13. Clarry

CLARRY

I ugly cried.

I ugly cried so bad my face started hurting, then got so numb it stopped hurting again.

I put Janis Ian on my Discman and ugly cried to her song "At Seventeen" until I almost broke the track-back button.

I ugly cried some more into my pillow.

I ugly cried all through the night to Cyndi Lauper's "All Through the Night".

I ugly cried till I finally bothered to get out of bed the next morning and take a shower. When I was done, I managed to pull myself together and glance in the mirror, just long enough to see how puffy my eyes were.

"Oh butternuts. I look terrible."

I realized there was no chance of opening the parlor that day. I hung the Gone Berry-Picking sign in the window, donned a pair of my grandmother's sunglasses since I didn't actually own a pair of my own, and headed for the Ritz, an entire cooler bag filled with ice cream slung over one shoulder.

When I arrived, Mavis smiled at me through the box office window. "My darling Clarence, how are you today? "

I nudged the sunglasses farther up my nose. "Hi Mavis. I'm okay. What's playing this morning?"

"Your favorite. The Bodyguard starring that handsome devil Kevin Costner and the late great Whitney Houston."

The news brought a flicker of a smile to my face. "That's wonderful. I'll take one ticket please." I handed over my money, then added, "Will Dynamite Dwight be watching the movie today?"

"Unfortunately, not, dear, but that's so sweet of you to ask. He said he had some fishing to do. I hope he's referring to actual fish, not the opposite sex. I've got my eyes on that one."

"I think he's got his eyes on you too."

Mavis gave an excited shimmy of her shoulders. "New love is the best kind of love, don't you think Clarence? Is there anything more splendiferous? Everything's golden. Everything's possible. And anything goes. Oh, whenever I hear those words, I just have to dance. Come Clarence, come dance with me!"

"Dance? What? Oh, I don't…"

But before I could stop her, Mavis had already rushed out through the side door of her box office booth, seized me by the hand and was sweeping me into the foyer of the once lavish theater. With a kick of her heel, Mavis opened up a secret panel in the lobby wall that I didn't even know was there. Out slid an old mahogany stand with a gramophone taking pride of place on top and an impressively large record collection underneath.

"You have a gramophone hidden in the walls?"

Mavis winked over her shoulder as she began to flick through her records. "Clarence, darling, the Ritz is like a labyrinth. There are corridors and kinks and nooks and crannies I don't even know about. Ah, here it is."

She slid an old record out of the sleeve of an Ella Fitzgerald album, set the gramophone playing and suddenly Ella was crooning " Anything Goes! "

Mavis snatched the sunglasses off my face and before even noticing my puffy eyes she grabbed my hand and rushed us to the middle of the grand old foyer, swinging me into a waltz or a foxtrot or something. "Come on, Clarence. Show me your moves. You know how to dance, don't you?"

"No!"

"Oh, it's easy. You just put your lips together and blow."

"I think that's whistling."

"Well, you'll be happy to know dancing is even easier than that. Just let your feet follow mine, I'll lead. And two, three, four and to the side and back… that's it… and two, three, four and you're doing it, Clarence. Bravo, darling!"

As Mavis waltzed me across the foyer, I glanced around at the old theater, impressed that it still clung to its golden days. In many ways it had lost none of its opulence. Even though the red curtains with their gold tassels had been frayed and frazzled by moths… even though the art deco patterns on the carpet had been worn threadbare and the chandeliers flickered as though possessed by the ghosts of movie stars of old… even though the Greek marble statues had lost their limbs and the grand staircase was missing several steps and the cornices had more cracks than the crows feet around Mavis's eyes… there was no denying that each flaw and fracture was not a sign of decay, but a nod to history, a badge of honor, a glimpse into a dream that could never be forgotten.

"Oh, this reminds me of my nights in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon ," reminisced Mavis over the music. "It was Hollywood's most lavish nightclub. The ant's pants. The bee's knees. The cat's meow, darling. Speaking of which, don't even get me started on Burt Lancaster's biceps. Every time he swept me onto the dance floor, he'd spin me like this."

Mavis twirled me around and by some miracle I kept my balance. I was half expecting to take a tumble, but far from it. In fact, clumsy old me practically floated into a spin.

It were as though the Ritz itself had given my feet wings .

"Who said you couldn't dance?" Mavis demanded playfully. "You're like Gene Kelly, all you need is an umbrella."

With her endless references to the halcyon days, I could no longer fight the urge to ask, "Just how old are you, Mavis?"

