Night Swimming

by Robin Schwarz

Having recovered the gray Toyota a day after the “incident,” they spent the following week looking for Charlotte’s body. The search had been going on for almost two weeks. It was odd that she hadn’t been found in the car or close to it. Thus, the commitment to finding her was ever-increasing, and Gorham could not close the chapter until they did. Without a body, there was talk of foul play, and a separate, growing suspicion that perhaps Charlotte had something to do with the missing money. Those who knew her best ridiculed the idea:

  “Charlotte? Our Charlotte? Charlotte Clapp?”

  “No. Never.”

  The police asked everyone who knew her to come forward and tell them anything Charlotte might have said to them the day she disappeared.

  It was MaryAnn Barzini who volunteered the entire contents of the conversation she’d had with Charlotte the afternoon of her going-away party.

  Chief Makley had held his position for over twenty years in Gorham. He was a somewhat portly man with unsuspicious eyes and a kind smile. It seemed as if he had stepped out of Father Knows Best and directly into the modern world. But while his demeanor was somewhat unobtrusive, he did have a nose for police work. His dad had been a cop and had instilled in him the ethic of “always get your man.” So while tough investigating tactics seemed out of character, cop was in his blood.

  “Well,” MaryAnn began with a dramatic flourish, relishing her fifteen minutes of fame, “we talked about how she was all excited with regards to visiting Florida and about how she was going to visit Disney World. I, of course, told her about SeaWorld. I went there with Tom for my second anniversary, and I think she was completely taken with my description.”

  “Go on,” Chief Makley said. MaryAnn was obviously taken by her own descriptions.

  “Well,” she continued, “then she said she was heading to Louisiana...to visit relatives down there.”

  “Relatives?” asked Hobbs, Makley’s second in command. Looking through his Coke-bottle glasses, he was barely able to discern MaryAnn, let alone evidence.

  Hobbs was somewhat clownish, and some townsfolk wondered if he had taken the job because he got to wear the uniform. But having grown up in Gorham, he knew everyone and was well liked, although never taken too seriously. Charlotte and MaryAnn used to laugh that Hobbs was Billy Bob Thornton to Makley’s Brian Dennehey.

  “So tell us about these relatives,” Makley continued. “You sure it was Louisiana?”

  “Yes, in or near New Orleans, I believe she said. I found that odd since she had never mentioned to me any family living in Louisiana. I mean, it seems like something I would have known. And Charlotte being such a dyed-in the-wool Yankee, too, it was just so strange she had family from the South. Maybe she was embarrassed. I would be.”

  “Were you particularly close with Charlotte that she would have mentioned that?”

  “We were close once . . . but we drifted apart. We still worked together, and we had plenty of conversations at the water cooler and such. We didn’t really socialize after my wedding. She was a bridesmaid.”

  “She was a bridesmaid at your wedding, and you didn’t socialize with her?”

  “Not really. I think she took it too much to heart when I went off and married Tom. Tom and Charlotte had been dating first, and I don’t think Charlotte ever got over that.”

  “So, to your knowledge, no one has even contacted her relatives in Louisiana to tell them what’s happened?”

  “No, not to my knowledge.”

  “Well, Jesus H. Christ, somebody better.”

  And with that, an all-out search began for Charlotte’s aunts, uncles, and cousins living somewhere in Louisiana. Makley picked up the phone and called New Orleans information. So far, none of the Clapps living either there or in the surrounding areas seemed to know her. It was all a big mystery at this point, the biggest Gorham had ever experienced. And where the river didn’t give up its secrets, Hobbs, Makley, and the good people of Gorham hoped the Big Easy would.

  It was evident to Makley that before going anywhere, he needed to bring in the FBI. The possibility of Charlotte Clapp’s having robbed the bank seemed ever more likely. And if she had indeed robbed the bank, she had committed a federal crime.

  He made the call to the feds to officially start the investigation. If she wasn’t in the river, then she was, in the eyes of the law, a suspected criminal. In only a matter of a minute, Charlotte went from missing person to alleged felon.

  “There’s one other thing that continues to bother me, Hobbs,” Makley said when the two were alone. “The money. Where does the First Savings and Loan of Gorham get two million dollars? And the president of the bank doesn’t seem...I don’t know, very forthcoming. I asked him for records, and he keeps telling me he’s getting them together. I think we should have a chat, President Kelly and me. Don’t you think, Hobbs?”

