Элизабет Страут - Olive, Again

“Do you like it here?” Olive asked.

Halima only smiled at her, and then said, “Let’s get you something to eat. You’re too skinny,” and this made Olive laugh. “I have never been skinny in my life, Ms. Halima Butterfly,” she said, and Halima went into the kitchen.

“Don’t just sit here and watch me eat,” Olive said to her after Halima had put out a slab of meatloaf and a baked potato done in the microwave. “If you’re not going to eat anything, get out of here.” So Halima swept herself away, then returned to the kitchen just as Olive was finishing with her meal.

“Why do you wear that stuff?” Olive asked.

Halima was washing the dishes, and she turned to smile at Olive over her shoulder. “It is who I am.” After a minute, Halima turned the water off and said, “Why do you wear that stuff?”

“Okay,” said Olive. “I was just asking.”

—

The next day Olive said, “Now you listen to me, Betty Boop.”

Betty sat down in the chair across from Olive.

“I saw how you treated that woman yesterday, and we’ll have none of that in this house.” Betty’s face—Olive could suddenly see this distinctly—looked as though she was twelve years old again and sulking. “And stop sulking,” Olive said. “Honest to God, it’s time you grew up.”

Betty shifted her rump on the chair and said, “You told me we weren’t going to discuss politics.”

“Damn right,” said Olive. “And that woman is not politics. She’s a person, and she has every right to be here.”

“Well, I don’t like the way she looks, that stuff she wears, it gives me the creeps. And it is politics,” Betty added.

Olive thought about this, and finally she sighed and said, “Well, in my house you are to be nice to her, do you understand?” And Betty got up and started to do some laundry.

At the end of that first week, Betty drove Olive to her appointment with Dr. Rabolinski. Olive had put lipstick on, and she sat next to Big Betty in her car; it was Olive’s car that Betty drove, Olive would honestly rather have died than be seen in a truck with that bumper sticker. Olive was silent, frightened to think of seeing this man again. In the waiting room of his office they sat for almost an hour, Betty flipping through magazines, sighing, and Olive just sitting quietly with her hands in her lap. Finally, the nurse called Olive in. Olive put the paper gown on and sat down on the examining table, and the nurse came back in and stuck things on her chest and did an EKG, then took the metal things off her and left Olive alone. Olive sat up. A mirror across from her caused her to look at herself and she was aghast. She thought she looked like a man in drag. The lipstick was so bright on her pale face! How had she not noticed this at home? She looked around for a tissue, urgent to get the foolish lipstick off, when Dr. Rabolinski walked in and closed the door behind him. “Hello, Olive,” he said. “How are you?”

“Hellish,” she said.

“Oh dear.” The man sat on a stool and wheeled it toward her. He sat gazing at her through his thick glasses. “Your EKG was just fine. Tell me why you feel hellish,” he said.

And Olive felt then that she was in the first grade, only she had become Squirrelly Sawyer, the boy who sat in front of her in that grade. Squirrelly Sawyer, that she would remember him now. He came from a very poor family and he never understood what the teacher wanted from him, and his state of confusion—and his constant silence—now came back to Olive with a rush of force. She herself could not speak as the doctor waited for her reply.

After a moment the doctor took his stethoscope and deftly slipped it through the opening of her gown to listen to Olive’s heart. Then he put the stethoscope on her back and told her to take deep breaths. “Again,” he said, and she breathed in deeply. “Again.” He sat back on the stool and said, “I like everything I hear.” He held her wrist and she realized he was taking her pulse, and she did not look at him. “Good,” he said, and wrote something down. He put the band of Velcro around her arm and pumped it up for her blood pressure and said “Good” again, and wrote that down as well. Then he sat on the stool once more, and she could tell he was looking at her and he said, “Now try and tell me why you feel hellish.”

And tears— tears , dear God!—slipped down her face and over her lips with that foolish lipstick; she felt them tremble. She could not speak, and she would not look at him. He handed her a tissue and she took it and wiped her eyes and her mouth, watching the streak of color come off on the tissue. He said, “Don’t worry, Olive. It’s natural. Don’t forget what I told you—after a heart attack it is common to feel depressed. You are going to feel better, I promise you that.”

Still, she wouldn’t look at him.

“Okay?” he said, and she nodded. “Come back and see me in a week,” he said.

He got up and left the room. And then she wept and wept, and finally cleaned off the lipstick and wiped her eyes and got dressed, and when she went out Betty looked up at her with some surprise, and Olive flapped a hand at her to indicate she should shut up. They drove home in silence.

When they were inside the house, Betty said, “Now just tell me, are you okay?”

Olive sat down in the chair that used to be Jack’s. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just damn sick of it all.”

“You’re doing really well, though,” Betty said, heaving herself down in the chair across from the one Olive sat in. “Believe me, I’ve had patients who couldn’t take a shower for weeks by themselves, and the first day you got home, you went right in and washed your hair and came right out.” Betty pointed at her and said, “You’re doin’ excellent!”

Olive looked at her. “They couldn’t take a shower? After a heart attack?”

“Sure,” Betty said.

“So what did you do?”

“I helped them,” Betty said. “But I haven’t had to help you a bit. I haven’t even taken your arm, for criminy’s sake.”

Olive considered this. “Well, I’m still sick of it,” she finally said.

When Halima Butterfly showed up, Betty said with exaggeration, “Hello there!” Olive could have killed her.

“She’s an idiot,” Olive said to Halima once Betty had gone. Halima looked at Olive and said, “You mean her bumper sticker?”

“Yes,” Olive said, “that is exactly what I mean.”

Halima said, looking down, running a finger across the table that a lamp sat on, “Do you know when my little brother heard that man became president, he started to cry.” Halima looked up at Olive. “He cried and said, Now we’ll have to go back, and my mother explained to him that he was born here and he didn’t have to leave.”

“Oh Godfrey,” said Olive; briefly she closed her eyes. Then Olive said, “Tell me what it’s like to be you.” Halima looked around the room. Today she wore a dark red robe and a dark headscarf. “By the way,” Olive added, “that peach-colored thing you had on the other day was just lovely.”

Halima smiled slightly and said, “You don’t like this?”

“Not as much,” Olive said. “Too dark.”

Halima told Olive that she had four sisters and two little brothers, and that two of the sisters and one brother lived in Minneapolis. “Why?” Olive asked. And Halima said they liked it there. Then she stood up and said she was going to get started on Olive’s dinner.