The Probability of Miracles (32 page)

Then she envisioned the alternative. Asher staying forever in Promise, coaching the high school football team, flirting with the cheerleaders, letting himself drink beer. Just a little at first, and then a six-pack each night as he sat in a recliner, wondering what his life would have been. “You have to leave,” she whispered to him. But her voice was drowned out by another rousing chorus of children's voices.

The pace of the drumming was picking up as the guests gathered on the gray faux volcanic stone lanai outside the amphitheater. The tiki torches were lit even though the sun had yet to go down, and little girls in sundresses and white pants were climbing on the fake big-headed Polynesian sculptures. The guests ducked their heads so the performers could drape leis around their necks, and the show had reserved the bright purple ones made of real flowers for Cam and her party. She was grateful that none of the catalog kids blurted out any getting lei'd jokes. It was a serious pet peeve of Cam's. Not because it was disrespectful. Just because it was way too easy.

Izanagi had met them at the hotel. He had his arm around Perry's shoulder as he escorted her from the hotel lobby. He smiled and twirled her around, presenting to everyone the new pink flowered dress he'd bought for her in the gift shop.

“Cam, how could you bring her here with no clothes?” Izanagi asked.

“It was an accident,” Cam said. “How are you?”

“I'm fine,” he said, kissing her on both cheeks. Then he held his head down as if remembering again his disappointment that Alicia hadn't come with them. He had forgotten to shave or to iron his usually crisply laundered slacks.

They all sat at the center table in the front row. The plaintive and lonely Izanagi perked up a tiny bit once the food came and he was able to fling pieces of pineapple into people's mouths with his knife.

After the first number—a Hawaiian dance in honor of the sun—the MC, Momma Suzi, announced that an old friend had come to visit the show. She asked Cam to come onstage and juggle her fire knife.

“I think we still have it, Campbell. Ah, here it is,” she said as John, one of Cam's dad's old friends, carried the knife out to center stage. It was about the size and shape of a rifle.

Fire juggling was one of Cam's more tomboyish pursuits. There were not many girls who really wanted to do it, and she had mostly learned so she could spend time with her father. She wasn't sure what Asher would think. The crowd applauded, and they played her favorite song.

Finally she got up and lit each end of the knife. She began spinning it, vertically at first, with two hands. She threw the knife high into the air, spun around, and caught it behind her back. She swept the fire underneath her legs. She twirled the knife with one hand and then the other. She was in a trance, fully in the moment, when she heard the crowd start laughing, and she saw something big and orange in her peripheral vision.

Tigger was juggling a fire knife.

“Jackson,” she yelled. “Isn't that suit flammable?”

Tigger nodded his big chin up and down.

“Then get out of here!”

Tigger nodded again and tossed his fire knife to John, who caught it and doused the flames. Tigger waved to the audience and stepped down off the stage.

Cam twirled one more time and then realized that what she was doing was very similar to Sunny's twirling gig. She looked over at Sunny, who was beaming attentively at the whole production, and got an idea. She doused her flame, breathing in the familiar fumes of the lighter fluid, and gestured offstage for them to throw her another knife. Then she invited Sunny to come up to the stage.

The Florida sun had freckled Sunny's face, and she couldn't hide her big-toothed grin as she climbed onto the stage in her maxidress. Cam gave her one of the knives and then said, “Just do what I do.”

She shifted her weight back and forth from one foot to the other and then began tossing the knife between her hands. Sunny followed suit with her own knife, and then Cam began throwing hers higher into the air. Sunny did the same until they were both twirling madly. They ended with a big simultaneous toss-and-catch behind their backs.

The crowd went wild, shocked that a white girl could get all native like that without any preparation.
We are more alike than we are unalike
, Cam quoted to herself from Maya Angelou,
as much as Disney would try to have you believe otherwise.

Cam and Sunny took a bow, to the standing ovation of Mainers in front of them. Asher beamed at them, and Royal let out a piercing whistle. “Encore, encore!” they cried, but Cam and Sunny were done. They sat back down to enjoy the stomping and slapping dance of the Samoan men and the Hawaiian volcano goddess hula that closed the show.

Jackson left his Tigger costume in the kitchen and joined them with his new girlfriend, a cute little blonde girl named Peg.

“See what I mean?” Cam nudged Jackson and gestured with her chin toward Peg. “It would have been a mistake to try and date me. You look really happy.”

“I am,” he said. “Asher looks nice, too.”

“Ayuh,” Cam said, and she laughed because she had said it completely without irony.

After their steaming chocolate lava desserts, the show was over, and Cam said her good-byes to the cast of “Aloha,” Jackson, Joe the cook, and Momma Suzi the MC. Izanagi had been lurking around, waiting for his turn. He finally approached her with his head down, fiddling with the jade ring their mother had given him before she left. He didn't yet speak. It was as if he needed to concentrate to keep his composure.

