Stephen Spaulding was very happy, and you can’t say that about most
people. He hadn’t sought happiness, but he recognized it. This was his
gift: to know what he had.
When it was gone, of course he knew that too. He changed from a man who
could smile at strangers first thing in the morning to a man who wouldn’t
look anybody in the eye. He’d lost his family in a freak accident, and the
rest he let go of as easily as opening his hand and releasing a string of
balloons. Good-bye to the family practice he had just started with two
friends from his residency. Good-bye to the Victorian house he and Ellen
had gone deeply into debt to buy when she got pregnant during his
internship. Good-bye to the cradle and the tricycle and the pink and
purple birthday party dress Lizzie never had a chance to wear.
More than a year later, he still hadn’t adjusted to the way time itself
had been altered. Before there was never enough time, and the list of
things he and Ellen had not gotten around to doing was one of many things
that still tortured him. The untaken trip to Paris bothered him less than
the movies they’d talked about renting. Why hadn’t they watched them?
Ellen’s entire list could be watched in a weekend. He knew this because he
had done it, several times. He watched the movies his wife had wanted him
to, and thought about what she would say if she were there. This was back
in the early months, when he was trying to give her gifts, as though she
could come back if only he worked harder to make her want this life.
After the accident, there was too much time. Each day stretched before him
like a flat Kansas highway, the only landmarks the meals he forced himself
to choke down, the few chores he performed, and the occasional walks he
took, rarely noticing anything or anyone on his path. He finally bought
the old green and white Checker cab not because he needed the income – his
compensation from the city would support him forever, especially since
he had no desires, nothing he wanted now – but because he could drive it
as little or as much as he liked, sixteen hours a day, more if his
insomnia was bad.
He wouldn’t have sued, but the city gave him an enormous sum anyway. The
newspaper headline called it a “regrettable tragedy.” It was a Sunday in
late July; the police were chasing a teenager who had stolen a rusted-out
’84 Toyota from a neighbor’s driveway. The car was worth less than five
hundred dollars, but the patrol car that slammed into his family at the
intersection had been going over eighty miles an hour. He was driving;
Lizzie was in her booster seat in the back, behind Ellen. The teenage
thief turned himself in when he heard what had happened. The policeman who
was driving took early retirement.
And Stephen, the barely thirty-year-old family practice doc, became a
cabbie. What difference did it make? His knowledge of how to heal bodies
had done nothing for him anyway. His wife and four-year-old daughter had
still died right in front of his eyes.
Now he was learning the quickest way to the airport from any street in St.
Louis. How to slide around a bus, and when to change lanes so his customer
would feel they were making progress. What times the restaurants and bars
closed, and which of his regulars would be likely to drink one too many
and need a ride on a Saturday night.
People often mentioned what a safe driver he was. The safest cab driver
they’d ever ridden with. He nodded, but he didn’t respond. He never drove
without the radio playing. Talk show, pop music, news channel, it didn’t
matter. The radio was his excuse not to talk.
The only time he would answer was when a customer asked about the
amusement park tickets. They didn’t ask often, even though he’d had the
tickets laminated and kept them displayed above the visor, right next to
his license. Stephen wasn’t surprised. He knew most people aren’t
interested in their cab drivers.
He wasn’t surprised; still, he longed for the question. He longed for
another opportunity to tell the whole story of that perfect July day at
the amusement park: riding the water slides and the Ferris wheel and the
child’s roller coaster; eating hot dogs and ice cream – mint chocolate
chip, Ellen’s favorite; trying to win a giant stuffed panda bear, and when
he couldn’t make the ring toss (a setup, he was sure), buying the bear for
his daughter anyway.
Every time he told the story, he added a few more details. As the months
went by, the story often filled the entire drive; sometimes he would still
be talking while his customer was trying to hand him money and get away.
He knew he was going too far, but he couldn’t help himself. Back at his
apartment whenever he tried to think of that day he drew a blank. It was
only in the cab, talking to strangers, that he seemed to be able to bring
it all to life: the feel of the sun on the back of his hands and the
bright drips of green falling off their cones onto the hot pavement and
how awkward and adorable Lizzie looked that night, lugging the giant panda
to their car.
He didn’t realize how he’d begun to live for these discussions until a
rainy morning in April, when they suddenly came to an end.
He’d picked up a girl at the bus station downtown. One of the weirdos,
though this one wasn’t pierced or tattooed or obviously strung out, but
even more bizarre, naturally pale as a made-up Goth, but dressed like a
throwback to the fifties: long flared black skirt, fluffy pink sweater,
even the white ankle socks and saddle oxford shoes. Her hair was in a
thick braid, twisted like some kind of tight crown on top of her head, and
she was sitting up so straight she looked uncomfortable, eyes unblinking,
small white hands folded carefully in her lap. Stephen had already put her
out of his mind when she mentioned the tickets about ten minutes into the
ride. But before he could tell her about the slides or the food or even
the perfect weather that day, she noticed what no one else had: that the
tickets weren’t stubs.
“What happened?” she said. “Why didn’t you ever use those?”
He flushed with a confusion that quickly turned to anger. It had taken him
nearly a year to perfect the story of the amusement park – for
chrissakes, couldn’t he have even this? He wasn’t asking for all the days
and hours and minutes he would have had with Ellen and Lizzie, he was just
asking for one more day.
Stephen had been taking his family to the park when their car was
broadsided. Lizzie had wanted to go all summer, and that day they had the
tickets: they were really, finally going. All he had done in his story was
change “were going” to “had gone.” A mere verb shift, and yet it changed
everything.
And now this strange girl in his cab was forcing him to change it back.
Her voice was entirely innocent. She had no idea what she’d taken from
him. But then again, he had no idea what she was about to give.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from Once Upon a Day
by Lisa Tucker
Copyright © 2006 by Lisa Tucker.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Atria
Copyright © 2006
Lisa Tucker
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-7434-9277-3
