“Which Japanese restaurant are we going to?” Laura asked once she was in the front seat of Kirk’s car. Once again she tugged at the Incredible Shrinking Skirt.
“No,” said Kirk.
“Oh. I thought you said we were having Japanese food.”
“No.”
Laura was silent, wondering how to deal with Kirk’s sudden rudeness.
“No,” he repeated. “The restaurant is called Noh. Spelled N-O-H. You know, the Japanese theater?”
“Oh-h-h,” Laura said, relieved. That’s O-H, she thought.
Noh wasn’t just any Japanese restaurant, Laura discovered, opening the menu. It was a sushi restaurant. Her policy was never to let any fellow member of the animal kingdom pass through her lips unless it had first been cooked. Desperately she searched the menu for the default section, the entrees like tempura and teriyaki and cheeseburgers that were geared toward the weak-kneed. Short of rice, there was nothing here she could categorize as even close to appetizing.
She was trying to remember the tricks she’d mastered as a child, ways of disposing of food at the dinner table without actually consuming it. Before she was able to dredge up any details, Kirk leaned forward, his intense baby blue eyes glowing like Christmas lights.
“So you’re a writer,” he said. “It sounds absolutely fascinating. I want to hear all about it.”
“I must say, it’s quite a rewarding career. I—
“I bet. You know, I’m a bit of a writer myself.”
“Are you?”
“I’ve considered getting serious about my writing.”
“Really? Fiction?”
“Fiction based on my life story. A lot of interesting things have happened to me. Zany, too.”
“It’s an interesting process, the way the author’s real-life experiences are incorporated into fiction. I’ve found that they never come out exactly the same, but—”
“It all began when I was a child.” Kirk leaned back in his chair, a faraway look in his eyes. “Sure, I seemed like just another typical American kid. Cuter than most, of course. Blond hair, blue eyes, the whole bit. But inside, I was burning. Burning. I knew I was destined for greatness....”
Laura let out a long, deep sigh, not at all surprised that Bachelor Number Two failed to notice. She simply did not have the energy to pretend to be enraptured by a recitation of the Life and Times of Kirk Brentwood. She picked up the menu again, having decided that eating lower life-forms had to be more palatable than conversing with them.
* * * *
“Dates from hell!” Laura cried, throwing herself on the couch and burying her face in a cushion. The fact that it was spotted with an apple-juice stain dating back to the 1980s didn’t even faze her. “They find me. I don’t know how they do it, but these guys can pick me out of a crowd—”
“Just because you had a couple of bad experiences doesn’t mean you should reject the entire concept of dating,” said Julie, sitting cross-legged on the floor, toying with one of Evan’s plastic Troll dolls. At the moment she was hopscotching it from square to square of her patchwork skirt.
“Besides, there are benefits to dating.” Claire, lounging in the chair opposite the couch, ran her fingers through her spiky hair, causing it to clump together. “Even I’m willing to concede that.” A dreamy, faraway expression crossed her face.
“Of course,” she added pointedly, casting Julie a cold look, “the key is to be dating the right person.”
Ever since the true of identity of Bobby of the sore rectus femoris had been revealed, a cavernous rift had formed between Claire and Julie. Laura knew they’d been avoiding each other. Yet after her fiasco with Kirk Brentwood, she’d called upon them both, needing a double dose of moral support. Tonight her friends’ problems with their social lives had to take second place to hers.
“Never again,” Laura insisted, her words muffled by me cushion. “I’m never going on another date.”
“What you need,” Julie said soothingly, “is a facial.”
“What you need,” Claire chimed in, “is a shopping spree at Bloomingdale’s.”
“What I need is to get away from all this.” In an abrupt movement Laura pulled herself off the couch and strode across the room. Frantically she rifled through the collection of magazines, catalogs, and assorted pieces of junk mail she’d tossed into a large wicker basket the day before during one of her rare cleaning frenzies.
“Here it is,” she finally exclaimed, thrusting a pamphlet at Julie. “This is what I need.”
