She looked at Elliot. He too was occupied by his memories, but his face held the lightness of good times gone by, once lived, many times remembered. She felt sick to her stomach, couldn’t wait to get back onto the main road. He felt her eyes on him and smiled.
“Little food, little wine . . . have a good time. Beautiful spot for a picnic, hey?”
“Ya. Beautiful.”
“What? Don’t tell me you don’t like picnics.”
“No, I do. Just don’t feel well, that’s all. This bumpy road I think.”
“Know what I think?”
“No. I’m sure I don’t.”
“I think that you need to learn to have some fun. Loosen up, let go a bit.”
“Really. Thank you, Mr. Freud.” She wrinkled her nose up and threw him a toying look of disapproval. She couldn’t catch if his words were meant as an observation or an invitation, so she settled on the more flattering of the two and felt herself feel better. It was nice, she reflected, being with him. Listening to his well-woven stories, laughing as he revealed his imperfections, which he laughed at as well. And she did feel better. Felt better than she had for a long, long time. Perhaps even better than she ever had. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and, blocking her past from her future, felt better indeed.
“Whose place was that?” Elliot asked, flicking his head at faded remains stooped in the distance like sad, neglected tombstones. Victoria shrugged, not looking aside, not willing to invoke that name by her own lips.
“Oh, I know whose it was. Benson was telling me about them. An original Hinckly family. Brassmans, or something like that, right?”
“Ya, something like that,” she agreed, attempting to reorganize the camera equipment which had bounced across the seat.
The Bassmans were always referred to as an original Hinckly family which, although implying some sort of great honor, actually meant little more than that the eldest surviving members of the community could no longer recollect a Bassman that hadn’t originated from the town’s own womb. Mr. and Mrs. Bassman had been a stiffly religious couple who, although believing all things were inherently evil, consoled themselves that some things were also inherently necessary and an uncountable sum of children promptly sprang up to give visible support to their views. The family grew as the house in town shrank and, before their fifteenth wedding anniversary Mr. Bassman had secured a sizable farm. The 160 acres, acquired off the destitute back of widow Lynch, had appeared at the time to be a considerable blessing, the perfect arrangement to gain the maximum benefit from such a large family. Unbeknownst to Mr. Bassman, however, the land, although fertile, proved to be water poor, and they’d scarcely settled in before the well started coughing up a thick, muddy phlegm. He’d searched desperately for a new source, but each new well he dug sputtered dry, and eventually the whole farm had to be abandoned as virtually worthless. The family was re-interred into a rented shack at the edge of town. Mr. Bassman had taken a job in the bush, felling trees, living all week in a stinking bunkhouse that he returned to eagerly after a weekend at home in a house that simply did not have room for him.
Slowly the whole family disintegrated, Mrs. Bassman taking to locking her kids out of the house to ease her exhaustion, nursing her depression with a self-prescribed elixir that she bought at the liquor store in one-gallon jugs. Her husband, his faith dried up completely with the last of the wells, set his own broad shoulders against the gates of heaven and was determined to gain the power and the glory for himself. He was a hard worker. Made good money. But the tribe of voracious, unruly children ate the dollar bills straight out of his hands. Although he labored a lifetime, he never overcame the loss of the farm, and his dying words were said to be a curse on the corpse of the widow Lynch.
The children, after being moved back into the confines of town, did what came natural after an upbringing of such severe deprivation; they drank. Drank like each new bottle was their savior, fearful each drink might be their last. As time moved on, the Bassman kids all grew up and coupled, creating more and more of their ilk until the whole valley was run through with them like noxious weeds.
“I’d like to explore around that place some time.”
“You would? Why? Just a bunch of old junk left lying around.” She wrinkled her nose, this time the distaste not playful but real.
“I don’t know. I just like snooping around, I guess. I find people’s histories interesting, don’t you?”
“No. Not anyone around here, anyhow.”
“Oh, come on, everyone has a story to tell. Even the people around here.”
“No, not here they don’t.”
“Sure they do, they just need to find someone who wants to listen.”
She looked at him with a drawn face, eyes indicating specifically how much she disagreed with him.
“You have a story, don’t you?” He grinned, disregarding her eyes that narrowed slightly, warning him off. “You do, Victoria. You have a story and I’d love to hear it sometime. Everyone has one. Every single person in this world has a story to tell.”
“Not one that needs to be told,” she countered.
Elliot pulled the truck over to the side of the road, Mc-Cully Hill rising up to the east of them. He sighed and looked over at her with mock resignation.
“Okay. Probably you’re right and I’m wrong. But I’d still like to hear your story because I’m sure you have one.”
“Yup, I do. Want to hear it? Here it is. Born, lived, died. Pretty interesting, hey?” Catching the look of concern on his face, she softened her eyes, shook a wisp of hair from her face and laughed lightly. “I’m joking, okay? It hasn’t been that bad living here. Come on, I’ll help you carry some of this stuff.”
The trail that led from the base to the top of McCully Hill started steeply then fell off to a gentle incline, and they climbed it easily, Victoria leading with Elliot following close behind. He stopped occasionally, inspected a leaf, turned over a stone, explained to her the various rocks rising up underneath their feet, each one a separate geological mystery.
“Boy, great view.” He whistled softly.
A solid wall of granite rose up twenty feet above them on their right side, a barricade of trees on their left.
“What view? I can’t see anything but rocks and trees.”
“Really? Not from my vantage point. Best view I’ve seen for a long time.”
Victoria stopped, turned to see what he was looking at and met his smiling eyes.
“Where? I don’t see any—”
His pleased grin clued her.
