I knew from the moment I spotted her
on the beach that my life would never be the same. I don’t know what it was exactly that drew my
attention to her. Yet I knew
instinctively that she was it—the catalyst.
I was forever changed before the first “hello.”
I had just finished washing dishes
in my cottage on the Oregon
coast. It was September, and my husband
and I were taking the first vacation he had managed to steal away from his
interminable caseload. Paul was a
successful lawyer. I was his wife. I had been begging him all year to take me to
the beach for a change of scenery. Out
of self-preservation, he finally arranged it.
He had tried initially to convince me to go by myself, but I
refused. I wanted my husband by my
side. I didn’t want to travel alone,
like a woman who didn’t have a man who cared for her. It wasn’t long, however, until I began
wishing I had left him behind.
It was on the second evening of our
vacation that I found myself walking alone on the beach. The summer crowds had dwindled away, so I was
able to amble along without running into more than a dozen people. I assumed they were mostly local residents
and perhaps a few visitors taking advantage of the off-season to spend a peaceful
week at Cannon Beach .
As I walked on the loose sand, my
gaze took in the waves crashing against the dark rocks that lay scattered along
the shore. Huge rocks that reminded me
of giant toys left behind by titanic gods of another world. Their size amazed me. Their geologic history intrigued me. As I surveyed the scene, it was hard to tell
which was the stronger of the two elements.
I knew that water had the ability to wear away the hard, solid surface.
Yet as the powerful waves slammed into the rocks, they were instantly
transformed into mere saline droplets.
Watching this interplay of water and rock, I felt as though the rocks
were my heart and the waves my emotions.
Feeling a slight chill in these thoughts, I pulled my windbreaker close
around me as I walked in the direction of Haystack Rock, the largest remnant of
volcanic expulsions found at this particular point along the shore.
I came upon her at a particularly
isolated section of the beach. She was
sitting atop one of the many logs that had washed up on the shore. She herself looked nearly as weathered and
battered as the wood upon which she was perched. Her long indigo hair was flipping wildly in
the ocean breeze, snaking around the acoustic guitar cradled in her arms. She was wearing a navy blue T-shirt and a
pair of faded and tattered blue jeans.
Her feet were bare, although I noticed an incongruently new pair of blue
Birkenstock sandals next to where she was seated.
It was her silhouette that first
caught my attention. She was playing her
guitar and singing passionately to the waves, though I could hear nothing above
the sound of the roaring wind and crashing waves. Desiring to hear her voice, I ventured
closer, hoping she wouldn’t stop her performance before I could get near enough
to hear her singing. I approached from
the rear, for I had the distinct impression that she wouldn’t appreciate having
an audience.
When I got within hearing range, I
was delighted to find that her voice was rich and mellow, like a vintage red
wine, smooth and silky, and just a tad sweet. I inhaled the melodic bouquet,
swishing the sounds around in my head.
Her guitar sounded full and sensuous, its tones creating resonance with
the emotions in my heart. By the time
she finished her song, I was almost close enough to reach out and touch her,
but I didn’t. Instead I waited
breathlessly for the music to begin again.
When it did, I eased myself into a sitting position on a nearby
log.
I had seated myself slightly to the
right of her. Hopefully far enough
behind her that she wouldn’t notice me, yet close enough to watch her
marvelously talented hands. She was
playing an intricate tune on her guitar, her trained fingers finding just the
right spots on the neck of her instrument.
Her right hand deftly picking out the melody in a way that made me feel
as though she were making love to her guitar, rather than merely playing
it. I strained to understand the words
that were falling from her lips.
Things have changed; I’ve lost my
way.
The skies I used to see have faded
into gray.
Day by day, I’ve fallen back.
Memories of my yesteryear
have thrown me off the track.
Looking ahead to the morning sun.
Trying to stop myself from being on
the run.
Life is not as I wanted it to be.
I’ve become someone who is not
really me.
Choices are simple, as long as
they’re not mine.
Answers are easy, but changing takes
up time.
I can never face tomorrow from the
standpoint of today.
Goals I want to reach are a million
miles away.
Letting go of the days gone by.
Praying that the veil will fall from
my eyes.
I’m going to find that road again.
It may take time and just a little
bit of pain.
Choices are simple, as long as
they’re not mine.
Answers are easy, but changing takes
up time.
I can never face tomorrow from the
standpoint of today.
Goals I want to reach, they seem a
million miles away.
She followed a passionate repetition
of the chorus with more instrumentation then turned her head to look at
me. She gave me a polite and somewhat
shy smile. Her eyes were guarded, as
though she were unsure what to do next.
I half expected her to get up and walk away, but she didn’t. Instead she turned her gaze upon the ocean
while she sat there hugging her guitar.
Then she turned back towards me.
“You live around here?”
Her speaking voice was nearly as
rich and hypnotic as her singing voice.
After having been silent for so long, I managed to whisper hoarsely, “I,
no, I don’t. I mean…“ As my voice warmed
to the task of communicating, I managed to continue in a normal tone, “Well,
actually I do own a house here, but I don’t get to come very often.”
She started to smile, but instead
knitted her brows and said, “Where do you normally live?”
“Portland .
My husband and I are on vacation.”
From the moment the words escaped my
lips, I knew I had said something that displeased her. I searched my mind trying to figure out what
it was that had painted such a disappointed look on her face. Was it that I was on vacation? Was it that I was from Portland ?
What was she thinking?
All she said was, “Oh, I see.” Then she turned away from me to look out
towards the horizon again, as though she had ended the conversation and was
letting me know that I was free to go at any time.
“Do you?” I asked quietly, half to myself, not
expecting her to hear my words.
She looked back at me with a puzzled
expression. “I’m sorry. Do I what?”
I stood up to leave, but decided to
repeat the question, since she had asked.
I looked into her eyes. “Do you
see?”
She gave her head a brief
shake. “I think you lost me there.” She looked at me with curiosity, as though I
were a quaint little circus sideshow few people would pay to see.
I turned my gaze towards the ocean,
trying to avoid her bemused look. “I
told you I was from Portland ,
and that my husband and I were vacationing here. Then you said, ‘Oh, I see,’ as though you had
concluded something about me from that information. I just wondered what it was you had decided
about me.”
She shrugged then raised one hand in
bewilderment. “I think I was just trying
to be polite. I don’t go in for small
talk much. You’ll have to excuse me.”
I laughed at the look of discomfort
on her face. “I’m sorry. I’m behaving rather oddly, aren’t I? I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable. I was just curious about what you meant by
‘Oh, I see.’ Call me vain, if you will,
but I wanted to know what it was you were envisioning. Were you really learning something about
me? Were you finding hidden meaning in
my words? Never mind. I don’t have the foggiest idea what’s come
over me. I’m not usually like this.”
“Not a problem.” She got up and slipped her sandals on, as
though she were about to leave.
