Range of Light (13 page)

I noticed her silver palm tree earrings swayed as she laughed, and I fought an urge to stroke the shimmering branches.

“I wish I didn't have to go back.” Her eyes brightened.

My knee was almost touching hers.

“I wish I'd kept going with those botanical prints. Can you imagine living here all year long?”

“If
you
did.” It slipped out. “
I'd
give it a try.” My knee had found hers now.

Adele was blushing.

Our legs together, I was greedy for more. My body grew hungry and tight simultaneously.

She didn't move.

Should I shift my foot, my thigh, to touch hers? Emotions, sensations, thoughts collided. How much did Adele understand me?—had she had lesbian lovers?—what did she feel for me? I hadn't learned much about her in the last three days: the cabin in Maine; the Massachusetts autumn. We were still hiding a lot from each other. Time passed.

Please slide closer. Please. She sat still. A movement artist playing statue. My excitement curdled into embarrassed sadness.

I heard a clearing in my throat. Beginning of the end. I couldn't tolerate the suspense any longer. The humiliation. Coward, I cursed myself.

These words came from my mouth, “But wouldn't you miss your family?” My chest filled with air and loneliness.

Adele straightened,
moving half an
inch away. She kept her tone playful. “Oh, they could visit us.”

Surrounded by damp, quiet urgency, we sat alone together ten thousand feet above the Pacific Ocean.

“Rain's stopped,” I said. Stupidly. Irrevocably.

“How can you tell?” Adele protested.

“Listen.” I touched her shoulder.

Adele inhaled sharply, standing and approaching the door unsteadily. She stuck her hand over the threshold and tried brightly, “All clear.”

I consulted my watch. Just enough time to make it. “Let's go.”

During the next half hour of abrupt, crisp sunlight, we both hiked with renewed energy. Faces flushed, eyes bright, we competed with each other, naming flowers.

“Indian paintbrush,” said Adele. The tiny red bloom had always been her favorite.

“Yellow monkey flowers.” I was proud of that one.

“Mauve fairy lanterns.”

“Blue lupine. Oh, and look at the purple ones.” I recalled the proximity of her hip and the warmth of her knee.

The meadow on either side of the trail was filled with yellow sun. Grass glistened from the remains of the suddenly departed rain.

I needed to forget what had happened in the hut just now. I'd always been in love with Adele. It had never been appropriate—still wasn't—to let these feelings develop. By the time we were ready for serious romance, Adele had found Lou and I had found Tom. Then came our “separation,” as she so dramatically put it. Of course I'd never forgotten Adele, but I'd found a shelf for her in the back of my mind. Maybe the problem was that I wasn't large enough to be anyone's partner. I was so afraid of getting lost inside Anita, of being swallowed up the way I'd been with Tom. Once I called Anita “Adele” in the middle of the night.

“Oh, no,” Adele cried.

I heard her voice registering the thunder. Then I felt the drops.

Great walls of rain descended between us. No hut here. No friendly forest. Maybe
this
was the curse of the coyote.

I dug in my daypack for the poncho. Adele pulled out a neat, square, plastic package, gave it a shake and became an identical twin.

“Good thing we're not going to the same Upper East Side dinner party.” She smiled goofily.

I shook my head. The storm looked bad. No use standing here waiting for miracles. “Let's hustle.”

Adele nodded, singing, “We're off to see the Wizard …”

The wackiness in her voice brought back Sari's offbeat sense of humor. But there had been much more of a twist to Sari's behavior. Adele was always the sane one, the together one. More together than anyone else I knew.

“Lord, it's wet,” Adele declared, slushing along the path. “I haven't really liked rain since I was six or seven. I always hated the way early spring in the Bay Area turned to showers in late February or March. Those frail almond and plum blossoms were sacrificed to the relentless water.”

It amazed me how Adele could talk in complete paragraphs, cogent, not a word out of place. Even when she was agitated. Maybe especially when she was agitated.

Thunder banged off to the left. I clenched my teeth. The steely sky was punctured by a silver exclamation point.

Adele didn't seem to notice. “Then I came to hate the October and November storms of Massachusetts, the way they extinguished burning leaves, dashing their skeletons to the sidewalk. The weather got wetter and wetter, everything growing hopelessly gloomy until Christmas.”

Her voice was high, excited, maybe still colored by our experience in the cabin.
Our
experience?

Ghostly lightning cracked high, loud above us. Tom once wrote that sniper fire reminded him of lightning, and for months afterward I believed he really wouldn't make it home from Vietnam.

Now I worried about the boat crossing in this weather. And even if
we
reached the shore in time, there might be no water taxi. There wasn't any shelter, even at the dock. How would we survive the night outside?

