Jennifer kind of hated the Tao. It was like that annoying friend who always turned out to be right.
Dyma said, “Tell me. How am I going to go away and leave you and Grandpa if I don’t even know what’s going on?”
“Ha. You’re dying to go away and leave me and Grandpa.”
“Exactly. Exactly.” As usual, Dyma looked like she could bounce right off her skis. “But I can’t, not unless I know you can handle the transition.”
“All right,” Jennifer said. “I broke up with Mark. There you go.”
“Well, I figured,” Dyma said. “When you came home alone and went straight into your room. Why? I mean, he’s not the most exciting guy ever, but you’re not the most exciting person either. I don’t mean it like that,” she hastened to add. “Just … you’re not exactly a risk-taker. And hey, at least he wasn’t creepy around me or anything, right? Low bar, but still. So what happened? What did he say?”
Jennifer had thought she wanted drama. Drama, it turned out, wasn’t all that wonderful.
She’d waited until after dinner. Of course she had, because her grandpa liked to eat at six-thirty, it was already past six, and beef stroganoff took forty-five minutes. This was the problem with not being a drama person. How did you do drama and still get dinner on the table? Or didn’t you worry about dinner? Were you supposed to just eat ice cream from the carton afterwards, like in the movies? In which case, what did your daughter and your grandpa eat? Did you tell your daughter to make dinner? That could start the drama early, though. She could only manage one piece of drama at a time.
That was why she’d waited. After dinner, though, instead of starting to clear the table, she told Mark, “Let’s take a walk.”
“I thought we’d go back to your place,” Mark said. “It’s cold out.”
“I don’t want to go back to my place. I want to take a walk.”
That had possibly come out a little forcefully, because her grandpa looked up, Mark looked startled, and Dyma said, “I’m going home. Lots of homework.”
“Help Grandpa with the dishes first,” Jennifer said.
“I am,” Dyma said. “I wasn’t going to leave them for him. Give me some credit.”
“Don’t mind me,” Oscar said. “Miss Dynamite and I have got the dishes. Go take your walk.”
His blue eyes were sharp. Watchful. He could probably tell that Jennifer was thinking about abandoning him. She got a stab of guilt right to the heart, but she also got her coat.
Once they were on the sidewalk, she tried to figure out how to start. What did she even want to say? What did she even want?
Mark said, “What is this, a new fitness kick? I keep telling you, babe, you look fine.”
What a ringing endorsement. “No,” she said. “But I’m thinking about moving. To Portland. Possibly.”
“Oh,” he said blankly. “What about Dyma?”
“Not now. Once she graduates.”
“That’s a long way away.”
“It’s four months.”
“Like I said. A long way. Why are you worrying about it now? Or—wait. Does Orbison want you to work for him there?”
She took a breath. “No. I’m getting laid off. And I’m thinking that I need to move on. Move ahead. In my life. Now that Dyma’s leaving, and I don’t have a job, and so forth. Time to try something new. Time to shake things up.” Time to shut up, was what. But Mark wasn’t saying anything. Why not?
“Wait,” he said. “Is this about us? I mean, sorry about the layoff, but you can get a new job. You’ve got great skills. So what’s this all about?”
“What?” she said. “No. I just told you. I’m talking about moving on. Moving ahead. All that.”
“Except that it’s some kind of ultimatum,” he said. “Some kind of marriage thing. I told you, I’ve done that. It wasn’t fun. We’re still having fun. If we were married—boom, fun’s gone. I’m a stepdad, you’re telling me we need to buy a house, I’m cleaning gutters. Even more responsibilities. Who needs it?”
“You’re right,” she said, and he looked surprised. Also gratified. Like, That was easy. Which was what she was. Easy. Go along with anything. Don’t ask for more. “Except that I’m not sure how fun this is. Seriously? This is enough for you? This is the best we can do? Hanging out?”
“We had dinner,” he objected.
