The Butterfly’s Daughter (25 page)

By the time they got back to their site, the sky was dusky. Their neighbors had a nice fire going and were sitting at their picnic table. The aroma of grilled meat wafted their way. Luz's mouth watered as she and Margaret took the gear from the trunk and set it on the level graveled spot where they hoped to erect a tent.

“You've put up a tent before, right?” Luz asked Margaret. “Since you were an Ambassador in the Girl Scouts and all.”

“Actually, we slept in cabins,” she said sheepishly. “What about you?”

“Me? No! I'm from the city. I've never been camping.”

“Well, how hard can it be, right?” said Margaret cheerfully. “If little kids can do it, so can we.”

While Margaret read the directions, Luz tried removing the tent from its bag, cursing a blue streak. It was like stripping the casing off a sausage. Together they figured out they had to first spread out the thin bottom tarp on the ground.

“Fluff it up like a sheet first,” Margaret instructed, then got on all fours to smooth it out. “It's so wrinkled,” she said in dismay.

“We're not going to iron it,” Luz said, giggling when Margaret jokingly stuck out her tongue. “Besides, it goes under the tent, so you won't have to look at it.”

Margaret pulled out a flashlight as the sky was getting grayer by the second and the temperature dropping with it. She read the next step. “Seems easy enough. All we have to do is spread the tent over the tarp, then put in the stakes.”

Unfortunately, the ground was so hard that they couldn't get the stakes into the ground without a hammer. And they didn't have a hammer. Shoes, boxes, and rocks wouldn't get the job done.

“Do you think they'd have one?” Margaret asked in frustration, indicating their neighbors.

“I'm not going to ask them.” Luz stepped closer and whispered, “They're watching us like we're on TV. It creeps me out. Let's just put the poles in first. Once we're in the tent, we won't need the stakes anyway. Our weight will hold it in place.”

Luz went to the supplies and pulled two sectioned poles out of a nylon bag. They were each folded multiple times at joints and opened to a long, wiggly pole.

“They look like those nunchakus,” Margaret said, fiddling with it.

Luz started laughing. “I wonder who translated this. It says here to push the pole into the hole.”

Margaret giggled and tried weaving the legs of the pole into the seam at the opposite side. The wiggly poles kept falling over, again and again. Margaret cursed the poor translation and tossed the directions to the ground. She crawled under the tent and tried holding it up in the middle while Luz tugged the corners taut and tried again to pound the stakes into the graveled ground with her shoe.

Over and over the tent toppled over, and each time it fell over, Luz and Margaret laughed harder. Finally they collapsed on top of the tent, laughing until their sides hurt and tears flowed from their eyes.

“You girls are either filming for
America's Funniest Home Videos
or you could use some help.”

Luz followed the southern drawl to see a curvaceous girl in her twenties walking on the path in tight black jeans, red cowboy boots, and a jean jacket ablaze in rhinestones. She was a flash of sparkles in the dim light. Her platinum-colored hair was damp and pulled up in a high ponytail showing dark roots. Her heavily lined, dark blue eyes scanned the scene with mild amusement.

Luz thought she looked like an angel of mercy. “Do you know how to put up a tent?”

“Better than you two, I reckon.” She lowered her enormous purple leather bag to the ground. A few hair products fell out and Luz figured out that she was the soprano from the shower. “What's your name, honey?”

“I'm Luz.”

The girl cut a cursory glance toward Margaret, who stayed back, frowning. “I'm Stacie.” She released a loud, staged sigh and surveyed her nails. They were big hands with long, ruby-tipped fingers. “Lord, I just pray I don't break a nail. I just had them done.”

It turned out Stacie knew what she was doing. In short order she laid out the gear. “First off, you girls were putting your tent up in the wrong spot. See, that's real important. Take it from me.” As she spoke she tightened the links of the poles so they formed single, long poles. Then she easily slipped them through the seams and like magic, the tent stood.

Seeing that the process required little more than simple common sense, Luz felt her cheeks burn. She cast a sideways glance at Margaret, whose lips were pursed with chagrin. Stacie had them move the tent to the flattest section of their lot, kicking bits of rock with her boot and scouring each section of it with the flashlight.

