The Atlas of Reds and Blues Page 10

“I can take you out,” the surfer says by way of aloha. “It’s safe enough.”

  She plants her ass on the warm white sand. “I’m just fine here.”

  “You?” Clay laughs. “Chicken?”

  “I’m just a country girl from North Carolina.” She smiles and pats the sand. “I know when I’m beat.”

  Clay and the surfer, whose name she doesn’t catch, laugh and take off.

  Clay comes back, his lion’s mane and beard slicked down by the Pacific. “Howzit, Makiki Masala?”

  “Warm and dry,” she answers, careful not to touch her blackened eye, pushing the hair off her face. “You looked good out there.”

  He says, “It clears my head.” A lifelong surfer.

  “Walking by the water’s edge does it for me,” she says. “Riding the waves is above my pay grade.”

  Clay frowns and peers at her left eye.

  “Let’s go see Tommy and settle this,” he says.

  She stands up, brushes the sand from her pants. “My way.”

  “No way,” he answers.

  Tommy’s real name in Hawaiian means “righteous.” He and fifty-seven of his friends and relatives continued to occupy a famous public beach on O’ahu, not far from where she and Clay now stand. Of course, all of them stood on an island in the Pacific. Nothing was too far away. She wrote a story about Native Hawaiian rights and the Kalama family’s occupation, not long after the century mark commemorating Queen Lili’uokalani’s overthrow by the Americans. Clay had changed the tone of her article—less sympathetic, more adversarial—with a few choice words. But he’d left her name as the author. Tommy first yelled from the pay phone at the gas station a quarter mile from the beach where he’d been living for months. Then he’d come into the newsroom, unbeknownst to her, found her on the way to her car, and pushed her up against the stairwell. Clay had found Tommy and sent him away, and had driven her to the clinic.

  A few days have passed. Now they are at the beach. “I need the follow-up story,” Clay says. “I’m coming with.”

  “My way,” she repeats, strapping on the seat belt, then rolling down the window.

  “No way,” he replies.

  “I’m just a country girl from North Carolina,” she counters. “But I do know what I’m doing.”

  “Not here,” Clay says.

  “From here to there, funny things are everywhere,” she says, quoting One fish two fish red fish blue fish. “I’m young, not stupid.”

  “Not here,” he says. “My mistake.”

  “So you’re going to be my bodyguard for the rest of my life?”

  Clay smiles.

  “Does Tommy go around hitting reporters?”

  “I’ve never even heard him raise his voice,” Clay says, and the surf from the ocean to their left was drowning out his words. “He’s as quiet as a shadow.”

  The salt water sprinkles onto her shoulder. “First time for me, too,” she says.

  They arrive at the campsite, a shantytown of tents, tarp forts, and fires ablaze in rocky pits, the United States flag flying upside down, a sign of distress. The corrugated metal garbage cans overflow, and the flies orbit them like planets around dying suns. She thinks of her fifth-grade English teacher, and all her country wisdom. Mrs. Heath and her soft voice, and her ability to make every lesson into a work of art.

  Tina, Tommy’s wife and the mother to his two sons, walks up, hugs Clay. “Aloha,” she says, and turns to her. “I’m sorry.”

  While Clay and Tina talk, she looks around and spies a mound of condiment packets near a big jug of sun tea: honey, lemon, sugar. “Do you have some glass jars?”

  Tina’s face, framed by the long black waves of hair, takes on a puzzle. “They’re not that big.”

  Mrs. Heath to the rescue. “They’ll do,” she says. Catching literal flies with real honey, and all that the metaphor implies.

  &

  In 2009, Totally Tattoos Barbie came on the scene, making it possible for little girls to place tattoos on their dolls, including on their lower backs and buttocks. Parents objected to the dolls, saying their daughters wanted to get tattoos on their real bodies. In matching locations.

  &

  She can feel the red heat loosening her tongue, loosening her limbs.