“Don’t go!”
She frowned at me and cocked her
head to one side. “Are you all
right? Do you need help? I mean do you need someone to talk to or
something?”
“No!
I mean, yes, I’m all right. No, I
don’t need anyone to talk to.” I paused
and took stock of the thoughts and emotions that were violently colliding
inside me. “Well, yes, perhaps I do need
someone to talk to. Do you have a
minute? I could buy you a latte, if
you’d like.”
She smiled at me and shook her
head. “I’ll pass on the latte. I’d be up all night if I drank one now.”
“Okay, so how about some frozen
yogurt?”
She laughed. “Okay, frozen yogurt it is.” Using the strap that was attached to it, she
slung her guitar onto her back and gestured for me to lead the way.
I brushed the sand from my knit
slacks and headed up the beach towards town.
I waited for her to catch up with me, so we could walk side by
side. “I suppose you think I’m completely
insane by now. I’m not usually like
this. I didn’t think I needed to talk to
anyone. Then suddenly I realized that
was exactly what I needed.”
“And who better to talk to than a
stranger playing her guitar on the beach, right?”
“I hadn’t really thought about it in
that way. Am I being weird? It’s just that I saw you out there on the
log, and I felt compelled to get close enough to hear you. I knew you must have a magnificent alto
voice.”
She smiled at me and shook her head
again. “I’m a contralto. Sorry if I disappointed you.”
“What disappointment? You have a magnificent voice! It sounds even better than I expected.”
“Thanks.”
“Have you been playing long?”
“About twenty years now.”
“Heavens! How old are you?”
“Thirty-three, I think.”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t pay much attention to
time. What year is this? 1997, right?”
I nodded, so she continued. “Then yes, I’m thirty-three, and I’ve been
playing and singing for twenty years now.”
“Gracious. No wonder you’re so good at it. I can’t imagine doing anything for twenty
years.”
“Not even being married?” Her nonchalant glance was like a blow to the
side of my brain. I stopped walking and
looked at her intently. “What an odd
question.”
She stopped walking too, stuffed one
hand in the pocket of her jeans, and looked down at the sand, as though trying
to avoid my gaze. “Sorry. I say odd things sometimes.”
I looked down at her feet. She was lazily etching an arc in the sand
with her right foot. It looked to me
like a smile, a mocking smile. “I don’t
know that I can imagine being married for twenty years, now that you mention
it.”
Her gaze returned to my face. “How long have you been married?”
“Fifteen years this past June.”
She smiled somewhat ruefully at
me. “Then you’d better start figuring
out what you’d rather be doing because you’re running out of time.”
I shook my head and stared at her
even more intently. “You’re making my
head hurt.”
She laughed a bit. “Sorry.
I’ve been known to do that to people at times.”
“Make their heads hurt?”
She nodded. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I don’t try to do it. It just sort of happens. I listen to what people say and try to hear
the meaning behind their words before I respond. Somehow that comes out in a way that makes
people uncomfortable. It isn’t a
conscious thing. I don’t think I could
do it if I were consciously trying. I
just state what I perceive to be the obvious.
Only it usually isn’t all that obvious to anyone else.”
I turned and looked back at the
ocean. “But you’re right. I never voiced it to myself or anyone else,
but I can’t imagine being married to Paul for twenty years. Yet it has almost happened without my being
aware of it.”
She shrugged. “Time gets away from us all.”
“Yes,” I said sadly, “I suppose it
does.”
We started walking again towards the
ice cream shop. I couldn’t put the
thought out of my head that I had been married for over fifteen years. The worst part was that I really didn’t like
the idea of being married to Paul for that long. It wasn’t that the reality of it was so
bad. We got along well enough. Too well really. We seldom fought, which I sometimes viewed as
being an indication that we had a good relationship. In my rare moments of dissatisfaction,
however, I knew that we seldom fought because we seldom saw each other. He was always at work. I was always making the social rounds,
playing the part of the politically correct wife, who was saving the world
through her volunteer work. Most of the
time, Paul and I were little more than roommates.
“Are you married?” I asked abruptly.
She laughed and shook her head, her
eyes dancing with mischief. “Oh no. They don’t let my kind marry, and I wouldn’t
marry if they did.”
“What do you mean, ‘your kind?’”
“Lesbians.” She let the word roll off her tongue for
dramatic effect. “We’re not allowed to
marry in a legal sense. Sure, we can
have some sort of religious ceremony if we know a sympathetic pastor, but we
haven’t yet been given the privilege of legal matrimony. That’s one of the ‘special rights’ political
conservatives are paranoid about granting to us. They’re afraid we’ll poison society with our
perverted love.” She rolled her eyes in
derision then looked at me from the side to see how I was taking this
information.
“I see.”
She laughed. “That’s fair enough. I’ve just given you my first self-revelatory
remark, and you gave me the same response I gave you. The summing up of an entire life, filled with
complications and intricacies, into a single stereotype—radical lesbian separatist. If we’re going to sit down and have a heart
to heart talk, then I should confess that I was probably writing you off as a
yuppie heterosexist woman who lives to please men. An unfair judgment, no doubt, but it’s really
difficult when you first meet someone.
Humans seem to have a terrible need to categorize everything. You say one thing to me about who you are,
and I automatically stick you in the yuppie het woman slot and dismiss you as
uninteresting.”
“Your honesty is rather
unnerving. Are you always this candid, or
did my blithering introduction set the pace for the rest of this conversation?”
“I’m usually this honest, though I
have to admit that your initial response to my cursory dismissal immediately
removed you from the ‘uninteresting’ category.”
“So how do I get out of the
heterosexist category? I consider myself
heterosexual, but not heterosexist. I do
have some gay friends back in Portland .”
She smiled and looked me boldly in
the eyes. “Let me kiss you right here in
public.”
“What?”
She bent over laughing, trying hard
to keep her guitar strap from slipping off her shoulder. “That was a joke. I’m sorry.
I couldn’t resist.”
I tried to act as though this woman
weren’t making me feel terribly uncomfortable.
“You know, you don’t really look like a lesbian radical separatist.”
“No?
What does one look like then?”
“Most of the ones I’ve known have
really short haircuts and multiple body piercings.”
“Yeah, well, me too, but I’m not
really a lesbian separatist. That was
just the label I figured you would stick on me.
I’m just a lesbian who likes to stay separate from everyone, not just
men. I personally don’t care right now that
gays can’t get married because I wouldn’t want to lie to my lover or
myself. Mind you, I don’t think it’s
fair that I don’t have the right to marry a person of my choosing, whatever the
gender, but I don’t think marriage is the right choice for my life. I don’t feel that it would be honest for me
to take vows of ‘until death do us part.’
