Junonia (6 page)

She slipped her hands under the covers. The bedsheets were gritty with sand. She moved from her back to her stomach, trying to get comfortable. She imagined Junonia making her speck disappear and magically restoring Munchkey's face. She wondered what she and her parents would do tomorrow. She thought glorious birthday thoughts. But always, at the fringes of her mind, were Mr. Barden's words.

Somehow, somehow, she fell asleep.

 

Alice's parents kept their promise. The next day the three of them ate an early breakfast, then set out in the car for the nearby bay. Kayaking was first on their list of things to do.

As Alice and her parents drove away from the cottage, Alice saw the Wishmeiers out the rear window of the car. They were walking toward the ocean. Helen Blair's cottage was quiet, as if it were sleeping. There was no sign of Kate, Ted, or Mallory. There was no sign of Mr. Barden anywhere, either.

We're alone together, thought Alice, looking at the backs of her parents' heads. She played with the words in her mind, tumbling them around like stones. Together alone. Alone together. The words seemed opposite, but combined, their meaning was different, and it deepened the more she thought about it. Without realizing it, she said the words aloud. “We're alone together.”

“Yes, we are,” said her mother.

They'd rented two kayaks. Alice and her mother were in one; her father was in the other by himself. Alice asked if she and her mother could lead. And they did.

They hugged the edge of the bay, then turned into the mangrove swamp. Narrow estuaries wound through the mangrove trees. Each year, Alice thought of these passages as streets made of water.

The tide was coming in. Branches reached out like arms, partially blocking the way. And the roots of the mangroves were like spindly legs rising from the brackish water.

They paddled slowly through the leafy corridors, gliding in and out of light and shadow, following a course marked with small, numbered wooden signs. The water was silver and opaque in places, and transparent in others. It was so quiet that the sounds Alice did hear, including her own breathing and the knocking of the paddles against the sides of the kayak, seemed louder than normal.

Alice saw egrets and herons and one anhinga holding its wings out to dry. In the distance, an ibis walking daintily through the water, probing for food, reminded her of Mr. Barden.

After they came to the last trail marker, they paddled out into the bay and then drifted aimlessly in the open water. Being low in the kayak made the water seem so vast and deep, the sky so far and wide. Alice felt like a dust mite compared to all of it. She whispered, “It's so big.”

Her mother turned her head partway and nodded.

Alice wanted to ask her: Do you ever feel too small to matter? But she didn't. She would have felt silly. She let her mind roam until they were back at the shore, climbing out of the kayaks.

From the bay, they drove to the lighthouse at the eastern tip of the island. Alice combed the beach for shells but found nothing worth keeping. She did see several kitten's paws, and debated picking them up for Mallory, but decided against it. She could picture Mallory hating kitten's paws now, never wanting to see one again.

Lunch was next. They chose a restaurant close to the lighthouse, a restaurant Alice had never been to before. After that, they went to one of the public beaches, where Alice ended up with about a dozen good shells, including a lace murex and four tulips in perfect condition.

The day was unfolding exactly the way Alice had hoped it would.

The only thing Alice didn't like that day was their trip to the cemetery. The cemetery was on Captiva Island, across a small causeway from Sanibel. Alice's parents took her to the cemetery every year, and she usually suffered silently through the visits, hunting for lizards or running her hands over the mottled lambs on the headstones. The lambs were smooth—time and weather had worn away most of the details so that they looked more like clouds than lambs.

Alice's parents thought the cemetery was pretty and peaceful; it was one of their favorite spots. “Bury me here,” her father said every year. Alice thought the cemetery was boring.

If no one else was around, Alice's parents let her swing on the big, white-latticed gate at the entrance. She swung for a while, but it felt babyish to her this year.

While she waited for her parents, Alice read the dates and inscriptions on some of the grave markers. She came upon the graves of twins. A
LMA AND
T
ALMA
C
ARTER
. B
ORN
M
AY
31, 1910. D
IED
J
UNE
1, 1910. Both stones read
Our Darling Baby.

Suddenly Alice was sad and wanted to leave. She'd never paid much attention to what was written on the markers before. She sat on a rock by the gate. She would sit until her parents were ready to go. To live for only one day was one of the most heartbreaking things Alice had ever considered. The sun on her face was making her sleepy, but she was uneasy, too. She couldn't wait to get away.

A few minutes later, her parents were beside her at the gate. “We could go to a couple of shops,” said Alice's mother, “or we could go home and lay low.”

Alice liked that her mother had referred to the cottage as home. And at that very second, she realized that she missed Kate. And even Mallory. “Home,” Alice replied. “Scallop.”

“Good choice,” said her father. “Scallop it is. I need a nap.”

 

Alice saw Mallory as the car approached the cottage. Mallory was sitting with her back against the palm tree in front of Helen Blair's place, her knees drawn up.

The instant Mallory spotted the car, she stood and ran toward it, smiling.

“You don't have to play with Mallory if you don't want to,” said Alice's mother. “I promised. It can be just us all day.”

“I know,” said Alice. “It's okay.” Alice wanted to know if Munchkey had been restored to her former self. Munchkey was dangling from Mallory's hand, but Alice couldn't make out her face clearly, couldn't tell if the whiskers had been removed.

