Читать книгу Float Plan - Rob Hiaasen - Страница 11

Chapter 3

In Annapolis, the weather-proofing shrink wrap comes off the boats in spring, as another season de-cocoons. The kid-friendly pirate ship Sea Gypsy gets back to work, as do the twin schooners, Woodwind. Polo-shirted marina employees strip wrap off the Sea Rays, Silvertons, Carvers, and Chris-Crafts. Other big boats come north from Florida and Bermuda. At the town’s City Dock, the inlet is nicknamed Ego Alley for the throaty cigarette boats and yachts that idle through the small waterway between April and October. At the end of the inlet is a landing for tenders and dinghies. If you didn’t have a boat, you could kayak or rent an inflatable Zodiac and zip around the creeks.

Will walked along City Dock by the statue of Alex Haley, whose “Roots” monument marks the spot where Kunte Kinte landed and was sold into slavery. Tourists stopped to skim the plaque’s inspirational quotes. Will saw a private school girl (white shirt untucked) drop a solid scoop of black walnut ice cream onto the crotch of Haley. There were tears. “I want my ice cream!” the girl cried. Her mother attempted to delicately scoop the black walnut by using napkins from the ice cream shop, but she was overmatched. Witnesses saw the girl’s mother resort to using her bare hands to swab the novelist’s lap. Many had to look away.

Across the street at Starbucks, Will considered buying a smoothie, but smoothies were never as good as he hoped. He got coffee, either a Venti or Trenta, and took his confusion and brew to the seawall. Midshipmen from the neighboring Naval Academy grounds jogged by faster than most humans sprint. Gulls henpecked a muffin on the gum-pocked sidewalk (in the field of nature sightings, Will preferred starlings buck-shooting from a tree line). A Sea Ray yacht, maybe 50 feet of her, threaded the needle of the narrow waterway before ever so slowly spinning to offer a view of the boat’s backside with its over-the-side attached grill and Poinsettia-themed throw rug. A golden retriever in a red bandana was curled up onboard. Dean had never stepped foot on a boat. He was more of a sit-by-the-window-and-pine-for-squirrels kind of dog. If he hadn’t been a great dog, he would have made a good cat.

The coffee was either too Venti or Trenta, so Will emptied it in a trash can and walked to the end of the dock. In the red brick square, Will took a seat on a bench by a yellow life ring attached to one of the pier’s pilings. It was a clear day, so the spans of the Bay Bridge were in focus. The water, which rarely looked blue, was tea colored. A bench away, a young woman in shorts and wearing a “Naptown” hoodie was cradling a book. She looked familiar.

“Hello?”

The woman looked up and blocked the sun with the back of her hand. Will saw evidence of minor scars.

“Parker?”

“Oh, hi. I remember you. You brought in Dean.”

“In my silver Honda.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“I never thanked you for helping me.”

“You’re welcome,” Parker said. “It wasn’t my finest moment, but I rebounded. Dean was such a sweetie.”

Will sat on the bench next to her. She didn’t leave or recoil in horror, although Will thought she stiffened a bit. He surreptitiously inched to the farthest edge of his side.

“What are you reading?”

“A poem by a man named Shapiro.” She had bought A Geography of Poets, which she snagged for $3 at the Baltimore Book Fair.

“What’s the poem about?” He had never uttered that question.

“I’ve read it only twice. You really should read a poem several times,” she said. “But it’s about being on the lookout for a ‘great illumining’ even among the desks and chairs of the office ‘should it come between nine and five.’ I like that part about the desks and chairs.”

Will wondered what a great illumining feels like and whether every woman he was to meet on the planet had a thing for poetry.

“I’m Will Larkin.”

“Nice to meet you again. I’m Parker Cool.”

Parker’s hair looked like it still wanted to be blonde but was losing the fight. Dimple on her right cheek. The most unusual eyes (Will wished he had a name for her eyes). An air of – what? – fabric softener about her? So kind when her job called for kindness. Hardly ever made small talk at the vet counter. He noticed she wasn’t always checking her phone. He liked that. No ring, either. He still wore his but more on account his fingers somehow gained weight.

