Page 10 of The California Dreamers

9

Guests

2002

The island

Day 1, late afternoon

The four of us, spread before Charlie on the rope web as her midair audience, froze. The island world continued on, oblivious—petals fluttering, birds calling, palm fronds rattling.

At last, Griff spoke. “Cap invited that woman here.”

Shaking his head in disbelief, Mag said, “A reporter.”

Dyl crept to the very edge of the platform—next to me—so he was as close to the cliff, as far from the letter Charlie held, as he could get. His face taut with anxiety, he gazed down through the leaves as if he could see the boat holding our invader.

Griff reached for the letter in Charlie’s hand. He read it several times, nodding, then smoothed it, folded it exactly as it had been, and passed it to Mag.

Mag read quickly, huffed out a strange little laugh, then balled the letter up and threw it toward me in frustration. I barely saved it from dropping through the rope.

I straightened the paper and recognized Cap’s handwriting, though it was wavier than usual, illness visible in strained pen-strokes. He’d offered no preamble or apology. No explanation. Only:

I have asked Pauline Cowley of SWELL magazine to show you this when she arrives at 33.2489 N, 119.2881 W. SWELL requested an interview because of the Brand Museum exhibit, but her coming to you is my idea alone, and I believe it will be “a worthwhile endeavor.”

Please allow her to ask her questions; how you answer is up to you.

C.M.

An interview. After we’d been commanded all those years to avoid people, to hide who we were and how we lived. Suddenly now he wanted us to talk?

Charlie broke the silence. “Those numbers are—”

“Coordinates,” the twins and I said at once. How like Cap to work in latitude and longitude and a Cook reference, educating us until the end, instead of simply naming the island. But not one word about why he would agree to an interview. Or any concern for us, dealing with what he’d set in motion.

Because my brothers were struggling. I could feel it, their distress pulsing across the grid of white rope that held us all.

Dyl looked like any second he might leap to the ground and disappear into foliage.

Griff was trying to appear cool and in command but couldn’t stop moving, jostling the ropes, causing swells that rolled the rest of us up and down. He kept tightening his ponytail, checking the ties around the gear we’d hoisted up.

Mag slowly wound a rope end around and around in his hand. “A man. Rages against photographers. His whole life. And then. Invites a reporter to his funeral,” he muttered.

“Could she have taken advantage of Cap when he was weak, near the end?” I asked.

“That’s unlikely.” Griff was striving for his reasonable-adult tone, but couldn’t keep the shock from his voice. “Cap was compos mentis until his last breath. He says right in the letter this is what he wanted.”

“Remember when…” Mag shook his head, trying to close off the memory.

“Remember what, Mag?” I asked.

He hesitated. “The Quiver. Remember how he had Mama tell us we were going? After… toying with us about whether it was a good thing or not?”

I remembered it vividly. How our father had given us a rare treat—an adventure among strangers—and how the twins had tried so hard to come up with the right opinion on the Quiver to please him. “And he just strolled off to surf after,” I said. “No explanation. All of a sudden, the rule about approaching strangers unnecessarily went out the window, but we weren’t told why.”

Exactly like now.

But while the interview seemed to go against Cap’s every fiber, we couldn’t deny that the note in my hand was utterly him. Perfectly, exasperatingly Cap. There was no “ if you choose to answer her questions.” Only how .

“You two loved the Quiver,” Griff said, as if this was an argument for doing the interview, but his voice lacked force. He sounded so defeated I didn’t argue with him.

For a moment I was back there. Confusion pushed aside, laughing with my brothers in our hammocks. The river wave rolling under my body, its spray steadier and warmer than the ocean’s. The thrill of being on our own, the amber glow of torches and bonfires…

Of course we had loved the Quiver—all three of us had. That wasn’t Mag’s point. But Cap sending us there had been so jarring. Couldn’t he have explained, just a little, why he’d wanted us to go? And couldn’t Griff admit that Cap’s opacity hurt?

