The Optimistic Decade
Page 22
Jenny L. sighed and rolled from her right shoulder to her left, her open mouth gaping inches from Rebecca. Rebecca stilled her hand until she was certain Jenny had fallen back asleep. Needing to hurry things along, Rebecca closed her eyes and set a scene in Samohi, a place where she’d always ignored David, and yet here they were in the windowless AV room in the basement of the English building. Broken overhead projectors like statuary. She was wearing a short red corduroy skirt that she didn’t own. David’s hand on her thigh, moving higher, pushing aside her underwear, David’s mouth on hers, his finger rubbing, whispering, “Lie down, Zoomy.” The floor was softened by hundreds of littered transparencies, their trig problems, World War II timelines, and diagrammed sentences never fully washing off. “Lie down,” he ordered.
She finished just in time, opening her eyes as the sun broke over the mountain, lighting up the sage. Moments later, as if by force of sunlight, the wake-up bell rang.
Shauna sat right up, fully alert. “You guys, you guys. There’s a mouse. I heard it.”
The other girls squealed themselves awake. “Where? Where?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I woke up so early and I heard it. This noise. Like it was in a sleeping bag.” They all screamed, jumped off their mats, shook out their bags. Rebecca felt strangely unashamed, even as they gathered around her after determining the mouse wasn’t in their beds. “Rebecca, shake yours out!” She obliged, and when nothing scurried away, she said, “Mice are nocturnal. It probably went off to sleep.”
Later, as they walked through the sage toward the house, Tanaya again came up beside Rebecca and again grabbed her arm, making her stop until everyone passed.
“Aren’t they attracted to blood?”
“Who?”
“Mice! What if they, because of my pad, what if they crawl on my . . . you know?”
As they walked together, Rebecca told Tanaya lies about rodents and their aversion to human blood. Reassured, Tanaya said she wanted to visit Rebecca in Berkeley, wanted to attend Berkeley herself when the time came, wanted Rebecca to promise she’d write, wanted Rebecca to come back and be her counselor next year. “Of course I will,” Rebecca said. It was her last day, and she’d finally been adopted.
Tanaya insisted they sit together on the Meadow. When David showed up, Tanaya called out to him, patting the grass on the other side of her, not noticing the looks cast above her head as they all sang “On the Banks of the Ohio” and the hot wind blew and Rebecca felt herself nearly aflame with desire.
At breakfast, she crossed her legs and tightened her thigh muscles, putting pressure on her you-know. She rocked slightly back and forth on the bench and nearly lost it right there. She ran to the composting toilet stall outside the shower room, pulled the sheet closed, and finished in a minute, returning to the eating platform in a mood of blissful accomplishment, having climbed and descended Escadom Mountain before the others even finished their breakfast.
In preparation for his son’s arrival, Don left the ranch while the children were eating and drove to Ute’s to buy Donnie’s favorite cookies: Chips Ahoy. At least that had been true eight years ago. Who knew what he ate now? Marci knew, he hoped. He hoped Donnie had found that sort of comfort.
On his return, as Don pulled his car beside Denise’s in front of their trailer, avoiding her potted mums, her statuettes of fairies, he saw her standing beside her car, reaching for him. The yellow sleeves of her blouse were rolled up, and her arms and hands were outstretched. Was this a truce? She hadn’t spoken to him since yesterday, when he’d asked her to leave before Donnie arrived. But now she was holding out her arms to him as he stepped out of his car.
Denise had thought it stupid not to come clean. “Honey, we’re fifty-five years old. Your son is twenty-six. Your wife’s been dead for seventeen years.” But he’d said no.
She wasn’t reaching for him. There was a coil of rope on the grass, and the end of that rope was in her hand, which she was throwing onto the roof rack, trying to get it to hook. She didn’t even look up at him. “Dini,” he said, coming up beside her. “Dini, will you say something?”
“Pretty day.” That’s what she said, although it was hot as hellfire. “Great day for a drive.”