  &

  Perhaps the last day the salesmen come calling in the neighborhood, their unmarked white van parked casually across the street from her, near the gazebo. Tail end of the day. Like a clown car at a circus, many forms alight from the vehicle, well dressed in a uniform costume sort of way and confidently going door-to-door despite the myriad “no solicitations” placards posted on the trunk of seemingly every tree. Presumably to sell high-speed Internet access, as the sheaf of aquamarine flyers in their hands proclaims in crimson ink.

  Four from the pack break off to confront her.

  Only they further divide, like insidious cells carrying disease.

  One pair marches lockstep across the front yard and onto the steps, the one on the right rings the doorbell, and the one on the left uses his elbow as a crowbar as he leans in to speak to the houseguest, the daughter of a friend, and the older girls, who have answered the door. The Eldest Daughter points toward the street. The other pair draws near to Mother and Greta, who is stopping to smell a cluster of forget-me-nots near the house, her leash drawn close.

  The redhead who could have been a Viking in a previous life tries to pet Greta.

  A growl starts at the back of her throat, and Greta’s tail stiffens.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Mother says as evenly as she can manage. “Greta really hates men, especially men in uniform.”

  He retracts his hand but does not retreat. The other one, lithe like a jaguar is lithe, who bears an uncanny resemblance to a movie star she once admired and bumped into at a grocery store before she left New York for good, smiles out of one side of his mouth. “She’s either hurt or old,” he says by way of greeting.

  “Hurt,” Mother lies, hoping it’s convincing, “but on the mend.”

  “Let me help you get her inside the house,” he offers, reaching for the leash.

  “Thanks, but I’ll manage,” she says, trying to picture the serene face of the Buddha statue she once saw in Japan, with her hero. Instead her mind floats up Munch’s Scream.

  “We are making an offer,” the Viking says, and the pair that was at her front door is now encircling her.

  “I don’t make those kinds of decisions,” Mother says, smiling brightly at their general direction. “My husband will be home shortly.” Another lie. Her hero has a flight delay and isn’t due back until midnight. “You could come back later.”

  She gently tugs at Greta’s collar, and then walks as calmly as she can to the house, entering through the open garage. She feels their eyes notice that both cars are parked side by side. She smashes the button with the palm of her hand and the door descends to its closed position—she kicks herself in her mind for having a house alarm that has been in a state of disrepair for months.

  The houseguest, Carla, walks into the kitchen, where Mother is giving Greta cold scrambled egg as a reward for swallowing her peanut-butter-coated medicines. “You saw them, right? The one on my right kept telling me how pretty I am.”

  Mother locks eyes with this pretty girl, the daughter of old family friends, Stella and Duane, who is staying another few months until her law school fellowship runs out and she moves out west.

  The Youngest runs down the stairs without uttering a word, flings open the front door, and hurls her body outside into the yard.

  “What are you doing?” Mother asks, trying so hard not to yell.

  “I lost the charm on Sissy’s bracelet,” Youngest Daughter calls out. “She said I couldn’t be in her room if I don’t find it.”

  “Not her decision,” Mother replies. “Come inside.”

  “No!” her daughter screams. “She said I couldn’t be her friend if I lost it.”

  Carla stays with Greta as Mothe
r trots out the front door and into the yard. “Let’s go inside to talk about it.”

  “No,” the Youngest says, her tone emphatic. “She’s mad.”

  The men regroup by the white van, reconfigure their strategies. She lifts her daughter’s chin and stares into her eyes. “Go inside,” she whispers. “Now.”

  “Fine,” Youngest Daughter sputters, and runs back through the open door. “Mom says I don’t have to! Mom says tough luck!”

  Mother shows her back to the van and walks inside, closes the door, and the sound of the key turning the dead bolt soothes the sirens she hears inside her brain.

  “How are we doing?” she asks loudly.

  It is a train station upstairs as girls bustle and hustle from one child’s room to another—the five stages of grief play out in as many minutes and then unexpected joy. Mother asks again.

  “Fine,” Middle Daughter chirps. “We found the charm in the bathroom.”

  “You might want to call the vet,” Carla calls out. “Greta just threw up her meds.”

