Transcription
On the morning of the interaction meeting, Josie was filled with anxiety. She returned to the bedroom after breakfast to try on different clothes. And even when we could hear her guests arriving, and Melania, the housekeeper, had called up a third time, she continued brushing her hair.
Finally, with many voices audible downstairs, I said to her, "Perhaps it's time for us to join Josie's guests."
Only then did she drop the hairbrush onto the dressing table and rise to her feet. "You're right. Time to face the music."
Coming down the staircase, I saw the hall was filled with strangers talking in humorous voices. These were the accompanying adults, all of them female. Younger voices were coming from the open plan, but the sliding doors had been pulled together, so Josie's guests weren't yet visible to us.
Josie, on the stairs in front of me, stopped with four steps to go. She might even have turned back if one of the adults hadn't called out, "Hi Josie, how are you doing?"
Josie raised a hand, and then the mother, moving through the adults in the hall, gestured toward the open plan. "Go on in," she called. "Your friends are waiting for you."
I thought the mother was about to say something further to reinforce this, but other adults had gathered around her, talking and smiling, and she was obliged to turn away from us. Josie did seem to find new courage then, and she went down the remaining steps into the crowd.
I followed, expecting her to go towards the open plan, but instead, she went through the adults toward the front door, which was open and bringing in fresh air. Josie kept moving as though she had a clear purpose, and a passerby might have thought she was engaged on some important errands on behalf of her guests.
In any case, no one impeded her, and as I followed, I heard many voices around me. Someone was saying, "Professor Quan may be wonderful at teaching our children mathematical physics, that doesn't give him the right to be uncivil to us." And another voice said, "Europe, the best housekeepers still come from Europe."
More voices greeted Josie as she passed, and then we were at the front door, touched by the outside air. Josie looked out, her foot on the threshold, and shouted into the outdoors, "Come on! What are you doing?" Then she grasped the door frame and leaned out at an angle. "Hurry up! Everyone's already here!"
Rick appeared in the doorway, and Josie, taking his arm, drew him into the hall. He was dressed as he had been on the grass mound, in normal jeans and sweater, but the adults seemed immediately to notice him. Their voices didn't actually stop, but the volume fell.
Then the mother came through the crowd. "Rick, hello, welcome, come in." She placed a hand behind him, ushering towards the guest adults. "Everyone, this is Rick, our good friend and neighbor. Some of you already know him."
"How are you, Rick?" a woman nearby said. "Great you could make it."
Then the adults began to greet Rick all at once, calling out kind things, but I noticed a strange caution in their voices. The mother, speaking above them, asked, "So, Rick, is your mother keeping well? It's been a while since she came over."
"She's fine, thank you, Mrs. Arthur," as Rick spoke, the room became quiet.
A tall woman behind me asked, "Did I hear you lived nearby, Rick?"
Rick's gaze moved across the faces to locate the speakers. "Yes, ma'am. In fact, ours is the only house you can see if you step outside." Then he did a small laugh and added, "Aside from this one, I mean."
Everyone laughed loudly at his audition, and Josie, behind him, smiled nervously, as if she'd made the remark herself.
Another voice said, "A lot of clean air out here. Good place to grow up, I bet."
"It's just fine, thank you," Rick said. "That is, until you need a fast pizza delivery."
Everyone laughed even more loudly, and this time Josie joined in, beaming happily.
"Go on, Josie," the mother said. "Take Rick in. You should be hosting all your guests too. Go on in now."
The adults stood back, and Josie, still holding Rick's arm, led him toward the open plan. Neither of them looked at me, so I was unsure if I should follow, and then they were gone. The adults once more filled the hall, and I was left standing near the front door.
A nearby voice said, "Nice boy lives next door. Did he say I didn't hear?"
"Rick's a neighbor," yes, the mother said. "He's been friends with Josie forever."
"That's wonderful," then a large woman, whose shape resembled the food blending machine, said, "Seems so bright too. Such a shame a boy like that should have missed out. I wouldn't even have known."
Another voice said, "He presents himself so well. Is that a British accent he has?"
"What's important," the food blending woman said, "is that this next generation learn how to be comfortable with every sort of person. That's what Peter always says." Then his other voices murmured in agreement.
