by Rodney Jones
Tess set a cup of coffee before me. “It’ll just be a few minutes. I’m making an omelet.”
Again, I didn’t ask, but instead thanked her. I’d eat whatever she was kind enough to put before me.
She stepped over to the stove. “Did you sleep well?”
“Better than I had been.”
“I wish I could’ve joined you.”
Surprised, I asked, “What? Sleep out in the tent?”
“Yeah.”
I tried to twist that into a modern perspective, which I thought I was beginning to get a handle on, but before I could say anything, Tess jumped back in, “Separate bags… Jesus! Weren’t gals and… what’s the opposite of gals? Boils? Weren’t gals and boils allowed to sleep in the same woods in 1875?”
I grinned. “I’d always believed that gals prefer feather beds to dirt.”
“And where’d you get that idea?”
I chuckled. “It’s just their nature, ain’t it?”
She rolled her eyes. “I probably wouldn’t last a day in your time. I’d be stoned to death or burned at the stake.”
“Well, you can’t just go around cussin’ and making up your own rules, for one thing. Most folk wouldn’t warm to that.”
Tess had her back to me, doing something at the stove. She didn’t immediately respond, as though maybe she was considering what I’d said, but then she asked, “You want to know what I think?”
It took a moment to conclude that I did. “Yes.”
“I think if you were to make a list of words, starting with the least offensive and ending with the most, and then drew a line somewhere through it—nice words above, naughty words below—you’d find that everyone would draw the line in a different place. People now would draw the line further down the list than people in the nineteenth century. It’s just a difference in perception.” She brought our breakfast over to the table. “Want some orange juice?”
Boy, how she did that—turned an issue around and around, blurring the line between right and wrong. She was right, though; she wouldn’t fit in, not at all. She’d likely be hustled off to the Brattleboro Asylum. Still, though, her opinions and mine were sometimes like water and oil in a hot skillet.
We were finishing up our breakfast when a bell-like sound came from the next room.
“That’s Liz.” Tess left the table and disappeared into the far room.
I could hear her inviting her friend in from where I sat. She came back leading a giant of a gal—must’ve stood all of ten inches above her—with short hair so black it was almost blue and skin about as white as milk. She had a small silver ball to the side of her nose, just above her left nostril. The shirt she wore was black with Counting Crows scrawled in sloppy pink letters across her bosom—a snug fit, which didn’t quite reach the waist of her short black pants. I rose from my chair as the two approached the table.
“Liz, this is my friend John.”
“Pleased to meet you.” She accepted my offered hand. “Where’d you get your shirt?”
I glanced down and pulled my shirt away from my belly. “Made it.”
“You Amish or something?”
“Not that I know of.” I wondered how that silver ball was attached to her nose.
Liz didn’t seem to notice the glances I gave it; she seemed more interested in the dishes on the table. “Your mom’s gone?”
“I told you she had to work today.”
“Yeah, but…”
“I need just a few minutes to get some things together, then we’ll be ready. Would you like some coffee?”
“Sure. Sugar and half-and-half, if you have it.”
Tess brought Liz a coffee and refilled mine, then went about preparing sandwiches, sliding them into little transparent bags and fitting them down inside her knapsack.
“You spent the night here with Tess?”
“Well…” I looked at Liz, squaring myself.
Tess piped up. “Oh, like my mom would let me have guys over.”
Liz turned toward the kitchen. “So he did, huh?”
“I camped in the woods last night,” I said.
“By himself,” Tess added.
Liz shrugged, then turned back to me. “Where’re you from?”
“Manchester, I reckon.”
“You reckon?”
“He just recently moved here from South Carolina.”
I kind of remembered it being Ohio when she told her other friend, but I didn’t correct her.
“Oh, then of course.” She lifted her cup to her lips and took a sip, eyeing me over its rim. “So how’d you two meet?”
“Liz, I’ll tell you all about it later, okay?”
Liz turned to me with a question in her eye. “What’s with all the secrecy?”
I shrugged. “Hard to say.”
Tess came over to the table. “Liz, it’s way too complicated. I promise I’ll tell you later. I’m ready. You ready?”
“You’ll tell me later? When it becomes less complicated?” Liz stood, took another gulp of her coffee, then scooted her chair in.
“I will.”
Liz looked at me. “You sure you want to be involved with… this?” She nodded toward Tess.
We climbed into Liz’s car, Tess in front, me in back, the knapsack on the seat beside me. As the car hummed down the road, flying past the stone fences and trees, the gals talked about something a friend had posted on a face-book. I quickly gave up on their conversation, but couldn’t help overhearing Tess dodge a couple of questions about her and me. I studied the inside of the car, figuring I’d not see another ever again. I watched Liz moving her right foot from one pedal to another—speed up, slow down, stop, turn a little this way and back the other—so simple looking, I was tempted to ask if I could give it a try.
