Touched (42 page)

“Yes. Straight here. He won’t even go to Mobile. John was able to get word to him.”

“When will he arrive?” I noticed that Duncan gave up her pretense of disinterest at news of her father. She was still aggravated at being left behind, but the idea of Will’s impending arrival pushed her over her bad mood.

“Tomorrow afternoon.” JoHanna’s voice registered no emotion.

“Daddy’s coming tomorrow?” Duncan dropped the scissors and rolled over so she could sit up. “I can’t wait! He’ll find Floyd and take care of everything. Then we can go home. Pecos and I hate being cooped up here in the room, hiding.”

JoHanna’s smile was unsteady. “He’ll take care of things, Duncan. I’m sure he will.” She got up and paced to the edge of the rug.

“And he’ll find Floyd, won’t he?”

It did not escape JoHanna or me that Duncan had rephrased her statement, turning it over and into a question. Though she had said nothing until now, Floyd was very much on her mind.

“You haven’t had …” My voice was strident, and Duncan and JoHanna stared at me. I swallowed and tried again. “You haven’t had any dreams about Floyd, have you?”

Duncan shook her head. Then frowned. “I dreamt about the man in the water, and that was the last dream. Mama, you don’t think Floyd has drowned, do you? The storm was over before he left us.”

JoHanna’s voice was sad. “No, I don’t think he’s drowned.” She paced to the window, looking out to sea.

“Then Daddy will find him and everything will be okay again.” She lifted her arms and stretched. “What are we going to do until Daddy gets here?” Duncan looked at me. JoHanna slipped from the room and went into the separate bath and closed the door.

“We could get some cards. Maybe play gin or hearts.” I could hear JoHanna. She was crying, and I was doing my best to distract Duncan. “Since your mama’s here to watch Pecos, maybe you and I could go walking around the grounds. The hotel is pretty.”

Duncan tried to feign indifference, but she was sick of the room, and she got up and put on her shoes.

“JoHanna, Duncan and I are going for a walk. Watch Pecos.” I spoke through the bathroom door.

“Don’t leave the hotel grounds.” Her voice was hoarse, raw.

“Mama?” Duncan touched the wood of the door for only an instant. Before JoHanna could reply she fled the room, slamming the door on me and Pecos.

I caught up with her in the hallway. Her legs seemed to heal more and more with each passing hour. She wore a short dress, a dark green smock, and I noticed that even the scars from the burns were beginning to fade. Her hair had taken a sudden growth spurt. Dark and thick, it was lustrous, catching the dim lights of the hallway and holding them deep.

“Let’s go to the gardens,” she said, leading the way.

Gardeners were hard at work on the rose bushes and the flower beds. The wind had ripped all of the leaves from the huge oaks that marked the grounds. The sound of saws was menacing, but the smell of the fresh wood was familiar, and comforting. Men were cutting back damaged limbs, mending the ravages of the storm. An old man in blue overalls and a blue work shirt took a shine to Duncan. He showed her where some of the old limbs, so heavy and graceful they actually touched the ground, had been braced to prevent severe wind damage. He assured us that by spring the Seaview gardens would once again be the setting for beautiful weddings and parties where wealthy people danced among the trees.

I could see that the hurricane had done heavy damage, but not nearly as extensive as the havoc wreaked by the salt water in Tommy Ladnier’s terraced gardens. With a wave the old man went back to his saw, and Duncan and I walked along the white shell paths. Duncan told me of the tons of oysters harvested and eaten to procure the shells for the walkways. The act of walking, the freedom of movement, the bustle of the gardens, and the friendliness of the workers, all combined to bring Duncan out of her moodiness. She ran and talked with the gardeners, asking questions or laughing, teasing the young and old with her impish smile and quick tongue. It was a pleasure to see her as an ordinary child, a nine-year-old girl playing on the grounds of a luxury resort. Yet each time I turned a corner or came upon a new vista, I was struck by the oddness of the scene. Though the day had warmed to a hot summer feel, the grounds were stripped of all greenery. My body registered summer, but my eyes gave me the facts of winter. The perversity touched me in a way that made me afraid. It was a feeling I did not want to acknowledge or explore, so I listened to Duncan’s bright chatter and watched the pleasure with which the workmen responded to her. She was a bright and precocious child, and in a place where no one knew her, she was so very easily loved. Perhaps JoHanna and Will would never go back to Jexville. Perhaps we would all go and live somewhere else. New Orleans. Natchez. St. Louis. Towns along a river that JoHanna could learn to love as much as she loved the Pascagoula.

Still in the long blue dress of the sandwich girl, I hunted for the few spots of shade and sweltered and indulged in fantasy as Duncan sported. I wanted to give JoHanna some time alone to pull herself together. The idea of returning to the room and the lash of her naked emotion kept us both outside longer than we otherwise might have remained.

After an hour, though, we were sweaty and itching from the bites of the deer flies and mosquitoes. Even Duncan was ready to return to the screened coolness of the room.

JoHanna met us at the door, all trace of anguish gone. She smiled as she drew Duncan into her arms and hugged her. “We’ll get up early tomorrow and take the excursion boat out to Ship Island,” she said. “Mattie has been waiting all of her life for a view of the Gulf. Since we’re this close, we shouldn’t let the opportunity pass.”

Duncan clapped with delight, but then her smile darkened. “What about Pecos?”

JoHanna laughed. “I hadn’t thought of him.” She looked at the rooster, who jumped to the window and pecked at the screen. “I suppose we could take him back to the beach this afternoon and let him hunt his lady love. Tomorrow, though, we’ll have to find a chicken yard and board him.”

