by Chris Cander
“You must be good, then. I mean you sounded really good. I could hear you playing through the door.”
“Not so bad.” She smiled as she shrugged one shoulder. The strap of her sundress slipped down, and she saw him notice it and then watch as she pulled it back up.
“Will you play something for me?”
“Don’t you want to continue your lesson?”
“Yes, but it’s pretty obvious that I’m not going to become a maestro today. You’re a good teacher, I’m sure. But you’re not that good.”
They laughed.
“Do you have a special request?” she asked.
“Anything. Something you like a lot.”
She nodded once, then shifted closer to the center of the bench, and he moved down to give her more room. She lifted her hands gently and paused before setting upon the keys with a strikingly fast and tempestuous piece that sent her hands flying up and down until it seemed she could strike sparks on them. Her feet worked the pedals and her body jerked with the energy being transferred between them and the piano. It lasted only two minutes, but when it ended—almost abruptly—her chest was pumping and a light sheen of sweat glossed her forehead. She turned to him and smiled. “Well?”
He answered by leaning in to kiss her just as she’d told him to press the key: deep, soft, right down to the bottom of the note before slowly releasing it, much better than his poor piano attack would’ve suggested. He opened his eyes and she blinked at him, still out of breath, stunned to silence.
“Forgive me,” he said, standing up. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Please—”
She also stood, fluttering one hand to her chest, her heart pounding so loudly she thought he could hear it.
“You play beautifully,” he said, shaking his head and glancing around the room, then starting awkwardly for the door. “I’m really sorry about…Anyway, thank you.” He lurched back toward her and stuck out his hand.
She took it, and could feel it trembling—or was it hers?
“Thank you,” he said again. “Okay. Good-bye.”
He let himself out and was already down the steps before she realized he was leaving and hurried to the door. “Come back next week,” she called out. “Same time.”
He stopped and gave a sigh of relief that relaxed his whole body; then he turned slowly to her with a smile on his face. “Yes?” he said. “You sure about that?”
She nodded once, and bit down on a smile. “I will see you then,” she said, and raised her hand before retreating back inside.
THE SUN HAD SUNK behind the mountains by the time she stepped into the parking lot, the air cool and rich with desert smells carried on a stronger wind. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. Had she ever been so tired? The road strained toward the horizon, and remembering the long, monotonous drive earlier that day—was it really only this morning they’d arrived in Death Valley?—she felt her energy abandoning her. She knew she wouldn’t be able to make it back to Bakersfield unless she took a short nap first. So she rooted in her trunk and pulled out a towel to use as a blanket, cracked the windows to let the evening in, and lay down on the backseat. In less than a minute she was deeply asleep.
The sound of laughter awakened her. Even with the light pollution from the motel, the stars were bright points in the patch of sky visible through the window when Clara opened her eyes and looked out. The temperature had dropped. Pushing herself up, she groped around the seat for her phone and checked the time: 11:12.
“Figures.” One minute past wishing time. When she was a kid, she’d frequently checked the clock until it ticked to 11:11, then would close her eyes and make a wish, but in recent years it seemed like she always missed it. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. It didn’t matter; she wouldn’t know what to wish for anyway.
She got out and stretched, looking around to see who was laughing: a few people sitting on folding chairs some distance away from the motel, the red ends of their cigarettes glowing. She wanted to splash her face with cold water but was too embarrassed to face the desk clerk again. There was a gas station just across the road where she could stop on her way out. When she was about to get behind the wheel, she noticed an envelope bearing the motel’s name on the front seat. It contained a note, and a key.
Even lost dogs deserve a decent bed. Room 213 in Roadrunner Bldg.—G.
It wasn’t until she’d rummaged in the glove compartment for her travel kit and was looking for the Roadrunner on the map on the wall outside the entrance that she wondered what had compelled Greg to such generosity. Then she remembered the clerk saying there weren’t any rooms left, and there was no reason she shouldn’t believe it; the restaurant and saloon were busy, and even at that late hour guests were coming and going from the various buildings that made up the compound.
Two young couples, all four people carrying laptops and laughing, passed her in one of the covered walkways as she checked the numbers on the doors. Abruptly, one of the women turned around and said, “You look lost. Do you need directions? The layout here’s a little confusing.”
“No,” Clara said, with what she hoped sounded like nonchalance. Yes. I’m lost. I’m confused. Tell me what to do. “I got it, but thanks.”
“Okay,” the woman said, and lifted her hand in what was part wave, part salute. “Night.”
“Night,” Clara said and, flustered, turned back toward reception, and her car beyond it.
“Hey,” someone else called. She looked over her shoulder and saw Greg standing in a doorway. “I see you got my note.” He leaned back and crossed his arms. His voice sounded smug, but his face, as usual, was unreadable. She wanted to punch him.
“You’re dreaming if you think I’m going to sleep with you,” she said, loud enough to make him glance right and left and then scamper toward her.
“What are you talking about?” he hissed.
