Above The Thunder Part 9

"It's a surprise. But don't be surprised if you find yourself in possession of the Hantavirus and Nipah Virus Encephalitis."

"Nice!" Anna said. "Can you find me histology samples from The Elephant Man? I'd also like rabies, slides from both the dumb and furious stages."

"Now, Anna...."

"Oh, Christ. All right," she said, which was how she found herself now, weeks later, on yet another outing with the exuberant Christine.

Anna admired Christine's energy and high spirits, though she was a bit overzealous in planning special events. In the six weeks Anna had been co-leading, the group met at the hospital just twice. With Nick's approval (delight, in fact), Christine had organized two picnics, a Sadie Hawkins dance (half the men dressed as women), and partic.i.p.ation in the Fourth of July PFLAG float where she rode with about a hundred Marilyn Monroes. She and Christine were the only two not in costume other than big dark gla.s.ses and headscarves, twin Jackie O's.

Today's outing was to be a hockey game between the men in Anna and Christine's group, and the residents of an a.s.sisted-living senior citizen home, many of whom suffered from Alzheimer's. "The Gay Moods vs. The Forgetful Dudes" was the name somebody had come up with.

The game was already underway-and unraveling-when Anna got there. She counted six elderly men and four men from The Mood Team actually on the ice; there were ten or eleven cheering in the bleachers. Anna watched as Christine, on skates, was trying to talk to the group of senior men at one end of the rink. They were teetering, rolling this way and that like a handful of stray pennies. Some of them were eating hot dogs. The goalie was reading the newspaper. Each time the puck hit the net he looked up and said, "It's in." The two senior men who were actively playing seemed so aggressive that Anna was sure there were going to be some broken bones by the end of the day.

Anna walked out on the ice in her street shoes. "How's it going?" she asked Christine.

"Isn't it reasonable to a.s.sume that in a group of men, at least a few know the basic rules? I can't teach them. I've never been to a hockey game in my life."

"Somehow, I don't think it matters. We just need to make sure n.o.body gets hurt," Anna said, as one of the "Forgetful Dudes" went full bore toward a "Gay Mood" who was hobbling away on the tips of his skates, using his hockey stick for balance.

"Whoa, there. Whoa big fella, chill," he said, then toppled to the ice. He picked up the puck and tucked it into his jacket. "You don't have to be so nasty, Brutus." He tiptoed toward the goal box, slid the puck in, then did a little victory dance. "Money Shot!" he yelled, and the men in the bleachers cheered.

The goalie looked up from his newspaper. "It's in. The cows have all come home to Montana."

"Uh, well," Anna said. "Maybe we should stick to picnics in the future."

Someone beside her spoke. "The thing is, gay men don't play hockey, and senile straight men can get the puck, but they don't always remember why they want it."

Anna turned, took in the short blond man with the Truman Capote voice. He was wearing a tuxedo and, Anna thought, eyeliner and lipstick.

"I'm Gary," he said. "Ex-partner to Craig, who's in the support group. I'm coordinating the half-time show."

"Half-time show?" Anna asked.

Christine said, "I told them they could stage an ice capades."

"Sweetheart, it's gaycapades," Gary said.

An hour later, Gary, as emcee, announced the ten men in the half-time show. Though all had elaborate costumes, not one of them wore skates. Five Peggy Flemings, a Katerina Witt, two Dorothy Hamills, one Nancy Kerrigan, and a lone Tonya Harding slid around in street shoes to the music of Carmina Burana.

Anna sat beside Christine, felt herself relax for the first time all day. There was something enviable in the playful affection among many of the men; even those who were at war during the meetings seemed to be genuinely delighted with one another-the resentments and accusations put aside for now. In the bleachers, Anna spotted the man who had instigated the blue sock fight that first session. He was beaming down at the Tonya Harding, who looked up every time he heard his partner's laughter and grinned.

When the half-time show was over she watched Tonya Harding thread his way over to the bleachers. The couple had such a look of peace and contentment that Anna couldn't take her eyes away. Love was a river full of submerged rocks. Over time, it was how you diverted the flow around the boulders that mattered. She ached for her husband, his tender solidity and companionship.

The men from both teams were out of energy by the end of the half-time show. A few of the healthier members were going out for pizza and beer, and invited Anna and Christine to come along.

"I can't," Christine said. "I have to drive a van to help get the other team home. Mrs. Brinkman might want to join you. Otherwise, I'd love to."

"No, I'm afraid I can't either," Anna said. "I'll tell you what, though." She turned to Christine. "If you want to go out with them, I'll take the seniors home. You can take my car. We'll switch later."

"That is so nice of you, Anna!"

"Well, you deserve to have a little fun."

Anna loaded the men and their gear into the van and drove them the ten or so miles back to the Golden Years a.s.sisted Living Community. Most of them slept the whole way back.

