Flying Changes, Page 21

  "Eva, knock it off," I say walking behind her into the washroom.

  "Knock what off," she says.

  I set my clean clothes on the counter and lean over, rubbing my aching knees. They feel three times their normal size. "The packing. We're not leaving tonight."

  "Yes we are!"

  "No we're not," I say. "I'm not starting a drive of that length this late at--"

  I'm cut off by a furious pounding on the door.

  "Eva! Eva! Are you in there?" shouts a muffled voice.

  "Oh shit," Eva hisses, spinning in desperation.

  "What?" I whisper.

  "It's Nathalie."

  I snatch a towel from the rack and fling it over my shoulders. "Open the door!" I say. A quick glance in the mirror shows that I am still not sufficiently covered. I wrap the towel around my middle, choosing to let my bra straps show.

  "No!" cries Eva, her eyes panicked.

  "Then I will," I say, heading for the door.

  "Eva, I can hear you in there. Eva. Open the door." Nathalie's voice is a growl, and at the end of it, she resumes pounding.

  Eva smacks her face with both hands as I open the door.

  "Hi, Nathalie," I say, as she marches right past me without any acknowledgment whatever. I sweep my arm toward the interior. "Please, come in."

  She stops beside Eva, who has returned to scrunching up clothes.

  "What do you think you're doing?" says Nathalie, putting her hands on her hips.

  "I'm packing," says Eva. She spins and goes into the bathroom. She returns with bottles of shampoo and conditioner, which she tosses into the suitcase.

  Nathalie glances around the room, takes in my wet clothes on the table, and my current state of dishabille. I blush and look down.

  She turns back to Eva. "You left without taking care of your horse today," she says quietly.

  Eva continues packing.

  "I know you were upset, but that does not excuse you from your duties, and your very first duty--before anything else, ever--is to make sure that your horse is settled."

  "He's not my horse," says Eva.

  "That's right. He's my horse. And you're my student, and I assigned him to you. And you walked away from him out of temper, leaving others to pick up your slack. That won't happen again. Do you understand?"

  Eva grabs a plastic bag, wads it up, and stuffs it into the suitcase. She has run out of her own things and is now packing mine.

  "Is this all you're made of? One bad ride and you quit?"

  "It wasn't a bad ride, Nathalie, it was a complete disaster."

  "No, it wasn't. Everybody lived. You want to hear about really bad rides? Ask your mother."

  There's a silence, long and terrible.

  "You're not riding tomorrow," Nathalie continues, "but you will show up to support those who are."

  Eva's chin juts. She lifts her face to Nathalie's, challenging her.

  "I'm finished here," Nathalie finally says. "I don't have time for spoiled brats. You have two choices. You adjust your attitude and show up tomorrow, or you pick up your things from Wyldewood on your way past."

  And then she's gone, slamming the door behind her.

  Eva stares at the back of the door for a few seconds, and then drops onto the edge of her bed, her face buried in her hands. Then she starts to bawl.

  I walk over and sit next to her. Then I try to take her hands, but she covers her head with her arms, batting me off like an insect.

  "Oh, Eva," I say. I rest my hands in my lap, thinking I'll wait her out, but when her sobs get deeper and her breathing more ragged, I pry her arms from her head and take her face in my hands.

  Tears stream from her swollen eyes. Deep, body-wrenching hiccups follow. She's huffing with the effort of trying to breathe regularly. She fails miserably and explodes, spraying me with spittle.

  "Look at me, Eva," I say. "Come on now. Get a hold of yourself!"

  "She hates me!"

  "No, she doesn't."

  "She just fired me!"

  "No, she didn't. She gave you a choice. She expects better from you, and quite frankly, so do I."

  She looks horrified. "You what?" she says, her voice tinged with the deepest betrayal.

  "Nathalie's right," I say. "You're acting like a spoiled brat. Pull yourself together."

  Eva stares at me for a moment. Then she rises from the bed and continues packing.

  "Eva. Stop it," I say.

  She ignores me.

  "Eva! I said, stop it. We're not going anywhere tonight."

  She turns to me, her face purple, her fists clenched at her sides. "I want to go home!"

  "Forget it."

