Paraíso

  She’d take the film with her, get contact sheets made, see what they showed. Assuming they showed what had happened, she’d get prints made of the incriminating evidence and get them to the father somehow. The negatives would go to her agent. He’d be floored.

  Diving In

  Claire’s secret swimming hole was a three-hour hike up into the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness on the east side of Paradise Valley. The temperature on the valley floor was ninety-two degrees: a September heat wave had moved in during the night. We left Claire’s Land Cruiser in a parking lot at the head of the trail and started climbing through baking pastureland, red-tailed hawks circling close on the roaring thermals.

  It was pure beauty. But in a ridiculously short time, I began to wonder if I was going to make it. Breathless and dizzy, sweat pouring into my eyes, my navy blue tee shirt absorbing the heat and sticking poisonously to my body. Where my shorts stopped, the long grass cut my legs and made them itch and sting. My borrowed hiking boots (from a friend of Claire’s) were half a size too small. I favored my back, but so far that was the least of my troubles.

  Farther and farther ahead, Claire’s long brown legs ate up the ground. Her light green hiking shorts ticked right and left with each stride and her yellow tee shirt fluttered coolly. She was carrying a day pack with lunch supplies, towels, and bathing suits (mine borrowed from the boot owner).

  I sucked a mouthful of water from my canteen, swirled it around, and spit it out into the thick brown dust. Keeping up with her was impossible, so I slowed to a plod, and an ancient Irish folk tune struck up inside my head:

  There was an old prophecy

  Found in a bog

  Lilliburlero bullen a la.

  That we’re to be ruled

  By an ass and a hog

  Lilliburlero bullen a la.

  The song’s rhythm was perfect for the pace. Losing myself in it, I watched my feet abstractedly until I heard her voice off to the left of the trail. “Well, don’t kill yourself, big bro. Come take a breather.”

  She was sitting on a big granite boulder, in the shade of a thick stand of aspen at the top of the pasture, grinning like a champion. “Glad you stayed?”

  “And fuck you too.” I’d been eager to leave as soon as she’d told me where to go, but the first flight I’d been able to book to La Paz wasn’t until Thursday. Claire had suggested I spend the three intervening days at her place rather than LA where the flight originated, and it had seemed like a very logical idea. Maybe even an inviting one.

  But parting with that crucial information had changed things. I felt a little embarrassed to have gotten it, and she seemed to be having second thoughts about how wise she’d been to give it away. The first two days, she’d busied herself at the little art gallery where she worked while I had tried fly-fishing with the old split-cane rod she’d inherited from her father. Nary a nibble, even in supposedly some of the best water in the world. The gallery owner had joined us for dinner one night, and the next it had been one of the featured artists, a specialist in misty landscape. The dinners went late, too late to stay up and talk back at Claire’s.

  When the heat wave blew in, it was almost as if she’d been forced to take the last day off to show me the swimming hole.

  I leaned against the boulder—if I sat on it, I might never get up again—and we looked out over the valley. Big western grasshoppers buzzed through the steamy grass. “How much farther?”

  She laughed and tucked in a wisp of hair. “The worst is over, city boy. Isn’t this beautiful?”

  “Oh ya. How far up are we?”

  “We climbed about a thousand feet. We’re about seven thousand above sea level.”

  “Well, that explains it. No oxygen up here.”

  “There’s oxygen. Wendy ran up here last spring.”

  “Christ. Good for her.”

  “You better get in shape, big bro.”

  “Hey, I just want to see her. I don’t want to compete with her.”

  “Sure?”

  “Absolutely sure.”

  “She’ll be interested to hear that. She doesn’t really know you very well, you know.” She turned to look at me. “Like, right now she’s probably thinking we’re fucking our brains out. Ready to move on?” I watched Claire hiking ahead of me through bright panels of sunlight under the trees. Her look hadn’t been friendly.