“Very funny. Try to keep your eyes on the trail.”
“On the what?”
“Trail.”
“Oh, trail. I thought you said something else.”
Her eyes sped through her armload of equipment looking for something to throw at him. But finding nothing that looked replaceable, she sent him a withering glance and continued on, a pleased grin, invisible to him, now on her face. The last three hundred yards felt like forever, the pressure of his eyes hot on her softly sashaying behind. Cresting the top of the rise, he passed her and set down his cameras and tripod then began to unpack the load from her arms.
“Thank you for carrying that up for me.” His blue eyes sank into hers slowly.
“You’re not welcome.”
“I can live with that. Will you lead the way back down too?”
“You’re bad. I thought we came to see the view up here.”
“View up here’s not too bad either,” he winked, laughing as he made an easy sidestep from her swing.
“Elliot!” She attempted seriousness but failed, a red-cheeked smile pushing forward.
“Can’t help it. I’m a guy. We only come in one model and that model is programmed to enjoy the view. It’s beyond us. Primal.”
“Primal?”
“Definitely.”
Victoria rolled her eyes, did all but scoff. Elliot turned away from her and looked across the expanse to the indigo horizon. She watched him peripherally as the air grew quiet. His voice had fallen hushed, reverent, and she started slightly when it broke out again beside her.
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
She looked out trying to catch what he was seeing, but all her eyes delivered was the valley coursing predictably between the towering hills, a muddy stream of greens and browns and grays. She closed her eyes. Tried to imagine his beauty, but it would not come. Even more vivid now in her mind, the valley lay an open wound, slit deep into the skin of the earth with Hinckly its cancerous heart of putrid decay. She snapped her eyes open looking up at Elliot, caught him looking down at her.
“No?”
“No, what?”
“I asked you if you thought it was beautiful.”
“Oh.”
“Do you?”
She smiled reservation.
“Here. Come over here.” He walked off a short distance, moving closer toward the cliff edge. She obeyed, stood silent as he created an impromptu frame with his hands and positioned them for her to look through.
“There. That’s the shot I want, right there. Can you see it?”
“Well—” She hesitated, trying not to disappoint him.
Ignoring her efforts, he slipped in behind her, his body brushing hers so softly that she couldn’t be sure she’d imagined rather than felt it. He wrapped his hands over her eyes, blocking out everything, blinding her.
“Elliot. What are you doing?” She tried to duck out from under him, but his arms held her in place.
“No, just wait a minute, will you? I just want to try something. An experiment to see if I can help you see something that’s so beautiful to me yet so repulsive to you.”
“Not repulsive. I didn’t say repulsive. I just don’t see what’s so amazing about it.” Her voice was low and tired, her senses feeling hypnotized.
“Okay. Not repulsive. But certainly not beautiful either, right?”
She considered in dark silence.
“Right?”
“Yes, okay, you’re right. Now, will you uncover my eyes? I’m getting dizzy.”
“No. You know why I think you can’t see anything beautiful about this valley? Because you don’t see it with your senses, you see it through your memories, and your mind is so convinced you’ll hate it, your senses don’t stand half a chance.” His arms tightened around her, pulling her in close to him; this time the pressure of his body on hers far less ambiguous. She started to protest, alarmed more by the truth of his words than by the closeness of his body, but his voice gently slipping into her ear silenced her.
“So, let’s try again. Okay? Let’s see if we can’t get you to see through your senses this time. Through new eyes.”
She yielded to his embrace. Felt the curve of his sensitive fingers, soft palms delicately framing her cheekbones. She felt like she was Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Aphrodite in the hands of their sculptor.
His voice continued on like a soft summer day, but she could no longer distinguish his words, just the rise and fall of gentle croonings against her hair. She concentrated on the feel of his hands on her face. So relaxed. So calm and gentle. No turmoil breathed its way from his being. His were hands that were one with life, working in unison to explore and experience all that surrounded him. So different from the hands she’d known—rough and forceful. Hands like his did not rip and tear and demand their way, but rather, with a soft caress or a gentle stroke on canvas, these hands created light and life and gave as much as they received.
“That’s better, Victoria. Just relax. Just listen to the quietness, feel the quietness. Can you feel it? Good, good. Just let yourself go.” He continued to guide her, his sensual voice weaving itself through her body and then floating deep within her, penetrating her most secret of places.
“Okay, now look again. Can you see anything of beauty out there now?”
His voice cut into her musings and she felt disappointed, as if awakened from a wonderful, erotic dream. Her eyes flickered open. Stared straight ahead, seeing not a valley at all, but rather shapes and colors and shadows that swirled and spun and blended into one another. She swallowed. Drew in a deep breath and nodded.
“I’ve . . . I’ve never felt anything so beautiful before. Thank you.”
“Hey, anytime. My pleasure. Absolutely.” He gave her shoulder a light squeeze and headed back to the pile of camera equipment.
Finding a relatively flat piece of ground, she sat down and watched him set up his tripod, tilting the camera ever so slightly so as to capture exactly the perspective he wanted. He explained things to her as he went along. Spoke of the play of light on darkness, the function of aperture, lens, focus. And all the while she watched those beautiful hands in their dance of motion. Positioning, turning, twisting . . . touching. Tentatively, he took a few shots. Repositioned, reconsidered, then took several more obviously delighted in his panoramic vista. The subject finally spent, he walked back over to her and sat down.
“Done?”
“Pretty much. Just a couple more I’d like to take.”
“Of what?”
“You.”
“Me! Forget it.” Her hands pushed aside some twigs as if brushing off the suggestion.
“No, really. I’d love to photograph you. You have such amazing angles to your face.”