The Four Corners Of The Sky (13 page)

“What?”

“He needs it. I can’t bitch about his not coming through for me and then not come through for him. He’s dying and he needs help.”

Georgette took a loud breath. “Well, this emotional breakthrough of yours couldn’t come at a worse time.”

“What does that mean?”

“Have you looked out the window, Annie? My satellite dish just blew by your porch. Clark’s twister may be headed to Emerald. Sit still, I’m coming over.”

P
ummeled by rain, Georgette hurried into Pilgrim’s Rest. The wind was blowing so hard that Clark had to help her close the door. He draped her soaked raincoat on the newel post.

“Clark, you may finally be right about the weather. It could be a twister coming.” Georgette pointed out the window. “I saw old Mr. Neubruck’s gas grill fly through my yard. He’ll blame me.”

“Check out the Weather Channel. It’s a bad twister, fifty miles from here.” Clark pointed overhead. “I predicted this.”

“For like fifteen years.”

“Well,” he said, “Annie’s up in her room.”

“Please tell me she’s developed a sense of humor because she just said she’d decided to fly the
King of the Sky
to St. Louis tonight to give it to her dad!”

“I know. Stop her.” Clark explained what had happened.

Georgette mulled it over. “She’s got to think Jack will help her find her mother.”

“She’s crazy.”

“That’s a loose diagnosis, Clark.” She added that Brad had just called her, with the remarkable hypothesis that Annie would take him back if he flew from Charleston to Emerald in this storm and proposed to her.

“He’s crazy too.”

“Clark, stick to pediatric orthopedics. You can’t just keep saying Annie’s crazy, Brad’s crazy.”

“They are. You need to stop encouraging Brad. He already gets enough of that from Sam. Let’s not have him keep fighting this divorce.”

Georgette sighed, still single. “At least Annie got married so she could get divorced. I’m a doctor. It used to be that people wanted to marry doctors.” She pulled off her rubber rain hat and shook out her spiky black hair.

Clark said, “Those were women who wanted to marry male doctors. Like me. I’ve had two different women propose to me in the last five years.”

“Right, and did you marry either of them? Would you like my analysis of why you’re divorced and living with a Lesbian, Dr. Goode?”

The tall thin man laughed. He’d known Georgette since her early childhood, had encouraged her medical school aspirations, and now saw her daily at Emerald Hospital. “I’ve heard your analysis, dozens of times. You see, here’s your problem, Georgette. You’re in psychiatry and men don’t want a wife who’s going to analyze them for free.”

The young woman snorted. “‘Free.’ Oh. So ‘free’ is my problem? If I ever have another date, I’ll charge him.”

“There you go. Go talk to Annie.”

Pulling a small damp box wrapped in birthday paper from her raincoat, she fluffed up the ribbon. “This is for her birthday.”

Clark warned her with his raised forefinger. “You shrink-wrap it?”

“Please, only new puns.”

“That’s hard at my age. Go on. She’s up there, hanging from her door doing chin-ups or something till D. K. gets her plane ready. She doesn’t have the body weight to hold that Piper down in thirty-mile-an-hour winds.”

“Lucky her.”

Clark called after Georgette as she headed up the stairs, “Tell her she can’t fly to St. Louis! She won’t listen to Sam and me. We’re old.”

She turned back and did a sixties dance step. “I’m bookin’, man. Don’t sweat it. I’m hip, I’m cool—”

“Fine. Mock the elderly.”

Georgette ran up the stairs to the second floor, where she found Annie in her bedroom, finishing a set of abdominal crunches. She sat on the bed to watch her. “So, your birthday party’s cancelled. Frankly, the old gang was relieved. You only see them once a year and they feel like you’ve, you know, left them behind.”

Annie’s left elbow briskly tapped her right knee. “Behind how?”

Georgette fluffed pillows. “Well, to keep up with you, they have to study Sam’s big window display at Now Voyager
.
For them, life is a little more landlocked: complaining about husbands, kids, jobs.
By the way,
Jennifer had another boy.”

Annie’s right elbow tapped her left knee. “How can so many kids we went to high school with have kids now?”

Georgette pointed at the retro chrome clock on the wall, spinning her finger in a circle. “Well, frankly, it’s not like at our age we’d be Burmese child brides. The bio bell
is
tolling.”

“We’ve got a whole decade.” Finishing another set of sit-ups, Annie touched both elbows to both knees. “I’m shooting for pregnant at thirty-five.”

