She ignores me.
Pete bellows again, this time from the front of the van. “Everybody ready for an adventure?”
Pritchett climbs in next to Dawn and looks us both over. “You two go to the same coven last night?”
“Shut your hole,” says Dawn.
“Yeah, I like my women spicy,” says Pritchett.
Dawn says, “How do you feel about fatal? You like your women that way, Stretch?”
I comfort myself with the knowledge that if these two kill each other, there will be less competition for the scholarship.
We head out to the freeway, but today we turn back toward Landon.
“Where are we going?” says Erik.
“In the Galápagos Islands you have to be aware of the relationship between things. So today we’re studying geology while we look at birds and mammals. We’re going to Yellow Rock Canyon.”
“Where?” says Ho-Bong.
“We’re going clear to the copper mine?” says Erik. “Geez, can you get me back for graduation?”
“We’ll get you home in time for lunch. Anybody else who’s going to turn into a pumpkin if we’re gone a few hours?”
“Why are we going to the copper mine to study how to write a proposal for the Galápagos Islands?” asks Ho-Bong.
“At least three of you in this van aren’t going to the Galápagos Islands, so I thought I’d teach you something about your local habitat.”
“That’s cheerful,” says Dawn.
“The first thing I want you to do is look out the window. By the time I get to the entrance of the canyon, I want all of you to have a one-sentence description of the town you live in. Everybody got paper?”
“What’s the point of that?” says Erik. “Is that part of our application?”
“A good scientist understands his or her tools. And you’re a tool, Erik.”
Pritchett and Dawn burst out laughing. Okay, I laugh too, but quietly. The twins look at Pete like Erik has a point.
I say, “You want us to think at this time of the morning?”
“Discovery doesn’t happen when it’s convenient,” says Pete.
I look out the window as we pass the mobile home park along the freeway. I see the towers on the roof of my high school that make it look like a juvy center. Main Street looks like a mothballed movie set. All around Landon, urban sprawl is creeping to the corners, but in Landon, life plugs along, stubbornly unchanging, except to keep becoming more and more outdated. And yet it’s a town where everybody knows who you are. You can’t fall down in the street without getting a hand up. There are four seasons. I live near mountains and deserts and lakes. They just aren’t places I go very often. I live in my house, car, classes, and job.
When we get to the trailhead for Yellow Rock Canyon, Pete asks for our sentences.
“My town is a soulless suburban wasteland,” says Dawn.
Erik reads his. “Landon is a town of hardworking people who care about their community.”
“We live next to a park that has a pond with floating cans,” says Ho-Bong.
Ho-Jun says, “There are three grocery stores within two miles of my family’s store.”
“How about you, Pritchett?” says Pete. “What’s it like living in Graniteville?”
“It’s like living on the funny farm,” he says, “except no one laughs.”
The group turns to me.
“I live between an industrial rock and a suburban hard place.”
“Nice,” says Pete. “And now for something completely different.”
Yellow Rock Canyon begins at a craggy trailhead with a half dozen signs telling people that they can’t drive their four-wheelers in the area. There are tracks right under the signs. Farther up the trail the trees are starting to leaf in and grass is sprouting from jaundiced yellow to muddy green. Cottonwoods and willows line the stream that cuts down the canyon. Overhead Pete points out the turkey vultures. “They always fly in twos.”
“Why?” says Ho-Jun.
“They pee on themselves and throw up in their nests to keep away predators. They sort of have to stick together to have company.”
Dawn says, “Sounds like my stepbrothers.”
Pritchett says, “What else you got besides vultures, Pete?”
Pete nods. “You name it. Bears, cougars, hawks, elk, deer, eagles ... and in a few months this place will be like a singles bar for migratory birds.”
We walk farther up the soft trail and come into a brushy meadow. A jackrabbit bolts in front of Dawn and everyone says, “Ooh.” Except Dawn, who trips into the mud and swears a blue streak.
“They really do have huge ears. I thought people made that up,” says Pritchett.
Pete shushes us. “Listen.”
The air floats with gobbling. Pete points to a stand of trees, and a huge dark shape waddles into view. “Wild turkey, male, looking for company.”
The giant bird makes a sound like, “Ke ke. Putt putt.” His brilliant blue head and red wattle twist with irritation. He doesn’t look real, he’s so bright and blue.
“Should I give him my number?” says Dawn.
“You aren’t his type,” says Pete. “But the mud is a nice touch.”
The bird flies up a few feet and lands. He seems more disgusted with us than frightened.
Pete puts out his arms to shush us again. The bird watches us and then begins making a strange, low, throbbing sound. Definitely X-rated.
“Strumming.” Pete uses his low, throbbing voice. “Maybe you
are
his type, Dawn.”
Right on cue, three females flutter over a hill and prance around in plain sight. Pritchett quietly laughs. “This dude is popular.”
The birds ignore us and bob their blue heads. The ladies flutter. The male struts.
“Shake it, Turkey Lurky,” says Pritchett. Even Ho-Jun and Ho-Bong crack up.
“And Cocky Locky,” I say.
“You’re a bad little girl, aren’t you?” says Pritchett. He puts his arm around me, and then I crack up.
“I might surprise you,” I say, just because I feel like it.
“I bet Myra is full of surprises,” says Dawn. She looks more cheerful covered in mud.
Pritchett laughs and keeps his arm around me.
“Is this really what we’re doing today?” says Erik. “Watching birds have sex?”
