When we get to the trailhead for Yellow Rock Canyon, Pete asks for our sentences.
“My town is a soulless suburban wasteland,” says Dawn.
Erik reads his. “Landon is a town of hardworking people who care about their community.”
“We live next to a park that has a pond with floating cans,” says Ho-Bong.
Ho-Jun says, “There are three grocery stores within two miles of my family’s store.”
“How about you, Pritchett?” says Pete. “What’s it like living in Graniteville?”
“It’s like living on the funny farm,” he says, “except no one laughs.”
The group turns to me.
“I live between an industrial rock and a suburban hard place.”
“Nice,” says Pete. “And now for something completely different.”
Yellow Rock Canyon begins at a craggy trailhead with a half dozen signs telling people that they can’t drive their four-wheelers in the area. There are tracks right under the signs. Farther up the trail the trees are starting to leaf in and grass is sprouting from jaundiced yellow to muddy green. Cottonwoods and willows line the stream that cuts down the canyon. Overhead Pete points out the turkey vultures. “They always fly in twos.”
“Why?” says Ho-Jun.
“They pee on themselves and throw up in their nests to keep away predators. They sort of have to stick together to have company.”
Dawn says, “Sounds like my stepbrothers.”
Pritchett says, “What else you got besides vultures, Pete?”
Pete nods. “You name it. Bears, cougars, hawks, elk, deer, eagles ... and in a few months this place will be like a singles bar for migratory birds.”
We walk farther up the soft trail and come into a brushy meadow. A jackrabbit bolts in front of Dawn and everyone says, “Ooh.” Except Dawn, who trips into the mud and swears a blue streak.
“They really do have huge ears. I thought people made that up,” says Pritchett.
Pete shushes us. “Listen.”
The air floats with gobbling. Pete points to a stand of trees, and a huge dark shape waddles into view. “Wild turkey, male, looking for company.”
The giant bird makes a sound like, “Ke ke. Putt putt.” His brilliant blue head and red wattle twist with irritation. He doesn’t look real, he’s so bright and blue.
“Should I give him my number?” says Dawn.
“You aren’t his type,” says Pete. “But the mud is a nice touch.”
The bird flies up a few feet and lands. He seems more disgusted with us than frightened.
Pete puts out his arms to shush us again. The bird watches us and then begins making a strange, low, throbbing sound. Definitely X-rated.
“Strumming.” Pete uses his low, throbbing voice. “Maybe you are his type, Dawn.”
Right on cue, three females flutter over a hill and prance around in plain sight. Pritchett quietly laughs. “This dude is popular.”
The birds ignore us and bob their blue heads. The ladies flutter. The male struts.
“Shake it, Turkey Lurky,” says Pritchett. Even Ho-Jun and Ho-Bong crack up.
“And Cocky Locky,” I say.
“You’re a bad little girl, aren’t you?” says Pritchett. He puts his arm around me, and then I crack up.
“I might surprise you,” I say, just because I feel like it.
“I bet Myra is full of surprises,” says Dawn. She looks more cheerful covered in mud.
Pritchett laughs and keeps his arm around me.
“Is this really what we’re doing today?” says Erik. “Watching birds have sex?”
“Right,” says Pete. “I don’t want to fill all your impressionable minds with animal behavior. Do not try this at home, children. Let’s head to the van.”
Pritchett drops his arm.
I look through my borrowed binoculars. “Do we have to go?”
As we walk back, four turkey vultures swoop overhead. Squirrels bicker in the trees. Four deer sprint through the scrub oak, stirring up dead leaves and branches. A bald eagle chases away the turkey vultures. The sun filters through the cottonwoods, speckling the ground. The springwater rushes in the walls of the canyon. We’re thirty minutes from my house and I never knew this place existed.
When we get back to the marina, everyone heads for their cars. I go to mine to put my stuff away and regroup before I go to work. I feel Erik walking behind me, but I don’t see it coming when he climbs into the passenger seat of Melyssa’s clunker.
“Excuse me,” I say.
“What was all that about today?”
“All what?” I say loudly. Pritchett and Dawn both look at me from their cars as they drive away.
“Why are you doing this?” Erik’s face is blotchy.
“Doing what?”
“Do you really want to go to the Galápagos Islands? Really?”
Hearing Erik say this out loud makes the idea seem ridiculous. “Why do you care?”
“Because I think we need to talk.” He looks at his hands.
“About what?”
“About us.”
My pathetic space-sucking heart is hammering. “What us?”
He puts his hands down at his sides, balling them up and then extending them. “I wanted to talk to you last night. But the truth is I didn’t have the nerve. Not after everything that’s happened.”
“Talk about what?”
“About us. I miss us. I miss you.”
“There isn’t an us anymore,” I whisper.
“Couldn’t there be?”
Just like that he says it. The question stares me in the face. But it doesn’t look like I expected it would. The idea feels more ridiculous than trying to win the scholarship.
He says, “Do you have to go to work right now? Let’s go for a walk.”
