Yellowstone Memories

by Spinola, Jennifer Rogers

  “What do you call it … epoxy?”

  “Oh.” She narrowed her eyes in irritation. “Well, I don’t think we’ve got anything beyond your basic Elmers.”

  “I can try to fix it.”

  Jersey turned to Taka in mounting exasperation. “You really think you know something about squirrels?” She shook the stiff, brushlike tail. “Long-dead squirrels?”

  He bowed slightly and held out his palm.

  “Fine.” Jersey reluctantly handed over the pieces. “But don’t mess it up any worse than it is, okay? Don raised this thing from a little ball of fluff, and he bawled like a baby when it got thumped in the head by a speeding car. Seriously. I think he had to spend some time in rehab to deal with the grief and … What are you doing?”

  Taka didn’t reply, rooting around on the walls and pulling down corners of Wyoming and Yellowstone Park maps.

  “Hey, hey—what are you doing?” Jersey jumped up to press the maps back in place. Mentally kicking herself for giving a nerdy researcher Don’s prized squirrel.

  Taka scraped a bit of putty from the corner of a Yellowstone Falls poster and rolled it into a ball. He took a plastic coffee stirrer from the cup near Phyllis’s shoulder, where she crouched, furiously scrubbing coffee from the carpet.

  Jersey stood over Taka, hands on her hips, as he sat down at the table. Poking around inside the body of the squirrel. He broke off the coffee stirrer and fitted it inside then calmly produced a mini sewing kit from his backpack—the kind with needles and tiny thread spools—and began to thread a needle.

  “You carry a sewing kit?” Jersey tipped an eyebrow upward.

  “Glue?” Taka glanced up at her without taking her bait.

  “Umm … let me check the supply closet.” Jersey squeaked open the closet door and sorted through several boxes of flyers, markers, and scissors, and finally found it: a battered old bottle of Elmers wood glue, the orange cap crusted with repeated drenchings of yellowish stuff. Wondering where in the world Caltech got oddballs like Taka Shimamori.

  “You think it’s gonna work?” She held out the bottle to Taka.

  He adjusted his glasses and took the glue without looking up. Giving her a curt nod.

  Jersey rolled her eyes, but she stayed by the table, peering over his shoulder as he fitted together some kind of structure on the inside, holding it together with putty. Then he threaded together the two squirrel pieces, stitching carefully through the hard skin along the broken edge. Dabbing on glue with the end of the coffee stirrer.

  Taka pressed the pieces together and reached for the log. He glued on the four feet, one at a time.

  And then—voilà. Good as new.

  “It’s a flying squirrel after all, no?” Taka chuckled. The first time Jersey had seen him smile.

  “Yeah, it is, actually.” Jersey surveyed his work then spun around in surprise. “Hey, did you just make a joke? That was pretty good.”

  Taka shrugged as if embarrassed. He set the squirrel on the far end of the table and then silently reached for his Thermos and poured a cup of briny-looking brown stuff. He sipped it as he lifted a stack of papers, a bird’s nest, a cluster of prickly nuts, and a shiny plastic pencil case decorated with smiling onions and pale blue Japanese kanji characters.

  “Ah. There it is.” He reached for a rogue mechanical pencil. “That’s what I was looking for.” And Taka settled down to work as if nothing had ever happened.

  “Thanks. The squirrel looks … amazing.” Jersey put it back in its place on the shelf and tipped her head sideways. “You wouldn’t know I broke the tail.” She turned back to Taka, who was busy making notes in a notebook, comparing something from a computer printout. “Where’d you learn to sew?”

  “Sorry?” Taka peered at her through his glasses, hand pausing on the mug. Condensation frosting on the outside. Meaning Taka probably kept some kind of cold herbal stuff inside his Thermos instead of the ubiquitous green tea most Japanese carried around.

  Jersey hoped one of those spiny nuts wasn’t an ingredient. Or, heaven forbid, whatever came out of that bird’s nest either.

  “Sewing,” she repeated. “Where’d you learn sewing? You know. With the needle and thread.” Jersey imitated stitching. “Who taught you?”

  A flicker of irritation flashed through his dark eyes. “I know what sewing is.”

  Jersey stepped back, involuntarily facing her palms outward. “Sorry. Just asking.”

