Off Course (6 page)

Into the yawning hours also came sudden drops and voids, onrushes of anxiety. She was alone at 7,300 feet. The man she thought about slipped in and out of sight. The typewriter, whenever she approached, made her sleepy. In the A-frame's basement she found her old easel, a Christmas present in high school; she set it up and started sketching in charcoal: rocks and a cluster of spruce. Her powers felt thin in that high air. But they'd felt thin in Pasadena, too.

Afternoons, she took the same four-mile loop she'd devised as a teenager, tramping overland to the Bauer cabin. The meadows had dried out sufficiently so she could cross them without sinking into slime. She checked the deep channel for trout—Jakey said there were native goldens in there—then followed its oxbows to the log cabin. Even on weekends, she rarely encountered another soul. Once, a man was balanced on the cabin's porch railing. The owner, she thought, but closer, with a proprietary pang, she recognized one of Rick's finish carpenters, the older, less friendly of two brothers working at the Rodinger house. His misshapen leather hat gave him the look of a nineteenth-century prospector, so appropriate to the slumping cabin. To avoid him, she veered off the trail and climbed cross-country up a ridge all the way to the saddle. There, the whole Spearmint watershed spread out below her, a vast bowl of pines standing as they had for centuries, a soft wind ruffling their nap, like a hand over velvet. Ah, but the trees' days were numbered. The president had increased harvest levels, and local men, grateful and defiantly happy for work, had begun clear-cutting. A pale swath of raw stumps and debris piles already encroached from the west.

*   *   *

As she walked, she made a frame with her hands, imposed her own geometry on the landscape, composing scenes of trees and rocks, moving water, bushes and grasses, the interplay of shadows and the soft late-summer light.

She stuck her nose in bark; Jeffrey pines smelled like vanilla, lodgepoles like retsina.

Woodpeckers hammered at the trees, their red heads a blur; the whole forest rattled from them; were they the same birds she saw day after day?

On the fishermen's path along Spearmint Creek one afternoon, she saw a bush thrashing up ahead, and a deer's spindly, split-hoofed leg striking the water. Closer, Cress saw the animal full on: a doe, who continued to paw the shallows until, backing up, she drew a curling and flopping trout onto a sandbank. The deer struck until the fish, dredged in sand, grew listless. Pinning it with her cloven toe, then stretching her long neck, the doe closed her mouth over the fat V of the tail and, tugging as if at grass, she bit it off. She chewed fixedly, head low, protecting her prize. More pawing ensued—and still the fish twitched and tried to flop—until the doe pinned it again for a second bite. Blood, and a bright ocher organ flashed.

The deer's nonchalance disturbed and thrilled, as did her indifference to suffering. Cress rehearsed descriptions for Jakey, that student of animal behavior.
Like a cat with a mouse!
She would tell Julie Garsh, too, of the violence and cruelty in her outdoor cathedral. The utter lack of mercy.

Jakey, behind the grill, saluted her with his spatula. Cress stood at the bar; she assumed he'd finish cooking and come talk to her. Only one table waited for food, a mother and daughter. The grumpy blond waitress delivered their burgers, but Jakey didn't emerge. Cress feigned interest in the sports section but soon, afraid of being a pest, she left the lodge and walked home.

*   *   *

“Something is chilling Jakey's ardor,” she told Tillie.

“And yours?”

“That's what worries me. I used to be the less interested party.”

“Just hurry up and finish your thingy,” said Tillie. “Number 12 should be open by Thanksgiving. Old Fiona's moving to the Scripps Retirement Home.”

*   *   *

On supply runs, Cress explored the small, uncharming city of Sparkville. Once a railroad hub for farming, ranching, and logging, the downtown now had the depleted anachronistic ambience of a backwater with its scantly stocked dime store and dowdy private department store, its windowless bars. The handsome brick hotel by the old station had long been lodging for seasonal farmworkers. Off the main drag, Cress found an Italian market that sold backyard vegetables—basil, dandelion greens, cardoons—and a cloudy green local olive oil. In a Mexican grocery, she found purple hominy and chipotle chiles, crusty lumps of piloncillo sugar.

She shopped at Younts, not only for Julie but also now for Brian Crittenden and Florence Orliss, who each paid her ten dollars per haul.
That
compensated for wear and tear on the Saab.