“What do you do for a living, Will Larkin?”

“I teach high school algebra.”

“Ah, a left-brainer.”

“It’s my best side.”

“I bet you didn’t know you have a famous poet’s name,” she said, cracking her knuckles. Will hadn’t heard anyone crack their knuckles since middle school. “Ever read Philip Larkin?”

“That’s my middle name. Philip.”

“You’re a Philip Larkin! This could be my lucky day. Have you ever read your namesake?”

“I was named after my father and grandfather, none of them poets,” Will said. Poems never added up. “I wonder if poets understand poetry.”

Parker’s chin clenched.

“Poems are temples; poems keep you company. Walt Whitman said that. Surely you’ve read Whitman. I mean everybody has read Whitman, right? I sing the body electric? O Captain, My Captain?”

“Is that where Whitman’s Samples come from?”

Parker looked aggrieved. This Will Larkin was such a math teacher. She withheld disclosing her respect for slant rhymes.

“My ex-wife liked poetry,” Will said. “I sort of took a chainsaw to her poetry books.” For the first time since that night, he felt regret – not for the gazebo but for shredding poor beautiful Emily Dickinson.

“Sort of?”

“I did not take a chainsaw to her poetry books.” Dumb, some really dumb shit that.

“I so want to ask why,” Parker said.

“She left me. That’s the best answer I got for now.”

“Do you still love her?”

“I don’t want to talk about love.”

Will eyed a wobbly umbrella. Three months ago at a Starbucks, the wind lifted an outdoor umbrella from its concrete table and sent it rocketing toward Will’s car. The umbrella’s tip impaled the windshield, creating many little windshields. Starbucks paid for the damage and threw in a McCartney CD, but Will was shaken. Someone should write a poem about flying umbrellas and windshields – maybe it was a metaphor. This Parker Cool would know something about the metaphor business.

“What do you think of blogs?”

“I don’t read them. Are they interesting?” Will said.

“Mine is.”

Not that it was any of Will’s business, she continued, but her blog was devoted to the dogs she had cared for at the Annapolis Animal Hospital. Parker posted entries on 165 dogs and wondered if her blog might make a book one day. Dean was post No. 162, and it featured the case of the mistaken basset hound.

“Did you write about my dog?”

“If I did, I’m sure it wasn’t interesting.”

This wasn’t going swimmingly. Will felt safer at school explaining to 151 students that he didn’t round off 89.2 to an A. He felt safer in a faculty meeting faced with a plate of lumpy mayonnaise passing for shrimp salad.

A Harbor shuttle, with its blue canopy and twin outboards, cruised by carrying four wide-eyed tourists and one focused boat captain with too much tan.

Speaking of poetry. “Dean had the biggest, eh, equipment, we ever saw in our office,” Parker said, recalling the dog’s most glaring attribute.

“He was remarkable that way.”

This Parker Cool was pretty in a cute way. Something else, though, something bewitching – although Will never called anything or anyone bewitching. How did that word barge into his head? He was loping along, ran into a vet tech, and found himself talking about Dean’s balls, dog blogs and some poetry dude named Philip Larkin.

By 6 p.m., the wind off the water was bracing. The sky turned sloppy, and the bay water turned gunpowder gray. Will couldn’t think of another thing he could lose.

“I bet you haven’t heard this classic before, but can I have your number?”

Parker frowned.

“Do you have anything to write on?”

A copy of the local newspaper The Capital had been left on the bench. Will borrowed a pen from Parker and wrote her number on the paper.

“Ah, left-handed, too,” she said.

“You, too?”

“No, I am one of God’s normal people.”

“Benjamin Franklin, Julius Caesar, Paul McCartney, David Letterman, Julia Roberts, Bart Simpson, a bunch of cool presidents. All left-handed.”

“All lies.”

