Never Enough Time, page 22
“You mean she’s not very nice?” I say. Fuck everything, fuck Sara and Ryan, and especially fuck me.
“He’s over here all the time,” Chloe, oblivious to—or deliberately ignoring—the death glares both her parents are giving her, says. “He brings his wife sometimes. And—”
“That’s enough, Chloe,” says Ryan in one of those stern, parental voices that’s so un-Ryan, I want to laugh. But I don’t feel like laughing.
“He’s over here all the time?” I say. “Since when?”
Chloe starts to say something but Sara cuts her off. “He’s not here all the time.”
“For example, he’s not here right fucking now,” I say.
“Delaney, I promised myself that I’d never talk with you about Raj again. I haven’t seen you in months, you come over here a week early on a whim, and now all we’re talking about is Raj. And I have to get up early tomorrow. It’s late.”
“But—”
“And don’t you dare start crying,” she says. “It’s unseemly. You live a charmed life, but you can’t leave well enough alone.”
“Funny that you’re calling it charmed. Seems more like cursed to me,” I say.
“Isn’t it bad enough that we’re talking about Raj? Now I suppose you’re going to bring up that crazy path of the sevens thing you get all jazzed up about every few years.”
“Like maybe every seven years?” I say.
“I’m not counting,” Sara says.
I notice that both Ryan and Chloe have removed themselves from this conversation. This argument.
“I don’t want to argue with you!” I say. “I get to see you only a few times in my whole life—and we’re arguing!” Which makes me hate myself.
Bad choice, says Hal, who’s been wonderfully silent for a long time.
“We’ve always argued,” Sara says to Chloe. “Don’t get upset about it.”
“But, Mom. I think Auntie Del and Raj should see each other.” Chloe opens the fridge and starts rummaging about, then finds what she’s looking for—some kind of cheese, which she slices and puts on a few crackers that she’s taken from her father.
“Have one of these, Auntie Del,” Chloe says, offering it to me.
“It doesn’t matter what you think, Chloe,” Sara says. “Not in this case anyway. You weren’t there when they broke up. I was.”
“It can’t’ve been that bad,” I say. But I can feel my heart disassemble itself while I’m saying it.
“It was worse,” Ryan says, like he’s the expert on my feelings, like he could know more than Sara does. Or than I do.
Sara looks at Ryan like she’s going to kill him right after she’s done strangling Chloe, then she sighs.
“Let’s talk about this in the morning,” Sara says. “I’m too tired to think right now. And you must be tired too, Delaney. Didn’t you just get here? Jet lag? Exhaustion? And all that big-business stuff you must’ve done this morning, a hundred hours ago?”
“Let’s go out!” Chloe says. “Give me a second. I just have to change.”
“I have to get back to the airport,” I say. “You’re welcome to ride with me.”
“Heathrow’ll be closed by the time you get there,” says Sara.
“They close?”
“Curfew, you know. Since the incident,” says Ryan.
“What incident?”
“Auntie Del, there’s no way you can be that oblivious.”
“Oh yeah, she can be that oblivious,” says Ryan, who actually is an expert on my obliviousness, since it wasn’t immediately apparent to me that when we were married he was still seeing Sara. Or, really, that he and I were even married.
“I give up,” I say, as though I have to announce my decision.
“Good night,” Sara says. She grabs Ryan’s hand and tugs on it and the two of them disappear, probably up to their bedroom, where they have sex a dozen times a day.
“Are we going to go out?” Chloe says.
“Not tonight,” I say. “I have to plan for tomorrow. It’s my last chance.”
“You are melodramatic,” Chloe says, giggling. She puts the back of her hand on her forehead and leans her head against the doorjamb. “It’s my last chance. Can’t get more melodrama than that!”
“The cycle of sevens is over tomorrow,” I say.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“There’s really a cycle of sevens?”
“There is. And tomorrow’s the seventh day.”
“That sounds lucky.”
Maybe it is. Maybe I’ve misinterpreted this whole thing. Maybe the seventh day of the path of the sevens is the most wondrous glorious amazing excellent beautiful magnificent day.
“I’ll see you in the morning, Auntie Del,” Chloe says, hugging me before she waltzes out of the room.
I drink some more tea, thinking it’ll help me stay awake.
It doesn’t.
Chapter 77
I chose this, I tell myself as I wake up. I chose this. When I chose this, or why, isn’t important. It’s that I did.
I chose to live only one day every seven years. To not know what’s happened in the meanwhile. To give up philosophy. To take up business. To marry the wrong man. To give my life away to the analysis of investments or finances or whatever the fuck it was instead of to the analysis of my deepest self. Instead of to the enjoyment of life’s pleasures and beauty. Instead of to love.
Am I afraid to get out of bed today? Am I afraid to face the small tiny particle of life I have left? Am I afraid to see my sixty-five-year-old self? Or anyone else?
Outside my window—I guess I’m fucking not afraid to look out the window—is a desert. And some mountains. And vegetation I don’t recognize.
My bedroom is spare and clean. The walls are whitewashed. The floor is poured cement. The bathroom is all small blue and green iridescent tiles.