She asked the mother, "Did his folks just decide not to go ahead? Lose their nerve?"
The mother's kind smile vanished, and everyone who'd heard seemed to stop talking. The food blending woman herself, frozen in horror, then reached out a hand towards the mother. "Oh, Chrissy, what did I say? I didn't mean..."
"It's okay," the mother said. "Please forget it."
"Oh, Chrissy, I'm so sorry. I'm so stupid sometimes. I only meant..."
"It's our worst fear," a firmer voice nearby said. "Every one of us here."
"It's okay," the mother said. "Let's leave it."
"Christy," the food blending woman said, "I only meant a nice boy like that. Some of us were lucky, some of us weren't."
A black-skinned woman, saying this, stepped forward and touched the mother's shoulder kindly. "But Josie's fine now, isn't she?" another voice asked.
"She looks so much better. She has good days and bad," the mother said.
"She's looking so much better," the food blending woman said. "She's going to be just fine. I know it. You were so courageous after all you'd been through. Josie will be really grateful to you one day."
"Pam, come on," the black-skinned woman reached forward and began to lead the food blending woman away. But the mother, looking at the food blending woman, said quietly, "Do you suppose Sal would want to thank me?"
At this, the food blending woman burst into tears. "Look, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so stupid. I just opened my mouth." And she sobbed, then continued loudly, "And you all know it, know for certain I'm the world's greatest fool. It was just that nice boy. It seems so unfair. Chrissy, I'm so sorry. Look, really, please forget it."
The mother, now making more effort, reached forward and held the food blending woman in a light hug. The food blending woman immediately returned to the hug and went on crying, her chin on the mother's shoulder.
There was an awkward quiet. Then the black-skinned woman, in a cheerful voice, "Well, they seemed to be managing okay in there. No sounds yet of an all-out brawl." Everyone laughed loudly, and then the mother said, in a new voice, "Hey, what are we doing still out here? Let's go in the kitchen, please, everyone. Melania has been preparing more of those wonderful pastries from her homeland."
A voice, in a pretend whisper, "I believe we're still out here. We're still out here so we can eavesdrop." This brought another big laugh, and the mother was smiling once more.
"If they need us," she said, "we'll hear about it. Please go on through."
As the adults started to move into the kitchen, I could hear more clearly the voices from the open plan, but couldn't make out any words. An adult passed near me, saying, "Our Jenny got quite upset after that last meeting. We spent the whole weekend explaining to her how she'd misinterpreted everything."
"Clara, you're still here," the mother was standing before me. "Yes. Why aren't you in there with Josie?" But she didn't take me in. "Go on. She needs you with her, and the other kids want to meet you."
"Yes, of course. Then, excuse me."
The son, noticing there were so many children in one place, was pouring in his nourishment through the wide windows of the open plan. Its network of sofas, soft rectangles, low tables, plant pots, photograph books, had taken me a long time to master, yet now it had been so transformed it might have been a new room. There were young people everywhere, and their bags, jackets, oblongs were all over the floor and surfaces.
What was more, the room space had become divided into 24 boxes, arranged in two tiers all the way to the rear wall. Because of this partitioning, it was hard to gain an overall view of what was before me, but I gradually made sense of things. Josie was near the middle of the room, talking with three guest girls. Their heads were almost touching, and because of how they were standing, the upper parts of their faces, including all their eyes, had been placed in a box on the high tier, while all their mouths and chins had been squeezed into a lower box.
The majority of the children were on their feet, some moving between boxes. Over at the rear wall, three boys were seated on the modular sofa, and even though they were sitting apart, their heads had been placed together inside a single box, while the outstretched leg of the nearest boy, nearest the window, extended not only across the neighboring box but right into the one beyond. There was an unpleasant tint on the three boxes containing the boys on the sofa, a sickly yellow, and an anxiety passed through my mind.
Then other people moved across my view of them, and I began to attend instead to the voices around me. Although someone had said as I'd come in, "Oh, here's the new AF. She's cute," almost all the voices I now heard were discussing Rick.
Josie must only recently have been standing beside him, but her conversations with the guest girls had caused her to turn her back to him, and he was now by himself, not conversing with anyone. "He's a friend of Josie's, lives nearby," a girl was saying behind me. "We should be nice to him."
