Carry Me Like Water Read Free Page B

the blooming tulip trees swayed softly in the breeze. The wind here was never cruel, never too hot, never threatening—not like El Paso’s. She hated thinking about the place of her birth, but lately that goddamned city had been visiting her like a craving for chocolates. She tired to push the desert from her thoughts. She looked at the green all around her, and took a deep breath. For the first time in five years, the Bay Area had not had a drought. The winter rains had come day after day after day, and now that they were gone everything in Palo Alto was bright green, flowers growing like weeds.
    She walked down Emerson a few blocks and took a right on University. She walked into a small bookstore. She had no idea what she was doing in this unfamiliar place. It was Eddie who liked books, not she, and Helen realized she had never been in a bookstore without him. He’s rubbing off on me, she thought. She walked around looking for nothing in particular and found herself standing before the poetry section. She stared at the names of the poets, and read out the titles she found interesting. The Only Dangerous Thing, Oblique Prayers, Diving into the Wreck, Letters to an Imaginary Friend. She picked up a small book whose title she could not see from the binding and touched the printed letters with her fingers: Words Like Fate and Pain. It was a strange and sad and hopeless title. She wondered about the woman who wrote the book, wondered what it was like to write something, and then allow strangers to read her secrets. Maybe it was a kind of freedom. Or maybe it was just another form of imprisonment. She had no desire to read the book,but she found herself opening it, she found herself staring at the words, she found herself reading:
For you there was no conscious departure.
no hurried packing for exile.
You are here, anyway, in your own
minor archipelago of pain.
Do what every exile does. Tell stories.
Smuggle messages across the border.
Remember things back there
as simpler than they were.
    She did not want to think about the words on the page. She knew she could not bring herself to read anymore, but for some reason she reread the words before shutting the book and placed it back on the shelf. She quickly stepped out of the bookstore. She looked around as if she were afraid someone had seen her in the bookstore. She felt stupid for feeling paranoid. She laughed to herself: “It’s a bookstore—not a sex shop.” She looked at her watch and walked toward the bakery/coffee shop where she was meeting Elizabeth. She thought of the poem as she walked, and was sorry she had not bought the book. And yet she did not want to buy it. She was sure it would be sad; she was sure it would make her remember.
    As she crossed the street and slowly made her way toward the coffee shop on the corner of University and Waverly, she shook her head at all the stores that crowded around her. Every other storefront was a restaurant. “You’d think all we do around here is go out to eat. Maybe it’s true. Maybe we’re just a bunch of pigs.” She remembered how one morning she and Eddie had gone running very early in the morning, and how they had run past a shop window that someone had spray-painted: RENOUNCE YOUR WEALTH RICH SWINE. She had said nothing, but her husband had laughed. “Good for them,” he said. “Things are too neat around here.” “Maybe we are swine,” she said softly, though she did not realty believe it, did not believe it. She had lived in Palo Alto for five years now. In the beginning she had loved this peaceful, well-to-do town. It was clean, idyllic; the weather was perfect. She had never lived in a place like this, and living here had made her feel safe. She and her husbandoften jogged through the university. Watching the students ride their bikes to class made her feel as if she had become a part of America. She felt silly thinking it, but she thought it anyway. She never told her husband these things. If she