“Let’s get this over with.” His voice sounded like a helium balloon losing air. “Raaarr,” he said, throwing his little arms in the air. “I’m supposed to try to scare you, and when you scold me, I’m supposed to cower.” Waiting for me to do something, he tilted his head down, but glanced up at me with anxious eyes. “Don’t actually hit me or anything. Just pretend.”
Will saw the humiliation on his face and said, “This is so fucked, dude. What’s your name?”
“Leo.” He stuck out a shaky furry paw. “Leo Mayne.”
Will talked to him, big man to little man. “Look, Leo, we’re not gonna treat you like a sideshow. It’s just not right. Right, girls?” Calliope and I nodded when Will gave us the eye.
Leo dug into his small duffle bag and pulled out a bottle of water, then took off his little kid’s bike helmet, customized to look like a lion’s head. “I’m just filling in for Louis until they find a real replacement,” he said. “Bastard died in a skydiving accident last week, so they took me off Munchkin detail and stuck me out here.”
I couldn’t shake the image of a cowardly lion shoved from a plane and flying, mane over tail, to his death.
Leo must’ve seen my smirk, because he rolled his eyes. “No, he wasn’t wearing his lion costume, and no, he wasn’t a little person, although there’s no physical reason why one of us couldn’t be a daredevil, too.”
I agreed with him. “Of course.”
He kept pulling at the same clump of fur. “At least I won’t have to deal with the new program,” he said, letting out an unsteady breath.
“Program?” I asked.
Leo was embarrassed. “Adopt-A-Munchkin For the Day.”
Will brought both hands to his head in dismay. “Dude …”
“I know,” Leo said, trying to bite his nails through his fur-covered costume. “My friend Jason was the first to get adopted … a carload of local teenagers strapped him like a hood ornament to the grille of their Monte Carlo, and when he came back at the end of the day, he’d swallowed so many bugs, they had to take him to the emergency room.”
I crouched down to his level, trying hard to be his equal, and offered him compassion. “Why don’t you just leave all this?”
He looked into my eyes and said, “What should I do, you think? Male modeling? No, I’ve got it! The business world! I hear Wall Street barracudas love little people. Or maybe Fantasy Island is hiring.”
For a moment, his anger masked the overall fear that seemed to lurk in his being, but when he forced a smile, his sad predicament was obvious. “Hey, don’t worry ’bout me,” he shrugged. “Maybe I’m destined to be here. Everything happens for a reason, you know.” But he wasn’t very convincing. “Now, go.” Pointing to the end of the road, he said, “The wizard awaits.”
It felt wrong to leave him, but I’d traveled far to be here, and it was time. We wished him luck and made our way to the road’s end, where all three of us stopped and looked up at the giant painted castle. Its size was magnificent but its flat, two-dimensional presence was underwhelming, like they’d run out of money and couldn’t build an actual Emerald City for the great wizard.
My treasure chest of memories lay just a few feet beyond, and I was ready to unearth it, but right when I began to walk around to the other side, Will stopped me.
“Wait, Spector. It’s not every day you encounter a wizard. Ask him for something.”
In an attempt to humor Will, I got on my knees and asked for something I needed. “Great and wonderful wizard, please give me a shovel.”
A nervous Calliope looked at me like I was a deranged dog killer, and swiped Eternity out of my arms in one swift, protective move. I looked above at the picture’s painted, manufactured magic. “Just as I’ve always suspected,” I said, “we’re on our own. There is no wizard.” I began walking away.
But then something amazing happened.
From underneath, in the two-foot gap between the backdrop’s bottom and the ground, a shovel appeared. We all stared at it for a few seconds, and then I picked it up. I looked up at the clouds and said, “Thank you?”
A voice from the other side said, “You’re welcome.”
An impressed Will began to kneel. Before he could request a Polish supermodel and a six-pack of Heineken, I grabbed him and Calliope and headed to the other side of the giant painting. When we got there, the wizard was revealed.
