Almost Everything Very Fast by Almost Everything Very Fast Christopher Kloeble

Author:Almost Everything Very Fast Christopher Kloeble
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-55597-922-5
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2015-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

PART V

Objects in Mirror

Violet

Albert crossed the main street. By the town hall he hung a left, following a narrow, tarred footpath downhill, past a playground and a meadow where he and Fred had often gone sledding. Before long he’d leave the last farmhouse behind and reach the glider airfield. The thought of it made him nervous. During their conversation three days ago, Sister Alfonsa had refused to tell him over the telephone what she knew about his mother. So he’d just have to come to Saint Helena—those were her last words before Albert hung up, immediately regretting it. Since then, every attempt he’d made to reach her had failed. Fearful of missing her call, he hadn’t left the phone for a moment. Under normal circumstances he would have been well on the road to Saint Helena by now; to ferret out something about his mother, he would gladly have undertaken a much longer journey. There was one thing holding him back: panic gripped Fred whenever he had to board a bus. Albert traced it back to the traumatic experience of the bus accident. And Albert himself had neither car nor driver’s license. So he’d dialed Violet’s number, the only number that could help get the two of them swiftly to Saint Helena.

Their breakup was already half a year behind them. Albert hadn’t expected that the mere thought of seeing her would stir up the desire for something that was officially in the past. It made him think of the warning you saw printed on the side-view mirrors of American-made cars: Objects in mirror are closer than they appear.

The same thing applied to the past.

A year before, in the autumn of 2001, Albert had been sitting on the bus, reading the backs of heads. On a good, that is, a busy day, the selection would surely have been larger. But given the slim offering on hand, he began much as he did when watching TV: by flipping around. The asymmetrically shaved nape of the teen to his left simply bored him—it wasn’t evidence of a cheap hairdresser, an underprivileged family, rather the opposite: the homemade shave on either side of her lime-green hair was an expression of rebellion; she was probably on her way back from hanging around the provincial train station, frightening elderly people, flinging beer cans, and kissing the new Alsatian pup her daddy had bought her for Christmas.

And that woman whose little chignon resembled a puffy sandwich roll? How completely tickled she’d be if somebody plopped down in the seat beside her. To loosen her bun and let the long hair tumble free, how divine that would make her feel! She certainly didn’t have it easy, what with two kids and the house to look after, and her husband, whom she called “the old man” while talking on the phone with her girlfriends, just as her mother had done with her father. I certainly don’t have a smooth time of it, the tilt of her head declared, but

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