Thorne Bay

by Jeanine Croft

  “You mean I have no filter.”

  “Which has been extremely entertaining thus far.” If his visor hadn’t been down over his eyes, I was sure I’d have seen him wink at me.

  “And you? Are you always honest?”

  “We’ve established that I try to be, but I’m not above using Jedi mind tricks to avoid questions I don’t want to answer.”

  “I had no idea you were such a nerd.”

  He flashed me another grin. “I’m an aerosexual, of course I’m a nerd.” Then, with an imperceptible Obi-Wan Kenobi wave of his left hand, he said, “Tell me all your deepest, darkest fears.”

  His Jedi mind trick wasn’t all that compelling, but, since I was in a confiding mood, I obliged him. “My worst fear is that I’ll disappoint my family, especially my mother. I’m so scared of making the wrong decisions, so for a while there it seemed safer not to make any at all.” I didn’t want to look back twenty years from now and regret all my mistakes. “I guess your mind trick worked after all.”

  “The Force is strong with me.” The dimple appeared again, where it always did. The force of it occasioning all kinds of wild fluttering in my chest.

  “Next you’ll be telling me you’re my father.” And actually, he did look a little Darth Vader-ish in that helmet.

  Thankfully, he seemed appropriately appalled by the idea. “Firstly, I wasn’t a promiscuous seven year old. Secondly, and more importantly, I don’t have a single paternal, or fraternal, feeling toward you, Evan. Anyway,” he grumbled, steering the conversation back on track, “loads of people more than twice your age still have no idea what they want to do.”

  “I’d rather not be so directionless.”

  “Directionless or adventurous? Are you a glass-half-empty or a glass-half-full kinda girl?”

  “Hopefully whichever is more predisposed to making fewer mistakes.”

  “That’s boring. How’d you think penicillin was discovered?”

  “Um…”

  “Not on purpose, that’s how.”

  “Oh jeez.” I was starting to see where he was going with this.

  “Microwaves too—another awesome mistake.”

  “Let’s not forget potato chips,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  He gave a smug nod. “Exactly. I rest my case.”

  “Which is what exactly? That my life struggles can be quantified in microwaves and potato chips?”

  “Patience, young grasshopper, I’m getting to that.” The Shaolin smirk climbed higher on his face. “You threw a dart and had the courage to follow through, so that tells me you’re the adventurous glass-half-full type. I’d say the dart’s lead you in a pretty awesome direction so far.”

  Yeah, and I’d met him into the bargain.

  “I reckon your life’s purpose is yet to be revealed, so stop worrying.”

  I was surprisingly stirred by such simple logic and chewed it over as another cluster of islets rushed by the chin bubble beneath my feet. He seemed to have me quite figured out, yet he was all but a mystery to me. There was so much about his elusive character I still needed to figure out. There was a part of him so much like dark matter—some inexplicable and invisible shadow crouching just behind his eyes, but it had no name that I could define it by. It was the part of him that dwelled on the dark side of the moon.

  “Enough about me,” I said at last. “Quid pro quo, Mr. Thorn.”

  Just like that, the light mood in the cockpit shifted into grey, and his jaw tensed with obvious wariness.

  12

  Just Friends

  “Let’s focus the spotlight on you.” My tone was positively saccharine with smugness.

  “Let’s not,” he said.

  “Just your garden-variety questions, I promise.” If he’d been watching me he’d have seen the lie pulling mischievously at my lips. “Got any sister wives hiding in your closet?”

  “So much for garden-variety.”

  Sighing, I realized that peeling his layers was going to be more like pulling teeth. But speaking of closets… “Secretly gay?” My gaydar said otherwise, but I couldn’t resist.

  “Negative,” he sighed. “Just boringly heterosexual.”

  Amen. “So where do your parents live?”

  “They’re over in Haines Junction in the Yukon Territory.” This time he didn’t leave me hanging, likely sensing, correctly, that I was going to be tenacious about my onion peeling. “My father and Dean have an uneasy relationship. Too much sordid history between them. I followed my brother out here when he left home. Don’t really speak to my old man if I can help it.”