“Right,” says Pete. “I don’t want to fill all your impressionable minds with animal behavior. Do not try this at home, children. Let’s head to the van.”
Pritchett drops his arm.
I look through my borrowed binoculars. “Do we have to go?”
As we walk back, four turkey vultures swoop overhead. Squirrels bicker in the trees. Four deer sprint through the scrub oak, stirring up dead leaves and branches. A bald eagle chases away the turkey vultures. The sun filters through the cottonwoods, speckling the ground. The springwater rushes in the walls of the canyon. We’re thirty minutes from my house and I never knew this place existed.
When we get back to the marina, everyone heads for their cars. I go to mine to put my stuff away and regroup before I go to work. I feel Erik walking behind me, but I don’t see it coming when he climbs into the passenger seat of Melyssa’s clunker.
“Excuse me,” I say.
“What was all that about today?”
“All what?” I say loudly. Pritchett and Dawn both look at me from their cars as they drive away.
“Why are you doing this?” Erik’s face is blotchy.
“Doing what?”
“Do you really want to go to the Galápagos Islands? Really?”
Hearing Erik say this out loud makes the idea seem ridiculous. “Why do you care?”
“Because I think we need to talk.” He looks at his hands.
“About what?”
“About us.”
My pathetic space-sucking heart is hammering. “What us?”
He puts his hands down at his sides, balling them up and then extending them. “I wanted to talk to you last night. But the truth is I didn’t have the nerve. Not after everything that’s happened.”
“Talk about what?”
“About us. I miss
us
. I miss you.”
“There isn’t an
us
anymore,” I whisper.
“Couldn’t there be?”
Just like that he says it. The question stares me in the face. But it doesn’t look like I expected it would. The idea feels more ridiculous than trying to win the scholarship.
He says, “Do you have to go to work right now? Let’s go for a walk.”
I look around me at the marina, trying to get my bearings. I
do
have a few minutes before I have to be at work. I watch the wind carrying small sailboats out to the center of the lake. I think for a split second about my dad saying that sometimes you need to give a good man a second chance.
“Where do you want to go?” I say.
There is no smile now. He says, “You can follow me in your car. I’ll surprise you.”
We’re all alone in the parking lot. This is my call. I watch him get into his white truck. I turn on my radio. That stupid song is playing.
What do my instincts tell me to do?
All I can hear is the song.
I follow him.
30
Swooping:
When birds attack.
We don’t drive far. Erik speeds up the frontage road that goes back behind Saltair. There are a few Saturday cyclists on the road, but mostly it’s deserted. He pulls over and motions for me to come get in his truck.
I walk up to his window. “What are we doing?”
“Hop in.”
The music from the song in my car gets quieter in my head. Instead I hear the whistle of the trains coming across the desert. The sound has to travel a long way to reach me, and yet somehow it does. “Not to be rude, Erik, but the last time you had a surprise for me, it wasn’t a good one.”
“Well, I can’t break up with you again, can I?” He laughs.
“I’ve got to go to work.” I turn to get back in my car.
Erik hops out. “Hey, don’t be mad. I’m sorry. That wasn’t funny. Let’s just walk for a minute.” He takes my hand. His grip surprises me.
The road dead-ends in a trailhead a ways from where we’ve parked. The birds are going crazy with the warm weather. A little gray finch dive-bombs us from a lonely oak tree. It’s a rosy finch, but I can’t tell if it’s black- or gray-crowned because it’s moving too fast. Its sharp body makes me step back, which cracks Erik up. In the willows, red-winged and yellow-headed blackbirds are tweeting their lungs out. Overhead the gulls are circling. A great blue heron floats a thermal over the marshy shore. A raft of American coots bobs below, keeping tight so eagles won’t pick them off. A slender crane tips back and forth, pumping the water for food. Two months ago I might have noticed these birds, but not like I see them now. Now they are bright and loud with names and histories.
“Look.” I point to a northern harrier hawk sunning on a post. Its feathers gleam gold and brown in the sun.
“You’re really into this bird thing.”
I shrug. “Birds go places.”
Erik nods and keeps on walking. He looks exactly like he did the day he broke up with me. His black hair is jutting in all directions. He moves gracefully through the tall grass. When he turns to look at me, his eyes are lit up with a light I don’t understand. It’s not just that he’s so good to look at, it’s that there is something about him that draws me in, like vapor to glass.
“What did you want to talk about?” I say. We are a long way from the road.
“You get right to business these days. That’s cool.”
I wait.
He rubs his mouth and he laughs. “It’s just hard to put it out there, you know?” He puts his hand on my arm. My heart starts sprinting again. I want to listen, but I don’t. What if he wants to be with me? What if he doesn’t? Why am I afraid?
The irritated finch comes for us again.
Erik swats at it with his loose hand and the bird squawks louder. “That puny thing wants to kill us.”
I say, “Did you know that the smaller a bird is, the bigger its heart is? Hummingbirds have the biggest one. That’s why they can fly so fast.” I sound like a tour guide. I sound like Pete.
Erik keeps his hand on my arm and puts his other hand on my chest. I hold very still. We are off the trail, completely alone. It’s not like he has a gun to my head or anything. But not all weapons are made of metal.
“Yours is going pretty fast.” He picks up my hand and puts it on his chest. “Happy or scared?”
“Why should I be scared?”
He smiles. “You’re always scared.”
“Fear’s a useful defense mechanism.”