The Lost Girls Page 4

  “No one said it had to.”

  He scratched his chin like an old philosopher. “Well, your poem’s bloody sad. And it’s mean, that’s what it is.”

  “Mean? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Of course, I don’t know nothing about poems—”

  “Of course you don’t.”

  “But this one is very tough on us lads. It hardly gives us a chance.”

  “That’s not fair. I didn’t mean to say that.”

  “But you did.”

  “Well, you’re wrong. And I’m the expert here,” I said.

  “Hey, you can’t control how I respond to your codswallop. That’s for me to decide.” He leapt up on the mattress and flapped his arms like a proud rooster. A dreadful quacking assaulted my ears.

  So this was crowing. Mummy had warned me about crowing, a horrid fusion of bragging and strutting, and she was right: it was both intolerable and undeniably cute.

  “Why, you arrogant, stuck-up jerk! You can’t go around deciding things.” I bounded onto the mattress to accost him, which made him gloat even more.

  “Oh yes, I can. I can decide that, as girls go, you are a most pleasing representative. A real peach.”

  “No, I’m not,” I insisted. I recalled Daddy’s similar appraisal, tendered so long ago that it hurt.

  “And I can offer proof.” Peter pulled a tiny, perfumed peach from the pocket of his baggy jeans, and held it up to my white-pink cheek. “An excellent match,” he said with godlike certainty.

  It was then I knew I could fall for this boy, for he had vast, hidden reserves of charm. And, as I said before, movie-star looks. I took the fruit, rubbed its furry flesh in my palm, and was about to sink my teeth in when he announced: “Come on, Wendy, it’s time. Let’s make like a leaf and blow!” He lifted off the bed, just a tad, and indicated that I should do the same.

  By now, any remaining suspicion that this was a dream had taken a backseat, and I forgot to try to wake up. I honestly wanted to fly off with Peter. Who cared what kind of reality this was—it was far more compelling than the one on the ground with its sad birthday parties and no prospects for a boyfriend.

  And thus I channeled all my desire into flying. I secured the peach under my pillow, then hunched my shoulders and squinted my eyes; I even got up on my toes and hopped. But it was not to be: I remained disappointingly, unequivocally earthbound.

  “Haven’t we forgotten something?” I cried out to Peter, who was now swinging on the light fixture like Errol Flynn. “I mean, don’t I require some fairy dust?”

  Peter, the little show-off, flew a couple of perfect circles around me. “You don’t need dust, Wendy. That’s your parents’ generation. All you need are happy thoughts. So don’t expect your poems to do the trick!” He cracked himself up with this, so much so, his snickers returned him to Earth and we were face to face on the bed again.

  “All right, mister, watch out,” I said, shaking a finger. This time, instead of wrinkling my brow and pumping my fists up and down, I remained perfectly still. I searched the dingy corners of my mind for something that was transporting, that would translate into genuine liftoff. …

  I HAVE one memory of being noticed by Daddy. I was four, he was tinkering in his workshop, experimenting with different thicknesses of rubber bands for the rudders of his model planes. I happened to poke my nose through the garage door at a pivotal moment, and he waved me in.

  “Step into my laboratory,” he said in the rich baritone of a mad scientist. “Daddy has something to show you.”

  I approached cautiously; usually I was banned from entering this realm of nuts and bolts and male paraphernalia. Before I could take another step, Daddy snatched me like a hungry wolf and dropped me onto his lap. He had no idea of how robust he could be. Then he bounced me up and down till I got dizzy, directing me to withstand the terrible G forces, whatever those were, and to master my sense of equilibrium. After this exercise in nausea, he set me back on the ground and unveiled his most forward-thinking invention yet: a miniature aircraft, about four-feet long, that wasn’t constructed from the usual balsa wood parts. This one was metal through and through.

  “Where does the rubber band go?” I asked in earnest.

  Daddy flashed a wolfish smile and whipped out what he called a “remote-control operating device,” a gadget the size of a sausage roll. “No more rubber bands for us!” he cried, blonde fringe flopping in his eyes. Then he entrusted me with cradling the boxlike device while he got everything “ready for takeoff.”

