by Rae Meadows
“That’s pretty funny,” I say.
“It was more them than you. I didn’t mind it really. We were getting ready for an earthquake or something.”
Ralf extricates himself from me and the blankets and raises himself up onto his elbows.
“Did you know that the church is so primed for Armageddon that they’ve been stockpiling dried grain under the city for thirty years?” he asks.
“Grain can last that long?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they have special airtight silos. I wouldn’t doubt it if there is a whole parallel city down there. It’s pretty awesome that they’re so prepared.”
“What did you do last night?” I ask.
I venture my hand to his chest but he ignores it and falls back into the pillow. I decide to leave him alone and inch away toward my side of the bed.
“Played rummy with my uncle,” he says. “And watched a Hogan’s Heroes marathon.”
I admire Ralf for his truthfulness. He never tries to play it cool.
“Ember and Ford swung by and picked me up on the way back from gambling. You sneaked in pretty quietly last night.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Long night at the office?”
“Something like that,” I say.
The early sun starts to make itself known through the blinds, filling the room with diffuse, gray light. But it’s still too much too soon and I hook my arm across my eyes.
“Do you think Ember’s going to go with him?” I ask. “With Ford?”
“I don’t know. He keeps asking her, you know. He must have asked her ten times last night. She says no sometimes and yes sometimes but never with much conviction either way. It’s a weird game they play.”
“I’ve gotten used to having them around,” I say.
“Man. It’s sure going to suck when Ford goes,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “You could probably go down to Moab with him if you wanted.”
“I’ve thought about it. But what would I do there? I don’t know so much about the river. Besides, there’s this construction job starting in a couple weeks in West Valley City. It’ll be me and a bunch of Tongans.”
I roll over to face him; his profile comes into relief with the light. I want him to move toward me and take over the moment.
“Ralf?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not tired.”
“Me neither,” he says.
“So what should we do about it?”
“How about breakfast?” he says. “I’m starving.”
We drive out east into the mouth of Emigration Canyon, and although there is considerable snow covering the benches of the valley, the roads are clear. The morning cold dissipates as Ralf plays the Waylon Jennings tape he took from Ford’s truck. It’s a sharply lit morning, the sun gaining momentum as it rises, and blinding glints reflect off the icy top layer of snow. Last night at the hotel has the hazy edges of a daydream. I can barely conjure Scott’s face. Ralf watches out his window, tapping his fingers on his knees.
“Is it lonely living out there in Tooele?” I ask.
“Probably no more so than anywhere else. My cousin’s basement can be cold and depressing sometimes but that’s why I come hang out with you guys.”
“Do you think you’ll ever leave here?” I ask.
“Utah? No way. It’s home. I belong to it. It may seem like everyone is conforming here but conformity is no way the same thing as being normal. This is probably one of the most unnormal places there is. And that’s good. Don’t you think?”
We slowly gain altitude as we snake farther into the winding canyon, around the jagged rock faces, the horse camp, the random houses set deep within the trees. The aspens are bare but the pines are a rich blue-green in the frosty mist the sun hasn’t yet been able to reach.
“This is what I love about Salt Lake,” I say. “Within minutes we’re here.” I point my hand in an arc across the windshield to span the rugged beauty on all sides.
Ralf smiles and nods.
“When I was a kid, I used to feel sorry for the kids on TV who lived in big cities,” he says. “I thought anyone who lived there was poor and that’s why they couldn’t leave. All that cement and chain-link fences. All those locks on the doors. Graffiti. Not that I think that now. I mean, I know that people like it there, that there’s cool stuff and all. I guess.”
“It has its charms,” I say.
“Like that McDonald guy?”
“McCallister.”
“Right, McCallister. But with or without good old McCallister, bet you can’t see an eagle in the Big Apple,” he says, stabbing the air with his finger.
“You got me there,” I say.
