I'd Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them

by Jesse Goolsby

  “Is this when we talk about Yellowstone?” Her father’s voice. Camila was the only person Mia told, so her father’s words float in the room a bit before Mia sucks them in. The air thickens around her mouth and nose, and her feet disappear beneath her.

  “Yellowstone,” he says, wheeling into the room. “Bears and moose and boys.” He grins. He bleeds through torn touches of Kleenex along his jawline. His hands grip the gray wheelchair wheels.

  “I told him the night Camila told me,” her mother says, placing her hand on her husband’s shoulder. “You should know that. It’s what parents do. He didn’t believe it until last night, when I caught you jacking off that freak in the closet.”

  The room slants and Mia visualizes the shotgun in her parents’ closet, but she blanks on the case combination. She flashes to the neighborhood park where she told Camila—they were swinging in winter, and Camila playfully placed her ear on Mia’s belly; to her first period, reaching down into her pants in a Safeway bathroom.

  “Have you screwed boys in my home?” her mother asks.

  Mia has, twice. She stares at the beige tile floor and thinks about Camila and Elliot, the dozens of sexual sessions they’ve had in this very house, on Camila’s pink comforter under the boy-band posters, and then she wonders why she cares if her parents know—she has no moral pretense, no angel reputation, no great grades or letters of recommendation headed her way. Losing her virginity at fourteen doesn’t seem that unusual to her. She knows girls eleven and twelve years old who let the word get out. Mia senses her body folding in on itself, and she angers because she cares what her parents think, and because she still can’t think of the gun-safe combination or anything to say. Again the mental image, the surprise of brownish blood on her fingertips, of the Safeway around the corner, the area next to the checkout where her mother sniffed at a green bottle of Brut aftershave and Mia stepped out of the restroom and ran to her mother to tell her the news, and her mother, near tears, taking Mia in her arms, repeating, “My girl, my big girl,” before they walked together to the maxi pads and Mia pointed to the ones she’d seen commercials for. Was that the last time she was proud of me?

  Then, back to the kitchen, to her parents, to the morning hangover. Mia has forgotten the question, but she hears herself say, “My body was ready.”

  Her father’s mouth opens, and Mia senses a surge of excitement when nothing comes out. “My body was ready,” she says a little louder. Silence. Neither her mother nor her father appears ready to argue. Her father touches one of the tiny circles of bloodied Kleenex on his chin, then folds his arms.

  “Damn,” he says, and turns away; surprisingly, so does her mother. They move down the hallway and her mother stops and looks back, but not at Mia. She scans the living room and then locks her eyes on the oak front door, as if it’s been moved slightly and she wants to remember its location when she comes back.

  Mia is unsure how old her mother was when she lost her virginity, and she realizes that they’ve never had the sex talk, or really any talk of substance for some time. Mia thinks, When I have a child, she’ll know everything, and much later Mia will tell her daughter everything, she will talk to her about sex and blood and regret, she will drive her daughter to the clinic for her abortion and stroke her hair while the drugs wear off. But today Mia tugs her sweatpants down below her hip bones and her mother shakes her head, kisses her fingers, and touches Mia’s third-grade photo hanging in the hallway.

  Mia moves her hands in a ray of dusty sunlight that beams through the crack in the living room drapes. She visualizes taking her blue baseball bat to Camila’s healthy knees. That traitor bitch. She envisions Camila’s lifelong limp and grins, but the dream evaporates as her parents move down the hallway with luggage.

  “We’re going to Estes Park,” her mother says. “Don’t call. You’re a big shot. You and your sister can do what the hell you want.” She disappears into the garage.

  Before her father leaves he grabs a bottle of Johnnie Walker and tucks it into his duffel bag. Rashlike bumps of dried blood dot his jaw.

  “Yellowstone?” he says. Then, in a drawn-out, mocking falsetto, “My body is ready.” He shakes his head. “Good luck with that,” and out he wheels.