Resembling John Wayne, he was a lumbering fix-it man in overalls and a cowboy hat, standing at the foot of his flatbed truck full of tools and timber.
“Howdy,” he said as he grabbed a two-by-four. He took it over to the giant plywood construction, which was bare and unpainted on this side. The man crouched down near one of the stabilizing braces at the base of the backdrop structure. “Someone forgot to reinforce these like they should have. Could’ve killed somebody.” The three of us watched him awkwardly nail a board into the ground, not even close to where it should be attached.
Perplexed, Will said, “Can I give you a hand?”
“Nah, got it. Thanks.” The man glanced at Will, then at me, and displayed a strange, knowing look. “Appears you’ve promised someone else your hand, son,” he said, winking at him.
Calliope jumped in. “What’s he talking about?” She looked at me. “What’s with you two today?”
“Slow down, sweetheart,” the man said to Calliope. He attempted to take a screwdriver out of his tool belt, but got it stuck. “We can muse all we want about love, darlin’, but we’ll never really understand it. Love is tricky.” He stared at her. “You know that.”
An unnerved Calliope stared back. “Suze, maybe you should do whatever you’re gonna do, so we can get out of here.”
The man-wizard looked at me. “Plannin’ on doin’ some digging?”
I pointed to the big oak tree a few feet beyond, by the creek. “I left something here a long time ago and I’m here to get it.”
The man nodded. “You’re the second person in the last two weeks who’s visited that old tree.”
I took a deep breath.
A funny look came over him. “I don’t think she was well. They came to get her.”
“Who came to get her?” I asked, swallowing hard.
“People from the hospital. She’s …” He made the sign for crazy.
I grabbed my shovel and started toward the tree, and Will and Calliope followed. After five or six digs, the shovel hit my time capsule with a clink, so I lifted it up and brushed it off.
“What is it?” Will asked, standing by my side.
Calliope, stroking Eternity’s back, looked nervous for me.
I remembered what Jackie had told me. Time has to pass. That’s what makes a time capsule bittersweet.
“It’s who I am,” I said.
When I pried open the lid, the first thing I saw was an antique pocket watch with an engraving on the back that said, “To David, My Love.” Next to it was a small scroll tied with yarn. Unrolled, it was the Ten Commandments, listed in tidy formation. In the top right-hand corner of the box were two leather baby shoes. On the left was a pen wrapped in a handkerchief, embroidered with my name. Finally, buried on the bottom was a piece of paper, folded like a letter.
February 29, 1972
Dear Susan,
Happy Birthday, my tiny darling. Today is a special day because you are the light of my life. I’d like to be standing next to you when you open this someday, but if I am not, I hope you are with those you love. I never want you to be alone—it’s a terrible place to be.
Inside this box is everything I would give you if I could:
A mother and father’s time and love
Rules to live by
A baby’s innocence
The ability to write your own destiny, whatever that may be.
I will think of you every day of my life.
I will see your beautiful little face in my dreams.
I will love you ’til the end of time.
And no matter what, I wil
l always be …
—Your mother
I couldn’t take my eyes off the last word. The letters were a bit smudged, and when I realized my mother’s tears had smeared them, my own tears dropped, one by one, onto the rumpled paper.
Will made eye contact with me, trying to offer comfort without crowding.
Calliope interrupted the moment. “Guys? Check it out,” she said.
When I stood up and turned around, I saw a commercial van pull up via the old dirt road behind our property, and stop near the backside of the Emerald City backdrop. Two burly men wearing white uniform-jumpsuits got out and tried to corral our mystifying not-so-handy man.
“Come on, Melvin. You don’t want to do this,” one of them coaxed him. “If you go back without a fight, you won’t be in as much trouble.”
The mayor had come down from the house, and was talking with a professional-looking woman as she got out of the van’s front seat.
“I don’t want to be a jerk, Doc,” the mayor said, “but that’s two of your patients in two weeks. Don’t you people lock the doors, for God’s sake? I’ve got a business to run here.”
