A Flight of Storks and Angels

by Robert Devereaux

  “He’s right, it’s no dream,” said June. “I can read his lips and Jeannie said it too. Did you hear her?”

  “No,” Ward answered. June’s guardian smiled at him, mouthed a broad I-love-you, and stung him straight to the heart. He cried out. A tingling buzz tickled his ears as she spoke but no words sounded—and yet her adoration shot like pure vanilla straight into him, not apart from June’s love but rather the essence of it. “I can’t hear her, but I can see her,” said Ward. “She’s just like you described her when we were little.”

  “Yeah, it’s funny, I grew up with Jeannie, not really seeing her but sensing her, maybe like a blind man senses a chair, and I wanted so hard for her to be real—but then she is real after all—that I could almost touch her face, every detail of it, in the air. And the face I devoted my imaginings to was this face, it was, even though it’s only now that I’ve finally genuinely seen her.” June lay warm upon him, confiding close, the amazing aroma of her breath mingling with the memory of her kisses. Below, she clung close about his stiffness, her belly warm against his and moving in easy counterpoint, the whole frontal heat of her body, the warm comfort of her legs against his, affirming how complete and inalienable every part of him was. Gone was yesterday’s upset, as thoroughly as he’d been spooked by what Big Mike had done.

  She’s a peach.

  “He says you’re a peach,” Ward said. “He’s right.”

  “Thank you both.” She laughed and kissed him, then blew Timothy a kiss.

  “I mean it. That was amazing. You are amazing.” Hundreds of guardian fingers treadled where Ward’s skin met June’s, slowing down like surging surf turned into a gentle lapping. Timothy had touched him only fleetingly before, but Ward could easily distinguish his reassuring caress from Jeannie’s more arrhythmic butterfly-flittings, the tips of her fingers there, a tickle, and away. Their translucent bodies were beginning to unswirl like marble cake batter spiraling backward against time.

  “Ward, how can you watch these two take shape before us and call me amazing?”

  “I’ve been able to see him for years, hear him inside my head too, so in one sense—Sorry, Timothy—he’s no big deal.”

  Likewise. Sarcasm. Something new.

  “But,” Ward continued, “I’ve thought about you for a long time, wondering what it would be like to, you know, go steady, cuz you’re so great and everything and I like you so much. But I never thought we’d actually . . . do what we just did, or not until we were lots older, and I never ever thought it would be so incredible.”

  June shifted atop him, played with a curl just above his left ear. “Yeah, I’m pretty new to it, just some guy at camp; he was nice, but it’s over with. What? Jeannie says—Jeez, listen to me!—she says the whole sexual thing is pretty silly and pretty yummy at the same time. This Wilhelm Reich guy I’ve been reading about, he wanted kids to be taught all about sex as soon as they hit puberty.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Some guy who died a long time ago. He thought that when our bodies were ready for it, we ought to go off to a sex camp and learn how to do it right.”

  “Who with? Not grown-ups.”

  “I don’t remember. That’d be pretty gnarly. Maybe sixth graders would do it with previously tutored eighth graders who were supervised by, I don’t know, responsible tenth graders or something.” June raised herself on her elbows, breasts peeling off the sweat-sheen of his chest like Fruit Roll-Ups from their backings. Jeannie hovered amazing over her shoulder, nearly completely detached from Timothy though they yet clasped quiescent hands where Ward and she were joined. “We have to be careful at this point because . . . have you used a condom before?”

  Ward shook his head. Jeannie had this wonderful kind round face and smiling eyes like Melanie in Gone With the Wind, and she was confiding in June, one hand on June’s shoulder, her chin nestled in the cup made by curled thumb and forefinger.

  “You have to hold it in place, so that when I get off you, the little spermies don’t spill out and sneak inside to make me pregnant. We wouldn’t want that stork to come back, although he was kinda cute.”

  “Do you have to get off?”