  The trail through the forest was flatter, wider, and cooler. Walking together would have been pleasant, but Claire roared ahead at full speed. “Hey wait up, will you?” I called, and she stopped and waited impatiently while I caught up, panting. “What is this, the Iron Man?”

  “Just going along like I always do.” She was looking past me, not even breathing hard. “Sorry. Is your back bothering you?”

  “No. Are you pissed off about something?”

  “It’s just when I get up here I like to move out.”

  “Okay. Tell me how to get to the swimming hole, and I’ll meet you there. I’m a city boy, remember?”

  “There are a lot of turn-offs. You’ll never find them.”

  “Mark them, then. What do they call those piles of stones?”

  “Cairns.” Her nostrils flared slightly.

  “Cairns. Is that Gaelic?”

  She raised her chin. “Look, if you got lost up here, it could be serious. This forest goes all the way to the plains, and it’s chock-full of grizzlies.”

  “Shit. I’m not scared of grizzlies. They only go after menstruating women, don’t they?”

  We stared at each other. I was ready to laugh, but she turned back to the trail. Huge ponderosa pines soared all around us and the light slanted down as if we were in church. Small, neon birds lit up the chasms. After a little while I realized she was easing the pace.

  She’d been right about the turn-offs. I might have found some, but not all. Down through the pines I could see a creek catching the light as we followed it through a steep valley. Then the trail cut away from the sound of falling water and began a long zigzag up the valley side.

  The last traverse ended on flat granite rocks over which the creek bubbled before disappearing into space. The rocks enclosed a large pool. “I guess this is it,” I said when Claire unslung the pack, sat down in the shade, and began to unlace her boots. “Is it really secret?”

  “I like to think so.”

  I walked to the edge of the pool and looked down. Pebbles on the bottom showed as clearly as if I were looking through air. “Wow. Must be twenty feet deep.”

  “And colder than shit.” She started unloading the backpack.

  I pulled off my wet tee shirt and dropped it on the hot granite. “That’s what I need. I feel like I’ve been boiled alive in sweat.”

  She walked over barefoot and sank the bottle of Sauvignon in the freezing water. She was carrying our bathing suits and handed me mine. Testing the temperature with her toes. “Whoa. Better ease in. You could have a heart attack.”

  “What a way to go.” I thought of the Trade Towers falling, people flying through the air. “You really believe she thinks we’re fucking our brains out?”

  “If she doesn’t now, she definitely will when you show up. She’ll figure that’s the only way I’d ever tell you. As I say, she doesn’t know you very well.”

  “I’d say that means she doesn’t know you very well.”

  “Whatever.” The nostrils again.

  “You mean, I think of you as … family? Well, you’re right. You even look like family.”

  “I look like your sister? The hell I do.”

  “From the back you do. That’s mainly the view I’ve been getting on this hike.”

  “Sorry. I guess I was trying to work something out.”

  “Look. Telling me how to find her was the best thing you could have done. For her and me both.”

  She shook her head. “You know how she is. She’ll never speak to me again. And God help me, she’s my best friend.”

  “She’ll be okay with it, Claire. She�
�ll even thank you for it, probably.”

  “You know it was sneaky. Don’t tell me you’re not a little ashamed yourself. She trusted me, and I betrayed her.”

  “Claire. I had to see her. Have to. You made it possible because you understand.”

  She shaded her eyes from the sun with a hand, and smiled at me skeptically. “Do I really?” Turning away. “Come on. Let’s get into that water.” Walking behind a thick bush to put on her bathing suit.

  I walked in the opposite direction to find my own bush. The borrowed trunks were a size too large, red and black nylon cargo baggies that hung to my knees. I had to pull the drawstring tight and tie it to hold them up. I left my underpants on because the trunks had no interior lining of their own.

  She came out in a stylish low-backed black maillot. Trying to ignore her nipples pushing out the tight material, I stumbled as I walked over the rocks to the water and heard her laugh. I put my toes in gingerly, pulled them back, and looked up, shaking my head. She was sitting on her side of the pool, hugging her knees.

