Red Audrey and the Roping

by Jill Malone

  XXXVI.

  In Audrey’s lavender living room, even the lamps cast a soft purple glow over the oatmeal-flecked carpeting and the plush lilac sofas, as if I were inside a bruise, my head still light with kamikazes. It was 3:00 a.m., and Audrey had gone to the kitchen to make a pot of tea, and a couple of tomato and cheese sandwiches.

  She brought the tea and sandwiches out to the coffee table, where we ate sitting on the floor. Her eyes were pale marbles, gently blue. Over the past several hours, I’d discovered she sketched and painted, and had established quite a reputation: her work had showed locally at the Dan Bishop Gallery (posh) and McGuire’s (innovative) in addition to various galleries I’d never heard of throughout the Pacific Northwest. Twice a week she volunteered to teach art to genius third graders in Aliamanu. It had been ages since anyone spoke to me about teaching with such obvious delight.

  “I have fourteen eight- and nine-year-olds and the classes are wild. They love watercolors and chalk—anything to make themselves and me filthy. I’ve worked with older kids, but so far the third graders are my favorite: old enough to have vision and intentionality for their work, not yet hyper-self-aware.”

  I sipped my mint tea, listening to her enthusiasm, her hands gesturing as she spoke like one of the tai chi surfers from Anna Banana’s. Some crazy Cowboy Junkies song murmured in the background, and my solitude diminished as she explained about kayaking down winding rivers in Montana.

  “I went sea kayaking once,” she said, “along the coast of Port Townsend. Have you ever sea kayaked?”

  I shook my head.

  “God, it took two hours to paddle to this imperious lighthouse that looked like it was just a football field away. I was exhausted and starving and feeling kind of icky—my gloves were frozen, and my legs were trembling, and I wanted to capsize on purpose and swim for shore. Then these sleek little heads popped through the surface of the water: seals. They floated and dipped and swam around us for the longest time. Somehow their being there made it easier. Just staring at us with their enormous brown eyes.”

  I closed my eyes to imagine the seals appearing in the swells, the current quick and snagging as it had been on the northern coast of Ireland. I could almost feel the rocking of the kayak beneath me, could almost hear the throaty whine of gulls drifting high above the brackish water.

  Audrey brewed another pot of tea while I rummaged through her CD collection, settling finally on a Soul Coughing album. The flat felt cool and dark; I refused to consult my watch. Nearly all the wall art in the living room was photographs, black and white shots of dilapidated buildings, a color print of a green bicycle leaned against an orange door, a tight shot of a black man perched on a stool in an alleyway. Above the dining table, a large vibrant painting of a rooster—his legs shimmering gold—cast a defiant gaze over the room. Sober now and still, wondrously, buzzing, I waited for the red sprite, determined to keep her talking.

  During college she’d taken a bus tour of the European continent, and cycled through the south of France and Italy after graduate school. Audrey seemed to remember everything vividly—from obscure townships to her favorite delicacies—whereas for me, so many of my travel experiences were half-memories, a blur of museums and architecture that might have been any city.

  “Did you ever visit Switzerland?” she asked me.

  “Twice. Once I took a train up the Jungfrau, and spent the weekend in the little village in the valley there.”

  “Did you see the Lion’s Monument in Lucerne?”

  “Carved in the cliff face above a pool? Yes.”

  I’d thought of Aslan, C.S. Lewis’s Christ-figure, when I’d seen the great brown lion prostrate in the cliff face above the still pool. It had been profoundly moving: the lion’s body fallen before a Swiss shield, the mane unfurled like a flag. My recollection now, so acute, surprised me.

  “That look on the lion’s face,” she said, “do you remember? A strange expression—a kind of peaceful anguish—and the spear broken in his side; I stared at that lion for hours, and then came back the next day to stare some more.”

  She filled our cups with tea, and smiled at me, “Do you know, I think anguish is the only pure emotion? I think that’s why that sculpture moves me so much: the purity of anguish in the lion’s expression.”

  “What does that mean: pure emotion?”

  “Well, it’s not like suffering or love. With anguish there is no subjectivity, no interpretation. Clearly, anguish is the same in every culture, every language.”