  “Oh.” I knew what that was like. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’d rather you weren’t sorry for me,” he said behind his inscrutable visor. “There’s no such thing as a perfect family.”

  “This I know,” I said wryly, regretting the loss of his good humor. And I had barely gotten past the first layer. “Your parents still married?”

  “Yeah, but not happily. My father, whether he’ll admit it or not, never got over his first love—Dean’s mother.”

  “Mine are divorced.” It was almost five years ago to the day that Mom and I left Cape Town and moved all the way to Juno Beach to be near her parents. “Dad was never around…but he sure ‘got around’, if you know what I mean.”

  “Hmm.” He seemed to mull that over broodily.

  A terminal silence prevailed after that, so I diverted the subject safely to aviation. The hour and a half it took us to get to Juneau flew by as we bantered. By unspoken agreement, we avoided all touchy subjects the rest of the flight. It was like the ‘bear incident’ (which was how I had begun to think of it) never actually happened and, sadly, the same could be said about that unfulfilled kiss.

  “Welcome to the capital,” said Tristan, banking left to cruise directly over the Gastineau Channel. He directed my gaze to the first peak looming up ahead to our right, Hawthorne Peak, and then explained that the towering land mass to our left was Douglas Island.

  Downtown Juneau sat nestled at the base of a colossal snow-capped massif. The steep mountain slopes rose up like giant batters on all sides of the vibrant city. Mount Juneau and Roberts Peak (from which a steady progression of trams crawled to the summit) guarded it on one side and the channel snaked like a moat alongside the other.

  The sunlight had, by now, become diffused behind a sheer veil of grey cirrus that stretched overhead across the vivid panorama. It was muted enough that Tristan lifted his dark visor up out of the way and, instead, replaced it with the amber one behind it, so that I could now see his face clearly. Much better.

  There was no longer as much opportunity to shoot the shit now that we’d entered a hive of activity. There were cruise ships, yachts, eagles, gulls, and helicopters, wherever I looked, and the common traffic advisory was blowing up with radio chatter. Even so, Tristan still managed to point out various attractions to me as I gaped and nodded.

  “There’s no road to Juneau,” he said. “The only way in is by sea or by air.”

  We’d made such good time getting here that Tristan decided on a detour over Taku, one of the world’s few advancing glaciers. Then we were off to Mendenhall Glacier so that I got to see it lolling out like a jagged, blue tongue into a lake of icebergs.

  Shortly afterward, we beelined it to Juneau International, and landed on the general aviation ramp beside another helicopter. Once the fuel order had been placed, we headed over to the pilot lounge to grab a coffee.

  “The weather’s a lot trickier here than in Ketchikan.” Tristan then explained that the Fairweather Ranges (ironically named) and the Boundary Ranges tended to funnel the lower pressure and moisture in from the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska, which meant that the visibility here could drop in a matter of minutes. “I had to spend the night on an ice field this time last year because the visibility dropped so suddenly,” he went on, “and we were socked in with dense fog till later the next day.”

  “Where’d you sleep?”

&nbs
p; “In one of the dog camps.”

  I’d always wanted to go dogsledding. “Then you must not mind dogs very much, although I guess you didn’t have much of a choice that night.”

  “I love dogs, actually.” One corner of his mouth curled enigmatically. “But I’m rather more of a wolfman, to be honest.”

  I could feel my brow furrowing curiously, bemused by the strange expression he wore. “So you spooned some huskies that night because you got caught in the fog. Sounds like you dodged a bullet.”

  “Yup, there were two helicopter accidents last year due to low vis.”

  “First the bird through the windscreen, and now I have to worry about fog? I’m not sure I’m getting back in that chopper with you, Tristan.”

  “Nature’s unpredictable and fickle.” That wicked grin lit his face again. “Which is why mother nature is a woman.”

  I rolled my eyes and followed him to the flight planning room. I leaned in to peer over his shoulder at the computer screen as he diligently checked the weather.

