Lady Sunshine

by Amy Mason Doan

  I thought of my bike crash, how Graham and Willa had both said that it was the Sandcastle telling me it didn’t want me to leave.

  He and Willa believed in such things. I pictured the white shell birdhouse in the trees, the missing landmark I had come to trust completely as I sped downhill. How that small change was enough to send me the wrong way. Upend me. In such a short time, I’d come to rely on a little cluster of white shells.

  Graham had lost his way.

  A cluster of white shells...

  “How did my book put it, ‘Punishment means correcting behavior’?” I spoke faster, convincing myself that it could work. “Not punishment without a hope of change, but punishment as a kindness. A reminder. What if this place did something to remind him? Showed him that he was right to leave the circus behind.”

  If Graham missed the show, he’d see it as a sign, and things might go back to how they should be, how they were in the hallway picture. Shameful, but that’s what I wanted more than anything. I wasn’t Justice with Her Flaming Sword. I didn’t care much about justice.

  More than anything, I wanted restoration. For Willa, and for Angela, and me. Most of all, me.

  I had tossed my cousin a lifeline. I threw the plan to her, acting as confident as she had been when she’d unfurled the treehouse rope ladder down to me, back at the beginning of my stay.

  Here. Trust me. Follow me.

  I was desperate to give her hope.

  “We’ll need shells,” I said. “Lots and lots of shells.”

  I watched her face, waiting for her to catch up. When she realized what I was thinking, relief dawned along with excitement, and she nodded.

  She looked around. The tide was low and shells were dotted everywhere on the smooth sand, surrounding us, glowing in the moonlight. Sand dollars, razor clams, the spiral pink-and-white shells the kids called whirligigs.

  Willa reached for the closest one and handed it to me. It was a beauty. A bright, intact, butterflied white mussel, already scrubbed clean from the surf.

  I brushed sand from its ridged surface. “I think the beach is trying to say we have its blessing.”

  33

  O.F.

  1999

  Dear Ray,

  O.F.

  I can’t bear to turn the page to the final entry. Though I feel it, thick with the stickers the kids gave me for my eighteenth birthday. I put them there to hide it—my words from the day of Operation Fairwhistle, named for the author of my thrift store parenting book. O.F. Under the stickers is the entry I wrote in lemon juice, so it could only be seen if held up to candlelight. The trick of aspiring grade-school spies.

  Stickers and code words and lemon juice trick ink. A treehouse. How I’d savored the little pleasures of those younger than me when I was here that summer, after acting older than my age in the city. I was seventeen, and had stepped out of that black town car cynical, wary. But Willa’s innocence, her utter disinterest in whether people thought she was cool or not, had rubbed off on me. Words like mature and babyish didn’t mean much here back then, even when Willa and I entertained the littlest kids, because the lines between adult and child play, privileges, sleeping hours, and conversation were so often blurred.

  Our plan was elegant in its simplicity.

  No, even now I’m softening facts in my favor, smudging the border between my ideas and Willa’s. It was my plan. I was the leader, the general. Single-minded in a battle to keep Willa from withdrawing again. The plan gave her hope that Graham would change back to his real self.

  It seemed like such a good idea at the time. How often do people say that? But Willa and I both felt it, as we went through the details over and over. I was a disciplined leader, determined to factor in every contingency. Each time we ran through the plan, visualizing, step by step, exactly what we wanted Graham to do that night, it became more vivid. Until the wanting part faded away, and the events of August 25 seemed as real as something that had already happened.

  It wasn’t just a good idea—it was inspired. We were merely redirecting Graham down the right path, like a parent taking hold of their child’s elbow so they wouldn’t get hit on a dangerous street.

  I’d done it before. I’d succeeded in my elaborate schemes at school. Helped Ben and Rose. I’d saved one family. Why not this one, the most important one?

  Checked, chastened, Graham would again become the person I’d thought he was at the beginning of my visit. The person in Willa’s favorite family picture in the hall. Everything would go back to how it was supposed to be. Angela would be safe, Willa would be happy.

  And I could stay.

  I close the diary, carefully marking my page with the scrap of lace I’ve kept in my pocket since the day I found it. I must have read hunched over on the treehouse floor for hours. Near dawn, I’d climbed back down the ladder with the diary under my arm, walked, dazed, down the darkening hillside and found my way here, back to the parlor.

  I wrap the diary in a clean shirt, tuck it into my suitcase. I return to Kate’s room, where Shane is still sleeping, one arm flung over his head, and slip into bed next to him.

  Willa. When I read the diary, it’s like you’re here with me, and I’m discovering you for the first time. Like you’re alive again.

  Three days later

  “You’ll come see me in Boston, right?” I say into Bree’s shoulder.

  “Of course. And like I said, any tickets you want. You just let me know.”

  She gives me one last squeeze and whispers in my ear, “You did a good thing here. You should be proud.”

  She climbs into her trailer and Shane and I lean against each other, waving goodbye. Clearing our throats, both of us holding back tears. It’s just us two, left to close up.

