White Plains

by David Hicks

  Don’t let your yearnings get ahead of your earnings.

  Eventually, everyone started talking again, and Rosie delivered the artists’ breakfasts, refilled Trey’s coffee, called out a See ya when someone left, and asked the artists how they liked Belinda’s home cooking. The black-haired one had her mouth too full to answer, so Rosie turned to get Mr. Cowboy Boots his just-brewed pot of decaf. When she came back, I caught her eye and nodded towards her belly.

  “So does this mean you guys are going to get married?” I asked.

  I’d seen her boyfriend. He worked at the Fat Brown Trout and was a ski instructor at Wolf Creek—a soft-spoken Libertarian, always going on about how Ron Paul would save the country.

  But this time, everyone heard me. The artists stopped gabbing. Samantha from the bank looked at me from across the counter. Trey scowled as he took a sip of coffee. But they clearly misunderstood my intentions. I wasn’t some judgmental fundamentalist; I was fishing to see what my options were.

  Rosie came over and picked up my dirty plate. “I’ll get married when I’m good and ready to, Professor,” she said. “Unlike some people.” She dropped my plate in the bin and lowered her voice. “So what happened to your baby?” she asked.

  And there we were.

  In between the Tour of the Wild West and our most recent camping trip, Casey had gone to the Planned Parenthood in Alamosa for an abortion. She didn’t tell me about it beforehand—she said she was going to load up on groceries and would be back in time to make dinner. But when she got back, groceries in tow, she confessed. She said she hadn’t let me in on it because she knew I would try to dissuade her, but she also knew damn well it’s what I secretly wanted her to do. When it came right down to it, she said, she “may have forgotten” to take her birth control pill when she had visited me in November out of some perverse subconscious need to compete with my ex-wife (“It’s the one thing she has that I don’t have”), and after thinking about it, she had come to the conclusion that maybe that wasn’t a very good reason to have a child.

  I looked her up and down. Had she even been pregnant? Yes, she had a protruding belly, but she always had; I actually found it attractive. If she was telling the truth, I knew I was supposed to be indignant. I knew I was supposed to say it was my baby too, she ought to have included me in the decision, and so on. But she was right; no matter what the truth was, I did feel relieved. So when she said she was going to tell her friends she had miscarried, and that I needed to corroborate her story, I said sure. If anyone asked, I said, I would tell them she had miscarried. And I did.

  And one of the people I had told was Rosie.

  It’s better to keep your mouth shut and look stupid than to open it and prove it.

  She dropped her order pad onto the counter and glared out the frosted window. I sat there for a while, trying to find the right thing to say. I sat there until Trey slid aside his plate, set down some cash, and walked out without looking at me. I sat there as Belinda (who, I remembered at that moment, volunteered at the Planned Parenthood in Alamosa once a week), rinsed off her spatula and took a bathroom break. I sat there as Rosie’s boyfriend came in, bumped my shoulder as he leaned across the counter to grab a fresh cinnamon roll, and left without paying.

  I sat there until Rosie set down my bill and refilled my cup.

  “Listen,” I said. “It wasn’t my—”

  She put up her hand and closed her eyes, and that’s when I remembered that she had sent over a bouquet of flowers after I’d told her the news, and that she had driven out to Casey’s ranch while I was at work, to give Casey a hug and keep her company for a while. She had sat in the living room, sipping coffee and telling Casey how sorry she was, telling her not to worry, a miscarriage could be a blessing because there might have been something wrong with the baby, and she and I would have plenty of chances to get pregnant again.

  “Finish your coffee, Professor,” she said quietly, her pooched belly now more like a badge of honor than a mark of shame. “And go on home to your famous girlfriend.”

