The Art of Floating (26 page)

The men played Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who would get the job of distracting Gumper.

Bottom lost.

As soon as Sia was out of sight, he lured Gumper onto the patio with a juicy filet from a Tupperware container he pulled from his briefcase and locked the door behind him. Dr. Dillard smiled for the cameras as he and Tip escorted Toad to the silver Lexus.

•  •  •

Gullible, gullible Gumper.

•  •  •

The Dogcatcher whimpered in the forsythia. She scratched until she opened the scab on her knee and blood dribbled down her shin.

“Richard, what's her name? Her real name.”

“The Dogcatcher's?”

“Yes.”

“Evelyn. Evelyn Boon.”

“Jackson, I'm writing. What are you doing down there?”

“Sawing.”

“Yes, I'm pretty clear on that. What are you sawing?”

“Wood.”

Pause.

“I'm writing.”

“I need to finish this.”

“But I need to finish this . . . silently.”

Longer pause.

“I'm going fishing.”

Bang.

“Are you mad?

“Not mad.”

“What then?”

“Irritated.”

Slam.

•  •  •

“Hungry?”

“Starving. What did you catch?”

“A couple of stripers.”

“You grilling them?”

“Yes.”

“Good time?”

“After I stomped around and threw rocks at the water and cursed your very existence to the gods.”

Kiss.

“I love you.”

Longer kiss.

“You're so damn neurotic about your writing. Why are you such a nut?”

Tongue.

“I was only sawing. By hand. I could barely hear it myself.”

Top button unbuttoned.

“I've got a deadline. Jilly's waiting for this manuscript.”

Second button unbuttoned.

And the third.

“Can't you wear earplugs?”

Nuzzle. Tongues and ears and necks.

“You know I can't wear earplugs. I need to hear the ocean.”

“But then I can't work.”

Lick.

Fourth button.

Hand slips inside.

Zippers slide.

Kiss and kiss.

“You can work tomorrow. After eleven o'clock when I turn in the manuscript.”

Fifth button.

Grumble. Purr.

“Where's Richard?”

Maude stood and unlocked the door between them. “Back there. In his office.”

Sia whirred like a tempest. Maude stepped out of the way.

•  •  •

“He took Toad,” she said.

“I know,” Richard said. “He called me.”

“I can't take this, Richard.” She was so pissed she was shaking.

“Sia, sit down.”

She sat, then drifted away.

•  •  •

There were rules to everything, it seemed. Even floating. Limitations. Boundaries. Borders.

Sia couldn't float to the hospital where Dr. Dillard had hidden Toad away. Stolen him like a wallet or a watch. She got as far as the woods by the warehouse. Floated in the other direction and got as far as the highway that led to Boston. And finally, in an effort to trick the floating gods, she got as far as the east end of town with a plan to follow the coastline south, but could go no farther.

It was as if she were in an aquarium. Like an unhappy fish. And when she bumped into the glasslike boundary, she pressed her hands against it. Flattened them and spread her fingers wide. She studied her wedding ring . . . a plain platinum band.

“What's the use of floating if I can't go where I want?” she said out loud.

She flipped onto her back and watched the sky.

•  •  •

“Who do you think makes the rules about where I can float?” Sia asked her therapist.

“You.”

“You said you didn't believe I was floating at all.”

“I don't.”

“Then how can you say I make the rules?”

“It's the only thing that makes sense.”

“You don't think there is a god of floating that makes these decisions for me?”

“A god of floating?”

“Yes.”

“No, I don't.”

“You think I'm this powerful.”

“Yes, I do.”

•  •  •

Down below, Sitting Sia put a glass of iced tea to her forehead. “What did Dillard say?” she asked. “How could he do this?”

“There's no logic, Sia. He's justified this move in his head and there's no reasoning with him.”

“Can we get Toad back?”

“I don't know. Dillard has a lot of connections and he's used them all to make this happen.”

“And Toad's at McLean Hospital?”

“Yes.”

“Will Dillard let me see him at least?”

“He promised me that.”

•  •  •

When Sia flipped back over, she saw Jilly was dancing in her office on State Street. Clearly she'd assumed she was alone and unseen and had no idea Sia was floating overhead looking down. Music streamed from her computer. iTunes. Black Eyed Peas.