“We've got to keep our spirits up,” Adele said, reading my mind. “How about another song?”

“What song?” I whined.

“What difference does it make?” Adele shot back.

“I don't know. Singing would make me feel like Heidi.”

“So we'll lay off the Swiss Alpine lyrics. How about ‘If I Had a Hammer.' ”

“You're so sixties,” I teased.

“There are worse epithets. How about it?”

Silence.

I surrendered. “ ‘If I had hammer … ' ”

“Too low. ‘If I had a … ' ”

We got through five Weavers' numbers before Adele tired of the contrived optimism. Our feet were soaked.

“Look, my poncho,” she said. “Tiny puncture, but enough to sink me.”

“We're almost there,” I lied.

“We could be struck by lightning crossing the lake,” she joked.

I'd never told her about Henrik.

“Then,” she rattled on brightly, “we'd become a legend for the next edition of the guidebook. I've always wanted to be a legend, but this isn't quite what I had in mind.”

It was hard to tell if she was losing her grip. We were both exhausted. Mono Pass and Saddlebag Lake in one day; what had I been thinking of? The distances, the altitude, the lightning, the intimacy: I couldn't remember being this worn out.

“Do you think the boat will be too full to hold us?”

“Oh, no,” I reassured her. Shit, how did I know?

She was humming something. “Michael, row the boat ashore.” Surely she was trying to be funny.

This wasn't my fault. Adele had insisted on pressing farther today, not me. Still, I was a more experienced hiker and knew this was a crackpot idea. I should have said so. Jesus, I should have said no to the whole damn trip. I should be back in Oakland looking for a job, finding a rest home for my father. Doing a hundred things more realistic, more urgent, than loping across the Sierra in search of a missing friendship.

Adele was laughing loudly, wildly.

Alarmed, I'd never considered she might have a breakdown in the mountains. I turned cautiously.

She waved. “Look, look.”

I saw the battered red water taxi spluttering toward us.

A much older guy piloted the boat. Our previous captain must have sent his father or grandfather. Breathing a silent prayer of thanks, I realized I didn't want to die after all. At least I didn't want Adele to die. What a ninny I was. Of course they wouldn't let us languish on the other side of the lake. They knew we were here. We had registered, “two for Peterson” with the woman who sold bubble gum and maps. People didn't die from overexposure this close to civilization. I thought sadly about the Indians, the miners. Not in the 1990s anyway.

The skipper held out a mottled hand to help us onto the dipping, swaying boat. I let Adele go first. Wind hissed up from the north like breath through the gaping teeth of a giant spirit. I wondered if the coyote was tucked somewhere safe and dry. Adele embarked unsurely, then balanced on the small seat. She stared at the sopping orange life preserver before pulling it over her wet head. Water dripped down her neck. I could see some of it trickling all the way down her back. We would be fine.

Chapter Fourteen

Adele

Wednesday Evening / Tuolumne Campground

EXHAUSTED, WE DROVE BACK
to the Meadows.

“Looks like the storm left here hours ago.” Kath nodded at the early evening light.

I sighed. What hubris to run up Mono Pass, then around Saddlebag Lake in one day. Off and on during the last couple of days, I had become a young body lusting after this glorious, lost land of mine. Then physical realities rudely reminded me how long I'd neglected these muscles. My compassionate communion with the country came not so much from an unconsciousness of age as from a concerted attempt to deny it, to recalibrate my deal with fate. Kath, of course, was less exhausted, actually quite alert and relaxed as she drove the car toward the small park grocery store.

“Why don't you make your call while I shop?” she suggested.

“OK, if you're sure.”

“Absolutely. It'll save time.”

She sounded tired. I wanted to ask if she were worn out, if she had been frightened, what she was feeling in the crumbling hut, if she were angry with me. It was so hard to reach Kath, even after all this time. Perhaps especially after all this time.

I slipped into the phone booth, closing the glass door against the racket of cars crunching across the gravel lot. Now the call seemed a stupid idea. When we were groping our way through that second thundershower, all I could think of was the boys, being back with them, hearing their voices. I was singing those songs for them. On that flimsy little boat, the impulse to phone about my adventure was overwhelming. But now, well, it seemed silly, a little self-indulgent. After all, I had told Lou I would call every five days. Only three had passed, even if it felt like a year.

Kath would be finished shopping by the time our number rang through. Do it. Irritated by my own dithering, I picked up the receiver and then memory failed. No, of course, the area code was 617. The phone was ringing. Seven o'clock here. Ringing. Ten o'clock there. Late to be out with two kids. Ringing. Oh, damn, I remembered, the baseball game. Wednesday night, Lou had tickets to the doubleheader. He was a good father. And I was a demented mother who ran off to the woods, risking my life. It was all very well for Kath to tempt fate, she didn't have children.