Mavis lifted a hand off my shoulder to waggle a finger at me. "Tut-tut-tut, young man. A lady never reveals her true age. Let's just say I was ready for Mr. DeMille's close-up before Gloria Swanson had even set foot in Tinsel Town… or as it was called in those days, Hollywoodland ."

As we pranced and pirouetted from one end of the foyer to the other, I could only imagine what Hollywoodland and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon must have been like.

The tiaras and tuxedos.

The red carpets and jazz orchestras.

The pop of the cameras flashing as the photographers flocked.

I pictured it all…

And in my imagination, I pictured who I wanted beside me as we strutted the red carpet, as we posed for photographs, as he swept me onto the dance floor.

He was my Ricardo Montalban.

He was my Burt Lancaster.

He was my…

River.

I needed to see him.

I needed to be with him.

I needed to say I was sorry and hope that everything was still okay between us.

My waltz with Mavis had sent my spirits soaring. Then The Bodyguard had reduced me to a messy, snot-nosed, puffy-eyed wreck of a hopeless romantic once again. So much so that by the film's climax I was blubbering through bubbles of ice cream, "Stop the plane, Rachel! Go to him! Hold Frank as tight as you can and never let him go!"

Then I thought about Mitch's words in the barnyard bathroom: "Don't let a stupid misunderstanding push you farther away from each other, not when the simple truth can bring you together."

All the highs and lows of my emotional rollercoaster left me with one overwhelming need—

To see River, as soon as was humanly possible.

Jeepers, if my heels really did have wings I would have flown to him the minute the movie finished. But since I couldn't fly, I instead ran home, dropped off my now empty cooler bag, and headed straight over to the auto shop.

"He's rostered off today and tomorrow," said Mike, looking up at me from under the hood of a car. "You might find him at home."

"Thanks."

Home for River was next door at the back of the general store. I'd been nervous when I walked into Mike's workshop, now I was even more nervous knowing I'd have to go through the general store and see Mr. Raven. Don't get me wrong, I really liked River's dad. We'd always gotten along well. But walking in there and asking to see River was going to feel like asking permission to take his son out on a date.

Not that I wanted to ask him out for a candlelit dinner.

I just wanted to talk.

I made my way cautiously up the steps to the general store and noticed a new sign on the Tab vending machine, printed in bright colors. My throat suddenly felt parched, and I was tempted to buy myself a can, but I was pretty certain the fizz left those sodas back when Elvis left the building. I pushed open the door and stepped into the cluttered old store, the smell of leather and jerky and dust mingling in the air .

Old Man Raven looked up from behind the front counter at the creak of the door. "Clarry, my boy. It's good to see you. Say, you want a new pair of moose-skin moccasins? A mouse ate the toes out of them. They're gonna be tough to sell now. I'll give them to you for ten percent off."

"Oh no thanks, Mr. Raven. I'm all covered in the slippers department."

"These ain't slippers. They're moccasins. You can wear 'em anywhere. Hiking. Horse riding. Playing tennis. You can even wear them when it snows… although your toes might get frostbite thanks to that mouse. Say, you want a new pair of thermal socks? If you take the moccasins, I'll let you buy one sock and I'll throw in the second one for free."

"Actually, I just dropped in to see if River was home."

"He's not. Boy's gone fishing, Menominee style. Borrowed my pickup and headed upriver this morning with the canoe and a lantern. I hope maybe he'll open his ears to the voices in his heart."

"He has voices in his heart?"

"We all do, son. Although they're not much use if you don't listen to what they're trying to tell you."

His words, his clarity, jarred me for a moment. "And what… what do these voices say?"

Mr. Raven shrugged. "The words themselves—the path they tell you to take—are different for everyone. But the message is usually the same for all of us."

"And what's that?" I was suddenly desperate to know.

"That everyone at some point needs to go find who they are. You can't be you, if you don't first find you." Mr. Raven sighed. "I thought when he joined the Marines, River was going to find himself. But the haze of war is thick, the sounds of war are deafening. Instead of finding himself, it seems he came home more lost than ever. "

Mr. Raven's words gave me more courage, more determination than he would ever know.

I knew then what I had to do.

I had to find River.

I had to find me.

I had to find us .

"Thank you, Mr. Raven," I said, jigging excitedly up and down on the spot. "But I really have to go."

"That gets worse as you get older."

"No, I mean, I really have to leave." I rushed for the door, his voice calling after me as I ran outside.

"Hey! What about those moccasins?"

I didn't own a car. I'd never even learned to drive. By the time I was old enough to get my license, my grandparents were too old to teach me. Then they passed, and driving anywhere didn't seem like anything I'd ever want or need to do. I had the ice cream parlor and my little home upstairs from it. What else did I want in life?

