Helen Phillips - Some Possible Solutions

Eva removed her hostess’s necklace — she’d had her eye on it all evening — and slung it around her own neck. It was a large metal pendant on a black string, the kind of object that could protect you. Then, Eva removed the eyeglasses of the librarian — she who took pleasure in wearing thick eyeglasses, knowing how her sharp beauty transformed them — and placed them on the gooey plate beside her delicately bitten pie. As for the hostess’s overweight but witty sister (it was easy to imagine a childhood of despair): Eva removed the woman’s rubber band and reworked her ponytail, putting it at a cocky angle, helping her capitalize on her thick hair, the one thing she had over her sister. The graduate student, so young and tired-looking, merited the same treatment as Eva’s own husband: the kiss on the forehead, the stroke of the cheek.

Eva paused in her labors to stick her finger into the freshly whipped cream, something she’d been desperate to do ever since her hostess placed it on the table. She wanted to eat it forever and ever — but duty called.

The two remaining men were indistinguishable from each other. They’d been egging the conversation along all night, mocking or interrogating anyone who made any kind of definitive statement about anything. What were their names? Fred and Ted, Tom and Ron, Tim and Jim? Yet they seemed ever so much less irritating now that they were stuck here with their mouths open to receive forkfuls of pie. Gently, she sprinkled salt.

Her work complete, Eva stepped back to admire them, this small group of immobile human beings, all of whom had traveled through life to arrive at this dinner table. All of whom felt unloved and lonely and stupid and awkward and guilty and anxious and insufficient, all of whom woke up each day and did things, tried to do the right things, brushed their teeth and attempted not to shame themselves, took pride in their little accomplishments and strove to speak with authority about a thing or two. How vulnerable they looked now, trapped in their humblest gestures, how pitiful, how dear! She found herself achingly aware of their skeletons, of the fact that just beneath their skin lay tendons and intestines and other repulsive things. She loved them, these people — the lettuce lodged in someone’s tooth, the parade of acne across a forehead, the stain on the shirt, the fray of the hem.

She returned to the host, stuck in the most unnatural position of all. She knew he’d felt as out of place the whole evening as she had; she knew everyone had felt as out of place the whole evening as she had.

It was just then, as she was moving her lips once more toward his, that it broke.

Suddenly they were sipping, biting, pouring, breathing. And then they were staring at her, blinking at her, because what was she doing all up in the host’s face when he was trying to pour the cream? And, excuse us, but why’s she got the hostess’s Peruvian charm around her own neck?

And then the interchangeable men spitting salty pie into their napkins, the perplexed librarian salvaging her glasses from her pie goo, the fat sister’s hand searching for her relocated ponytail, the hasty return of the necklace to the hostess, someone wondering aloud who dared stick his finger into the whipped cream, the kind yet slightly ashamed gaze of her beloved husband. Serene, Eva strolled around the table and settled into her seat, from whence she had a perfect view.

Across the hall from the room where my sister may or may not be dying, there is a woman who moans Help all day long.

* * *

Should we helpher? I eventually ask my parents.

Help who? my father says.

The woman who keeps saying help , my husband says.

No, she doesn’t need any help, my mother says.

* * *

What lovely sunflowers,I say. What lovely orchids. How kind.

Have you sanitized your hands? my mother says. You have to sanitize your hands.

Orchids and sunflowers, I say. They look surprisingly good together, don’t they.

At first we too wanted to help the woman who says help, my father says, but the nurses told us she says it all day every day.

You know, they’re sort of perfect opposites, orchids and sunflowers, I say.

Are you guys hungry? my father says. There are chocolates over there.

Did you have anything on the plane? my mother says.

Isn’t it hard to believe you woke up in Brooklyn this morning and now you’re here in Colorado, my father says.

Hey, she smiled! my husband says. Look, she’s smiling.

Oh wow, my father says. Great. Wow. Look at that.

Hi there girl, I say.

Smiley smiley girl, my mother says. You’re smiling because you know your little sister and her boyf — husband flew all the way across this great big country to visit you, aren’t you, girly-girl?

You had us scared, you know that, I say.

Thank you for smiling, precious, my mother says.

On the TV, the barn-raising scene in the musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers . Six brothers in their bright shirts dance on a sawhorse. My father and my husband crank my sister’s hospital bed to the full upright position.

A confession: I have never looked into my sister’s eyes and seen there anything that resembled recognition. Sometimes when we were children I would accidentally call her by the dog’s name— Hush-a-bye, Freck! I might say when she moaned — before quickly correcting myself, hoping my parents hadn’t heard.

In bed, the smiley girl smiles.

* * *

In the newlyopened café across the highway from the Life Care Center, there are thirteen varieties of dessert on the other side of the glass case: rhubarb bread pudding, peach pie, apple pie, chocolate cake, carrot cake, cinnamon rolls, chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, cranberry scones, lemon bars, almond croissants, chocolate croissants, chocolate cupcakes. Everything baked on the premises! Including the ciabatta!

Awed, genuinely awed, we ask the owner: How do you do it all? She does it single-handedly. She has red hair and big yellow teeth. She says: Well if you want to know how I do it is for say the pie I would make a bunch of pastry dough and then freeze it and save it for when I needed to make a new pie like today I made eighteen piecrusts or if you’re wondering about the scones what I do is I make a huge batch of scone batter and then save it in the fridge and then when I want fresh scones well all I do is pull some out and throw in walnuts or what have you I make ten batches of say chocolate chip cookie dough and shape it into balls and freeze them and then every morning I just throw a few on a cookie sheet so we have fresh-baked cookies basically I just rotate like this morning I made eighteen piecrusts it’s all about rotating almond ganache can keep for weeks …

By the time she finishes explaining everything we have finished our mushroom soup and our ciabatta. Already we are imagining ourselves standing up, walking to the door, stepping out into the parking lot of the strip mall, getting into the car, going back across the highway, returning to the person who has not eaten anything for sixteen days. Already we are nauseous. The owner’s teeth are so yellow. As we leave she forces us to sample her lemon bar — I sliced it into four pieces, one for each of you! What do you think! What do you think of my lemon bar! The tang flips around in our hot mouths, burned from the mushroom soup.

* * *

After lunch theold people are lined up in the hallway of the Life Care Center. They all sit there in their wheelchairs, big around the crotches due to diapers. Some of them stand out. A woman who is bald but for a hundred white hairs. A man whose skin is so pale he looks dead. I can’t believe they let a dead man sit there alongside the others! A woman strapped to her wheelchair with twelve bright orange straps. A woman with an eager smile who says to everyone walking by, Did you bring it today? Did you bring it? A man who is able to ask us, How is she doing? and to whom we are able to reply, She is finally eating again.