  “Well, when you put it that way, I’d say a chat is in order. Mind if I come? I just love mysteries, like the ones you see in the movies where the bad guy gets cornered and has no place to run. Then he grabs for his gun, but it’s too late—John Wayne has already done him in.”

  “Well, when you put it that way, Hobbs, yes, I totally mind if you come.”

  CHAPTER 11

  THE GERMAINE DEVOE FUNERAL HOME was located just off Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. Nothing less than sensory overload blasted Charlotte as she made her way over to the wake.

  Wreaths shaped like horseshoes spread their luck around Blossom’s casket. She rested on a bed of forget-me-nots, while a garland of white gardenias crowned her head. Even in death Blossom looked as if she were coming into bloom.

  Candles lit the room with a dusty, operatic softness. Charlotte half expected a phantom to step out from behind the cheerless purple curtain hanging heavy against the wall.

  She stared at Blossom long and hard, as if she could will her awake. And then she did the oddest thing. Scrambling through her purse, she found the medallion she had discovered in her mother’s jewelry box and had carried with her since her mother’s death. She wanted to give Blossom something, a token to take with her into the next life, and she wanted Blossom to know it was something very special that meant a lot to her.

  It didn’t matter that she didn’t know who the saint was or what the saint stood for. It was just a small silver-plated medallion with Cadoc of Llancarfan written on one side, dated c 580, and with a simple cross etched on the other.

  Her mother had always prayed for Charlotte’s happiness, prayed that she would meet someone, prayed that she would have no regrets, and prayed that Charlotte would lose all that fat. That was where the medallion came in: Unbeknownst to Charlotte, Cadoc of Llancarfan was the saint of cramps, deafness, and glandular disorders. There were saints for everything you could imagine: headaches, gallstones, eye disease, hernias, even gout—but not for fat people. Glandular disorders was as close as Charlotte’s mother could come to obesity, so she prayed to Cadoc of Llancarfan.

  Charlotte took the medal from her purse and slipped it into the pocket of Blossom’s blue suit. Blossom McBeal would now be protected from cramps, deafness, and glandular disorders for all of eternity.

  Finally, kneeling down, Charlotte whispered something that only the dead could hear. And Charlotte knew with all certainty that Blossom heard it. She even thought she saw the hint of a smile cross her lips.

  Why shouldn’t she be happy? Blossom was so loved, Charlotte could not think of anyone luckier.

  She sat there for two hours until someone finally came over and put her arms around her.

  “It must be hard,” this total stranger said, trying to comfort Charlotte.

  “Oh, it is,” Charlotte said, with unfeigned sincerity.

  “Did you know her long?” the woman asked.

  “All my life. And you?”

  “Only recently, but I sure did like her. Wasn’t a soul that didn’t.”

  “Well,” Charlotte said, getting up to leave, “it’s nice to know at the end of her life she had the on
e thing that no one and nothing can take away. Not even death. She had love, and I envy that.” She looked one last time at Blossom, patted the stranger on the shoulder, and walked back out into life.

  CHAPTER 12

  NEW ORLEANS IN OCTOBER—Charlotte had never seen anything like it. It was a Tilt-A-Whirl of wonder and whiskey, smoke and seduction, of food, music, saints, sex, devils, and desires. China masks shrouded in hard colors peered out from everywhere; hundreds of porcelain heads culminating in distorted jester hats, an ironic contrast to the silver tear painted on their cold white cheeks. Above their large, clownish collars, sewn from sequins or lace or gold taffeta, loomed a sad, blank stare. It was a simple face with small lips and dead eyes, looking forever inward and outward at nothing at all. It chilled Charlotte. There was something oddly familiar in its lifeless gaze. How was it that glass and fabric and paint could conjure up such a feeling of isolation in her?

  “Do you want to buy one, my dear?” the clerk inquired. “They’re very popular.” The clerk looked exactly like one of her dolls, with tight red lips and blank eyes. She lifted the figure up and shook it so that Charlotte could hear the tiny gold bell ring on the top of its hat.

