After the Wilderness

By Gordon Kearns

Chapter 7

Detective Lieutenant Arthur D. "Art" Sergeant. Forty years old. Six foot-four. Broad, broad shoulders. A giant's hands. Solid, square jaw. Once broken nose. Dark blue eyes. And a relatively light complexion. Old knife scars on his left cheek, right shoulder, and right hip. Heavy brows. Thick wiry hair: salt and peppered. Lately, a tendency to slightly stooped shoulders as if in a constant state of resigned weariness. Two grey suits with vests --all units interchangeable (every two years without fail one old suit was discarded and one new identical suit purchased from the factory outlet store). Two pairs of rubber-soled black shoes, as clearly signaling Art's profession as the ever-present bulge of his snub-nosed .32 caliber revolver, which he kept in a holster attached to his belt and tucked into his rear right pant pocket. Art was a widower. Marsha, his wife, passed away three years previous from congenital heart problems. She was barely thirty-seven at the time. Art was a throwback to the old, tough-minded school of police, but he somehow had adapted fairly well to the more structured, procedurally oriented style of the eighties. However, he was considered one of the most tenacious, intelligent, and intuitive investigators in the department.

Bradley A. "Brad" Sergeant, 22, was Art's son, his only child. Brad was about five-six, and lacked the considerable muscular bulk of the rough and tough older man --and there was absolutely none of the cultivated intimidating aspects of the old policeman (vise-like eyes, set jaw, etc.). He had darkish blond hair --straight and fine, maintained much longer than his father approved of. He had a thin, oval face, nondescript nose, light skin, and greenish eyes.

Brad was not Art's natural son. He was born when his mother was still in her teens, the result of an imprudent, youthful liaison. Art never did know the child's father --Marsha never discussed him, and Art never asked. Art married Marsha when Brad was four, and he officially adopted the boy shortly after. Art himself had experienced a rugged, street-wise childhood, bouncing forever from one foster home to another. He made up for his lack of loving parents by providing Brad with the happiest home environment his tough heart could provide.

Brad had graduated from Emory in June with a fine arts major and was presently doing contract work for a local ad agency. His work was considered quite good, and it looked as though he would be assured of a successful career in his chosen field. Brad jogged five miles a day, five days a week. Art didn't believe in exercise for its own ends. Art was an inveterate hunter every free opportunity he could grab --varmints, ducks, geese, deer, whatever (once, years earlier, he had joined with a group of his department buddies for a trip west to hunt elk and moose). Brad would never kill an animal, was even attempting vegetarianism at the time of these events. Art was a steak and potatoes man. Art liked to play poker, drink beer, and eat delivered pizzas once a week with his friends. Brad had a season ticket to the symphony and enjoyed wine and here and there joints with his own crowd. Art watched every baseball, football, basketball, and hockey game he could in person or on television (the living room television set was almost permanently tuned to ESPN).

Father and son were as different as two people could be, but each enjoyed the unqualified love and respect of the other.

Saturday, six o'clock p.m. eastern time.

Art: "Clear your schedule for the next three weeks; you and I are going to take a vacation together for a change."

Brad: "You, a vacation! I don't believe it."

Art: "Believe it. I'm cashing in on a few of my years of vacation-day accumulation, and I'm heading west --to a resort in California ...and I want you with me."

Brad: "This going to be a hunting trip?"

Art: "A ...kind of hunting, I guess you'd say."

Brad: "But ..."

Art: "Don't worry. I don't mean 'hunting' in the usual sense. I wouldn't have you compromise your scruples."

Brad: "Okay ...I guess I'm listening."

Art: "You and I are going to scout us up a fairy."

Brad: "A fairy? Dad!"

Art: "Oh, not what you're thinking. I mean the real, old fashioned kind like you used to read about way back in grade school. The kind Disney used to put in his animated movies."

Brad: "Oh? I want to hear more about this."

Art: "I figured you might. To start with, have you been watching the big news stories coming out of our fair city lately?"

Brad: "You mean the mysterious red-head?"

Art: "You got it."

Brad: "You think she's a fairy? Oh, come on now. You're supposed to be one grizzled old skeptical cop. This doesn't sound like you."

Art: "This one's for real, kid."

Brad: "Did you meet her?"

Art: "I sure did. She didn't say anything, though. Mostly just lay there and cried."

Brad: "Where does the 'fairy' stuff come in?"

