Flight Season: A Novel Page 9

  “Ángel?” Vivi touches my arm really soft-like. “Despiértate, Ángel.”

  I open my eyes slowly and pretend to be waking up. I look right into her eyes and throw her another one of those poor-clueless-sick-boy smiles.

  “Tienes que decir a TJ—¿cuál es su meta para el día?”

  TJ starts tapping his foot all impatient-like and stares out the window. You wouldn’t believe how much that guy stares out the window when Vivi’s here. It’s like he’s waiting for one of those airplanes to come by with a big banner attached to the tail. Like the kind I used to see down on Daytona Beach, with signs about some Burger King special, or a lizard trying to sell people car insurance.

  Aw, man. I miss the beach.

  Anyway, like, maybe a plane will fly by and the sign will say: JUST DO IT ALREADY! ADMIT THAT YOU’RE INTO THIS GIRL AND BE NICE TO HER. I guess that would be a long banner, wouldn’t it? Maybe it should say something short and sweet like: GET ON WITH IT, TJ!

  But you know what? That’s not gonna happen. And since TJ isn’t going to have the assistance of incredibly obvious messages waving from the back of an airplane, I’m just gonna have to help this man out.

  I have a plan, and it’s probably gonna surprise you to learn that this plan of mine involves a goal for the day.

  Step one: shock the crap out of him by playing nice.

  “Mi meta para el día de hoy: quisiera hacer los ejercicios que me dieron en terapia. Diez veces por pierna.”

  Vivi’s eyebrows shoot up.

  “What?” TJ asks her, looking at me. “What did he say?”

  “He said he wants to do the exercises that the physical therapist gave him. Ten times for each leg.”

  “What?” TJ asks, finally looking at her. “Really? I mean, are you sure you understood him?”

  “Yeah,” she says, all surprised. “Really.”

  You wouldn’t believe the look on this guy’s face.

  “Jesus, TJ, just write it down before he changes his mind,” Vivi says, understandably annoyed.

  So TJ turns to write and Vivi watches him, even though you and I both know that she wishes she could resist the temptation. But the girl can’t. Her shoulders sink a little. She crosses her arms and bites on the edge of one finger, studying how the muscles flex in his bare forearm while he writes my goal for the day. I mean, you’ve never seen anything like this, people. I’m telling you.

  So you might think that I’m doing all this to be nice to Vivi, because she asked me to get him out of here fast. But no. I’ve got a better plan for our entertainment today.

  Y’all ready for this?

  Step two: sit up on the edge of the bed.

  Okay. This part sucks. Because I am telling myself to sit up and move to the edge of the bed, but “myself” doesn’t really wanna listen. On the bright side, this might make my plan even better.

  “Ayuda, por favor,” I say to TJ. He leans over me and points to his shoulders.

  I know the drill. I rest my arms on his shoulders and he grabs on to my forearms. He braces his legs behind him.

  One. Two. Three.

  TJ leans back and tugs on me so that I’m sitting up. Now, you and I both know that once I’m up, I’m fine. I can sit up—I’m not some old dying man or something.

  But let’s keep that between you and me, okay? Because I’m planning to go total deadweight here.

  “Tell him I’m letting go,” TJ says. “Ask him if he’s ready.”

  “¿Listo?” Vivi asks. She’s standing on the other side of the room, too far away for this plan to work.

  “No,” I tell her, shaking my head once. “No puedo.”

  “He needs your help to sit up,” she says.

  “Pero tengo que hacer mis ejercicios, Vivi.” I’m using my sad voice. “Es mi meta para hoy.”

  “Pues, sí!” she says, her face all concerned. “Te ayudo.” Then she says to TJ, “He still wants to do the leg exercises. He wants to achieve his goal. But you’ll have to help him stay sitting up, okay?”

  “Okay,” TJ says, and nods. He slides his hands down from my shoulders to the top of my arms and grips tight. Then he takes a small step back to make room for my legs to extend.

  Perfect. This is all coming together, people. Check this out:

  Step three: enthusiastically begin the leg exercises.

