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I met Yara Ortiz at the excavation site, in a hole-studded trench at the mouth of the Miami river. She marched through the mud in pointy, weapon-like heels. I had her pegged for a lawyer. But she lacked something. Her hands fluttered too much when she talked. Her skin gave off the scent of chlorine.
The grad students were hauling dark, shell-scattered dirt away in wheelbarrows and waiting to see what I’d do about our latest visitor. A pelican swooped over the fence and hovered above the bay. Yara glanced at our backhoe, probably wondering what sort of archeologist would invest in a tractor. I’d spent the day on all fours, wearing gardener’s kneepads and skimming blocks of limestone with a toothbrush. I told her to beat it before I called the cops.
Yara extended a smooth arm. From a distance, she had seemed older. Up close, I could tell she was my age, maybe just out of college.
“You’re not supposed to be here," I said.
“I’m just checking out the scenery."
I shrugged. “Enjoy while it lasts."
Yara worked as a secretary for a law firm, the one representing the real estate titan who planned to build Brickell Pointe, a pair of luxury high-rise condos, on top of the ancient stone circle. How the site remained undiscovered and survived almost intact was a mystery. It was unscathed when a three-story apartment was plopped on it fifty years ago. The site lay buried beneath rusty pipes, reinforcing rods and twentieth-century slabs of cement. So far, my team had recovered thousands of artifacts: beads and bones all characteristic of Tequestas, the people of the Glades, an extinct tribe who roamed South Florida before the Spanish arrived.
Plans called for construction to continue once we finished our hasty excavation. I was helping my professor document the discovery before the bulldozers leveled it. I’d watched Dr. Briggs grab a can of red spray paint and draw a thirty-eight foot circle on the ground. “Dig here," he said. That’s when we called for a backhoe.
“I can’t imagine there’s anything left to find," said Yara. “What are you looking for? Dead Indians?"
“Most of their burial mounds have been obliterated by development."
“So what did you find?"
“Ax heads and chunks of pottery. Shark bones. Some human teeth. But that's a common archeological occurrence."
She made a face. We stood beside the shelf of limestone, looking down at the holes, each about the size of a bathroom sink. There it was-- the remains of an American Stonehenge. Or, as someone would suggest, a landing pad for spaceships.
In reality, neither of us had much say over the matter. We were taking orders, scribbling shorthand into our Palm Pilots before the clock ran out. But we shared the same degree of self-righteousness, a diamond-hard belief in our duties that outweighed the price of the vacant lot.
It was clear that Yara pictured the site in terms of dollar signs. Who could blame her? Long before developers built the bleached-white banks and hotels of downtown, the prehistoric Tequestas had longed to live near the water. I wanted to show her where they buried their chiefs, head to head like spokes in a wheel, under oak trees so massive, you couldn’t wrap your arms around them.
By then, the sun had slipped behind a clump of gleaming condos. The moist July air smelled of concrete and car exhaust. Yara was sweating in her denim jacket. She peeled it off, exposing a crescent of pale shoulder. I invited her to dinner. I could hear the italics in her voice when she said yes.
Yara lived in Coconut Grove, within the minimalist walls of a deluxe apartment that provided--according to the glossy brochure--the ultimate South Florida lifestyle for those who wanted to get away from it all…every day of their lives. Single bedrooms included perks like Jacuzzi tubs and natural stone floors, not to mention a balcony view of Biscayne Bay. I biked there from my two-story shoebox near the university.
As I peddled along US-1, I tried to picture the layers of history beneath the cinder-block shopping malls. Once, these palm-lined streets had been a haven for buccaneers. The shallow tide had rippled so clear, you could see straight to the sandy bottom. Families used to net green sea turtles and keep them in “crawls" near their thatched houses. Later, they’d boil in soup or sell, a penny a pound, to swanky New York restaurants.