  “I don’t see it. Anyway, you interpreted the lion’s anguish with the modifier peaceful.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  “Well, that’s a compelling argument.”

  We talked until the morning glowed around the curtains like a storm and our voices cracked with overuse, until I became afraid to kiss her. Afraid of how soft her ringlets would feel in my hands, afraid of the mess of another girl, the impish face grinning at me like a maddening Cheshire Cat, as if seduction were effortless.

  Voices carried up to us from the sidewalk below with the wind and swept the curtain deeper into the room. She knelt in front of me, palms on the floor, silent and watchful. Outside, a car alarm beeped twice, then a door slammed. I leaned back against the base of the sofa, trying to swallow the worry that clutched at my throat and belly.

  “Butterflies are cannibals,” she said.

  “What?” I muttered, thinking of fanged butterflies tearing wings and antennae from their helpless mates.

  She leaned forward, not touching me, her mouth a hive of butterflies, a swarm, a murder. Convulsions jerked through me, repealing resistance and doubt, suppressing Nick’s existence, the scars, my costumes, squashing my analytical self and leaving only sentient response. Her mouth like lemon peel, like li hing mui, coaxed me forward until we were both kneeling in the middle of the bruised room: chaste, devout, consumed.

  XXXVII.

  The second Sunday in March, Grey surprised me at the studio, popping his head in the front door and calling for me as I climbed from the bath.

  “I need a lost day,” he said apologetically as I came out wrapped in my towel, my hands behind my back. “Are you up for it?”

  I hadn’t spent any time with Grey in weeks. At UPS, he’d been promoted to Hub Manager and now worked twelve-hour salaried days, sprinting from crisis to crisis. Since I’d been partnered with Chance Chang, I didn’t mind Grey’s absence on the ramp as much as I’d expected, but keeping time with Audrey had blunted my socializing, too, and I felt that absence so much that his arrival this morning was a particular delight.

  “A lost day sounds perfect. Where will we go?”

  “I thought Waimea. We can get lunch at Kua Aina.”

  I slipped into my surf shorts and a long-sleeved shirt, grabbed a towel, and sprinted to Grey’s Honda for our drive to the North Shore. Bright and clear, the day lent itself to opened car windows and a meandering cruise through pineapple fields.

  “Jesus, Janie, I’m going mad,” Grey said, passing me the opened bag of Funyuns.

  “Work?”

  “Yeah, I never should have taken this job. I’m thinking seriously about quitting.”

  “And then?”

  “That’s where I run into trouble. More than anything, I just need a long vacation.”

  “I know exactly what you mean. I’m actually looking forward to a teachers’ strike. A bunch of us singing vigilant songs and carrying around clever, radical signs, marching in an endless circle—I’m enamored to this notion of civilized protest—no spoiled tea or rolling heads, just a simple and disciplined revolt.”

  “You’re serious, aren’t you? Aren’t classes going well?”

  “I’m completely disengaged this semester—the classes have become rote: the promptly completed homework assignments; excellent test results; the same, inevitable questions; all so disciplined and boring—it’s like I don’t even need to be present for the students to do well.”

  Grey looked ove
r at me, his face decidedly haggard—crow’s feet etching his eyes—and shook his head sadly.

  “OK, no more work talk,” he said. “This is a lost day. Let’s talk about something pleasant.”

  We sailed past a couple of haole guys in a smoking VW bus, as I thought of pleasant things: Audrey gently rolling my wrists in her fingers as though sifting for treasure; the slight husk of her voice; how she hadn’t pried about my bruises, even when she traced the marks on my back that first night in her bed; the way she asked, “Would you like to watch me sleep?” I left her flat every morning at 4:00 a.m., her breathing quiet and steady as I slipped from the bedroom to bike home.

  “You look like you’ve lost weight, Janie.”

  “Well, that’s pleasant.”

  “I thought I’d see more of you with Nick gone, but then Emily mentioned a redhead.”

  I shook my head, smiling like a goof, “You bastards.”

  He laughed at me, pleased to have found a pleasant topic after all.

