What Lies Beyond the Stars

by Micael Goorjian

  “Where skies grow thin,’” Adam repeated the words. “I like that. ‘Where skies grow thin.’ Between what and what, do you think?”

  Beatrice didn’t respond right away. “The Pomo called it ‘Ike Papakolu.’ The Dream World.” Beatrice looked at Adam with her penetrating green eyes. “Well, I couldn’t find that old lockbox, but I did find an old friend.”

  Adam smiled at this. The tinnitus buzz in his ear had died down a bit.

  Beatrice’s eyes looked like they were searching his for something. “It’s all very curious, don’t you think? The two of us running into each other like this.”

  “It is.” Adam nodded, not knowing what else to say. He considered sharing his own dream, the one that may have drawn him back here as well, but thinking about it only amplified the anxiety he was trying to suppress.

  The patter of rain on the roof of the car grew gentler. Silently Beatrice continued to look at Adam, who did his best to relax and hold her gaze. He started to get the distinct feeling that she was trying to communicate something to him without words. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but it was as if she was tugging at something deep inside him with her eyes.

  Beatrice’s phone rang. The moment was broken. She pulled out the phone and looked at it, but didn’t answer. “I’m so sorry, Adam, but I need to take care of this. I should really get going.”

  “Sure, of course.” Adam felt as if he had just been snapped out of a trance. “So, what are you doing later on? Would you maybe like to . . . ?” Adam’s voice trailed off as he saw the pained expression on Beatrice’s face.

  “Oh, Adam. I should have told you this earlier, but I have to leave.”

  “When?”

  “As soon as possible. I was supposed to have sailed farther north by now to help with all the packing and preparations, so now I’m really pushing it.”

  “Oh, okay.” Adam was unable to hide his disappointment. “Preparations for what?”

  Beatrice took a moment, as if to find just the right words. “A trip I’m helping my father get ready for.”

  “Oh, that’s great. So your father is still . . . ”

  “He and I lost touch for a long time, then we reconnected about ten years ago.”

  “Well, maybe after you’re done helping him—”

  “It’s more complicated than that. It’s a long trip, and it involves a lot of other people. I’m one of the organizers and, you see . . . I’m going as well . . . to help my father with the work he does—it’s not easy to explain.”

  “That’s cool. I was just thinking we could . . . How long will you be gone?”

  “A long time.”

  Adam understood she was not going to give him any more details. Fighting disappointment, he shrugged. “Maybe we can keep in touch. Are you on Facebook?”

  Beatrice stared blankly at Adam.

  “You don’t know about Facebook?” Adam was stunned.

  “I guess I’m a bit behind the times.”

  “E-mail? Can I reach you on e-mail?”

  “Listen, Adam . . .” Beatrice took a deep breath. “The truth is, you and I are from very different worlds, and . . . Maybe it’s better, for both of us, to just leave our chance meeting as one of life’s poetic little moments. Don’t you think?”

  It was not what Adam wanted to hear, but he nodded. She was right, he told himself. He was married, and she was about to take off on some long trip, so what was the point of trying to prolong the inevitable? “You’re probably right,” Adam said quietly. “Just one of those crazy coincidences, I guess.”

  Beatrice opened the door to get out.

  “Don’t forget your shovel,” Adam added as Beatrice slung her knapsack over her shoulder.

  As she opened the back door to take the shovel, she spoke matter-of-factly. “So, you’ve got to promise me you won’t try to jump off another cliff.”

  Adam sighed as if he were at the end of a botched date. “Don’t worry. Whatever I end up doing, killing myself is not high on the list.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  The first words that came to mind were ones that he had underlined and read over and over again. They belonged to Virgil Coates, at least originally, but recently they’d become part of Adam too. “I don’t want to die without at least trying to understand why I’ve lived.”

  Beatrice stood with the door open, looking stunned. Adam was still feeling too disappointed to make much of it.

  “Well, I’m sorry if I delayed you,” he said, starting the engine. “Best of luck on your big trip.”

  “Yes, thank you.” Beatrice sounded as if she was still in shock.

  “So, uh, good-bye.” Adam looked at Beatrice, who had not moved.

