Gathering String

by Mimi Johnson

  He also never realized how much time Tess spent on pictures that weren’t for publication. “So what do you plan on doing with them?” he asked that first morning, when she sat at the table with a big mug of coffee, working at her computer. Looking into the screen, he saw she was tweaking a picture she’d done of a rain-forest pine that seemed to be tethered by only a few ropey roots, tilting far over a cliff with the sea foaming below. She must have been nearly over the cliff as well, to get the angle that showed it all so clearly.

  “Sometimes I think about a book on a special place,” she replied, “or a really significant event. When I’m really dreaming, I think about gallery showings, things like that.”

  She blushed a little, and Sam ran a finger very gently along the thin rim of purple under her eye, the last vestige of the massive contusion. “Well, dreams aren’t always that great.” And he asked, “Are you still a frightened dreamer?”

  “Sometimes,” she admitted softly. “But not, it seems, when you’re next to me.” Then she pulled away and said briskly, “Hey, want to see ‘The Near Miss?’”

  “The Near Miss?” He played with the hair at the nape of her neck as she double-clicked the control pad.

  “Well, that’s the name my father gave it. And I think it’s an appropriate cutline.” Sam leaned back into the screen, and his stomach lurched.

  It was the burning plane. The dark frame, engulfed in orange and red, was reflected in the standing water all around. It appeared the shot was taken nearly beneath it, angling upward, a tongue of flame reaching toward the lens, tiny bits of debris still hanging in the air. Under a shroud of black smoke, he could just make out the shattered window of the cockpit. “Lord God.” Sam had to swallow hard to get the words out.

  “Yeah.” Their eyes met with understanding. “Look at this one.” With a couple clicks, she brought up another, this one with a lot of debris still in the air, and Sam realized it was his shoulder that blocked part of the shot.

  His mouth turned up with a wry grin, “I remember you gave me a pretty hard thump on the chest right as you took that. Probably what broke those ribs.” There was relief in their laughter, but when he sank down on one knee and took her face in his hands, his vivid green eyes narrowed with sincerity. “Don’t lose track of your livelihood. You are the most talented journalist I’ve ever known.” It was the highest compliment he could give.

  Through the week, he went with her and watched, fascinated, as she worked on her pictures. At Tonquin Park, they followed a path through the forest all the way down to where it parted onto a sheltered beach, a sudden surprise emerging from the lush green. On their way back the drizzle turned to a heavy, warm rain. He started to run to the car, but she pulled out her camera, shooting shot after shot.

  “Hey, Toughie,” he called, “come on. It’s pouring.”

  “Relax, Sam. We’re not going to melt.” She shook her head, droplets winging off the tips of the curls. “Enjoy it. It’s a rain forest.” He walked back riveted by the sight of her in the rain. Then, at a rustle from the dense canopy above, he looked up to see a breathtaking span of wings unfold. He took a few steps trying to make sure, and realized he was seeing an eagle for the first time in the wild. “Hey!” Tess called, “You wandered into my shot.” She started toward him.

  “What? You don’t want a picture of your lover, soaking wet with his hair plastered to his head?”

  She grinned, raised the camera, and clicked the shutter without even appearing to look through the lens. Later, she showed him the picture of his laughing face, rain-spattered and lined, and remarkably happy.

  Every night they called for food from JoJo’s, which brought fresh sushi, hot noodle bowls and prawn-stuffed summer rolls right to their door. Most lunches they stood in line with everyone from local construction workers to well-heeled tourists at SoBo, nationally famous for serving gourmet food in a parking lot out of a purple catering truck.

  They spent a day hiking the Wild Pacific Trail near Ucluelet, looking down from the cliffs at the surf spray flying and a black bear foraging among the tidal pools. Every evening, they took the path to Sunset Point, which ran along the north end of Cox Bay, and watched the sun go down.

