Two climbers in the North Cascades risk their friendship and lives ascending a frozen waterfall. The girlfriend of a famous comedian in Greenwich Village must decide whether she wants to raise a child in the spotlight of fame. A mysterious Bird of Paradise makes daily overtures to an elderly widow in the frigid Midwest. A Texas fracking mogul struggles to find the love his money prevents. The deeply rendered American landscapes of these stories emerge as a vital background for characters faced with conflicts that cannot be easily resolved, illuminating interior worlds filled with contradiction.
RIPE
One otherwise forgettable night a few years ago, Raleigh Stowell’s ears transformed into ripe, misshapen, pockmarked mandarin oranges and never changed back. There were a few others like him in the world, but too few to stop his situation from being universally thought of as strange and, for some, scary. But unlike most everyone else, his coworker Meg Treadwell didn’t seem to mind his ears; in fact, rumors about Raleigh and Meg’s affection for one another had been circling the home office in Dubuque for months. It took Raleigh that long to muster the courage to ask her out, and even then, he waited.
Besides the normal attractions—kindness, intelligence, beauty—what made her compelling to Raleigh was also what made her strange, and a mystery: she was never without gloves. Even in the office restroom, instead of washing in one of the sinks, she would stay in the stall and rub lotion into her hands in private. No one had actually seen her do this, of course, but a coworker deduced it from the disinfectant scent the lotion would leave. Raleigh wanted to understand why she did this, and also what lay behind the sadness sometimes in her eyes: an exhaustion, a fatigue. He’d come over to her desk only to find her trying to wipe her face of tears. Nothing was wrong, she’d tell him. Her eyes were irritated from her makeup. Payment for her vanity. But alongside his curiosity and desire to understand and share in her pain, there were more simple reasons for his attraction, like this: her voice was a crystalline bell, and when the sound hit his orange ears, no matter how low his mood, he felt unreasonable delight.
The two of them were slated to give a presentation together on the nuances of bookkeeping at the annual agricultural trade show, this year held in Seattle. His heart ached in such a way that he finally decided he could wait no longer, so he resolved to confess his feelings to her there. On the flight from Dubuque, sitting next to each other with legs stretched out in an exit row, their conversation never paused, sliding between diverse topics with ease, ranging from top-ten sitcoms to childhood regrets to her painful divorce five years earlier. Meanwhile, above, in the overhead bin, stapled together in the binder of his briefcase, was a ten-page, singled-spaced letter confessing his love, a treatise he’d worked on for over a month, crafted to perfection with the help of a freelance editor whose information he’d found tacked to a corkboard at the local library.
That first night, after the opening meet-and-greet with the other participants, he slid the letter beneath Meg’s hotel room door before hurrying away.
Since then, he hasn’t slept.
~
Now, it’s morning. They sit next to each other at a round table in the crowded cafeteria of the trade show, reflecting on the amenities in their hotel rooms. Both are dressed for their presentation, her in a dark-gray pantsuit with a lime-green blouse, him with gray wool sweater and tan slacks. At the center of the table rests a basket filled with melons and thick-crusted breads, laid atop green and red holiday ribbons. Across from them an older couple, likely farmers, slice a small cantaloupe in half with a bread knife and begin scooping out the pulp with spoons.
At a break in the conversation, Raleigh takes a sip of black coffee from his travel thermos and clears his throat. “Did you get my letter?”
Speaking over the conversational hum, she says with her lovely voice yes, she did, and it was a beautiful letter, and it made her cry, and she feels flattered, it is a gift, no one has ever said these sorts of things to her before. But then she pauses, puts her gloved hands on the table, and gently presses her fingertips together. “Raleigh, I feel terrible. The truth is, I’ve always thought of us more as friends.”
“Ah,” Raleigh says, leaning back.
She takes a deep breath, brushes her hair from her temples with her palms—revealing her normal ears—and says, “But like I said, thank you for the wonderful letter. And for being so cool about this.” She gestures back and forth between them. “You know.”
“Of course. No problem. I won’t be weird about it.” He reaches into his briefcase for a folder. “Well, let’s go over this presentation one more time.”
~
After the presentation—a success—and an awkward goodbye, Raleigh doesn’t go to another breakout session, because he fears seeing Meg again and having to hear her graceful voice and feel the pain it would cause. It took courage to believe that maybe this one time his orange ears wouldn’t prevent him from experiencing companionship. He wishes, as he has many times before, that he could surgically remove them without losing his hearing. Now he wonders if, in the end, the trade would be worth it. Perhaps a silent world would be better than a loveless one. But then you couldn’t hear her lovely voice, he thinks. But then she might show you her hands.
He doesn’t want to be alone in his hotel room, so he wanders up the carpeted staircase to the conference bar, satchel slung over his shoulder. He slumps down on a stool and orders a jack-and-coke. A contemplative holiday mix plays in the background. Everyone around is smiling and wearing dress clothes creased here and there from travel. Overtures are being made; he can hear one in progress three barstools down. Another couple turns and stares at him before looking away. Yes, he thinks. Exactly. Everyone stares at me and everyone eventually looks away.
He begins to laugh, first at how melodramatic that sounds, then for the absurdity of thinking he could date Meg. It will be yet another Christmas without company, save a few zoom calls with family members in other states. After he laughs for a while, the bartender—a young woman with a slew of colorful bangles on both wrists—comes to ask if he’s okay.
“I’m great, swell, this is the life!”
She glances at his ears, ducks down to get the liquor, and makes him another jack-and-coke, this time on the house. “I hope it improves.”