“You can insult me all you want, call me a lost dog, make fun of me for being here, but don’t think for one second I’m that desperate.”
His arms flew up as his eyebrows pinched together. “You can’t be serious. You really think I’m trying to lure you into my room?” He looked genuinely surprised. She felt her face grow hot, but she didn’t dare to release his gaze. Finally he let his shoulders drop, and closed his eyes for a moment while he took a deep breath and then exhaled. “I’m not hitting on you, Clara. I have no desire to sleep with you.”
This made her miserable with humiliation. She didn’t want him to hit on her—at least she didn’t think she did—but somehow it was even worse being told that he wasn’t trying to. Her face flushed with heat again.
“I told Juan and Beto to share a room so you could have the spare, which is down the hall. I didn’t like the idea of you sleeping out there alone in your car. If you’re going to insist on hanging around, you might as well be safe. My mother would’ve insisted on it.” He leaned toward her and made a show of sniffing. “Besides, you need a shower. Good night, Clara.” He stepped back into his room and closed the door, the chain latch sliding into place with a metallic rattle.
* * *
—
Clara slept hard on the narrow bed, better than she had in a long time. She usually fell asleep easily enough but throughout the night was fitful, bothered by too-vivid dreams, scouring her head against her pillow so when she woke up her hair was as tangled as her bedclothes. Today she woke up just before daybreak, feeling profoundly rested. She lay still, watching the light grow stronger around the edge of the curtains, and tried to remember the last time she’d had such a good sleep. It was probably that night she’d spent with Peter, years ago. Now it was Monday, so he’d be getting up soon, ready to open the shop by seven o’clock. She could picture him, his face peaceful with unself-conscious slumber. She sat up. Enough of that.
She opened the curtains and looked out at the
mountains. There were dozens of tents and campers parked on the far side of the lot and, beyond them, a field of shrubs extending to the horizon that was golden in the morning light. The day, as calm as it looked, seemed to be posing a question: What do you plan to do?
On one hand—the broken one, maybe—there she was, at a hotel in an exotic and unusual setting, with no place else to be. It almost felt like a vacation. And wasn’t she technically on a vacation, given that she was unable to do any meaningful work?
On the other hand, she’d never been the sort of person who took vacations. It wasn’t that she was overly ambitious; she simply hadn’t ever been part of a family that rewarded labor with getaways. Her parents had always been industrious. Even outside of their regular fall and spring semester course loads, they taught summer classes, did research, wrote papers. They were both so serious about their endeavors—about everything, really—that she couldn’t imagine them setting their work aside, happily packing suitcases, and traveling anywhere that wasn’t absolutely essential. In fact, she now wondered, perhaps for the first time, if either of them ever did anything just for fun.
Nor could she remember her uncle taking any time off. They had quiet evenings with her aunt and their long drives, but because Jack had a garage to run, there was never an opportunity to shut it down except for signature holidays. Besides his customers’ vehicles, there was always something else that needed repair or attention, or the accounting needed to be done, or one of his employees had called in sick. Since they had no savings account to fall back on, her uncle was more inclined to do things that earned money instead of wasting it.
When she got older, and classmates talked about summer vacations or skiing over the winter break, she wasn’t jealous. It was like talking about riding a llama to school or speaking in tongues. Interesting, but not something she even considered an option. So when Ryan surprised her with a weekend in San Diego for her twenty-fourth birthday, she felt guilty the whole time they were down there, like she should’ve been doing something more productive.
Through the window, she heard a door down the hall open and close. Then, a little farther away, a knock, an answer, muffled words in English and Spanish. The choice was simple. What could she do at home that was more productive than ensuring her piano’s safety and possibly learning something about its—or her parents’—past?
Quickly, she brushed her teeth and got dressed. Greg, to her chagrin, had been right about her needing a shower. If only she had some clean clothes. She had no idea where the camera crew would go, or how long she would follow, so she gathered up her few things with no thought of returning to this room. She could leave anytime she wanted. No belongings to divide up and pack, no hard feelings to maneuver around. Just get in her car and drive any direction she wanted to go, just as she and her uncle used to do until they were ready to go back home.
She went to the small lounge behind the registration desk and was having a cup of coffee when Greg and the movers showed up.
“Good morning,” he said, nodding at the banana and bottle of water by her cup. “A little sustenance for the drive home?”
“Actually, I think I’ll stick around for a while.” She smiled.
Greg shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
* * *
—
So she did. She was careful to keep her distance, but she tagged along for the next several days as Greg photographed the Blüthner in various locations around Death Valley. When driving from one place to the next, Clara was struck by the enormousness of the park. Something she guessed was a mile away—a sand dune, a variegated outcropping—in reality was probably four. Under the stark midday sun, the mountains seemed to flatten into two dimensions. At night, the dark was lavish with stars that looked low enough for picking. This sense that things were both closer and farther away was a disorienting illusion. Even the sky above didn’t seem like the usual cupped vault; staring at it was more like gazing directly into outer space. And all of it was a fascinating setting for Greg’s pictures.
