Catching Tatum (20 page)

After the sunrise he told me the mountain across the ravine was where we would hike. There was a lake and that was our destination. He said one of the guys on base told him about it; he mumbled something about Sasquatch sightings near the area.

“What, you believe in that?”

“Absolutely, I'm going to find him someday.” He winked with a grin.

It was funny—he seemed so serious and smart and yet he believed in something so silly. We got up and returned to the 4Runner where our breakfast of champions awaited. It was humble, like him; he had a cooler with two little cartons of milk, like in elementary school, granola and fresh strawberries. We peeled open the tops of the milk cartons and ate facing the day with our backs resting on his rig. Then we packed up and drove down the road—down, down, down this time, deep into the crevices of the mountains.

It took well over an hour going slow enough to creep over deep ruts and rocks without harming his SUV to get to the trail he was seeking. It wasn't an advertised trailhead; it was backwoods style in every sense of the word. We loaded up his big hiking backpack that also came out of the back seat with food from the cooler, the blanket from before, and everything in my bag. He held up my bikini and smiled. “How you gonna get this on?”

“There are bushes aren't there?”

“Most girls put it on under their clothes.”

“Where's the fun in that?” I winked. “Just kidding ... I was thinking water park or something where I could change.”

“Well, hey, if you need someone to hold up a towel, I can be that guy.”

“I bet you could. I'm good on that ... thanks, though.” I smiled, pulling it from his hands and stuffing it into the pack. He set the bread on top of the rest; there was plenty of room at the top, so it wouldn't be squished. He strapped his guitar, snugged in a canvas case, to the outside, then pointed our direction up and said the hike would take a couple hours. He said it would be mostly easy going but if I needed breaks to let him know. I told him I wouldn't, that I was used to intense workouts, and for him to go as fast as he wanted and I'd keep up.

The path we walked was too narrow for a vehicle anymore but had once been a road. There was grass and vegetation in the middle and the occasional sapling made a run for the sun. When Parker came across them, he would try to pull them up and toss them away from the trail if they weren't too big. We didn't talk a whole lot, except when he would point out his favorite places along the way. But it wasn't awkward, it was peaceful. The reason the road was no longer traveled by vehicles bared itself a little further into our trek; a huge washout had taken the road with it. A twenty-foot section of the roadway was gone, leaving a steep drop and ravine in front of us that was impossible to scale. Cliffside was at our left and the washout wandered down it as far as I could see through the pine and deciduous forest.

“There's a switchback about a half-mile up.” Parker pointed past the washout. “It loops the road back this way—we’ll follow this up to it,” he said, leading me to a thin, but well-traveled, game trail that cut straight up the hill. I moved out of the way for him to take the lead but he shook his head and grinned. “You go first, better view … for both of us … that way.” I smiled and obliged, hoping the curves of my backside would indeed be pleasing to him. As long as he wasn't one of those guys that got off on two inch wide thigh-gaps and no-butt-skeleton models, I was OK. I was fit and muscular; if he didn't like what I had to offer, well ... I felt sorry for him.

It was not an easy climb to the higher part of the road; it invigorated me. Blood flowed through my veins, waking up my furthest extremities, pushing my body to its peak performance. I was panting and puffing, and pushing myself to climb higher and higher. I almost wished I had a pack of my own to make the challenge a little harder. I knew I could put out more effort. All I had to do was get to the top, get to the road, and I would have victory over the mountain in front of me. I loved feeling my body come alive. He checked a couple times to see if I wanted a break but I declined every offer. If we stopped, we still had to climb up sometime; might as well get it done faster. Besides, he was hardly out of breath and wasn't even sweating—this climb was nothing to him. He was in excellent shape; it turned me on, and I didn't want to give him the impression I was weak. There was a steep rock face midway up the trail we had to scale. I reached high and thought I had a good grip but when I tried to pull myself up I slipped back, scraping my leg on the way down.

Parker was right there to catch me. When I fell into him, he didn't even sway with the impact. Scrawny or not, he was tough.

“You OK?” he asked as I lifted my pant leg to inspect the pinking wound that marred the inside of my right knee.

“Yeah, I'm fine. I thought I had a better grip ...” I was embarrassed more than hurt.

