A Mostly True Essay by Marci Henna
What we think about is quickly mirrored in the outside world. You know what I mean: that trip to Maui you decided you were desperate to take and seconds later saw pictured perfectly on a billboard. Or perhaps you daydreamed about meeting Tom Hanks and the next person you saw turned out to be his first cousin.
Several years ago, when we still lived on Lake Travis, I picked up a copy of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. At night, I would prop up against several pillows and savor each word until I grew too sleepy to read. Then before we turned out the lights, I’d give my husband a brief summary of what I loved about the book. My favorite image in the story was of bees filling the walls of a house with honeycomb. Just as a miser might have stashed cash in-between studs and sheetrock, so too had honey bees hidden their liquid gold. O what a vision!
On the third day, friends and their young children dropped by to visit. The kids, we were told, wanted nothing more than to eat and swim. After a lasagna dinner, we all filed outside−eager to jump in the pool. We heard the sounds of cicadas, barking dogs from across the cove, and the murmur of voices wafting from a neighbor’s house. Soon came the sound of a jillion bees swarming toward us. These squadrons of bees were an organized bunch and just didn’t sound or feel friendly−not to the bare-armed likes of us. There was to be no swimming that evening, not even a toe-dipping. We had been licked by the enemy before the war had even started.
The bee problem escalated so that we became afraid to walk outside our own home due to their sheer numbers. More than a few found their way into our bedroom as I continued to read about their secret lives. Desperate for help, and knowing fully well that we were matchless against what seemed like an entire Pacific fleet of stinging kamikaze drones, I combed through the Yellow Pages and located a specialist.
Soon a beekeeper coaxed furry Oz-like creatures out of the eaves of the house, attic and master bedroom. He was a man of few words, possibly from having spent years communing with flying insects. After I paid him, he finally spoke. “You know, there’s probably honey in your walls.”
“Apparently, we have fallen into the pages of The Secret Life of Bees,” I said, finding it all a bit surreal.
My surprised husband turned to me and whispered, “I’m just glad you weren’t reading about tornadoes.”
