The Art of Floating (20 page)

The
next morning: “Toad, are you going to talk to me today?”

Silence.

Sia leaned close, pushed Gumper out of the way. “Toad?”

Nothing.

“Please talk to me today.”

•  •  •

Jilly: “Can you say
media sensation
?”

“Mayb
e he melted.”

“Excuse me?”

“Jackson. Maybe he melted. It was so hot that day. Maybe he just melted into the pavement.”

Sia's therapist leaned back. “Okay. Let's go with that. What else could have happened to him?”

“We've been through this.”

“Let's go through it again.”

“Okay.” Sia took a deep breath and then, as fast as she could, said, “Hecouldhavebeenkidnappedmurderedrunawaydrownedstillbealivewithamnesia.”

“Anything else?”

Sia cheesed a grin at her. “He could have been snatched by aliens. If Jillian is to be believed, he's been traded for Toad. An intergalactic exchange for educational purposes.”

“Really?”

“Yep, and actually it makes pretty good sense if you believe in aliens.”

“You don't?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“No proof.”

“You told me that one of the things Jackson loved most about you is that you believed in lots of invisible things.”

Sia blew out a puff of air. “Yeah, look where that's got me.”

In the morning paper:

While an unidentified plover warden slept, a fox made off with a full-grown female plover from Beach #3. Tracks seen to and from the beach reveal that the culprit is a larger-than-average fox, probably male. The warden woke to the plaintive cries of the small bird and a ruddy flash disappearing over a dune. It is assumed that the plover's two eggs will not survive and hatch without her.

The unidentified warden is on mandatory leave. A candlelight vigil for the lost plover(s) will be held on Sunday in the parking lot of Beach #3. The service will begin at dusk.

•  •  •

“Like bear paws,” Mrs. Wysong told the folks at Starbucks about the fox tracks in the sand as she dabbed tears from her eyes. “Thank God it wasn't me.”

“Peppers?”

“Habañeros,” Jackson said. “Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!” He loved the hot stuff.

“Yum.” Sia kissed his lips. “Ooh, I can feel the heat,” she said.

Jackson sliced the last pepper, dumped it into the pan with the onions, then washed the cutting board, the knife, and his hands. “The steaks need six more minutes,” he said, and wrapped his hands around Sia's waist.

“Mmmm, perfect.”

He lifted her skirt, lowered her tights, slipped one hand onto her bum and the other between her legs.

And then . . .

“Oh, my God,” she yelped, bent over double, and kneed him.

“What? What's the matter?”

“Oh, God! Help, Jackson, help.” She grabbed at her crotch. “The peppers! The peppers!”

“What?”

“It burns.”

“Why? I washed my hands.”

“Not enough. It burns. Oh, my God, it burns so bad.” She stripped down, ran to the bathroom, straddled the toilet, and lowered herself into the bowl until the cool water met her crotch.

“Milk,” she hollered. “Milk!”

Jackson grabbed the gallon jug and raced after her.

“Fill the sink,” she said. “Fill it!”

He poured, and when the sink was full, Sia lowered herself into it. Tears poured down her face.

Jackson put his hand on her arm.

“Jack, don't touch me! It burns.”

“Here?”

“Yes, there. Everywhere. Get the yogurt. Yogurt. Hurry!”

“
Move!” Sia snapped. “Move!”

Toad didn't move. He sat in his chair—how did it become his chair?—with Gumper guarding his feet.

“For God's sake, you're worse than a couch.”

Silence.

“Can you at least pick up your feet?”

Obviously not.

She vacuumed around him.

•  •  •

And then from Hilversum, Holland . . . terse and staccato . . .

Dear Mrs. Dane: This is to inform you that I saw your Silent Man here in Holland not more than a month ago. He was leaning against a wall near my office building. I don't know why he stood out among the many people leaning against that same wall, but I imagine since you've met him, you will understand. Everything was as I've read in the papers. He stared. He stood still. He was in a black suit and white shirt. I looked out my window during lunch and he was there. An hour later, he was gone.