  “Yes. Sorry.” Regaining her composure with a deep breath, Beatrice said, “Good-bye, Adam,” and shut the car door.

  Adam sat in the car for a few moments, watching Beatrice walk away in the rain. Halfway to the entrance of the docks, she stopped and looked back at him. Then she pulled out her clunky satellite phone to make a call.

  Adam put the car in gear and drove away.

  CHAPTER 16

  ADAM’S IMPENETRABLE SUIT OF ARMOR

  Pete was busy restocking the well after an unexpected happy hour rush, when he noticed Adam walk through the lobby. Pete was just about to ask if he’d had any luck finding that mysterious redhead, but Adam’s slumped shoulders communicated everything Pete needed to know. He’d either had no success, or he had found her but she’d changed so much in the past 30 years he wished he’d hadn’t. Either way the news was not good, Pete thought to himself as he opened a fresh jar of Maraschinos.

  Upstairs Adam kicked off his shoes and flopped down on the bed. Finding Beatrice had turned out to be worse than he could have possibly imagined. The incredible connection they had felt as children was still there, but as suddenly as she’d dropped back into his life, she was gone again, and this time for good.

  After a half-hour of sulking, Adam found himself staring at the phone on the bedside table. Was it time to surrender? He could already feel the prison walls of his dependent past rising back up around him. Back inside, he would need Jane again. He would need Blake. He would need his medication, his work, and even Dr. M. Adam reached over and moved the phone onto the bed next to him. “I’m sorry, Jane,” Adam mumbled in practice. “I’m okay. I just needed to . . . I’m fine and I’m sorry. I just . . .” Adam placed a hand on the receiver but didn’t pick it up. What if Beatrice was right? Adam thought. What if I really did come up here to kill myself? Maybe I should just go back out there and finish the job. Everyone would be better off if I just —

  The phone rang.

  Adam jumped to his feet. Who the hell could be calling me? Adam’s mind raced for an answer. The front desk?

  The phone rang a second time. Adam decided the best thing to do was just answer it. He let it ring a third time, then picked up.

  “Hello?”

  There was static on the line before a female voice said, “Adam?”

  His heart started to race. “Beatrice? Is that you?”

  More static. “Yes. It’s me, Adam.” She sounded excited but distant.

  The static got even worse. She must be calling from that crazy sat phone, he thought. Then the line cleared a little, and he heard her say, “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, I can hear you! Can you hear me? The connection isn’t great.”

  “Listen, Adam, I was able to rearrange things so I can stay a little longer. Just another day, but I want to see you. Do you have plans for dinner tonight?”

  Adam tried to contain his excitement. Unable to come up with anything clever, he simply said, “I would love more than anything to see you.”

  “Come to the harbor, then. Eight o’clock?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “Adam?”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s a reason we met. It wasn’t just coincidence.” With that, she hung up.

  Adam bounded down the
stairs and toward the bar. Pete was busy mixing a Sazerac for one of the leftover wedding guests, but Adam was too excited to wait for him to finish up.

  “Hey, Pete, I need a favor.” Adam said, a little out of breath.

  Pete turned to Adam with a bewildered look on his face. “Boy, my Spidey senses must be totally out of whack. When you came in a little while ago you looked awful. You doing all right?”

  “I’m doing great. In fact, I need another bottle of wine. A magic one, if possible.”

  Pete broke out into a huge grin. “Coming right up.”

  Adam drove down the steep road leading to Noyo Harbor with a bottle of 2005 Goldeneye Pinot Noir seat-belted in the passenger seat. Pete had only one bottle left, but he was more than happy to contribute to Adam’s cause.

  When he pulled into the parking lot, Adam noticed a light was on in the guard’s booth by the private docks. The muffled sounds of a television could be heard as Adam approached the window. Inside he saw a large man—Hank, he presumed—leaning back in a battered office chair, facing the small TV on the desk. A rerun of Touched by an Angel was on, a bit strange considering Hank looked like a former Hells Angel himself. Then Adam realized the man was sound asleep. A clipboard for signing in hung from a nail by the window, but Adam didn’t want to accidentally get Beatrice in trouble, so he decided to keep walking.