Inside the city’s expanding sprawl, Yara and I cruised on different altitudes. The vast grids of urban planning mazed our thoughts. I was so involved with conference papers and reports, I didn’t have much energy for dating. Last time I took out a girl, we knocked back a few beers at a neighborhood tavern. I noticed six or seven earrings glinting along her earlobes-- little gold footballs. I figured she was a big Hurricane fan. On the way home, she explained that each football-piercing represented a UM player she had bedded, and began listing their names. I never called her again.
In Yara’s lobby, I sat amongst the Buddhist earth tones, waiting for her to materialize. The elevator doors slid open. Yara was primped in a black dress and looking sleepy. She squinted in my direction.
“Is that you, Ben?"
“You look nice," I said.
Yara blushed a genuine pink. “I’d return the compliment, but I can’t see."
She slipped out a pair of glasses. Perched on the bridge of her nose, they suited her like a sexy librarian. I wanted to tell her this, but assumed it wasn’t a good idea.
“Where did you park?" she asked.
“Nowhere," I said.
She stared.
“I don’t have a car."
Yara shook her head. “Unbelievable. Is this, like, an environmentally-friendly thing?"
“More like an economical thing."
She laughed, a little too enthusiastically.
“I take it we’re walking."
“Why not?"
“There’s no place to walk in Miami."
Outside, the smell of the water drifted on the breeze, wet sand and something tangy, gasoline and bait-fish. The block radiated a sense of noisy urgency, more than the usual racket, and deeper than the commotion inside me.
And then we were walking along South Bayshore Drive. Yara peeled off her sandals and carried them. She looked graceful: the barefoot woman in a happy vacation postcard. At a gas station, I bought a dusty bottle of Zinfandel. Yara opened it with her car key--an impressive move--pushing the cork downward without spilling a drop. We passed it back and forth in a park, lying on the trampled grass, listening to the buoys’ minor-key toll in the distance.
“Those condos." She pointed. “What do you think they cost?"
“More than my annual salary."
“You’re right." Her face was lit, her voice tipsy. “Tell me what used to be there."
“Crocodiles and raccoons."
She gave me a shove. We kissed. She parted my lips as though testing their warmth. Her hands curled around the small of my back and she leaned into me. I lay beside her for a while, inhaling her essence, and wondered what exactly I had gone and done.
When you’re digging up the past, you expect to find answers. Yet how little we understand the intricate layers of the human heart. A battery of tests--carbon dating, X-rays and microscopes--can reveal what a frozen mummy, discovered in the Italian Alps, gobbled as his last meal (deer meat and unleavened bread). But we’ll never know how many times he fell in love.
The Tequestas probably didn’t believe in marriage. Whether that’s true, we can only guess. After fleeing to Cuba, the last of them died, leaving no trace in South Florida, except for some broken pottery, a few bones, and maybe, a circular archeological marvel.
I wanted to know everything about this woman. Why did she call herself a “born again vegetarian," yet indulge in ready-made supermarket sushi? Who taught her that dinosaurs had roamed the earth side-by-side with man? She also bought into the whole Creationist nonsense: “If humans descended from monkeys, why do we still have monkeys?" That’s like saying, "If children descended from adults, why do we still have adults?"
Yara’s parents were balseros-- Cuban émigrés who fled the country on a homemade raft in hope of washing up on a friendly shore. She was raised in Hialeah, a suburb of cafecito counters and front yard religious shrines. Every Thanksgiving, her family bought a living, breathing turkey and let it roost in their mango tree. At age six, Yara saw her father swing the turkey over his head like a helicopter blade, snapping its neck in an instant. She didn’t speak to him for days.
As for me, I grew up in Gill, Massachusetts, a rural town northwest of Boston. My father had flown F-4s in Vietnam. My mother called herself a homemaker. All four of my brothers were teenagers by the time I was born. They taught me how to spit a proper loogie and lace an Angler’s knot. On the kitchen cabinet, Mom tacked a photo of her freckled boys, ridiculous in stonewashed jeans and leather high tops, scowling from the sun-bleached rocks in Barton’s Cove. Their fishing poles loomed taller than me.