  Taka still seemed reticent, so she turned back to the closet to replace the glue. “I’ll just … put this away and be out of your hair. Thanks for the help.”

  She retreated to the closet and took her time wiping the cap and replacing the glue, making a face in the darkness. Weird. That’s what Taka was.

  Taka said something, so softly Jersey had to stop shuffling boxes to try to hear him.

  “Sorry?” She leaned away from the baskets of scissors for kids’ nature crafts.

  “My mother,” said Taka, clearing his throat. Tapping his papers together, upright, in a perfect stack. “She was a seamstress. A very good one.”

  And he dropped his papers back on the desk and began to work again, only briefly lifting his dark eyes to meet hers. So quickly that Jersey wondered if she’d blinked or actually seen it.

  Was, he’d said. “My mother was a seamstress.”

  Jersey twisted her wooden T-shaped pendant around her neck as she studied him. “Well.” She softened her tone. “Your mother taught you well.”

  And she slid the glue back and closed the closet door.

  Jersey was on her knees under the computer trying to find the main power switch, when her walkie-talkie in her belt clip crackled, making her jump. She banged her head against the underside of the computer desk so hard that Taka dropped his mechanical pencil from across the room.

  She groaned, rubbing the tender spot on her head, and reached for her walkie-talkie.

  “Jersey?” Nelson’s voice came over the connection, harsh and staticky. “Sorry to interrupt, but I need your help. We’ve got a bear incident on our hands.”

  Jersey depressed the button. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. Wish I was. Phyllis will have to take over your tour after lunch. But I need you here for backup. A guy’s been mauled, and his wife’s hysterical. She saw the bear charge and fled to get help, so we’re not even sure if he’s alive. The emergency crew’s here, ambulance on its way, but I need you to talk to reporters and field questions.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Jersey crawled out from under the computer and nearly knocked down Phyllis, who was bent over the copier changing paper. “Sorry. Bear attack over by the lake.”

  She hurried through the room rapid-fire, grabbing up her keys, wallet, and cell phone and throwing them all in her backpack. Taka watched her, his pencil poised over paper.

  Jersey looked up, shoving a first-aid kit in her pack and trying to zip it closed, struggling with the stuck zipper on one side. “You … need something, Taka?”

  “No. Sorry.” He jumped as if embarrassed, fidgeting with his pencil. “Actually, yes. You’re headed to the lake?”

  “On an emergency call.” Jersey didn’t look up, shaking her bag and pulling at the zipper. “Why?”

  Taka hesitated then reached over and pulled out the tangled strands of fabric from the zipper with the tip of his pencil. Smoothly zipping it closed and pushing it back across the table to her. “Would you mind maybe … well, giving me a ride?”

  “To the lake?” Jersey stammered, turning her bag over in amazement. “And … thanks. You fixed it. This thing always jams.”

  “If I won’t be in the way. I’ve got some equipment to set up, some herds to count. I’ll probably spend the rest of the day there.”

  Jersey slung her bag over her shoulder, pressing her lips together as she tried to figure him out. “Aren’t you with Caltech on some important grant? And don’t they … well, pay for your transportation?”

  Slight color rose
in Taka’s pale cheeks. “My car’s in the shop. But it’s okay. I’ll see if someone else can take me later.”

  Wonderful. Make me the bad guy. Jersey sighed and shook her head. “It’s okay, Taka. If you go right now, I’ll take you. But I can’t wait, and I can’t promise to bring you back.”

  “No problem. I’m ready.” Taka slapped his laptop closed and grabbed up his papers, plus two giant duffle bags of stuff. He threw the prickly nuts in a laptop bag pocket and stuffed the bird’s nest carefully in the breast pocket of his ugly yellow Lacoste shirt. “Can I carry something for you?”

  Jersey stared as he reached for a third duffle, slinging it over his shoulder. “Maybe I should ask you the same thing.”

  “Sorry. Lot of gear. If it’s too much, I can stay behind.”

  Jersey tried not to look at the bird’s nest fibers sticking out of his shirt pocket. Probably housing all manner of lice and bird droppings. “It’s okay. Just throw your things in the back of the truck.”

