As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth (23 page)

R
y’s rumbling stomach woke him. He raised himself onto his elbows, then to his hands and knees, and stood up. And blinked. The inside of his head was a solar oven, baking salty wet wads of tangled wool. He knew that time had passed, was passing now. He had to get moving. But he needed his brain, and that wasn’t going to start up without some calories and some unsalted hydration.

As he walked into town, an isolated outpost of brain that was still functioning reported that there was a little money left in the sodden lump of wallet in his back pocket. It would be soggy, but probably was not yet pulp. Another outpost observed that the words on the cardboard sign hanging on the lunch cart were English words. Ry’s head began to clear. The buildings that formed the edges of the square were two stories high, some of white and bright-colored
wood and cement and some of very old-looking stone. Lots of porches on the second floor, with gingerbread woodwork on the railings and below the roof. Open porches, to catch the breeze. Shutters. Palm trees. Cars. People.

From where he stood, he could see two banks. He could change his wet American dollars into kopecks or drachmas or whatever kind of money people used here. He chose the bank that had “Canada” in its name and headed over. His shoes had become foot-torture devices, weighty saltwater-and-sand top-notch flesh abraders, but he was able to ignore them. He would take them off when he got out of the bank.

At first the woman behind the counter was not going to take Ry’s wet money. She didn’t have a place for wet money. She turned him down. He walked toward the door, temporarily defeated. Then he turned around and got in line again. She smiled when she saw him in front of her, but she turned him down again. He got in line again. This time her smile was wider. Like the door when you can get your foot in.

“I understand your situation,” Ry said. “But I’ve been waving it around. Look, it’s hardly even wet anymore.

“I’m from Wisconsin,” he added. “Which is right next to Canada. We’re, like, next-door neighbors.”

“If you’re my neighbor,” she said, “how come I never saw you before?”

She took his damp bills, two tens, and gave him some Caribbean money. Ry thanked her and heaped blessings on her head and told her she had saved his life.

“Next, please,” she said, looking past him. He hurried to the lunch cart in the square.

The lunch-cart woman was closing up shop, but Ry persuaded her to sell him most of what she had left at a reduced price. He sat down on the base of a clock tower in the middle of the square and took off his foul evil shoes. As he ate the first sandwich, he saw a familiar face.

“Hi,” he called out, and waved.

“Hey,” said the Austrylian. “Good sail?”

“It was awesome,” said Ry. “You?”

“Amazing,” said the Aussie. “Nothing like it.”

“Where did you park your boat?” Ry asked.

“At the marina,” said the A. He pronounced it “mareener.” “It’s the only place you can, isn’t it?”

“As far as I know,” said Ry. “I thought you might know if there was anyplace else. You know, like the cove on St. Jeroen’s.”

“Not on this island,” said the A. “Well, see you, then.”

“See you,” said Ry. “Back at the mareener.”

Still eating, he walked in the direction of the water, his composting shoes tucked under one arm.

The Zodiac had washed up, and a handful of little kids were playing on it and around it.

“Hey,” said Ry. They scattered, shrieking, and he laughed. He looked both ways. To the north, he could see masts poking up on the other side of a shrubbed spit of land. So he headed north.

It only took minutes to reach the marina. A couple of dozen boats were moored there. A few more were arriving; two were taking their leave. Ry eyed the departing boats with a flutter in his heart. One boat was huge—that would definitely not be them. The other one could be.

He walked around the harbor, looking. He didn’t know what kind of boat he was looking for, or what it was called, only roughly what size it would be. He had to identify it by its occupants. Its crew. A lot of boats didn’t have anyone on deck just now.

He didn’t know what he would do if he didn’t find them. In an odd way, he didn’t even think about it, which surprised him. He knew he would do something. Maybe he was getting used to not knowing what happens next.

He saw a beautiful boat that reminded him of the
Peachy Pie
, and remembered to feel sorry, really sorry.
Wow. Yulia was not going to be happy. If he couldn’t find his family, he could offer himself to her as an indentured servant to work off the cost. He looked at the faded number on his hand. He should have used a pen at the Canadian bank to reinforce it. Ry added memorizing the number to the mission of looking for his parents and their boat.

He said it aloud, over and over, as he walked.

Until a moving shape up ahead caught his eye. Ry stopped in his tracks. He smiled, laughed almost. It was really pretty brilliant what your brain, with the help maybe of your heart, could identify. All he saw, and from a fair distance, was a man’s back. The man was only putting something into a trash can. Then the man stepped onto his boat. Ry could tell by the shape of the man, and how he moved, that this was his father.

And though he had made a mistake about that once as a child, he was certain that there was his father leaving, getting ready to sail away. His mother’s immediately identifiable even in a life jacket mom-shape moved along the boat, checking in her mom way that all was in order. There was the boat, moving away from the dock. Ry was running now.

Holding them in his gaze, he didn’t see the rope that had been left uncoiled in his path. He went flying through the air. The greasy bag of saltfish-johnnycake
sandwiches flew from his clutch. The yellow shoes fell from under his arm. Boy, sandwiches, and shoes met weathered wood in that order, in varying degrees of injurious impact. Ry landed on his chin and his forearms. He was up in an instant. Running again, arriving at the place his parents had just left behind.

They were facing seaward, about four or five boat lengths out. Their tender trailed behind. Ry hurled himself into the water, a human torpedo. He rose to the surface, a human seal. He swam to the boat, a human…really good swimmer. A ladder climbed up the stern from the waterline. As Ry hauled himself up, a smile couldn’t help forming. Peeking up over the transom, he saw his father studying the chart. His mother was sorting out the sheets and the halyards. He crawled onto the boat and came up behind her.

“Here, Mom,” he said, “let me show you how that’s done.”

Teenage ninja cowboy sailing guy. Howdy, ma’am, can I help you with that halyard?

He hadn’t counted on her fainting. Ry guessed he still had some things to learn. That was no surprise. He was an apprentice. It would take practice.

B
ack in Waupatoneka Betty and Lloyd settled in on the couch to watch the news. They had just returned from their trip—Betty’s high school reunion, and a couple of days at her family’s cabin on a lake in the woods. Lloyd’s head was doing a lot better now. He knew who Betty was almost all the time, especially now that they had left her twin sister back in Illinois. And he liked her, even when he wasn’t sure who she was. He liked her quite a bit. They watched the news holding hands.

Suddenly a fuzzy photograph of Lloyd appeared on the screen. An old one, taken at some birthday celebration. Now phrases popped up beside the photo, facts about Lloyd: his age, his height and weight, when he was last seen.

“Oh, dear,” said Betty. “You’re missing. I guess we better call that phone number. I’ll go do it right now, before I forget.”

She repeated the number to herself as she got up and went into the alcove in the hall. She was writing it down on the notepad there when the phone rang. She picked it up and squinted at it, searching for the Talk button.

“Hello?” she said. Then, “Yes?

“The dogs?

“Where?”