The Mountain Story (11 page)

“No. Of course we’re not lost.”

“What about all your friends from church and the condo and all the places you volunteer?” Bridget asked.

“I told everyone they wouldn’t see me for a few days. I told them all that you were coming out from Golden Hills and we three were going to spend some time together. Do some day trips. That’s what we said we were going to do. Never mind. They must count the tram riders in a day and tally it up and know who came and went,” Nola said. “I’m sure they do that.”

I knew for a fact they did not.

“What about your boyfriend, Bridget?” I asked. “Won’t he be worried if he doesn’t hear from you?”

Nola turned to Bridget in the dark. “Why didn’t you tell me you were seeing someone?”

Bridget was silent.

“The guy you told me about on the tram? The real estate agent?” I prompted. “Won’t he worry if he doesn’t hear from you?”

“Not that idiot from Camarillo,” Nola said.

Bridget dropped her head.

“Does he know you went hiking?” I asked after a pause.

“He’s in San Francisco,” Bridget said.

“With his wife,” Vonn added.

“Oh Bridget,” Nola said.

“And baby,” Vonn added.

“Stop,” Bridget hissed.

Nola Devine draped her good hand over her eyes. “Girls, please,” she said.

“Vonn,” I said, letting her name linger on my tongue. “Is anyone expecting
you
?”

“No,” she replied.

“What about that guy?” Bridget asked. “The
biker
from Tin Town?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Vonn said.

I recalled hearing my aunt Kriket call my cousin Yago’s new girlfriend a “mix-race snot-face Malibu bitch” and also say that the girl had recently moved to the desert. I got it in my head that the girl was Vonn Devine.

Yago was my oldest male cousin, one of the youngest thugs to govern Tin Town. He hated me. I feared him. If Yago was Vonn Devine’s boyfriend he would kill me for getting us lost. That seemed like just my luck.

“If you have a boyfriend we should know,” Nola said. “And I’d like to meet him. Even if he’s a biker.”

“No one is expecting me,” Vonn said.

“Are you sure, Vonn?” Nola asked. “It’d be good if your boyfriend reported you lost.”

“Don’t say
lost
,” Bridget said. “We’re not
lost
, lost. And Vonn, why did you even come? You were going to stay at the mountain centre, remember? You were going to stay there and get a book to read.”

“I was going to, but I thought Mim seemed sad about me not coming along.”

“She was sad that you didn’t bring sneakers.”

“Because we were having the pedicures first. And I forgot.”

“So you admit to being forgetful?”

“Even here, even now, one of you is gas and the other is flame,” Nola complained.

In the silence, there came the sound of metal clinking against rock. “That was my ring,” Nola said. “No one move.”

“Didn’t I say you’ve lost weight since Pip died,” Bridget said.

“Have I?”

“You’re taking care of Mim, are you, Vonn?” Bridget asked. “You’re supposed to make sure she eats.”

“She has that part-time job now,” Nola said in Vonn’s defence.

Bridget found the ring in the dark. “Here it is.”

“Thank God. Put it on, Bridge,” Nola said. And after a pause, “Happy anniversary, Patrick.”

It was moments later—maybe an hour?—when the hooting owl pierced the silence. I thought about the series of shots Byrd and I had gotten of the horned owl in flight, and how we’d vowed to have the image of that owl tattooed on our biceps one day. After Byrd’s accident I’d gone to this place in Indio with a photograph and told the tattoo artist I wanted the owl on my chest. I didn’t want people to see it. I didn’t want anyone asking questions.

“You have a car in the lot!” I blurted. “Eventually someone will notice. Eventually someone will check to see if there’s an overnight permit registered to that licence plate.”

“We took a shuttle from the Rancho spa,” Bridget said thickly. “
Someone
lost the car keys.”

“Someone
gave
someone the car keys,” Vonn said.

“Because someone doesn’t carry a purse!”

“All of this is my fault, really,” Nola said. “I was the one who wanted to go to Secret Lake.”

“We took the hotel shuttle so we could get up here before it got too late in the day,” Bridget explained to me. “We figured the keys would probably be turned in by the time we got back.”

“If the
keys
turn up, and you
don’t
, then someone will be looking for you,” I pointed out. “What about the shuttle driver?”

Vonn dug her heels into my chest unintentionally as she reached into the compartments of her cargo pants, lifting up to check the rear pockets as if there was still a chance she had the keys. As if it mattered now.

“If the same shuttle driver worked all day, I guess,” Vonn said. “If they only have one shuttle. I mean, we weren’t guests at the hotel.”

“We’ll be able to get back in the morning, right?” Bridget asked.

“We’re fine,” I said. “If there’s no fog it’ll be easy to get our bearings. We’ll climb back up the slope we fell down or find a different way,” I said.

Nola asked, “What about you, Wolf? Do you have a car in the lot?”

“I hitched from the tourist centre at the main road.”

“You shouldn’t hitchhike.”

I’d pictured the gentle elderly couple who’d stopped for me in their old white Monte Carlo the day I’d meant to kill myself. They dropped me off and drove away. I always wondered why they’d been on that road if not to go to the Desert Station too.

Time passed. Time flew. Time marched on. I can’t remember an overriding feeling that first night. Rocks continued to tumble from on high to strike the pine trunks beyond the scree. I had to entertain the possibility that an even larger slide might follow
the small one we’d caused. I tried not to dwell on negative thoughts, though, and was mostly anxious for morning light because I wanted to find my Tigers cap, and Bridget’s bag with the food and water.

