18

Today began with a disappearance.

After night showers, the morning dawned bright and fair. By breakfast, the asphalt streets were close to dry, and the crowd at Westlake Plaza grew with every passing minute. Stella and Doomie had their witnesses and then some. The little podium and modest sound system where the giddy couple were to exchange their I-dos were surrounded by a babble of every tongue and nation. The Russians, Spanish, French, Italians, and Japanese were at my left and right, each staking claim to the immediate area for optimal ceremonial viewing. Far enough away from the fountain to lend a hint of the exotic without drowning out the critical rhetoric, yet close enough to the open court area to gain a good view of the wedding singers, musicians, and, for all I knew, court jesters who comprised the order of events.

It was the first wedding I’d attended where seating was festival style.

The word on the street had spread wildfire strong and there promised to be a throng. It was more than free cake and something to do. It was a bright sign of hope that Stella and Greg found love on a bus in the Ride Free Zone. They were now twice as likely to get off the streets for good. At street level, everyone’s boat floated a little higher on that news.

Through contacts down at the mission, Doomie was offered a job washing the windows of downtown businesses at minimum wage and Stella was asked to be a public liaison for the merchants of Pike Place Market. Some might assume she was a glorified greeter, but the volunteer position came with a blue smock, an employee badge with her name and photo ID, and discount coupons good at several merchants. She’d already put a set of curtains on layaway at one of them. While I was hanging out at Devil’s Punchbowl on the Oregon coast with Richie and Shirl, Stella and Doomie moved from their cardboard shelter beneath the James Street overpass to a tiny furnished dormer room in the King Street Housing Authority. Shared bathroom, cafeteria privileges, and a fifth-floor view of the rail yards.

The inexplicable love between them made people see them differently. Treat them differently. Soon the Littletons would vote and read the newspaper and buy bacon and engage in civil society perhaps for the first time since God said, “Let Us make this man and woman in Our image.” They were a family.

I again checked my watch but how that would cause Jessie to materialize was one for the Sphinx. She was MIA and that was all there was to it. Duke squeezed every drop of Jamaican jerk out of his steel drums in a briny extended rendition of “Under the Sea” from Disney’s Little Mermaid. He even threw in some over-the-shoulder juggling of his drumsticks straight out of Japanese tapenade-style cooking. Still, no Little Haitian.

Fear nibbled at my thoughts.

I borrowed the reverend’s cellphone and called Greta’s apartment. She answered on the first ring. “You’ve got to get a cellphone. When I got up this morning to check on Jessie, her bed was empty and cold. I’ve checked with the neighbors. Nothing. She was happy when she went to bed last night and very excited about her dance today. I’m about to call the police. James, if anything has happened to her…”

“Now calm down, Greta. Don’t bring the police in yet. She’s got a good head on her, so let’s think logically. You get dressed and search the areas around the apartment building. Is there anywhere nearby she liked to go?”

Greta didn’t think long. “The dog park at Third and Bell. She loves that place. Mutts galore. Whenever we go past there, I have to tear her away.”

“There you go,” I said. “You check out the dog park and I’ll wander the crowd. She may have lost track of the time or been distracted by the sights. It’s a carnival down here.”

Indeed, there were at least a half-dozen buskers wowing the crowd with jump-rope routines, unicycle demonstrations, slow-motion performance art, and a live parrot on a string. If people grew tired of the wedding vows, there were Day-Glo yo-yo tricks and a chimney sweep balancing on a broom. It was sure to be less sacred ceremony, more medieval street fair.

Duke switched from under the sea to up in the sky with Kermit the Frog’s favorite, “Rainbow Connection.”

I walked quickly around the perimeter of the plaza, scanning the noisy gathering for a pint-sized hip-hop artist in backwards baseball cap. I half expected—wanted—to hear my name shouted and see a blur of little arms and legs churning in my direction.

Nothing.

What if she’d run from the trauma in her life? She’d had so much abandonment for a seven-year-old—first her birth parents, then her dad-in-waiting. What if she thought Greta would pull out on her too? What if she was lost or stuck or—What if in her wanderings someone snatched her right off the street and had her trapped right now and was…was …My heart started its telltale tripping out when I hit on Greta’s words. “The dog park…She loves that place…I have to tear her away…”

If anything happens to that precious child…What? Abraham the patriarch must have said the same thing about Isaac. God was going to do what God was going to do.

I ran. Away from the dog park. Away from the pretty mother in the leopard-print coat who had found me in the middle of my fight with God. Away from Bill’s bullet-torn corpse and make-belief wife. Away from Chase and his homespun wisdom. Away from the fact that you, my Ruthie, will never come back, no matter how much I wish it. Away from my stalled life and spinning wheels and reluctant faith and selfish rebellion.

