Marie Anderson                                                                                                       

How Far I Can See

We were all playing hooky from our jobs except Will whose shift at Target didn’t start until five.

Will and I sat under a tree at Montrose Beach, a little apart from Bruce and Merle who were marinating in the sun, determined to get some color before their law firm’s annual black tie gala next week. They were my friends from college. Will didn’t much like them. They “didn’t suffer fools gladly,” they liked to say, but Will said that was just their excuse for treating people shitty. He called them, not to their face, the BM’s, and I’d started to do that too, but not to their face.

It wasn’t yet noon, mid-May, mid-week, so the beach wasn’t crowded. Some runners, rollerbladers, and bikers zoomed on the path behind us. A few hard bodies in bulging Speedos lay close to the water, their skin oiled and bronzed.

The BM’s kept glancing up from their phones and looking at the hardbodies. When we’d arrived at the beach, Merle had nudged me and said, “I don’t think this is the place for you to meet guys, Sammo. But maybe those Chippendales are for Will’s benefit?”

“I’m not here to meet anyone,” I said to Merle.

And that was true. I was divorced three years. My best friend was Will, who came out to me before anyone else when we were in 8th grade. And God help me, I still fantasized about Merle’s husband.

I stroked the sand, watched sailboats cut the horizon, their sails pregnant with wind. Occasionally I’d read a few pages from Moby Dick, then reward myself with a session playing Angry Birds on my phone.

Will called Moby my beach book because the only time I opened it was at the beach.

Will was lost in his book, my ex’s book actually, The Second Deadly Sin. My ex had left all his books behind when he’d left me the house and everything in it to atone for his freshly pregnant and pretty admin assistant. His books filled the maple shelves in the Chicago bungalow we’d bought and rehabbed together.

I’d just turned to page 145 in Moby when sand hit the words.

I looked up. A boy hopped in front of us, flinging sand. He was skinny, wore red gym shorts and a gray tee. On the tee, the words King Elementary School circled the face of MLK. An unzipped Spiderman backpack bulged near the boy’s bare feet. A gym shoe poked out from the backpack, a hole in the toe, Velcro straps.

I’m no expert in kid-fashion, but I thought he looked too old for a Spiderman backpack and Velcro-strap shoes. Ten, maybe.

His nose was sunburned. The corners of his mouth leaked red. Ketchup or Kool-Aid, it was hard to tell from where I sat.

I wanted to wipe his face, spit on Kleenex and rub him clean as my own mom had done for me, and as I still see moms doing, even the ones who rub grocery cart handles with antibacterial wipes.

“Go away,” Merle said to the boy. She was 24 weeks pregnant with her first child, so she had nothing to prove by being nice to a stranger’s kid.

“Come get me!” he shouted. He hopped closer to us.

Bruce was pretending to sleep. Will had yet to look up from his book.

Suddenly, the boy collapsed. I gasped. Moby fell to the sand as I lurched up, the drill for CPR spinning my brain. The boy’s arms and legs flailed over the sand like windshield wipers set on high speed.

“Sammo! Samantha! Relax! Stat!” Merle shouted. “You don’t need to get into your Nurse Goodbody routine now. He’s only doing angel wings!”

“Nus Goodbuddy!” the boy shouted.

I sank back into my sand chair, my cheeks burning. Right. He was just angel-winging the sand. Pregnancy had given Merle mom-eyes. Something I’d never have.

I stared at the kid. Scabs crusted his knees. A long scar puckered his left thigh. His toes were long and widely spaced.

“Very nice angel!” I called out.

He sat up, smiled at Merle.

Merle thumbed her phone, ignored the boy.

He somersaulted, attempted a cartwheel. His arms and legs moved loosey-goosey. One eye wandered. His lips couldn’t quite cover crooked teeth.

I applauded his efforts. Will looked up, smiled, and returned to his book.

Merle frowned. “Don’t encourage him, Sammo,” she said.

The boy tossed sand again, most of it toward the BM’s. I kept smiling and considered offering him some pretzels. I can’t have kids of my own, so I prove it doesn’t matter by going overboard when it comes to kids. I sent flowers to my ex and his wife when their son was born, roses I hand-picked, inhaling them for freshness at the florist and smelling all the wakes I’d attended over the years.

*

“Where are his parents?” I asked Merle. “Why isn’t he in school?”

She didn’t look up from her phone. “Not our prob, Sam,” she muttered.

King Elementary, the school name on his tee, was just a few blocks north of the beach, on Marine Drive, the eastern edge of edgy Uptown. I drove past the school on my way to and from the Women’s Cancer Clinic where I’m a nurse. The school is a large red brick rectangle. The first-floor windows are bricked. The doors are green slabs of windowless steel. No doorknobs. Opened only from the inside.

This boy had the look of an Uptown kid. His blonde hair was too long, the curls stringy, unwashed. He had none of the rosy-cheeked robustness, the salon-cut hair, the brightly colored cottons from Gap or Land’s End that decorate the kids in my part of the city.

