The Effects of Light

by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

  MY BIRTHDAY COMES AT THE start of school, when Oregon isn’t at all like Oregon but is dry, dry, dry, hot, hot, hot. You can wear shorts to school, play soccer on bristly grass instead of mud, but just as soon as you get used to these things, just as you begin to think about a Halloween costume that doesn’t need a sweater under it, everything changes. The wind blasts and the sky starts pouring. But my birthday is still summer, and David suggests we all drive up the gorge and have a picnic by Multnomah Falls. Then we make a list of all the people we want to invite.

  When we’re driving to the store for food, David says, “Pru, all sorts of people are coming for your birthday, and I’m wondering if I could bring a friend.”

  “Sure,” I say, and I think that’s the end.

  But Myla perks up from the backseat. “Who’s the friend?”

  David coughs. “A colleague, actually. An adjunct in anthro. She’s—”

  “I knew it!” says Myla. “I knew it was a girl.”

  David glances in the rearview mirror. “Oh, really? How’d you know that?”

  “Because if she wasn’t your girlfriend, you wouldn’t have made such a big deal about it. You would have just introduced them when they showed up.” I can’t tell if Myla is speaking fact or finding fault. She sounds angry but excited too.

  I shrug. “Sounds fine to me.”

  Everyone meets at our house early. Jane and Steve and Emma get there first, and when they see we aren’t ready, Jane teases David, “I thought you said we’d take off at nine.”

  “I guess our household’s working on relative time these days,” he says.

  Steve laughs and says, “Gee, David, we have no idea what that’s like,” and he nods his head toward Emma. Then Myla comes down from the house, yawning. She hasn’t brushed her hair.

  “Happy birthday, Pru,” she says, and slips her hand around my waist while she kisses Jane.

  “What’s this?” asks Jane. “I thought you wanted to wear your new dress.”

  “I don’t know,” says Myla. “I don’t really feel like going.” She lets it drop like a heavy rock into our lake of conversation. She doesn’t look at David. She doesn’t look at me.

  Jane smiles at me and says, “Well, that’s nonsense,” and puts her hand on Myla’s back and steers her toward the house. Emma runs to me and grabs my hand and pulls me out of the gloom Myla has left behind. We’re not interested in playing Dogs anymore, so we sit under the rhododendron bush and plan turning it into our fort. Then Ruth pokes her head in. “Happy birthday, kiddo. I can’t believe you’re nine. Where’d my little girl go?” I kiss her on the cheek and she says she thinks everyone’s ready to go. But then she says, “I see the new anthro lady just arrived,” and when she says “lady” I can see that she has opinions.

  Myla will come, but only if Ruth rides in our car. I want to ride with Emma, but that might hurt Ruth’s feelings, and Myla’s glaring at me not to leave her alone with the grown-ups. So Jane and Steve and Emma follow us in their car, and in our car, the backseat is me, then Myla, then Ruth. That’s because in the front seat is David and his friend, Helaine.

  She’s quiet. She looks out the windshield, not out the side window. It’s like a pole runs straight up through her neck and keeps her head extra straight. Ruth, Myla, and I decide not to pay attention to her. Instead, we sing most of the way, and the windows are rolled down too much to listen to a word either Helaine or David is saying.

  Pretty soon we’re out of the city, and trees blur past us. We start the narrow twist and turn up through the rocks, and the sun dapples down on us, green through the trees. I roll my window down as far as it can go and stick my hand out to ride it on the wind. The wind hits my eyes so hard that I almost have to close them to see.

  Then one more turn, and we pop out of the top of the trees and onto Crown Point. Myla jumps out and gets David, pulls him away from the car to the lookout. We ask Helaine if she wants to come too, but she says, “Thank you, no,” and she turns her head a little and smiles with a closed mouth. “My back,” she says. “Once I’m in the car, I’m in.” So Ruth and I get out and wave to Jane and Steve sitting in the car next to us. Emma gets out of her car and comes with us.

  “Should we wait with her?” I ask Ruth.

  “Who? Jane?”

  “No,” I say. “Helaine.”