  All systems go, Daddy tugged me by the arm, his other arm curled around the mystical metal craft; like criminals we hustled out the garage and down the block. As we passed the school yard, three older girls fell in behind us, their whispers loud and insinuating. Finally, the tallest girl, whose thick plait ran all the way to her bum, caught up with Daddy and me. “Well, if it isn’t one of them Darling girls. I hear they’re all barking mad,” she said, turning to her friends. The three girls laughed shrilly, their shoulders jiggling. Then the tallest fluttered her arms like a demented bat. “Twinkle, twinkle!” she said, flapping madly, before she stepped back in line with her friends. The three girls crossed the street in a dark cloud of gossip.

  “What’s twinkle, twinkle?” I asked Daddy as we turned the corner.

  “It’s nothing, nothing at all,” he answered evenly. I gnawed on my hair, not really believing him. “Sweetie, they just think . . . they think you believe in fairies.”

  “Silly Daddy,” I said. “Fairies aren’t real.”

  He refused to elaborate further and we arrived at a plot of land that was overrun with clover. Daddy instructed me to hand over the box and flashed his toothsome grin. Then, with mysterious purpose, he paced a wide circle on the field. Next, he cautioned me to stand back about eight meters while he placed his shiny new craft at the circle’s center, and then stepped back eight meters himself. Crouching low to the ground, he mumbled something enigmatic and began flipping switches on the box. An impressive whirring sound was followed by an even more impressive silence.

  “Bugger, bugger!” he swore, and wiped his forehead with his rolled-up shirtsleeve. Once more he furiously flipped switches, after which he regarded the sky with a near-religious look of desire. This time the whirring begat movement and the metal craft hovered admirably over the field with inches to spare. Pleased, Daddy flipped the largest toggle switch and his contraption took flight, buzzing above our heads in breathtaking, imperfect circles.

  “It’s bloody working!” he roared. “It’s a bloody-fucking miracle!” Seeming to forget me in the wake of his success, Daddy followed the craft around the field, working his switches.

  When the plane crashed in our neighbor’s garden, he giggled girlishly, then flung himself onto a bed of dandelions. By the time I caught up with him, a couple of tears fogged his eyes. “Daddy,” I called out, “are you all right?”

  “All right? Daddy’s brilliant!” He pulled me down onto his chest and squeezed me so tight I began to cough. “We did it, Wends! We did it!” Then he looked me in the eye and saw me, I think, for the first time. “What a lovely girl you are. A real peach.” I blushed and soaked up all his praise like a sea sponge.

  With a cheer Daddy sprang to his feet and lifted my skinny bones high above his head. The height was too much. My palms sweated, my heart banged around in my chest like a trapped animal. Daddy began to spin us—first slowly, then at high speed. “Wendy, extend your arms,” he instructed. “Don’t hold back. That’s it, ladybird. Feel the air rush over your wings. Inhale the clouds. By George, girl, you’re flying!”

  I remember the sky that day: it was swimming-pool blue and boasted both white, puffy clouds and ominous gray ones, as if it couldn’t make up its mind. Of course, I couldn’t either: spending time with Daddy was a precarious activity. As long as he was entertained, life was good, even grand.

  Daddy retrieved his toy plane, making pretty apologies to our neighbor Mrs. Slightly, and
we walked home hand in hand. We entered the garage winded, the blush of victory on our cheeks. But Daddy’s eyes were still rimmed with pink. I admired his sandy curls, his roguish mustache—“The man’s a blonde Clark Gable,” Mummy liked to say.

  He wrapped the plane in newsprint and stowed it in a crate. Then, with extreme caution, he withdrew a framed photograph from his workbench drawer and dusted its glass with a flannel cloth. In the photo, a pretty woman with cropped hair and a funny helmet stared back at us. My stomach knotted up. Was Daddy in love with someone other than Mummy and me?

  “Who’s that?” I peeped, and rubbed my runny nose.

  “Good God, Wendy! You don’t recognize her?”

  I shook my head, wondering if the lady was a member of the royal family or some movie star I had overlooked.

  “It’s Amelia,” he said flatly.

  I registered no sign of recognition.

  “Amelia Earhart.”

  I shook my head dumbly.

  “You’re her namesake,” he said, a trifle irritated. “She’s the person you were named after.”

  It was true: I was named Wendy Amelia Darling Braverman.