Subdued now, the fatigue seeping into my overused muscles, I waited in the car.

“Tofu surprise,” she said brightly and tossed the paper bag in the backseat.

“Pardon?” God, I was tired, and wished I were back in my Cambridge bed with a glass of wine watching some mindless TV program.

“Tofu sautéed with broccoli, carrot, zucchini, tomato, onion.”

“Sounds great.” I forced enthusiasm into my voice. I had no right to be angry with Kath. Saddlebag Lake had been my fault. Leaving the family was my responsibility.

Our campground was especially noisy tonight, which made me even more enthusiastic about the next day's backpacking. Still, this busyness provided a welcome, necessary distance from Kath.

Chopping the vegetables while she started the charcoal fire, I savored the simple pleasure of the sharp knife against the succulent red tomatoes and yellow zucchini. The onions were last so I could enjoy the smells of other vegetables, and they were surprisingly mild; my eyes didn't tear or sting.

Had the pressure of her knee been accidental? Had she felt aroused? I recalled the pleasures of our girlhood closeness: talking about periods, braiding and unbraiding each other's hair, shopping for sexy nylon underwear in the days before we knew cotton protected against yeast infections. Sharing secret crushes on boys. Racing each other on our bikes. Boldly skinny-dipping together that wonderful Sierra summer. Today's intimacy had been sensual, not sexual. Just because we enjoyed a closeness didn't mean we wanted to go to bed together. I was reading too much into the afternoon. I wish I hadn't moved my knee. Kath was right that I was the one drawing boundaries.

“Smells good.” She stood over me and breathed in the aroma of chopped vegetables.

My shoulders automatically tensed. She moved back to tend the fire pit.

“I'll warm a little oil in the pan,” she said instructively, as if we were filming a Sierra Chef TV show. “Then we'll do the onions and carrots.”

“Sounds good.” I was starving. “Maybe I'll set the table while you do that, and make sure we have enough water.”

On the way back from the spigot, I thought of how I had been attracted to Anna Maria in grad school and then to Marilyn in my consciousness-raising group. I had never pursued either of these relationships beyond friendship.
Beyond
friendship? Was sex beyond friendship? Anyway, I believed I resisted out of fidelity to Lou. Perhaps it was more out of loyalty to Kath. Then, again, I didn't think I was cut out for the whole lesbian subculture, with their moralistic power games and intellectual constructs about patriarchal sex. The truth was, these women scared me and, on and off over the years, I had worried that Kath had become one of them.

She stared pensively into her caldron. I filled the kettle from our cumbersome water jug. Of course it was ridiculous that three days had passed without us having talked about Kath's love life. Ridiculous that I wasn't certain about her sexuality. Maybe not so ridiculous if you knew Kath. God, I resented being the one to bring things up—about
her
life as well as my own. Why was it always me?

Kath served the steaming vegetables. She sprinkled hers with soy sauce. However I wanted to enjoy the individual color and flavor of the tomatoes, broccoli, carrots and melt-in-your-mouth tofu. All around us friends and families and solo hikers were cooking and eating their dinners. The prevalent odor was grilled meat, and my mouth watered at the thought of a rare hamburger.

We each inhaled the tofu surprise, neither of us saying a word during the first serving. With the second plate, the tension between us grew. Her strong, suntanned hand gripped the fork, her eyes refused to meet mine. Evening was dimming into night.

For some reason, I asked, “When we were growing up, were you aware of the class differences?” Women's Studies 1A. I bit my lip. What a formal old fart I had become. I wanted, needed to talk, yet there were some things I couldn't talk about. Class was easier than sex, wasn't it? My question was genuine—however stuffily asked. I'd been brooding about it over the years as I became more and more aware of economic realities.

Kath peered at me across the table. “You mean, the differences among our high school friends?”

“No. Between you and me.”

She looked at her plate, clearly eager to return to silent, uncomplicated eating. Differences: this was a supremely stupid way to break through them.

“How do you mean?” she said finally.

“Well, were you angry that my family had more, I don't know, more
things
?”

“No.”

For some reason, I refused to tolerate another Norse impasse. “Did you
notice
?”

“Well, I guess that I noticed more how different my family was. You know, Nancy's father was a teacher. Paula's parents were librarians. Donna's dad was a lawyer. I don't know, when I was growing up, I didn't think much about
class.
It wasn't an American concept. I guess, if anything, I thought my family was weird.”

“Weird?”

“Different. Failed or something.” Her voice grew exasperated.

