THE PAINTED WASP by Maureen McGranaghan
My sister offers me a job, painting wasps.
“I can’t do that,” I say.
“You like to paint small things,” Immy says.
“Not wasps.”
“They’ll be sedated. This is a chance for us to work together. Think about it – you get to create new faces for them!”
I see faceless human heads – on insects. I say nothing.
“We’re studying facial recognition,” Immy says. “Can wasps recognize each other, and what happens when they don’t?”
“No thank you.”
“Liz, you have to think about it. You know how we keep talking about you coming up here for awhile.”
I start humming.
“We’ll make everything just like home!” Immy shouts.
I hum until she hangs up and keep humming after that. Before Immy called, I was busy with my flowerpot. I’m turning it into a mosaic. I was only able to get the phone because I had just washed my hands for a snack. I didn’t want to answer. I wanted to get my trail mix, and I did. Then Immy started talking on the machine. I sat there eating cashews and cranberries. I’d already eaten the almonds, and nothing in the mix begins with b. She said she wasn’t going to stop talking until I picked up.
Now I can’t eat trail mix or work on my mosaic. So I go upstairs and sit in the corner of my room. Next thing I know I’m rocking. I don’t even mean to rock. It just happens. I rock and rock, until I hear Mom downstairs, calling for me. Then she appears in the doorway. “What happened?” she asks.
I don’t answer. I hope she will leave. Finally, she does.
When Immy said I like to paint small things, she was talking about my shell-houses. For a year and three months, I painted our house on the inside of pistachio shells. I used a magnifying glass. I tried the outside of the shells too, but that was harder. Also, I wanted the house to be hidden. I tried to glue two halves back together, with the houses inside, facing each other in the darkness, but the glue gun made a mess – long stringy threads that went everywhere. I got upset and threw the gun and scattered many shells. So that was the end of the gluing.
Immy sends me an email about her wasps with several photos attached. They are Polistes fuscatus paper wasps, which means they build their nests out of wood fibers and plant stems, combined with saliva. It’s paper, like what we write on, but our paper is not made with spit. Each nest has multiple queens, who work together but also compete, so they have to be able to recognize each other. There’s a hierarchy, Immy writes. I look up hierarchy and read all the definitions:
A system in which members are ranked according to status or authority;
The authorities in a hierarchical system;
An arrangement of items in a series according to relative importance;
A governing ecclesiastical body, organized into successive ranks;
The collective body of angels.
I look at the photos, even though I don’t want to. They are close-ups. The wasps are terrible with their pincers and little yellow hairs and antennae sprouting from their heads and many black spots in their eyes, which don’t look like eyes at all. I close the email and go away from the computer. But then I get a picture of a wasp-angel in my head.
Reasons To Say No:
I don’t like wasps.
I don’t like leaving home.
I don’t like how Ravi smells.
I don’t like Hobby licking me or putting his wet nose on me.
I don’t like dog hair, which is all over Immy’s house.
Ravi is Immy’s husband. Mom says he smells that way from his cooking. He makes strange food, which I don’t eat. Immy has a dog named Hobby, which is a nickname for Hobbit. He has a golden coat and sheds everywhere. Also, he goes outside and then walks around the house with dirty feet. Ravi wipes them with a cloth, but that’s not good enough. The house is dirty after they visit. I have to stay in my room, where Hobby is not allowed, until Mom cleans it. Also, Hobby’s nose is wet, and he drools. I don’t like it when he gets his drool on me.
Sally, my psychologist, reads the list. “You have legitimate concerns,” she says. “But I think your mom and sister are thinking bigger picture here. You will have to live with Immy someday, so it makes sense to start getting comfortable there now. It doesn’t have to involve painting wasps.”
I don’t say anything.
“Have you and Mom talked about this?”
I don’t answer. Mom says when she dies, I have to go live with Immy. She says I can’t stay in the house alone. Dad died of a heart attack in his chair. When he couldn’t sleep, he went downstairs and watched TV. But one morning, he was dead. The Today Show was on. I turned it off. I don’t like the Today Show.
“Liz?” Sally says.
“She drinks Crystal Lite,” I say. “She doesn’t smoke.” She used to, but now her lungs are clear. Mom said, We’ll be tormenting each other for years to come. But I don’t say this to Sally.
“Maybe you and your mother could both go live with Immy.”
“I don’t want to live with Immy.”
“I think you’d get used to it.”
“I won’t be able to get glass. For my mosaics.”
“Sure you will.”
I shake my head. There is no Frapper in Michigan. Frapper gets me all the glass I need. He works at Construction Junction. I explain this to Sally.
“You can get glass from someone else.”
“I don’t want to get glass from someone else.”
“So there’s something special about Frapper.”
