The Art of Floating
Page 28
“Depends on what you believe about God. I see a lot but not everything, and I have no power at all.”
“What’s the use then?”
“I don’t know.”
• • •
Despite Sia’s warning, Jilly called Richard when they reached the split with 93. “I know it’s three A.M., Richard, but we’ve got him! We’ve got him!”
“Jillian? Is that you? What time is it?”
“Yes, it’s me. It’s three in the morning. We’ve got him!”
“You’ve got who, Jillian?”
“Who? What do you mean who? Toad. That’s who. The Silent Man.”
“You have Toad?”
“Yes, we sneaked him out of McLean. He’s in the backseat of Sia’s car right now.”
“Where are you?”
“In the front seat.”
“Let me talk to Odyssia.”
“Sia, Richard wants to talk to you.”
“I’m driving, Jilly. Tell him I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you, Richard.”
“Are you okay, Jillian? Both of you?”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re okay. We’re great. We’ve never stolen a man before. It’s exciting.”
“You’re really okay, Jillian?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Okay, I’ll call you as soon as my alarm goes off.”
“Great. Have a good sleep, Richard.”
• • •
“He likes you.”
“I know.”
“You like him, too.”
“I know.”
• • •
On the sign at the Unitarian Church:
You must be the change you want to see in the world.
(Mahatma Gandhi)
Jilly: “Not sure this is what he meant, Sia.”
• • •
From the herd of reporters snoozing on the fence:
“Whoo-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
CHAPTER 143
The gangly geek coined the next day’s award-winning headline:
VICTORIOUS VIGILANTES!
• • •
“You did what?” Sia’s therapist said.
“Took Toad back.”
“From the mental hospital?”
Sia laughed. “Yep.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Yep.”
“With Jilly?”
“Yep.”
“That’s illegal, Sia.”
“I know.”
“Good for you.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
Sia smiled.
“Have you floated this week?”
“Not yet.”
“Hmmmm.”
CHAPTER 144
Out of the stacks of letters on a Thursday, one was actually addressed to and intended for Sia.
“Well?” Jilly said.
“It’s an invitation.”
“To what?”
“To speak at an awards dinner for writers in New York.”
“Cool.”
Sia flapped the invitation against her thigh. “All invitations come through you. Why didn’t this one?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Jilly said.
“Liar.”
“What? You think I set this up?”
Sia raised her eyebrows.
“I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
• • •
“Sooooo . . . are you going to do it?”
“Maybe.”
CHAPTER 145
“Speed bump,” Sia said when she tripped over Toad for the third time. Gumper grumbled happily and she bent to rub his head.
CHAPTER 146
The package from China was different than all the others—bigger, but also weightier in its intention. Sia could feel that when she held it in her hands. The box was wrapped in cream-colored parchment, and it was addressed—in a beautiful handwritten script—to The Keeper of the Lost Man.
“Odyssia Dane,” Jilly said in a sultry voice, “The Keeper of the Lost Man.” When she said “Lost Man,” she fluttered her eyelashes and turned her head coyly.
“Oh, shut up,” Sia said. “I think it’s a good title for me.”
“I can think of better titles.”
Sia ignored her. When she opened the package, a flutter of dry pink petals fell out onto the table. “Wow, this person went to some trouble.” She gathered up the petals and put them in a glass bowl. Inside the package were two bound parcels.
The first was a bundle of pages bound with a red velvet ribbon tied neatly into a flat bow. The second was a similar bundle of pages bound in green ribbon. Sia opened a drawer and slid both packages into it.
“What? You’re not going to read them now?” Jilly asked.
“No, I’m going to save them for later.”
“Why? I want to read them, too.”
“I don’t know why. I just want to. You can read them tomorrow.”
“You know, Sia, Toad is not a necklace you get to keep to yourself and wear around your neck when you want to look pretty.”
“Oh, shut up.”
• • •
Sia and Toad sat out the storm on the porch. Water dripped down the morning glory vines, settling into small puddles in the dirt below. The sky was black and lightning bounced around them. Sia felt submerged and quiet. She loved storms, and afterward, she walked down the road in the sweet sunshiny post-storm light, clean green leaves gleaming and crimson flower petals glistening wet. She felt like a girl then, a before-Jackson-disappeared girl. Maybe even a before-Jackson-was-in-her-life girl.
• • •
Afterward, she left Toad in the garden with Gumper, pulled the two packages from China from the drawer, and settled into the cushy chair in the living room. When she untied the red ribbon on the first package, she discovered there were nine pages—all covered with Chinese characters. The characters—exquisitely drawn in black ink—wriggled on the page, contorting into spiders and people and the nod of a head and a roof. She couldn’t for the life of her imagine what each represented, but even so, she could feel the depth of the story. She traced the characters with her finger, wondering how long it had taken the author to write the letter.
