“You’ve done something beautiful for me,” she said, “and I loved it. Every girl in the world wants her prince to eat a 747 for her. I confess. It made me feel special. It’s selfish, but every time I heard the grinding noise, I knew you cared.”
There were tears in her eyes.
“I never should have let you do all this. I should have stopped you a long time ago.”
“But I love you.”
She moved closer to him.
“If you love me, then you’ll stop,” she said. “You know I don’t love you in the same way.”
“What if you gave me a chance?”
“The right person has to build you the Taj Mahal,” she said.
“The Taj Mahal?” he repeated, befuddled.
“What you’ve done for me is breathtaking. But it isn’t right. And it never will be.”
She could feel his pulse beating hard as she held his hand. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry, too.” His voice wavered.
She put her arms around him and hugged him. She felt his strength, his power, and then his body shivering. He held her as if he’d never let go.
It was well past 2 A.M. The minutes blinked by on the readout of the VCR. He sat still on the couch. After their long talk, Willa had wanted to leave but was too tired to drive. She had dozed off, her head nodding over onto his shoulder. Arf waited at the door. He had needed to go outside for more than an hour, but Wally wouldn’t move for fear he’d wake her up.
He had dreamed of this moment, Willa asleep in his home. He ran his whole imaginary life with her through his mind. Trying to understand what she told him, trying to understand where he got things wrong.
He wasn’t mistaken about her. She was every bit as wonderful as he had believed since that magical day she jumped down from her dad’s pickup in her blue party dress. She hadn’t loved him, but he always hoped she would if she got to know him. If only he could prove the strength and depth of his devotion, she would catch fire just a little. Then it would build and build, until she felt for him what he felt for her.
Now he faced the truth. His living light loved someone else.
He thought she wouldn’t mind if he touched her hair, so he caressed the curls with the side of his hand. The ringlets were soft, just like the rest of her, and that made big tears spill down his cheeks. He wiped them away quickly, afraid they would fall and wake her up. Sadness invaded him. She was in his home, on his couch, asleep on his shoulder, the culmination of his dream. But she would never belong to him.
He hadn’t wept since his tenth birthday in City Park. She was the reason back then that he had stopped. Now, in some strange way, it made sense that she was the reason he began to cry again.
NINETEEN
Dead ahead, the island of Folegandros jutted from the waters of the Aegean. From the time of Troy, the jagged rock had been a forsaken place of banishment and exile. Sea spray stung his face with a salty mist, and gulls wheeled overhead. Dripping with gloom, J.J. slouched over the rail of the wooden ferry.
A shipload of tourists in high holiday spirits cavorted around him. But he was alone, miserable, marooned. He might as well have been sailing to Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic, the remotest inhabited island on earth.
With unintelligible shouts from the captain and crew, the boat glided and bumped into the dock, and the passengers unloaded. The little port of Karavostassis lay a good three miles from the hotel. The steep and narrow footpaths were unfit for cars, so J.J. began the uphill walk in the hot sun. Children ran past him laughing. An American boy pointed, shouting “Mama, what’s wrong with that man’s nose?”
“Ricky, don’t be rude,” the woman said. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s all right,” he said.
His bruised face was tinted all colors of the Mediterranean sunset. Of course children would gawk. Roasting in his blue blazer with the gilded crest, he knew he was dressed preposterously for the glaring heat. He trudged along, past the small whitewashed houses, brightened by geraniums in window boxes and bougainvillea cascading from wooden balconies. He followed the sharp twists of the stony streets until he came to the oldest part of the town of Hora, and there, the Castro Hotel.
A Venetian castle built atop a cliff to safeguard it from pirates, the Castro was the finest establishment on the island. At the noble doorway, the proprietor, Despo Danassi, welcomed her honored guest. A beautiful lunch awaited him—her specialty, Matsata, fresh pasta with rabbit.
“Po po, zestee poo kanee,” she said. Whew, it’s hot. She showed him to her finest room. There was no air conditioning, no television, just the magnificent view from the balcony that dangled 984 feet above the sea.