I don’t know what she means. Frapper gets me glass. I tell him the colors I need. He cuts it himself so the pieces will fit together on my mosaics. (Mom won’t let me use the cutting tools.)
“How did Frapper get his name?” Sally asks.
I don’t answer.
“Is it a nickname for something?”
I don’t answer.
“Let’s decide how long you’ll stay in Michigan,” Sally says.
I don’t answer.
“It might interest you to see Immy’s lab and what she does there.”
“Wasps are unsanitary,” I say. “They make their nests out of wood pulp and saliva and crawl in and out of them all day.”
Sally sighs. “How about two days, and you don’t have to go to the lab.”
I don’t say anything.
Mom drives me to Construction Junction on Sunday, and Frapper gives me my glass. He is large. Mom calls him a lumberjack. His orange hair is in a little bun at the back of his head, and he has an orange beard. He wears old plaid shirts and jeans. His hands are dirty. I wear gloves to take the bag from him. Then I tell him about the wasps.
“That sounds awesome,” he says. “Go do that.”
“No,” I say. “It’s not awesome.”
“You get to paint wasps. While they’re alive. It’s like the ultimate art project.”
“It’s not art. It’s science.”
“What’s the difference?” he asks. “Science is just another form of learning through creation. You can’t learn anything if you don’t create.”
“I have to go to Michigan.”
“Where in Michigan?”
“Ann Arbor.”
He smiles. “Some good pot there.”
“Marijuana?”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t smoke it.”
“Probably not a good idea for you,” he says. “But I had fun. Lots of fun.”
“When did you go?”
“Been through there a couple times.”
“How did you get your name?”
He laughs, but I don’t know what’s funny. I just stand there. My hands get hot in my rubber gloves.
“My little brother – he couldn’t say Zach, so he said Frap – and then Frapper, when he was older.” Frapper shrugs. “Only people call me Zach now are my boss and my mom. Even my dad calls me Frap. He likes to say, Crap, Frap, what d’ya go and do that for!” Frapper laughs again, but I don’t understand the joke, except for the rhyming. I don’t like the word crap, which means poop.
Frapper has to go help someone load a sink into their car, and I have to go home and clean my glass because other people have touched it, including Frapper. I wish his hands weren’t so dirty. He says I have to stop worrying about dirt. “It’s good for you – part of life! Sterile is bad, unless, you know, you’re having open heart surgery.”
On Monday, Mom comes home from work at the Giant Eagle with almonds and dried apples for me and a frozen pizza for herself. She makes Crystal Lite. I eat my nuts and fruit. She says we’re going to Michigan tomorrow. To see Immy and Ravi. “I didn’t want you fretting over it for days. We’ll just go and everything will be fine.”
I start to hum.
“You can do that, but you can’t stay here by yourself.”
I throw almonds on the floor. Mom picks them up and puts them back in the bag with the clean almonds. I dump them all on the floor. Mom goes into the living room and turns on the television. I stare at all the almonds. Washing them is no good. It makes them soggy. I go up to my bedroom and rock.
In the morning, I stay in the corner of my room. I hear Mom get up and take her shower and go downstairs. Then I hear the car start. She’s going to work. I rock some more, but I’m tired, so I get in bed and fall asleep. When I wake up, Mom is taking clothes out of my drawer and putting them in a suitcase. “Let’s bring your painting shirt,” she says.
I hum loudly.
Mom folds my jeans. “I have apple-cranberry juice downstairs. And a new bag of almonds. They’re coming with us.”
Apple-cranberry is my favorite. “Two days,” I say. “And I don’t have to go to the lab. That’s what Sally says.”
“Two days,” Mom says.
“Starting when we get in the car.” I set my watch timer at forty-eight hours.
“Starting when we get there,” Mom says.
“In the car!”
“My watch starts when we get there.” She zips my suitcase and stands it up. “Pack your art supplies.”
Sally says everyone has to make concessions. These are things you agree to do because other people want you to. But I want to stay home. I can’t go to Immy’s. I don’t pack my art supplies. When Mom comes back, she says, “I’m taking all the glass with me. And the other stuff. If you stay here, you’ll be alone and you won’t be doing any art. I’ll give the glass to Immy. I won’t bring it back, and I won’t take you to see Frapper to get any more.”
I moan. Mom leaves again. I think of her touching my glass, gathering up all the pieces, which I’ve carefully organized, jumbling them together, making them dirty with her fingers. I’ll have to clean them all again. “Mom!” I shout. “Don’t touch the glass!” She doesn’t answer.
I want to hum as we drive out of Pittsburgh, but it feels good to be in the car. I don’t want to get to Immy’s house, which will smell strange. There will be dog hair. I’ll have to sleep in her guest room, where other people stay.