Away from the altar of the Maker’s love. Where would I go? To whom would I turn?

My heart banged and wheezed more like a crazy metal contraption than a sublime machine of flesh and blood. I willed it to give out, to dump me like the bag of rags I was. It would not. It did not. And in the end, I was resigned that it could not. Not right then. Not because I demanded it. It could not because the One who had set the whole glorious thing in motion was not about to take it offline on my say-so.

Out of breath, lungs squeaky as a set of perforated bellows, I lumbered to a halt on the sidewalk out front of the Gospel Mission. I grabbed my knees and waited for the tempest to subside. Feet shuffled past, some turning into the mission. Two men shucked and jived one another over whether lunch would be bread and tuna, or tuna and bread. I was too winded to look up.

“It’s Jeffrey’s shift today,” said one. “He opens the tuna can, gives it a couple of waves over the bread, slaps the bread together, then saves the tuna for casserole some other night.”

“You blowin’ wind,” said the other. “Jeff-o told me he’s pulled fresh albacore tuna outta the freezer and them sandwiches gonna be a mile high with it.”

His companion gave a hyena’s laugh. “Sounds to me like as much ol’ Jeff’s a mile high and tuna’s the code for surplus peanut butter.”

To much hooting and back clapping, the skeptics entered the mission. Again, Greta’s words came flooding back. “The dog park…She loves that place…I have to tear her away…” As if on cue, I heard a distant hungry hound barking insistently through the open mission door.

Miss Francis always kept one or two unclaimed dogs in the kennel at the back of the mission in hopes of forging a new bond between child and beast with love to give.

I hurried inside and across the vast dining area where setup for lunch was underway. Down the hall beside the kitchen, turn right past the potato bin and walk-in freezer, left at the loading trolleys for moving supplies, through the archway and across the breezeway separating the kennels from the main building, left at the receiving dock, and right into the kennel proper.

In a chain-link enclosure, the barking dog was a shiny black spaniel/shepherd mix with flattened ears and a submissive, forgive-me-for-living expression of dark liquid-brown eyes and squirming hindquarters. The only canine in residence at the moment, she hunkered down at the enclosure door and whimpered in anticipation. I grabbed a handful of kibble, opened the kennel gate, and made one unsettled creature happy for the half a minute it took to wolf down the food. She licked my hand before hurrying over to the wooden box with a hole in the side that served as blanket-lined sleeping quarters. She stuck her head into the hole and whined, tail beating the air with all the abandon of a punch-drunk orchestra maestro. Back she came and barked in perfect imitation of Lassie’s Timmy’s-in-the-well routine.

I closed the enclosure gate, gave the surrogate mother another handful of kibble, and knelt before the wooden box.

“Can Jessie come out and play?” I waited for a response that didn’t come right away.

“Don’t feel like it,” said a voice from the box.

“I see. Well, there’s a nice pooch out here who’d like her bed back.”

“Her name’s Lily.”

“Lily’s hoping you’ll come out of there. Did you hear her?”

“Yes. It’s because there’s no other dogs in here. She’s sad and lonely.”

“Is that what Miss Francis said?”

“Yeah.”

I waited. No movement, except for Lily, who thought my ears needed cleaning and gave the task her all. With my open hand, palm down, I made her lie down. We waited.

I heard soft crying from inside the box bed. I placed my hand, palm up, at the opening of the box. “Are you sad and lonely, Jess?”

After a moment, a little hand appeared at the opening and rested, palm down, in mine. I curled my fingers over it and felt its incredible warmth. “I—I—d-don’t want my mommy to be s-sad,” she sobbed. “M-make her not be s-sad.”

It was several seconds before I could speak. “Oh, Jess, together, we will work on helping your mommy be happy. Right now, what would make her happier than anything is to know you are safe.”

“OK safe.”

She said it so softly I wasn’t sure I’d heard it right. “What’s that?”

“OK safe. That’s what my mom says when everything’s right—we’re OK safe.”

I worked around the lump in my throat. “Good, Jess, let’s go let her know you’re OK safe.”

The rest of Jess followed her hand into the light and she and Lily and I spent the next few minutes celebrating being together again.

“Can I keep her?” said Jess, laughing every time six inches of pink tongue swiped at the tears on her cheek.

“Uh, I think I hear your mother calling. Let’s go!”

~*~

Ruby Webster watched from the edge of the plaza, clipboard gripped in small, bony hands like bird talons.

I stepped next to her. “No comment.”

“None expected.” She kept eyes glued to the spectacle. “I’m here to cover the wedding of the year.”

“Nice angle. Has it all. Pathos. Irony. From dirty alleyways to the society pages of The Times. Imagine two homeless persons finding true love on a bus and choosing the sanctity of marriage. Will wonders never cease?”

