by Wendy Wunder
“Perry!” Cam screamed. “Dammit, Perry, I’m freezing.” Cam hopped around, trying to stay warm, and turned the red knob of the shower to full steam. She screamed again for Perry.
“Need some help?” Asher asked from outside the stall. “Here, you can take my shirt.”
“Here we go again. Asher to the rescue. This is so It’s a—”
“—Wonderful Life,” Asher finished. “When they were walking home from the pool and she loses her robe behind the bush. I was just going to say that.”
“You could learn a lot from that movie, actually, about what happens to nice guys,” Cam said through her chattering teeth. It was the movie about the angel who prevents some sad family man from jumping off a bridge on Christmas Eve. Her mother made her watch it every year. Cam hopped from foot to foot and rubbed her hands up and down her arms to get warm. The sky was eerily dark, like someone had spilled black ink over the stars, and the crickets, usually so vocal, were strangely silent.
“What are you saying? Is it possible that you could have missed the entire point of that movie?”
Cam paused and listened for a second to the waves crashing to the shore in the distance. “What? He didn’t go to college, even after he got the suitcase. He missed the honeymoon. He was left at home, and everyone took advantage of him.”
“And he had a wonderful life. It’s the title of the film.”
“It was all propaganda to make you feel like your miserable life is worthwhile,” Cam said, staring at the knots in the wood in front of her.
“You don’t deserve my shirt,” Asher said, but she could see beneath the stall that his feet stood motionless.
“But you’re going to give it to me anyway.” Cam stuck her hand up and over the stall.
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
“Here,” he said, handing it to her.
The shirt was long enough, but it was white, so it was soaking through in strategic places where she actually hadn’t lost all of her body fat. She kept her arms crossed in front of her chest and stepped out of the stall. The shirtless, six-packed Asher still stood there, and Cam was taken aback by what football and a little handiwork could do for a body. They shared a speechless moment, and then Cam said, “I can take it from here.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry. Nice shoes, by the way,” Asher said, and he turned to walk across the lawn. Cam snuck a peek at the view from behind, which wasn’t too bad either.
In the house, Alicia and Perry were playing Scrabble at the dining room table. The room was lit by an enormous moose-antler chandelier, which was in such bad taste, it was almost hip. Cam wondered what PETA would have to say about that. “Did they at least eat the moose?” Cam wondered out loud.
“What?” her mom asked.
“Never mind. That was cute, Perry. Thanks for stealing my towel,” Cam said as she stood behind Perry’s chair, examining her Scrabble tiles.
“Don’t mention it,” Perry said, still concentrating on the game.
Cam grabbed Alicia’s jacket from the back of her chair, wrapped it around herself, and stepped into Perry’s pink Uggs. She snagged a carrot stick before heading toward the stairs, where she could finally hole up and get warm.
“Ask her?” Perry said after placing xen next to her mother’s O.
“Good one,” Cam said when she saw the board. “Ask me what?”
“Perry wants to know if you heard about the flamingos.” Alicia was wearing her reading glasses, and she looked down her nose through them as she rearranged her tiles.
“Yeah. Down by the school. I saw them.”
“You saw them? So now don’t you believe this town is special?” Perry asked, her blue eyes round and insistent.
“Why?” Cam asked.
“Why? Because a whole flock of flamingos has come to roost here. In Maine, which is not their normal habitat,” said Alicia.
“And?”
“And that’s crazy and miraculous and may be a sign that we’re in the right place, since flamingos are often found in Florida,” her mom continued.
“That is so illogical. The flamingos have nothing to do with us. It’s a crazy global-warming fallout fiasco, like the bats disappearing from the caves in Pennsylvania or the bees getting lost because of cell phone interference. . . .”
“Cam . . .” Alicia said.
“Or the iguanas freezing to death because the weather’s been so erratic in Florida or the polar bears drowning. The flamingos ran out of food somewhere and went out in search of more. End of story.”