Mom hands me the bottle of apple-cranberry juice. “Make a list of things you want to eat,” she says. “I’ll go shopping when we get there.”
I drink the juice; cranberry is sweeter than lemonade but still sour. I like the sour, and it keeps me from getting UTIs. In my sketchpad, I list foods that begin with A, then B, then C. I’ll go all through the alphabet, coming up with five for each. Then I’ll choose one from each list. But I don’t finish. Instead, I close my eyes. When I open them, my wasp-angel is on the hood of the car, staring at us through the windshield with her orange and black-spotted eyes. She has antennae, a wasp beard, and pincers instead of hands, but also a human nose, blond hair, a white gown, and angel wings. I scream, and she is gone. My eyes are open. My sketchpad is on the floor.
“What now?” Mom asks.
“We have to go home!”
“We’re halfway there.”
I reach over and grab the steering wheel even though I don’t know how to drive. Mom shoulders me away. I scream again. Mom pulls over and turns to me. “You think going to your sister’s is too much? Crash this car and see what happens.”
I hum. Mom picks up my sketchpad and hands it to me. Then she pulls back onto the highway.
Hobby comes right to the car door, tail swishing. I try to avoid his nose while getting out, but he’s always pushing it at me. He can see and hear, but smell is how he figures everything out. Ravi pulls him away, and I get my suitcase and my backpack, which is very heavy with glass and my tub of grout. Ravi offers to take them, but I don’t let him.
The whole house smells like curry, which I don’t like. I take my bags straight to the guest bedroom. It has been vacuumed. I don’t like stepping on vacuumed carpet, but I can’t put my bags down in the hall, which is dirty. Also, my socks are now dirty from walking through the house, so I need to change them before I step inside the guest room. I don’t know how to do that while holding my bags. I want to go home, but home is 288.3 miles away. I won’t be going there for forty-seven hours and fifty-three minutes.
“Everything okay, Liz?” Ravi asks. He has a round head, dark skin, very dark thick hair up top, and thin hair on his chin and cheeks. “Got the room all cleaned up for you.”
I don’t want to be in the hall with him, so I put my suitcase just inside the guest room, on the vacuumed carpet, and sit on it cross legged so that I am not touching the guest room floor with my dirty socks. I take the socks off and put them in the hall, even though I don’t like to be barefoot. I can feel him standing behind me. I can smell him, his spices. Immy says that’s the smell of food and love. But you can’t smell love. It’s not that kind of thing. It’s not a thing at all. It’s a feeling. Feelings don’t smell and they don’t last. They come and go. You can’t control them, but they don’t have to control you if you have strategies. That’s what Sally says.
From my suitcase, I see that the window is open, which means someone could get in from outside. There are no stairs in Immy’s house. Everything is on the same level except the basement, where the washing machine and dryer are (it smells like wet clay and lint down there). A breeze is blowing the curtains, rounding them, like my pistachio shells, so that it looks like something is inside them. But nothing is. Only air. I see a bowl of potpourri on the dresser that was here the last time I visited and is now unsanitary. I close my eyes and hold my breath. When you breathe, you take in the molecules of everything around you. I don’t want the air of Immy’s house inside me, but I can’t hold my breath forever.
“You’re going to ruin that suitcase,” Mom says.
I say nothing.
“What’s the problem?”
I hum.
“Okay,” Mom says, and leaves.
I don’t want to ruin the suitcase, so I put my socks back on and get off it – back into the hall. Then I open the suitcase from the hall and take out a new pair of socks. I close the suitcase and sit on it to put the new socks on. I leave the old ones in the hall. Then I tiptoe over the vacuumed carpet and sit on the bed.
Immy comes home. I hear her car and the front door opening and Immy and Mom talking to each other. Then Mom comes to my doorway and says they are ready to eat.
I say nothing.
“Suit yourself,” she says.
Then Immy appears. “Liz! I’m really glad you’re here. So is Ravi. If you’re hungry, I can bring you something.”
I ask for my almonds.
But Mom shows up instead and says I have to eat in the kitchen. “Room isn’t going to stay clean if you eat in here. Bugs’ll get in.”
I hate bugs.
“We can vacuum it again,” Immy says.
“Food stays in the kitchen,” Mom says.
I’m not hungry.
Mom says Immy and I are three years apart, but this is not true. Immy was born on a Sunday. I turned three the Friday after she was born. So I am only two years and 360 days older. I am forty-one and Immy is thirty-eight. I am named after our grandmother Elizabeth. Immy is named after our other grandmother Imogen. Elizabeth and Imogen are the names on our birth certificates, which means they go on all forms. Liz and Immy are the names people call us. Some people call Immy Dr. Kolker because she has a PhD, and we are both Ms. Kolker if people are being polite and official (and don’t know Immy is supposed to be Dr.). But I don’t like being Ms. Kolker.
