Duplicity (22 page)

 She felt a tug on her wedding veil and turned from the window. Gigi was standing behind her, clutching her bridesmaid bouquet so hard that the flowers were wilting on broken stems.

 Gigi pointed to her bare head, and then Ellen's veil.

 
Gigi want hat
, she signed.

 Rachelle and Ruth Ann burst through the bedroom door, panting. "We tried to get her to wear this," Rachelle said, holding up a garland of silk flowers, "but she refused."

"She's insisting on a 'pretty hat' like yours," Ruth Ann said. "Lord knows, it's bad enough that Dirk's taking you off to the Salinger cabin. Did he have to insist on having a gorilla for a bridesmaid?" Ruth Ann tried to preserve her image as a severe sourpuss, but she was smiling.

"You know full well that the cabin is only three miles away and is perfect for my work here." Ellen was smiling, too. Nothing could spoil this glorious day. "Furthermore, we wouldn't dream of being married without Gigi. She's really the one who brought us together."

Rachelle faked a swoon on Ellen's bed. "I adore a good romance."

The gorilla tugged the veil again.
Gigi want fine hat
.

Ellen patted Gigi's head and said, signing, "Ellen will get you a hat. Fine hat for fine animal gorilla."

"And how do you propose to do that?" Ruth Ann asked. "The wedding's only an hour away and there are no stores open today anyhow."

"You don't know my Aunt Lollie." Ellen walked into the hallway and called, "Aunt Lollie, can you come in here a minute."

Aunt Lollie poked her head out of the kitchen. "I'll be right there, dear." She drifted into the bedroom, bringing with her the pungent aroma of cinnamon and cloves. "I do declare, I believe your Uncle Vester is going to eat every single one of those Italian bowknots before the reception."

"Gigi wants to wear a veil, Aunt Lollie," Ellen said.

"Well, thread me a needle, dear, and fetch me a muslin sheet. Time's a-wastin'."

 o0o

Twenty minutes later Gigi preened before the mirror in her makeshift wedding veil.
Fine hat
, she pronounced, and then looked at Ellen's satin pumps. Pointing to her feet, she signed,
Poor Gigi. No shoes. Gigi want fine shoes
.

Ruth Ann heaved a great sigh. "We've spoiled her rotten. Who ever heard of a gorilla in high heels?"

"Who ever heard of high heels big enough for a gorilla?" Rachelle asked.

"Vester brought extra shoes," Aunt Lollie volunteered.

"Yes, but are they fine?" Ellen said, laughing.

"Why don't we ask Gigi?" Aunt Lollie left the bedroom and returned with Uncle Vester s pride and joy, a pair of wingtip shoes, relics of his courting days. "It's a good thing that darling old poop has big feet," she said as she wedged the shoes onto Gigi's feet.

Gigi sat in the middle of the floor and held her feet up for inspection. She looked like a solemn sheikh as she turned her head with the muslin sheet from side to side and studied the shoes. Finally she smiled.

 
Fine shoes
, she signed. She rose to her feet and stood beside Ellen.
Gigi damn good pretty bride
, she signed.

Ruth Ann and Ellen exchanged startled glances.

"Who in the world taught her to cuss?" Ruth Ann asked.

"Can't you guess?" Ellen asked.

"Dirk," they said simultaneously.

"I think we'd better go before she decides she needs a dress," Rachelle suggested.

 o0o

The unlikely wedding party climbed into Ellen's aging Buick and Uncle Vester's 1955 Chevrolet pickup truck and chugged up the mountain to meet the bridegroom. Dirk and Tony and the minister were waiting for them in the rose bower beside the lake.

The smile Dirk gave his bride rivaled the brilliance of the sun. As Ellen came to him across the rose-scented clearing, she looked deep into his eyes and saw a reaffirmation of the commitment they had already made. She saw the love and trust that would bind them together in spite of the time and distance that would sometimes separate them.

She reached out her hand, and there in nature's cathedral they became husband and wife, a promise for the future.

 Epilogue

Dirk plucked a rose from an overhanging vine and let the petals drift onto Ellen's breasts. "I'm thinking of the Yukon," he said.

"Not again." Ellen pretended to be horrified. Her green eyes were alight with love and contentment as she looked up at her husband. "Every time we go to the Yukon, I come home pregnant."

He grinned wickedly. "That's the general idea." He bent down and retrieved a rose petal with his lips. "Besides, can you think of a better way to keep warm?"

"Blankets?" she teased.

He plucked another rose petal from her breast. "If we had one more baby, we'd have a quartet."

"I didn't know you could sing." She traced the strong line of his jaw with her fingertips. If she lived to be a hundred, she thought, she would never cease to find magic with this man.

"Who knows what I'll do since I'm retiring from fieldwork," he said. "Think of it, Ellen. With our own quartet we could become the singing Benedicts." Throwing back his head, he gave her a demonstration. His rendition of "The Old Gray Mare" was so terrible that even the squirrels in a nearby pine tree covered their ears.

Ellen laughed. "I don't think the Osmonds have anything to worry about." She sat up and shook the grass from her hair. "Help me find my clothes, Dirk, so we can go back and dress for the retirement party."

"Who's making the punch?"

"Gigi."

"That's what I was afraid of." He pulled her into his arms and lowered her back to the ground. Her hair made a scarlet fan on the grass. "I have a better idea, love. We can pretend this forest glade is the Yukon."

She felt a familiar rush of desire as she looked up into his laughing dark eyes. "Only if you promise one thing."

"Anything," he said as his lips sought her breasts.

"Promise you won't teach this baby to sing."

