And then, suddenly, her mother was there, drawing the covers back from her face so that she could kiss Ginger’s cheek. Ginger was half asleep, her mind throbbing, uncertain.
“You’re home,” Ginger murmured, closing her eyes again.
She had been dreaming about a baby born without a head or limbs, just a torso from which a million agitated eyes sprouted.
Her mother murmured, “Did you and Charlie have a nice time?”
“Oh, yes,” Ginger said.
“Good, sweetie,” her mom said. “The house looks great. We’ll have to ask Amelia to come back again.” She leaned over and kissed Ginger once more, and then the stuffed unicorn, too. “Night night, Ginger. Night night, Charlie.”
“Okay,” Ginger said, “good night.”
But just as her mom began to rise, Ginger grabbed for her hand and clutched it so fiercely that Vanessa, rattled, cried:
“Ginger! Let go! You’re hurting me!”
1990
STORYBOOK
Eli was stressed. For the last several weeks he had worked as one of the five parent chaperones for the Comstock High Purple Days’ Float Committee. It was unusual for him to volunteer for such an event. The parade was the next day, and while Ginger gushed to her mom about how cool the float was going to be, Eli was anxious to finish. He practically yanked Ginger out of the house, gripping her coat sleeve.
“Let’s hurry,” he said. “There’s not a lot of time.”
Ginger followed him out to the car. “Gosh, Dad, don’t worry. It’s going to look great.”
“I know,” Eli said. “We’ll see.”
Eli did not speak again as he drove. Ginger chattered at him from the passenger seat, telling him random, unimportant things about her classmates. While Ginger spoke, Eli considered the work he had to complete: attaching the bear hide, rigging the wiring, standing the damn thing up on the float, hiding the speakers. The electrician would be there the following morning. Everything had to be ready to go.
He had assumed this would all be a cakewalk, but now he found himself more obsessed with the float than he was about Mr. Krantz’s whereabouts.
When Eli and Ginger arrived, they found the floor of the Meekses’ barn freshly littered with purple crepe paper, poultry netting, and metallic fringe. The lowboy trailer sat groaning beneath the clumsy bodies of some dozen teenagers. It was messily adorned and rocking slightly from the activity.
“Where’d they move him?” he asked his daughter, and she motioned toward a dim corner where a girl squatted with a paintbrush, slathering glue onto a large papier-mâché figure.
“Oh, no,” Eli said, but Ginger had already left his side to join her friends on the lowboy trailer, taking up a plum-colored garland and arranging it around her neck. She greeted her friends enthusiastically. She was in her element here, popular among dorks. Eli was proud of her in a distant, appreciative sort of way.
Eli approached the girl with the paintbrush and stood over her with his hands on his hips.
“Hiya, Dr. Roebuck,” the girl said, looking up. “How’s it looking?”
“Like a bear with mange. His legs are all wrong.”
“Really? I redid them like you said. Exactly. I swear.” She rose to her feet and considered the thing with solemnity.
“You put them on backward,” Eli said, pointing. “See? His knees buckle the wrong way.”
“Doesn’t he look tubular, though?” she said. Eli could not remember her name. Carol? Karen? Kathryn? “He’s really scary.”
Eli grabbed ahold of a papier-mâché leg and tore it from the torso. His hands came away smeared with glue.
“Hey!” the girl protested.
“Realign them,” Eli said. “I’ll help you.”
Eli had already wasted an entire month on this project, but there was no way he was allowing a less-than-perfect replica of Mr. Krantz to float down the streets of Lilac City. This was his chance to share a realistic Sasquatch with the entire Inland Empire. It was, he felt, an enormous responsibility.
Comstock High had recently chosen the Sasquatch as its new mascot, in part due to Ginger’s influence on the mascot steering committee. Ever since the coronation, Eli had winced at the cute renderings of the creature. While Ginger thought she was honoring her father’s cause, Eli was silently offended by the presence of the doe-eyed, weak-shouldered, smiling monster who now adorned all school stationery, sweatshirts, and signage. The cuddly beast paid no homage to Mr. Krantz. It was a mockery.