  Mistaking my nearness for meteorological interest, Tristan began explaining what each graph meant and how it pertained to our flight for the day. When I stifled a yawn, however, he stopped himself and chuckled apologetically. “I’m boring you, aren’t I?”

  “No,” I deadpanned, “I love talking about the weather. You make it sound so exciting.” And I promptly ruined that claim with yet another unladylike yawn.

  “Well, what would you rather talk about?” The crooked smile was back in place as he closed the internet tab.

  Considering the possibilities, I followed him over to where the leather recliners faced the tv. But neither one of us spared Fox news any attention.

  There was really only one thing I was dying to discuss. “Back at the hangar—”

  “Look, the bear gave me a death-stare and all I did was return the favor. I don’t know how else to—”

  “No,” I interjected, cheeks scarlet, “I mean…what happened after.” When he’d almost kissed me.

  His gaze narrowed thoughtfully as realization dawned, ostensibly aided by the telltale blush spreading over my cheeks. “You mean what didn’t happen.” His eyes dropped momentarily to my mouth.

  I gave a small nod, biting my under lip uncertainly.

  “I shouldn’t have put you in that position, Evan.”

  Telling myself to woman-up, I gathered up every ounce of steel in my bones and said, “What if…what if that’s a position I’m not opposed to being in again?” I wet my lips and the movement drew his gaze again.

  After a lengthy silence, in which my heart palpitated so nervously that I was sure he could hear it, Tristan released a pent-up sigh. “You should be opposed. I like you too much to drag you into my world.”

  “Your world?” I felt my forehead pucker in consternation. “Because we’re separate species?” I scoffed.

  “You have no idea.”

  “A kiss can’t possibly be all that complicated?”

  “But it is,” he said quietly. “Because I’ll want more.” He dragged his fingers tiredly down his jaw. “After the bear I wasn’t thinking straight. For your sake, Ev, all I can offer is friendship.”

  “Friendship,” I said woodenly, wondering if Nicole was at the root of his sudden change of heart. Yanked from the brink of a kiss and then unceremoniously friend-zoned all in one morning? This man was giving me such whiplash. “For my sake?”

  “Yes. I hope I haven’t ruined that friendship already?”

  “No.” With effort, I blinked away tears. “Of course not.”

  This time I almost welcomed the interruption when his phone suddenly rang into the uncomfortable silence. The glaciologists were here. I felt sure the brittle smile on my face would shatter at any moment, but, thankfully, it held. If Tristan could school his features so well then so could I. With an easy smile, he introduced me to the scientists (as well as a woman from the Forest service). Once airborne, I laughed and bantered with them as though my heart wasn’t black and bruised. The morning slipped by without further incident. We flew from one waypoint to another, fending off bugs, trudging through muskegs and marching up glaciers. We dutifully gathered ice samples and measured permafrost until the weather forced our retreat.

  All throughout, I’d tried my best to act the happy idiot, but Tristan’s penetrative gaze appeared to find every crack in my smile. The undercurrent between us was thick with tension. There seemed to be a looming presence pacing hungrily between us, pawing the ground restlessly. The dark matter—all the unspoken and invisible shadows between us.

  * * *

  “Just friends?” Mom’s tone was dubious.

  “Yeah.” I was lying on my bed, the phone on the pillow beside me as I watched the anarchy of moths and bugs leaping at the light pouring from my window.

  It was black as dog’s guts tonight. The moon was blotted out by the cloud bank that had followed us back from Juneau. The Full Thunder Moon, it was called—or would be in three days. The brief fulmination that followed the distant rumbling seemed to reinforce that fact. Or foretoken something ominous. Tristan had said that thunderstorms were incredibly rare here—guess I must have brought that phenomenon up from Florida with me.

  “Hmm,” Mom continued after a loud yawn, “he sounds confused.” It was almost midnight in Florida. “If all he wants is friendship then why the hell did he almost kiss you?”

  “That’s what I’m saying.” I suspired loudly. “He implied his life is complicated.”

  “Definitely a woman. That Nicole person you told me about?”

