“At what, a company?” He sponged his shirt with a cloth handkerchief from his jacket pocket.
Jersey didn’t answer right away, dragging the side of her hiking boot against the concrete sidewalk. “At a cell phone company, okay?” Her words came out harsher than she meant. “It’s a good job. I’d make somewhat close to the amount I do here after six years on the job.”
“But you’ll pay more than double in rent.”
“So what?” Hot anger flushed her cheeks. “What does it matter to you if I leave anyway?”
Taka looked up at the stars briefly then turned calmly to face her. “Are you sure that’s what you want, Jersey?”
His question hung in the air like a whiff of SUV exhaust from the main road—lingering after the dust settled. A soft wind blew, scuttling a Burger King wrapper across the sidewalk. “Everybody thinks being a park ranger is such a glamorous job, but it’s not.” She crossed her arms. “It’s demanding. It’s frustrating. And frankly, much of the time it’s unappreciated.”
She tipped her head sideways to scratch her head, which felt itchy under her hair and that ranger hat. “Don’t get me wrong. I love my work, and I don’t do it for thanks. But if it’s not making a difference, then why bother? I could get ten hours of sun on my face by feeding people through turnstiles at an amusement park—and a lot less stress.”
“Of course you’re making a difference.” Taka folded his handkerchief and blotted some more.
Jersey paused, momentarily distracted by the idea of a grown man who carried a cloth handkerchief. Most men she knew, like Nelson, either used (1) a battered KFC napkin from the car dash or (2) his sleeve.
“My work makes a difference to who, Taka? The few retired hikers who volunteer to come pick up trash? Or the kids who really get excited about butterflies and deer and want to go into conservation or wildlife studies?” Her eyes softened. “Possibly. But I’m not so sure anymore. Most of the time I’m just confirming what they already know. I’m not teaching them anything new.”
A Schwan’s delivery truck rumbled along the shrubby road in front of the vet clinic, its headlights splashing bright artificial light through the patch of oxeye daisies.
Taka finished his tea then sighed and started to gather up his Thermos. “Still,” he said softly, his movements echoing on the hard wooden bench. “I think it means something that you still tell people the truth.”
Jersey sipped the last of her tea and handed him back his mug. “Maybe.”
“No,” said Taka sternly, not smiling. “Not maybe. There’s nothing greater in life than to speak the truth with your whole being—your whole life—as if nothing else ever really mattered. Because it doesn’t.”
He leaned forward, his eyes as black as the scoop of obsidian sky overhead. “Living out God’s truth is the most beautiful thing in the world, Jersey. Art beyond comparison. The only thing that ever lasts.”
Jersey sat there, frozen, staring at a crack in the sidewalk. And as if in slow motion, Taka reached into his pocket and pulled out a mechanical pencil with a too-long syringe of spiny lead. He twirled the end on a long, loose strand of Jersey’s hair that had escaped its messy bun, and it twinkled in shadowy copper strands.
“Did you ever think that one day this hair will lose its pigment?”
“What?” Jersey snatched her hair back. “And give me that pencil, too, before you poke somebody.” She grabbed it, wishing he’d brought his ridiculous onion pencil case. “And what does my hair have to do with anything?”
“We’re finite.” Taka’s voice came out raspy, so quiet she had to lean forward to hear it. “Our days are numbered. You should wear your hair down.” He snatched his pencil back and stuck it defiantly in his pocket, right next to the bird’s nest. “It’s beautiful. It’s part of your truth—part of who you are. You should take pride in who you are and what you do and celebrate it—celebrate your Creator—with every single breath. That’s what I do. And I’ll do it for the rest of my life—no matter what anybody else thinks.”
And with that, Taka got up and ran a hand through his thick hair, making it stand up in garish black spikes. Glasses askew. And he walked a few paces away, staring up at the moon with a face full of pure wonder, as if he’d never seen it before.
Chapter 4
Hiya, Jersey. You awake?” Phyllis’s anxious voice chirped into Jersey’s cell phone as she struggled to force her eyes open. A stream of sunlight poured across the foot of her bed in a lumpy rectangular shape, creating a halo around the caramel-blond hairs of her cat Gordon’s belly.
