Mayor of the Universe: A Novel

  “Wow,” said Fletcher, looking at the glazed ceramic squares on which titled portraits of women were painted. “That’s Eleanor Roosevelt!” He squatted to his knees, to better view the 5”x5” likenesses and read the names written below each one in fine script. “Sojourner Truth. Sacagawea. And look at Amelia Earhart!”

  “I don’t think I got her nose quite right.”

  “You painted these?” asked Fletcher, bobbling a little in his squat.

  Wanda nodded, bending down next to him. “For our American History unit, we did a Hall of Fame portrait project in class, but instead of drawing pictures I wanted the children to decorate a household object with an American who’d made a difference in the world. The idea was to bring history into their everyday lives. So sure enough, I got a lot of portraits painted on coffee mugs, but I also had Jennifer Erlich cross-stitching a picture of Abraham Lincoln on a dishtowel, and Brian Lindvall painted one of his dad’s golf balls with a picture of George Washington.” She sighed. “Most of the kids did presidents, although there were two astronauts and a Thomas Edison, but only Katie Charbonneau drew a woman.”

  “Who?” asked Fletcher.

  “Laura Ingalls Wilder. Katie’s nuts about the Little House on the Prairie series, and she made a portrait of the author out of felt pieces and glued it on her book bag. It was a clever idea, but still, it was dispiriting out of a class of twenty-two students only one thought to honor a woman.”

  “But you,” said Fletcher, surveying the portraits that framed the fireplace. “You’ve got all women here.”

  “That’s right,” said the teacher crisply. “Someone’s got to give us the attention we deserve.”

  After soaking in the hot bath Wanda drew for him, Fletcher joined her in the living room. A fire crackled in the feminist fireplace, and the rescued time traveler, who had every intention of having a nice long conversation with the gracious and interesting teacher, felt so at home that he promptly fell asleep.

  He woke up on the couch, warmed by a patchwork quilt that smelled of lavender, a tender morning light, and as he remembered where he was, a sense of contentment. He smiled, remembering the sound of Wanda Plum’s laughter as she told him about her father, whose pajamas he now wore.

  “He and Mom live in New Mexico most of the year,” she had said the night before. “Right next door to my aunt and uncle. But they come to stay with me every summer. Dad’s convinced he needs”—here she lowered her voice—“at least six weeks of South Dakota sense to immunize him from the insanity of the rest of the country.” Wanda laughed. “Dad’s quite a character.”

  And so are you, Fletcher thought, stretching his arms above his head. He wondered if she were up yet, what fruit or vegetable print she might be wearing, what they might have for breakfast. He would have liked to focus his thoughts on his hostess, but worry nipped at him like a badly behaved dog.

  Where’s Tandy? Is she all right? What was going to happen now?

  Fletcher stood in the dining room entryway watching as Wanda scattered autumn leaves on the table.

  “Wow,” he said. “Did you make that?”

  The centerpiece of Wanda Plum’s Thanksgiving table was a two-foot tree branch on which small amber votive candleholders were glued.

  Wanda nodded, fully taking in the sight that was Fletcher dressed in her father’s clothes, which she had laid out for him. “Sorry about Dad’s taste.”

  “And I thought I looked dapper,” said Fletcher, striking a pose in his checked polyester pants and pale pink golf shirt.

  “So does Dad,” said Wanda. “That’s his problem.”

  Fletcher watched as she finished her leaf placement.

  “A gold doubloon for your thoughts,” said Wanda.

  “Huh—and all this time I’ve been accepting pennies.”

  “No, really,” said Wanda, as she considered a yellow leaf, moving it a quarter-inch, “tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “Nothing deep,” said Fletcher. “I was just thinking about the big ugly turkey candle my Aunt Florence used to set in the middle of the table every year at Thanksgiving. First the flame put a big indentation in the head, and gradually the whole head melted down, and then the wattle melted into the chest—eventually it became this brown blob—until one year, my mother threw it away, saying if she wanted to look at a cow pie while she was eating, she’d go out in the field.”

  “Your mother sounds like she has a good sense of humor.”

  “Had,” Fletcher said, feeling a catch in his chest. “Yeah, I guess she did. Anyway, I sure like your centerpiece. It’s very . . . creative.”