I glanced out the window to the blur of the roadside. A machine was carrying all three of us across the mountain at a speed that defied logic, and the strange young woman was operating it so effortlessly as she talked and glanced this way and that, occasionally into the mirror, at me, and then at something else, no more taxing than whittling on a piece of white pine. I studied every detail of the car, puzzling over each little part of it, and stared at what was going by, how it looked going by, and listened to the faint sound of the wind at the window and Tess’s voice—her laugh.
My eye would sometimes settle on Tess as she leaned in toward Liz, talking and listening. Would I ever see hair like hers again? It made me think of maple trees in the fall, those dark red leaves on a cool, overcast day. Her locks shone like satin ribbons, falling past her shoulders in graceful weaves, in and out, as perfect as a picture in a book. I turned toward the window at my right, closed my eyes, and took in a slow, deep breath. I imagined leaning into her, my nose in her hair, the smell of fresh ground oats.
The conversation up front paused. I opened my eyes.
Tess had twisted around and was looking at me. “You okay?”
I nodded.
“You’re awfully quiet.”
There was a smile upon her lips, which were delicate, like the lips in that painting I’d remembered, though I still couldn’t recall where I’d seen it. I smiled back, hoping I’d always remember her face as it was at that moment. “Just thinking about things.”
We’d reached the peak of Mount Holly, seven miles from Greendale.
“Liz, what do you want to know about Vermont in 1875?” Tess asked. She turned and made a goofy face at me.
“Eighteen seventy-five?” Liz replied.
“Yeah.”
“How much was a new Mini Coop?”
“Seriously. John probably knows more than any historian alive.”
“Eighteen seventy-five? Why 1875?”
“He did his term paper on it for history.”
“I can’t even imagine why you’d choose 1875 Vermont. That would bore me to tears. But that’s just me; history doesn’t do it for me. But okay, the population of Vermont in 1875.”
“The population?” Tes
s threw out her hands. “No wonder you find it boring.”
“Well, what was it?” Liz said.
Tess twisted around and looked back at me.
“I don’t rightly know.”
“You don’t rightly know?” Liz asked. Her eyes locked onto mine in the mirror.
“Can’t say as I do.”
She busted out a laugh. Tess joined her. I’m not sure why that was so funny, not that it mattered; the merriment seemed to draw us all closer together.
Liz parked her car at the same place Tess had parked two days earlier. “This is what you were in a hurry to get to?”
“Uh huh.”
Liz looked out the side window. “And this is important?”
“Well, yeah, we’re hiking to Wallingford from here.”
“Tess, you led me to believe this was something really important. I got out of bed early so you could go for a hike with your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend, Liz.”
Tess turned to me. “John, you mind giving us a minute alone?”
I spent a puzzled moment sorting out what she was asking of me, and then a slightly annoyed moment settling into an appropriate response. I climbed from the car, closed the door, and stepped into the woods. I couldn’t think of any better explanation for me standing there than I was, maybe, being referred to in some way I might not appreciate. It seemed to me that folks in the future just weren’t as gracious and respectful as folks were in my time. Did I take it personally? Perhaps, a little. It shouldn’t have mattered, but then, having Tess’s respect had somehow become important to me. Caring… it had just crept up on me.
I heard two dull clicks come from behind me. The front doors of Liz’s car swung open.
I walked to the back door where Tess was dragging out her knapsack. “How about I carry that?”
“Thank you.” She gave me a quick smile, then helped me secure it to my back.
I turned to her friend as I fished in the bottom of my pocket. “I sure appreciate the ride here,” I said, handing her a quarter dollar, “and would very much like for you to have this.”
“John, that’s…” Tess caught herself and stopped.
Liz didn’t seem to take notice; she was focused on the coin in her hand. “What is this?”
“A quarter dollar.”
She studied the coin more intently, just as Tess had done. “This for real?”
“Yeah.”
“John has a collection of old coins.”
Her eyes lit up. “Wow. This is nice. Really cool. Thank you.”
After saying our goodbyes, Tess and I stood in the road and waved at Liz’s departing car. A few minutes later, we were walking by the ruins of Greendale.
“John, that quarter you gave Liz could have been worth a hundred dollars.”
“It was worth a quarter dollar to me.”
“Well, it was very thoughtful of you. I think Liz was thrilled.”
“It was mighty good of her, doing this for me… for us.”
“Yeah. I think you’d like each other if you were to get to know one another. She’s slow warming up to people. They often steer clear of her because she comes across a bit arrogant, I think. The truth is, she’s just struggling to fit in. She doesn’t really need to, though.”
“That silver ball on her nose… How’s it stay put?”
Tess snickered. “You know how an earring stays put, don’t you?”
We were starting up the rise, just west of where the Hemings’ place would’ve been. “Strange.”
“I suppose.” Tess was directly to my right.
“Do I seem strange to you?”
“Yeah, but not too strange, a good kind of strange. Do I seem strange?”
I smiled. “Sometimes.”
“Good strange?”
“Sometimes.”
“Which means…?”
“I don’t know, Tess.” The stupidest little lie.
