by Ruthie Knox
“Oh, shit,” she said.
17
“You know about the trial?” he asked.
She knew about the trial. The younger Tomás Vargas—her Tom—had been the key witness for the state, offering testimony that devastated the company’s defense. Ignorant of the environmental offenses while they were taking place, he’d found out about them through contact with a whistle-blower whom his father had fired, and he’d liberated reams of documentation from his father’s records and turned all of it over to the prosecution.
She’d discussed the trial over dinner with her family on more than one occasion. It was such a dramatic Oregon story of corporate irresponsibility and government reaction, the kind of case that really made you think about the legal system and its effects. Who were the good guys and who were the bad guys when slapping a company with a fine for its misdeeds led to devastating job losses and put a huge dent in the state economy? How do we measure the value of the environment against the value of human livelihoods?
They’d seemed like such abstract questions.
In the press and around the Marshall dinner table, Tomás Vargas Jr had been the hero of the story. Until now, it had never occurred to Lexie that Tom Vargas himself might not see it that way.
Sorting through six years of press coverage in her head, she said, “You were never in the papers. I’d have remembered you.”
He nodded. “I tried to stay out of it. There were some courtroom sketches, but I didn’t let them take my picture if I could help it.”
Lexie remembered someone else from the news coverage, and her stomach sank. “Oh, God. Your wife.”
“Yeah. Haylie was head of the legal department. She sat at the defense table throughout the whole trial.” He laughed, a hollow sound. “At least she didn’t cross-examine me.”
“She sided with your father?”
“She didn’t want me to have anything to do with Schram.” Lexie must have looked confused, because Tom clarified, “The whistle-blower. She said it was betraying my father even to look into his allegations. When I turned the evidence over to the state, she moved out. I found out later she was already sleeping with Craig.”
“And after the trial?”
“My father disowned me as soon as he learned I was siding with Schram against him. Mom stood by him, though she didn’t like it. Only Taryn refused to take sides. She’s like the emissary now, shuttling back and forth between them and me, always hoping that someday we’ll kiss and make up.” He frowned. “I don’t see that happening. Poor Taryn. She still thinks I did the right thing, and it kills her that none of the rest of the family can see it.”
Lexie’s chest had been tightening up while he spoke, and now she had to blink back tears. It was a horrible story. He’d lost his job, his wife, his family, his identity—all for the sake of his convictions. And somewhere along the line, he’d lost his convictions, too.
At the same time that she felt for him, though, she struggled to repress her rising indignation. They’d been riding together for more than three thousand miles, and he hadn’t said a word. Tom’s life had fallen apart in a public forum. What did it say about their relationship that he’d chosen to keep it a secret from her?
Shoving her more selfish reaction aside, she said, “I’m with your sister on this one.”
“Thanks. That’s what I went to Australia for, anyway. I needed to get away to think about why I did what I did. Haylie accused me of siding against the company to get back at my father, and I was afraid she was right. I was furious with him when I found out what he’d been up to. You have to understand, in my job, I was responsible for the company’s image. All these greenwashing ads in national magazines bragging about Vargas’s great environmental programs—and the programs themselves—those came out of my office. I believed in them. I thought my contribution to the company was going to be to take it in this new direction, to make it the environmental vanguard of the industry. He made a liar out of me, and I couldn’t stand it.”
“So you went to the woods to live deliberately for a while?” she asked, thinking of Walden, of Tom alone in the Outback trying to work out where his actions fit into the cosmic balance.
“I always liked the desert better than the woods. But yeah.” He paused, looking off into the distance for so long she was afraid he wasn’t going to say anything more. Then he shuddered and said, “I’ve had six years to think about it. Five since the trial was over. I decided it was both. I mean, I testified because I was mad at my father. I also did it because I thought it was the right thing to do. If I hadn’t believed it was right, I wouldn’t have gone through with it, no matter how angry he’d made me.”
“But figuring that out didn’t give you any peace.” It wasn’t really a question. She knew perfectly well that the past still had Tom on the ropes.
“No, because at the time, I didn’t think it all the way through. If I had, I wouldn’t have testified. Not for my own sake—but I would have known my father was going to lose control of the company he’d worked his whole life to build. And with him gone, and me gone, they were going to put Craig in charge. And Craig … Well, there’s a reason I was tapped to be the one to take over the company before I was out of middle school. When I heard they were putting Craig at the helm, I gave him three years to run what was left of the company into the ground. Took him two.”
“And you blame yourself for not having thought of all that?”
“Not just that. For not thinking about what it would mean for the company to collapse. More than fifteen thousand people lost their jobs, most of them in Oregon. All those families; all those towns where the Vargas plant was the biggest employer, and now there’s nothing to keep them going anymore. What my father was doing to the environment was bad, there’s no question. But after I found out about it, I had options. Even if I hadn’t testified against him, he would’ve had to stop. He wasn’t too far from retiring anyway. Sooner or later, I’d have ended up running the company, and nothing unethical was going to happen on my watch.” He looked at her, his face stern, eyes beseeching. “I made the wrong call. And now I have to live with it.”
