The Horizon Seekers

By Mary Clark

Leila Payson moves from the present to the future seamlessly and tries to make her visions real. She teaches high school, but she is more than her job and her role as dutiful daughter, she is a kind of pioneer. Meanwhile, mystery follows Leila. She is haunted by early trauma, but is it memory or a dream? She confides only to her funky, no-nonsense best friend, Caroline. Then there's her first love, Nick, weaving in and out of her life. Her vision had sent her to South Africa in her twenties, where she met Baruti, an occupational therapist who works with people with disabilities. This experience changes her way of teaching and relating to others. She keeps up a correspondence with him about education, disability, and social justice. Now, years later, one of Leila's students learns he is losing his hearing. When he asks her to join his support team, she does, and begins to rethink her occupation. Meanwhile, her friends are on their own journeys. She accompanies them with humor and patience, and they reciprocate; all in support for positive work and for love. Maria is a female Don Quixote, sending aid to family and friends back in Cuba; Dov is a gay event planner living in Miami Beach, who falls in love with a Cuban bird guide; Charles is a "key rat" who loves racing; and Mark is an occupational therapist who also loves nature, as Leila does, and works to improve the lives of people injured or born with disabilities.
But their paths are fraught with challenges, even danger. Leila worries Maria's charity will go too far, Dov is separated from his love, and Mark must make a choice between her and his work overseas. For each, the horizon beckons, but will their paths converge?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Clark
• Release date: Feb 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9798201016357

Mary Clark

Mary Clark spent her formative years in Florida where she was infused with awe and respect for the natural world. She was also aware of the lives of migrant workers, segregation, and the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement. She graduated from Rutgers-Newark College of Arts and Sciences. In 1975, she moved to New York City and worked in the arts programs of St. Clement's Church in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood. For many years she worked for community organizations and founded a community newspaper.She is the author of Tally: An Intuitive Life (All Things That Matter Press); Community: Journal of Power Politics and Democracy in Hell's Kitchen; Into The Fire: A Poet's Journey through Hell's Kitchen; the poetry novel, Children of Light (Ten Penny Players' BardPress), and Covenant: Growing Up in Florida's Lost Paradise. In her latest novel, Passages, a young aspiring writer explores sex, gender, fame, poverty, and love in 1970s New York City.

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The Horizon Seekers

A Horizon Seekers Novel

Volume 1

Mary Clark

This book is for Alexandra Ellis Palmer

Copyright © Mary Clark 2016

Revised with new title 2021

Thank you for respecting copyright laws by purchasing this book. Your support is greatly appreciated. All rights are reserved, and no part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, or transmitted in any form electronically, mechanically, or by photocopying, recording, or otherwise, including through information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book, or the facilitation of such, without the author’s permission are frowned upon and legally prohibited. The only exception is the use of brief quotations in printed reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents in this book are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events other than historical ones, is purely coincidental.

Contents

Chapter 1 Miss Pacer

Chapter 2 Miami Morning

Chapter 3 El Carretero

Chapter 4 The Cloud

Chapter 6 The Happy Hat

Chapter 6 Flash Dance

Chapter 7 Transformations

Chapter 8 To Africa, To Work

Chapter 9 Safe Landing?

Chapter 10 The Search

Chapter 11 Alternative Lives

Chapter 12 Bonfires

Chapter 13 Mother-Daughter Trip

Chapter 14 Music of Human Interaction

Chapter 15 Like the Ocean

Chapter 16 Runaway

Chapter 17 Shared Universe

Chapter 18 The Whirlwind

Chapter 19 Is There an App for That?

Chapter 20 Big Beach Teach Party

Chapter 21 A Trip on the Legacy

Chapter 22 Birds of Inspiration

Chapter 23 Like a Flamingo

Acknowledgements

About The Author

Other Books by Mary Clark

Poem by Hart Crane

And Bees of Paradise

I had come all the way here from the sea,

Yet met the wave again between your arms

Where cliff and citadel--all verily

Dissolved within . a sky of beacon forms--

Sea-gardens lifted rainbow-wise through eyes

I found.

Yes, tall, inseparably our days

Pass sunward. We . have walked the kindled skies

Inexorable and girded with your praise,

By the dove filled, and bees of Paradise.

