Lila Blue (35 page)

Fred stuck his head in the open
window and said, "Miss? Did my name get in there?"

"Sorry, Mr. Wattles, no,"
I said. "Neither did mine." I think I was as disappointed as Fred
was.

"It's just as well," he
said. "Vee would make me stay in the doghouse another month for that. I
think I'll be in there the rest of my life as it is."

"Not if you do the four
tasks," I said.

He walked through the empty window
and came over to stand near me. "I don't remember a thing," he said,
shaking his head. "I've had blackouts before, but never this bad."

"How do you know they weren't
worse?" I asked. "Maybe this is just the first time you got
caught."

Fred didn't have an answer for
that. He looked at me like a guilty dog and I looked right back as if to say,
You got that right. Then he turned around and slunk out of the shop, using the
open door this time.

Herbert was sitting in his chair,
having finished with his donut customer. He swiveled the chair around and said
to me in a quiet voice, "That was brave. You said exactly what I wanted to
say."

I smiled at him.
"Thanks," I said. "I don't feel brave."

"You are," he said.
"Like your grandmother."

I nodded, pleased that he had
compared me to her. He probably knew her as well as anyone in town, working
with her nearly every day.

"May I keep this page?" I
asked him, pointing to my picture.

Herbert nodded, so I took it out of
the paper and handed the rest back to him. I folded all around the photo and
put it in my notebook in my backpack to keep it clean and flat. It was the
first time I'd ever been in the paper.

While Lila was at work Monday
supervising repairs, I got a letter from Mark.

Cassandra, we liked your letter.
You did a good job of describing the sandpipers. Maybe you should be a reporter
like Marta. Jamie says you can keep the cat drawing.

My leg is healing. My arms are
getting strong from hobbling around on crutches. I'm practicing going up and
down stairs, because most of my classes will be upstairs at school. I need to
be strong. Some of the guys in my school still have grudges from last football
season, and they're probably aching to get a crack at me. I'm practicing karate
moves with my crutches.

Jamie is obsessed with flying.
Rich bought him field binoculars and bird guides, and in between dog walking
jobs, Jamie sits in the trees around the pool in our backyard studying the
dynamics of flight. There's a big bird sanctuary off the highway between here
and Seattle, and he's pestering Mom to take us there before school starts.

Jamie dreams about flying every
night. He says it's the best feeling in the world.

I dreamed about our dad last
night. He gave me a message for you. He said to tell you, "Janice is okay.
Lots of us are shining light on her. Enjoy childhood."

It was weird, because I usually
don't have dreams. He made me wake up and write the words down exactly. Hope
the message makes sense to you.

We might come to the beach at
Christmas. See you then. Namaste, Mark

After a dinner of stir-fried
chicken and vegetables that night, I showed Lila Mark's letter and my airplane
dream in my journal.

She read them both thoughtfully,
compared the dates, and asked me what I thought about it all.

"Excited? Nervous? How could I
know about the flying? How could Mark get the message David had for me? How is
it possible?"

"I don't know," she said.
"It seems to be real, so do you need to understand how?"

"If I understood it, it would
be easier to believe, to accept as real," I said. "Now my mind says
it's just coincidence, chance, wishful thinking."

"Would that be so
terrible?" she asked.

"Yes," I said. "It
has to be real." I heard myself say the words, and I heard a petulant tone
in my voice, like a little girl complaining something wasn't fair.

I calmed myself down as much as I
could and asked Lila, "What do you think is going on, Grandma? Really."

"It's all wonderful," she
said. "Your dream. Jamie's dreams. Mark's dream of David with a message
for you. You are all finding each other in the dream world, which is just as
real as this world."

"Are you sure?" I asked,
petulant voiced again.

"I'm sure for me, but I can't
prove it to you. We all get to make up our own rules, remember?"

"So your rules make it seem
wonderful?"

"Yes. Wonderful, strange,
weird, and beautiful. I'm sorry Mark is hurt, but this injury has forced him to
be still long enough to grow emotionally, ethically, and spiritually. It’s
beautiful that you have this soul connection with your brothers."

"So I can stop worrying about
Janice and concentrate on enjoying myself," I said, feeling relieved even
though I couldn't understand how a message came to me from my dead father
through my distant brother's dream world.

"Yes. I think that's what the
Dream Mother is telling you."

"Good," I said. "I
can use the time to perfect my calligraphy and read Emily Dickinson's
poems."

"Excellent pursuits," she
said. "And I'll get out Walt Whitman and Pablo Neruda, and we can read
poetry to one another in front of the fireplace this fall."