They were enjoying themselves despite their usual instincts for flight. Two old souls, Will hoped.

“I bet I write my name better right-handed than you write your name left-handed.”

“Prove it, math man.”

Will handed Parker the Arundel section, and he took Sports. Taking turns with the Bic, Parker and Will scrupulously wrote their names opposite-handed. They kept their backs turned as they worked.

Parker Cool.

Will Larkin.

Each claimed victory, but it was hard to objectively declare Will a winner given Parker’s wedding-invitations-like penmanship. The girl must practice at home. They agreed to a second round but this time they wrote each other’s names.

Will Larkin.

Parker Cool.

Both samples were a train wreck, but what surprisingly intimate business this writing each other’s names with the wrong hand.

“We should do this again to check our progress,” Will said.

“How could your handwriting show its face again?”

“We should have a rematch.”

Parker got up to leave. Shaking hands would feel ridiculous, so they nodded to each other, which was exponentially more ridiculous. He wanted to kiss her. Taste her air.

“I’ll call you,” Will said.

“Better let me call you.”

“Really?”

“It’s complicated.”

The last thing Will wanted was anything else complicated. Maybe this Parker person was too quirky.

“So, you’ll call me,” Will said. “Before you go, what’s your favorite line from Walt Whitman?”

“You really want to know?”

“I do.”

“This isn’t the full quote, but it’s what people remember. We were together. I forget the rest.”

They nodded goodbye, and he watched her walk for a few stirring steps until he turned toward Dock Street to visit his favorite ice cream shop. But Storm Brothers was out of Butter Pecan, and Will had never developed a second-favorite flavor. Quite normal not to like any other ice cream flavor, not quirky at all. Denied his ice cream, Will wondered if people actually sang the body electric or whether that was just one of those poetry things. He wondered about the girl with the dog blog.

• • •

Parker Elaine Cool was raised in a dust bowl.

The white dust from nearby quarried marble embedded itself in the floorboards of the front porches in her childhood neighborhood. Dust on the cars, on the bushes, dust in their hair when anyone played outside, dust on the dog. Children wrote their names in the dust on the back windshields of neighborhood cars. For decades, the Lone Star Quarry in Baltimore County blasted into benches of limestone and marble to make and truck asphalt, riprap, concrete, and bunker sand. The blasts rattled the windows and tipped pictures across the CSX railroad tracks from Parker’s childhood home. For the dozen or so families who lived there, nothing else curious or interesting ever happened on Church Lane.

Some neighborhoods had state parks, baseball stadiums or prisons in their backyard; others had 500-foot rock pits. Cockeysville Marble was famous, though. It was used to build the Washington Monument – an evergreen fact school groups and Cub Scout troops learned on field trips to the quarry off tree-lined Interstate 83. “The Rumble,” as the short noontime detonations were nicknamed, was a geological and sonic novelty for visitors to Baltimore County. Throughout the workday, processions of apple red Caterpillar dump trucks hauled away the crushed asphalt and aggregate as the dust flew. The quarry was never a playground. One day, though, it could make a great swimming hole.

“They should fill it in NOW,” 8-year-old Parker told her parents. Her 10-year-old brother Steve concurred. Fill it in and plant grass and trees and have a playground with tall swings and not those lousy skimpy swings at elementary school. And don’t skimp on the water fountains or have ones that shoot a mile over your head or dribble out so you have to put your lips on it to get some water.

“There should be a dog park. All dogs allowed,” Parker said. “A fence, too, so they don’t need leashes. Not a skimpy fence, either!”

“All right, Miss Skimpy. I’ll call the quarry people and tell them your plan,” her father said.

“Will you really?”

“I said I would.”

“Will they listen to you?”

“Of course. I’m Parker Cool’s father!”