  “A teacher’s salary forces creativity,” said Wanda. “Plus I enjoy making things.”

  “I’ve gathered that. Like your fireplace, like your fruit and vegetable blouses—which, by the way, I notice you’re not wearing today.”

  Wanda blushed. “Oh, that’s just a silly thing I do for the children.”

  “I think it’s nice. I had a teacher named Mrs. Lake, and I can tell you, that old crab never did anything fun with her name.”

  “What should she have done—come in soaking wet?”

  “Yeah, and dripping weeds and old fishing line.”

  When they were done sharing a small laugh, they stood at the dining room table staring at one another.

  “Well!” said Wanda, laying one last oak leaf under her centerpiece. “What kind of hostess am I? Dinner won’t be ready for hours—let me get you some breakfast.”

  Tulips bloomed on the white cupboards in the yellow kitchen.

  “Did you paint those?” asked Fletcher.

  “Sometimes I go a little crazy,” said Wanda. From the small kitchen table, she pulled out a white chair also sprouting tulips.

  Fletcher was served coffee and warm banana bread, and had his sense of taste and smell been so armed it would have offered a twenty-one-gun salute.

  “I never had homemade banana bread as a kid,” he said, thinking of the toasted hot dog buns spread with margarine and sprinkled with sugar that was Olive’s dessert bread. “I don’t think I ever had any homemade bread of any kind. It’s probably why I started baking it myself.” He took another bite, closing his eyes as he chewed. “Only mine never tastes anything like this.”

  Wanda cut another slice and put it on the china dish in front of him. After refilling his coffee cup, she folded her hands on the tabletop and regarded him gravely.

  “Fletcher, I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve been through, but I know it’s a lot.”

  Hearing the seriousness in her tone, Fletcher wiped his mouth with the snowy cloth napkin and folded his own hands in his lap.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said. “Sometimes I use my teacher’s voice and I’m not even aware of it.” She waved her hand. “Please, keep eating.”

  Happy to comply, Fletcher took a big bite of banana bread.

  “I wanted your . . . your reentry, for lack of a better word,” said Wanda, “to be as easy as possible, and to that end I thought we should just get to know each other a little bit as fellow human beings.”

  Fletcher chewed quickly and swallowed. “I think that was a good idea. I’ve enjoyed getting to know you.”

  “And I you. But of course, I can’t help notice how worried you are.”

  “I thought . . . I thought I was covering that up pretty good.”

  “I’d say more than pretty good. My goodness, I think most people would have had nervous breakdowns in the first zamoosh.”

  That Wanda Plum should remember the word zamoosh caused a zip of pleasure to ride Fletcher’s spine.

  “And although I remember Tandala’s tardiness in getting back to you in my classroom, that she’s been gone this long is cause for some concern.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” said Fletcher, feeling as if a door had been opened and a cold draft skittered inside.

  “So, Fletcher, if you don’t mind, before I start our Thanksgiving dinner—and it’s going to be lasagna, I hope you don’t mind—why d
on’t you tell me everything that’s happened since I last saw you? If you’re up to it.”

  Fletcher nodded. He was up to it and glad that she was.

  “Well, if you remember,” he said, taking a sip of coffee—it tasted the way commercials claimed their coffee tasted but never did—“the first time I was Hip Galloway, rodeo cowboy? Then I was brought into Deke Drake’s life—ladies’ man, war vet, jewel thief?”

  Wanda nodded, her eyes shining, as if she were listening to her favorite story.

  “Well, this time—boy, they’ve really got a weird sense of humor—they brought me to a fat camp.”

  “Right,” said Wanda. “Camp WoogiWikki, like it said on your T-shirt.”

  Fletcher nodded. “And my real name was Vince, I guess, but my nickname was Shark because all the kids in camp had nicknames.”

  “I’m not following you.”

  “Vince Shark was one of my alter egos when I was a kid,” he explained. “Only my Vince Shark was an international spy.”

  “So did you . . . did you do any spying in camp?”

  “No,” said Fletcher. “I can’t figure out what my Vince Shark and the kid I was at camp had to do with one another. I think it was all just sort of a joke.”

