Read Online Where'd You Go, Bernadette: A Novel by Maria Semple - Free Book Online
Authors: Maria Semple
Tags: Fiction, Humorous, Family Life, Contemporary Women, Fiction / Family Life, Fiction / Contemporary Women, Fiction / Humorous
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anymore, trapped with the icy portent. I blame you, Dale Chihuly!
I fled. I had no idea which way I was pointed, where I was even headed. But I must have gone up Fourth Avenue, because the next thing I knew, I was standing outside the Rem Koolhaas public library.
I had stopped, apparently. Because a guy approached me. A graduate student, he looked like. Completely nice, nothing mean or threatening about him.
But he recognized me.
Manjula, I have no idea how. The only photograph of me floating around was one taken twenty years ago, right before the Huge Hideous Thing. I am beautiful, my face radiating with confidence, my smile bursting with the future of my choosing.
“Bernadette Fox,” I blurted.
I am fifty, slowly going mad.
This can’t make sense to you, Manjula. It doesn’t have to. But you see what happens when I come into contact with people. It doesn’t bode well for the whole Antarctica thing.
*
Later that day, Mom picked me up. Maybe she was a little quiet, but sometimes that happens, because on the way to school she listens to “The World” on PRI, which is usually a downer, and that day was no exception. I got into the car. A terrible report was on about the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and how rape was being used as a weapon. All the females were getting raped, from baby girls, six months old, all the way to eighty-year-old grandmothers, and every age in between. More than one thousand women and girls were getting raped
each month
. It had been going on for
twelve years
and nobody was doing anything about it. Hillary Clinton had gone there and promised to help, which gave everyone hope, but then all she did was give money to the corrupt government.
“I can’t listen to this!” I smacked the radio off.
“I know it’s horrific,” Mom said. “But you’re old enough. We live a life of privilege in Seattle. That doesn’t mean we can literally switch off these women, whose only fault was being born in the Congo during a civil war. We need to bear witness.” She turned the radio back on.
I crumpled in my seat and fumed.
“The war in Congo rages on with no end in sight,” the announcer said. “And now comes word of a new campaign by the soldiers, to find the women they have already raped and re-rape them.”
“Holy Christ on a cross!” Mom said. “I draw the line at re-raping.” And she turned off NPR.
We sat in silence. Then, at ten of four, we had to turn the radio back on because Fridays at ten of four is when we listen to our favorite person ever, Cliff Mass. If you don’t know who Cliff Mass is, well, he’s this thing me and Mom have, this awesome weather geek who loves weather so much you have no choice but to love him in return.
Once, I think I was ten, and I was home with a babysitter while Mom and Dad went to Town Hall for some lecture. The next morning, Mom showed me a picture on her digital camera. “Me and guess who?” I had no idea. “You’re going to be so jealous when you find out.” I made a mean face at her. Mom and Dad call it my Kubrick face, and it was a glowering face I made when I was a little baby. Mom finally screamed, “Cliff Mass!”
Oh my God, can someone please stop me before I write more about Cliff Mass?
Here’s my point: first, because of the re-raping, and second, because Mom and I were so in love with Cliff Mass, of course we didn’t talk much on the way home that day, so I couldn’t have known she was traumatized.We pulled in the driveway. There were a bunch of giant trucks on the side street, and one was parked on our loop to keep the gate open. Workmen were coming and going. It was hard to make out what exactly was going on through the rain-smeared windshield.
“Don’t ask,” Mom said. “Audrey Griffin demanded we get rid of the blackberries.”
When I was little, Mom brought me to see
The Sleeping Beauty
at the Pacific Northwest Ballet. In it, an evil witch puts a curse on the princess, which makes her fall asleep for
I fled. I had no idea which way I was pointed, where I was even headed. But I must have gone up Fourth Avenue, because the next thing I knew, I was standing outside the Rem Koolhaas public library.
I had stopped, apparently. Because a guy approached me. A graduate student, he looked like. Completely nice, nothing mean or threatening about him.
But he recognized me.
Manjula, I have no idea how. The only photograph of me floating around was one taken twenty years ago, right before the Huge Hideous Thing. I am beautiful, my face radiating with confidence, my smile bursting with the future of my choosing.
“Bernadette Fox,” I blurted.
I am fifty, slowly going mad.
This can’t make sense to you, Manjula. It doesn’t have to. But you see what happens when I come into contact with people. It doesn’t bode well for the whole Antarctica thing.
*
Later that day, Mom picked me up. Maybe she was a little quiet, but sometimes that happens, because on the way to school she listens to “The World” on PRI, which is usually a downer, and that day was no exception. I got into the car. A terrible report was on about the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and how rape was being used as a weapon. All the females were getting raped, from baby girls, six months old, all the way to eighty-year-old grandmothers, and every age in between. More than one thousand women and girls were getting raped
each month
. It had been going on for
twelve years
and nobody was doing anything about it. Hillary Clinton had gone there and promised to help, which gave everyone hope, but then all she did was give money to the corrupt government.
“I can’t listen to this!” I smacked the radio off.
“I know it’s horrific,” Mom said. “But you’re old enough. We live a life of privilege in Seattle. That doesn’t mean we can literally switch off these women, whose only fault was being born in the Congo during a civil war. We need to bear witness.” She turned the radio back on.
I crumpled in my seat and fumed.
“The war in Congo rages on with no end in sight,” the announcer said. “And now comes word of a new campaign by the soldiers, to find the women they have already raped and re-rape them.”
“Holy Christ on a cross!” Mom said. “I draw the line at re-raping.” And she turned off NPR.
We sat in silence. Then, at ten of four, we had to turn the radio back on because Fridays at ten of four is when we listen to our favorite person ever, Cliff Mass. If you don’t know who Cliff Mass is, well, he’s this thing me and Mom have, this awesome weather geek who loves weather so much you have no choice but to love him in return.
Once, I think I was ten, and I was home with a babysitter while Mom and Dad went to Town Hall for some lecture. The next morning, Mom showed me a picture on her digital camera. “Me and guess who?” I had no idea. “You’re going to be so jealous when you find out.” I made a mean face at her. Mom and Dad call it my Kubrick face, and it was a glowering face I made when I was a little baby. Mom finally screamed, “Cliff Mass!”
Oh my God, can someone please stop me before I write more about Cliff Mass?
Here’s my point: first, because of the re-raping, and second, because Mom and I were so in love with Cliff Mass, of course we didn’t talk much on the way home that day, so I couldn’t have known she was traumatized.We pulled in the driveway. There were a bunch of giant trucks on the side street, and one was parked on our loop to keep the gate open. Workmen were coming and going. It was hard to make out what exactly was going on through the rain-smeared windshield.
“Don’t ask,” Mom said. “Audrey Griffin demanded we get rid of the blackberries.”
When I was little, Mom brought me to see
The Sleeping Beauty
at the Pacific Northwest Ballet. In it, an evil witch puts a curse on the princess, which makes her fall asleep for
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