“Which I cooked. Which is exactly like being married for me, but you didn’t even have to pay for it.”
She couldn’t believe how she sounded. Bitchy. Dramatic. And yet somehow, she was going on. “And, no, it’s not some kind of ultimatum, because you clearly don’t want to marry me, or we’d have done it.”
“Well, hang on,” he said. “I have to think about it, that’s all.”
“Mark. You’ve had four years to think about it.”
“Four years of good times and good sex,” he said. “Worked for me. How did I know it wasn’t working for you? And all right, I’m thinking about it. See? I’m thinking.”
“Well, no.” He didn’t even sound upset. He sounded inconvenienced. Somehow, her mouth opened and the words came out. “Not always so good. Sometimes I fake it. The sex,” she added, in case he was confused.
He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “What?”
“I do. I fake it.” There was a roaring in her ears. She’d never said this. Not to anybody. Not ever.
“That is not true,” he said. “You’re just saying that to get to me. I can tell when a woman’s coming.”
“Can you, though?” she asked. “Can you really? Maybe she just wants it to be over, because she can tell she isn’t going to get enough tonight. Maybe she’s just waiting until you fall asleep so she can finish up without hurting your feelings. Maybe you go right to her breasts for about five minutes, and then you go for the home run, and half the time, you forget to even kiss her. Why would you think that’s a woman’s night of ecstasy?”
“Nobody else has ever complained,” he said. “And if you didn’t like it, why didn’t you do something? Say something? I’m a man, not a mind reader. Sure, a guy’s going to … to go for his favorite parts. It’s like a … an amusement park. That’s the point.”
“Nobody’s ever complained,” she said, “because we lied. Ask Kathy. I bet she’d say the same.”
“I’m not asking her anything.” She couldn’t see his face that well, because it was dark, but she could tell he was getting mad. She didn’t make people mad. She made people not be mad.
Except now, apparently.
Mark went on, “You’re just saying that to get me to do what you want. Why would you think that would make me want to marry you? You really don’t know anything about men, do you? We want a woman to be confident enough to … to own her own sexuality.” Something, Jennifer would bet, that he’d read on some men’s website. Something that meant, “You don’t have to do all the work, dude! If she doesn’t get off, well, maybe she didn’t want to!”
She was going to say that. She was. But he was still talking. “We want her to dress sexy when she’s out with us, so all the other guys know what we’ve got and wish they had it, so we can get excited about that. Instead of having her look like she wants to disappear under the table, and not in a good way. Just because you slept around and got pregnant when you were a kid and everybody knows it, that doesn’t mean you can’t look hot ever again or everybody will think you’re still slutty. You know why I don’t take you out? That’s why. You’re fun naked, but you look fat in clothes, and you don’t know how to flirt or make a man feel good, or you’re scared to do it, so why shouldn’t I skip the boring part?”
An older guy had been climbing out of his car at the curb. He’d probably heard every word of that, and Jennifer tried not to wince. She also tried not to hear. She let the words wash over her, started to disappear underneath them, and then remembered. She was supposed to be real. She was supposed to be honest. Most of all, she was supposed to be brave.
“Fine,” she said. “You s
aid it. I said it. I know how you feel now. I’m all done. I’m going home.”
“Jen …” he said. “Wait.”
“No,” she said. “I’m going. I’m gone.” And fled.
Not that brave, no. But she’d broken up with him, hadn’t she? And at least she hadn’t cried.
She didn’t tell Dyma all that. Instead, she said, “I brought up an idea for my future. He thought I was pressuring him to marry me. I never even thought of it, honestly, so I told him so, and we just sort of … ended it.”
“Mom,” her daughter said, “you’ve been going out with him for four years and you never thought about getting married?”
“Well, sure. I mean, when I had the conversation, I didn’t think of it.”