  The docks swayed slightly as Adam reached the last aisle, where Paradiso 9 waited in the next-to-last slip. Beatrice was smoking a cigarette on deck. She was wearing a long, white dress, her red hair down around her shoulders, and on her feet were a pair of giant, black Kevlar sailing boots. Despite the boots and cigarette, Beatrice looked like an angel. Not some cheese-ball TV angel, Adam thought, but a classic angel. And the way the boat gently rose and fell gave the illusion that she was floating.

  “Hank give you any trouble?” Beatrice asked as Adam reached the edge of the boat.

  “Nope. You look beautiful . . . like an angel,” Adam added awkwardly.

  “Okay, thank you.” Beatrice smiled, putting Adam at ease. She dotted her cigarette out in an ashtray as Adam cautiously stepped onto the boat. At first he felt a bit unsteady, but it wasn’t too bad.

  “I brought some wine. Pete, the bartender at the hotel, recommended it. Said it might even be magic.”

  “Thank you, Pete—and of course you too.” Beatrice examined the bottle.

  “And this,” Adam pulled from his jacket a long rectangular box wrapped in a plastic bag. “Just a little something I got for you.”

  Beatrice accepted it, but her look was wary. “I have to warn you, Adam, I’m not very gracious when it comes to gifts from men. That evil philanthropist I told you about once tried to win me back with a rather expensive bracelet, which I not-so-accidentally tossed overboard.”

  “Phew! Thank God I didn’t get you that expensive bracelet I was looking at.” Adam smiled. “Go ahead. If you don’t like it, you can throw it overboard too.”

  Beatrice reached into the bag and pulled out a box of new number-two pencils.

  “Just in case you have to do some more late-night research. You won’t have to go bothering any drunk tourists.”

  Beatrice was unable to suppress a smile. “Thank you. Now, Mr. Sheppard, if you would follow me, please.” Pencils in hand, she turned to lead Adam down into the cabin.

  “Holy cow,” was the best Adam could muster. The interior of Beatrice’s boat was a wonder in itself. Judging from the outside—a neat, trim, no-nonsense green sailboat with white trim—Adam never would have suspected the plush, Bohemian world within. Velvet drapes, Persian carpets, and amber lamp shades lent everything a warm glow. The built-in bookcases were crammed with assorted volumes, seashells, lanterns, and other knickknacks. Throughout the cabin hung framed photographs, maps, and unusual pieces of art from all over the world. Her own clutter, Adam thought, in a boat-shaped cubicle. He was most amazed by how everything fit inside the modest space.

  On top of one of the bookcases, Adam noticed what looked like a statue of an Egyptian cat. Then it sprang down onto a railing and walked over to him. “This is Anush,” Beatrice said. Adam reached out to pet her. “Careful, she bites.” Adam pulled his hand away just in time. “She’s an Abyssinian,” Beatrice said, kicking off her boots. “Take your shoes off and make yourself comfortable. I’m just finishing up with dinner.”

  Beatrice took the bottle of wine from Adam and slipped into the galley.

  Careful to avoid Anush, Adam removed his shoes before looking around. He recognized the temples of Angkor Wat in the background of one photograph. Beatrice was sitting inside a giant tree root that wrapped around her like a snake. “You’ve been to some amazing places,” Adam said as he continued to look at the pictures.

  In the more recent ones, Beatrice appeared to be with the same group of people. One older man, probably in his 70s, looked familiar to Adam, although he couldn’t quite place him. Before he could ask, he spotted a photo of Beatrice sitting with her friends in front of the Great Sphinx.

  “Wow, you’ve been to Egypt.” Another picture showed Beatrice smoking a hookah in a crowded café. “I’ve always wanted to go to Egypt.” Adam sighed. “I keep planning to go there, but for some reason, I always end up in Hawaii instead.”

  “If you look on the wall behind you,” Beatrice called from the galley where she was chopping vegetables, “just above that abalone shell there’s a little keepsake from my last trip there. You might find it interesting.”

