VIEWING A GORGEOUS ST. ANNES SUNSET proved to be a bust. Jackson and I met at the end of the pier, where low gray clouds hovered. A storm blew up and cracked open the heavens, part of the hurricane that had luckily wimped out. He knew Lighthouse Key lay across the Gulf to the right from the dock. That Sprangle Island was settled across from the cove and the Gulf. But he studied farther left, caught a glimpse of the silver conical-shaped buildings at the tip of land twenty miles away. He wondered what it was.
“Crystal Power Plant,” I said, “the nuclear power plant.”
He nodded, raised his eyebrows and said, “Aha.”
The wind had begun to blow rain, and the sun dove beneath the horizon, so we’d walked hurriedly down the street towards the hotel for dinner. The jukebox at the L&M Bar one block over and beyond offered Waylon Jennings and Hank Williams. The hotel restaurant offered a muffled and wavery Bach. I’d rather have Lucinda Williams or the Decemberists piped through the rooms, but Bach made for a nice change from the usual St. Annes fare.
We pushed through the double screen doors. The parrot in the lobby squawked a hokie “Hello, Mate!” and we began to warm to mauve tablecloths covering antique tables. Waiters were clinking silverware and glasses as they set a semi-formal table. A denial of poverty, I figured.
Jackson pulled out the chair for me. When I looked at him quizzically, he shrugged his shoulders. I felt silly but went with the pretend we’re-both-young-single-on-a-date routine.
After the waiter handed us menus and took our drink orders, I suggested Jackson ask about the fresh catch. “The fishermen come to the back door every day and sell what they’ve just caught,” I said. “It’s usually better than anything else. Fresh.” Jackson nodded, searching the menu like it held the answers to the universe. “’Course everything’s good here, you know.”
“I want one of everything,” he said, patting his flat belly. I wondered if he worked out. Next to his six-three frame, I wasn’t quite so tall. I still made a note not to wear heels around him, though I rarely did anyway. At six feet who needs any help? I glanced from my hands to his, measuring them in comparison. His palms were larger, but my fingers might be as long as his. I put my gawky hands in my lap. Still, something about his barrel chest, his muscular strength, comforted me.
“So who cuts your hair?” I asked.
“What’s left of it?” he joked. He was balding near the forehead.
“Men are too sensitive about baldness,” I said. “We women care what’s inside, not how many hairs you have on your head.”
“I don’t think you were a man in your former lifetime,” he said. “When you start losing your hair and don’t mind it, give me a call.”
“Fair enough. You didn’t answer the question,” I said. “Who cuts your hair?”
“Someone in Tallahassee,” he said. “But there’s a rumor about this talented woman on a nearby island who does a great haircut. She’s been accused of poisoning a local businessman, but I don’t believe them. I’ll be at the shop soon to prove them wrong.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “Rumor has it some merciless investigator wants to use her as bait to bring out the murderer. A letter-of-the-law guy who doesn’t understand her need to pay rent, car loan, and a property mortgage.” I couldn’t help myself. “Come on, Jackson. You know I didn’t try to kill him. Get me off the hook.”
“Huh,” he said. “Mad at me already.” He half-smiled and studied the menu. “You know I can’t do that,” he went on. “If I did, I’d be wondering how to pay my rent and car payment. I’m an investigator, LaRue, I can’t just arbitrarily—”
“Enough,” I said. “Let’s order.” I didn’t want the waiter hearing the conversation and spreading more rumors.
“So, you’re savoring the moment,” he said with a dry smile. “Actually, I think you’re a woman who shields herself with rough humor.”
“Okay, yeah, it’s a shield. And laughing gets me through the day. It keeps me from weeping, too. Except that I can’t think of anything funny about, say, the oil spill.”
“Fair enough. I’m sure you’ll find a way, if there is one.”
After we ordered the grouper and redfish specials, I got down to business.