Cam heard her phone buzzing from the porch, where she had heaped her shorts. She took the phone out of her pocket and read the text from Elaine. I’m putting him down in the morning, it read. Get here early if you’d like to say good-bye.
Cam walked back into the house feeling defeated and a little betrayed. Why couldn’t Elaine just leave Bart alone? Weren’t these people all about letting nature take its course?
“Will you bring me over to the flamingos tomorrow, Cam?” Perry asked. “I want to take some pictures.”
“Nah. I already saw them, and I have someplace else I need to be,” Cam said.
Perry stiffened a bit in her chair. She slid one of her Scrabble tiles in a figure eight on the table, then used her thumb and forefinger to flick it onto the floor. “This was such a waste of time,” she said.
“What was a waste of time?” Cam asked, shivering.
“Coming here. You haven’t changed a bit.”
“What do you want from me?” Cam asked them. “I have to work tomorrow.”
“I just thought—” Perry started.
“What?”
“That you might start believing.”
“In what? Magic? Hocus-pocus? Sleight of hand?” Cam said, waving her fingers through the air like a magician. She pretended to pull a Scrabble tile out of Perry’s ear.
“I don’t know. I just kind of wanted this to work,” Perry said. The tension behind her eyes let loose a little, and Cam could see her fighting back tears.
“It’s amazing that flamingos landed here, okay. But that doesn’t have anything to do with me. I just can’t make that leap. People die. Puppies die. My father died. Flamingos or no flamingos, I am going to die. Sooner rather than later.”
“But you’re getting better. Don’t you see that? You haven’t really been sick since we got here. You’ve actually been eating and everything,” Perry said. “This town has to be magic if you’re eating peanut butter sandwiches.” Perry’s face was flushed. Her eyebrows lifted in hopeful arcs.
Cam had had a lot more energy since they arrived in Maine, it was true, but she had chalked it up to the fresh air and the fact that it might be a stage of dying. People often go through a wellness phase, a remission, biologically constructed so that they can say good-bye, plan their funeral, get all their ducks in a row. . . .
“I’m sorry, Perry, but I have more energy because my death is imminent. Not farther off.”
“She’s hopeless,” Alicia said, slumping back into her chair.
“I am hope-resistant,” Cam said. She used the toe of the pink Ugg boot to untangle some of the graying fringe on the Persian rug beneath the dining table.
“You could at least let us believe,” said Perry.
“I’m not telling you you can’t believe.”
Her sister folded the game board in half. The letters cascaded back into the box with a series of sad clicks. “You know it’s not easy to be me, right?” Perry replied.
Funny, thought Cam, I had always believed it was. Easy to be Perry. What on earth could be easier than being Perry? Curiosity got the best of her and she let herself ask, “Really?”
“I make a lot of sacrifices for you.” Perry’s voice quavered. “Like being here. Do you think I want to spend my entire summer away from my friends? No one ever has time to think of what I want or what I need because your needs are so tremendous. You have tremendous needs. And that’s fine. Really. I’m used to being
an afterthought. But the least you can do is let us believe that this might work. I do a lot for you, Cam,” said Perry, and one tear finally broke loose and slid down her face.
Cam paused, feeling choked up herself as she thought of all the times Perry had to stay home alone with a baby-sitter while Alicia traveled with Cam to a new hospital for a new trial. Or the times Perry was dragged along to doctor’s appointments when she could have been at playdates or cheerleading or something. She would have been a good cheerleader.
“I’m sorry,” Cam said. “You can believe what you want.”
Upstairs, the Flamingo List still sat unfolded on top of her suitcase, corners up, like a shallow bowl. She grabbed a marker and crossed out Kill my little sister’s dreams and, while she was at it, Wallow in misery, mope, pout, and sleep through Saturday.
All in a day’s work.
SEVENTEEN
CAM SPED IN CUMULUS ALONG THE WINDING BEACH ROAD, PAST THE field of purple dandelions, toward the vet’s. It was eleven o’clock. She couldn’t believe how late she’d slept. She rolled down the window and let the brisk and briny sea air whip against her face to wake her up.