  It was a small, copper medallion the size of a silver dollar, hung from a black leather string. On its face was a worn symbol that looked like a backward S with a curlicue at the bottom. Not a hieroglyph, Adam thought. It doesn’t even look Egyptian really. More like those Native American petroglyphs I saw back at the hotel. Obviously old, and . . . vaguely familiar.

  “How old is it?” Adam finally asked.

  “About 3500 B.C. My father gave it to me. I think he found it in Alexandria.”

  Travels with her father, Adam thought. Probably the old guy in the pictures. “The symbol, what is it?” Adam asked.

  “A hippocampus,” Beatrice said as her knife glided from fennel to parsley in her vegetable-chopping sonata.

  “Hippocampus? Like the part of the brain?”

  “Yes, but it’s also the proper name for something else.”

  “What?”

  “A sea horse.”

  “Okay, right.” Adam touched the S with his finger. “I thought it looked familiar.”

  There was a rest in Beatrice’s chopping recital. “Familiar?”

  “Just reminded me of this book I have. It has a little sea horse on the cover.”

  “What book?”

  “It’s pretty obscure. Called Navigations of the Hidden Domain. Sort of a philosophy book, written in the ’60s by a guy named Virgil Coates. Brilliant, but a bit of a crackpot, by all accounts.”

  Adam thought he heard a stifled laugh come from Beatrice. When he glanced over, though, her back was to him and she was chopping again.

  “Sounds interesting.”

  “Well, I’ve always had a thing for philosophy. I mean, I’m no scholar or anything, and even though I don’t always understand it, there’s something about Navigations that really—I don’t know—speaks to me.”

  Adam noticed that the chopping had stopped again. When he glanced over, he saw that Beatrice had turned and was looking at him directly now.

  “And where did you find this obscure book?”

  “Where?” Adam shrugged. “I bought it from a homeless guy who sells stuff outside the building where I work in San Francisco. That, and a nearly complete library of Hardy Boys mysteries.”

  There was a pause. “I’ll be right back,” Beatrice finally said. “I need to fetch a corkscrew.” She turned and disappeared through a beaded curtain that softly clattered when she passed.

  Alone, Adam continued to explore the cabin. At the front of the boat was a set of heavy drapes, behind which he found a much
smaller room with a low ceiling. On the floor were tatami cushions and a black, lacquered Japanese table with candles on either side of an elaborately carved incense bowl.

  Half-hidden beneath the table, Adam saw some open shoe boxes that seemed to have been hastily stowed. Quickly crouching down he saw they contained cassette tapes—my God, she still has cassettes—some half-burnt candles, assorted papers, and glass jars filled with herbs and dried plants. Adam stood up and was about to close the drapes when he noticed the painting hanging just above the table. It was of Beatrice. Nude.

  Her body floated in the night sky above the ocean, and her face was almost completely obscured by her mane of red hair. It had a dreamlike, surreal quality, but still it made Adam flush. Top among the conflicting emotions it aroused in Adam was jealousy of whoever had painted it.

  “A friend of mine from Paris painted it.” Adam turned to see that Beatrice had returned to the main cabin and was pouring wine into two glasses. “He was in art school at the time. A bit of a Magritte rip-off, but I’ve always loved it.” She came over with the two glasses of wine and, handing one to Adam, she smiled and said, “Here’s to reunions.” She raised her glass. “And to my old friend, Mr. Reset Button—no, wait, I’ve got a better name for you. To my old friend, the Thief.”

  Adam raised his glass in response. “It’s wonderful seeing you again, Beatrice.”

  They both sipped their wine. Adam thought it was good, perhaps even magical, at least to his uneducated palate. Beatrice seemed to like it too, which made it magical enough.

  “Did you know,” Beatrice’s eyes twinkled, “that Beatrice is not my real name?”

  “Wait. What?”

  “It’s a nickname. Your grandmother Anne gave it to me. It’s from Dante’s Divine Comedy—at least I think that’s where she got it. Beatrice is the angel who leads Dante up out of Purgatory.”

  “So what’s your real name?”

  “Are you sure you want to know?” Before Adam had a chance to respond, Beatrice added, “I love the name Beatrice, and I love that you’re the only person in the whole world who calls me that.” “Well, okay, cheers to Dante then.” Adam smiled and raised his glass.