I’m pleased. The Jaguar looks important, its nose pointed downward, toward the lake. It looks beautiful in the sun, sleek and shining.
We get some of our stuff from the backseat and dump it on the sandy shore and then race into the lake. Marion follows me as I splash in the water. I’m still limping a little, but my ankle is much improved. I’m wearing a bikini top and my jean shorts, which I don’t even bother to remove. One of my cheap sandals floats forlornly to the surface, and I throw it at Marion’s head. Somehow I’ve become the reckless one. I’m shrieking and splashing and wanting all of the attention. I make more noise than the children present. They paddle away from me, wary, looking for their moms. The moms lie on their big towels on the sandy beach, gray and fat like dying porpoises. One of these women rises up on her elbows and gives me a look. I dunk under the water and swim to Marion and pull at his trunks. The white worm of his dick appears and I emerge from the water, laughing.
You’re embarrassing me, Marion says. Settle down. You want us to get caught?
I scowl at him. It’s no fun to laugh alone. I stomp out of the water and collapse on the beach, sulking. Marion stays in the water, swimming here and there. He is a deft swimmer. I had no idea he was an athlete, but I’m transfixed now, watching his long arms carving out smooth lines of water, propelling him forward. He reaches a raft far away from us and stands on it and waves. Despite my wanting to punish him, I sit up straight and eagerly wave back. He’s a total fox, the sun glinting off his skin, his bright white teeth grinning at me over the lake, and I want to be close to him. I want to kiss him again, to be in that dirt field with all of those stars overhead. I want to do everything with him. Get married. Have babies. Always. All of it.
It’s funny how the distance from him makes everything seem possible.
And then someone touches my back.
I jump, thinking it’s a snake at first, so cold and slimy. It’s rattlesnake country here. Things can bite you and then you die.
But when I look behind me I see it’s an older man, crouching there in the sand, dressed head to toe in black. He has a derby hat on his head and looks to be some kind of minister.
Sorry to bother you, young woman, the man says. I’m wondering if you’ve seen my grandson?
He has a kindly face, older and wrinkled and soft to the touch, not that I would ever touch it. Despite the heat and his heavy black clothes, his skin is dry and powdery.
I don’t know, I say. I haven’t been looking for anyone.
He’s about your friend’s age, the old guy says, though not as beautiful as your friend. The man looks across the water to Marion. He’s a beautiful young man, isn’t he?
I feel an inflated pride at this comment. We’re going to be married, I say. We’re in love.
Really? You’re awfully young for marriage, aren’t you?
I shake my head and say, I’m a nurse. At Deaconess, in Lilac City. And he’s a doctor. A famous one. That’s his car.
I look back at the Jaguar. I’m sort of realizing how awful this story is, how stoned I sound, but I love telling it.
He’s leaving his wife for me, I say, and I think of Vanessa, how powerful she must have felt when my dad decided to leave Gladys for her. We’ll be married soon. In Seattle.
I guess I want to try this life on, twirl around in it, and see if someone approves of its fit.
The man does seem impressed.
You are both so beautiful and young, he says. He gives me a profound smile. I wish you all the very best in life.
He speaks formally, as a preacher might. I see how strange his thumbs are, locked around his knees. They bend backward and not forward. They must be double-jointed. Something about these hands makes me fidget, as if they’re touching me without touching me. I look quickly over my shoulder, hoping Marion is coming, but he’s talking on the raft to some older men. One of them has a cigarette that he bums. I wonder how that man swam out there with dry cigarettes.
My grandson would love to meet you, the man says. He would simply love it.
I look around the beach. I don’t see anyone else our age. What does your grandson look like?
You wouldn’t miss him, the minister says, his eyes all over me, like he’s memorizing every inch. My grandson has a fish’s face. He has the legs of a rooster.
I laugh and say, I don’t think I’ve seen him. He sounds like a bad joke.
The minister smiles at me broadly. It’s odd; he had seemed so old a moment ago, but now he looks semi-young, no older than forty. He says, He does, doesn’t he? I hadn’t thought of that before.