Sincerely,

Maarten Visser

•  •  •

Sia pulled the world map from her desk drawer. She kept her eyes closed as she unfolded the continents. She hadn't looked at it since she'd taken it down when she closed the house.

Folded it neatly.

Tucked it away.

Out of sight.

Now she held it to the light so that she could see the pinholes she and Jackson had made. Taos. Shanghai. Sydney. A beach in Costa Rica. Prague.

“Do you like maps?”

She heard his voice so clearly she turned to look behind her.

“I like maps,” she whispered.

She taped it to the wall behind her desk, located Hilversum, Holland, and pressed a red pin into it.

“Holland,” Sia said. “What the hell were you doing in Holland?”

Then she pushed a red pin into her town as well.

Si
a asked people about the Dogcatcher:

“She's one of the three homeless people in town. Harmless, really. Does her own thing. Keeps to herself. Never causes trouble,” Richard said.

“I know who you're talking about,” M said. “Strange bird.”

“Who?” said Jilly.

“Never comes in here,” Slow-Pour Sally said.

The arm-pumping, beach-walking women? They just lowered their heads and eyes and toddled on by.

•  •  •

Curiosity eclipsed trepidation, so the next time Floating Sia lifted off like a hot-air balloon, she drifted right past the pink house, not even pausing to watch Mrs. Windwill scrub bird poop from her gatepost or peer down the street for any kind of nefarious goings-on.

Instead she zipped and zizzled about, dodging blackbirds and sparrows, until she spotted the Dogcatcher heading west with a dingy canvas bag slung over her shoulder. Then Sia followed her along Wales Road to an industrial district on the edge of town . . . a cluster of warehouses and construction sites that Sia didn't recognize. And although she didn't know if getting lost while floating was possible, she continued on after the Dogcatcher down a long, winding road that cut into a dense grove of oak trees, which after what seemed to be an unnaturally long time—though she also didn't know how floating time compared with real time—came to an abrupt end.

There, on the right-hand side of the road, was a single, shockingly white warehouse. Immaculate. Freshly scrubbed. There was no signage. Nothing at all to indicate that it was used for shipping widgets or storing road salt for the winter months. There was a small parking lot on one side, but no cars, and a mailbox on a post near the road, but no name or street number. The door to the warehouse faced the forest, not the lot, and there weren't any windows.

Within minutes, the Dogcatcher settled herself in a stretch of grass between the building and the trees. She looked much calmer than Sia had ever seen her. She didn't scratch or jerk or wave lost-dog signs in the air. She just sat there holding the bag on her lap.

Where are we?
Sia thought.
And just what the heck do you have in that bag?

But the Dogcatcher didn't open it, and after a while she leaned against the building in the shade and dozed off.

With nothing else to do, Sia imagined this was a place where Jackson could have disappeared. The trees were so close together that from above she couldn't tell where one ended and the other began . . . leaves all knitted together.

She thought of the things she would have said to him if she'd been able to talk to him before he vanished.

I love you.

Don't go.

Gumper needs you.

If you have to go, please come home and kiss me first.

He could have easily discovered this little forest and wandered in without knowing where he was going.

But that was just silly. The next town over couldn't be more than a half a mile on the other side of the trees. If Jackson had walked in on this side, he would have walked out the other in less than thirty minutes. Surely, it had been searched like the rest of the town.

Suddenly the Dogcatcher sat bolt upright and looked up at the sky as if she'd heard a noise. Maybe a crow's caw or a clap of thunder, even though there was no sign of rain. She scanned the area, gripping the bag to her chest. A few minutes later, she bounced up and moved to the edge of the trees. She was scratching again, her neck and behind her knees. Then she raced to the door of the warehouse and put her hand on the knob.

Was this her warehouse?

But instead of opening the door, she ran off into the woods and was swallowed up in seconds.

Alone, Sia did what she always did. Looked for signs of Jackson. His bones. A swatch of his T-shirt. A sneaker. A sock. A shoelace. A memory.

