AMY NESWALD

author. filmmaker. educator.

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Writing

The Perfects... “Jin’s market’s still on the corner,” she said, an effort to break through thirty years of ice, nothing more. They’d been sitting across from each other, Stephen and Jane, five minutes, six, maybe, staring through windows, shifting in their seats, polishing water-stained silverware. Thirty years was too long to pretend to be friends, but when he called, said he was in town, sentimentality got the better of her. She knew why he was here. Morbid curiosity sandwiched between an insurance seminar and vague sense of guilt, the kind you carry so long that it’s worn down like a polished stone.

Friday Harbor... Ingrid tracks the poet and his librarian wife through the jagged edges of the swells. They’re far ahead, dwarfed by distance. They row in perfect rhythm, their oars pushing arched swallows behind their kayak. When they dip, it’s the librarian’s white bun that distinguishes them from the sharp angles of the waves. And when they bob, the poet’s shaggy hair, also white, emerges from the ocean. Where Ingrid and Kate struggle, the poet and his wife’s make the rowing look easy. A strip of sunlight shatters a flimsy cloud. A gust of wind blows their boat to the left. They row into the waves.

The Grow... They were fun to drive through, the pockets of subdivisions with cul-de-sacs, three-car garages, and street names like Lawndale, Slipstone Grove, and Love Lives Here Lane. Grace admired the rectangular spread of oversized colonials and the manicured lawns that watered themselves. During winter, the sculpted hills softened into round and gentle pillows beneath the snow and were adorned by elaborate snowmen contracted by the housing associations. Sometimes, she allowed herself to dream of living in one of the perfect houses, walking barefoot on the soft-fibered carpets. She imagined the calming thrum of the fingerprint-resistant stainless- steel refrigerator cozied up against the skim-coated beige-ish walls.

The In-betweens... Sometimes at night, wild zombies roam. They wander past, or into our house, and rustle through the downstairs looking for life. Sometimes, when the moon is high, you can spot one loping down the street....

Forty-Six... Waiting to turn forty-six is like standing in the unrelenting sunshine. Everything green is wilted. Beauty is parched into nothingness....

No Less Than Nothing... If you met Lorelei Cooper, you’d think she was a sweet, little old lady that you might run into in a fairy-tale forest or garden path. She is my height, five foot four, age indeterminate, somewhere between sixty-five and eighty-four. She has white hair cut into a shaggy bob. Her cheeks are always rosy, as if she’s perpetually rushing in from the cold. Her pants start above her waist and end above her ankles. She has an Irish accent with an Irish lilt that vibrates in a high-C soprano when she’s flustered or talking to her dog, a short-legged, bloodshot corgi named Diggs.

Late Bloomer... When a Bleeder pulls up to the drive-thru window, the first thing I do is ask if they’re a returning customer. If they are, I have them place their customer loyalty card in the drive-thru drawer and I punch another heart-shaped hole with the heart-shaped hole punch that Jed bought when I first started here. If it’s their first time at Ash Land, I start a new card. After ten visits, they get a free funeral. Jed insists that this is the way to build customer loyalty, and as the owner of a mom and pop business in an industry being swallowed by big box competition, he needs all the loyalty he can get.

Bruce, On Ice: Phoebe swears that the slick roads and misty skies, and the fatness of the roses in our front yard are all signs that point to Bruce. When we hear “Bruce” called out at a restaurant, or see the name in the newspapers, or watch a movie with a character named Bruce, she grabs my arm and says, “See?” Bruce is everywhere.

Dizzy... My earliest memory: I was three. My father, just home from a business trip, dropped his suitcase on my hamster Harry. Instead of being happy about my father’s return and the little bars of soap he brought, I cried for a week. I’ve never been able to look at travel-sized anything the same way since. At six, my cat got stuck in a tree, then my father got stuck in the tree trying to get the cat down. My mother, so nervous that she sucked the smoke out of her cigarette with a single inhale, pushed the ladder into the soft earth so hard that it sunk to its bottom rails. The mud created a vacuum and we haven’t been able to move it since. I’m pretty sure the ladder grew roots and now believes it’s a tree.

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Rain Forest Morning

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