  And every day, again and again, they came together in long, satisfying lovemaking. If Sam was a demanding lover, he was also an accomplished one, and there were odd moments when Tess thought of the abandon he’d produced in her and felt her face flush. But he could be remarkably tender as well. One night, he commandeered her computer and after fiddling around in her iTunes, drew her close as the song "Surfer Girl" began to play. She’d never even heard it before, and Sam admitted, as he held her tight and swayed, that it was an oldie even when he was a little boy. “My grandmother taught me to slow-dance to this song,” he whispered against her ear. “But I never thought I’d actually hold such a beautiful, golden surfer in my arms.”

  On a couple warm afternoons, she did surf again, and he enjoyed watching her, her lithe body riding waves across one end of the two-mile bay to the other. She had just taken a spill off the board one early evening late in their stay, and as she came out of the surf near the south end of the beach, she saw him, still at some distance, walking down the long stretch of packed sand toward her, barefoot in khaki shorts and an unbuttoned blue cotton shirt. He hadn't bothered to shave since he arrived, and his heavy beard filled in quickly. With a grin she thought he must have been a pirate in another life, all dark and swarthy.

  She bent to undo the tether around her ankle and pulled off the wetsuit. When she looked for him again, she couldn’t spot him, her eyes scanning the beach. Then she saw he’d stopped to talk with the three young guys who had chatted her up days ago. They’d set up a camp complete with a small tent at the back edge of the beach. The conversation seemed lively, all of them laughing. Curious, Tess picked up her things and started toward them. But the group broke up before she got there, Sam turning and coming on to meet her.

  “So, what was that about?” she asked.

  “What?” he took her board under one arm, putting the other around her waist.

  “You and the surfer dudes. It looked like an unlikely conversation.”

  “Oh, they’re just impressed as hell that an old guy like me hooked up with the little blond hottie and wanted to know my secret. You know they were eyeing you themselves.”

  “Really?” she looked back over her shoulder. “Gosh, maybe I shouldn’t have been so hasty in my choice. The long-haired one is kinda cute.”

  Sam shrugged. “Naw, you need a guy with more experience. When I told him what really gets you going, he was all goggle-eyed.”

  She gave him a mocking little gasp of horror. “I thought all my secrets were safe with you.”

  He laughed. “And I’ll take them to my grave. No, Toughie, we were just conducting a little business.”

  “Business?”

  Sam nodded. “You know if we want to catch the sunset, we’d better drop this junk off at the suite and haul ass.”

  “What business?” She couldn’t imagine what he was talking about.

  “Later.” They’d reached the path to their building. “First let’s get up to the point. It’s going to be a pretty night.”

  The last of the deep purple streaks were fading, the sky nearly dark when they got back. “You want Jo-Jo’s again tonight?” she asked as he went to the kitchenette and dug around in a cupboard, coming up with a book of matches.

  “Yeah, that’s fine. You got the number?”

  “In my cell phone.” She went toward the bedroom to get it.

  “Come out to the deck when you’re done,” he said over his shoulder as he headed for the door.

  “What do you want?” she called after him.

  “It doesn’t matter. Just order a lot. A whole lot.” She glanced back at him in surprise. He usually ate a light dinner.

  When she walked out on the deck a few minutes later, he was sitting in the dark, busy with something in his hands. “What a fabul
ous sky,” she sighed. It was a clear night, and she pulled her cardigan tighter around her bikini top, looking up and calculating the best way to shoot it.

  “I know. I don’t think I’ve ever been out so far from city lights before. I never knew stars got that bright.” But he didn’t seem to be paying them much attention as he fumbled with something and muttered, “Damn it,” over the soft rustling of paper.

  “What are you doing?” She squinted, trying to see.

  “Trying to remember a lost art,” he said, and as she stepped closer, she saw the cellophane bag on the table next to him, and the thin white paper between his fingers.

  “Oh my God, are you rolling a doobie?”

  He sighed. “Well, I always just called them joints, and I used to be an expert. But it’s been over 15 years. I think I’ve lost my edge.”

  “This was the ‘business’ you had with the surfers?”