  "I'll call Oma."

  "Go ahead."

  "Fine. I'll call a cab."

  I laugh outright, a short, sharp noise. "Yeah, right."

  Eva freezes with one hand on top of the suitcase.

  I've had enough. I grab my purse, a beer from the minibar, and swing into the bathroom.

  Eva's mouth drops in outrage. "Ma! Jeez, you don't think I'm going to steal from you?"

  "Gee, I dunno. You just threatened to call a cab, and you do have a history of running away."

  She stares at me with burning hatred, and then reaches for the clicker.

  "--a frothy cocktail of rancid cow's blood, frog's legs, and pig eye--"

  I rush the final few feet and slam the bathroom door, because I really, really don't want to know the rest of the ingredients in the Fear Factor cocktail du jour.

  Fortunately, Eve didn't pack the hotel's shampoo and conditioner. I linger in the shower, both to give myself some time alone and to give Eva some time to calm down. This is promising to be a very long evening, particularly if I can't persuade her to go out for dinner.

  Since the outfit I took into the washroom with me was the only one that didn't receive the Eva treatment, I pull the rest of my clothes from the suitcase and lay them flat on the bed, running my hands over them, trying to smooth them.

  "You didn't have to crumple all my stuff, you know," I say.

  Eva remains unresponsive, a bed-lump.

  "Okay, fine. I'm going for dinner. Want me to bring you back anything?"

  "Yeah. A cheeseburger."

  "A what?" I say, spinning to look at her.

  "You heard me."

  "Yes, I know I did. But do you think maybe you can choose something that won't make you hate yourself in the morning?"

  "I'm already going to hate myself in the morning."

  "What do you really want?"

  "I want a damned cheeseburger!" she screams. Then she punches her pillow and rolls over.

  Obviously I can't buy her an actual cheeseburger and I don't want to face her without one, so instead I end up driving all over hell's half acre on the recommendation of the ex-girlfriend of the teenage son of the night manager until I find The Red Onion, a restaurant that promises to offer up a reasonable facsimile.

  "And this is vegan, right?" I say, as a young freckled thing in Heidi braids hands me a brown paper bag. She has a small gold ring in each nostril and another through her eyebrow.

  "Yup," she says, smiling.

  "Even though there's cheese. And a burger," I say, peering closely at her, looking for cracks.

  "Soy. And texturized tofu."

  "And the mayo?"

  "Eggless."

  "You're sure?"

  She laughs, revealing a tongue stud. "Of course I'm sure. Everything we serve is vegan."

  "Thanks," I say, snatching the bag from her hands.

  When I get back to our room, Eva is sitting cross-legged in the center of her bed. She's watching yet another episode of Fear Factor. It seems to be on twenty-four hours a day.

  I toss the bag at her, and then follow it with a loose handful of ketchup and mustard packets.

  She looks up in surprise. After a pause of a few beats, she reaches for the bag. She unrolls its top slowly, peers in, and then reaches for the cardboard container. She opens it, stares at
its contents, and then sets it on the bed in front of her.

  "It's not too late to change your mind," I say. "Because I could still go get you a house salad from the restaurant. Or a bowl of soup. Cream of cauliflower, with not a drop of cream in sight."

  She removes the bun and looks more closely. The corners of the orange "cheese" sag around the edges of the patty, melting pretty convincingly. Eva leans over, sniffing. Then she pries off the slice of pickle.

  "Is this a Klaas?" she says, letting it dangle between thumb and forefinger.

  "I have no idea."

  Eva swivels at the waist and tosses it neatly into the garbage.

  "Gee, thanks. Maybe I wanted it," I say.

  "Did you?"

  "I don't know. Maybe." It's just dawned on me that I was so wrapped up in my quest for a vegan burger that I neglected to get any dinner for myself.

  On the television, a barefoot woman is grimacing and stomping a tub full of worms. Beneath her, a wineglass catches the resulting unfiltered nectar.

  Eva grabs a ketchup packet, squirts it across the slice of cheese, replaces the top half of the bun, and goes to town. She stuffs so much into her mouth I'm afraid she's going to choke.

  I watch, both horrified and fascinated.

