by Farris, John
Gardeners were at work, pruning and planting, moving shrubs to new locations. An old black man was down on padded knees patiently cleaning bird droppings off the bricks, which varied in shading in a crazy-quilt pattern from dark red to pink. In a mossy area under a live oak that would have spread its most ancient boughs half the length of a city block, two caterers had lifted a wrapped steaming package from a firepit to check on the progress of the intact pig inside. Smoke was in the air, flavored with the aroma of cooked pork.
"Those have been cooking since yesterday afternoon," Lizzie said. "Shorty and Bum cater all of the big cookouts around here. I guarantee by ten o'clock tonight everybody'll be in a barbecue coma." She smacked her lips ecstatically, like Hannibal Lecter rhapsodizing over a human liver. "I can hardly wait."
Lizzie was carrying her CD Walkman, listening through one earpiece of a headphone to whatever-it-was while she talked to Joe. The music that leaked through the dangling earpiece clashed violently with the tranquil, sun-dappled gardens.
"What group is that?"
"Pig Vomit."
"You're making it up."
"I swear! Some of the nastiest stuff I've ever heard. Masturbation and peeing and coming and so forth. I mean, it's vile."
"So why listen to it?"
Lizzie shrugged. "Because it's happening. They're expressing their rage and disgust at the world we live in. That makes it kind of interesting, in a way—if you think about barf as, you know, sort of a metaphor. Cool. Anyway, I have to know what's happening, or I'd just be some kind of drupe at school, totally lame."
"How come you're out of school today?"
"Teachers' meeting. Lucky for you I'm here. I mean, nobody gets past Walter Lee ordinarily. That old carriage house? It's Abby's workshop. Really neat. Maybe you'll see it later."
She stopped and turned off her Walkman, hung the headphones around her neck.
"Could I ask your medical opinion about something?"
"Sure."
"I'm thirteen, almost thirteen and a half, and I haven't got it yet. Isn't that abnormal?"
"Not if you've been under a lot of stress."
Lizzie scratched an ear, then scratched a bare shoulder. "Well, I guess I have been stressed. My stepfather; and then my mother's been making me crazy since I can remember." She looked down critically at herself. "Nothing much is happening up front, but I've got pubic hair. I had to shave some of it already. Should I pick out some kid in my class and do it with him? A friend of mine says that's how she got started."
"I doubt it. Very bad idea, Lizzie."
Lizzie shrugged, not as if she were disappointed. "Okay. There aren't any guys at school I'd want to give my body to anyway. They're all a bunch of hicks. What should I do, then?"
"Hang on another two or three months, then if you still haven't menstruated, see 'a gynecologist."
"The only one in town is so old he's positively creepy. I can't imagine letting him touch me." She gave Joe a speculative look, but said nothing more about the matter. "C'mon. Abby's swimming. This way, Joe."
The sweet smell of roses and tang of baking pork gave way to muggier, lightly misted air as they entered the pool pavilion. There was no odor of chlorine; the swimming-pool water was cleaned by ozone filtration.
At the shallow end of the pool, the size of a basketball court, a man and a woman stood waist-deep in the churned water watching a swimmer go from one tiled side wall to the other, breast-stroking, working hard.
"One more lap, Abby," the woman said encouragingly; her voice had a slight echo in the navelike space. "Can you do it today?"
Lizzie put a hand on Joe's arm. They paused in the colonnaded lounging area, where tanning lamps in the low ceiling alternated with conventional lighting for cloudy winter days.
"Abby had this built about a year ago," Lizzie said. "She was putting on too much weight. But she's looking great now."
Joe studied the swimmer. About all he could see of her was a bright orange cap and goggles.
"That's Abby in the pool? Who are—"
"The one with the hairy chest is Norse. He's Norwegian or something. I thought he was to die for, but he goes on and on about muscle groups. He said he could help me develop my bustline. Uh-huh. He gives Charlene massages, and I don't think that's all he gives her. She's Tonya. What an airhead, but look at that body! They're physical therapists."
As Pamela Abelard reached the end of her cross-pool lap, the strapping Norse reached her and held her up. Joe had a sudden chilly feeling. He looked at Lizzie again, but she was watching something that had flown in through an open window, cringing a little as it seemed about to dart near her head.
