Lila Blue (19 page)

When I came in, Curtis said,
"Cassandra, you are the answer to my fervent prayers. Get over here and
take my place. Molly has braid fever."

Lila laughed. She was finishing up
a haircut for Paul, the dad at The Bakery Boys. Paul said, "Girls, when
you get done braiding, come try our ginger snaps. We found an old cookbook in
our attic and we're testing recipes. We need expert tasters."

We told him okay and then Molly let
Curtis get up and leave, even though the skinny braid she was making over his
right ear was half done. She showed me her new book on how to braid hair. Since
her hair was one inch long, she needed victims.

"You can practice on me,"
I said, "but I'm not promising I'll wear it out of here."

"If I don't like it, I
wouldn't let you out of here," she said. "It has to be perfect."

I laughed and let her lay me back.
"Just don't think about cutting one hair," I said.
"Understand?"

"I wouldn't," she said.
"Don't you know me?"

"Just so we both
understand," I said.

She showed me one picture in the
book that she wanted to try. It seemed hard and simple at the same time. Four
French braids, two starting at the forehead and one at each temple, curving
back to the nape of the neck and then free in four simple braids down the back.
Lila found some glass beads to use for the ends of the final braids.

"This will take days," I
said, having had a little experience with braids myself. Shelly had made me
learn how to braid her hair, so I could do a simple three-strand and a clumsy
French braid against the scalp. I did love how French braids looked though.

"Be quiet," Molly said.
"What else do you have to do this afternoon?"

She had a point. I almost said, I
could worry about Mark, but that would have sounded stupid.

Molly started by parting my hair
down the middle. It was still damp from the shower. She combed through it with
a wide toothed comb of Lila's, and it was pretty easy to manage after that.
Molly kept squirting my head with a spray bottle though, keeping it wet for
fun.

She parted the four sections and
worked on the center right one first. After fussing around and getting it
started and taking it out three times, she finally got a rhythm going, and I
started getting sleepy. The chair was so comfortable. Lila was at the back of
the shop working at a desk. We were the only ones there.

After my nap, I needed to stretch,
and Molly's fingers were getting cramped. Lila helped her get all four braids
to the nape of my neck, and then it was quick going making the last four simple
braids, which only ended up being about eight inches long. Molly went to run
her hands under cold water to take the cramps out, and Lila finished up with
green and gold glass beads that tinkled against each other when I turned my
head.

When I looked at their finished
creation, I was stunned. I looked so different I hardly recognized myself.

Lila laughed when she saw my
reaction.

"Pretty snazzy," she
said, nodding her approval.

Molly said, "Perfect. You can
wear it home that way if you want to. I like it."

"Thanks, Molly," I said.
"I think I will."

"Let's show my mom," she
said, dragging me along to Sunshine Books.

Marge and Curtis were impressed
with Molly's handiwork, and they both said how it made me look older. Bradley
was even on one of his rare breaks from Lego work, and he came out to say hi
and tell me about his latest project.

I asked if Jamie had stopped by
yet, and Marge said he'd petted GrumpaLump and visited with Bradley earlier.
She didn't know where he was now.

Next Molly wanted to show me off to
Les and Kim, so we went across the highway to The Salty Dog. They were all
ooohs and aaahs and made Molly explain how she got the idea and how long it
took and everything. They seemed so happy to have us there, even though they
were pretty busy with customers and Les had the taffy machines working. The
shop smelled like peppermint, and Kim gave us a little bag of the freshest ones
to take with us when we left.

By then it was after three o'clock,
and I had a strong urge to go home and see if Mark was back yet. I walked Molly
back to her store via the bakery, where we tried their ginger snaps, which were
very spicy and left your tongue burning with ginger in a nice way. Before I
left the village, I stopped to tell Lila I was headed home.

"Jamie is at the hardware
store," she said, "saying goodbye to Buster. Stop and collect him on
your way. Call me when you get home."

I said I would, and the urge to
find Mark was stronger than ever.

