What Happened to Lani Garver

by Carol Plum-Ucci

  "I just wish we could have figured out what to do with a son like Lani while living on so many military bases. Some fathers wouldn't let their sons play with him ... Some tried to blame us, would ask us questions about how we'd raised him, as if they were our judge and jury, trying to figure out what we'd done to 'cause' him to turn out that way. Do you see why I wanted him to change, Claire? Do you think I'm a terrible person?"

  I glanced at the small suture in my hand, noticing with satisfaction it wasn't bloody. I'd been keeping my head somewhat low, self-conscious about my black eye. I wouldn't be bleeding in front of her next. I scrunched it into my fist and shoved it into the pocket of my parka. A train of salt and seaweed rumbled up my chest, and I tried to answer. I pulled tissues out of my parka pocket and coughed into them.

  "You sound like you have a terrific cold. Please, let me make you a cup of tea with lemon." She got up without waiting for me to say "no thanks." It seemed that getting this huge load off her chest had given her back some sanity.

  She shoved a photo album from the coffee table at me before walking into the kitchen. Rich Philadelphia people manners. They have this idea that it's bad manners to leave a guest alone in a room. If they had to, they would offer you a book or the family photo album.

  If I see pictures of him, I will explode. If I can't ever see his face again, I will explode.

  I flipped open the album to some random page with my eyes closed, then forced them open. I withdrew my hand to my chest as he smiled up at me. Somehow it made me calmer. It was such a calm, confident smile, with almost a laugh in his eyes.

  He was younger, maybe age eleven, surrounded by a bunch of blond and gray relatives who looked nothing like him. Between this sea of necks and faces was the Hackett beach in the summer. Underneath was scrawled in pretty pen, July 4, and the year.

  He wore his hair kind of long, even back then. It dripped down over his shoulders, wet from the ocean. And maybe because I'd been used to seeing my own plastic smiles in my photo album from Macy, I got an immediate splash of the plastic in the smiles of the people surrounding him. Lani was smack in the middle of the photo, like some person had looked through the lens with military precision, to let it be known who the guest of honor was. While all the people were huddled together, only his mother had her arm around him. All the aunts and uncles were crossing their arms, or pulling in ever so slightly, like maybe they didn't want to touch him. One aunt's eyes went sideways toward him, like Macy's in that picture of us with Lyda Barone. Only Lani's smile looked sincere. Never cared what people thought of him and his games of dress-up ... even back then.

  I was so busy noticing what was going on with the other people, I almost missed the biggest thing going on with Lani. His soaking-wet hair, shiny from seawater, dripped diamond dots onto his chest, like his dad had managed to pull him out of the water just long enough to take the picture.

  I put my hand to my chest, trying to keep my heart from revving up. But his mom's statement swept through my brain again. "He loved the beach, the ocean."

  I didn't dare think of the night before. Yet I couldn't help seeing him whimper up at Tony. "But ... I can hardly swim."

  "Claire ... don't do this," I whispered, trying to prevent other memories from tumbling over one another. "Lani, how'd you think of that magazine plant, it was outrageous..." "I think really well on my feet..." "Lani, will you get out of that outfit and help me think?" "Claire, I am thinking..." "I always land on my feet..."

  I sat forward slowly, trying to think this through like a sane person. My biggest shock the night before had not been Tony Clementi showing up or anything Tony had done. It had been Lani's reaction. A normally streetwise person playing such a cowardly victim? It hadn't made enough sense. Was it all an act? Did he realize he couldn't fight a group of huge guys? But if he could swim—

  I shook my head hard, trying to shake the thought away. There were a million holes in a scheme like that. It was too risky, too off the wall. Other solutions would have been far easier. He could have ... thought to call the cops. By law, wouldn't the cops have to take him as far as the bridge if he said he was in danger?

  I didn't know. Or ... he could have faked a seizure and gotten off the island in an ambulance. The hospital is on the mainland. That seemed crazy, too, but less risky than letting a bunch of huge guys try to drown you and hoping you'll get away.