  Oh, or don’t. Because where’s the fun in that? I look down at my legs dangling helplessly over the edge of the bed, and then I look up at Vivi with my best sad-puppy eyes. “¿Me ayudas?” I ask.

  “Sí, por supuesto,” she says. Then to TJ: “He needs help lifting his legs.”

  He scowls. “I’m holding him up with both arms. I can’t grow another one to help him lift his leg.”

  “I can help,” she says.

  He throws a nervous glance at her, and then back down to my legs, which are dangerously close to him. Then he does it again. You and I both know what’s coming. And it’s gonna be awesome. Here goes:

  “No way.” He shakes his head. “He’s supposed to be doing this on his own.”

  “But it’s his goal!” Vivi says, all emotional. “He finally gave us a real goal. We should help him get there.”

  Absolutely they should.

  TJ nods once and takes another half step back, still holding tight to my upper arms while I concentrate really hard on continuing to be 100 percent dead weight. Vivi walks over to stand on my right side.

  “Listos?” she asks, reaching out for my foot.

  Are we ready? TJ definitely is not ready. He closes his eyes, clenches his jaw twice, and lets out another sigh.

  Me, though? Yeah, I’m ready.

  Standing as far away from TJ as possible, Vivi reaches over to grab my foot from the side. I pretend that I’m trying to lift my leg.

  “De atrás,” I say, motioning my head toward TJ. “Agarra la pierna de atrás, por favor.”

  “He wants me to move behind him so that I can get a grip on his leg,” she says.

  TJ tries to scoot over to make room for her, so I slump over a little, because that’s not gonna work. He moves back and says, “This is the best I can do.” He looks back out that window. I’m telling you, the man is using every ounce of his effort to keep from looking at her, and she is getting dangerously close.

  Step four: let the entertainment begin.

  I don’t let my leg lift more than a quarter of an inch until Vivi is standing very close to TJ—so close that I’m pretty sure we could light up this entire ICU with the energy moving between those two. Vivi’s biting her lip and TJ is clenching his jaw and I’m telling her to scoot over just a little … just a little … perfect! And then she’s up against his side and he’s sort of half hugging her, his arm wrapped over her shoulder so that he can keep holding me up while she helps me lift my leg. And I smile and move very, very slowly because her cheeks are turning pink and I’m pretty sure that if we listen carefully, we’ll be able to hear his heart thumping.

  And the beauty of it? I’m having so much fun with all of this that I almost forget to worry about my stupid heart and my legs that don’t want to move and how tired every single one of my muscles is. I’m telling you, people, this little exercise may not be helping my body, but it’s doing wonders for my mood.

  I keep throwing these crazy instructions at them, and they keep following them. And when I’ve managed to get her hand resting on his bare forearm for support, and her face about three inches from his, TJ finally gives in. He lets himself look at the curve of her neck for five seconds, closes his eyes, and then reopens them and looks right at me.

  You see that look? Okay, yeah. I’m so busted. He knows exactly what I’m doing, and he knows that I know exactly what he’s feeling. And he’s pissed.

  “We’re done,” he says quietly. “That’s the last one.”

  Well, that was fun. Wasn’t it? Which is a good thing, because the rest of this day is gonna suck.

  Starting … now.

  Prashanti turns the corne
r with an old man in a long white coat. I’ve never seen that old man before, but one look at Prashanti’s stony face and I know this is not good.

  * * *

  I can’t figure it out. The old guy is obsessed with turkeys. I’m telling you people. He cannot stop asking me about the turkeys. It’s the strangest thing.

  I’ll do whatever it takes to get this doctor out of the room, and if that means describing how to dispose of dead turkeys, then fine.

  “He said that his employer asked him to remove the dead turkeys. He used a shovel to load them all onto the back of a truck—like, a dump truck—and then the owner drove them off. He doesn’t know where they took the dead turkeys.”

  Vivi’s talking to the old doctor, and he’s rubbing his chin, looking all concerned. Prashanti scowls and asks Vivi, “Was he wearing protective gear? A face mask? Gloves? Anything at all?”