Our careers promised what our families hadn’t provided. I hoped to score a reputation, unearth a treasure so large, I’d stroll onto the Tonight Show, cracking wise with banana-chinned Leno about raptors and mummies. Yara’s plans were less ego-driven. She wanted a Spanish-style McMansion with a pool sparkling out back, a place where the Ortiz clan could retire in style. Both of us clung to the idea that hard work could make this happen. Nothing, at the time, mattered more.
Then a couple of construction workers found a strange phenomenon in the ground-- a perfectly preserved circle of holes. Nobody expected the muddy site to draw legions of demonstrators and cub scouts, nature lovers and New Age hucksters, all basking in its supernatural aura. What they had stumbled upon, the newspapers claimed, was either a stone-age Indian trade post or a 1950s septic tank.
From Yara’s high-rise apartment, the cityscape blinked a Morse Code of dots and dashes. Rain drummed the windowpane. The cars on the road streamed in tubes of empty, disconnected color. We downed the last dregs of wine and raided Yara’s cabinets, which contained only coffee liquors. Creme de Menthe. Lemon gin. Cherry brandy. The stuff of which senior proms are made. And then Yara loosened the buttons on her blouse. I don’t remember a word that passed between us. Yara’s neck was there, warm, and I kissed my way down her body-- the seashell curve of her ribs, her damp belly, her hips.
I felt her fingers smooth the nape of my neck, resting there as if they were nothing special. “Maybe you shouldn’t do that," I said.
Already I was picturing her naked. Whenever I see a woman, even a less than attractive woman, I picture her naked. Sometimes it has nothing to do with desire. I don’t envision breasts the size of basset hounds. Nothing that precise. Instead I wonder if she’d let me near her zipper. Most men, if they are honest, would admit it crosses their minds.
I let go and glanced around the room. From the dresser, Chango, the Santeria lord of lightning stared down at me in his horned headdress. A trophy from the Cheshire Cricket League glinted on the windowsill. I waited for Yara to lend some explanation for them. But she only took another sip from her plastic cup, her mouth fixed to the rim, her throat reaching up and falling.
“You’re like a piece of sculpture," I said.
Yara giggled. “Is that your usual line?"
“No. What’s yours?"
“I don’t do lines."
Outside the rain poured harder. The road glistened like a dull silver stain.
“Shall I call a cab?" Yara asked.
“This is--" I said, not finishing my sentence or my thought. “It’s no big deal. I’ll bike."
She stroked my eyelashes.
“They’re real," I said.
She laughed. I was good at making her laugh.
“Are you sure I can’t stay? I promise not to snore."
“No," she said. “I need to think about this."
“Let me sit here and help you think."
“I’m not sure that would help."
Yara reached into her bedside drawer and produced a pack of slim cigarettes.
“Are you still thinking?" I asked.
She took a slow drag and nodded.
“What’s there to think about?"
“Nothing," she said, exhaling smoke at the ceiling. “Nothing at all."
I grabbed my jacket. Yara watched me move toward the door. I wanted her to come close enough so I could pinch her butt. This didn’t happen. Instead, she steered me into the hallway, which stank of Pine-Sol. The wallpaper was crawling with palm trees and pink flamingos, someone’s half-baked idea of a tropical landscape. My focus began to coast and skip. I rubbed my eyes. I could taste the bitter alcohol in my mouth, the pits on my tongue.
The elevator arrived with an electric ding. The walls withdrew, made a sound full of wheels and grease.
Yara stroked my jaw, which sounded exactly like sawing wood.. “You need a shave," she said. A drunken non sequitur.
I couldn’t figure out what to do. How did I get suckered into this? I fitted my fingers through hers.
“Can I call you?"
Yara’s expression changed: her face filled with creases. She looked sleek and precarious, like something from a hardware store. This was all horribly real. I had to remind myself.