When Alice got out of the car, Mallory was right there, in a cheerful polka-dot sundress, still smiling. Alice was surprised at how happy Mallory looked, and she returned a smile, an uncertain one.

“I didn't think you'd
ever
get back!” said Mallory. Her hands were behind her. She was blinking rapidly and wiggling her shoulders, nearly bouncing in place. Munchkey was hidden. “Where have you been?” she asked.

“Well,” said Alice, “first we went—”

“I have someone to show you,” Mallory announced, interrupting Alice before she could finish her sentence. She presented Munchkey. “Ta-da!” said Mallory.

Munchkey had changed since Alice had last seen her. Her whiskers had been darkened. Two black triangles had been drawn on the top of her bald, pale blue corduroy head. Ears. Her nose, which was a small white bead, now had a bold inverted triangle surrounding it, also drawn with black marker. And she had a yellow-and-green plaid tail, safety-pinned to her backside, made from what Alice recognized as one of Kate's cloth headbands. Munchkey looked more like a cat than ever.

“Wow,” said Alice.

“Did you see? She has real paws now,” said Mallory.

“I
do
see.” They were shells. Kitten's paws had been secured with rubber bands to the ends of Munchkey's arms and legs. “I like the necklace, too,” said Alice.

“Kate made it. She found a kitten's paw that had a little hole in it. She strung it on a cord.”

For Alice, Munchkey had previously called to mind a sad, flimsy, faded blue rag-doll version of a gingerbread cookie, whose only adornments were the white bead nose, two pink beads for eyes, and a red bead for a mouth. She looked better to Alice now, hodgepodgey, but happy.

Kate came out of her cottage, waved a quick hello, and went inside with Alice's parents.

Mallory leaned closer to Alice. “And the best part is, I changed her name.” Mallory was speaking in a very important-sounding whisper. “She's not Munchkey anymore. She's Munch
kitty
.” Mallory smiled again, proudly.

“That's cute,” said Alice. She was wondering how the transformation had occurred. How
both
transformations had occurred. Munchkey wasn't the only one who had been transformed. To have seen Mallory weeping and heaving last night, and then to see her now, was like seeing two completely different people. She'd gone from being miserable to being bubbly. It was as if Junonia were real and she had worked a magical spell. “How did it happen?” asked Alice. “I mean, whose idea was it to actually turn Munchkey into a kitten?”

Mallory shrugged. “I don't really remember. My dad or Kate. I think when my dad couldn't make the whiskers go away, he said maybe they were meant to be. Or something like that. He said that some things in life you can't fix to the way they used to be.” She kissed Munchkitty. “My dad says it takes a long time to get used to some things that are new, or when things change. But I'm used to Munchkitty already.”

“That was fast,” said Alice.

“Yeah, I know. But some things take a long time.” She paused, then opened her mouth to say something else, but didn't. She looked away and rubbed her forehead with the heel of her hand.

Alice nodded. She figured that Ted must have been talking to Mallory about her mother as well as about Munchkey. For some reason Alice's mind flickered with thoughts of Alma and Talma Carter. Mallory's mother. The Carter twins. There was a lot of sadness in the world. It was there, even if you didn't notice it at first. Like shadows.

“Let's go,” said Mallory. “I want to show Munchkitty to your mom and dad.”

“Okay,” said Alice, and they went inside together.

After introducing Munchkitty to Alice's parents, Mallory helped Alice wash her shells and line them up on the top of the screened porch railing. They arranged them by type.

“Did you find a junonia today?” asked Mallory.

Alice sighed. “No,” she said. “But I really want to find one this year.” After all, she was going to be ten. Finding a junonia would be the perfect gift. She picked up one of her new tulip shells and turned it in the light. It was covered with bluish gray and brown markings. Its inner surface was lustrous. It was even more smooth than the lambs at the cemetery. It was many things, but it wasn't a junonia.

“I saw about a million kitten's paws while you were gone,” said Mallory, “but my dad says I already have enough and can't keep any more.”

Just then Alice's mother called her. “Come here, sweetie. It'll only take a second.”

“I'll be right back,” Alice told Mallory.

In the far corner of the kitchen, Alice's mother quietly asked Alice if she'd rather have dinner alone—just their family—or if she'd mind eating with Kate, Ted, and Mallory. “It's your choice,” her mother said. “Mallory seems happy. . . .”

“Would we eat here or go out?”

“Either. You can decide. It's still your day. Your pre-birthday day.”

“Can I pick the restaurant?”

“Sure. But I have veto power.”

Alice chose the restaurant she thought Mallory would like best.

“We'll have fun,” said Alice's mother. And as Alice turned to go back to Mallory, she added, “You're a good kid.”

Alice
did
have fun. And Mallory did, too. Alice thought that everyone did, which made her happy.

Before they ate, Ted proposed a toast in honor of Munchkitty, who was firmly positioned on Mallory's lap. And throughout the meal, Alice and Mallory clinked their glasses together from time to time and said, “Meow.”

From their table on the deck at the restaurant, Alice could see the ocean perfectly. And the sunset. The sky and the sea were full of colors—yellow, peach, pink, blue, green, purple. The water was like liquid color, like melted glass swirling around. Several people were taking photographs. Alice thought that it was one of those sights that would look fake in a photograph, it was so amazing. Or else the photograph wouldn't be able to capture the brilliance of the colors; it would make them dull and ordinary.