The rays of an anemone and the plasmaic traps of certain hydroids appear as micro mimics of starbursts and celestial protoplasm. In narrow passages between two islands, eddies created by a running tide swirl in patterns similar to nebulae and whirlpooling comets.
It’s an interesting phenomenon, one I don’t pretend to understand. So I’ve always had telescopes, and recently decided to trade in my old and simple refractor for this high-tech replacement. The Celestron has the added advantage of being very light-about twenty pounds, plenty small enough and light enough to carry around on my boat or in my truck.
I’d figured that Guava Key would be two lazy, uneventful weeks, with plenty of peace and quiet in which I could learn the scope’s entire system and do some stargazing.
As Tomlinson says, “Want to give God a good laugh? Tell him your plans.”
Even so, my previous days on the island had been sufficiently quiet, with good, dark nights and clear skies. I’d used the scope nearly every night, and was particularly pleased because a celestial oddity was occurring that week: The sun and six of the planets were lined up like cosmic billiard balls, an event that happens about every twenty years and unfailingly inspires an assortment of weirdos and prophets to predict global chaos and destruction.
Like the stars, the Earth’s prophets don’t seem to change much over the years.
So I was sitting, reading the manual, futzing with the little handheld computer. Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn were easy enough to find on my own. But had the little scope been programmed to locate Mercury and Mars? I was following the guide through a slow step-by-step, looking from the page to the digitized screen… and that’s when I stiffened in my chair, listening. I heard a twig break, then a rustle of leaves as the silhouette of a person moved across the porch screen.
I was so overly sensitized and paranoid from Waldman’s warnings about drug runners, terrorists, and revenge, that I was about to throw myself backward, out of the chair in an attempt to roll away from any potential line of fire, when I heard a woman’s voice call, “Doctor Ford? Is that you?”
An unusually girlish voice; it sounded like a teenager who’d yelled herself slightly hoarse at some school function.
I stood and opened the porch door to see Lindsey Harrington standing on the sidewalk in a white T-shirt that hung to mid-thigh, no shorts showing on tanned legs, blond hair fanned over her shoulders.
I heard her say, “I hope I didn’t startle you.”
I answered, “Not at all,” even though my heart was pounding.
I stood in the doorway looking at her. It seemed like she’d just gotten out of bed. Her smile and her wry tone implied apology as she said, “First thing I wanted to do was thank you. But the two women from the Sheriff’s Department wouldn’t let me leave our cottage. So now they think I’m sound asleep in bed, which is the way I always worked it when I wanted to sneak out, back when I was living with my dad.” She used both hands to rope her hair back and stretched slightly. “Truth is, I can’t sleep at all after such a crazy day. Mind if I come in?”
I pushed the door wider and said, “You want a beer?”
6
W e sat, sipping our drinks, and took care of the uneasy formalities of strangers newly met. I listened to her thank me over and over again, and deflected her apologies for stopping by when it was so late.
Then we both began to relax a little as our exchanges became more personal and personable, her recounting what had happened that afternoon, the way she felt when she first saw the men in ski masks, me not saying much. When I could, I asked questions. I was interested in who she was, why the kidnappers had targeted her.
I sat and listened, then, as the diplomat’s daughter told me, “My father was in D.C. for, what? Like sixteen years and spent eight working in the basement of the White House, part of the staff, so I got to know three presidents pretty well. Two of the three, you couldn’t ask to meet nicer men. I mean, really cool guys. The kind you’d trust for a father or a grandfather. The third one, though, he was a pompous asshole.”
“Your father worked for all of them?” I’d switched off the lamp and sat, alternately, looking at the water, then at her. Lindsey Harrington’s blond hair looked satin white in the peripheral light, her face, delicate, pale, very young. The moon, low on the horizon, created a corridor of color on the water, silver and brass.
“No, just two of the three. He did, like, political analysis stuff, administrative stuff. I’ve never really been sure. The way he puts it is, picture the White House as a major corporation-which it is-so my dad would be like the equivalent of a department head in one of the smaller departments. He does it ’cause he loves it. It’s not because he needs the money, that’s for sure.”
I watched the girl sipping at her beer, combing bangs back with nervous fingers while she told me about Hal Harrington. She explained that, back when her father was still in his late twenties, he’d gotten a job with one of the early computer companies as an unskilled laborer. He’d done the grunt work, unloading boxes, muling bundles of electrical conduit and parts. In his spare time, though, he’d studied the whole field, the way it was headed, liked what he saw and began to invest right there on the ground floor. Not only that, he invented what Lindsey described as a “little doohickey,” a plastic sleeve that was a docking device for computer chips.
She told me, “Dad got the thing patented, and every computer company in the world uses it, so he was, like, a multimillionaire before he was twenty-five. Then, somehow, he got interested in politics, began to finance certain candidates, and ended up working in the basement of the White House for no salary. He moved me to D.C. with him. We had this really awesome suite at the Willard Hotel, and I attended this, like, really hotshit private school, Sidwell Friends, and hung out at 1600 Pennsylvania, when I could, which is how I got to be friends with all those presidents. Except for one of them, who was a creep, a genuine self-important dick, and his wife was even worse. This one time, we were in the state dining room, which is by the colored rooms, and my boyfriend-”
I interrupted. “Colored rooms?”
“Yeah, near the South Portico, the rooms are named after colors-Red, Green, Blue, Vermeil. It really is a cool place. Particularly if you are, like, totally into history, which my father is, so he made me study it, which could be a drag, but sometimes I actually enjoyed it. Anyway, we were at this boring-as-hell dinner, and my boyfriend went looking for the head. He opens a door by the colored rooms and catches the First Lady sneaking a cigarette. She, like, totally lost it, was screaming, swearing; almost had him arrested.
“Her famous brat younger sister was right there; witnessed the whole thing. And her famous neurotic poodle. Spend any time at all around the White House, and the first thing you learn is don’t judge anyone by their politics. As my father likes to say, ‘D.C. is the only place in the world that has assholes on both sides of the crack.’ ”
We were sitting at a white wicker table, drinks in hand, looking at a cusp of waning moon that was encircled by rainbow colors, the upper stratosphere showing ice crystals. She had her keys and cell phone before her on the glass top.
These days, it’s impossible for me to look at a frail moon without feeling wistful and a little lonely. It reminds me of a long-gone friend.
It was nearly 1:00 A.M. I’d been listening to her talk for an hour, but was relaxed and enjoying it. She was one of the troubled ones, a person driven by family demons, but still cognitive and aware, and she had a self-deprecating sense of humor that I liked. Remembering that Tomlinson had mentioned she’d had a substance abuse problem, I’d amended my offer of a beer, saying maybe she’d prefer water or a Coke? But no, beer was just what she needed, she said, and with a rueful laugh added, “I’m a crack addict, not an alcoholic.”