He wipes his mouth and leaves the napkin in a crumple on the table.
“Scuse me,” he says. “Be right back.”
Obviously, he’s gone to the men’s room, all that bourbon. I think about lighting a cigarette but then he’s already back.
He hands me a two-foot wooden item. Very heavy. Then he sits back down.
The object is made of dark wood, its center section a lozenge-shaped openwork. At either end of the lozenge is a head, carved in peculiarly intricate detail. You don’t need much imagination to see that one of the heads is Barnett’s and the other one is mine.
He points a delicate finger at the geometric lattice. “This is a stylization of the intricate root pattern of the holy banyan tree.” Sounding for all the world like an effete anthropologist.
“But the heads—”
“You and me.”
I stare at the wooden carving, which is warm to the touch.
“I went on over there and told them what we wanted. Then there was a wait while they carved it, of course. Since it’s ironwood, it took them a couple days. But I ate well and rested a lot.”
“You went on over where?”
“To the other world, of course.”
“Oh, of course.”
“Never mind.” His gray eyes are kind. He takes his napkin and dips it in ice water, placing the cold compress on my forehead. He smells like suntan oil. “Just lean your head down now.”
“I’m not used to alcohol. I guess—”
The cool napkin, the reassuring hands. “Feel better?”
“Yes, thanks.” I sit up again and the room has cleared a bit, the air not red and ugly, as it was threatening to go.
The statue is still on the table, plain as day. Part of me says, He must have gotten someone to carve it before he met me for dinner. He’s been watching me for weeks. But the other part, the better part, of me Believes.
“Let’s have some wine.” He holds up the freshly delivered, uncorked bottle.
“Perhaps not for me.”
He spins the bottle on his finger like a basketball; it vanishes into thin air.
“Oh!”
Barnett swivels in his chair, revealing the bottle concealed beneath. He takes the bottle out and puts the wooden carving where it was, out of sight. “Some things are only tricks,” he opines, pouring us each a glass.
We clink a toast.
“To the life of the imagination.”
I’ll drink to that.
Gathering my forces, flexing my quadriceps, my pecs, and my traps under the silky, beaded dress, I jump in. “Suppose, just suppose all that stuff were true, about the way to the other world. Why are you telling me?”
“Why am I telling you if it’s true? Or why am I telling you the story either way.”
“Either way.”
“Because today’s the day we met. When else?”
“Why did we meet today?” The wine seems to go straight to my lower abdomen and thighs.
He smiles but not really. I’ve seen faces like this before. Sammy. Alonso. And now Barnett. This is the third and last time to try and figure out my life, or Life Itself. It’s all got to do with the thousand pounds.
Coincidence is the perfect texture.
He shrugs. “This was the first time I’ve been to Roy’s.”
And let’s not forget Sex is stronger than doors and windows.
“Why?”
“Because I usually train at Red’s.”
Another sip of wine. “So why did you go to Roy’s today?”
Now the smile is genuine. “Because I didn’t go to Red’s!”
My eyes narrow, lupine. Remember, this body is the strongest woman’s body in the world.
“Look here.” His eyes are serious now, and so are the slices of cheekbone, the slender pale lips, the thin nose. “Perhaps there ain’t no such thing as coincidence. But that don’t always mean you can have your reasons lined up before you, like a row of empty bottles.”
Defensively, I raise my palms and hold them up before me.
“You no want zee veal?” The waiter mistakes my gesture.
“Yes, of course.” The aroma is tantalizing.
“I take eet back! I get you zumthin else!”
“No, no!” I cut off a bite and savor it. “Fabulous!”
“Hmph.” The waiter huffs off.
“This duck is great, hun. You wanna try a bite?”
“Plenty here, thanks.” The presence of redolent calories distracts me, fogs up the issues of importance. After such a heavy lift, this body needs sustenance, not alcohol abuse.
Silently, comfortably, single-mindedly, we consume our dinners. My whooziness departs; no damage has been done, after all.
“Personal power,” Barnett announces over his cappuccino and my herbal tea. “The getting of it and the keeping of it.”
With the tea, my precious little system is surely back on track. “And what, pray tell, has that got to do with the other realm and the boys with the canoe and the Asmat Indians and all that jazz?”
“Oh yes!” He laughs melodically, artificially. “Why, babe, that was just a story. A little tale to amuse yourself. You know how we country folk, jes’ good country people, like to tell us some tall tales. Don’t you bother about that.”
I sigh and sip my tea.
“But never mind all that! Let’s us talk serious now. We gotta talk about personal power. About your career.”
“Don’t farewell,” I muse aloud. “Fare forward.”
“You lift something heavy,” he offers, gray eyes getting me again. “That act don’t go away when the iron’s back on the ground. It gets stored in you, just like money in the bank.”
Is that what I represent to him: money in the bank?
“You want to know how to get at what you got stored up in you?” The voice is sweet now, lyrical.
I nod, hooked. Admit it.
“Ain’t easy, but there’s a way. Lotsa people—” Barnett motions at the other diners, virtually invisible to me by the sheer predictability of their appearances. But they’re ciphers, mysteries, all the more difficult because of their imagined accessibility. “Lotsa people know how to put it in. Only a couple know how to take it out.”
After paying the check, Barnett leads me outside, into the cool moonlight. My body is keen to the dress, the whisper-silk of the lingerie.
At the door to my jeep, he kisses me chastely on my forehead. “Night, babe. Roy’s tomorrow, same time?”
“Wait.” I touch his sleeve. “That stuff with the boys. Do you think it really happened?”
Oh, moonlight. Moonlight. His face is all shadow. “Babe, if they think it happened, what difference does it really make?”
The difference between truth and real. I keep holding on to his sleeve. “Those two boys,” I insist. “That’s you and your brother, isn’t it?”
“I don’t have a brother anymore.” And then he slips away into the night, like a trained assassin.
When I unlock my car and climb in, the carved wooden lozenge with the two heads is sitting next to me on the seat.
Chapter Thirty-Six
The drive through the swamp is scary tonight. Tonight the illusion is broken that I’m immune to the eerie hoot of the owl or the splash the alligator makes as he slips into saliva-warm water.
The carved figure has not improved my frame of mind. The ironwood seems to give off heat. Plus, even though my eyes are fixed on the road ahead, out of the corner of my eye I keep seeing the thing writhe.
Everything has a life of its own. Especially the road, which ripples and rolls like the back of a sea serpent.