Chapter 1 Miss Pacer

Leila Payson’s long legs kick down the halls. She feels like a human version of giraffe with her high-kneed gait. She is amazed her life is not more of a circus.

Hello, Miss Pacer.

Leila smiles at the Miss Pacer, a quip from friend Caroline, another teacher, who said, You have that fun way of walking, like you’re prancing. Miss Pacer.

She watches students file into her Social Studies class. They make their way, nodding or saying hello. In the first months of a school year, she will learn what to expect from each of her students. They fill the oyster shell of the room, bringing in a soft, early fall breeze and pad-tapping of sneakers.

One student, Raoul, comes in, looking tense, and moves through the seats. One of the more talkative boys his age, Raoul has been less active in class discussions for the past month. His work and test scores are falling off, not in a death spiral, but a slow glide.

Leila watches, her hands in yoga prayer position, then moving to her sides with the slow beat of flight.

The topic today is economic alliances and geopolitics. A lively discussion begins with some students arguing that individual leaders are the driving forces in society, but others emphasize major events including hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, and environmental change. Another says that cultural and religious beliefs, and group identification, are important. The class moves on to different views of ethics and economics.

It’s good to see how all these play a role. Leila gazes around the room. And whether they are integrated and balanced. She is conscious of their eyes on her. What about the human spirit?

Yeah, yeah. The student sitting behind Raoul waves his hand. We always trying to be … he searches for the words, what we cannot. I mean, we can’t be god, but we want to be, or to be close to god.

You mean being all-knowing, and having power?

No. He shakes his head. I mean being good.

Leila reflects on this before she answers, The human spirit is always moving us toward that goal, I think.

Why is it so hard?

We struggle with the right thoughts and actions. For instance, do you think we can achieve the good by adopting another’s views? How do we know what the right thing is?

Raoul shifts in his seat.

Raoul, what do you think?

The boy sitting behind Raoul nudges him.

Leila is pained to see his embarrassment. I think this class is awesome, Raoul. She keeps her voice calm to quell the incipient whispers and giggles. Do you understand me?

Again, Raoul’s expression is blank. Studying her face, he answers, Yes. Then a flash of anger crosses his face.

As if she’s tricked him? She walks closer. How many of you would like to live somewhere else?

About half the hands are raised. Raoul looks around at the class. I like it here.

That’s your assignment for tonight. I want to see some close reasoning. Why do you want to stay? What are the factors that make you want to leave or go back?

After class Leila strides, or in what she wills to be a stride, to the nurse’s office. I think Raoul is having trouble hearing.

The nurse listens to her story. Here’s a form to fill out so we can contact the parents and get the proper tests done.

What could cause this? He was hearing well earlier this year.

It could be a number of things. Infection, probably. The nurse glances away, rubbing the top of one hand. Then again, it could be something a lot worse.

Cancer? Brain cancer? Alarm shoots through Leila, shivering down her arms. She is glad now she didn’t ask him to stay after class. Her concern might have led to his fear and an emotional outburst: What if I have a brain tumor? What are you going to do about that, Miss Pacer?

Chapter 2 Miami Morning

Leila walks from her bungalow toward the opening horizon, through the primal hum of dunes rise the calls of birds. An aroma of sun-warmed grass and sea breeze envelops her, the ocean an echoing presence calling to survivors. She’s risen early on the first morning of her forty-something life, feeling anticipation, a sense of being on the threshold of accomplishment.

November’s cool blue skies and fair ocean breezes embrace her as she walks by the curl and purl of the morning tide. She stops, as she often does, to gaze out to sea, and spots an improbably tall cruise ship heading to the Caribbean.

Waving, arm held high, she wishes them a happy journey and life-affirming adventure. She smiles: the ship is probably too far away for anyone on board to see her gesture of goodwill—just then she sees a flash from the ship’s deck. A reflection from a pair of binoculars or a random burst of light?

Intoxicated by the sharp scent of iodine and minerals from fresh-churned sand, she trots beside the lacy borders of waves washing ashore. The rolling waves remind her of the invisible waves that travel between human beings, and while those in the ocean are strong and substantial and carry an insistent power, they are less mysterious than the intricacy, complexity, and resilience of human interaction.