Merle frowned and stroked her stomach, a lovely swell under her pink maternity tankini. “I think I see your mother calling you,” she said to the boy.

The boy’s eyes popped wide. He spun around. “Wheya?” He hopped and kicked sand. “I don’t see!”

Merle crossed her arms over her stomach. I wondered if she was thinking of the scene where the Elephant Man’s mother, pregnant with him, is frightened by a herd of stampeding elephants. We’d streamed the film last night. The BM’s were staying with me while their suburban floors were being sanded, stained, and polyurethaned. I had plenty of room in my bungalow. Two extra bedrooms were no longer needed for a husband’s office or a child’s room, though I’d yet to remove the alphabet border left by the previous owners.

*

“Wheya? Wheya?” the boy was chanting. “Tell me!”

“Way out there in the water,” Merle said. “See her waving her arms? Better go swim out to her. Maybe she needs your help.”

Will jumped up. “Hey! Stop that, Merle!”

I tensed, ready to help Will grab the kid if he actually tried to run into the lake.”

“Oh, chill dude,” Merle said. “The kid knows I’m just kidding.” She dimpled a smile to the boy. “Right, buddy?”

The boy laughed. “I know! I know! I’m not a dummy!”

Bruce finally opened his eyes. “Hey, Babe,” he said to Merle. “Be nice. That’s bad teasing.”

Will shook his head, sat back down, and returned to his book. But I could tell he wasn’t reading. His cheeks were red, and his lips were pressed in a tight line.

Bruce looked at me, rolled his eyes, and shrugged. He left his sand chair and loped over to my bag of pretzels. He popped one in his mouth and crouched close to me, placing his hand on my arm. My stomach fluttered the way it had 15 years ago when he’d asked me to dance at the 70’s retro party in my college dorm cafeteria. We’d danced to Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven. When I’d returned from a bathroom break, the DJ was playing Spirit’s It’s Nature Way, and my roommate had replaced me in Bruce’s arms. Merle.

“Her hormones are wacky right now,” he said, stroking my arm. I fixed my eyes on the agitated boy twirling before Merle.

Bruce winked at me, grabbed more pretzels, and returned to his chair.

“I know you just foolin’ me,” the boy said to Merle. “Those just little waves. All I see ah little waves. A zillion waves fah a zillion miles. Wight? Wight?”

“What’s your name, young man?” I asked.

He ignored me, gazed at Merle. I thought of cats who gravitate to the least receptive person in the room. Was it because her hair was blonde and curly, like his? Or because she looked soft and maternal with her pregnancy blossoming under her tankini?

“My name is Wahbut,” he said to Merle.

“Well, Wahbut,” Bruce said. He shot his David Letterman sarcastic grin at me. “You cannot see for a zillion miles. Visibility is good today, but I’d say the horizon is about 10 miles away.” He looked down at his phone and started thumbing his way to somewhere else.

“Oh!” Robert said. “Ten miles! I can see 10 miles! Hey! Can I have a pwetzel please?”

I held out my pretzel bag. “Here, Robert!”

But Bruce tossed a pretzel to him from the pile in his lap.

It fell in the sand. Robert scrabbled for it and popped it in his mouth.

“Bruce,” Merle said. “Don’t encourage him.”

Robert somersaulted and landed closer to the BM’s.

“How old are you, Wahbut?” Bruce asked.

“Ten!” Robert shouted. He seemed delighted with their attention. I’d kept smiling at him, but he did not look at me. I know I’m not a lookable person. I’m tall and thin and people often tell me I look tired even when I’m not tired at all. My ex thought my failure to ovulate, despite the Clomid pills and Pergonal injections, was because I was so thin. We’d try to fatten me up, eating out after work and always getting dessert. He’d spoon feed chocolate mousse into my mouth, and then we’d go home and try to get fertilized.

*

“Ten!” Bruce exclaimed. “Fourth grade, and you still haven’t learned that the distance you can see is limited to 1.22 times the square root of your height?”

“Huh?” Robert replied.

Merle laughed. “This is why our child will never go to a Chicago public school.”

Will closed his book with a bang. “You just look that up on your phone, Bruce?” Will leaned sideways in his chair to reach for the pretzel bag but toppled into the sand.

Robert and the BM’s laughed. When I saw Will laughing as he righted himself, I laughed too.

Will held out the pretzel bag. “Here Robert. Help yourself.”

Robert galloped over, his wandering eye suddenly focused perfectly on Will and me.

“Thanks!” He punched his hand into the bag, knocking it from Will’s grip.

Pretzels spilled on the sand.

“Oh!” Robert fell to his knees and started scooping pretzels and sand into the bag. “I’ll fix it! Sowwy!” Red splotched his cheeks. His lips trembled.

“Oh Robert,” I said. “No worries. I often enjoy a little sand with pretzels.”

Robert rocked back on his legs. He grabbed a pretzel from the sand and ate it. “Yah. I enjoy a little sand with my pwetzels too.” He smiled at me. “Want one, Nus Goodbuddy?”