“Here, I'll give you a boost,” he said. “Reach back up.” I did and grabbed in the same place as before. This time his hands cupped both my cheeks and pushed me up. He could have hoisted me by my hips or put a hand out for a toe grip, but went for the butt instead.

“You like that?” I asked after I was up and turned to offer my hand to help him up.

“More than you know.” He smiled. His eyes were brilliant in the daylight. Green, they were green.

We walked an hour more before he finally stopped us for a break. It was just after ten o'clock and, even though I didn't want to take one, I had to admit it was a perfect break time. We ate granola bars, and apples with peanut butter, and recovered to the sound of his hardcore rock-n-roll play list. I finished my granola bar and apples first, dusted my hands on the back of my jeans and stood up to press on within fifteen minutes of sitting down.

“Hasn't anyone ever told you, the journey is half the fun?” he said.

I looked at him funny. “Only my mom. She's famous for making us stop and bottle up memories.”

“Probably because you try to do everything at high speed. Take it easy; this is it, girl. All day long, I told you, there's not much to it ... all we're doing is this hike, there's nothing else. Might as well make it last. We're hiking in, checking out the lake, and then hiking out. Slow down. It's not a race—it’s a day to waste in good company.”

“I guess I don't get the point of going slow. I mean if we're going to the lake, why not just get there?”

“We will ... we are ... we're getting there. Breathe. Find the joy in the journey.”

I shrugged. “It's weird. I'm not like that ... it's like, you train so you can hit the ball better, run harder, be faster. It's all about the game, the training, the buildup, the journey—all of it gets you to the end.”

“But what about the middle?”

“I never really thought of the middle as the point of anything.”

“That's a shame ... so much happens in the middle.” His green eyes sparkled. There was a magic in his words I never considered before.

“Like what?”

“Well ...” he said, then, for effect, popped a slice of his apple in his mouth and chewed the whole thing slowly, never taking his eyes off mine, before answering the rest. He didn't move to stand up, his arms rested purposefully on his knees as he sat with his back propped against a big moss-covered rock. His bag of Crunch Pack apple slices dangled in his fingers, waiting, like I was, for him to open his mouth again. “Life happens in the middle. You're part of my middle.” He ate another slice.

“Your middle of what?”

“Getting my girl back.” Again he made the point I was not his type.

“That's the second time you've said that!” I fired back. If he was going to be brutally honest, I was going to be, too. “I'm not the one for you—I get that, but I have feelings, too, and they kind of like you. You're a little harsh in your delivery, it being our first date and all. You could at least pretend to be slightly into me. Ask about me, not compare me to her. What's wrong with me?”

“Nothing's wrong.” He looked almost apologetic. “Well, I don't know, there might be lots wrong. I barely know you. And I never said I wasn't into you. Trust me, if I wasn't we wouldn't be here. I've gone a long time without the company of a girl; I could go longer. But I wanted to see what you were about. I said you're part of my middle. I haven't led you on. I hope she'll come back to me; I'm not ready to let go of my hope yet, but ...” His eyes got a faraway look; his pain was something I could reach out and touch. “If she doesn't, maybe I'll fall in love with you, or maybe something completely different happens. Why let what might happen in the end mess up the middle? It's our first date. Let's have fun and just be here now. Don't worry about if she'll come back or if we'll get together, don't worry if you're my type; 'be water ... my friend,'” he said in a slightly oriental accent, posing his arms like a ninja.

I shot him a questioning look.

“Bruce Lee?” he asked, eyebrows rising. “'
Be water, my friend'
...?” I shook my head. The reference was lost on me. I looked it up later on YouTube and understood what he meant.

“Go with the flow, girl. Be water. Let's see where the current takes us.”

“I don't go with the flow,” I answered jokingly.

“No, you don't, do you?” He looked at me long and hard, searching, seeking, seeing something in me that I didn't even know existed, discovering me. It was surreal: I couldn't take my eyes off his but after a minute I squinted and asked, “What?”

“You are ... you're fire. I've never been this close to someone like you. You blaze trails, burn them up, and take anyone you run into with you, and leave the landscape forever changed. You're burning me up right now.”