"Another girl said, "It must be weird for him being here with us. Why? Josie, ask him. He must feel so weird. How about we offer him something? Make him feel welcome?"
The girl who was thin and had unusually long arms picked up a metal dish filled with chocolates and went towards Rick. I also moved further into the room and heard her say to him, "Excuse me, would you care for a bonbon?"
Rick had been watching Josie talking to the three guest girls, but now turned to the long-armed girl. "Go ahead," she said, raising the dish higher. "They're good."
"Thank you very much." He looked into the dish and chose a chocolate wrapped in a shiny green paper. Though the voices continued all around the room, I realized that suddenly everyone, including Josie and her guest girls, was now watching.
"We're also pleased you came," the long-armed girl said. "Josie's neighbor, right?"
"That's right. I live next door."
"Next door? That's a good one. Only your house and this one. That's all there is for miles." The three girls Josie had been talking to now joined the long-armed girl, all the time smiling at Rick. Josie herself, though, remained where she was, her eyes watching anxiously.
"I suppose so," Rick laughed quickly. "But that still makes me next door."
"Sure does. Bet you like being out here. Must be peaceful."
"Peaceful is correct. It's all quite perfect, until you want to go to the movies."
I knew Rick hoped everyone listening would laugh, as the adults had done about the pizza deliveries, but the four girls just continued to look at him in a kindly way. "So you don't watch movies on your DS?" one of them asked eventually.
"I do sometimes, but I like going to a real movie theater. Big screen, ice cream. My mother and I enjoy that. Trouble is, it's such a long way to go."
"We have a movie theater end of our block," the long-armed girl said, "but we rarely go."
"Hey, he likes movies, Missy," please. "Sorry you have to excuse my sister."
"So you enjoy movies? Help you relax, right? I bet you like action movies," said the girl called Missy.
Rick looked at her, then he smiled and said, "Those can be fun, but Mom and I like the old movies. Everything was so different then. If you watch those movies, you can see the way restaurants were, once, the clothes people wore."
"But you must like action, right?" said the long-armed girl. "Car chases and stuff."
"Hey," another girl said behind me, "he says he's saying he goes to the movies with his mom. That's kind of cute. Doesn't your mom like you to go with your friends?"
"It's not like that, actually. It's just... it's something my mother and I like to do. Did you go and see Gold Standard?"
"No way. His mom would like that."
Josie now stepped forward in front of Rick. "Come on, Rick," her voice had anger in it. "Tell them what you like to watch. That's all they're asking. What do you like to watch?"
Several more guests had by now gathered around Rick, partially blocking my view of him, but I could see, at this moment, something changed within him. "You know what," he spoke, not to Josie, but to all of them. "I like movies in which horrible things happen. Insects coming out of people's mouths, things of that nature."
"Really? May I just ask, Rick," said, "why all this curiosity about what kind of movies I like?"
"It's called conversation," said the long-armed girl.
"Why doesn't he eat his chocolate?" Missy said. "He's just holding it."
Rick turned to her, then held out the chocolate, still in its wrapper. "Here, perhaps you'd care for it yourself?"
Missy laughed but backed away. "Look," said the long-armed girl, "this is like a friendly encounter, okay?"
Rick glanced quickly at Josie, who was staring at him, her eyes filling with anger. The next second, he turned again to the guest girls. "Friendly, of course. I wonder if it would please you all to hear I like bug movies."
"Bug movies?" someone else said. "Is that like a genre?"
"Don't taunt him," said the long-armed girl. "Be nice. He's doing okay."
"Yeah, he's doing okay," and several people giggled as Rick turned quickly towards them.
Josie reached forward and took the chocolate from him. "Hey, everyone," Josie called out. "I want you all to meet Clara. This here is Clara." She was signaling to me to come closer, and as I did so, all the eyes turned my way. Rick too looked at me, but only for a second, then he walked off into a small clearing beside the corner desk.
No one seemed to pay him further attention because they were now looking at me. Even the long-armed girl had lost interest in Rick and was staring at me now. "That's a smart looking AF," she said. She leaned towards Josie in a confidential manner, and I thought she was going to say something further about me, but what she said was, "See Danny over there? First thing he comes in, he announces how he got detained by the police. No greeting, nothing. When we told him he had to greet correctly first, he still doesn't get it, just keeps boasting about him and the police."
