Blindsided

by Karis Walsh

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lenae took a seat near the front of the bus and felt Baxter wedge himself underneath her. Out of habit, she checked to make sure his paws were safely tucked out of harm’s way. She chatted quietly with him as they rode, telling him they were on their way to meet Cara and Pickwick for their one-month evaluation. She wasn’t sure he’d be able to hear her over the roar of the diesel engine, but at the mention of Cara’s name he raised his head and licked her hand. Maybe he was excited to see Cara—he always responded to her name or presence with more excitement than Lenae was accustomed to seeing in her serious dog. He even seemed to enjoy the antics of Pickwick, although he’d never seemed particularly fond of wild puppies.

  On the other hand, maybe Baxter was trying to comfort her with his wet nose and rasping tongue. She was unaccountably nervous about seeing Cara again. Their conversations had been growing increasingly personal, and even though Lenae was coming to appreciate having Cara as a friend, her old habits of privacy and recalcitrance were difficult to overcome. She couldn’t help but worry that secrets told in confidence might come back to haunt her someday. She’d become preoccupied with Cara’s revelations as well. There was something touching about Cara. She seemed successful in the media world, unsurprising given her breeding, but she was more in touch with her inner self than Lenae had expected. An entire family of actors. Lenae had lived with one fame-hungry woman, and had worked among countless others, but she couldn’t imagine growing up in a home full of people so adept at putting on an outward show. Had Cara been nurtured as a child, or prepped for the cameras?

  Despite her growing interest in Cara’s life and upbringing, they weren’t strictly Lenae’s business except where Pickwick was concerned. And Cara had surprised Lenae in that regard also. She was taking the puppy-walking job seriously, and applying everything Lenae taught her with diligence. At first, Lenae had thought she might be working hard only so she looked good on the news spots, but now she knew better. Knew Cara and her motives a little better. Cara hadn’t brought the cameras along when she came to the center with her students, or the day of the class field trip to Olympia. Instead, the trip had been a time of quiet revelations for them both. And the day with Cara’s students had been a peaceful one with undocumented work and friendly kids. The dogs at the center had loved the attention of the college students, and Lenae had been left with patched fences, an aerated and seeded lawn, and the enticing scent of herbs from Cara’s hanging basket. Rosemary for remembrance. Lenae couldn’t walk through the office door without plucking off a leaf and letting the smell bring her day with Cara vividly back to mind.

  A friendship was nice, but Lenae couldn’t be sidetracked by Cara. She had her five-year plan for establishing her business, and Cara had other career goals to follow. Lenae had wanted out of the fast-paced news world, especially since she had lost faith in her ability to discern truth from self-serving fiction. Cara was on the edge of the limelight, but about to be pushed farther in. Lenae knew the qualities of timbre and voice control necessary for success in the television medium, and Cara had those in abundance. And according to everything Lenae had read or heard, Cara had the gorgeous looks to back them up. No, whether that was Cara’s ambition or not, she was going places, and Lenae wouldn’t ever again be collateral damage to someone else’s career move.

  Baxter seemed to sense when they had neared their stop, although she had never taken him to Evergreen College before. She took hold of his harness and got to her feet when the driver opened the doors. Although her puppy-walking sessions were held at the center or on group trips around the area, she wanted to get in the habit of visiting her volunteers in their own environments as well. Too much time with Cara might not be in her best interests—since even her logical awareness of their different career paths couldn’t make her attraction to Cara disappear—but at least the privacy-denying presence of the news cameras would help her keep an emotional distance.

  “Hi, Lenae. Hey, Baxter.” Cara greeted them when they stepped off the bus. The heavy diesel fumes couldn’t quite hide the scent of fir and damp ground, and Lenae felt as if the forest was encroaching on them where they stood.