She had texted Elaine twice so far this morning and had gotten no response. She parked Cumulus next to the mail truck, waved to the donkey, James Madison, and ran inside. She prayed that she wasn’t too late.
As she approached the door, she heard some barking. It could be any number of the dogs at Elaine’s, she reminded herself, keeping her heart in check. But it sounded like the sharp-pitched yelp of a puppy.
“Bart!” Campbell cried when she opened the door. There he was, wagging his tail uncontrollably.
And then he peed.
“Someone’s happy to see you,” said Elaine. She wiped up Bart’s mess and attempted to clean his feet as he wiggled happily in her arms. “Where are you staying, anyway?”
“In that big house. On top of the hill.”
“Avalon?” Elaine asked. “Oh, you’re the girl Asher told me about. He didn’t say you were sick.”
“He doesn’t know. You know Asher?”
“He’s my nephew.”
“He’s nice,” Cam said. She didn’t know what else to say about him. Actually, she felt strangely shy talking about him at all. “So what happened with Bart?” She took him from Elaine and let him cover her face with wet kisses.
“I don’t know. Just one of those things. He decided to live,” Elaine said. She cupped Bart’s snout in her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Didn’t you, boy?”
“Don’t you think it’s more scientific than that?” Cam asked. She was so ecstatic about Bart, she didn’t even mind walking into the ugly country living room and sitting on a scratchy chair with him.
“Not really. Some things can’t be explained.”
“There’s an explanation for everything.”
“Really?” Elaine asked, an amused look on her face.
“Yes. Even those flamingos by the school. They were just looking for food.”
“Shouldn’t have found it there, though. The Maine shrimp stop running in March.” Elaine sat down in the ugly chair opposite Cam and took out her needlepoint. “I’m a little worried about them, actually. If their pond freezes, they’ll have to skedaddle. I hope they’re not frogs in a pot.”
“Frogs in a pot?”
“If you put a frog in some warm water and slowly turn up the heat,” Elaine said, wetting her embroidery floss between her lips so she could thread it through a needle, “he’ll stay there until he boils. Kind of like people. We’re too lazy to change, so we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing until it’s too late.” Elaine put her reading glasses on and then took them off, struggling to see the needle’s eye. “Ugh! Can you do this?” she asked, handing Cam the needle and thread.
“Ew. You just had that in your mouth,” said Cam.
“Oh geez, never mind. Done.” She pulled the orange floss through the tiny glint of metal.
Each pane of the bay window of the living room was obstructed by a bright handmade suncatcher hanging from a suction cup. Cam brought Bart to the window so she could find a way to peek around them and look outside. It was a little windy and gray this morning. The bay looked like crinkled aluminum foil. Cam found Main Street in the distance and followed it to its far end, scanning the woods for the dirt road that had brought them here. Arriving at the Dunkin’ Donuts seemed like a year ago.
“Do you believe what some people say about this town?” she asked.
“What? That it’s enchanted?”
“Yeah,” said Cam. She sat back down. Bart walked in a circle on her lap before curling up and falling asleep.
“Everyone has her own theory about why weird things happen here. There’s the sacred Indian burial ground theory, the meteorite theory, the alien visitation theory, and the Bermuda Triangle theory. I like the Salem witch trial theory.” Elaine rested her large hands over her belly. “It wasn’t really a ‘witch trial’ because those happened much earlier. But people think the ghost of Olivia Hutchins protects the town because she found shelter here. She was sentenced to prison for adultery and witchcraft in Salem in the late 1800s. Her only real crime was marrying the deranged mayor of Salem. One day when he found his wife in a close conversation with the town’s handsome butcher, he flew into a jealous rage. He argued that his red-haired wife was a reincarnated witch, and the jury—still sensitive to the taboo of witchcraft—found a way to convict her. Olivia spent three years in prison for petty thievery before mysteriously escapaing and finding her way here. She lived at the house. Avalon. She’s Asher’s great-great-great-great-grandmother.”