"Wow," Josie looked to the boys on the modular sofa. "So he thinks it's smart to be a criminal?" The long-armed girl laughed, and Josie became part of a shape the five girls made together. "Then his brother over there gives it away. Too much beer. That's all it was."
"Shh, he knows we're talking about him," someone said.
"So much the better. The cops found him passed out on a bench and took him home, and he's telling us like he was arrested or something. No greeting, nothing."
"Hey, I didn't hear you give Josie a greeting just now, Missy," so you're just as bad as Danny.
"I did. I said hello to Josie."
"Josie, did you hear my sister greet you when you came in?" Missy became visibly upset. "I did say hello. It's just that Josie didn't hear me."
"Hey, Josie," the boy called Danny, the one on the sofa with his leg extended over the cushions, was calling from the rear of the room. "Hey, Josie, got your new AF? Tell her to come over here."
"Go on, Clara," Josie said. "Go say hello to those boys."
I didn't move at once, partly because I'd been surprised by Josie's voice. It was like the one she sometimes used when talking to Melania, the housekeeper, but not like any voice she'd used before to me.
"What's up with her?" Danny got up off the sofa. "Doesn't she take commands?"
Josie was giving me a stern look, so I began to make my way towards the boys on the sofa, but Danny, who was taller than anyone else in the room, came swiftly through the other guests and before I was even halfway to the sofa, grasped me by both elbows so I could no longer move freely. He looked me up and down, then said, "So, settling in, yes?"
"Thank you," one of the other boys from the sofa at the rear shouted.
"Shut up, scrub!" Danny shouted back. Then he asked me, "So, what did they call you again?"
"Her name's Clara," Josie said from behind me.
Danny let go of her. "She doesn't like being held that way."
"Hey, Danny," scrub shouted again. "Throw her over here. You want to see her?"
"Danny, get up off that sofa and come over here. Just throw her over. Let's test your coordination."
"She ate your AF?" scrub.
Danny's hands were still tight around my elbows. "You need to ask Josie about something like that."
"Hey, Josie," scrub called. "It's okay, right? My B3, you can swing her right through the air. Lands on her feet every time. Come on, Danny, throw her over onto the sofa. She won't get damaged."
"So uncouth," the longer-armed girl said quietly, and several girls, Josie included, giggled.
"My B3," scrub continued, "she'll somersault and land clean on her feet. Back straight, perfect. So let's see what this one can do."
"You're not a B3, right?" Danny asked.
I didn't reply, but Josie, behind me, said, "No, but she's the best."
"Yeah, so she can do what scrub says. I have a B3 now," a girl's voice said.
"You'll see him next meeting, then."
"Why didn't you get a V3, Josie?"
"Because I... I liked this one," Josie said, this uncertainly, but then the strength returned to her voice. "There's nothing any B3 can do that Clara can't."
There was movement behind me, and then the long-armed girl was standing beside Danny. He seemed to feel both excitement and fear to be near her and let go of my elbows, but now the long-armed girl gripped my left wrist, though not nearly as roughly as Danny had been holding me.
"Hello, Clara," she said, and looked at me carefully. "Now, let's see. Clara, will you please sing for me the harmonic minor scale?"
I wasn't sure how Josie wished me to respond, so I waited for her to speak, but she remained silent.
"Oh, you don't sing," come on," the boy called scrub called out. "Throw her over. If she can't coordinate, I'll just catch her."
Not saying much, the long-armed girl came closer and stared at my eyes. "Maybe she's low on solar."
"There's nothing wrong with her," Josie said, this so quietly it was possible I was the only one to hear.
"Clara," the long-armed girl said, "give me a greeting."
I remained silent, waiting for Josie to speak again.
"No, nothing."
"Hey, Josie," a voice behind me said. "You could have got a B3, right? So why didn't you?"
Josie laughed and said, "Now I'm starting to think I should have." This brought other laughs.
Then a new voice said, "B3s are so amazing."
"Come on, Clara," the long-armed girl said. "A little greeting, at least."
