Barry's mom once told him that she was a Queen.
He had been crying, probably because of a mean friend, or a stubbed toe, which he used to get all the time as a kid running around barefoot in the summer. He shut up immediately; he loved her stories.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “Queen of Halcyon. It's an island in the South Pacific. Remember I showed you on the globe where that is?”
He nodded, wide-eyed.
“It was a lovely place. There were white sand beaches, palm trees and blue skies. The water was always warm, and it smelled like vanilla, so it was like wading in cookies just to get your feet wet.” She tickled his foot. “When I was Queen, I used to drink fruit punch from a coconut. I lived in a tree house with pillows everywhere and every kind of instrument you can name. I had a pet monkey and a parrot that could sing 'Take Me Out To The Ball Game.'”
Barry laughed again and then, more serious, said, “Why aren't you Queen now?”
“Oh, the people weren't silly enough. They were always afraid. You name it, they were afraid of it. Thunderstorms, bats, pointy-nosed monsters. Even new kinds of food—like s'mores, can you believe it?—they were too scared to try. It was hard to find anyone to play with me.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, when your father came by on a big sailboat with colored flags flying, I decided to go along with him. Aren't you glad?”
Barry nodded.
“Me, too. Now, come on.” She dropped him off her lap, took his hand and led him to the bathroom, where she pulled a new roll of toilet paper out of the cupboard. “Go make your sister a mummy. Tell her the Queen said so.”
***
The following Saturday found Tillie driving toward South Tucson, a part of town she wasn't familiar with. Stopping at a red light, she studied her scribbled directions several times. She was on her way to talk with Roscoe Fernandez, the Pet Search man, whom she had called from work the day before. She hadn't told Hooper, who was out doing errands. He didn't like to ask other people for help, and besides, he would think it strange that Roscoe had asked her to bring a photo of the dog and something that had belonged to her. Roscoe didn't explain why. It wasn't until the end of the conversation that he invited her out to his house, and she felt that she couldn't back out at that point.
She turned down his street and drove slowly until she came to the right address, a modest white adobe. Although the neighbors' yards were laced with scruffy brown bermuda grass, Fernandez's yard was graced by a single ocotillo ringed by smooth river stones. She felt oddly reassured to notice that the dirt in the yard had been carefully raked in circular patterns. Even so, she was rehearsing a request to hold their conference on the front steps and wished she had told someone where she was going.
The screen door opened before she even approached the house, and a thin man with dark hair came out.
“Tillie,” he said genially. “I'm Roscoe Fernandez. Welcome.”
Grasping her hand firmly, he held it a beat longer than she expected and looked intently in her face. His own was dark-complected and slightly lined; he had a sparse mustache.
“Come around to the back,” he said. “We'll sit on the porch, if it's not too hot for you.”
“No—no, that's fine.” So much for her speech, but at least they'd be outside.
He led her to back of the house, and they passed from barren dirt to lush garden. Tillie exclaimed appreciatively.
“Thank you. I've got beans, corn, squash, stuff like that. All native plants, except for the lemon tree, but that was here when I moved in. I made lemonade. Would you like some?”
“Yes, thank you.” She was parched.
He invited her to sit at a small table that was shaded by a wooden awning. He went inside the back door. Tillie sat and watched a lizard scuttle across the cement floor; then her eye fell on a brown hound dog stretched out next to the other chair. wag.
“Hey, doggy,” she said quietly, and his tail gave one wag.
Roscoe appeared carrying a tray laden with a green glass pitcher and two glasses filled with ice.
“This is Regalo,” he introduced the dog. “Friend of mine found him on the reservation. He was real skinny.” Regalo wagged his tail twice without raising his big head.
He poured the lemonade and they sat for a full two minutes without saying anything. Tillie didn't mind. Unexpectedly, she could feel herself relaxing.
“Okay,” he said finally. “So your dog is missing, huh?”
“She's been gone a while. Since May, three months.” Handing him a photo of Cosmo, which he studied closely, she quickly explained the circumstances and described how thoroughly they had looked for her, how they still occasionally patrolled the school and adjacent areas.