On the afternoon of June 6, Parker’s last day of third grade, a Caterpillar truck loaded with riprap approached its usual right turn out of the Lone Star Quarry. The Mack taxied as slow as any boy’s hand-driven Tonka truck changed into necessary gears, and turned onto Beaver Dam Road across the tracks from Church Lane. At the top of the street, Parker was off the school bus and running the three blocks home. I’m a fourth-grader! A FOURTH-GRADER! She’d have to tell Brownie, her 5-year-old Beagle Lab mix. Brownie had elevated disobedience to an art form; he honored no commands and respected no leash. He was often seen traipsing down the CSX tracks or crossing Beaver Dam Road to inspect the rock pit – the Taj Mahal of fire hydrants. You better keep him on his leash, Parker’s mother would harp. Or keep the dog inside. Must have said it a hundred times.

Parker, out of breath, stood on her dusty front porch and opened the door. Brownie bolted out but didn’t stop to hear her exciting news. Didn’t stop to bathe her cheeks in doggie kisses, didn’t even stop to nudge her hand for ear rubbing.

The dog hadn’t peed for five hours.

“You go take care of your business,” Parker said. “I’ll wait here.”

She expected Brownie to do his number on the tracks and race back. Even if she wanted to, there was no time to put on his leash. Parker imagined not being able to pee for five hours. Not fun, no, no. Her second-grade teacher, Mrs. Howell, once made her wait a whole hour to pee. She was a meanie and wore stupid dresses.

Parker saw Brownie, her first pet, dash across the CSX tracks toward the quarry. The loaded truck pulled out from the gravel parking lot. There was no noise except for the sound of howling brakes. Moments later, the driver told the Cools he had a daughter himself about Parker’s age and she had a dog, too, so he understood, and he was sorry he couldn’t stop in time and, well, he was very sorry. Parker’s parents said it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, they told their fourth-grader.

Parker’s father brought an old Disney beach blanket to Beaver Dam Road. With cars stopped on either direction, he took his time scooping up the broken animal. He wasn’t sure exactly how to pick the dog up, where to touch him, just do it quick. Mr. Cool was grateful for the lack of blood.

“Maybe he needs an operation, Daddy. Let’s take Brownie to the vet.”

All of them were off the road, walking up Church Lane to their home. A few neighbors and local business folks (two brothers who ran a car shop; a dog grooming lady tearing up) asked if there was anything they could do. More trucks rolled out of the Lone Star Quarry, more dusty business.

“Sweetie, our vet can’t help Brownie.”

There were options: the veterinarian’s office could dispose of the cremated remains; several companies offered special Beagle Dog Urns and laser engraved urns created by photographs of the deceased pet.

Parker wanted Brownie’s ashes thrown into the quarry. Her parents said no. So, she kept the boxed ashes in the third drawer of her night table and looked at it only a few times.

On September 4, the first day of fourth grade, she walked home from the bus stop and announced that her new teacher’s breath smelled like pepperoni and her shoes were dumb. At dinner that night, Parker reminded her father to call the quarry people. You said you would. Time to fill in the rock pit and build a dog park with a fence.

“Not a skimpy one, either,” his daughter said. “Also, I’ve decided what I want to be for the rest of life. A veterinarian technician.”

“Well, that sounds very important.”

“It is.”

“What happened to becoming a novelist or poet?” he said.

“I’m still evolving.”

“Sounds like you have a solid plan, sweetie. Maybe when you’re a veterinary technician an abandoned dog will be brought into the office. People will ask if anyone wants to adopt it, and maybe you’ll be the one.”

“I will be the one,” Parker said.

“And you can name it Brownie.”

“No! There is only one Brownie!”

That night the Cool family all agreed there was only one Brownie.

• • •

Parker checked the balance on her humble Visa. She had enough to cover dinner for three at the Corner Stable, a neighborhood rib joint traditionally reserved for Cool family occasions. The booths were full, so Parker and her parents huddled up at the bar. It was no one’s birthday, wasn’t her parents’ wedding anniversary – Richard Cool was almost sure as he noticed Steve hadn’t been invited. What was Parker up to now?

For starters, she bought them a round of beer.

