The next shelf down houses a collection of feathers and bird nests and bones and swamp moss, everything discovered outside. This layer also contains a flat wooden tray with various nostalgia pieces: the silver badge Gaylin sent me from Carlsbad Caverns—HI PET LOVE GAYLIN—the mysterious piece of brick with the single letter P, found one recess on the playground. My beloved cat Marmalade’s torn leather collar.
The bottom shelf holds only one object: a sculpture commissioned from a mediocre artist. A sort of cartoon goddess flexes her biceps, decorated with golden bracelets. Although she has a mane of platinum hair and sports a pink and green polka-dot bikini, she is not entirely humorous. Here is a woman, you tell yourself, who could lift a thousand pounds.
I tip my glass toward Hannah and drink.
After a few minutes I begin to feel peaceful and so get up and light a couple votive candles, for all my loved ones gone from me. After finishing my juice and checking to make sure the cats have enough food—they’ve nearly worked to the bottom ranks, sated cats lolling on their sides like beached whales, and washing themselves—I wander out onto the deck.
In the cool night swamp, strains of poignant Franck violin wafting out, you can watch birds float white on the water, hear the plopping of fish and the random paddling of some beast projecting himself across the murk.
To buy this feeling of isolation and quiet, this luxurious indulgence of my solitude, I used my meager inheritance, which I had shrewdly allowed Aunt Edith to allow a friend to invest. Nothing could be touched until I turned thirty, at which point travel and education were taken care of.
Turn thirty and repair to the bayou. There’s something to be said for that. And now that my goal has been reached, now that the houseboat and the strength are all mine, now what?
Time to farewell?
And where would forward be?
Seems like it’s always just a step ahead of your eyes.
I lean on the railing and stare out over the water. In the distance, walking toward me over the shiny liquid surface, is some sort of glowing shape.
Blink and it’s gone.
Blink: Greenish, luminous, the phosphorescent body appears to be a slender man with bright, shoulder-length hair. He walks carefully, as though cautious about his ectoplasmic feet.
Blink.
Blink: As he approaches, his resemblance to Barnett is pronounced.
Blink.
Blink: You can see right through him, of course, the moonlight behind.
Blink.
Blink: He puts his arms around you, he kisses you, he promises to guide you through not only this world…
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I open my eyes and it’s morning and I’m in bed, naked. Although there’s no trace of sweet stickiness between my thighs, my first impression is last night was hot stuff—but dreams can take you to that same place and leave no evidence.
My eyes close and my body sinks back into pillow—
Bam! Bam! Bam! at the front door.
Refusing to believe that anyone’s out there, or that this is what must have made me open my eyes, I nestle back into my big plump nest.
“Open up, Hulk! I know you’re in there!”
Julie.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
“Okay, okay, hang on to your hat!” I grab an old pink satin bed jacket and a pair of cut-offs, unfortunately catching my pubic hair in the zipper.
Julie’s baby-chicken fuzz hair is plastered to her head, sweat rolling down her athlete’s body. “About time! What’s wrong, you got company?”
“I wish.”
We walk into the galley, where several cats jump up in annoyance, several mew with delight.
Julie opens the fridge and guzzles orange juice straight from the glass container. Her brief blue shorts and T-shirt are drenched, and her lean legs, twitching like a horse’s, run rivers.
“You want a towel?”
She nods, putting the juice back and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Two hours, three minutes, fifteen seconds.” She drapes the terrycloth around her neck.
“That’s great!” I pour myself a Perrier and shoo some cats away to sit down. “Still feel like running with me?”
“You know what I feel like doing?”
“No.”
“Going to New Orleans and getting into trouble!”
This is very tempting. I had planned on running today, and then foolishly agreed to meet Barnett at Roy’s, without stopping to think that there must not be any lifting today. My quadriceps and lats are about as sore as body parts get without bleeding. “I’m supposed to meet this guy at Roy’s around four.”
Julie snorts, sitting down across from me with a package of brown rice cakes and some kefir cheese. “Did he kiss you? Or should I guess rape, considering how you looked.”
“Oh, come on. He wants to be my manager. That’s it.”
She cocks an eyebrow while slathering on the creamy cheese.
“There’s something you could give me your opinion on.” I walk out to the jeep, into the warm midday with a misty layer over the olive-colored trees. The bizarre wooden object is even more peculiar in real light.
And warm, not sun-warm, to the touch.
“What do you think?” The item is so heavy that it makes a very loud sound on the table top.
“Hey!” Julie says, mid-bite. Her fuzzy hair is beginning to dry, swirling into punky stiffness. Beneath the spiky hair, her face is round and cherubic, lips like a kewpie doll’s. Never mind her panther-sleek body: the bee-stung mouth and arched brows tend to flapperize her.
“Well?”
“Well what?” Julie picks the thing up. “Heavy sucker, isn’t it?”
“Don’t you notice something odd about the faces?”
She studies them. “No. What?”
“You don’t think one of them looks like me?”
She squints at the statue, squints at me, squints back at the statue. “Okay, so one of them looks a little like you. So?”
This is how you get to feel like an idiot. “Okay. Never mind.” I take the statue and walk into the next room. There’s only one place to put it, on the bottom level of the altar, next to Hannah. Either there or in the trash, that is.
“So what do you say to New Orleans?” Julie is tucking into the raw cashews.
“Well…”
“Come on, Pet! You lifted a thousand pounds. Let me take you out on the town and celebrate!”
“Give me a minute to think about it.”
“You think. I’m going to shower.” Julie exits the galley.
Idly, I peruse the magazines on the table. Cosmopolitan is full of career tips and articles like this one, “I Was a White Slave for a Chain Gang.” Vogue is slick and smug. There are several photographs in the “View” section about an architect with real fashion flair. She is shown strolling the streets of New York City, looking whimsicaclass="underline" a gray flannel suit and a Mickey Mouse T-shirt, for instance. I’ll just wear something whimsical, she confides to the interviewer, for color, you know. For texture. In another picture she is holding hands with her husband and smiling; he is young and handsome and they are standing in front of the ubiquitous New York fruit-and-flower stand.
What about my life: isn’t it full of texture? The galley walls are covered with photos of Kay Baxter, Rachel McLish, Pillow, and other female bodybuilders. In addition, there are many bright scarves and plastic knickknacks from the fifties and miniature watercolors and handmade potholders and, especially, local “primitive” paintings by Louisiana women artists: lovely garish oils of revivals, baptisms, and hog butcherings.