Allison (A Kane Novel) (40 page)

I didn’t say anything for several minutes, letting my eyes drink in the pristine landscape.  Despite the effort required to get there, I conceded that Mike had been right.  The view from the top
was
breathtaking.  In addition to the expanded horizons provided by our airy vantage, the torrent sluicing past touched a powerful chord of excitement within me.  Staring at the hypnotic arc as it fell to the pool far below, I felt as if I and the rocks and the whole world around us were vibrating with the thrum of some monstrous, well-oiled machine.  Lifting my eyes, I gazed at the sky, drawn by a flash of movement.  Wheeling above a distant ridge, a red-tailed hawk traced slow circles in the sky.

Noticing my glance, Mike leaned closer.  “There’s still plenty of wildlife around here,” he said, raising his voice to be heard above the roar of the water.  “Deer, coyotes, bobcats, even mountain lions.  But you have to be lucky to spot them.”

I tried to imagine the canyon as it must have been when the first Native Americans visited thousands of years ago.  I could almost believe that nothing had changed since then.  “Do you get up here often?” I asked.

“No.  I usually save coming up here for special occasions.”

“Like during a flood?”

“Sometimes,” Mike laughed.

“I suppose you bring all your girlfriends up here,” I remarked, immediately wishing I could retract my words.

“You’re the only one I’ve ever invited,” said Mike.  “I come here to be alone and think.  It’s always been a good place for me to work things out.”

“I have a place like this myself,” I confessed, surprised by his reply.  “My own spot where I go when I need to be alone.”

“Where is it?”

“The botanical garden at UCLA, across from my dorm,” I answered.  “A stream runs down the middle and there’s a waterfall there, too.  Nothing like this, but it’s beautiful too . . . and quiet.  There’s a bench just past a footbridge, right beneath the tallest tree in the exhibit.  From there you can’t see any of the campus buildings, or any of Westwood, either.  Just flowing water and stands of bamboo and beds of exotic plants.”

“Sounds nice.  Maybe I could visit it with you sometime.”

A gust whistled up the canyon, lifting my hair and raising a crop of goose bumps on my legs.  My nylon jacket had kept my upper body mostly dry, but my shorts were soaked, as were my shoes and socks.  Shivering, I lowered my head against the wind.  Seeing this, Mike scooted closer and put an arm around me.  I shifted uncomfortably, though I found I liked the feel of Mike’s touch.  And his arm around me
did
make me warmer, though not simply by shielding me from the wind.

For a time Mike and I sat enjoying the stormy morning.  Gradually, to the accompaniment of distant rolls of thunder, the sky darkened as yet another squall began sweeping onshore.  Soon clouds tangled the sun in shadow, sailing in like a menacing armada.  Seconds later it began to drizzle, threads of rain stitching the waterlogged hillsides around us.  Before we knew it, what had started as a gentle sprinkle turned into a pelting deluge.  Behind us, a creek that had been trickling down the slope abruptly swelled, carrying down a clatter of rocks and gravel from higher up.

Mike glanced up the hillside, then at the roaring stream spilling over the falls.  “We have to get out of here,” he said.

“Do I detect a note of urgency?” I asked.

“If the water rises much more—and it will if it keeps pouring like this—we won’t make it out,” Mike answered tersely.  “Sorry, Ali.  I didn’t think it would start raining again till later.”

“Can’t we climb up and find a trail higher on the ridge?” I asked nervously.

Mike stood, pulling me to my feet.  “Maybe farther down.  The canyon’s too steep here.  Let’s go.”

Mike and I retreated through the boulder caves, pausing when we came to the rope ledge overlooking the pool.  My breath caught as I stared over the sheer drop.

“I’ll go first,” said Mike.  Without awaiting a reply, he grabbed the rope and leaned backward.  Feet against the sandstone wall, he rapidly worked his way down, quickly arriving at the edge of the pool.  “You ready?” he shouted up the face, taking a position below me at the base of the cliff.

“Not really,” I called back, my stomach churning as I placed my hands on the top knot.  Belatedly remembering that Travis had once told me that down-climbing is often more difficult than going up, I backed to the edge of the precipice, sensing the void looming behind me.  I hesitated when my heels reached the drop-off.

“You can do it,” Mike yelled, cupping his hands to his mouth.

