Falling for June: A Novel (18 page)

She looked up at him.

“I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Sometimes I don’t think is all, and then the rain and the wine and, I don’t know, maybe it’s just Spain.”

“So, you wouldn’t want to marry me if we were back in the States?”

“No, no, I meant maybe it was Spain that had me opening my big mouth at the wrong time.”

“I rather like your big mouth,” she said.

“You do?”

“Yes, but I wish you’d stop using it to talk and kiss me.”

“Really?” he asked, taken aback by her invitation.

June laughed, stretching up to kiss him. She tasted of wine and rain, and her hair smelled of the outside. David pulled her closer and deepened their kiss, never wanting to let it end. He remembered her telling him back at Echo Glen that sometimes a kiss is just a kiss. But no way was this just a kiss.

26

S
O, HER KISS
was her answer?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Her answer came the next day, although it was even less direct than a kiss.”

“You’re killing me with suspense, I swear. But your lists of smells and tastes made me hungry. Any chance of a bite before we go on?”

“Well, let’s go see what we can rummage up in the icebox. I think I have some Hungry-Man dinners.”

I gave him a hand out of his chair again and we went into the kitchen. Now that I had seen June’s wheelchair, I began to notice how things were set up to accommodate her around the house. A cabinet had been removed and there was a second, lower counter, with a smaller sink built out next to the one where I had washed dishes after lunch. I had just assumed it was a vegetable sink, or whatever those little ones are that you sometimes see. I also noticed that the phone was mounted low on the wall, and seeing it reminded me of the call about a cemetery application. I began to have suspicions about Mr. Hadley’s plans and his proposal for me, but I didn’t ask because I didn’t want to know just yet.

“These things still seem like magic to me,” he said, turning on the old microwave. “I remember when I first saw one
at the local fair. Heated a hot dog right before my eyes. Now your phone can probably cook one. June hated the thing. She said it sucked all the taste out of food. But she never tried a Hungry-Man Salisbury steak or she would have changed her tune. Did you know Salisbury steak is named after the doctor who invented it? How can it be bad if it was invented by a doctor?”

I’m not sure where this burst of energy came from, but he kept up talking about what it must have been like to know your legacy was naming a steak to help people eat fewer carbs, only to have them serve it with mashed potatoes and gravy, as he set the table with a knife and fork, even pouring a glass of milk for me. When the meal had finished heating, he set it down in front of me. “There you go,” he said.

“What about you?” I asked.

“Oh, I never eat this late. My medication makes me nauseated. Besides, I’m still stuffed up on MoonPies. No, you eat and I’ll talk. Otherwise I’ll have to make you up a bed for the night and finish tomorrow.”

He retrieved his cane from the corner and lowered himself into the seat across from me. I tasted the Salisbury steak. He was right: it was damn good.

“I remember right where I left off this time,” he said, “because I had just been kissing my sweet June. But for the sake of your young ears and decency I’ll leave out the two times we made love that night, once to the sound of rain pelting the old tin roof and once to the sound of crickets long after the rain had stopped. I’ll start instead the next morning, when I woke to an entirely different kind of kiss . . .”

David was still dreaming about June when he felt her lips on his. Or was it her tongue? He reached up to touch her cheek
and his fingers felt coarse hair instead. Drowsy and confused, he opened his eyes and tried to make sense of her elongated face. Then he screamed. June was lying next to him, and she opened her eyes and began laughing, as if being woken by donkey kisses was just the funniest thing in the world. David scrambled to his feet and stepped away from the beast, cursing and spitting onto the ground.

“He was just being friendly,” June said, sitting up and scratching behind the curious animal’s ears.

“Friendly? That thing had its tongue in my mouth.”

“They like the salt,” she said, reaching for her pack and fishing out a bag of pretzels.

“How do you know it’s a he anyway?” David asked as he watched the donkey eat the offered pretzels from June’s palm.

“Uh, those,” she said, pointing to its dangling testicles. “Plus he kind of sounds like you when he eats.”