Jamie was holding court at the
hardware store. He was hand feeding Buster slivers of apple, and Buster was
gently taking each one from his fingers, nibbling a tiny piece out of the
middle of it, dropping the rest on the floor under his perch, and begging for
the next one.

The clerks who worked there were
gathered around saying "Old Buster would take my arm off if I offered him
something" and things like that.

Jamie did a double take at my new
hairdo, and then he smiled and said, "Wow! You look as old as Mark."

"Have you seen him?" I
asked.

Jamie shook his head no. Then he
looked at me in a searching way and asked, "Should we find him?"

I nodded yes, and he hurried up and
said goodbye to Buster and to all his human friends in the store. We were home
in ten minutes, but there was no sign that Mark had come home yet.

"Where is he?" Jamie
asked me. We could see he wasn't at the seal watch station. The retired couple
who lived next door were there, one on each side, each with big hats tied on
their heads so the wind wouldn't blow them off.

"I saw him leave about twelve
thirty," I said. "He went toward the cove with a backpack. He said
not to worry, he'd be home for dinner."

"The cove," Jamie said.
"He'd be back by now."

"Should I call Grandma?"
I asked.

He was already picking up the
phone. He said a few words and then hung up and said, "She's coming
home."

When Lila got home she said,
"Tell me everything."

I told her about my dream and about
waking up at twelve-thirty when Mark left and him telling me not to worry. She read
the message board. Jamie told Lila about seeing Mark pack the night before.
Mark took rope and two flashlights and a canteen of water along with his
jacket. Jamie thought he was preparing for a long beach walk, but he didn't
understand why he packed the flashlights. Caves, I thought.

Lila said, "I want to trust
him. We had a good talk yesterday about safety and considering other people's
feelings. I'm choosing to give him another chance to prove he is worthy of my
trust. We'll wait until six."

We all looked at the clock. Nearly
two hours? How could we stand it?

"Sometimes our fears distort
reality," Lila said, seeming to read my mind. "We've taken a few
facts and jumped to a conclusion that may be false."

Jamie and I stood looking at her.
We didn't argue, but we took little comfort from her logic. She seemed to read
our minds again and smiled at us.

"Okay," Lila said,
bringing us in to sit on the couch with her. She had her little tide table
booklet. "If he's in the cove, the high tide will be about seven tonight
and the next low tide will be about one thirty in the morning. That one won't
be nearly as low as the one this afternoon, though, so it would be impossible
to get through until tomorrow around one, if then. If he's not here by six, I'm
calling Rescue. I don't want him on that cliff all night. They'll still have
three hours of daylight, and they can get a coast guard helicopter here in
thirty minutes. He'll be home tonight."

We had two hours to live with that
decision. There was nothing to do but pray and wait.

I walked to the cliff to search for
any sign of him, but the tide had already covered everything, so the sand was
wet and clear. Waves crashed against the cliff face, and it was hard to believe
we'd walked in only the day before. Maybe it was called Saint Ann's because it
was a miracle to get in and out alive.

Jamie sat on the porch so he could
wait for Mark. Lila called everyone she knew in the village to see if they'd
seen Mark. No one had. Mostly, we waited, trying not to think about caves.

For Jamie, not thinking about caves
involved being as close to his seal pup as he could without disturbing her. We
could see him on the beach, lying down facing her, another stranded little
animal waiting for family.

We had to keep the phone line free,
so I couldn't call my mom or Shelly, which would have helped pass the time and
relieve some of my fears. I was too antsy to sit down to write in my journal or
read my dictionary, so I went to see what needed doing in the kitchen. There
was a package of chicken breasts I'd taken out of the freezer that morning. The
pieces were thawed almost enough for frying.

Ever since Lila had taught me to
cook, I enjoyed how working in the kitchen took my mind off other things. I had
to concentrate on preparing everything in the right order, and of course when
you're working with a skillet of hot oil, you can't let your mind wander for a
second.

