though I’m only creeping along—the pedals are so hard to push it’s almost like they’re glued in place—I panic and reach for the brake, accidentally jerking the handlebar and toppling the bike over into a bush next to someone’s mailbox.
The car rolls past me, and my body freezes, willing it to continue. To not be a Good Samaritan that wants to check and see that I’m OK. It’s not. I wait until the car turns the corner, exhale, then stand up, pick up the bike, readjust my shoulder bag, and get back on. After a few more tries, I’m able to keep the bike steady, and with a lucky flip of one of the knobs, the pedals miraculously become easier to push. I ride down to the end of the street. At the stop sign I turn left onto Plumcrest and then out of the neighborhood, carefully steering the bike onto the narrow shoulder.
Cars rush past me, the exhaust filling my lungs, and I feel exposed, like I forgot to put on pants. I grip the handlebars tighter, my shoulders a steel rod of tension. I’m headed toward the Wawa that’s next to the CVS, and it occurs to me that it may no longer be there. How would I know if it had closed? Or moved? Or burned down? My heart beats harder, until I round a bend and see the familiar red italic sign.
Exhaling, I pedal the bike to the front of the store and carefully extract myself from the seat. My crotch and thighs are sweaty from the short ride and my legs are shaking.
I did it. I left the house during the day. And I am at a gas station. I close my eyes and breathe in the heady, toxic air.
But now what? I glance at the glass door, where a bell heralds the exit of a man in a green ball cap and flannel shirt. He glances at me and I look down. After he passes, I leave my bike propped up by the door and enter where the man came out. I move up and down the aisles, until I spot a red plastic gas can and take it up to the counter, placing it in front of a woman with a strong overbite and cat’s-eye glasses. She doesn’t look at me as she grabs the handle and scans the UPC tag.
“You wanna fill this up?”
Her voice startles me. And just as I feared, I start to panic—I don’t know where to look or what to do with my hands. I hear my mom’s voice in my ear. Just smile. Why do you have to look so damned serious all the time? So I do. I put on a big grin, flashing my teeth at this woman, who’s still waiting for my reply.
She fixes me with a look that I feel certain she reserves for idiots and my face starts to burn. “Want me to charge you for the gas to fill this up?” she says slowly. “Or are you just buying the can?”
I stop smiling. “Oh, uh. The gas, too.”
She nods, punches a few buttons on the cash register. “Twenty-one seventy-three,” she says.
I dig in my purse and fondle the $20 bill that’s been in there since high school—I’ve had no need for cash the past decade. But since it’s not enough, I let it go and grab the debit card, trying not to picture its dwindling account balance. I hand the card to her, and if she notices the gloves or thinks it’s weird I’m wearing them, she doesn’t say anything. She just swipes the card and hands it back to me. I quickly turn to leave with my head down.
“Your gas can!” she barks behind me.
Oh, right. I turn back, grab it with a gloved hand, and head out to the pumps.
I did it, I think to myself. I really left my house. I even spoke to someone. And now I’m getting gas. Like a regular person. But just when I start to relax a little and congratulate myself for the day’s accomplishments, I hear my name—“Jubilee?”—and everything in my body clenches again. But it sounds kind of far off and I think I must be hallucinating. Maybe the exertion from the bike—and the whole day, really—has messed with my brain.
“Jubilee?”
This time it’s clear as the bell on the gas station door, and I stand perfectly still, hoping I am invisible, or that the person saying my name will think they’re mistaken, that they’ve got the wrong person.
“Jubilee!” It’s a statement this time, a confirmation.
I turn my head slightly toward the voice, my insides a jumble of screws that have all been turned a rotation too tight.
My eyes are drawn directly to the mouth that formed my name. I’d know that mouth anywhere. I used to stare at it in school—so much that at times I wondered if I might secretly be a lesbian. But in the end, I realized it wasn’t my fault. She knew how to draw attention to it. Constantly licking her lips, as if she were always searching for a crumb at the corner of her mouth that was just slightly out of reach. I spent hours in the mirror trying to lick my lips like that, but I always looked like a camel whose tongue was too big for its mouth.
Now her lips are formed into a wide smile—so wide that I’m afraid her lips might crack, if it weren’t for the layers of thick, gooey gloss holding them together.
Her hair, which used to shine all the way down to her mid-back, now stops just below her chin and is swingy, but other than that she looks the exact same.
Madison H. There were three Madisons in our class, so we identified them by their last initial, but Madison H. was the only one who mattered.
She nods, and I realize I’ve said her name out loud.
“Jubilee Jenkins,” she says, never breaking her grin. She’s now within spitting distance of me and my hand reflexively squeezes the handle of the pump tighter.
I watch her eyes take me in—my black sweatpants, my gloves, the gas can I’m holding limp at my side like a cumbersome handbag—and I’m sixteen again, wishing I could be more like her.
“I heard that you had . . . um . . . moved,” she says, her eyes darting down and to the left. I wonder what the real rumors were. That I died, joined a traveling circus, entered some top secret government research program. When we moved to New Jersey and I started Lincoln High School as a freshman, the only saving grace was that I had the chance to start over—to be somebody new. Aside from the faculty and school nurse that we met with before school started, I didn’t have to tell anyone at Lincoln High about my condition. So I didn’t. And as far as I could tell, the teachers kept it a secret. But that didn’t stop the stares and whispers and speculation in the hallways and during class.
