Kathleen Creighton - Still Waters

Maddy's house had been a storage barn for farm machinery, which someone had turned into a guesthouse, or maybe a studio. It had no windows, except for one over the sink in the tiny afterthought of a kitchen. Sunshine poured like gold dust through five skylights that could be raised and lowered with ropes, letting in fresh air. At night Maddy could lie in bed and look up at the stars.

As she let herself in the front door, a huge blue Persian cat seemed to grow out of a shelf above the sofa, extending first horizontally, then vertically, and then in several directions at once. His stretch completed, the cat dropped disdainfully to the back of the sofa, then to the seat cushions, and finally to the floor. Carrying his tail aloft like a potentate's plumes, he paced regally toward the kitchen.

Maddy, watching him go, muttered fondly, "Incorrigible cat," and shook her head as she dropped her keys beside her answering machine. She flipped the switch to rewind the message tape and, settling herself on the arm of a chair, slipped her hand into the body of a fat pink dragon.

"Hi, Bosley," she murmured as the dragon's triangular head rose before her, mounted on a slender, blue-ridged neck. "Anybody call?"

The dragon stared at her with quizzical green eyes, wrinkled its nose, and croaked, "Don't try to wiggle out of it by changing the subject. You really made a fool of yourself today, didn't you?"

"I'd really rather not talk about it, thank you," Maddy retorted briskly, and plunked the dragon back on its stand as the message machine beeped and clicked. With its head askew, the dragon seemed to be listening to the recording along with her.

"… Hello… Maddy? Um… I just called to see if you're free for lunch, but… um… I guess you aren't, are you? So… um. Okay, well, just call when you get a chance. 'Bye."

Maddy smiled. That was her best friend, Jody. She hated talking to the answering machine.

The machine beeped imperiously, signaling another message.

"… Maddy-Larry here. I hate to do this to you, but we need you. Can you meet me at Juvenile Hall at… make it two o'clock? And bring your puppets, honey-it looks like a bad one. Deputies went in on a domestic-disturbance call. Found three kids in a locked room-you know the scene. Couple mattresses on the floor, nothing else but filth. Kids won't-or can't-talk. Sorry, babe… It's a lousy world…"

There was a sustained beep and then silence. Both Bosley, the dragon, and Maddy, its creator, slumped disconsolately, staring at the answering machine.

"Well, I don't believe that," Maddy said firmly as she rewound the tape and reset the machine. She picked up the puppet, which immediately took on life and personality. It nudged Maddy under the chin, then peered at her with sad eyes. "Neither do I," it croaked staunchly.

"Boz," Maddy said in her own voice, smiling at the dragon, "it just can't be a lousy world when someone like me gets to meet Aquaman!" She stood up, supporting the puppet's pear-shaped body and long tail with her free arm. "But enough of fantasy-we have to go to work. Are you up to a real heartbreaker, Boz?"

"Have I ever failed you?" the dragon asked gently as Maddy gave its head a soulful tilt.

"Never," she answered as she carefully hung the dragon back on its stand. "Good old Bosley." She gave the dragon's blue-crested pink head an affectionate pat and went into the kitchen.

"Amanda, you have got to tell me-what's he like ?" Jody asked avidly when Maddy met her for lunch exactly a week later at their favorite deli.

"He's… nice ," Maddy said, gazing at the salad bar as she bit absentmindedly into her meatball sandwich.

"Nice? Is that all you can say, nice? 'Nice' is the man who pumps my gas for me at the self-serve island. 'Nice' is the electricity meter man, who never, ever complains about the asparagus fern I have hanging right over the meter, even when it-"

"Almost," Maddy went on, inserting the words edgewise, "against his will."

"Amanda, my dear." Jody eyed her balefully. "You do realize that this is the man whom at one time, in my carefree youth, my entire dorm voted the man we'd most like to share a bathtub with? And now all you can think of to say about him is, 'He's nice'?" Jody sighed deeply. "How sad. That man had the most gorgeous body. Swimmers have such gorgeous bodies, don't you think? Swimmers and divers." She wriggled ecstatically. "And gymnasts. Lord, who could forget gymnasts? Gee, I love the Olympics, don't you?"

"He still does," Maddy said.

"Does what?"

"He still has that body."

"Wouldn't you know it." Jody stared accusingly at the last few bites of her submarine sandwich, then dropped it back onto her plate. "For some of us, twelve years makes a difference."

"Oh, it's made a difference in him too." Maddy frowned, sipping iced tea through a straw. "In other ways."

"Oh, yeah? How? What, exactly, does he look like? What have the years done to him? Is he bald? Wrinkled? Wouldn't surprise me-the sun does that to a person, you know. I tell that to myself every time I see one of those incredibly gorgeous tanned bodies that makes me feel like I just crawled out from under a rock! In ten years, I say to myself, you'll look like a map of Cleveland, and I-"

"It's not really physical," Maddy interrupted, laughing. "It's hard to explain. What's the first thing that comes to mind when you remember Zachary London? Besides that!"

"Hmm. I don't know." Jody considered. "His smile, I guess. He had that gorgeous-"

"Right. The smile. Every time you saw him being interviewed, even dripping wet and huffing and puffing, he'd be smiling. That smile just lit up his whole face."

"Well, he had a lot to smile about. All those gold medals, fame, a fortune from endorsements alone, a future in whatever branch of show biz he chose to bless-"

"You know," Maddy said softly, "I think it was the smile I always liked best about him."

Jody snorted. "Coming from you, Amanda, my dear, I'd almost believe that. So what about the smile? Oh, my God." She clamped a hand over her mouth. "He's lost his teeth!"

Maddy burst out laughing and choked on her iced tea. "His teeth… are perfect," she gasped out when she could speak again. "It's the smile he seems to have lost." She dabbed at her eyes and nose, sobering as she tried to figure out herself just what she meant by that statement. Because, of course, she had seen him smile-at her, and at Theresa. It was just… "He acts like he gave up smiling for Lent," she said, suddenly inspired. "Except that every now and then, one slips away from him, and he acts guilty. That's what I meant when I said he seems nice in spite of himself. He acts almost like he resents anyone who makes him smile."

"Oh, boy." Jody suddenly clapped both hands over her mouth, as if she were about to be sick. "I just remembered."

"What?"

"Oh, it's so awful." Jody transferred one hand to her eyes. "I know what happened to his smile. I don't know how I could have forgotten it for one minute. I can't believe it. Imagine him working with little kids… teaching swimming, of all things."

"Jody, what are you rambling about? Teaching swimming seems to me the most natural-"

"Don't you know what happened to Zachary London? It's been a few years ago now, but I don't know how you could have missed hearing something about it. It was such an ironic tragedy, you know?"

Maddy waited tensely as Jody leaned across the table and gripped her hand. "Maddy, he lost a child. His only child, I think it must have been-a little boy. He was about five years old."

Maddy felt as if someone had hit her in the stomach. "That's… terrible," she said inadequately. "How?"