The doctor apologized. “Thank you for calling us. It won’t happen again.”
The mayor shook his head. “Well, I can guess how they escaped. But I don’t know why they’d both come here.”
The doctor folded her arms. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I’ve seen him talking to Ruby in the rec room, and she has a strong tie to this property—”
“Ruby?” I asked.
When the doctor looked at me, the mayor rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you take this one back with you? She’d fit in real well.” And then he whispered, “Thinks she’s Judy Garland,” followed by that universal sign for crazy.
As the men attempted to strap Melvin down on a stretcher, he managed to cause quite a commotion. “Nick! My name is Nick! Let me go,” he began to cry. “The Emerald City needs me. I’m the only one who can fix it.”
Our fix-it man, it turns out, was broken.
“Does he think he’s the wizard?” the mayor asked, rubbing his little chin. “’Cuz if he’s willing to change his mind, I’m looking for a new lion and he’s about the right height.”
The doctor gave the mayor an incredulous look. “This man is very ill, sir. He creates multiple personas for himself. ‘Nick’ is his twelfth. He’s not acting. He really believes.” She paused. “Just like Ruby.”
I told Calliope and Will to go back to the car. “Go ahead, I’ll catch up with you.”
“You want us to wait with you?”
“Go on … I’ll just be a few minutes,” I said, motioning for them to go.
The orderlies began to move Melvin, and as he rolled by us on the stretcher, the doctor ordered him sedated. “Give it a few minutes to take hold, guys … then we’ll head back.”
The Doctor started back toward the van, but I followed her. “Wait. You mentioned a Ruby? Could you tell me about her?”
“I’m sorry. That’s confidential,” she said, walking on.
I touched her arm until she stopped. “Please. It’s important.”
She saw my desperation and reached out her hand. “Dr. Harris—Jenny Harris.”
“Susan Spector,” I said, shaking her hand, hoping she had some answers.
“Ruby Newton has been a patient of mine for about fifteen years now—classic dissociative disorder. Psychogenic amnesia, actually.”
“Like him?” I asked, pointing to Melvin, now calm and relaxed in the back of the van.
“Kind of. Melvin’s taken on multiple personalities as a coping mechanism, but Ruby has erased her past, and assumed only one new identity. This type of transformation often occurs in severe cases of post-traumatic stress.”
“What happened to her?” I asked.
She raised her eyebrows. “Are you a reporter?”
I could tell she was skeptical of my motives, but all I could say was, “No.”
She tried to sound clinical, but there was a softness to her voice when she told the story. “Ruby became pregnant when she was quite young, but she was very much in love with her boyfriend, David, the father, and they were going to try to make it work. Near the end of her pregnancy, she went into labor at a routine doctor’s appointment. Meanwhile, David, both of Ruby’s parents, and Ruby’s younger sister were on their way to meet her at the hospital, but were involved in a horrible car accident … All four of them died.”
I stood still, numb.
“Ma’am?”
“How did she—what did she do?” I asked, trying to regulate my breath.
“Well, she was paralyzed with grief, and when the realization set in of trying to raise a family by herself with no money and no relatives to help her, she made the decision to give the babies up for adoption.”
I froze. “Babies?”
“Yes. There were two,” the doctor said. “Twin girls.”
TWENTY-THREE
“She had twins?” I asked, shocked at the possibility that there was someone else out there like me.
Dr. Harris studied me. “Do you know Ruby?”
“No. Yes,” I stammered, “kind of.” I had so many questions. “When did she get sick?”
“It’s hard to say. After she gave up the babies, sometime between two and three years later, she became Jackie … Jackie Jochebed.”
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“Jochebed was Moses’ mother.” She said it like it made perfect sense.
And as I thought about it, it did. I pictured Moses being abandoned in the reeds by the Nile. De-nial.
She looked at her watch and said, “I’m sorry, I’ve really gotta go. I’ll be officially on vacation in—”
“Just another minute. Please,” I pleaded. “The babies … where?” I asked.