“What about Daddy?”

“We’ll be back and packed to leave before he gets here.” Duncan nodded. “And then we’ll find Floyd?”

JoHanna’s chest rose silently, a long breath. “Yes. Will can find him, Duncan. Your father can do what we can’t. If Floyd’s back in Jexville, the men will tell Will where he is.”

Jexville. How was it possible that a word could strike as painfully as a knife. Jexville. It plunged into my gut and weakened my legs. I knelt on the floor and began picking up the scattered newspaper. We were returning to Jexville, and I felt a rush of fear. Somehow, in the past day, I’d managed to forget that Jexville waited for me. I had become a person who lived only in the present moment.

In the course of the past several days, I had undergone a strange series of transformations. Because JoHanna asked it, I had become the sandwich girl spying on Tommy Ladnier. Walking the grounds, I had sold my cookies and sandwiches to the workers, and they had accepted me for what I said I was. When Teddy gripped my arm, when Tommy Ladnier looked into my eyes, when the wind whipped about my face in the car, or when the deer flies bit the back of my neck—I was those sensations and emotions. There was no connection to things I had felt or thought in the past, no desire to anticipate the future.

As I gathered the newspaper, my fingers brushed the deep burgundy and gray of the rug. Color, texture, the faint odor of time. Weak sunlight broke free of the clouds and slanted across my fingers, changing my skin to a blistered white. Here, at this moment, I was something and someone else, and I resisted the return to Jexville with every ounce of strength I possessed. But reality was so much stronger than I was. Even as I touched the woven wool of the rug, felt the sun, I knew I was a transient in a place of transient comfort. The Seaview was only a momentary respite. I was not a McVay. JoHanna could not absorb me no matter how much I wanted her to do so.

The clippings scattered from my fingers as a sob broke from me.

“Duncan, put Pecos in that bag and take him on down to the car.

We’ll be down in a few minutes. And don’t let him out of the bag no matter what. If that desk clerk sees him, we’ll be put out on our ears.” JoHanna knelt on the floor beside me. “You don’t have to go back, Mattie. We can keep this room and you can stay here.”

Pecos and I cried together. He resisted the snare of Duncan’s hands as heartily as I fought against the truth of my situation. JoHanna held my shoulders and said nothing until the rooster was captured, stowed in the bag, and Duncan had hustled out the door with him.

“Mattie, listen to me. You can stay here and file for divorce. Will can set everything up for you. There’s no need for you to go back to Jexville. You don’t ever have to see Elikah again. I mean except in court, and maybe there’s a way to take care of that. I’m not certain, but Will knows these things.”

She smoothed my hair and rubbed my back and talked. My tears were spent, and I listened. I didn’t doubt what she said, but I couldn’t explain to her that the words were draining the marrow out of my bones. If she dissolved the Mattie of Jexville, there would be no one left. I could stay in the Seaview, in this very room. I could bathe and dress and go down to the dining room to eat, but what part of me would that be?

I had let go of the Mattie who’d picked blackberries with two young blond girls named Callie and Lena Rae. Sometimes, I could still catch the sound of their laughter, and I knew it. But it was distant now, released when I chose not to linger in the past. When I thought of myself, alone, at the Seaview, there was only a terrifying blankness. I could visualize myself going through the motions of the day, sleeping, dressing, eating, walking along the beach. Absent, though, were the thoughts and emotions of such a Mattie. That Mattie did not exist. Not yet. Maybe never.

I listened to the sound, sensible words of JoHanna and understood a terrifying thing. I had to go back to Jexville. I could not go forward until I went back.

Thirty-six

R
IDING at the front of the big boat, I tasted the salt spray as we bumped through the waves. I kept my eyes focused on the horizon, and what had once been a speck of land grew larger and larger as we slapped and wallowed our way toward Ship Island. During the night the heat wave had truly broken, and the sun had risen on a crisp fall day that made the excursion to see the Gulf of Mexico a magnificent adventure. Or at least that’s how JoHanna decided to play it. She had to do something to keep from going insane at our lack of ability to help Floyd. Her skin had taken on a fine white sheen, a papery luster, as if all of the moisture were being burned away behind it. Duncan, on the other hand, had accepted that JoHanna and Will, when he arrived, would be able to make things right. Wherever Floyd had gone, Will would fetch him back. I tried not to think about it, and I took my comfort from the fact that Duncan had not dreamed of Floyd. The bond that linked them was so strong, I felt certain she would know if anything were truly wrong with him. Whenever I felt the gnawing sickness of frustration or the chill of apprehension, I held onto that thought and forced the dark mood away. I could not afford to cater to any unfounded fears. I would confront the future with courage.

In the back of the boat, JoHanna held the basket I’d used to sell sandwiches at Tommy Ladnier’s. This time it was packed with a picnic lunch for us. JoHanna said we would walk the white sand of the island, wade in the aqua surf, picnic, and return to Biloxi before Will’s train arrived at three. I allowed my mind to go no further than the image of Will, stepping off the train with his bag in one hand and his hat in the other.

A burst of laughter and applause came from the back of the boat and I turned to see Duncan, without the benefit of any music, on the deck of that lumbering ship, marking off the steps of the Charleston while a tall young man with freckles imitated her every move.

“That’s much better, Michael,” Duncan said, giving her chin a jerk of satisfaction. “If you could come to the house where we have music, I could teach you in ten minutes flat. You’re a natural.”