Turtle Moon Part 15

Squirrels and yellow bats scatter in the trees. Dark swirls of mosquitoes rise to the highest branches. He throws the stick again and again, until his arm aches. When he stops and sits down on a log, the dog trots over and lays his huge head in the boy's lap.

Since losing his voice, the boy has realized that he never did have all that much to say. The panic he felt at first when he opened his mouth and nothing came out is gone. He's said enough nasty words to last a lifetime; the absence of sound makes him feel a kind of peace. He thinks of all the people in his life who thought they knew him.

They didn't know him, they just listened to what he said. No one has ever known him the way this dog does. He knows when the boy's about to rise to his feet before he does; he knows exactly how fast the boy can travel through the woods back to Julian's house, and that the boy will return the following evening to set him free once again.

Running away is no longer a possibility. That's just the way it is.

Some people understand this when they first look into their newborn baby's eyes, or when they fall in love; the boy knows it from the way the dog waits for him in the woods.

They walk side by side toward the kennel, until the boy realizes that the dog has stopped at the edge of the yard. The ruff 9f fur around his neck seems thicker, his ears are straight up, as though he is listening to something only he can hear. His legs shudder slightly as he considers whether or not he should run. The boy walks back toward Arrow, looking past him. There is nothing out there, just some old owls and the merlins nesting in the trees. The sound of a branch breaking perhaps, or the low crooning sound of the wind.

The boy reaches down and pets the dog's head, and Arrow startles; he has a wild look in his eyes.

The boy keeps stroking his head, comforting him, I until whatever disturbance the dog has sensed fades. Now the dog can follow the boy to the kennel; dust rises whenever he sets his feet down.

Dogs can gauge disaster long before it strikes; they can smell a person's truest nature. Arrow steps back inside the kennel with the full knowledge that the boy who closes the gate behind him doesn't have a mean bone in his body. But something out there does. Something in the woods, disguised as the wind, has been watching them, and that is why when the boy double-locks the gate and heads off toward the road, the dog puts his head back and howls, and by then the moon hasdisappeared into a band of dark blue clouds, so that you couldn't see a man's shadow in the woods even if you tried.

Julian Cash spends the night in the car again, but he doesn't fall asleep until dawn. In the middle of the night he thought briefly of climbing up the trellis, then through the guest room window, but he didn't do it. Instead, he folded himself up in the driver's seat and rested his head against the window. When he wakes it's nearly eleven and all his muscles feel twisted. Evan's car is gone, so Julian walks Loretta, then grabs his suitcase and uses his MasterCard to enter the house. He can hear Lucy in the kitchen, but after thinking about her all night, he's not ready to see her. He lets Loretta off her leash, then goes upstairs, to the guest bathroom, where he takes a shower in the largest bathtub he's ever seen. There are dials and jets and all sorts of Jacuzzi things he stays away from, and he also stays away from the shampoo, which smells like coconut and lemon gra.s.s, and washes his hair with Dial soap instead. It gives him some pleasure to discover that even in a bathtub like this you can run out of hot water too soon.

When he's through he puts on his old jeans and a clean shirt, which is a relief, since he hasn't changed his clothes since leaving Florida.

There's still some red dust on his jeans, and when it falls onto the white-tiled floor Julian has to get on his hands and knees and clean it up with a washcloth, although all that seems to do is spread the sand around.

He shaves quickly, without looking in the mirror. He's done this so often he never nicks him- self; he figures he can shave better than most blind men. He's got to be crazy to be here. He doesn't even like New York tap water: it's too soft, and it has a metallic taste that you never get with well water. He's left Loretta downstairs, because the truth is he doesn't want Lucy to be; alone. That's the reason he hasn't checked into a - I motel, not that he could afford one around here.

He has the feeling that someone is about to snap real soon.

Julian tosses his dirty clothes into his suitcase, hangs his towel up to dry, then brings his suitcase downstairs. He's already taken a look in all the bedrooms; he did it even though he felt like a I peeping torn. He's got to lock himself back up, and he has to do it soon.

They're not going to talk about it, that much is clear. They're not going to let it happen again. If that means staying on opposite sides of a room, fine. If it means they're not supposed to look at each other, Julian figures he can do that, too. He's run out of cigarettes and he needs some. But before he heads out in search of a 7-Eleven, he goes into the kitchen and finds Lucy has already poured him a cup of coffee. He cannot remember anyone ever doing that before, not just setting the coffee out, but a.s.suming he'd want it, figuring that he'd even be there to drink it. He guesses he can have coffee without making too much of a fool of himself.

"This is him," Lucy says. She's got an old yearbook open in front of her, and she slides the book across the table to Julian.

In the parking lot of the country club, all Julian had been able to see was Randy's back, but in that he saw everything. It comes as nosurprise that the boy in this black-and-white photograph taken more than twenty years ago got whatever he wanted, even back then, and that he knew it.

Randy Scott Lee. There is a list of awards below his picture: the boy most likely to just about everything.

"What does this mean?" Julian asks. "Biff'?"

"Death of a Salesman," Lucy says. "He was in the drama club."