Gingerly Julie accepted the pamphlet, an unassuming, handbill-size bit of paper. She studied it for a few seconds, then glanced up at Laura. There was a puzzled expression on her face. “World Watch?”
Laura nodded. “I need to throw myself into something . . . something productive. Something outside myself. Something more important, bigger somehow—”
“Something you need clothes from L. L. Bean for,” Claire observed, peering over Julie’s shoulder. “Laura, have you completely lost your senses?”
“World Watch?” Julie said again, clearly at least three steps behind. “What kind of organization is this? Laura, you’re not going out to sea in a rowboat to terrorize oil tanks the size of Rhode Island?”
“That’s somebody else’s job,” Laura informed her. “World Watch has been sending me unsolicited junk mail for ages. I finally took a break from wrestling with dust bunnies yesterday and read their pamphlet. Apparently this organization was designed for those of us who want to keep our feet dry. It’s modeled after the Peace Corps, except it’s for people who only have a week or two to donate to a good cause. It’s like going on vacation—only instead of touring museums or brushing up on your windsurfing skills, you help out on some worthwhile project designed to help keep the planet going for another decade or two.”
Julie blinked. “You mean like scraping high octane off ducks?”
“Now you’ve got it.”
Claire stared at Laura, a look of incredulity on her face. “You’re not serious, are you?”
“You know,” Julie said thoughtfully, “I think maybe Laura’s on to something here.” Taking the pamphlet, she skimmed the copy. Then she studied the pictures that Laura had pored over, groups of happy campers dressed in shorts and funny hats holding up fossils or exotic-looking bits of seaweed. “She’s right when she says she needs to get involved in something other than her own life. A project like this might help her put things in perspective.”
“After all,” Laura reminded Claire, “look at the drastic changes you made after you and ... you decided to get divorced. You cut your hair, dyed it, bought a whole new wardrobe, and began a brand-new career.”
“That’s not exactly how Bobby tells it,” Julie said in a strained voice, “but I suppose such a creative interpretation will do for now.”
“Wait a minute,” Claire countered. “Robert—Bobby— got exactly what he had coming to him. Just because he got hit with a little competition—”
“What about you?” Julie countered. “Laura told me what you’ve been up to. Throwing yourself at Melanie’s ex-husband. The poor man’s still wearing his wedding band and you’re plotting ways to lure him to your apartment—”
“Hey, guys,” Laura broke in, holding up her hands referee style. “This is my midlife crisis we’re dealing with here. Let’s stick to the subject at hand, shall we?”
Claire and Julie exchanged subzero glares, but lapsed into respectful silence.
“I say go for it, Laura,” said Julie. “You’ve got nothing to lose. And according to the tag line here at the bottom of this pamphlet, ‘you’ve got a whole lot to gain.’ “
“That’s really their slogan?” Claire asked, incredulous. “Good thing it’s not a spa.”
She looked at Laura. “Julie’s right. You might as well send for more information. Who knows? As crazy as it sounds, something like this could even turn your life around.”
Chapter Fifteen
“I hope this wa
sn’t a mistake,” Laura said in a thin, high-pitched voice.
She’d paused to study her reflection in the window of one of La Guardia’s Airport’s gift shops. There, superimposed over the “I Love New York” mugs and the Mets T-shirts, was a woman she barely recognized. The blurry, translucent image that hovered behind the display of Big Apple memorabilia like a ghost was dressed in clothing unlike anything she had ever worn. Industrial-strength jeans from L. L. Bean, designed for hauling firewood or clearing the back forty. A red plaid flannel shirt. A navy blue nylon jacket with retractable hood. And the piece de resistance: stiff, brown suede hiking boots straight out of the box that made her walk with all the grace and dignity of Quasimodo.
Her hair was pulled back into a utilitarian ponytail. Even her face looked different. Her skin had already taken on an unusually healthy glow—and she hadn’t even gotten her boarding pass.
“Who is this woman?” she muttered, mesmerized by the image before her, still not quite ready to believe it was really her.
“The new Laura Briggs, that’s who.” Julie, beaming like a proud parent, had come up behind her. “Off on an adventure. Traveling to an exotic new location, experiencing what few before her have experienced ... Laura, you look fabulous.”