  “No,” Charlotte said, “no, thank you,” and she walked on as if she were turning her back on an accident.

  Voodoo tours, tarot readings, and visits to Marie Laveau’s grave were posted everywhere. It was as if she had just entered the underworld. Jugglers, street clowns, and mimes insinuated themselves on every corner. Musicians, ladies of the night, and their patrons were just rolling home at nine in the morning. And yet, in spite of its dark underbelly and questionable gods, it was wondrous and bewitching to Charlotte.

  The houses resembled cakes trimmed with sugary white icing, while intricate iron braiding encircled the porches like charm bracelets and wedding ribbons. Balcony apartments boasted so many flowers, they looked as if they were defying gravity: lingering in midair, not quite falling down, not quite staying up.

  Charlotte decided to stay at the Cornstalk Hotel on Royal Street. A cast-iron fence, known as the cornstalk fence, enclosed the property, and morning glories climbed over it like a chain stitch.

  She entered and rang the silver bell on the welcome desk. A middle-aged man came out from the back.

  “Do you by chance have any rooms available?” Charlotte inquired.

  The man looked her over but avoided eye contact, as though the less he looked into her eyes, the less he knew about her. And that was just fine with Charlotte.

  “Yup, got the back room available. It’s very large.”

  Large? Was that a slight? Jesus, Charlotte, let it go. “I’ll take it.”

  He simply handed Charlotte the key and pointed the way. “Last room on your left.”

  She stayed in New Orleans for two weeks, gorging herself on Creole and pastry, po’boys and oysters, blackened catfish, and powdered beignets. She’d wander into seedy establishments to enjoy unknown drinks that had their own swampy aftertastes and left her feeling sluggish and happy and forgetful that she was dying.

  Mrs. Sippi was a bar on Tulane Avenue. In Charlotte’s brief visit she took to going there on a regular basis. She’d never been a “regular” anywhere before, let alone at a bar, but she liked the idea of going to a place where they recognized her, where they said, “Good to see you.” Maybe it was because the bartender spoke to everyone equally: the millionaire with his spats and Panama hat, the call girl with the extreme cleavage, the dwarf with his bad jokes. And then, of course, there was Charlotte herself. She wore a proper paisley dress with flats and took up nearly two stools. But he talked to her, too.

  One night Charlotte dared to exceed her personal limit. Everything that had been a rule in Gorham, New Hampshire, was broken here in New Orleans. She allowed herself to laugh too loud, live too large, and drink too much. She had chosen to drink mint juleps that night, and they tasted so damn good, she had another, and another.

  “Henri, why do you call your bar Mrs. Sippi when you’re in Louisiana?”

  “’Cause dats wheres I’m from, darlin’.”

  Charlotte paused. “You happy, Henri?”

  “Happy enough.”

  “What makes you happy?”

  “I gots my wife, my chillun, my gran’babies. I gots weekends off, a good fishin’ hole, a friend or two.”

  “Is that enough?”

  “Plenty for me.”

  “What if someone told you you were dying? What would you do then?”

  “Then? Well, den I guess I’d take stock.”

  “How?”

  “I come to ’preciate what I gots more den I do.”

  That’s reasonable, Charlotte thought. “Anything else?” she asked.

  “Well, I guess I’d smoke my ganja a little mo den I do.” Henri laughed.

  “Ganja?”

  “Yeah, you knows... marijuana.”

  “Oh,” Charlotte said. She’d never smoked marijuana before.

  “You wouldn’t do anything extravagant? Maybe visit a place you’d never been? Buy something expensive?”

  “Well, darlin’, seein’ as I don’t have so much money, I think I’d have to content myself with lovin’ up my wife a little mo den usual, spendin’ mo time wit doze gran’babies of mine, an’ sittin’ unda dat big ol’ oak tree I gots an’ enjoyin’ dat sweet, happy ganja of mine.”

  “But what if you did have money, Henri? Say two million dollars. Then what would you do?”

  The old black man put an ice cube to his forehead. It was hot in the bar. Only a single fan turned around, and reluctantly at that.