After studying each page, she retied the pages into a bundle and set them in the drawer. She peeked at the second bundle. English. The translation was there, ready to be read, but she saved it for later. She needed something to look forward to, something to wonder about, not in the panicked way in which she’d wondered about the possibility of the juggler, but in a comfortable way.
Then she took Toad out for burgers and fries. Without paying any attention to the stares they got, the photographs that were snapped, or the murmuring around them, she walked him right into her favorite greasy spoon.
“Quit staring,” she said to the waitress. “He eats and drinks, just like you and me. He even pisses.”
• • •
The restaurant’s manager called Richard to clear off the crowd, but before he could get there, he was summoned to Starbucks.
“Mrs. Wysong and Joe Laslow?” he said, checking the date on his watch.
“Yep,” Maude said.
It was that time of year again. They were like clockwork. Two beaches had opened; Joe wanted them all.
• • •
When Richard walked in, Mrs. Wysong was already on a chair and Joe was jittering from table to table, quite obviously trying (and failing) to imitate the stuttered, frantic run of the piping plover. He was simply too big and clunky to even come close.
“You bird-killing bastard,” Mrs. Wysong spit at Joe, waving her warden cap. “You big, fat, selfish, bird-killing bastard.” Even
on the chair, she was still a few inches shorter than Joe, but her screeching accusations made her taller. She knew it. On the rare occasions that she fought with her husband—a six-footer—she climbed on the closest piece of furniture and ramped up the squawk.
“Enough, you two,” Richard said, stepping between them and offering a hand to Mrs. Wysong. “There is enough space for all of us on the island—including the plovers. Joe—get going.” He pointed to the door. “And Mrs. Wysong, aren’t you late for your shift at the beach?”
“You should arrest him, Richard,” she said, tamping her cap into place. “He’s a murderer.”
CHAPTER 147
“You just let them have a party around the beacon?”
“I didn’t let them, Jilly. I woke up and discovered them.”
“Drinking and singing ‘I’m Running Over a Piping Plover’?”
“Drinking and singing ‘I’m Running Over a Piping Plover.’”
Jilly picked up another beer can and dropped it into the garbage bag. Budweiser. “Imbeciles with bad taste,” she said.
“I broke it up as soon as I saw them.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t clean up the crap.”
“It was two o’clock in the morning.”
“What if the aluminum cans interrupted the signal? What if Toad’s people can’t find him because you dillydallied?”
Sia sighed and added three more cans to the bag. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“You should have,” Jilly said.
“You’re right. I should have.”
CHAPTER 148
“Dead end,” Richard said.
“Was it Seth?” Mrs. Windwill asked.
“His son. He stole the car that night and went out to the beach with his girlfriend.”
“The older boy?”
“No, the younger one.”
“Is he old enough to drive?”
“No, he’s fourteen.”
“Uh-oh. How did Seth take it?”
“Not well.”
“Did the boy see anything? Sia? Toad? Anything?”
“No, he was pretty wrapped up in the thrill and fear of driving around with his girlfriend in the middle of the night. He remembers a thump when he hit the otter, but he didn’t stop or slow down. Said he figured it was a bump in the road.”
“Hmmm. End of that, I guess.”
“Afraid so.”
• • •
“Where do the plovers go in the winter?”
Stuart looked up from his paper. “I don’t know, darling. Someplace warmer than here, I imagine.”
“You think Florida?”
“Maybe.”
“Wish we could call Jackson. He’d know.”
“Course he would. But since he’s not here, why don’t we Google it?”
CHAPTER 149
Pressed up against the screen of Sia’s front door, Dr. Dillard’s face looked like a glob of cookie dough stuffed into a sheer stocking.
“Go away!” Jilly shouted. “You’re scaring me.”
“I want to talk to Mrs. Dane.”
“Mrs. Dane is not here.”
“Of course she’s there.”
“No, she’s not.”
“You’re lying, Miss Weaver. I just saw her through the window.”
“Quit spying on us.”
“You can’t keep the Silent Man. I’m going to get a court order and take him back to the hospital where he belongs.”
“You wouldn’t dare. The media and Toad’s fans will eat you alive. Your reputation will be shit. More shit than it is already,” Jilly said. “Now go away.” Then she popped him a light one in the nose.
Dr. Dillard jolted back from the screen. “Hey, that hurt.” He rubbed his nose.
“Quit sticking your fat schnoz where it’s not wanted.”
“I’ll be back, you know. This is crazy. You won’t get away with this.”
“You’re right. This is crazy. Now get off Sia’s property before we call Richard to arrest you for trespassing.”
Dr. Dillard stomped around for a few more minutes. Then he rolled down the stoop and along the sidewalk to his car. The photographers begged for interviews, a statement, anything. But this time, he ducked into his Lexus and drove off.