“Asher believes it, doesn’t he?” Cam suddenly remembered his reaction to her skepticism about the sunset and the whales. And then there was It’s A Wonderful Life.
“Oh, Asher. Asher is a strange case, that one. Let me get a cup of coffee, and I’ll tell you the story of Asher.”
“That’s okay. I don’t need to know,” Cam called into the kitchen. Part of her was secretly dying to know. The part of her that scooched herself to the actual edge of her seat.
“No, it’s a good story,” Elaine said as she settled back into her chair with her coffee mug. “Hey,” she said, “aren’t you a hula dancer? I’ll tell the story, and you can hula it.”
“I can’t just ‘hula it.’ It’s not like sign language.”
“So once upon a time, long, long ago . . . Go ahead—hula it. What’s long, long ago?”
Cam stood up, placing the sleeping Bart back down on the chair, and tried to keep herself from smiling. She’d been wanting to dance since she’d seen her mother teaching hula to the senior citizens in their living room the other day. “I need some music at least.”
Elaine turned on the radio softly, and some Pearl Jam came on.
“So long, long ago, Asher’s and my great-great, lots of greats, one less great for me, grandfather founded this town.”
Cam moved her hips first and then her arms over many mountains to indicate long, long ago, and then signed man and town with little roofs made from the triangles of her thumbs and index fingers put together.
“He was a wise and benevolent man. He made honest treaties with the Indians, and he lived among them. I think we even have some Indian blood in us. He sheltered a woman running from the law, and then he married her.”
Cam changed the sway of her hips and indicated wise and benevolent by touching her thumbs to the center of her forehead and then moving her hands from her chest out into the world. She did woman, running, and then the signs for love and safety.
“Her name was Olivia Hutchins, and later, as if to prove she did not have an adulterous bone in her body, when Asher’s great-great-great-great-grandfather was lost at sea, she waited in the widow’s walk for five years for him to return. She never lost hope. And then she died.”
Cam danced dangerous sea. She danced woman. It was difficult to dance waiting, so she took a long pause.
“Many strange things have hap
pened since then,” Elaine continued. “There was ladybug tide, when millions of ladybugs washed onto shore. They had to scoop them up with steam shovels. Or the time that girl walked away from that airplane crash. Or when my broken foot healed overnight . . .”
Cam was improvising now, making up hand movements for ladybugs and steam shovels and airplane.
“People started to believe the town was enchanted. Or haunted by the ghost of Olivia. Everyone, especially our family, seemed lucky. And then one day Asher’s young parents decided to go on a vacation for their anniversary. And somehow, for some reason, their luck ran out. On their way to Hawaii, they were sucked out of the side of an airplane.”
Cam did the steps for travel and then danger.
“My father, Asher’s grandfather, was devastated and went on a walkabout, from which he never returned. And my mother died of a broken heart.”
Cam turned around in a circle, still moving her hips but holding her head down, her arms crossed sadly across her chest. Sorrow.
“Asher thinks they died because they left this magical place. Part of him is afraid to leave. This town has a hold on him. It’s time for him to get on with the rest of his life and instead, I think he’ll stay here forever.”
Cam finished with the hand motions for town and forever. And when she stopped, she felt heavy with sadness. She had put Asher’s story into her body and it weighed on her like a lead suit.
Elaine startled her with a loud, “That was amazing!”
“Thanks.”
Cam turned the stereo off and went to pet Bart. She was a little embarrassed, and she needed to change the subject.
“But the magic,” Cam said. “The purple dandelions, a freak flamingo visit. It’s all just coincidence.” Bart was still curled up on the chair. He looked like a furry letter Q. Cam felt his nose. Yesterday it was dry and leathery, and now it was cold and wet.
“Some people say you should pay attention to coincidence,” Elaine said. She tied off her orange thread, put her needlepoint down, and stood up. “It can show you your path. Besides, these coincidences are enough to keep people believing. To give them some hope.”