  “I don’t know why I’m surprised,” I said as indignantly as I could manage: “Gossipmongers.”

  “Oh, come on, we’re just glad you’re happy. Look at you, for Christ sake, fucking glowing. Almost balances the emaciation.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Somehow, I didn’t mind being kidded about Audrey; the subtle glow of the lavender flat and the 4:00 a.m. bike rides often draped an illusory shroud over my visits to her flat, whereas Grey’s ribbing—a soft kick to my belly—insisted the girl was real. Proof, my mind said, he’s noticed the change in you. She must be real.

  “What’s she like?” Grey asked.

  I started to answer that she was like the dentist, which astonished me—Audrey like the dentist?—and I ended up saying: “She’s an amazing artist.”

  Grey parked the car in the crabgrass at the edge of the main road overlooking Waimea Beach. Alongside the guardrails on our walk down to the beach we passed a long stretch of cars, confirmation that the parking lot had filled by 9:00 a.m. The surf curled in six-foot swells, and dozens of children with tangled hair sprinted in and out of the water, squealing.

  I followed Grey as he walked along the rock cliffs well back from the water, gulls coasting over the beach, bickering bickering, as a couple of women the size of swamp cows adjusted the bottom halves of their bikinis. Overhead, the white clouds shifted quickly in the brilliant, breezy sky.

  “What do you think?” Grey asked.

  I followed his outstretched hand to the great bulk of Waimea rock, where four military guys hurled themselves one after the other from the 8-meter leap in various contortions of a cannonball.

  “Insanity.”

  On a lower ledge, two small girls with cranelike legs stood holding hands before they stepped off the ledge and shrieked the length of their plunge into the water.

  “Have you gone before?”

  “No,” I said, watching Grey edge toward the rock, his arm still extended on point.

  “I haven’t jumped for years. Last time had to be in college. It’s good fun, Janie, just what we need.”

  Paralysis, indefinite hospitalization, this is what he thinks we need? He reached his hand back and grabbed hold of mine, pulling me toward the rock. As I watched, several scrawny boys with distended bellies stepped effortlessly from the highest perch, jackknifing with a modest splash.

  Pausing to toss our towels and slippers hastily aside, he gripped my hand again and hurried toward the stepped backside of the rock, where three sand-coated children poked a dead crab with sticks. We climbed the backside of the rock, and I resisted his urges to leap from the higher perch, waiting instead behind five Filipino girls at the lower ledge, the last of whom smiled at me and said, “It’s fun after the first time.” Then she dove into the blue water and popped out much closer to shore than I expected.

  “Ready, Janie?” Grey held onto my hand.

  I wished I hadn’t watched the little girl jump. From the ledge, I could see rocks under the surface below us. We are going to die, typed relentlessly through my head.

  “Ready?” Grey said again, and we stepped from the ledge into nothingness.

  My body light as it fell, wind swirling through my shorts and against my skin, the drop going on for so long that I opened my eyes and amazingly continued falling, Grey’s hand in mine until the surface of the water slapped, then swallowed us. My feet touched rock and I kicked off and swam from the deep cold quiet.

  Grey kissed me in the shallows, sea water darkening his curls, a lunatic grin splayed across his face.

  “Wild, Janie. Wild. Feels like you fall for centuries. Let’s go again.”

  And I did. We jumped four times from the lower perch, and once, psychotically, from the highest. By the time we’d showered, and hiked back to the car, I could have eaten three of Kua Aina’s colossal burgers.

  Giggly and high, in sweatshirts rummaged from Grey’s trunk, we sat at one of the outdoor tables under the wooden awning, watching trucks and minivans roll past on the two-lane road. Even the sociopath stalking women cyclists with a baseball bat—the broadcast topic at the table nearest us (he’s landed four girls in the hospital so far!)—couldn’t dampen our moods. A lost day, a lost summer, Grey’s irrepressible grin, white and glaring as the afternoon, anticipated carefree, mischievous months.

  After devouring our burgers and fries, we bought shave ice for the road, Grey’s usual mix of coconut, blueberry, and raspberry, and mine of watermelon and lemon, each atop ice cream. On the ride home, pleasant things sprang readily to mind.

