“Did you have a purse?”
“Oh. Yes. Thank you,” she said, turning back to the abandoned car, unlocked and with the keys still in the ignition. There were no Samaritans good enough to steal it. Walking back to the truck, she was very aware that he was intently watching her. No, not watching. Studying. Her body felt disconnected, each limb disjointed and out of sync with the rest. Terrified that she might trip and fall, she willed each foot not to betray her. Seizing the handle, she took a deep breath, clambered up into the impossibly clean cab and closed the door behind her with a muffled oomph.
“I’m lucky you came along,” she said. “There’s not much traffic on this road.”
“Not many hitchhikers either,” he winked. “Especially not pretty ones.”
“Oh. Well—” she mumbled, searching in her purse distractedly.
Elliot maneuvered carefully around her car, which sat crookedly on the side of the road. Passing it by, Victoria was appalled to see how bad it really had become: like she had gone to the junkyard and helped herself to the rusted bones and broken spines and pieced together some sort of automotive Frankenstein. Watching in the mirror she was relieved when the dust rose up and blotted it out.
“You have a great walk by the way. You a dancer?”
“Yes! Well, no. Not anymore. But I used to be when I was younger.”
“Yeah. I could see it in your walk.”
“Really?”
“Really. I used to go out with a dancer.”
A rogue wave of emotion crashed over her, and she looked away quickly. It had been a long time since she had thought of herself as a dancer, a dream she thought she’d buried long ago. Now, the thin ache rising inside her was so raw, so tender and tremulous that it was obvious that although she may have buried her dream, it had been buried alive. Taking a deep breath, she marched her mother’s words out before her and paraded them through her mind:
No use dragging up things you can’t change.
“Well, I’m not a dancer anymore. It was just something I did for a while as a kid.”
“What do you mean you’re not a dancer anymore? Of course you are.”
Victoria frowned as she looked over at him. “Well, not really. I haven’t danced for years.”
“Oh. So what you mean then is that you don’t dance anymore.”
“Right. That’s what I said.”
“No. You said you weren’t a dancer.”
“Oh. Well, same thing.”
“Uh-uhh. Not at all. You’ll always be a dancer whether you dance or not. The same as a poet is still a poet whether or not he writes down his thoughts, and a painter is no less a painter even without his canvas. You’ll always be a dancer because that’s how you interpret the world. To dance is just your outward expression of that interpretation. Right? So, do you teach?”
“No.”
“Really? That’s a shame. Never thought of opening your own studio?”
The suggestion surprised her and she quickly denied it. But the accuracy of it left her private thoughts feeling naked and exposed. Opening her own studio had long ago been her most consuming passion. But Bobby would hear nothing of it, her plans vaporizing like soap bubbles as they met his irritated resistance.
Elliot’s words confused her. She no longer felt like a dancer, and yet she’d thrilled to hear he’d seen signs of those qualities still evident in her. That he so readily believed her capable of having her own studio. For a brief moment she almost allowed herself to believe it. But, as she let her mind drift deeper, she couldn’t find even the shadow of a dancer. Really, she couldn’t find anyone at all.
Questions began to flood through her mind about this man who with one look was able to identify a part of her she had long ago forgotten about herself. She cast a casual glance his way. He was better looking than she’d first thought, his bright face enhanced by strong, prominent cheekbones and lively blue eyes that sparkled with an unruly freedom that seemed swept into being by the sun, surf and waves. He was a transplant in Hinckly, there was no mistaking that, as conspicuous as a seashell on the forest floor.
She made a split-second survey around the interior of the truck. You could tell a lot about people by the way they kept the inside of their vehicles. Bobby’s truck was a catastrophe of overdue bills, lost invoices, empty cigarette packages, greasy paper towels and a myriad of used automotive parts. In a perpetual state of disarray, he forbade her from cleaning it up—said he liked it that way. It irritated her that he wouldn’t at least try to keep some order, but it was useless to nag him. The contents of her car on the other hand, decrepit as it was, were in perfect order. Tight little piles of bills and receipts lay on the seat in an orderly line, like school children waiting for the bus. Each month was laid out separately; it gave her a sense of comfort to be able to scan the events that had combined to form her year to date. The trailer was far too crowded to find any more space in which to file the completed years: she’d taken to snugly binding everything together each January and placing it in the trunk.
Elliot’s truck was empty of any papers whatsoever. As a matter of fact, the emptiness is what struck Victoria the most about it. The dash was empty, as was the seat, the floor, even the little plastic garbage bag swinging lazily from the ashtray was empty. It was not the sort of display she would have expected from an artist, and her curiosity was piqued. For the first time she felt glad for the fifteen miles they still had to travel together before they reached town.
“It’s a beautiful valley, hey?” he said in an energetic, upbeat way that suggested he expected her to agree.
“Hmm. Yeah, I guess so. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to live somewhere else though.”
“Oh yeah? Like where?”
“I don’t know. Anywhere.”
“Why don’t you move then? If you’re not happy here?”
He’d caught her short and she looked up quickly, wondering if this too was something he could read from her body.
“I am happy,” she said defensively. “I never said I wasn’t happy. I just wonder about what it would be like somewhere else. Sometimes you wonder—”
“Not me. I don’t waste too much time wondering. If I want to know about something, I just do it. Life’s too short to spend it wondering. That’s how I ended up here. Thought it would be interesting to live in the country, stuck a pin in the map and here I am.”
“You stuck a pin in the map?”
“Yeah. Didn’t matter to me where I went so long as it was in the country somewhere. That’s how I’ve always decided where to go.”
“By sticking a pin in a map?”
“Yeah. Simplifies the whole process.”
Victoria laughed. She’d never heard of anything so bizarre. “Well, so much for planning.”