Art: "The whole schmeer adds up. All in one twenty-four hour period -- less, actually --there've been some very weird, but very similar reports from impossibly distant places: Hawaii, France ...the Riviera, and Rome ... the Sistine Chapel, if you don't mind. All three about a beautiful red-headed woman as naked as a jay, who when approached, disappeared into thin air -- directly in front of reliable witnesses: a hotel manager in Hawaii, good priests in the Vatican, and policemen in France. No mistake about the

reports. I traced all three back to their source --our girl in every respect: hair, nose, teats, and butt. And here in Atlanta Thursday night she materialized out of nothing right in front of almost a hundred kids ..."

Brad: "Whose attention was on the rape."

Art: "Except she appeared right behind the rapist. No one ...absolutely no one saw her come from any real 'place.' And then there was that disappearing act at the hospital. There's no way she could have gotten out without someone seeing her."

Brad: "How about accomplices?"

Art: "No chance. Nobody came in or out of that building all night, except legitimately. All outside doors were locked tight, except for the emergency entrance, which was covered every second.

"Besides, I checked with my old friend Milt Herzog --you know, the Ancient History and Lit. professor over at Emory. It seems there's a pattern, the same as in some old tales from Europe and the near east. There's stories of a special fairy band that could appear or disappear at will. But --get this --they had to be nude at the time. The only way they could be caught was to throw a blanket or rope or something over them before they dissolved. Then they couldn't get away. People used to think if they captured one there'd be a pot of gold for them --like with the leprechauns in later years.

"Here's the clincher. Our girl left behind everything before she disappeared. She even shed the plastic i.d. bracelet."

Brad: "So she wouldn't be recognized as coming from the hospital."

Art: "Man, she took off her band-aids. Why go to all that trouble before leaving the room? Time had to be tight for her. I think we had an honest-to-goodness fairy in our hands. I got a definite feeling right down in my gut about her. And we let her get away."

Brad: "One report said she was strapped down. If that was the case, how'd she get out? You said they couldn't disappear if they were covered."

Art: "I haven't got that one figured yet. But it still all adds up." A thoughtful pause. "Even if it doesn't, you and I could do with a vacation together for a change."

Brad: "What are you going to do if you find her? She didn't commit a crime that you could extradite her for, did she? All she did was stop a rape; I don't think that's against the law yet."

Art: "There was that nude in public item ...but that doesn't mean anything --but then she did skip out on a court order." Thoughtful again. "However, I don't know if it came down to a court case whether a fairy would be considered human or not ...you know, with normal human civil rights and all. Milt tells me historically fairies weren't supposed to have souls. For me personally, my real goal is to disprove the whole thing, or find the fraud if there is one. I can't accept the idea of 'magic.' I go after 'magic' like Houdini used to go after spiritualism. The supposed 'real psychics' interested Houdini the most. But in the end he exposed them all. Now, in the case of my red-head, if the 'magic' turned out to be ...real, then the way I see it, we'd have some big problems in the world. Facts have to be facts. You can't have a force going around that contradicts truth. My whole career has been centered on rooting out the truth so justice can prevail in the end. I personally can't allow the world of fairies to intrude on my world of truth. What's bad about the red-head is if she is magic, she's flaunting it in front of me. I can't let her get away with that. The way I see it: she has to be either exposed or ...stopped. And it seems I'm the one who has to do it."

Brad: "Why you?"

Art: "Because I'm the one in position to do it. It's my direct case. Most others would only rationalize it ...you know, take the easy way out. But I've studied the subject. I know how insidious the problem is. 'Anti-magic' has always been my crusade."

Brad: "You make it sound so ominous."

Art, laughing: "Nothing all that dire. You know there's no such thing as a fairy. I know there's no such thing as a fairy. What I want to do is find the truth in all this --the coincidence or the fraud --so I can rest easier knowing magic is still only worked with stage props. Actually, it's one of the most interesting challenges I've had in a long time.

"Besides, the fun of hunting is in the hunt. You'd get a chance to see your old man at his best: investigating for truth in a supposition." He paused a moment in thought. "Where we're going is a resort where there's a guy who thinks this gal's his missing wife. It's a good lead; but I'll go into that later. I figure sooner or later she'll show up. In the meantime, I'll... we'll question and ...investigate, and see what we can come up with. Who knows, we might run into a whole ...klotch of them. I think Milt called them bands or rings or something like that. How 'bout it, Brad? You game?"

Brad: "It sounds like a wild goose chase to me. I'm not a policeman, but it seems to me you've got a lot of circumstantial evidence and jumped conclusions. A nude woman shows up in the middle of a mid-city rape, and nobody happened to see where she came from --I suspect their minds might have been on other things at the time. And it happens there've been a couple nude red-head sightings in other parts of the world. Kind of grows, doesn't it --like U.F.O. sightings. And because those others were alleged to have disappeared into thin air, you think that your lady --who somehow cut her own bindings and bracelet (I don't know why she didn't do it the night before) --must have disappeared into thin air, too. I don't know, dad, but it sounds like a pretty weak case to me."