I cut each breast into five strips
and soaked them in cold water until they were mostly thawed. Then I rolled them
in whole-wheat flour seasoned with lots of paprika and smaller amounts of other
spices that called to me from Lila's spice drawer. I fried the coated strips in
hot oil until they were crispy and brown. It only took a few minutes for them
to be tender and completely cooked.

I used tongs to arrange them on
wire cooling racks so they could drip and not get soggy. When they were still
steamy, I salted them well with sea salt. Then I made a big bowl of fresh fruit
salad using pineapple, apples, oranges, bananas, raspberries, green grapes, and
miniature marshmallows. While I sliced the fruit, I imagined us sitting at the
kitchen table eating while we watched the sun set over the ocean. My family.

I covered the salad bowl with
plastic wrap and put it in the fridge. I figured when Jamie felt like eating
anything, he'd go for chicken strips. Mark too.

Lila played her piano. Her music
comforted me while I worked in the kitchen. She started with the old hymns like
"In the Garden" and "Fill My Cup, Lord," and then she went
to somber classical pieces that sounded difficult to play. Next she played
lighter pieces that felt like parties and dancing, and those filled me with
hope.

By that time I had dinner ready and
the table set. The kitchen was clean except for the oil, which was still too
hot to pour out of the skillet. I brought a big glass of cool water to Lila and
put it on the stand beside her piano. She smiled but didn't interrupt her
music.

I drank a glass of water myself and
then took one down to Jamie on the beach. It was five-thirty, and I wanted to
let him know the time. He was still lying down staring at his pup, and she was
sleeping. She did look fatter, so maybe she and her mom would make it okay.

I quietly sat on the sand beside
Jamie, and he sat up and drank some of the water I brought.

"I should have stopped
him," he said.

"I should have stopped
him," I said.

"We couldn't have stopped
him."

"You're right."

Jamie poured the rest of his water
on the beach like a blessing, then gave me the glass and stood up. I stood too.

He made prayer hands and said
Namaste to his seal and to Mother Ocean and to me, and then to both of the
guards in their chairs, who had been watching him with his seal pup. Then we
went back upstairs to worry the clock together.

When we walked in, Lila looked up
so quickly she lost her place in the song she was playing. We were all hoping
Mark would come in that door before six. There was still time for us to be
worried and upset about nothing.

"I know," Lila said, and
she got out her book of best children's show tunes and played rousing versions
of some of our movie favorites, like "When You Wish Upon a Star" and
"Bare Necessities." We sang as cheerfully as we could. But even
"Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"
didn't bring Mark back home on time. Lila closed the dust cover over the piano
keys and sat with us on the couch.

Dark clouds moved in from the
horizon, blocking the sun. Lila had me fetch candles from the pantry and we lit
them and arranged them on the fireplace mantel.

Then we sat and joined hands and
prayed with all our hearts for Mark to be safe and for all beings to be safe
and happy. We continued praying silently, each summoning our magic to bring
Mark safely home. I prayed for Janice and Shelly and for Terry and Rich. I prayed
for Mark, my impatient brother, and for Jamie, the compassionate one. And
finally I prayed for David, my beautiful father who never gave himself a chance
to grow up. Tears ran down my face and fell in my lap before I realized I was
crying.

Lila gave Mark fifteen more minutes
then called the coast guard rescue number. Their station was just down the
coast from us, and Lila knew most of the guys because she cut their hair.

Steve was on duty. He knew Lila and
had met Mark the summer before, so he knew this was a serious call. Lila told
him everything, including how he'd made us wait the day before while he was in
a cave and my big wave dream and Jamie seeing Mark pack flashlights. She
guessed the caves tempted him back. She told Steve about the scraggly pine tree
she'd designated as the meeting place, saying Mark would be there if he could.

When she hung up the phone, she
said, "Steve's sending the helicopter out. We'll see it go by in twenty
minutes. He wants us to stay here by the phone." Steve was working
dispatch at the station, so she could call him for updates and he'd call her
with any news.