“Are you suggesting we’ll love sitting with that woman for an interview?” Mag asked. “Because it sounds as appealing as getting dragged naked over a reef. We’re grown, Griff. We don’t have to blindly accept Cap’s commands like—”

“We don’t have to decide yet,” I interrupted. I knew exactly what Mag had been about to say: blindly accept Cap’s decision like always . Things were getting too heated, and we needed a break before the twins’ fight got too ugly. As much as I wished Mama had run to me the second I’d set foot on the island, I was glad she wasn’t here to witness this mess.

“Maybe Mama doesn’t need to know about the reporter yet,” I said. Or at all. I assumed we’d vote against this absurd interview idea and send Pauline Cowley quickly on her way back to the mainland. “She’s in mourning and—”

“She knows,” Charlie said from her corner of the rope platform. And even Dyl, at the opposite corner, turned around to face her. “Your mother knows, sorry. After I dinghied back from talking to Pauline on her charter boat, I found her at camp grabbing supplies because she’d heard the warning bell, and I showed her the letter, and she…”

“What?” Mag pressed. “She freaked, right?”

Charlie shook her head. “The opposite. For a second she seemed surprised, but then she smiled. She got that serene look…you know. And she said, ‘I’m sure he had his reasons. Does our journalist guest have a camera?’ I said yes, and she said, ‘Well, there. Maybe he wanted to make up for the cameras.’”

I pictured them now, the cameras Cap had gotten his hands on.

One thrown into flames.

Two hurled onto beach towels.

Many more disemboweled—their translucent amber entrails dangling to the ground after Cap had popped the windows open and yanked their film out, ruining shot after shot.

We hadn’t been famous, not then, not yet. But he’d already treated anyone who took pictures near our campsite as paparazzi.

“That makes zero sense,” Mag said. “‘Make up for the cameras?’ What, she wants us to pose for a photoshoot for the article?”

My palms were sweaty and raw from gripping the rope so tight. Just breathe. No one’s agreed to any interview, let alone a picture…

“Well, anyway,” Charlie went on. “Your mother said we should invite her to stay for now, to keep her comfortable. So we sent the charter boat back with a story about her writing an article on my work here, and I set Pauline up in the big stat shack—the main DFW shed, you know, where we log our data—on the west side of the island. Just while you all decide what to do.”

Mag sighed, not protesting any longer, but his voice was still prickly. “Nice of our mother to join us in a timely fashion.”

“She’s off finishing her secret project for the paddle-out, she told me to tell you,” Charlie said hurriedly. With a concerned look at me, she added, “All of you.”

“Oh,” Mag said wryly. “That’s fine, then. If it’s for the secret project.”

She’s grieving and she’s not here to defend herself , I wanted to jump in, but held back. Because Mag was right. As the note was utterly Cap, this was perfectly, exasperatingly Mama. She appeared and disappeared when she fancied. Went along with Cap’s decisions no matter how strange or sudden. He must have his reasons.

Nothing had changed since we were younger.

You owe them , I’d told myself back on the farm. But the idea of a journalist getting cozy down the rocky hill, not two miles from where I sat, made my heart skip.

I had never told anyone besides Charlie how we lived. The occasional comments—“roach coach”—the flashes of confusion or disgust in strangers’ eyes, had told me others didn’t and would never understand.

Six of us in ninety-eight square feet. I knew how it sounded. Knew how other people’s faces would change if they learned how I’d grown up. How we’d never gone to school. How we’d fished for coins in phone booths and fountains until Cap stopped us. Used rest stop toilets and public beach showers. “Interesting,” they’d say.

They’d say “interesting,” but mean “wrong.” Dreamers hadn’t captured that; it didn’t fit with the fantasy.

I waited for Griff to weigh in, but he only reached for the letter again. I handed it to him, and it was painful to watch him reread it, as if there was something he might have missed. A message from Cap, just for him, that would explain everything. Maybe he hoped the white space between the body of the letter and Cap’s “C.M.” would miraculously sprout a “Love.”

Or anything but emptiness.