“Uh-huh.” He was contemplating his garden. Tillie noticed a small shrine in the corner of the yard: a blue-robed Madonna in a peach-colored niche, surrounded by an arch of dried roses. She waited for him to respond.
“Did you bring something that belonged to the dog?” he asked finally.
She pulled a dog brush from her purse and gave it to him. Gently picking out some light-colored fur from the metal bristles, he cupped it in his palm.
“Tillie, here's what I usually do. I visit the shelter every day, look at the caged dogs and the records of the ones found DOA. I read the 'found' ads in the newspaper—even back issues. Sometimes it takes a while, but you'd be surprised at how often animals turn up.”
She thought: I told you; we've done all that.
“But.” He held the brush between his hands as though praying. “Sometimes I get a feeling about things. This dog... Tell me. Have you ever dreamt about things that don't seem to be part of your own consciousness? That are completely incongruous, like a billboard on a country road?”
“Hmm. No, I haven't.”
“You know, the dog has a long history of being domesticated. That's why there's so much diversity among breeds. Native peoples for years used them as pack animals. Some tribes treated dogs better than others, but universally they recognized that this animal had certain... qualities.”
Tillie met his gaze. This hot August day, the tart, cold lemonade, the green garden and shrine, the sound of his voice, slightly accented: all made her feel as though she were in a foreign film, slow-paced and lush.
“For instance. People all over the world—in Europe, the Americas, India—believe that the dog is spirit-sighted. They think dogs can see ghosts, spirits, fairies, angels, things not of our world. That they howl when they see the angel of death, if you want to call it that, or when the forces of good and evil are struggling for a soul. Powerful stuff, huh?” He smiled, flashing strong, crooked white teeth. “It's interesting. I've known a lot of dogs, see, and some people say they're just dumb animals, but I really believe they have a depth, a spiritual quality we don't appreciate.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“So what I'm saying is, I get these feelings sometimes about certain dogs. People, too, actually. It's like I know something, but I don't know how I know it.”
Tillie sipped her lemonade. “Do you know something about Cosmo?”
“Well, yes and no. Nothing definite.” He paused. “I'll tell you about this recurring dream. It started a few months ago—maybe May or June—and I get it every once in a while. I dream a dog is licking my face, making me laugh. That's all. But holding this brush, I can tell it was this dog. I mean your dog was in my dream. It may sound silly, but it's true.”
“I see,” she said, struggling to make sense. “Some information comes in images.”
“Something like that. So I can't say for sure your dog is fine, but—well, I know she is.”
She nodded.
“If she visits my dreams again, Tillie, I'll try to ask her where she is, what she needs. Sometimes that works. I'm not sure what else I can do for you at this time, but, please trust me, the wheels are in motion.”
“Thank you.” She felt more grateful than she would have imagined.
“More lemonade?”
“No, thanks. I should go.” When she stood and reached for the brush, he took her hand again.
“Thank you for your time,” she said sincerely. “And the lemonade.”
“My pleasure. Please don't give up hope. These things have a way of working out.” He escorted her back to her car. “I'll see you.”
She knew he meant it. In her rear-view mirror she could see him standing on the sidewalk, watching her, until she turned the corner at the end of the block.
***
That same Saturday, Hooper stopped in at Cafe Joe as he was doing errands around town.
“Sally not in?” he asked Peter. He had wanted to ask her about the flyer in the mailbox last week.
“No,” said Peter. “She begged for the day off, but I don't know why. Hope it's not that bad-news boyfriend of hers.”
“Ah.” Hooper knew nothing about Sally and her love life, but bad news was bad news.
“Hey,” said Peter. “You running auditions any time soon?”
“Not until the start of October. The season starts in a few weeks, but we have a couple things lined up to take us to November.”
“Let me know, okay? I'm thinking of a new career.” Peter made some vogue dance moves with his hands and turned his head in profile. “What do you think?”
“Very nice. You'd make a fine Attendant Lord.”
“It's all I ask.” Peter handed Hooper his iced tea to go.