  Ruth snorts. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.” She grabs my hand and pulls me out to the lookout.

  Up here, the Columbia is like a big blue and gold scarf. It moves like silk flicking in the wind, and the boats below are tiny buttons. Across the river lies Washington, green and hilled. Up here, falling feels like it would be simple, beautiful, easy.

  Then Ruth starts singing “Roll On, Columbia,” and Myla and Emma join in. I don’t know the verse, only the chorus part, and on our walk back to the car, David explains all about the WPA and Woody Guthrie.

  When we get to Multnomah Falls, we grab bags and blankets from the back. We can’t see the falls yet from the road, so we have to walk a little bit. And then before we see it, it’s the sound that makes us know it’s there, like quiet thunder. Everything smells like moss before I see the sheet of white.

  “Food first?” asks David, and we all say yes, so he heads us down to the grassy part below the falls. We spread out with grapes and olives and cheese and bread and we eat. Then everyone pretends there’s nothing more to do, and Myla gets sneaky and pulls me away to play behind a big rock. Emma keeps spying over a boulder at us and then running back to the picnic. I know when I get back there’ll be cake, but I get sneaky too and play along.

  Myla and I sit down on a log. “Do you like your birthday so far?” she asks.

  “Well, it’s not really my birthday,” I remind her. “Not until Tuesday.”

  “I know, I know,” she says, “but I mean, do you like your party?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Then we’re quiet.

  “Do you wish Mom was here?” The question’s like a match in a dark room.

  “I guess so,” I say. “Yeah. I wish she was here.”

  “Me too,” says Myla, and she pats her hand on my back.

  Later, after cake, after presents, we go up to the bridge that stretches across the bottom part of the falls. The air is wet in my lungs, and the hand railing is slick and soft. I hold on tight and look down at the water slipping and slamming below us. David comes up behind me and puts his hands over mine.

  “Happy birthday, Pru.”

  Then Myla comes up beside us. “David,” she says, “Pru and I are riding home in Jane’s car.”

  “Okay,” he says.

  “So just be sure you don’t forget Ruth, okay? ’Cause she won’t be with us.”

  “Fine, good,” he says, and leans down to point out something across the river.

  “Be sure Ruth goes with you. Just be sure.”

  “Yes, Myla, understood! I won’t forget!” he says. And then Myla stomps off. David goes to talk to Helaine, and Ruth goes to comfort Myla, and Jane and Emma are on the other side of the bridge, looking up at the water. Steve comes and stands next to me. He doesn’t say anything, just stands beside me and looks, like he wants me to know things are okay.

  We stay up here, on the slick stone bridge, facing the river, and try to make out shapes: our car, the place where our blanket was, and the tiny dots of people looking up at us and pointing, like we are more important because of the waterfall behind us, like because of it, they want to imagine being in our lives.

  chapter eleven

  samuel and Myla wound up the road she’d traveled innumerable times. She was aching for what was to come: the rush of water in her ears, the dampness in her lungs, the force and size of a river as it ended in air. “We’re going to Multnomah Falls,” she said, and Samuel nodded, although she knew he had no idea what that was.

  As they crossed the Sandy River, passing the metal dragon someone had welded—“Very seventies,” Samuel remarked—and wended their way through the town of Corbett, Myla was caug
ht in her mind. There was plenty to contend with already: Jane and Steve’s expectations, Samuel’s sudden presence, David’s notebook needing translation. Compared to all this, a mess of student papers was nothing. Were she at the college with Mark, life would be easy. Gossip exchanged, a shared muffin, an eye roll or two about their enormous course loads. Nothing this big.

  Now the car broke into farmland, riding the spine of the ridge. Myla knew soon enough they’d see the change in altitude. Samuel gazed out the windows at the light and architecture and sky and trees. He tapped his hand against his knee, and Myla couldn’t tell if that revealed nervousness or an ingrained habit. She didn’t know him well enough to know such things, and the absurdity of their current situation—alone in a car together, halfway across the world, with perhaps nothing to say to each other—made her smile.