He stared at the vast blue waters and scarcely noticed his lunch. It had been a long trip, straight shots from Superior to Omaha, New York, and Athens, then Piraeus for the ferry. A week in this tiny fishing village would do him some good. No news from the outside world. A perfect place and time to get his mind off Willa. He was a master at turning off the memories, shutting down the feelings, especially with a good distraction at hand. And there was nothing so distracting as a record attempt.
J.J. unpacked, gingerly washed his face, and changed his clothes. Then he made his way downstairs. Despo gave him directions to the taverna, and he set out into the street. A pack of children shouted excitedly. They were lined up with their yo-yos ready to go.
He tried to hurry past, but they surrounded him, tugging at his blue blazer.
“Look,” one said. “World record. Yo-yo!”
Kids were the same all over the world. He painfully pulled a smile, waved, but spared them the truth. They had no chance. Fast Eddie McDonald of Toronto had a lock on the world record with 21,663 yo-yo loops in 3 hours.
His entourage swelling, J.J. found his way to the main square and the Taverna Nikolaos, where the world record attempt would take place. It was a simple restaurant with grape vines scrambling over an arbor at the entry. All 200 citizens of Hora had turned out for the momentous occasion. Villagers, young and old, clustered around him in awe. The esteemed man from New York. The Keeper of the Records.
J.J. was pleased to see a solid straight-back chair in front of the table that had been set out for him. The room, otherwise, had been cleared of furniture. The crowd sat on the floor ten deep around the perimeter. He opened his rule book and accepted a bottle of water and a plate of figs.
In the empty space in the middle of the restaurant, Mitros Papadapolous, the record seeker, performed deep knee bends and jumping jacks. His eyes were dark and piercing, his mustache prodigious, and he wore a skimpy Adidas tank top and pair of shorts over his sinewy frame. Thick sweatbands adorned his head and wrists. The man was clearly prepared for struggle.
“Are you ready?” J.J. asked.
“Yes,” Mitros said, “I am ready.”
J.J. stood to address the crowd, assisted by a shapely young translator. “The world record in this category is 18 hours, 5 minutes and 50 seconds. It is held by Radhey Shyam Prajapati of India.”
Then he turned to Mitros and held up his stopwatch.
“Kalee epeeteekheea,” J.J. said. Good luck. “On your mark, get set …”
Mitros took a deep breath, then carefully aligned his head, shoulders, arms and legs.
“Go!”
J.J. punched the chronometer.
And Mitros stood absolutely, positively still.
This time Shrimp was ready for the onslaught. He might have been a few pounds light in his uniform, but he was no pushover. He knew the moment the news about Wally hit the wires, the television trucks would come charging back into Superior. What a bunch of coyotes. They packed up and pulled out when there was no record, but now they were back for the kill.
Shrimp beat them to the hospital. He had the barricades up and ready in the parking lot. He posted his men at the doors of the West Wing and ICU. With his own two hands, he evicted a cute St. Louis reporter decked out like an
orderly who tried to sneak inside.
Wally trusted only Doc Noojin, so Shrimp called and invited him to drop by the hospital. They stood together at Wally’s bedside, aghast at the tangle of tubes and flashing monitors attached to their friend. Even the branches of the great oak just outside the window seemed to reach out for Wally, as if to help.
Doc sadly shook his head. “Wasn’t any warning. No idea how it happened.” He wiped his eyes. “When an animal gets this way, well, you know what we have to do.”
The morning press conference was just as bleak. On the front steps of the hospital, facing the wall of cameras, Burl Grimes wore his most funereal face. The news was not good, he told the nation. Wally was unconscious. Vital signs weak. He hoped the specialists choppering in from Omaha would turn things around.
“Is it food poisoning again?” a reporter asked.
“I wish,” Burl said. “The situation is critical. I hope everyone will pray for Wally. He needs God’s help now.”
By noon, silver ribbons had appeared all over town, wrapped around tree trunks, tied to radio antennas, and pinned to the lapels of the good people of Superior. By nightfall, folks across Nebraska wore silver ribbons for Wally.