He stopped at the bank, the nursery, and the hardware store before returning home. Tillie's car was gone and he wondered where she was. He ate a sandwich, left her a note and walked over to the university library. He liked to go there in the summer, when fewer students were around and he could soak up some free air conditioning. His favorite spot was on the third floor, by the large windows facing north, where he could look out on the Catalina mountains. He never got tired of them. Early in the mornings and at sunset, the shadows were deep and the outcrops tinged pink or orange; during a storm they hunkered down and flattened out. Now at midday, they were a burlap brown, washed out under a clear blue sky.
He set before him a stack of original scripts and proposals for performance pieces. He and his co-director Nancy had already pared the choices to about twenty, so he needed to choose six or eight contenders. Tomorrow they would confer and determined the schedule for the season. Normally they would have settled this weeks ago, but they both seemed too busy lately. Or rather, Nancy was busy, traveling and moving into a new house. He had just been too befuddled and lazy.
The Time I Won a Prize was the one on top. Jumping Room after that.
He became aware of a faint snoring. Some researcher drooping over his reading, probably. Hooper didn't blame him. It was just after lunch, siesta time. He himself yawned.
Auction House. In the Dumps. If You Say So. Good grief. Where to start?
He let his gaze drift to the scene out the window. How different the desert mountains were from the flat farm lands outside of Buffalo, the city where he grew up. It was the joke of the rest of the nation, but actually not a bad place to grow up. There were some wonderful old buildings downtown, places to ski and hike not too far away. The summers were pleasant, warm but not too humid. You could go swimming in a nearby lake or river, ride your bike after months of keeping it in the basement. He remembered how shady the streets were, trees so thick and tall you had to stand in the middle of the street and look straight up to see the sky.
One summer he and Tom helped their dad build a tree house in the back yard. It had a roof camouflaged with tree trimmings, so they were protected from occasional rainstorms and possible enemies. They had walkie-talkies, which they shared with a few select friends, a password, and a rope system for hauling up the lunch their mother made. That must have been one of the last summers they still played together; he was about ten, Tom eight.
They both had read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—Hooper twice. He knew all the Oompa-Loompa chants by heart. The tree house became the chocolate factory; Tom was Charlie and Hooper Mr. Wonka. He loved the role. Wearing a cardboard top hat his parents kept from a Halloween costume, he strutted like an antic vaudevillian.
Then the kid up the street, Ronny, started coming over to play more often and he wanted to be Charlie. And since Hooper wanted to be Ronny's friend, he made Tom be all the other characters, from Augustus Gloop to Veruca Lake. Tom was mad about that—and rightly so. Who'd want to play all the dopes? In the scene where Veruca gets sent to the dumpster with all the other bad nuts, Tom finally revolted. “No!” he shouted. “I'm not going into the trash.”
“Not going into the trash?” Hooper repeated, still in character as Willie Wonka. “Not going?” His voice grew louder and he started to hop around the tree house, brandishing his cane—part of an old broomstick. “Dear little girl, you're a very bad nut, and bad nuts go down the garbage chute! Tut, tut! Bad nut!” He was very proud of his ad-libbing, but he was too rambunctious for that small space, and the next thing he knew, Tom was on the ground.
Hooper and Ronny stared down at him in horror; Tom stared back in disbelief. He held out his arm, which was jagging out at a frightening angle, and suddenly burst into a scream that would have rivaled Veruca Lake's. Mom came ripping out of the house, Ronny was sent home, and Hooper, riding in the back seat of the car to the hospital, had to listen to his brother wail all the way. Tom spent the rest of the summer with his arm in a cast, and their tree house play was never quite so intense. Hooper apologized up and down, but Tom seemed to keep a distance, as though he were never quite sure when Willie was going to go on a rampage again.
Under Covers. Walking in Heels.
He laughed to himself. Tut, tut! God, what had gotten into him? He was the real nut. His smile grew rueful as he thought about Tom's letter and how, once again, Tom had been shoved out of the house.
Well, to the job at hand. He had read these scripts once, at the beginning of summer, and had meant to review them carefully before making final decisions, but his heart wasn't in it. Flipping through the scripts, he knew he was giving too little attention to them, the way he might read a Chinese menu when he was so hungry he could eat bamboo shoots out of the can, but it had to be done. He read the synopses and samples of the dialogue. An hour passed, then two. He set the ones he was interested in on the top of the pile and got up to leave. The snoring had stopped, and a young man with a ponytail and orange shirt was now standing in the stacks with a clipboard in hand, staring at the books as though waiting for a sign. He glanced up at Hooper, gave him a sheepish smile and a thumbs-up, and returned to his contemplative pose. Hooper felt unreasonably vindicated for his own half-assed endeavor.