  She said yes, and then she did it, and he groaned in dismay at her leaving and held the thing on. Kleenex, said Timothy, but June and Jeannie were already back with a few torn from the box on his dresser. Ward worked the condom off like a dead jellyfish, wadding a tissue around it, and another around that, and dropping them into the wastebasket at the foot of his bed. June, propping throw pillows against the wall, patted the bed beside her. Ward knelt there, his limp penis damp against his belly when he leaned to kiss her upper arm and rub his cheek against it. Painting the air with benevolence, Jeannie proved less a distraction than an augment, an extension of June that did nothing to draw off Ward’s attention from her. The white rose rested high above her breasts. Ward touched it, a hard beautiful knot of ivory, and ran two fingers up under the chain, the space heater lightly roaring, his knuckles thrilling to the smooth warmth of June’s skin.

  Kiss.

  No need for a prompt, he thought back. Her face was radiant with love, her lips warm and renewing. “You know who we ought to tell about this?” The idea formed even as he voiced it, took fire, enlivened him. “My grandfather.”

  “You think so?”

  “He already knows about Timothy. When no one else is around, I tell Grampa what he does and says, and he takes it in stride. In fact, he’s the only grown-up I feel okay even mentioning Timothy to.”

  “We wouldn’t tell him about—”

  “I won’t if you won’t. We’ll just say, I don’t know, we were playing Scrabble or something, when suddenly the right combination of words came up on the board, like a magic spell or something, and it happened. He probably won’t even ask about it. We’ll just tell him what our companions are up to—we can whisper it, one in each ear—and we’ll keep it up until he has to believe us because we’ll give him so much detail, he’ll know we’re not making it up and, well, just because we won’t have that air about us, that sudden blank wall—you know how liars get.”

  He saw June turn to Jeannie, a natural gesture now, a slight adjustment in the neck that might look to the blind world as if she were taking counsel with herself. A buzz again in his ears. Almost hear? Yeah, Timothy, I can. Timothy suggested in his antic air ballet a willingness to translate, but Ward turned him down.

  “Okay,” said June, echoing his enthusiasm, “let’s go tell him. I haven’t talked with him in months. You don’t think we’ll be interrupting?”

  “He’s in final polish, once through each chapter and then print it out. It’s okay to drop in; he hangs a sign on the door if it’s not, and besides, look what we’ve got to offer.” Ward nodded toward the companions. “We ought to barge in even if his sign is out.”

  Bad idea, Ward.

  “Okay,” he amended, “we’ll cross that bridge—”

  “Promise me one thing?” June draped an arm over his shoulders, brought her face close, eyes beaming. Jeannie clung to one side of her, angel arms wrapped around her as if to say, This is my best friend always!

  “Name it.”

  “After we’re done in the treehouse, we’ll come back here.”

  Ward ran a hand over her back, the warmth there, and joyed in the non-obstruction of no-clothing that made his beautiful friend undivided and perfect. “Yes, June,” he said, moon-mad with love, barraging her with yes upon yes upon yes until she stopped them with a kiss.

  *****

  When they were dressed and presentable, June turned off the space heater and raised the blinds. She thought her guardian might wash out in the brilliant sun, but the reverse was true. Borrowed brightness enwrapped Jeannie like coils of tight blue flame flaring about a torch, yet she did not deny June oxygen or otherwise smother her, but rather enriched the air in the clubhouse and revealed the innate goodness of everything June saw. All to reflect my love for you, she heard Jeannie say—nothing hokey
about it, nothing saccharine, just deep truth that made June cry out for joy.

  “You okay?” Ward asked, no alarm in his voice.

  Ward senses you’re fine.

  “Couldn’t be better,” June said. He was crouched to tie his tennies, Timothy not frantic but not stationary, a lazy cozy zigzag angling about his charge. “They can read thoughts. I’d forgotten that.”

  Open book, Braille of the umpteen senses, adoring you from fore-edge to spine, front cover to back. An impish smile warmed Jeannie’s face.

  “Given to wordplay too. I like that.”

  “Sure wish I could hear her,” Ward said. Then to the swooping Timothy: “Forget it, I already told you . . . he keeps wanting to fill me in on what she says.”

  “He can hear her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you let him?”