I'd by now fixed a pleasant expression on my face and was gazing past her, much as my manager had trained us to do in the store in such situations. "An AF who refuses to greet," Josie will you tell Clara to say something to us? Throw her over here, that'll bring her to life."
"Clara's got a great memory," Josie said behind me. "As good as any AF anywhere."
"Oh, really?" said the long-armed girl. "And not just her memory. She notices things no one else does and stores them away."
"Okay," the long-armed girl kept holding my wrist. "Okay, Clara, here's what to do. Without turning to look, tell me what my sister is wearing."
I continued to stare beyond the long-armed girl at the bricks on the wall. "Seems to have frozen, but she's cute, I'll give you that."
"Ask her again," Josie said. "Go on, Marcia, ask again."
"Okay, now Clara, I know you can do it. Tell me what Missy's wearing."
"I'm sorry," I said, still looking past her.
"You're sorry?" then the long-armed girl said to the room. "What's that mean?" And people laughed. Then she glared at me and asked, "What do you mean, Clara? What do you mean, you're sorry?"
"I'm sorry, I'm unable to help."
"She's not going to help." The long-armed girl's look softened, and at last she released my wrist. "Oh, Clara, you can turn and look. Take a look at what Missy's wearing, though it might look impolite."
I didn't turn because if I did so, I not only see Missy – I knew, of course, what she was wearing, down to her purple wristband and tiny bear pendant – but also Josie, and then we would have to exchange looks with each other.
"I give up," the long-armed girl said.
"Okay," Danny said. "Then we'll do scrub's test, just to please him. Phil, come here and help me swing her."
"Scrub, stay where you are. Get ready to catch."
"This is okay with you, Josie?" behind me. Josie remained silent, but a girl's voice said, "Throwing AFs across the room? That's evil."
"What's evil about it? They're designed to deal with it."
"That's not the point," the girl's voice said. "It's just nasty."
"You're being soft," Danny said. "Phil, take her arms. I'll get the legs."
"What's that you have there in your pocket?" It was Rick who had spoken, and the room went silent.
"What'd you say, friend?" Rick moved through the guests, stopping a little to my right. He showed no fear as he pointed at the breast pocket of Danny's shirt. I'd noticed the object earlier, a soft toy dog, small enough for the pocket. I'd seen children of seven and eight carrying such toys in their pockets when they'd come into the store.
As everyone shifted positions to see what Rick was pointing at, Danny raised both hands to cover his pocket. "A pet object, I'd say."
"It's not a pet object," Danny said. "I'd say it's your pet object to help you feel calmer at gatherings like this one."
"What's this? Who asked you anything? If it's really nothing so special, perhaps you wouldn't mind showing it to me." Rick held out his hand.
"Don't worry, I'll take good care of it, whether it's anything special or not. It's none of your business. Do please let me borrow it, just for a minute."
"It's nothing to me, but I wouldn't hand it over to you. No, not even a little peek. I'd never lend anything to you. Why would I?"
"You shouldn't even be here." Rick was still holding out his hand, and the room remained silent.
"It couldn't be. You're perhaps a little soft yourself, Danny," Rick said. "At least when it comes to cute little things for the pocket."
"That's enough. You leave Danny."
"B," the voice belonged to an adult, and the young people around me shrank back as the woman came striding into the room. "And Danny's right," she said. "You shouldn't be here at all."
Then the mother came hurrying in after her, and I saw other adults looking through the doorway into the open plan. "Come on, Sarah," the mother was saying. "We don't interfere, remember?" The mother put an arm around the Sarah woman, who continued to glare at Rick. "Come on, Sarah, play by the rules. It's for the kids to sort out."
Sarah continued to look angry, but allowed herself to be led away out of the room and into the murmur of adult voices in the hall. One of the voices said, "It's the only way they'll learn." And then the adult voices receded, and there was silence in the open plan.
Danny was perhaps even more embarrassed about his adult's interference than he'd been about the small toy. He continued to cover his breast pocket with both hands as he returned to the sofa, his now slightly hunched back turned to the room.
"Okay," the long-armed girl said brightly. "How about we go outside for a while? It turns... it's turned nice out here."