  Jersey strode across gravel to the white ranger’s truck and tossed Taka’s duffles in the backseat, Taka trotting after her.

  “You sure carry a lot of stuff.” She pulled on her sunglasses and stepped up into the driver’s seat.

  “I know. Blood sampling kits, listening station setups for remote monitoring, bands, recording equipment.” Taka jumped in beside her, wedging two bags around his feet. Two bags that, from the gingerly way he handled them, probably cradled something fragile. Beakers of frogs floating in formaldehyde, perhaps?

  Jersey forced her eyes away. “All that stuff for monitoring elk?”

  “I monitor a few songbirds and butterflies, too. But mainly elk. Yes.”

  Jersey threw the truck into REVERSE, looking briefly over her shoulder to back out. “I figure a researcher like you would drive a pretty cool car, even if it’s in the shop.” Jersey glanced over at him as she checked the road for other vehicles. “Don’t you? Wait—let me guess.” Lacoste shirt. Caltech. “A Prius.” Her tone sounded smug in her ears.

  “A 1992 Honda Civic. I bought it as an undergrad from my roommate.”

  No wonder it was in the shop. Jersey let out her breath, sorry she’d been snappish with Taka. Especially when her eyes landed on the backpack zipper he’d so patiently fixed.

  “Wow. Your car’s older than mine, and that’s pretty hard to beat.” Jersey’s hands circled the steering wheel nervously as she tried to think of something to say.

  “People aren’t always what you think, you know,” Taka said quietly, shifting the bags around his feet.

  Jersey shot him a wry smile, her eyes fixed on the rearview mirror. “I used to think that,” she replied, shifting into a faster gear. “But I’m wiser now.”

  The white ranger’s truck bumped over a blur of rough-paved roads, past stands of lush summer pines that stood dark against the verdant green of open meadows. A glimmer of river sparkled in the distance, making a shiny slice through colorful spikes of lupines and sunflowers.

  Exactly the change of scenery from the windswept skyscrapers of Chicago that had enchanted Jersey on her first trip to Wyoming years ago. She’d come for an interview for an accounting job in Billings that hadn’t panned out, and instead of heading straight back to Chicago, she stopped by Yellowstone National Park to see the falls.

  There she’d stood in gawking awe, wind whipping her coppery hair and face soaked with waterfall mist—and for the first time in her life, Jersey knew exactly what she wanted to do.

  “So, Taka, you’re from Japan?” Jersey tried to make conversation, taking one hand off the steering wheel to fiddle with the cranky air-conditioning system.

  “Fukushima.”

  “Oh.” Jersey drove in uncomfortable silence, not sure if she should ask about the nuclear disaster following the tsunami or not. “Is your family okay?”

  Taka pressed his lips together. “Yes. Healthwise, anyway.”

  “Good. I … uh … heard about it in the news awhile back.” Jersey winced as she spoke. “Such a terrible thing to happen. I couldn’t even watch most of the news footage.”

  Taka played with the strap on one of his camera cases. “It’ll take us years to recover. And some people never will entirely.” He glanced at an area with sparse trees. “Sort of like the Yellowstone fires from 1988. The park has never been the same.”

  “You’re right about that.” Jersey flexed her hands on the steering wheel, not sure what to say. Taka’s left hand showed no wedding ring, and his face remained as unperturbed as ever: a pale mask with dark brown almond-shaped eyes under black-rimmed glasses. And the faintest bit of stubble along his jaw from where he’d missed shaving—the first hint of anything human—no, vulnerable—about Taka that Jersey had seen so far.

  “So … what’s Fukushima like?” She accelerated the truck around a curve, and a spatter of bright sunlight through the trees surprised her, falling warm on the side of her face.

  “Beautiful. Snow in the winter and cherry blossoms in the spring. White peaches so soft the juice runs down your chin.” He shot her a hint of a smile. “How about you? You must be from … let me guess. New Jersey.”

  “You didn’t.” Jersey lowered her sunglasses to scowl at him. “No. It’s just my name. Although I get that a lot. And I’m not from Wyoming either, so don’t bother asking.”

  “I know. Chicago, right?”

  Jersey’s head jutted back in surprise. “How’d you know that? I didn’t tell you.”