He sits down beside me, very close, so close that our legs touch. I scoot away to give him more room. His legs fold strangely at the knees, like he’s made of rubber. I consider his hands again. A whole body of creepy liquid joints.
Anyway, I say, growing uncomfortable. I haven’t seen him. Sorry.
Don’t be. You don’t mind my sitting with you, do you? I won’t be a nuisance. I’d like to meet your mister.
My what?
Your mister. You said you were going to be married, right?
Suddenly I know what’s happening. This man is on to us. He’s a cop of some sort. He’s a weird cop, but this is a weird area. He’s Electric City’s Finest. I look in a panic over at Marion. He’s sitting there, smoking, not even glancing at me. He’s telling some story and moving his hands in the air like small birds. I stand up and try to wave.
The man says, sadly, You’re not leaving, are you?
No, I say. Well, I thought I might swim out there. You know. Get some exercise.
I don’t know if you should, the man says. You left your car unlocked.
I look down at the man where he sits, his hideous hands wrapped tightly around his hideous knees. I ask, How do you know that?
My grandson is in your car, he replies. He shakes his head sadly. I saw him just now, crawling up from the water. He’s in there, waiting for you both.
I laugh awkwardly. Come on, Marion. Come the fuck back.
Gosh, I say (a word I never say). I’m going to—
Oh, don’t go out there, he says mildly. My son will just follow you, you see. He’s a remarkably strong swimmer. We all have our strange talents, we do, all of my family: my sisters, my nieces, my son, and I. He’s a world-class swimmer.
I wave my arms at Marion. He sees me now and waves back, grinning. The raft is millions of miles away. I beckon to him frantically. Come! Come now! He pumps his arms in the air, mimicking me, laughing. He always says that he loves to feel wanted. Maybe he senses now that I want him more than ever. Not him, but someone. Someone safe. He turns back to some of his new friends and shouts something unintelligible. I hope it’s goodbye.
You poor children, the man says, rising to stand beside me. So eager to grow up. My son was the same way. Only he grew smaller and smaller, you see. He grew backward.
I have an image in my head from my biology book at school. The fish that crawled out of the water and became the first mammal. The fish with the flesh mustache and the muscular yellow arms.
Around us the chubby happy bodies of children float, overseen by the larger, looser bodies of their moms. They all seem headless to me now, decapitated; brainless forms strutting brainlessly from one activity to the next; unfeeling and stupid. I reach up to touch my own head, to make sure it’s there. It is, but just so. A small vein throbs in my throat. Life drips away from me with each beat, every moment surging toward non-life, whatever that is. My hair is hot to the touch, soaked with sun. Marion swims toward us now, slowly and smoothly, face down one moment, lifting to the side the next, his arms rotating, stroking. The danger ahead of us has calmed him. He has, without knowing it yet, become a hero.
Here comes your young mister, the man whispers. Here he is now. So much to look forward to, isn’t there? I can’t wait for you to see what’s in store. It’s so beautiful. So crushing.
Something catches my eye. Something in our car, some dark form pressed against the wi
ndshield. I can’t quite make out what it is. Part of it is suctioned to the glass.
The man is right. Something is there, waiting for us. It has been waiting for us all along. We’ve been hurtling straight toward it since that first day when Marion set eyes on me.
The man notices my stare. He puts his broken fingers on my forearm as if to say, There, there. His fingers are icy cold. He makes a sound that is guttural and comforting, a sound Eli might make to Ginger.
Marion comes out of the water, extends his hand to our stranger. For a moment there, I wanted to be with Marion forever, but what a crock of shit.
Forever. I should really know better. After Eli. After Gladys.
There is no such thing.
The man, beaming, bends in for a kiss.
ALL’S WELL
Gladys had lost her husband. Also: her hair, her self-respect, much of her already fragile sanity. But mostly she thought of her husband. Of all that she had lost in life, this loss pained her the most.