“Okay, I found these photos on the boat,” I said. I showed him the photos and told him what AJ had said about Trina and Fletch’s drowned son Curtis.
Next, I pointed to the photo of “the Boarders,” with Senator Fielding, Mac, Fletch, a county commissioner, and two others I didn’t recognize. Jackson picked the photo up and squinted.
“That’s Bob Sturkey,” Jackson said with interest. “CEO of the power plant. Totally believes nukes are the energy of the future. He’s like a religious fanatic about it. Now that oil has a dirty name, he’s salivating. I don’t know who the other guy is.”
“All I have to say is, ‘the sun.’ Do you know that on the east coast, down by fancy-schmancy Boca Raton, the people didn’t want windmills in the water? Said they were unsightly. Now they’re all freaking out every time a tiny tar ball rolls up.” He listened, making me nervous, the way he watched. I was fiddling with my water glass, running my fingers down the designs of the cut glass. “They run the damn tar balls to the lab to see if it’s our Gulf oil spill blighting their Atlantic beaches. Define unsightly, I say.”
“Whoa, I can see the spill isn’t funny to you yet. You’re still in the lecturing phase,” Jackson said. I liked that he could push back.
“Okay, never mind,” I said waving my hand. I pulled out the next photo. “Then there’s this one,” I said. “I don’t know who this is.” The photo of Trina as a teenager, a child standing next to her. “Do you recognize this person? I found these on the boat.”
“I haven’t got a clue,” he said. “How would this be evidence?”
I shrugged, feeling both silly and impatient that he wouldn’t consider anything as possible evidence. I went on. “I also found out that Trina didn’t like Mac.”
“What’s your source?” Jackson asked. The waitress brought us crab-filled mushrooms.
“Tiffany,” I said. “Tiffany works in the real estate office, remember her?”
“Youngish woman? Kind of washed out and lost-looking?” I nodded. At least he had deeper observational skills than most. “She spent some time in the hospital with Mac, yes?”
“The very one. And Jim, the grocer, told me that Trina confided in him about how messed up Fletch and Mac’s books were. Others, too, around town, cheating on taxes. She kept trying to get folks to get straight on their numbers, but they wouldn’t. Tiffany said Trina and Mac had a big row in the real estate office once.”
“Row? Since when did you turn British?”
“I studied in London. I pick stuff up. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’ll say next.”
“Okay, let’s back up a minute,” Jackson said. “You say you went on this boat when?”
“Midnight last night,” I said, my fingers tracing the glass again. Our drinks came, and Jackson picked up his scotch on the rocks.
“With his permission, no doubt,” he said dryly, sipping.
“Of course not,” I said. “The garbage man said—”
“Okay,” Jackson, said putting down his drink and listing off my sources with his fingers. “You’ve heard from the garbage man, the grocer, the real estate clerk . . . and now you’re telling me you trespassed on the boat of the man you’re accused of trying to poison and stole his personal photos?” he said. “And this, I’m guessing,” he said, sipping again on the scotch, “is what you want me to submit as evidence to a judge? ‘Your honor, the garbage man said . . .’ ” He shrugged.
“Let me finish,” I said, impatient. “Are you being condescending? Garbage men know more about people’s troubles than anybody, wouldn’t you think?” I heard my own condescension. Still, I rather enjoyed this heady banter. I picked up my glass of beer and played at the foam.
“Sorry,” Jackson said, sitting back, taking another sip of scotch. “Go on.”
“Okay, same back. We Southerners are sorry for everything, aren’t we?” I smiled for the first time that night, I realized. “The garbage man lives on the canal just past the school. The mouth of the canal opens up at the Gulf near Way Key.” I drew an invisible map on the tablecloth with a fork. “And he has an oyster boat. So, he was off work, you know, they start early, get off early, garbage men, and he took his boat on a cruise that afternoon. The afternoon Trina allegedly shot herself.