Sally said that Immy wants me to like her. That she loves me. But when we were kids, she put peanut butter in my hair. I hate peanut butter – the smell is too strong and it gets underneath my fingernails. Mom cut my hair, and Dad beat Immy with a belt. Sally asked if Immy did things like that a lot. I said she never put peanut butter in my hair again.
“What are some other things you remember about Immy?”
I told her Immy always sat with me on the bus, even though I didn’t want her to, and she yelled at people who talked to me. One time, she yelled at my teacher.
“What did she do? The teacher?” Sally asked.
I tried to remember. It was winter. Immy had her red snow boots on. Mine were blue. My hands were so cold that I was crying. Then Immy yelled at the teacher.
“Sounds like she stood up for you,” Sally said.
I sleep in the bed, curled up, without covers. I want to shut the window, but I don’t want to walk across the vacuumed carpet. When I wake up, the light in the room is gray and the air is cool and my neck hurts. I have wet myself. This is bad. I hum until Mom comes. She makes a sound like the air coming out of the plastic cushions on the seats in the church basement, where I used to go for group therapy but not anymore. She takes me to the bathroom and turns on the water in the bathtub. I sit on the toilet lid and hum.
“Take off your clothes,” she says.
Someone knocks on the door. “Mom? Liz?” Immy’s voice is far away beneath the sound of the water. Mom opens the door, and there is Hobby, wagging his tail. I hum louder. I don’t hear what Mom says. My clothes are wet, so I take them off, but it’s not time for my bath. I tell Mom this.
“Little change in schedule. No big deal. Get in.”
After Dad’s heart attack, I got fat because I ate cereal and drank apple-cranberry juice all day, but when I started eating only pistachios, I lost weight. I look at the stretch marks on my stomach while I sit in the water, and the dark mound of hair below. I have a thin white scar on one knee where a rock scraped it because a boy pushed me down in fourth grade. I sink lower in the water to get my shoulders wet, but not my head. I don’t wash my hair. It’s very short because Mom cuts it for me, and I only wash it twice a week: on Wednesdays and Sundays. Then I realize I don’t know what day of the week it is. At home I always know, but here it doesn’t seem like any day. I need my watch, which will tell me, but it’s on the far side of the sink. I don’t want to get out of the bath. I close my eyes. It was Monday when Mom came home and said we were coming here. We drove yesterday. So today is Wednesday – a hair washing day. That means I have to put my head in the water and soap up and have Mom pour water over me to rinse the shampoo off while I hold a washcloth to my face. But Mom might say no. Some days, she won’t help. She wants me to take a shower instead. I look up at the shower nozzle. I don’t like showers. The water is like needles bouncing off my skin. If Mom won’t help, I won’t be able to wash my hair. Also, I never take baths in the morning. Always before bed. Everything is wrong. I start to hum.
Immy comes into the bathroom. I shut my eyes, humming and rocking. I can feel her looking at me.
“What’s wrong? I can help you.”
I hum louder to make her go away.
“I’m here,” Mom says.
I ask for my shampoo. “It’s Wednesday.”
Mom forgot to pack it. “They got shampoo here. Just as good,” she says. But I use Johnson & Johnson No More Tears, which doesn’t sting my eyes. I start to hum again. Mom tells Immy to go to the store. “She’ll shrivel up like a raisin before she gives in.”
I look at my fingers. They are already ridged, and I keep them out of the water while we wait for Immy to come back. Shrivel up like a raisin . . . shrivel. I put my hands over my ears, but it’s in my head: shrivel, shrivel, shrivel. I am rocking. I can hear the sound of water sloshing, but shrivel is louder: shrivel, shrivel, shrivel, shrivel, shrivel! It won’t stop. Mom grabs me, her hands tight around my arms. I make sounds. I thrash. Her hands hurt. They get tighter. And tighter. They will snap my bones. She lets go and adds more water to the bath. I move my feet and legs, so the water coming out won’t hurt them. Warmth spreads through the tub. I put my hands in and remember about shrivel, so I cross them over my chest, each grasping the opposite shoulder. That way I won’t forget and put them in the water again. My hair has to be washed because it’s Wednesday. Immy comes back. “Here, I’ve got it. I’ve got it!” Hobby barks in the hall. I shout for Mom to shut the door.
Ravi has gone to a meeting – he is also a professor – but Immy cooks eggs in the kitchen. I sit at the table with my almonds. Immy wants me to eat eggs, but Mom tells her to forget it. Then she says to me, “We’re going to the lab today. Get a look at these wasps.”
“No. Sally said no.”