I look around me at the marina, trying to get my bearings. I do have a few minutes before I have to be at work. I watch the wind carrying small sailboats out to the center of the lake. I think for a split second about my dad saying that sometimes you need to give a good man a second chance.
“Where do you want to go?” I say.
There is no smile now. He says, “You can follow me in your car. I’ll surprise you.”
We’re all alone in the parking lot. This is my call. I watch him get into his white truck. I turn on my radio. That stupid song is playing.
What do my instincts tell me to do?
All I can hear is the song.
I follow him.
30
Swooping:
When birds attack.
We don’t drive far. Erik speeds up the frontage road that goes back behind Saltair. There are a few Saturday cyclists on the road, but mostly it’s deserted. He pulls over and motions for me to come get in his truck.
I walk up to his window. “What are we doing?”
“Hop in.”
The music from the song in my car gets quieter in my head. Instead I hear the whistle of the trains coming across the desert. The sound has to travel a long way to reach me, and yet somehow it does. “Not to be rude, Erik, but the last time you had a surprise for me, it wasn’t a good one.”
“Well, I can’t break up with you again, can I?” He laughs.
“I’ve got to go to work.” I turn to get back in my car.
Erik hops out. “Hey, don’t be mad. I’m sorry. That wasn’t funny. Let’s just walk for a minute.” He takes my hand. His grip surprises me.
The road dead-ends in a trailhead a ways from where we’ve parked. The birds are going crazy with the warm weather. A little gray finch dive-bombs us from a lonely oak tree. It’s a rosy finch, but I can’t tell if it’s black- or gray-crowned because it’s moving too fast. Its sharp body makes me step back, which cracks Erik up. In the willows, red-winged and yellow-headed blackbirds are tweeting their lungs out. Overhead the gulls are circling. A great blue heron floats a thermal over the marshy shore. A raft of American coots bobs below, keeping tight so eagles won’t pic
k them off. A slender crane tips back and forth, pumping the water for food. Two months ago I might have noticed these birds, but not like I see them now. Now they are bright and loud with names and histories.
“Look.” I point to a northern harrier hawk sunning on a post. Its feathers gleam gold and brown in the sun.
“You’re really into this bird thing.”
I shrug. “Birds go places.”
Erik nods and keeps on walking. He looks exactly like he did the day he broke up with me. His black hair is jutting in all directions. He moves gracefully through the tall grass. When he turns to look at me, his eyes are lit up with a light I don’t understand. It’s not just that he’s so good to look at, it’s that there is something about him that draws me in, like vapor to glass.
“What did you want to talk about?” I say. We are a long way from the road.
“You get right to business these days. That’s cool.”
I wait.
He rubs his mouth and he laughs. “It’s just hard to put it out there, you know?” He puts his hand on my arm. My heart starts sprinting again. I want to listen, but I don’t. What if he wants to be with me? What if he doesn’t? Why am I afraid?
The irritated finch comes for us again.
Erik swats at it with his loose hand and the bird squawks louder. “That puny thing wants to kill us.”
I say, “Did you know that the smaller a bird is, the bigger its heart is? Hummingbirds have the biggest one. That’s why they can fly so fast.” I sound like a tour guide. I sound like Pete.
Erik keeps his hand on my arm and puts his other hand on my chest. I hold very still. We are off the trail, completely alone. It’s not like he has a gun to my head or anything. But not all weapons are made of metal.
“Yours is going pretty fast.” He picks up my hand and puts it on his chest. “Happy or scared?”
“Why should I be scared?”
He smiles. “You’re always scared.”
“Fear’s a useful defense mechanism.”
“Not if you’re afraid of everything,” says Erik.
Come on, Myra. “What did you want to talk about?”
Suddenly Erik hauls off and kisses me. And honestly, I miss being kissed, so the kissing would be fine if I didn’t know what was on the other end of it. I pull away.
“Myra, come on,” he says. “Just breathe.” He takes my arm and pulls me forward, so now we’re sitting on a dry patch of grass by a bush. He starts kissing me again. Like I’m not even there. And suddenly it’s like that weekend when his parents were out of town. When things got all messed up.
And then I realize what I’m here for.
I was wearing his mom’s apron. I know how that sounds, but I always cook in an apron. It’s like my ironed money, I just like it better that way. He came up behind me while I was breaking the spaghetti noodles into the pot and put his long arms around me. When he held me like that it made me feel so good, like we were almost the same person. He said, “I love spending the day with you. I mean, the more I’m with you the more I want to be with you. It’s like time doesn’t even matter, except after a while we remember we’re hungry.”
We’d been hanging out in the hot tub, and we were starving. We stood there in his parents’ kitchen with the swirling granite countertops and chandeliers like you see in hotels, dripping water from our swimsuits on the kitchen rug. He started humming that song from the radio in my ear in little tenor pieces. I think I could have stayed like that for the rest of the day.
But then, after a minute or two, his hands started moving. Too much. It’s not like I was innocent of the whole thing. I’d been there most of the day enjoying it, until I wasn’t anymore. About the time he started pulling off my suit.
I shrugged him off. “I’m cooking.”
“I know.”