The thing was, Don had been only thirty-eight when Pammy had died. Donnie had assumed that was elderly, that his dad’s life was over. But it wasn’t. He did fall in love again, and he could never tell Donnie. He was too volatile. What would he do? The boy grew up too much like Pammy, too impatient, always thinking the future held great mystery and potential. Don knew better.
The real thing was, Don had actually met Denise before Pammy died. Before Pammy even got sick. By “met,” he meant he’d met her at the DMV in Delta, and then he met her for lunch, and then he met her at the Sleep Tite Motel.
After Pammy died, Don could be with Denise without committing sin. But it felt sickening. You shouldn’t get what you want because your son has lost his mother. He kept Denise hidden from Donnie. The guilt ran through his life like a lode of coal in the mountain.
Denise and Don were practically the same person, and there was comfort in that, if a small amount of boredom. But they liked boredom fine. They liked mornings and evenings, and if that wasn’t repetitive, wasn’t boring, then Don didn’t know what was. Donnie probably had never noticed a morning in his life.
He’d asked Donnie not to come. If Donnie managed to shut down the camp, as he believed he could, what job would Don get then? Where would he and Denise live? But when Donnie insisted, Don had told Denise to leave. Only for the duration of Donnie’s visit, a day or two at most, but she’d packed everything. He’d told Charlene and the others not to mention Denise to Donnie.
“You’ll call me when you get there?” he shouted now. She was going to her sister’s in Casper. She opened the passenger door and climbed onto the car to thread the rope, humming. She’ll be coming ’round the mountain. Why that?
“You’ll call me?” he repeated.
She never said anything more. He went inside and came out with a glass of water as she filled the back seat with trash bags of her clothes and sheets, everything soft of hers. What a smart woman, he thought. If he were the one being kicked out, he wouldn’t speak either. She drank the water, handing the glass to him and wiping her chin with the back of her hand as always, but she never said a word before driving away.
When he could no longer see her car and its cloud of dirt, Don brought the groceries inside and arranged the cookies on a plate. Donnie had said lunchtime, but who knew—maybe he’d come early. Maybe he’d grown into the type of man who came early. Don pressed his forehead against the diamond-shaped window on the front door. He stood there, sunlight washing over his face, and he waited.
At lunch, Erika said, “I carved a walking stick.”
Micah said, “That’s nothing. I can do five silkscreens.”
Trina said, “Did you hear that Caitlin quit Fiddler?”
“Why’s it so hot, Caleb?” asked Patrick.
Trina said, “The whole production’s in jeopardy.”
Micah pointed. “Who’s that?”
A woman was walking from the parking lot. Caleb knew her immediately, although her bramble of hair had straightened. Her jeans were tight, then flaring. Her tunic, clean and white. She’d become someone else, as boring as soap.
“Who’s that?” Micah repeated.
Caleb was suddenly mortified about all the years of willing her to reappear or disappear. Not to die, exactly, but never to have existed, for her body not to move about the world unknown to him. Yet now, he was sure that if he were to glance away, he wouldn’t see her. If he held up his hand, she would vanish.
“That’s just Suze,” Caleb told Micah as she came to a stop at the edge of the cement platform.
By then, everyone in the camp had noticed, and a few people had left each table to run toward her. Suze threw her head back. “Do you know me? Do you know me?”
Teenagers who had been children, girl
s who had elongated into elks or pillowed out in oversized shirts, flocked to her.
“No way. You’re not really Lindsay,” Suze said. “You must be Lindsay’s older sister.”
It seemed crucial that the campers clear their tables the proper way. “Scrapers, passers, table cleaners, dishwashers,” Caleb called out. “We need you guys. It’s time.” He was surprised by his own firm voice.
Slowly, they returned to the tables. Mikala had linked arms with Suze, but Suze broke away, pushing her sunglasses to her head, staring at Caleb. She came toward him, and he knew that this was still Suze. Suze of yellow. The letter S. He figured out how to free himself from the table. Once he had his hands on the small of her back, it was clear to him that it didn’t matter if, from a distance, you could blot her out with your palm. She was familiar, the way autumn, when it comes again, looks familiar, and you can’t remember what year it is, how old you are.
