by Margo Rabb
“I love Queens. Alley Pond Park, Breezy Point, the Rockaways—my mom used to take me there.” He smiled. “It’s funny, being in another country—people are impressed sometimes when you say you’re from New York. They think it’s this amazing, exciting place, like in the movies.”
“That’s funny.” A siren screamed by. “When we were little we used to beg our parents to move to the country. It seemed so exciting. . . . I wanted to be like Laura Ingalls Wilder or Anne of Green Gables. I mean, the only places I’ve ever been are Maplewood, upstate, and the Poconos . . . in the Poconos my sister and I used to freak out over seeing all those stars.”
I looked up: nothing. You could never see them in the city.
“Virginia,” I said. “I’ve been to Virginia too.” I winced, remembering how preoccupied I’d been with my own impending death then, and how I’d been certain of Sasha’s. I gazed at my boots.
“Virginia?”
“My dad and I were there for this thing over the summer called Healthy Heart Week. I was his companion—it was pre-Sylvia. We met some interesting southerners—you might see them at the wedding. If you hear anyone use the word hineybumper or the phrase bet your bippy, that’s them.” He was easy to talk to, for some reason—he seemed to listen. I didn’t feel so nervous being near him now, alone in the dark.
“What’s a bippy?”
“Synonym for hineybumper. Which is a synonym for butt.”
“Good to know.” His smile looked sly this time, like we were sharing a secret.
“They’re inviting a number of oddities to the wedding. Not you guys, I mean—people like Morty Grossman. Wasn’t he in the ICU with you?”
“No. I don’t know Morty.”
“Right. That was another time. Anyway, my dad met him in the hospital too. I can’t believe he’s still alive.”
Too late, I realized that this was an insulting thing to say. “I’m sorry,” I said lamely.
“Why are you sorry?”
“I didn’t mean—” I stared at the lit windows of the brownstones across the street and changed the subject. “I crossed off a couple people he was going to invite—oh my God. This crazy social worker—”
“Uh-oh. I hope you’re not talking about this one woman they sent me. She was supposed to be the best on the staff, but she was the worst.” He shook his head and scratched the sleeve of his black sweater.
“Did she have a huge hineybumper?”
He grinned. “She did.”
“Gina Petrollo?”
“That’s right, that’s her name! God, she was nuts.” He laughed.
“When my dad was about to have bypass surgery, Miss Petrollo told me to go shopping. Not that it was entirely bad advice, in retrospect, but at the time it didn’t seem exactly professional.”
“She told me I needed a hobby. She suggested whittling. You know, carving sticks into trinkets?” he asked.
“Lovely.”
“I actually sort of like whittling. Still . . .”
“Still.”
He dug his hands into the pockets of his jeans and stared up at the sky. We kept gazing above us for a long time, as if waiting for a star to miraculously show itself. We didn’t speak; I wasn’t sure if I should say something, if I should ask about his health or about philosophy.
Something about the word philosophy made my heart quicken. We had no philosophy classes at my high school—nothing even close. I thought of the class descriptions I’d read in Alex’s college course catalog when it came in the mail—I’d nearly salivated at the thickness of the catalog; I’d read it page by page until she forced me to give it back to her. I’d circled some of the classes, dreaming about all the things you could study: Feminist Philosophy, Knowledge and Power, Women in American Society; there was even a class called Cinematic Desire. It thrilled me that in college you could finally choose what you wanted to learn. The course catalog had seemed like an emblem of the future—there was something to look forward to.
“Philosophy,” I said finally. “I might like to study that too.”
“This Eastern one I’ve been reading about, Taoism?” he said, still gazing upward. “They believe that nature is the force of good, and whatever happens in nature always works out right.”
“Huh.” I’d heard of Taoism—my father had a copy of The Tao of Pooh, though I didn’t think he’d ever read it. “Maybe that’s why I like the country. Maybe I should go trek in Nepal.”
“Do you like hiking?”