“Sure," she said.
Just before the doors closed, Yara glanced at the floor. She turned around and the tail of her skirt caught a little gust before she disappeared.
Biking home through the rain, zipping past a neon smear of fast-food chains, I couldn’t stop thinking about her downcast gaze. It seemed to possess a nameless gloom, one without remedy. I rode past a Chevron station and heard a woman laughing, people pumping gas in the middle of the night, their car windows cracked open, letting in the heat.
Soon after meeting Yara, I bought an old-fashioned shaving kit-- a wooden crate that looked like a silverware box, stainless steel, ice-tempered blades with ivory handles, soap in a monkeypod bowl (because I liked the word “monkeypod") and, finally, put the thing to use, gliding against the grain of my chin in light, short strokes and finishing off with a dollop of herbal moisturizer. My skin tingled. I cut myself more than once.
I rode the Metrorail to Dadeland mall and bought a silk tie.
I smoked a cigar.
I called Yara’s cell and listened to her pre-recorded message. At home, sitting on my futon, I ate jalapeno peppers that seared my esophagus and blossomed in my chest. I watched Roman Holiday on Turner Classic Movies and paid close attention to the actors’ eyebrows.
By the following weekend, I left another message, saying I was heading over to the Mandarin hotel for a Martini Bianco on the rocks and would she like to join me, when a voice came on the line asking if I would like to leave the message or erase the entire thing, which I did.
I stepped outside and stood on the root-buckled sidewalk and watched an iguana scuttle through the sawgrass, its tail whipping, open mouth gasping and click-hissing. They eat flowers, I told myself.
The next Monday morning, I went to work at Brickell Point, now known as archaeological site 8DA12 or "Miami Midden #2". We had to collect charcoal samples from the basins to prove the circle’s age, which was still under debate. The bottom was pecked with gaps, as we discovered during a routine Auger test. Somebody dubbed it “Valley of the Holes." We marked our findings with little flags raised like exclamation points.
And then, I saw her again. Behind the chain-link fence. She leaned against it as a TV crew loitered in the background. I’d grown accustomed to the media hoopla, the dried flowers woven into the fence, the ever-present stench of incense and candles, the protestors in straw hats and sunglasses, blocking traffic on the Brickell drawbridge, waving hand-painted signs with phrases like, “Karma: Start Giving, Stop Taking."
A news anchor for Channel Seven, in one of those straight-up-and-down, no-slump suits, was talking about how the State of Florida refused to help because they didn’t have the legal right, so it was up to Dade county to buy the site from the developer. I recognized the executive director of the Dade Heritage Trust, Becky Matkov. Another was Ms. Smith, who ran the Miami Circle web page, huddled around a few sultans of schlub, and a big-bellied woman, decked out in feathers and Western-inspired denim, who claimed to be a Mayan shaman.
Yara drifted out of the crowd. She wore a linen skirt that shaped her hips. As she leaned over, a band of skin appeared along her lower back. I thought about calling her name. Instead, I heard her sounding out mine.
“Ben? I need to talk to you."
Standing there, I tried not to move. The other guys slurred and mumbled. Most of them didn’t have girlfriends. At least, not for long.
Yara joined me at the site. She was flushed, her bangs frizzing in the heat. I wanted to say something sarcastic, but all the stingy one-liners I had rehearsed for this moment seemed pointless.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call," she said. “Don’t be mad. I was caught up in things."
“What things?"
“This is very important to me, what’s happening here."
“So where’s your Save the Circle T-shirt?"
Yara sighed. She stepped forward and peered at the ditch. “I think it’s noble," she said, “how the city is coming together for a cause. It reminds me of what we went through after Hurricane Andrew. Were you here for that?"
I shook my head.
“My family lost so much," Yara said. “No electricity for months, no water. I washed my hair in the pool. "
“What about insurance?"
“My dad was dropped four times by insurance companies after Andrew."