“You make it sound like it's a bad thing,” I countered. “You gotta have a little fire in your life, right? No fire, no barbecues, no warmth … no bonfires.” I bobbed my eyebrows up and down.

“Fire burns,” he countered.

“I'm good fire. I'll be nice. I won't burn you, I promise.”

“I don't think that's a promise you can keep.”

“Yes, I can.”

“How do you know?” he asked.

“’Cause I've been burned. It hurts too badly. I wouldn't do that to you or anyone.”

“Ahhhh,” he said, figuring me out. “That's why the game. It's not a game at all, is it?”

“OF COURSE IT IS,”
I said, looking away, embarrassed, busted.

“No, it's not. It's all about protection. You're keeping yourself safe from being burned again. Someone hurt you. Your little game will keep us both safe then. I promise, I won't burn you either, trust me.”

I wanted to, I wanted to believe him right then and there, give up the game and the rules. But my mind was strong. I wasn't a stupid girl anymore; I wouldn't be fooled by what my heart was feeling, especially when it was feeling things for a guy in love with another girl. But my mind was all I had left. My body was already gone; my heart was leaving me, too. Why couldn't I guard it the way I wanted to? We were silent for a long time, looking at each other, at the world around us, thinking.

What I wanted to say came to me too late. It seemed out of place when I finally responded. “Yeah,” I said quietly, catching his eyes in mine, praying, hoping he could understand where I was coming from. “But I could get swept away in your river or pulled under by your crashing waves ... and drown. You said you were earth and wind—you could bury me, swallow me up, blow me over, and leave me ravaged. Maybe you don't even know your own power. Maybe you'll try to be kind and gentle but in the end it'll happen; you'll take too much and I'll get hurt again.” I wanted him to feel my fear.

“I think you think too much,” he answered. “Don't try to figure it out. Let's both just go with the flow ... I'm already all caught up in you; I won't break your rules ... Something about you reeled me in but that means you're gonna have to play my way, too. I'm not ready to move on. Let me be part of your middle. Let me show you what it's like here now. Let go of how it will turn out, what might happen. No end game, no rush.”

“How can we go with the flow and not rush?”

“Stop thinking about it; be here now.” He winked again and popped the last slice of apple in his mouth, wadded up the bag and scrunched it into his pocket. In my opinion, that would have been a perfect time to start out again. But nope, we didn't go; we sat there longer. I think he was making a point that there really was no rush. He kicked his feet out in front of him, crossed them, and put his hands behind his head. We stayed there like that, me standing, waiting to go, him all laid back like time could go on forever, until I was bored out of my mind. I didn't get it. I don't know if I do to this day. Funny thing is, though, I remember everything about it, how I wandered around impatiently, asking him if we could go yet. I picked moss off of a tree and spelled “I'm so bored” with it. We talked about the books we were reading. I read a chapter in my book; I watched him read his. I even remember how the wrinkles in his shirt moved as he breathed. We listened to the wind blow, watched the leaves flutter, and threw pieces of bread to a squawking squirrel.

Be here now. It was a lesson he knew I needed. I can't say I ever learned it well but I still hear those three words ring in my ears when I get too hyped up. I'm grateful that Parker was part of my middle ... and that he told me to pack a book. I learned quickly to have my Kindle locked and loaded with plenty to read anytime he wanted to take me out on a day hike. He was never in a hurry to get anywhere, always waiting for her to come back to him, always making me wait for him to give up the hope. At least with a book I could go somewhere, even if it was only in my imagination. Sometimes he would crack open a book, too, and we would read side by side in the summer sun, in our own little worlds, but still somehow together. Over the course of that summer I got used to long, pointless breaks, and realized they weren't as pointless as I thought. I learned a lot about the area around me, I read a lot of books, I got comfortable with silence. I realized that every date didn't have to be a grand adventure to be memorable or worthy of my shelf. In the end, we always got where we were getting to, unless there was nowhere to get to in the first place. He made me take those kinds of hikes too: Sasquatch hunts, walking to distant points in the woods to where someone, usually a toothless someone, once reported seeing an apelike creature. There was no point whatsoever, just a walk in the woods to nowhere in particular to see if something that didn't exist could be found. A prophecy of our future.