stargirl (17 page)

Along the way I said, as I always did, "So, have you figured her out yet?"

It was years since she had gone, yet still we needed no name for her. We knew who we were talking about. "I'm working on it," he said.

"What's the latest?"

We were following a familiar script.

On this day he stated: "She's better than bones." On my previous visit, he had said, "When a Stargirl cries, she does not shed tears, but light." On other days in other years, he had called her "the rabbit in the hat" and "the universal solvent" and "the recycler of our garbage."

He said these things with a sly grin, knowing they would confound me as I mulled them until our next meeting.

We were in the foothills by early afternoon. He directed me to stop on a stony shoulder of the road. We got out and walked. He brought the paper bag with him. I brought the pail. He pulled from it a floppy blue hat, which he mashed onto his head. The sun that had looked warm and buttery at a distance was blazing hot here.

We didn't go far, as walking was a chore for him. We stopped at an outcropping of smooth, pale-gray rock. He pulled a small pick from the pail and tapped the rock. "This'll do," he said.

I held the paper bag while he put pick to rock. The skin on his arms had become dry and flaky, as if his body were preparing itself to rejoin the earth. It took him ten minutes to gouge out a hole that he judged to be right.

He asked for the bag. I was shocked at what he took from it.

"Barney!"

The skull of the Paleocene rodent.

"This is home," he said. He said he was sorry he did not have the energy to return Barney to his original stratum in South Dakota. He laid Barney in the hole, then took from his pocket a scrap of paper. He crumpled the scrap and stuffed it into the hole with the skull. Then he pulled a jug of water, a small bag of patching cement, a trowel, and a plastic tray from the tar pail. He mixed the cement and troweled over the hole. From a distance you wouldn't know the rock had been altered. Heading back to the pickup, I asked him what was written on the paper.

"A word," he said. The way he said it told me I'd get no answer to the next question.

We rode east down out of the mountains and were home before sundown.

When I returned next time, someone else was living in Archie's house. The shed out back was gone. So was Señor Saguaro.

And a new elementary school now occupies Stargirl's enchanted place.

MORE THAN STARS

Since graduating, our class has had a reunion every five years, but I haven't yet gone. I stay in touch with Kevin. He never left Mica, has a family there now. Like me, he did not wind up in television, but he does make good use of his gift of gab: he's an insurance salesman.

Kevin says when the class gathers for reunions at the Mica Country Club, there is much talk of Stargirl and curiosity as to her whereabouts. He says the most common question these days is "Were you on the bunny hop?" At the last reunion several classmates, for a lark, lined up, hands to waists, and hopped around the putting green for a few minutes, but it wasn't the same.

No one is quite sure what happened to Wayne Parr, except that he and Hillari broke up shortly after graduation. The last anyone heard, he spoke of joining the Coast Guard.

The high school has a new club called the Sunflowers. To join, you have to sign an agreement promising to do "one nice thing per day for someone other than myself."

Today's Electron marching band is probably the only one in Arizona with a ukulele. On the basketball court, the Electrons have never come close to the success they enjoyed when I was a junior. But something from that season has resurfaced in recent years that baffles fans from other schools. At every game, when the opposing team scores its first basket, a small group of Electrons fans jumps to its feet and cheers.

Each time I visit Mica, I drive past her old house on Palo Verde. On the most recent visit, I saw a red-haired young man across the street, fixing water skis to the roof of a yellow Volkswagen Beetle. It must have been Peter Sinkowitz. I wondered if he was as possessive of his Beetle as he had been of the banana roadster. I wondered if he was old enough to love his scrapbook.

As for me, I throw myself into my work and keep an eye peeled for silver lunch trucks, and I remember. I sometimes walk in the rain without an umbrella. When I see change on the sidewalk, I leave it there. If no one's looking, I drop a quarter. I feel guilty when I buy a card from Hallmark. I listen for mockingbirds.

I read the newspapers. I read them from all over. I skip the front pages and headlines and go to the pages in back. I read the community sections and the fillers. I see little acts of kindness happening from Maine to California. I read of a man in Kansas City who stands at a busy intersection every morning and waves at the people driving to work. I read of a little girl in Oregon who sells lemonade in front of her house for five cents a cup-and offers a free back scratch to every customer.

When I read about things like these I wonder, Is she there? I wonder what she calls herself now. I wonder if she's lost her freckles. I wonder if I'll ever get another chance. I wonder, but I don't despair. Though I have no family of my own, I do not feel alone. I know that I am being watched. The echo of her laughter is the second sunrise I awaken to each day, and at night I feel it is more than stars looking down on me. Last month, one day before my birthday, I received a gift-wrapped package in the mail. It was a porcupine necktie.