  “What?” asked Samuel.

  “Oh, nothing. I was just hoping Steve’s enthusiasm hasn’t been too much for you. He can be a bit overwhelming when he likes something. And he sure likes you.”

  “No, not at all. He’s great. He and Jane seem very vibrant. Young, I mean.”

  Though Samuel hadn’t asked for anything to be explained, Myla said, “They were my father’s closest friends. They were integral in raising me.” She paused, then chose to say her sister’s name. “Integral in raising Pru and me. But before coming back this time, I hadn’t spoken to them in thirteen years. Since I left home.”

  “Oh,” said Samuel. “Wow.” Then silence. It was funny, because Myla expected this silence between them to become more and more uncomfortable as it went on, but it didn’t. Instead the silence softened gently, taking into account the sounds and smells of the car, the light breeze skipping in through the crack from Samuel’s rolled-down window, the sun illuminating the deciduous trees that lined the roadbed. As she drove, Myla watched the new leaves in the sunlight, made out their tiny shapes above her. It seemed at this moment that she hadn’t noticed leaves in a very long time; that in her life as Kate Scott, the tops of trees had been swaddled only in a vague, undefined green. Kate Scott could not live here. There were too many trees to be accounted for.

  At first Myla hadn’t known why she wanted to bring Samuel to Multnomah Falls. It was an intensely personal gesture, although of course he would have no way of knowing that. But following her instincts was the only thing she could do, and so they’d buckled into the car and backed out of the driveway. Now, with the knowledge that the Columbia would come into view below them in just a few miles, she gripped the steering wheel and understood. She was being David. Samuel was being her.

  When she was a child, whenever David had been puzzling over something—Myla wondered now if those “somethings” had been related to The Book—he’d load her and Pru into the car and say, “Let’s drive.” Though he’d never mention their destination, Pru and Myla always knew where they were headed. They’d drive up the Columbia River Highway, elbow their way around Crown Point, then head straight to Multnomah Falls. At the falls, there’d always be a quick stroll up to the bridge, after which, depending on the season, there’d be ice cream at the outdoor stand or French-onion gratinée served at a heavy wood table in front of the restaurant’s giant fireplace. The gratinée had always seemed terribly exotic to Myla, even before she was old enough to make out the word as foreign.

  Now, as Myla drove, she laughed at herself. Here she was, years later, sitting exactly where David had sat, heading out to the country to allow her brain some breathing room. And Samuel sat beside her, her hostage, just as she, as a child, had been David’s. She’d spent many hours sitting in the passenger seat, idly wondering what was on David’s mind. And now Samuel was doing just the same thing with her.

  “First stop,” she said as they pulled up at the lookout point. Myla eased her door open, unbuckled her seatbelt, and walked to the edge. Below her, the Columbia swelled and tossed, and her hair was rumpled in the wind. Her arms liked the reminder of life on them, and she felt Samuel’s cool shadow velvet her back.

  “My God,” he said. “This is gorgeous.”

  Myla nodded and smiled. Words seemed unnecessary. They might as well have left them behind in Portland. Samuel walked the rim of the lookout point, squinting down at the bright tossing waters. Myla watched a barge passing patiently below. It was simple up here, above life. The sound of a distant engine made her notice a plane flying above, made her remember her own place in the air only a few days before.

  Back in the car, before starting it, Myla let words emerge from her, slow and easy. “I’d like your help. And you’re welcome to stay as long as you want. But I can’t offer myself. I don’t have my self to offer.”

  Samuel nodded after a time. Myla tried to create a new sentence, to explain further, but everything she thought was too complicated to put into words. The sound of her voice in this car would be too loud. And having said what she needed to say, she felt an odd sense of elation. It felt good to be so honest, to let silence take back over, to be able to locate what she needed. It gave her hope that she might someday have a self to give.

  After pulling out of the lookout point, they started down the ridge. Myla hesitated at Crown Point, then sloped the car down the mossy old highway. It was slower this way, much slower than passage on the swift new road below that paralleled the Columbia and flashed with cars and semi trucks. But this was the way Myla knew, the way to Multnomah Falls. This was the way she’d traveled with her family, and it seemed important to know that Samuel would like it. It was beautiful. It was green.