“That’s awful. I mean, it must have been hard."
“Yeah," she said. “But it brought out the best in people. I saw neighbors and strangers reaching out to help each other, sharing groceries, cooking on grills."
“How can you be so optimistic," I said, “when you’re working for the developer who’s going to bury us in concrete?"
“Mr. Baumann is very concerned about doing the right thing. He’s trying to incorporate housing and public viewing into one building. This could become a natural attraction."
“In other words, free advertisement."
Yara opened her mouth but said nothing.
I stared at the so-called shaman, who was burning sage and playing some loopy instrumental music on a boom box and hugging people. The weakest portions of my legs were aching. When I stretched, I felt little pings like rubber bands breaking. I missed Yara. But I distrusted all this rah-rah banter. Beyond that, I felt genuinely unsettled.
“Have a little faith for a change," Yara said. “Be patient. Oh, what time do you get off work? I could really use a drink."
By February, Baumann had hired a stonecutter, planning to slice up the 10,000-year-old pieces and relocate them elsewhere so he could continue with his paving schedule. Mayor Penelas needed to nail down twenty million dollars to pay him off. Without it, Baumann would proceed with his original plans for the waterfront property-- the construction of residential towers more than forty stories tall.
So many puzzles remained. Where did the axes made from basalt--a volcanic rock not found in Florida--come from? What was the exact purpose of the site? That was going to take time and work.
I rode past the site every morning on my bike, saw the dusty lot draped in signs and a makeshift altar. To the UFO fanatics, the circle was sacred ground, a cosmic power source, or a link to an ancient Indian civilization about which we knew almost nothing. Inside the circle we had found something particularly unsacred: a septic tank. The builders of the old Brickell Point Apartments had buried it almost fifty years earlier. Without knowing it, they had torn up an archaeological treasure and dumped their crap right in the middle of it.
At the end of the month, the orchid trees dropped their purple blossoms and Yara turned twenty-five. She invited me to a party at her family’s house, one of those low-slung buildings carved out of coral rock. Her little cousins taught me how to dance a “techno merengue," shaking their non-existent hips to Proyeto Uno. The older folks played dominoes, which seemed to involve a lot of shouting and table smacking.
Yara waved to me and smiled. In the sweltering kitchen, she introduced me to her dad. Papa Ortiz was a thick, stubbly fellow with the straightest teeth I had ever seen. He gripped my hand and squeezed. It occurred to me that he owned a pump-action shotgun.
“I hear you’re working on that Indian tomb," he said.
“Well, the site’s function is still unclear. It could’ve been used for several different reasons over the past thousand years."
He snorted. “It can’t be that old."
“Possibly older," I said.
“Don’t tell me you’re using carbon dating. That stuff always comes out wrong. Like when they tested the Shroud." He winked and draped an arm around Yara.
“Shroud?"
“The Shroud of Turin," he said.
I shrugged, not wanting to argue. “Carbon 14 dating is only useful for organic material. After ten-thousand years, it--"
Yara smiled. She’d had three Coronas and was still giddy. She popped something in my mouth, an empanada stuffed with clumps of lobster. “Ben, you’re babbling," she said. “All you think about is work."
“Nobody works harder than my girl," said Papa Ortiz. “She’s going to be a legal eagle."
Yara shook her head and laughed.
Later, in her apartment, I said, “Your father hates me."
We were curled in her queen-sized bed, the sheets coating us like paint. Yara flopped over and said, “No, he doesn’t. He’s just keeping me safe."
“From what?"
“You," she said, and kissed my nose.
During the summer, we lazed around, sleeping in on weekends. We saw a lot of foreign movies. We spent whole afternoons in bookstores, reading magazines and drinking coffee, our bare feet touching under the table.