“Phyllis?” Jersey rubbed her face and sat halfway up in bed, careful not to kick Gordon as she rooted around for a clock on her bedside table. 8:10. Not an ungodly hour compared to the four-thirties and five o’clocks she usually pulled. “Shorty didn’t die, did he?”
“Huh? No. Not that I’m aware. The only reason the vet called the ranger station was to tell us that they found one of ‘our’ researchers asleep on the front bench when they unlocked this morning and to ask if he was all right.”
“Taka.” Jersey slapped her forehead and let her palm drag down her face. “Something is seriously wrong with that guy. I’m not kidding.”
“Did you know he rides a unicycle? Nelson found out that one from a friend of his at Caltech.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“And he used to foster kids through social services, too. I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Me either.” Jersey grimaced. “Would you trust your kid with a man who rides unicycles and sleeps on benches?”
Phyllis laughed, but it sounded thin. “Well, anyway, are you still going this morning?”
“Going?” Jersey stared at the clock with bleary eyes, trying to register what the numbers were saying. “Going where? To pick up Taka? No. Let him get his own ride home—the weirdo. Maybe we should drop off a unicycle at the vet’s.”
Phyllis paused again. “No, Jersey. To church where that good-lookin’ pastor speaks. You said you were going today.”
“Church?” Jersey sat up straight, running a hand through her mass of wild hair as the awareness sank in. “Right. Of course—it’s Sunday. Hold on a second. Why, are you coming, too, Phyllis?”
She didn’t answer, and Jersey heard faint shuffling on the other side. Phyllis’s muted voice as she spoke to someone in the background.
“Hey, if you want to come, I’ll pick you up.” Jersey swung both feet over the bed and wiggled her toes in the rug. “No problem. So long as my front door opens of course. It’s been giving me fits again. I had to use the kitchen window for a solid week until the repair guy finally showed up.”
The line stayed silent, and Jersey tentatively took it as a yes. Which was usually how Phyllis went about her sporadic church visits—not quite daring to mouth the request herself out loud.
“I’ll be there in half an hour. If you’re not out on the porch, I’m telling Don you agreed to do my report for me.”
“What? No way!” Phyllis shrieked. “If you think I’m going to sit in front of that broken computer and hack away at some ridiculous piece of rubbish that isn’t worth the—”
Jersey clicked the phone off in the middle of Phyllis’s harangue, as she always did. Smirking to Gordon. “You lazy stinker.” She rubbed his ears. “If somebody paid me a buck for every hour you sleep, I’d be a millionaire. And then I wouldn’t have to do funding reports for Don or anyone else.”
Gordon gave a toothy grin in reply, reminding her of Shorty, and yawned—showing the corrugated pink roof of his mouth and pointy little teeth that left marks in leather mice, plastic bottle tabs flicked across the kitchen floor, and an old sandal of Jersey’s that now defied recognition.
Jersey dragged herself to the kitchen for coffee then through a warm shower of hard, sulfur-scented water, which her ten-dollar-a-trim hairstylist swore did a number on her hair.
Her hair. Jersey ran a hand through it, staring at her reflection in the mirror and remembering Taka’s words in the shad
ows outside the vet clinic, the moon pouring down pale on her gingery strands.
He was correct about one thing—she was losing pigment all right. Right there—a long silver-white one glinting in the overhead light. And there, another one. And two more. How had she never noticed these? Or had she even bothered to stop and check after she pulled off her ranger hat in the evening, scalp and armpits sweaty from hiking through mud pits?
Jersey dug in her bathroom cabinet drawer for some tweezers and plucked out the gray. Then she fluffed her long hair with her fingers and noticed—for maybe the first time—a dull haze of broken fuzz along the back of her hair where she tied it back in its knot. She leaned forward, studying her reflection, and then rooted through messy bottles and cleaning products under her cabinet. Searching for the sample packet of repair serum her hairdresser had scolded her to use like … oh, eight months ago.
She scrubbed the serum through her hair, inhaling its lavender-y sweetness, and dug through her closet for something to wear to church. Her hands stopped on the ubiquitous baggy gray sweatshirt she usually lived in on weekends.
But as she pulled it out of the closet, it felt … wrong. Like cheating.