How can I know whether I will love the same person twenty years from
now? I don’t even know where I’ll be two
months from now. I may be backpacking
across Europe or kayaking along the Alaskan
coast. How can I say to a lover ‘I’ll
stay beside you forever and always?’”
“But couldn’t you do those things
with your lover?”
“I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t ever have a lover, or
that I don’t ever have a traveling companion.
It’s just that it isn’t usually the same person year after year. Relationships bottom out, and I’m ready to
move on or they tire of traveling.
There’s too much to see in this world to get stuck in one place, working
nine to five, day in and day out, just to make house payments.”
“How do you live? What do you use for money?”
“I sleep in the camper on my truck.”
I felt my eyebrows rise up on my
face. “You mean you’re homeless?”
“Now don’t look at me like
that. And don’t even think about making
me into an object of pity. I’m not
homeless. I just don’t own a stationary
home.”
“A drifter.”
Her blue eyes turned to slate as she
looked at me.
“Yeah, okay, I’m a drifter. That’s something you do by choice. Homeless people aren’t generally homeless by
choice. I work for a while in one
town—doing odd jobs, waiting tables, or playing gigs, if I’m lucky. Then I move on to another place I’ve always
wanted to see.”
“Like where?”
“Anywhere I haven’t been.”
“Isn’t that dangerous?”
“Isn’t what dangerous?”
“Living in your truck.”
“Not any more than living in your
house. I usually stop in a state park or
private campground. Then I stay a few
days, weeks, or several months, depending on whether I like the place. I’m safe enough. I’m not sleeping on the streets.”
“What about bathing?”
“Campgrounds usually have showers.”
“Oh.
Well, what about food?”
“What do you mean?”
“How do you eat?”
“With two hands, the same way I make
love.”
The look she gave me startled
me. It was both seductive and innocently
playful. I stopped walking again and
turned to face her. “Are you trying to
offend me?”
“Why? Are you offended because I said that?” Her expression changed quickly to one of
guarded passivity.
“No, it’s just that, it seemed like—
Oh never mind.” We started walking again
then stopped at the street corner to wait for a line of cars to pass. When the traffic was clear, we continued up
the street.
“If you want to know how I cook, I
told you. I have a pick-up truck with a
camper. It has a bed and a stove in
it. I even have a little television. Why is it that when elderly people do this,
they call it retirement? But when I do
it, it’s called drifting.”
“Because when they do it they’ve
already lived their life, and now it’s over, and, and... that doesn’t make any
sense to me either. Don’t look at me
that way! I’m perfectly aware that what
I just said was utterly ridiculous.”
She looked at me with an enigmatic
smile. I had no idea what she was
thinking at the time, but I would’ve emptied my bank account to find out what
it was. I opened the door to the ice
cream shop and walked in. My blue-jean
clad companion followed me inside, still smiling that maddening smile of hers.
Chapter 2
Once inside the ice cream shop, we slipped
into a momentary silence while we pondered the vast array of choices before
us. I decided on a vanilla low-fat
frozen yogurt. My companion asked for a Rocky Road ice
cream cone, double scoop. I paid the
teenage boy at the counter then started to sit down on the benches outside the
store. She motioned for me to follow
her, so I did.
“There’s a better place to sit just
up the road a bit. It’s a little more private. That way we can talk without worrying about
being overheard.”
A sudden sense of panic hit me. I wasn’t sure what place she was referring
to, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go anywhere private with this
self-proclaimed, rootless lesbian. She’d
already made a couple of unnerving references to sexual intimacy. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself
into. I was visibly relieved when she
stopped at some public picnic tables just down the road from the ice cream
shop.
She looked at me with a smirk on her
face. “What’s the matter? You looked
scared there for a minute. Did you think
I was going to take you down some dark alley and smear Rocky Road all over you then lick it
off?”
Angered by her words, I responded
curtly, “Do you always make this many sexual remarks to strangers?”
“Why? How many have I made?”
“Three, in just twenty minutes.”
“You’re counting and timing
me?” She shook her head as though I were
a naughty little girl. “You’re not
earning many non-heterosexist points, I’m afraid. And yeah, I probably do make this many sexual
innuendoes to strangers. When you move
around a lot, most people you encounter in your life are strangers. Why waste time mincing words? I say what I think. I apologize if I’ve offended your yuppie sensibility,
but that’s just how I am. Perhaps you
should think twice before you pick up vagrants on the beach.”
I glared at her. “I didn’t know you were a vagrant when I
picked you up.”
She laughed and shook her head then
looked at me sideways. “So you admit to
picking me up?”
“What? Oh, I didn’t realize that was what you
meant.”
“That’s four.” She held up four fingers and wriggled them at
me.
“Please stop. You’re making me uncomfortable, and I think
you’re doing it on purpose.”
She smiled at me. “I am.
Just wanted to show you how heterosexist you really are, and not just
heterosexist, you’re demonstrating your homophobia as well. It doesn’t matter how many gay friends you
have. You’re afraid of me because you
think I’m coming onto you. That’s
homophobia.
“You can have lots of black friends
too, but if you clutch your purse tighter when you pass an unknown black man on
the street, you’re showing your racism.”
The truth of that stung a bit, but I
didn’t want to admit it to myself, much less to this most unsettling
woman. “What is it you want from me?”
“What do I want from you? I was the one who was sitting there on a log,
minding my own business and playing my guitar, when you came along and started
staring at me. That usually precedes a
pick-up line, which is usually followed by a night in the sack. What was I supposed to think? I’m the one who should be asking what it is
you want from me. Or are you not in
touch with yourself enough to realize what you want?”
“Are you implying that I want to
have sex with you?”
“Not necessarily. Are you inferring that I want to have sex
with you?”
“No.
Yes. I don’t know. You’re confusing me.”
She laughed behind her ice cream
cone. “Sorry,” she said, though she
looked completely impenitent.
“What’s your name anyway?”
“Why? Do you need to know that before we have
sex? Do you want my history of
lovers? My medical records?”
I started to get and up leave, but
she caught my arm and gently stopped me.
“I’m sorry. You’re just so funny. You’re trying so hard not to appear homophobic,
and yet every time I make a sexually loaded comment, you get more uptight. Relax.
I wasn’t planning on taking you to bed with me tonight. That can wait. And I’m clean. I’ve been practicing safe sex since before
the AIDS epidemic. There’s more than one
sexually transmitted disease going around.”
I sat down again. “Look this isn’t about sex. I just wanted to listen to your music.”
The muscles in her face tightened
for a moment then relaxed again. When
she spoke her voice was suddenly soft and husky. “Yeah, well when you listen to my music,
you’re listening to my soul. That makes
me feel pretty naked. Sneaking up on me
like that was kind of like me watching you undress through an open window.”
I covered my mouth with my hand,
shocked by the realization that I had been very rude to this woman. I lowered my hand then reached it out towards
her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. That
was insensitive of me to interrupt your reverie with my eavesdropping. I just felt compelled.”
