Whispering, Idaho

by Nancy Canyon

  “It’s too rough,” Christie whined. “Slow down.”

  The car slowed. Alice’s father leaned forward and jabbed his finger northward. “That little weasel, Pastor Smith, lives there,” he said, reaching for Alice’s leg. “Son of a bitch’s robbing the cradle.”

  “Don’t!” Alice shoved his sweaty palm off her thigh.

  The car swerved around the next corner, coming close to the bank. “Watch it, Angel. You’ll get us all killed.”

  Christie yelled, “It’s too rough. I’m gonna puke.”

  Alice looked back at her sister. Mousy-brown hair whipped around her stricken face.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “You don’t look well,” Alice muttered, and faced forward again. She gripped her sketchbook, thinking of her mother’s story about her cousin Rayleen, who had fallen out of the car on her way home from church. Fortunately, they weren’t going very fast; Rayleen’s skinned knees and elbows healed quickly. “Children are resilient,” her mother had said.

  Christie leaned over the front seat and jabbed her father. “Stop! I’m gonna puke.”

  The car skidded to a halt. Reaching over the seat, he wrestled the car door open. “Carl’s Crossing is bad luck. Make it quick.”

  While Christie retched into the gravel, Alice threw open the door and jumped out.

  “Get back here, you little…”

  “I’ll be at the river,” Alice said. She slammed the door and darted across the dirt road. She slipped in the gravel, caught herself and stumbled into the brush.

  Her father thumped the side of the car. “Get the hell back here.”

  “Daddy, I’m sick. Take me home.”

  Gripping a pine limb, Alice watched her father’s red, contorted face through the pine needles. Squeezing her sketchbook against her chest, she felt the gold cross wedge into her skin. It was lucky for her that Christie was ill, or her father would be coming after her.

  “I wanna go home,” Christie whined. She wiped vomit from her mouth with the handkerchief Jim had handed her.

  “Goddammit, Alice. I’ll deal with you later.” The car door slammed; tires spun.

  Alice ducked down the trail just as a spray of dirt and gravel flew through the brush above her head. A murder of crows flushed from the bushes. She watched their defiant wings flapping off toward the darkening horizon. As the sound of the car faded, the whoosh of the river filled her ears. She climbed to her feet, brushed off her navy-blue crepe dress, and headed for the river.

  Alice never felt completely relaxed, never completely at-ease in her skin. Her muscles always seemed ready to spring into gear, her bones always prepared to bolt at the slightest suggestion of harm. The tone of a voice or a crooked look could send her into an anxious need for escape.

  Breathing in the smell of hot pine pitch and sweet mock orange, she felt a painful gnawing in her stomach. She remembered the apple she’d passed on to Gena and wished for it now. Maybe Stephen would fix her lunch. She gazed westward to where the water turned back on itself and was almost positive Stephen’s cabin was just around the bend. She started in that direction, imagining the cabin door opening, his face breaking into a smile. He would pull her into his warm arms. She would smell his soapy scent; feel his body heat and his soft lips pressing against hers. An ache began to grow deep inside her. She shook her head to push away the feeling and looked around the beach to see if she was alone.

  “What makes you think he would he want you?” she said to the beach, wandering toward a shaded rock where she plopped down. Across the beach she saw a broken-down shack hugging the hillside like a frightened child. She opened her drawing book and pressed the pencil lead against the white paper, outlining its teetering walls with quick strokes. A sideways drag of graphite and a rickety door appeared on the drawing pad, beckoning her just as the real one would. The crosshatched window darkened into a gaping hole; scribbled lines became tufts of beach grass and round river rocks. Just as she began to darken in the storm-bruised sky with heavy strokes, she heard music coming from somewhere near the trail. Alice stopped sketching and waited to see who it was.

  Gena appeared on the trail where it crossed the beach. She was wearing a black bikini and carrying a transistor radio at her side. As she walked, sprays of sand flung off the ends of her flip-flops

  “Hey, Gena,” Alice said.

  Gena dropped a beach bag beside her. “Hey. What’s with the church get-up?”