“If you want to make thirty-five, you might rethink taking this solo trip in a superannuated single-engine airplane tonight.” Flying the
King of the Sky
to St. Louis through a tornado was, in a phrase Georgette said she had used only this morning to a detox patient who’d tried to jump off the hospital roof, “not a good travel plan.”

The plump young woman tossed the wrapped gift onto the rug beside Annie, whose legs were now doing scissors, stretched in air over her head. “Here, will you open this? I’ve got to get back. Pitti Sing’s freaking out.”

“Hang on. Three more…”

Sliding off the bed, Georgette ripped open the wrapping paper herself. Inside was a tiny set of handsome miniature screwdrivers and pliers and wrenches, in a red leather case with Annie’s initials in gold,
APG
. “You know, for the girl who thinks she can fix everything.”

“Except her life,” smiled Annie, leaning over to kiss her friend’s head. “Perfect present.” She saw the little scar on Georgette’s knee, from the accident when they were eleven years old, and felt a twinge of the old guilt. She had taken Georgette for a ride on Sam’s silver Honda 125 (without Sam’s permission) and had skidded off a turn on River Hill Road, crashing into the underbrush below. Georgette still felt faintly queasy whenever she even saw a motorcycle. Annie’s broken collarbone had healed far sooner than her regret about endangering her friend.

Georgette pointed out the window at the rain. “And by the way, Brad was planning to surprise you by braving the storm and showing up tonight to propose.”

“What?”

“Not that you’re divorced. But he’ll never get out of Charleston, even in a Hopper jet. I better go. My mother’s going to call any minute to see if I’m dead.” Thunder cracked loudly and the lights went off and on. “Listen, don’t dig me out if the house falls in on me; let archeologists discover my skeleton in a thousand years and say, ‘God, she had great bones!’”

They walked together downstairs, in unison the way they’d done as children.

“Annie, about your dad? Maybe he’s dying, but at least you hadn’t seen him for decades.”

“That’s a comfort, Gigi.”

At the door Clark handed Georgette her raincoat. “If Jack’s dying, it’ll be the first time.”

Sam joined them in the hall. “Stop talking about it. Clark, you’d better go tape the windows. Georgette, stay here tonight.” Sam suggested they all watch a movie to get through the storm. “
Les Diaboliques
. Clouzot. I’ve got a great print.”

But Georgette moved to the door. “Isn’t that a movie about Lesbians that really aren’t Lesbians? I love you, Sam, but not that much. I like new movies.”

Sam said she liked old movies because she herself was old.

“Right. Old enough to be my mother,” agreed Georgette. “And as you know, I’ve always wished you were.”

“Only because I spoiled you.”

“Thank God.”

Sam noted that she had only told Georgette the same things she’d told Annie—that she was smart and strong and could do anything she wanted to do. That she was beautiful and lovable and someday she’d find the right someone to love her as she deserved.

Georgette let Sam help her into her raincoat. “You introduced me to high heels and Häagen-Dazs espresso ice cream. When Kim sided with Mr. Neubruck after he’d called the police on us about blasting out our Nirvana tape all night, you told Kim, ‘You were young once too.’ I’ll never forget that. Not that Kim ever was young.”

“Honey, your dad told me one night your mom sank a 30-foot putt at the golf course at midnight in her bra and panties.”

“Sam, you made that up.”

“Call me when you get home,” Sam urged. “I don’t like your being alone over there.”

“Neither do I.”

“You’ll find the One, Georgette.”

“That would be nice, just somebody to open jars.”

Sam shrugged. “You’ll find him. And he’s going to love you like nobody’s loved you.”

Georgette, laughing, asked Annie, “Why does Sam always sound like some awful soundtrack song?”

“Clark and I blame it on Jill.”

“Her old girlfriend?”

“Yeah, she ran off to Belize and can’t defend herself.”

Sam handed Georgette her yellow rain hat. “I’m serious. The two of you should drive up to Annapolis after the holiday. Georgette should meet this condo neighbor of yours, Trevor Smithwall. He’s an
FBI
analyst, Georgette, and an archeology buff. Isn’t that right, Annie? They’re made for each other.”

“Ignore her, Georgette.” Annie left for the kitchen, to help Clark tape the windows.

Sam tied the hat straps under her neighbor’s chin. “I’m serious, honey. Trevor sounds like a nice guy.”