  The maroon sedan backs out of the garage, and for a few seconds Mia sees her mother laugh and her father’s mouth move, and she wonders if he retells his parting words to her. After they disappear Mia slides her vision over to their neighbors’ house: the Burtons’ red-brick home, the aspen, hedge, and prairie grass landscaping, a Toyota truck in the driveway with an I’m proud of my Eagle Scout bumper sticker. She guesses this is Camila’s hideout. Not one to question, or even consider, the morality of adult-level commitment, Mia wonders if everyone has gone crazy. How is she able to walk just feet away from her army obligation, and no one blinks an eye? Not our army dad, not our freaking Eagle Scout neighbors? She places Camila in the Burtons’ basement, probably already comfortable and confident, and nosy Mrs. Burton eyeing the roadway, ready to prevent the big bad military from taking their innocent neighbor. Never mind that Camila signed up herself. And then the answer comes to her. Mia brushes away the bat-to-the-knee revenge and frames a new, more enticing proposition. She turns the television on and gets comfortable, with an eye on the driveway. Screw her mother; she knows exactly where Camila is, and when the time is right, so will the recruiter.

  Four reruns of The Vampire Diaries and a full fruit juicer infomercial later, the green-and-white army Ford Taurus pulls up to the front of their home. Before the uniformed man can leave the vehicle, Mia stands in her front yard, grinning. The recruiter is younger and shorter than she imagined, with a narrow face and a limp.

  “Camila’s next door,” she says when he reaches their driveway.

  “Okay.”

  “She’s hiding, but she’s over there. It’s the Burtons’ place.”

  Mia steps toward their neighbors’, but the man doesn’t follow.

  “Your folks here?”

  “No.”

  The recruiter removes his hat and clicks his tongue. He has picked up all types. He scratches his neck.

  “Why don’t you go get Camila so we can talk?” he says, lowering his voice a half octave. “I’ll wait here.”

  “She won’t come if it’s me. That’s the point.” Mia overhears her own eagerness and tries to dial it back. Unknowingly, she plays with the drawstrings of her sweats. “Besides, doesn’t she have to go?”

  “You want her to go?”

  She knows the answer, but she waits for the right words. Before she can comment he asks, “How old are you?”

  His eyes dart to her torso.

  “I’m in high school. How old are you?”

  “Okay.”

  He gazes up at the sky and taps his foot. “Listen. I’m happy to talk to your sister, but I’m here for pickup, not deliberation. If you want to get her, great. If not, she can give me a call, but there are consequences.” He hands Mia a card. “I have other stops today.” When Mia stays in place, he nods his head, limps around to the driver’s side, gets in, and drives off.

  When Mia wakes, she rubs at her sweaty neck and pulls herself up from the leather couch. As she comes to she recalls her morning anger, and the fury rises in her again—a complicated rush of anxiety and the impulse for revenge.

  Raul arrives at her house ten minutes after she calls him. She can hear the old Ford truck from around the corner, and when he pulls into her driveway she notices the purple driver’s-side fender on an otherwise faded red truck. He wears a bright orange hunting vest over a black shirt, and cargo shorts.

  “Get me out of here for a while,” she says.

  “I know where there’s water.”

  She remains quiet until they hit Sedalia and turn west onto Jarre Canyon Road, and when the road turns up into the Rockies her shoulders relax. Their dalliance last night was not their first, but their relationship, if it can be called that, is one of lazy convenience. She imagines that h
e thinks of her seldom but fondly. That’s how she thinks of him.

  Mia leaves out the parent-virginity surprise but rattles on about her sister and the army, how Camila betrayed her—she leaves it unspecified—and wonders out loud what she can do for revenge. Raul speaks with calm, and this fits Mia’s picture of him: soft-spoken, a funky dresser, with a confidence and an intelligence that enable him to stay at the top of their class despite his frequent unexplained absences. As he drives his eyes dart to his rearview mirror, then to the side mirrors and back to the road, a routine he performs every thirty seconds or so.

  “She should go into the navy. Boats are cool, and no one ever shoots at them,” he says in a southern drawl that still surprises Mia. For all she knows, he was born and raised in Colorado. He glances at her and notes her disappointment.

  “You could lock her out. Your parents are gone.”

  “Lock her out? She’d be upset for two seconds, then go back to the Burtons’.”

  “It’s something.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You could run away.”

  “Not much of a revenge move. My folks might like it. They’ve said as much.”

  “No parents want that.”