I look like myself, only older. Only with grayer whiter hair that falls below my shoulders. My eyes still look like my eyes. I wonder if Raj would recognize me. If I would recognize him.
Am I still Sara’s friend? Is she still mine? Do Chloe and I still have that special bond? Have I seen Marie and Jae in the last few years? What happened to my parents’ house in Westchester? And my father?
Is Hal gone?
Good morning, Delaney, Hal says.
I guess he’s not fucking gone. I guess in the last seven years no one’s found a replacement for this invasive intrusive supposedly fucking helpful accessory. I guess I never found the place that does the operation the right way.
There’s no operation, Hal says. It’s just a rumor.
Leave me alone.
In my kitchen with red cabinets and slate counters, I eat two slices of toast covered with raspberry jam, drink a cup of tea. I get dressed in a pair of loose khaki pants and a white blouse with spaghetti straps.
I go outside. This glorious beautiful last day.
I’m alone. There’s no one and nothing nearby. I live in a house in a desert. Somewhere.
There’s a blue car parked outside but there’s no license plate to tell me what state I live in or what country. We’ve moved beyond such trivial things.
We live in our heads now. We need no bags, no screens, no clocks. We need only the voice in our heads—a voice that makes appointments, remembers our information, tells us what we’re missing, directs us to our destination. For all I know, it entertains us, too, but I haven’t tested that part.
Where am I?
New Mexico, says Hal.
Since when?
Five years, Hal says.
Go away for a while. I need to think.
Silence.
At least Hal has the decency to leave me alone, even though he and I both know he’s not leaving me alone. He’s not leaving.
A striped salamander scurries by, ignoring me. Are Hal and this striped salamander my only companions? One who ignores me, the other who won’t let me alone?
“Let’s go to the airport,” I say. It’s early. I have hours. I can make something of today. I could have made something of every day, but I’ve let the world and myself down.
Hal says nothing.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s go to India while we still have time. Even if I can’t see Raj, I want to see India.”
I haven’t seen Raj for over forty years, but, for me, it’s less than a week. I miss him. I want to talk with him. I want to spend my last day with him. This person who I hardly know.
“I’ll go to Varanasi. Isn’t that where people go to die? I’ll go there.” What better place to spend my last moments on earth than in that most ancient city of the dead?
There are no more planes, Hal says.
“Stop it, Hal. Of course there’re planes.”
Not for a long time. Air travel was banned after the second incident.
“Shut up,” I say. “I’m going to the airport.”
I had to try, Hal says.
“No, you didn’t,” I say as I get into the car. “My mother had a lot of fears,” I say—to Hal, I guess. Hal says nothing. Maybe in the last seven years he’s learned something useful.
“She wouldn’t get in an airplane unless she had to. Unless there was no choice. And she was always complaining that there was never enough time. I’m living out her fears. And there isn’t enough time.”
Flight leaves in an hour, Hal says. But the car’s still in the driveway.
“There’d better not be any stopovers,” I say. “Today’s all I’ve got.”
Silence.
“Hal?”
One stopover. It’s the best there was.
“What am I missing?”
It’ll be tomorrow before you get there.
Fuck me.
I get out of the blue car. I want to slam the door but this thing doesn’t have slammable doors. The doors slide, smoothly, quietly, unobtrusively. So as not to disturb anyone. Or, in my case, no one.
It’s as though I’ve become a monk. One without a robe or a tonsure, at least, and one without a community of like-minded ascetics. I’m alone in a desert. I’d think I’d be spending forty days and forty nights—or is that forty years?—here, but I’ve got no time left. It’s just today. Day seven of seven days.
A lifetime in a week.
Instead of having the enjoyment, the pain, the excitement, the boredom, the experience, and the heavens and hells of over 61,000 hours, I have 24 hours only. Not even that, since I’ve already wasted five or six hours sleeping and will probably fall asleep toward the end. If there is an end.
Chapter 78
I go to the back of the adorable house where I guess I live and sit on the ground. The striped salamander—or one just like the previous one—zips by. The sky here is open and clear, the few clouds well placed for maximum effect.
“I should never’ve gotten that MBA,” I say, although too late I realize that I’ve invited Hal back.
Your business still thrives, Hal says.
“I thought I sold it.”
Only parts.
“Which parts?”
Chloe’s building. The real estate in Westchester.
“I owned real estate in Westchester?”
The investment analysis firm. The shares in the baking company. The—
“You can stop now. That’s enough.”
Yes, Delaney.
Hal’s a bit subdued. Maybe he’s not thrilled it’s the last day either. Maybe it’s also his last day.
If I had only one day left to live, would I spend it sitting behind a house in New Mexico, talking with a smart-ass voice in my head?
“Are you sure I won’t get there until tomorrow?”
The flight’s twenty-four hours. Can’t be done.
“Hal, do you mind that today’s the last day?”
It is?
“Fuck you, Hal. Don’t be coy with me.”
Your visitor arrives in an hour.
“What visitor?”
A surprise.