On Sundays, we took boat trips with Yara’s family along Biscayne Bay. The catamaran would drift away from the dock and I’d watch the dark green water bubble up like foam doilies, fanning out over the oily surface. Afterwards we sprawled on the beach, keeping time as the sky turned molten. The seagulls arced and cawed above us. I searched for parrotfish casings-- sleeping bags of clear snot that prevented sharks from smelling them. Minnows darted through the mangrove roots. The waves roared like a crowd. I could feel my skin stinging, despite layers of sunblock. I grabbed Yara’s lacquer-tipped toes and dragged her around, wheelbarrow-style. The air was smooth as cream and we gulped it in.
The cooler breezes of October gusted over the city and I stood outside a chain-link fence in the shadow of the Sheraton Hotel, staring at the circle. Until the lawsuit was settled, I couldn’t even touch the artifacts I had excavated. I still needed to radiocarbon date the shark bones and process soil samples. Brickell Pointe, with its elegant new “e," would be rising over Miami if not for one thing: the waterfront property was an architectural conservation area. After Baumann’s crew started knocking down the old apartment buildings, he was ordered to hire an archaeologist to monitor the work.
Over the last thousand years, the mouth of the Miami River had been settled, worshiped, resettled, prayed over, bought, sold, bruised, abused, and worshiped again. Hours before the developer was due to bulldoze the circle, Dade county voted to buy Baumann off. I’m not a believer in cosmic forces. I’m not religious. As far as I’m concerned, it was pure luck. Try telling that to the New Agers.
I called Yara that night. “Did you see me in the paper?" I said. “The Herald sent down a photographer. They did a story about us."
“About who?" she said. I could hear traffic surging in the background.
“Us. The circle, I mean."
Yara sucked in a breath. “The site doesn’t belong to you, Ben."
There were car horns blaring and Yara was cursing in Spanish.
“Well, now it doesn’t belong to Baumann either."
“The county still needs to come up with the money," she said. “They’ve got a deadline. Where are they going to get twenty-six million dollars?"
“We’ll do it," I said. “So many people in this city feel a sense of rootlessness. Now they see there’s history here."
She was quiet for a moment.
“Sweetie," I said. “Are you upset?"
“No," she said. “I’m happy for you."
I knew she had hoped for a different outcome, how hard she had worked for it.
“Let’s go somewhere," I said. “I’ll make you feel better."
“Tell me you love me."
I told I did.
“How much?"
“A lot."
“How much is a lot?"
“Too much," I said.
“There’s no such thing," Yara said.
She was far too beautiful for me, my blunt face and broad, square bones. Sometimes I wondered if she was seeing another guy, some Latin lunkhead knotted with muscles. She could have her pick. We both knew it. But that would be too sensible. And the heart isn’t known for making sense.
Weeks later, we were in Yara’s kitchen, chopping up vegetables from three continents. Yara couldn’t cook. Her specialty was croquetas, left-overs fried to a sooty crisp. I was teaching her the finer aspects of food processing. Her hands were bright with tomato pulp. She ate my gazpacho soup and enjoyed it so much, I made another batch. We sat on the floor, with our backs against the cabinets and the bowls between our legs. I wanted to do something for her, some fabulous, irrefutable thing to get her mind off the circle, or at least, prevent her from holding it against me.
“Those crystal-hugging New Age freaks," she said, brandishing the newspaper we had used as a placemat. “They finally got their money," she said. “Actually, it was given to them."
“What?"
She looked up into my face. “The county wouldn’t have given a flying fig about the circle if those people hadn’t been there, standing guard twenty-four seven, waving their signs."
“You can’t say that. The title was transferred to the state of Florida. They got a loan from the Trust for Public Land. You’re oversimplifying the situation, honey."
“Don’t be condescending." Yara shoved the paper in the trash. “It’s over now. You won. You and the goddamned Indians."
“Native Americans," I said. “Look, I know you had a lot invested in that site. And I realize we have different ideas about it. But you have to see the bigger picture. This is going to give people a sense of belonging."
“There you go," Yara said, her voice coarsening at the edges. “You sound like a politician."