“So why’d you say sometimes?”
“It don’t seem right, me judging what’s good and what’s not. You’re just different. Times are different, I reckon.” I climbed over a tree that had fallen across the path.
Tess followed right behind me. “So, you think I’m… naughty.”
“What? I didn’t say that.”
The river was babbling off to our right. I held a prickly branch down with my foot while she stepped over it. I was looking for a way to apologize for a remark that didn’t really need an apology, but wasn’t quick enough.
“You’re too good to say it,” she said.
“Say what?”
“That I’m a sinner. You think I’m a lost… a lost… hell, I don’t know. I cuss, I lie, shave my armpits. There’s just no end to the evil I’m capable of. ”
That was one of those differences I had in mind when I’d told her she was different. She should have let the whole matter go, as I believed any normal gal would have. “You’re different, Tess. That’s all I’m going to give you.”
“You say it’s not right to judge, but you do. Every so-called Christian I’ve ever met was judgmental. That’s what they teach you in church, isn’t it? How to determine wrong from right, good from bad, who’s going to heaven and who’s going to hell? They show you how and then tell you not to—wink, wink.”
“There ain’t no need for disrespect, Tess.”
“Oh?”
I shut my mouth. We went on, neither of us saying anything for a while, but then she said, “Maybe I’m being disrespectful, but since I don’t consider myself a Christian, I’ll withhold my judgment of you being a hypocrite.”
I took a deep breath. I’d never strike a person for something they said; that was how I was raised. And I’d never hit a gal for any reason, ever, though I couldn’t honestly claim the thought hadn’t entered my mind. She shouldn’t have said it, but there it was, said. “A hypocrite.”
“Forget it.”
“That’s probably a good idea, Tess.”
But maybe it wasn’t because what followed was an ugly stretch of stubborn silence with no rightness about it. It felt as if all of an hour had passed with neither of us breathing a word, though I had plenty to say, and I had no doubt Tess was chomping at the bit with a thought or two of her own. I fumed a while and then wondered why her words were bothering me so much. I hardly knew her, after all, and wouldn’t be seeing her again beyond that day. Why should I care what she thought?
I tried to forget the whole thing. I’d set my mind to something else, and it’d wander back to Tess and her big mouth. It didn’t seem to matter what was on her mind; it’d come spouting from her jaws like a two-year-old acknowledging someone’s missing limb.
A hypocrite…
Then, more and more, I realized how much it mattered to me what she thought and, even more importantly, it mattered how I left things with her. I gave up trying to understand why. I glanced her way. She ignored me.
“Tess?”
She turned with a somber look in her eyes. “Yeah?”
“You thirsty?”
“Yeah. Turn around.”
I stopped and turned my back to her. I heard a zipper being pulled and felt the tug of her reaching down into the pack. I turned and watched her twist the cap off a clear plastic bottle and gulp down half the water in it. She handed the bottle to me. I drank my fill and handed it back. While she was putting the bottle away, I searched my mind for something to say. But nothing came to me, nothing that felt right, anyhow. We started back up the path.
“John?”
I stopped.
“I really didn’t intend to hurt your feelings.”
“My feelings ain’t been hurt.”
“It seems to me that you might’ve been a little angry with me.”
“Well, yes, that. Maybe I was… a little.”
“I don’t want that.”
“I reckon I know that, Tess.”
We stood there for a bit, looking off into the woods—her to the left and me to the right. I tu
rned to her and she to me, then we nodded as if we’d arrived at some kind of understanding. We waited for another moment to pass, sharing the peace before starting up the mountain again.
“You know where we are?” she asked.
“I believe so.”
“Are we close?”
“Not real far. How long have we been walking?”
She reached down into a pocket and pulled out her cellphone. “A little over two hours.”
“Really? We’ve covered a good amount of ground.” I stared ahead. The trail at that point was lightly traveled. If a person wasn’t paying attention, he’d likely lose it. “You ever hike alone, Tess?”
“Yeah, I’ve camped alone a few times, too.”
“You did?”
“Well, out there by the house where you were camping.”
“You sure you can find your way home from up here?”
“You’ve hiked this trail before. Is it pretty much like this the whole way?”
“It gets a bit more difficult to follow, a few overgrown spots, though it’s mostly downhill from where we’re headed.”
“How overgrown?”
“Just pay close attention. And remember, the sun will be setting a bit south of where you want to end up.” I looked up at the sky, still a solid gray.
“So, this was a road at one time?”
“There was a coach that’d come through here once a day. One day, it’d come by from the north, and the next, it’d be going the other way.”
“A coach… with horses? A stagecoach?”
“Yeah, a team of four. It’s how we get our mail.”
“Did you ever ride on it?”
“I did when I was young—with my brother and once with my ma—both times to Rutland and back. I really liked that. The time I was with my brother, there was a man said he was going to Montreal. He could make coins disappear and then reappear. I remember my brother and me going on for weeks about that man doing magic on the coach.”