“Very Ralph Lauren,” Claire seconded. She, too, had come over to the window. “You’re so lucky. Personally, I’ve never been a plaid person.”
“Guys,” Laura said in a low, even voice, “I’m starting to feel the way I felt on my first day of Girl Scout camp. The bus was getting ready to leave, and there I was all decked out in my green shorts and crisp white blouse with a string tie, my nose pressed against the window as I watched my parents get back into their car, knowing there was no turning back—”
“You’re going to love Alaska,” Julie insisted.
Claire nodded. “All that nature!”
“That’s right, Laura. You’re going to see magnificent lakes and mountains and glaciers and ... and ...”
“Grizzlies,” Laura mumbled. “And mosquitoes. Don’t forget those.” She swallowed hard. “It sounded like such a good idea at the time.”
Running off to the Last Frontier had, indeed, seemed like the ideal way to break with the past on that Saturday night three months earlier, when the three of them—and a family-size bottle of white zinfandel—had gotten together at Claire’s. It had been one of the first spring evenings in March, the kind in which the air positively vibrates with intoxicating sweetness. Soft breezes, wafting through windows opened for the first time since September, carried with them a dangerous impulse to experience life at its fullest.
The three women sat in the living room, poring over the literature World Watch had sent.
“Here’s one that sounds good,” Julie said thoughtfully after scanning several pages of listings in the World Watch catalog, a book of listings as thick as the telephone book for a medium-sized American city. “It’s a research project called ‘What Do Iguanas Eat?’ The write-up says, ‘Spend the month of August studying these fascinating lizards that inhabit the scenic Baja Peninsula, Mexico’s playground—’ ”
“Mexico in August?” Claire shook her head. “Laura will come back looking like a crab-apple doll.”
“How about this one? ‘The Poisonous Leaves of Papua. Toxic foliage, an important part of every ecosystem—”
“Have you completely lost your mind?” Claire demanded. “Don’t you know that in New Guinea, all the best families serve archaeologists for Sunday brunch?”
“ ‘Trailing Tarantulas in Death Valley’?” Julie suggested hopefully.
“Ix-nay on the Death Valley bit,” said Claire.
“ ‘Parasites of the Rain Forest’?”
“If the worms don’t get her, the guerrillas will.” Claire let out a frustrated sigh. “Here. Give me that.”
Indignant, Julie handed the catalog to Claire. “I don’t know why you think you’d be any better at finding a program for Laura than me.”
“At least I’m capable of keeping my hormones from clouding my brain,” Claire shot back. She buried herself in the World Watch offerings before Julie had a chance to reply. “Hmmm. No.... No.... Wait a minute.... By Jove, I think I’ve got it!”
“I’m afraid to ask,” muttered Laura. She was huddled in one corner of the couch, hugging the purple throw pillow.
“Alaska!”
“Alaska?” Julie and Laura repeated in unison.
“It’s perfect.” Claire’s eyes were glazed. “This is precisely what we’ve been looking for, Laura. Think about it. Alaska is part of the United States, so you don’t have to worry about the language or the currency or the eating habits of the natives ... or how loosely the locals interpret the word bathroom. But it’s still exotic. Wild. Unexplored . . .”
“Exactly what would Laura be doing up there?” Julie asked.
“Working side by side with Dr. Cameron P. Woodward of the biology department of Tyler University.”
‘Tyler?” Julie repeated, “Right here on Long Island?”
“One and the same. The name of his research project-— are you ready?—is ‘The Mystery of Motherhood in Sculpin Fish.’ Does that sound intriguing or what?”
“Thanks,” said Laura, “but I think I’ll wait for the movie.”
“No, listen. The number of eggs produced by female sculpin, a fascinating freshwater fish that dwells at the bottom of lakes—’’
Julie rolled her eyes. “I think I’ll even skip the movie.”
“What’s wrong with fish?” Claire protested. “Some of my best meals have been fish.”