  ALL OF A SUDDEN FOURTH grade is over and at last it’s summer again. It pounces on us and makes us hot. Even though David is out of school, he still spends every day at the college. Myla goes to camp and hates it. I spend most days with Jane and Emma.

  They take me to the pool and I learn breaststroke, the crawl, and the beginnings of the butterfly. But I miss Myla. She’s only gone for three weeks, but it feels like forever. She writes me letters—most of which I don’t get until she’s already back—talking about all the stupid songs they have to sing and all the stupid boys in her group and how bad the food is. I know some of those things are true and some of those things she’s just saying.

  One day before Myla gets back, Ruth comes over and tells the girl taking care of me to take the rest of the afternoon off. So we sit on the front porch and eat plums and Ruth says, “I haven’t gotten any great pictures of you for a while. So I’m thinking—how would you like to come up to Elk Lake with me sometime in July?”

  “What’s Elk Lake?”

  “There’s a cabin up there that’s been in my family for a while. It’s in the woods. If I didn’t have more responsible relatives, it’d be rotten and crumbled by now. But I’d like to go there and make pictures, and I’d like it if you’d come—you and Myla.”

  “Sure,” I say. “That’d be cool.”

  “We could make s’mores, and Myla could teach us camp songs—”

  “She hates camp songs.”

  “Okay, well, I could teach you a camp song or two, and we could go swimming and canoeing—”

  “What about David?” I ask.

  “Well,” she says, “David’s welcome, of course. But I think he might have stuff to do here, like work.” Ruth looks away.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “You don’t have to keep it a secret. He probably wants to be alone with Helaine, right?”

  Ruth sighs. “We can’t pull anything over on you, can we?” She smiles. “He probably does. But do me a favor, okay, Pru-y?”

  So I say yes.

  “Try not to be hard on him about it. Let him have the time.” I nod. I want to tell her that I’m not the one who’ll be hard on him. But I don’t need to. She knows.

  The drive down to Bend, the town where we’ll spend one night with Ruth’s uncle before going to the cabin, is long and hot. Myla and I take turns sitting in the front seat, and she gets mad when the times don’t match up. But Ruth tells her there’re no whiny teenagers allowed in
her car, so Myla pouts until we turn on the radio and she forgets to be mad.

  The air turns to hot desert around us once we’re over the mountain. All of a sudden there are fewer trees and there are deep canyons that run beside the road. We cross more canyons on bridges, canyons so deep that you can only see the flash of water at the bottom of them for just a second. The sky gets wider. The sun swoops over everything.

  We eat at a truck stop that has a pay phone at every table. We try to call David, but he isn’t home so Ruth lets us order milkshakes and ice cream to make up for it. Then we drive to her uncle’s house and let ourselves in. It’s dark and smells like dust and old newspapers.

  The next morning I don’t even wake up until I open my eyes and I’m already in the car, speeding past sky and trees and rocks. When I sit up, Ruth smiles and reaches back to squeeze my knee. “Hey, kiddo. Want a Danish?” She passes one back. Pretty soon Myla wakes up too and climbs back over the seat and lies down with her head in my lap. She kisses my knees.

  The car sounds change when we move onto the gravel. We crunch along, and dust crowds the air behind us. We follow the road until the lake is bright and glistening before us. Ruth laughs and claps her hands. “I always forget how gorgeous it is,” she says. And so we start our week.

  MYLA HAD THE LIBRARY TO herself. Steve was at work. Jane was at work. Samuel had been dressed, sitting on the couch, by the time Myla came downstairs. Bus map in hand, he’d said, “I’m planning to spend the day adventuring. Jane gave me some suggestions.” She noticed a guide to Portland with a couple of marked-up Post-its on the cover. “So I’ll see you later,” he said as he walked out the door. She’d been left to the lonely house, and her anxieties had begun to swirl around her. She’d been sensible enough to grab her bag and get out of there.