  I put a little cream in my coffee and took a few sips, but if there’s nothing to eat alongside it, coffee just doesn’t taste that good. So I put a ten-dollar bill on top of the check, added a few singles, zipped up my coat, slid off the dead man’s stool, stepped out into the bitter cold, and headed across the street to the Fat Brown Trout, where Rosie’s boyfriend rang up my purchases while chewing on his cinnamon roll. When I went next door to the Post Office to mail the kids their gifts, I found a heavy envelope in my P.O. box: the transcripts of my divorce hearing. I opened it right then and there and skimmed through it, stopping at page 11: Since the defendant has not seen fit to present himself at this hearing and therefore cannot defend his right to joint custody, the court rules in favor of Mrs. Hawkins—Ms. McGlinchey—on this matter.

  I stared at the sentence, reading it over and over.

  Rachel had won full custody of the kids.

  ME, THE FOX

  Well, we didn’t move to Binghamton exactly. Where we moved to and where we still live is near the border of Binghamton and a super small town called Nanticoke, ten minutes from Grammy and Poppy. Everyone thinks, including my dad and my brother, that it’s the most boring place in the world, but it’s really pretty and peaceful and I would just like to say that I like it. We live off Route 21, but we’re the only house on the right for a long way so it’s easy to find.

  I didn’t always like it. Well, I always liked it, meaning where it is and the woods and everything, but it was hard at first for me, especially in school. If I could have just stayed home every day, watching TV or outside in the back yard, it would have been fine. We had a huge yard with a forest behind it (which my dad says is “really just a few trees”) and farmland all around. We moved there from White Plains so for Mom it was back to her home but for me and Nate it was like a new world. Our own world. Nate had his side of the “forest” and I had mine, and he cleared a passageway in the middle so we could visit each other’s forts. Excuse me, my mistake: so he could visit my fort. I couldn’t visit his because he said his “moat” was filled with snakes and creatures that would eat me and I kind of believed him because I was really young at the time. His fort had an archery target and all kinds of stuff like Nerf guns and X-men, but mine had the best tree with low branches for climbing, and it was prettier too, I had a blue blanket hanging over a big branch and when I wanted privacy nobody could see me. I honestly never cared what Nate came up with for us to do every day, as long as he included me. He was my only friend.

  Then one day, our cousin David came over, and just like that, I wasn’t Nate’s best friend anymore. I wasn’t even someone he liked. When David came I ran out to the back to play with them, but before I even got there Nate yelled out, “Get out! Go to your own fort!” and David said, “Yeah, go away!” When I said I just wanted to see if they wanted to play “Slay the Dragon,” which was totally Nate’s favorite game, he said, “No! God, you’re so annoying,” and David laughed his mean laugh. So I went over to my fort and climbed up to my favorite branch. I knew if I went inside and told Mom about it then Nate would be furious with me, so I just stayed in my fort with the blanket pulled down and cried. Then I went inside, snuck into my room, shut the door, and sulked some more. But eventually I got over it (I probably played with my American Girl doll and told her all my troubles), and when I went back outside, I knew better than to go bother them, so I went back to my fort. But when I got there, I saw that my favorite climbing branch had been chopped down. I couldn’t believe it! I looked over toward my brother’s fort and I heard them both laughing.

  “A pokemon destroyed your tree!” Nate said.

  “Yeah, we saw it!” David said. “It was Mewtwo!”

  I was only five years old at the time and extremely gullible, but I was smart enough to know exactly what had happened. Betrayal.

  So then I had zero friends.<
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  Of course, Nate had a whole bunch. He was really outgoing and played soccer, so, you know, boom: instant friendships. Me, I was shy. Whenever I told my mom I had no friends, she would pick me up and say, “Well you’re my friend. You’re my best friend!” She’d carry me to the mirror and wave to my reflection, saying, “Hi there, friend!” and I’d wave back and say the same thing. My mom has an irresistible smile, and she could always cheer me up. However, having your mom as your best friend isn’t exactly something to brag about; so I had to do something. In a pathetic attempt to have a social life, I invited everybody in my kindergarten class to my sixth birthday party. My dad was there for it—it was weird, he came the day before, slept on the couch, and drove me to school that morning, and I don’t know what he did all day long, but he was there when school was over and then my mom was home too, but Nate was at soccer practice, so there we were, the three of us, and the table was set with balloons and paper plates for eight people. And we waited.