"Terrific, Abby," the therapist named Tonya enthused. "Sixty laps today. How do you feel?"
"Out of breath," Abby managed to say, "Great. No problems. Help me out now."
It was obvious to Joe, as the physical therapists combined to carry Pamela Abelard up the steps at the shallow end of the pool, that she was paralyzed, at least from the waist down. A flotation collar held her ankles together.
"Hey," Lizzie said softly, jolting him out of his own paralysis. "What's the matter?"
"My God. I had no idea."
"It was a hit-and-run driver. Abby was nineteen. The boy she was going to marry died after a week in a coma. I don't think she's ever gotten over him."
Abby was coughing up some pool water. When she could speak, she said in a squeaky voice, "Jaysus. Cramp. Left shoulder."
Norse went to work on her immediately as she sat on a poolside bench. Abby reached up with her other hand and pulled off the orange swim cap, letting her abundant auburn hair tumble. For a longtime paraplegic she was well preserved and proportioned.
"Hey," she said, regaining full use of her voice, "I was good today, wasn't I? I'll be ready to try for a mile before the year's over. Ouch!"
"Really knotted here," Norse explained as he eased up on the pressure.
Tonya unwrapped the Velcro flotation collar and covered Abby's legs with a beach towel. Abby groaned again, spat another mouthful of water on the pool apron, then straightened up and waved Norse away from her shoulder. For the first time she noticed Lizzie and Joe.
"Lizzie, hey! Did you see me?"
"Great!" Lizzie called back.
"C'mere, sweetie. Who's with you?"
"Joe."
"Joe, who's Joe? C'mon, both of you."
As they walked toward her Abby leaned over again, this time pressing both hands on the quadriceps muscle of her right leg. She grimaced and flipped the towel back. Her leg was trembling violently, thigh and calf muscles jitterbugging, the foot kicking as if she were about to leap up from the bench and hit the dance floor.
"God damn it," Abby said grimly.
"Do you want your Lioresal?" Tonya asked her.
"No. That stuff makes me stupid," she complained.
The absurdist motions of her leg were already quieting. Abby was still trying to get her breath when the dragonfly appeared in sunlight over her shoulder, hovering in radiance like an insectile Tinkerbell. Abby didn't notice until the dragonfly sailed down to alight in the crook of her left arm. She didn't react badly. She seemed to be used to insects.
"Look at that! Isn't it a beauty?"
"Don't they bite?" Tonya said, timidly preparing to whisk the dragonfly away with her golfer's terry-cloth sunshade.
"No, they don't bite," Joe said. "Actually they bring good luck."
They all looked at him. Norse stepped back from Abby, flexing his strong hands, and kneeled to take a bottle of lotion from a gym bag. Abby wiped away water dripping down her tanned face from the goggles she had propped at the hairline and smiled critically atJoe.
Her two front teeth had space between them and stood out slightly from the even line of her other teeth, like alabaster gates about to open. The effect lent expectancy to her smile.
"Tell me another," she challenged him. The dragonfly continued to rest in the crook of her arm, the wings, colored like oil on water
, moving slowly.
"My mother had a dragonfly tattooed on her left shoulder."
"Yeah? What kind of luck did she have?"
"She had me," Joe said.
Abby demonstrated a rollicking, living-it-up-in-abarroom laugh.
"When a dragonfly lights on you, it means you've been touched by good fortune."
"I'm already famous, rich and good-looking," Abby said, holding his gaze, amused by all the conceits. "What else do I need?"
"You'd have to be the one to answer that."Norse began working on the shoulder that had cramped with a milky lotion, glancing at Joe as he kneaded and stroked in a professional but still proprietary manner. He had three small diamonds in the lobe of one ear, like awards to his sexual ego. His smile was tight and guarded. He paid Joe a lot of attention. Joe already had seen all he needed to see of Norse.
Abby dwelled on the motionless dragonfly.
"They're all over the garden," she said. "But I haven't had one come this close. He's not afraid of me, is he?"
She looked around for confirmation. Lizzie said disdainfully, "Bugs is bugs."