“Bye, Iz, it was so nice to see you,” said Cam.

“Yeah, um, yes,” he stammered. When he finally looked up, his eyes were droopy and red rimmed as if he hadn't slept since they had left.
Wow
, thought Cam,
my mom really is a wicked heartbreakah.

“Don't be sad.” Perry wrapped her skinny arms around him and said, “We'll go to a Devil Rays game when we get back.”

“Okay,” Izanagi squealed, and then he let out an audible sob. He continued to sob on Perry's shoulder. Perry, still locked in this embrace, looked up at her sister, incredulous and slightly amused. She mouthed, “What do we do?”

We can't leave him like this
, thought Cam. There was nothing sadder than a man left alone and adrift.

“Come with us, Iz.”

“Really?” He looked up, blew his nose in his handkerchief, and smiled.

“Yeah.” Cam smiled. “We have a magic ticket.”

CAM ASKED THE FLIGHT ATTENDANT FOR SOME WATER AND SOME herbal tea and an aspirin.

“You okay?” Asher asked.

It was nice of him to notice. They were still parked at the gate, and he was already sitting straight-backed and stiff, white-knuckling the armrests, beads of sweat dripping down the side of his face.

“I'm okay. You just take care of yourself.” She had a little headache and a sore throat, but she was probably just dehydrated. “Close your eyes,” she said to Asher, “and imagine yourself on the ground in Promise.”

“That's nice.”

“Yeah. Just fast-forward through this whole flight thing and imagine what you'll be doing when it's over.”

She talked Asher through an entire summer day in Promise, from his western omelet breakfast at Dad's, his favorite home-style diner, to hauling traps on the
Stevie
, to his workout, to dinner on the bay at sunset and then sitting down to watch
Rocky
in the living room of the carriage house. At one point, he fell asleep, but when he awoke, she kept telling the story, picking up where she'd left off. She was halfway through the plot of the movie, to the place where Rocky was breaking the ribs of the beef carcasses at the meat packers, when the pilot came on and told the flight attendants to prepare for landing.

“We're already landing?” asked Asher.

“Yup. You made it.”

“You're awesome. Thank you.”

“No. Thank you. For doing this. You'll see. Promise will still be there when we get back.”

Cam looked behind her. Across the aisle, Izanagi sat next to Perry. They were playing some kind of dice game on their tray table, which was supposed to have been stowed away for landing.

Cam realized with sudden clarity that Izanagi wasn't just another of Alicia's flings. Cam hadn't really given him the time of day because she didn't need to. She had had a father and was at an age when she needed a replacement one less and less. She never thought for a fleeting microsecond to make a father figure out of Izanagi. But for Perry he was more than the annoying guy who left too many messages on the voicemail. To Perry, he was a person. A person who helped her with her homework and encouraged her to try out for the track team. To Perry he was exactly what she needed. And it gave Cam an idea.

It made Asher a little nervous when they couldn't find the entrance to Promise right away. They had to circle the Dunkin' Donuts block about three times before they finally found the opening in the bushes that led to the gravel winding path into town.

“See, Ash, still here,” said Cam when she saw the lighthouse and the bluff and the quaint little town on the docks. “The sun's still setting behind the lighthouse, the orcas are still leaping from the bay, and the purple dandelions are still purple. Everything's just the way we left it.”

“Except for that.” Perry pointed to a colorful fifty-foot-high totem pole standing on the front lawn of Avalon by the Sea.

“Ye . . . ahh,” said Cam. “But that might have happened anyway.”

They drove up to the house in Cumulus, and Cam and Perry went in to tell their mom and Nana that they'd returned. It was Asher's job to clean up Izanagi and sneak him up through the tunnels and into the house.

“I don't know about this,” Asher had said when they were still in the car. “I've seen your schemes go south before. Are you sure this will work? What if she says no?”

“She won't,” Cam said. “I don't think she will, anyway.” This was more than planting tomatoes. This made perfect sense. This filled all the gaps.

“You better hope not,” Asher said, pointing to Iz, who was desperately sketching his proposal out on the back of another Dunkin' Donuts bag, “for his sake.”

“Hi, Mom!” Cam said as she walked in the front door.

Alicia was washing dishes and ignored them like Cam knew she would as they plopped their bags down in the foyer.

“How's it going?” Perry asked.

Alicia just held up her talk-to-the-hand hand, and Nana sat at the table and shook her head back and forth. She couldn't help herself from tsk-tsking just a little bit and then letting out a big sigh.

“Mom, we have a surprise for you,” Cam said.