His reply was the first powerful thrust that erased everything else from their minds, and they set about making the fourth member of their quartet.

-o0o-

 Forgetfulness came quicker if he mixed bourbon with his beer.

 Paul left his chair by the window, proud of how he could hide his condition as he walked to the closet where he kept his waders. He swayed a little at the door, then caught the knob to steady himself.

 “Whoa, boy. Can’t have Bill find you like this…good old Bill.” He opened the door and reached inside the deep rubber boot. His hand closed around the bottle.

 “Be mad as hell if he caught his good old buddy having a little afternoon boilermaker.”

 Carrying the whiskey close to his chest, he made his careful way back to the desk. His hand shook only a little as he poured the liquor into his can of beer. Whiskey sloshed over the side of the can and pooled on the scarred desktop.

 Paul stared at the stain awhile, as if it affronted him. Then he shrugged and lifted the can to his lips.

 “Physician, heal thyself.”

 He closed his eyes, waiting for the warm gray fog to settle over him, waiting for the blessed numbness to overtake his brain. The only thing that overtook him was the certainty that the next day he’d have a hangover.

 In the holding pen outside Paul’s window, a huge dolphin surfaced and slapped his tail in the water.

 “Not today, Ferguson. Can’t come out and play today.”

 The great tail hit the water once more, and Paul turned to look out his window. Ferguson circled round and round in the pool occasionally rising up in a fountain of spray, his body glinting silver in the bright hot su9mmer sun.

 Across the pool Bill McKenzie stood with his back toward Paul, talking to a woman. She was half-hidden behind Bill, but Paul could see enough to know that she was fair and slim, bordering on skinny, and that she had a quiet face with big earnest eyes,.

 For a moment Paul’s curiosity was stirred.

 The woman talked with her hands. Her body language was urgent, almost intimate; and her movement were graceful and eloquent, like music come to life.

 
Music come to life?
He was drunker than he thought – or perhaps not drunk enough.

 Paul saluted the woman with his beer can. “here’s to you, whoever you are.” The beer had gotten piss warm, but he didn’t care. As long as it anesthetized.

 He reached for the whiskey bottle and poured another shot down the small elliptical hole. Might as well make sure.

 Outside in the holding pen, Ferguson began to chortle and squeak. What the hell was Bill doing? They had done vocalization studies with Fergie that morning.

 Paul turned back to the window. The first thing he saw was the child, a tiny tousle-haired boy, sitting in his stroller, pale and motionless as a porcelain doll. His head lolled to one side, and his arms and legs stuck out if they had no relation to his body. He looked like a Tinker toy put together wrong.

 “Dear God.” Paul clutched his beer can so hard the sides began to buckle. The child gazed into the water, helpless, while the woman with the column face leaned toward Bill.

 
The little face was so still, so still.

 “For God’s sake, Paul. Do something. DO SOMETHING!”

 Caught in a time warp, Paul stared out the window.

 As the aluminum gave way under pressure, liquid ran down his hand, his arm. He didn’t notice. All his attention was focused on the child, the silent, needy child.

 A wave of dizziness came, followed by nausea. Even in his semi-anesthetized state, Paul knew it wasn’t the boilermaker at work; it was the past with its ghosts what wouldn’t let go and its memories that crawled out of the dark corners of his mind when he least expected them.

 “No…God…no.” He stood up fast, knocking his chair over. With his fingers still sunk into the sides of the beer can, he went to the refrigerator and leaned his forehead against the cool door. An image of the child wavered, faded, then came back with a vengeance.

 Paul clutched his stomach and heaved. Nothing came up except guilt and paint – and the memory of a tiny face, looking up at him with big pleading eyes.

 “Paul?” The outside door to the combination office-feeding room clicked shut behind Bill. “Are you all right?”

 Paul felt the hand on his shoulder, large, warm, the hand of friendship and compassion. He had promised Bill he would do better. And he really had tried. Oh, Lord, how he had tried.

 He turned to face his friend. “You don’t deserve this, old buddy. I’ll give you my written notice tomorrow.”

 “Like hell you will. You can’t keep running.”

 “I can’t keep accepting your charity.”

 “This is not charity, it’s a job. And you’re going to stick with it until you can pull yourself together.”

 Bill’s pale red freckles nearly disappeared in the color that flushed his face as he pried the can from Paul’s hand. “Dammit, Paul. I’m not going to let you kill yourself—at least not on my turf.”

 Bill strode to the desk, jerked up the bottle, and flung it into the garbage can along with the beer. Metal clanged against metal. Broken glass tinkled. Bill stared into the wreckage, his chest heaving.

 Paul was not too far gone to see past his friend’s anger into his pain. He didn’t like to see Bill hurting. More than that, he didn’t like to be the cause.

 “I’m sorry, Bill. I tried to wait until I got out of here.” Paul ran his hands through his hair, hating the way they trembled. “Sometimes life seems so damned…useless.”

 Bill hung his head and cursed the floor until all the anger went out of him. Then he sagged like a sack of potatoes settling into place.

 He put both hands on Paul’s shoulder. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself. You, of all people, should know better.”

 “My mind knows…my heart doesn’t.”

 “You need a challenge…something more than feeding dolphins.”

 “The dolphins don’t expect much of me except a few buckets of fish. I like it that way.”

 “I don’t. It’s a waste, Paul.” The air around Bill seemed to stir and hum as he made his way to the swivel chair. Hurricane Bill, employees at the center fondly call their director. He picked up a pencil and twirled it between his fingers. “You’re wasting your life here at the center, and I can’t seem to do a damned thing about it.”