He wouldn’t say, “I missed you.” He’d been the one who stayed. “Suze,” was all he said.
She pulled back. “I can’t believe I’m here. I’m pinching myself. Is it real? Are you real?”
“What are you doing here, Suze?”
She twisted around, looking for someone. “No way. Is that him? That giant? That man?” She released Caleb to wave with both hands. Soon, David approached, slouching sheepishly but grinning. Caleb had to stand there as she threw her arms around his neck, saying, “I literally cannot believe it.”
When they’d disentangled, she turned back to Caleb, grabbing his wrist. “He invited me. And it was the craziest thing I ever heard. But at the same time, freakily coincidental. All summer I’ve been thinking about”—she made a wide sweep with her palm—“this. Having these dreams where I can see it, in the distance, but I can’t reach it, and when I wake up, I miss it like a phantom limb. And then there’s David on the phone, and what could I say? I said yes!”
“You called her?”
David shrugged, still smiling. While this fact slightly diminished Suze’s volition and evoked an unusual jealousy—they spoke? how often?—what did those concerns really matter? She’d come for Caleb. That was clear. Her lost limb.
Mikala began tapping on Suze’s shoulder—“Come see Scott”—and Suze allowed herself to be pulled away from him. As the campers cleared dishes, Caleb walked from the eating platform. He didn’t know where he was headed, but when he reached the far wall of the barn, he stopped and leaned against it. Here, nobody could see him, except for Don, who was spending another day in his trailer. Apparently, Don really was sick.
Caleb pressed his fingers to the wall behind him. He was shaking. His whole body was shaking; his feet were numb.
If some campers had passed by, they might have thought Caleb was doing nothing—how rare, how strange—but Caleb was as busy as a woman in labor. He was terrified. He was creating hope out of microscopic materials, tiny as ova, wriggling sperm. Hope born so premature it clung to his body, and he must not put it down.
Soon he heard the clamor of the campers on the Meadow. They would talk until he arrived. They would talk all day, until he walked toward them, and then they would look up at him and quiet.
Sit here, Suze. Sit here. No, next to me. We saved you a seat. From among the crowd, David watched Suze stand at the edge, considering. Who would she choose? To have her back among them was like a myth sprung to life, Aphrodite gliding in on sea foam, Persephone and her pomegranate seeds. She picked her way past the littlest kids, settled cross-legged beside him.
“Tell me things,” she said, grabbing David’s arm. “How are you? I mean, actually, who are you now?”
“Me?”
“Yeah, you,” she laughed, pushing him.
He couldn’t answer, because the sudden cessation of noise told him that Caleb had appeared. He turned to find Caleb looking downward, as if composing himself, as he usually did before speaking to the group. When Caleb looked up, however, he was uncomposed.
In this heat, they should drink more water than they could stand, he said, grinning as if hydration were the most wonderful thing. If they walked on the ditch road, they’d see the milkweed blooming! Would a counselor volunteer to fill the cistern? Those involved in this evening’s production of Fiddler had asked to skip swimming, but come on, everyone, it was the last day at the river. They could rehearse before dinner. No, Tanaya, it wasn’t up for discussion. And now he’d like to welcome a visitor. “Suze. Suze Guenther. Used to be a counselor here awhile ago. Stand up, Suze.”
Giggling a little, as if enjoying the attention, she tiptoed around kids to join Caleb. He wrapped his right arm around her.
“How long has it been, Suze?” Caleb asked, cinching her toward him. “Five years ago since we last saw you? We’re so glad you came back.”
She tilted her head. Her hair fell against his chest, and Caleb beamed. David couldn’t believe he’d pulled off this reunion. A fitting end to the summer.
