The Art of Floating (13 page)

Ma
ude Bun was Richard's gatekeeper. Corpulent and soft, she had a slow-crawling drawl that made you feel that if you listened long enough, you'd be taken on a long journey to some amazing place. If you needed directions to the east side of town, Maude first backed you up to the west side and gave you the governor's tour. If you popped in during your lunch break for a signature on an official document, she wound you round to the origin of the written word, about which she knew nothing but could pontificate forever. Like an old Chinese monk, Maude had a mole on her chin with a single long gray hair streaming from its center. She had a mammoth crush on Richard and an equally powerful sweet tooth. Sia knew this, so when she could no longer stand not knowing what was happening to Toad, she drove to the bakery, picked up two boxes of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, and headed for the station.

•  •  •

As always, Maude was seated in the small gray space behind the big glass window. When she saw Sia, she chuckled. “I knew you'd show up sooner rather than later, Odyssia Winchell Dane,” she said.

“I come bearing gifts,” Sia said, holding the cookies in front of her.

“Good thing, my dear.”

Sia passed the boxes through the big metal drawer. “Is Richard timing me?”

“Course he is,” Maude said.

“How long did he give me?”

“Don't worry. You're winning. He expected you two hours ago.”

Sia smiled. “I had to go to the bakery first.”

Maude opened a box and bit into a cookie. “See, Sia, I knew there was a reason it had to be you that found this guy. I've been missing these.”

“So how is Toad doing?” Sia asked.

“He's a quiet one, isn't he?”

“Yes, he is that.”

“Gorgeous, too.”

“Yes, you should hear Jillian talk about him.”

“And you got to keep him overnight.”

“Absolutely uneventful, Maude.”

Maude smiled. “If it were me . . .” Sia felt herself being hoisted into the cart that would take her on a long journey through Maude's fantasies about Richard, and though usually she would have happily gone along for the ride and the distraction, she couldn't summon the patience. “Maude, can I talk to Toad?” she said.

Maude sighed. “Can't let you, Sia. Boss's orders.”

“Oh, come on, Maude.”

“Can't, Sia.”

“Maude . . .”

“Stay put. Let me talk to Richard for a minute.”

Sia turned and sat down on the rock-hard wooden bench that was clearly intended to keep people like her uncomfortable and not interested in sticking around too long.

“Richard says to come back later,” Maude said.

“What?” Sia stood and walked to the glass. She pressed her nose against it.

“Later, Sia. Come back later.”

“Maude . . . why?” Sia glanced down at the cookies. A total waste.

“He doesn't want Toad to get distracted.”

“Distracted from what?”

“The questioning, I guess.”

“This isn't an interrogation, Maude. We're just trying to figure out where the guy came from and how to get him back there.”

“That's what Richard said.”

Sia looked up at the ceiling and growled. “What time, then?”

“Four thirty,” Maude said.

“Fine, but please just let me see him before I go. Just a glance, Maude. I need to know he's okay.”

Maude looked down at the containers of cookies on her desk. “Sia . . .”

“Please.”

“Okay, but quickly. And not one word. Richard cannot know that I'm giving in to you. He warned me.”

Sia nodded.

“Silence, Sia.”

Sia nodded again. When Maude unlocked the door, she moved into the inner sanctum of the station.

“Room three,” Maude said. “You know the way.”

Sia turned left. In front of the large window, she paused. Toad was sitting straight-backed and proper, and his hands were folded on the table in front of him.

“Thank God,” Sia said. He was still there. Same black suit with chalky salt marks all over it. Same look of nothing on his face.

The minnow splashed in Sia's middle. She bowed her head until her forehead touched the glass.

•  •  •

“Mom?”

“What? What is it, Sia?” M clutched the trowel when she heard the tenor of Sia's voice.

“Mom?” Sia whispered into her phone.

“I'm here.”

“I found a man this morning.”

“What, sweetie?”

“A man on the beach. I found him this morning and took him home with me.”

“A man?”

“Yeah, a living, breathing, sad, lost man.”

“And you took him home?”

“I had to.”

“Tell me everything,” M said, and as she listened she covered the receiver with her hand and whispered the word
curse
to Stuart.

Gift
, he whispered back.

“Te
ll the story about when your mom took you to the doctor for your empathy issue,” Jilly said.

Sia rolled her eyes. “Not again, Jil. Any other story, but not that one.”