"And knit afghans," I
said.

"And make apple pies,"
she said.

"And pumpkin," I said.

"Excellent pursuits," she
said, and we both laughed.

I felt irrationally comforted by
Mark's letter, believing the Dream Mother was shining light on us all.

The next morning, Tuesday, Lila and
I had our beach walk and then went to meet Fred and Veronica at the barbershop.
Fred said he had something he needed to show Lila. When we pulled up in front
of the shop, Fred's truck was already there, and Fred and Vee got out to meet
us. Fred seemed as bright and happy as a child, and I wondered if by some miracle
he'd found a barber pole.

"Come look," he said. He
led us around to the back of his pickup where there was a big plastic storage
tub sitting on the truck bed, along with bundles of yard trash and some broken
beach chairs, probably destined for the dump. Fred pulled over the plastic tub
to show us. It was full of crushed and broken metal pieces. It took me a while
to recognize one of the pieces as part of a gun barrel, and then the other
parts became recognizable.

Fred reached in, pulled out a piece
of wood, and showed it to Lila. "Here's the stock of that thirty ought
six. My dad gave it to me when I turned eighteen and he kicked me out of the
house."

Lila nodded solemnly and didn't say
a word. Her arms were relaxed at her sides, and she didn't receive the wood
when he held it out to her. Vee was standing beside Fred like a school
principal ready to scold him if he made a wrong move.

Fred put the part back in and
pulled out another, this time a small barrel part. "This was off the
twenty-two I got for my fourteenth birthday. It was hard to say goodbye to that
one." He tossed the part back in where it clanked loudly against the other
scraps. "There're all there, three rifles, a shotgun, and two handguns.
All pieces."

Lila nodded again, but her facial
expression was neutral, not approving or disapproving. Detached was how she
looked. Almost as if she were watching ants crawl into a hole in the sidewalk.

"Guns are tough," he
said. "I had to use my anvil, heavy vise, and sledge hammer. Really worked
up a sweat."

Lila nodded, turned around, and
walked toward the shop. Fred followed her, trying to tell her more about how
hard it was to kill all his guns, trying to show her the blisters on his hands,
but she ignored him.

"Fred," Veronica said.
"We don't need to hear about your oowies."

The way she said it would have
silenced me, but Fred changed tacks instead. "On the first point, paying
for repairs," he said, "I talked to Hank last night."

Lila stopped and turned toward us then,
giving him her attention.

By then the neighbors had gotten
curious enough to come out for a look. Paul, Ronny, and Donny were examining
the dead gun parts in the tub in Fred's pickup. Les trotted across the street,
and when I smiled and waved to her, she grinned and said as an aside to me, "Just
popped over to borrow a cup of sugar." Then she went over and sorted
through the gun parts with the bakery boys, and pretty soon they were chatting about
other things and laughing.

Fred told Lila, "Hank said I
could work off the repair expenses as a gofer on one of his construction sites.
Minimum wage. I start tomorrow."

Lila spoke then for the first time.
"Good," she said. "I'm pleased, Fred. How do you feel?"

He looked at Vee and then back at
Lila and said in a quiet voice everyone heard, "I'm grateful to you for
giving me a chance to make it right. You're a good woman, Lila, and I'm sorry
for what I did."

Lila gave him her sad tired smile,
nodded, turned, and walked into the shop, making it clear she was done with
him. Fred stood there by the ruined barber pole a few seconds, then turned
around and helped Vee into the passenger side of the truck before getting in
and driving slowly away.

That afternoon, Lila asked me if I
wanted to go to the town meeting, and I said no thanks. I'd had enough of the
gun business for one summer. She decided she'd already done her part, so we
faced an evening free.

"Let's go to The
Pottery," she said. "They're open summer evenings. Molly might want to
go. You can see more of Dante's work."

When she said his name, my heart jumped
in my chest, and I knew exactly what it felt like to have your heart skip a
beat. I thought the expression was figurative, but now I knew it could actually
happen to a person. I heard his name and my heart skipped a beat. I couldn't
wait to tell Shakti.

Molly wanted to go, and she even
got Kitty Lynn and Juliet to go with us. When we picked them up, Marge said,
"Not going to the meeting?"

Lila shook her head. "We
decided pottery would be much more fun. How about you?"

"Curtis is staying home with
Bradley, so I'm going for both of us. I guess my two cents are as good as
anyone's."

Lila laughed and said, "Your
two cents are a lot better than most. Have fun."

