Nine Island by Jane Alison

rounded the corner.
    Well hi, she said. Were you coming to see me?
    Told her about the water woman.
    She seems nice, N said. She does have a lovely garden on her balcony. But I can understand how annoying that must be. Do you want me to intervene?
    (Shook head.)
    Why don’t you come in, she said. Have some coffee.
    (Ovid ticking in my chest.)
    One little cup of coffee, she said.
    N’s apartment, on the other side of the building from mine, looks over the paradise jungle and brilliant blue bay, Monument Island, the city, the ships. I gazed a long time as she made coffee, then was looking straight down all those stories at the greenery and path when N came back.
    Tried touching the duck last night, I said.
    No luck?
    She’s fast. I gave her Grape-Nuts, put them near my foot, and she came over and bobbed for a minute, then started to eat, and I was sure I could grab her, but no. She waddled off and dropped into the bay. But even if she got to Rivo Alto, there aren’t any ducks there, either. Or fresh water, except maybe somebody’s pool. What I realized then is that someone else is leaving her food: by her shrub was a dish of cat food. Cat food.
    That can’t be very good for her.
    It’s disgusting. Whoever it was left an empty bottle, too, actually a few.
    Just tossed?
    It looks like they might have brought her water and then left the bottles. So I’m going to put a note in one.
    N looked at me. A message in a bottle?
    Saying We need to save this duck! and giving my number.
    Well, said N, it’ll certainly be interesting to see if anyone responds.
    I’m hopeful.
    Now this duck is intriguing, she said, but to tell the truth I’d rather know a little more about other things.
    I told her about the cluster of men across the way and the men going in and out of the spa.
    Well, she said, that’s also interesting and does not surprise me one bit. This is Miami Beach . But what I want to know, she said, is about you .
    Told her about my mother and the labyrinthine problem. Then, after nudging, told her about the deadbeat men. Sir Gold, the Devil. Didn’t mention husband, much.
    N, like K, thought I ought to meet new men.
    Look at you, she said. You’re desirable. You could have . . . all sorts of opportunities.
    Her phone rang, and when she went inside, I looked again at the water, islands, city, sky. Up where all those siren ions once sang their song of hope. A pair of pelicans soared by, coasting so close you could almost touch the ashy fur of their breasts, beaks like oily shell.
    When N came out again she said, Is it a fear of flying?
    I shook my head. Her wing’s clipped.
    N smiled the slow smile. I wasn’t talking about the duck, she said. See? You’re too young to even know what I’m talking about. Fear of Flying . The book . Look it up, smarty. I was talking about you. The unknown, she said. You know. Letting yourself go, all that junk. That’s what you’re afraid of.
    Sure, I said. Who isn’t.
    Oh, I don’t know, she said, sometimes— But just then her face, with its disturbing wide smile and liquid eyes, her face like a beatific jackal, got pulled by that pain inside her. She placed a large thin hand on either side of her chair, eyes focused nowhere.
    Okay, well, she said. I know you’ve got lots of work to do. It’s nothing. The usual. See you soon.

T HIS EVENING on the Venetian, message rolled up in my pocket, I saw again the runner whose whole body is tattooed, at least the skin not hidden by shorts. Have always thought the patterns were paisleys, but when he passed close, saw they were the seams and striations of red and blue meat—tattoos of the muscles inside.
    So as I walked and tried to kegel, of course I thought of “The Human Body”: that exhibit of people who’d donated their dead selves to be skinned, preserved, and mounted for view.
    It started in Germany when I lived there. Then it traveled all over