  “Amelia was an amazing pilot, Wends. The best. In fact she flew better than most men. She had the skill and grace and pluck and beauty. But no luck, no luck . . .” His beatific gaze at the photograph darkened.

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  He ignored the question and tucked the portrait away in the drawer. But I had seen the expression of love on his face, the one he withheld from Mummy and me. “Just be careful,” he said. “Don’t go bumping into things.” I nodded and we left the garage in silence....

  “Wendy, on the face of things, your face doesn’t look very happy. D’ya get it? Your face? Face of things?” Peter was shouting in my ear, jostling me out of my reverie.

  “Did I fly? Did I soar?” I asked.

  “Are you having a laugh? You look like your goldfish died.” He started for the windows.

  “Please,” I begged. “Give me another chance. I may not have a knack for this, but I’m a fast learner.” I batted my eyelashes just like Mummy always did.

  “What’s wrong with your eyes, mate?”

  “Nothing’s wrong. Just trying to get rid of . . . memories. Blinking is the best way to do that, didn’t you know?” He shook his head. “Well, it’s true. You can push them out your eyeballs.”

  “Disgusting,” he said, drawing closer. “Aw, all right. One more try and then I’ve gotta fly. At least my poem rhymes, hee-hee! I’m a bloody rhyming genius!”

  I threw myself into the task as if my future depended on it—and it did, according to Mummy and Nana, who both felt there’s nothing more character-building than a tour of duty in The Neverland. I sat down decisively in my rocking chair and concentrated on the notion of something unquestionably lovely—a thing so grand and merry and elevated that it would eventually elevate me. A new party dress? M&M’s? Paul McCartney? My toes remained pinned to terra firma. Peppermint stick ice cream? Baby kittens? Mummy, when she’s kind? My heels dug into the floorboards; my bottom remained fused to the chair.

  Stop this foolishness, I scolded myself. Hang up your wings and go home. But I was home; Peter was the one who was AWOL. Besides I was a resourceful girl; I could fly in other ways. Were my poems not tickets to other worlds? Surely they could take me to places no one had even thought of. I didn’t need to redo what my relatives had done in spades.

  And then I noticed a subtle breeze blowing beneath my toes. Beneath! I looked down to find myself a few inches above the rocking chair, my bum levitating in the air and my arms outstretched like Supergirl’s. So it was poetry that had done the trick—my morbid little poems! Peter was wrong: my poems might be sad things but thinking about writing them had made me wildly happy. “Look at me,” I giggled. “I’m up, I’m up!”

  I felt gauzy, like a whisper, a tiny ripple in the heated air. I was gazing down upon my Lesley Gore records, my cache of lip gloss tubes, my still-childish bedspread with its parade of ducks and swans. My stomach wobbled, my breath roared in my throat. I was both scared and inspired, and altogether convinced I would pee—it was only a matter of seconds.

  “Nice going, Wendy!” Peter applauded. He gave me a standing, then flying, ovation.

  “YES, darling. Good going!” Mummy was standing in the doorway, wearing a skimpy tube top and cutoffs. “Now don’t fuck it up—keep thinking lovely thoughts. Up, up, up!”

  It’s no coincidence the word mother rhymes with smother. The moment I heard Mummy’s voice, I came crashing down and even hurt one knee so badly it required cortisone. But Mummy had triumphed: her daughter was now initiated into a cult, albeit with one of its members missing in action—Grandma Jane had been mysteriously absent for over twenty years now and no one seemed the slightest bit worried.

  I had triumphed too. I was off and running—well, off and flying—and Mummy was pleased with me, and maybe jealous. As for whether or not I’d been dreaming, I didn’t give a fig. I’d experienced weightlessness—me, a tall, gangly teenager-—and didn’t care to come down before I had to.

  III

  GREAT-NANA always said I had stars in my eyes, but surely that’s a by-product of too much night-traveling. These days pollution has ruined all that, iced the stars with soot. But when I was a child, Orion clearly pointed the way, the constellations performing a silent ballet, and I arrived on the island drunk with light, my irises dazzled, my heart exploding with excitement.

  The Neverland casts a glamour on every soul who washes up on its shores: for a tadpole like me, the place dripped with risk, with experience. Its surreal vistas (deserts abutting jungles! leaves that dart from tree to tree!) shook up the senses, challenged what I knew to be true.

