Terminal Island Read Free Page B

sloshing aground as it climbed the thickly-barnacled concrete ramp, was almost more than Henry’s pre-adolescent self could handle without bursting. Wow! —he was already closer than he ever imagined being to one of these aircraft, yet the threshold of reality would be pushed back still further, he knew; was about to be pushed beyond the limits of his imagining.
    He watched awestruck as the plane executed a lazy taxi, propellers blasting spray off the tarmac as it presented its door to their cordoned-off boarding area under the flapping orange wind sock. With a final roar, the engines subsided.
    The curved door behind the wing was opened, a step was lowered, and a smart-uniformed crewman emerged. At the same time, ground personnel opened the gate and briskly escorted the dozen or so passengers to the plane, checking seat assignments and directing Henry and his mother into the small cabin, up the narrow aisle.
    Inside the fuselage it was cozy; the sound was muffled, and the curtained dimness—the bus smell and rows of fabric-padded seats—lent a feeling of homey familiarity.
    Henry took his seat, really no different than a seat on the Greyhound Bus, and looked out the window at the sunlit terminal building and the big orange ball of the Union 76 station just beyond. The Del Monte Hotel was now only an empty lot, a bare patch on the hill, but he knew his mother was weepily staring in the direction it had been.
    He wished she would forget about it. There was nothing there, and had never been. Not for them. But this, finally, was theirs; their moment, their future. No more crummy motels, no more crazy family, no more cockroach-ridden slums—this time they were moving to paradise. To Catalina Island!
    It was the greatest moment of Henry’s life. He could never have imagined it would also be the precursor to the strangest and worst...or the last.

Chapter Three
    AVALON, PRESENT DAY
    “O oh, Moxie! Look at the fishy! See the fishy?”
    Ruby is recording as Henry pushes Moxie’s stroller up the ramp connecting the ferry dock to the wharf. Below them the water is gorgeous aquamarine, churned silvery by the idling ship, with vines of swaying kelp looming dark green and brown out of the depths. Here and there amid fizzy shafts of sunlight are living spots of bright orange.
    “Those are Garibaldi perch,” Henry says, going back for the luggage. “Named after the Italian explorer. They’re protected. It’s like a five-hundred dollar fine to kill one.”
    “That is so cool,” says Ruby. “They’re like big goldfish. See the pretty fishy, honey?”
    “No,” Moxie says, craning out of her stroller. “Where?”
    “Right there. Follow my finger.”
    “Pishy, mommy! Stop! Wanna see Pishy!”
    “Right down there. There’s one! See?”
    “No!”
    “Right there, silly.”
    “Oh.” Moxie squints blankly at the fish and settles back, unimpressed.
    “This is so beautiful,” says Ruby, taking a panoramic shot of the steep, rocky hillsides surrounding the town of Avalon like a great amphitheater; the expensive houses perched up there like sentinels, their picture windows overlooking the village and the perfect crescent beach below. “What a place to live. It looks like Greece or something.”
    “Yeah, it’s a nice place to visit…”
    The island is nearly as beautiful as Henry remembers. Even after thirty-plus years it is much the same, the harbor entrance still dominated by the Coliseum-like Casino and its stone jetty, the picturesque moored boats and the same old rickety green fishing pier. At least from here the town looks the same, too: the tourist shops and restaurants along the brick promenade, the bars and hotels—perhaps it is all just a bit more deliberately quaint than he remembers, a little more Disneyfied and upscale, but basically the same. After all, it was a tourist trap back then, too. He just saw it with different eyes.
    The most visible difference now—and Henry noticed this while the ferry was still