Art: "What happened to my imaginative, romantic artist son? I'm hearing conservative cynicism dripping from your mouth."

Brad: "And I'm still hearing fantasy dripping from the grizzled cop's mouth."

Art: "That's all beside the point. It just comes down to are you going to join me, or not?"

Brad: "Thursday is Thanksgiving, you know."

Art: "Right. So much the better. Just the two of us --three thousand miles away from our obligations."

Brad's turn for thoughtful silence. Then: "It has been a long time since you and I have done anything of significance together. We haven't been on a vacation together since way before mom died ...since I was still in grade school, if I'm not mistaken." He stood up and fidgeted with the back of the kitchen chair he had been sitting on. The two did most of their serious discussing of any subject across the kitchen table from each other. "I'm not so great on this 'hunting a fairy' stuff. But if I'm right and there is no such thing, the problem's academic. Three weeks together? If we could stand each other that long ...I'm between jobs right now ...and I can't seem to come up with a good reason not to ...and Thanksgiving in California ..."

Unspoken, perhaps, was Brad's recent concern for his father. Art's intense manner of attacking cases was apparently catching up with his health. To Brad, the older man was the typical "Type A" personality driving toward a heart attack. This plus Art's excessive eating habits and aversion to aerobic exercise were catching up with him. He seemed more tired and weary of late, and sometimes preoccupations seemed to distract Art's attention from the subject at hand. So it was quite likely that Brad's favorable reception of his father's proposal was prompted by some deep concern that opportunities for holidays together might be more limited in the near future. The "fairy business" didn't suit Brad's nature at all, but he didn't feel comfortable turning his father down.

And perhaps that romantic nature his father alluded to was being tantalized by the tease of a real-life fantasy creature. Brad, after all, was a romanticist. As a child he doted on fairy tales and tales of fairies. He learned to read under the spell-binding tutorship of the likes of King Arthur, Aladdin, and Pegasus. As an adult he still thrilled inwardly to classic tales such as The Dark of the Moon, The Lord of the Rings, and The Tempest. While he was becoming a commercial illustrator of some repute for so young a man, his personal art projects reflected that same early-on fascination with magic and mysticism. His landscapes and forest and meadow scenes were often populated by here and there hints of naiads, dryads, and oreads. So this fairy-tale quest of his father's did indeed tempt Brad's romantic heart.

Art: "So it's decided: we go. Not to worry about the details, either, kid. I've already made all the arrangements --plane tickets, reservations, everything."

Brad: "Pretty sure of yourself, weren't you?"

Art: "My 'hope' was strong enough to give me the nerve to go ahead with the plans. There is one hitch, though. We'll leave together early tomorrow morning by plane ..."

Brad: "Tomorrow! Hold the phone! I can't get ready that fast. I have to pack and ..."

Art, with a strange chuckle: "No big deal. I'll... take care of that little detail. Anyway, the hitch: when we get to L.A., I'm going to have to cut away for Sacramento to check out a few things with a friend of mine on the state police; and Monday morning I need to get to some records --vital statistics and stuff --when the state offices open. In the meantime, tomorrow, while I head upstate, you'll go on by bus to Bernard Station -- that's over by the mountains. Somebody will meet you at the bus stop and take you on to the resort. I'll join you there by noon on Tuesday. That'll give you a 'free day' to enjoy the ...sights, and get used to the resort, and -- you know --just kind of keep your eyes and ears open for anything fairy-ish."

Brad: "Okay, tomorrow morning, then. I guess you do want one of us to be on hand in case your red-head shows up. But what about this resort? What kind of place is it? dude ranch? swinging singles?"

Art, wryly: "Swinging ...something, I guess you'd say. It's called Bollinger's. The guy who runs it --Darren Bollinger --is the one who thinks the red-headed lady is his missing wife, Rachel. In the hospital when I told the ...red-head he was coming here to see her, she got very, very uptight. That's why I figured this would be the place to start." He paused, then: "There is ...a ...one more small detail " He rubbed his chin nervously, as if trying to find the right words. "This resort is ...a ..."

Brad, suspiciously: "A what?"

Art: "Bollinger's Resort is a ...nudist camp."