She delivered Sawzall blades and a new sledgehammer to Freddy and River Bob demo-ing the Streeters' kitchen. Nails and an expensive six-foot level went to the finish carpenters at the Rodinger place, where, if she was lucky, Caleb, the younger, homely brother, answered the door. He always made a joke—Where's the pizza and Coke? Doughnuts and coffee? And once he said, “Wait, wait. I have a tip for you!” and gave her the perfectly formed pinecone that now served as the centerpiece of her kitchen table. The older brother, Quinn, took the supplies Cress delivered in silence and shut the door as she stood there. At her parents' jobsite, Brian Crittenden unloaded the Saab's trunk. Hefting a new router, he whispered, “Between you and me, I have no idea what in hell this is.”

Cress was surrounded by men. In that respect, living at the Meadows was not unlike grad school in economics.

*   *   *

One day, in the Younts checkout line, the woman behind her said, “I know you.” Cress turned to see the fat, grouchy, middle-aged lodge waitress with her puff of almost colorless bleached hair. DeeDee. Cress had heard Jakey call her Princess, Blondie, and, in a hissy mood, DumDum. Of course, DeeDee called him Bossy, like a cow. Close up, Cress had a shock: DeeDee was her age.

Here in the provinces, as in all provinces, something happened to women. Lovely in their smooth-skinned, shiny-haired bloom, they married, had a kid or two, and off went the starch bomb. Looks faded and the pounds rolled on, thirty, forty, fifty of them.

“I've heard all about you,” DeeDee said. “Jakey goes on and on. Cressida this, Cressida that.”

“All good, I hope.”

“Let's just say that you don't bug him yet.”

“Gee,” said Cress.

“The others bug him pretty quick. Though you can't blame him. They sit at the lodge, all moony. Cleavage hanging out. Hey, want a coffee?” Younts had a coffee shop attached.

First, Cress took seven bags of groceries out to her car, lining them on the backseat like seven small brothers. The sun was warm; she shouldn't stay long. And she had qualms: DeeDee was so brash. But Cress was curious to hear what she had to say.

DeeDee had ordered coffee for both of them. “You're the only one Jakey's never called a bim,” she said.

“Is that short for
bimbo
?”

A peroxided eyebrow—with dark roots—arched.

DeeDee was twenty-nine, divorced with three boys and, apparently, Jakey's great confidante. A thin gold cross swung over her cup as she leaned forward. “That voice mail you left? He sure got a bang out of it! God knows how many times he made me listen.
Don't heat the oven if you've got nothing to bake!
”

“You heard that?”

“Me and everyone else who came into the lodge—for weeks!”

DeeDee wasn't out to embarrass her—not exclusively, anyway. She wanted something more—a confidante of her own. A friend. Swearing Cress to secrecy, she confessed: she was in love with Jakey's youngest son, Kevin, the nineteen-year-old. “Well, maybe not
love
love,” she went on in a rapid whisper, “but we are sleeping together. Uh, constantly. It's like God's little gift to me after the worst divorce in history; best sex ever. But it is a sin, so I'll probably go to hell. I pray to stop. Every night I tell myself I'm going to stop. The mind is willing, but the flesh—”

“You're kidding, right?” said Cress. “About the God and hell stuff.”

“No. No. Not at all.”

DeeDee was a born again. “Bathed in the spirit, reborn in faith. Tulare First Presbo. Evangelical!” Her tone was so light as to seem self-mocking.

“Does that mean you had a whole conversion deal?” Cress asked. “Blinding flash and all?”

“Sure,” DeeDee said. “Only it was less a flash and more like a huge wave of relief. That I didn't have to do it all anymore. That Jesus was driving the bus and I could sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.”

The waitress poured more coffee. She wore a spongy white uniform just like Cress had worn at the Dinner Plate.

“Jakey's very proud of you,” DeeDee said. “Your intelligence and education. You really are the only one that hasn't gotten on his nerves.”

 

Five

Her father came up alone and spent an afternoon at the jobsite, searching the ground and stooping to pick up nails that had been bent or simply dropped during framing. He summoned all the carpenters and spilled the collected nails onto a stack of plywood. “These represent real money,” he said. “That's money just lying on the ground. Someone have a hammer I could use?” He banged the bent nails straight on a sawhorse and handed them around to the carpenters.

The head carpenter, Don Darrington, later told Cress that he and the others had taken the nails and, laughing a little among themselves, gone on working.

