Savage Girl (40 page)

Liberty has its perils, Bronwyn says.

We had been freeing them, year after year, and that stream is freshwater, not salt, so it made them a little sluggish, and easy prey for the gulls. We weren’t striking a blow for freedom after all. We’d just been feeding carrion birds that whole time.

Your stories are always so sad, she says.

I lean over and kiss her, tasting the salt and stray grains of sand on her lips, delicious.

We spirit the grays into the surf. Then walk them again, side by side.

She says, Do you think out of all the lobsters that you freed, dozens of them—

Over the years, I say, probably more than a hundred.

—don’t you think at least one of them might have made it out to saltwater? Maybe managed to fight off a seagull on the way?

They do have pretty woesome hand claws, I say.

It’d be an old lobster by this time.

A wise old man of the sea, I say.

Could be a female lobster, Bronwyn says.

Could be, I say, laughing. A Comanche she-lobster!

She’s out there right now, Bronwyn says, grown into some sort of monster, twenty or thirty pounds. Lobsters live a long time, don’t they?

Yes, I say. Yes, I believe they do.

Though this book may have its head in the clouds of fantasy it has its feet planted firmly in fact. Stories of feral children, private transcontinental train travel and a tigon in the Central Park Zoo all are grounded in historical research, as are details of confectionary Fifth Avenue mansions and outlandish French ballgowns. The Hunter’s Camp in Lansdowne Ravine was a real attraction at Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exposition. The law firm of William Howe and Abraham Hummel deserves a much more thorough airing than is offered here, and luckily two books treat the exploits of these interesting figures in depth:
Scoundrels at Law
by Cait N. Murphy, and an earlier study by Richard H. Rovere. Mark Twain chronicled the brawling atmosphere of silver-rush Virginia City in
Roughing It
. Fans of Alice James will be glad to read further in her diary, from which I drew some pithy Alice-isms.

I would like to extend my thanks to Dr. David J. Jackowe for his help, and recommend his superb
Atlas of Cross Sectional Anatomy and Radiological Imaging
as the real-life model for Hugo Delegate’s anatomical drawings. Christy Pennoyer also merits special appreciation for lending me a crucial piece of the narrative puzzle. My wonderful editor, Paul Slovak, has always understood where I am coming from and helped me to get where I am going.

Heartfelt gratitude to those who are always there for me: Peter Zimmerman, Andy Zimmerman, Suzanne Levine, Josefa Mulaire, Bill Tester, Lisa Senauke, Gary Jacobson, Sandra Robishaw, John Bowman, Barbara Feinberg, Bethany Pray, John Donatich, Wendy Owen, Henry Dunow, Medith Phillips, Thomas Phillips. As always, Betty and Steve Zimmerman gave generously of their support and were
avid first readers. Maud Reavill—a bit of a wild girl herself—supplied the enthusiasm, ideas and critiques that made
Savage Girl
a better book. And without Gil Reavill there would be no book at all.

Finally, no writer could ever have a better ally than Betsy Lerner. It is to her that this book is dedicated, not only as a sage professional, but also as a long-time friend who has challenged me to live fully and write well.