And, she thinks, we are only just beginning to learn how that works.

A breeze through the palms plays notes that move through the scales from a lullaby with a rustling texture to sharp crisp chords. Quiet hymns. Bold overtures. By the shore, she hears the orchestra of the sea breeze: gusts frisking through the lyre of strangler fig, syncopated notes in coconut palms, waves surging over coral reefs, and the percussion of crabs clicking on the jetties. She pauses to watch the sailboat ballet on Biscayne Bay.

This is a wonderful way to celebrate her forty-first birthday and more than fifteen years as a high school teacher in Miami-Dade.

Turning toward home, she feels the rising heat. Her yard is sun-christened sand, pebbles, and scattered blades of grass. The bungalow, a concrete-block house, is swathed in the lingering romance of the old area of Cutler and cheek to cheek with the leafy suburbs of South Miami.

She lingers to look at the sun glowing on pale yellow walls. She’s roosted for a brief time in the frozen north and flown to foreign countries, but her nest in southern Miami is her own creation. It is home.

In her kitchen, she pours a cup of tea from a ceramic teapot, hand-painted with graffiti, gifted to her by an ex-student working at a pottery shop. She adds milk, a practice she learned from her grandmother Delilah Garrigus. This simple pleasure she carries with her, along with the meme of the formidable woman sitting in her wingback chair with Florida sunlight, unforgiving and forgiving at the same time, on her parchment face: how much had been written there and could be read by those who would dare.

And her daughter, Leila’s mother, had been expert at hiding her thoughts in the shadow cast by the older woman. Usually open and welcoming, Leila remembered her mother’s mysterious absences from the home one weekend each month. She wanted no one to accompany her, saying she was working with one of her charity groups.

Leila takes her tea and walks onto the covered patio at the back of her home. A Savannah sparrow on sojourn from its flock alights on a nearby clump of beach grass. The little bird cocks its head as Leila stretches out in the lounge chair.

Tea is a great aid for knitting together past and present; she is thinking of her friend Dov at the beginning of school one year ago to the day. He was leaning against a wall in a school corridor, fighting back tears.

I’ve been laid off, he said, his voice husky. I found a pink slip in my mailbox this afternoon.

Oh, Dov, no. She had wanted to put her arms around him, but that would be considered inappropriate by the school administration. She moved to stand close beside him, letting her silent vigil speak for itself. What the h-e-double-toothpicks, she said. What are they thinking of?

He shrugged.

Her temper flared: time to fight back. Is there anything I can do? The teachers’ union? A petition of support?

I don’t think so. The district’s cutting the budget again. The whole art department’s been hit hard.

What are you going to do?

Don’t know. He pushed away from the wall. I really just don’t know.

They stood in the shade, in the damp coolness of the corridor. You’re a talented teacher. I know you’ll find something soon.

Thanks, Leila. He looked away.

His hands were shaking, and Leila remembered his invitation to dinner for her birthday.

You don’t have to take me to dinner.

No, it’s your birthday, he said. You took me to a dinner on my birthday. He straightened up, shoulders back. The Happy Hat in South Beach.

You don’t owe me—

And not just any birthday, he said, it’s the big 4-0.

As they walked to the school parking lot, Dov gave her directions to a Miami Beach café. It’s my new favorite place.

Leila made a note on her Smartphone and dropped it into her zip-top slouch tote bag. Then she did the inappropriate appropriate: she hugged him.

The video will be on YouTube in five seconds. Dov’s face showed a wisp of his wry smile.

Driving home in her maroon Chevy Malibu to change into more casual clothes, Leila held the steering wheel in a death grip as Dov’s peril, his fear flooded through her.

Releasing her grip, she was ashamed by her next thought: she had tenure, a protection that was becoming a thing of the past, thanks to the state legislature. Dov was not so fortunate; he had lost his chance at tenure during a break when he taught for several years at a private school.

After a quick change, Leila eased the Chevy out of her carport and onto a road lined with giant live oaks. Heading toward Miami Beach, the gulls’ high-pitched cries and whine of rush-hour traffic nearly drowned out a low-throated boat horn and bass notes of tidal currents washing against the bridge. As though YoYo Ma were playing a cello sonata on the causeway while sprites and robots flew overhead.