  “You’re wrong. Parents don’t have to beat the shit out of you to show they don’t love you.”

  “True.”

  “Sometimes they just do nothing.”

  “But yours get pissed at you. That’s supposed to mean something. It might not be as bad—” He stops his sentence and, without transition, says, “House is on fire. You can grab two things. Go.”

  “Besides people?”

  “So you still love them.”

  “Don’t screw with me.”

  “Fine. What would you take? Everyone gets out okay.”

  The silence lingers so long that Raul asks, “Don’t like fire? Okay. A flood.”

  Both quiet, they drive south along Highway 67, and the South Platte River joins them. Fly-fishermen in waders whip their lines out and back. Raul cracks his window and the rushing air smells fresh and warm. They pass through Deckers and keep south toward Pikes Peak, and a few miles farther Raul guides the truck over to a meager turnout and turns off the engine.

  “Water,” he says, and points at a humble stream down an embankment. The stream is maybe six feet across and shallow. “Let’s go.”

  Raul grabs a backpack and a dusty wool blanket and leads Mia down the gentle slope. They pause on the bank of the stream, and Raul excuses himself and comes back with a boulder that he throws in the middle of the water.

  “Step.”

  They both cross, and Raul unfurls the blanket on a level patch of ground partially obscured from the road by a stand of flowering reeds. He reaches into the backpack and pulls out a flask and tosses it to her. She unscrews the top and tilts it back and shakes her head.

  “Water?” she says, not all that disappointed.

  “I have to drive back.”

  Raul pats the blanket beside him. A puff of dust rises.

  “I don’t feel like sitting,” Mia says, and while she recognizes his intentions, she waits and basks in the high-altitude sun. She stands next to the creek and watches the clear water and smells the pine. She picks up a smooth rock and tosses it into the stream, and the tiny but explosive splash makes her laugh. Raul throws one. He sheds his hunting vest and his black shirt, then puts the vest back on.

  “You look ridiculous,” Mia says.

  “I do it for attention. It works.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you do for attention?”

  “I make out with guys in closets. Then I have my mom come in and beat the shit out of them. It’s a fun routine we’ve perfected.”

  They gather large rocks and throw them in, and before long their efforts focus on building a dam across the stream. The lazy project takes fifteen minutes, and near completion, they decide to leave a space where the water runs unimpeded.

  “You’ve never asked me about my name,” he says as they sit on the blanket. Mia crosses her legs and touches his arm.

  “What about it?”

  “It means ‘wolf counsel.’” He growls, claws his left hand, and laughs.

  “Who told you that?”

  “My parents.”

  Mia edges closer and places her hand on his.

  “Are you trying to be funny?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “You tell the truth too much.”

  Raul reaches for her, and she leans over and kisses him. She feels warm and electric and reaches down to the bottom of her shirt and teasingly lifts it up, then back down. She loves the look in his eyes, mistaking his desire—and her past boyfriends’—for something ineffable and singular in her. Their collective eyes and eager hands convince her that she will never be alone.

  While she reaches for the back of Raul’s neck, Mia picks up something in her peripheral vision, a misshapen brown blur through the trees. She stands and brings her index finger to her lips.

  “Shhh,” she says, and it comes into focus: a bear, far enough away to excite but close enough to unnerve. “Bear,” and she points.

  They gather their things as quietly as possible, tiptoe across their dam, and jump into the Ford. Their anxiety lessens the longer they watch the bear from the cab. They follow the brownish bear as it meanders downstream and disappears.

  On the drive back to Castle Rock, dusk settles in and Raul puts on Barbra Streisand. He glances over at Mia, then back to the road. She thinks of saying something but stops herself, because she knows he wants her to comment on the music. Dusk is Mia’s favorite time of day; there is something soothing about the diminishing visuals. She wonders if she will sleep with Raul tonight, if he expects her to.