Molly, Juliet and Kitty Lynn rode
in the back seat. Juliet had turned out to be the perfect dog, just as Molly
had predicted. It already seemed as if Juliet had been with Kitty Lynn forever.
Kitty had a quilted cloth dog carrier, and she'd knitted a special blanket for
Juliet in soft pinks and purples. Molly and Kitty Lynn talked about how
wonderful Juliet was while the cute little dog snoozed in her soft bed all the
way to The Pottery.

The Pottery was picturesque. The
outside of the building, which was an old house fixed up like a pretty magazine
cover, made you want to stop and admire it before you walked in. The parking
lot on the east side of the shop was a cleared grassy area like a forest
meadow, and when we got out we could hear the creek right beyond the trees
bordering the meadow part. Juliet woke up and was excited to go sniffing down
to the water while Kitty Lynn trailed along behind her holding the end of her
pink leash.

Lila, Molly, and I walked toward
the big covered house porch, which was the entrance of the shop. All along the
walkway beautiful pots were arranged in among the natural grasses growing
there, pots of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Some were so flat they were
platters and others were round like balls with small openings right at the top.
Some looked more like seashells or fantasy creatures than pots.

On the porch was a heavy wooden
table set with pottery plates, bowls, cups, glasses, and serving platters, all
different colors and styles. I tried to imagine the sort of family who might
dine at such a table.

The lighting inside was bright and
warm, and everywhere you turned were displays of beautiful ceramics. I was
drawn to Dante's wall right away. Each area had a sign with the artist's photo
and a brief biography and statement about their work.

Dante's picture showed him bent
over the potting wheel, and the angle was over his right shoulder so you
couldn't see much of his face, just short brown hair. His t-shirt was all
stretched out and too big, and his right arm working the clay was sinewy and
strong. He was wearing loose jeans, and his bare foot was working the pedal of
the potting wheel. His bio said he was fourteen and that he drew inspiration
from studying living things. The sign ended with this quote, "When I'm
potting, the clay comes alive in my hands and guides me to give form to its
essential spirit."

I was contemplating that idea and
studying his photo when I felt him standing beside me. The tiny hairs on my
arms stood up and it seemed the world got brighter, as if someone turned up the
voltage of the universe. He smelled delicious, like lemon blossom tea with
honey.

"Kind of corny," he said,
pointing to the quote. "I'm not a word person."

"I'm Cassandra," I said.
"Cassandra Blue. I have one of your pots. A green one." I couldn't
believe such embarrassing words were coming out of my mouth, so I tried to keep
it shut.

I looked at him then, and his face
looked young. He reminded me of Jamie, pure and fun loving. His eyes were
brown, the same medium brown of his hair, and he even had matching brown
freckles that were charming all by themselves. He was my height, so we were looking
straight into one another's eyes.

"Like your eyes," he
said, and I blinked, startled that he'd seemed to take the word right out of my
mind. "Green," he added.

I blushed and giggled then, which
really exasperated me, and to cover my discomfort, I turned to admire his work.
One piece was a dish that reminded me so much of the perfect mussel shells I
collected on the beach, the ones where the two shells, still connected by dried
tissue, were cupped like uplifted hands ready to receive water.

I touched the smooth pearly glazed
center on one half of the dish, and he touched the center of the other half.

"It took a long time to get
the color just right," he said, turning to me and smiling.

"It's perfect," I said,
smiling back at him. I pulled my hand away and tucked both my hands in the
pockets of my blue jeans.

Molly came then and stood between
us. I was relieved and disappointed at the same time. "You found each
other," she said. She linked arms with both of us and tugged us playfully
over to the other side of the showroom where Lila was talking to a man who
turned out to be Dante's father. He seemed Lila's age. "So this is your
lovely granddaughter," he said to Lila, turning to greet us.

To me, he bowed and said,
"It's an honor to meet you, my dear."

I bowed and said in a pretend
formal voice, "The pleasure is mine, kind sir." He smiled a beautiful
smile then, and I saw Dante's smile in his.

"Come," Molly said.
"Reba just got home from music camp. You have to meet her." She
pulled me away from the others and out through the back rooms of the house.
"They live in the big house behind this one," she explained.

By the back door, where the hallway
was well lit, there was a big bulletin board with business cards, snapshots,
and news clippings about their artwork. Right in the center, tacked over some
older articles, was the picture of me from the Portland paper. My image there
was so unexpected I stood stunned. My head filled up with the five Ws: who,
what, when, where, and why?