“I love it.” What was I saying? The only place I’d hiked to was Bloomingdale’s Shoes on 2.
“I’m going next weekend—I’ve been taking Metro-North upstate and exploring the trails and mountains there.”
“By yourself?”
“Usually I go by myself. Actually, always. You’re welcome to come. If you want,” he said.
I wanted. “Sure. It sounds fun.” What was happening here, exactly?
He stared at my boots with the three-inch heels. “You have hiking boots, right? You need them—it might be icy in some places still.”
“Of course I’ve got hiking boots.” I hoped Alex’s old ones would fit me with some thick socks.
“We can meet at Grand Central next Saturday, then. At the info booth? There’s a train that leaves at eleven—we can catch the sunset before we come back. Meet at ten-thirty to get our tickets?”
“Okay—sounds fun,” I said. “Great.”
We were silent for a while, until Gigi’s voice shrilled from the stairs. “Ya guys fall off? Come on—dessert’s ready!”
“We’ll be down in a sec,” Sasha called. He paused. “No offense, but you’re really different than I thought you were. When I met you at NYU I thought you were kind of . . .” He shrugged. “Obnoxious. I mean—you’re not at all. I’m just surprised.”
Obnoxious?
“Don’t look so horrified. I didn’t know you or anything.”
“Oh, well. Jeez.” Obnoxious?
“I didn’t mean that in a bad way.”
I felt a hot wave of shame, remembering our awkward conversation in the solarium almost a year ago. “Yeah. Maybe I was kind of . . . I guess . . . I was sort of, well . . . freaked out by everything, I guess.”
“’Cause of your dad, you mean?”
I shrugged. “Everything.”
“NYU?”
NYU—he said it like the university, not the hospital. As if we went to college there together.
“I remember you were talking to me this one time and I was reading this embarrassing book and I didn’t want you to see it,” I said.
“Why?”
“It was a romance novel. I don’t usually read that stuff—I never do—but I didn’t want you to see. I thought you’d think I was stupid.”
“A romance novel.” He smiled.
I felt like he could see straight into my organs in the dark. I regretted telling him.
“I never read them anymore,” I lied.
Gigi called from the stairs again. “We’re going to eat dessert without you!”
“We’re coming!” Sasha yelled. He gently touched my elbow. “We better head down. Saturday. Don’t forget,” he said.
Throughout dessert and the whole ride home I felt like I was carrying a secret. We didn’t mention anything about hiking together after we rejoined the grown-ups, and I didn’t tell my dad or Sylvia on the drive home. I wanted to keep it to myself.
“I can’t believe she let him go to Nepal. That’s crazy,” Sylvia said as we sped along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. “He could’ve caught an infectious disease! His immunity must be very low. If he caught anything, he’d be dead. It’s ridiculous, a third-world country. They don’t even have medical care there. So reckless.”
“He was very lucky,” my dad said.
“But he was fine,” I told them. “He was fine in Nepal. He didn’t catch any infectious diseases. He’s fine.”
She ignored me. “She’s obviously very permissive. Serving the kids wine.”
“My mom let us taste wine and beer. It was never a big deal,” I said. “It didn’t lead me to start freebasing in the school hallways or anything.”
“It’s just not appropriate,” Sylvia said to my father, not to me.
I sighed, put on my Walkman, and listened to music for the rest of the drive home. I lay down in the backseat and tuned them out, dreaming about Sasha, replaying our conversation on the roof.
On Monday after school, Kelsey and I went shopping for hiking boots at Paragon Sports. Alex had taken both her pairs to Cornell with her.
“I need to make them look used,” I said, picking up a pair of clunky, hideous gray boots. “A hundred dollars? Jesus.” I put them back down. “He thinks I’m a hiker. Do you think if I bat a pair against the cement and rub in some dirt they’ll look used?”
“Please don’t turn into a crazy hiking-boot crunchy person,” she said.
“Don’t worry. I won’t.”
“What is it that you like about this guy, anyway?”