“I’m not talking about politics. I’m talking about us."
Yara clenched her fists and waited for me to hang myself.
“Come here," I said.
We kissed then, so she couldn’t reply. Yara traced my newly-smooth jaw, then her hands fell lower, as did mine. She was breathing into me, matching my rhythm. Her mouth went soft as I pressed forward and she pressed in return. I had this idea of hoisting her onto the sink. I liked the way the water polished her legs, which dangled over the rim, gleaming like knives.
When you care for someone, you learn to ignore the landmines, the unreturned phone calls and speedy vanishing acts. It’s human nature: we can’t help but collect evidence. And I had done my share of snooping. I knew the contents of Yara’s medicine cabinet, with its organic tampons and glow-in-the-dark Band-Aids. But she refused to give me a key to her apartment, and I pretended not to care.
Yara’s eyes were half-closed. Her knees trembled. I heard a door slam somewhere down the hall. Yara squeezed my hips. The ceiling lights, which had suddenly clicked on, brightened the small room, made it hum with fluorescence. I noticed Yara’s face and turned around. And then a man stepped into the kitchen and looked at us and the breath inside me dissolved.
He was a thickset man, boyish despite the thinning hair. The cords in his neck jumped. He set down his briefcase and began to sob. There was nothing to say. It was clear he hadn’t expected this. Yara slid away from me. She folded her arms across her wispy black bra and began weeping too, a damp sound like hiccupping. The weeping turned into coughs. She struggled into her clothing, facing away from us. I must have moved toward her, because she staggered out of the kitchen, slipping on the puddles we had splashed on the linoleum.
I stood in the doorway, soaking wet, and wearing nothing but my boxers. There was the kitchen and two men inside it. The instant I stepped into the hall, the other guy came swinging at me. Everything seemed to evaporate, smoldering off the walls until only the stupid briefcase was registering. My mind was reeling, and then a storm appeared in the man’s face. Spots blurred around his head, leaving a small tornado where his skull had been. This went on for several seconds, and then, I saw his two sharp eyes looking at me, and I stared back.
“Get out," he said.
“Right," I said. “No problem."
I walked to the door. And now Yara was standing on the rug behind it, transformed into a naked woman with splotches on her face, a foreign creature, gawking at me behind her twin curtains of hair, her arms still folded.
I got on my bike and sped into traffic. The cars seemed loud and fast. I listened to their engines as they went by, churning up clouds of dirt. They kept going, their lights getting smaller and smaller. Everything on the road felt empty and large. All the certainties in my life, all my habits and routines, were little more than dust. I rode past the Brickell Pointe site several times, back and forth over the bridge.
A car pulled up and a teenaged girl got out. She wore lug-soled boots and big jeans. Her boyfriend was waving a flashlight around like a search beam. I watched them disappear down the service road on the south side of the circle and followed them.
“I know how to get in," the girl was saying. “I used to live in this neighborhood."
The boyfriend snorted. “Yeah, like I’m going in there."
She wedged her feet into the now unguarded fence and scurried up it. “Hurry," she hissed. Her boyfriend had already walked away and did not turn to answer. She hit the ground. I could hear her breathing hard. The girl ran over to the circle and a couple of minutes later, returned with her prize-- a flat piece of stone, thin as a splinter.
As she climbed the fence again, her gaze drifted over me.
“It’s okay," I told her. “Everything’s cool."
She dangled on the fence, trapped, but not too trapped, and I kept thinking how this should be embarrassing, me in my boxers and she hanging up there like a zoo animal. Then she did this peculiar thing. She dug into her pocket and pulled out the stone, holding it for me to see. And I didn’t know what it meant. I saw her struggling to keep calm, both of us there, not saying anything, just hanging above the circle, dangling, and that’s all.
Crissa-Jean Chappell teaches creative writing at Miami International University of Art and Design. Her fiction has appeared in various magazines, including Confrontation and Broken Wrist Project.
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