"Well, he may have killed a salesman," Julian says, leafing through the yearbook, "but he didn't kill his wife."

"He sat there and told me his wife and child were in Holland, when I had seen the receipt for a rocking horse she ordered."

Julian shrugs. He's found what he's looking for in the yearbook, on page 52. A photograph of Lucy.

"You can tell he didn't do it, just by looking at him?" Lucy says.

"In a twenty-year-old photograph?"

At seventeen, Lucy had a more distant look, as if she hadn't even been in the room when the school photographer took her picture.

"He doesn't have the nerve," Julian says, closing the yearbook. He takes a sip of coffee; it's not steaming hot, but it's good, richer than what he usually drinks. "He thinks too much of himself."

"You think a lot of yourself," Lucy counters.

Julian laughs. "That just goes to show how easily fooled you are."

"You think you're smarter than other people," Lucy says stubbornly.

"Suspicious doesn't mean smart," Julian insists.

"It just means you're harder to bulls.h.i.t. A guy like I this, he doesn't have to kill his wife. If he wants to get rid of her, all he has to do is divorce her. He's got the money, he's got the lawyers, he's ready to go on to the next one."

"I don't care what you say. He's the reason she's dead," Lucy insists.

She can't even sit at the table with him because if she does she's going to think things she promised herself she'd forget.

She gets up and goes to the refrigerator and gets several ice cubes, which she drops into her mug. Lucy's face is flushed, and she's feeling this strange, hot feeling she gets whenever she sees him. It's insanity to think they could have anything together. They both know that.

here, so far from Verity, where the heat d confound you and make you do things you'll later regret.

"I'm going to find out whatever it is he knows,"' Lucy says."All right," Julian says. He won't be able to talk her out of it; he wouldn't even try.

Julian leaves her in the kitchen, and Loretta out to the backyard. He watches from the patio as the dog chases a tennis ball Julian found in the front hall closet. He's got a funny feeling that he doesn't want to step on the gra.s.s, it I s too well tended. Better to stay on the stone patio, beneath the latticework arbor. Whether or not it's right, he hates Randy Lee, hates his ability to have whatever he's wanted. Loretta comes and lays the tennis ball at Julian's feet, then she backs up and waits eagerly. Julian throws it too hard, so that it topples a wooden birdhouse out of a magnolia tree. As he crosses the lawn, Julian remembers that Bobby Cash could climb a tree in seconds flat. He'd wrap his arms around the trunk and hoist himself up into the branches and disappear before you could count to three.

He could imitate an owl so well that the owls would answer his call from miles around, one afier another. Before the age of ten, Julian couldn't climb a tree worth a d.a.m.n. He'd have to stand down at the bottom and wave his arms around, reaching upward, so Bobby could grab hold of his wrists and swing him aloft, toward the sky.

The birdhouse is cracked in two. Julian crouches down on the lawn, holding both pieces in his hands. The boy made this, he I can tell, with plenty of help from his father. It's highly unlikely that any birds ever set up house; the roof wasn't matched evenly and rainwater has seeped inside.

There are no signs of inhabitants, past or present, no feathers, no bits of straw or string. Julian isn't surprised that the one thing he's touched here has fallen apart. It's clear he was never meant to have what other men receive so easily.

He can think about Bobby all he wants or erase his memories completely, he can black - out in the parking lot of the Burger King, or drive a thousand miles, and it's still not going - to change what happened.

He can't alter those last few seconds, the strangler figs split open on the road, the darkness, the sound of the tires, the knife through his heart. He can't stop Bobby from I reaching for the steering wheel, turning it in one smooth motion, the way he used to swing Julian up into the branches.

Julian whistles for Loretta and goes back inside, I holding the broken birdhouse. He carefully puts the birdhouse down on an oak table in the front hallway, and he's there staring at the pieces when Evan walks through the front door carrying two white bags of take-out food for lunch.Loretta stands close to Julian and makes a growling sound in the back of her throat. F stays where he is in the doorway; he looks at Loretta and at Julian, then at the number on his front door.

"Is this my house?" Evan says.

"This is your house," Julian says.

"I know this isn't my dog," Evan says.

Julian grins and tells Loretta it's okay, and trots over and sniffs Evan, who stands perfectly still as the dog checks him out, then retreats."I broke the birdhouse," Julian says, nodding to the hall table. He goes to Evan and takes one of the bags of take-out food. "I'm a friend of the family," he explains.

"That's good," Evan says. He quickly looks away from the scar across Julian's forehead. "That's a relief."

They go into the kitchen, where Evan sets the food down on a butcher-block counter.

"Plates?" Julian says.

"Top cabinet," Evan tells him.

Evan goes to the refrigerator and gets two beers.

"Have you known Lucy long?" he asks.

"Since the first of the month." Julian accepts the beer Evan offers him and sits down.

"A close family friend," Evan says dryly. He gets some forks from the silverware drawer. "You're not going to rob me or something like that?"

"I'm delivering Lucy's car," Julian says, which is not exactly a lie.

"You know Keith?" Evan asks.