“That’s not funny,” David said.

June laughed. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help it.”

After taking turns freshening up and doing their business behind the barn, they ate a cold breakfast of jerky and trail mix before loading up their packs and hitting the road.

“That crazy mule’s following us,” David said.

“
El burro catalán
,” June replied.

“What’s that?”

“It’s not a mule, it’s just big like one. It’s a Catalan donkey. They may be extinct someday.”

“Well, why’s he following us?”

“Maybe he wants another kiss,” June teased.

“More likely he wants the pretzels in your pack,” David replied. Then he had an idea. “Hey, instead of cutting back to the road, can’t we keep going south across this field, as a kind of shortcut?”

June stopped, quickly consulting her map.

“It’s definitely a more direct route, but it will be slower going through this wheat than it will be on the road.”

David grinned. “Not if we’ve got help with our packs.”

Five minutes later they were walking together hand in hand like two carefree lovers out for a morning stroll as the donkey followed along behind them, carrying their gear. Between both packs, the combined straps had just reached around its girth. David was quite proud. But despite the pleasant walk and the levity of their morning wake-up surprise, David’s proposal in the barn the evening before weighed heavily on his mind. He was acutely aware that June had not answered him yet. Plus, the way she had glanced at her wedding ring when he had mentioned marriage had not been lost on him.

The wheat field they were crossing eventually terminated at a wooden fence on the other side of which was a red poppy field that stretched away as far as the eye could see. The vivid Spanish sun was fully up now, warming the damp poppies, and a haze of evaporation was rising from the field, giving the vermilion vista an otherworldly appearance.

“Looks like this is the end of the line for you,” June said, removing their packs from the donkey.

She offered him a handful of pretzels as payment for his services, and then she and David climbed over the fence and started off across the poppies. The field was very flat, and when David looked back a full half an hour later he could just make out the donkey still standing at the fence, watching them go.

“Animals sure do love you,” David said. “Although I think you may have spoiled him with those pretzels.”

“Maybe,” she replied. “But I like spoiling the men in my life.”

“
Men?
Should I be worried?”

“Not unless you’re the type that gets jealous easily. Are you?”

David smiled. “No. And maybe it’s you who should be worried anyway, since it was me the donkey was kissing.”

June laughed. “Touché, darling. Touché.”

“You’ve said that before to me. It’s kind of cute.”

“
Touché
or
darling
?” she asked.

“Both,” he answered.

“Well, you might not know this but I’m a first-rate fencer. And
d
arling
is something I picked up from a marvelous actress on a New Zealand movie set. That’s the glorious thing about Hollywood. It lets you reinvent yourself.”

“Do you ever miss it, being in Washington?”

“No. Echo Glen is home.”

They walked then without talking, just the sound of their feet sweeping through the poppies, driving out clicking grasshoppers from their path. David considered telling her that he had paid off Echo Glen with the proceeds of his home sale, giving her at least one less thing to worry about, but decided against it even though he knew she had a lot on her mind.

“June, I’m here to listen if you want to talk about it.”

“These poppies seem to go on forever, don’t they,” she said, stopping to consult her map.

It was obvious to David that she was not yet ready.

“We’re running low on water too,” he said, draining his water bottle, then opening his backup and offering it to June.

As David slathered himself with sunscreen, June produced a compass and checked their direction. Then she held up her hand and sighted the sun, comparing her findings to her map. She looked to David like some kind of medieval pilgrim making her way to an important port—perhaps she was Agustina de Aragón herself, the Spanish Joan of Arc, off to chase away Napoléon with just her courage and a basket of apples.

“I might be going about this ass-backwards,” David said, “since I let my silly proposal slip last night, but have I told you yet how much I love you?”

June looked up from her map. Initially there was shock on
her expressive face, but then her eyes seemed to crease almost involuntarily into their signature smile. She looked back down at the map, and David swore he saw her blush.

“I love you too,” she said quietly.