At that moment at Los Angeles General Hospital, Dr. Phil MacClean had just completed rounds of his current in-hospital patients and was stepping into the closet-sized room he called his office in this noble institution. He was taken quite aback to find he was facing an unashamedly nude man casually sitting on the edge of the desk. The conversation was short. Mostly what Phil heard was that his dear friend Rachel Bollinger needed him (He was already aware she could be in some sort of trouble. Darren had called him earlier in the day asking if Phil had seen Rachel since he left the resort. She had been unexplainably missing for almost two days now, and he had a feeling she was hurt and perhaps involved with the police). Phil phoned his wife Doris to tell her he had an emergency call (the truth) and might be very late in getting home (also true). A few minutes later his nurse-assistant tapped lightly on his door and, getting no answer, opened it and looked inside. She was more than a little confused to find Dr. MacClean's suit, shirt, tie, underwear, socks, shoes, and rings all neatly stacked on the desk; but Dr. MacClean was nowhere to be seen.

Saturday, midnight central time.

Like a pizza delivery box with legs, the oil-drilling platform rested on stilts secured to the dark floor of the gulf. An erector set tower stood stoic sentry duty high over one corner of the platform. Slant-roofed corrugated shacks of varying sizes lined three sides, while on the fourth an octagonal helicopter landing pad extended perilously out over the water. Except for the pad, any of the platform's exposed edges were decorated with a single strand of safety chain scalloping between lean steel sticks. The rest of the deck was cluttered here and there with tool sheds, stacked pipes, and empty storage tanks. All sheds and shacks were idle, dark, and padlocked; and all surfaces were day-by-day sun-tanning themselves more and more with a layer of respectable red rust. The rugged drilling operation you'd normally expect to find carried on here was dormant --on hold as a result of the recent downdraft of oil prices.

Below, the gulf was edgy, an army of whitecaps dodging here and there under the unrelenting spotlight of a full moon. The dullish light was strong enough to create sharp shadows from the rigid steel lines of the platform and its fixtures ...and from the two nude, soft, warm, and cream-pink beings on the helicopter landing pad. The man, Patrick, sat audaciously on the red spot at its center, ordinarily the target for skillful and daring pilots commuting work shifts, supervisors, and nervous speculator-owners from and to the mainland. His legs extended straight out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He was leaning slightly back with his hands comfortably behind him. He was watching his daughter Patty, who stood right at the very rim of the pad at a gap in its chain-mesh outer framework --some sixty feet above the water. She was staring out at the dark, constantly shifting gulf. Her toes curled over for a secure hold on the edge. At the moment she was holding her arms a bit away from her body, the palms of her hands facing forward and her fingers open and spread. An insistent brawny breeze tousled and tousled and tousled her hair and erotically finger-massaged her welcoming muscles. The air was veneered with a continuous sigh so that conversation was impossible over the five yards between the man and girl. After several minutes absorbing this delicious feast for her senses, Patty stretched her arms, hands, and fingers high over her head, arched her back in that tantalizing manner she'd recently developed, let out a high-pitched little "Yip," did a delightfully exuberant pirouette, and skipped sprightly to her father. She sat down at his right side with both knees drawn up to her chest, Then she took his hand and pulled his arm tightly around her waist.

"Thank you," she said, only a mark louder than the hushing sound of the sea.

"Thank you?"

"For all this." She quick-hunched her shoulders and made herself shiver as if from an autumn chill.

"It was yours waiting to be taken. I didn't give you anything you didn't already have."

"You opened it to me."

"The wave, you mean?"

"Yes ...the wave ...and all this."

"The oil rig?"

She laughed. "No ...yes, you know what I mean --the wind, the sea ... the taste and smells ...the whitecaps and the moon and stars ...the way everything wraps around and around me."

He smiled. "Maybe so."

"It used to be I'd feel guilty if I were all-out enjoying myself ... deliberately enjoying through my senses ...like now. I'd have to let outside thoughts sneak into my feelings to prove my having fun was only ... temporary. In my old world it was all right to feel good as long as you understood that sooner or later you'd have to get back to ...'doing' things. In my old world everybody had to be 'doing' something. You know what I mean? But you --in your ...our world now ...you don't have to 'do' things, do you?"

For comfort, they eased down to lie on their sides facing each other -- head resting on hand, elbow braced on the surface of the pad.

Patrick: "We 'do' things all the time ...whatever we want. We even set goals here and there. But what we do, we do because we think it will bring us pleasure. If it doesn't, we stop. So what we 'do' is ...well, as it is with us tonight: a part of the enjoyment of living. We feel no obligation to accomplish, to achieve --to hold our own in our society. We owe nothing. We don't have to prove our worthiness to live in the world.

"One of the troubles with goals is they so often require the participation of others, who may or may not share our priorities. Human society does a lot of that: making others part of one's goals. In order to achieve a goal, another must suspend his own striving to attend to the interests of the first. With us, it's you do what you want; I'll do what I want. That's what makes it so nice when two of us happen to want to do the same things: we go ahead and do it; neither is required to subordinate himself to the other --everybody's happy."