He had, over the last few days, established a clear picture of how Caleb was going to talk to him this evening. It would be at the Gathering, after “Rocky Mountain High,” when the campers hugged and wept and wrote phone numbers on hands, promising to write and visit and call. Caleb would find David, lead him aside to where no campers were standing. You brought Suze here? Caleb might say. I already knew I wanted you to move here, but really, you brought Suze back? I can’t thank you enough. David realized he was imagining Caleb crouched on one knee, as if proposing. He made the Caleb in his mind stand up.
He didn’t notice the man approaching until everyone on the Meadow had turned to look. He held a book in his hand, wore a baseball cap that said ammico. Jeans. Work boots. A white T-shirt with faded writing. Someone from the gas company, or maybe the husband of a laundry lady, bringing her lunch.
Caleb watched an airplane move across the sky as laggardly as an ant along a blue plate. The world had slowed. A drop of sweat would take a day to fall from his forehead to the grass. At this rate, Donnie, who was walking toward Caleb and Suze, wouldn’t reach them for a month. It would be cooler by then, and the kids would be gone.
He could hear Suze whispering. “Is that . . . ?”
In a way it wasn’t strange at all to have them both back. “Here we all are,” he wanted to shout. They were often here in his mind anyway, the two of them: his friend and lover, watching him as his camp grew.
“Should I do something?” she asked.
He kept his arm draped around her. Nothing would happen if he didn’t say anything.
Or maybe it would. Donnie was a few feet from them. He carried a book in one hand.
Suze slipped out from under Caleb’s arm and took Donnie’s free hand in both of hers, saying loudly, “Donnie! Wow, so great to see you again. Here, let me show you around.” She had this euphoric look about her, this gushing tone. She’d always risen to any occasion.
“You? You’re still here?” Donnie smirked. “I didn’t think you’d last.”
She was undeterred. “It’s amazing to see you again. You look fantastic. Let’s catch up in the house. Jesus, it’s hot out here.” She spoke with the same enthusiasm with which she’d greeted Caleb.
Caleb glanced over at his camp. Those spaced-out faces in their postprandial daze. The beauty of their open mouths, the sweat on their foreheads. Their hands brushing away mosquitoes. How could Donnie say anything that would take this from him? Caleb was part of no grand conspiracy. He’d built this. His every gesture had become a ritual.
Snapping out of his own daze, he said, “Hold up, Suze. Let go of him. You had something you wanted to say, Donnie? It’s fine. We’re here to listen.” With a hand pressed against Suze’s back, he led her toward the kids, relinquishing the limelight to Donnie.
“Are you sure about this?” Suze asked as they squeezed in with the front row of kids, facing Donnie. Caleb hid his own terror, but of course he felt it. He’d neatly tied the noose around his own neck. A car skidding off the road, and there was nothing for him to do.
Come on, Caleb thought. Come on. Get to it already. He wanted to be back up there, contradicting whatever Donnie had to say.
“I’ve come here to tell you that all the lies you heard were lies, not truth,” Donnie continued. “And this land, he’s a thief. He’s the one who stole this from me after he and the other . . . Okay, wait, I have to start earlier.” Donnie looked around unhappily, as if being forced to give a class presentation.
Eight years had altered his face. Still chiseled and wolfish, but something had changed. Caleb couldn’t put his finger on it.
Donnie twitched his head again. “I need to start . . . okay, back up to here. I need to start with Exxon and how we had this good thing going and everyone was making it, until they came and they shut it down. See, there’s a custom and a culture . . .”
The real change, Caleb realized, was Donnie’s demeanor. That arrogance had vanished. He stood with his head shoved forward, his gaze on the grass. The hand without the book fidgeted in the pocket of his jeans like a mouse in a bag. His voice was barely above a whisper. He had no idea how to do this, to address a crowd.
Caleb could feel an energetic hum start up behind him, and he knew that the campers’ attention was spent, that they’d started poking each other; picking noses; twisting the stalks of what the boys had named “darthweed” into a loop that sent its seed pods flying; tugging on the arms of their counselors; saying they really needed to pee.