Her feet were bare. She raised her hands over her head and shook everything from hair to ass to big, blossomy boobs.

Sia swooped closer. “Uh-huh,” she said.
Richard
was doodled all over the paper on Jilly's desk.

“
She likes you.”

“No, she doesn't.”

“I'm telling you, Richard. She likes you.”

“How do you know?”

“I can't tell you.” Sia told Richard a lot of things about Toad and Jackson, but she'd stopped short of the floating business.

“Did she tell you she likes me?”

“No.”

“Okay . . .”

“Ask her out.”

“Oh, no.”

“Ask her out.”

“I can't, Odyssia. She'll break my heart.”

“That bad?”

“That bad.”

“At least think about it. She'll say yes. I know it.”

“It's all I think about.”

•  •  •

In sixth-grade math class, Scott Berber passed a note to Sia:

I like you. Will you go with me?

“Tell him yes,” Sia whispered to Jilly. She liked him too.

Jilly did.

Their romance continued like that—via whispered messages and handwritten notes—until the Spring Fling Dance in the cafeteria.

Then?

“He wants to slow dance with you,” Jilly whispered through the door of the bathroom stall.

“I can't,” Sia said.

“You can.”

“No.”

“You have to. You're going with him.”

“I can't.”

Ten minutes later through the bathroom stall door: “He's breaking up with you.”

“Okay.”

Th
e writing on the next unsolicited letter about Toad was neat, boxy, and very, very male.

Sia caught her breath.

Splish. Splash.

“There's another letter about Toad.”

“Really?” Jillian said.

“I assume so,” Sia answered. “I don't know anyone in New Zealand.”

“Read it,” Jillian said. She picked up her wine.

It was one of those scorching late August days that make your muscles limp and wiggly. Sweat dripped from them both.

•  •  •

“Dear Mrs. Dane,” Sia read. “Believe it or not, I read about your story a few days ago. Word of your man Toad is spreading quickly, for I'm all the way on the other side of the world in New Zealand. Guess that's the joy of the Internet, isn't it?

“Anyway, I told a friend about a man I'd seen on the beach not far from my shop. The guy seemed a little suspicious, not in a dangerous way, but in a lost, forlorn kind of way. When my friend spotted the article on the Internet about you and the Silent Man, it rang a bell and she sent it to me with a note attached. ‘Aha!' it said.

“When I saw the photo, there was no doubt it was the same guy I saw. But I can't figure out what the hell he's doing all the way in America now. And how did he get there? I live in a tiny town just a bit south of Queensland, and though I understand you are experiencing summer right now, we're in the throes of winter, New Zealand style. When I saw your Toad sitting on a bench on one of our beaches, he was wearing nothing but a black suit. As you say in the article, it is a smashing suit. Expensive, I imagine, but right now in our neck of the world, it's not enough coverage. He was wet, too, like you describe, and barefoot.

“Normally I wouldn't bother a man looking like he was more interested in being alone than having a bit of company, but I couldn't very well leave him there to freeze. So I asked him if he'd been crazy enough to take a swim in the ocean. But no matter how many times I asked, he didn't answer. Didn't even look my way. Up close like that, I could tell that despite the suit, the guy didn't have two coins to rub together. I suppose he might have had some plastic hidden in a pocket, but it didn't seem so. Besides, though it doesn't take much to get around the world these days, this guy was nearly catatonic. He didn't look like he could manage a walk to the nearest hotel let alone handle an around-the-world plane trip.”

Sia paused and looked up.

“This is nuts,” Jilly said. “Friggin' nuts.”

Sia shook her head.

“Mrs. Dane, I want you to know that I tried to get your man Toad to go with me. I wanted to take him to a hotel or the police station or even to my house so he could warm up. There was a stiff wind that day coming off the ocean and I didn't think he'd survive much longer if I didn't get him out of it. But that man wouldn't budge. It would have been easier for me to roll a boulder from Queensland to Christchurch.”

“He's definitely talking about Toad,” Sia said. “No mistaking that.”

Jilly nodded. “Well, what else? What happened?”