“Do you always follow through on
your compulsions or just the ones that aren’t sexual?”
“Why is everything sexual to
you? I just wanted to listen to your
music. That’s all. Apparently I shouldn’t have done that. I said I was sorry. I’ll stop pestering you.”
I got up to leave again. I threw my empty yogurt cup into the trashcan
and started walking back to my house, glancing over my shoulder to see how she
would react. She finished off her cone
with a final slurp, wiping her mouth on the napkin in her hand. When she had disposed of her garbage, she
took several quick steps towards me to catch up. She stopped in front of me on the sidewalk,
making it impossible for me to continue walking without detouring into the street. She put her hands on my upper arms and made
me look into her eyes. Her smile had
been replaced by a penetrating look of honesty.
“I don’t think everything is
sexual. I think everything is spiritual,
including sex. My sexual side is part of
my spiritual side, and it’s also very much part of my musical side. You invaded my space in a moment of spiritual
and emotional intimacy. I didn’t think
it would be polite if I just told you off, so I guess I’ve been needling you
instead. I will stop.
“We came here to talk about
you. So far we’ve talked mostly about
me. Now it’s your turn. And don’t tell me your name, or you won’t be
telling your life story to a perfect stranger.
That’s why you don’t need to know mine.
It removes the anonymity. Isn’t
that what you wanted, a stranger to talk to?”
“I don’t know what I want. You’ve got me completely confused.”
She laughed slightly. “Honey, I think you were confused long before
you met me. I’m just making you realize
how confused you are.”
“Why are you doing that?”
“I’m not doing it on purpose. Honestly.
I had a lover once who told me I was a painful friend to have. She said that I was like a mirror. In order to be around me, you have to be
willing to look at yourself in the mirror, to look truth in the eyes and deal
with it. I guess it’s my gift to the
people around me. Trust me. I would give the gift to someone else if I
could. It has made for more than one
uncomfortable moment in my life. But it
isn’t something I can just stop doing.
Or if I did, I wouldn’t feel as though I were being honest.”
I pushed past her and began walking
up the street again. “God help me if I
ever ran into you on a bad hair day!”
She caught up with me and fell into
stride. “This has nothing to do with
social niceties. I might tell you your
hair looked horrible, or I might just ignore it, assuming you already knew it
and didn’t need me to tell you. On the
other hand, I would tell you if you had spinach in your teeth.” She smiled a disarming smile.
“Good! But I hope you would do it gently. My husband points out all my faults with glee
almost. I think he likes exposing my
flaws. He says he’s just trying to help
me, so I don’t embarrass myself in public.
But it feels like something more than that.”
“Sounds like a real sweetheart.”
“No, he’s actually a nice guy.”
“I see.”
“There you go again writing me
off. What does that ‘I see’ mean?”
“Nothing. It’s just a reminder to me that you can put
your husband down, but I can’t.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I just didn’t want you to get the wrong
impression of Paul.”
“Excuse me, but I don’t give a
flying fig about Paul.”
“No, I guess you wouldn’t.”
“I’ll probably never even meet him,
so it doesn’t matter what I think of him.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“Can we change the subject, or is
this what you need to talk about, your husband and his nit-picking?”
“I should let you go. I’m obviously wasting your time.”
“Only if you think so.”
“I don’t know what I think.”
“Now we’re getting to it. You’re really confused about something. What is it?
Is this mid-life crisis time? If
so, I’m the woman to talk to. I know all
about those.”
“Do you? How is that?”
“Later. You first.”
“I don’t know where to start. I didn’t know I had anything to talk about
until you asked me if I needed someone to talk to. Suddenly I felt as though I desperately
needed someone to talk to about my life, but I don’t know where to begin. I have a whole bundle of emotions that have
been wreaking havoc on my personal life without my awareness. So where do I start?”
“How about with your sex life?”
“Oh please, let’s not start that
again.”
She put up her hands in front of her
body as though to ward off a blow from me.
“No, no. I’m serious. How you feel about your sexual life is a good
indicator as to how you feel about the rest of your life.”
“Thank you, Dr. Ruth.”
“I’m serious. How are you and Paul doing sexually?”
“Well, we usually have sex every
Sunday morning. It’s the only day of the
week he sleeps in.”
“How do you feel about that?” She stopped momentarily to shift the weight
of her guitar onto the opposite shoulder then proceeded.
I started to say something until I
realized how close I was getting to my cottage.
I took my companion by the elbow and steered her back down towards the
beach. “Would you like to take your
guitar somewhere and set it down? I
can’t imagine that it would be very comfortable to carry it around on your back
all the time.”
“It’s not that heavy, but my truck
is down there, if you don’t mind if I drop it off real quick.”
I hesitated.
“Don’t worry. I’m not planning on attacking you in my
camper. You can stay here if you’d
like. It’ll only take a few minutes.”
Determined not to earn any more homophobic
points, I said, “No, it’s okay, I’ll walk with you.”
“You have successfully changed the
subject, but I’m going to keep asking the same question until you get honest
with yourself at least. Even if you
don’t tell me the truth, tell yourself the truth. How do you feel about your sex life?”
I sighed. “It’s boring.
It’s infrequent. It’s monotonous.”
“Have you told him that?”
“Are you kidding?”
“No, I’m not kidding. Tell him how you feel then see what he does
about it. That’s a good way to test the
waters.”
I stopped and frowned at her. “What if I don’t like what gets stirred up?”
She shook her head
dismissively. “Then live with the status
quo, I guess, or move on.”
“Is that your answer to
everything? Moving on?”
“Just about.”
We arrived at the parking lot where
her camper was sitting. It was not what
I had expected somehow. It was a nearly
new green Ford pickup with shiny chrome wheels.
The camper on the back was in mint condition as well. Aside from the light film of sea salt that
attaches itself to everything on the coast it seemed to be clean on the
outside. When she opened the door, I
discovered that the inside was more immaculate than either of my houses.
It was a small camper, but an
efficient one. There was a full size bed
in the loft over the cab of the truck.
There were two swivel chairs, upholstered in brown velour, in what would
be considered the living room. With a
flick of her wrist, the room was transformed into a dining area. She had pulled a hidden table out of a panel
on the wall, and locked it into place between the two chairs. The kitchenette was done in rich honey-stained
wood tones. There was a sink, a stove,
and a refrigerator, all in miniature.
There was also a small microwave oven on the counter. On top of the kitchen cabinets was a
bookshelf that contained several dozen books.
“Is there a bathroom in this place?”
She laid her guitar on the bed before
answering me. “Yes, but it’s very
tiny. It matches the kitchen
appliances. Do you need to use it? It’s back there behind the cabinet. I usually use it only in the middle of the
night when I don’t have the wherewithal to put on enough clothes to go to the
campground bathrooms.”