Her father's purpose in coming was to discuss costs with Rick Garsh. Before construction began, Sam and Sylvia had paid an architect's fee (for the plans) and a thousand-dollar contractor's fee to get things under way. Now Rick's first construction bill had come and he had charged, as agreed, the cost of time and materials plus 10 percent. Sam showed Cress the invoice: Rick had charged for the crew's wages and all materials, plus 10 percent. He'd also charged for the services of a bookkeeper (Julie) plus 10 percent and a gofer (Cress) plus 10 percent. Those fill-ups at Jakey's gas pumps Cress so liberally used? Sam was billed for a third of them, plus 10 percent. Rick also included five hours a week for “consulting,” plus 10 percent.

Sam pointed to this item. “If Rick's the contractor,” he said, “and the 10 percent is his fee, what is this
consulting
charge?”

“I don't know, Dad.”

“And the bookkeeping! Do doctors, dry cleaners, and mechanics charge for bookkeeping? Let alone tack on 10 percent? Isn't that just part of doing business?”

“I don't really know how cost-plus works in construction,” Cress said.

“It doesn't work like this, I'll tell you that much. And your pay,” he said, pointing to another line item. “I'm charged for a third of your trips. Do our supplies constitute a fair third of your purchases?”

The last trip was exclusively electrical supplies for the Streeters' remodel. But she wouldn't fan her father's fury. “It all works out,” she said.

“And look at the gasoline charge! At the lodge! The highest gas price in California, plus 10 percent. Rick should really gas up down below.”

“He's hardly incentivized to do that,” said Cress. “The way you two have set it up, the more he spends, the more he makes.”

“That's where trust comes in,” Sam said. “I trust him to keep costs low. As he promised to. And he probably gets a contractor's discount on materials.”

He did. Cress had signed invoices: 40 percent off on lumber, 30 on hardware. “So?” she said. “The cost is the same to you whether you buy from the retailers or through Rick.”

“But that's double-dipping!” said Sam. “He's honorbound to pass at least some of those savings on to me.”

“He's not incentivized to do that, either. Given your arrangement.”

Her father's face twitched. “Is
incentivize
really a word?” he said.

“To me it is.”

He gazed at her typewriter, the stacked files, the thick ream of white paper. “Tell me, Cress—what would incentivize you?”

*   *   *

Her father had brought up a letter to her from her sister, Sharon. On the back of the envelope Sharon had written over the seal:
SNOOPERS BEWARE!!!

Dear Cress,

Greetings from Hampstead! I hope Mom and Dad give you this. I didn't know how to send it to the cabin, so I just enclosed it with their letter—(hahaha, Mom, you old snooper, I'm onto you). I have left Cairo (that HELLHOLE!!!) and am back living in London. You have to come visit! I'm hoping to buy a flat, but in the meantime, I've rented a tiny bedsit on a picturesque square—you can almost imagine horses and carriages parked on the street. I bought a not-too-lumpy old couch just for you and anyone else I can lure here.

I couldn't believe it when Mom said you were living at the cabin—I thought you hated it up there!!! I sure did. (Sorry, old snoop, but it's the truth! Captives have few fond memories of prison, Frau Warden.) I remember how every Saturday I'd walk down to the lodge and buy the big package of Hydrox cookies, then walk out to the Crags or Globe Rock and sit under a tree and read Irving Stone novels, and eat each cookie in three stages, wafer-filling-wafer, until they were all gone. I'd stay out till the sun set. Nobody ever, ever asked me where I went. (No, Snoopy, you never did. Not once.) (Sorry for all the asides, Cressie. Mom used to read my diaries so I just assume she'll read this.) Luckily, I wasn't eaten by a mountain lion or raped by Big Foot. Anyway, good luck up there.

Once you get your thesis written, you can celebrate with … a London vacation! So hurry up.

Cheerio, old chap,

Sharon

Alone again, Cress drew trees, rocks, and dirt and thought in long, circular whorls. (Rocks were hard; the more she looked at them, the more specific
and
abstract they became.) The plaint of country music fed a thickening strand of yearning. Now that she saw him less often—and wondered if she'd ever see him again—Jakey looped constantly through her thoughts. She wanted, or thought she wanted, what any lover does: access on demand to that cozy furnace of a body and centrality in his life—unlike now, when she ranged, wineglass in hand, while 1.2 miles away he roared at strangers and knee-nudged his neighbors.