Some Possible Solutions (21 page)

Sarah stiffens, surprised out of her crankiness.

“She's experienced plenty of joy,” I say.

Our heads are so close together that I can feel her nodding.

“There's something I haven't told you,” Sarah says.

I get nervous.

“Sometimes when you take the recycling out and I hear you through the window clanging the metal bucket against the container,” she says, “it sounds like the opening drumbeat of this awesome and never-before-played rock song.”

*   *   *

By the time
I get home from work on Friday, Lulu's plant is a quarter of an inch tall, a glittering globular dime-sized cluster oozing out of the concrete. She crouches down to drip a few drops of pre-boiled water on it. The contamination warning has been extended through the weekend.

“I'm sure contaminated water is just fine for
it
,” Sarah said, sweating in the kitchen, where now there's always water boiling on the stove.

But Lulu insisted.

“Do you love my crystal plant?” Lulu asks, looking up at me.

I steal another quick glance over her shoulder. The thing glints in the dusk. This is a good one, Steve Stanhope. Flowers for city kids. Magic for the contamination generation. Thank you, sir.

I've never seen Lulu this happy. Being happy, that's how you thank your parents. That's all you have to do.

All evening Lulu and I are like two mirrors, reflecting excitement back and forth at each other. She strokes my arm while I read
Flora
to her. Together we do an Internet search about cacti.

“You two,” Sarah says.

After Lulu goes to sleep, I head out back to examine the crystal plant in the orange moonlight. But en route I get waylaid by shouting coming from the Stanhopes' lawn. I shouldn't rush over to the peephole. I rush over to the peephole.

It's been covered over. Thank goodness. Who wants to see that damn lawn anyway.

Well, me.

I put my ear up to the place where the hole used to be. In the great distance, Steve Stanhope is yelling a one-sided fight, presumably into a cell phone. “Beta? Beta!”

“What's eating you?” Sarah says back inside.

“You should go and check out that thing back there,” I say. “Pretty cool stuff.”

*   *   *

Early Saturday morning,
before Sarah and Lulu are up, I'm taking out the recycling yet again (I don't know how three people can create so much waste), and there, in the bald humid light of day, I see the crystal plant for what it is.

I drop the recycling bucket and kneel down.

Five or so pebbles, rolled in glue and then glitter, stacked messily atop each other, drizzled with more glue, more glitter. The same old school glue they sell at the bodega. The glitter from tubes.

I am stupid.

I go back inside, shutting the door against the grind of the Stanhopes' generator.

Sarah is sitting at the table with a cup of instant coffee. We switched to instant after they doubled the tax on imports. I'm touched by the sight of her.

“Thanks for doing that,” I say, ashamed. “It's not totally convincing, but thank you.”

“Hm?” she says absently. She's reading the news on her small screen. For her this is as good as it gets. Saturday morning, silence, coffee, screen.

“The ‘plant.' That you made. For Lulu.”

“UN Considers Proposal to Construct International Landfills in North Pole,” she reads. “Is that good or bad?”

*   *   *

I open Lulu's
flimsy door and step into her room. I turn off the WaveMachine. She's sleeping on her back, her arms flung above her head as they were whenever she slept as a baby. Her breathing sounds as good to me as water running in a creek.

Before I slide open the drawer beneath her bed, I already know what I will find hidden in the back corner: the glue, the glitter.

*   *   *

When Lulu was
newborn we called her Muskrat, though neither of us really knows what a muskrat is. It was just that she seemed like a small, mysterious mammal. I remember the way she would arch her tiny eyebrows when I picked her up after she'd finished drinking as much as she could get from Sarah's nipple. I'd hold her under her arms, in constant fear of dislocating them from her little shoulder sockets, and she'd raise those eyebrows, halfway a queen disapproving of something, halfway an animal startled out of its nest in its moment of deepest respite. I have no photograph of this face Lulu used to make, it was far too fleeting to ever catch, but that face of hers, those eyebrows peaked, imperious, disoriented, that is the face of my life.

How many times did I call Sarah from work to ask, “Is she still breathing?”

*   *   *

I don't touch
the glue or the glitter. Lulu is awake now. I can feel it, can feel her pretending she's still asleep. I shut the drawer and leave the room and (what's this giddiness I feel?) wait for Lulu to come out, whenever she's ready. The thing is, the organism survives no matter what; the organism even thrives.

 

A
LSO
BY
H
ELEN
P
HILLIPS

The Beautiful Bureaucrat

And Yet They Were Happy

Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green

 

About the Author

H
ELEN
P
HILLIPS
is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award and the Italo Calvino Prize, among others. She is the author of the widely acclaimed novel
The Beautiful Bureaucrat
(a
New York Times
Notable Book) and the collection
And Yet They Were Happy
(named a notable book by the Story Prize). Her work has appeared on
Selected Shorts
and in
Tin House, Electric Literature,
and
The New York Times.
An assistant professor of creative writing at Brooklyn College, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband and children. You can sign up for email updates
here
.

    

 

Thank you for buying this

Henry Holt and Company ebook.

 

To receive special offers, bonus content,

and info on new releases and other great reads,

sign up for our newsletters.

 

Or visit us online at

us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

 

For email updates on the author, click
here
.

 

CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright Notice

Dedication

Acknowledgments

THE KNOWERS

SOME POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

THE DOPPELGÄNGERS

THE MESSY JOY OF THE FINAL THROES OF THE DINNER PARTY

LIFE CARE CENTER

THE JOINED

FLESH AND BLOOD

WHEN THE TSUNAMI CAME

GAME

ONE OF US WILL BE HAPPY; IT'S JUST A MATTER OF WHICH ONE

THINGS WE DO

R

CHILDREN

THE WORST

HOW I BEGAN TO BLEED AGAIN AFTER SIX ALARMING MONTHS WITHOUT

THE BEEKEEPER

THE WEDDING STAIRS

CONTAMINATION GENERATION

Also by Helen Phillips

About the Author

Copyright

 

S
OME
P
OSSIBLE
S
OLUTIONS.
Copyright © 2016 by Helen Phillips. All rights reserved. For information, address Henry Holt and Co., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.henryholt.com

Cover design by Lucy Kim

Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at
[email protected]
.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Names: Phillips, Helen, 1983– author.

Title: Some possible solutions: stories / Helen Phillips.

Description: New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015046062| ISBN 9781627793797 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781627793803 (ebook)

Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Short Stories (single author). | FICTION / Literary.

Classification: LCC PS3616.H45565 A6 2016 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

LC record available at
http://lccn.loc.gov/2015046062

Henry Holt books are available for special promotions and premiums.

For details contact: Director, Special Markets.

e-ISBN 9781627793803

First Edition: May 2016

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.