“No, I was merely curious. So where are you camping right now?”
“I found a place just north of
town. It’s quiet and fairly
inexpensive.”
“How long do you plan to stay
there?”
“Now that all depends on what
transpires in the next few days.” She
looked at me out of the corner of her eye.
I looked at her coyly. “That’s another innuendo, isn’t it?”
She nodded, her eyes filled with
merriment.
“I didn’t get upset that time.”
“No, you didn’t. You get lots of positive points for that one
even though it was really subtle.”
“It’s about time I earned some good
points!”
She laughed then visibly began
warming up to her role as hostess. “Can
I get you something to drink? There’s a
Henry Weinhard’s root beer in the fridge and some orange juice too, I think,
whichever you’d prefer.”
“I’ll split the root beer with you.”
“One root beer coming right up.”
She opened one of the kitchen
cabinets and pulled out two plastic cups.
“I’ll even use my best plastic mugs for you.”
I smiled. “I guess it could get expensive to have
glasses knocking around in the cupboards.”
“There’s a way to do it, but I
figure it’s easier this way.”
She twisted the cap off the bottle
and poured the contents into the cups, making sure to keep the foam from
spilling over the lip of the cups. She handed me a cup then lifted her own by
way of a toast, “Here’s to Henry, may he always give good head.” She winked at me and took a swig of her
drink.
I shook my head at her then lifted
my cup and tapped it against hers. “To Henry. May he stay true to his roots.”
She nearly choked on her drink. “That was good, even if it wasn’t sexual.”
I beamed under her praise. “Why, thanks!”
She motioned for me to sit in one of
the chairs, so I did. She took the other
one then leaned towards me. “So what do
you think of my little home?”
“It’s marvelous. I really like it. Very tiny, but efficient.”
“Perfect for traveling light.”
“Yes, I can see that. Like a turtle carrying its house around on
its back.”
There was a moment of silence. Then the woman beside me retrieved her guitar
and started strumming it, running her left hand up and down the neck, playing a
tune I wasn’t familiar with.
When she was finished, I asked,
“What song was that?”
“One I’m in the process of
writing. It doesn’t have a name just yet.”
“It’s kind of like you then.”
“Have you decided you’d like to know
my name now?”
“No, I haven’t, but mine’s
Rita.” I thrust my hand towards her in a
friendly gesture. She took it in her own
and pressed it firmly.
“Is that Rita as in ‘lovely Rita
meter maid?’” She sang a line from the
old Beatles’ song, pronouncing the word meter the way they had sung it to make
it rhyme with Rita.
“Yes, I got called that a lot when I
was growing up.”
“Somehow I’m not surprised.”
“Did you write that last song you
played on the beach?”
“Yes, I write all the songs I play.”
“Would you play some for me, or is
that still too intimate?”
“Well, it helps if I know when
someone is listening. I didn’t realize
you were there until I was almost finished. I think my eyes had been closed.”
“That helped to make the song more
mesmerizing. I could tell you were
really feeling what you were singing.”
She smiled, almost shyly. “That’s the intimate part.”
I nodded in understanding. Then she began to play again. This time she beat out a hard rhythm on the
strings, her foot tapping in time to the beat.
I’m running out of breath
and my pen’s running out of ink.
I don’t know where to go;
I cannot even think.
I’ve been searching for something,
but I don’t know what.
I act as though I’m free,
and yet I know I’m caught.
Caught in a nightmare,
and I can’t wake up.
I’m locked in a room
that is gonna blow up.
Running from myself;
I’m running from this dream.
Running from the city
with its glitter and gleam.
If there is an answer,
then it better come quickly
I need an overdose of reality.
I thought that getting high
would surely set me free.
But now the walls are moving;
darkness is closing in on me.
And I’m caught in a nightmare, and I
can’t wake up.
I’m locked in a room that is gonna
blow up.
Running from myself; I’m running
from this dream.
Running from the city with its
glitter and gleam.
She repeated the chorus then
finished the song with a riveting rhythmic performance. She looked over at me, something she hadn’t
done throughout the entire song. She had
either stared at the floor or kept her eyes closed. She looked as though she expected me to say
something.
“Wow! That was something.”
“You didn’t like it.”
“No, I did like it. It was very powerful. It was like you were singing your heart
out. That must take an awful lot of
energy.”
“That’s not all it takes, Rita.”
“What do you mean?”
“It takes a lot of trust for me to
pour out my soul in a song like that.
That’s the very core of me that’s singing.”
“Thank you for trusting me enough to
play for me. You don’t have to keep on,
if you don’t want to.”
“No, I like singing for you. I can tell you feel what I’m saying. I’m not just a radio blaring in the
background to you.”
“I do feel what you’re saying. Your songs make me want to ask you all kinds
of questions about yourself.’
“Like what?’
“What are you running from? Is that why you don’t stay in one place? And do you still do drugs?”
“I don’t know that I am running from
anything. I wrote that song when I was
in college as a memorial to having buried my drug habit five years previous to
that time. I quit doing drugs just
before my junior year in high school.”
“What did you study in college?”
She smiled slightly, as though
embarrassed. “If I tell you, you’ll
laugh.”
“I won’t laugh.”
“The Bible.”
I snickered. I couldn’t help it. It caused such cognitive dissonance to be
sitting here talking to this woman who was a songwriting, guitar-playing,
lesbian vagabond. Just minutes before
she had me seriously convinced that she was about to abscond with my
person. It was amusing to find that she
had studied the Bible in college.
“I told you that you’d laugh.”
“I’m sorry, but you were right. That is rather hilarious. How did that happen?”
“Well, I had gotten pretty heavily
into the drug scene in the seventies. I
was searching for truth, not just an escape from life’s pressure. I wanted answers. I thought I might be able to find them in
drugs. When I didn’t, I turned to
Christianity. When I didn’t find them
there either, I began to look inside myself.”
“Did you find your answers there?”
“Sort of. I’m still finding them. That’s what this camper is all about and the
wandering. I’m just living for the
moment in a society that has a habit of living for the future, while remaining
mired in the past.”
“So does that mean you’re into Zen?”
“No, not really. I’m not into anything formally. I find philosophical and spiritual teachings
of all kinds interesting and helpful.
But mostly I try to find the truth within. So far I’m to the point where I realize that
life is the journey. It’s not the end of
the road I need to be concerned about, but the road itself. So I took to the road literally, in order to
reinforce that truth, I guess.”
“Hmm. That’s rather interesting.”
“Is it?”
“Yes, it is. So, Pilgrim, what is your name?”
“Tired of the anonymity or just
curious?”
“Both.”
“It’s Beth.”
“Beth. Hmm, that fits.”
She cocked her head to one
side. “Does it now?”
I nodded my head. “Yes, it does.”
She set her guitar down. “Good.