“He told Madonna that he saw Trina on a boat—Mac’s boat. Right around six p.m.” I was tapping my fork hard on the table. “OV, the garbage man, said she was sitting up in the front of the boat. OV said Trina waved at him and smiled, and he waved back. At the exact time she was supposedly shooting herself at home.”
“Relax, LaRue,” Jackson said. I was leaning forward into his face. He leaned back. “Let’s have a nice meal and enjoy each other, okay? We’re helping each other out.”
“Oh, really?” I said. “I wouldn’t count on the St. Annes PD to keep a goldfish alive in a self-feeding bowl. And that goes for the Sheriff’s Department and the State Patrol too, for that matter. Or in Tallahassee or Gainesville or Orlando, or anywhere.”
“Well,” he said, nibbling on a crab-filled mushroom, “Now we’re all clear on where we stand. This crab is delicious. Just enough spice.”
I picked up a mushroom, waving it around on the fork. “Seriously, Jackson, this thing happened on Monday, and now it’s what, Sunday?” Jackson watched the mushroom in my hand as I gestured. “What’ve you found out? At least I’ve gotten somewhere.”
“Look, it’s the gloaming,” Jackson said, pointing out the front window at the purplish-black sky.
“Twilight,” I said, sighing, letting him change the subject again. We peered out the window, locating Orion, then Canis Major, chasing after the great Greek hunter. We were quiet, enjoying our appetizer and drinks for a few minutes.
Out of the blue, Jackson put both hands flat to the table and cleared his throat. “Okay, did you look for any implements, you know, murder weapons? On the boat?”
“We found a Swiss Army knife,” I said. “I took it.”
“You what?” he said.
I shrugged. “We had slipped on hair dressers’ gloves. We found something red and hoped it would—we saw red streaked across a spot under and behind the cushions of the bed, in the crevices? We scraped it into a bag.”
“Okay,” he said. “That could be evidence. Can you give it to me so I can have it analyzed?” I nodded. “What else did you find?”
“The photos,” I said, leaning into him. “Somebody got on the boat while we were there.”
“Oh, another thief?” he said. “What did he do? Or she?”
I told Jackson how we’d hid below, and that the person was looking for something in the cabin, and grabbed a photo. “Interesting,” he murmured. “Describe this person. And it would help to know what lay in the compartments under the beds. And I won’t even lecture you on how dangerous that moment was.” He stopped and stared at the ceiling. Then he looked at me. “I’m not suggesting you get back on that boat.” He looked at me sharply. “Yet in a crime scene, you look at every single detail.”
“Okay,” I said, waving him away, changing the subject. “So I found out a little about the plant I got that night.” I told him about Logan’s Nursery. “Don’t know by whom, though. What have you found out, Mr. Investigator?” I said.
“Have you heard of a company called ECOL?” he asked. I told him I’d seen the letterhead at Mac’s. “It stands for Ecological Corporation of Oceanic Living,” he went on. “Sounds like an environmental organization by the acronym, wouldn’t you agree?” I nodded, and he went on. “They’re buying up property out the county road near your dad’s place.”
“Who are they?” I said.
“I don’t know yet,” he said.
“Oh, great,” I said. “But you’ll find out?” He said he’d get on it right away. Our salads arrived, and we ate. I explained that the heart of palm salad, invented by the original owner of the hotel in the fifties, involved killing a whole palm for the fruit in the salad. No longer, I told him. Pineapple replaced the palm.
“Interesting how appalling such waste seemed to us in the late twentieth century,” he said.
“And then seemed to be forgotten in the early years of the twenty-first. Nothing like the threat of—ooooo, terrorism—to take you off the destruction of the natural world,” I said.
“And now with the big pile of junk oil we’re dealing with in what was the most naturally preserved body of water in the country—”
“Momentary renewed interest in the environment.”
