She strokes his kneecap, which is angular and hard as a box terrapin. “Jax, honey, I never did,” she says.
“I know.”
“Or Danny, or Bruce Springsteen, or the man in the moon.
It’s nothing personal.”
“I know. It’s because of your mother’s guiding myth.”
“What’s that?”
“That the women in your family need men only as a remedy for minor plumbing irritations.”
“Well, maybe that’s true. And I’m here in your bed anyway, how about that,” she says. It is, technically, his bed; she got rid of hers in a yard sale when she and Turtle moved into Jax’s tiny house at the edge of town. She tips her head back until it rests against his chin. “So will you shut up about my leaving you, and is that all the big news you have for this evening?”
“I’ll show you big news,” he says, delicately biting the nape of her neck. He lifts her breasts, which fit perfectly into his hands, though he knows this is no promise that he gets to keep them. A million things you can’t have will fit in a human hand. He lets her go, gently. “No, that’s not all. There’s something else, but we can talk about it tomorrow.”
Taylor’s pulse jumps. “What?”
“Really, you do not want to hear about it now.”
“Don’t tell me what I want.”
“Okay. Oprah Winfrey called.”
She laughs, relieved. “Did she? I’ve been neglecting her and I feel awful about it.”
“It’s not a joke. Oprah Winfrey called. Not Oprah, but one of her producers, or researchers or something. They’re doing a show called ‘Children Who Have Saved Lives’ ”
“Would you please save the hooha for your screaming fans?” She settles back against his chest.
“I agree with you, it’s one of the weirder things I’ve heard of. They want you and Turtle to come to Chicago.”
It dawns on Taylor that Jax is not making up Oprah Winfrey. “Why would we want to go to Chicago?”
“It’s a happening town. You could show Turtle the Museum of Science and Industry. Since she got short-sheeted on the Grand Canyon.”
“What would I say on national TV?”
“Most of the time you strike me as having no shortage.
What would you like to say on national TV?”
“Would they let me say anything? ”
“Well, it’s not Geraldo.”
“I’m serious. Could I say what I wanted to, do you think?”
“She’d probably want you to stick to the general theme of children who have saved lives.”
“That’s a very weird subject,” Taylor points out. “How many could there be?”
“The Chinese say if you save somebody’s life you’re responsible for them forever.”
“Somebody else told me that! I thought he was making it up. Do you think Turtle’s life is changed forever?”
“Could be,” Jax admits. “Not necessarily for the worse.”
“I liked her the way she was.”
They are quiet for a long time with their eyes looking down, listening.
Taylor says quietly, “You know what I keep going back to? Nobody believed her. They took one look at this skinny Indian kid and said, ‘Well, ma’am, we don’t actually have a witness.’ ”
“But you believed her. And Lucky Buster lives.”
“I had to, Jax, I’m her mother. That part is nothing.”
They both listen again. Turtle has stopped conversing with the angels.
5
THE SECRET OF TV
TAYLOR IS GETTING A LONG, hard look at someone’s bald spot. He has reclined his seat to a point where he’s closer than a dinner plate, maybe twelve inches from her face. The top of his head is covered with fine, almost invisible fur that lies flattened in a complicated pattern, like a little prairie swept by a tornado. It reminds Taylor of a theory Jax once told her about, that humans evolved from some sort of water ape and spent the dawn of civilization in a swamp. Stream-lined hair patterns are supposed to be the proof, but Taylor wonders as she stares, Does that mean we moved through the water headfirst? Could be. Kids move through the world that way, running into things with the tops of their heads.
This man has a scar up there, no doubt forgotten through the decades until now that it’s lost its cover.
The pilot comes on the intercom again. He’s a chatty one; right after takeoff he introduced himself as “your captain,” and Turtle’s eyes grew wide. She asked Taylor if he only had one hand. Now, after mulling it over the whole afternoon, it dawns on Taylor that the only captain Turtle knows about so far is Captain Hook. She may never get on a plane again without envisioning a pirate at the helm.