  “Hmm,” said Wanda. “Maybe instead of international espionage, you were trying to solve some other mystery.”

  “Ha,” said Fletcher. “Like how cottage cheese helps you lose weight?”

  “What about Tandala—was she a counselor there? Or the camp cook?”

  “No, she wasn’t around for this experience. In fact, I only saw her once—and she was still Tandy the maid from Deke Drake’s life.”

  “Strange,” said Wanda, refilling his cup. “Tell me more.”

  He told her all about his time at Camp WoogiWikki, and when he got to the part about losing his baseball cap, he teared up.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his smile sheepish, “it’s just that that damn hat meant so much to me.”

  “You don’t have to apologize. Anyone would be upset about losing a symbol like that. It’s like losing a wedding ring, I’d imagine.” She thought for a moment. “No, more like a war widow losing a wedding ring.”

  Fletcher took her small hand and squeezed it, grateful for the depth of her understanding.

  “So I want to understand this exactly,” said Wanda. “You’re not reliving your own life at all, but living out the lives of your fantasies?”

  “Except that I really hadn’t mapped out whole lives for them—I mean, they were just fantasies, you know? This is great coffee, by the way.”

  The look on her face was not typical of one who’d just been complimented; in fact, alarm rounded her eyes and mouth as the air shimmered with colors before solidifying into the form of Charmat.

  Wanda said, “Oh, my!” with all the awe and disbelief to be expected when finding a thin, green, bulbous-headed, Lurex-bodysuit-wearing alien in one’s kitchen.

  “Charmat!” said Fletcher. “What are you doing here?” A tiny blast of fear detonated in his stomach. “Where’s Tandy? Is Tandy all right?”

  “We’ll be seeing her momentarily.” His voice was as calm as if he were suggesting a stroll around the block, and it reassured Fletcher enough that he was able to smile at Wanda in an Isn’t this something? sort of way.

  The teacher sat with her hands clutched under her slack jaw, and Fletcher remembered his manners.

  “Wanda, this is Charmat, head of Lodge 1212. Charmat, meet Wanda Plum.”

  “Pleasure,” said the alien, nodding.

  “Likewise,” she said, her voice small, but excited. “May I get you some coffee?”

  “Under usual circumstances, yes, but not these.” He turned to Fletcher. “We must go now.”

  “Where?”

  “The Universal Head Council meeting.”

  Another blast of fear—but this one sending out a trickle of ice through every vein—was unleashed in Fletcher.

  “Will Tandy be there?”

  “Very nice to have met you,” Charmat said to Wanda, and as he reached for Fletcher, Wanda grabbed the lone finger of the alien’s other hand.

  “I’m going, too.”

  “Miss, I can’t allow that.”

  “You’ll have to,” said Fletcher simply, suddenly not wanting to go anywhere without the second grader teacher.

  Charmat looked first at Fletcher and then Wanda, his eyes darkening and his forehead pulsing. Wanda didn’t look away or let go of his hand.

  “Oh, all right,” said Charmat finally, and as Mrs. Bryers stuffed her turkey with store-bought dressing and Katie Charbonneau colored a pilgrim for the newspaper contest and the Plums watched the Macy’s parade on TV, their colleague, teacher, and daughter, respectively, broke all known rules of time and space and dimension.

  19

  The first sound Wanda became aware of was the low roar of ocean waves.

  “Fletcher!” she whispered, after plunking down on something that felt like sand. They were in such deep darkness that the only way she knew she was with Fletcher was that she felt his hand in hers. “Fletcher, I think we’re at the ocean!”

  “You’re right,” came Charmat’s voice. “I am receiving the coordinates as approximately eighteen degrees, fifteen minutes, zero seconds south, and thirty-five degrees, zero minutes, and zero seconds east. Putting us in Mozambique.”

  “Mozambique,” said Fletcher the geography buff. “Then that must be the Indian Ocean.”

  “The Indian Ocean,” said Wanda. “Oh, I wish it were daylight so I could see it!”

  As if her words were a cue, the darkness parted like a stage curtain and they found themselves under a moonlit sky.

  The alien leader pointed to a bonfire several hundred yards away.

