When you’d done as much public speaking as Bunny had, you learned to keep going despite the distractions. People coming and going to the bathroom. Someone talking into their cellphone. A fly buzzing around your face. But this, nothing had prepared her for. Bunny slipped her bare feet back into her shoes and took the steps that led down from the side of the stage. Her foot caught on the nub of the carpet. Concentrate, Bunny!
She answered one final question as she walked along the central aisle. Audiences loved that kind of close-up thing. People liked to see that a woman who could navigate the strong currents of the Molokai Channel was flesh and blood, too. They liked to see that she walked with a slight limp, had a mole on the side of her face, and was wearing a perfume that some of them, too, might have purchased.
Bunny went down the aisle and back up twice, buoyed by the certainty that this time, she was not hallucinating, not living out some fantasy fed by grief. She stopped. There was no doubt. That short-haired woman sitting in the audience was Covey. How was this possible? Bunny wanted to lean over and pull Covey out of her seat right then but she knew she couldn’t. There were video cameras everywhere. At the end of her event, Bunny waited for the crowd to dissipate, then scurried over to Covey.
“Bunny,” Covey said as she leaned on one of her crutches and embraced her. But then Covey squeezed her forearm and whispered urgently in one ear. Bunny stood up straight and stepped back but held Covey’s right hand in both of hers.
Bunny put on her best greet-the-public voice. “I am so happy that you came to hear me speak,” she said. “What did you say your name was, again?”
“My name is Eleanor Bennett,” Covey said, leaning back on her crutches. “I saw that you were coming to speak near my home and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything, even though I’m still on these,” she said, wobbling on one of the crutches.
“How did you…？”
“Broke my leg surfing.”
“Surfing!” Bunny said. Covey nodded. They both laughed.
“Well, I certainly hope to see you again soon,” Bunny said, pressing a business card into Covey’s hand. Covey had white hair at the sides of her face. Covey was beautiful. Covey was alive!
A young woman in blond braids and a black pantsuit came toward them and beckoned Bunny toward a side exit. A clutch of television cameras followed them, eclipsing Bunny’s view of her childhood friend. Still, the room felt filled with a kind of light that would continue to follow Bunny for a long time. Bunny had indeed lived a good life and now she knew that it would be even better.
Back at the hotel, Bunny had barely enough time to close up her bags before leaving for the airport. She was laughing out loud when her assistant rapped on the door.
“Etta,” her assistant called.
“Just ten minutes more,” Bunny called through the door. “I’ll see you in the lobby.” Bunny sat down on the edge of the bed and let herself fall back, arms splayed, legs bent over the edge of the mattress, staring at the ceiling.
Floating.
She had to talk to Covey right away. Bunny picked up her mobile phone to call but realized she didn’t have Covey’s number. Eleanor, she’d said her name was. Eleanor Bennett. But where exactly did she live? And how would she find a person with such a common name? Etta would try to find her but she might have to wait for her to get in touch. Either way, Bunny felt certain that it would be soon.
Eleanor
She had spoken to Bunny for barely a minute but it had lifted her up. Seeing Bunny that way at the convention center, wrapping her arms around her friend after all these years, set all sorts of things right in Eleanor’s mind. For the first time, she felt truly at peace with being Eleanor Bennett. For the first time in a long while, she felt that she was still Covey, too.
If this were only about her, at this age, Eleanor would be willing to shed a lifetime of pretense, talk openly to people about being Covey, go back to the island even, aware of the risks. But the fact was, when you lived a life, under any name, that life became entwined with others’。 You left a trail of potential consequences. You were never just you, and you owed it to the people you cared about to remember that.
Because the people you loved were part of your identity, too. Perhaps the biggest part.
As many times as Marble Martin had appeared on live television, it still surprised her, all the activity that went on around the host and guests right up to the last second before they were live on the air. This time, another guest, the coffee tycoon with the blue sweater, was adding to the fuss by giving Marble an earful during the commercial break.