  Mother sighs and starts walking toward the home phone. She takes it out of its black cradle and turns it on. No dial tone. On and off a few times but the phone is dead. She tries to recall where she last left the cell phone. Perhaps in the pocket of her raincoat, hanging in the hall closet by the front door. The light shining through the patterned glass of the front door is suddenly obscured. The doorbell rings, insistent, time and again.

  “Mom, make it stop!” the Eldest pleads. “It’s those boys from the cul-de-sac playing Ding Dong Ditch again.”

  She inhales deeply and says, “Okay.”

  The Youngest turns on the radio, and Middle Daughter shuts the door to the Eldest’s room, and Mother listens to their laughter.

  At the door, these forms loom larger than seventh and eighth graders. Perhaps five, perhaps all seven from the clown van are standing on her stoop, the Viking and the actor look-alike closest to the doorbell.

  She walks up to it but doesn’t open it. “Yes?”

  “Look, we need to talk to you,” the lookalike says. “We are tired and thirsty. Can we wait inside until your husband comes home? We have an offer you won’t be able to turn down.”

  She holds her breath for a long second. “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re lying,” the Viking says. “You’re just a spoiled woman with two cars and no husband.”

  She doesn’t answer, thinks instead of the distance between her and the only object of consequence she has in her house, a fire extinguisher in the garage.

  “It’s not hospitable to turn someone away in this heat,” the actor says.

  “Let’s take the door, Bill,” the Viking suggests. “The cops aren’t going to believe anything she says, anyway. Just look at her. She’s probably the maid.”

  Carla’s hazel eyes widen, and she starts to comb through her purse for her phone. The Mother hurriedly opens the closet door but cannot find her raincoat.

  The men at the door begin shaking the handle, throwing their weight onto the etched glass, partially covered by the girls’ patriotic art.

  Once.

  Twice.

  Thrice.

  On the fourth try the door hinges start to give way.

  Mother puts her back against the door and pushes with all of her might. Her silent prayer is answered as Greta sprints to the foyer at top speed. She stops just short of the front door and rears up like a horse confronting a poisonous snake. Her bark is the second-loudest thing she’s ever heard in her life. Greta repeatedly jumps up, her paws swatting the key in the dead bolt, snarling and barking. Her anger reverberates from the high ceiling in the adjoining living room, and it sounds like a pack of dogs are inside.

  The forms step back.

  Viking says, “Cujo and her spawn.”

  The actor replies, “Not worth the hassle for this bitch and her litter, Tom.”

  The band of men slowly disperses.

  She slides onto the ground, her lungs out of air, her heart beating like gunfire. She turns her head toward the glass to see the forms enter the van, the actor making a three-point turn and then leaving the neighborhood. Mother crawls toward Greta, who has collapsed on the floor, and puts her arm around the convulsing body. “Good girl,” she says, as she struggles to catch a breath. “Sweet girl.”

  The houseguest calls out, “I’ve got the emergency operator on the line.”

  “Apologize and hang up.” Tears slide out of the corners of Mother’s eyes. “We have to call the animal hospital first.”

  &

  She knows a split second before she does it, that she will slap that man. Policeman or not.

  &

  They flip for it, and the penny is tinny as it hits the countertop, heads up. She wins. Her stomach distended with baby, and Greta already on her leash. Night walk. Her hero wants a do-over. “Rock paper scissors,” he suggests.

  Rock paper scissors.

  Scissors paper rock.

  Paper rock scissors.

  But she takes the leash and says, “You get to wheel the garbage down the hill.”

  In a time before cell phones. “What if you go into labor?” His face the very picture of worst-case scenario.

  “Greta will bound to the rescue.”

  “She is hardly qualified to assist with labor.”

  “She has hidden talents.”

  He slips his feet into the leather sandals from India, a gift from his globe-trotting mother. The woman had room enough in her suitcase to bring back sandals for her son, a studded collar for the dog, and a hand-stitched gown for the baby, but strangely nothing for the mother-to-be. MIL already MIA. On another trip, planning to flow through Hartsfield for a layover the following day. Not long enough to visit, but a phone call, a hundred questions, twice as many admonitions are assured. The first grandchild is on the way, and MIL wants Mother-to-be to slow down.