Patty rolled over to lie on her back, looking straight up at the stars stubbornly poking through the wash of moonlight. And, as autumn tenderly drops a veil of dew upon the receptive world on a poetic morning, highlighting with brash sparklers drowsy summer grass, weary evergreens, and quiet oak skeletons, so this night the moon tenderly dropped a veil of soft enchantment upon Patty's receptive form, highlighting with understated glows her vibrant face, her sexually alert breasts, belly, and alluring mons veneris, and her spring-set quadriceps, shins, and insteps.

"And thank you for giving me my own being."

Patrick: "Your own being?"

"What bothered me most about trying to decide what I should do after I graduated was that ...it didn't make any difference what I decided." A beat. "There's a girl back at the resort --Janet Crespy --she's an engineer. She loves physics and math and all, and she feels her work is exactly what she wants to do. In fact, her whole life seemed to be pointed in that direction, as if it couldn't have turned out any other way. With me it was different. All my choices were ...all right. There didn't seem to be anything that was me." A beat. "I didn't seem to be anything."

"Does a seventeen year old high school student have to be something?"

"Not the way you mean it. A kid shouldn't have to know exactly what her life-work will be. But a kid should be something. I've known kids way back in grade school who were something. They didn't know what they wanted to be when they grew up ...exactly. But they were satisfied that whatever they chose would fit what they were. That's it, I think: a person needs to be something in order to know what the best thing is to do. With them, even if they don't choose the very most suitable career, they'll make whatever they choose fit what they are.

"I was nothing. I did well in math, and I really liked it. But if I'd have chosen to be a nun, I don't think I'd have been hurt. And I was really interested in being a nun. But if I'd have gone into the family enterprises, I'd have enjoyed that as well, I think. I wasn't upset because I was afraid I'd choose the wrong career. I think I was upset because I couldn't choose the wrong career.

"I was nothing of myself. I liked people, but I wasn't anyone's friend. I liked movies and plays and music, but I never cared if I missed a good show. The only people who ever focused on just me were my mother and Sister Daniella. Mothers and teachers have to be interested in their kids, don't they?" Patrick reached across and touched Patty's cheek. She laughed lightly.

"And fathers, too."

She stretched out in that patented style again and slowly turned her head to face her father. "But I am something now. I have my own real being."

Patrick: "Because you can wave?"

Patty: "Because I can wave. And because I can lie in the breeze on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. And because I'm descended from a race of diaphanous aliens. And I'm descended from a race of naked children. And I have a mother who was willing to maybe surrender me forever to a man she hadn't seen in eighteen years. And I have a father who allowed me to bring him back to life again. And I'm going to die before I'm forty-one years old. And I can run bare-ass through the woods and feel wonderful doing it. And I can learn whatever I want by zipping college professors. And I can live alone in a forest without one store-bought necessity. I have being, Patrick. And you gave it to me. And I thank you for it."

Patrick: "You still have a decision to make, don't you?"

Patty: "Yes, I do. And it'll still be hard. But now it makes a difference what I choose ...because it has to fit what I am. That's what I have to do now. I have to find out not what I fit best, but what fits me best."

A pause, then: "And I may choose not to do any of my alternatives, because you taught me I don't have to 'do' anything." She turned her gaze to the moon. "But ..."

"But?"

"I have to touch my reality again ...to see how what I am ...to see if what I am has any relationship at all to it any more. I want to check back at Bollinger's for one thing --I need to see my friends again. It's strange: I've only known them for a couple days, but they are my friends. The only true friends I ever had. But even before that, I need to see Sister Daniella. I need ...I want to know how she sees me now. I want to know if what I was worried so much about has any relevance any more."

Patrick lay down on his back ala his daughter, looking up at the sky.

Patty: "You still love my mother ...Marianne, don't you?"

Patrick: "Yes. When I saw that "Personal" item in the paper ..."

Patty: "You thought you would be seeing her again."

Patrick: "Yes. And I thought ...hoped ..."

Patty: "You hoped you and she could pick up from where you left off eighteen years ago."

Patrick: "It was impossible. I should have known. When we ...separated way back then, it was because we had an impossible barrier to overcome. She couldn't be what I was; I couldn't be what she was."

Patty: "Yet ...you hoped."

Patrick: "Yes."

Several minutes elapsed. Then Patty: "You said you might want to visit Bollinger's again."

Patrick laughed lightly: "It would be nice to see good old Jack again, and all the rest."

"Why don't you?"