“So. I made a call to Miami where your Mac Duncan is from,” Jackson said. “Graduated from the University of Miami’s architecture school. Went to work for a large firm there. He’s not the most well-regarded architect in the world. Guy I talked to said there’s more, but I need to talk to the one who investigated the case. But he’s left and moved to Oaxaca.”
“Oaxaca!” I said. “Mexico? Why?”
“Why not? Easier to cover up crime there than in Miami,” he said. “Leave the country with your big bag of money and an economy that’s cheaper. Nobody can touch you.”
“That’s it?” I said. “That’s all you have?”
“I have to talk to the investigator,” he said. “Notes on a case don’t mean anything unless you get the story from the person who took the case. I’ve got a call in to him. You know how Mexico is, though. They’ll get the message to him when they get the message to him.”
“Nothing else?”
“About Mary’s mental health case. She and her husband have tried to keep it under wraps, the diagnosis. She’s a manic-depressive alcoholic, who’s also been arrested for assault and battery,” he said. I raised my eyebrows in a question. “On Cooter,” he said.
“Oh, my god, don’t tell me Cooter can’t—”
“She was fighting with him about something, some hysterical pregnancy she had. She blamed him, and then came at him with a knife. Poor bastard had fifteen stitches in his right leg. He lied and said it was cop work.”
Oh, my god, I thought. But poor bastard? Maybe dumb bastard. “Look,” I said. “He’s the poor bastard who lied on the police report about Trina’s death. So did she go to jail? What’s a hysterical pregnancy, anyway?”
He shook his head. “No jail time. Cooter got her off, and Mac Duncan had her admitted to the TMH’s Mental Health Facility. A hysterical pregnancy happens when a woman thinks she’s pregnant, but she’s not. She shows symptoms, but she’s not biologically pregnant.”
“Weird,” I said. “Poor Mary.” Then we both glanced at each other and away, towards the Gulf. A glassy gulf. I wondered how it would look in six months.
“Poor Mary,” we said in unison, chuckling. “Fifteen stitches, huh?” I said. Why did Mac get involved, I wondered. Our fish was laid before us, and we ate in silence. Jackson offered me a bite of his grouper, which I took. My kids’ father never shared food.
“When I was at Mac’s today, I kind of snooped around in his office,” I said. “Only saw the ECOL stationery.”
He washed down his fish with water. “You kind of ‘snooped around in his office’?” he said. “I asked you to check out two things. You don’t need to snoop around in offices or steal onto boats.” He looked at me pleadingly. “For god sakes, you’re already the primary suspect in the poisoning case, don’t give anybody ammunition.”
“Ha!” I said, grinning. “Look, I’m going through some of Trina’s things, too.” I wanted him to lecture me again. I guessed I was flirting. I’d forgotten what flirtation felt like. I liked his concern. I felt the trust thing oozing through me. I hated it, I loved it.
“For god sakes. It would be different if you’d found a bloody knife or something that was evidence, LaRue. You‘ve got nothing—”
“It’s fine for you to call Miami and find out a few little things, but I need to move this investigation forward.”
“Whoa, there,” he said, chuckling. “I thought maybe you at least wanted a good meal out of this? A social event? No? All business and chewing me out?”
I took in a deep breath and let it go. I started twirling the front of my straight black hair, a habit I’d nearly broken. “Thanks for dinner,” I murmured. I leaned a little closer. Then away. “I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll be right back,” I said. I headed across the dining room, through the lobby, and into the old bar with the Neptune mural. Then to the back of the room, which sagged downhill, and into the bathroom. I splashed my face with water. Turned upside down, shook my hair out, stood up, and stared at the mirror. I looked like a madwoman with hair askew. Why was I acting so intense? Who was this guy? Or was it me? My wanting not to trust him? I brushed my hair smooth.
My ex had been a fantastic liar. Told me to leave with the kids, that he wanted the house if I’d chosen to leave the marriage, I thought as I put on lipstick. Then he had never made another payment on the house again and lived in the house for a year. Meanwhile, I had struggled with a new business and paid rent downtown for an apartment. I hadn’t known about his non-payments until a year later when I received a copy of the foreclosure papers in the mail.