"There!" a chorus of voices shouted approval, and I heard Josie's among them, saying, "Great idea! Let's do it!"
The children filed out, led by Josie and the long-armed girl. Danny and scrub left with them, and then there was only Rick and myself in the open plan. Rick looked around at the discarded jackets, displaced seat cushions, plates, soda cans, potato snack bags, magazines, but he didn't look towards me.
I wondered if any adults would come in to tidy now that the children had left, but none of them came, and the blur of voices continued from the kitchen.
"You challenged that boy, I think, for my benefit," I said eventually.
"Thank you," Rick shrugged. "He was getting seriously annoying. In fact, they all were." Then he added, still not looking my way, "I suppose it wasn't exactly enjoyable for you either."
"It's become uncomfortable for me, and I was grateful for Rick's rescue, but it has also been interesting."
"Interesting? It's important for me to observe Josie in many situations, and it was very interesting, for instance, to observe the different shapes the children made as they went from group to group."
When he said nothing to this and continued to look the other way, I said, "Perhaps Rick wishes to go out now and join them? Reconcile with them?"
He shook his head, then he moved through the sun's pattern. The open plan, I noticed, was no longer spatially segmented, and sat down on the modular sofa, stretching his legs out across the floorboards.
"I suppose they have a point, though," he said. "I don't belong here. This is a meeting for lifted kids."
Rick came because Josie very much wanted him to come. She insisted. "I came, but I suppose she's too busy now to come back in here, see how I'm enjoying this part of the party." He leaned back into the sofa till the sun's pattern was over his face, obliging him to close his eyes.
"The trouble is," he went on, "she doesn't stay the same. I thought if I came today, stupid really, I thought she might not change, might stay the same."
Josie, when he said this, I saw again Josie's hands at various points during the interaction meeting: welcome hands, offering hands, tension hands, and her face and her voice when someone had asked why she hadn't chosen a B3 and she'd laughed and said, "Now I'm starting to think I should have." And manager's words came into my mind: her warning about children who made promises at the window, yet never returned, or were still returned and chose another AF altogether. I thought about the boy AF I'd seen through the gap between the low, slow taxis, walking despondently over along the RPO building side, three paces behind his teenager, and I wondered if Josie and I would ever walk in such a way.
"Perhaps you can see now," Rick said, opening his eyes despite the sun's glare. "See how I need to save Josie from this lot."
I can see Rick is afraid Josie might become like the others, but even though she behaved strangely just now, I believe Josie is kind underneath. And those other children, they have rough ways, but they may not be so unkind. They fear loneliness, and that's why they behave as they do. Perhaps Josie too. If Josie hangs out with them much more, she soon won't be Josie at all. Somewhere, she knows that herself. She knows that herself, and that's why she keeps on about her plan. For ages, she's forgotten about it, but now she talks about it all the time.
"I heard Josie mention this plan the other day. Is it a plan about Rick and Josie sharing a future together?"
He looked past me out of the open plan's window, and I thought his hostility towards me had returned, but then he said, "It's just something we started when we were young, before we realized how it would be, how all these things could get in our way. Even so, Josie still believes in it, and Rick still believes in the plan too." He now looked directly at me. "Like I say, without the plan, she's going to end up becoming one of them."
"I'd better go." He rose suddenly. "Before those kids come back, or that crazy mother. I hope we can soon talk again about these matters, because I believe in many ways Rick and I have similar goals."
"Look, the other day when I said about not wanting Josie to have an AF, it wasn't anything personal. It was just, well, it felt like something else that would get in our way."
"I hope not. In fact, now I understand more. I'd like to do my best to help with Rick and Josie's plan, perhaps help move the obstacles you talk about."
"I'd better go check my mom's all right."
"Of course." He walked past me and out of the open plan. I took a few steps forward so I could watch him go through the front door and into the sun's brightness.
As I said to Rick that day, the interaction meeting had been a source of valuable new observations. I had, for one thing, learned about Josie's ability to change, as Rick had put it, and I watched carefully for signs of her doing so again. I wondered too how much she really did wish she'd chosen a B3. Her remark had most likely been intended as a humorous one, to keep back the threat of disharmony during the meeting. Even so, it was true B3s had capabilities beyond my own, and I had to consider the possibility that Josie might sometimes entertain such ideas in her mind.