“Aw, planning. Planning kills half the adventure.”
“And so, when you get bored with it here you just what? Stick another pin in the map and off you go? That easy?”
“Yep, that easy. Gone.”
Victoria rested her head against the seat, a slow smile creeping across her face as she shook her head. “Can’t even imagine.”
“Why not? Why spend your whole life somewhere you’re not happy . . . ? Oh yeah, forgot. You are happy. But in a hypothetical situation it wouldn’t make much sense, would it?”
“No. I suppose not. But things just aren’t that simple for most people. Sometimes people’s lives just get too complicated.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe people just think it’s too complicated . . . or want to think it’s too complicated.” He looked at her fully. “So, you’ve always lived here, then?”
She looked out at the blurred fields as they blew past. “Pretty much.”
“Never had any thoughts as a young girl to run off to the city?”
“Ya. For a while I did.”
“And?”
“I don’t know. Got married. Things changed.”
“Hmm. So, you live a long ways out this road?”
“Pretty far. About another fifteen miles back.”
“I must have gone right past your place then. What side of the road are you on?”
“The left.” She whispered the words dryly.
“In the trailer?”
She cringed. What must he have thought as he drove past the filthy trailer, surrounded by the dilapidated sheds strewn haphazardly around with a complete disregard to order?
“Ya. In the trailer.” The words drained out of her, revealing at once all that she wasn’t and never would be.
“Oh yeah. I know your place. You have the most amazing rock bluff behind your field. I’d love to climb it sometime and do some sketching. If that would be okay with you and your husband. What’s his name again?”
“Bobby.”
“Oh yes, Bobby. Seen him a couple of times around town. Sounds like he’s quite the mechanic. Benson said there’s not a guy around who can re-build a faster engine. That true?”
Victoria shrugged. “That’s what they say.”
“He grow up here as well?”
“Yeah, more or less.” She felt agitated as the conversation turned to Bobby. Elliot had casually mentioned meeting him, but Victoria could only guess about what sort of performance her husband may have delivered.
“So, what about you? Where did you grow up?” She watched him, alert to see if he was aware he’d been played, but the telltale muscles of his face revealed nothing.
“Well, I sort of grew up all over. My dad’s job was better suited to a single guy, so we were always moving.” He shifted in his seat, the words seeming to stir something in him. Wondering what private pain had intruded upon them, she barely resisted an urge to reach across and touch his face.
“Anyhow, we got to be expert packers. My brothers and I could have a house boxed, loaded and ready to go within two days.” He pulled himself up straight and laughed lightly, looking across at her. “I miss the adventure if I get grounded for too long now, though. After high school a buddy and I spent a couple of years backpacking around Europe.”
“Really? I’d love to go there. What a great experience that must have been.”
He laughed suddenly, loudly, startling her. “Well, if you can call sleeping in the rain and half-starving great experiences, then I guess it was! No. Really, it was. I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything.”
Victoria searched her own mind for memories she wouldn’t trade for anything but found none. Her whole life, thirty-seven years, without one cherished memory. She could erase her whole existence and be just as far ahead. Maybe farther.
“Tell me about Europe. I’ll probably never get there myself.”
“Of course you will. Just go. Nothing is stopping you. Except maybe yourself.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“That’s because it is.”
“Maybe for some people.” She shot him a wry look.
“Okay. Look, I’ll tell you just enough so you’ll have to go see it for yourself. And seeing it’s only a small part anyhow. You can do that with a good book. The real magic lies in the smells and the sounds and the tastes. The colors. Know what I mean?”
Victoria nodded a smile, relaxing against the door as he fell into a rambling discourse about his years in Europe. She studied his handsome, almost beautiful face as he glided through his memories with ease, pausing from time to time to remember details that didn’t matter.
They’d bumped into each other only briefly in the short time that Elliot had lived in the valley. The usual meeting places where the inhabitants of a small town eventually meet up—auction sales, town meetings, weddings, funerals—but she’d never spent any time really talking to him. Watching him now, she couldn’t understand why. Who else would she have moved on to talk to? And who else could have had anything worth talking about?
Elliot’s stories continued on, tumbling freely as each experience called up another faded memory from the trenches of his mind. His face became a cast of characters. His eyes played out each bit player’s part, changing from sad and compassionate to eloquent and debonair, depending on the accompaniment given by his wide, expressive mouth. She watched his hands as they occasionally let go of the wheel and joined the storytelling with graceful, almost feminine swirls. It made no difference whether he controlled the wheel or not, the truck roared straight ahead, chewing up the road in front of them and belching out a storm of gray in their wake.
Cloudy shapes began to swim in the distance, and she was more than a little disappointed to see town emerging from them. She watched him, desperate to imprint his features on her mind. She traced the outline of his face, her eyes running across his incredible white teeth, feeling their smoothness, pausing to taste the lusciousness of his edible lips. Her fingers strained under their skin as if bound in a tight glove, restricting their urgent desire to reach out unhindered and glide deep inside the careless blond ringlets that caressed his neck. And she knew that, if she could hold on to it, she’d found a memory she could keep forever.
The Eldorado. The name, in keeping with the opulent structure, had been a presumptuous step toward the future. But the future, as it is wont to do, took a vicious little side step and watched without compassion as the lofty building fell into a long downward spiral of decay, its proud namesake reduced to a preposterous illusion. Built with an optimistic eye on the horizon, the hotel, at its conception, had been the epitome of luxury. Its creator had been a man of vision who years before, had envisioned a railroad slicing through the valley with a prosperous city emerging along its spine. Unfortunately for himself, his marriage and several business partners, his vision had been cloudy: the tracks wound through Fort George, two hundred miles to the south instead, bypassing Hinckly altogether.