Wonder Valley
Page 30
He counts back through all the years he’s lived in Los Angeles and realizes that he’s never swum in the Pacific, never even dipped a toe. Was it too obvious? Too convenient? Was it because he and Stephanie weren’t members of the beach club just up the beach from where he and Britt are walking?
There’s a light breeze kicking up a pleasant smell. Two gulls are circling, taking turns plunging into the ocean, their bodies creating small whitecaps as they submerge. Tony wants to walk into the water. He wants—needs—to rinse the sweat and booze and stink of downtown from his body.
He’s making a beeline for the ocean when he feels Britt’s hand on his shoulder. “There,” she says.
She’s pointing at a small mound of rocks. She pulls Tony closer. It looks like the work of bored children or snarky teenagers messing about with occult nonsense. Tucked into the stones are a few feathers and twigs.
“He was here,” she says. She falls to her knees.
On the north side of the rock pile, a string of stones has been positioned in a pattern. Tony stands back to get a better look. He tilts his head, trying to find meaning in the arrangement.
“Sam,” Britt says. “It says Sam. That’s the man James killed.”
“I thought you killed him together.”
Britt shakes her head. “It was James. I lied for him because I thought it would help him. But here’s the fucked-up thing. I thought I was helping him, but deep down, I was really trying to help myself. I thought if I took the blame for what James did it would correct the balance of all the things I did wrong. The world doesn’t work that way.”
“Maybe it does,” Tony says. But he knows that she’s right. He’d chased James to make himself feel better, to outrun what had happened to him in Chicago. He’d done it for himself of course. Always for himself. And he’d woken up the next day feeling no better.
Britt places a stone on the small mound, making sure the structure won’t topple. “We didn’t leave a marker. We should have. We should have acknowledged the whole disaster instead of pretending it didn’t happen. But we continued on like James didn’t do anything. Like Sam’s death was just another fucked-up thing that came from living in the middle of that goddamn desert.”
She checks up and down the beach. A last look, just in case.
“He’s somewhere,” she says. Then she begins to walk back toward the PCH.
Tony lets her go. James is somewhere and Tony’s own part in this story is over. It’s time for him to go home. Because his life is lovely and peaceful. He’s earned his comforts and he knows that he can enjoy them. He turns his phone on and texts Stephanie. On my way. Sorry.
Then he takes off his clothes, stripping bare. People are watching but he hardly sees them. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t hear them whistle or laugh. He doesn’t hear them catcall.
Then he begins to run. He feels good. The sea air is fresh in his lungs. The wind pings sand into his face. He sprints to the water’s edge. It’s cold. It stings but he keeps going, lifting his knees out of the surf until the water gets too deep. He’s up to his chest now, half running, half swimming.
He wants to scream partly with pain, partly with pleasure at the chill that bites and pierces. He goes farther. Chasing no one. On his own. Then he goes under.
He feels the currents dragging back and forth against his body. He hears the surf break overhead. He feels lifted by a wave, then pulled into its furrow.
He curls his body into a ball, sinks as low as he can toward the sandy bottom.
You think you have it all figured out—you’ve timed your commute, you’ve fit in your weekend run or you haven’t, you’ve got life down to a science, a mathematical equation of time, interest, and energy. But one day something stands up to you, surprises you in a place where you’ve determined never to be surprised. And that’s when you run. You move fast the wrong way through traffic. You think it’s working. But something deep inside, driving the rhythm of your steps, tells you that it isn’t. So you try again. You search for that tiny space hidden in you, untouched by everything that you’ve experienced or survived.
He can hold his breath for fifteen more seconds, maybe thirty. And that’s all he has, that is all he will be granted. These are his last moments to find it—and he does—what he’d been reaching for when he’d run after James. That place that is essentially and undeniably him. It’s small and solid like the sea-smoothed rocks beneath his feet. And he will come up for air. And he will swim for shore. And he will go home.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am thrilled to have had the chance to work with the terrific, clever, and creative Zachary Wagman at Ecco, whose belief and guidance were indispensable to me in the writing of this book. Thanks, of course, to Dan Halpern, who was able to see where I was going from the beginning and liked it, as well as Kimberly Witherspoon and William Callahan at Inkwell, who did the same. To all of my readers who acknowledged my novel’s flaws and strengths and took the time to help me correct the balance—Elizabeth Pochoda, Philip Pochoda, and Sylvie Mouchès. And to those dedicated to getting this book out in the world, Ashley Garland and Lyndsey Blessing. And to those who encouraged me along the way—Justin Nowell, Louisa Hall, and Matthew Specktor.
But this book really belongs to the people who inspired it and who shared their time and stories with me, especially the artists and writers at the Lamp Arts Program: Linda Leigh, Sir Oliver, Garrison Alecsaunder, Marianna, Nick Paul, Simone, Myka Moon, Karen Zaldaña, and Ramiro Puentes. And to Hayk Makhmuryan, thank you for building such a wonderful community and allowing me to be part of it. Finally, to Robert Barratt, who took the time to tell me everything.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
IVY POCHODA grew up in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, and is a former professional squash player. She is the author of The Art of Disappearing and Visitation Street. She now lives in Los Angeles with her family.
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ALSO BY IVY POCHODA
THE ART OF DISAPPEARING
VISITATION STREET
CREDITS
Cover design by Allison Saltzman
Cover photograph © Raymond Haddad/500px
COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
WONDER VALLEY. Copyright © 2017 by Ivy Pochoda. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Digital Edition NOVEMBER 2017 ISBN: 978-0-06-265637-7
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-265635-3
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