The girl shrugged. “Sometimes I think maybe this is just a movie we’re in.”
“No, Tommie, this is real. Real arms. Real legs. Real trees.”
“Okay.”
“None of this will matter to you the way it should if you start thinking it’s just some movie. You’re not pretending, are you?”
“No.”
“Promise?”
She laughed. “Swear.”
“What I was going to ask you,” he said, “was if your mother would like my face. Because wouldn’t that be the perfect solution,” he said, “to our little problem?”
The girl tipped her head at him. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Maybe when we get back, when I take you back, we could rig things so I meet your mother. What do you say to that?”
“Yeah.”
“Maybe—and I don’t want to get ahead of myself here, because you’d have to say yes first—but maybe we could have a small, private wedding. On a green green lawn. Or no. In a house with big windows, and all snowy outside. And beautiful fine china, and roasted duck. Right? And your mother in a beautiful white cape. And you in red velvet. Or blue. What do you think? Blue or red?”
“Red.”
“And I’ll buy her a big beautiful house and get her three maids just to help her dress in the morning, and she’ll never have to work another day in her life. How about that?”
“Oh, my God, she’d love you.”
“And we’ll have horses.”
“But maybe you wouldn’t like her face.”
“I think I’ve already seen it.”
“You have?”
“Does she have short dark hair?” He made a motion with his hands, cutting the hair at chin length.
“Yes.”
“I have to make a confession, Tommie. Don’t be mad. I went over there the night you were waiting for me at the hotel.”
“To ask if I could go with you?”
“What? No. No, not like that. I just wanted to think about whether it was a bad idea, what we were about to do. I wanted to put my face right up to the facts: that you’re eleven, and your parents—your mom—would be waiting for you in the apartment. I wanted to make myself really think about that. You understand?” He turned to face her.
“Yes.”
“It’s the only way to do this. We have to be honest about these things.”
“I know.”
“I saw a young woman and man there. I thought maybe it was your mom and Jessie.”
“Probably it was.”
“And Tom, here’s my real confession, okay?” She watched him. “Ever since that moment?” He paused and looked up.
“What?”
He looked at her. “Ever since that moment, Tom, I’ve been haunted by her beauty.”
“My mom?”
“Your mother, yes. Don’t you think she’s beautiful?”
“I guess.”
“You guess. Let me tell you something. She is. And I’m an expert on such matters.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“You already told me that one.”
He put his thumb and forefinger beneath her chin and lifted her face. “Look at me. We know the facts, right?” She nodded. “And we’re proceeding with due caution, right?”
“Yes.”
“Because we love this world. And everybody in it.”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He let go her head, put his hand on top of her hair. “So we’re all saddled up pushing on. Because it’s what people like you and me do.”
He drove into the night, along a cursive pass etched in granite, above the stands of green-fingered oaks and red-beaded hawthorns and all the aspen, above the trees that listed to the southeast, needled black along one side, twisted and deformed by forbidding glacial wind, and between great planed walls of rock dressed in little aprons of snow and shattered stone sliding down onto the road.
The rock walls flattened as they crested the pass, and they slowly descended through the sparse coniferous trees, silver needles flashing mutely in the car light. They wound down past the neon yellow road signs and steep grade warnings and through the pines again and back to where the aspen were still yellow and pale green.
“It’s scary up here.”
“Well.” He watched the road. “It’s severe, is what it is. And high.”
“How high?”
“Twelve, thirteen thousand feet. That’s over two miles high.”
“I know that.”
“I forget sometimes how smart you are.” He glanced at her and back to the road. “Know what happens now that we’re over the top of the mountain? All the rivers start running the other way.”
“Big whoop.”
“And birds over here are much bigger. Turkey vultures and eagles and owls and hawks.”
“Bears?”
“Yes. And cattle.”
“We’ve seen that.”
“Not like this. Over here, they’re twice the size, and all over the mountains, in the trees, and swimming in the creeks up to their necks.”
“No way.”
“Forest cattle.”
“You’re lying.”
“In late fall, guys like me come out and hunt hamburger.”
“Yeah, right.”
“You watch,” he said. “See if you don’t catch a glimpse of huge furry cows peering back at you through the trees, their beautiful velvet ears stapled with plastic tags, thick straight hair hanging down around their faces.”
“I love this.”
“Oh, you dear.” He glanced at her again. “That is the best thing I’ve heard in years.” For a minute he was quiet. “It really is,” he said. “And don’t think that’s an easy thing to admit.”
He let her drift in and out of sleep until they came to a tiny town perched on the green slopes of a little river valley. It was very cold, clear black. Huge wind scraped through the dark grassy bowl, rocking the truck where he parked it outside a small, dim-lit motel. Tommie snoozed in the warm truck while he checked them in, and when he opened the passenger door for her and she stepped out, the wind took her off balance.
“Calling Mr. Sandman,” he said, catching her beneath the arm.
“Don’t,” she said, looking up at him, the whites of her eyes bright in the dark. “I hate that guy.”
“I know,” he said. “Me too.”
“Where are we?”
“Encampment.”
“It’s so dark.”
“Look up.”
“Whoa.” They stood in the open, she leaning against him, tucked into the crook of his arm, a wash of stars spilling above them. “I’ve never seen so many.”
“I know you haven’t.” Their chins tipped up in the dark.
“It makes you feel like, what way is up?”
“It doesn’t get like this at home. Not with all those city lights.” He squeezed her closer. “Come on. Let’s get out of the cold.”
He took their gear and led her through a flimsy, blue-painted motel door and locked it behind them. It was musty, reeked of cigarettes and Pine-Sol. Lamb cranked up the heat and went into the bathroom counting backwards while she took off her blue jeans and yellow sweater and folded them carefully over the back of the chair and climbed into one of the double beds. The toilet flushed, the bathroom door opened.
“Asleep already?”
“Mmm.”
“I had an idea.” He picked up her unfinished coffee and carried it over to the bedside. She shook her head, eyes closed. “I thought we could write postcards.”
She opened her eyes. “To my mom and Jessie?”
“And Jenny and Sid.”
She wiggled up against the pillow. “Can’t we do it in the morning?”
He bent over her to fluff the pillow and held the Styrofoam cup to her lips. “Come on,” he said. “One good gulp will fuel you and I won’t be lonely till I get tired, right?”
She turned her head and caught the cup with her hand, pushing it away, dumping half the cold muddy coffee down her chest. Coffee beaded on the bedspread and ran down her chest and bare arm.