I hesitated. Chuckles from the BM’s helped me decide.

“Sure!” I held out my hand.

Robert plopped a sandy pretzel in my palm. Black rimmed his fingernails.

I pushed the whole gritty thing into my mouth, chewed, swallowed. “Yum?” I managed to say, and Will and Robert laughed.

Robert arranged himself between my and Will’s chairs.

“Better you than us,” Merle said from her place in the sun.

“God bless you both,” Bruce added.

The BM’s returned to their phones.

“I know how fah I can see,” Robert announced.

“Bet you don’t,” Will said.

I looked at Will in surprise.

Robert closed his eyes, took a deep breath. “It’s 1.22 times the sqway woot of ya height.”

I looked at Robert in surprise.

“Yes and no,” Will said. “You see stars at night, right?”

“Duh,” Robert said. “Yeah.”

“Well then. When you see stars, you’re seeing light years, zillions of miles!”

I touched Robert’s arm and he rewarded me with a crooked smile. “Have you ever wished on a shooting star, Robert?”

He nodded. “I wished Mama to come back.”

Merle looked up from her phone. “Way to go, Sammo.”

My heart jumped, but before I could mumble sorry, Will commanded: “Close your eyes, Robert. Now think of your mom. What color is her hair?”

Robert squeezed his eyes shut. “Bwon. It was bwon but it all fell out.”

Will bit his lower lip. “Well then, you can see what once was. You can see like a time traveler.”

“Yeah!” Robert exclaimed.

“Have you ever seen an angel or a superhero, like Spiderman?” Will asked.

“Not foh weal.”

“But you know what they look like,” Will said.

Robert nodded.

“Then you can see what Nature forgot. You can see what should be, not just what is.”

Bruce approached, began rooting in the cooler behind my chair. “What a philosopher our Target clerk is,” he whispered to me. His fingers landed on my knee. They felt like a fly itching me. I shifted, brushed them off.

“Go back to your wife,” I murmured.

Bruce’s face reddened. He returned to his chair.

“I like your Spiderman backpack,” I said to Robert.

Robert galloped to his backpack and began kicking it. Stuff spilled: shoes, crumpled paper scrawled with shaky print, a lunch bag, still fat, the name Robert Heimerdinger printed in block letters on the bag.

“Hey!” Will called out. “Why you kicking your backpack?”

“Don’t do that,” I added, and rose from my chair and began gathering the spilled contents.

“I hate it!” Robert shouted. “It’s dumb-dingaheim-doo!”

“I think your backpack is way cool,” Will said.

“Everyone says it’s dumbo.”

“Robert.” I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Help me put your stuff back in.”

He crouched next to me and gathered chewed up pencils. I smelled his sweat.

Will crouched next to us. “Kids in school dissing your backpack?”

“They say I should be in kindagaten with the othah Spidahmen and Winnie the Poo-Poo backpacks.”

“So you took a little break from school?” I asked. “Came to the beach to get happy with the lake and the sun?”

He nodded.

“Bet your teacher is worried. Bet she wants to have you back safe and sound. Maybe they’ve called your parents, and now they’re worried, too.”

Then I remembered what he’d said about his mom. “I mean, your dad?”

He shook his head. “They usually call the home.”

“The home?” Will and I asked at the same time.

“Jinx!” Robert shouted. “You owe me a pop! You say the same thing same time you gotta gimmee a pop!”

“We’ll give you a pop, then we’ll see about getting you back to school, okay?” I asked.

Robert shrugged. “Mountain Dew?”

“Caffeine Free Diet Coke is all we have,” I replied.

We settled ourselves back under the tree. I opened the cooler, handed a Coke to Robert.

“Thank you,” he said.

Something warm trembled from my gut to my throat and settled itself behind my eyes.

I handed a Coke to Will.” I’m going to help this kid,” I whispered into his ear.

He nodded. “Count me in.”

I grabbed a Coke for myself, facing the path just as a woman pushing a baby jogger ran along the path. She smiled at me and waved. I waved back, closed the cooler, and returned to my chair.

Robert sat cross-legged on the sand between me and Will. He leaned into the armrest of my chair. His hair tickled my arm. He looked up at me. His eyes focused perfectly straight. He sipped his Coke. “This hits the spot,” he said. He smiled at me.

I tousled his hair. He laughed. “That tickles!”

The woman pushing the baby jogger, when she waved she probably thought she was seeing a fellow mom, a mom enjoying a day at the beach with her handsome husband and adorable son.

I sipped my Coke. Closed my eyes.

I could see it, too.

Marie Anderson is a Chicago area married mother of three millennials. Her stories have appeared in about 65 publications, including Muleskinner Journal, The Saturday Evening Post, Sunlight Press, Mystery Magazine, Right Hand Pointing, and forthcoming in Calliope Interactive. Since 2009, she has led (and learned so much good stuff from) a writing critique group at a public library in La Grange, IL.