  "Man oh man," says Eva, speaking with her mouth crammed full and juice running down her chin. "This is so good. You have no idea how much I've missed meat."

  The woman on the television has climbed from the wooden tub of squashed worms. She is holding the glass of red-brown worm guts and taking deep breaths. As the show's host urges her on, she plugs her nose and starts gulping. I turn from the screen.

  "Aaaaah!" I squeal, plugging my ears. "My God! Do you think once--just once!--we could watch something that doesn't involve pigs' eyes or water buffalo penises or rancid cow's blood? Where's the clicker! Give me the clicker!"

  When it doesn't appear, I glance over at Eva's bed.

  She's staring at me, stone cold.

  "Pffffft," she says. Then she grabs the clicker and tosses it across the divide. "It's just worms, Ma."

  "And that's just cow, Eva."

  She freezes, crouched over the burger with her pinkies extended. Her eyes grow wide. Then her hands begin to shake.

  "Aaaaaaaaaaaaayiiiiaaaaaaah!" she shrieks, throwing the burger overhand at the wall. It sticks impressively before sliding slowly down, leaving a brown trail along the wallpaper. Eva looks at the carton in her cross-legged lap and upends it, sending fries and lettuce and ketchup flying. Then she jumps backward and off the bed. She stands a few feet away, trembling with her mouth and eyes open wide.

  "No! Honey! No! It's okay!" I say, scrabbling to get to her. I leap from my bed, cross the three feet to hers, and then scootch across it to the other side. "It was fake! Completely fake! I mean, vegan!"

  Eva's eyes turn and lock on mine. She is silent for a moment. "Huh?" she says through ragged breaths.

  "Your burger. One hundred percent vegan."

  She stares at me, chest heaving.

  I swipe an X across my front. "I swear to God, Eva. It's vegan. That's why it took me so long to get dinner."

  She keeps staring, huffing like a horse who's been stung and doesn't know what the hell hit it.

  "Eva?"

  I grab her shoulders.

  "Eva! I swear to you by all I hold sacred--I swear to you on your grandfather's grave--that burger was one hundred percent fake."

  She blinks at me. "Yeah?" she pants.

  "Yeah," I say.

  She stares at me for another couple of seconds and then falls against me, weeping like a five-year-old.

  I sigh and pat her back. What else can I do?

  In the morning, we leave the hotel with Eva once again packed in suitcases and me packed in plastic grocery bags. I argue only halfheartedly when the desk clerk explains that we have to pay for tonight as well because we didn't meet the cancellation requirements. And then we're on our way.

  The drive home is predictably long. Neither of us is in the mood for conversation, although we're going to have to have one.

  Before we left the room, I tried one last time to persuade Eva to attend the final day, but it was no use. The really stupid thing is I don't believe she was making a decision about whether she wanted to remain in the program. I think she was simply too embarrassed to show up. I tried explaining that Nathalie would interpret that as a decision, but since that was obviously causing Eva to dig her heels in even further, I desisted.

  My secret hope is that I can change her mind during the drive. My other secret hope is that Nathalie will be receptive to taking her back.

  "Eva, look," I say, leaning over and patting her leg. "When we get around that curve, you'll be able to see the Old Man."

  "So what," she grumbles.

  "No, here. Look! Look!" I say, pointing as we round the curve.

  I look up expectantly. And then I continue staring in disbelief and incomprehension.

  "Ma! Watch where you're going!"

  Eva's warning comes just in time to prevent me from ramming the car in front of me. It, and a great many others, are stopped right in the center of the parkway.

  I yank the Camry onto the shoulder and look back at the rock face.

  He's gone. The Old Man of the Mountain is gone. There's nothing but a shapeless hollow where he used to be. His face has fallen off, is nothing now but great cubes of Jell-O granite lying on scree at the bottom of the hill.

  "Ma! What is it?" squeals Eva, I assume because I'm staring out the window and hyperventilating through peaked fingers. "Ma! What?"

  I scrabble out of the car and stare, leaving the car door open. There's no point in asking what happened, although I find it impossible to comprehend. Immediately I begin wondering how we're going to fix this, how we're going to put him back up. And almost as quickly I realize that we can't. The Old Man is just gone.