  He grinned up at her. “I always was pretty good at spotting a likely place to buy. And even this,” he paused and licked the tiny lip of paper sticking up from a slim and fairly straight roll, “seems to be coming back to me. Not bad, considering the last time I did it was the night of my graduation from Columbia. Let’s spark this sucker up.”

  She laughed. “Sam Waterman, you smoked weed in college?”

  “Didn’t everyone?” He cupped his hands against the sea breeze and struck a match. Dragging deep, he waited for her reply, and when she didn’t, he frowned, shaking out the match. “Are you fucking kidding me? You mean you never ... ?”

  She came closer. “No. I guess I hung out with a pretty straight crowd.”

  Holding in his breath, he shook his head, and when he exhaled, he muttered, “There just seems to be no end to the wayward paths I can lead you down.” His hand shot out, grabbing the top of her shorts and he pulled her down onto his lap. “Come here, little girl. I have a new treat for you. ”

  On their last morning together, they made love just before dawn. There was something feverish in her responses, a desperation he hadn’t felt before, and when Sam sank back onto the pillows, he realized there were small scratches across his shoulders where she’d clung so tightly. He tried to pull her back into his arms, but she got up, insisting she needed a few last shots around the rocky point at the south end of the beach. Rather than drifting back to sleep, he was left staring up at the ceiling, aware of a deep, growing apprehension. By the time she came back, Sam had started pancakes from scratch, and for a few minutes her delight dispelled the anxiety between them.

  “These are great, Sam. Who’d have thought you could cook?”

  “Yeah, well, this is about maxes out my repertoire. My dad and I used to make them together every Saturday morning from when I was about four years old, all the way through high school.”

  “And did you serve them to your mom in bed?”

  “No.” He ran his hand across her shoulder as he put a large mug of coffee in front of her and sat down. “She took off right after we came home from the hospital when I was born. We’ve got that in common. We both grew up with just our dads.” She gave him a searching look, surprised he'd never mentioned it before. He shrugged. “She was just too young, barely twenty. She was pregnant when they got married, and I suppose it was too much for her. He couldn’t even find her for the divorce, but it made the case for abandonment easy.”

  “Sam," her blue eyes were wide, "that's really sad.”

  “No sadder than for you. It was just the way things went.”

  “And then your dad died. How long ago?”

  “He died when I was 31, so nine years.” As they ate, he told her about growing up in Boston with his father. His grandmother helped out when she could. It wasn’t an idyllic childhood, but it was largely happy. His grandmother had been his biggest fan and had bored Sam’s aunts and uncles silly with her bragging when he won a scholarship to Columbia. His father always had at least one woman in his life, but never brought any of them home. Whatever his relationships, he kept them separated from his son.

  “And your mom? Did you ever hear from her again?”

  “No. I suppose she might be out there somewhere, but it doesn’t really matter.”

  She cleared her throat. “Speaking of somewhere out there, so is your wife. Where in God’s name does she think you are?”

  It was a quick turn in the conversation, and he winced, not seeing it coming. “Toughie, it’s our last morning. Let’s not …”

  “Oh, I think we’d better. You said we’d talk about it, and we’re out of time.”

  He sipped his coffee, looking at her determined face, all the anxiety rushing back. “What can I say? I told you, she’s in Europe with her mother. She’ll be back in D.C. in a week, dying to get back to work. I’ve checked my voice mail at home and at work every day since I got here just in case she called. She hasn’t, not once. She sent me an email from Geneva, to say that she’d be back in touch when they get to Rome for their return flight. I emailed back saying fine. That’s been it. She’s not very concerned about how I am, and she’s sure as hell not worried about what I’m doing.”

  Tess frowned, looking down at her plate. Sam offered her the last pancake. She waved it off, and he took it himself. She said, “I don’t get it.” He raised his eyebrows, chewing silently. “You make her sound so cold, and your tone is so indifferent, like you two are only acquaintances. Like you don't know each other well."