Abby made a face at her, then glanced up at Joe. Her slightly brassy gray eyes were partly veiled, eyelashes delicately enhanced by tiny waterdrops.
"Joe? Joe what?"
"Bryce."
"What?" she said, in disbelief. "B-R-Y-C-E?"
'''Son of the Ardent One.' At least I think that's what the name Bryce means."
"You bet it does! God, is this incredible? In my first novel I named my hero Joseph Bryce!"
"The Confederate blockade runner. I know. It's quite a coincidence, isn't it? Flames of War is still my favorite of all your books."
"Come on. You haven't read all my books."
"Yes, I have. Ask me something."
"Okay. Ten bucks says you can't tell me the name of the Ku Klux Klan infiltrator in Mercy's Flame."
He pretended to have to think about it while her smile broadened, mockingly.
"Peter Langtree."
Abby laughed gleefully. He knew he would have liked her from the sound of her laughter, even if he had never set eyes on her.
"You look like Captain Bryce, too," She had been out of the water for a couple of minutes, and now she was getting gooseflesh. Tonya helped her put on a striped terry pool robe. "I mean, you're almost the way I pictured him in my mind when I was writing the book."
"Where's my ten bucks?" Joe said. He felt it was safe to show a little attitude.
"God, you sound like Bryce."
"Who sounded a lot like Rhett Butler, by the way."
"Okay, okay, don't pick on me, it was my first novel, you have to steal from somebody. Anyway, I always pay my debts." She leaned forward on the bench as if to shake his hand. The dragonfly took flight, soaring in a magically quick, zigzagging pattern over the surface of the quieted turquoise pool.
"Oh-oh. There goes my good fortune," she said, almost as glum as if she believed the story.
"Once you've been touched by the dragonfly, you'll always be blessed."
Her grin was a little cock-eyed. "Mon, you can talk the talk. Not a writer, are you?"
"Just a fan. It's been a real pleasure meeting you. I've looked forward to this for a long time."
Norse, with a sulky glance at Joe, said, "Abby, you should change."
"Yeah. If you guys will excuse me; I can't afford to take a chill. I'm allergic to antibiotics. Hey, don't go anywhere!" she said, concentrating on Joe. "Can you spare the time?"
"I hadn't planned—I just wanted to have my book signed—"
"No problem! Tonya, take the book for me and leave it in the office box with a note. Lizzie, I'm deputizing you. Don't let Cap—Mr. Bryce—get away. Somebody fetch Rolling Thunder for me."
Norse brought the mechanized wheelchair, which was flying a miniature Confederate flag, and Abbyadroitly maneuvered herself into it, zippd off to one of the changing rooms.
Lizzie sneezed. "Ozone wrecks my sinuses. I never use the pool. Can we go outside, Joe?"
"Sure, Lizzie."
He smiled at Tonya, handing her his copy of Honor's Flame, and walked with Lizzie into the garden. The day was heating up, but there was an unexpectedly spanking breeze from the northeast, the quarter from which most storms came to this coast. On the Weather Channel, an early-morning habit of his, Joe had seen the satellite shot of a big bulge of tropical storm off Africa's west coast. A little late in the season for one of those, but like any good sailor he'd filed the information away instinctively.
Bruiser wandered over to have his head scratched. "Thirteen years," Lizzie said broodingly. "She's thirty-two now: If it had been me I'd've killed myself, but I don't have any talent. I guess that's what keeps Abby going."
They sat together on a low brick wall. The batteries in Lizzie's Walkman had gone dead. Birds were chipper in a clump of hackberry nearby. Lizzie juggled the dead batteries in the palm of one hand. "No legs," she said, "but that's not all that's going."
"What do you mean, Lizzie?"
Lizzie looked uncomfortable. "I don't like talking about Abby. After all, she's the one who's been decent to me around here. I don't think Dr. Luke likes me. Charlene, forget it. Anyway, maybe Abby'll tell you, when you two get to talking again. You really took her over, Joe. Did you see Norse's face? He'd like to put you in the firepit with tonight's dinner."
"Is he Abby's boyfriend too?"
