ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: The Writer, His Wife, and their Afterlife
Book One, Part Two, Chapter 132: Mermaid Christy
Joshua and Christy are on their way to Ventura to look at a forty-foot boat. “It has a small kitchen, living room, bathroom. Air-conditioning and heating. The photos look really good. We’re checking it out.”
Christy grew up in Baton Rouge, near water. She swims and snorkels. She’s always wanted to live on a boat. Joshua doesn’t even know how to swim.
“What’s your thinking?” I ask.
“Maybe Christy and I can live on it. The owner’s only asking fifteen hundred for it. And if we don’t live on it, maybe we can rent it out. I’ll call you later.”
A knock sounds on my door. It’s Bella, back from a grocery trip. “I feel queasy,” she says. “Will you come talk to me while I put away my groceries?” She has a cartful.
I follow her to her kitchen. She puts away organic grapes and organic blueberries and organic yogurt and organic baby kale and a bunch of bananas and five avocados — one black one for tonight — and two cans of mandarin oranges. “You can tell I’m a little fruit-crazy just now,” she says.
A close friend of Bella died recently. He hit his head in a fall and suffered massive bleeding in his skull. Earlier today, Bella banged her forehead on the opened door of a kitchen cabinet and thought about Jack. Then she started feeling queasy and thought: Am I bleeding in my skull? Then she started feeling queasier and thought: Don’t women feel nauseated when they’re having heart attacks? Am I having a heart attack?
She talked of all this as she put a tin of cocoa and a container of steel-cut oats into her pantry. “But I don’t have a bump on my forehead, and I probably haven’t suffered a heart attack, right?”
“No. You’re just a trifle over-reactive, neurotic, suggestible, and anxious.”
“For that I have my Xanax, but I don’t like to take it. Only half a tab at a time, and only if I’m extremely anxious. Maybe once every few months.”
Later, Joshua calls back. “The boat was nice but too expensive. A four hundred slip fee each month. A hundred for utilities. Extra for a mailbox. It’d be eight or nine hundred a month, not including upkeep. And its two engines are shot. And the wood’s in bad shape. Our apartment is nine-fifty and comes with two parking spaces. It was fun to check out, and we had a great salad for lunch — good lettuces, a tasty oil-and-vinegar dressing. You would’ve liked it.”
Christy wants a boat and a beach house. What Christy wants, Joshua tries to give her.
“Too many things are going on in my life,” he says. “Too much disorder and confusion. I need to focus on my acting. So does Christy. I’ll be so happy if she gets a good role. It’ll make me happier than if I got a good role. We’ll work together. Co-operate. No more old cars. No more vintage motorcycles. No more pinball machines. No more toys. They’re distractions. Watch what I bring into the house. Keep things simple. Stay focused.”
Joshua’s talking, but it’s Christy’s words he’s mouthing. The toy she wants is a boat, and the simple house she wants is on the beach.
The disorder and confusion in Joshua’s life? Enough to make him feel queasy? A lot of times it’s Mermaid Christy, rocking his boat again.