  “Hello, Cara. And hello to you, Pickwick. You’re being very polite today.” The puppy had jumped on her once but had responded to Cara’s quiet command of off. Lenae bent down to scratch his ears. He wasn’t sitting, but he was politely standing by her side. When she straightened up again, she felt him leap up to bite Baxter’s neck.

  “Sorry. He can only be good for so long,” Cara said with a sigh. “Pickwick, leave poor Baxter alone!”

  Lenae laughed. “He’s improving, so focus on the good and don’t worry about what’s going wrong. Concentrate on being consistent, and eventually his emotional growth will catch up. One day he’ll surprise you with how much he was learning even though he was too young to follow the lessons.”

  “Again, I’ll have to take your word for it. In the meantime, all the chairs and tables in my house are a few inches shorter because he’s been gnawing on the legs.”

  Lenae put her hand on Cara’s shoulder and kneaded the tight muscles she felt there. Cara joked about her puppy issues, but Lenae understood the truth behind the humor. Cara was devoting plenty of time and energy to Pickwick, and therefore to Lenae’s center. She wanted to continue massaging Cara’s tension away, as much for her own pleasure since she loved the quiet moans Cara made under her touch, but she couldn’t forget they were standing in the middle of a busy campus. “Maybe we should let him have a good run with Baxter before the film crew gets here, so he won’t be distracting while you shoot the news spot. Is there a safe place for him to be loose around here?”

  “The crew isn’t coming today. Did you want them here? I thought we could take the dogs down to Eld Inlet and let them play on the beach.”

  Because I’m sick of having my every move recorded. Because I’d like to spend time with you. Cara didn’t add those reasons to her list. “I thought it’d be easier to talk about Pickwick’s training without worrying about being filmed.”

  “Oh, of course. I’m sure Baxter will enjoy a hike to the water. He loves to swim.”

  Cara led the way across the campus, but she stopped at the communications building. “This is where I work. It’s basically a big concrete rectangle, but it has some interesting reddish and glass shapes on the roof. All the buildings are very spartan and defined, from the outside.”

  “They must look interesting set here in a forest. Hard materials and forms, growing out of the softer insistence of the woods around them. Can we go into your office?”

  “Sure.” Cara covered her surprise by going over to a tree to rescue Pickwick from a tangled leash. She hadn’t expected Lenae to want to visit her personal space, or to be able to understand the visual interest Cara had in the college campus. She was constantly surprising her. Cara held the door of the building open for Lenae and Baxter, telling Lenae about the posters and displays as they walked down the hall. Some of the fine arts students had photographs hanging on the walls, and Lenae paused by each one as Cara described it.

  When Lenae had finished asking questions about the photographs, they continued down the hall. Cara debated mentally about asking a question of her own, and she finally gave in to her curiosity.

  “You seem to grasp the concepts of what makes a photo artistic. I didn’t expect the subject to interest you since photography’s strictly a visual medium.”

  Lenae paused before she answered, but Cara had a feeling she was trying to frame her answer, not that she was offended by the question.

  “I understand composition. Everywhere I go, every time I enter a room, I have to orient myself to doors and furniture and people. So even though I can’t see photos or paintings, I can imagine the spatial relations between the objects in them. I also get the interplay of sun and shadow—not visually like you, but in the sense of warmth and cold. I experience the artwork in different ways than a sighted person, but the subject mat
ter can still have the ability to affect me.”

  “I suppose it’s the same with any artistic form,” Cara said as they walked. Lenae had rested her hand on Cara’s forearm for guidance and Cara slid her own hand over it, gently fitting her fingers between Lenae’s. “Say we both read a poem. The imagery and ideas in it will affect me in a certain way because of my past and my state of mind, but you might read something entirely different into it. The power of the artist to affect and change us is the constant.”

  Lenae squeezed Cara’s fingers softly. “Most people aren’t able to get past their disbelief when I say I enjoy the visual arts,” she said. “You focused on what makes us similar, not what makes us unlike each other.”