In the days following the meeting, I worried also about how Josie might view my failure to respond to the long-armed girl's questions in the situation that had developed. And in the absence of clear signals from Josie, I'd taken the course I'd considered to be for the best. But now it occurred to me, Josie might, after a period of reflection, become angry with me. For all these reasons, I feared the interaction meeting might place shadows over our friendship.
But as the days went by, Josie remained as cheerful and kind to me as she'd ever been. I waited for her to bring up the events of the meeting, but she never did so. As I say, there were helpful lessons for me. Not only had I learned that changes were part of Josie and that I should be ready to accommodate them, I'd begun to understand also that this wasn't a trait peculiar just to Josie, that people often felt the need to prepare a side of themselves to display to passers-by, as they might in a store window, and that such a display needn't be taken so seriously once the moment had passed. I was happy then that nothing changed between us on account of the meeting.
However, not long afterwards, something else came along which did for a time make our friendship less warm. This was the trip to Morgan's Falls, and it came to trouble me because I couldn't for a long time see how it had created coldness between us, or how I might have avoided such a thing happening.
Early one morning, three weeks after the interaction meeting, I looked over to Josie and could see from her posture and her breathing that she wasn't sleeping well in her usual way. I used the alarm button, and the mother came immediately. She phoned for Dr. Ryan, and then I heard Melania, the housekeeper, calling him again a little later to ask him to hurry. When he did come, he checked Josie over carefully, then said there was nothing to worry about. The mother was relieved, and once the doctor had left, her manner became brisk. She sat on the edge of Josie's bed and said to her, "You have to quit that energy drink. I always said it was bad for you."
Josie said, not lifting her head from her pillow, "I knew there was nothing wrong with me. I got really tired, is all. You didn't have to worry about me, and now you're going to be late for work worrying about you, Josie. That's my work." Then she added, "Clara's work too. She did well to raise alarm. I just need to sleep a little more, then I promise I'll be fine."
"Mom, listen, honey." The mother leaned right over till she was talking into Josie's ear. "Listen, you need to get well for me. Do you hear me?"
"Hear you, Mom."
"Good. I wasn't sure you were listening."
"Listening, Mom. I'm keeping my eyes shut, as all."
"Okay, so here's the deal. Get better by the weekend, and we'll go to Morgan's Falls. You still love that place, right?"
"Yes, Mom, I still love it."
"Good, then that's the deal. Sunday, Morgan's Falls, so long as you get well."
There was a long silence that I heard Josie say, as though into her pillow, "Mom, if I get well, can we take Clara with us? Show her Morgan's Falls. She's only ever been outside once, and that was just around here."
"Of course Clara can come, but you'll have to get well, or none of this works. You understand?"
"Josie, I understand, Mom. I have to sleep some more now."
She woke up just before lunch, and I was going to tell Melania, the housekeeper, as I'd been instructed to do, but Josie said tiredly, "Clara, have you been here the whole time I've been sleeping?"
"Of course. Did you hear what Mom said about going to Morgan's Falls?"
"Yes, and I'm very much hoping we'll be able to go, but your mother said we'd only go if you were well enough."
"It'll be okay. If I wanted, I could go this afternoon. Just tired, that's all."
"What is this Morgan's Falls?"
"Josie, beautiful is what it is. You'll think it's amazing. I'll show pictures later."
Josie remained tired for much of the day, but in the late afternoon, after I'd raised the bedroom blinds to let the sun's patterns fall over her, she became noticeably stronger. Melania, the housekeeper, came up to see her then and said Josie could get dressed, so long as she promised to spend the rest of the day quietly.
That was how we came to still be in the bedroom as the evening approached. When Josie produced a cardboard box from under her bed, "I'll show you," she said, and tipped the box out. Many print photos of varying dimensions tumbled out onto the rug, some face up, others down. I understood that these were favorite images from Josie's past, kept near her bed so she could cheer herself up viewing them whenever she wanted. Many of the images were now overlapping, but I could see they were mostly of Josie when younger. Some photos showed her with the mother, some with Melania, the housekeeper, others with people I didn't know.