I’m glad you approve. I’d hate to
think I’d lived all these years with the wrong name.” Her eyes sparkled at me.
A little uncomfortable with the
silence that followed, I said abruptly, “Is there a pay phone nearby?”
Beth looked startled. “I haven’t a clue. Why?”
“I need to call my husband to tell
him that I’m all right. I don’t want him
to worry. It’s starting to get dark out
there. I’ve been gone for over an hour.”
She pulled a cell phone out of a
backpack that sat on the floor behind her chair and offered it to me. “Here.
Knock yourself out.”
I took it from her. “Thanks.
This place really has all the comforts of home, doesn’t it?”
She smiled. “Most of them.”
I called my house and left a message
on the answering machine. I wondered
where Paul was, more out of curiosity than caring. I figured he must’ve gone to town to pick up
something to eat or drink. We hadn’t yet
fully stocked the house for our week’s vacation. Mostly because I hadn’t been in the mood to
plan anything.
I told the answering machine to tell
Paul that I would be home later. I had
run into a friend and was having a good time talking with her. I told him not to worry, even though I knew
he’d get caught up in some television program and not even notice I wasn’t
there. Then I hung up and handed the
phone back to Beth.
“Not there, huh? I hope he isn’t out looking for you.”
I had to laugh at that one. “No, he wouldn’t be out looking for me. We aren’t that kind of couple. We don’t keep a close eye on each other. He goes his way; I go mine. Sometimes I wonder why we ever married.”
“Have you ever come up with a good
reason?’
“No, I haven’t, I’m sorry to
say. It was convenience mostly. I met Paul when I was in college. He asked me out, so we started dating. He asked me to marry him and I
consented. Then I quit school to help
support him while he went on to law school.”
“Why didn’t you wait until you’d
gotten your degree before you married him?”
“At the time, I didn’t really have a
reason for going to college. I was doing
it because my parents wanted me to become a teacher, so I’d have something to
fall back on, if I couldn’t find a good husband. Instead I found a good husband. They liked Paul and thought he was an
excellent choice, so I got a marriage certificate instead of a degree. College wasn’t important to me anyway. In fact, I was relieved to be able to throw
my books aside and get a job to help Paul.”
“What did you do?”
“I worked for my father in one of
the department stores he owned. He put me
in the housewares department, figuring it would be a good way for me to learn
more about homemaking. He was
right. I learned everything I needed to
know about becoming a good lawyer’s wife.
I learned about decorating and entertaining. All those wonderful skills that make a man
glad he picked you.”
My tone was becoming more and more
acidic the longer I talked. The
bitterness I felt welling up inside me was a surprise, but I found that I
couldn’t stop talking now that I had begun.
“Now I’m his liaison on the social ladder in the law firm. I plan the parties and the dinners, while he
jockeys for position in the legal world.
The better social wife I am, the better he looks to the firm.”
“I see.”
I made a face. “There you go again. What have you concluded about me this time?”
“I think what I concluded in the
beginning.”
“Oh, so you’ve concluded that you
were right in thinking I was—how did you put it?”
“A yuppie, heterosexist woman.”
“Is that really what you think?”
“From where I’m sitting, you don’t look
as though you’re all that happy with your life.
Sometimes being a success in the eyes of the world requires a
prostitution of the soul.”
“Are you telling me that I sold my
soul to be successful?”
“No, I’d say you sold your soul for
security.”
I found myself getting angry, more
at myself than at Beth. But it was
easier to blame her for my discomfort than it was to take responsibility for my
own choices. “And just what was I suppose
to do? Become an elementary school
teacher and wipe snotty noses all day?”
“Look, I’m not trying to tell you
what you should have done with your life, and I’m not saying that what you did
was wrong. You did what you thought you
should do. We all make decisions we
regret later, even though they seemed like the best thing to do at the
time. The important thing now is to figure
out what you want to do with your life from this moment on. Is there anything you love to do that you
could turn into a career that you would love?”
“I’m not sure. Perhaps.
I’ll have to ponder that later.
Right now, I think I could stand to use your bathroom.”
Beth got up and looked out the
window of the camper. “I’ll tell you
what. I’ll walk with you over to the
restroom in the park over there. Then we
can both go, and you won’t have to try to use that microscopic toilet in
there. You have to be a contortionist
just to pee. Better yet, I’ll just pull
the truck around there so we don’t have to walk through the park at night. I don’t know how safe it is out here after
dark.”
“Me neither. We don’t get to spend much time at our
cottage, even though I’d really like to.
I like Cannon
Beach . I wish we could live here instead of Portland .”
“Why can’t you?”
“Paul’s career is centered there.”
“He couldn’t move it out here?”
“Not without a great deal of
trouble. Besides Paul loves Portland .”
“Does Rita love Portland ?”
I picked at a loose thread on my
blouse. “Not really. I mean, it’s all right for a big city, I
suppose, but I prefer the beach to the city.”
Beth nodded then opened the camper
door. “Just sit tight. I’ll drive the truck around.” She walked around to the cab of the pickup
and drove us over to the restrooms. I
sat in silence, wondering what it would be like to live in Cannon Beach
year around.
Chapter 3
After our bathroom break, we settled
ourselves into the camper again. Beth
started rummaging around in the cabinets.
“Are you hungry?”
“A little. What time is it anyway?” I looked for the wristwatch that was
conspicuously absent from my wrist. “I
should probably go home.”
“It’s nine o’clock . Do
you want to call Paul again to see if he’s back yet?”
The thought of going home to Paul
was decidedly disagreeable, so I hoped Beth wasn’t anxious to be alone
again. “No. He’s all right. So what are you finding to eat in there?”
She displayed her discoveries for
me. “Corn chips or cheddar cheese
popcorn. Which will it be?”
A surge of excitement rushed through
me, and I felt as though I were on my way to a teenage slumber party. “How about the popcorn? And some water too, if you don’t mind.”
“Don’t mind a bit,” Beth replied
cheerfully. “Hand me your cup so I can
rinse it out.” She got out a bowl and
dumped in the popcorn, then poured us both a cup of cold water. She sat down across the table from me and
began to toss popcorn into her mouth.
“How do you keep the refrigerator
cold while you’re parked out here?”
“I use a variety of methods. Mostly I run the fridge off a separate
battery that I recharge either with regular electric current or through the
solar panels on the roof, whichever is most readily available at the moment.”
“You’re pretty self-sufficient
then.”
“I try to be in more ways than one.”
“I’m beginning to see that,” I said
thoughtfully. “I guess you think I’ve
sold myself short, huh?”
“That’s not for me to say.”
I put my hand over the one she had
resting on the table and felt the warmth of it enter my body. I tried not to notice how safe it made me
feel. “Now be honest with me. I’d like to know how my life looks from
someone else’s perspective.”