“Oh,” Dyma said. “Well, I guess. So you guys just said, ‘See you later?’ So it really was just friends with benefits? I always think you’re more traditional than that. But you haven’t been all dramatic or anything, so …”
“No. I’m mad. I’m so mad, I can’t even see straight. I’m mad at him, and I’m mad at myself. If that was how he felt, why did I … why did …” She hauled in a breath and thought, Dial it back. She couldn’t. But she also couldn’t tell her daughter that she felt like she’d missed her chance. All her chances. And that now, it might be too late.
Because everything Mark had said about her … was true.
She had eaten ice cream from the carton. Her tears had dripped in there, and she’d thought, You look fat in clothes, eaten another bite of salted caramel, and cried some more.
Quietly, though, because otherwise, she’d wake Dyma. She hated to cry, but when she did, it was always quietly, so she wouldn’t scare her daughter.
Now Dyma would be leaving, and she could cry out loud.
She had to change her life.
She was thinking it, and then she wasn’t, because they had gone around a bend, and right up there, half in and half out of the river, there were wolves.
Right there. Wolves.
She said, “Dyma. Stop.” Keeping her voice low. Urgent. She wanted to grab Dyma’s sleeve, to shove her behind her, but she couldn’t. Not on skis.
Dyma said, “What? It’s OK, Mom. I’m glad you told me. I mean, good riddance, if you don’t—”
Somehow, Jennifer got her skis out of the tracks without falling over and shuffled forward in the deep powder. She did grab Dyma’s sleeve, then, and said, “Stop.” And pointed.
Her hand was shaking. Her heart was pounding right out of her chest. What did they do now? You were supposed to make yourself big for cougars, stand still for black bears, and if you had to, play dead for grizzlies. She knew that. She was from Idaho. What did you do for wolves, though? She couldn’t think. The blood was hammering in her ears, and she was breathing too fast.
Dyma whispered, “What do we do?” Like Jennifer was the mother. Like she’d damn well better think of something, because there was nobody else to protect her daughter but her.
“Wait.” That was the best she could think of. “Stand still.” That was what you did for dogs, and wolves were dogs, right?
The two animals were on the opposite bank of the narrow river, which was more like a creek here, tugging at a carcass at the edge of the swift-flowing water. Like coyotes with a deer, but this was no deer. This was an elk, its rack four feet across, and they were no coyotes.
They were gray wolves, except they weren’t gray. A big brown one, and another one that was almost pure white, barely visible against the snow. As she stood there, frozen, the white one turned its head to look at them, and after a minute, the brown one did, too.
Her heart felt like it was coming out of her throat, and she tightened her grip on Dyma as the white wolf left the elk, took a few paces into the swift-flowing water, and stopped there. Alert. Assured, like it knew exactly what it was doing. The brown wolf stood behind it and waited. It was huge.
Jennifer said, her voice low, “Dyma. Back up. Keep going. Back up.”
She could hear Dyma doing it. She tried to do it herself, but she couldn’t, because she wasn’t in the ski tracks anymore.
Never mind. She’d stand here. Dyma had better be backing up. She’d better be going.
The wolves didn’t move, and they didn’t growl. They just stood there, heads high, ears pricked. Absolute focus.
The white wolf was still in front. Its eyes looked bright, not dark, and they were staring straight at her. Could a wolf have blue eyes? That was what they looked like, and they were fixed on her face.
The hair stood up on her arms, the back of her neck. She stopped breathing.
Five or six seconds more, and the white wolf turned and went back to the elk. And the spell was broken.
Dyma said, “Mom?” Her voice was small, and she was too close. She hadn’t backed up nearly far enough. “We should get out of here.”
“Yes,” Jennifer said. “Go. I’ll be right behind you, but don’t wait for me. If anything happens, don’t wait. Keep going.” Her whole body was shaking, and at the same time, she felt like she could do anything. She got herself turned around and into the tracks again, and she didn’t fall down. She didn’t look back, and she kept up with Dyma. Around the corner. Out of sight of the wolves. She was trembling, wondering if she’d hear the pad of their paws, knowing that she wouldn’t. Not on the snow. They’d be silent. She wouldn’t know until the wolf was on her.