If she could have, she would have dropped into the soft grass, pressed her ear to the ground, and listened for his footsteps. But she couldn't. Floating didn't work that way. She hovered above the trees, wondering where the hell the Dogcatcher was heading. She tried to press forward. To follow. But because of whatever bizarre rules existed in the world of floating, that was as far as she could go.

•  •  •

“
Pluvver
like
lover
? Or
plohver
like
over
?” M said.

“I'm not sure,” Stuart said. “I always pronounce it
pluvver
.”

“Jack used to say
plohver
.”

“Yep, and Odyssia used to make fun of him.”

“
Pluvver
.
Plohver
. Lover. Over.
Pluvver
.
Plohver
. Lover. Over.”

“Ri
chard?”

“Mrs. Windwill?”

“Yes.”

“What is it? Did you remember something?”

“Yes.”

“I'm listening.”

“The otter.”

“Mm-hm.”

“The one Sia found dead on the road just before discovering Toad.”

“Yes, I know the one.”

“There was a car.”

“There was?”

“Yes. I heard it. The brakes. They woke me.”

“I thought you had taken a pill.”

“I had, but the brakes were loud.”

“Did you get up to look?”

Sigh. “No, I was too sleepy from the pill. I heard them through a foggy haze. I guess that's why it took me so long to remember.”

Richard waited. “So . . . the squeal of brakes?”

“Yes.”

“There weren't any skid marks on the road.”

“No, whoever was driving didn't hit the brakes hard. They were just bad brakes.”

“Anything else?”

“That's it.”

•  •  •

Sia turned on the television:

Channel 7: “Today the Silent Man . . .”

Channel 11: “Just this morning, the Silent Man . . .”

Fox News: “And so Toad, as he is called by his keeper, Odyssia Dane . . .”

In t
he morning paper:

Fifty-five people attended the vigil for the female plover and eggs lost to a fox last week. Led by Mrs. Wysong in an uplifting rendition of “Amazing Grace,” attendees lit individual tapers from a large white candle that was set on a table near the boardwalk entrance to Beach #3. Once all tapers were lit, the large candle was extinguished.

•  •  •

“You went, Mom?” Sia said.

“Of course.”

“Why? You've never had much interest in the plovers, either way.”

“Jack did.”

“Oh,” Sia said, and her heart throbbed against the bars of its wee little cage.

Toad'
s feet were ugly things—gnarled knots of hambone straight off the butcher's block with pinky toes so unusually stout, they were almost larger than the big toes. On top, thick blue veins protruded like worms, and there was a pale line on the outside edge of each foot, like a long thin scar that ran all the way to the heel. The bottoms were rough and callused, and strangest of all was a bit of skin stretched taut between his toes.

Sia thought it must have been uncomfortable, even painful, to walk on those feet, but while Toad was slow and somewhat ungainly, he never showed any signs of discomfort.

While he slept in the chair, Sia took pictures—first his head, which was beautiful and tender, and then his feet. She was sure that if anyone in the world knew Toad, they would be much more likely to recognize his flaws and foibles than they would his perfect face.

•  •  •

Though the flash went off a dozen times, Toad didn't stir, and while she snapped away, Sia thought of her own knobs and scars that would lead people back to M and Stuart if it were ever she who got lost from life.

There was the pear-shaped mole on her left heel that she couldn't see unless she twisted really far at the waist and tilted her head just so until her neck hurt. There was the rippled scar on the back of her knee she'd gotten falling off her bike when she was eight. There were a number of pale scars on her hands: a broken vase, a slip of a sharp knife, a pointy branch on a tree. She had three strangely placed freckles: on her upper lip, between the second and third toes on her left foot, and just above her right nipple.

On the night she and Jackson first had sex—behind the dunes on the beach—she'd shown him the three freckles, starting with the one between her toes and saving the one just above her right nipple for last.

“Memorize these,” she said. “If you ever have to identify me in the morgue, these are the markings you should look for.”

“That's morbid,” he'd said, but he'd bent and kissed each one anyway, promising he'd never forget.

•  •  •

“Here.” Sia handed the prints to Richard.

He studied them. “This should help, as long as Toad's feet looked like this before.”

“Can't answer that.”