“I don’t want to, Erik.” That’s what I said.
He kept smiling like I was kidding. “Don’t want to what?”
I moved and kept stirring the pasta. He turned off the stove. “Hey! Let’s go in my room. I’ll be good. Scout’s honor.” He held up three fingers, like he was hilarious. Like he was doing this for an audience. Or maybe he was doing it for himself, so when he was eating Sunday dinner next week with his parents he could remember that he had said that to me right in the spot where his mom makes pot roast in her tacky sunflower apron that says “April Showers Bring May Flowers.”
He rubbed my shoulders. “Why are you like this, Myra? You act like you love me and then you just freeze up every time. I’m the one who’s going to hell, right?”
“Nobody’s going to hell. I just don’t want to do it on your kitchen floor.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
He took my arm and started walking to his bedroom.
The voice in my head was having a shouting match with the other voice that wasn’t saying words, just noises. Noises that told me I did love Erik, and I loved being with him. And there was nothing wrong with it and it’s normal and natural and blah, blah, blah.
I pulled my arm away. “I don’t want to do it in your bedroom either.”
“Just keep breathing, Myra. Don’t be scared.”
I was scared, but not like he thought. We’d been close to this before. But I was scared because I knew that this was going to make things different.
Then he kissed me again, pushing me into his room backward. And it didn’t feel good. It didn’t even seem like this was about me, or even Erik. It seemed like it was all about us being here and his parents being out of town so this was what we were supposed to do. It felt like a mistake.
“It’ll be fine.”
“I don’t want to.”
He pushed me hard onto his perfectly made bed, like my brothers would push me if they were kidding. But Erik wasn’t kidding. He didn’t even seem like Erik.
“What are you doing?” What I meant was, What is wrong with you? But I didn’t say that.
“What do you think?” He leaned over me and pulled down the top of my suit. He was smiling, like this was a big party. But everything felt wrong. Everything. Especially me.
I put my arms up, and without meaning to, hit him in the cheek. Not hard, but he stopped. Angry. Like I’d never seen him. He wouldn’t force me. But I’d humiliated him.
And then he said, “Are you too stupid to know how this works?”
Erik knows a lot of stuff I don’t. He knows how to win. He knows how to be smart. He knows how to make people think he’s a good guy. He knew I would pretend like this never happened to keep him. But, just for that moment, I knew enough to pull my suit back on and hang his mother’s apron on his bedroom door. I knew enough to run.
The finch is still barking behind us. Erik says, “Is this about Ariel? Because she’s not an issue.”
“I couldn’t care less about Ariel.”
“What are you afraid of then?” he says.
I take back my arm. I say, “What are you afraid of?”
He rests his arms on each side of me. “That you and me aren’t getting back together.” He sounds completely sincere. Framed in sky and grass, Erik is beautiful. And horrible.
I take a deep breath. “Did you dump me because I didn’t sleep with you?”
He shakes his head in disgust and moves away from me. “I just asked you to get back together with me and that’s how you treat me?”
“Did you?”
“Of course, I’m the bad guy. Not that you freaked out, or that you were clingy, or that I just needed some space.”
I can’t believe he’s saying these things to me just seconds after he asked me to get back together with him. The speed that he moves from one personality to the other, that’s what I felt at his house. That’s how I knew, but I didn’t realize what I knew. “I think you’re going to have to get someone else to work with on your proposal.”
He turns to face me. “What, like I need your help? Give me a break. I’m not cleaning out my sock drawer.”
I get up fr
om the ground. I rub my mouth with the back of my dirty sleeve. I wish I could wipe off every slimy, hypocritical kiss. But more, I wish I could wipe away the memory of how much I treasured them.
I want to walk silently, stoically away. That’s what I would have done before. That’s not what I’m going to do now.
I take another long breath. “You’re a conceited, spoiled pretty boy.” His eyes get wide and then narrow. His perfect smile is gone. “This is not a bluff. If you ever try to push me down or throw yourself at me again, I’m going to tell the entire world that you tried to jump me in your mom’s apron. I mean, you so much as touch me and I’ll beat the pansy shit out of you myself.”
Erik says, “Nice mouth.”
“Goes with the rest of me.”
“Your words, not mine.”
I’m not listening to his words. I’m walking back to the car as fast as I can.
He yells, “No one would believe you anyway.”
I call over my shoulder, “No one but Sophie. Doesn’t her mother have lunch with your mother every Tuesday?”
A few seconds pass and then I hear Erik’s feet.
I’m within sight of the trailhead right when he catches up. “If you say a word to that bitch ... She’s the biggest gossip in three counties.”
“Nice mouth.”
He takes my hand and I shake it free. He’s not going to touch me again.
I hear a honking horn and look up. Ranger Bobbie is sitting in her truck. She waves.
Erik and I walk to the road and separate without speaking. I move quickly to Bobbie’s window. I don’t think she’s sightseeing.
“Where you been, missy?” She’s wearing an empty holster. Her gun is on the seat.
“I’m sorry if I’m late.”
Erik’s truck passes us.
Girls Don't Fly Page 15