I awoke suddenly to the sharp clang of the car’s hood
slamming. My antics of the last few days had apparently taken their toll as I had fallen into a deep slumber. I rubbed my eyes, trying to clear the cobwebs, but instead was met with a thick cloud of smoke emanating from the car’s engine compartment. As Misty appeared through the cloud, like some kind of bodacious angel, I lumbered out of the car into the black night and asked the obvious question.
“What’s going on?”
“Looks like it’s the head gasket this time.”
“I’m guessing that’s bad?”
“Yeah. She’s cooked. At least for tonight.”
“So what do we do?” I inquired, far too groggy to formulate a plan of my own.
“We’re not too far. We can just hitchhike it.”
“I’m sorry,
what?
”
Before I knew it, she’d turned back to the road and stuck out both her thumb and her boobs. Seconds later, a white Ford truck, occupied by two
dark figures, slowed down as it passed us. To my horror, Misty grabbed the hem of her T-shirt and yanked it up to her neck, exposing the cleavage in between her lacy bra. The truck whirled around and stopped in front of Misty’s smoking car. The two men in the cab looked ghoulish through the dispersing cloud of smoke. My stomach churned with dread as Misty waved at them.
“
Hey, we can’t just get into the car with them!” I whispered into Misty’s ear. “They look like psycho killers or something!”
“You’re gonna die anyway, right?” she responded with a smile. I had to admit, she’d made a good point. Misty was a lot like me: She lacked the filter that screens the things one really shouldn’t say aloud.
One of the men exited the cab, grabbed Misty from behind, picked her up and spun her around. I was terrified. Misty giggled as she reached up and grabbed his hair with both hands, reeled him in, and kissed him on the mouth.
This bitch is crazy,
I thought.
As Misty nestled limply into his arms, she
finally offered, “Stacia, this is my boyfriend Paul. I called him to come get us while you were sleeping.”
On some deep level I wanted to strangle her, but in hindsight, her practical joke was pretty
damn amusing. I was just relieved that I wasn’t going to end up a statistic or with a starring role in the evening news, or worse: in some kind of snuff film. Then again, the evening was still young—and it wasn’t as if I knew Misty much better than her companions. I started to think the whole thing might be a setup. Why not cast the dying girl in the snuff film?
That’s when the second man got out of the truck. Misty
whipped her head toward him.
“Hey, Wilbur! Thanks for the lift. This is Stacia.”
I was still a bit wary of hitchhiking with total strangers, although there was only a fine line between that and what I was doing on the whole journey. The stranger count had tripled, it was the middle of the night, I had no idea where I was, and only a vague idea of where I was going.
Wilbur
strolled over to me through the darkness and dissipating cloud of smoke. When he came into full view, he reached out to shake my hand, and I almost fainted. Wilbur was tall, muscular, and tan, with dark, wavy hair and striking brown eyes. I had wound up marrying the last man I’d encountered who was that devastatingly handsome. Wilbur made me instantly uncomfortable.
“You really don’t look like a Wilbur,” I remarked, a little disgusted.
“What do I look like?”
Misty interrupted, “Grab your backpack
, Stacia. We’re standing on the side of the road!”
I complied, and we all climbed into the truck. Inevitably, I sat in the back of the crew cab with Wilbur. While we waited for a tow truck to take Misty’s car to the closest repair shop, Paul glanced back at me.
“I live just a few miles from here.”
I nodded, relieved to be close to somewhere…anywhere. I’d had enough of the road trip.
When we finally drove off, Misty and Paul became engrossed in their own conversation that involved a significant amount of laughing and playful touching. They obviously had a strong connection.
One of those rare couples,
I thought—the ones I couldn’t relate to at all.
“You didn’t answer the question,” Wilbur prompted as we drove over a bump in the road, his pretty face hovering a little too close to mine.
“Sorry. What was the question?”
“You said I don’t look like a Wilbur, so what
do
I look like?”
I wished I had kept my big mouth shut, because he clearly wasn’t going to let it go.
“It’s really more a matter of what you
don’t
look like,” I told him. Wilbur is the name of your grandfather or your dog, or that pig from
Charlotte’s Web.
”
“You think I’m a pig?” he asked, amused.
“Well,” I stammered, “I don’t know you. Your
name
makes me think pig…not this,”
I waved my arms up and down Wilbur’s entire splendor.
As if he didn’t know.