  Piper and Mat and the rest left this morning. We’ve all promised to phone, to visit. I’ve held it together pretty well. I didn’t even cry when Fiona flung her arms around me and sobbed, though I whispered in her ear, “I’ll miss you, Fee. Keep playing.”

  Now Bree’s gone, too, only a glint of sun on silver down the hill, and I have to wipe my wet face on Shane’s T-shirt. He’s upset, too. Edgy, not making eye contact with me.

  “And then there were two,” I say into his chest, as he strokes my back. The summer is all falling apart, all ending. Again.

  This morning I read about Woodstock ’99, about women raped in the mosh pit, $12 bottles of water, the ugliness of it all, and I closed my eyes, trying so hard to remember Lilith Fair weeks before, and how it felt on that gently sloping lawn in the mist off of the Bay.

  I want to hold on to that. To run after Bree’s trailer, bring all of them back here. Go back to June and reclaim our wasted days, the way I wanted to with Willa when my time here was dwindling.

  “Well,” I say. “Back to work?”

  I have the upstairs to pack. He’s handling the studio; the dealer comes from San Francisco tomorrow to pick what he wants and haul it away. I’ll donate the proceeds to charity, like all the other money. My guilt money.

  “Shane?”

  He’s stiff, and his hand on my back has gone still.

  “What?” I pull away from his chest to search his face.

  But all he says are three little words: “Come with me.”

  34

  They’ll Try to Stop You

  1979

  Ten a.m.

  It was seven hours before Operation Fairwhistle, and we were in the treehouse going through logistics one last time.

  “Basket?” I held my pen over the checklist, looking around for the apple basket.

  “Basket, check,” Willa said. “Well, I decided to use this instead. It’ll be easier to carry.” She held up her mother’s canvas Chronicle newsboy bag.

  “We were going to use your apple basket from the thrift store.”

  “I know, but...it’s heavy. I’m the on
e who has to carry the thing up the hill and run around moving the shells, then put them all back in the middle of the night before anyone notices. Don’t worry, my mom’ll never miss it. She won’t be home ’til Sunday.”

  “We’ll have to clean it out before putting it back in the shed. After.”

  “Sure.”

  “I mean, not a flake left. Not one calcium molecule.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “And you know which peg she hangs it on?”

  “Um, top left, I’m pretty sure.”

  I stared at her.

  “No, I’m sure. Look, it’s all right. We’re ready, Jackie. We couldn’t be more ready. And...”

  “And Liam’s waiting down at the beach for you, huh?”

  “Well...”

  Willa wanted to spend the rest of the day with Liam. I could hardly blame her; he was leaving for Costa Rica in five days. He had $246 and a ride that would take him and his board as far as Cotulla, Texas. Liam had no family who gave a damn about him, no one to tell him he should stay in one place for a while. Except for Willa, and she wasn’t about to hold him back.

  “He can wait a few more minutes. Let’s finish the list.”

  Willa groaned and lay flat on her back, on the mass of fabric remnants.

  She’d been like this all week. She went along with my instructions—she’d done two dry runs in the middle of the night—not actually moving the shells, but pantomiming every step, every sweeping and pouring motion, so we knew it was possible. We were sure she could stealthily move the whole line of ten shell cairns to their temporary places in nineteen minutes, while Graham was occupied at the falls.

  Then she’d wait, out of his sight. After he’d wandered downhill the wrong way, foolishly trusting the glowing piles at his feet—so that he got lost in the vast southeastern woods bordering the Kingston property—she’d track him until at least eleven p.m. Then she’d approach him and lead him back to the house, pretending we’d been out looking for him. Once he was safely home—mourning the loss of that Golden Gate Park stage spotlight—she’d sneak out again and replace the shells. No one would ever know about our treachery.

  Willa knew exactly what to do, but there were lapses, like casually substituting Angela’s newspaper bag for the basket.

  More startling—she’d become affectionate with Graham again.

  He was a bundle of nerves because of the show, as he’d told anyone within earshot for days: “It’s going to be lousy” or “Why’d I agree to this?” or “I’ll probably get bumped, anyway.”

  “Don’t worry, Daddy,” she’d said after lunch yesterday, draping herself around his neck.

  “What would I do without my girl? I’m so glad you’re going to ride down with me. My good luck charm, that’s what you are. Better than my lucky Chet Atkins thumb pick.” He lifted her up, spinning her.

  When I saw her orbiting her father, her gold mass of hair flying out around their whirling bodies, I was shocked. Willa couldn’t be that duplicitous.

  Maybe I could, but not her.

  I cornered her on the porch by the lemonade urn afterward and asked her if she wanted to back out. “Are you sure?” I whispered. “Maybe you don’t really want to do it.”

  “I do!” She sounded panicked.

  “Shhh. The way you were with him just now, it seemed like you were having second thoughts, and that’s okay. But I have to know.”

  “No, don’t you see... I’m happy because we’re going to help him. I can be around him again because of the plan!”

  “It’s okay, shhh. Everything’s okay. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

  But last night I’d woken at three a.m., drenched in sweat, convinced that Willa had told him everything. In my dream he’d banished me from the Sandcastle for life. I was sitting in the back not of Serena’s decrepit station wagon like Dylan had when she was sent away, but Patricia’s yellow, leather-upholstered Mercedes. And I was watching the shell spire recede.