  “Dad dropped me off on the way home,” Alice said, her dress suddenly growing itchy in the heat. She fidgeted with the crepe fabric, watching her friend spread out her gear. She wished she’d had the wherewithal to bring her swimsuit and some food. But then…just her sketchbook had raised her father’s hackles.

  “Why didn’t you stay and sketch the lilies?”

  “Dad was in a hurry to get going.”

  “Seemed pissed to me. Peeled out of the church parking lot like a goddamned racecar driver.”

  “Bored from the service, I guess.”

  “Pissed again,” Gena said. “When are you leaving home?”

  “I don’t know,” Alice said.

  Gena settled onto a pink-striped towel. She pulled a Coke from her bag, opened the pop and took a long drink. She shoved the drink at Alice. “Have some.”

  “Thanks, I’m hungry and thirsty.” Taking the Coke, she drank deeply.

  Gena pulled a white bakery sack from her beach bag and handed it to Alice. “You should take better care of yourself. Look at you, hot and sweaty. And obviously hungry.”

  “I’m fine.” Alice reached in and pulled out a powdered doughnut. Fine white sugar sprinkled across her navy-blue dress like winter snow. She polished off the doughnut in a few seconds.

  “You still coming over tonight?”

  “If it's okay with you.” Alice brushed off her dress to the strains of electric guitar.

  Gena stretched out on her stomach, licking her fingers one at a time. “Mom doesn't mind. She said you’re always welcome at our house.”

  “Is five okay?”

  “Come any time. Go from here if you like. What are you drawing?”

  “The shack,” Alice said. “Want to take a look inside?”

  “Knock yourself out. I’m working on my tan.”

  Alice set her sketchbook down and climbed to her feet. The tinny transistor music followed her across the beach, coming in and out, competing with the sounds of Blue River. She leaned against the empty window ledge, peering inside the cabin.

  Gena called after her. “What’s inside?”

  “A headless doll and a stained mattress,” Alice said, wrinkling her nose at the tufts of stuffing and yellowed newspapers littering the floor. The light was dim, but not too dim to make out the remains of a headline, MAN DROWNS IN BOATING ACCI—. Alice covered her nose against the smell of mouse droppings and rotting wood. She stepped back from the worn structure and turned back to Gena.

  “Ugh! It’s nasty in there.”

  “What’d you expect? The Hilton?”

  “Very funny.”

  “Why don’t you paint your nails with that bitter tasting stuff? They’d look better if you quit biting them.”

  “Holding Stephen’s hand would keep me from biting my nails. Do you think he likes me, Gena?”

  Gena rubbed suntan lotion over her legs. “Oh, he likes you all right, bitten fingernails and all. See him blush in church when he saw you in the audience?”

  “No way.” Alice jumped at the snap of a twig.

  “It’s okay. It’s a friend of mine,” Gena said and waved. “Hey, Sunstar. Over here.”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” he said, laughing and waving from the river’s edge. “Gena and-oh yeah, cutie Alice Sharp.”

  Sunstar’s carrot-orange braids fell across his suntanned chest. His torn, calf-length jeans partially covered his bare legs; his feet were muddy. He scuffed through the sand, stopping next to Alice. After taking a draw off a joint, he handed it to her.

  Alice s
tiffened. “I don’t smoke that stuff.” She looked down.

  “Shit, what’s with the dress? Fuck, you need to loosen up a little. Have some. It’ll do you good.”

  Alice focused on the sand spilling off Sunstar’s muddy toes, wishing as hard as she did for snow in winter to be somewhere else.

  “Give it here, Sunstar,” Gena said. “Alice isn’t a pot head like you.”

  Sunstar folded into a cross-legged position onto the beach next to Gena’s pink-striped towel. “Hot damn, Gena. Nice swim suit.”

  “Thanks. What are you up to?”

  “Shit. Finding buried treasure in the mud. All day I wander along the beach, you know, looking for stuff.” He flipped several piece of polished glass onto the towel.

  Alice touched her cross, remembering the day she’d found it sticking out of the mud. After she had rinsed it in the river, she decided it didn’t matter what her dad thought about her art. She’d make it anyway.