"Might you turn the heat on?" one of the men said. "I have a chill."

"Sure," Anna said, and despite the summer heat cranked it up as far as it would go. But it seemed to be broken, blasting heat one minute and cold, accompanied by a loud staccato rapping, the next.

"Come in," one of the men said.

Anna looked back in her mirror and saw it was the man who played goalie earlier. "It's just the heater making that sound," she said.

"Yes," he said. "Come in."

The man dozed and woke with each knocking. "Come in, I say. I say, come in ye wildebeests, come in. Come in and lie beside me. There are no lions here."

At home, Anna sat on her bed and ma.s.saged her right temple where a hot, egg-sized lump was forming. She'd cracked her head against the edge of the Plexiglas at the ice rink and now she had a killer headache that wasn't responding to ice or aspirin. She looked at her watch. Six o'clock, and no sign or message from her daughter, which could mean anything. Anna didn't expect Poppy much before nine or ten o'clock, but had left a note on the door with instructions about where to find the spare key, just in case. Anna was suddenly ravenous. She hadn't eaten yet today. She'd been off her feed for a few weeks. Most days, she relied on the clock, rather than her nonexistent appet.i.te, to tell her when it was time for a meal.

She stepped on the scale and was shocked to see she weighed a hundred and nine, sixteen pounds lighter than her usual weight. Still, she was in the normal range for someone of her height and frame. In fact, she liked the way her body felt light and lean. She was perfectly healthy, routinely offered her blood sample for every cla.s.s she taught on venipuncture, and so knew what her hematocrit or monocytes were up to in any given week. The cla.s.s lesson on CBCs had been just two weeks ago, at which time her white count was perfect, her red cells round and ripe as July tomatoes.

She turned this way and that in front of the mirror, squinted. She'd been this slight as a young woman, and it was almost as if she could see the outline of her girlish body once again. The straight angularity of her shape before womanhood stuffed her full, threatened to burst through her overburdened skin. The melon-breasted months of pregnancy. The striations on her belly and thighs-every cramped inch of her staked out as someone's territory, the claims that her husband and baby put on her flesh. It was wonderful to feel the fluid, loose boundaries of her skin again.

She lay down for what she thought would be a short nap, but slept for over two hours.

When she awoke, her temple was hot and throbbing. She'd had a dream in which the lump had become an egg case for baby spiders.

Anna then heard someone moving around the apartment. Her heart pounded as she worked her swollen feet into her shoes. Surely Poppy would have awakened her the minute she and her family arrived.

But it was Greta, Anna saw, as she walked into the living room.

"Hey," Greta said. "I was just coming in to wake you. I peeked in a couple of hours ago and you were dead to the world."

"I can't believe I slept so long."

"You probably needed it."

"Any phone calls? Any word from my wayward daughter?" She picked up the newspaper. The season's program for the community orchestra was already printed in the Events section. She hadn't practiced in days and the first concert was in less than a month. Rachmaninoff would never come to her now. She tossed the paper aside, looked up at Greta. "What's new, my friend?"

"Nothing much. Just back from a rehearsal with the kids."

"How's it coming?"

"Good," Greta said, and looked away.

Anna raised her eyebrows. "And?"

"And what?"

"Since when do you give a one-word answer to a question like that? Normally I get pages."

"Oh, well." She looked down, flushed. She put her feet on the edge of Anna's chair, cracked open a bottle of water. Anna pulled out a cigarette, poured a gla.s.s of wine. "Vice, anyone?"

"No, thanks," Greta said.

"Pardon me?" Anna said.

Greta laughed, shrugged.

Anna didn't take her eyes off her friend. "What's wrong? What's different?" And then she knew. "You're pregnant," Anna said.

Greta's eyes widened. "How do you know that?"

"Are you?"

"I don't know. I might be. I'm a little late."

"Well, you are," Anna said, because it was immediately obvious. Anna had seen so many pregnant women over the years she could tell after a while just by their posture: even very early a woman's body seemed to pull in toward the middle, the hands never very far from the belly, the head and chin tipped down slightly, the shoulders rolled inward. In a room full of women to be tested, Anna could usually pick out the pregnant ones just by the way the women were s.p.a.ced; the gestational woman always sat a little apart from the group. It was pure biology, pure instinct, the expectant mother giving herself a wide s.p.a.ce to thwart any unexpected a.s.saults.

"Have you done a pregnancy test?"

"Not yet," Greta said. "I'm afraid to. I'm afraid to find out. I can't stand the idea of so much happiness so early. Things can go wrong, you know, and I've miscarried once before. Mike's little swimmers, anyway, are not altogether all right."

"Oh?" Anna said.

Greta nodded. "We found out last week. Motility? Is that the right word?"