“You don’t have to come,” Mom says. “You can stay here with Hobby and do your art. Ravi will be home soon.”
I make a sound. I don’t want her to leave. I don’t want to stay here with Hobby and Ravi. I drop an almond on the floor.
“Don’t start that,” Mom says, and takes the bag away.
I knock Mom’s coffee mug off the table, and Hobby yelps from below. Then he leaps up, crying and shaking his head. He has coffee dripping off his nose.
“Oh god – Hobby!” Immy cries. “That coffee was hot!”
The dog rubs his nose and face on the rug. Immy kneels down to help him. Mom looks at me and says, “Happy now?”
Why does she think I’m happy? I stare at the table and hum.
“Let’s just forget it,” Immy says. “I have to get work done anyway.”
“No,” Mom says. “We’re going – all of us.”
I hum louder.
“Just sit there and get used to it,” Mom says.
The lab smells like overripe fruit with a sharp tang of something else: caterpillars, a seething mound of them. They smell like soil and rotting leaves. Immy explains that they are an important source of food for the wasps, which need protein. I taste the almonds in my throat, but I don’t know where the bathroom is.
The wasp nests are inside clear plastic containers. I watch their dark bodies moving over the gray papery masses, in and out of the holes. They might be spitting out wood pulp right now. Their legs are orange and some have yellow stripes at the ends of their bodies. Immy points out a queen, high on one of the nests. She is dark with no stripes, only one yellow dot in the middle of her back. Immy says they painted that to identify her, but the other wasps don’t notice. “It’s their faces and abdomens that matter for recognition.” I look away and see a blond woman in white working at a computer. She doesn’t have wings, but otherwise she looks like my wasp-angel. Her back is to me. If she turns around, she will have wasp eyes. I start to hum.
“You’re all right,” Mom says. “They can’t get out.”
I blink to make sure I’m still awake. Angels don’t exist.
“Come meet Beth,” Immy says.
I don’t want to. I don’t want her to turn around. But then she does. Her eyes are human eyes. She has no pincers. She comes to us and holds out her hand to shake Mom’s. I hum, low and steady.
“Beth, this is my sister, Liz. You’re both Elizabeth.”
I stop humming at this. She has my name for forms, but she is Beth for talking, and I am Liz. Beth sticks out her hand. “Hi, Liz.”
I don’t shake it.
“Beth’s an old hand at the painting,” Immy says.
“Show us how it’s done,” Mom says.
Her voice is too loud and makes me flinch. But Beth’s voice is better: soft, calm, musical. “I was just about to do a few.” We follow her to a table with sketches of wasp faces, like the photos Immy sent me. “Had to wait for them to fall asleep,” Beth says.
She removes a wasp from a jar with tweezers and sets it on a white cloth. It doesn’t move. Its legs are curled, but its eyes look open. They don’t have eyelids. I smell nail polish remover. Beth sets out small jars of orange and yellow paint along with several toothpicks. Then she opens the jars, releasing a smell I know from my pistachio-painting days. I breathe it in.
Beth pulls on a pair of latex gloves. This makes me think of Dr. Wiggan, my gynecologist. I only have to see her once every two years. “Any more would just be cruel and unusual punishment,” Dr. Wiggan said. She has reddish hair, reddish-orange skin, big breasts, and a gravelly voice. I don’t want to think about her, so I put my fingers to my temples and press my eyes shut. But this doesn’t help.
“You can’t see with your eyes shut,” Beth says.
I open them. She is holding the wasp in her gloved fingers, toothpick in hand, and dips the toothpick in orange paint. She then dabs the paint on the wasp’s face. Immy says she is painting the frons. “It looks like a nose but it isn’t for breathing.” I don’t think it looks like a nose. It has no nostrils, nor is it wet like Hobby’s. When Beth is finished, she puts the wasp in a small clear box with holes in it and a sliding door.
“You want to paint one?” Beth asks.
I shake my head.
“Believe it or not, she’s got steady hands,” Mom says.
“That’s what I hear,” Beth says.
She leaves the top off the jar of paint while she talks to Mom and Immy. I don’t want the paint to dry out, but I also don’t want to lose the smell. I wish I had a pistachio shell. Maybe there are pistachios in the cafeteria. But what would I paint on it? I can’t paint the house anymore. That’s finished. Or maybe I can, but it won’t look the same as the others because I haven’t done it in a long time and I don’t have a picture or any of the others to copy. I don’t even have the house. It’s 288.3 miles away – or no, that’s from Immy’s house and now we’re at the lab. “How far are we from home?”
“You know,” Mom says. “You’re always telling me.”
“How far exactly – from here?”
Immy goes to a computer. Beth offers me her chair. She wants me to try the painting. I shake my head.