  She watches the darkening road, the double yellow lines curving in parallel, hears the hum of the mud tires, and her mind drifts to her sister walking out of the house that morning, wordless; to her parents—Estes Park, gulping whiskey and wine; to Yellowstone; to the afternoon bear meandering downstream, morphing into two bears. She’s fourteen on a chartered bus in Yellowstone, in a traffic jam in northwestern Wyoming, and her science teacher points at the top of a hill, where two bears feed on a felled bison, and from her bus seat Mia sees the bears, then a flanneled, bearded man with a camera who starts up the hill toward the feeding, and already she senses something is wrong, and her science teacher halts the lecture and yells out the window to the advancing man “Stop!” but the man continues up the hill, so close to the wild that from her vantage point it seems as if he could touch the bears with his hands, and the man stands among the feeding animals and snaps photos, then turns around, walks down the hill, and high-fives his friends before giving the school bus two thumbs up. This, Mia understands—even at fourteen—is exactly the wrong lesson for a bus full of freshmen to learn. Later, on the way back to Colorado, the bus stops unexpectedly in Cheyenne during a manic snowstorm, and after a gripping internal debate she lets Marshall Knicks into her hotel room, and how thrilled and breathless and confused she was when most everything hurt. Then, a week later, swinging back and forth in her snowy neighborhood park, with Camila listening intently to her sex story and nodding along because she understood—how Mia never thought she had to say, “Don’t tell anyone.”

  They drive into her dark neighborhood, then down her street. Mia sizes up the Burton home, the house lit perfectly so night passersby can appreciate the trimmed hedges and clean brick. Mia’s home is dark, and as they pull into the driveway she thinks she will invite him in, but she hears herself say, “Thanks, Wolfman. We’ll catch up some other time.”

  She smiles.

  “’Night,” he says. “Just know you’re breaking my heart.”

  “It’s not your heart.”

  Alone, Mia turns on the kitchen light and sits on her worn barstool, second from the left. She checks her phone, but there are no messages. She’s tired, and the house is a sauna. When she opens the fridge to cull some leftover mushroom pizza, s
he spots a sixer of Dogfish, her father’s favorite, but she leaves the beer. She opens the living room windows, plops down, and catches the last half of The Princess Bride.

  Surprised that she hasn’t seen Camila, for a moment she doubts her judgment about the Burtons’ being a sanctuary; maybe Camila is wandering the streets right now, lonely and scared, walking in the empty golf course down the road. Mia stares at the Burtons’, at the light reflecting off the silver basement window wells. She’s there. Mia closes her eyes and puts Camila in her parents’ bedroom, betraying her, telling them about Yellowstone, the hotel in Cheyenne, and then she remembers Raul’s suggestion. Not up for a big production, she simply walks to the front door and locks the deadbolt and handle, and does the same to the side and back doors. She closes the windows. A minor deterrence, perhaps, but Camila never has her keys on her.

  Mia turns off her phone and turns off the lights. She guesses that Camila will wake her up with some knocking, then pounding, maybe some cursing, and then, sooner or later, she will leave, and they can go at it tomorrow. It may get ugly, and maybe it should.

  Years later Mia will regret none of this. Not locking the doors and windows nor the vicious fistfight she’ll win the following morning. She will not regret leaving home halfway through her senior year to live with soft-spoken Aunt Kathy in Aztec, New Mexico, or having a daughter at eighteen—she knew it would be a girl—or raising the child on her own, telling her daughter everything she promised herself she would. In fact, most days she will wish she had burned down the house that night, or at least threatened the fire. Her parents will continue to lose themselves in the bottles they move from the kitchen cabinets and scatter about the house—beneath their bed, in the bathroom vanity, the glove compartment, boxes of Christmas decorations, the outdoor grill. They will not call or write after Mia’s daughter is born. After a year working checkout at the local CVS, Camila will skip the army and join the air force, hoping for desk job but receiving a wrench-turning gig on helicopters, and she will carry the cheek scar Mia gouges into her skin during the morning tussle after the lockout. Six months after the birth of her daughter, Mia will move, because her aunt’s new boyfriend pushes Kathy around the house on paydays. When Mia sends an urgent letter, then dials a desperate midnight call from Shiprock asking for money for herself and her infant child, for rent, for clothes, for anything, Camila will say that she has none to give. Mia will plead, and Camila will ask if Mia is proud of her choices. Camila will ask if Mia has called their parents. Camila will ask if Mia has gone to a homeless shelter, and when Mia says no, Camila will say, “You’re not desperate enough,” and hang up.