  On her feet and headfirst into the pool in one motion. I could see her body receding slowly down to the bottom, turn, push off, and shoot back up in a cloud of bubbles. She laid an egg-sized granite pebble at my feet. “Your turn.”

  I seemed to be in air for hours, but when I hit, the shock was not quite mortal, a little death. I tried and failed to get her a pebble of her own. In the hot sun afterward, we opened the wine bottle and filled our tin cups.

  That measuring look and a slightly rueful smile. “What’ll we drink to this time?”

  “I don’t know. Fresh starts?”

  “So be it. Fresh starts.”

  Our cups clanked. “Doesn’t count,” she said. “You didn’t look at me. You have to look the person in the eye when you toast. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?”

  We were sitting side by side on the smooth, warm granite rock surrounding the pool. When I turned my head, she’d lost her rueful smile and her eyes were oddly unfocussed.

  We repeated the toast. I’d lost my own smile. I wondered how my eyes looked to her.

  Waking on my back, on a thick pink towel under the dark blue sky and the arching light green aspen leaves, the creek bubbling and gurgling, Claire lying on her side on the other pink towel a few feet away, propped on an elbow

  “Hello. Pleasant dreams?”

  I sat up quickly to hide what seemed to be an erection. “Yes.”

  She giggled. “You were asleep for a good half hour. Anything could have happened.”

  “You mean in my dream? Yeah, wish I could remember. I was outdoors, that’s all I know. And it was nice and warm.”

  “So who were you with?”

  “Nobody,” I lied. “I was alone.”

  The next morning, driving to the airport, enveloped by the smell of hay from the back of Land Cruiser, sipping from a sky-blue mug of coffee with white letters—BEST IN THE WEST—I asked her how she’d slept.

  “Not well. And you?” She was wearing dark glasses, and her face was pale.

  “Not well either. I could hear you tossing and turning.”

  “Sorry to keep you awake.”

  “I thought about coming in …”

  “I thought you were going to.”

  “Would you have liked that?”

  She didn’t turn. “Betray your sister one more time? Oh yes, I would have loved it.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Claire. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  She lifted her glasses and rubbed at an eye. “I thought about it all night. I should never have told you. I really fucked up. And now it’s too late … unless you don’t go.”

  “Claire, I’ve got to go.”

  “But why?”

  “You said it yourself. She’s in trouble. She needs my help.”

  “You didn’t know that when you came here. You still don’t know what kind of trouble she’s in, if any. As for your help, she’s done fine without it up to now. And here’s another question. Why did you fuck up the sessions? They were your big chance.”

  “Claire. I just said what I believed. I’ve got a right to say that, don’t I? If Wendy does, so do I. What do you think our mother did to her, anyway? I mean, violence? All she’d say was something ‘physical.’”

  “And you basically said you thought she was hallucinating. That she was crazy. I don’t know what your mother did, but I’ll tell you one thing: it was no hallucination. And it went on for a long time. You lived in the same house. Didn’t you notice anything?”

  I shook my head slowly, thinking of the steamy bathroom.

  We were coming up on the high pass between Livingston and Bozeman, and the temperature outside the car was below freezing. The sage alongside the road had a dusting of new snow, which caught the sharp sunlight like a hallucination. About a mile away, a tiny antelope crested a rise and stood outlined against the purplish sky.

  Claire was saying something in a low voice. “Poor you. It hasn’t been easy, has it?”

  “No. Thanks for understanding.”

  “At least your sister had her hatred. And she finally made it work for her.”

  A patch of ice crunched under the tires. “I loved our mother, Claire. But without my sister, I can’t even figure out why. I need her hate to feel my love. Yin and yang: that’s us. You can’t have one without the other. I guess that was what I learned in the attack. My little epiphany. So … here I am.”

