States of Motion by Laura Hulthen Thomas

Author:Laura Hulthen Thomas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wayne State University Press

After fetching Arthur from his fencing lesson, Gina moped in the kitchen. Time to work up the nerve to place the weekly call to Dad. In hopes of glossing over how little he saw of her these days, Gina lately had established a routine of regular phone calls. Madame Bozek’s transformation of her father from an emotional firewall to a peddler of joy only fanned Gina’s anxiety. Now her aversion to the neighbor cat’s dodder and slime felt unkind and troublingly instinctual, too close to her feelings over Dad’s aging. That Dad deserved a lukewarm daughter did not ease her guilt. He was celebrating his age, while her mother never would have the chance either to love or suffer the twilight years.

She forced herself to place the call, which turned weird almost immediately. “It’s important not to get rustly, Virginia.”

She’d just told him Red had submitted his one hundredth job application, a federal architect position on a Dubai air base. For the building trades wiped out in the downturn, opportunity resided squarely in the Middle East. “Do you mean rusty, Dad?” Was it a bad connection or his new habit of jumbling his consonants that led her to hear made-up words? The land line filled with static. Dad refused to use his cell phone.

“Rustly, Daughter. Undisciplined energy will overtop your psychic stream.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Wash dishes. Answer phones. Groom horses. Any job will do. Pride won’t pay the bills.”

“If only humiliation did,” she muttered. Rustly. Undisciplined energy. Gina chalked such nonsense up to Madame Bozek’s rhetorical flourishes. She still couldn’t believe that the man who’d never trafficked in any spiritual creed was devoting all his time and God knew how much cash to sessions with a fortune-teller. This while he’d made no financial overtures to his own daughter to help with their predicament. Gina leaned against the counter. Under the cobwebbed window sill, dirty lunch dishes crowded the sink, the worn Corelle rims chipped like beaten-up teeth.

“Let me set something up for you with Steed,” Dad was saying.

Barnard Steed Lincoln Mercury was in bankruptcy. Gina had heard the news from Steed’s neighbors, who were tracking the foreclosure proceedings on the man’s house. “I don’t think Steed’s hiring, Dad.” The dish rack next to the sink boasted a spotless Toucan Sam cereal bowl. A spoon gleamed in the silverware holder. Arthur had washed his breakfast dishes again. That evening, when she came in to figure out the cheapest way to make pasta appealing for yet another night, Gina would find he’d cleaned up the lunch dishes, too.

Gina moved to the window. Beyond the fence, the loamy black mulch piled at the evergreen’s trunks had turned a wan gray in the heat.

“You need to work the phones, Daughter. Resumes don’t land jobs.”

“I’ve made calls, Dad. So has Red. Many, many calls.”

“Atta girl. I’ve got Madame working up some spirit lines for you. Keep you balanced until the breakthrough.”

Dad insisted on calling the psychic Madame like the woman was some ancient village seer.

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