Aimee Bender: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

Now I’m here too, I said.

The two of us, here, he said.

Did you see the sunrise?

Over the mountain, he said.

Pretty?

He nodded. Orange, he said. Pink.

I want to be the ocean instead of the rain forest, I said on the drive home.

Sure, said Mom, whose mind was long gone into somewhere else.

Joseph would reach out to me occasionally, the same way the desert blooms a flower every now and then. You get so used to the subtleties of beige and brown, and then a sunshine-yellow poppy bursts from the arm of a prickly pear. How I loved those flower moments, like when he pointed out the moon and Jupiter, but they were rare, and never to be expected.

So, because of all this, it was no small surprise one fall afternoon when I spied Joseph, walking from the bus stop, arriving home from seventh grade with another person at his side. A person his own age. I was drawing lightning bolts with colored chalk on the sidewalk because the school nature lesson that day had been about weather: thundershowers, tornadoes, hurricanes. All so exotic to the blue skies of Los Angeles. I was busily getting the edges right on the first bolt when I looked up and saw them walking around the corner, and at first I thought I was blurring my vision. I colored the bolt bright orange. Looked up again: still two. My second thought was that it was a trick. Maybe Joseph had been assigned this other kid. Maybe the guy was a jerk, playing a joke on my brother.

What are you doing here? I asked, as soon as they reached the front lawn. I think I was seven. Joseph, like usual, didn’t answer. Desert wind. Snakes and scorpions.

Hi, said George. I’m George. He bent down and shook my hand. He had a good handshake for a seventh-grader.

Lightning! he said, looking down.

But why are you here? I asked again, following them inside.

Joseph headed to his bedroom. George turned back, and said they were there to do homework.

Is he teaching you? I asked George.

No, said George.

But why are you here with my brother? I asked.

Science homework, said George. Science stuff.

I noted his eyebrows. His pants, which were the normal pants a boy his age wore.

You like science too? I asked.

Sure do, said George, disappearing into Joseph’s room.

I spent the rest of the afternoon going back and forth from the chalk drawings to Joseph’s door. I couldn’t exactly hear what they were doing but it sounded like they were talking about schoolwork. I drew a whole line of lightning bolts very fast, and then took the blue chalk and made slashes of rain everywhere, in the dry and cloudless air.

It was during George’s fourth or fifth visit that the blow hit me. I was sitting outside Joseph’s door once again, trying to listen; I still assumed that Joseph must be tutoring George, because I could not understand why the guy kept showing up, two or even three times a week. I pretended I was happily building a train track out of Legos that, due to zoning laws, absolutely had to go over the carpet right in front of Joseph’s door.

What’s the reason for that? a voice asked. My brother’s voice.

It’s wind resistance, said George.

I waited for Joseph to explain something to George.

Why’d you solve it that way? Joseph asked.

It’s quicker like this, said George, scratching on a pad.

Wait, do that again, said Joseph.

Which part?

That.

The toy train bumped along a track of red and blue. I sat and listened for a half-hour, and not once did Joseph explain something to his guest.

Had I been at school with him, I would not have been so surprised. The fast pace that had stunned everyone when he was my age couldn’t be maintained, and by the time he was in seventh grade, he was in advanced math, yes, but there were at least three in the class ahead of him. For once, he had to glance at his homework to keep up. He had shifted from genius to very smart, and although very smart is very good, to a prodigious kid it’s a plummet.

Train, bumping back to the station.

For me, it had ramifications beyond his brain. I had assumed, since birth, that Joseph was so weird because he was so smart. But here was George, even smarter, and he knew my name. When he came over, he made a point of saying hi. When he left, he waved.

I got caught, that day. I was lying on my back on the hall carpet, spinning the train wheels, when George opened up the door to make a phone call.

Hey, Rose, he said.

Sorry, I said. I’m making a train.

Where’s it headed? he asked.

I mean a train track, I said. What?

The train?

Oh, I said. Ventura?

Go away , Joseph growled, from the depths of his bedroom.

I moved my train closer to the kitchen and listened to George’s call. He was checking on his sister, who was retarded. He said, into the phone: I need a new drawing of an elephant, okay? My old elephant needs a buddy.

Mom was also in the kitchen, rinsing a colander of broccoli under the faucet.

I looked at her when he was off and back.

Nice boy, she said.

Not a desert, I said.

What do you mean? She put the broccoli aside, to drip into the sink.

You said Joseph was the desert?

She ran her hands under the tap. Nah, not the desert, she said, as if that conversation had never happened. Joseph, she said, is like a geode-plain on the outside, gorgeous on the inside.

I watched her dry her hands. My mother’s lithe, able fingers. I felt such a clash inside, even then, when she praised Joseph. Jealous, that he got to be a geode-a geode!-but also relieved, that he soaked up most of her super-attention, which on occasion made me feel like I was drowning in light. The same light he took and folded into rock walls to hide in the beveled sharp edges of topaz crystal and schorl.

He has facets and prisms, she said. He is an intricate geological surprise.

I stayed at the counter. I still held the Lego train in my hands.

And what’s Dad? I said.

Oh, your father, she said, leaning her hip against the counter. Your father is a big strong stubborn gray boulder. She laughed.

And me? I asked, grasping, for the last time.

You? Baby, you’re-

I stood still. Waiting.

You’re-

She smiled at me, as she folded the blue-and-white-checked dish towel. You’re seaglass, she said. The pretty green kind. Everybody loves you, and wants to take you home.

It took a while to pick up all the pieces of my train track and put them away in my own bedroom. It was a compliment, I kept thinking to myself, as I stacked the parts; it’s supposed to make you feel good, I thought.

Saturday dawned, sunny and hot. Officially nine. I was ready to go the minute I woke up. George wasn’t due until noon, but I bounded around the house, opening the front door and peeking down the sidewalk as early as ten in the morning, making a pathway of fallen leaves, and when George turned the corner onto our block I ran back inside to open the door for him as if I was surprised. Hi! He said hello and sang me a quick happy birthday and then went right into Joseph’s room. After ten minutes of convincing, Joseph exited wearing a baseball cap that read The Best Part About Baseball Is the Cap , and George asked me how I felt about walking all together over to a bakery on Beverly which specialized in homemade cookies that cost a whopping three dollars apiece. Good, I said, bobbing my head. I feel good about that.

The heat wave was lighter, breezier, on this warm white-skied Saturday afternoon, my father out playing tennis, Mom at the studio learning tools, as the three of us headed off together, crossing Melrose, walking south past the jacaranda-bordered fourplex apartment buildings that lined up in friendly rows down Spaulding.