  You see, The Neverland means something dramatically different to each person who alights there. No two travelers’ reports correspond. For some, the landmass is vast and overpowering, on the magnitude of Alaska; for others, it’s a dot of earth no bigger than a football field. Some visitors remark on the island’s vegetation, all knotted and flowerless; others swoon over the variety of flowers or rave about the forest, dense yet illuminated from above by a cluster of moons. Natives go on and on about the size of the fruit—corpulent cherries, bite-sized watermelons!—while visitors single out the taste of the vegetables: how spicy, how tangy, they coo. Passersby remark on the lack of good housing while those who stay put tout the architecture of the tree houses, the durability of the caves. Everyone seems to agree that the springwater is tops, practically ambrosial. But no one can agree on the color of the sky—cobalt, duck-gray, beach-glass, chamomile? Longtime residents say it’s what you bring with you, your preconceptions, that make the place what it is. That you have to be careful lest you invest it with too much beauty or wonder. It’s important not to go overboard.

  In any travel brochure, it’s almost too easy to play up the picturesque and avoid the problems. Think of Cuba, Tahiti, Atlantis—lovely islands all. But physical beauty dodges the big questions. You have to be vigilant where beauty runs amok. It so happened that the psychological tenor of The Neverland eventually got to me—it got to all girls who set foot there. For peril lurked hand in hand with wonder—it always does.

  Mythological places are notable for their opportunities as well as their dangers, and The Neverland was no exception. On its stage great triumphs, pitched battles, and profound naps took place. Rites of passage were so common you could hardly take a walk without encountering an alter ego, an adversary, or a guardian fairy who lit the way. Heroes were plentiful, too—the fraternity of wayward boys, but also a loose collection of Indians: Pacific Islanders, Inuits, and Native Americans, men and women who sought balance there. By the time I arrived, though, all but two of the tribes had moved on to Hawaii, a roomier and less melancholy Pacific island.

  It wasn’t all simpatico in The Neverland. There was a cadre of villains who cast their lot with the Boys and the few remaining Indians. Every year, yo
u see, a few lads failed at the Grand Experiment—to remain carefree, silly, young. I hate to say it, but they managed to grow up badly. It was these failed boys who turned to banditry, who referred to themselves as blaggers, rapscallions, pirates. In Spring, the island was lousy with these losers. Most of them went off to sea; others went literally underground, building an extensive series of tunnels for the advantage of surprise. But when the pirates were outsmarted, again and again, by the Indians, terrorizing the Boys became their primary goal. As was expected, the Boys counted the pirates as one of the island’s many charms: for here was a gang of skanky older dudes with whom to engage in sport! And wasn’t war the number one game of boys everywhere?

  Not surprisingly, in the men’s heart of hearts, they were playing for goddamn real. Lots of showy swordplay, pillaging, and plundering—the Boys couldn’t have been more stimulated! But a lark for the Boys proved to be an emotional sinkhole for the girls. Known to be of a sex too smart to fall out of their strollers (and thus unlikely to end up on the island), the few girls who made their way there were regarded as prey by the men. Perhaps I don’t have to tell you, but these men practiced rapine—the art of carrying away things by force. Perhaps I don’t have to tell you that those things included girls.

  It was this dark mischief, coupled with the fickle companionship of the Boys, that set the stage for my confusion in life, and precipitated a disorientation worse than the effects of any hallucinogen. So while the Boys toyed with their foes, shelling their ships with cantaloupes and tossing cow pies in their tunnels, we girls took great pains to avoid getting snatched. Which explains how, after landing on this lovely isle, my outsized fear tarnished my native delight—a ferment of emotions that even now cripples me. How I wish I could tell you what I can’t remember!

  There are shadows the size of grown men that cover up what we can’t see, what we refuse to see. On the island such shadows grow monstrous and bullying, and worse than that, they smell. Like sulfur, some say, or rotten meat. I recall one particular shadow with a nasal drawl and skeletal limbs that beckoned to me like a bad mime. I tried to outrun it, tried to outsmart it. But it poured over me like a slick of motor oil. Blacked out, I couldn’t see myself—but I could smell the beast.