But her quiet declaration was more than enough for David, and he smiled like a boy who’d stumbled onto gold, he felt so good; in fact, he skipped a step, nearly dancing a little jig right there among the poppies.

It took them two more hours’ walking to find the road. The poppies ran right up to the edge of it, and as June consulted her map, David stood watching a strange ritual play out on the asphalt.

There were power poles running along the far side of the road, and on the cables strung between them were perched numerous black birds of a variety unfamiliar to David—large enough to be crows, but with red beaks and red toes gripping the thick lines. The fields were seething with grasshoppers, hidden beneath the poppies, and these birds had found the perfect way to hunt them. As unlucky grasshoppers made attempts to cross the road, the birds would wing down and snatch them up in their red beaks before flying back to the wire and swallowing them. One after another, these cunning hunters from above picked off the grasshoppers.

“It’s hard to know who to root for, isn’t it,” June said, looking up from her map and noticing the feeding frenzy.

“What do you mean?” David asked.

“Well, it all depends on your perspective, I guess.”

“My perspective?”

“Exactly,” she said. “Standing here it’s easy enough to observe impartially. But if we were up on the wire, I’d bet my head we’d be rooting for the birds to eat their fill.”

“But aren’t the grasshoppers pests?” David asked.

“To the wheat farmer, maybe. But the birds are also pests,
unless there are grasshoppers to keep them away from the berry fields. It’s easy, of course, to hate any group when you lump them all together instead of looking at each as an individual.”

“An individual grasshopper, you say, huh?”

She nodded. “It’s impossible to hate anything when you identify with its struggle.”

“You really are a modern philosopher in hiking boots and a parachute, you know that? Because whatever you just said sailed right over this accountant’s thick head.”

“Nonsense,” she said, “you’re just not looking. Let me show you.” She grabbed his arm and pulled him to the ground beside the road, making him lie down on his belly. “Now look from this perspective and tell me what you see.”

“I see the same thing I saw while standing: grasshoppers jumping into the road and birds picking them off.”

“Okay, good. Now select just one individual grasshopper and follow its progress.”

“Pick one?”

“Any one. And try to see it as an individual.”

“Okay, there.” David pointed to one that had just hopped a good two feet into the road. “I like that one.”

It hopped again, unseen. Then another leap, followed by a flicker of passing shadow, a click of beak, and it was gone.

“Shoot!” David exclaimed.

“See,” June said, “you were rooting for the grasshopper because you’re down on its level.”

“Now I’ve got to see one safely across,” he said. “I feel responsible. Like a grasshopper crossing guard or something.”

“You might be going a bit far now,” she said, laughing.

“Let’s follow that one there,” David said, pointing. “I have a good feeling about it. I’ll bet a peseta he makes it.”

“I hate to bet against him,” June said, “but deal.”

They watched as David’s grasshopper hopped across the hot pavement. One jump, two. Then a third. It was in luck, it appeared, as was David, because the birds were distracted by something and chattering loudly on the wire. The grasshopper jumped again. And again.

“It’s almost across,” David said, getting excited. “Go, little fella, go! You can make it. I’ll share my winnings with you if you do.”

It made a final leap to the far edge of the roadway, safe at last from the beady eyes above. David had just declared victory and was attempting to collect when a bicycle tire appeared as if from nowhere and flattened the grasshopper into a black smudge.

“Hey!” David shouted, standing up and pumping his fist in the air. “You killed my grasshopper, you little scalawags.”

The bicycles stopped and two boys looked back from their seats with wide-eyed and curious expressions on their tanned faces, as if wondering from what hidden hole beside the roadway this yelling lunatic had emerged, barking at them in a strange language neither understood. June stood up and hailed them reassuringly in Spanish, saying what sounded an awful lot to David like an apology and her reassurance that they should ignore her partner. While he fished out his pocket dictionary, she walked to them and showed them the map and spoke in broken bits of local dialect, much too quickly for David to look up. The boys shook their heads and pointed back the way they had come, with wide, way-long gestures.