“I have some news,” she said, staring into her reflection in one of the three flat screens over the bar that happened to be on the fritz. She saw herself looking back at herself in the black screen – a fish-bowled rattled version of herself. Parker imagined this moment would be joyful and celebratory with champagne toasts and giddy plan-making. But life often goes off-road even on quiet, dusty Church Lane. Parker broke from her self-stare-down.

“I’m going to be a mom.”

It came out like a press release, but at least it came out. She had told them about meeting a man named Alex. Left it at that, filled in no further details. So, Parker has met a man, Richard, and Grace Cool had discussed briefly before branching off the subject. She was always meeting men or they were always meeting her. None of them got any traction, none of them were serious.

“What?” her father said.

“I’m going to be a mom. Alex and I are going to be parents.” Parker faced herself again in the darkened flat screen.

“Well, this is exciting news,” her mother tried. “Ed, looks like we’re going to be grandparents.”

An alert waiter named Mike – they had him before – leaned in to ask if they were ready to order. They were not, and he didn’t force it.

“Who’s Alex?” Richard Cool asked in a voice that struck Parker as spooky neutral.

His wife refreshed his memory on the scant details offered them upon Alex’s arrival in their daughter’s romantic orbit. They had never met him, of course. Didn’t know his last name. Job? Prison record? Republican? Richard Cool pushed his Yuengling away.

“Are you going to marry him?”

“Honey, that’s a personal question, don’t you think?”

“Hell yes, it’s a personal question, Grace. All of this is personal. This whole night has been pretty goddamn personal if you ask me.”

Waiter Mike thought about leaning back in to take their order but veered off to the other end of the bar.

“Dad, it’s 2010. Plenty of people live together, have a baby, and raise it together.” Parker doubted listing the year would mitigate the shock, but it was a worth a try.

“You’re living with him?” her mother said.

Since last month, Parker said. That was the other news she planned to tell them. She wished they would order: her dad getting his usual full rack of back ribs; her mother a crab cake with a half a rack; coleslaw and stable fries all around. Multiple adult beverages.

“I’ll be OK. I promise. Please don’t worry about me. I have a partner, and we’ll raise our baby together.”

Her mother reached out and patted Parker’s hand. She never liked her mother or anyone patting her hand or shoulder or anything, always felt a little creepy this patting business. But tonight the touch of her mother’s hand unexpectedly charged her with love, acceptance and the promise of another partnership.

“Please, Dad. Say something.”

“I just don’t want…” he said, “… I don’t want you to be alone.”

Parker reached over and patted her father’s shoulders.

“I won’t be alone. I won’t be.”

Mike the alert waiter swooped by just as nice as he could, and he interrupted everything for which the Cools were grateful.

“Y’all ready to order?”

• • •

“You have coffee dragon breath. Since when did you start drinking coffee?” said Alex Cavanaugh, former high school wrestler and current manager at the Gold’s Gym on Richie Highway. The boyfriend and father of 5-year-old Dailey Grace Cavanaugh.

They had been living together for five years in Eastport over the Spa Creek Bridge from downtown Annapolis. Eastport was more Cape Cod and Key West than downtown Annapolis maritime proper. With its pocket parks and pubs, the town was Parker’s speed. Named after the city in Maine, the town was walkable, drinkable and generally unaffordable for 28-year-olds. Two incomes barely covered the essentials.

Alex rolled over and took three-fourths of the buttermilk-colored comforter. Parker clung to her side of the queen bed in their two-story on Chester Street. Her feet were cold, but they were always cold (no one’s fault there). Multiple layers of socks were ineffective; wader socks made from caribou hide could not have cut the chill. Her boyfriend took the good head pillow, of course he did.

If he would only fall asleep, she could reclaim the comforter and pillow she brought into the relationship. As if entombed, Parker did not speak or move on her side of the bed. She wondered if they left the outdoor floods on or was it the moon. A walk in all this light would be wonderful. It would be easy to slip out and walk by the marina across the street, hear the sailboat masts clank. Listen for restless dogs or chittering raccoons. Please start snoring, Alex.