A streak of lightning sizzled across the sky, striking a ridge not a half-mile distant.  An instant later the thunderclap startled me into action.  Narrowing my eyes against the rain, I leaned back and began inching my feet down the wall.

Fear and adrenaline gave me an initial burst of strength.  Nevertheless, my hands and forearms, exhausted from the climb up, soon cramped.  Worse, rain had wet the rope, making it difficult to grasp.  In an effort to descend more quickly, I accidentally let one of my feet slip off the rock.  The other foot quickly followed.  A heartbeat later I found myself dangling, suspended only by my hands.  I glanced down, instantly wishing I hadn’t.  I attempted to get my feet back on the wall.  Couldn’t.  Willing myself not to panic, I struggled to wrap my legs around the rope, trying to keep from falling.  No good.

“Slide down the rope, Ali.”

“I . . . I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.  I’ll catch you if you fall.”

I knew I had to do something.  Soon.  My hands were failing.  My legs were all but useless on the slick rope.

“Move, Ali.  Now!”

I forced myself to slacken my grip.  I began sliding downward.  Slowly, I descended in jerky stops from knot to knot.

I eased down several feet.

And another foot.

And another.

Nearing the rocks below, my grip suddenly gave out.  I was falling!  I heard myself scream as the slippery knots began banging through my hands . . .

Mike’s strong arms caught me before I hit the ground.

Unnerved by my fall, I lay in Mike’s embrace, resisting the impulse to bury my face in his chest.  Gently, Mike set me on my feet.  “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I replied shakily, grateful for Mike’s strength and filled with a new respect for Travis’s sport of rock climbing.  That, and the realization that it was definitely not for me.

“Good.”  Mike brushed a dripping strand of hair from my face.  “Let’s get out of here.”

With Mike in the lead, we fought our way downstream, at times crossing waist-deep torrents, at times circumventing narrow sections by scrambling up slick, muddy slopes—all the while pelted by the wind-whipped downpour.  After what seemed like hours, we finally arrived back at Mike’s truck—wet, tired, chilled to the bone, and laughing at our folly.

“I swear, Mr. Cortese,” I said, attempting to wipe a spatter of mud from my legs, “you sure know how to show a girl a good time.”

“Glad you enjoyed it,” Mike replied, scraping his boots on the curb beside his Toyota.  “I’ll be sure to call you when we get our next monsoon.”

“You do that,” I retorted, still shaken by my fall but giddy with relief that we had made it back.  Then, gazing at my filthy hiking shoes and mud-smeared legs, “In the meantime, is there somewhere I can hose off before going home?”

“We can clean up at my place,” said Mike.  “It’s on the way.”

27

Mike’s house, a modest, one-story bungalow that he had inherited from his parents, sat behind a hedge of holly trees on the corner of Galloway and one of the east-west streets dividing Pacific Palisades above Sunset Boulevard.  Though small, the house was attractive and well maintained, with stained-glass windows, hardwood floors, and white plastered interior walls that curved at the top to spacious, nine-foot ceilings.  The rain had stopped by the time we arrived, at least for the moment.  Mike cleaned our boots with a hose near the garage, then offered to toss my mud-encrusted clothes into the washer while I warmed myself in a hot shower.  Still shivering from our hike, I gratefully accepted.

Twenty minutes later, my skin pink and tingling from the shower, I dried myself with a thick towel, brushed my hair back from my forehead, and pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a soft cotton workshirt that Mike had given me to wear while my clothes were drying.  Not finding him when I padded barefoot from the bathroom, I wandered into the living room, idly checking the contents of an oak bookcase against the far wall.  Three upper shelves contained hardcover novels by popular authors:  Clancy, Grisham, Conroy, King.  Another held a collection of leather-bound classics by Stevenson, Melville, Dickens, and the like.  But it was a small section of books on the bottom shelf that caught my eye.

Kneeling, I scanned the titles.  All were texts on advanced mathematics.  Recalling that Mike had mentioned being a math major in college before switching to film, I pulled out a volume on differential equations and flipped through several pages of indecipherable symbols, then replaced it on the shelf.

“Planning a career in science?”

I turned to find Mike standing in the doorway.  He had showered and changed from his muddy clothes as well, and he was now wearing sandals, jeans, and a denim shirt.  Though he had made an attempt to comb his thick black hair, it still looked disheveled.  “Science?  Not hardly,” I answered with a smile.  “Speaking of which, where’s your slide rule?”