Room 239 was quiet except for the beeping of the heart monitor.
Rose sat on the edge of Wally’s bed. A big bunch of balloons bumped against the ceiling. There were blossoms everywhere, fancy bouquets like the last time around. Now, instead of celebrating a world record attempt, the flowers seemed to spruce up a tomb.
She made notes on his chart, then put it back on the hook at the foot of the bed. Wally looked so peaceful, a sleeping giant. She gently pushed the hair from his eyes and ran her finger along the scar on his shoulder from Cupid’s arrow, his self-inflicted wound. She took hold of his hand, a hand she had wanted to touch all her life. It was a farmer’s hand, a good man’s hand. She studied his calluses, battered nails, and the lines and markings from years of hard work.
She stroked it for a while, then kissed it softly. She leaned closer to him, her nose against his neck, and smelled him. Soap, earth, flesh. She had never been this close before, or this far away.
She wiped her eyes and put his hand on top of the bedcovers, straightened the blanket, doing her best to make him comfortable. She whispered, “Please fight, Wally. Please, open your eyes and live.”
She kissed his scruffy cheek.
“Please don’t leave me,” she said. “Please get better.”
She heard footsteps coming down the hall and she stood up quickly. The door swung open. The lead doctor was a 50-year-old woman with short black hair and purple-frame glasses. Behind her trailed the team of specialists from Omaha.
“What’s the latest?” the lead doctor asked.
“Vitals are stable,” Rose said. “He’s not posturing. Pupils are equal and reactive.”
The experts held Wally’s CT scans up to the light. One listened to his heart and lungs, peeled back his eyelids, bent his arms and legs for reflexes. Another studied the blood work-up.
“No evidence of metal poisoning,” a doctor said. “Liver functions are normal. It’s not hepatic encephalopathy.” He shrugged. “Strangest darn thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Absolutely no medical explanation,” the lead doctor said. “Only God knows.” She turned to Rose. “Beep me if there’s any turn,” she added, and they filed out of the room.
They were of no use. They didn’t have a clue. The heart monitor beeped, and Rose looked at Wally. “Only God knows,” she repeated.
But still, she understood. She had been on duty at the hospital when the 911 call had come. She had raced in the ambulance to Wally’s farm. There she had found Willa hovering over Wally, who was paralyzed on the bathroom floor.
Later, in the emergency room, she held Wally’s shaking head while he cried out that Willa didn’t love him, that she had asked him to stop eating the plane.
Through the night, he wailed….
J.J., that interloper, had pickpocketed Willa’s heart. Instead of treasuring her, he had walked away. He had hurt her. A broken nose wasn’t enough. He should suffer more. What had J.J. done to deserve her? Toss eggs? Climb a tower? What was that compared with Wally’s own proofs of love?
As his fever spiked, Wally had murmured that he would try to find comfort knowing Willa was in his life as a real person now, not as a fantasy. But there was a giant hole where the dream—the love—used to be. That emptiness had sent a shudder through his massive frame, and then he closed his eyes, as if to sleep, and fell deep into a coma.
He had been gone for days….
Rose tucked the covers under his stubbly chin. “Good night, my prince,” she whispered. Then she went to the door and turned off the lights.
She took one last look at the big lunk in the darkness. The reason he had collapsed into a coma was simple and painful. His immunity was gone. No longer protected by his measureless love for Willa, he was vulnerable to the fatal effects of eating the 747.
At the 16-hour mark, a Corinthian column had nothing on Mitros Papadapolous. Perfectly stationary, not even sweaty, he was well on his way to shattering the world record for motionlessness.
The villagers, however, were bored sitting still. Against the wishes of the proprietors, a ragtag rebetiko band started to play. A muscular man danced the zeibekikos, the ancient war dance, moving in sweeping circular patterns. He slowed down next to J.J.’s table, kneeled, bit it with his teeth, then lifted it high into the air.