Ruth’s neon sign comes into view as we round the curve of a protruding canyon wall. The old diner is parked in the middle of the trees and granite, as if it just got tired en route, stopped to rest and never left. For sixty years Ruth herself cooked up breakfast for the hunters, the travelers, the fringe, the outsiders. Although most people who come here actually drive out from Salt Lake City, Ruth’s is decidedly un-Mormon in its feel. There’s no blond, apple-cheeked waitstaff or automatic cheer. There is a sense that people take a respite from their lives here, that they use time at Ruth’s to regroup. We park next to a pickup laden with rifles and hunting gear, emblazoned with mud-and-salt-caked bumper stickers. The single legible one reads, “I love animals. They are delicious.”
We’re ahead of the morning rush. The only customers are a group of camouflaged hunters hunched over their coffee at a table in the far corner, shoveling eggs into their mouths between periodic comments. As soon as we sit, the waiter, a scruffy guy Ford has pointed out as an offseason river guide, appears with coffee and I give myself over to the promising smells of bacon and biscuits. Prickly warmth darts around my body, and then it settles like a blanket around my shoulders. Feeling soothed and languorous, I almost tell Ralf what I was really doing last night. In this light it seems merely exotic. But a quick look at his childlike bed-head and his wrinkled flannel shirt and I decide against it. I know he would be disappointed to the core.
“Did you know that the church keeps track of inactive members?” he asks.
I welcome the resumption of our Mormon dialogue, as if we’d been talking about it all along.
“‘Inactive’ meaning ‘not Mormon anymore’?”
“Mormon but not churchgoing. Jack Mormon. Like me. No matter where I happen to be living, even the time I went to live in the Ozarks, every few months I’ll answer the phone and some smiley guy will say, ‘Brother Lundgren?’ It’s really quite amazing. The FBI should get in on that action.”
“I wouldn’t like that at all. I like the idea of being where no one can find me. That it’s possible to slip away if I wanted to, without explanation, to do things no one knows about but me.”
“Really? I think it’s reassuring to know someone always knows were I am. It gives me credibility or something. It means I exist in a larger context. Anyway, it’s not like you can get rid of them just because they don’t know where you are. And it’s not like McCallister doesn’t keep tabs on you anyway.”
The river guide returns and we order enough pancakes and bacon and hash browns for four, and then Ralf enacts the Mormon sales pitch he used while on his mission in Amsterdam. I take in every word, watch the expressions on his face, encourage him to talk and talk. The longer I keep it going, the more time I have in this fragile, contented haze. He tells me about the still, small voice of the Lord as revealed to Joseph Smith, and how Mormons are taught to listen for it, to develop their own relationship with God. When the food arrives, I take small bites and chew slowly, trying to keep the regret about last night from taking hold, shoving those thoughts to the periphery. Plied with coffee, Ralf goes and goes. I missed the segue but he is now talking about the church’s recent anti-sin campaigns.
“Last year they proposed a bill in the state legislature that would have outlawed public ashtrays,” Ralf s
ays, “so kids couldn’t scrounge for butts. And up in Bountiful? All the magazines, even, like, the women’s fashion ones, are covered up except for the titles. As if just the sight of a beautiful woman will incite impure thoughts. Which I suppose may be the case but you can’t regulate thoughts and behavior in that way. That’s where church leaders go wrong. Moral micromanagement turns people off.”
The hunters pass behind me, their boots squeaking on the linoleum floor.
“That’s just beautiful,” I hear one of them say in an all-too-familiar voice.
I turn as they leave, just in time to see longish ashblond hair escaping from underneath a baseball cap. Scott slaps one of the guys on the back and laughs as they push through the front door and disappear into the morning glare. He didn’t see me. The feeling of getting away with it bubbles up in me and transforms into a heady giddiness.
But then the door opens and Scott ducks back in. I quickly look down but it doesn’t matter because he looks past me. I don’t register. A ponytail and a different context is all the disguise I need. He grabs his vest off the back of the chair and exits once again.