She didn’t turn around to look, because she’d fall if she did, and anyway, what good would it do? If they came for her, though, she’d fight. She’d distract them, keep them focused on her. She skied on and on, breathing hard, her thighs burning, and thought, Thank God Dyma’s ahead of me. Keep skiing, baby girl. Keep skiing..
She didn’t draw an easy breath until they were back on the main trail. And then she didn’t draw it for long.
6
Failing at Flowing
The shadows were getting longer and the air was getting colder, if that was even possible, but Harlan was still skiing. He’d fallen on his ass a few times, sure, trying the steep stuff with the quick turns and all, possibly at an earlier point along his learning curve than was wise, but balance was his life. Now, the sky was clouding over, the first tiny specks of dry snow were falling, and he was following Owen, who looked like he’d shape-shifted from bison mode, his padded jacket making him appear even more massive, a rime of frost decorating his hat and beard.
They were doing the easy part, heading through the flat expanse of Geyser Basin and back to a fire and a beer when Owen got off the track to skirt a herd of elk, which a family of four was busily photographing. The elk sure knew they weren’t going to get shot out here, because they weren’t one bit excited about the attention. Saving their energy to run from the wolves, from what Harlan had heard.
Owen was speeding up all of a sudden, though, so Harlan caught up and said, “You’re like the horse smelling the stable. Relax. It’s not like the beer’s going to get warm while we’re out here, or we’re going to miss the dance party. All I’ve got going on is a book on the bedside table.”
Owen said, “Those assholes are going to get somebody hurt.”
A group of snowmobiles perched on the snow ahead of them like squat, fat bugs. Five or six of them, their riders off the machines and crowded around something. Harlan saw a couple kids and a few adults, then realized what they were looking at. An enormous bull bison, solitary and majestic, his heavy, fleecy coat dusted with snow, was grazing about fifteen yards from the group, pausing occasionally to sweep the deep snow aside with his huge, blocky head.
The bull looked like Marble Hill Ranch #11’s big brother. Its chest was massive, and its horns were wicked, sticking straight up at the tops, the better to gore you with.
What the hell were those idiots thinking? They were way too close.
Owen started doing a sort of skating motion with his skis, leaning into it. It always surprised you how fast Owen could move. Harlan put some effort into it, copied Owen’s movements, and kep
t up.
They got closer, and the bison started shaking his head, then danced a few steps forward toward his admirers and back again, his tail flicking from side to side. Harlan might know even less about bison than he did about cattle, but he doubted the bull was inviting the crowd to join him in an interpretive dance.
Owen had started to shout, was skating faster than ever, when another pair of skiers appeared from out of the trees near the snowmobilers. They were moving quickly, too, but a little clumsily, especially the one bringing up the rear. Two women who needed to get out of there fast, because Harlan could see what was going on now. The snowmobile group had one of the kids posed maybe five yards from the bison and were taking pictures. One of the adults waved an arm, gesturing the kid to move in more, as the kid glanced nervously at the huge animal, then back at the adults again.
Harlan thought, You’re kidding me. The only thing they hadn’t done was actually try to set the kid on the animal’s back. The kid wasn’t even wearing his helmet. Harlan put more power into his step as Owen shouted, “Get back! Get away! You’re too close!” and veered around behind the group. The other two skiers were doing the same, practically on a collision course.
The photographers turned to look at them, and one of the adults, the one who’d been waving at the kid, yelled, “We got this. It’s fine.”
The other skiers were closer now, and Harlan could see their faces. It was the woman in the rear who had him looking twice. Her face was white except for a nose reddened by cold and sporting a scattering of freckles, and she looked tenser and more shocked than he’d have expected. She and the other skier were moving away from the bison, though. They were fine.
Shame the Devil (Portland Devils Book 3) Page 5