“I’ll hold the wasp,” she says. “You can try one too, Mom.” She calls her Mom even though Mom is not Beth’s mother.
“I’ll mess it up,” Mom says.
“That’s kind of the point,” Beth says. “We’re messing up their faces.”
She holds out a toothpick and smiles. I take it.
“Choose a color,” she says.
I dip the toothpick in the yellow paint.
“Try painting one of those sketches,” Beth says.
A brush would be better, but there are no brushes. I choose one of the sketched wasp faces and paint a yellow design on it: a fat arrow at the bottom of its frons. I saw this in one of Immy’s photos. I paint its pincers yellow too and add a streak alongside each eye.
“Now do that on her,” Beth says. “Males aren’t involved in this. They’re identical to each other and different from all the girls.” She smiles, holding out the wasp. “Just be careful not to get paint in the eyes.”
I stare at the creature, which stares back at me even though it’s asleep. Then I notice a strand of blond hair has come out of Beth’s ponytail and waves in the air. I want her to put it back, but she’s holding the wasp, waiting for me.
“You can’t mess it up,” she says. “Any alteration will serve our purpose.”
I do the eyes first, yellow paint alongside each.
“Good!” Beth says, surprising me. “Now do that front part, just like you did on the sketch.”
I dip the toothpick again and add a heavy dot of paint to the bottom of the frons, then spread it out and up in two curves. It doesn’t look right, and I make a sound.
“Great job!” Beth says.
“You have the magic touch,” Mom says.
“Sure does.”
“I meant you,” she tells Beth.
Immy comes over and says, “We’re 283.7 miles away.”
I do two more wasps, and then other people come to the lab: another girl Beth’s age, and two boys. These are Immy’s students. They have all heard of me, the sister who paints pistachio shells. I don’t shake their hands. Beth shows them my wasps and keeps saying I did a great job. She has tucked her stray hair behind her ear. Ravi is the last to arrive. “Here’s the party,” he says.
“It’s not a party,” I tell him.
“Right. Serious work.” He grins at me. I don’t like this.
The wasps wake up and crawl slowly around their little clear cases, antennae moving. Do they know their faces have been painted? Beth takes one of the cases – my first wasp with the fat yellow arrow on its frons – and goes to the nest. She slides open a little door to the enclosure and puts the clear case up against it. Then she slides open the door of the case so that the wasp can fly from its little box into the larger one. But it doesn’t do this right away. We wait. No one speaks.
At last, the wasp takes off. Its wings make a faint buzzing sound as it heads for the nest, where other wasps are busy crawling in and out. My wasp lands near a hole.
“Watch closely now,” Immy says, leaning in. Ravi has a hand on her back.
Another wasp approaches mine. It comes close, and its antennae move. They stare at each other out of those big eyes. Then the other wasp gets angry and wrestles with mine. More wasps come over. I think the painted wasp will get hurt, but it just flies away and lands on the side of the clear case.
“Well, that supports the hypothesis,” Ravi says.
“Just from a little paint,” Mom says.
“It’s like seeing a complete stranger walk in your door instead of your sister,” Immy says. She smiles at me, and I see she has black drawn around her eyes. Her lashes look like delicate spikes. She used to put these things on me, but I didn’t like it. I look at her mouth, which is also painted. I can see the little lines in her lips, her white teeth. I look away.
Everyone is talking now, all at once. I don’t like this. The wasp with the yellow arrow on its frons crawls around on the clear plastic, but there’s no way out. I go back to the paint and make a yellow arrow on my finger.
“Liz, what are you up to?” Immy asks.
I don’t answer. I go to the plastic and put my finger up against it, where the wasp is crawling. The wasp antennaes it – the antennae are like Hobby’s nose. It’s how they figure out the world. But I am on the other side of the plastic, so the antennae don’t touch me. The wasp crawls away.
“We can train them to recognize human faces too,” Immy says.
I move my finger to where the wasp is now, but nothing happens.
“Sometimes they accept them later,” Immy says. “I think they realize, based on smell, that the wasp is a member of the nest. But they don’t necessarily get their place back in the hierarchy.”
The dark queen with the yellow dot must be inside now. I don’t see her.
Beth comes over for dinner. Hobby whines and wags his tail so hard his whole backside moves. “Hobby!” Beth cries. He barks like he’s shouting her name. “Aren’t you a sweet dog!” She gets on her knees to pet him, and he licks her cheek.
Ravi makes all the food on the grill outside. It smokes as he cooks. I don’t like smoke and hold my breath as much as possible, until Immy shuts the windows. Beth and Immy drink glasses of white wine. I have a glass of apple-cranberry juice. Mom drinks iced tea. Ravi has scotch, the same color as iced tea but with no ice. He swirls it in the glass before he drinks. Then he pours more out of a bottle. Just a little at a time.