“I was named after my grandfather,” he explained, “although I’m much more interested in your heritage. What exactly are you?”
“Pardon me?”
“What is your heritage?”
“Guess.”
This was always a fun game. People usually pegged me for a Latina or an Arab or some exotic islander.
But it was my eyes that always threw them off.
“Hmm…” Wilbur purred as he rubbed his chin.
“I’m Russian.”
“I was going to guess Native American.”
This guy was both good-looking and bright—how incredibly annoying.
“Good guess. My mother was Havasupai.”
“Was?”
“Yes, unfortunately, past tense.”
“And your father was/is Russian?”
“Was. Also past tense. He died when I was a baby. The only contributions he made to my life were blue eyes and my ridiculous name.”
“Stacia?”
“Anastasia,” I said in
my best faux Russian accent. “He named me after a dead Russian princess, and I turned out looking more like Pocahontas.”
“Do you visit the reservation very often?”
“No, I’ve actually never been there. My mother’s family wasn’t very happy with her for leaving, and she never had any desire to go back.”
“That’s too bad,” he said. “I think it’s important to hang onto our history. At least some part of it.”
I shrugged. I had much bigger things to worry about than whatever dusty piece of land the “white man” left my kin. I think Wilbur got the hint that a change of subject was in order.
“Hmm. So how do you know the great, gregarious Misty?”
“She rescued my face from a slot machine, and insisted Sedona was this magical place I simply
must
see.”
“O
kay, I won’t ask about the slot machine,” Wilbur said. “I take it you’ve never been to Sedona?”
I shook my head.
Misty turned to face Wilbur with a smile that crinkled her pretty nose, and chimed in “She’s not very spiritual for a Native.”
I had to laugh. Even though I had been the butt of Misty’s humor thus far, I knew her jokes weren’t intended to be malicious. Native Americans were all about spirituality a
s were most people who visited Sedona. The honesty of it put me much more at ease, as I lacked a certain amount of social grace. Evan had isolated me as best he could, and somewhere along the way, I’d stopped resisting and just allowed it to happen. I couldn’t help but giggle, imagining Evan’s reaction if he knew I was in the backseat of a pickup on some remote road in the middle of Arizona, staring at one the most magnificent faces I’d seen in a long time—even if it did belong to a guy named Wilbur.
“How do
you
know Misty?” I asked.
“Paul and I met Misty backpacking through Peru.”
“Peru…really?”
“Have you been?”
“No. I’ve never been much of anywhere,” I sighed.
How pathetic it felt to hear myself admit that fact. I had all the resources in the world, but had never used any of them to actually see the world.
“If you could go anywhere, where would it be?” Wilbur asked sincerely, as he gazed at me with his enormous, lashy eyes.
I glanced up at Misty, wondering if this guy was some continuation of her personal Make-A-Wish thing: Give cancer girl a hot guy for the night as a departure-from-life gift. I made a mental note to mention to Misty that my plight wasn’t to become public knowledge.
Misty shrugged in my direction as she asked, “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Nothing,” I replied.
“So where would it be?” Wilbur asked again.
“I’m a little too tired for soul-searching questions, but if I had to choose right now, I think I would really like to visit the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and plant myself in front of Botticelli’s
Birth of Venus
for a while.”
“Good choice,” Wilbur replied
quietly, nodding.
I loved that painting, everything about it. I’d written a ten-page paper about it in college. I wrote about the colors, the lines, and the beauty of Venus’ ocean birth as a fully grown woman emerging on a seashell, her golden hair blowing in the wind. Just thinking about it made me smile.
“How about you?” I asked Wilbur. “Where would you go if you could go anywhere?”
“I think I’d go to the Havasupai Reservation,” he replied with a smirk.
“Very funny,” I said.
So funny, I had the urge to slap him senseless.
Upon pulling into the driveway of Paul’s house, I grabbed my backpack and followed everyone inside. Paul’s tiny one-bedroom shack (or as a realtor would call it, “quaint gingerbread cottage”) looked as though it had been decorated by Norman Rockwell’s grandmother.
Paul waved his arm around in a
mi casa es su casa
gesture.
“One of you can have the floor and the other can take the couch. Let the brawl commence.”
“I have my sleeping bag so I’ll take the floor,” Wilbur offered.
“No brawl? Very disappointing,” Paul lamented.
“Why do you have a sleeping bag?” I asked Wilbur, afraid of his answer.
Misty poked her head out of the bathroom, her mouth full of toothpaste.