And this purple nightmare of a float was the icing on the cake. Mauve foam balls hung from its broad front like blood-filled testicles.
But he would fix it. The Sasquatch would fix it. High school mediocrity be damned.
“The knees will bend the correct way,” Eli said loudly, “or not at all.”
Carol/Karen/Kathryn applauded enthusiastically.
Ginger looked over at him now and waved. He forced himself to smile, to wave back at her, and then he leaned over and dismantled the other leg.
Carol/Karen/Kathryn made a sad sound in her throat, but then she was ready to work. Eli took up the task from the opposite side, monitoring the accuracy of the reattachment as they progressed. Every now and again he caught a glimpse of another Purple Days chaperone drinking a pop or laughing with a student and he thought, You ingrate. Have you no purpose?
Ginger, for her part, had been elated when Eli volunteered as Purple Days Chaperone #5. He was normally too busy to get involved with school activities. Unlike other dads, he’d never been an assistant coach or a classroom helper or an escort for a dance. He had other, more pressing concerns to address: the smooth operation of his nonprofit, SNaRL, which he’d founded and funded entirely by himself; the setting of traps and cameras in dense forests as close by as Riverside State Park and as far away as Snoqualmie Pass and the Olympics; retrieving and carefully scanning said traps and cameras; the research of purported sightings throughout the Northwest; the calculation and disbursement of funds received; the chemical analysis of purported evidence; the grueling editing process for his first book, The Sasquatch Hunter’s Almanac, which Vanessa had ghostwritten (this, in itself, had been a difficult process—she had a tendency to write too floridly, so brutal editing was a necessity). Sometimes he went a week or two without seeing Ginger at all. He made every effort to at least arrive home in time to say good night but frequently failed. He was very busy. And, frankly, he liked it that way.
But for this—a citywide festival showcasing a mascot that embodied his life’s work—Eli cleared his schedule. He planned on making sure that an anatomically correct version of Mr. Krantz rode the Purple Days float alongside this year’s Comstock High Purple Days princess. The creature would be robotic, its movements on the float realistic and powerful. He hoped to educate all of Lilac City, to give them reason to respect, admire, and possibly even fear the presence of Sasquatch in their region. It was an added pleasure, too, to see how happy it made Ginger.
It was not, however, going according to plan.
Backward knees were just part of the problem.
The students meant well, Eli granted, but they had no respect for anatomical verisimilitude. They were more interested in flirting with one another, in reciting ribald jokes, in goofing around. They followed directions halfheartedly, expressing interest but growing insipid the moment he turned his back. The Comstock princess, a pretty if whiny senior named Lindsay Meeks, was a particular thorn in Eli’s side. She worried that such a huge structure would overpower her. She worried that one of the papier-mâché arms would fall off and brain her. She worried that it would appear to the crowd as if she were getting humped from behind. She worried about everything.
Lindsay approached Eli now, massaging her hands together as though for warmth, wearing, as always, the glittering brass tiara on her head.
“I wanted to talk to you, Mr. Roebuck,” she said in response to Eli’s distracted hello. Eli had to stop himself from correcting her: That’s Dr. Roebuck to you, y
oung lady. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m petite.” She twirled for him, her pale skirt fluttering prettily as she did so. She gracefully rested on point and gestured at the giant papier-mâché ape. It lay facedown, hovering above its newly detached legs. “Look at this dude! He’s a freak. You can’t have some giant ugly freak standing behind me, you know? I’m petite, Mr. Roebuck. He’ll dwarf me.”
“He’ll contrast you,” Eli said. He appealed to the girl’s vanity. “He’ll make you more beautiful by comparison.”
The princess seemed not to hear him. She anxiously masticated her bubble gum. “This is my float,” she said. “It’s my float, being made in my parents’ barn. I mean, why have Bigfoot on the float at all? I mean, what’s the deal-ee-o, Mr. R?”
“It’s the school’s float,” Eli reminded her. “This Sasquatch here is the school mascot, representing the whole student body.”