J.J. snatched his rule book before it fell to the ground. The dancer lowered the table, saluted, and spun off toward the other side of the room, where he balanced a glass of wine on his head. Through it all, Mitros remained unmoved and undeterred. He stood serene, like Michelangelo’s David, eyes focused straight ahead.
A pretty girl with a tangerine scarf around her abundant chest flew toward J.J. with a glass of ouzo. “Why you don’t drink?”
“I’m working,” he said.
“No work, drink!” she said, plopping down on his lap.
He pushed her off. “Efharisto. Thank you, but I’m busy.”
She pouted and disappeared into the undulating crowd.
J.J. checked his stopwatch: less than 2 hours for the record. Then he looked at Mitros, the man standing still. He seemed so calm amid the whirl of dancers, so tranquil despite the pulse of tambourines.
J.J. wanted peace, too. He gazed into Mitros’s strangely hypnotic eyes, and soon his mind fled Folegandros. He was back in his apartment in New York. An old woman watered a window box of plastic sunflowers, grimy imitations of the real thing. And then he was sitting on a porch under a darkening sky, watching ten-foot-tall, gray-striped, mammoth sunflowers turn their heads toward the sun.
Her name—Willa—ricocheted through every pathway of his cerebral cortex. He heard Emily’s voice accusing him: “You don’t know the first thing about love.” There were flashes of lightning in the sky, and then he was struck by a bolt of understanding. For the first time he saw his own life clearly. He had traveled the world in search of something labeled greatness and had actually found it with a capital G. But because it was unquantifiable, unverifiable, he had failed to recognize it.
Now he sat like a man made of stone, watching another man try to make history by doing absolutely nothing. He was verifying inertia. Authenticating nothingness. All the searching, all the chasing, all the roads had brought him to this dead end. He had to wonder: Who was the real world record holder for standing still?
He came out of his trance to the loud sound of guitars and lutes, hands clapping, feet stomping, and the breaking of plates and glasses. Mitros’s eyes did not waver, but J.J. shook his head slowly. He had no choice.
He rose up from his official post at the little table. He slammed the rule book shut. Threw down his clipboard and his stopwatch. Pulled off his blue blazer and hurled it in the air. He slipped through the dancers, walked directly up to Mitros, stared into his piercing eyes, and said, “I’m sorry.?
??
Then, without even saying adeeo—good-bye—he turned and raced for the door.
TWENTY
Willa worshipped in the last row of the First United Methodist church.
She prayed for Wally harder than she had ever prayed in her life. Such a good man. A sweet man. An honorable man. He couldn’t die now. She blamed herself for not taking his devotion seriously enough. It had been truly epic, and she hadn’t seen it. How she must have hurt him. She begged God to help Wally. And she asked for forgiveness.
Never had she seen folks so worried about the same thing. Even the great flood of 1935 didn’t compare, old-timers said. For days there had been a silence over the town, an eerie hush, and scarcely anyone left home. There was no carousing in the bars on Friday night, no keno at Jughead’s, no bingo at the VFW.
Last night she had closed her eyes for sleep with a feeling of loathing and awakened to the same fear. She couldn’t shower and dress fast enough. Even the old Ford knew this was no time to fuss and started without complaint. She turned on the radio and heard Righty Plowden’s voice. He was on Country 104 to make a special appeal. The latest reports from the hospital were bleak. Wally’s condition was critical and worsening. Nate Schoof and Otto Hornbussel had been summoned to his bedside at 3 A.M., and a minister was at the ready. “No one recovers from a coma this deep,” Righty said solemnly. “Let’s dedicate today to Wally. Let’s pray for him at church, pray for him wherever you are.”
Willa turned off the radio and slowed down for the traffic around the hospital. Vehicles from all over the state were lined up on the shoulder of the road, and the parking lot was jammed. Bouquets and cards for Wally covered the steps of the main entrance.
The old brick church at the corner of Fifth and Kansas was also overflowing. She spotted her parents in the last row. They had saved a space, and she wedged herself between them. Pale light in shades of red and blue streamed down from stained glass windows. It felt good and safe.