Before he can start in on the second drink, he feels a tap on the shoulder. He turns and finds the couple that had been staring at him. Deborah Burgeon—she has a nametag—and her husband Wayne, both dressed like golfers at a municipal course, wearing short-sleeved collared shirts and cargo pants. They begin to question him about his ears. Are the oranges a joke? Special earmuffs? They’re real? How do they feel? Has your hearing been impaired in any way? And so on. The questioning normally would have bothered him, but right now he doesn’t really care about anything.
“My. What a world this is,” says Deborah, reaching up to adjust a rhinestone necklace askew on her collar. “Well, I have to ask. How is it being this way, really?”
Wayne takes off his denim Kern County Ag hat and curves the brim in his palms. “Honey…”
“It’s a valid question,” she says. “I’m trying to draw him out. All he’s given us so far are facts.”
“Deb…”
“Honestly,” Raleigh says, “it can suck. For instance, I just got rejected because of them, so I’m doing the drinking thing tonight. Again.”
“Yeah, I imagine those ears are a dealbreaker.” She takes out her purse and slaps a twenty on the counter. “Let us buy you the next couple. You’ve earned a bender. But in the meantime, come on. Don’t bs your aunt Deb. Spill your heart on the counter. I’ll catch it.”
Wayne puts his hand on Deborah’s shoulder. “Darling, let’s let the man…”
“Let me put it this way,” she continues. “It seems to me that you have a choice between looking like you do and having no chance at love, or being deaf but with prospects.”
Raleigh downs the rest of the drink and shakes the glass, making the ice rattle. “That about sums it up.”
“Well, your move is clear. You’ve got to get rid of them. Love is more important than hearing. You can just use closed captioning when you watch the tv, and it’s better that way, anyway. We always have the closed captioning, even though the sound’s on.”
“That’s insensitive, Deb,” says Wayne.
“Look Raleigh,” she says, “what I’m saying is our marriage has lasted thirty-five years and Wayne here, well, you see him. You’ve experienced him.”
Wayne shakes his head.
“Whatever you decide, let me know. We live in the San Joaquin Valley and my cousin’s friend is a key grip in Hollywood. He could pass on your scenario to a producer and maybe they’d do a documentary. Hold off on making a decision about the ears until I get back to you. They might want to film a before and after.”
Deb and Wayne leave holding hands. He takes out his phone and, wanting to feel worse—if only to get it over with—he begins scanning the pictures on Meg’s Instagram wall and watching her reels. After a few intense minutes, he can’t stand seeing and hearing her anymore, so he looks up surgeons, as well as accounts of the surgeries, of which there are only a few.
He sets down his phone and closes his eyes, listening to all the noise. The clinks of glasses and silverware, the laughter, the holiday music playing in the background. He imagines quiet, quiet always, and it makes him afraid: he wonders if it will make him feel just as alone as the ears, only in a different way. Sound is a kind of company and he’d lose it.
~
Three hours later, sugary drunk and emotional, Raleigh trudges down the steps from the bar toward the lobby and takes the elevator up to the wrong floor. He eventually finds the right one and makes it down the matte cream hallway, touching walls as a crutch, to his room. As he’s struggling to get the plastic key card into the slot, he hears footfalls behind him. He turns and sees Meg.
She’s changed from her work clothes into a University of Iowa sweater and jeans. She holds her hands behind her back and something about that makes her look distraught. “Hi.”
Her voice. Just one word from her and he reconsiders the surgery. “Are you okay?” he says, listing to the side a bit.
Her eyes move to his eyes, his ears, his chest. “Are you?”
“I’m just really drunk. I should say that up front, before whatever conversation happens here.”
She smiles. “I’m a little drunk, too.”
“It’s what happens,” he says.
She nods, solemn. “Raleigh, I have something to tell you. The truth is, I lied to you earlier.” She looks down before looking back up, worried.
“Wait. What do you mean?”
“I just got it in my head that it couldn’t work.”
He tries for a moment to put it together. “I don’t understand. You mean…”
“I mean I’m in love with you.” She’s on the verge of tears. “But I have something I need to show you. Something that might change your mind about me.” She holds out her hands—they’re shaking—and begins picking at the tips of her gloved fingers until the gloves loosen and slide off. He can’t believe what he sees. Her shaking fingers are strings of violet grapes. Light reflects off their skins like tiny open windows.
“I know,” she says. “It’s hideous.”
“I wouldn’t change a word of that letter.”
They stand there, blushing. Nat King Cole croons softly from the hallway speakers. Someone walks by and neither of them notice. If a dozen people walked by they’d still think they were alone.
She looks at him and says, “I’d get them removed, but I’d lose all feeling.”
He puts his hand up to his ears. “I’d lose all hearing.” He reaches and takes her hand. Her grape fingers are smooth and moist from the tears and he slides his thumbs along their hills and valleys.
“It’s been so, so long since I’ve touched anyone,” she says. “My ex-husband, he wouldn’t…” She pulls her hand away and wipes her eyes and nose with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. Then she looks back and forth between his orange ears. “Can I touch them?”
He nods. She reaches up. It tickles and he can’t help but laugh. She laughs, too. They don’t really know what to do next. There is so much to hear. There is so much to feel.
Now available from Thirty West Publishing
Ross is also the author of The Hummingbirds (Skyhorse, 2018). His short fiction has appeared in literary journals and magazines such as Virginia Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Redivider, and X-R-A-Y. He has won fellowships from Hugo House and Jack Straw Cultural Center in Seattle. For the last ten years, he has served as editor of the literary journal, Spartan. You can find him at rossmcmeekin.com.
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Heavy Feather Review 
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