  Standing in the soaring airport lobby, she took off her dark glasses and said forlornly, “I’ll be waiting to hear what happens down there. I’m sure I won’t hear it from your sister.”

  “I’ll call you the minute I can.” I put my hand lightly on her waist.

  “I’ll come down if you need me. That goes without saying.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll be praying, even though I know it never works.”

  My hand was still on her waist when the flight was called. I was going to kiss her cheek but she turned her head and her lips were there instead. Uh-oh. We both pulled back in case someone was watching, and it occurred to me I had never seen a real flaming blush before.

  Chubasco

  At the Aero California counter in LA, a young Mexican woman smiled and told me the flight to La Paz had been canceled. “Chubasco.”

  “What’s a chubasco?”

  “Like a huracán. Come in this morning.”

  “Jesus. So when will the flight leave?”

  She shrugged, still smiling. “Maybe tomorrow. You can check.”

  “When will you know?”

  “Tomorrow, señor.” Now she looked surprised. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  It was late afternoon. I decided to spend the night at the Standard Hotel on Sunset Boulevard because Claire had told me my sister liked the place and usually stayed there herself. It might give me more of a connection to her.

  But in the Standard’s louche white lobby, a boy in a white dress shirt and white trousers told me they were fully booked. “But there was supposed to be a reservation,” I lied. “Peter Davis?”

  The boy checked the reservation list. “Nothing for Peter, sir. There is something for Wendy, though.”

  My scalp prickled. “Wendy Davis? Has she checked in yet?” Looking around the lobby.

  “No, sir.”

  “What address did she give?”

  “Crest Drive, Encinitas.”

  A couple of deep breaths. My fingers shook as they rested on the counter, and I put my hands in my armpits. “Well, great! That’s all right, then. I’m her brother. We’re sharing the room.”

  Looking out over the city from the room’s little balcony, I reflexively tried to come up with a story for when she walked in. I’d been wooing a writer in Montana and had dropped in at Claire’s for breakfast when she’d called. Then I’d gone on to LA, planning to stay at the Standard, but there were no rooms, blah blah blah. So surprise!

  Fuck it. I’d tell her the truth and hope for the best. No, Claire and I h
ad not been fucking our brains out. We missed her, worried about her, and wanted to see her. In fact, we both loved her.

  But what was she coming here for anyway? Claire hadn’t known about it. Right now she probably was tied up in meetings. Wasn’t that what they did here? Maybe her book was making her a superstar.

  The sun melted into the Pacific, and I ordered a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and a salmon caviar spread with blinis and sour cream because I thought she’d like it.

  Suddenly it was clear. She wasn’t going to make it. The chubasco most likely had scrubbed her flight out of La Paz as well as my flight in.

  I thought about calling Claire, but it seemed too soon after our intense good-bye. Also a hotel call would register on the bill, and there was an outside chance my sister might see it (I oddly didn’t consider the cell phone). When most of the ice in the silver bucket had melted, I opened the Champagne, poured two glasses, clinked them together, and drank a toast. Claire and Wendy. Wendy and Claire. I finished one glass and then the other, and found myself on the edge of tears.

  The Champagne sank with the sun, and they both disappeared at about the same time. The first stars appeared over the city lights—second star on the right and straight on till morning. Her flight might have left just before the storm hit. She could still walk in the door.

  I woke up to the phone, lying on the bed, still in my clothes, the empty Veuve Clicquot bottle and the remains of the salmon caviar spread, duck pâté, and a Caesar salad on the sideboard. “Hello? Wendy?” said a woman’s voice doubtfully.

  “This is her brother Peter. Who’s this?”

  “Jean Chin, her gynecologist. So how did things go at Preterm?”

  “Uh … preterm?”

  “The procedure.” A pause. “That’s why you’re there, isn’t it?”

  “Ahm … ah, yes.” I cleared my throat. “In the larger sense.”

  A long silence. “Is Wendy there?”

  “No. She’s not.”

  “Well, where is she, for Christ’s sake?”