  “Well, den, pretty lady, after I buy my wife da lovliest dress dis side of da Mississippi, I’d go and sit under dat oak tree wit all my friends and spread da joy an’ good feelin’ around we all gets from dat ganja.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Actually,” he said, “dere is one mo thing I been wantin’. A brand-new fishin’ pole. I just seen one da other day down at Tyrone’s Fish an’ Bait Shop, an’ it’s a beauty. I’d get dat rod fo sure, Charlotte, an’ go fishin’ dat afternoon.”

  “That’s what would make you happy?”

  “As I sees it, life is hard, sweet Charlotte. But if you gots dat special thing dat makes you happy, den you gots youself everythin’.”

  “Never thought about it that way, Henri, but you’re right about one thing—life is hard. Why does it have to be so damn hard?”

  “Da Lord do dat for a reason. If’n it come too easy, den ya don’t know what you gots. You takes it for granted. You might have you-self a diamond, but if’n you comes by it just by luck, how you gonna know its value? No, I thinks da good things gots to come to ya a little harda den dat. Dats da part dat gives ’em dere significants. It’s all about da honey, Charlotte; it’s all about gettin’ dat honey out of da rock.”

  “So, Henri, do you think that sadness is good, too?”

  “Hell, yes. A little sadness is good for everyone. It’s da only way ya gets to happiness. If you happy all da time, you gots nuttin’ to compare it wit. No, sorrow is a gift, Charlotte. You takes it, you tip your hat to it, an’ den ya moves on. But ya gots to acknowledge it or else it will have ya fo breakfast. Give sadness its due and move on.”

  Honey from a rock. That’s what he said. That’s what she’d remember.

  He poured Charlotte another drink and one for himself as well.

  “Here’s to you, little lady, wherever life’s fixin’ to take ya.” He lifted his glass. “Gots to click, Charlotte; clickin’ keeps the devil away.” So with both glasses held high, they clicked. He leaned toward her and whispered, “Remember, pain is just the messenger dat happiness is comin’, Miss Charlotte. So beez happy.” He raised his glass again. “One fo da sorrow an’ two fo da road.” And they clicked again. “You can never click too much!” he exclaimed, then threw his bourbon back in one shot and smiled. Charlotte lifted her glass and followed with a toast of her own. “Here’s to getting that honey out of the roc
k, Henri.” And then she drank her bourbon down as if she were drinking water from a tap, and nearly choked to death.

  Henri made sense. She was looking at a happy person, a person who had everything. All he needed was the time to enjoy it. And he would. Charlotte slipped Henri’s tip next to her empty glass. She would be well out of the bar when he cleared it. Five thousand dollars lay folded unassumingly in a napkin. Five thousand dollars because Charlotte believed that sometimes good things could just come someone’s way. At least that’s what she wanted to believe: that once in a while, maybe life didn’t have to be that hard. And that was still okay with the Lord, and if not the Lord then at least with Charlotte. She had scrawled something on the napkin just before leaving the bar. Moments later Henri discovered the note hiding all that honey: Here’s a little something toward that fishing pole.

  CHAPTER 13

  AND SO CHARLOTTE CONTINUED to enjoy New Orleans. She had her tarot cards read, and they promised her a long and healthy life, which she knew, of course, was not true. And when she told the old man that he must be wrong, that she’d had a checkup, he hushed her, indignantly saying that the cards don’t lie and she should get another checkup.

  She set her big hips free and rocked to the rhythms of zydeco. She rode a paddleboat up and down the Mississippi, letting the Louisiana sun warm her northern blood. She glutted herself with crawfish until nothing was left but the empty shells of an insatiable hunger.

  There was no doubt about it. Charlotte had fallen for the Big Easy and might even have stayed, but the world was waiting. California was waiting. Tom Selleck was waiting. Tony Bennett was waiting. Blossom might be on her way to heaven, but Charlotte was on her way to Hollywood.

  Charlotte felt free, going down the highway, her fat cheeks pulling back like a bulldog’s in the wind. She felt inordinately good for someone who was dying. Attitude, she thought to herself, it’s all about attitude.

  Who cared if she was fat? She felt good. Hell, Jackie Gleason never worried about it. And wasn’t it Tom Hanks who once fessed up that he thought he had a big ass and fat thighs. See, nobody’s perfect. The thing is to feel good, and I do. I’m a quarter of the way to Hollywood. So there, MaryAnn.