  “Well, for starters, the Bears mug you keep on your desk. And you put celery salt on hot dogs.”

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  He grimaced. “No.”

  “Oh.” Jersey shrugged. Show-off researcher. She glanced over at Taka, who looked like a college kid in his jeans and lace-up Converse sneakers—all of which clashed with his preppy button-up shirt. “I bet my name would be a pain to write in Japanese, wouldn’t it?”

  “You’d have to use katakana characters for foreign words.”

  “Right.”

  Taka raised his eyebrows. “You know about katakana?”

  Jersey jumped and quickly waved a hand. “Oh, I just see Japanese tourists with their pocket dictionaries, all trying to pronounce geyser names in some kind of Japanese characters. Making shapes on their hands with their fingers.” She traced an imaginary circle on her own palm while still gripping the steering wheel. When she looked up, Taka was already doing it.

  He laughed out loud—the first time she’d seen it.

  “I’m thinking how to write your name in katakana.” He wrinkled his brow. “Jersey. Jaa-zee. Maybe?” He narrowed his eyes, tracing shapes on his palm. “That’s a tough one.”

  “Told you.” Jersey glanced over. “Does your name mean something?”

  “Tall and honorable.” Taka made the invisible marks for the kanji on his palm. “Unfortunately, I’m … well, not really either one.”

  He said it so soberly, with those nerdy glasses, that Jersey choked back a horrified laugh with her fist. Willing herself to keep her mouth shut. She eased the truck to a lower gear as two grazing bison appeared in the field, backed by a serrated line of slate blue, snowcapped mountains—and quickly changed the subject.

  “Check out those bulls.” She pointed. “Big ones, huh?”

  Taka leaned toward the window. “Did you know Yellowstone bison retain the memory of migratory routes? I wonder if modern technological advancements might be hindering their breeding patterns to an extent that their rates of reproduction are low—which might, in fact, portend the creation of new migratory routes?”

  He rubbed his chin, seemingly oblivious to Jersey’s presence. “Then again, geneticists are finding out that many bison are not actually true bison but are instead bison-cow hybrids—so any testing of my hypotheses would be weakened.”

  I. Am. So. Sorry. I. Asked. “So you’re a biologist?” Jersey shifted again in her seat, speaking through her teeth. The ranger truck whizzed past a red Mustang pulled to the side of the
road, camera lenses sticking out of the windows in the direction of the bison. Jersey wished for a second she could pull over and toss Taka and his duffles in their backseat.

  “I’m not a biologist exactly. I started out in geology. I’m a biochemist who specialized in Macropodidae, initially, and I acquired my doctorate in Australia. But more recently I’ve been participating in a research group studying causes of animal migratory routes and patterns, such as magnetic fields and climate change.” Taka adjusted his glasses. “My field study is in terrestrial animal migration using light-stable isotopes. It’s not the cutting-edge thing anymore, but combined with protein-folding results and some interesting DNA markers unique to the genus, I’m coming up with some new theories.”

  Maybe I should just stop talking. “Ah. You’re going to be a professor.” Jersey’s voice sounded sarcastic in her ears.

  “Possibly.”

  “Well, while you’re here doing … well, whatever it is you’re doing, maybe you can help us watch for poachers because the numbers have spiked recently. Especially elk, for the antlers, but black bear, too. Animal parts draw big bucks on the Chinese medicine black market. And there’s simply no way we can patrol every inch of the park.”

  “You’re against hunting?”

  “Not at all—when it’s done legally and during the proper season. But the animals here in the park are somewhat tame, even the ones that forage in the wild—and they’re easier targets.” Jersey swallowed hard. “Poachers prey on the little ones or those that trust humans, or worse, they whack the head off for a trophy and leave the meat to rot. It ticks me off big-time.”

  Jersey stared out the window at the mountains, shaking her head. “People aren’t what they used to be, you know?”

  “On the contrary.” Taka cleared his throat. “I’d say that people haven’t changed much. They’ve always been more or less the same.”

  “You mean you believe that people are basically good at heart, with a few crotchety flaws?” Jersey gave a wry laugh. “I used to believe that, too. But I sure don’t now.”

  “Oh no. I meant that people have always been sinful. We’ve just developed different ways of covering it up through the years.”