  I wait for Vivi to translate, and then shake my head. Where do they think I was working? Some big fancy turkey distributor like Butterball? Linda and John could barely afford to put gas in the tractor. They were freaking out because they woke up one morning and half the turkeys were dead. Those fancy organic turkeys were the way they earned a living. They weren’t gonna be using their last remaining dollars to buy me protective gear.

  “Did he have extended physical contact with the turkeys? Did he have to kill any of them himself?”

  Vivi translates, and I nod. They made me kill the rest of them, and then I dumped them in the truck too. John drove off to I don’t know where. All I know is that he came back with an empty dump truck, parked it in the yard, and made me hose it down. It took forever to get all those feathers out, since the blood was sticking to them, and they were all sort of glued to the sides of the truck.

  That was one nasty day’s work.

  “How did he kill the turkeys?” the doctor asks.

  I’m looking at that doctor, and I’m thinking that man has never in his life had to kill the animals he ate. He’s got a big potbelly, too. I bet he eats a lot of steak, huge steaks, still bleeding red. I wonder if he even knows what animal those steaks come from.

  How did I kill the turkeys? That’s a stupid question, but I guess I’m gonna have to answer it.

  I lift one finger and slide it across my neck, then I let my head fall to the side, tongue drooping from my mouth. I pop back up and shrug.

  “Did he come into contact with blood?”

  TJ, who has been standing next to Vivi this whole time, saying nothing, lets out a quick laugh, and then covers his mouth. Yeah, I bet TJ knows where his food comes from.

  Vivi translates. I nod and shrug again. Hell yeah, I came in contact with blood. I was covered in it, head to toe. I bet I looked pretty scary that day. Like one of those guys in a movie who goes on a big murder spree.

  “Was Ángel aware that the turkeys had died from avian influenza-HPAI? Did his employers explain the risks involved?” The doctor tugs on his lip and knits his eyebrows.

  “I don’t know how to say avian influenza,” Vivi says. She’s starting to look super stressed, poor girl. “Can I just say bird flu?”

  “Do we need to get an official translator on the phone?” Prashanti asks.

  “No,” Vivi says. “I think I can explain it.”

  Good girl, Vivi. I hate those telephone translators. They all speak with weird accents and they talk too fast. Plus, I can’t see what they’re saying. It helps to see the words.

  “Te explicaron porque los pavos murieron? Te dijeron que la enfermedad era grave? Que fue la influenza de aves?”

  She did a fine job translating. I knew she would.

  I shake my head. It’s true. They didn’t tell me a thing. All Linda and John said was, “We gotta get rid of those turkeys fast or they’re gonna shut this place down.” So I got rid of the turkeys. It was that simple.

  But then, a few days later, I was up on the roof of the shed, clearing away pine straw, and I started to feel dizzy, like I was gonna pass out. My legs collapsed under me, and I slid right off that metal roof and landed in the middle of the dirt yard. I think maybe I fainted from the heat, or I hit my head or something, because when I opened my eyes again, Lucy the pig was up in my face, using her big snout to shake me awake.

  I miss Lucy. She was a good pig, as smart as they come. I used to let her sleep with me sometimes, when she seemed lonely. I don’t know. I guess since I’m being honest with you people, I’ll go ahead and admit it: I think I was the lonely one. John and Linda were nice and all, but I spent every day out there alone with those animals, and every night sleeping alone in that room by the barn. Still, it was better than living with my uncle, and Lucy was a good friend to me. For real, she was.

  Anyway, that was a long time before all this crap went down—a couple of months, at least. I took some pills and got better. Until I got really sick and landed here.

  I’m tired of talking about those scrawny dead turkeys. I want to sleep. I wish this old doctor would go away.

  CHAPTER NINE

  VIVI

  BIRD JOURNAL

  June 24, 9:57 A.M.

  Snowy egret (Egretta thula)

  A gorgeous snowy egret cheered me on today! I wish I could believe in myself as much as this beautiful girl does.

  Physical Description: the most elegant of the herons; beautiful white plumage that appears almost lacy.

  History: once almost endangered. In the late 1800s, egret plumes were used for clothing and were valued more highly than gold.

  Social Behavior: male and female take turns incubating eggs, and they both care for young when they hatch.

  Call: hraaa, hraaa!