“What if we made it, like, two feet tall?” Lindsay suggested. “Like a cute little baby guy?”
“That would be really cute,” Carol/Karen/Kathryn cooed.
“He could be holding a baby bottle,” Lindsay said excitedly. “He could be in a sweet little Bigfoot diaper.”
Carol/Karen/Kathryn squealed in delight.
Eli took a deep breath. “Our Sasquatch,” he said, “is precisely seven feet five inches tall.” He rose up to his knees, his hands on his thighs, and addressed Lindsay in a scholarly way. “This is a modest size for such a creature, Lindsay. Some hominids have been estimated at over twelve feet.”
“God, I can so see it,” she said, opening her palms before her, framing the lowboy trailer. “A tiny Bigfoot baby, right at my knees maybe, and everybody in the crowd saying, Aw, isn’t that so totally precious! They’d be like, Cutest little monster, EVER.”
Carol/Karen/Kathryn cried out, “Yes!” She was clearly in love with the prettier, more confident senior.
“Pay attention to those gluteal muscles,” Eli said to the younger girl, struggling to remain patient. “You’re spacing them too far apart.”
Carol/Karen/Kathryn flushed, bending back over the mascot’s butt, working the crumpled newspaper into a more accurate position.
“It’s getting late,” Eli said now. “We’ll finish up our work here, and then we can place him on the float.”
“That’s what I’m saying,” Lindsay said. “We could totally bust out a mini-Bigfoot. It’d be so much faster.”
“Linds,” a voice said. “Linds. Leave the doctor alone. He’s trying to work.”
Eli turned and saw the girl’s mother, a mannish middle-aged woman. She wore loose flannel pajamas and slippers shaped like fuzzy pink bear paws. She was smoking. They looked hardly at all alike, the one masculine and brooding, the other petite and bubbly, but they shared the same snapping eyes and the same defiant posture.
“I’m talking to Mr. Roebuck here about ideas,” the girl whined, but her mother persisted.
“Leave Dr. Roebuck alone. Go along to your friends.”
Lindsay gave up and moved away, toward Ginger and the others, dragging her feet.
“God. These girls of mine. I swear. So perfect. Go fuck up once in a while, you know? Stop succeeding! It isn’t healthy to be flawless at everything you do.” She nodded toward Ginger and the tall boy who stood speaking together. “Your girl is nice. She’s a sweet girl.”
Eli agreed. There was not much else to say about Ginger. She was plain-looking—far from ugly, but not pointedly beautiful.
“You happily married?” the woman asked him then.
“Yes,” he said. “Sure.”
“Well, you know. I’m not. My husband hates me. They all hate me, in one way or another.” She laughed at this, as if it were hilarious.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Eli said. He was amused by her frankness. “Maybe you could leave him?”
“I could. But I’m in love. And love makes us stupid. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“That sounds painful.”
“It’s easy enough.” The woman tossed her cigarette on the floor and ground it into the shit-strewn floorboards with the toe of a pink bear slipper. “I remember your first wife,” she said.
He remembered then: This woman’s eldest daughter had attended school with Amelia. “Gladys,” he said.
“You hated her guts,” the woman observed.
“It wasn’t as extreme as that.”
“She was an odd bird, Gladys,” the woman said. “I remember that about her. Really odd. The scarred head and stuff.”
“Well. You know. She’s not well, my ex. Not well in the head, I mean. She has some mental issues.”
“So you left her,” the woman summarized, her tone disinterested.
“I fell in love with someone else.”
There wasn’t much else to say about it, but the woman stared at him, shifting her weight from one bear slipper to the other. The shine in her look made him slightly uncomfortable, so Eli turned back to the Sasquatch model. The legs were much shapelier now and were, at the very least, fastened to the torso correctly.
“Good job, partner,” Eli said to Carol/Karen/Kathryn, and she beamed.
“Well,” Lindsay’s mom said. “Anyway. Thanks for the conversation. Sorry to chat your ear off.”
He accepted her heavy, warm hand and shook it. “Pleasure to chat with you.”
“Good luck with the monster,” she said as she walked away.