“The trick is not to set your tent on any rocks, sticks, or hills. One time a buddy of mine at Bonnaroo set his tent up on this hill of red ants. Them's aggressive little bastards. Sting like hell. Once that nest was disturbed, they attacked. See, when that first one bites, it sends out some kinda smell that acts like an alarm going off for all the others.”

“Pheromone,” corrected Margaret. When Stacie looked over her shoulder with a puzzled expression, Margaret explained in a teacherlike voice, “The ant released a pheromone. That's the scent that causes the other ants to swarm. They sting en masse.”

“In what?” Stacie asked, scrunching up her face.

Margaret rolled her eyes. “It means all at once.”

“Yeah, yeah, that's what happened,” Stacie said, nodding. “My friend's leg blew up like a balloon and he was howling like a banshee. Didn't kill him, though. Just wished it did, it hurt so bad. So, you don't want to be putting your tent on no ant hills. Or gravelly spots, neither, on accounta you'll never get the stakes to go in.”

Luz and Margaret shared a look.

With Stacie's help the girls secured the tent with the stakes in short order. Luz thought Stacie looked especially pleased with herself.

“I don't know about you girls,” Luz said, “but I'd love to start a fire and have a glass of wine.”

“Great idea,” Margaret said, making a beeline for the car. As she opened the door, Serena came bounding out straight into Stacie's arms. Stacie cooed over “the precious li'l thing” till Margaret came back from the car with a bottle of red in one hand, a bottle of white in the other, some plastic cups under her arm, and a worried expression. She turned to Stacie. “You wouldn't happen to have a corkscrew, would you?”

A slow smile eased across the girl's face, carving deep lines at the corners of her eyes. “Of course. I never travel without the necessities of life.”

“If you've got a corkscrew, we'd be happy to share,” Luz said.

“Tell you what, girls. I hitched a ride with a group of guys up the road a piece. They're good ol' boys from Georgia and been nothin' but gentlemen. But they're freewheeling, if you know what I mean. They're following the Widespread Panic tour.”

“Oh my God,” Margaret exclaimed, grabbing Luz's arm. “I'll bet those are the guys who mooned us.”

Stacie giggled. “Sounds like them. Like I said, they're fixed on having a good time. They've started in on drinking and smoking and Lord help me, they're getting high as kites.” She crossed her arms and twisted on one heel. Though she appeared relaxed, Luz recognized a flash of desperation lurking in the girl's eyes. “If it's all right with you,” Stacie said, “I'd be real grateful if I could get my gear and stay with you tonight. I've got peanut butter to share.” Her ruby lips turned up in a teasing smile. “And a corkscrew. What do you say?”

“Yes,” Luz answered without hesitation.

Margaret's silence was too resolute for Stacie not to notice; she quickly surmised it was Luz who made the decisions, and she flashed her a megawatt smile. “Well, okay, then! I'll just go get the corkscrew and be right back.” She handed Serena to Luz and walked off, following her beam of light and disappearing into the darkness.

“Are you crazy? We don't know her,” Margaret said, rising to grab the firewood. “She could rob us blind.”

“First of all, I doubt she'd do that,” Luz replied, tying Serena to one of the tent stakes. “Second, I didn't know you that well either before you hitched a ride.”

“True,” Margaret admitted. She'd crouched before the fire pit and begun neatly stacking the firewood. She rose, wiping her hands on her pants. “But I didn't dress like a Vegas showgirl.”

“You also didn't know how to put up a tent, Miss Girl Scout. You should be kicked out of the corps. And third, Margaret, what do we really have to steal?”

Margaret laughed and her cheeks flushed. “But I can make a hell of a fire. Watch this.”

She struck a match and bent to light the pyramid of logs in the circle of rocks. The flame sparked. Margaret bent on all fours and blew soft plumes of air onto the flame. Soon the underbelly of the wood glowed an infernal red. Margaret came back to sit on the wood bench beside Luz. She slapped the dirt from her knees and hands with a satisfied air. “There. Not bad for a geek, huh?”

“You were a geek?”