"Well enough," Julian says.

"He'd be happier here."

"Maybe." Julian's not getting involved in this.

"If you're really a friend, you could talk to Lucy about it," Evan says. "Convince her to let him move back."

Julian drinks his beer and eyes the food in the containers as Evan opens each one. He's never had Chinese food before, and it doesn't much look like something he'd enjoy. You can't tell what any of the ingredients are, for one thing, and Julian doesn't like to be surprised.

"That's her decision," Julian says. "Isn't it?"

He puts his feet up on a kitchen chair and witches Evan set the table.

Even when Julian's not moving he seems dangerous, much more so I than the dog, who lies in the kitchen doorway "Well, if we're going to be honest," Evan says I as he places napkins on the table, "I'm a little 1; uncomfortable with people wandering into my house uninvited." He stands facing Julian.

offense.

"You don't have to worry," Julian says. "I'm sleeping in the car. I just came in to take ashow- I er."I have the feeling something's going on here,"' Evan says.

"Do you have any Special K or anything that?" Julian asks as he eyes the Chinese food.

"No offense."

By the time Lucy comes downstairs, Julian and the dog are eating cold cereal with milk and Evan has started his second beer. L I feels almost weightless. Nothing she's wi belongs to her: the white blouse was from her neighbor's closet; the short y skirt, obviously Melissa's, she found in I bedroom. Seeing Evan and Julian Cash in the same room, let alone the same universe, doesn't I do her stomach any good.

"You've met," Lucy says flatly.

"I'm starting to feel like Fm running a and breakfast," Evan says. "No offense," he tells Julian.

"He's been sleeping in the car," Lucy says.

sits down at the table, although she won't be c to eat. Before she came downstairs she went Keith's room, and placed the plush dragon in the center of his pillow, even though she knows that when he comes home he'll toss it somewhere out of sight, the top shelf of his closet or behind the comic books on his bookshelf.

"So I hear." Evan nods.

Lucy looks down at the plate of Chinese food Evan's set out for her.

Julian's watching her, she can feel it, just the way she feels the pulse at the base of her throat.

"Do you want to tell me what's going on here?"

Evan says.

Lucy looks up and blinks her large gray eyes.

"Nothing's going on."

Julian concentrates on his cereal so he won't laugh out loud.

"Did you say something?" Lucy asks Julian. She could have sworn that he did.

Julian carefully places his spoon on the tabletop.

"Did you want me to say something?"

"No," Lucy says. "Since this is none of your business."

"What's none of his business?" Evan leans toward Lucy. "If this has anything to do with Keith, I need to know."

Julian watches as Lucy begins to tie knots in the truth.

"There is nothing going on," Lucy says.If she's not careful, she's going to get caught in those knots, so Julian sits back in his chair and reaches for his beer. "You know the amazing thing?" he says. Lucy and Evan both turn toward him, startled. "I've never seen snow.

"Does that mean you're staying until November?" Evan says. "I'm joking," he adds. "That's a joke."

It seems to me that people must view the world entirely differently depending on whether or not they've ever seen snow. Think of what it's like for dogs." Julian puts his empty beer bottle on the table. He has no idea if he'll ever shut up. "What do they think? Do they think the sky is falling?"

By now he knows that he's not going to let L I y I walk into Randy Lee's house alone. She's staring at him as he babbles on about snow; he's talking so much his mouth hurts. He still thinks she's wrong about Randy; he knows nothing about his wife's death. Maybe he wanted to impress Lucy with an exotic past, maybe he just likes to lie, or maybe Lucy's so desperate to get her boy off the hook that she's ready to believe anything. But Julian still has the feeling that someone's about to snap, it might even be him. He's not going to sit in the parked car tonight. He'll wait until she's gone inside the house, and then he I l follow her.

His boots will leave imprints in the gra.s.s; he be so close to the window his breath will fog up the gla.s.s. There's not a chance on earth that he's going to come close to losing her tonight.

The Angel is perched on the end of a branch.

Since he's fallen in love, the birds have been able to make out his shape; they've begun to avoid the gumbo-limbo tree. He misses the song of the oriole and the chattering of wild parakeets. If he stays in love much longer he'll grow heavier, he'll start to leave footprints in the ground. Once that happens he'll be nineteen forever. Time and s.p.a.ce have already become so real that it's now possible for him to get a sunburn if he doesn't stay in the shade.

A long time ago, when he and his cousin spent whole afternoons in the marshes, he'd come home with red patches on his back and shoulders that would ache all night long. His mother would put white vinegar on him, to cool the burn, and he'd lie on clean sheets and listen to the mockingbirds outside his window. His mother worried about him constantly; she could never look when he climbed trees. He'd scramble into a live oak, and when he peered down he'd see her with one hand over her eyes and the other clutching her breast.

Sometimes he'd pretend not to hear her when she called him down.

Crouched among the leaves, he'd watch carefully as each bird took flight. It seemed to him terribly unfair that he should be trapped by his heavy limbs when even the silliest birds, the bobwhites and the flickers, could do so easily what he could not.