  “No, no, we know each other too well.” He sighed, obviously disliking the trail of the conversation. “We just kind of stumble along. Other things are more important to both of us to either make it better or to end it.” His mouth curled up on one side, as he spoke. “We don’t interest each other much.”

  “Didn’t you ever?” He shrugged again. “Then why … ?”

  “The marriage?” She nodded. “Timing, I suppose. We’d been seeing each other. I liked her ambition. She liked that I didn’t interfere with her work. And we got along …” His voice faded, and Tess could fill in the blank: they had enjoyed each other in bed. “She’d suggested we try living together. About that time, my dad got his bad diagnosis. I knew he wouldn’t last long. Bubbie was getting frail, and I knew she always wanted to see me settled. I figured what the hell. She was everything they always wanted for me: educated, Jewish, beautiful, had her own money.” Tess winced, and he said, “I guess she was my proof that they did alright by me.”

  “So what happened?” He just stared at her, and she pressed, “There had to have been at least some passion once. What happened?”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “We did OK for awhile. But then Dad died. A year later Bubbie went ...” She waited expectantly and he rubbed his eyes, feeling the difference in their ages for the first time. She still thought everything had an explanation. “Look, one day it hit me that whatever the situation, I knew exactly what she’d think, and the words she’d use to tell me. And then too, I suppose she caught on to who I really am.” His mouth was a humorless smile. “I disappoint her. Constantly. And in more ways than just …” He gave a vague shake of his head.

  “And me? Just the new diversion while she’s gone?”

  “Ah Jesus,” he felt a suddenly sick at her words.

  “I’ve heard the rumors. You’ve kept the gossips busy.”

  His frown deepened. “Well, I’m sorry about that. But this, here with you, it’s not like the others.”

  “Come on, Sam. You’re better with words than that old line. I can handle the truth, so just be honest. Don’t pretend …”

  His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. “It is more and you know it. My god, Tess, I woke up sobbing in your arms.” He looked down at her hand, loosening his grip to gently stroke it, and when his glittering green eyes came up, her throat closed. “Every time I touch you, I heal a little bit.” He leaned forward, and his lips brushed the fading bruise under her eye. “If I tell you there’s nothing for you to feel guilty about, isn’t that enough?”

  She pulled away, her voice shaking, �
��You’re kidding, right? She’ll be back, we’ll be back, all of us in the same city. This can’t go on.”

  “Come on, Tess …”

  She stood up and moved away from the table, putting the kitchen counter between them. “This has been …” she stopped and turned away for a second. He got up, would have gone to her, but she turned back, putting up her hand with a strangled, “No.” She took a ragged breath, and set her jaw. “We are both still all tangled up in what happened in South Dakota. Sam, you are married.” He shook his head, looking as if he was in pain, but she repeated, “You are married. And I’ve thought about how it will be, what it will turn into, when we get back to D.C. I can’t let that happen.”

  The apprehension became a certainty, his eyes going wide. “Oh my God, you’re kicking me.” His voice was soft, his mouth pulled down at the corners.

  Tears ran down her face. “We shouldn’t have let this start.” He would have protested, but she shook her head. “But now that we have, we have to share the cost. The only way to save the treasure is to bury it and keep it a memory – a precious memory.”

  He looked down at the table, his sharp features lined and grim. “I don’t have any say?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll see each other at work, you know. Sometimes we’ll even be on the same story. What do we do? Pretend we didn’t spend almost two weeks living together?” She nodded. “I can’t.” He reached to her. “My god, Tess, every time I look at you across the newsroom …” His voice went deeper, and he dropped his hand. “I can’t lose you.”

  She just stood there, shaking her head. He gambled for time. “At least let me drive back with you to Seattle. There’s no reason for you to make that trip alone. I’d enjoy the drive through the mountains. And it will give us another couple days.” She still didn’t say anything, only stood there, wet eyed. “Please? I sure as hell don’t want to fly in that little plane again.”