“I liked you better when you were totally bewildered.” She scrutinized me a moment. “I think somehow this is your doing. Whether you talk to me or not, I will put this all together somehow.”

“I’ll talk to you. After the wedding. Over cinnamon rolls at Jake’s. You seem a little thin.”

She waited.

I continued. “I’ve worked out a few things and wouldn’t mind trying them out on you.”

She brightened. “Intrigue with my cinnamon rolls.”

“We’ll see.”

Jess, excited by the reunion with her mother and the huge crowd gathered for the wedding, ran up, breathless and hopping with anticipation. “I’ve decided I’m ready to dance!”

“You’re up next,” I said. “But right now in the program is a special presentation, whatever that is.”

Stella looked stunning in white satin dress and lacy train, a Goodwill donation. The women of the mission auxiliary had pooled their funds and bought it for her with the understanding that they would get it back a la Cinderella for the next street wedding. “Sal” had worked her magic. Stella’s upswept hair was held in a latticework of pink satin baby roses, part of that same Goodwill donation. Two bridesmaids were a vision in sea blue.

Not blending as well were two police officers in Metro Transit green standing near the stage.

For his part, Greg wore a smart gray business suit, white French linen shirt, and white-gold cufflinks that the CEO of one high-end department store didn’t know he was donating until paid a visit by the good Reverend Westover. The shoes were a hundred-dollar pair from Nordstrom “surplus.” The accompanying orange-tangerine striped tie was all Doomie’s doing. Everything but the tie would go back into the mission’s growing wedding-supply closet. Greg and his two groomsmen, dressed in khaki slacks and long-sleeved powder-blue polos, had been shaved and clipped to perfection by Sal’s gals.

How does one know these things? It helps to have a talkative pastor. One additional sartorial note that I can personally affirm from having shaken hands and wished them the best: Doomie was awash in aftershave, specifically Striker 100.

Could this be the same man who once spewed venom if you looked at him crossways?

The soft strains of “Wind beneath My Wings” issued from the discount speaker system on loan from a Westlake electronics store. I patted Jess on the head and turned to say something to her mother when from those same speakers floated the voice of an angel.

I attempted to spot the source of the rich soprano swelling to fill the plaza with heavenly sound. It wasn’t until Greta nodded toward the platform behind the podium that I found my angel.

Positioned stage left in a pool of pink taffeta, Big Pearl was alight with song. I swear she rose in stature with the music, and when she finished, there was a full ten seconds of stunned silence before the audience erupted in riotous applause and shouted accolades. I ran up to the platform, kissed her on the cheek, clapped my hands purple, and earned a knowing wink. Her special surprise was all of that. She laughed, she sparkled, she blew kisses. She was for those five minutes a diva and the most amazing woman.

Jess looked ready to throw up. I crouched next to her, pulled her to me, and whispered, “You only dance for those two right there.” I pointed to the honored couple. “They will remember you for the rest of their lives. And so will we.” I hugged her. “You are OK safe!”

She smiled wanly at me and her mom, adjusted her cap, and darted into the plaza with all the energy of a new pop star. She struck a cocky pose and nodded at the music man who cued the music. And the rest, as they say, is music history.

Jess and big, cool Leroy Brown were all over Westlake Plaza, hipping, hopping, and pop-pop-popping a whirlwind of dance moves that had the audience smiling, shouting encouragement, and roaring for more. Her friend Michael’s voice possessed a surprisingly listenable, if prepubescent, edge. It’s debatable that “meaner than a junkyard dog” fit with the overall blessed-marriage theme, but adorable and entertaining? In spades.

In a nice finishing touch, Jess ran up to the beaming couple, pulled them both down to her level, and planted a “Happy Life!” smooch on each of them before running off to enthusiastic applause. It could not be said that street weddings do not possess a certain je ne sais quoi all their own.

I pointed at Pearl. She pointed at me. What she did not know is that I had one additional surprise up my sleeve.

Just before the exchange of vows, I took the microphone. “For all of Greg’s bus mates who have long wondered what was in the box he carried onboard every day, here for you is the big reveal!”

Doomie reached down behind him and brought up the familiar box bound in brown wrapping paper and twine. Was it my imagination or did the crowd fall back ever so subtly? He snapped the string, tore the paper from the small cardboard box, and pulled from within a single sheet of paper. “Greg loves Stella,” he read into the microphone. “Together forever.” He paused and the crowd held its collective breath. Doomie blushed from his neck to the roots of his hair. “This was my hope box, Stella. My love for you was the only thing in it.”

In the name of amour, our “Unabomber” had been tamed.

The crowd exhaled, Stella planted a giant kiss on her man, and the two Metro Transit police officers visibly relaxed.