Mosquitoland(10)

I stick my journal in my backpack and dare a glance around. My fellow passengers aren’t staring daggers at me, they’re staring scimitars: a trendy family of four in matching polos; a painfully ugly blonde, standing at least six-six; two Japanese men in heated argument; Jabba the Gut, his face in a starry sci-fi; the juvenile Brits; a little kid who looks like a Tolkien character; Poncho Man; and dozens of others, jabbering on cell phones, murmuring under their breath, each of them pissed at me for interrupting their super-important journey to Wherever.

“Are you keeping a diary of your travels, dear?”

Sweet Arlene, the Queen Arete of my Odyssey, coils her veiny fingers around that wooden box in a death grip. Her purse, she left on the bus. But not the box.

“Forgive me,” she says, blushing. “I noticed the journal, but I shouldn’t pry.”

“No, it’s fine. It’s a . . . letter, I guess.”

She nods, and for a split second, I think maybe that’s the end of it.

“To whom?” she asks.

I sigh and look up at the shaking bus. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Arlene clears her throat in that way old people do where you can’t tell if it’s a laugh or a cough or a life-ending gurgle or what. “Would you like to hear where I’m headed?”

Happy for the change of subject, I nod.

“Independence.”

“The land of autonomy,” I whisper, smiling.

She sort of chuckles, but her heart’s not in it. “It’s a town in Kentucky. My nephew lives up there with his . . . with his boyfriend.”

The way my head whips around, you’d think it was spring-loaded. Not that this is any big thing, but coming from Arlene . . . well, maybe she’s not quite as Leave-it-to-Beaver as I thought.

She looks sideways at me now, one corner of her mouth curling up ever so slightly. “His name’s Ahab.”

“The boyfriend?” I ask, smile squarely in place.

“No. My nephew. I’m not sure what his . . . boyfriend’s name is. I haven’t met him yet. They opened a filling station, and it’s doing quite well from what Ahab tells me. Though he was a champion swimmer in high school, so I’m not sure why a filling station. But I suppose a man has to make a living.”

This conversation has taken a turn for the surreal. Arlene’s gay nephew, a champion swimmer named Ahab, and his unnamed boyfriend, have opened a gas station in Independence, Kentucky, and it’s doing quite well from what ole Arlene hears. I don’t know what to say. To any of it. I finally land on, “Good for them.”

Arlene looks down at the box, so when she speaks, it looks like she’s talking to it. “A while back, my younger sister—that’s Ahab’s mother—stopped answering his calls. We lived together at the time, and I remember he’d call three, four times a day, but she never answered. When I asked why, she clammed up, started crying. So I called Ahab myself. Asked him what he’d done to make his own mother stop answering his calls. And do you know what he said?”

I shake my head.

“He said, ‘Aunt Arlene, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’” Arlene’s tone changes. “You don’t have to tell me about your letters, Mim. They may be private, and if that’s the case, you tell me to mind my own business. But don’t say I won’t believe you. You’d be surprised what I believe these days.”

I consider her story for a moment. “Why’d your sister stop answering Ahab’s calls?”

Arlene never takes her eyes off the box. “You know, when I was younger, I thought if I lived long enough, I’d understand things better. But I’m an old woman now, Mim, and I swear, the longer I live, the less things make sense.” She pauses, sets her jaw, continues. “My sister didn’t approve. Of the boyfriend. She never said so out loud, but some things speak loud enough on their own.”

For a full minute we sit in silence, watching the bus shake. It takes me that long to process the wisdom of Arlene. “I’ll make you a deal,” I say, pointing to the wooden box in her hands. “You tell me what’s in there, I’ll tell you who I’m writing to.”

Arlene smiles from the box to the bus. “I’m afraid I’d rather not talk about this anymore.”

I’m surprised how disappointed this makes me. And not just because I want to know what’s in that box of hers but because I think, deep down, I was ready to tell her about Isabel.

“Yo, missy!” Above the rear tires, Carl’s head is sticking out of a little window, his eyes fixed on me. That tuft is looking especially frizzy. “Come on in here,” he says, disappearing back inside the bus.

Every scimitar turns in my direction. I sling my bag over my shoulder, grateful for Arlene’s supportive smile, and climb into the belly of the rocking beast.

I’ve only known two other Carls in my lifetime—an insurgent moonshiner and a record store owner—both of whom taught me important (though very different) life lessons. In my book, Carls are a top-notch species. But easing down the aisle, listening to the grunts and gags of my third Carl, I’m beginning to wonder if the streak has ended. Girding my nostrils, my lungs, my everything else, I poke my head around the corner and gag. The stench isn’t terrestrial. It’s not even extraterrestrial.