Instead Jersey rinsed out her hair and sprayed on an ancient conditioning spray, another stylist freebie, and stood in front of her closet again. Instead of the sweatshirt, she found herself tugging on a pair of nice jeans (that is, the ends weren’t completely ragged). What else? A camel-colored button-up shirt that made a foil for her gingery hair—split ends and all. A coppery woven blazer since the sky looked a bit cool.
Yep. That did the trick. Jersey turned in front of the mirror, surprisingly self-conscious at the play of colors and tailored shapes that suited her tall figure. She wasn’t a whale, exactly, but she wasn’t a toothpick either. Somewhere in the vague “thirties” definition of average, which included a bit of spread and slide from a once-tight abdomen and slim hips.
But still. That was her truth anyway: Jersey Peterson, thirty-three. And yet still a woman under all those split ends and masculine-shaped ranger’s digs.
She should probably look through her drawer for that coral pink lipstick, or at least some earrings, but the ranchers who frequented her little white clapboard church in their muddy boots wouldn’t care one way or the other.
And yet. What if they did, or what if they didn’t? This was her life, and as Taka said, she should live it to the full.
Jersey found the lipstick and tucked a simple New Mexican turquoise oval into each ear, gritting her teeth as she pushed the gold earring back through nearly closed holes in her earlobes. After all, how long had it been since she’d worn earrings? That ‘80s party Phyllis held at her house two years ago and those oversized, neon yellow bangles?
Jersey caught a glimpse of herself in the bedroom mirror as she pushed the top drawer closed: cheeks flushed and eyes bright. Her hair loose and glossy.
As if she were celebrating.
Jersey slammed her kitchen window shut and slid into her ancient Volkswagon—still boxy from mid-’90s design. It sported an extra feature that was worth every penny: automatically heated front seats. A godsend in the snowy winter months.
Phyllis’s house lay just twelve minutes away—around a couple of bends, through some rich pastureland, and over a bumpy railroad track. The church though, took an extra twenty-five to reach—following a lonely ribbon of road that stretched endlessly through rolling Wyoming prairie. Power transformers, the only interruption of a perfectly vast horizon, lined up into the hazy distance like skeletal gingerbread men.
Jersey pulled up at the little white clapboard building in a thin forest of pines, distinctive only as a church by its silent pointed white steeple, and parked in a patch of dusty gravel. Phyllis got out beside her and shut the door, its sharp sound echoing across the grove of pines to the double outhouse.
“You okay, Phyllis?” Jersey paused on her way up the simple concrete front steps, just past the low metal bar where ranchers wiped their muddy boots before entering the church. “You just seem … upset today.”
“Nah. Everything’s fine.” Phyllis gave a weak smile and patted Jersey’s shoulder. “I’m just worried about Shorty.”
“You, too, huh?” Jersey’s gaze lingered on the side of Phyllis’s short, curly ‘do a minute longer, sizing her up.
“Yeah. Poor thing. Wait’ll I get my hands on whoever did that.” Phyllis avoided her eyes, twirling a fake pearl pendant. She flipped a strand of Jersey’s hair a little too brightly. “And what about you, all dolled up. Look at that hair. I haven’t seen you wear it down since … well, have I ever? What’s the occasion?”
“Occasion? No occasion.” Jersey touched her turquoise earring nervously. “Just trying to live out my truth. As Taka puts it.”
“What truth?” Phyllis paused, halfway into the shadowy interior. One shaft of light made the liquid blue-gray of her eyes stand out behind her glasses.
“That God lives.” Jersey’s words leaped unexpectedly from her mouth, surprising even herself. “And He lives in me.”
Phyllis froze, and eyelashes, pale in the sunlight, blinked rapidly. “Hmph,” she said. Sounding like Don when she’d turned in her last funding report.
Jersey pushed open the church door with a loud groan of weathered timbers, barnlike, and slipped into the hushed sanctuary. This was it—a sanctuary. No Sunday school rooms, no foyer. Not even a bathroom. Just a few rows of rough pine benches, a wooden altar table with a Bible, a podium, and a wooden cross made of old barn planks nailed to the back wall.