  A news crew is making its way up the parked cars on the shoulder, shoving their microphone in front of hapless New Hampshire faces. Some have dropped jaws. Some stare in bafflement, shaking their heads. Others cry.

  Eva joins me beside the car.

  "Is this him?" she says, her voice filled with worry.

  "It was," I reply.

  "What happened?"

  "I don't know. I guess he fell off," I say.

  Hearing the words, even saying the words, appears to have no actual influence on understanding.

  I hear gravel crunching under feet. The news anchor, in her yellow raincoat and golf umbrella, is making her way toward us. She marches purposefully, followed by a handful of crew members. She's only a dozen feet from my car.

  "Get in the car," I say quickly.

  "But--" says Eva.

  "Go through my side. Do it!"

  Eva scrambles in and across. I jump in and lock the doors just as the news anchor arrives at my side. I drop my head on my steering wheel, trying to look unavailable.

  She raps sharply on the window.

  I lift my head and turn.

  "Excuse me," she says, leaning over and smiling broadly. Her makeup is thick, and when she smiles, cracks form in her foundation. "I was wondering if you would mind--"

  "Buckle up," I mumble to Eva, starting the engine.

  "Hey! Excuse me!"

  I lay on the horn.

  The news anchor jumps back with a horrified expression and I gun it out of there, weaving around the vehicles that are stopped right in the center of the pavement.

  I'm blubbering hopelessly within a minute. I stop for gas in Whitefield, whimpering at the gas pump. When I go inside to pay and the cashier asks if I'm okay, I tell him what's happened. He looks stricken, almost as though he, too, will burst into tears.

  By the time we reach Lancaster, I'm so desperate to get home I'm driving almost twenty miles an hour past the speed limit, zooming past the cherry blossoms.

  Eva finally speaks. "I don't see why you're so upset."

  "No, of course you don't," I say, without offerin
g to enlighten her.

  "Well, why is it then?"

  I turn quickly to look at her. "Because I loved him. Because he symbolized New Hampshire."

  "Pffffft, that's just dumb," she says. Then she chortles.

  "What?" I croak.

  "Dumb?" she says, pointing at a sign for the town of Dummer. "Get it?"

  I take a deep breath. "Eva, do me a favor--just keep your mouth shut until we get home."

  "Hey! That's not fair. It's not my fault some old piece of--"

  "I said, shut it!"

  She drops back against her seat and crosses her arms, her brow furrowed so deeply I bet she's nearly cross-eyed.

  When Maple Brook finally comes into sight, I sigh with relief. I turn down our drive, puffy-eyed, having cried on and off since Franconia Notch Park.

  As I pull the car around behind the house Mutti comes out the back door. She has a blue sweater clamped around her shoulders. Her arms are folded in front of her, and her face is drawn. Obviously I don't have to explain to her what the Old Man meant.

  I climb from the car. "Oh, Mutti--" I say, hugging her.

  "So you know," she says grimly. "How?"

  "My God, I passed right by it."

  Mutti's body tightens. Then she pushes me away. Her eyes search my face. "What are you talking about?"

  "The Old Man. He fell off."

  "The Old Man..."

  "The Old Man of the Mountain. What are you talking about?" I ask as it sinks in that she's upset about something else.

  Mutti closes her eyes for a moment. Then she says, "Eva, I want you to go in the house."

  "Why?"

  "Eva, please!"

  "Sheesh, all this for some stupid old rock face..." she grumbles, slamming the car door and stomping up the ramp to the back door.

  Mutti watches her until the door is shut behind her. Then she turns back to me. She has a hand on each of my shoulders.

  "Roger and Sonja were in an accident."

  "An accident?" I repeat.

  Mutti doesn't say anything else.

  "Mutti? Are they okay?"

  Mutti's eyes flicker. A quick shake of the head.

  I gasp, searching my mother's eyes.

  "Sonja is dead."

  I cry out. Then, in a shaky voice: "And Roger?"

  Mutti glances quickly at the house. "In critical condition," she whispers hoarsely.

  "Oh God," I say. Then I close my eyes, afraid to even ask the next question. "And the baby?"