  “Wouldn’t be right. More of a barrier than not being able to hear her is. I don’t like watching dubbed foreign movies either. Same difference.” He stood up and patted his belly with both hands, a satisfied diner. “Ready?” She nodded, glancing at the mirror one last time and fluffing her hair. Then Ward opened the door and she and Jeannie moved past Timothy out into the still cool air of the backyard. Her eyes were drawn across the sloped lawn to the screened window where Ward’s gramma sat, grayed and faceless as a dressmaker’s dummy in her dim room.

  Poor woman, she thought.

  She is loved and cared for. She has her world. But yes, there’s tragedy there.

  “Something about Gramma?” He kept his voice low on account of their proximity to the treehouse.

  “It’s just that you stop noticing her after awhile, I did anyway. But she seems different now. The whole world looks different, sounds and smells too. Like when lettuce leaves, the floppy outer ones, get peeled off, and there’s this rich core of tiny moist leaves packed away inside. I notice her now, and it’s kind of sad.”

  “Yeah, my mom says she used to be so animated. I’ve seen videos but they don’t look like her. All I remember is her like this, and Joy taking care of her, and Grampa sitting with her once a day, but mostly avoiding her and never talking about her. Not with me anyway.” His hand touched her shoulder.

  Timothy was speaking to Ward when she turned, leaning in like a Rockwell gossiper. She laughed, then tried to stifle it.

  “What’s funny?”

  No need to apologize. Jeannie was beautiful in her motherly solicitude.

  “I’m sorry, it’s not about your gramma. It’s about how perfect today is, and how much I um, you know, care for you, and how strange and yet right-at-home these two guys are, hovering over us like this.”

  Bless you, said her angel.

  Ward agreed, excited that his favorite person in the whole world could see his companion and that he could see hers. He kissed her again, a big smile thinning his lips and a shared giggle getting in the way, out there in full view of, well, of the forest and Ward’s gramma, sunlight and Jeannie’s enveloping love and Timothy’s excited swoop making the moment delicious. Then Ward, suggesting it was time to let Grampa in on their secret, walked with her, a hipsway to their sidewise hug, like drunken horses. Amble led them on, the great oak coming up to join their erratic dance. He offered the rope-ladder, one hand at the small of her back, and she carefully placed her sandaled foot on the first rung and pulled herself up, conscious of Ward at her side as her hips and legs moved past his face, and of Jeannie’s protective envelope about her body.

  The ladder was well secured below and, despite eight years’ weathering, as safe and safe-looking as any rope-ladder could be.like catching it on a raised patch of sidewalk but more lethal—even then her guardian was an extension of her body’s swift reflex, the clutch, the new surge of energy in her arms, the tug upward, the recovery and continuing on as though nothing untoward had happened. A yard from her face, crusted oak bark payed out downward like slow, rough road. She found the sides of the balcony hole with her fingers and climb-tugged herself up through it, backwarding her buttocks onto the firm flooring, then lifting her legs up and around. Nice high railing, thick, protective: her uncle’s doing, all in the family. Ward’s head poked through the hole as Timothy seeped through the floorboards to reconstitute about him.

  No sounds came from inside, or none June could make out; the door, though closed, was unsigned. Ward stepped up to it, Timothy sweeping near and the entire motion one unified gesture. Above, a fresh rustle caressed the high leaves, reminding her of soft surf on distant sand. Ward knocked. He turned to her, smiled nervously, his guardian whispering at his ear.

  Well yes, Ward’s grampa is weird, but he’s never less than kind. Jeannie cut through her idlings like the one pure thought behind her mind’s dither.

  “Yeah, but this is the first time . . ,” she found herself muttering, then finished the sentence in her head; the first time they’d ascended the rope-ladder uninvited. There was no telling what Mister Jameson’s reaction would be to that. He was a daunting sort anyway, a beefy white-haired man who looked more like a lumberjack or a retired boxer than a writer, and not at all a grown-up whose anger she wanted to provoke.