In front of the café in South Beach she found an empty parking space, and another space beside it, a double miracle to find on the overdeveloped sandbar.

While she stood on the sidewalk, Dov angled his pragmatics-r-us Honda Accord into the other parking spot. When he stepped out, he looked even more voguish and certainly roguish in black Levis and vintage Polo shirt than he ever had in his Calvin Klein-Van Heusen teacher’s costume.

The parking gods are with us, she said.

Again, his smile was feeble.

Why did she say that? She wanted to refer to good fortune, but this sounded more like luck, and that could go either way.

Dov’s true smile, a mix of fatalism and rebellion, sprang back. At least that.

He showed her to an outside table where a waiter took their drink orders. Leila read the name above the plate glass window: The Fusion Café.

The school offered me retraining. Dov glowered. I told them where to stuff it.

What will you do now?

I like a good party. He took a fortifying sip of his drink. I could be an event planner. I think I’ll start my own business.

Leila stared at the menu. She would give him money for rent or food, but she hesitated to invest in a friend’s business. On the other hand, why the hell not? What else would she invest in? She sensed where this caution of self-interest came from, and she hated it.

Dov turned his attention to the menu and started to read aloud the more amusing names of dishes offered by the café.

A year has passed, but she is willing to rethink her motives and actions and review them. She asks herself, is she being the best friend she can be to Dov? As a teacher, community volunteer, and friend, she wants to aid the lives of others, and work in all possible ways to set free the best in herself.

*

As Leila drives to school, she is in a world of shining buildings. Doors are at ground level or have moveable ramps. She looks at the open space, trees, and people on foot or sitting in compact pods that pass quietly. The most visible part are the people. Calm, smiling, in apparent good health, they move through a landscape designed to accommodate the natural beauty around them.

Where is this? she wonders. What has happened? A couple walk on what appears to be a continually moving mini-magical carpet. Next to them, a child rides, a child with dark glasses. Blind?

Leila presses a button, and when a portal opens, she realizes she knew that would happen. The couple pause, hovering on their carpet, which is malleable enough to form fit their feet.

Where is this?

‘The vine community."

What city?

Miami.

And um, I know this sounds odd, but what year is it?

We don’t think in years anymore. It’s the fourth quadrant. But if you want you can convert that to November 2084.

And your daughter, is she blind?

Yes.

I thought that could be engineered out.

We chose not to.

When Leila leaves the pod in a recharging slip, she walks to the school, and notices the building has changed. Gone is the brick and concrete and prison-like windows. It looks like wood and glass in artistic arrangement, a peaked roof on one section holding solar panels.

She tells herself it’s a vision. A look at an alternative life, at the future. It’s not real. Not yet anyway. To test this hypothesis, she touches a glass window. It feels hard, cool.

Walking into the school, the hallways revert to 2015. She shakes her head in disbelief. Am I losing my mind?

No, she decides. If I’m able to envision this, it might exist. Part of me is already living there.

The other teachers in the lounge, an animated bunch, are letting off steam, talking about their health, work, and families. The mathematics teacher places his I Like Pi Tervis Tumbler on the table, marking his spot across from Leila. Several teachers, one also the football coach, share the day’s observations about a problem student. These observations are necessary, or there can be some nasty surprises. A substitute teacher is in the lounge, and Leila hopes she knows these statements must be kept confidential.

In a small room to the side, Leila shares with two teachers what she suspects is going on with Raoul.

The mathematics teacher nods. I wondered why he’s been so quiet.

Good catch, the communication skills teacher offers before slipping out the door.

Back in her classroom, Leila reviews the state-regulated curriculum and Social Studies Pacing Guide, and her notes, for what needs to be taught that day. The teenagers are filtering into the classroom. She feels enthusiasm for what each day brings, but differently from her first day as a teacher when she stood at the front of the classroom, excitement in a new two-piece outfit, greeting the students as the captain of a mighty sailing ship.

How quickly she sailed off course. She and her classes spent weeks in the doldrums. After she drifted through a fog of Professional Development classes, the school principal, at his wit’s end, sent her to a specialist—a bearded pirate with a wicked smile.

"I’m