The Collected Stories of Amy Hempel Read Free

listened.
     
    At the back of my house I can stand in the light from the sliding glass door and look out onto the deck. The deck is planted with marguerites and succulents in red clay pots. One of the pots is empty. It is shallow and broad, and filled with water like a birdbath.
    My cat takes naps in the windowbox. Her gray chin is powdered with the iridescent dust from butterfly wings. If I tap on the glass, the cat will not look up.
    The sound that I make is not food.
    When I was a girl I sneaked out at night. I pressed myself to hedges and fitted the shadows of trees. I went to a construction site near the lake. I took a concrete-mixing tub, slid it to the shore, and sat down inside it like a saucer. I would push off from the sand with one stolen oar and float, hearing nothing, for hours.
    The birdbath is shaped like that tub.
     
    I look at my nails in the harsh bathroom light. The scare will appear as a ripple at the base. It will take a couple of weeks to see.
    I lock the door and run a tub of water.
    Most of the time you don’t really hear it. A pulse is a thing that you feel. Even if you are somewhat quiet. Sometimes you hear it through the pillow at night. But I know that there is a place where you can hear it even better than that.
    Here is what you do. You ease yourself into a tub of water, you ease yourself down. You lie back and wait for the ripples to smooth away. Then you take a deep breath, and slide your head under, and listen for the playfulness of your heart.

Tonight Is a Favor to Holly
    A blind date is coming to pick me up, and unless my hair grows an inch by seven o’clock, I am not going to answer the door. The problem is the front. I cut the bangs myself; now I look like Mamie Eisenhower.
    Holly says no, I look like Claudette Colbert. But I know why she says that is so I will meet this guy. Tonight is a favor to Holly.
    What I’d rather do is what we usually do—mix our rum and Cokes, and drink them on the sand while the sun goes down.
    We live the beach life.
    Not the one with sunscreen and resort wear. I mean, we just live at the beach. Out the front door is sand. There’s the ocean, and we see it every day of the year.
    The beach is near the airport—so this town doesn’t even have the class L.A. lacks. What it has is airline personnel. For them, it’s a twelve-minute shuttle from the concourse home—home meaning a complex of apartments done in fake Spanish Colonial.
    It copies the Spanish missions in every direction. But show me the mission with wrought-iron handrails running up the side.
    Also, there’s a courtyard fountain that splashes onto mosaic tiles. What’s irritating is that the tiles were chemically treated to “age” them from the start. What you want to say is, Look, relics are leftovers, you know?
     
    The place is called Rancho La Brea, but what it’s really called, because of the stewardesses, is Rancho Libido. Inside, the apartments have white sparkle ceilings.
    Holly’s no stewardess, and neither am I. We’re renting month to month while our house is restored from the mud and water damage of the last slide.
    Holly sings backup, and sometimes she records. The idea was she would tour, and I’d mostly have the place to myself. But she’s not touring. The distribution on her last release was half what she expected. The record company said they had to reorganize their marginal talent, so while Holly looks for another label, she’s home nights and my three days off.
    Four days a week I drive to La Mirada, to the travel agency where I have a job. It takes me fifty-five minutes to drive one way, and I wish the commute were longer. I like radio personalities, and I like to change lanes. And losing yourself on the freeway is like living at the beach—you’re not aware of lapsed time, and suddenly you’re there, where it was you were going.
    My job fits right in. I do nothing, it pays nothing, but—you guessed it—it’s better than nothing.
    A sense of humor