For several long seconds she stood in his shoes and felt the weight of it, the burden of having made a choice that had terrible consequences for so many people. It was unbearable. No wonder he wanted to retreat to the woods, to live a blameless life. If he were right, what else could he do? There was no possible absolution.
But he was wrong. He was carrying responsibility that wasn’t his to carry. It was very Tom. The man had no sense of perspective about this kind of thing.
“You can’t shoulder all the blame for it,” she said as gently as she could manage. “You’re only responsible for your own actions.”
He shook his head. “I was in the middle of it. If I hadn’t been so dead set on exposing my father, I could’ve stopped him and forced him out, taken over the company, saved all those people’s jobs … It all would’ve happened differently if it weren’t for me.”
“It all would’ve happened differently if it weren’t for a lot of people. You’re just one man. You did the best you could.” She reached out and put her hand on his arm, offering her support.
He shook it off, stood up, and walked a few steps away, his face shuttered. She got the message loud and clear. Tom was done sharing, and now he wanted her to butt out. “No offense, but I’ve had a lot of time to think about this. I don’t need a fresh perspective. I need to bury it.”
She wasn’t going to let him brush her off. This was important. This was, in fact, everything. She could practically see it, all that history standing between the two of them, and she wanted to smash it to pieces. Words were the only hammer she had. “No offense, but you’ve been trying to bury it for years, and it’s not staying dead. I think a fresh perspective is exactly what you need.” She’d risen while she spoke, and now she was standing in front of him, defiant.
Tom put both hands on her shoulders, smoothing them down her arms. He wante
d to make peace, she could see it in his eyes. But he wanted her to back off even more. “Let it go,” he said quietly, so tense that his hands were trembling.
She couldn’t let it go.
“How much of it was your fault?” she asked, tilting her head to look him in the eyes. “Was it your fault your father got so greedy he decided to ignore those inconvenient environmental laws? Was it your fault he fired the guy who caught him and then tried to cover it up? How about when the state made the decision to prosecute, did you have a hand in that? Oh, and I’m sure you must have begged for the opportunity to take the stand after you turned over the evidence, right?”
He didn’t answer her. He wouldn’t even look at her. But she was getting under his skin, she could tell. She kept pressing. “And naturally it was your fault your wife started sleeping with your brother. You must have driven her to it. It couldn’t be that she bore some responsibility there. Or your brother. Was it your fault he nailed your wife and ruined your company? Did you put him up to it? Did you put him in charge? And then you were responsible for closing down all those plants, laying off all those people. Granted, you were working at a bike shop at the time, but still, it’s really on you, right? It all comes down to Tom Geiger. Or Tom Vargas. Same guy. The man the whole world revolves around.”
The longer she spoke, the angrier he looked, and his anger made her reckless. She wanted to keep poking and prodding at him until she found a spot that hurt him so much he’d be forced to admit his ego was keeping him from putting the past in its proper perspective. Keeping him from loving her. It was personal, damn it, so she would make it even more personal.
“What about me, Tom? Am I your responsibility, too? That’s why you started riding with me, isn’t it? You couldn’t bear the idea that it would be your fault if I sat on that beach in Seaside disappointed when you didn’t show up. Even though you’d never met me and your sister was the one who set the whole thing up, you somehow managed to make me your problem. And here we are, thousands of miles later, and you still think I’m some kind of project. Lexie needs somebody to protect her. Lexie needs to learn how to loosen up and tour properly. Lexie needs to get laid. But don’t worry, Lexie. Tom will save the day.”
His eyes flashed, and she knew he was close to blowing. Good.
“Stop it,” he warned.
“No. I have news for you. I’m not your responsibility. When I’m having a bad day, it’s not your problem. If I’m wet and cold in my tent—not your problem. If I want to ride the rest of the way to Virginia with my head down, counting pedal strokes by sevens, it’s not up to you to stop me. And the fact that I’m in love with you, and I’m miserable, and I can’t stand it that you’re leaving me when we get to Yorktown? Guess what? That’s not your fault either, and there’s not a damn thing you can do to fix it. Sometimes bad things happen for no reason, Tom. Sometimes life is completely beyond our control. It sucks, but it’s the way it is.”
She fell silent at last, her chest heaving, staring at the man she’d turned to stone. So much for provoking him to change his mind. Her confession had shut him down quicker than she could blink. He was staring off her right shoulder with hard eyes and a tight jaw. Angry Tom.
Lexie walked away. She stood by the fence and looked at Big Tree, slowly dying by the side of the road. Without thinking much about what she was doing, she climbed over and walked right up to the tree, flattening her hands and her forehead against the bark. Big Tree didn’t have any comfort to spare. They made quite a trio: the sick tree, the brokenhearted woman, and Atlas over there, carrying the weight of the world on his back.
After a while, Tom hopped the fence and walked up. In her peripheral vision, she could see his hands in his pockets, his calves, his feet. He sat down with his back against the tree, and now she could see his knee sticking up. When he started talking, his voice was remarkably calm. “You know how many times I’ve heard you tell your parents’ story? Maybe you don’t think I’m listening, but I am. I can’t help listening to you.” He paused, and she saw his hand slide over his knee. “We’re not your parents, Lexie,” he said finally. “This ride isn’t our love story. You picked the wrong guy for that.”