My heart slows to normal. I made Scott happy and then I disappeared.
“Are you going to eat that piece of bacon?” Ralf asks.
“It’s all yours,” I say.
I slather raspberry jam onto a biscuit. I feel powerful with expanded possibilities.
*
McCallister calls as I am draped across Ember on the couch, my feet in her lap. It was daytime when we arranged ourselves; no one bothered to turn on the lights as it sank into dusk.
“So how was it?” McCallister asks.
“How was what?” I ask, my pulse quickening. “Your date.”
“Oh. Fine. It was okay.”
“Are you going to see this mystery guy again?” “Probably not,” I say.
McCallister lets my evasiveness go without comment.
A salt truck rumbles outside and swallows his words. “What?” I ask.
“Maria has decided to paint the apartment in varying shades of red. What do you think about that?” he asks. “Do you think it’s some kind of statement?”
“We won’t be able to hang out like this if I go to
Moab,” Ember says.
“What?” McCallister asks.
“That’s Ember,” I say.
“You haven’t answered my question,” he says. “Here’s a question,” I say. “How come you call me so much when another woman is painting your walls?” “Go Jane,” Ember says, squeezing my foot. “Because we’re friends,” McCallister says, his voice wounded and whiny at the same time. “Friends talk, they ask advice, they laugh together. Are you saying we’re not friends?”
I don’t say anything.
“I don’t like talking to you when other people are around,” he says.
My toughness recedes. The thought of his calling my bluff, withdrawing from me, leaves me feeling frightened and ill-equipped.
“I think red might look all right,” I say, backing down. “I don’t think it has to mean you’re losing your identity or anything.”
“But it might make me look sallow,” he says. “What’s he saying?” Ember asks.
“Something about his complexion,” I say.
“He’s such a girl,” she says.
“What?” McCallister asks.
“Nothing,” I say.
“Okay. I guess red it is. Might spice it up a bit in here.
I’ll call you later, Jane. I like it better when I get you all to myself,” he says.
“Don’t pout,” I say. I hang up and let the phone fall to the carpet. It’s all the way dark. I sit up next to Ember.
“I have something to tell you,” I say. Ember’s eyes glow in the streetlight shining through the window.
“Meet the newest Utah escort.”
“Jane!” she says, grasping my hands between hers. “We’re so the same.”
When I look up, it takes me a moment to notice Ford leaning in the doorway in the dark. I don’t know how long he’s been there but by his crossed arms and the slight shaking of his head, I know he has heard enough.
chapter 11
Nikyla, sitting on the arm of one of the office love seats, has the bulb of a lamp aimed at Diamond’s face and is plucking her eyebrows for her.
“I feel like shit. I hate going out when I have my period,” Diamond says.
“Stop moving. It’s hard to get these tiny ones,” Nikyla says, stretching the arch of Diamond’s brow taut.
“Hi, girls,” I say.
“Well, well, well,” Nikyla says. “Is it true?”
I laugh.
“I think I hear hell freezing over,” Diamond says.
Nikyla stands and holds her arms open and wraps me up in a hug.
“I came to check the schedule. Do my write-up,” I say.
“Welcome to the jungle,” Diamond says. “Hey, help me work on these,” she says to Nikyla, her hands on her enhanced breasts as if they were not attached to her body. “They’re getting all hard and shit.”
Nikyla takes one of Diamond’s breasts between her hands.
“Okay. How about this,” Nikyla says, “Roxanne. Age twenty-six, slender, long dark hair, brown eyes. 35-24-33, smart, sensual, a great listener. A real beauty.”
“In my wildest fantasies,” I say.
“Oh please. Like it matters. It’s perfect. You’ll attract the ones who are looking for love.” Nikyla takes Diamond’s other breast in her hands and rolls it with her palms.
“Great,” I say. “Just what I need.”