“It’s too late to surprise me,” I say out loud. “Don’t surprise me.”
I’m sworn to secrecy.
“It’s Lachesis, isn’t it?”
Silence.
“So it is Lachesis.”
Silence.
“If only I could dismantle you, like Keir Dullea did.”
Silence.
“If only I were going to be reborn as some new version of life.”
Silence.
“Hal, talk to me.”
I’m sworn to secrecy, says the annoying fucking Hal.
I hear the sound of wind chimes.
Doorbell, Hal says. He is helpful sometimes.
“Coming,” I say as I walk around the house. No point in going back inside to just come back outside.
La la la, says Hal, I guess to keep himself from saying anything and blowing the big secret.
But at the front door is, as I thought, Lachesis, the younger version of herself, I see. She’s wearing a floor-length dress made of layers of differing shades of pale blue lawn—is that the color of the last day?—and she’s shifting from foot to foot as she brushes her hand through the wind chimes again.
“Lachesis,” I say as I approach her.
“Delaney Archer,” she says. “What took you so long?”
“Hal told me you wouldn’t be here for an hour.”
“He’s not supposed to tell you squat, that little bastard,” Lachesis says. She puts her hands on her hips and looks quite annoyed.
Delaney, Hal says with great disappointment in my careless treatment of him.
“He didn’t tell me it was you,” I say, hoping that’ll calm Hal down. And shut him up.
“But you knew.”
“How could I not know? It’s my last day.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s go out back,” I say. “The view’s even better there.”
Lachesis and I walk around the house, completing the circle I started when I walked out front.
“I like the mountains,” Lachesis says. “Good to get a change of scenery sometimes.”
“You still have that place on Barter and Bury?”
“Among others.”
“Don’t you ever age?”
Lachesis laughs. “I’m a mythological character. I’m ageless and timeless.”
“But you’re right here.”
“I’m revealed to a few.”
“Like those of us on the path of the sevens.”
“Yes.”
“And solicitors. Like Martin Griffith.”
“Well, he was connected to you. I had to see him. Otherwise, I shun the legal profession. And bankers. Also conceptual artists.” Lachesis crouches down and puts her arms around her knees. The two of us are staring off at the mountains in the distance, not looking at each other.
“Martin. Is he all right?”
“Client confidentiality,” Lachesis says, reminding me. “You wouldn’t want me telling anyone about you, would you?”
“Yet you discussed me with Bennet.”
“That’s different. He’s your spirit guide.”
“Is he coming today, the useless bum?”
“I didn’t discuss this with him.” Lachesis unfolds herself from her graceful crouch and sits on the ground, probably ruining the delicate fabric of her lovely dress. I’ve been sitting on the ground the whole time, not caring a fuck about my khaki pants.
She takes a deck of cards out of her pocket and holds them out in a fan. “Pick one.”
“No shuffling today?”
“The cards are as they should be.”
“Can I at least cut the deck?” Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? To make sure the cards aren’t stacked? But the cards are stacked. In sevens.
Lachesis folds the deck in on itself and hands it to me. “Cut.”
I do.
She takes the deck back, fans it out again, and says, “Pick.”
I pull out a card.
The seven of diamonds.
Chapter 79
“Good choice,” Lachesis says as I go to put the card back in with the others. “Keep it,” she says, pushing my hand back.
“What does the path of the sevens mean?” I say. It’s my last day here, and I want to know at least that.
“What has it meant to you?” Lachesis says.
“That’s very fucking tricky of you, you mythological beast,” I say, “but I think you know, so I’m asking you. Tell me.” What small shreds of politeness I had remaining have peeled off and blown away into the dust.
“It depends on the person,” Lachesis says. “It’s always like that. What might have meaning for you can have no meaning for someone else.
“Take this salamander”—she picks up the striped salamander, or a striped salamander—“for example. Someone could see this and think he’s a sign or a symbol. Someone could see him and come up with some crazy Latin term. Or just admire the stripes.”
“What is he a symbol of? That life can exist in a desert? That it’s good to keep low to the ground?”
“To me? Or to you?”
“Just tell me.” Lachesis is so hard to talk to. I wonder how Martin put up with her, although perhaps she was more forthcoming with him, since he was only peripheral.
“Salamanders don’t live in the desert, yet this one does.” Lachesis pets the salamander’s back, which is shiny and wet. “Perhaps you aren’t in a desert after all.”
“Let’s go for a walk,” I say as I get up and brush off my pants.
Lachesis puts the salamander back on the ground and rises so gracefully it’s as though she was pulled up on invisible strings.
“You didn’t ask me about the seven of diamonds,” she says.
“Okay, I’ll bite. What about it?” I’m spending my last day on earth batting ideas back and forth with Lachesis.
If I had to pick a mythological character to spend my time with, I might’ve chosen someone else. Someone who could actually do something. Like Zeus or maybe a better choice would be Shiva.
“Well, Shiva is here,” says Lachesis.
“You can read my mind too?”
“Someone else can?” Lachesis’s question sounds more genuine than sarcastic, but with her it’s hard to tell.
“Hal,” I say.