"Ha. Doesn't he wish. All that money. But he's never got anywhere with her. No, Abby likes you, Joe. But I bet that isn't a big deal for you. I bet a lot of women like you."
He smiled at her melancholy, slightly miffed expression.
"I haven't had much time for women, Lizzie. Let you in on a little secret?"
For a few moments Lizzie looked shocked "You're gay?"
"No. The fact is, women kind of scare me."
Lizzie's face scrunched on one side again, and her finely-haired eyebrows rose skeptically.
"Tell me another," she said, bringing her voice down in a good imitation of Pamela Abelard's own husky contralto.
Chapter Thirteen
Abby had changed into a free-fitting white jumpsuit with an elastic waistband and top; the suit was cinched with a woven fabric belt that had a Western-style, turquoise-studded silver buckle. Whatever her weight problems might have been before the pool pavilion was finished, she looked to be in excellent shape now despite her confinement to a wheelchair.
"I spend most of my mornings in the garden when the weather's good," she said to Joe. "Would you be interested in a tour, Mr. Bryce?"
"Dr. Bryce," Lizzie corrected her. "He's my new pediatrician." She appealed to Joe again. "Couldn't I take shots or something to speed up my development?"
"Lizzie, behave," Abby said, with a trace of annoyance. "Puberty will catch up to you." Her face in the sun showed crinkles at the corners of her eyes. Her thick sable eyebrows were darker than shadows. "So you're a doctor. You must play a lot of golf, with that tan."
"Haven't played for a long time. And white men in Equatorial Africa tend to pick up a tan."
Abby aimed Rolling Thunder down a garden path and took off. "Excuse me, they're putting the Euryops in the wrong places. Hey, Raymond! Aldous! Hold on a minute!"
Joe and Lizzie walked beside her, off the path, with Bruiser behind the wheelchair.
"Africa, huh? Whereabout?"
"Burundi. Médecins Sans Frontières had a grant to operate a clinic there. The misery level in Burundi is just about one hundred percent, and also we were dealing with Tutsi refugees from Rwanda." The, improvisation came easily; he was able to clearly picture himself in the stark settings he described, from pictures in news magazines he remembered in every detail. "Then the political winds shifted, and we were given twenty-four hours to get out of the country. I had a six-year-old patient with cerebrospinal meningitis I just couldn't leave; so I stayed past the deadline."
"What happened to you?"
His voice was matter-of-fact, a little gritty from
the pain it was so easy to feel.
"I took a beating and was thrown into a stockade for six weeks, until some officials from the UN and the Catholic bishop in Bujumbura negotiated me out."
"I'll bet you've had enough of Africa," Lizzie said, studying his face with an intensity akin to worship. She was walking backward and tripped over a raised brick. Joe reached out and caught her.
"I don't know, Lizzie. I honestly don't know the answer to that. I put in two years of eighteen-hour days. We were always short of everything: vaccines, antibiotics, plain old rubbing alcohol. More than half of all the supplies shipped to us were stolen as soon as theycame into the country. I spent a lot of precious time buying our own supplies back on the black markets, for three times what pharmaceuticals go for in the States." He paused and cleared his throat, a thoughtful, distant look in his eye; the bogus memory had become as real to him as the sweat on his brow.
"Where did you practice before you went to Africa?" Abby asked him.
He shifted gears effortlessly. "Winnetka, Illinois. That's just north of Chicago. I guess I could go back to my old group. It was a comfortable life and, yeah, I got to play some golf. But I can't stop thinking about that little six-year-old girl. When she knew they were taking me the light in her eyes slowly died, like... matches falling into a dark well." He thought the imagery would be appealing to Abby's literary mind.
Lizzie sighed hugely, biting her lip. Abby smiled sympathetically, then stopped to explain to the gardeners what she wanted done with the Euryops, which were small trees with profuse yellow flowers like daisies.
"Well, suppose we start our tour with the cemetery," Abby said cheerfully, when she'd finished giving precise mulching directions. "Oh, see this flower bed? The peonies came from the garden of the Emily Dickinson house in Amherst, Massachusetts. They were a gift from the president of the college. His wife is a fan, and she loved what I wrote about Emily in Honor's Flame."