  She stole a glance at Gena holding the joint to her lips. Gena sucked in the smoke, coughed, and handed it back to her hippy friend. Soon they were both coughing and sputtering and giggling. Alice grabbed her sketchbook, jumped to her feet, and stomped off across the beach.

  “So, leave, why don’t you,” Gena called after her.

  Alice didn’t answer. She kept walking away from the tinny music and marijuana smoke. She didn’t want to have anything to do with Gena’s friend.

  “Alice, don’t be such a bitch.”

  She stopped. She hated it when Gena acted so sultry, so worldly, like she’d smoked marijuana before. Who did she think she was kidding? A distant rumble of thunder echoed up the valley. She swung around, “I get enough of that talk at home.” She stomped back across the hot sand, stopping before the couple, fists clenched. “Give me some.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Gena said. “You don’t smoke pot.”

  “Move over, bitch,” Alice said, dropping her sketchbook in the sand next to Gena’s towel.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that,” Gena said. She pulled her legs up so Alice could sit next to her. “I’m too hot and now I’m stoned.”

  “Better not mess with me, Gena,” Alice said, and pinched the burning roach between her fingers. She held it to her lips and breathed in.

  Sunstar said, “Hold it in. Yeah, like that.”

  Alice sucked in the harsh smoke and held it until her lungs nearly exploded. Coughing, the smoke shot from her mouth. Almost immediately, the chatter in her head turned in circles and lay down. She looked into Sunstar’s green eyes, losing herself in scrub pine and still pools. Coma-like, she found her way through the fog to the gray snowflakes surrounding Gena’s dark pupils. Below a fringe of lashes, Gena’s petite nose wiggled, a smile forming on her red lips. In slow motion, Gena’s wet tongue touched her upper lip as Sunstar kissed her. Like a dazed voyeur, Alice watched them devour each other. She lay back on the hot sand and covered her eyes with her right arm. Soon she was drifting to the sound of water whooshing water, imagining drifting downstream while Stairway to Heaven coiled through her mind.

  “Fuck, you taste great,” Sunstar said.

  Alice’s mind jerked back into her tingling body. She looked down over at Gena’s pink-striped towel and began to laugh. She laughed until she cried, then she laughed some more. How much time had passed, she didn’t know. Her mind was full of clouds. Her mouth was dry. She was hungry again.

  She sniffed the air and salivated. “I smell burgers.” She sat up and looked around, her eyes landing on her friends who had turned to her in unison.

  “Can you smell that barbecue? I’m starved.”

  “She’s wasted,” Gena said. “Let’s stop off at the drive-in and buy her a milkshake before we take her home.”

  “Not home. He'll be there.”

  “Who?” Sunstar asked.

  “Her dad,” Gena said.

  “He’s an asshole,” Alice laughed. “Asshole, asshole, asshole.” She laughed louder, trying to stand but falling back onto the sand. She lay there for some time, staring up at the wispy willow whips reaching toward her.

  “Shit, she can crash in the vacant apartment upstairs from my place. Let’s take her there, then, you know—”

  “Yeah, take me there,” Alice said, closing her eyes for a second and drifting off in a swirl of fog. She was startled back again by laughter coming from behind her. Opening her eyes, she rolled up on her elbow and saw Gena and Sunstar walking across the beach, arm in arm.

  “Hey, wait,” Alice said. She fumbled for her sketch book as she scrambled to her feet. Woozy headed and giggling, she ran after her friends, nearly falling over the couple once she reached them.

  “I know, Gena. Sunstar can watch movies with us.”

  “Alice, our TV night’s off. Sorry. Sunstar invited me to his place.”

  Alice’s stomach sank like an anchor. “You said,” she whined, oddly remembering the headless doll in the shack. Her thoughts began to spin. Grabbing her stomach, she doubled over and threw up on the beach.

  “Shit,” Sunstar said. “Get a stretcher.”

  “Jeez Louise, Alice. Pull yourself together. Come on, Sunstar. Let’s take her home.”