“For Sedona, honey. I’ll find you an extra one in the morning.”
“I didn’t realize it was a campout sort of deal,” I replied.
“Camping isn’t your thing?” Wilbur asked.
“I’m not sure I have a thing, but I’m pretty sure that if I did, it wouldn’t involve camping,” I said as I slowly pulled off my barely-even
-scuffed Prada heels and dropped them to the floor for emphasis. “But, since I’ve never camped before, I guess I’ll find out.”
I recognized the irony of the fact that I was a Native American who was completely out of touch with nature.
“Wow, you really haven’t been anywhere,” Wilbur retorted as he expertly unfurled his sleeping bag onto the floor, less than three feet from me.
I started to stumble through some kind of half-assed rebuttal, but became hopelessly preoccupied as he peeled off his tight black T-s
hirt. I tried to play it casual, pretending as if I didn’t even notice those amazing pecs and bulging biceps. I was too dazed to count whether it was a six or eight-pack he was sporting. I was petrified by the thought of him removing his cargo shorts, although I was a little curious as to whether he would expose boxers or briefs.
Oh, GOD,
I thought,
what if he goes commando?
My head was swimming. I had to stop myself from staring. I was relieved when Wilbur climbed into his sleeping bag, squirmed about for a minute, then cast his shorts aside, keeping his nakedness to himself. He ga
zed in my direction as if he expected a show. All I could do was shake my head as I lay down on the couch fully dressed, and turned my back to him. I mummified myself in the knitted grandma-style afghan that I’d snatched from the back of the couch.
If I weren’t entirely focused on my impending doom, I may have been attracted to Wilbur, with his good looks, his charm, and his appallingly perfect body. But as it turned out, all those traits were working against him. In fact, I found them to be greatly offensive. I’d seen it all before. Evan started out the same way: handsome, suave, and charismatic. He doted on me while I was grieving the loss of my mother, and then screwed with my mind, eventually becoming my captor. Evan had lost his appeal, just as I was sure Wilbur would if I
had given him the chance.
For weeks, I’d been having crazy dreams. I dream
ed every time I fell asleep, which was often. I’d been in a permanent walking-zombie state—so tired that every time I sat down for too long, I would slip into dreamland. I’d nodded off several times while Evan was having sex with me, although he hadn’t curled my toes in years. My somnambulistic state was the first thing that alerted me that there might be a problem with my health.
I was in the middle of the most vivid dream. I was performing some sort of traditional folk
dance with “my tribe” (whom I’d never met)—flailing my arms in a crazy unsynchronized manner and singing an incomprehensible song. Apparently, this was my subconscious mind’s archaic notion of what Native Americans do for fun. Wilbur was in attendance, with his shirt off, of course. I felt a thrill course through my body as he approached me. He placed a hand on my shoulder, leaned in closely, and gently whispered…
“Stacia, coffee’s ready.”
I sprung from the couch, still disoriented.
“Mother of God!” I screamed, frantically tugging the covers over my fully clothed chest.
“No, it’s just me…Wilbur,” he said with a chuckle. “Must have been some dream I interrupted.”
Under normal circumstances I might have seen the humor in it, but then the nausea hit me like a
dam about to burst. I looked at Wilbur, then at the bathroom door. Determined not to repeat my barf-on-Misty’s-chest debacle, I made a run for it, hand over mouth.
When I
was finished vomiting I was so mortified that I didn’t want to emerge from the bathroom. I heard Misty warn Wilbur not to take it personally. She explained that it must be how I expressed endearment.
“Are you
okay?” Misty called from outside the bathroom door.
“Fine,” I croaked. “I’m just gonna take a quick shower. And I’ll pass on the coffee.”
I was far from fine. My body was rebelling against me and my brain was fantasizing like some crazed teenage girl.
After showering, I managed to pull myself together. I made some dry toast with Paul’s ancient rust-encrusted toaster, and began to help carry all sorts of camping gear to Paul’s truck.
“I packed you a sleeping bag and some extra clothes,” Misty informed me. “I think we’re about the same size.”
I glanced at her breasts and then down at my own—not a chance, but I was grateful anyway. I had no clue what I was getting into. I didn’t own anything resembling camping attire. I’d never even slept on a couch, let alone in a sleeping bag under the stars in the great outdoors. I had a vision of that smirking
, smug coyote bastard from the road to Vegas lurking around my tent.