“Yeah,” she said, bending to lean her forearms against her knees. “What did you expect? I collected insects.” She laughed in a self-deprecating manner. “I had glasses as thick as Coke bottles. I got my eyes zapped when I was thirty and now I've got twenty-twenty vision. I wish I'd done it sooner. But I didn't do it because I wanted to be prettier,” she added. “I had laser surgery because I wanted to see better on field trips and not have to fool with glasses.”

Luz smirked with wonder. “You never fail to amaze me.”

“I live to amaze you,” she replied with a laugh.

Luz paused and looked anxiously at Margaret, who was staring at the fire. “Do me a favor? Lighten up on Stacie.”

Margaret turned her head to face her. “I just don't trust her.”

“That's just because she doesn't dress like you.”

“To put it mildly.”

“I think you'd look good with a few rhinestones and some color.”

Margaret snorted and glanced meaningfully at Luz's rumpled clothes. She crossed her arms, then fixed her gaze on the path that Stacie had walked down. “You know,” she said in a sincere tone. “I have to admit, sometimes I imagine what it would be like to dress like that. Flashy and sexy. A vixen. It takes a certain physical confidence, don't you think?” Then she turned her head and her wistful expression vanished. “I mean,” she said self-consciously, “I could never wear clothes
that
tight. It's not me.”

Luz thought of Margaret's plain beige uniform, her colorless, magazine-decorated apartment, and realized that Margaret might have pushed that flamboyant side of herself down too deep. “Oh, I don't know,” she said. “I think there's a little sparkle in all of us, just waiting to shine out.”

“You think?” Margaret laughed and shook her head.

They sat for several minutes watching the fire gain strength. The snaps and cracks of the burning wood spiraled to a sky as black as a woolen blanket. Soon, too, the ubiquitous high hum of the mosquitoes hovered near their heads, prompting them to dig out the bug spray from their bags. Seeing Margaret's phone, Luz remembered that she hadn't yet called Sully. She borrowed Margaret's phone and punched Sully's number. Gazing at the starless sky above, she listened to the phone ring and ring until his message clicked on.

“Hi, this is Sully. Leave a message and I'll get back to you.”

“Hi, Sully, it's me. Luz. Hey, where are you?” she said as a gentle tease. “I'm in Oklahoma now. Should make Texas tomorrow. I'm camping, can you believe it? And I'm not traveling alone anymore. I'm with two girls I met on the way. They're really nice. Listen, I know I haven't called but I left my charger behind and my phone
is dead. So I borrowed this phone and just wanted to check in and tell you I'm okay and not to worry. Love you. Bye.”

“All set?” Margaret asked, taking back her phone and tucking it into her bag.

“Yes, thanks. I feel better. I guess I did all I could.”

Margaret hesitated, setting her purse back on the ground. She crossed her legs at the ankles. “You know, you could've bought a charger at any one of the gas stations we passed along the way.”

Luz bent her head, forced to acknowledge what she'd pushed to the far corners of her mind. She stretched out her legs beside Margaret's and stared at the flames licking the logs.

“I told myself I just didn't want to spend the money. It's a valid enough reason. I don't know what's coming up on the trip and it makes sense to me to be frugal and not spend on anything I don't absolutely need.”

“A phone isn't something you don't need. At least not on a trip like this.”

“I thought I'd wait till I got to San Antonio.” Luz paused, heard the lie in her own words. “No. There's another reason, but”—she sighed heavily—“I didn't want to think about it. I've got enough to deal with right now.”

“What reason was that?”

Luz collected herself and forced the idea from the nether regions of her thoughts. “I didn't want to talk with him.”

There was a short pause and Margaret said, “Oh. Well.”

“I told myself that I was trying to stand on my own. To make my own decisions and not always depend on Sully.”

“There's nothing wrong with that.”

“Not if I hurt him. I don't want to hurt him. He's a great guy. I'm just . . . not sure of my feelings and I know if I talk to him he'll just
hammer at me to come home and right now I don't want anyone telling me what to do. This is the first time I've taken a trip like this and I'm thinking just about me and what I want. I don't want to worry about anything but the journey. I don't need the pressure.” She flicked a glance sideways at Margaret, searching for affirmation. “Is that selfish?”