  I’M SITTING ON A BENCH at the entrance to an extraordinary national historic landmark, trying not to think about massacred turkeys. I can’t seem to get that image out of my mind—piles of them, loaded into a truck, their tiny bald heads and blue skin, the bright red gobblers tucked above their huge bodies. Paying attention to the way a turkey looks, I absolutely trust all those scientists who say that birds are descended from dinosaurs. They are incredibly strange-looking creatures. Honestly, turkeys might be the only birds I don’t enjoy watching.

  Just thinking about those heaps of dead turkeys is making me sweat. Or maybe it’s that I’m dressed in an incredibly hot costume. And by “hot,” I don’t mean hot. I mean vaguely nineteenth century, consisting of a blousy white shirt, an itchy wool skirt with tiny red flowers on it, a wide leather belt, and a leather satchel. I’m guessing the satchel probably was a castoff from some former Pirate Museum employee. It comes in handy, though. It’s the perfect place to tuck my K2 EMF meter. That’s an electromagnetic flow meter, an absolute necessity for my summer job—the one that pays.

  I’m fairly certain that the kids tumbling past me, grasping neon-green glow sticks and screaming hysterically, aren’t aware that this lighthouse is a national historic monument. They probably don’t know that the beacon, a nine-foot-tall Fresnel lens, was brought to St. Augustine from Paris and installed in 1874. And I’m absolutely certain that their parents, now diving into their third or fourth beer, couldn’t care less about the history of this maritime treasure, or about its remarkable beacon. They’re too busy scrolling through the dozens of pictures they took climbing the lighthouse stairs, searching for any sign of paranormal activity.

  A woman shuffles toward me, looking down at her screen. “Do you see this?”

  She reaches the phone out to show me, but all I see is a gray screen.

  “Yes.” I nod knowingly. Under different circumstances, I would tell her she accidentally took a picture of the floor while she was up there in the dark. Instead I give her what she wants to hear. “I think you’ve got something there. Let me take a look.” I scroll back and then forward, glancing at photos of dark stairwells, of her kids swinging “eerily” green glow sticks.

  “The upper landing,” I say. “That’s where the EMF was picking up so much activity.”

  “The ghosts don’t like to be in pictur
es,” her husband says. “I’ve studied it on the internet—it happens all the time.”

  “You’re right,” I say. “They don’t.” I neglect to add “because they don’t exist.” I also decide to hold my tongue about the dangers of conducting research via internet surfing.

  “In April we went to Savannah,” the wife says. “We were on that ghost tour that takes you through the old cemetery, you know?”

  No. I’ve never been on a ghost tour. I nod encouragingly.

  “And—honest to God—we heard that little boy calling out for help.”

  “I had my recorder on,” the husband says. “And all it picked up was a bunch of fuzz.”

  “Wow,” I say, not knowing what else to say.

  I now spend four nights a week with people who are desperate to believe that spirits hang around after death. I don’t really get it—their obsession.

  But if that’s what they want, that’s what I’ll give them. This weekend, I came up with a new story for Darren—two pages, single-spaced. Captain Coxteer, a Confederate sea captain whose ship ran aground in 1861. My script was packed with authentic period details. I listened to three scholarly lectures on Civil War ships from the Florida Humanities Council. I went to the lighthouse archives and read journal entries from lighthouse keepers.

  I thought his story would be perfect—I mean, who wouldn’t be terrified of a Confederate sea captain who spent decades running slave ships?

  My ghost story bombed.

  All the kids’ eyes glazed over; their dads wandered off to get another beer. Darren watched my epic fail, and then he came up and whispered in my ear, “Great work, but maybe stick with women and children next time—nobody wants to get too political on vacation.”

  Maybe he’s right. Maybe it was too political. Or too scary. I don’t know, but I guess it’s back to the archives for more research.

  In the meantime, I really should let this family borrow my K2 EMF. Seeing this thing light up would be the highlight of their vacation, without any doubt. But it’s expensive. If I break it, I have to buy a replacement, and currently my mom and I are flat broke. Unless I aspire to a long and illustrious career as a ghost hunter, I need to save every last penny for my next tuition payment.