I wiped the lipstick with a paper towel, remembering how my husband had run off and left me horrible credit and a tax debt, too. He’d lied about his income and then had gotten audited. And since we had been married, I had to pay. I wasn’t thrilled with the law. It had never benefited most women in general. Law was one thing, justice another altogether. I decided I looked dead, so reapplied the lipstick I’d put on before leaving home.
And people ask me about child support. Ha. I had been lucky to pay off the taxes and the charge card bills he left me in order to clear up my credit report. Trust? It was something stupid people did. I put a layer of plum over the pink lipstick and headed back out to the dining room. There just weren’t any men in their late thirties or forties who weren’t attached, divorced, rigid, or weird. Laura and I had complained endlessly about the no-guys-to-meet-or-date factor, especially on St. Annes. The reason we joked so much about Randy. I made a note to ask Laura why a dude Jackson’s age was single.
BACK IN THE DINING ROOM, there she sat, in my chair next to Jackson—Daisy. Panic struck me—what could have gone so wrong that she’d walked four Main Street blocks to the restaurant? And sat with a stranger? She and Jackson were talking. She was eating from a new plate. Grapes. She ate one, then put one on Jackson’s plate, which he then ate. Suddenly she burst out in gales of laughter. Jackson was wiggling something black in her face. I walked over. A big black plastic cockroach. She was screaming with laughter and nearly dumping herself out of the chair.
“What are you doing here?” I said to Daisy with some alarm. “And where did you get this?” I said to Jackson, pointing to the cockroach. They both sat up straight and got quiet.
“I just walked down, Mama,” she said. “I got lonely, and . . .” She shrugged.
“She’s fine, LaRue,” Jackson said. “The cockroach is something I have to entertain kids when there are stressful situations. I keep it in the pocket—” He shrugged, looked a little embarrassed. “We ordered some grapes, and we’re having a feast. Right, Daisy?” He brightened, looking at her for help.
“Mama, he’s got a gun,” Daisy said. “He showed it to me. Sometimes he has to use it.”
“Well, what I said was—” Jackson tried to explain, but I interrupted by pointing to Daisy to sit in another chair. She ignored me.
“Is everything okay?” I said.
“Fine, Mama,” she said. “It’s boring in the apartment.”
“She’s fine, LaRue,” he said.
“You know you can call me,” I said. “Why did you leave? Someone could have—. Scoot over,” I said. Then I waved an Oh, forget it hand and sat on the other side of Jackson.
“I think it’s safe to say she just decided to take a walk in the neighborhood,” Jackson said, then saw my face. He turned to Daisy. “You know you need to follow your mom’s instructions about leaving the house. If she wants you to call before you leave, you need to do so.” He looked at me. I touched his hand under the table. I didn’t know why. Maybe I was too afraid, too alone. I didn’t really know what I was doing, frankly. He continued, steady. “And she should know where you are all the time.”
“Okay,” she said. “Can I have a glass of chocolate milk?”
“Of course,” Jackson said, holding his hand up for the waiter. “Should we all have dessert then? Daisy, how would you like some ice cream?” He ordered ice cream for her, but he and I were full.
“Mama, Mr. Jackson is cool,” Daisy said when her ice cream arrived.
“Right,” I said. “He’s the one who—”
“Who’s trying to help your mother find out who we need to put in jail around here,” Jackson said.
“Will you use your gun?” she said. “I think you should. It’s so cool.” I groaned.
Suddenly, Mary was standing by the empty chair at our table, holding a beer with one hand and patting Daisy on the head with the other. It creeped me out, but I asked if she wanted to sit down.
“Maybe for a minute,” she slurred. She was two-and-a-half sheets to the wind. “Daisy, you’re growing up so, Baby.” She sat in the only empty seat, put her elbow on the table, her head resting on her hand, staring at Daisy eating ice cream.