“Failed?”

“Oh, I don't know.” She stood abruptly to serve the remaining food. “In terms of schooling. And interests. I mean, you all knew you
hated
classical music and I didn't even know what it
was.
The material differences, no, that wasn't what bothered me. Although you're right, they were real enough. It was more like my parents and my sister, Martha, were, I don't know, kind of hicks.”

“But you were the hippest of us all.”

“I had to be.”

“I see, to become one of us.”

“No, you don't see. To
not
be one of
them.
It was all about betrayal.”

“What was about betrayal?” I was too tired to concentrate on this conversation. Why had I started it?

“Studying so earnestly. Going to college.”

“Going to college!” I exclaimed before remembering how Kath equated Radcliffe with desertion. “Sweet Lord, what were you supposed to do, have a career at Capwell's in the department next to your mother's?”

“What's wrong with a job at Capwell's?” She waved her fork.

“Nothing, but—”

“And I thought you liked my mother, regarded her as this uncomplicated maternal figure …”

“That's not fair,” I shot back.

God, this was one of those white-knuckle moments, as when Lou would ask me if I were getting my period and I was ashamed by how quickly the question came to my own mind about Kath. Of course I knew her irritation had nothing to do with menstruation and all to do with my thickness. There was something about her I did not understand, had never understood.

I listened to
Nick of Time
beating from the campsite of the aging hipsters two tents away. Normally I would have been enraged at such intrusion, but right now I was glad to have some spunky Bonnie Raitt.

Betrayal. It seemed like a strong word for going to college. But if Kath thought she had betrayed her family by leaving for Davis, it made some kind of sense that she felt I had betrayed her, our friendship, the West, at Radcliffe. A little far-fetched, but I had always had more options than Kath. Part of me needed to believe that we met and continued living on a level playing field.

Finally, I managed, “Speaking of fairness, look at all Nancy has been through.” Unfair, even dishonorable to imply her suffering erased the differences between Kath and me. Still, I couldn't bear this sudden estrangement.

“Yes.” Kath sighed.

It was fully night now. We would need the lantern if we were going to sit out here. The music sounded louder in the deep darkness. I didn't like the second side of the tape as much.

“We should call her when we get back from Vogelsang,” she said. “I promised to wait until a couple of days after the operation.”

“She was so cheerful when I talked with her,” I said uneasily.

“Yeah, she's an inspiration.” Kath's voice was low, almost inaudible.

“More like Our Lady of Fatima.”

“What?”

“You know, the Portuguese Virgin with the secret the Pope wasn't supposed to reveal for five or six decades?”

“Hey, that's not your religion”—she balked—“it's mine.”

I laughed. “I did a paper once on background iconography in portraits of Our Lady of Fatima.”

“You're not serious.”

“I
am.”

“Anyway, ‘virginal' isn't a concept I associate with Nancy. And how does she remind you of Our Lady of Fatima?”

“The secret.” I shrugged.

“Cancer, you mean.”

I nodded in the darkness.

“Yeah”—she paused—“it's terrible, but I think of her as some kind of scapegoat, like in ‘The Lottery.' One in eight. That means there are seven of us who won't get it, you know?”

“I know.”

Again we fell to silence. The hipsters had retired Bonnie Raitt. The entire campground was quieter. Whispered voices. Metal food lockers neatly clanking shut against the night-scavenging bears. One by one lanterns switched off.

“Let me do the dishes,” I offered.

“We'll do them together.”

“No, you cooked dinner. Get ready for bed, and I'll join you as soon as this is done.”

“OK,” she said, reluctant, exhausted.

By the time I returned from the bathroom with clean dishes, Kath had crawled into our purple cocoon. Quietly, I stored the dishes in her car. Night noises filled the campground with squeaks and whistles. Perhaps I was the only human stirring.

Sitting at the end of the picnic table, I inspected the sky, fruitlessly, for traces of moon. I felt the same kind of fatigue and doubt and resignation I often felt in Cambridge after a dinner party. Sitting with a glass of wine in the living room alone—for Lou collapsed the minute the door was shut on the last guest—wondering how it had all worked out, whether people had had a good time, whether I had had a good time, whether it had been worth the labor; tired, satisfied, discouraged, curious. Strange, artificial analogy to a quiet evening in the fragrant High Country, but it was the only analogy I had. Acknowledging this made me sad about the life Lou and I had created, our fortunate, successful marriage. And yet it seemed too late for any other life, too late to start over, too late even to revive my friendship with Kath. The night was dark, cold and the moon still elusive. Time for bed: what was I waiting for? I was waiting for safety, for time to pass, for the forbidding emptiness to fill.