Angelina watched the women leave Trevor behind, making him absent from math class. Trevor had earned A-s for the first semester but he had three more courses to go if he wanted to get into Chapel Hill’s astronomy program.
[Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.]
And, he needed to move away from the mobs trying desperately to connect with the man who ventured into the universal light, bringing back specific, individual messages along with “one love.”
Earle and Jazmine reported that every Saturday the round dance grew more bizarre, more frenzied. Trevor’s fans now brought hand-held percussion instruments—gourds, rattles and gueros. They no longer stopped in silent devotion during certain phrases, but danced around and around the huge dance hall, adding to the beat and singing the refrains. After the band left the stage, a full song after Trevor disappeared, they refused to stop. Last week, after a phone call from Kaya (in lieu of Angelina), Chief Babylon had declared a curfew: the Avalon must be empty after three am, giving the audience a full hour to clear out.
Lauren was working that Friday’s lunch with Carla. Butternut soup, homemade bread, sandwiches, and carrot cake served beneath springtime’s treetops. Minus Marc Swift, Carla no longer looked soft and pudgy. But she was big and sturdy and her imposing body suggested unflagging energy. Teasing her about a new boyfriend, Trevor was balancing two plates, one for Polly who stayed away.
Twirling to catch Angelina’s eye, the full plates stationary in his palms, he said, “Darling Mommy, Jacob says you’re making the ganja circuit later. Can I come too?”
Angelina said she’d love that. How long since he’d entertained her and her friends, rolling joints and making jokes?
“Polly’s settled. She’s watching movies today but soon I think she’ll be ready to join everybody. Taking it slow, in bits.”
Angelina had ached to help Trevor with Polly after the cuss-cuss at dawn, but then recoiled from the burden. Trevor knew that. Angelina wasn’t afraid of Polly, but Trevor alone was coaxing her back to reality. Why had Ya-Ya, Hailey, and even Kaya, acted as if Trevor himself had slit the tires? They all agreed Trevor was an exalted spirit, and what? Suddenly, they expected him to turn cold on an unbalanced woman, especially after bringing her so much closer to the here and now?
While Trevor was in Polly’s cabin, Angelina had checked the deflated Prius, and phoned her friend at Midas.
Now in the main yard, backlit by the sun as he somehow always was, Trevor was grinning, telling Angelina he was guessing that the tire trouble signaled a turn-around. But he was only guessing. He could never see Polly in the light. Not her and not himself.
Beams flowing around him, from head to toe, Trevor said, “Polly wasn’t born all at once. Her body and soul are still adjusting.”
Angelina tried not to stare; Trevor’s radiance blinded her. He was saying, rest easy; he’d pay the costs.
Angelina said, okay, but she’d make sure Polly paid him back.
An hour later, Trevor was waiting by Angelina’s station wagon. He was smoking a spliff and offered her a hit. One or two was pure uplift, getting purer.
“Already packed it in back.” Opening the car door, Trevor kissed Angelina’s cheek and arranged three tiny daisies in her hair. “I love you so.”
That might have been enough, right then, to prompt her into Polly duty. After all, Angelina knew Polly, and knew what to do when she acted bad. Trevor didn’t say out loud that every person deserved freedom and assistance in life. But Angelina felt his feelings.
He asked if the memory of him naked was still getting between her and Kaya. “That’s the way she is, Trev. She needs a fantasy in bed. And if it’s you, how can I mind?”
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