“I don’t know. He’s nice and . . . there’s something about him that’s so different from other guys. Like he skipped the whole artificial I’m a boy, I’m cool, I’m angry thing . . . he’s just himself. He’s really gentle—his voice, everything. He just seems so . . . nice.”
She looked skeptical. “The cancer thing doesn’t bother you? I mean, what if he dies?” I’d told her how in Virginia I’d convinced myself that he was dead.
“He looks really healthy and fine. I don’t think he’s going to keel over on our date, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Do you know CPR?”
“No. Should I?”
“Can’t hurt.”
I pictured his face, his black hair falling in his eyes. “His cancer brings him down to my rung,” I said. “It’s like an equalizer—he would never be interested in the likes of me if he was healthy.”
“You’re crazy.” She shook her head.
“No, really—he’s that cute,” I said. “He has this smile . . . with dimples . . . and cheekbones . . .”
She picked up a pair of brown leather boots. “Hiking,” she said. “Why? What’s the point? Can’t you just drive up the mountain?”
“I don’t think there’s a road.” I shrugged. “It’s supposed to be fun.” But I was a little nervous. Shit. What if I had to scale rock faces with my bare hands?
“What are you going to wear?”
“Khaki pants and my black crewneck sweater.”
“I think you should just get these.” She picked up a pair of maroon sneakers. “They’re cute, and they’ll work just as well as hiking boots. Hiking boots are fugly. How can you pay so much for something so fugly?”
I examined the maroon sneakers.
“They’re seventy dollars cheaper,” she said.
That sealed the deal. I bought the sneakers and a pair of wool socks.
“You’d better be careful. I hate the woods. There are axe murderers and stuff out there,” she said as we walked to the subway.
“I know. I’ll be careful. Hey—can you be my alibi? I’m not telling my dad I’m going. He’d tell Sylvia and she’d say something annoying and I just don’t want to get into it.”
“Sure. Of course. Just don’t let the cancer guy die on you or anything.”
Sasha was waiting at the info booth at Grand Central on Saturday. He grinned when he saw me and studied my face.
“You look nice. Are you wearing makeup?”
“Makeup? No! Of course not.” I laughed nervously and vowed to be careful when rummaging through my knapsack so he wouldn’t see the powder, blush, lipstick, and mascara inside. Makeup did not fit with the Hiking Girl persona I was aspiring to, the type I was sure he liked. I regretted that I didn’t know how to whittle.
“I got our tickets already,” he said. “I got here sort of early—the F came fast.” He was holding a white paper bag and reached inside it. “Coffee?”
“Please.” He handed me a cup.
“Blueberry or corn muffin?”
“Blueberry. Thanks.”
I reached for my wallet to pay him back, but he said, “Don’t worry about it.”
“But the tickets—”
“It’s on me.”
“Thank you,” I said, feeling thrilled by his gentlemanliness.
“I packed a bag with sandwiches at home but I forgot to bring it, so we should get lunches for later. We can eat them on top of the mountain,” he said. My stomach lurched at the thought of the mountain—we were actually hiking up a mountain. I’d sort of blocked that fact out of my mind.
“There’s a deli over there.” He pointed, and we went to the tiny counter and bought sandwiches, chips, fruit, and granola bars to eat later.
We stuffed the food into our knapsacks and made our way to the track. Our train was already in the station, its doors open. It was nearly empty. We chose a row and had it all to ourselves.
“How’s the wedding planning?” he asked as we settled into our seats, and finished our coffee and muffins.
I rolled my eyes. “Have you heard of Zingy-Dell figurines? Sylvia’s obsessed with them. She registered for the entire collection. They’re taking over our house.”
“Zingy whats?”
“Picture little animals and children clutching signs like ‘Smiles’ and ‘Just Sunshine.’ ‘Just Sunshine’ is a special limited edition, in fact.”
“Sounds beautiful.”
“The word my sister uses is batshit. I think Sylvia’s about as different from my mom was as is humanly possible.”