"Yes. But apparently one made it to the finish line." Anna smiled. "I'm really happy for you, dear."

"Not yet. Don't say that yet. It might jinx me. But thank you."

After Greta left, Anna sat in the chair by the window with a book. She was just about to give up and go to bed-it was twelve-thirty-when she heard that unmistakable sound of the past, the rattle and hum and sputter of the VW bus. Surely it couldn't be the same VW Marvin bought from them all those years before.

Anna stood, lightheaded, not sure what to do: rush out and greet them? Wait until they rang the bell? She heard car doors slam, a man's voice: "Take that off right now, Flynn."

"No," the child said.

"Get the cat," he said. "And I told you to take those goggles off."

The doorbell rang. Anna walked down the hall stairs, turned on the lights. Marvin's big frame filled the doorway. "You made it," she said, and stepped aside. "I was getting a little worried."

"Sorry," he said. "We got a bit behind schedule. We had, uh, a slight problem along the way."

"Oh?" She peeked around him for Poppy.

Marvin cupped Anna's elbow lightly, led her away from the door. "Flynn?" he called over his shoulder.

"I'm getting the cat," she called back. "I'll be right in."

"Where's Poppy?"

Marvin sank down on the couch, sighed, and ran his hands through his hair-still shoulder-length, the way it was when Anna first laid eyes on him. He smoothed it back and secured it in a ponytail. She'd forgotten how beautiful he was.

"We had a little problem in Pennsylvania." He took of his jacket, loosened his shoelaces. "Poppy disappeared."

"What? What do you mean, disappeared?" Anna stood, turned toward the door as if some part of her believed he was lying.

"Anna, please," he said, and led her back to the couch. "Let me say this before my girl comes in, okay?"

Anna couldn't catch her breath and her head was pounding. "How could you do this to me? Call me and disrupt my life, get my hopes up again of seeing Poppy and not bring her back?"

"I tried. I did. We've been having problems. This visit was her idea. She was actually looking forward to it. But she has this mood thing. The closer we got to you the more she got cold feet. In Pennsylvania, we stopped for breakfast. The next thing I knew, there was a note on the windshield saying she'd changed her mind. That Flynnie and I should go on without her. She said she'd check in from the road. She'll be here later. That's what her note said, anyway."

"How could you do this? Why didn't you go and find her? Disappeared where?"

"Poppy has problems. She's always been moody. I can live with that. But things have intensified in the past few years."

Anna started to speak, then heard Flynn's footsteps on the stairs.

"We'll talk about it later," Marvin said softly. "Flynn?"

"I am here," Flynn called from the stairwell.

"Come in and meet your grandmother."

"I'll be in shortly."

"I'll go get the rest of our luggage," Marvin said.

Anna was astonished: he'd already brought in enough stuff for two months. And not the ordinary things for a short stay, either. There was a carton of coffee mugs, one filled with pots and pans. Dishtowels. Both summer and winter clothes. They weren't visiting at all; they were moving in. She felt strained to her bitter limits.

When Anna looked up, Flynn was standing in the doorway holding a giant cat. She had on a pair of ancient optometrist's goggles-the old-style optimeter doctors once used to test vision-and a carrot stick in each nostril.

"You must be Flynn," Anna said.

"I am the walrus." She walked into the room.

Marvin walked in and dumped an armload of things on the floor. He looked over at his daughter. "I told you to put those goggles away, Flynn. Do you want a time-out?"

Flynn removed the goggles and the carrot sticks, frowned, and slumped cross-armed on the couch beside Anna. "Do you know that in a former lifetime I was married to Marvin, who is now my father, and that Poppy, my mother, was a blind cowherd who used to beg for grain. We were Hindu then. Marvin beat me."

"What?" Anna instinctively scanned the girl's body for bruises.

"He didn't want children, and he beat me to make them disappear. In the tummy."

"Oh," Anna said, still a little stunned by the notion of being a grandmother, awed by the presence of this lovely child. Anna put her hand up to her head. Her headache was starting to shake free, but the knots in her head had somehow coiled in her chest. Anna hadn't given much thought to the girl really; mostly she tried to imagine what she would say to Poppy after all these years.

Flynn was gorgeous, Anna noted, seeing a little bit of Hugh in the curve of her lips and jaw line, but mostly Flynn looked like the women on Anna's father's side: there was a spectacular resemblance to Anna's second cousin Ella. Ella was the seventh and favorite daughter of the baker in a little village outside Warsaw. Sixteen in 1939, she had picked up her father's new oven peel and was on her way to the shop that September morning when the blitzkrieg started. Ella rushed into burning homes and helped people to safety. Legend had it that she hit a German soldier over the head with the oven peel as he was getting ready to shoot a kneeling line of villagers who then escaped. Ella later died in the camps.