  XXXVIII.

  The first morning I woke at Audrey’s, she brought pancakes smothered in apple sauce and organic maple syrup, orange slices, and a pot of herbal spearmint tea to wash down the stickiness, on three bamboo trays which perched precariously atop the duvet on her enormous bed like nervous birds. Her bedroom, sparsely furnished in white, let in a tremendous amount of light; I checked my watch throughout the night in my confusion. Small blue fish painted in the deliberate lines of hieroglyphics floated along the upper border of the room. A bookcase laden with modern fiction, and an ornate orange-toned secretary’s desk lined the walls on either side of the small closet.

  She wore cotton boxers with the waistband turned down and a white tank top. In the morning light she looked young and alarmingly jubilant.

  “What do you say to a hike this morning?” she asked.

  “Where are we hiking?”

  “Manoa Falls.”

  “It’s going to be filthy.”

  “All the better.”

  With my ten-pound locks I secured our bikes to the chain barrier at the trailhead and we crossed the small footbridge past the enormous green leaves of the elephant ear plants. Five minutes up the trail, winding along a stream through kukui nut trees, bamboo, mountain apple trees, and ferns under a thick rainforest canopy, mud sucked at our hiking boots. The vinegar smell of fermenting fruit—thick as humidity—swathed us. Tangled tree roots and large rocks required quick scrambles and deft ankles. Dense and moist, climbing the trail simulated a sauna experience; Audrey stripped to a bikini top and I doused myself from the water bottle incessantly.

  Though we’d left her flat at 8:00 a.m., a number of hikers passed us on their descent to the trailhead, each spattered with mud in a familiar pattern.

  “Mosquitoes aren’t bad at all,” a topless Japanese man shouted at us on his way over a crest.

  Audrey’s short legs powered up the trail at a pace I had to work to support. Used to surfing with locals and hapas, I laughed every time I looked at Audrey’s shockingly white body. Did the girl never venture into the sun?

  “Oh, it’s raining!”

  She started hopping around, face upturned, in a blissed dance.

  “How long have you lived here?” I asked, amused.

  She turned toward me, eyes dilated, mouth cocked with pleasure. I smiled in reflection.

  “I grew up here. God, I love rain. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Her face s
treaked with rain; hair mashed against her head; the top of her shorts soaked tight against her belly. I thought beautiful failed to capture the wonder as this girl trod on the brilliant orange cups of the African tulip tree that blanketed the ground at her feet.

  By the time we reached the falls, a torrent of rainfall dashed from the pool, down the stream, and over the pathway. Though the rain had eased the discomforting humidity, we tossed off our shoes and packs and charged into the achingly cold pool until the falls pummeled down atop us, rinsing away the mud. Lichen stubble covered the dark rocks clear to the shallow bottom of the pool. After several minutes I finally caught my breath, though my body had yet to adjust to the frigid water. Audrey pulled herself from the water onto a wide round stone, shuddered compulsively, and looked down at me like a haughty cat.

  “We’ll never be old!” she yelled.

  “The hypothermia will kill us first.”

  Even as we clambered from the pool, the rain ceased and the hot, oppressive damp returned. Shivering into our towels, we squeezed water from our socks and lay them out on a moss-glazed rock.

  “Stunning,” Audrey gasped and handed me a bottle of insect repellant.

  Light glanced off the stones and the falls, filtered through the leaves of the canopy, spilled over us like redemption. I re-applied repellant as she took out one of her sketchbooks and several pens from her pack. Lying back on my pack, I shut my eyes and listened through the thunder of the falls for the insistent scratch of her pen.

  “I have a sketch of the first time I saw you.”

  Surprised by her voice, I started, and glanced over at her.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The first time I saw you, I still have the sketch.”

  “From the bar?”

  “No, from Moanalua Gardens. You were barefoot, playing Ultimate Frisbee with a pack of beautiful boys at the park. I’d spent the afternoon there, sketching some of the kiawe trees. This was ages ago. I still have the sketch in my studio.”