Even after he’d left her for Vanessa, she still had funny dreams of him sleeping with his monsters. In some of these dreams he came home with gruesome red claw marks on his back. In some of them he opened his mouth to speak to her and produced, instead of words, a string of knotted gray hair balls. In all of the dreams she looked away and said nothing, letting it ride. As she had tried to do in her waking life.
Once the word divorce came up, she fought. She fought hard. She lost. Again with the loss. Always, always with the loss.
Following the divorce, she suffered another nervous breakdown. She went to Eastern State Hospital again, convinced the staff that she was well, and returned home to her daughter after a week. She took Amelia, then sarcastic and petulant at age thirteen, to Omak for a month or so but believed her doting and rural parents were a poor influence on the girl, and so they returned to Lilac City and the big empty house that Gladys adored. She was glad she hadn’t lost it along with everything else.
Gladys’s father died soon after that, and then her mother died, followed by both of her sisters, all of cancer, one after the other like balls shot from a cannon. Gladys could not find a proper way to grieve. She returned alone to Omak for each and every funeral. Amelia stayed with Eli and Vanessa, which she hated. Gladys was glad she hated it there, but where else could she go? She was practically the age where she could stay by herself in a house, but she wasn’t quite there yet.
At each of the funerals, Gladys wore a different pair of expensive black gloves, a new black dress, and a fresh hat with a drawn veil. She was careful not to touch anything with her bare fingers and to lean away when anyone spoke to her too directly. She stayed just long enough for a cup of strong tea. Then she would throw the used garments in the trash can and drive rapidly back to Lilac City. The ghosts of her sisters and her mother crowded into the car, too; they chattered away at her about nothing. Simpletons, all of them, even after crossing over to the afterlife.
She picked Amelia up, unable to keep her hands off the girl, fussing over her hair and clothes and figure. She noted how much Amelia hated her stepmother, and she encouraged the hate. Every Wednesday and every other weekend—the days when Amelia was supposed to stay with Eli—Amelia complained of stomach pains.
“Let me call them,” Gladys would say. “I’ll say you’re not well.”
Eli’s anger was palpable on the phone, but he was too indifferent, really, to fight it. He threatened going to court but never would. Amelia went to their house less and less. Soon she would see nothing of her father at all, Gladys hoped, and she almost felt triumphant.
“Did he say anything?” Amelia would sometimes ask after Gladys hung up.
“No, dear,” Gladys would reply. “Only to get well soon.”
Amelia would stare into the floor, gnawing at her lip. “I feel better already.”
So she and Amelia were a team, Gladys saw. When Amelia returned from her rare nights with her father, she reported on their disgusting habits.
“Vanessa licks her fingers when she serves us dinner. She’ll lick the butter from her fingers and then pass me a knife! It makes me want to barf.”
“She’s an uneducated harlot,” Gladys would say, pleased. “She’s a menace.”
“You should hear her talk to the baby. The way she carries on, the baby will never learn to wipe its own ass or feed itself. It’s really bogue.”
“Language, dear,” Gladys would say, but then she would hug Amelia and promise her a new dress, something pretty for a date with her fine young gentleman, whose name, Gladys had recently learned, was Marion.
* * *
OF COURSE, THEIR relationship wasn’t perfect. Amelia sassed her and rolled her eyes, went to bed pouting, struggled to communicate and then stopped as though disappointed. At times she went so still that Gladys wondered if she was having a stroke. But she was a good girl and a good daughter, and Gladys was grateful for her loyalty.
Then Amelia disappeared.
Gladys braced herself for the inevitable. She was likely gone, like everyone else Gladys loved.
Amelia was missing for three days, and the news was grim. They found her boyfriend’s car at the bottom of a ravine near Tower Mountain, but no bodies. Eli’s car was also missing, stolen, apparently, along with some money.
All of this had happened under Eli’s and Vanessa’s watch. They cared nothing for Amelia, just as Gladys had always suspected. Gladys wondered if she should sue.