She pushed back from the tree and stared at him in shock. “That’s what you think, that I’m playing out some childish romantic fantasy with you in the lead role?” The notion was so absurd, she wanted to laugh, but there was still so much rage in her she couldn’t manage it. “What do you think I did, write a letter to Santa asking him to bring me a tall, dark, melancholy hermit to fall in love with? Honestly, Tom, who in her right mind would pick you?”
He wouldn’t look at her. She was being mean, she knew, but he was being condescending. How dare he suggest that she might have confused her parents’ story with her own? She wasn’t that naive. She hadn’t gone looking for love. It had come along and smacked her upside the head.
“Let me tell you what it feels like to be in love with you,” she said. A sob rose in her throat, and she choked it back down. “It’s like being one of those dumb, helpless baby geese who’s imprinted on the wrong mother. One minute I’m safe in my shell, and the next minute I’m following you around, love struck and devoted, too stupid to realize I’m going to get eaten.”
Tom looked up at her then with a frown. “Wait, what am I in this scenario?”
“I don’t know, a python or something,” she said, exasperated. “What difference does it make? The important thing is, I’m the goose.”
“Right.” He ran his fingers into his hair and interlaced his hands behind his head, bending forward to rest his elbows on his knees. He didn’t look like a python. He looked as defeated as she felt. All the anger drained out of her, leaving her shaky and nauseated. She didn’t want to fight with Tom. Clearly, he didn’t want to fight with her either.
She collapsed beside him, and they sat there in the shade, neither of them saying a word. Her heart was beating too fast, her palms sweating, her nerves unpleasantly jacked up. If only she could rewind her life to the first of June. She’d stay home this time. No adventure was worth feeling this wretched.
Her eyes drifted up to trace the shapes of the branches overhead. It really was an impressive tree. Maybe Tom was right. Maybe it would rally.
They had a thousand miles to go.
“Geiger?” she asked.
“Yeah?” He didn’t raise his head.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” She meant it. She was sorry she’d yelled at him, sorry she’d told him she loved him. Sorry to have made everything between them that much harder.
“Me too, Marshall.” He sounded far away.
“Thanks for telling me,” she added.
“No problem.” He took his hands off his head and bridged his knees with his forearms, resting his cheek against his skin. “If I’d known you were going to go so easy on me, I’d have told you a month ago.” His mouth curved into a sad smile that didn’t come anywhere near his eyes.
She smiled back. It felt a little strange on her face, but better than the alternative. “It’s probably for the best that I didn’t become a guidance counselor like my mom suggested, huh?”
“Probably for the best.”
They looked at each other, neither of them quite sure how to pick up the pieces. “Can we still do this?” she asked. “Can we still ride together?”
“We have to,” Tom said. “I don’t have any water.”
“I meant all the way to Virginia.”
“I know what you meant.”
Taking in the stern lines of his face, his vulnerable posture, she remembered what it had felt like that first night they spent together in his tent at Yellowstone when she’d recognized that Tom didn’t have any more control over what was happening between them than she did. Something elemental drew the two of them together even as Tom’s past and her own reservations yanked them apart. He didn’t want to leave her. She didn’t want to leave him. They were stuck with each other, companions who couldn’t work out how
to be more and couldn’t stand to be less.
They had no choice but to keep riding.
Lexie stood up and offered him her hand, and he took it and let her haul him to his feet, nearly toppling her in the process. They ended up in an awkward embrace, both of them holding tight for a long moment before she reluctantly let go.
It was good practice, letting go. Maybe by the time they got to the Atlantic, she’d be a pro.
18
Berea, Kentucky, to Hindman, Kentucky. 3,510 miles traveled.
She’d moved out. Tom kept telling himself she hadn’t really Moved Out, because they hadn’t been living together. Sharing a tent wasn’t the same thing as living together. You couldn’t move out of a structure that was taken apart and put back together again on a daily basis. You could only choose not to sleep in it anymore.
But it was no use. Lexie had moved out, and it was worse than when Haylie had left him. Much worse.
It wasn’t the most pleasant way to find out you were in love, but he supposed it was what he deserved.
In the bright midday light, Lexie’s ponytail gleamed like a copper penny. He watched her crest the hill in front of him and drop out of sight down the other side. He’d been chasing her halfheartedly all morning, but she liked to ride a ways ahead of him these days. Though he’d prefer to be where he could keep an eye on her, she’d made it clear what she thought of his protective impulses.
They’d crossed into Kentucky the day of their fight, finally meeting up with the Appalachians. Kentucky was steep forested ridges, deep valleys with creeks running through them, trailer homes, too many barking dogs. It was green, humid mountain air and dense fog in the morning that kept them from getting an early start and turned spiderwebs on barbed wire fences into dew-drenched works of art. It was long, steep climbs up roads blasted out of rock hillsides and descents around hairpin curves where you had to apply the brakes judiciously to keep from flying right off the edge.