  “You’re sure?” I asked Willa again in the treehouse now, as we went over the plan one last time. “I won’t be mad if you’ve changed your mind. I won’t think any differently of you.”

  “I’ve decided. I promise.”

  “Okay.”

  “And what’s the signal if something goes wrong and we have to cancel?” I tested her.

  “I clang the dinner triangle for one minute...”

  “And when are we meeting in the treehouse after?”

  “One a.m.”

  We were ready. There was nothing to do but wait.

  * * *

  Dear Ray,

  ...so it’s tonight.

  I’m still not sure Willa’s as committed as I am to O.F. She says she is, but she goes from being super distracted to kind of, I don’t know. Weirdly giddy. But it all hinges on her. (You know why. Graceful her/klutzy me.)

  All right. I’ve fussed over O.F. for a week, trying to remind Willa of every not-so-gory detail. But it’s not super complicated. We’re going to make a new path for him.

  Ray, the next time I write, it’ll be done.

  Willa says the stars are aligned for us. She says they’re on our side. I know you are, too...

  If this were a proper campfire tale, there would be one of two twists. A surprise enemy, or a betrayal.

  The surprise enemy: the heroines would meet some unexpected foe in the woods. Someone who, with the best of intentions, not realizing that Graham’s salvation was imminent and in the capable hands of two teenage girls, would somehow destroy their plans. An old friend of the family’s might have dropped in at the last minute, hoping to tag along to the big show in Golden Gate Park. Altered Graham’s schedule just enough so that he made his ride at six p.m., and strode onstage at the Polo Fields in front of forty thousand people.

  Or Angela could have changed her mind, U-turned on Highway 1, and decided to come back. She’d been with Graham for nineteen years. She might have crept up to the falls to make peace, share good vibes as he prepared for the show as Willa told me she used to do. And she might have seen her daughter tiptoeing around in the shadows, carefully relocating piles of seashells.

  Or, variable two—betrayal from the inside. After all, I’d braced for it for seven days. Expected Willa to tell Graham, or her mother, or confide in Liam, or someone else who would have told her the idea was deranged and shot my carefully laid plan to bits.

  I waited for one of these things to happen the late afternoon of August 25, as I sat out on the near-deserted field, killing time.

  Graham was playing his twelve-string guitar for a little boy. They sat across from each other, cross-legged, on top of the picnic table. It was a soft tune I hadn’t heard before, and he was showing the boy how to pluck the strings with a pick.

  “Maybe you’ll grow up to be like me and play both ways, with a pick and without. But take this, anyway.” He handed him the pick.

  “Neat!”

  The kid looked so happy I had to walk away. As I left, Graham began telling him one of his favorite stories about Jerry Garcia, how he hadn’t let his chopped-off finger stand in the way of his greatness.

  “You don’t let anything stop you, hear me? They’ll try to stop you...”

  I don’t know what got to me more. Graham’s talent, or how kind he seemed in that moment, how sweet he could be when he was in the right mood. Giving away his good luck pick hours before his big show.

  I knew, now, how the sweetness could vanish as suddenly as it came, replaced by fury. But I was glad Willa hadn’t been there. If she had, she’d never go through with our plan.

  And things would never go back to how they’d been.

  35

  Stars and Soil

  1999

  Shane leads me toward the falls trail. I know he wants to take me uphill, not downhill to the beach. I can hear it in his
voice. It’s still light out; the sun won’t set for another hour.

  He knows I don’t want to be here. He knows how I’ve avoided the falls; the last time he tried to take me here I practically ran, and he’d apologized for trying.

  I pull back at the fork in the trail. “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “Because it’s important. Jackie. Please. I promise it’ll be okay. I’ll be right with you.”

  Each step a force of will, I follow.

  I hike slowly, but I’m panting by the time we make it up to the first shell cairn. The first of ten. It’s right where it used to be. It’s no longer a lovely pile of shimmering white, two feet in diameter. It’s dirty, smaller, messy. But still, no one could get lost, night or day, with these to mark the direction. This, and the nine that follow, spiral slowly, gradually in a helpful line up and around, showing the safe route to and from the crest by the waterfall, which presides over everything below. It’s easy to get lost here, where the trees and forest floor all look the same. Easy to stumble into trouble, especially at dusk, before the stars come out, or when it’s foggy. But the cairns guide your way.

  Shane takes my hand and leads me off the trail. Inland, ten feet to the southeast. Twenty feet.

  “Shane, what is this? Look, if you’re trying to scare me, it’s working...”

  “Please, just a little farther.”

  I don’t like this. Being here, his steady march sideways into the trees, his grim tone. But I’m transfixed by his voice, and follow.

  He stops in the thick woods. I can only orient myself because the sun hasn’t quite disappeared. If it was night, I’d already be hopelessly lost.

  “Here, look.” Shane crouches, scoops up some dirt, and shows it to me.

  Under the sideways orange glare of the dropping sun I see it clearly. Glittering in his hand, in with the dirt. Sparkles, mica. Like stars in the soil.