John Brandon - Further Joy

There were other episodes Sofia could remember, and, she was sure, a bunch more her mother had let her forget. On a drive across the state, stopped at a gas station, a woman had run screaming from Sofia. They’d both been browsing the candy aisle of the little store, Sofia’s mother outside pumping gas. The woman spoke to Sofia and Sofia, as if under a spell, glazed over and began reciting the woman’s past, every failing and indiscretion. The woman had cursed at Sofia and fled the store, and Sofia’s mother had hustled her to the restroom at the back of the building and splashed water on her face until she answered to her name again. Neither of them had said a word for the rest of the drive. That’s the part Sofia remembered so clearly, the wordless drive. She didn’t remember, all these years later, what she’d said to the woman in the store, but she remembered the roar of the wind in the open windows of her mother’s car, remembered the burdened look on her mother’s face. After that she’d knotted up something inside herself, and eventually the woozy feelings went away.

Sofia worked four mornings a week, giving tours at the Thomas Edison House over on the coast. During her last tour, shortly before lunchtime, she noticed her on-and-off boyfriend loitering at the back of the crowd. His name was James. He wore work boots and had parted brown hair. Sofia tried not to look at him, not wanting to lose concentration and forget her spiel describing Edison’s establishment of a newspaper aboard a working passenger train. Sofia broke up with James often. The most recent reason she’d found to part ways was that she didn’t want to tie him down, didn’t want to saddle him with a serious relationship at this stage of his life. The truth was an old, ordinary story, particularly in her family: she was afraid to lose him, and the best way to avoid that was to keep pushing him away. He was handsome enough and his mind was impressive, but it was the company of his kindred heart she couldn’t stand the thought of losing for good. When she was around James, her soul was calm. That was the best way she could describe it.

Sofia led her group into the final exhibit, a gallery crowded with photos of Edison clasping shoulders with various famous people. James was still bringing up the rear. An old man in a thin sweater was speaking to him, and he was leaning in and nodding. Sofia revealed that Edison had invented paraffin paper and then gave out handfuls of wrapped candies to the kids. Four or five people walked up and tipped her, and she flattened out the bills and folded them and slipped them into her back pocket. She exited out a side door toward the parking lot, where she guessed James would be waiting.

And here he was. He came over to Sofia, crunching the broken white shells of the parking lot underfoot. He was carrying a book, which was probably about pirates or explorers. He was a public health major, but all he read about was romantic maritime adventure. Sofia had met him at college. He was a year younger, still a senior, finishing up his degree with a couple night classes.

“How come you came up here?” Sofia asked. “You could just stop by the house and knock on the door.”

“You might not answer if I knocked on the door. That’s happened, you know.”

“Fair enough.”

“And anyway, I’ve never been to this place. It’s right here and I’ve never been. Well, it’s not right here. It’s pretty far out of the way, really.”

“Yeah, it’s a serious commute for a part-time job.”

“You’re really good at tour-guiding. You seem like yourself but more authoritative, like you probably know CPR and would enjoy debating. Spirited debating.”

“People debate me about Edison all the time,” Sofia said. “They’re usually right. I usually give in.”

She was walking toward her car and James was walking along with her, shortening his stride so it matched hers.

“I don’t like coming to your house because your uncle feels sorry for me.”

“That’s better than him thinking you’re a creep.”

“I’m not so sure. It gets old, having people think you’re nothing to worry about.”

They rounded a thicket of bamboo and started down a long row of glinting chrome. All the disturbed dust of the morning was hanging static in the air. James knew about Sofia’s past. She hadn’t told him the details but he knew the gist. He seemed to regard it all as an exotic happenstance of her formative years, like if she’d lived in Africa as a diplomat’s daughter or something. Like Uncle Tunsil, he didn’t speak of it unless she brought it up, and she rarely did. Sofia didn’t feel like telling him about the interviews she was planning; she didn’t want to know what he’d think about that. He’d find out soon enough, the way news spread.

James believed in things — in ghosts, in God, in spontaneous human combustion. He’d once said he didn’t understand the point of not believing in things. He made a lot of declarations and they didn’t all jibe.

“So this concern you have about the sowing of my wild oats,” he said. “It’s valid as a concept, but it doesn’t really apply to me. I don’t think I’d be breaking a big story, saying I’m not your average dude. If I have any wild oats, I’d just as soon sow them with you. In you? I don’t think I have a mastery of that metaphor.”

“Of course you’d say that,” Sofia said. “But I’m only the second girlfriend you’ve ever had. There could be plenty of girls out there you’d like better than me and you’d have no way of knowing it.”

James scoffed. “First off, I’m not going to dignify that with a response. Second, isn’t it my choice whether I want to date any other girls? Isn’t that sort of up to me?”

“We have no brakes. We wind up spending every minute together. It can’t be healthy.”

“You need breaks from me?”

“No brakes. B - r - a - k - e .”

James gently brushed a moth away from his pant leg, then watched it zip up toward the treetops. “I guess I don’t see the problem. I guess that sounds like an ideal situation, spending every minute together.”

Sofia tried not to feel flattered, tried not to feel like she was fishing for loyalty. They reached her car, an old Datsun the color of sweet-potato flesh, and she fished around in her purse for her keys. Her purse was tiny and she still could never find anything in it. She could see the cover of James’s book now. It said THE BRITISH ROYAL NAVY. He started walking around to the passenger side of the Datsun.

“What are you doing?” Sofia said.

“What? Getting in the car.”

“No way, James.”

“But I need a ride.”

“What about your car?”

“It’s back at my apartment. There’s something not right with it. The intake or something.”

“How did you get here?”

“Rode the bus.”

“From Lower Grove?”

“Rode like four buses.”

“You rode the bus here thinking I would be forced to give you a ride back.”

“You sure make things black and white.”

“I’m not giving you a ride. It’s not fair what you did.”

James ticked one eyebrow up and then released a shallow sigh. “Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

He pressed the corner of his eye with his fingertip, blinking. “So I guess that means I’ll take the bus again,” he said. “No, it’s okay. It’ll be good. I’m interested in buses. Bus routes. Bus transfers. Stuff like that. Interesting people who smell like gas stations.”

James came back over to Sofia’s side of the car. He kept his distance. His hair was a completely different hue in the sun than it was in the shade.

“You’ll let us be happy one day,” he said. “I just hope I’m not bitter by then.”