“Hey, Rox, I can’t find Jezebel. She’s flaking again,” Kendra says from the office between mouthfuls of Pringles. “Want to be on?”
“Uh, okay,” I say. “Sure. I better go home and shower. Get gussied up.”
“Cinderella off to the ball,” Diamond says.
Nikyla smiles at me, mouths “good luck,” and blows me a kiss.
I like how escorting blots out reality, one hour at a time, and I’m secretly excited to get back out there.
*
Ember’s car won’t start, so on the way to my date I drive her down to Holladay to the house of this guy she’s already seen three times in two weeks. She just says he’s kind of in love with her and tips big, but my guess is that he’s her cocaine connection. She seems to have an endless supply these days. I find white powder on every smooth surface of the house.
“So what’s the deal with art school?” I ask. “Are you going to start in the spring?”
I want her to have a concrete reason to stay in Salt Lake with me. Something to ground her here. Her wildness scares me even as I crave its glow, its intensity.
“I don’t know. Yeah, I guess,” she says. “It depends, you know?”
Ember lights another cigarette with the butt of the one she’s still smoking.
“You could probably take extension classes at the U in the meantime if you wanted, like drawing or painting. I was thinking about taking some kind of class. Want to go up there tomorrow with me and check it out?”
“I don’t think I can handle classes right now,” Ember says, blowing out smoke and rubbing her nose with rabid persistence. “But you should, Janie. You’re smart. I think that would be great for you. Turn left at the light.”
I park in front of a sagging, putty-colored ranch house with a corrugated metal fence and an old washing machine poking up through the snow on the lawn.
“Are you sure he’s home? There aren’t any lights on,” I say.
“It trips him out to have on a lot of lights. He’s probably in the basement. Don’t worry. He’s a pussycat. I’ll cab home.”
Mohammed would be furious to see that she’s going out in jeans and an old “Wisconsin” sweatshirt under her ski jacket.
“Okay,” I say. “Be careful.”
“Hey, good luck tonight,” she says.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Remember, they’re all just men,” she say
s. “Just act like you really like him. He’ll sense it and reward you for it. And however it goes, know that the guy’s lucky to get you.”
She gives me a kiss, her breath a mix of cherry cough drops and smoke, and opens the door. Before shutting it, she leans back in.
“I’m not going to go,” she says. Her eyes simmer.
“You’re not?”
“I mean with Ford. I’m not going to Moab,” she says.
“Oh, I’m so glad,” I say. I’m flooded with selfish relief and thrill. I won’t be the one left behind.
“Yeah, it’s going to be great,” she says.
“Does Ford know?”
“Sort of,” she says and slams the door.
Ember steps back, raises her arms out wide and looks at the sky as if to say “This kingdom is ours!” She giggles and drops her arms as she walks up to the dilapidated house. She goes in without knocking.
I’m on my way to see someone named Harold in South Sandy. Kendra said he sounded normal enough, if a tad nervous, and although we don’t normally meet new clients at their houses, he pressed for an exception and it was the only way she could close the date.
Sandy is a flat, sprawling, middle-class suburb with young trees and one-story houses and a lot of big-portion chain restaurants. Harold’s tidy brick house is at the end of the street, on a cul de sac, and it’s easy to spot because it’s the only one not strewn with Christmas lights. I wear a conservative outfit at his request, a tailored shirt and pinstriped pants with my hair pulled back. Because I heard he is skittish and his name is Harold, tonight I’m feeling emboldened. The short cement walkway from the driveway to the door has been shoveled clear with perfect precision. Shades are drawn over every window. The door knocker is the sharp-angled head of a watchful wolf. It’s heavy and cold in my hand as I strike the brass plate on the door.
There are the muffled steps of stocking feet, a pause as he examines me through the peephole—I smile—and then the clicks of locks and chains being undone. The pale face that appears in the door is strikingly rectangular, accentuated by a boxy hairline and a deep side part.
“Yes?” he asks.