She told this to the police.
“They seem pretty bent out of shape,” an officer said. “Do you know why she would have stolen her father’s car?”
“My daughter is not a thief,” Gladys said. “She would not take a car without asking. Not without good reason. I’m sure he’s a bit confused.”
The police asked if Amelia was a bit of a troublemaker.
“Not at all!”
They mentioned her grades.
“She does her best.”
They mentioned her truancies.
“She’s a beautiful girl. And curious.”
They mentioned her older boyfriend. Last year he had been arrested for destruction of property, for crashing one of his young girlfriends’ cars. And did she know that he was too old to be dating a teenage girl?
Illegal, they said.
Kidnapping, they said.
They said, Rape.
“I’ve met him,” Gladys said. “He’s an upstanding young man. His father, you know, is a decorated war pilot.”
A pilot, they confirmed. Not decorated. Navy-trained, yes, but not a veteran of any war. Gladys tried to think if she’d been told that detail or if she’d made it up.
“The boyfriend’s a shit,” one of the larger cops said. “High school dropout with a slew of young girlfriends. Been arrested for petty crime but his dad always bails him out. Probably wrecked that car of his for fun. He could’ve really hurt somebody. Could’ve hurt your daughter.”
Gladys tensed. “I don’t appreciate that sort of unruly language in my home.”
“Huh?” The cop’s big dumb mouth hung open.
“Your diction, Officer. The word you chose to describe my daughter’s young man. Is this something your supervisor would appreciate, befouling a citizen’s home with such rude language? Is this how you comfort a worried mother?”
The officer looked over at his colleagues in confusion.
One of them laughed. “You said the word shit, man. She’s calling you out.”
All of them laughed now.
“Apparently I’m a source of amusement to you gentlemen,” Gladys said. “I think it would be best if you got back to work and found my daughter.” She went to the door, opened it primly, and stood to the side to usher them out. “Please. She’s all I have left in the world.”
They shuffled toward the door, feigning humility, but once they were outside she heard them laughing again and cussing. One of them even spat on her rose bed.
“Monsters,” she cried into the thick panes of glass, watchi
ng them fold themselves back into their vehicles. “Monsters, all of you!”
Her husband studied monsters, she thought, and grimaced. He had left her not for a Sasquatch, after all, although his new wife was nearly as tall, nearly as awkward and uneducated as one. He had left her for a poetess. Imagine! A poetess! Gladys had known many true artists in her time, and it amused her to think of how poorly Vanessa spoke—like an uneducated woman, a woman who had never been to college, which, obviously, she had not.
No, Eli had fallen in love with Vanessa because of her verruca plantaris. Gladys had scraped the lurid details from him the night he finally admitted to the affair. A longtime patient of Eli’s—one of the few he continued to see after selling his podiatry practice to his partner—brought Vanessa to the house during one of his own appointments (the two had been dating casually but not seriously, which only strengthened Gladys’s notions of Vanessa’s general whoredom), and Vanessa had mentioned, as an aside, that she had barnacles on her feet.
“Barnacles?” Eli had asked her, amused.
“Yes. I’ve had them for years. They ache.”
He instructed her to remove her stinking yellow socks, and Vanessa shyly complied, revealing what Eli described as the worst case of plantar warts that he had ever seen.
Only he, Gladys raged, would love the truly disgusting.
Eli had ordered Vanessa to return for a private consultation. Their tryst began, certainly, at that next appointment, in Gladys’s own home. While she was there! Walking overhead! Cleaning or cooking for her husband! Having recently returned from a nightmarish “respite” in a filthy hospital!
There was no fairness in the world.
And the worst part of it: She had enjoyed Vanessa initially. She had approved of Vanessa being chummy with Amelia. She had even encouraged it. Here was a beautiful young woman, she had assumed, who was desperate for a family of her own. She had found Vanessa’s attentions touching. She had even invited the younger woman to dinner.
If only she had known!
The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac Page 11