  “We have unique ways of encountering what our senses perceive, but we’re doing the same thing at heart. Trying to make sense of the world around us and to understand our place in it. And as for my place in the universe,” Cara injected a wry note, “this, such as it is, is my office.”

  “You sound almost apologetic,” Lenae said with a laugh. “I’ll take that to mean it’s a mess in here?”

  Cara was about to protest, but she had to laugh as well. Her first instinct, when they had come through the door and until she reminded herself that Lenae couldn’t see the clutter, had been to start tidying up. She should have expected Lenae to know it wasn’t neat even without being able to see the haphazard stacks, especially since she’d visited Cara’s home and knew her housekeeping habits, or lack thereof. “Maybe, a little. It didn’t help when I had to take all the books and papers off the floor so Pickwick wouldn’t destroy them.”

  “Are you blaming the innocent puppy for your bad habits?” Lenae touched the edge of the desk and followed it until she reached Cara’s chair. She sat down and unsnapped Baxter’s lead. He went over to Pickwick’s unused cushion and curled up for a nap.

  “Innocent isn’t the word I’d use to describe the little hellion, but I’ll admit I’m a slob.”

  “You’d drive me crazy,” Lenae said as she ran her hand over the objects on the desk. “I have to have everything in place.”

  “I could change,” Cara said. Why had she spoken the words out loud? “I mean, I’ve had to change, for Pickwick. I don’t think being messy is part of who I am, so I’ve been able to make adjustments.”

  Lenae touched papers and books and a couple of empty coffee cups before she found a small clay object. She picked it up and ran her fingers over it, searching for some identifying clue, trying to distract her mind from contemplating Cara’s original statement. It had sounded personal until she’d attempted to explain it away. Lenae didn’t want to even think about Cara in her space, in her home. But she wouldn’t mind a few bumps and bruises if Cara wasn’t as obsessively neat as she was. “Part of being a pet owner is making changes,” she said, following Cara’s change in subject. “Just like having a child. Speaking of children, did one make this for you or were you a kid when you made it?”

  “I did. I was in first grade. Can you tell what it is?”

  Lenae turned the object around in her hands. “There’s a small indentation on either side, so I’d guess it’s an ashtray. The paint is bumpy on this side, so you wrote someone’s name over the background color. Is this a D? Yes, you made this for your dad.” Lenae stopped talking but kept following the clues. Cara’s dad was very much alive and delivering the sports scores on television every night. The only reason she could find for Cara to still have the primitive piece of art was because her father didn’t want it. What kind of parent would reject a child’s offering?

  “Very good,” Cara said. She took the ashtray from Lenae’s hands. “But I made the indentations too small. My dad smoked cigars and not cigarettes.”

  Lenae had no idea how to respond to Cara’s flatly delivered comment. She heard the pain in Cara’s voice as clearly as if she’d announced it in words. What made Cara keep this reminder of a childhood hurt so close at hand? “He should have taken up cigarettes,” she said.

  Cara set the ashtray back on her desk with a loud clunk. “Thank you. I’ve known that, of course, but I’ve never been able to actually say it out loud. What parent wouldn’t make a fuss over a child’s gift, even if it wasn’t useful or particularly beautiful? I’ve kept that damned thing with me for years, moving it from desk to desk whenever I changed jobs, always there as a reminder. Of what? The ability to rise above disappointment? The foolishness of expecting kindness or allowances? Or, better yet, it was probably my first lesson in the importance—or is triviality the right word?—of appearances. Love doesn’t matter, but form does.”

  Lenae cleared her throat and felt for other objects on the desk. She had noticed too much when she’d felt the memento of Cara’s childhood, and she searched for a way to lighten the suddenly closed atmosphere in the small room. Books, papers, thick file folders. Nothing specific to give her a new topic, but the generalities might work to get Cara’s mind off the past. “What classes are you teaching this semester?”