  But we hadn't had time to get the police or an ambulance. Neither of us had been prepared for Tony appearing out of nowhere like he had. I'd found out the hard way, it had been too late for 9-1-1 calls.

  I remembered Lani asking a question just before Tony showed up. "Claire, if those guys catch us, and this time Tony is with them ... what is the most likely thing they would do to me?" I had thought he was just psyching himself out with fear. Did he have a better reason to ask? Was he already looking for a way to beat them at their own game?

  I jumped as Mrs. Garver's shadow came over the photo album. I looked at her, looked through her.

  "I didn't mean to startle you," she said, surprised at my overreaction. "Do you want honey in your tea? It's better for a cold than sugar."

  "Uhm..." I couldn't think of what honey was. Somehow the question came out, but it sounded like somebody else's voice. "Did you say that ... Lani was a good ... swimmer?"

  "I wouldn't say 'good.' He liked to frolic in the waves at the beach, but where he could still touch bottom. He didn't do too many athletic things well."

  Doyee. I had been stupid to even consider a scheme like the one I'd been concocting. My disappointment almost made me slump.

  "Why do you ask?"

  I just pointed at the beach picture and muttered something about how I thought I remembered him from swimming lessons when I was a kid, which was bullshit. And she had asked about tea.

  "Um, I'll take honey. Thanks."

  So Lani was just an average swimmer. Her answer was predictable. Typical. So mundane. Life just isn't melodramatic enough to allow for a weak kid in a nightgown to outsmart a bunch of big, strong, popular people. I felt mad at myself for considering any made-for-TV hopes.

  I stood up, suddenly restless. Because Mrs. Garver thought Lani ran away, I was back to my original problems. I knew I should tell her—it was a matter of honor. Then I'd have to worry about the police, and Vince seeking revenge, and all the stuff that struck me as I had walked over here. I came to the foot of the stairs and gazed up. My only hope was that some evidence of a struggle had been left in his room—something that would force the police to find the story believable.

  "Mrs. Garver?" I muttered toward the kitchen. "I think I left something in his room."

  "Go on up. Maybe you'll see something I missed. Something that will tell us where he went this time."

  I started up the stairs, rolling my eyes to hell and back. Mundane. Typical. Real-life answers from Mrs. Garver. She obviously had looked in the room to notice he was gone. She probably cleaned up, too, never thinking she could be destroying evidence.

  I opened the door with one finger, kind of wheezing and ripped up, not really wanting to look for anything at all. I stood there in the quiet, staring at the bed where we'd spent so much time ... him picking me apart and putting me back together with a sadder but wiser perspective.

  My body reacted, though my heart and most of my memories were still frozen. I reached for his blanket. I fell to my knees, brought it to my nose, and inhaled a sweet smell, more like perfume than cologne. I tried to roll my eyes, but they were filling up again, and I kept inhaling. I gripped the blanket, scared I would cry loudly and his mother would hear. I kept my spazzing throat from letting rip.

  Then I saw the book. It had been under the blanket, right about where he had been sitting. I hadn't remembered it being there when I crashed out yesterday. But I hadn't been looking for it. I picked it up.

  It was large and heavy, with a beautifully painted angel on the cover and the title Andovenes' Angéls ... with the little mark over the e that made me wonder i
f it was in English. I ran my finger over the cover before opening it. The cover was flecked with mud, and the image of Macy tossing it from the car shot through my head. Whatever made me think she was so smart? Smart for kindergarten...

  I turned some pages, and a sweet musty smell filled my head, despite my nose being half full of snot. The pictures were colorful, strangely lifelike—almost like photographs instead of paintings. It made the angels seem even more real. There was a picture for every two or three pages of writing. The book wasn't in a foreign language, but it was in weird English, like Shakespearean English. I wasn't sure I would understand it, so I leafed through a big section about cherubs, just looking at the pictures. It was followed by another section on fighter angels. The huge angels had muscles everywhere, even in their fingers. And yet, they didn't look rough like warriors. They were a contradiction that was hypnotizing—beautiful and innocent, yet strong, with piercing eyes, leaving the impression that no beast or monster or warlord could create a problem they couldn't handle.

