They May Not Mean To, But They Do(82)

A missing headlight, Ben. A missing headlight. But Ben had always been a difficult child. Sweet. But difficult.

“I’m here for my grandson,” she whispered to the gentleman with the New York Post.

He smiled.

And then she heard a name. Bea Harkavy. Harkavy was Ben’s last name. Bea Harkavy, the clerk said again, even louder. Joy looked at the card the Cold War clerk had given her. There it was. Bea Harkavy.

“No, it’s Ben,” she said, standing up.

“Bea Harkavy,” the clerk called again.

Joy made her way to the center aisle.

“Public urination,” the clerk called out loudly.

“It’s not me,” Joy was saying. “It’s my grandson…”

And then she looked around at all the men and women whose cars did not have taillights or headlights or side-view mirrors, all the men and women who had made mistakes on their registration papers or had read a form wrong or who had forgotten to mail some paper or who’d just never gotten around to going to the garage to get the muffler fixed, and she thought, This is humanity, all these people with shining sweaty bare shoulders and Life Savers and New York Posts folded into fans and excuses and worries and troubles and fines, and here they were all together. Everyone was so kind. Everyone was so helpful. It was really very cosmopolitan. Here she was surrounded by her fellow citizens, part of them, one of them.

“Bea Harkavy,” the voice boomed. “Public urination.”

“Is that correct?” the lawyer asked Joy.

“Oh yes,” said Joy. “This is exactly where I belong.”





Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Lynn Swartz Dodd and the USC Wrigley Marine Science Center for sharing Catalina with me; my friend Elizabeth Strout; my editor, Sarah Crichton; my agent, Molly Friedrich; my dearest Janet; and my entire endlessly indulgent and good-humored family.