Chapter Seven: LD's Day Out

Friday night Laura Dell called John William to tell him how happy she was that she had the weekend off. In the month that she had been working at the museum, she had spent almost no time anywhere other than there or at her apartment. She had barely seen the city that had become her temporary home. All her days off had been spent poring over information and reviewing notes to ensure that there were no more snafus.

Since the incident with the name plates being switched, Laura Dell had been diligent and hadn’t slipped up again. She didn’t know if Dr. Feinmen had forgiven her yet. He was still as cold as he had been and he treated her like a child. But it had been three weeks and she was beginning to wonder if he would ever get over it.

This weekend she was going to forget about Dr. Feinmen and the museum and see some of the city. Unfortunately the weather was not going to let her do much of anything outside, but there was an aquarium close to the museum that she really wanted to visit. She remembered visiting the Tennessee Aquarium once as a child and wanting to go back. She loved the bones of the past, but also loved to see some of the same creatures she studied alive today.

Laura Dell skipped over all of her work woes while talking to John William and just focused on her plans for the weekend.

“Tomorrow, I’m going to spend the morning at the aquarium. I stopped in a grabbed a brochure from them on my lunch break during my first week, but haven’t had time to go visit yet. They have baby penguins!”

“Hahaha…” Laura Dell had missed the sound of John William’s laughter. He was aware of her love of penguins and knew how excited she was about seeing them. “Maybe I’ll come visit soon and we can go see the penguins together. I like aquariums too.”

Laura Dell knew that she and her brother had very few things in common, but he did love aquariums. He preferred the turtles though. He admired the fact that they had a built in hiding place. All they had to do was pull their legs and head in and they were hidden.

“I’ll tell the penguins about you when I see them,” she told him.

. . .

Saturday Laura Dell prepared to walk the short distance to the aquarium. She dressed in layers, again missing the warmth of Alabama. She knew that it would be busy on this cold morning, but she looked forward to it. Sometimes the museum seemed so cold and devoid of life.

When she came across the turtles she stopped and spent some time reading about them. The aquarium housed a family of Alligator Snapping Turtles. She read that they used to be found often in the southeast US, but had been hunted to the point that it was rare now to find them in their original homes. Laura Dell was surprised to learn that the turtles were not as unintelligent as people commonly thought. Growing up she always made fun of John William for liking an animal that was considered to be so stupid. She looked forward to telling him about them during their next phone call.

She moved on through the museum, quickly bypassing the tarantula and the eels. She slowed down when she came upon the sea otters, sea lions, and the colorful fish that were so popular with the children also visiting the aquarium this morning. These had all been some of her favorites as a child too.

Laura Dell stopped in her tracks when she got to the Beluga Whales. It looked like one of the whales was smiling at her. She wasn’t sure it was possible for a whale to make eye contact with someone or smile at them, but that was exactly what she thought was happening.

In the moment of connection with this animal, Laura Dell realized how alone she had been. The only people she knew in this city were connected to, but also confined to, the museum. She looked around at the faces passing by her and thought about how different this city was from Siloam. In the south it was common courtesy to at least smile at people as you passed them, whether you knew them or not. Here it seemed like people looked right through her.

Perhaps her loneliness is what led her to connect so to Dr. Walters. She would never have taken to someone so quickly under other circumstances and she wondered if he felt as alone as she did. He had shown her warmth and kindness when she had no one else.

She still felt bad about the way she had acted that night she had had dinner with him and Eddie. She was ashamed that she had shut down when he had tried to talk to her. He was missing for a few days after that, but one day she walked in and he was there again sitting on the bench writing in his notebook as usual. She had tried to talk to him about it, but he said it was no big deal and he felt better. Again he reminded her of John William, as he too was a bad liar.

He continued talking to her and quizzing her and occasionally asking about her past, but she thought he was afraid to delve to deep again after what had happened that night. Some days he didn’t come at all and he never explained where he was, but he was starting to look pale and he had developed a persistent cough.

For the most part Dr. Walters talked about his time in Germany and France working on the dig, he seemed to miss it, but he was always excited about his work with the Ornithological Society. He enjoyed telling Laura Dell about his experiences and she enjoyed hearing about them.

Laura Dell moved on from the whales and continued through the aquarium. She stopped again when she got to the penguins and was immediately drawn to the smaller ones darting around. She loved to watch them dance in the water with each other.

She had been interested in penguins from the moment she realized they were birds that couldn’t fly. Her father had given her a stuffed animal of a penguin a long time ago and she had cherished it ever since. It was grey and fuzzy, a baby penguin. She had a small collection of them back in Siloam. There were only a few things that had made it from Alabama to Chicago, but the stuffed animal from her father was one of them.

She watched them for a while longer and imagined that she would tell her father about them on her visits to his grave the next time she was home.

She made her way through the rest of the museum, admiring the animals and soaking up the information about them. She stopped in the gift shop on the way out and bought a turtle stuffed animal for John Williams and a penguin one for herself. She didn’t have many things in her apartment that made it feel homey and hadn’t had time to shop much yet. These would be good additions.

Laura Dell headed home to eat lunch and regroup before spending an afternoon doing some grocery shopping. She had been living off of things that could be cooked in the microwave and soup for too long. She had a southern cookbook that her mother had given her and wanted to bring cooking back into her routine.

. . .

That night Laura Dell called John William to tell him about her day. The phone rang and rang and he didn’t answer. She left him a message, giving him a brief summary of her day, and telling him to call her back.

She cooked dinner and thought about what she was going to do the next day. She had considered finding a church, but didn’t know if she would be able to find one she fit with here. The cultural differences sometimes seemed to just be in the inflection of her voice, but sometimes she knew they ran deeper.

John William never called her back, but she hoped to hear from him tomorrow.