  “Just one, but I’m the lead professor for it, so it’s very time-consuming. It’s called Rooted in Place, and it’s about the definitions and influences that make us the people we are. We’ll do classwork and also make a student-produced film about each student’s self-defined roots.”

  Not exactly the change in subject Lenae had anticipated. She marveled at Cara’s desire to keep focused on her past and her own roots even though they seemed to cause her pain. “It sounds interesting. Will you have a part in the film?”

  “I’m not sure,” Cara said. Lenae heard the rasp of clay on wood and wondered if Cara was still toying with the ashtray. “I might do a short spot on my family and what it was like being raised in the media.”

  “I’m sure it had plenty of challenges.” Lenae stopped exploring Cara’s desk with her hand and instead scratched Baxter’s ears. “Different expectations and experiences.”

  “Different values…” Cara’s voice faltered to a halt. She cleared her throat and started again. “Since you’re interested in composition and visual arts, how would you produce the story of your own life for film? It’s going to be a challenge for my students to decide what is important enough to include and what’s not as significant.”

  Lenae sat quietly for a moment, piecing together childhood memories into a coherent sequence. She had been most wounded and changed by her recent betrayal, but she didn’t want to talk about that with Cara. So she stuck to her early years.

  “I think my story would best be told by responses to events, not the events themselves,” she said, groping for the right words to express what she meant. “Most people believe I’m defined by my disability, but what really defines me is how I react to it. My mom played a big part in that. So my story wouldn’t be about the burned hands when I tried to cook or my cut knee when I fell off the neighbor kid’s bike. It’d be about the way Mom had me brainstorm ways to make it safe and possible for me to cook or ride a bike. She helped at first, but I took those lessons with me to college and to work.”

  “You ride bikes?” Cara asked, hating the note of disbelief in her question. Lenae only laughed, her expression at ease as if she wasn’t offended by Cara’s curiosity.

  “Unless I’m very confident in my surroundings, I stick to the back seat of tandem bikes. But I used to ride around the track after school, and Mom and I would ride around the block together. She had a bell on her handlebars so I knew where she was and stayed close behind.”

  “You’re amazing,” Cara said before she could stop herself. She knew bike riding wasn’t inspirational—people did it every day—and she hoped Lenae understood that she wasn’t praising her for living a full life. No, she gave people plenty of compliments when interviewing them, but this feeling she had for Lenae was different. Lenae had learned about Cara’s deficient past, about her parents who wanted to mold her in their image, to limit her scope. And she had learned about Lenae’s mother, who had opened the world to her daughter and raised her to be confident and strong
in her own abilities. And Lenae was confident and strong, much stronger than Cara feared she was herself.

  “I think you are, too,” Lenae said quietly.

  Cara couldn’t conceal her reflexive scoff at Lenae’s comment. “An amazing potter? Or an amazing organizer? Certainly not an amazing puppy trainer.”

  “I’m not joking,” Lenae said. “You’re much better with Pickwick than you give yourself credit for, but that’s not what I meant. You’re amazing because of the honest way you explore yourself and your past. And instead of only using what you learn for your own benefit, you share your knowledge with others. With your students and audience. And with me, like you did when we were talking about the photos in the hall.”

  Cara wrapped Pickwick’s lead around her wrist. Lenae seemed serious, but Cara couldn’t come up with a response that didn’t sound unappreciative or disbelieving. She shifted the attention off herself and onto the dogs. “Shall we take these two out for a hike now?”

  “Yes,” Lenae agreed after a brief pause. She stood up and grasped Baxter’s harness. “Let’s go to the beach.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Oops, I’m sorry. I didn’t notice the root back there.” Cara had suggested they let Baxter be off duty while they followed the path through the woods and down to the beach, but she hadn’t realized how varied the terrain really was. She had been along this same route many times, and it seemed to be a straightforward trip. When she was responsible for being another person’s eyes, she suddenly began to notice every dip and rock and bend in the trail.