“I’d offer you some, Liz, but I think you’d hate it,” he says.
“I don’t want any.”
Beth asks me about my art, and I tell her I do mosaics. Her eyes grow big at this. She asks if I have any photos of my projects. I don’t, but I show her my flowerpot. It isn’t finished, only half covered in watery blue glass with bits of red.
“Like embers,” Beth says. “Where did you get this glass? It’s beautiful.”
“From Frapper.”
“Who’s Frapper?” Immy asks.
“Her boyfriend at Construction Junction,” Mom says.
I throw an almond into the corner. I want to knock Mom’s iced tea over. It wouldn’t burn Hobby because it’s cold.
“Tell us more,” Immy says.
“We get glass from him,” Mom says. “I take her there once a week. He gives her a bag and I pay for it.”
“You go to Construction Junction?” Immy asks me.
“She wears gloves,” Mom says.
Immy gives a laugh. “I’d think you’d need a hazmat suit.”
I don’t know what that is, so I say, “He likes Ann Arbor. Good pot.”
Now Beth laughs.
“Sounds about right,” Mom says. “A pothead lumberjack.”
I look at her glass, but she picks it up to drink and sets it down where I can’t reach. I toss another almond on the floor. Then I see Beth watching me, so I eat one, like I’m supposed to.
Ravi comes in with a plate of food: chicken, eggplant, zucchini, squash, mushrooms, and tomatoes, all with black lines on them. I don’t like the lines and eat just my almonds.
After we eat, Ravi gets out his guitar and starts strumming it. Hobby barks. I hum.
“Tough crowd,” Ravi says.
“Painting wasps wasn’t so bad, was it?” Immy asks. “Not much different from painting pistachio shells.”
She is wrong. It is different.
“I hope you come back,” Beth says. “There are all kinds of things you can help us with at the lab – and you could show me how to mosaic.”
“You can learn online,” I say.
“We could do it together.”
“I do it by myself.”
“That’s a family trait,” Ravi says. “I had a hard time with this one too.” He looks at Immy.
“Nothing wrong with being solitary,” Beth says.
“If I recall, I asked you out the first time,” Immy says to Ravi.
“After I spent a year laying the groundwork,” Ravi says. “Clever of me, huh? I made it look like all your idea.” Then he looks at me, strumming his guitar. “You Kolker girls like things on your own terms.”
Mom gives a snort. “Didn’t know what you were signing up for.”
Everyone gets quiet then. What did Ravi sign up for? If you sign up for something you don’t like, you just stop. Like Mom and Weight Watchers. To hell with that, she said.
“I’ll take it,” Ravi says.
“What will you tell Sally about today?” Immy asks me.
I don’t say anything. I don’t know what I will tell Sally until she asks me a question and I answer it. I painted a wasp. The ultimate art project. “Where do they have the pot?” I ask.
This makes everyone laugh, but I don’t know what’s funny.
Ravi shakes his head, which means no, but he’s smiling. “I’m going to like having you around, Liz.”
“Ravi,” Immy says, shaking her head. She really does mean no, but I don’t know about what. I don’t understand what anyone is saying.
“Time for me to head out,” Beth says, getting up. Hobby gets up too. He doesn’t want her to leave. “Hobby old boy,” she says, and pets and pets him. She must be getting hair all over her hands. Even when she stops, he stays close to her, tail wagging.
“Liz, it was so good to meet you.”
She holds out her hand, but I can’t shake it because she’s been petting Hobby.
“She liked meeting you too,” Mom says. “Didn’t you, Liz?”
“Yes.” I look at the floor. “You can come to Pittsburgh.” It just comes out, and I want to hum. I don’t like other people in the house.
“I’ll come, if you come back and see me here,” Beth says.
“I don’t like it here,” I tell her. That makes everything quiet again. Then Ravi sings, “Our house is a very very very fine house. With two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard. Now everything is easy ’cause of you . . .”
They don’t have two cats. They have Hobby. Immy goes with Beth to the door, Hobby too. Mom leaves to go to the bathroom. Ravi continues to strum and sing softly. Not words, just nah-nah-nah to a tune. I watch his fingers on the guitar. I don’t like that it has a big hole in the middle and knobs sticking out at the end. I hum.
“What if instead of humming, I taught you a song you could sing?” Ravi says.
I don’t say anything. I don’t like songs with words. They keep playing in my head and I can’t make them stop.
“A pretty song,” Ravi says.
I shake my head. He strums and sings.
Hey, where did we go?
Days when the rains came
Down in the hollow
Playin’ a new game
Laughing and running, hey, hey
Skipping and a-jumping – ”
I hum and hold my ears.
