Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

That night, Dodd told his wife he was divesting himself of far-flung ruins — his hobby had played itself out. They made love for the first time in months, and afterward Joyce nervously told him about her special project; how she bought land at Westwood Village Memorial Park because those babies needed a home that wasn’t a potter’s field. She said she hadn’t yet told his father, and Dodd agreed that was probably a good thing. For the time being, anyway. He was so gentle and understanding, and it felt like they were coming to new ground. He said he needed to get back in physical shape, and she made him promise to do yoga with her at the house with Ana Forrest. They spoke of their children and general good fortune. Dodd suggested they go away on a little trip around the time the kids took off on their summer holiday. There were plenty of jets to go around.

As they fell asleep, Joyce touched his shoulder and whispered, “Thank you.” She wasn’t sure that he heard; she wanted it to be more than subliminal. So she said it again.

The children were away for a whirlwind three-week tour; and while travel was Edward Aurelius Trotter’s métier and he never felt more anchored than when bonds to earth were severed, the hardships he so gracefully endured amid numbered leave-takings from the softship of his father’s customized cabin were notable and should be recorded for future invalids, real and imaginary.

Exactly who was part of this airborne sodality? Let us first introduce those professionally engaged. The retooled 737 came with six pilots, whose tag-team approach allowed them to enjoy more than a few sights (one might think this arrangement was on account of Dodd Trotter’s largesse, when in actuality it was his wife’s suggestion, being Joyce’s sensible opinion that a happy, rested crew made for a safer voyage); two in-flight helpers — a hunky Greek, whom the overheated Lucy fantasized about on days when Tull was particularly distant and uncaring — and a stewardess, whose protracted, ritualized reapplication of lip gloss and outliner may as well have been a morbid surgical procedure for all the fascinated attention it received from the boys of Four Winds; a portly medical doctor by the name of Dr. Raff, who was a part-time resident of the hidden clinic at Olde CityWalk, hence well familiar with Edward’s condition; two homely, overqualified nurses — whose looks still proved eminently watchable to certain of our younger captives, and who seemed on this trip to stick thermometers in more mouths than they could remember — their technical skills and general know-how being of emergency-room caliber; a physical therapist and self-proclaimed tai chi instructor (dubbed Slouching Tiger by Edward) for whom no one seemed to care and who, to his credit, cared less in return and, aside from massaging the first cousin, which he did well enough, mostly took up “carrying” duties familiar to Epitacio, Eulogio and Sling Blade, delicately hoisting the boy in his arms on request; two techies — one, an expert in upkeep, maintenance and troubleshooting of aspirators, defibrillators and assorted hose-and-pump gewgaws (an inventory that remained, thankfully, unused) and the other, a kind of practical engineer, who saw to it that Edward’s portable AirBuggy, a more modest version of the bulkier trademark dry-docked at Olde CityWalk, would be up and running and not sputter out on the Via Whatever in front of Ruin XXVII; three bodyguards, charged with the security of the group and who were to be sure no kidnappings, hijackings or explosive surprises ensued; two cuisiniers particuliers and their assistants, all of whose glacially indifferent dispositions challenged one’s romantic notions of the fiery cook-as-artist; and finally, one of Dodd Trotter’s crack efficiency mavens, whose only job was to facilitate hemispheric, longitudinal and latitudinal comings and goings, VIP clearances, embassy liaisons, passports and vaccinations, baggage wranglings, concierge-strokings and hotel check-ins, general politics, skullduggeries and laundry. That would be dry-cleaning and fluff ’n’ fold.

Let us examine the next level up. Here resides the venerable Mr. Hookstratten, whose civilian clothes and multiplicity of camera gear first severely embarrassed the children, as they weren’t used to seeing him bustle about in the real world. (It felt way too intimate.) The teacher was joined by his life partner, a supposed expert in the field of celestial navigation, whose name was Reed, apropos for an attenuated, fuzzy-haired body that seemed to tilt sardonically in the wind, and who smiled at the little ones with the benevolence of a sadist who’d already poisoned their pie. There was a professor of medieval history with terrible breath, who was wont to accompany himself on guitar singing Middle English “ditties”; he was eventually exonerated, even extolled, after Edward proclaimed the man’s knowledge to be authentic and of enormous range. Rounding things out came a chess-master-cum-alpinist upon whom the physical-therapist-cum-tai-chi-master instantly fixated as nemesis.

Having dispensed with the above, we now arrive at a small VIP subset: the actress Diane Keaton and her daughter, Dex — the latter already slated to be a Four Winds scholar, class of 2012. As previously noted, Tull and the actress shared a dog walker, but the ties went deeper.

Trinnie and Ms. Keaton had a reunion of sorts at the oft-referred-to Animal CAT-scan Ball, which, the reader cannot fail to recall, was attended by Ron Bass himself. Diane, a former client of Marcus Weiner, had always been captivated by Katrina (the actress being a fabled cognoscente of style, genius and tragedy) and had long followed her career in the garden journals and magazines, coincidentally even visiting some of the heiress’s more acclaimed and faraway private commissions. While Mr. Bass commiserated with the now-former “Rafe” Mirdling, Trinnie poured out some of her scandalized heart to the entranced and startled Ms. Keaton, filling in the gaps of the actress’s knowledge, which of necessity had been dependent on gossip and newspaper accounts read long ago, now almost forgotten. The two had lunch at Il Pastaio, and Trinnie even went so far as to accommodate her old acquaintance and newfound friend (Ms. Keaton, to her eternal regret, had been unable to attend the wedding) with a moonlit tour of the near-virginal grounds of La Colonne. In the months since the benefit, the actress had met the entire Trotter clan and become enamored of them, as anyone would. While Trinnie was the initial connection, credit must be given to Joyce (who never receives enough) for suggesting that Diane and her sweet-banged Dexter join the kids for at least part of their international campaign.

At last, then, the student body: Tull, Edward, Lucy, Boulder and eighteen of their fellows, the latter of whose individual attributes and shortcomings will remain unsung — but let us say a fair cross-section of overachievers, with archetypal brainiacs and bullies to bracket the middling. It is heartening to note that for the length and breadth of the voyage, there wasn’t a single disciplinary problem of substance (and not a weapon, real or makeshift, brandished): the children, sensoria taxed and disoriented by constant movement through culture and time zone, shocked lungs breathing the recirculated air of an albeit opulent airship, had been transformed from jackasses into sweet, humble citizens of the world — in no time, the little dears possessed the poise and plenitude of UNICEF emissaries. They behaved with grateful worshipfulness toward their immediate hosts (Edward and his sister) while still managing to pay cousin Tull the worshiped-by-association homage or lack of it required by his given mood. Suffice to say that within mere days after the Los Angeles departure, the normally boisterous, disrespectful Four Winds mob became fine-tuned choristers, whose vocals could swing from ragtime to near liturgical at the instructive glance of any adult — or Trotter — on board. Oh, but they were good.