Clara had never been interested in photography. People going around with their eyes pressed against viewfinders instead of seeing what was right there in front of them, and for what? To preserve an artificial impression that was more fragile than a real one? Even photos in albums could get lost, or burned, and then what was left? Just tattered half-memories that made the past seem even further away than it was. Until now—watching as the movers positioned her piano on top of dunes, against giant salt formations, in front of a mountain face that seemed composed by mounds of different flavors of ice cream—she hadn’t considered that a photograph’s artistic value might be enough to justify the effort.
For the most part, she and Greg didn’t speak. She watched him work, and only occasionally did he register her presence. She was reminded of how she used to follow her father around the house, wanting to be near him, to know more about him. She learned to be quiet and not at all disruptive so she could study him. It was most rewarding, however, on those rare times when he would notice her, put down his papers, and call her to him for a kiss or a conversation.
Again and again the movers repeated their effort of unloading the Blüthner, placing it on the all-terrain dolly, securing it with straps, wheeling it out to wherever the shot would be, unloading and unwrapping it, and positioning it however Greg indicated. Clara was growing more comfortable with their handling of the piano, after watching them do it several times. She wondered if they were growing bored with their job. They didn’t appear to have any opinion about it and simply performed the tasks as required, always keeping their conversation to a minimum and enduring Greg’s demands with stoic indifference. When he was finished, the movers reversed all their actions once again. Then she would join their little caravan to the next destination, glad, for some inexplicable reason, to be doing so.
That first night, after a full day of shooting, she’d bought a change of clothes at the general store across the road. She hadn’t asked Greg if the room was still available, but since he didn’t tell her that it wasn’t she let herself in with the key. Then, clean from a long shower and wearing her new Death Valley souvenir T-shirt, she went to the hotel restaurant for the second night in a row.
The hostess led her to a booth directly opposite the one where Greg, Beto, and Juan were examining the menu. She slid along the curved vinyl seat until she was partially hidden from their line of sight by the booth’s high back. Juan, sitting next to Greg, glanced at her without acknowledgment, then looked back at his menu. Maybe Greg had told them to ignore her. She suffered another moment of humiliation at the thought of being the butt of some snide remark, though looking at them—Juan and Beto making quiet, spare conversation while Greg became absorbed by something on his phone—she figured that he probably wouldn’t bother making chummy talk with them, even at her expense.
The waitress took their orders: hamburgers and orange sodas for the movers, a tuna fish sandwich on wheat—“with the crust cut off, thanks”—and an extra-dry vodka martini up with olives for Greg. He was a fussy eater, picking at the bits of crust the cook had missed. He drank his martini and relieved the little plastic sword of its two impaled olives with his teeth, then raised his finger to signal the waitress for another. He spoke to Juan and Beto only once, and they nodded and went back to eating. It seemed that Greg didn’t intend to build any friendships during this trip. Temporary allies, perhaps. Clara understood and even admired that kind of independence.
When he finished, Greg put his credit card on the edge of the table, and Juan and Beto shoveled down the rest of their dinner. Clara was still eating when Greg slapped the waitress’s pen down on top of his signed bill and stood up. The movers wiped their mouths and dropped their crumpled napkins on the table and followed him out, none of them saying anything when they walked by her.
The following day was much like the first, at least in the beginning. They went to two dif
ferent locations, covered many miles, took a break for gas and snacks, drove somewhere else. As the shadows grew longer, they made a long downhill drive to a place called Badwater Basin.
That seemed like a misnomer, as there was almost no water at all, only a small, shallow pond surrounded by what looked to be miles of salt. They drove a little beyond the parking lot and pulled off the road. Greg got out to scout the area, told the movers to wait and, to her surprise, motioned for Clara to join him.
He led her into the pan, where long-ago seawater had evaporated and left behind a snowy blanket of salt that was marked with irregular octagonal patterns from cracks and pressure ridges. Up close, those looked like crashing waves desiccated in time. He stopped a few yards out and, slipping his hands into his pockets, let his gaze roam over the tops of the mountains and down to the flats below. “Have you ever felt really low?” he asked, his voice thoughtful. “Like you’ve hit rock bottom?”
Clara was taken aback by what seemed an admission of vulnerability. He was kicking at an encrusted ridge of salt that was like a miniature of the mountain ridges beyond. “Yeah,” she said.
“Well, now you’ve really hit it.”
“What?”
“Here,” he said. “This is rock bottom, right here. The lowest point on the planet. We’re two hundred and eighty-two feet below sea level.” He looked at her without any trace of guile, but his eyes did seem to crinkle at the outer corners. If they were friends—if he’d been Peter—she would’ve laughed, maybe given him a playful punch in the arm. But even though she appreciated the joke, she didn’t want to let her guard down too far.
“No place left to go but up, then,” she said, mimicking his deadpan expression.
He evidently considered this, and after a moment he nodded. “Maybe so. Maybe so.” Then he lifted his hand and gave Juan and Beto a let’s-go signal.