  The party was supposed to be at 4:00, but when 4:00 came, nobody was there. My dad kissed me and told me I was the prettiest and most wonderful six-year-old who ever lived, but then he kind of stood in the corner, trying to be polite I guess, and my mom kept fussing over the cake and cleaning the counter and saying, “Don’t worry, even if it’s just us, it’s going to be a great party!” but with each passing minute I felt more and more like I was choking.

  Finally at 4:15 the doorbell rang. We all rushed to the door, but they let me open it. It was Alivia Case. She lived down the road. She handed me a present, whispered “Happy Birthday,” looked around the room, and quietly sat down. And so we had a party. They sang the birthday song to me and we all had some cake. Alivia and I barely said a word.

  So then, after that, for a while anyway, I had a friend. For the rest of the school year we said hi to each other at the beginning of school, and sometimes we said bye at the end. But then we were placed in two different classes for first grade, so once again I found myself friendless. Plus the kids in my new class called me “Bug Eyes” because my eyes were apparently too big for my face.

  Lunch was the worst. I sat alone every day. For the whole year. For the next three years in fact. I took my lunch and went to an empty table in the way back. Once, there were no empty tables, so I took my lunch to the bathroom and ate it in there.

  It wasn’t until fourth grade that I finally got the courage to sit with some other kids who were considered weird. They seemed happy to have me at their table. They told me about a game they played during recess: they chose an animal they liked, and as soon as they stepped outside they would become that animal. I decided I would be a fox. I liked foxes. Foxes were cool. So as soon as I stepped outside, I was a fox, sniffing the air with my long nose. We did this every day, and I started looking forward to lunch and recess for a change.

  Then, one day, I stepped outside, fully prepared to transform into my fox self, when a girl grabbed my hand and told me I would be playing with her that day. I nodded and smiled. She was super pretty. She pulled me over to her friends. There were three boys and another girl with her. “This is Cal, TG, Tyler, Lexi, and I’m Rachel,” she said. “We’re the Boyz Club!” I had no idea what I had done to deserve being included in such an amazing, exclusive organization, but I didn’t care. From that day on, I started looking forward to school instead of dreading it, and all because my new cool friends who didn’t sit at the “weird” table would be waiting for me at lunchtime.

  Me and Rachel are still friends, and one day I asked her why she had approached me that day and she said, “Because you were different.” I’m certainly not used to being different. Or I guess what I’m saying is I’m not used to being considered different. I do feel different. I feel different all the time. Everyone else I know, they have this life, with their parents at home, and friends from their neighborhood, and if their parents are divorced they see their dads all the time. I’m the only one I know who has to get used to being so alone all the time. All the time. Every day of my life. My whole life I have spent missing someone. I miss my dad all the time. When I get to be with him, though, I miss my mom. Now that Nate doesn’t play with me anymore, I miss him, I miss the way we used to be. I miss my grandma too, and Auntie Anna Banana and Uncle Mitch and my cousins Marianna and Robbie, we used to see them all the time but now we never see them.

  I’m used to it now, but still, if I’m honest about it, it’s been a hard way to grow up.

  SPRING CREEK PASS

  It was only November, but to Flynn it had already been winter for far too long. Sanctuary was at nine thousand feet above sea level, located in what had been, in another epoch, the mouth of an enormous volcano. And while it had been a spectacular summer, filled with hikes above tree line, bald-eagle sightings, a raft trip down the Rio Grande, and camping in the Tetons, by mid-August the nights had grown cold, and by now he was beginning to dread the early dusk. Casey’s property, which she had bought when her first book, Destroyed But Not Defeated, became a best-seller, sat four miles outside the town proper, bordered by the river at one end and the base of the Divide at the other. There was no insulation from the cold.

