Part 33 (2/2)

”b.u.mmer.”

”Yah.”

”How?”

”What?”

”How'd she lose her eye?”

”A long time ago,” he said vaguely.

Talk at first seemed silly, and certainly superfluous. Peace had an acrobatic talent for s.e.x; she could practically fold her body in half, while her face stayed fixed in profile, like a portrait on a coin. And she had other talents as well. She had an extraordinarily beautiful voice, part Mama Ca.s.s, part Patsy Cline. Singing illuminated her face, as did listening to music and even, apparently, to Henry.

One afternoon, when they were both so tired that they could not have packed another box, she told him to lie on his stomach, and, wearing only her panties and a hand-me-down vest, she straddled his backside and bent over him, the fringe of her long brown hair feathering his shoulder blades. She ma.s.saged him, starting with his head, working down through his neck, his muscular shoulders, his sides, the small of his lonely back. Her hands were incomprehensibly strong: kneading, holding, circling, fanning out and then twisting in, until there seemed no way to tell the difference between what he needed and what she knew. At every position, at every part of his body, her hands were answering the questions his body asked. How could she know this language? Where had she learned this exquisite art?

She stayed with him as the room around them grew emptier and colder, and whatever traces of Martha remained were the ones that had shaped them as infants.

HE COULD NOT REMEMBER having felt this kind of hunger. Within minutes of making love to Peace, he would want her again. Perpetually, he had the feeling he'd usually experienced only on the brink of a first kiss: the ravaging pang and rigid ache. With Peace, he was never entirely calmed if their bodies were not together. All thoughts of other women-the thoughts that had often propelled or sustained a s.e.xual moment, or sweetened an afterglow-had exited his mental repertoire. He yearned to tell someone that he was in love. He had no one to tell. He told Peace.

”Really?” she said, as if she'd just been picked for a volleyball team. She smiled. The strap of her granny dress fell off her shoulder, over an irresistible shrug.

She wanted to come back to L.A. with him, she said.

”What would you do there?” he asked her.

”Live.”

”And what would your parents say?” he asked.

”Maybe I wouldn't ask my parents,” she said.

”You'd just run off?”

”You did,” she said. did,” she said.

He didn't take her with him, but he was careful to take her address, her phone number, and the phone number of her best friend-just in case she ran away again. For once, he was not planning his own escape. He wanted to have Peace with him. Some instinct, however, told him that he would risk the thing's perfection if he attempted to have it too quickly.

He expected her to be angry, or at least to be visibly hurt. Rather, she lifted her chin an inch.

”That's cool,” she said. ”I'm cool with that.”

HIS PLANE LANDED IN L.A. AT 6:00 P.M., and it was 8:00 by the time he opened the door of his apartment. The plant Cindy had given him months before was finally dead, its green leaves dusty and gray. Henry turned on the TV, then turned it off again. He unpacked his bag, all his clothes neatly folded from the laundry he'd done at the practice house. He put the s.h.i.+rts and shorts away, put his extra shoes on the closet floor. Then he spread out the things he had kept from Martha: a scarf, the necklace, the earrings, a box of his childhood drawings and schoolwork. He thought about Peace and imagined giving Martha's necklace or earrings to her. Then he placed Martha's scarf in the back of his sock drawer, put her gold pin on his key chain, put his drawings on his closet shelf. This was, for him, the real burial. He fell asleep and dreamed that he was standing at her graveside, but in the dream the day was gray and snowy, not the unmarred blue it had been. He woke to an unusual chill. He knew it wasn't Martha he was missing, nor any particular person or place. He just felt, as he had when Walt died, the weight of the list of what he had lost. And though he was only twenty, he felt certain that what he had lost would always remain more powerful to him than anything he could gain.

THE STUDIO SEEMED EVEN EMPTIER than it had right after Walt's death. In spirit if not in fact, D-Wing felt like Martha's bedroom at the practice house: a place defined uniquely by a vanished inhabitant. The crucial difference at Disney was the goal of preservation. The director of The Jungle Book The Jungle Book talked explicitly about survival and, along with the top animators, seemed to see the film as a test case for the continued existence of Disney animation, even of Disney himself. The quest-it was nearly religious-was to do what Walt would have done. talked explicitly about survival and, along with the top animators, seemed to see the film as a test case for the continued existence of Disney animation, even of Disney himself. The quest-it was nearly religious-was to do what Walt would have done.

Debating the nuances of Walt's wishes was hardly a new pastime. But now, with no chance of an actual verdict, the arguments were more fraught. Days dragged. Henry made the vultures flap. He made them jump. Shed feathers. Shrug. He made them yawn and speak and open their eyes in disbelief or excitement-all except for the eyes of the c.o.c.kney-voiced vulture named Flaps, which were hidden by mop-top hair.

”I heard Walt wanted to get the real Beatles,” Chris told Henry.

”For the vultures?” Henry asked lazily.

”Yeah.”

They were stretched out at lunchtime on the lawn, knowing they should be back at their boards but equally unwilling to move.

”No way,” Henry said.

”That's what I heard.”

”Bulls.h.i.+t,” Henry said-although he would later find it was true.

”But wouldn't that have been cool?” Chris asked.

Henry looked up at the sky. It was gray, unpleasantly so, and there was moisture in the air. He thought about Peace. He felt a stinging desire to see her. He wished now he had brought her back. He wondered what she was doing. He looked at his watch, as if that would tell him.

”Totally cool,” Henry said.

”We should get back to work,” Chris said.

”Yeah.”

Each of them lit a cigarette.

”Imagine in-betweening the Beatles,” Henry said.

”Ringo's nose would be exactly like the vultures' beaks,” Chris said.

Henry laughed.

”Well, I've heard they need people,” Chris said.

”What?”

”In London.”

”What are you talking about?”

”Where have you been?” Chris said, and then he told Henry about a Beatles film that was being produced in London. An animated film, he said, that had to be finished in one year.

”Do they sing in it?”

”Yeah, I guess so.”

”What's it about?” Henry asked.

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