  There were footsteps, fast ones, not heard so much as felt through the shuddering floorboards. Jeannie’s glance of mild alarm and the nervous look Ward shot her made her crave invisibility, or the squirrelish knack of scattering down trees, leaping earthward, and hightailing it into the undergrowth. The tumble of the turned doorknob fused with the door’s swift motion inward: it swung back fast enough to scrape wind. There he stood, the glower on his bearded face turning soft at the sight of them, and then something else came over him, a look that mingled panic and surprise and delight. But what was far more astounding to June was the tall strong female form that billowed up behind him or through him or somehow burgeoned from his head, looming up as vast and lovely as an October moon cresting a darkening rise.

  *****

  He and Esme had been intently at work, finding more burrs in the final polish of Thalia than they’d expected. Two walk-ons named Sarah Kent, confused antecedents up the yin-yang, word substitutions no spell checker could find; it amazed him—Esme too—how much he’d come to loathe the type of book he now wrote, but here was the evidence as he stepped back and ran through it one more time. And now in the throes of a brilliant idea about how to patch a faulty transition, a sudden knock had stunned him, scattering the idea into irretrievable evanescence. By God, he’d thought as he rose, dismissing Esme into oblivion, where the hell had that damned sign gone? He’d never needed it, nobody’d intruded for years, but then he remembered how wedded he’d become to that bit of cardboard, a snag of stifle he could do without, so one day he’d up and trashed the sucker, fed it piece by piece into his Coleman stove and he felt freer for doing so. But now, with that loud knock still echoing in his ears, he felt rage enough to reach into those ashes if he could only summon them back, uncinder them to flame, unbrown the burning pieces to white, and unshred that sign just long enough to thrust it into the face of the fucking sales-animal who’d dared to circumvent the house and Joy’s vigilance and presumed now to prep his pitch on T. E. Big-Shot Jameson’s lofty doorstep.

  He had enough presence of mind to hit Save before he stormed out of the study and across the front room to the door. Eccentric? He’d show this asshole eccentric! The doorknob was chilly as he twisted it and pulled. Then the sight of Ward and June standing there turned off his anger at once, transforming that energy to the affection he felt for them both, June almost as much a grandchild to him as Ward was. But before he could say anything, a new feeling seized him entirely. It began as a dynamo churning in his gut, almost as if there were a whirring engine down there, a spinning steel top—it wasn’t nausea, not at all, though he wouldn’t have been surprised in the least if he’d begun to double over, with the racking his belly was taking. He sobbed, but then realized it was only in his head, and the sight of the two children on the balcony mingled with what he could only suppose was a str
oke, the full quake after a mere tremor yesterday in the kitchen. But, Jesus lord, he thought, if this was a stroke, if this was how Death made his presence known, then let him come. The whirring swept upward, through lungs and chest, lifting off his shoulders like radiant waves and streaming up into his head so that he wept aloud now, thinking absurdly what face he’d lose for crying in front of these children, how much grist it would provide for the rumor mill.

  With the weight of wonder, he fell to his knees, one hand still on the doorknob, and the sobs wracked him with joy, and the tears blurred his vision. But they did not blur it so much that he couldn’t see what his crazed mind now saw, denying it feebly, and affirming it with all the force his sense of reality could muster. For as Ward and June rushed to him, to help him, asking in distant voices if he was all right, he saw the forms made manifest about them, two beautiful presences that tore at his heart with how perfectly pure they were, the colors of them, the hint of blessing they left upon the air as they moved, the love and solicitude they showed toward their charges, separate from them but by the thinnest margin of difference, purest self distilled and all-surrounding. And then, not apart from this vision but unveiled in the same moment, the rip and rent of bliss that stirred within him silked out and up like an ethereal parachute, and there was Esme. But it was Esme as he’d never seen Esme before; or if he’d known her this way, it had been in the most ancient of his days and in some nascent form, no less pure, but nowhere near this huge. For he saw her now, no trompe l’oeil on a tree branch, but vivid as the sun, and she stood apart from him but completely enfolded into his breast, no contradiction there, or only in feeble language’s logistic limits found, at once herself and him, independent yet tied to his every move and gesture. She was his muse . . .