It's all fun and games until...

Somebody loses a heart. I know, I don't feel very funny, in fact I don't feel very anything as it stands, except tired. And sad. I suppose that stands to reason. And so many reasons at that.

It all began well, or as well as could be expected, you know, the yearly barbecue, the one that no one really wants to organize but everyone wants to have. It was fun, and I somehow managed to spill wine down my white blouse, red wine, mind you, and then practically all over the acting 70-something year-old chair. He was sporting about it.

When he told me about Tim today and his voice wobbled, and he didn't realize that he was speaking Portuguese instead of Spanish (though it didn't matter because the end result was the same - we still don't know anything- he said) that was when I could cry. I had known for a full twenty minutes, or three hours, really if you count the urgent phone call before class that suggested "critical condition".

We all know what that means, but we don't want to believe it. I keep waiting to hear his voice. The joker, waiting for him to swing his door wide open and smile his devilish smile, and say "sike!" in the way only people who survived the 80's in the US can do. He was in high school when I was in elementary school, I think, not that much older now, but a universe of difference then. I wonder what he was doing, was he wearing his cowboy boots already? when I was wearing my hot-pink sweatshirts with plastic-coils, and fat neon laces in my shoes that didn't tie, and side ponytails, to compliment the acid-washed jeans whose fronts were covered in pleather, and which when I fell from my bike not only failed to protect my knee, but ripped in such unseemly ways. I had two pairs, both met the same fate, back when I would ride my biciycle for hours a day.

I can't seem to teach I. to ride her bike, I don't have the patience required, or perhaps swimming was the one lesson I could impart. Her reading is soaring in her new school, now that she can challenge herself, and direct her learning. I would have leaned halfway in and out of Tim's door and talked to him about her for a few minutes before class, and he would have cracked jokes, and offered me some gum, while popping the top off another diet coke. Always diet. Always coke. He was just 41, it seems so unfair.

And I. tells me in the car that her new best friend just went to a funeral because her twenty-year-old cousin was at a party dancing and two guys came up behind him and knifed him in the back. She says it is sad. I ask her if she is worried because she has heard me talking about a friend that has died, and she says, no, because he is already dead, there is nothing she can do but be sad for him. And she is.

If it weren't for Jenny, visiting from D.C., I might not have made it through the day. She was there when I got the initial phone call, and when I heard the bad news in my office. We were painting our toenails, waiting for office hours to end. I only finished one foot. It seemed somehow inappropriate to paint the other after such shocking news. It was just Friday that I was holding out a glass o Sangiovese for him, that he was chasing us home with barbecue utensils that he had bought for the sole purpose of the event and didn't want to take home. They are clean and sitting in my house, I can't give them away now. I held the woman who came to tell us as she shook. I couldn't cry, not then. I know my face must have twisted up into that sort of sour smirk that my mother always hated and that I made when my cat Mauritz died. One-eyed Mauritz, God I loved that cat, no wonder I. misses Baudelaire so much. I forgot how hard it is to lose someone, something. I couldn't cry, but I have learned to stifle the obscene laughter, the inversion of pain, the inability to appropriately express. She would always get angry with my response, but I didn't know how to express grief. I still can't. I get mechanical. I make lists of things to do, I help other people, I want to.

But what I really want is a hug, just someone to hold me until it passes, and it will pass, as we all pass. And the terror, yes the terror, when no one answers on the other end of the line. The terror that if one of my beloved friends were to die I wouldn't get a phone call. I wouldn't ever know, I would just let the telephone ring and ring and ring ad nauseum and finally give up, deciding that I must not be wanted anymore. That's how I have been feeling lately. Wanting to curl up inside myself and no longer give anything to anyone, not anyone, not ever again.

But then I teach my class at 10 and I think about how Tim always says that no matter how bad it is, teaching is just the thing because at least it distracts you for that one hour about how miserable you are. And I am not miserable, not in that way, just numb, and hurting for others. So I make calls, and I see my therapist, who is sweet and listens but is not ultimately the voice that I want to hear. But then I remember Tim's warning about vampire relationships, and how he wanted me to steer clear.

The day before seems light years away. All cogs fit nicely into their gears. Wheels turn smoothly. We drink (terrible) wine at Firestone, only because it is the first vineyard up Zaca Station Road. We move to the next and a little girl is tired of stuffing handfuls of pretzels with brandied caramel sauce into her hungry mouth so we give up and head into Solvang. We drink some more wine, after eating pseudo-Danish food. The town is quaint, and we entertain fantasies of biking along the windy roads, and then of other biking trips, across New Zealand, or Nova Scotia. It has been years since I biked. A miracle I was never killed, back in the days when helmets were uncool, and unrequired, and the sun actually tasted like melted butter on your tongue, caramelized sugar, honey flowing through golden curls and sweat beaded on brows.

There was a summer, all I did was read books all night long and ride my bike all day, and I wonder what happened to that girl, and will there be another chance for her? And I am confronted with the stark reality of my own mortality. I don't want to die, not yet. I don't want to die alone, but is it better any other way? So I try to conquer my desire to pull inside myself and shut out the world, but my heart hurts so much, and his heart was working overtime, too large in the literal and metaphorical senses. Who will take care of his mother? And Sara? Who will take care of her now?

I take an offering, because I am too awkward to give other sorts of comfort. My hugs seem shallow to me, I twist up inside myself, I don't know what right I have to feel anything, or to console anyone else, but I try. I put on a brave face, not the face my mother hates, I hope, but doubt, and I let my lip tremble, but that is it. I bring bottled water and mint and chamomile tea, TLC crackers with dill, and trail mix with cranberries so that when she can eat again, she'll have something with protein. I get a bear full of honey, the kind that I never buy for I because it doesn't add up economically, but I don't care, I don't look at prices. I put in a frozen quiche, and a package of curried tuna. I know she won't eat, but I hope against hope that she will.

The phone rings off the hook. Jenny calls me back. She is a comfort, and I know she has seen more, lost more than I have. I don't have any battle scars. I have lost so few, but there is always the fear. No answer. A new message on the other end. What if the family doesn't know to call me? What if they don't even know I exist. Panic, terror. I. calmly reminds me that there is nothing to be done but to feel for them. I want to feel. I field a few phone calls. I don't like the tone of my voice. I wish I could somehow invoke more tragedy. Somewhere inside of me I know it is there. I just need to dig deeper.