“But Alaska?” Laura said doubtfully. “Isn’t it ... cold?”
“Not in the summer. At least according to this.” Claire paused a moment to check the bible of her newfound field of expertise. “We’re talking fifties, sixties, occasional drizzle. . . . Besides, think about how beautiful Alaska must be. You’ve seen the calendars. And the back issues of National Geographic. And what about White Fang? Picture all those magnificent mountains and lakes and fields of wildflowers....”
Sitting in Claire’s living room back in March, high on the sweet spring air and the even sweeter cheap wine, Laura had fallen in love with the fantasyland vision of Alaska that Claire had conjured up. She’d also been taken with a brand-new image of herself. This version of Laura Briggs did not spend her days conjuring up the trials and tribulations of fictional others while sitting safely at a computer. Nor was she someone who considered watching two reruns of Mary Tyler Moore back-to-back almost more excitement than she could handle.
The Laura Briggs she saw that night grabbed life by the shoulders, looked it straight in the eye, and demanded, “Lead on!” She trekked through the wilderness, a mess kit in her backpack and a hiking song in her heart. She was at one with nature, a daughter of the earth, a friend to the animals, a part of a wonderful ecosystem that even made room for poisonous plants and slithery iguanas....
Now, as she stood in the airport dressed like the centerfold for Field and Stream, the song in Laura’s heart was more of a dirge. And the idea of being surrounded by any more nature than the plastic ferns decorating the back wall of the airport bar seemed positively ominous.
“I can change my mind, can’t I?” she asked meekly.
“Nonsense.” Claire grabbed her arm and began dragging her toward the gates. “Everything is set. The check you sent to World Watch has cleared. Evan’s tucked away at sleep-away camp, learning vital survival skills like how to make an ice-cream-stick birdhouse. Your flight leaves in less than an hour. The wheels are in motion, Laura. The Earth’s future rests in your hands—”
Laura whimpered. “If I hurry, I bet I can still book one of those Alaskan cruises that feature shuffleboard and blocks of ice sculpted into swans....”
Claire gave her a firm push right below her Eddie Bauer tag. “Have a great time, kid.”
“Don’t forget to take lots of pictures,” Julie called after her. ‘Try to get something besides snow.”
“I thought you were my friends!”
Laura’s desperate words were lost. A SWAT team of security guards had already surrounded her, urging her through the metal detector as her carry-on bag was X-rayed. There was no going back.
Like it or not, the new Laura Briggs was about to embark on her great adventure.
* * * *
Laura had fallen into that lethargic, semiconscious state that can only be reached at thirty thousand feet above-ground when she suddenly became aware that the floor was falling out from under her. At least that was her initial impression. Snapping back into consciousness, she realized that the plane was simply descending.
Part of her longed to stay right where she was, strapped safely into a comfortable seat on an airplane. How pleasant it was up here, far from anything that even vaguely resembled real life. It was a relief, being tucked in with a pillow, a soft blue blanket, and the current issues of a dozen magazines. Stubbornly she closed her eyes again, not yet ready to face whatever was waiting for her on the other side of her lids.
And then she heard the man behind her gasp. “Look! There it is! I must have seen this a dozen times, yet every time I do, I feel like a little kid on Christmas morning.”
With a testimonial like that, Laura couldn’t help being curious. She forced her eyes open. Looking out the plane window, she, too, gasped.
Far below, underneath a curtain of clouds parting dramatically, she saw rugged, untamed landscape, unmarked by any signs of humanity. Craggy, forbidding mountains reached upward, their gray stone surfaces pushing out from the snow draped over them. Magnificent glaciers, slicing their way through whatever obstacles dared get in their way, lurked ominously between the sky-scraping peaks that were dwarfed in comparison. Cut into the rocky terrain were spiky inlets, the water murky and dark.
“Snow,” Laura breathed. “It’s June.”
As the plane descended farther she was relieved to see green. Large stretches of it, in fact, interspersed with what looked like hundreds of tiny lakes. Lush growths of trees lined the peninsulas that stretched lazily across the sea. The sun glinted off the water in little bursts of light.
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