“Sam, you think
Brad’s
a nice guy. Even I wouldn’t go that far.”

“But this guy Trevor could be your type.”

Georgette buttoned her raincoat. “He’s my type if he’s got a combined total of at least three arms and legs and he weighs less than four times his IQ. Can he spell his last name? Has he been convicted of any capital crimes—I don’t mean just charged, but actually convicted?”

“Stay here.” Sam ran to the kitchen and returned with a big plastic bag of spicy tuna rolls and half the birthday cake, none of which Georgette wanted, but all of which she took.

Sam opened the door. “Run. It’s raining.”

“Oh really?”

“Call me when you get home!”

“Sam, I live next door!”

“Call me, Georgette! And if this gets worse—”

“I know! Go to the basement.”

Sam found Clark alone in the morning room, attaching big
X
s of masking tape to the bay windows. She hugged her arms around her Now Voyager T-shirt. “Where’s Annie?”

“Still taping kitchen windows. So you hear Brad’s going to fly here? I guess he’s ready for life at twelve o’clock high again.” Brad’s repeated use of the phrase about Annie’s stress had become a family joke.

The sound of the swing on the porch banging against a window startled them. Sam ran outside to tie it to a corner post. Thunder booms rattled the house and all the lights flicked suddenly off and on.

In the darkness the telephone rang. Carrying her plate of sashimi, Annie hurried in from the kitchen to answer it, assuming it would be Brad again. Sam, Clark, and the dog Malpy squeezed around her in a circle.

It was a strange man with a soft, faintly accented voice. He asked for Annie Peregrine.

“This is Annie Goode. Who is this? Is this the Miami police?”

“Miami police? Those
pingitas
!” the man exclaimed. “No! This is Rafael Rook. Your papa asked me to call you. ‘Rescue or else the day is lost,’ as the Swan of Avon would put it, and in fact did. Shakespeare. Annie, your papa gravely needs your help.”

Lightning forked over the sky. Another branch from the oak tree crashed into the yard. She had trouble hearing the soft-spoken man.

“I’m sorry. Why did you say you’re calling?”

“I’m a friend of your papa’s from Miami. Pretty much his one and only in these sorrowful times.”

Rafael Rook had an odd husky young voice, like rustling straw, with a curious style, as if he’d learned to talk from old paperbacks piled into book bins and sold for a quarter. He told Annie that he was calling her from a South Beach Sam’s Club in order to urge her to hurry to St. Louis at the dying wish of her dying father, who was dying.

“From what?” she asked.

“He asked me specifically not to discuss it. A man like that! The key to happiness, Annie, is an education. I am Cubano. Well, I think of myself so. I left Havana young and fell into bad company. I never had the good fortune of college. But your father? Definitely, absolutely an education.”

“I bet.” Not noticing, she dipped her white tuna into too much wasabi and teared up when she swallowed it.

Rook said, “Jack tells me he taught you to do fractions at four years old.”

Annie admitted that this was in fact true. Her father had taught her to read and write, add and subtract, ask questions. Maybe that was why, she sarcastically allowed, she was interested in the question of whether or not he really was dying.

“Nothing’s certain, you agree?” Rook sounded as if he wanted to discuss the matter. “But brief candles, quintessence of dust, no way around it. Still, should Jack go to that undiscovered country alone? You, his only child, you’re all he’s got.” Rook paused. “And myself, if you’ll permit me, I have the honor to be his friend. Some in Miami may even tell you, who’s Jack Peregrine? Who cares if he’s dying or not? I reply, is this what life comes to, a man who lost thirty thousand dollars at Hialeah in an afternoon, smiled, what a smile, and drove to Palm Beach and picked up the tab for the whole table at the finest restaurant, a la carte? Where are those friends now that ate Jack’s chateaubriand? Not at his side.”

“You’re in Miami?” Annie set down the plate of sashimi. “Is my dad in St. Louis?”

But the bizarre Latino caller could not be deterred from his philosophizing. “What does Jack’s fate tell you about the human race?—”

She interrupted. “Mr. Rook, if you and my father are such close friends, tell me something he’s said to you about my mother. Does she live there in Miami with him?”

He was clearly taken aback. “Your mother? Jack’s a bachelor.”

Sam kept plucking at Annie’s sleeve, whispering, “Jack could be making it up. He could do handwritings, voices, anything.”