  I leafed through until the section on floating angels cracked open. Instead of a picture of a beautiful angel on the opening page, there was a picture of what looked to be a teenager, but in old-fashioned clothing. The face and hair looked strikingly like a modern-day teenager's, and I realized part of the value of this art was its timelessness. The artist had been a kind of genius, catching all the natural best of humanity, always.

  But after ogling at the healthy shine of the blond hair and the roses in the cheeks, anyone would have the same initial thought. Wait ... is this a boy or a girl? The floating angel had Lani's same intelligent, piercing gaze, peeking out from between the branches of a tree.

  The old-fashioned English was too difficult to understand, but this time I scanned through. Some lines would jump out at me, their likeness to my English being close enough to run the meaning through my brain.

  O floating angel, thou canst take upon thyself the appearance of man—or any of the angels. But possessing thy great humility, thou shalt rarely reveal thy mightier forms when in the presence of men. It behooves thy mission for men to believe thou art like them in body.

  I couldn't quite get why Andovenes seemed to be talking to a floating angel rather than about one. People did weird things like that way back when. I brushed it off, remembering that Lani had said something similar: "If people knew who the angels were, they would be very nice when they saw one and would still do their same evil garbage when they thought none were around. Knowing who they are defeats the purpose."

  I almost laughed, sensing how passionately I was going to miss his weird philosophies. My smile dwindled to nothing as my thoughts finally turned to one of the places they'd been avoiding all day. I could feel his violent trembling again, almost like convulsions, as he slowly froze beneath me in the net. The helplessness shot through me again, with the flash memory of pulling off my jacket in a vain effort to warm him. I let myself feel the burning guilt. In my own frustration I had yelled at him. "What the hell went wrong with you tonight? Acting like that in front of Tony? Why did you tell me you could always think on your feet?" I'd ended with a charming repeat of "What the hell is wrong with you tonight?" He had looked at me so oddly before responding. He'd quit trembling, as if all his energy were, for a split second, spilling into his response.

  "Nothing."

  Nothing was wrong with him. That had been his answer. He had everything under control. He knew what he was doing. I'd assumed he was losing his sanity.

  It behooves thy mission to rely on thy superior intellect when trouble befalls thee...

  I considered hurling the book into the corner, though I didn't. I could feel myself circling back to where I had been downstairs. I was back to dreaming up crazed possibilities of how Lani might have outsmarted the tough guys. Only this time, instead of hoping he was secretly an Olympic swimmer, I had hopes that he was something superhuman. I slammed the book shut to snap myself away from more insanity. But it didn't prevent the rest of that sentence from penetrating my eyeballs.

  ... and to refrain from thy greater forms until thy suffering is complete.

  Despite feeling absurd, I couldn't resist wandering around in the difficult language until I started coming up with a translation: An angel would rely on his smarts until trouble came down, and even then, it wouldn't change out of a human form until ... until thy suffering is complete? What did that mean? Until the suffering ... became almost unbearable? Until the freezing water starts to eat you, sinking its icicle fangs into every inch of your flesh ... and your best friend kicks you and swims away from you and leaves you—

  I clamored off my throbbing knees and dropped onto the mattress, pressing my palms on my eyeballs. It's like my brain was divided in two. Half of it couldn't resist playing with myths and legends. The other half was reminding me, Claire, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. I decided that I liked the first half of my brain better. The crazier thoughts left me feeling more peaceful. It seemed funny. A crazy thought was probably the only thing keeping me from going crazy.

  "Your neat little version of reality is crumbling, Claire." I had been looking up at Lani's face as he'd said that, rocking me in his arms on that bus ride. His smile had seemed so amused, so... victorious. Crumbled realities are secretly your victory. Your crumbled realities create paths to purer truth, to—

  "Middle ground, Claire," I muttered, though I knew my heart wanted magic.

  I opened the chapter again and took a few words at a time. I translated another section into plain English, and another, until one echoed what Marcus the medic had blathered on about.