I was reassured during the thirty-minute drive to our destination. Each minute the landscape became exponentially more beautiful. I had always imagined Arizona to be a desolate wasteland replete with yahoos who shoot their senators in front of grocery stores. Instead, it appeared to be a land of majestic mountains, crystal-clear streams, and lush pine trees.
When we reached Sedona, I instantly grasped its appeal. It wasn’t desolate at all. In every direction I turned, I could see breathtaking red rock formations towering over a sea of green. I looked back from the natural beauty that surrounded me to the unnatural beauty of Wilbur, only to find him gazing at me.
“Gorgeous, isn’t it?” Wilbur asked.
It took me a second to comprehend the fact that his eyes were fixed on me in my awe, not on Mother Nature. I pretended not to notice.
“I had no idea,” I sighed.
“I know, right?!” Misty exclaimed, as if she were also seeing it for the first time. “We’re camping right down this road.”
We turned down Back O’ Beyond Road, and that’s exactly what it felt like: some otherworldly place. I looked up to see the mother of all colossal rock formations—enormous spires of rusty red blended together to form an ominous natural castle.
“This is Cathedral Rock,” Misty explained as we all climbed from the truck’s cab.
For the first time, I was happy I’d agreed to come. Whatever Misty thought Sedona might offer my particular situation was irrelevant to me. Simply being in the presence of such spectacular beauty (Sedona, not Wilbur) made me feel better somehow—uplifted. I stared upward, mouth agape, until Misty pulled me aside and whispered:
“Do you think you can carry a small pack?”
She motioned to a backpack in the bed of Paul’s truck.
“Of course. I’ll be fine,” I assured her.
Evan had made me feel helpless for years, so I was
damned if I was going to actually
be
helpless.
We donned our respective backpacks and locked the truck. I was surprised to see that ours was the only vehicle in the lot. I took a moment to exchange my high heels for some sneakers that Misty was kind enough to contribute to my cause. The shoes looked ridiculous with my designer
pantsuit but there was no place to modestly undress to rectify my fashion faux pas.
We crossed a small stream then began to climb. I tried desperately to keep up, but being the nature virgin that I was, I just couldn’t. Wilbur noticed my lag and came back to walk with me.
We ascended the path for about a mile before we took a break for some water. The panoramic view that stretched out in front of me took away what was left of my huffing-puffing breath. Paul’s truck looked like a matchbox car from our spectacular vantage point. It was so spectacular, in fact, that I’d forgotten about how much my quads were burning.
Once we were rested, we made a right turn and hiked
the switchback trails around the back of Cathedral Rock’s peak. There, we crossed a fallen tree to get to the other side of a river that churned and gurgled before us.
“Can you feel it?” Misty asked.
“Feel what?”
“The vortex.”
Oh, God, here we go,
I thought. I’d been kidnapped by a bunch of New Age nut bags who were all going to start chanting to Cerridwen or some other mystic goddess. I had to admit that there was something so astoundingly serene about the place, but…a vortex? I wasn’t even sure what a vortex was, but since Misty appeared to possess some great insight into the secrets of inner peace, who was I to scoff at the idea?
“What exactly is a vortex?” I inquired of Misty.
“It’s an energy source, like food or the sun, only it’s an energy radiating and spiraling
upward
from the earth. You can actually feel its presence,” Misty explained patiently. “Do you see that tree over there?”
She pointed to a lone juniper tree.
“See how it’s unusually twisted up?”
“Yeah. Weird,” I contributed.
“It’s the energy from the vortex,” Misty said. “Try this: Lie down on your back and close your eyes.”
I reluctantly complied. I had to wonder why Misty thought I would be excited about something that would twist me all up in knots like that poor tree, but I forced myself into pretending to have an open mind. As the two of us lay on our backs, Paul and Mr. America went back to the truck to fetch the rest of the camping gear.
As I grudgingly lay in “the vortex,” I began to sense a spinning sensation. It didn’t make me dizzy and nauseous like any other whirling motions did. I felt light and airy, almost exhilarated.
“I think I
do
feel it,” I finally allowed myself to admit. I lifted my head for a moment to see if I could catch a glimpse of this “spiritual energy.” It was still just a river, rocks, and trees.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Fire away,” Misty replied.
“You said you live this way because you’re aware of your mortality. How did that happen? Did you just wake up one
day and say to yourself, ‘I’m going to die someday; let’s party’?”
Misty giggled.
