Lost in the River of Grass (23 page)

 

Amanda from Macaw World called today. Teapot's fine.

I wait another week, then ride my bike there to see for myself. Amanda lets me in the back gate and then leaves me to sit alone at one of the picnic tables. If Teapot wasn't the odd-sized duck, I wouldn't have recognized her. She's doubled in size again.

All the ducks are used to people, so none look up when I sit down. Teapot is a little apart from the mother duck and her babies, but she's clearly become part of that family. I try to will her to look at me.

The flamingos are feeding, walking in a group of about twenty, all with their heads upside down, bills sweeping from side to side. A little boy runs by me and down the hill toward the ducks. His arms are spread like he's trying to take off. I jump up protectively, but Teapot and the others waddle unalarmed into the water and drift just out of reach. It's when I'm standing on the hill that Teapot looks directly at me, and there is a moment of recognition, like I'm someone from her past she can't quite place. I get that a lot. People have seen my picture in the paper but think they actually know me. Teapot is still watching me when the little boy's mother heads down to fetch him.

“Stay out of the mud,” she says.

He laughs and begins to stomp up and down just at the water's edge, elbows flared.

The mother duck leads her babies into deeper water. Teapot turns and follows them.

 

…

Maybe there's a patron saint that takes care of lost causes, but all the things that were wrong at school aren't anymore. I made friends with a girl who's on the swimming team with me, and the AABCs—Amanda, Amanda, Brittany, and Courtney—act like we were friends before I became the school celebrity. But the best change is in Andy's father. This month, when he came to Miami to see his parole officer, he brought Andy with him. We didn't do much, just wandered in and out of the shops at CocoWalk and went to see a movie where we held hands, and when we were walking back to where we were supposed to meet his dad, he put his arm around my shoulders.

“Dad got a job.”

“That's great, Andy.” I love the weight of his arm.

“One of his buddies is fighting cancer, so Dad leased his boat for the stone crab season. I'm helping him on weekends. Maybe you'd like to come out with us one day.”

“I doubt your dad would go for that.”

“I ripped that flag down, Sarah, and he never said a word.”

“He didn't?”

“Nope. I think he figured out what a jerk he was and is trying to change.”

“Well, I hope he makes it.”

“I'll be sixteen in a couple of months, you know. Then I can drive myself over.”

“We'd better not tell my parents. They may not want me dating an older man.”

Andy looks at me, then grins when he realizes I'm kidding.

 

…

Teapot turned out to be a boy.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I was a pitifully poor student in school, partly because of some vision problems, but mostly because I hated certain subjects, like English and foreign languages, but loved others, like science and math. History and social studies were okay, but it says something that I remember the names of only two of my middle-school teachers, both of whom were—in my memory—fantastic. One was Ms. Andrews, my eighth-grade algebra teacher, and the other was Mr. Vickers, my seventh-grade science teacher. It may not be too much of an exaggeration to say they saved me from completely abandoning my education. While I accomplished only Cs and Ds in other subjects, I made As in math and science. The importance of those As would influence the course of my life from then on. No matter how poorly I did in middle school and later in high school, I knew I had the ability to do better. In other words, I wasn't lacking the intelligence; I was lacking the maturity to tackle subjects I didn't like. That's a very important distinction.

As mere coincidence, Mr. Vickers was on one of my flights some years later when I was a flight attendant for National Airlines. I didn't tell him what I just told you. I didn't know it then. I hadn't gone back to school yet. That didn't happen until 1977, when I enrolled in University of Miami, so I didn't know enough to thank him. For years, I wished I had. I wish I'd told him then that he was a wonderful teacher. I wished this so much that a few months ago I called my middle school to see if anyone there remembered him. By that afternoon, I was in contact with his daughter and his son-in-law, and by the next day in touch with him. I finally got to say thank you. It felt wonderful.

I also wish to thank the members of my writing groups: Norma Watkins, Katherine Brown, Maureen Eppstein, Katy Pye, and Jeannie Stickle. They are the most recent of my helpmates. There were dozens of classmates in graduate school who also had a hand in shaping this story as far back as I can remember. In fact, I've been noodling it for years, first as the true account of my husband's experiences walking out of the Everglades, then in the fictional form it now takes. The first person to critique this was Nobel Prize–winning author Isaac Bashevis Singer, who taught with Lester Goren at UM in the early 1980s. “Dis is real writing,” he said. So, like Sarah and Andy, I slogged on.

Thanks also to Suzanne Byerley's editing skills, and Ralph Bellman, who knows the 'Glades like the back of his hand, and Teresa Sholars, who traveled to Florida with me when I was finishing up my research and got her feet wet.

Thanks always to Laura Dail, my fabulous agent, and to Andrew Karre, an editor worth his salt.