  "God informs them, you know, 'Look, there's some evil person at work down there,' and then God turns his back, cuz he can't take the violence, you know?"

  The passage said the angels bring justice through natural disasters and things that wouldn't lead the average person to guess that there was a spiritual force behind them. It said people are generally unaware that these angels can call upon the sky to kill somebody with lightning, or the sea to kill somebody with a wave or a large fish.

  I had laughed at Marcus. I didn't laugh now, though I realized hazily I was in the throes of convenient thinking. Boy ... wouldn't it be nice if this was truth. I lit into thoughts of Tony Clementi being bitten in half by a shark, carried off a jetty in the jaws of a rogue wave ... some tall, thin, shadowy figure standing on the rocks ... You thought it would be fun to murder gay people, hypocrite?

  I turned the next page. Lani Garver stared at me. This floating angel portrait froze me as I stared into Lani's exact eyes. I almost had to command myself to start breathing. This drawing looked like a double of Lani, the most striking thing of all being the wide eyes—wide like Lani's had been the night before, when we were buried in inky ice water. Claire, don't leave me down here ... You're kicking for the surface ... You're leaving me...

  Same eyes. My chest rattled as I fought to get a breath. The more I stared at this picture, the more I realized that these eyes were wide with laughter, not fear. They shone with victory, not terror. For the first time since it happened, I let myself relive that moment, envision his eyes flashing through the black. Had it been terror ... or laughter?

  "No way," I mumbled out loud, to keep myself steady.

  I shut my eyes and reopened them, and that's when my realities came crashing through. I looked over every detail in that picture, that floating angel's china-doll skin, the shiny dark hair, the beautiful features on the stocky frame that would make you wonder, Guy or girl?

  But my doubts had to do with Ellen's friend, Abby. This must have been the picture that Abby used to make the costume. It was very close to the image in the picture. Wouldn't Abby have noticed and trumpeted about it loudly to Ellen if this painting were really a dead ringer for Lani? Am I seeing things conveniently? Wouldn't Ellen have said something to me about this particular picture? Told me the likeness was the weirdest coincidence she'd ever experienced?

  Am I seeing through smoke and mirrors
?

  I snapped the book shut. But I gripped it to my chest, thinking of some scheme to get it past Mrs. Garver. I should get to keep it. Somebody else might try to sell it.

  I almost turned to go downstairs when I remembered that I hadn't come up here about the book. I glanced around the room, hardly able to think. But it was obvious there was no evidence of a struggle up here that I could point out to Mrs. Garver. Mundane. Normal room. Real life. The candles were on the stereo shelves where they belonged ... not even one had been knocked over. His mattress and box spring had not been jostled; the bed was rumpled from where I'd slept on it after eating two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The crumbs were still there. I looked for muddy boot prints where Tony had stood, had kicked at Lani, as Lani kicked at those backpacks.... Tony'd either wiped his boots before he sneaked in the house or we were just unlucky. Those guys are too lucky. The floor was clean of anything conspicuous. Even footprints, even the backpacks—

  My glance passed the open closet, froze on the smooth floor, and moved slowly back to the closet. It was empty.

  I laid the book on the dresser and opened every drawer, all of which were empty. Then I tiptoed silently into the other bedroom. The echo of clanking teacups wandered up, and I realized Mrs. Garver was on the telephone. Someone was keeping her busy for the moment. Gratefully, I opened her closet as silently as possible, then all her drawers, then looked under her bed. Ladies' belongings were all that I could find. I stumbled to the top of the stairs and stood there, wheezing like crazy.

  I heard her hang up, and a minute later she passed by below me with a tea tray filled with two cups, a pitcher, and a plate of chocolate chip cookies.

  "Mrs. Garver?" I asked, and she backed up again to look at me. "Um, the homework I left might have been in Lani's backpacks. Do you know where they are?"

  Her eyebrows shot up, like her sanity had returned but mine had not. "He ran away, Claire. Obviously, his backpacks are with him. I'm sorry—"