  “Yeah, maybe. I don’t get it, Mom, she seems like she’d be nothing but high maintenance.” And he seemed too smart to be seduced by a pretty face with an attitude problem.

  “Well, Ev, then it sounds like it’s not your problem.” Another yawn.

  “And it sounds like you should go to bed.”

  “I am in bed.”

  “Goodnight, Mom,” I chuckled.

  After one more “I love you” she finally signed off. It was just me and the music of the nighttime after that. And the storm brewing outside.

  Tristan’s card was now stowed away in my journal for safekeeping.

  “P.S. I like weird,” he’d said.

  I sighed. “But not enough, evidently.”

  After I’d reread it once again, I set it aside and opened the page it had bookmarked for me. A drawing of Tristan that I’d sketched from memory. What I’d felt for Andy, back in West Palm, I realized now, was a tepid infatuation compared to the napalm that Tristan excited in my veins.

  My journal was filled with poems and sketches of all sorts, including landscapes, but I loved best to draw faces and hands. His face still needed some finishing touch-ups before it did any justice to the man himself. Overall I was pleased with the result. Especially the shape of his eyes. They wanted only some azure shading around the pupils and they’d be perfect. Or yellow, came an ominous whisper of premonition.

  I’d chalked up the color change to a trick of the light—suppressed it more like—and convinced myself he’d been hiding unusually sharp canines behind some falsies that may have fallen out during the bear scare. Maybe he was really self-conscious about it. Maybe he had severe gingivitis too and that accounted for the bleeding. I just didn’t fucking know anymore.

  Sighing, I forced those tricky puzzles from my mind and shaded his eyes a little more till I was satisfied I’d replicated them to the best of my ability—even adding the gold flecks.

  As for my eyes… Leaving the sketch on my bedside, I moved to stand in front of the bathroom mirror to study the unremarkable features of the girl that stared back at me. I decided my mouth was too demure by half to be considered pretty, but at least my hazel eyes were flecked with enough green to make them interesting. Larger than average, they were probably my best feature, and the limbal rings were darkly prominent where they outlined each iris. My face was symmetrical enough, I thought, but not beautiful. Nothing like Nicole’s celesti
al features.

  In the midst of this critical study came the sudden confident rapping of knuckles against my door. My heart lurched into an excited gallop, convinced of who was at my door. “Tristan!” it clamored loudly.

  13

  Jungle Juice

  “Chris,” I said, instantly tightening my smile in case it fell right off my face. “Um, hi.”

  “Hey, neighbor.” He was wearing a vintage Star Wars shirt, looking hopeful as he shifted nervously on his feet. “A couple of us were…uh…gonna go hang out at the cove. Wanna come?” The last was asked with a thumb thrown over his shoulder towards his truck.

  I was about to decline, but my phone forestalled me with a text message.

  “Was that Darth Vader?” He perked up with excitement.

  I answered with a distracted nod.

  The text was from Melissa. “Guess who just showed up at Forse Cove!”

  “Sorry, Chris, one sec.” I held up a finger before turning around to type my reply. “Who?”

  “Come and see for yourself,” she replied smugly. “Is Chris there yet? I told him to drag your hermit ass over here.”

  What was the alternative? Stare at my ceiling and brood all night? No, thanks. I pocketed my phone and turned back to my neighbor. “I’d love to go.”

  * * *

  “Try the jungle juice.” Without waiting for a yes or no, Chris unscrewed the top off a flask he pulled from his back pocket and poured a generous shot into my solo cup. “You’ll like it,” he promised, watching as I took a wary sip.

  It was a fiery concoction of battery acid and rum that I tried not to spew back in his face. I thanked him with a gag and a grimace and undertook not to be too irritated with how close he was standing next to me.

  Gary, Chris’ pervy friend, chose that moment to sidle up to me and fling a sloppy arm over my shoulder. I promptly removed it. When Chris and Gary (or was it Larry?) became momentarily distracted by a tall brunette strolling past us, I surreptitiously emptied my red solo cup into a nearby bush (which might have made me guilty of herbicide) and then filled it with water instead. Water, I thought proudly, that was cleverly disguised as vodka.