  “Wish me luck,” he says to her as she steps out the kitchen door onto the driveway, Greta already four steps ahead, the leash taut.

  The moon is distant, a mere crescent. Street lamps buzz and hum, but neither she nor Greta bothers with anything but the walk. Feet and paws click-clacking on the asphalt. An older neighborhood, trees that stretch to the sky but no sidewalks. Greta, so thin still, eating and eating, but not yet fully healed from her litter, and the forced starvation at the hands of her previous master. Greta afraid to go downstairs to the basement, Greta afraid of all manner of belts and big white deliverymen in brown uniforms. Greta rescued but her litter nowhere to be found. She and the vet combing through area shelters, pet stores, private adoption farms for puppies. Cute German shepherd puppies would be quickly scooped up. But no one had seen or heard of Greta’s puppies. Nothing. Zero. Zip.

  And not a peep out of her so far. No bark. No noise at all. Ghost of a dog that eats six times a day like a puppy.

  Greta stopping to smell every flower, even in the dark. Though the buds closed up shop for the evening, Greta is undeterred, sticking her nose in every rosebush, but careful to avoid the thorns. Ahead, a long slow hill and then a plateau. A little out of breath. Greta panting, too, in the humidity, the air a thick soft wall to push through. “Let’s go to the cul-de-sac,” Mother-to-be says, and Greta seems to nod, but doesn’t pick up her pace.

  They reach the crest of the hill, and as it levels off, there is the muffled cry of a man who has lost control. The front porch light glows in the distance. There is the gallop of an unleashed dog nearing and nearing closer still. Duchess, the other grown shepherd in the neighborhood. She is coming, full speed. Mother-to-be places one hand over her stomach and braces for the impact of the inevitable collision. Mother-to-be can hear Duchess bark and her master, Ian Something-or-other, start to run across his lawn in vain pursuit, his shoes making the grass crackle with each step.

  Duchess gains, and she is only seconds away from impact. Mother-to-be steels herself. And then Greta hurls thunder and lightning from her throat, her barks fierce and loud an
d in quick succession. Duchess stops short at the curb where the green lawn stops and the asphalt begins.

  And Greta bares her teeth.

  Mother-to-be smiles.

  The master catches up and assumes Duchess’s leash. “Sorry,” Ian pants.

  Mother-to-be pays no attention to the man. “You can talk!” she repeats again and again to Greta.

  &

  The side of his shaved cheek is smooth, and his eyes register surprise as her palm lands just north of his jawbone.

  &

  From late-night television, her hero takes an interest in architecture and magic. On a paper towel he snatches from the kitchen, he sketches out a plan, and forages for supplies. What he wants to create is a monumental house of cards, he says aloud. Something built with his own hands, something he can make disappear. She writes down everything he says, every action. Into her blue composition book. He decides that this is how he will break into late-night television and then somehow steal the show with his wit and wisdom, his charm. She writes that his good looks are starting to crack with age, but can be hidden with powerful stage makeup. They agree that his travel schedule needs to be curtailed somehow, the girls are growing up without him.

  He starts slowly at first, but soon is using all fifty-two cards in his daughters’ Princesses of the World deck, cartoon smiles facing out. He builds a small castle one night after everyone is in bed and only the tree swallows and crickets are outside composing songs. He gets an idea and buys another double pack of cards on his way home from the gym, and ends up building a modern rendition of Cinderella’s castle, big enough for the daughters’ dolls to live in. It’s a two-and-a-half-pack creation that rests on the dining room table.

  He unveils the castle to his family the third morning. The children and wife look at him with great admiration, congratulate him on the dollhouse made from shiny red game cards. Just then, the telephone rings and there is the insistent sound of the doorbell. Greta runs to the door, knocking the Youngest into the Middle into the Eldest into their mother, and Mother brushes up against the table and shakes the foundation so the house collapses into a pile of pictures of pretty princesses of the world.