“Who did you have coffee with, Park?”

“I had coffee with a girlfriend. I like coffee. I have liked coffee for many years.”

“What girlfriend?”

“My secret lesbian lover, Alex. The one I’m going to leave you for. What do you mean what girlfriend? Paige from work, OK? Paige, a woman, not a guy, not even a lesbian, as far as I know. Hell, I wish she was. Call her up tomorrow if you don’t believe me.”

“Why wouldn’t I believe you?”

“You are driving me fucking crazy, you know that?”

Parker flung off the sheet. He heard her slip into her jeans and cozy her feet into her running shoes. She didn’t bother lacing up. She always wanted to stomp out on somebody. She hoped she didn’t wake Dailey in the smaller of their two bedrooms. But the girl was a notorious deep sleeper, always was.

“Where are you going?”

“For a walk. By myself.”

The night was chillier than she figured, but 4 a.m. was always chilly. She didn’t feel like hopping the fence at nearby Mears Marina to creep up on silent sailboats. Parker walked up Chester Street and the three long blocks up Sixth Street toward the drawbridge at Spa Creek. The Royal Farms was open. Piping hot coffee called to her in whale song, but she kept walking.

They met in junior year of high school, a dull mess of a year. The only bright spot was Parker’s English teacher, Mrs. Chisholm, who believed students should read good poems and books. Not only read them but talk about them, dissect them, argue for their very goodness. And Mrs. Chisholm had saved the best for last. At the start of the fourth quarter, Parker was assigned “The Grapes of Wrath.” Each student would be required to read a key passage in front of the class. Three weeks later, Parker knew exactly what page she would perform.

On the book’s last page, Rose of Sharon’s intimate act of compassion culminates Steinbeck’s epic. To save the life of starving man, a poor dying stranger in need of milk, Rose of Sharon...

...loosened one side of the towel and bared her breast, Parker recited. She knew she never could have paraphrased Steinbeck’s final words. Somebody in class would have snickered at the mere mention of “breast,” and that scene certainly wasn’t in the movie. She stuck to the script:

“...You got to,” she said. She squirmed closer and pulled his head close…”

Parker’s voice steadied. There was no snickering, not even from the boys. Not even from Alex Cavanaugh, the cocky, brawny wrestler sitting in the front row closest to the speaker. Parker felt his panther eyes on her – like he was hanging on her every word. She suddenly became very aware of the clingy top she had on. Could people see...

“...There!” she said. “There.” Her hand moved behind his head and supported it. Her fingers moved gently in his hair.”

Parker felt twitchy. She swore she could hear Alex’s panting. She imagined, if for a second, the feel of his hot breath…

“…She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously.”

In that moment, Parker Cool smiled mysteriously, Alex told her the next week but she swore it didn’t happen. But she had smiled mysteriously. And four years later, Lucinda Williams – not Rose of Sharon – was the culprit. If it hadn’t been for Lucinda playing the Ram’s Head Tavern, Parker would not have bumped into Alex again. He came over and offered her a beer she had never heard of – Flying Fish, Flying Dog, Flying Beer, something. After the concert and a scorching version of “Righteously,” the two walked up West Street. Parker liked his aggressive smile – not mean or nasty but aggressive. Everything he said or did, every expression, seemed to clear a path for her. That night they hopped the fence at Mears Marina at 2 a.m. and stretched out on the clay tennis court. She nestled her knees and hands into the clay and heard wind chimes from somebody’s boat, and as she rocked even his breathing was aggressive. Alex didn’t have any stop in him. The boy was all engine.

Then, within a year, living together then Dailey, an accident, although Parker could never say that word out loud or to herself. How could her baby girl ever be an accident? If anything was an accident, it was that damn Rose of Sharon and Lucinda Williams.