The answer to that question was—River.

I shoved some choc-chip cookies, some snickerdoodles, all the ingredients for s'mores and other survival essentials into a small backpack—along with a flashlight and my volunteer Fire Department whistle in case I got lost in the dark—then headed outside to my pink bicycle cart with its purple-and-white awning over the portable freezer compartment in front.

On the side of the cart, I had hand painted the name "Bessie." She was something I used on particularly hot days in summer, working up a sweat as I rode around town and through the park selling ice creams on the go.

There was especially warm weather forecast for the next week or so, and I had already pumped up the tires in anticipation of a pedal through town. I was grateful I had, because as my only means of transport, Bessie was going to have to take me upriver to find the man of my dreams.

Tucking my backpack into the empty freezer compartment in front, I climbed onto my bike, feeling like a knight on his steed.

With a ring-a-ding-ding of Bessie's bell and a flap of her purple-and-white awning blowing in the breeze, I set off on my gallant quest.

There were two roads leading upriver from town—the new highway through the forest or the old scenic route that wound along the river's edge.

I pedaled my heart out along the scenic route, knowing that eventually I'd come across Mr. Raven's pickup. Of course, riding Bessie along the bumpy old road wasn't the easiest thing I'd ever done. In fact, I imagined it was a lot like boot camp. I huffed and puffed and dripped with sweat for what seemed like hours before checking my watch to discover I'd only been riding for about eight minutes.

"Willikers!"

I hoped he hadn't driven for too many miles before he found a nice spot to fish. There were a ton of picturesque places along the river. With every turn I prayed I'd see the pickup, but at each curve I saw no sign of him, leaving me no choice but to press on.

In the trees above, the birds sang.

The breeze whistled through the leaves and dappled sunlight broke through the canopy every now and then, bright and hot on my face.

The river splashed and chattered on its way over the rocks.

At some points it was narrow and shallow .

At other points it was wide and deep.

I was tempted to stop and take a dip, but I didn't bring my swimming trunks. No matter how cool and inviting the water looked, I didn't dare contemplate the thought of skinny-dipping.

How bold did you have to be to do something like that?

What if someone showed up and caught me in the nude?

What if a fish decided to have a peck at my winky dinky?

I pushed on.

Thankfully around the next corner in the road I caught sight of Mr. Raven's pickup parked along a beaten track that spiked off the scenic route.

"Oh, thank heavens," I panted, veering off the road and bouncing along the track, the bell on my handlebars dinging and pinging in protest, clearly not happy with the rocky detour.

Soon Bessie and I rattled to a halt beside the pickup where I stepped off the bike and mopped my brow with a pink handkerchief from my backpack. I noticed the snickerdoodles and figured I'd earned one after such an intense workout. I needed to keep my energy up, otherwise I might not survive in this harsh environment. I plucked one snickerdoodle out of the backpack… then another… then three more. I shoved them into my pockets and returned the backpack to the cart's compartment. Then, leaving my things by the pickup, I headed along a narrow trail that appeared to snake its way toward the water's edge.

Pushing ferns and branches aside, I followed the trail until soon I came to a ledge, fifteen or twenty feet up a steep embankment overlooking a crystal-clear section of the river.

From where I stood, I could see the rocks and pebbles on the riverbed.

I could see several large trout gliding through the sparkling waters.

And then I heard a splash, and forty feet away I saw River break the surface and stand in the chest-deep water.

I gasped and quickly hid behind a thicket .

My breath trembling, I watched as tiny streams of water ran down his shoulders, his biceps, his pecs.

I stared adoringly as he pushed his wet black hair away from his forehead and shook the water out of his ears.

My eyelids peeled open even wider as he began to swim to the opposite bank, his strokes gentle and long, his bare bottom rising to the surface as he swam, his sweet cinnamon buns round and firm and shimmering in the sunshine.

"Jigglin' jellybeans!" I whispered to myself, one hand reaching blindly for the nearest branch to steady myself.

Only the branch I gripped wasn't attached to the thicket I was hiding behind.

It was a fallen branch that wasn't attached to anything at all, it was simply caught in the bush.

The realization that something you thought was going to hold your weight suddenly won't, always comes as a surprise…

As did my foot slipping over the edge of the embankment…

As did the thicket parting like a curtain for me to fall through, down the slope, flailing and floundering and tumbling all the way to the water's edge.

"Oh, cookie crumbs!" I cried out before landing with an almighty splash, plunging into water that was deeper than I was expecting.

I came up spluttering and thrashing and gasping for air.

From across the water, I heard River's voice. "Clarry? I'm coming!"