  Flynn awoke just before the alarm, at 3:58 a.m., easing himself out of bed without waking Casey or Sage, the 110-pound Newfoundland that slept between them. Before going to bed the snow had started to fall, so he had ground his coffee, put out his clothes, and set the alarm a half-hour earlier than usual.

  He opened the fireplace door and placed a chunk of pine wood, one he had chopped that summer, on the glowing ashes. After shuffling into the kitchen, he turned on the porch light and peered out at the thermometer: minus fourteen. And three more hours of darkness to go.

  Wearing his flannel boxers and an old baseball shirt, Flynn slipped on his Sorels and stepped out to his car through a foot of fresh snow. The moon lit up the mountainside to the north; he could see the junipers a hundred acres away. One of the horses, Cielo, whinnied from the stable. In the spring, Casey had told Flynn that he could ride the skittish Arabian whenever he wanted; that way he could learn, she said. (She herself rode Rex, the bigger, more reliable quarter horse she had recently bought for four thousand dollars.) So he had, all summer. Cielo would skitter away from sticks on the ground, thinking they were snakes, and Flynn had trouble handling her at first, but he had learned to relax into the saddle, direct her without using the reins, and treat her with compassion and confidence. Over the past weekend, Flynn had taken her up the mountain, stopping on a ridge to feel the cold air in his lungs and look at the view. From up there, Casey’s log cabin was just one of many dotting the landscape, and Sanctuary was just one of many pretty places to live in this part of the country.

  He started up his old Sidekick, given to him by his new friend Len, a Spanish professor at Mesa State College. In April, after receiving the terms of his new divorce agreement, he realized he needed more money, so he had driven to the four colleges within a four-hour radius of Sanctuary, walked into the deans’ offices with curriculum vitae in hand, and landed two job offers. He took the one at Mesa because of the nearby airport, which would make it easier to see his kids. Over the summer he had thrice driven four or five hours (to Denver, Colorado Springs, and Albuquerque) in order to fly back east, and while he wouldn’t say it wasn’t worth it (he spent a grand total of eleven hours with Nathan and Janey over those three trips, due to his ex-wife’s maneuverings) it had been enough of a hassle to make him wonder if living on Casey’s ranch would work for him long-term.

  He put the heater on full blast, directed it onto the frozen, snow-covered windshield, turned on the rear defrost, got out of the car, and checked to make sure the wheel hubs of the Sidekick were on “Lock” for four-wheel drive. He took a deep breath, relaxed his body so he would stop shivering, and looked up to the eastern sky. The Leonids were due in a couple of days, and Casey had told him to watch for them just before dawn. He saw an isolated streak directly above him, th
en another to the south—but none where the meteor shower was supposed to be.

  On a moonless night back in February, not long after he had moved to Colorado, several of the planets had been aligned, and Flynn had seen them with his naked eye, just before driving to the hotel to work the breakfast shift. He had walked into the restaurant gushing to the cook: he had seen the luminous Saturn and a rusty Mars; he had spotted a blue dot that was either Uranus or Pluto.

  Now, the stars and planets seemed to have exploded into disarray.

  After adding more wood to the revived fire, taking a shower, and dressing in the living room while the coffee brewed, Flynn put on his dry hiking boots, filled up his travel mug, put a banana in his coat pocket, grabbed his duffel bag, gym bag, and backpack, and headed back out, closing the door gently behind him.

  The night before he had made this trip for the first time, back in August, Flynn had sat at the kitchen table with Casey, tracing the route on the Colorado page of her Rand McNally. It looked plain and boring, traversing what seemed to be barren land. He’d take the state road north to Gunnison, turn west onto highway 50, and follow that all the way to Grand Junction. “It’s pretty,” Casey had told him. “Keep your eyes open.” She pointed to a crooked gray line, diagonally connecting 149 with 50 before 149 bent east towards Gunnison. “And take this cut-off right here.”