The simplicity of the place enchanted her—no, fed her. After all the clutter of job decisions and disappointments, the simple pine boards spoke security. Strength. Endurance. No ornaments, no fancy trappings. A God who came near, without fanfare, and humbled Himself to birth in a manger for animal feed.
A God who loved ranchers that wiped manure off their boots before entering His sanctuary and park rangers who crawled out kitchen windows on their way to church.
“That’s the pastor, isn’t it?” Phyllis whispered.
Jersey turned, wondering why everyone whispered. It must be the reverent hush, the sacred silence that spread out under the pines and beneath the rough wooden cross.
“Oh yeah. That’s Pastor Jeff.” Jersey reached out to shake his hand—a ruddy hand, calloused. A hand to match a tall and brawny frame, weather-lined face, and black eyes. Despite his name, Pastor Jeff Cox was Shoshone—and a plumber by trade.
“I told you he’s good-lookin’,” Phyllis whispered when he passed.
“Shh.” Jersey scowled, smacking Phyllis’s beige-pants-clad knee. “He’s married, and so are you.”
“Well, you aren’t. What about that Mackenzie fella?”
“What?” Jersey gasped in horror. “Cut it out,” she whispered fiercely. “He’s twice my age!”
“No, he isn’t. He’s …” Phyllis paused, hand on her chin. “Okay. So maybe he is. But that doesn’t mean anything. Sixty’s not so old if you think about it.” She poked Jersey’s arm. “That is if Nelson doesn’t walk into a wall when he sees you tomorrow, with your hair all down and all.”
“Phyllis! We’re in church. Quit!” Jersey hissed, putting a finger to her lips. “At least try to think about spiritual things, will you? Otherwise I’ll drop you off by yourself at that giant First Baptist downtown next week with nothing but a Bible and a Bundt cake—and you know those ladies will put you right to work.”
Phyllis pretended to zip her lips, affecting an exaggerated posture of horror.
The church had emptied, except for Pastor Jeff standing just outside the door, waiting to lock up with a plain padlock and chain. After all, what was there inside to steal? A couple of hymnbooks? But the church had been defaced once by a band of vandals, and only after that came the chain and then, reluctantly, the padlock.
Phyllis still sat there on the pew, staring down at her lap. Twisting her purse strap between shaking fingers.
“Phyllis,”
Jersey tentatively poked her arm, “what’s wrong?”
Phyllis didn’t answer. She just twisted the purse strap until Jersey thought it would pop off the metal hinge.
“What, the sermon?” Jersey ran a hand over her forehead, trying to understand. Some verses about God’s amazing power to change lives, and the simple testimony of a rancher who prayed for salvation just minutes before he planned to turn an old cattle pistol on his head. “Or the music? Sorry. I know I can’t sing, but I didn’t know it was that bad.”
Phyllis chuckled, but her eyes filled with tears. She looked away, face crumpling, and then buried her head in her hands. Shoulders shaking.
Out of the corner of her eye, Jersey could see Pastor Jeff lean inside the building, his face lined with worry and compassion, and then he lowered his forehead into a wrinkled hand. Eyes closed and free arm raised slightly toward Phyllis, lips moving in silent prayer.
“Phyllis?” Jersey tucked a tentative arm around Phyllis’s shoulders, not sure what to say or do. Bungling butterfingers that she was sometimes. “What’s going on? I was kidding about the First Baptist thing, you know.”
Phyllis sniffled and dug in her purse for a tissue, taking off her glasses. “I dreamed about her again,” she finally managed through sob-tight breaths.
Jersey leaned closer to hear better. “Dreamed about who, Phyllis?”
Phyllis’s face contorted again, and Jersey had to hold her breath to understand the words. “About … about my daughter. I saw her last night.”
Jersey’s mouth opened for the words to fly out, and at the last minute, she smacked her lips together. Phyllis doesn’t have a daughter.
She had two sons—one fifteen and one seventeen. Both rosy brown boys with laughing eyes and black curly hair like their dad.
“Before I married Terrance,” Phyllis whispered through a voice choked with grief. “I was nineteen years old. Mother said I was too young and Terrance was no good for me.” She covered her face in white-knuckled hands. “And I believed her.”
Yellowstone Memories Page 33