Alone in the parking lot of the Boston Whaler dealership, Parker pulled out her iPhone. Her older brother answered on the sixth ring.

“Wake up, dear one.”

“Please go away. I was in the middle of a sex dream. Brad Pitt was my dentist and he was taking out my wisdom teeth and I had like 60 of them so he was in my mouth all day.”

“Visual achieved.”

Steve didn’t ask why his sister was calling at 4:00 a.m. and why, judging by the faint sound of road, wind, and water, she was calling from an undisclosed maritime location. He knew her well enough to know the reason would be forthcoming in baby steps. Steve sat up in bed. He heard wind chimes coming from her cell. Was she on the bridge at Weems Creek?

“Parker?”

She had started walking back until she was a block from her home.

“I’m here.”

Parker reached Chester Street and looked up at Alex’s bedroom window. She prayed he was still snoring.

“My living arrangement is less than satisfying.”

“That’s a start,” Steve said.

“Can Dailey and I come over to stay for a few days?”

“I’ll turn the lights on for you.”

The call dropped out.

At the house, Parker took off her shoes on the front porch, squeaked open the front door, and walked upstairs in sock feet. At the bedroom door, she squeezed the knob counterclockwise. Nothing was ever accomplished quietly at night. Parker dodged the bedposts at the front of the bed, the knobbed masts that often were her foil in daylight. Alex wasn’t snoring, but he was breathing deeply. If she lifted the comforter, he might feel a sudden wave of cool air and awaken. Parker lowered herself on top of the covers and lay still as a dead sparrow. Cold outside her covers. Not even the flat pillow on her side.

“Have a nice walk?”

Alex turned on the light over his head, one of those fancy reading lamps he used when pretending to read. She sat up, looked ahead to a point outside the window where purple, pink and lavender streaked Maryland’s sky. Alex got out of his bed and walked to the window. Parker wrapped herself in the buttermilk comforter, a graduation gift from her parents after she became a veterinary technician.

“I’m leaving.”

She walked to the dresser to get her key ring and handbag. She counted her bills and double-checked for her Visa card. Folding the comforter was cumbersome, but Parker managed to tuck the bundle under her arms. Then she went into their daughter’s room, collected as much of her clothes under her arm as she could before gently hoisting Dailey from her bed.

“Mommy, where are we going?” said the groggy girl in her Disney “Frozen Elsa” pajamas bought from Kohl’s.

“We’re going to a sleepover at Uncle Steve’s.”

Alex’s brain, which often lagged behind real-time events, finally snapped to attention as he watched Parker’s ensuing hour-long packing of her Samsonite three-piece set, a high school graduation present from her parents. He followed his girlfriend and daughter out to her car.

“This is crazy, Park. You’re acting crazy.”

Parker closed the hatchback with a good shove. In her back seat, she kept a spare hula hoop for whenever the urge to emergency hoop overcame her. The rest of her stuff was still in the house: DVD player, ottoman, Wegmans cookware and a Waiting for Guffman movie poster. She jetted back into the house and snatched the poster off the wall. In the front yard, she uprooted her shepherd’s hook and packed it, the bird feeder, and squirrel baffle into her car.

“Get in the house. Now,” Alex said to the reversing car. Once out of the driveway, the compact stopped on Chester Street. She rolled down her window and waved him toward her.

“Alex?”

“What?”

“Goodbye.”

Parker was so tired she barely remembered her brother steering her and Dailey to his guest bedroom where they collapsed in two lumps of exhaustion. In the morning, she remembered her dream, and she never remembered her dreams.

She was putting on a pair of Picasso’s pants. The pants were cubed and hippie yellow, and she spent the dream (a time-bending, filmic vision) walking alone on a vibrant purple beach. The shore birds were tilted and still. The surf was also frozen in still life – waiting for someone to paint the waves free. Parker walked the still-life purple coast, looking for anything that would and should be moving. But only she was moving, only she was going somewhere in Picasso’s pants. She wasn’t part of the still life. Not in her dream.