She moved her hand nonchalantly away
from mine and retrieved a piece of popcorn that had leaped onto the floor of
the camper. “I don’t know you very well
obviously, but I would say that your life is beginning to seem a little empty to
you. You did what your parents wanted
you to, had brought you up to do, and now you’re bored. It may be nothing more than a mid-life
crisis. You may go through some serious
soul-searching, only to find that it’s not so bad after all.”
“You really think so?”
“No.”
“Then why did you say that?”
“Because I thought you might need
some reassurance that your whole world wasn’t crumbling to dust.”
A wave of self-pity washed over me,
causing tears to well up in my eyes. “It
is crumbling, isn’t it? I don’t know why
I didn’t see it until now. I’ve had
nagging doubts before about my marriage, but I dismissed them as silly.”
“And you may dismiss them again as
silly. Who knows how you’ll feel
tomorrow when you wake up?” She squeezed
my forearm reassuringly.
“What do you think I should do?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
“I don’t know. You seem to have it all together. You don’t need society’s approbation. You’re content to do exactly what you want to
do, when you want to do it. You’re free,
Beth. Truly free. Isn’t that an exhilarating feeling?”
“Not always. It was at first.”
“When did you become a drifter?”
“I think I’ve always been a drifter
inside. I just didn’t know how to live
the reality of it. I’ve been driving
this camper for close to five years now.
All over the U.S.
and Canada . One of these days, I want to backpack across Europe . I almost
bought myself a Eurail pass last year. I
did get my passport, just in case.”
“What did you do before you started
traveling?”
“Oh, I went from job to job, just
trying to find something that would hold my interest for more than a year or
two. I never found anything that
did. Except music.”
“Why don’t you pursue that? Make records and do concerts.”
“Too lazy, I suppose. It’s not as though I have a great deal of
mass appeal. A lot of my songs have a very
lesbian point of view. There aren’t that
many lesbian bars and bookstores in this country. I’ve been to most of them, so I should
know. I suppose I could sell my records
myself, if it came to that, but I’m just not sure that’s what I want to do.”
“You’re really good though. I think you could be successful at it.”
“I’m not sure I want to be
successful. There’s a price to pay for
being Melissa Etheridge or k.d. lang.
I’m not sure I’m willing to pay that price. I like being able to sit and play my guitar
in public, without being surrounded by hordes of fans. Besides when you’re famous, you never know
whether people love you for yourself, your fame, or even your talent. I don’t want to have to wonder about that.”
“So you hide behind obscurity?”
“Perhaps. I don’t know.
What do you think? How does my
life look from where you’re sitting?”
She looked at me as though she were only mildly curious about what I
thought of her life. I got the feeling
that my opinion wouldn’t mean a whole lot to her and that she was merely
engaging in polite conversation.
“Well, part of me thinks that it
would be romantic just to drive off and leave behind all my responsibilities.”
“Now hold on there. I have responsibilities too. I have to make sure I stay solvent. I have to keep the truck in tiptop
condition. I have to keep up with the
maintenance on the camper, inside and out.
I have plenty of responsibilities.
They’re just different from the ones I had before. They’re ones I feel I can live with happily,
which is more than I can say about my former responsibilities.”
“All right, so you have
responsibilities too. I guess what I was
saying is that it would be nice to get away from my particular set of
responsibilities. Which reminds me. Could I borrow your phone again? I think I will try to get Paul again. I hadn’t planned to be gone this long.”
She handed me the phone. Then she leaned back in her chair, put her
hands behind her head, and closed her eyes.
Again there was no answer at the cottage, so I left another message
explaining that we were having so much fun talking that I might not be home for
a while.
Beth sat up again and looked at me
as though she were really interested in what I had to say. “Do you think I’m running from
something?”
“What makes you think that this
silly woman has an answer for that?”
“Just looking for pearls of wisdom,
I suppose. It’s an old habit. We can all teach each other something.”
“I think it’s great that you’re
living out what you believe to be true about the world. I think that’s a courageous thing to do. I don’t think I could do it, no matter how
dissatisfied I may be with my life.”
She nodded. “So it’s back to your old life tomorrow?”
“What else can I do?”
“I can think of lots of things.”
“Like what?”
“Like figure out what you would do
if you had all the money you needed to do it.
Would you leave Paul? Would you
go back to college? Would you sell everything,
buy a camper and a pick-up, and travel all around the world?”
“I might travel, though not in a
camper. Not if I had all the money I
needed to do what I wanted.”
She leaned forward in her chair,
“What then? What would you do, Rita?”
I shifted in my chair, leaning back
away from the intense energy she radiated.
“Let me see. Yes, I think I would
leave Paul. Then I might travel around
the world.”
“What places would you visit?”
“Rome , Paris ,
Athens , the
Swiss Alps , London .
That’s all I can name at the moment, though I’m sure I could think of
more, if I gave myself the chance.”
“Okay, so Europe
and the Mediterranean . Good start.
What else would you do?”
“I would buy my parents a
yacht. They’ve always wanted one or at
least my father has.”
“That’s great, but we’re talking
about you right now. What would you do
for Rita? New clothes?”
“Yes, but not anything like what I
own now. I have a wardrobe big enough to
clothe an army of women. It’s part of
the image, you know, not wearing the same outfit twice. I do it anyway, but I try to be careful as to
when and where.”
“What else?”
“I think I’d...”
“Yes?”
“I think I’d buy a house at Cannon Beach
and live here year around.”
She finally leaned back in her
chair, releasing me from her probing stare.
“It is a nice place, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. Are you thinking about staying here?”
She smiled slightly. “There’s that question again.”
“I’m sorry. I keep trying to pin you down. I’m just curious about your life. I can’t imagine anyone not liking Cannon Beach
enough to want to stay here forever.”
“I’m not sure I could stand the
weather for long periods of time.”
“You’d get used to it.”
“Yeah, and then I’d get bored with
it.”
“I don’t think I would ever get
bored with it. It seems to match my
mood.”
“But my moods change.”
“So do mine, and fortunately so does
the weather. I know there is a lot of
fog and drizzle, but I still think I’d like to live here year around at least
for a couple years to see what it’s really like.”
She leaned up again and placed a
hand on my knee, completely unnerving me.
“Then do it!”
Startled by the pressure of her hand
on my leg, I forgot what we were talking about.
“What?”
“Just do it! If it’s what you want, go for it. If you want to travel, then travel. If you want to live in Cannon Beach ,
then move here. You already have a house
here.” She sat back in her chair and
folded her arms across her chest.
Missing the warmth of her hand on my
knee, I said quietly, “It’s not that simple.”
“I never said it was simple. Do you think it was simple for me to sell my
house and most of my possessions? Do you
think it was simple to pick out just the right truck and camper set-up? Do you think it was simple to tell all my
family and friends ‘Hey, listen up, I’m going to live in a camper now? Here’s how you can get in contact with
me.’ Believe me, it wasn’t simple.”