  “No, he’ll be there.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Alice stumbled across the kitchen to the sink and dropped her aching head onto her arms. She groaned miserably. Her dad would be home in no time and she hadn’t started dinner yet. Straightening, she reached for the aspirin bottle with fingertips that felt as dense as river clay. She kept at it and finally the cap flipped off, spilling white pills across the Formica.

  “Forget dinner,” she mumbled to herself, scooping the tablets back into the bottle. “I got to sleep this off.”

  Alice swallowed the medicine and climbed the steps to her room. Stripping down to her nylon slip, she flopped down on her soft bed and fell immediately asleep.

  In her dream, Alice huddled against the wall of the beach shack. The smell of ammonia sucked her into an ether-like whirlpool. Flies buzzed, picking at a headless plastic doll. Outside the beach-shack door, a dog growled, scratching and scratching at the splintering wood. Alice’s heart raced. The dog’s barking grew louder.

  “Are you deaf?”

  Alice bolted upright in bed.

  Christie stood in the doorway, one hip pushed out to the side, flipping her hair with her hand. “Answer me, Stupid!”

  “What do you want?” Alice asked, pulling the sheet up to cover herself. She lifted the cross from her neck and held onto it.

  “Why are you always wearing that stupid cross?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Dad called. He said not to wait dinner. He’s working late. I want a burger with lots of pickles. Let’s go to the drive-in. Please, can we?”

  “Not tonight,” Alice mumbled. “Eat leftover goulash. Now go on, get out of here.” She laid her head on the pillow.

  “I’d rather starve than eat another bite of your gross goulash.”

  Alice sized up her younger sister. “What’s the matter with your face? It’s all red.”

  Christie jerked pencil-thin fingers to her cheek. “I’m hot. What do you think? It’s summer, in case you didn’t notice.”

  Alice narrowed her eyes at her sister. Something was different about her. Perhaps it was puberty and her figure filling out. Boys would be knocking down the door any day, wanting a date with the testy teen. She wondered if her father would make Christie's life as miserable as he had her own.

  “By the way, Stupid, you left this in the kitchen,” Christie said, pulling Alice’s sketchbook from behind her back.

  Forgetting her headache and scrambled across the room. “Give me that.”

  Christie threw the book on the floor and turned to the door. “You’re weird,” she shouted and bolted down the stairs.

  Alice yelled, “You better not have snooped.”

  Christie sing-songed from the kitchen, “Alice flunked art class.”

  �
��Ooh!” Trembling, Alice grabbed her book and sat on her bed. Cupboard doors banged shut in the kitchen. “I hate her,” Alice said, wiping her freckled arm across her sweaty forehead.

  She flipped to the back of the book, for a second expecting to see the photo, but then remembered her father had taken it from her during church.

  Maybe Christie read what Alice had written about Stephen’s soapy scent, the way his hair fell into his blue eyes, and the ache she felt down there when he stood close to her. Her cheeks warmed. Slipping the book under the mattress, she dropped her head onto the pillow. Her temples throbbed like she’d been knocked upside the head. She closed her eyes against the overhead light and fell back asleep.

  Alice dreamed she was wandering back and forth along a narrow beach. Swift water cut her off from the far shore. She didn’t know how she’d ever get off the brushy island. Jumping onto a rock for a better view, she slipped, splashing into the rush of icy current. She woke in a sweat, heart pounding. It was nine o’clock.

  The house was silent except for Christie talking on the phone in the kitchen. Alice climbed out of bed and stood at the window. Outside, the sky was swollen with charcoal-gray clouds edged in an eerie yellow light. Thunder rumbled in the distance; the smell of rain on dry fields gusted through the screen. She’d need a broom to sweep out the shack, a blanket to cover the mattress, a flashlight and her sketchbook.

  “Hey, Stupid!”

  Alice turned from the window. Christie stood in the doorway, wearing the pink silk nightgown. Rage swept through Alice. “That’s not yours,” she screamed.

  Christie twirled around before the mirror. “No way. It was in the trash. Finders keepers, losers weepers.” She turned from side to side. “It's so pretty! I'm wearing it tonight.”