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Marija was not answering the phone and I stood confused in front of the Los Angeles airport, not knowing what my next move should be. Tanned, slender and over confident Californians passed by me as I tried to take myself out of the existential torpor that was descending upon me. I wanted to be in a white room with no noise and no strident colors. By some stroke of luck the taxi driver I flagged down was a kind man from Uzbekistan who decided to give me a tour of the city and then drop me in front of a lovely white hotel with blazing azaleas hanging from every window on a sunny street in Los Angeles. I couldn’t say no to anything and to anyone on that day of extreme jet lag and existential murkiness and the taxi driver must have taken my dazed smiling as a sign that yes, he could just take me on a two hour tour of that dizzying conglomerate of highways punctuated by short tours of LA neighborhoods and areas. It didn’t matter that I had no spatial direction and knowledge of where I was, since I had no idea where any part of my life was going. Maybe from the meeting of two chaoses some sharp idea of order would reemerge.

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I live in a coastal town in the deep south of the Mekong Delta. During the war this was the IV Corps that had seen many savage fights. Though the battle carnage might have long been forgotten, some places are not. They are haunted.

The roadside inn where I live and work is old. The owner and his wife of the second generation are in their late sixties. The old woman runs the inn, mainly cooking meals for the guests, and I would drive to Ông Doc town twenty kilometers south to pick up customers when they arrive by land on buses or by waterways on boats and barges. Most of them come to visit the Lower U Minh National Reserve, a good twenty kilometers north of the inn. I seldom see the old man. He is mostly holed up in their room. Sometimes when its door isn’t locked, you might see him wander about like a specter. The man is amnesiac and cuckoo.

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Nothing was the same for Rhiannon after the police found her fiancé dead. She barely left her house. Her mother came over several times with dinner but Rhiannon always felt drained after trying to reassure her she was okay. She kept up her editing work, she needed to make money, but she retreated even from her sister, and she was closer to Emma than anyone. The only people she spoke to often were Jill and Ross.  She kept telling them, “I just don’t know why this happened.”

Finally Jill said, “Look, we can unveil layers, but we can never know why things occur. Asking why is the ultimate distraction.”

“Is it?” Rhiannon wasn’t so sure. There had to be some lesson here. If everything was random, what was the point?

Jill listened patiently every time Rhiannon went over details of the story. How Sébastien was supposed to meet her for lunch.  They’d planned to shop. He didn’t have a tie to match his suit and they were getting married in two weeks. When he didn’t show up at the restaurant or answer his cell, Rhiannon went to his apartment.

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CHAPTER EIGHT : THE GIBSON GIRL

From the moment they began to anticipate her, to somehow believe in her, Charles Dana Gibson and Richard Harding Davis had agreed on her attributes, her future in the New World.

In the New World the Girl would be an American thoroughbred. She would appear magically, focusing out of all those moments when Romance was on the town.

And… (A very long and… it seemed)

One week she was suddenly there in the pages of Life–hair upswept in a soft pile, gray eyes gentle yet unflinching. Sometimes she wore a “rainy-daisy” skirt that cleared the ground by six inches, but that was for stormy weather. She was graceful on the tennis court, pursing her lovely mouth as she deftly returned the ball at the other. Quiet and demure she was, but unafraid. The Gibson Girl: American femininity–girl and woman. She looked at you shyly, but with clear steadiness and a bit of mischief in her eyes. A fine intelligence in her eyes, but nothing of the Amy Lowell bluestocking about her.

But in the wondrous matchmaking of romance who was to be the Gibson Boy–the inevitable He?

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CHAPTER ONE

When I was eight years old, I came up with a brilliant idea. I asked my Aunt Sally to draw a picture of me grown up. I was convinced that the portrait would somehow shed light on my future, just like the Magic Eight Ball I kept on my desk. Sally took on the challenge and dusted off her wooden box of drawing pencils and her Strathmore spiral sketchbook. I sat down across from her at the kitchen table, trying hard not to move. No peeking, Sally teased as she drew. My heart thumped fast as I listened to the scratching sound of her graphite pencil hit the paper, bringing the grown up me to life. When Sally finished, she pushed the sketchbook across the table and sang, “Ta-da!” I grabbed a hold of it, squeezing the wire binding. I looked down and saw that Sally had drawn me with chiseled cheekbones, long, straight hair swept behind my ears, and big, bright eyes outlined in charcoal. I stared at the eyes for a long time. They were the eyes of a grown up girl, one entirely sure of who she was. The problem is, I’m grown up now. I’m not that girl in the drawing.

I think about this as I get out of my car and stand on the cracked pavement of the apartment complex in downtown Willimantic, Connecticut or “Heroin Town” according to 60 Minutes. I’ve caught a glimpse of my reflection in the driver seat window. I pause to stare at it. I certainly look like a woman that’s got it all together, but I know better. Inside, I’m a broken girl still searching for all her pieces. I look away and push my sunglasses up into my thick mess of curly blonde hair. I remind myself that there are more urgent matters at hand; such as this Friday afternoon’s surprise home visit.

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November 1963

Sara’s thoughts kept drifting to her father.  Didn’t he realize we’d miss him?  She snapped shut her notebook from Mr. Carney’s history class.  Loud strains of  The Ronettes’ “Be my, be my baby” filtered through her bedroom window and lured her to the street.

She sneaked past the living room where her younger siblings were glued to the T.V. screen watching To Tell the Truth.  Her mother was dozing on the couch, weary from cooking and serving dinner after canvassing on the icy streets of downtown Brooklyn for Fields Department Store.  They didn’t hear Sara click the apartment door shut before racing down the stairs and onto Penn Street where rocky boys in leather jackets listened to transistor radios and leaned against parked cars, while they smoked Marlboros and kissed bold girls Sara’s age in tight sweaters.

The quiet in the apartment confused Sara when she returned.  Most nights Robbie and Rachel’s antics kept their mother busy until ten.  The buzz of the fluorescent lights under the dish cabinets drew Sara into the kitchen.  The clock above the refrigerator read nine o’clock.

From behind, her mother’s voice sounded: “Sara Katz!”  She had been waiting at the kitchen table.  “Why didn’t you let us know?  You left without a word.”

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