  “Over there!” he said, pulling up the humans, and together they ran along the shoreline, next to the white-capped waves unraveling like old lace and toward the orange glow.

  Near the fire, a woman appeared to be sleeping. She was wrapped in a blanket and sitting on a low-to-the-ground lawn chair, her legs extended, feet crossed.

  Kneeling in the sand next to her, Fletcher took her hand and whispered, “Tandy?”

  For a long moment, there was no sound except for the tumbling of the ocean waves, and then with a snort Tandy awoke.

  “Why is he here?” she said, her voice sharp. “There’s no time for this!”

  “No time for what?” asked Fletcher. “What’s going on?”

  “The UHC is about to make its decision,” said Charmat.

  “Yes, and you’ll blow it all if you’re late!” said Tandala, and regarding Fletcher in his pastel finery, she asked, “Are you in some fantasy?”

  In the eerie flickering glow of the fire, Fletcher could see that Tandy’s dark skin was ashen and her eyes sunken, but he did not want the panic he felt reflected in his face, and so he forced his mouth to turn upward.

  “Nope, I’m just me,” he said lightly. “These are Wanda’s dad’s golf clothes.”

  “Hi,” said Wanda, offering a small wave as she stepped into the light of the fire.

  “Oh,” said Tandy, “you brought the teacher! Miss Plum, isn’t it?”

  “Call me Wanda,” she said, leaning toward Tandy. “It’s so nice to see you again—but what exactly is going on?”

  Hearing Tandy’s calliope-full-of-notes laughter, Fletcher’s knees felt weak.

  “I forget how you like to get to the heart of things, Wanda,” said Tandy. “And I love that you’re here.” Her gummy smile stretched across her gaunt face. “I guess things aren’t so urgent that we can’t have a little party. What do you say, Charmat?”

  The alien leader stood with his hands on his narrow hips, but the scowl on his bulbous forehead softened, and smiling, he held out a finger, directing its strong pulsing light at something on the other side of Tandy’s lawn chair. “Fletcher, crack open the cooler, and let’s get this party started.”

  The two humans exchanged a long look b
efore Fletcher followed Charmat’s order. He felt as if his emotions were on a chain, being yanked this way and that, but if the aliens thought it was now time for refreshment, he wasn’t about to protest.

  As the waves beat out their relentless rhythm and the moon shone yellow, the odd quartet sat quietly contemplating the bonfire, downing their beers in varying speeds. Charmat was a guzzler, opening a second bottle and pouring it into his glass before Wanda had taken two sips out of hers.

  “Beer,” said the alien leader, “you were so right, Tandala. It’s got a bigger taste than a normal thirst quencher, almost like a liquid food.” He took a long draw, smacking his lipless mouth. “And you’re right that it’s best drunk out of a glass so that one can enjoy the foam—foam is like a dessert—not sweet but a treat nevertheless. A texture that makes you feel good.”

  Fletcher and Wanda laughed; to hear an alien expound on the merits of beer while sitting by a bonfire on the coast of Mozambique was not how either one had anticipated spending their Thanksgiving.

  “Oh, but piña coladas,” said Tandy. “Piña coladas are like drinking a coconut that’s been crossbred with sugar cane and whipped up by very happy Hawaiians.”

  “I was in Hawaii once,” said Wanda. “On a college break. I thought I had landed in the place where perfume was invented.”

  Fletcher wanted to kiss her then, to taste the beer on her lips, to burrow his nose into her neck and smell traces of Molokai and Oahu.

  “‘Joshua trees whose branches are lifted in prayer!’” said Charmat, standing now. “‘The brown velvet of a horse’s nose! Singing ‘Git Along, Little Doggies’ with a bunch of weepy cowboys!’”

  “He’s quoting me,” explained Tandy, and her smile was so big it erased all signs of sickness from her face.

  “My interceptor could barely contain all the sense-o-grams and messages that were being transmitted,” said Charmat. “I expected them to taper off, once she became more acclimated to earthly ways, but they never did. And the smells—‘fresh cut hay, a rain-scrubbed morning, the sun on Grazi’s flank’—I was nearly in overload with just samples of these, and here poor Tandy was immersed in them.”