She was reluctant, but quietly told me what she could. “The adoptions were very secret. That’s how they were handled back then, but Ruby somehow found out one of the girls had been adopted locally, and eventually discovered she lived … here.” She smiled. “Before it went all ‘Over the Rainbow.’”
I waited to hear more.
She glanced over at the van as the orderlies gave her the thumbs-up and shut the back doors. After gesturing to them that she was almost finished, she said, “From what she told me, I suspect she made a few visits here before she came under my care.” She looked over at the big oak tree, where the time capsule had been. “And something happened there … It’s a trigger for her. She walked all the way out here last week … Found her standing by that tree in her gown, barefoot, just staring at the ground, like she was waiting for someone. Anyway, I don’t know if the adoptive parents ever knew she’d been here—”
“They didn’t,” I said.
Finally understanding who I was, the doctor looked closely, observing all of me. Her expression softened. “You have her eyes.”
“I need to see her,” I said.
She looked at her watch. “In about two hours, I’ll be sipping a Mai-Tai on my way to Cancun, but maybe when I return next week, you could—” And then the doctor stopped herself, apparently ashamed of her lack of emotion, and gave me an apologetic look. “You may come to see her, but she mustn’t recognize you. It would be too much for her.” She started back toward the van, but after a few steps, she turned around. “Please prepare yourself, Ms. Spector. She may not be able to give you what you’re looking for.”
I waved as the doctor drove away. My nagging cough was getting worse, and as I stood there in my former backyard, which had turned into a half-assed Land of Oz, I thought of Kermit. Never had he been so right. My life, as I knew it, was just an illusion, and everything I’d hoped for was not going to happen. I had found the truth about where I came from, but somehow I felt less whole than before. Knowing who I was just made me feel emptier. I was still dying, and sharply aware of what I would miss—finally getting in shape, learning how to cook, finishing a Sunday-edition New York Times crossword, without chea
ting …
As I made my way down the yellow brick road back toward the house, I opened my box, and when I held the baby shoes in my hands, it reminded me of yet another thing I’d never get to experience—motherhood. I envisioned my mother holding me in her arms. And I thought of baby Moses lying in a basket in the rushes, by the bank of the Nile. What must that be like? To be needed by something so small?
I heard a small voice say “Hey” as I continued my way down the path. “Saw your friends a few minutes ago … Good luck to you.” It was Leo, lying in front of his bush, waiting for the next paying passerby. He tried hard to project a harmonious tone, but I heard sorrow in his voice.
When I looked at Leo, I felt an overwhelming urge to help someone who could actually be helped. I couldn’t change my destiny, but maybe I could change his. I thought about what he’d said. “Maybe this is my destiny—being here.”
I walked over to him and took his paw. “‘Destiny’ is a just a term unhappy people use to justify their crappy lives. Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?” he asked, grabbing his bag.
“You just got adopted.”
When Leo and I got back to the car, Will was filming Calliope as she pretended to make out with one of the flying monkeys on the parking lot sign.
“Hey, Leo!” Will said. He turned away from Calliope and pointed the camera at Leo. “Taking a break from the forest?”
Leo, tense and suspicious, pointed at me. “Talk to her.” He then walked over to the front grille of our hearse and inspected it with an uneasy paw.
Just then, an angry mayor walked out on the porch and witnessed the Tin Man canoodling Glinda, the good witch. “I’ll remind you both that you are currently on the clock. Hello?” He stared at them and shook his head.
The mayor, losing more control with every miniature step, snapped as he moved toward us. He shook his finger at Leo. “And what do you think you’re doing? Get back to your bush!”
I was not intimidated. “He’s coming with me. I’m adopting him.”
The mayor looked serious. “You, um, can’t. As of today, that program has been suspended. There’s an ongoing investigation by the Little People’s Coalition.” He talked under his breath. “Some hogwash about exploitation.”
Black Eyed Susan Page 13