The wind drove hard and cold, and I was grateful for the modest shelter of the cave and for the silence of the Devine women, who I thought must have fallen asleep.

“I have no insulation at all,” Bridget said, shattering the stillness. “Twenty-one percent body fat, which is very, very low for a woman.”

“Oh my God,” croaked Vonn. “Why are we talking about your body fat?”

“I don’t want to freeze to death, Vonn,” Bridget said. “That’s all I’m saying.”

“I told you before, no one’s going to freeze to death,” I said. “I promise.”

“You can’t promise that. You can’t promise anything,” Nola piped up from behind her turtleneck. “When it’s your time it’s your time.”

“It’s no one’s time,” I said.

“You don’t know, Wolf. Pip looked fine. He turned on Bob Costas. I went to brush my teeth and then I came back to bed and he was gone. Without a kiss good night. Just like that. You just don’t know.” Nola sighed.

“I’ll know,” Bridget said. “I think my sixth sense will kick in for that.”

“Here we go,” Vonn muttered.

“Why do you hate that I’m clairvoyant?”

“You are
not
clairvoyant,” Vonn said.

“Don’t take things for
granted
,” Nola interjected. “That was
the point of what I was saying. You don’t want to leave with
regrets
. That’s all I’m
saying
.”

“What do you have to regret, Mim?” Bridget asked. “What could you possibly have to regret? You’re the perfect mother. Perfect wife. You volunteer. You give to charity. You go to church. You give free piano lessons to those kids from that place. You pick up other people’s litter.”

“You sweep spiders onto the porch instead of stepping on them!” Vonn added.

“There’s more to me than you know,” Nola said after a pause. “I have regrets.”

“I regret I wore flip-flops,” Vonn said, and we couldn’t help but laugh.

“I don’t believe in regrets,” Bridget said.

“You believe in horoscopes and numerology,” Vonn said. “You believe in ghosts, you think you’re
clairvoyant
, but you draw the line at regrets?”

Bridget didn’t answer. I found myself wondering about her experiences with ghosts.

“You don’t regret that you had to raise me alone?”

“If you’re asking me if you were a handful to manage as a single parent the answer is yes, Vonn,” Bridget returned.

“You don’t regret that I missed out on having a father?”

“That’s in
your
regrets pile. He made his choices.”

“You never told him about me,” Vonn said.

“Why would I let a man like that ruin your life?” Bridget countered. “I was protecting you. That’s what mothers do.”

“Do you have regrets, Wolf?” Nola asked, by way of calling for a time out between her daughter and granddaughter. “Or are you too young for regrets?”

“I do have a regret, Mrs. Devine,” I said. “A big one.”

“What do you regret?” Nola asked.

“Tell us, Wolf,” Bridget said.

“You can tell us,” Vonn said.

I wondered then, and have had reason to wonder since, if there are few things so satisfying to a feminine ear as the sound of a man expressing regret.

“I think one Devine is one too many and I regret the hell out of getting lost with all three of you!”

I’d thought they’d laugh. They didn’t.

“Don’t say
lost
,” Bridget said.

We were all quiet for a time, listening to the wind batter the pines.

“I’m hungry,” Bridget said. “I wasn’t before, but now I’m starving.”

“You’re not starving,” I said.

“I’m a grazer. I eat small meals every few hours. Especially when I’m in training. How long can you go without food?” Bridget asked.

“I knew this girl in high school who went nine days on apple juice,” Vonn said.

“There’s this rule of three,” I said, picturing Byrd walking ahead of me on the trail, telling me about the rule.

“Bad things happen in threes?” Nola said, frowning. “I think we should stay optimistic.”

“Not that rule of three. The survival rule of three. There’s room on either side, but generally people say you can survive three weeks without food, three days without water, three minutes without air.”

“Three
seconds
without faith,” Nola said without a pause.

The tension between Vonn and her mother didn’t keep us from crowding one another for warmth in the little cave. I accidentally kneed Nola’s broken wrist. “Sorry!” she said, before I could.

“Why are you apologizing, Mim?” Bridget said.

“It’s just a thing people say, Bridget.”

“You apologize for
everything
.”

“I do not.”

“When the guy bumped you with his cart at the supermarket? When the dry cleaner ruined that jacket? When that woman splashed you with her bike. It’s your generation.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You wouldn’t ask for a spoon for your soup!”

“He felt so bad about the lemonade mix-up,” Nola said. “Besides it was a very thick soup.”

“I’m just saying you don’t have to apologize for other people’s mistakes. You’re overly sorry.”

“You’re
underly
sorry,” Vonn muttered.

“Let it go, Vonn.” Bridget sighed.

“How can you say you have no regrets?” Vonn asked. “Every person has regrets.”

“I don’t.”

“In your whole life?”

“None.”

“This isn’t the time or the place, girls,” Nola said wearily.

“You don’t regret having the
procedure
?”

“No,” Bridget said.

Vonn leaned toward me. “My mother had elective surgery on a body part that will be
retired
, like
crossing guard–retired
,
in a few years, using money she borrowed from
me
. Then she couldn’t pay it back and I couldn’t go on my graduation trip last spring.”

“It was a cash flow thing,” Bridget said in her own defence.

“You can honestly say you don’t regret that?” Vonn asked.