“Okay not that one.”
I look at my watch. “Seventeen hours and eleven minutes left.”
“Ho-omeward boouuund, I wish I was ho-omeward booouuund. Home! where my thought’s escaping, home! where my music’s playing, home! where my love lies waiting silently for me.” Ravi winks.
“You are home,” I tell him.
“True that,” he says and finishes his scotch.
My bed has clean sheets and a different blanket on top – a dark green one. The vacuumed lines on the carpet are almost all gone. But when I look down at the other side of the bed, where no one has walked, they’re still there. The curtains hang straight, no breeze to blow them in, but the window is open. I can hear night, which is insects and sometimes cars, and smell the charcoal from the grill. But I don’t walk across the vacuumed carpet to close the window. I don’t hold my breath either. A little charcoal won’t hurt you, Mom said. I close my eyes, but I still know exactly where I am. Smell is a better way to tell what things are. Your eyes can be wrong but not your nose. The wasp with the yellow arrow isn’t a different wasp. Immy says they might take it back if it smells right. But Immy says wasps don’t have noses. How do they smell?
“I’ll light the fire, you place the flowers in the vase that you bought today . . .” Ravi is singing, softly. Without his guitar.
“Shhh,” Immy says, laughing a little.
But Ravi sings louder. “Our house is a very very very fine house. With one dog in the yard. Life used to be so hard. Now everything is easy ’cause of you.”
“Get in here,” Immy says.
They shut their door, and it’s quiet. But I keep hearing the song in my head. Life used to be so hard. Now everything is easy ’cause of you . . .
I press the Indiglo on my watch: fifteen hours, forty-eight minutes left. Sally says Mom and I could live here together, but then Mom would always have to sleep on the couch. I think of Dad dying in the night in his armchair. Mom and I each have our own rooms at home, and everything smells right. No charcoal, no spices. No songs in my head. No Hobby with his wet nose. One dog in the yard. Ravi changed that line, like I changed the wasp’s face. Now everything is easy ’cause of you . . .
I wake from a dream. Frapper didn’t know me; he didn’t know my name. I had something on my face – paint. I rubbed my head against the ground even though the ground was dirty. My face got dirty, but I couldn’t become me again. I was getting more and more not me. I’m rubbing my face against the pillow when I wake up. I don’t know where I am. Mom comes into the room.
“Shh. Shh. What is it?”
I rub my face with my hands – to get the paint and dirt off.
“Liz.”
That’s my name. Mom knows me. I make a sound.
“Liz, Liz, Liz,” Mom says. It sounds like buzzing. She turns on the light, which hurts my eyes. I make a sound and cover my face. She turns it off again.
“Home,” I say.
Mom says nothing.
“I painted the wasp.”
“Elizabeth,” she says. “What are we going to do with you?”
Elizabeth means she is serious. She wants to do something with me, but she doesn’t know what. She makes me get up and use the bathroom. Immy and Ravi have a nightlight in there, so I don’t have to turn on the bright lights that hurt my eyes. Then Mom brings me my painting shirt. It smells like home. I breathe it in.
“I’m going back to bed,” Mom says.
It is very quiet when she leaves. I hold the shirt. I remember the wasp’s antennae trying to feel my finger. My finger with the yellow paint. I hold it up, but I can’t see the paint in the dark. Liz. It’s a sound, like a song, that people hear in their minds and say out loud. If you say it over and over, it sounds like buzzing. I want to see my wasp again. I want to take it home. Beth wants me to come back. Hobby barked her name, but it didn’t sound like Beth. Only Hobby knows what she really smells like because his nose is better than mine. His wet nose. We could blindfold Hobby and he would still know all of us. He would push his nose into me and bark Liz! But no one would understand. I hum and put the shirt to my face. Now everything is easy ’cause of you . . . I get tired of humming. My head hurts. So I just lie there, breathing.
PERMISSIONS
“Brown Eyed Girl.” Words and Music by Van Morrison. Copyright © 1967 Universal Music Publishing International Ltd. Copyright Renewed. All Rights for the U.S. and Canada Controlled and Administered by Universal – Songs of Polygram International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission. Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC.
“Homeward Bound.” Words and Music by Paul Simon. Copyright © 1966 Renewed Paul Simon (BMI) International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved Used by Permission. Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC.
“Our House.” Words and Music by Graham Nash. Copyright © 1970 Nash Notes Copyright Renewed. All Rights Administered by Spirit One Music International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC.
Maureen McGranaghan is the author of the poetry chapbook Attached to Earth (Finishing Line Press, 2011). Her stories have appeared in The Cincinnati Review, The Normal School, New Ohio Review, Image, and COG.