“Hardly. I used to be a CPA. My husband and I owned a firm together.”
“Husband, huh?”
“Yeah, I had a son too. Jacob.”
I had a feeling this story wasn’t going to end well, but I was clearly obligated to ask.
“What happened?”
“Well, we were living your typical suburban life. We worked too much, concentrated on all the wrong things—you know, material things. We didn’t spend enough time with our son. We were so caught up with the idea of getting ahead that we didn’t realize how much of our lives we were wasting. Then, in a flash, it was all gone.”
“What do you mean? What happened?” I asked, one-hundred-percent certain I didn’t want to hear the answer.
“Nine years ago, both my husband and Jacob were killed in car accident.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks,” she muttered, unaffected by my ridiculous apology. “A teenager drag racing. Some dumb-ass kid whose life was never the same either.”
“So, how did you handle it?”
“My whole world fell apart, as you might imagine. I tried to maintain the firm and go on with my life, but it just didn’t work. I didn’t care anymore. I realized that I’d wasted so much of my time pursuing useless endeavors. I did all the things society dictates we do. I was existing, not living. So I sold the firm and decided to actually live my life. I did it out of respect for John and Jacob, because neither one of them had a chance to live theirs.”
“So you’re a boozie with a master’s degree?” I asked, trying to lighten the mood.
“Hey, cocktail waitressing actually pays pretty well, and it’s totally flexible. My manager, Max, lets me take time off whenever I need to. There’s always someone wanting to pick up more hours. When I leave work, I don’t give it a second thought.”
“How does Paul fit in?” I asked.
“
Paul feels the same way I do about life. He owns a little construction company in Flagstaff. He loves his work, but he knows when it’s time to play. This is the first place we went together after we met in Peru. Right here in this vortex. I think that’s why we like to come here so often.”
“Do you plan to get married?”
“No, actually. I think because we don’t live together and don’t see each other day in and day out, we appreciate each other all the more. We cherish the time we have together, and don’t take each other for granted. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
I pondered what Misty had said while I continued to soak up the energy of the vortex by the stream at the base of Cathedral Rock. She was the first person I had ever met who seemed genuinely content. But what a price she had to pay to get there
. The mere thought of such magnanimity made me feel incredibly selfish. It must be infinitely more painful to lose your child than your own life, and to lose a husband as well. Of course, I could only imagine.
At times, I had secretly hoped
that Evan would just disappear. My mind wandered back to the time when I had first met him. I was still in a relationship with my high school sweetheart, Michael. By that point, Michael and I had been together for four years—an eternity in teenage terms. He was the only person I’d ever had sex with and we had our entire lives planned out by the time we were nineteen years old.
Michael and I met while taking Renaissance Art History at Las Vegas High, and we were both crazy about it. After high school, I enrolled in nursing school and he was studying to become a teacher. It was our dream to move to Italy. We spent countless
days concocting our plan. I would obtain a travel position as a nurse, and he would teach English abroad. Our hope was to land jobs in Florence. Our plan was perfect. But then my mother got sick. I continued with school, but my motivation began to fade. The idea of going to Italy seemed foolish, and Michael and I drifted apart as I began to devote all of my spare time to caring for my mother.
It had been suggested by my mother’s doctor that I seek out a probate lawyer and acquire power of attorney while she still had her wits about her. It was very painful for me. But Evan
Altman, Attorney at Law, came highly recommended for his compassionate advice. I met Evan while his practice was still in Las Vegas, before he moved his office to Los Angeles. He seemed so understanding as he drew up the papers for me. Evan was the master at compartmentalizing his behaviors.
Evan pursued me heavily right from the start. He was this big, strong, handsome, older man. He
managed to take care of everything for my mother and me, and at the time, I found his presence very comforting. I broke up with Michael to be with Evan, and I’m certain that my doing so hurt Michael deeply.
I began to wonder what Michael might be doing at that very moment, as the vortex’s energy continued to engulf me. I pictured him lecturing to a crowd of rowdy Italian fourth-graders. I imagined him
feasting on me with his eyes and smiling, all while flipping his hair out of his face, as he always did. Finally, I had an image of the two of us in bed. Michael was tenderly caressing my shoulder when I became aware that someone was actually shaking me. This time it was Paul.
“Are you hungry,
sleepyhead?”
Good Lord, it had happened again! Somehow I had developed narcolepsy. I rubbed my eyes and sat up.
“I could eat.”