“I know,” Daisy said. A lack of confidence was nothing I’d have to worry about with this child. Then Mary sat up, as if remembering the adults at the table.
“How y’all doing tonight?” she said, but she stared at Jackson. “You’re the detective,” she said. “You find out who did it?”
“Still working on it,” Jackson said, glancing at me. “State investigator,” he corrected. “It’s not my case, exactly . . .”
“Well, I sure don’t know,” Mary said, pulling off her beer. She stared at nothing, eyes wide, looking in the distance. She turned her head to me. “Did you see that wreath?” She didn’t look directly at me.
“Which wreath, Mary?” I asked.
“Well, not exactly a wreath, but this . . .” She waved her hands around in the air. “thing. Of flowers. One with the big-ass silver cross,” she said. “Sorry, Daisy, that was bad of me to potty mouth.” She turned her drunken attention back to me. “At Trina’s grave.” She reminded me of myself early on after the divorce when I’d go out with friends. I’d just wanted to leave planet Earth for a while.
I glanced at Jackson and rolled my eyes in a who-knows way. “Silver cross?” I said.
“Yeah, big styrofoam job with mums all spray-painted silver. Gaudy as shit,” she said. “Oops, sorry, Daisy.”
“No. I missed that,” I said. “I was thinking about doing wedding hair, I have to admit.”
Mary leaned forward into the table and whispered. “They say this black woman sent it.” No black people lived on St. Annes, unfortunately. The black population had left and never come back when the fiber factory folded. It spoke to Madonna’s inner strength and charm that she could mix it up as a brown person on our island. Jackson and I exchanged looks.
“Who was it?” I asked. She shrugged, turning her half-focus back onto Daisy, patting her hair.
“Always wanted a pretty little girl,” she said. She finished off her beer, then got up from the table and walked out the door.
“Well then,” I said.
“Mama, Mary’s drunk again,” Daisy said. “I remember the time you got so drunk you forgot where I was.”
Jackson chuckled. I said, “Okay, that’s enough.”
“Follow up on it,” Jackson said, raising an eyebrow at me. I understood what he meant. Check out the cross, the name, whatever the connection might be. I felt like it would be a waste of good time but would check the graveyard on my way to breaking into Trina’s house. Something he didn’t need to know about. I nodded.
Jackson asked for the check, paid for the meal, and we all walked down dark and cold Main Street to the apartment. Daisy insisted on skipping between us and holding our hands. The crescent moon floated in a hazy sky. The wind was blowing hard, and I decided with chattering teeth to invite Jackson in for a hot cocoa.
WHEN DAISY finally fell into sleep on the sofa, we watched Tallahassee’s evening news. Three guys with Spanish last names had been arrested for animal cruelty after being found running around in a back yard covered with blood, a slaughtered goat nearby. The newscaster connected it with the Cuban Santeria. Jackson shook his head and put down his mug.
“This is more about insanity than Santeria,” Jackson said. “I know these guys. Tomorrow somebody will find a murder victim in a seedy apartment. They were celebrating the death of the other gang’s member, mark my words.” He slumped down in his chair and let out a huge sigh. “All these kids killing other kids. It’s insane. I’ll be busy next week. TV makes it look like a Hispanic thing when it’s an economic thing.” Of course my mind wandered straight to my son of the same age.
“I wonder where Taylor is,” I said. “He should be home in a while.”
“If I were you, I’d be keeping close tabs on that kid,” Jackson said. “Just being careful.”
“Oh, Mr. How-to-raise-children, how many children do you have?” I said. He gave a half-smile. He seemed to get a kick out of my faux toughness.