“Nope,” I manage. My voice is soft, shaky, and I’m as embarrassed by it as I am by my appearance.
She stares at me, as if waiting for something more—an explanation of what I’ve been doing for the past nine years—and the same panic I felt with the cashier begins to creep in: Where do I look? What do I do in the silences? What if I laugh at something that’s not funny?
“Well, I’m divorced,” she says with a little giggle, as if she’s just told a corny knock-knock joke. “Trying to get back out there in the dating scene, but it’s not so easy with three kids.”
My eyes bulge, even as I direct them not to. Perfect, pretty, popular Madison H., who was probably voted most likely to be a famous reality TV star—or at least marry one—is a twenty-eight-year-old divorcée with three kids?
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. It’s my mom’s voice. I don’t think I’m mean enough to take joy in other people’s misfortunes—even if that person is Madison H.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “About your, um”—I clear my throat, hoping that will force it to become louder, less shaky, more normal—“divorce.” It doesn’t.
She waves her hand at me. “Oh, it’s fine. Those high school romances aren’t meant to last a lifetime. Should’ve listened to Nana about that.”
High school romance? “So . . . you mean . . . you married . . .” I search for my tongue in my mouth and try to make it form the name, but I am the very definition of speechless. Unable to speak. His name, at least.
“Donovan, yeah.”
She says it so easily, so casually, as if she’s telling me something irrelevant, like that she had muesli for breakfast.
I try to repeat his name, to see if it is that easy. If it just rolls off the tongue.
It doesn’t.
“You didn’t know that?” She cocks her head. “Aren’t you on Facebook?”
I shake my head no, hoping I’m giving the impression that I’m better than Facebook and not that I belonged to it for a total of three weeks and the only person who friended me was a man whose profile wasn’t in English. It may have been in Russian, but I’m not sure—I’m not great at differentiating between the various Slavic languages. In short, I closed my account.
“Well, anyway . . .” She eyes me up and down—her gaze resting on my gloves for a second longer than anywhere else—and I cringe again at my appearance. “What are you up to?”
I clear my throat as my brain scrambles to answer her.
“I ran out of gas,” I say. “And I need it.” That was stupid. Of course I need it if I ran out. “I mean—I, um . . . I’m looking for a job.”
“Get out!” she says, and she moves her hand as if she’s going to tap me right in the arm with her bloodred manicured hand but then stops at the last second. I flinch anyway, and it’s an awkward moment.
“Sorry,” she says, her extra-wide grin reappearing, “but we’re losing our assistant at the library and maybe that’s something you’d be interested in?”
The library? Madison H. is a librarian? A vivid memory barrels its way into my mind—Madison H. in English lit our junior year loudly complaining that Huckleberry Finn was too hard to get through: “Why can’t they just use real English?”
“So you work . . . at the library?”
“Oh God no,” she says. “I’m in real estate—well, I just got my license to be a Realtor. But I’m on the board of the library. Donovan thought it would be good for me, with him being in line to be president at the bank when his dad retires, blah, blah—not that any of that matters now.” She titters again. “But it’s fine. It’s a good experience.”
I nod, the word “Donovan” striking a chord in me again, vibrating through my whole body. And then I’m lost in the tidal wave of memories his name—and seeing Madison H.—conjures.
“Jubilee?” Madison says. I blink. Her voice is quiet, subdued.
“Yeah?” I say, struggling to meet her eyes. The humiliation is so acute, so fresh, it makes me want to sprint all the way home, leaving my bike, my handbag, the gas can, everything parked in front of the glass door at Wawa.
“Why are you doing that, that thing with your hands?”
I look down and see that my right fingers are methodically tapping the wrist that’s attached to my hand holding the gas can. I wonder how long I’ve been doing it.
“No reason,” I say, heat rising in my cheeks. I give my head a shake, a futile effort to rid myself of the past. “So, um, I don’t have any résumés with me. Can I send you one? For the library thing?”
Her eyes brighten. “You’re interested?” she says. “That’s great. Don’t worry about the résumé.” She pulls out her cell phone from the purse hanging off her shoulder. “Just give me your number and I’ll put in a word for you. I’m sure they’ll call you.”
I nod again and enunciate the digits that correlate with my house phone.
“Great,” she says. “Well, it was really good to see—”
“Why are you doing this for me?” I know it’s rude to interrupt, but the question is burning the insides of my mouth and I have to release it.
She shrugs, as if she doesn’t know what I mean, but her eyes shift, betraying her. “It’s a good coincidence,” she says. “You’re looking for a job, and I know a place that has one.”
But we both know it’s more than that. If you could open our brains and reveal our thoughts, I’m sure we’d both be thinking of the same moment, in the same courtyard that, try as I might, I can’t ever forget—the moment when Donovan kissed me. I thought we were alone, until a gaggle of kids came charging around the corner, pushing one another and laughing and shoving money toward Donovan—payment on their bet. Madison was one of them, though I don’t remember her laughing. Her face was long, serious, and the last one I saw before I passed out. And I always wondered, if she wasn’t there to laugh at me like the rest of them, why was she there at all?