CHAPTER 150
Sia was awake this time. From the beginning. From the moment Toad turned her foot and tasted the shallow hollow near her ankle. Bit her calf. Nuzzled the back of one knee. Licked the other. His chin scratched her thigh and she wondered if he tasted salt from her evening swim. He buried his face between her legs, spread them, opened her. Then she forgot to wonder anything at all. He was inside, on top, and under. Hard. Rough. Lightning cracked on the beach. Rain lashed. Sia swallowed. Thunder rolled out to sea.
CHAPTER 151
Sia pulled the English version of the letter from China from the drawer.
Dear Keeper of the Lost Man,
My name is Xiao Xia Lu and I am writing on behalf of my great-great-grandmother. She wrote the pages in Chinese in this package, but because she doesn’t speak or write English, she asked me to translate for her. My grandmother is a wise woman . . . a follower of lost souls. Like many followers, she is a lot older than she would have you believe. I thank you for taking the time to read her words. I will now disappear from this letter and deliver her story in the very best English I can. I owe her this and much, much more. Please know that in Mandarin, it is only more beautiful.
• • •
Xiao Xia Lu disappeared.
Dear Keeper of the Lost Man,
I am an old woman in Fujian Province in China. If you saw me, you would laugh. I have only three teeth left in my mouth and a few very short hairs on my head. I have lived here for one hundred and six years. Each year my great-great-grandchildren anticipate my death, but each year I simply lose one tooth and one hair and continue to arrive at the dinner table for a bit of rice and a bite of chicken.
Though we are in a rural area, my youngest great-great-granddaughter travels to and from the city each week to do her work. It is a long journey for her, but she says that it is her time to think and wonder about the world. Each Friday, she carries a newspaper home with her and in the evening reads to me about faraway lands and faraway people. It is here that I first heard of the lost man who appeared at the water’s edge near your home.
The story that my great-great-granddaughter read to me had a picture, too. You are a very beautiful woman, of course, but there is something deeper that I saw. Like this lost man, you, too, are wandering this world without a rope to tether you. She and I have talked about you a great deal and I wonder if you feel this when you sleep, as she tells me that when we are talking in our part of the world, you are sleeping in yours.
Most importantly, perhaps, I have seen the man who stays with you now. At first when I told her this, my great-great-granddaughter thought I meant that I had seen him in my dreams—as I see many things in my dreams and she is accustomed to hearing about these.
“No, Grandmother,” she said to me the first few times I insisted. “It is not possible.”
“Yes,” I told her, “right here in our village, and not so long ago either.”
As you might imagine, a tall man with fair hair is instantly noticeable here in our village. It is true that the bigger cities in China are sprinkled with men like this now, but not our villages and towns. These are still filled with those of us born of this country.
Keeper of the Lost Man, it has taken a while for my granddaughter to find the place where we can send this letter. Otherwise we would have sent it long ago. She had to speak to the editor of the newspaper many times before she received the information we required.
Now that you and I are here together, I will tell you that the man appeared beside a pond where I take my morning tea. My family installed a small be
nch where I can curl for a nap when the need arises. When you are one hundred and six years on this earth, you too will nap when the need arises.
On that day, I had taken my tea, talked to my ancestors, and curled for my nap on the bench. The last thing I remember before falling asleep was the call of a bird. He was sitting on a low branch of a cherry tree. I do not know how long I slept. Time is of no use to me anymore. But when I woke, the first thing I saw was the Lost Man kneeling by the pond. His face was empty, as it is in the newspaper photograph, but his eyes were full. You must know what I mean, as he has been your companion now for many days.
Though my family says I should have been scared, I was not. I also no longer have any need for fear in my life. That is for young people who have something to lose. Mostly I felt sorrow. It swam to me from him and nearly drowned me. What irony would that be? To have lived one hundred and six years only to be drowned by a fair man’s sorrow. So I fought that end and instead climbed into a sitting position, struggled into a standing position, and slowly made my way to his side. I hoped he might be crying, for it is clear he needs to, but he was not. He was simply staring into the pond, as if there might be an answer floating on one of the lily pads.
I dared a liberty I might not have dared with another stranger and put my hand on his head. For many minutes he didn’t move and I could feel his sadness in my hand. Thankfully, I am strong, and no amount of sadness is too great for me to bear. I lost one husband and my only daughter, the first to a cough and the second to a tiger. The first I could have withstood, as I didn’t care much for his person, but the second nearly sent me off the top of a mountain.
When he finally stood, I saw that he was wearing a black suit and white shirt. I would like to say he looked at me before I turned to go, but you know that would be a lie. In fact, he simply looked in my direction. This is how I know I could not be mistaken about the newspaper photograph. I will never forget his face.