“Oh, come on. I love when you do the doctor's voice. Just one time.”

“Fine.” Sia took a swig of beer, sat up straight, and cleared her throat. “Mzzzz. Wnnnchelllll,” she began in a deep voice, “there izzzz nothing wrong with your dog-tur that izzzzn't wrong with every other twelve-year-old gurrrlll in the wurrrllld. Horrrr-mones. Pooo-berty. Preeee-mennn-stroooo-al syndrome. Has Odyssia started mennn-strooo-ating yet?”

Jilly howled with laughter. “Pooo-berty,” she squealed. “Pooo-berty.”

•  •  •

Despite Sia's reputation for having one of the sexiest hind ends in high school, three potentially serious boyfriends had run like gazelles the first time they'd come face-to-face—or maybe heart-to-heart—with Sia's overly empathic tendencies:

When an earthquake in China killed oh-how-many-thousands, dropping Sia into a nearly catatonic state, Boyfriend #1 did the polite thing. “I can't see you anymore,” he whispered into the phone. “I don't understand you.”

When a favorite teacher was killed in a skydiving accident and Sia stayed in bed for three weeks, Boyfriend #2 showed up at a party with another girl draped over him like a damp towel. (Someone summarized the story on the bathroom wall: “Henry dropped the hot tamale like a hot potato.”)

When they saw a beagle get smooshed by a dump truck, Boyfriend #3 looked at Sia whimpering against the stop sign and strolled away. Just like that. “I just can't date a blubbering, blabbering ball of goo. Even if you do have a sexy ass,” he said.

“Look at them go,” Sia said each time she got the ax.

•  •  •

Jackson hadn't even flinched.

“Does your empathy feel like an arm?” her therapist asked.

Sia raised her arm over her head and waggled it. She was lying down on the couch, though she hadn't ever lain down before. It wasn't that kind of therapy. “Nope, it doesn't feel like an arm.”

“So not like an appendage?”

“Technically,” Sia said, “an appendage is a thing that is added or attached to something larger or more important . . . like a tail. If my empathy is an appendage, that would imply that I am the thing that is larger and more important.”

“Mm-hm.”

Sia thought for a moment. Waggled both arms overhead. And finally, “Nope, it doesn't feel like an appendage.” She dropped her arms.

Her therapist sipped her coffee. “Like an organ?”

“Like an organ . . .” Sia said.

“Technically . . .” her therapist prompted.

“Technically,” Sia said, “an organ is a part of an organism that is self-contained and has a specific vital function. You know, like the heart or liver.”

“So?”

Sia put her hand over her heart. She could feel it pat-pat-pattering away and imagined it was saying
Jack-Jack-Jackson Jack-Jack-Jackson
.

“So?”

“Is a penis an appendage or an organ?” Sia asked.

Her therapist laughed.

“Are therapists supposed to laugh?” Sia asked.

“When things are funny, sure.”

Sia sat up.

“Back to the empathy? Like an organ?”

“Yeah, more like an organ than an appendage, I'd say. I always feel it in the same place and it definitely serves a vital function.”

“Where do you feel it?”

Sia poked at her belly, just above her navel. “Here.”

“And you're sure its function is vital?”

Sia cocked her head. She knew what was coming.

“Well, Sia, technically
vital
means that something is indispensable to the continuance of life.”

Harumph.

“Brad Pitt.”

“Oh, come on, Jilly. Toad doesn't look anything like Brad Pitt.”

“Brad Pitt in
Thelma and Louise
.”

“Uh-uh.”

“Leonardo DiCaprio.”

“He's a boy, Jilly.”

“A good-looking boy.”

“If you like men who will always look like boys.”

“Okay, okay. I'll keep thinking.”

“Don't bother.”

“I will.”

“I know.”

“Bye, Sia.”

“Bye, Jil.”

Click.

Shortly after the house opened, Sia told M that she floated, and M started watching the sky. She thought if she looked hard enough, she would be able to see her daughter making her way about town. It was Odyssia, after all. Her beautiful, shining Odyssia. She propped a chair in the backyard where she believed her line of sight to the heavens was unencumbered, and when she discovered that the hickory tree in the southeast corner blocked her view, she snatched Stuart's chainsaw from the shed and chopped it down. It fell neatly between the house and the fence with an impressive thud, and when Stuart saw it later that night, he thanked God that M hadn't been killed.