"Right; why don't I? Without Marianne "

"Marianne was a good memory. It wouldn't be so bad to be reminded, would it?"

Patrick reached over and took Patty's hand.

"No, it wouldn't be so bad."

The Flanerys, of Flanery Enterprises, Inc. --a respected investment institution with corporate hands in department stores, resort hotels, magazine and newspaper publication, radio, cable television, gold (the original source of the family wealth back in the mid-nineteenth century), and --of late --computer software. The Enterprises had many diversified interests acting as safety valves, but generally they preferred specializing in corporate control wherever possible.

Old Sean Flanery, at seventy, was still the active chairman of the board and C.E.O. of the whole operation. He had a brilliant sense of market timing, a fine perception of business motivations, and a perfect poker face. But his most appreciated asset, if not his greatest, was his benevolent leadership. His philosophy was "You get from people in direct proportion to the respect you invest in them." Mary, his wife of fifty-one years, was a gentle soul to match the kind gentleman. She had stood by him through his five dangerous years in the wartime OSS and the up and down gambling years of the wild and woolly post-war booms. So two nice people controlled one of the most influential corporations in the west.

Then there were the twins Margaret and Katherine, Sean's sisters. At sixty-five they ruled the family roost with an iron hand Sean would never consider for the Enterprises. The Flanerys were a double-matriarchy. To them "family" was the single most valuable possession one had. And "family unity" was the single greatest obligation resting on one's shoulders.

All four of this powerful generation of Flanerys agreed that under the future leadership of Marianne Flanery and her daughter Patricia, the family and its business were in responsible, able hands. To that end they had carefully reared and trained Marianne, who had already taken the supervisory duties over some of the smaller companies under the umbrella of the Enterprises. It would not be long before Sean could safely retire to the comfort of the single chore of chairman of the board. Patricia would follow in her mother's footsteps to Brown and then up the ladder in the business to in her turn take over the leadership.

Some old-line Irish families would have been quite upset by the out-of-wedlock childbearing of a favorite daughter. Actually, they were somewhat put out, but the appearance of an heir-apparent in or out of wedlock was welcome indeed to this anything but prolific branch of the clan. Of course, there were other nieces, nephews, and cousins. But the family had ever been focused on this the Santa Barbara line.

Naturally, as an old line Irish family they had to go along with the possibility their Patricia might enter the convent. Many, many candles were lit in the cause of discouraging this vocation. But if it had to be, it had to be. However, this mathematics business was out of the question. A child's hobby was fine. But as a trade: this the family --especially Margaret and Katherine --could not accept.

Of one thing they were all sure: from Marianne or Patricia or both a few children surely wouldn't hurt the cause of family survival (to Margaret and Katherine's minds, at thirty-five Marianne was still quite ...ripe).

At ten-thirty Sunday morning, Sean, Mary, Margaret, Katherine, and Marianne Flanery pulled into the driveway of the family home, a large multi-roomed building designed in the fashion of a typical California mission. All sixteen bedrooms in the "house" had private balconies looking out over the Pacific Ocean. The whole estate included over a hundred acres of manicured lawns and precisely plotted palms.

The ten-thirty arrival home was a ritual for the family on Sunday mornings. Always they attended nine o'clock mass together, and always they lingered respectfully afterwards chatting with the priest and friends who followed the identical ritual. Often, Patty would come down from school for the weekend and be with them on their Sunday morning "thing." But this week, Marianne had excused her daughter's absence with the wry explanation that Patty was visiting a "friend" in Los Angeles.

Sunday was the day off for the household staff; the Flanerys believed whole-heartedly in people relaxing with their families on the day set aside as God's own. Thus, the spinster aunts had taken over the brunch preparation duties this day (next week would be Sean and Mary's turn; the week after: Marianne and Patty's). It would be another hour or so before brunch would be ready, so Marianne slowly went up to her bedroom suite to kick off her shoes and ...put in some private worry over what her daughter might be doing now.

Kick off her shoes, she did; and then she sat back on the chaise and allowed her eyes to rove unseeing to the seascape beyond her French doors. Then from behind her: "Hi, mom. A long homily today?"

Marianne turned to the sound of the familiar voice to see Patty, nude, sitting cross-legged Indian fashion in the center of the bed. Showing no surprise, Marianne smiled as she looked at the girl. "He came," she said simply.

"Yes."

Marianne sighed. "I... I wasn't sure ...I hoped ...but I wasn't sure."

They looked at each other in silence for some time.

"You have the 'magic,' don't you?" Marianne asked.

"Yes." A pause, then sprightly: "Do you want to go for a ride?"

"I... I don't know ..."