Josie continued spreading them across the rug, then picked one up and smiled. "Morgan's Falls," she said. "This is where we're going on Sunday. What do you think?" She gave me the photo. I was by now kneeling beside her, and I saw a younger Josie sitting outdoors at a table made from rough wooden planks. Even the seating was planks, and sitting beside her was the mother, less thin and with her hair cut shorter than now. I was interested to see a third figure at the table, a girl who I estimated as 11 years old, wearing a short jacket made of light cotton. Because the stranger girl was sitting with her back to the photographer, I couldn't see her face. The sun's patterns were visible all over them, falling across the table top. Behind Josie and the mother was a blurred black and white pattern. I inspected this carefully, then said, "This is a waterfall."
"Yup. You ever seen a waterfall, Clara?"
"Yes, I saw one in a magazine at the store."
"And look, you're eating right in front of the waterfall. You can do that at Morgan's Falls. Have lunch while the spray covers you. You're eating your food, then you realize your shirt's soaked at the back."
"This can't be good for you, Josie."
"It's okay when it's warm, but you're right, on a chilly day, you have to sit further away. There's plenty of seating, though, because people don't know about Morgan's Falls so much." She reached out a hand, and I returned the photo to her. She looked at it again and said, "Maybe it's only me and Mom thinks it's special, and that's why it's never crowded, but we always have a great day there. I do hope you'll be strong enough this weekend. Sunday is always the best day for Morgan's Falls. There's a good atmosphere on Sundays. It's like the waterfall knows about it being a day of rest."
"Josie, who is your companion in this photograph?"
"The girl here with you and your mother?" Oh, her face became serious, then she said, "That's Sal, my sister." She let the photo fall on top of the others, then began to pass both hands over the images, moving them around the rug. I saw images of children in fields, in playgrounds, outside buildings.
"Yeah, my sister," she said again after a long time. "And where is Sal now?"
"Sal died."
"How very sad." Josie shrugged. "I don't remember her much. I was small when it happened. It's not like I miss her or anything."
"How sad. Do you know what happened?"
"She got sick. Not the same sickness I have. Something much worse. And that's why she died."
I thought Josie was searching for another photo with her sister's image, but she suddenly gathered the prints together and put them back into the cardboard box. "You're gonna love it up there, Clara. Here's you, only one spin outside, then suddenly you're up there."
Josie became stronger each day, so that as the weekend approached, there seemed no reason to suppose she wouldn't be able to go to the waterfall. On the Friday evening, the mother came home late, long after Josie had finished her supper, and called me into the kitchen. Josie had by then gone up to her room, and the kitchen was in near darkness, with only the light from the hall to illuminate it, but the mother seemed happy to stand there before the large windows, staring out into the night as she drank her wine. I stood near the refrigerator where I could hear its hum.
"Clara," she said after a while. "Josie says you wish to come with us on Sunday to Morgan's Falls?"
"If I wouldn't be in the way, I'd very much like to come. I believe Josie also wishes me to come."
"She certainly does. Josie's become very fond of you, and if I may say so, so have I. Thank you. To tell you the truth, I wasn't sure at first what I'd feel having you around, moving through the house all day, but Josie's so much more calm, so much more cheerful since you got here. I'm so glad you're doing very well, Clara. I want you to know that."
"Thank you so much."
"You'll be fine up at Morgan's Falls. Plenty of kids take their AFs up there. Even so, it goes without saying, you'll need to look out both for yourself and for Josie. The terrain can be unpredictable, and Josie sometimes gets over excited in places like that."
"I understand. I'll be cautious."
"Clara, are you happy here?"
"Yes, of course."
"Curious thing to ask an AF. In fact, I don't even know if that question makes sense. Do you miss that store?" She drank more wine and stepped towards me so I could see one side of her face in the light from the hall, though the other side, including most of her nose, stayed in the window. The one I could see looked tired.
"I sometimes think about the store," I said. "The view from the window, the other AFs, but not often. I'm very pleased to be here."
The mother looked at me for a moment, then she said, "It must be great not to miss things, not to long to get back to something, not to be looking back all the time. Everything must be so much more..." she paused, then said, "Okay, Clara, so you're with us Sunday, but remember what I said. We don't want accidents up there."