He glanced out the window one more time. He much preferred the long desert views to the claustrophobic trees of the East. A horizon, a sky, a way to orient yourself. It opened his head, directed his attention outward.
Leaving the comfortable climate of the library for the bright oven world, he walked home. Le Mariage de Figaro was blaring when he walked in the house; he turned it down and Tillie came out of the kitchen.
“How's it going?” she said. “Another winning season?”
“We'll see.” He flopped onto the couch and set his feet on the coffee table. “Where were you this morning?”
Still excited about her visit with Roscoe, she sat on the armchair and told him about it. When she started to describe the yard, he interrupted her.
“Wait a minute. You went to his house? By yourself?”
“Yeah.”
“That doesn't sound like a good idea.” He refrained from saying it was idiotic, but he wanted to.
“He was written up in the Weekly. Barry gave me the article. He's got a legitimate service. And we sat outside.”
“You should have told me where you were going.”
“Okay, you're right,” she said, irritated. “Can I tell you my story now?”
“Sorry. Go ahead.”
When she finished, he was skeptical, as she should have expected.
“What's he going to do that we haven't done?” he asked.
“He says he has a great success rate. The article says so.”
“And what's he charge?” he said. Tillie was much too trusting.
“Nothing. Not everybody needs to scrounge for money,” she said—and immediately regretted it. Hooper was more selective now, but there was a time he would take any gardening job that was offered. And she well knew that he scavenged shamelessly for both funding and props for the theater.
“Anyway, Roscoe says he actually dreams about Cosmo. Our dog is special.”
“Dog psychics seem a little suspect, don't you think?” he said, stung by her dig. “Right up there with cat psychologists and horse whisperers. But if you think he can help, great.”
She hated that dismissive tone. Another time she might have let it go, but she wanted him to understand. She'd taken a risk and been rewarded: her visit with Roscoe had genuinely moved her.
“You think it's stupid,” she said.
“I didn't say that! Please don't put words in my mouth.”
“It's not your words, it's your attitude. Your tone of voice. Sometimes I feel as though you're the one making the right decisions, that you know best, and when I try to do something it's all wrong.”
“Damn it, I didn't say that!”
“I didn't say you said that. That's how I feel.” They glared at each other. “All right,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. His head and temples started to pinch, a headache coming on. “Then please let me tell you how I feel. I feel like it was—”
She bit her tongue to keep from saying, “stupid.”
“—unwise to go off by yourself to a stranger's house without telling me. To trust some guy you've only just met.”
Okay, I admit it, she thought, maybe you're right. So why did she want to scream? Walk out the door without another word?
“You're not my dad.” She knew she sounded childish and resentful, and it made her furious—at herself. How could she be mad at Hooper, when he was right and reasonable, when he was only concerned for her safety? She unconsciously put a hand on her stomach, sensing it twist up. Something had gone wrong with this conversation. What were they talking about, finally? She didn't know which issue to address: her lack of good judgment, her inability to explain her actions, his unwillingness to share her enthusiasm, his desire to keep track of her—what?
“Tillie,” he said. “I love you, okay? I want you to be safe. I'm not trying to tell you what to do.”
“It sure seems like it.” Here came the tears, betraying her. “I was trying to help.”
“I'm sorry, then.” He wanted to be sympathetic to her crying, but it set his teeth on edge. How could he talk with her when she melted like that? Couldn't they flat-out argue sometimes, get things out in the open? Or just be adults and discuss things? He gathered his scripts.
“I'm going to run over to Nancy's and go over these scripts with her.” Their appointment was for tomorrow, but maybe Nancy was free now. “Can I do something for you first?”
She shook her head, a tissue to her nose. She couldn't help but think about Roscoe, his calm manner and his psychic dreams, his shrine and icy lemonade. She was not at all sorry to have gone.