He unzipped his blue fleece jacket. “My mom doesn’t date much. She used to. Once when I was a kid I took a cat turd out of the litter box and put it in one poor guy’s sneaker.”
“You didn’t.”
“The thing was, he wore it for two hours before he said, ‘I think there’s something in my shoe. . . .’” We both laughed.
A few minutes later I asked, “Where’s your father?”
“He died in a car accident the year after I was born.”
“That sucks,” I said.
“Yup.”
The conductor’s voice boomed from the PA system, rattling off an unintelligible list of stations. Several more people boarded the train. A minute later it lurched, then grumbled into the bowels of Grand Central.
“You really weren’t scared when you were traveling all by yourself?” I asked him.
“Of course I was scared. There was one time I got sick—I thought I was in trouble—but it was just diarrhea.”
He said it so casually, tossing it off. Just diarrhea. Such an embarrassing word. I couldn’t imagine the guys at school saying just diarrhea in that soft voice.
“It was lonely sometimes too, but I met a lot of people traveling and made friends. We still write letters. I’m planning to travel again next summer. India, maybe—that’s where I’d like to go next. My mom’s not exactly overjoyed with the idea—there are more risks of getting secondary infections in third-world countries. But I think I’ll wear her down.”
He shrugged. He had the same gentle, unflappable tone about this. He yawned, then leaned back and closed his eyes. “You don’t mind if I take a nap?”
“I don’t mind—I’m tired too.”
I loved being this close to him, watching him, his elbow touching mine. I was glad he closed his eyes so I could stare at him blatantly.
I’d had a dream about him the night before. I was hiking with my sister in the Himalayas (though in the dream the mountains looked more like the Abominable Snowman’s stomping grounds in Rudolph’s Christmas TV specials). As we were trekking through them, we found a place where the earth started to peel off in layers, like old carpet. Underneath the top layer was Sasha, who smiled and said hello; underneath him, in the next layer, was my father, who told us a few bad jokes; beneath that layer was my mother, looking healthy and happy, relaxing in a lounge chair. She hugged us and thanked us for visiting, and said to come back again som
etime soon. Then we put the earth back in place.
What did the dream mean? It was different from the Rolf dream—it didn’t leave me with questions or confusion. It was just a happy fact: Oh, there she is, under the earth, same as always. I’d felt content when I woke up.
My mother would have liked Sasha, I was convinced. His handsomeness, his gentleness, that unassuming calming voice. He looked so healthy, and as I stared at his skin I almost wanted to see scars, some proof or sign of what he’d been through. But he looked fine. You’d never know he had cancer, looking at him. I wanted to ask him what it was like, to know he might die, but I couldn’t—it would be the wrong thing to say. It would affect some balance, some unspoken arrangement.
An hour later he blinked awake; he took out a water bottle and offered me a sip. He unfolded a topographical map and showed me where we’d be hiking, and a half hour after that the train pulled into the station. “This is it,” he said. We walked down the quaint white station platform and through a tiny town with clapboard houses and immaculate streets, then made a turn onto a country road. It was a quarter mile to the trailhead. A few cars sped by, the drivers staring at us strangely, as if we were homeless people ambling along.
“You don’t see a lot of people on the trails here. I think mostly hunters use them.” He saw my expression and laughed. “Don’t look so scared—it’s not hunting season.”
We soon reached the trailhead. I was sweating already; I hoped I was in good enough shape for this. But as we started hiking, it didn’t seem too bad, though my pretty new maroon sneakers soon looked like they’d been dipped in chocolate cake batter.
I watched him go in front of me. He moved smoothly, more comfortable with his body than I was with mine. He was lithe and graceful as a deer, while I felt awkward, a little too aware of my arms, my legs, my clunky feet.
We hiked past old stone walls and the foundation to a long-gone home; the forest had taken over, growing inside where the house had once stood. We stopped to check it out. “It’s like the Chronicles of Narnia,” I said.