Sia continued. “After a bit like that, I took off myself. I called the authorities on my cell phone and went to meet them at the nearest parking lot. I figured they'd have a way to move this man off the beach before he froze himself to death. Honest, Mrs. Dane, I wasn't gone more than ten minutes, but when the officers and I got back to that bench, the man was gone. Gone. As if he'd never been there at all. At first the officers thought I'd been knocking about at the pub too long, but I pointed out the fact that the bench was a bit warmer and free of ice where the man had been sitting. They believed me, but there was nothing to be done.

“I thought it was only right to let you know what I'd seen. Didn't mean to chew your ear so. Good luck with Toad. Sincerely, Russell Lowcay.”

•  •  •

Sia put her hands over her eyes. “Jilly, it's like a dream. You know, when you start dreaming so deep that when you wake up, you feel like you've been somewhere else? That's what it feels like. I mean, New Zealand? In the freezing weather? If he was there, how did he get here?”

•  •  •

Map.

Pushpin.

Holland.

Pushpin.

Portugal.

Pushpin.

Sweden

Pushpin.

New Zealand.

That made five.

Hum
.

Buzz.

Roar.

The single-word headlines said it all:

STOLEN
KIDNAPPED
SNATCHED
FILCHED

The subheads brought it home:

Shrink Purloins the Silent Man
Silent Man Locked Up by Errant Shrink
Psychiatrist Steals the Silent Man
Give Him Back!

•  •  •

Sia was pacing when Wingnut showed up.

“What are you going to do?” Wingnut asked.

Sia smiled. Even through closed windows she could feel the unsettled anxiety of the reporters out front.

•  •  •

M called. “It's like a drumbeat being passed around the world. Dillard has to release him now.”

•  •  •

Boom-dah-dah. Boom-dah-dah. Boom-dah-dah. Boom-dah-dah. Boom-dah-dah. Boom-dah-dah.

BOOM

Sia
tiptoed, hoping that might minimize the damage if she accidentally tromped on one of the tiny ploverlings as she broke the cross-my-heart-hope-to-die promise she'd made to Jackson years before.

The tide was ebbing.

“Everything is always changing,” Jack used to say whenever they watched the ocean recede.

Sia repeated it for the plovers: “Everything is always changing.”

•  •  •

“Gumper Man always tiptoed, too,” the Dogcatcher said into Sia's ear, making her jump.

Sia flipped around to look at her. “What are you doing here? And what do you mean? Jackson only came here when he was working . . . when he was supposed to. And he never tiptoed. Ever.”

“Oh, no. He came here often when he wasn't working.”

“Not during plover season.”

“Always during plover season.”

“No, he didn't. He wouldn't come near this place unless he was working. He was too afraid of squashing one of the plovers.”

“He was always careful and tiptoed like you, but he came here often.”

“That is impossible. I would have known.”

“It was his secret. We all have secrets, you know.”

Sia studied the large expanse of wet sand revealed by the ebbing tide. “Really? He did?”

The Dogcatcher picked up a wand of purplish seaweed and stretched it taut. “Yes, of course. I have secrets, but I do not lie.”

“What
's this?” M asked. She held up a red-and-white bobber.

“A bobber,” Sia said.

“I know that, Odyssia. I mean, where did it come from? Whose is it? I haven't seen one around here since . . .”

Sia sighed and in a monotone, robotic voice said, “Since Jack disappeared.”

“Well, yes.”

“It's Jack's.”

M's eyebrows shot up.

“It rolled out of the closet a few days ago. It must have been in a box I moved or something.”

“And you haven't hidden it away?”

Sia rolled her eyes. “No, Mom, I haven't.”

“That's big for you.”

“Gumper likes it. It smells like fish.” She paused. “And Jack.”

“Fair enough.”

•  •  •

Now and then there was talk about how much time and public money had been spent trying to find Jackson Dane. Articles tallying up costs for searchlights, search parties, search boats, and whatnot. Editorials on the opinion page asking, “Was it worth it?” Backlash during the especially harsh winter that followed when the snow budget was blown long before the snow stopped falling.

A few weeks after Jack's memorial service, Joe Laslow asked, “What if I disappeared?” His rapt Starbucks audience rolled its eyes.

“No search party. Just a paaarrrtttty!”

“Wouldn't spend a dime.”

“Your wife would marry Bert the mailman before the week's end.”

Funny thing?

It was probably all true.

•  •  •

Someday—maybe—there would be talk about how much money Dr. Dillard spent swiping and housing Toad.

Way too much.