"Oh, come on. Just a short hop. I'll have you back in time for brunch. I ...I want to show off for you." A beat. "You're not afraid of being naked in front of me, are you?" She giggled sweetly. "I heard all about 'Marianne's Week'; I know the woman of abandon you truly are. Here, let me help you."

Patty hopped off the bed.

Marianne laughed. "I think I'm old enough to undress myself ...if I were to go with you, that is." She let out a deep sigh, reminiscent of Patty herself about a week earlier in her room at Bollinger's. "Why not!" she said, an impish sparkle in her eye reminiscent of herself eighteen years ago at Bollinger's.

Patty: "Would you like me to hum something appropriate? I heard you like to strip to music."

Marianne: "Hmm ...It seems you heard all kinds of fascinating things about me."

Marianne was out of her clothing in quick order. It was the first time in her life that Patty had seen her mother undressed, and Patty suddenly realized --again, for the first time in her life --that her mother was a remarkably pretty --and shapely woman. Then she reached out and touched her mother's hand, and mother and daughter disappeared from bedroom, house, estate, and California.

They flew south --leisurely by Patty's standards; supersonic times three by aeronautical standards --generally following the coast of the Baja California peninsula, holding about a hundred and fifty feet over the contour of the land.

Marianne: "It comes back now: the feeling of total freedom the wave gives you. It's the most ...exciting experience in the world."

Patty allowed her mind to drift back to those first days at Bollinger's; Patty was using the shared-soul property of the wave as a quick, efficient, and effective means of communication. She remembered the meeting with Rachel Bollinger at the bus stop, her first view of a nude couple, her nervous first steps out of her room bare-assed, the volleyball game, the old friends, Jack Bollinger, Janet Crespy, the idyll in the woods with Rachel, the meeting with Patrick, sharing her secret with Rachel and taking her in the wave, Patrick's educating her, the last meeting of the naked children in the forest, the faith and trust and love for Patrick that grew in Patty's heart, the wonderful night and morning on the off-shore oil rig. All these memories passed through Patty's mind --and, therefore, through her mother's mind. And as Marianne absorbed Patty's experiences, Patty absorbed the emotions of Marianne and her memories of the magical and mystical love affair that produced Patty as an unexpected reward. Patty absorbed the wistful sadness of her mother when Patty recalled from her more recent times Patrick's generous laughter, patience, warm touch, turn of the head, and gentle eyes ...and unabashed, handless peeing. So all the sentiment stored in the minds of a mother and daughter intermingled as Patty's wave continued southward, now passing over the sparkling sands of Acapulco. Patty and Marianne found a new closeness communicating through their souls. And Patty also came to understand as if she herself had experienced it the sadness her mother had harbored over the past eighteen years, a sadness she had never indicated by any outward sign to her daughter or anyone else in her family or circle of business friends.

They swung east over the Yucatan and bodied out on top of a vine-clad old Mayan pyramid eroding its lonely way through time --once claimed by the jungle, resurrected for a time by zealous archaeologists, deserted again by loss of sponsorship and a debt-racked Mexican economy, and now falling once more to the whims of the tropics. The landing was fairly well executed, as was the landing Patty had made on her mother's bed a few minutes earlier. They would only be able to remain a short time here. Patty was immune to the always mosquito, but Marianne was resistant just to a point. Sooner or later they would find her. However, the girls would depart by then; the deadline of family brunch could not be toyed with. Still, there was time for necessary talk. The two sat down next to each other and looked out over the jungle.

"Do you know what you're going to do now, Patty?"

"No ...later, I'm planning to see Sister Daniella."

"Like this?" Marianne laughed. "That I'd like to see."

"Like this," Patty said with some decisiveness. Then she shifted position to sit directly in front of her mother. "You still love Patrick."

"Can't hide anything in the wave, can you?" A beat. "Yes, I still love him."

"I'm going to meet him tomorrow afternoon back at Bollinger's. At the Chapel in the Woods ...one o'clock."

"Sounds familiar."

"He was disappointed ...when he saw me, you know."

Marianne didn't respond.

Patty: "We could surprise him again tomorrow. He'll be expecting me, but ..."

"I... I don't think so, Patty. It's been so long." A beat. "Things haven't changed between us. I'm still the corporate woman of the eighties. He's still..."

"A naked child in the forest?"

"A naked child in the forest."

"He's thirty-five years old."

"I know."

Patty stood up, taking Marianne's hands at the same time so that the two girls rose together. Then Patty stepped back a few feet and assayed her mother's body. "You are a very attractive woman." Marianne smiled shyly, but didn't blush. "Have you ever dated since ...Patrick?"