“Hominid,” Eli corrected under his breath.
“God,” Carol/Karen/Kathryn said, “Lindsay’s mom is so weird.”
“We’re all weird,” Eli said, and it struck him as a wise and accepting thing to tell a child.
* * *
ON THE DRIVE home, Ginger asked him how it was going.
“It’s better,” he said. “Tomorrow looks good. We’ll wire the dummy for ambulation. Anyway, the legs are accurate now, so his gait will be pretty realistic.”
“You mean he’ll be walking on the float?”
“Well, lifting his legs up and down. Swinging his arms. Walking in place, yes. I hope.”
“Does Lindsay know this?” Ginger asked.
“Sure,” he lied. “Does it matter?”
“It’s just,” Ginger said, “Lindsay’s wanted to be Comstock princess her whole life, and, you know, she’s supposed to be the centerpiece of the float. So if you’re making this giant, moving monster—”
“Sasquatch are not monsters, sweetie,” Eli reminded her. “They’re hominid. Or hominin, even.”
“Right, Dad, I know. The humanoid or whatever, got it.”
“Hominid. From great apes. Or hominin. Meaning directly related to us. The debate—”
“My point is, Dad, you can’t just put a giant moving humanoid up there behind Lindsay and expect people to think it’s great. Lilac City loves its Comstock princess. She—not the monster—should be the center of attention.”
“Hominid,” Eli said. “I get what you’re saying, Ginger, but we’re talking about representing the entire Comstock High student body here. We’re talking about respecting the natural identity of the Comstock High mascot. Lindsay is just a girl, a girl who wins things.”
“The Comstock princess represents the student body, too.”
“My impression of Lindsay is that she doesn’t care at all about the student body. My impression is that she only cares about how pretty and popular she is.”
“She’s really, really nice,” Ginger said, her voice growing nasal and annoyed. “She’s like the nicest cool girl there is. That’s why she won, why we all voted for her. ’Cause she says hi to us in the hallway and partners up with us in class. She’s nice, Dad. She’s not a mean girl like some of her friends.”
He hated hearing Ginger speak this way. “I think you’re just as pretty as she is, Ginger,” Eli said to her, and he meant it. “You have a warmer beauty. She’s like an ice queen. And she’s too skinny. Guys like a little flesh.”
“I think it’s a good
idea. The mini-monster thing. Instead of the big guy.”
“Mini-hominid,” Eli said, taking a turn too quickly. “She told you about her three-foot-tall Sasquatch idea?”
“She told everyone, Dad, and we all think it’s a great idea.”
“‘We all’? ‘We all’ who?”
“You know. Me. Gary. The entire float committee.”
“Is Gary the tall kid with the baseball cap?”
Ginger’s face and neck blotched at the question.
“You like him,” Eli said, steering onto their street now, “and I think that’s great. He looks like a nice kid.”
Ginger put her face in her hands. “Ack. Kill me now.”
“But I agreed to help with the float committee on one condition,” Eli continued, “and that was to create a fully functioning hominid/hominin model based on my research of Northwest Sasquatch.”
“But, Dad—” Ginger protested weakly.
“That was my condition, Ginger,” Eli said firmly, pulling on the parking brake and shutting off the ignition.
He turned to Ginger and put a hand on her left shoulder. She smiled at him for a moment and then pulled away, up and out of the car. He was glad to see that she wasn’t mad at him, not really.
* * *
THE NEXT DAY was a Saturday. The parade was taking place later in the evening, so they had a full day to wire and affix the Sasquatch model to the lowboy trailer.
Eli shook Ginger awake at dawn and urged her to dress quickly. Once they were in his car, Eli offered her a bagel and a box of apple juice, as he would when she was a little girl. She accepted the food sleepily and leaned her head against the window. She wore shorts and purple high-tops and a roomy navy sweatshirt. She had matured faster than Amelia, had large breasts and a thicker waist. She looked entirely like a grown woman. This made Eli a little sad.
“Why are we up so early?” Ginger asked, sucking on her juice box.
The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac Page 18