“M, what were you thinking?” he said. “You should have waited.”

“Waited for what?”

“For me. For a professional tree company. For a lightning strike. For help from the neighbors. For your sanity to return. For anything.”

•  •  •

That night . . . light wind, feathery clouds, bright sunshiny moon, clear sky.

After they ate, Stuart turned off all the lights in the house and joined M in the yard. He spread a blanket on the grass and they lay down on it together.

“What do we look for?” he asked.

“I don't know. I've never seen anyone float.”

“I never knew anyone could.”

Each time a bat swooped down from the pine next door, M's heart jumped. “Odyssia?” she whispered into the dark.

“Just another bat, darling.”

The night settled in and the clouds drifted off until the moon was left alone in the center of the sky.

“Does she float at night?” Stuart said.

“She said she floats when she needs to.”

“What does she do up there?”

“Look for Jackson, I think.”

“Does she think she'll find him?”

“Maybe she thinks she'll find herself.” M sighed. “Stuart, what if she doesn't come home for good, all of her?”

“She will.”

When the neighbors turned off their lights around eleven o'clock, the night shifted again. The sky settled into the earth like a blanket settling over a sleeping child's body. The lightning bugs gathered in the open spaces beneath bushes.

“Stuart, what do lightning bugs eat?”

Stuart shook his head. M felt it against her shoulder.

“Jackson would know. He knew all that stuff. I miss that.”

“Me, too.”

“Maybe we can look it up tomorrow.”

“That's a good idea.”

At midnight they thought they saw a shadow that could have been Odyssia. It wasn't a bat or a lightning bug or a lone wispy cloud. But they couldn't be sure.

At one o'clock, M fell asleep. Stuart waited until her breath was even and little snores were coming out of her nose. Then he wrapped her in the blanket, lifted her, and carried her into the house. He put her in bed and went back outside. This time he sat in a chair and watched.

A
nd the jump-jump-jump-ropers went like this:

Sexy, sassy Sia Dane

wrote good books

and found much fame.

Sexy, sassy Sia Dane

lost her husband

what a shame.

(boo hoo!)

Sexy, sassy Sia Dane

closed her house up

down the lane.

The grass grew high.

The grass grew thick.

Couldn't part it with a stick.

When a single shingle blew,

the house cracked open.

Would Sia too?

Sexy, sassy Sia Dane

how many days

until she's sane?

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

. . .

On
ce Sia's house opened, advice from folks all over town poured in:

from the stoner kid in the town square . . .

“Ah, duuuuudddde, hub's gone. Massive bummer. But you're a free woman. Sweeeeeet.”

from Mrs. Houghton . . .

“Sia, dear, he'll be back. Every man needs a little space from time to time. Jack will get his and be back in a jiffy.”

from Mack the butcher . . .

“A couple of rib eyes, Odyssia. Thicken the blood. Strengthen your constitution.”

from Bert the mailman . . .

“Once again, nothing from that no-good husband, sweetheart. But I'm here for you. You got an itch, old Bert will scratch it. You got a need, old Bert will satisfy it.” (wink, wink)

from Joe Laslow . . .

“No use crying over spilled milk.”

from Reverend Carter . . .

“Never would that boy have left you of his own volition. Something went awry. But don't let sadness rule your home, Odyssia. Jackson's spirit is alive and well . . . here with us at this very moment.”

from Gumper's vet . . .

“Anti-depressants. Therapy, too. I know a terrific dog psychologist. Worked wonders on my poodle after I cut his balls off.”

from Slow-Pour Sally . . .

“Double-shot espresso.”

from Jack's mom . . .

“What would Jack do in your place?”

from Jack's fellow fish-and-wildlife officers . . .

(hand on heart; head bowed)

from Nils and Harry . . .

“We've got your back, Sia. You need anything, call us.”

from her accountant . . .

“Change your passwords. All of them. If that cheating bastard is out running around on you, eventually he'll drain your accounts. Don't be one of THOSE women who gets left high and dry and ends up sobbing to a talk show host on daytime TV.”

from the gal at the liquor store . . .

“Tequila. Eat the worm.”

from her publisher (via Jilly) . . .

“Writing is therapeutic. Use your pain.”

from her computer . . .

“Discover the love of your life at Match.com.”

from her yoga teacher . . .

“Corpse pose.”