“I suppose not. But I’ll have to think about it.”
“I highly recommend that. Just don’t lose your nerve. It will be much harder once you go back to Portland with Paul.”
I mulled over the idea of going
anywhere with Paul. I realized that
somewhere deep inside me was a person who was longing desperately to escape
from her prison. I wondered if she would
make it.
She leaned forward again, and I
wondered if she would put her hand back on my leg. Much to my disappointment, all she said was,
“Shall I drive you back to your place?”
“What? Oh, yes.
That would be kind of you.”
Her eyes were smiling when she
looked at me. “Got you thinking, didn’t
I? Well, that’s good. You just sleep on all that.” She patted my knee lightly then stood
up. “You want to ride in the cab or sit
back here in the comfort zone?”
“I’ll ride up front with you. I’d like to see the world through your
window.”
“Well, in that case, why don’t we
take a ride first?”
“Where to?”
“I don’t know. Let’s just drive, shall we?”
So we did just that. We headed south on 101 and drove along the
coast. We talked and talked as the miles
sped by. As we conversed, I found that
slowly but surely, Beth was peeling back the layers of my self-defensiveness and
knocking down the walls of assumption and projection. I learned a lot about myself that night.
Somewhere between Tillamook and Lincoln City , we found a coffee shop and propped
our eyelids open with a couple cups of java.
We decided then to head back before we were no longer able to find our
way for lack of sleep. We finally made
it back to Cannon
Beach around two in the
morning. By that time, we were feeling
pretty silly. Beth drove me home then
waited patiently while I searched my pockets for the keys to the cottage. When I realized I didn’t have them with me, I
looked at her and burst out laughing.
“I can’t get in without waking
Paul. I didn’t bring the keys with
me. I was just going to take a walk on
the beach then go to town for a few groceries.”
“Can you ring the doorbell?”
“There is no doorbell, and our
bedroom is on the ocean side of the house.
That side is on stilts because of the slope back there. I could throw rocks at the window, but Paul
is a very sound sleeper. I doubt he’d
hear me unless I actually broke the window, and I definitely don’t want to do
anything that drastic.”
“What do you want to do then? Can we get in through an open window?”
“Not unless Paul opened a window
after I left. They were all shut and
locked. He hates fresh air, for some
reason, so if he opened a window, it would be a first. I’ve spent fifteen years opening windows, and
he has spent it going around behind me closing them again.”
“Well, I guess we can sit up and
talk all night. I don’t have to be
anywhere tomorrow, and neither do you, I hope.”
“Hey, I’m on vacation. The only plans I had for tomorrow were for
sleeping late, walking on the beach, and maybe figuring out what we were going
to do for meals the rest of the week.”
“Do you want to leave Paul a note on
the front door so he won’t worry?”
“That’s a thought. I can slip something in the mail slot. That way he’ll find it, if he wakes up. Though I sincerely doubt he will wake
up. If he hasn’t missed me yet, he’s not
likely to miss me now.” I pulled a pen
out of my jacket pocket and started trying to scratch out a few words on the
back of an old bank deposit slip.
“Shouldn’t we try to knock, just in
case he’s up and is worried about you?”
“Paul worried about me? Don’t be silly. If he listened to the answering machine, he
will know what I’m up to, if not where I am exactly. Do you have anything to write with? This pen doesn’t seem to want to work.”
She reached over and opened the
glove compartment then handed me a ballpoint pen. “Here, I think this one works, though I
haven’t used it for a while.”
I scribbled a note explaining my
dilemma then got out of the truck and walked up to the front of the house. I tried to look in the windows, but couldn’t
see anything because all the lights were turned off except for the porch light. I slipped the note in the mail slot on the
door then went back to the truck.
“No sign of life within. He must be in bed.”
“Where to now?”
“I don’t know. I’m pretty tired.”
“Me too. I don’t think I can drive any more
tonight. We might end up in a ditch.”
“Can we go to your campground?”
“Sure. If you want, I can sleep in the chairs back
there, and you can sleep in the bed.”
“Don’t be silly. You sleep in the bed. I’ll sleep in the chairs.”
“Well, we can fight about that after
we get there. Hop in and fasten your
seatbelt, Rita. We’re going for another
ride.”
We drove to the campground, just
north of downtown Cannon
Beach . As we pulled in, our headlights shone on a
couple of raccoons playing in the trees above the campsite next to Beth’s. In the dark of night, the lush green trees of
the campground made the area look like an enchanted forest.
“Now don’t go messing around with
the raccoons when you get out. They look cute, but they can get pretty
feisty. Sometimes they carry
rabies. If you ever start feeding them,
they won’t leave you alone. Hurry
around to the door of the camper, and I’ll be right behind you.”
I did as she suggested. She came up behind me and unlocked the
door. She opened it and gestured for me
to go first. I wondered whether she
might be watching my backside as I stepped in ahead of her. For some inexplicable reason, I found myself
hoping she was. Once inside, she shut
and locked the door behind us. She told
me to sit down while she got things ready.
The camper was too small for both of us to be moving around at the same
time. She opened a drawer and pulled out
an unopened toothbrush.
“Here, I was about to switch
toothbrushes, but I’ll let you have it instead.”
“You don’t have to go to all that trouble.”
“It’s just a toothbrush, Rita, and I
assume you don’t happen to be carrying one on you.”
“No, I don’t generally carry one
everywhere I go. Thanks.” I took it from her and the toothpaste she’d
laid on the counter by the kitchen sink.
I brushed my teeth thoroughly then waited for her to do the same. I wasn’t really sure what to do while I
waited for her, but I didn’t want to situate myself on the chairs before she
got up into the bed above me.
I watched as she pulled back the
covers on the bed. Then she picked up
one of the pillows and was bringing it down with her.
Much to my surprise, I found myself
saying, “Look, we’re both adult women here.
I don’t mind sharing a bed, if you don’t.’
She stopped what she was doing to
look at me. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”
“But you have to grant me several
more points for that.”
She smiled a smile so radiant, it
would’ve made the sun jealous had it been around to see it. “You got it.
You get lots of points for that too.
I’ll even sleep next to the wall.
That way you can escape easier should my dreams cause me to become passionate
in my sleep.” She grinned slyly at me.
“You’re teasing me.”
“You’re getting better at figuring
that out.”
“I think your bark is worse than
your bite.”
“I wouldn’t say that exactly, but
let’s just say I don’t force myself on women.
That’s definitely not my style.”
“Then I’m safe.”
“For now, at least.” She winked at me and crawled up into the
loft.
Inside I was somewhat disappointed
that she had assured me so readily that she would be honorable. I found myself getting more and more curious
about what it would be like to be with a woman like Beth. She was intriguing, to say the least.
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