Marianne: "A few times. But it's been years and years now. I'm pretty well caught up in the Enterprises. I love that world. You do understand that, don't you?"

Patty: "The world he can't share."

Marianne: "The world he can't share. And Patrick?"

Patty: "Really handsome. He's still a loner ...too. And a free spirit."

Marianne laughed wryly. "There you got" She walked to the edge of the pyramid. "The aunts wouldn't in their most fantastic dreams guess where I've been since we came home from church."

Patty: "You're held in pretty close by the family, aren't you?"

Marianne shrugged.

Patty: "Do you have to live at 'The House'?"

Marianne: "There's no good reason not to."

Patty stood next to her mother listening to the sounds and drinking in the glory of the jungle. "It's funny, isn't it?"

"What?"

"In eighteen years you've lived in separate worlds, yet withholding from those worlds a truly total commitment. I wonder how wrong it would have been to have lived ...not so separately in those separate worlds."

True to her promise Patty had her mother back in her bedroom in Santa Barbara before the aunts made "Brunch is ready" noises downstairs. Before Patty could zip away, Marianne asked, "Will you be with us for Thanksgiving? I could cover for you if you wanted."

Patty: "I really don't know yet. Somehow, I'll get back to you before then."

The naked mother embraced her naked child; and each reveled silently in the warm, sensual security of the other's flesh. When they stepped apart, Patty disappeared.

Marianne sat down on the edge of her bed, lost in her wonderings -- completely unaware of the passage of time; so she was surprised when Aunt Margaret opened the door (who, herself, must have been taken somewhat aback by what she saw). "A ...dear, don't you think it would be a good idea to ... a ...throw something on and come down for brunch? You know how upset Katherine gets if she has to eat cold eggs."

At Bollinger's, Friday had brought with it the normal beginning trickles of Thanksgiving holiday guests. Most would arrive on Wednesday or early Thursday, but there were always a few who drifted in through the weekend before Thanksgiving. With the increased presence of humans, the public areas of the resort --dining room, lobby, gymnasium, pool, etc. --took on an overlay of conversational buzz, and the eyes became inured to the general sight of bare skin.

Rachel's disappearance couldn't have been timed worse for the business end of Bollinger's resort. It wasn't that her help at the desk was being missed (though it was) --after all, the added pressures caused by her absence were anticipated because of her official vacation status. However, the concern for her welfare, the mystery of her disappearance, and the uncertainty of where she could be were taking a heavy toll on the attention Darren could devote to the day-to-day demands of running the resort. Phil Wagonner was doing a great job handling most of the load, and Jack had jumped full scale out of retirement to provide some relief for his son, who was spending most of his time clothed, commuting between the resort and Los Angeles. Darren was in almost constant contact with Len Gaynor, a high-brass captain with the L.A.P.D. --and a closet nudist who spent most of his vacations at Bollinger's. Captain Gaynor kept Darren fully apprized of any and all reports that could possibly involve the missing Rachel. It was Gaynor who first drew Darren's attention to the rape episode in Atlanta and the similarity between Rachel and the heroine described in the reports. He also had been in contact with Lieutenant Sergeant about the progress of that case. Because it was Gaynor who maintained the contact with the Atlanta end, Darren was not aware of Lieutenant Art Sergeant and his personal interest in the case.

Although Darren had given Rachel the long weekend off, her failure to show up for dinner Thursday night caused both Darren and his father considerable worry. Surely, she would have said something if she were intending to leave the resort; she would have known her husband and father-in-law would have been concerned. Late Thursday, when it appeared she wouldn't be home through the night, they had checked with the MacCleans and Ernest Bergen by phone on the possibility Rachel caught a ride out with one of them. The others of the circle of old friends were still in residence. When Jack talked with Rachel early that afternoon in the woods, she had given no hint that she was intending to leave the grounds. And she did seem to be giving interested consideration to Darren's proposal for grooming her for future management of Bollinger's. What finally prompted Darren to call Len Gaynor was the discovery in the room of Rachel's rings, and every bit of clothing Rachel owned. If she left the resort, she would had to have been nude. By this time it was too late in the day for any extensive search of the grounds.

It was Friday morning when Captain Gaynor began getting the reports over the wire about the brave red-head in Atlanta. The picture of the Atlanta heroine, which appeared all through the day Friday in the papers and on television news broadcasts --though of poor quality --showed sufficient similarities to Rachel to convince Darren this must surely be his wife. By late Friday an eager Darren had made arrangements to fly to Atlanta on the first flight out in the morning. But when the red-head suddenly disappeared from the hospital on Saturday morning, the trip was canceled and the Bollingers and their friends were thrown into a deep gloom.

On to Chapter 8

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