Mike grinned.  “Gave it up years ago, along with my pocket protector,” he answered good-naturedly.  “Besides, nobody uses slide rules anymore.  It’s all hand-held calculators now.  You want something to drink while we’re waiting for your clothes?  They still have a bit to go in the dryer.”

“What do you have?”

“Coffee, Coke, juice, and milk.  I can make sandwiches too, if you want.”

“I’m not hungry, but something to drink would be nice,” I replied.  “Do you have anything stronger than Coke?”  Though I had yet to reach legal drinking age, while at UCLA I’d attended parties where liquor flowed freely, and on occasion I had joined in—at times getting more than a bit tipsy.  That notwithstanding, I didn’t consider myself much of a drinker, and I wondered why I had asked.  With an embarrassing flash of insight, I realized it probably had something to do with proving to Mike that I wasn’t a kid.

Mike raised an eyebrow.  “Something stronger?  What do you have in mind?”

Wishing I hadn’t asked, I struggled to think of an appropriate drink.  “How about some brandy?  That’s supposed to warm you up, isn’t it?”

“It’ll do that, all right,” Mike agreed.  “Hang on.  Two brandies coming up.”

After Mike left, I continued my tour of the living room, perusing a gallery of black-and-white photographs on the walls.  Some were landscape portraits of areas I recognized as Joshua Tree National Monument, Glen Canyon, and Death Valley; others detailed vaguely familiar sections of Los Angeles.  But most of Mike’s photographs were of people, all kinds of people—men and women, children and adults—each uniquely seeming to fit the scene in which he or she had been captured.  One showed a grizzled old man fishing from the Malibu pier; another was of a youngster bending to examine a crab on the beach; a third portrayed a lovely woman sitting in a wicker chair, her eyes shining with what appeared to be a melancholy mix of love and regret.

Mike returned minutes later, a cut-glass snifter in each hand.  “Here you go,” he said, passing a glass to me.  “Cheers.”

I touched the rim of my snifter to Mike’s, swirled the amber liquid, and took a sip.  The fumes stung my nose.  Determined not to betray my inexperience, I swallowed, the fiery liquor burning my throat and lodging like a white-hot coal in my stomach.  “Good,” I choked, my eyes watering.

“That it is,” Mike agreed, politely pretending not to notice my distress.  “I saw you checking my photos.  What do you think?”

“I like them,” I said when I had recovered enough to talk.  “Especially the ones of people.  There’s something in them that makes me feel, I don’t know—as if I’d like to get to know the subjects.  Who’s this, for instance?” I asked, pointing to the photograph of the woman in the wicker chair.  “She’s quite beautiful.”

“That’s my mom.  I took it the year she died.”

“I’m sorry.  I didn’t know.  She looks so young.”

“She was.”

To fill the awkward moment, I took another sip of brandy.  This time it went down more easily.  Curious, I again examined the photo of Mike’s mother, wondering about the look in her eyes.  “How did she die?”

“Breast cancer.”

I felt a chill, realizing that the parallels between my life and Mike’s ran deeper than I thought.  A father on the force, a mother with cancer . . .   “My mother isn’t much older than yours was when she died,” I observed numbly.

“I know.  Don’t worry, Ali.  Your mom is going to recover.”

“I hope so.”

“She will,” Mike repeated firmly.  Then, lightening his tone, “Listen, we still have some time before your clothes are dry.  Let’s go into the den.  There’s something I want to show you.”

I raised an eyebrow.  “Your etchings?”

Mike chuckled.  “No, my documentary.  I have it on DVD.  I’m not done making last-minute revisions, but I would love to hear what you think.”

Welcoming the diversion, I trailed Mike down a short hallway, passing a spacious bedroom on the way.  I glanced through the open door, noting a rack of surfboards in one corner, a set of weights and an exercise bench in another, and a large bed against the far wall.  Continuing on, we reached a cozy chamber just off the entry.  To the left beneath leaded-glass windows, a couch and coffee table took up most of the small room.  Opposite the couch was a floor-to-ceiling bookcase packed with DVDs, CDs, and various pieces of electronic equipment including a large-screen TV.  After closing the drapes to darken the room, Mike turned on the TV.

“What’s your film about?” I asked, settling myself on the couch and curling my legs beneath me.

Mike shoved a DVD into the player.  “The Los Angeles River.  Ever hear of it?”