“Just mentioning it,” he said. “I don’t mean to offend you. And by the way, I respect your ability with this case, in some ways.” He drained his cup of chocolate. “It seems like people have an easier time talking to you than they would me. Even if you do get rough with me, you’re not that way with your townies. And folks seem to talk to your friend Madonna. And Laura digs until she finds the information she needs. I’m just saying, use what you do well without getting a B&E charge, hear?” I wouldn’t look at him. He leaned in towards me. “I’ve made you mad now. Can I make it up to you?”
He had ruffled my feathers about my son. I wasn’t used to men telling me what to do anymore. “No, I don’t think so,” I said.
“We need to follow up—the Mexico thing, blood analysis, the funeral wreath. How about we get up next week?”
“Nope,” I said.
“Can I cook your family dinner?” he tried.
I hesitated, thinking about how full my life was. How nice he was. I didn’t trust it. “I need to get this monkey of a crime off my back. That’s my first concern.”
“Okay, we’ll solve this monkey of a crime, then,” he said.
“Well, you make it sound like you need some deep research or something, like a dissertation, for god sakes,” I said, talking fast now. “I don’t have a fellowship to feed me for five years, Jackson. I am the sole provider for five people, okay? I need to get cleared of this stupid crime I clearly did not commit. You need to find out things. Like who the hell is the coroner who let it slip by him that the death was by a cut throat and not a shot in the heart? And how do we really think it was suicide? I mean, she didn’t leave a note.”
“Notes don’t mean anything,” he said. “And this guy was a doctor, some yokel county doctor who’s hard to find. He’s been out of town and not returning calls. I will be stepping into a dangerous game. And you’ll be at high risk.”
“Find him,” I pleaded. “And see if you can dig up anything about these guys in the photos, the Boarders or whoever.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said.
“Well, thanks for dinner,” I said. “And for entertaining Daisy.”
“She’s a pistol, so to speak,” he said. I nodded. He went on. “Say, find out more about Mary. And Tiffany. Something’s going on there. Why are two young women, one married, hanging around men so much older? Follow the money, they say. And you’re welcome. Let’s do it again soon.”
Suddenly, I felt heavy as a whale. I nodded, yawning. We stood up, and I saw him to the door. He turned around. “Look, you be careful,” he said. Before I could protest, he said, “If someone tried to kill Mac with poison and put it on you, they’ll try to kill again. Be very careful. Don’t worry, just be vigilant. We’ll have this cleared up very soon.”
“Stay cool and drive safely,” I said. “Thanks, again. Good night.”
I FELL ASLEEP dreaming that a maniac from a foreign country who spoke a language we couldn’t understand had kidnapped Laura and me. We were held captive in a tent, and our captor had a piece of art that the other side wanted. I began to realize that I was in fact wearing the art they wanted—a dress. A purple silky dress with black hieroglyphic figures in some ancient language no one understood anymore. Laura kept trying to phone Jackson, but she couldn’t get through. The maniac was saying, “Huh, hah huh, haha huh huh.” We couldn’t comprehend his words.
That’s when I woke up in my bed and heard those very sounds in the living room. I got up and tiptoed out to the front. There stood Taylor, performing karate moves with a fierce frown on his face.
“Huh, hah huh, haha huh huh,” he said.
“Taylor, what are you doing?” I said.
“GoKu,” he said, not looking at me, not pausing from making hand and leg strikes. “From Dragonball Z.” He’d told me before Dragonball Z was a male soap opera in Japanese animation. The main character practiced a variety of martial arts on the screen.
“Why are you doing this?” I said. “It’s like two a.m. I’m trying to sleep.”
“You never know what’ll happen at school tomorrow,” he said, knifing the air with his hands.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“A night is only a grain of salt in the ocean of time, Mom,” he said, twirling around and giving the air another kick.
“Honey, please get to bed,” I said. What was going on with him, anyway? “Come on, I’m tired. Let’s get to bed.”
“Okay,” he said, loosening his body and straightening up. “But Mom, don’t ever sneak up on me like that again. Huh Huh!” He chopped at a mystery foe.