Calling Out (17 page)

“Hey, do you need some help with that?” I ask Ralf,
who's pulling up the rear, his pack clanking with all the
bottles. He smiles broadly and shakes his head “no.”

“Come on, you guys,” Ember calls, leading the way.
“The quicker we get there, the quicker we eat.”

There's something disorienting about how present
Ember is with no drugs; out here in the midst of bare trees
and ice and mountains, I feel as if I don't know her at all.

“What's wrong?” Ford asks me.

“Nothing,” I say. “It's just cold.”

We cross around the southern side of the lake and the
incisive high-altitude sun zeroes in and burns my nose
and cheeks. About fifty yards back from the lake, a small
signpost poking out of the snow marks the beginning of
the mile-long trail up into the woods. The sight of it adds
twenty pounds to my pack.

“Am I the only one who's tired?” I ask, with rasping
breaths. Snow clings to my jeans from my knees on down.
My toes are already numb.

“Come on, Jane, you're not ninety,” Ember says,
motioning me to come along with her scooped hand. “I'm
sure Ralf would carry you if you asked.” She flashes me a
toothy grin, and I give her the finger, which she can't see
through my mitten.

“What's that?” Ralf asks, clanking up the rear.

“Nothing,” I say.

Ember laughs and launches up the sloping trail with
Ford at her heels.

As we climb, the trail cuts through trees and then
crosses back over a small open meadow at an easy rise. It
is snow-covered and quiet, with only an occasional cry
from a hawk and the muted padding of deer hooves
scrambling and leaping through the snow in reaction to
our appearance. None of us talk but we catch each other's
eyes and smile.

When we get to the steep part of the trail, the last
quarter mile before Summer Lake, it's a struggle to find
purchase on the snow-buried, gnarled tree roots and
rocks. I pull myself up, foot by foot, muscling my way,
using the young trees and smooth branches for leverage.
Ford's outdoorsman skills are an impressive sight; he
looks like he belongs, maneuvering with confident grace,
completely at ease out here. Unself-conscious among the
elements. It makes me want to cry. I have wasted our time
together, and now he is going away.

By the time we make it to Summer Lake, my legs are
rubbery-weak and I'm gulping for oxygen. Ember
unhooks herself from her pack and collapses in a heap
right into the snow. Ralf and Ford have fared much better
and go straight for the whiskey before even making our
little camp. After a silence, Ralf raises the bottle.

“Farewell to our incomparable friend Ford,” he says
and takes a long swallow from the bottle.

“It's not my funeral,” Ford says.

I go for the tarp in my pack and spread it over a flat
spot with a view of the small frozen lake through a cluster
of pines. Ember has the sleeping bags, which puff up
when she pulls them from their cases. Ford expertly sets
up the stove while Ralf rights the various bottles to
fashion a minibar. Ember reaches for the whiskey and
plants it by her side.

With the stove aflame, and the steaks hanging off the
sides of the tiny grill, we angle our cocooned bodies like a
pinwheel around the fire, with our heads in a center
cluster.

“It's not like I'm moving to the moon,” Ford says.
“Moab's only four and half hours away.”

“We'll visit,” Ralf says. “Sometime.”

Not happy with the turn of the conversation, Ember
switches into hostess mode.

“First, down the hatch. Everyone.”

I finish my whiskey and my eyes water.

“Okay. Now, Jane, tell us what Ford was like when you
met him.”

“He skateboarded to class,” I say. “And his hair was
really long. To hit on girls he would use what he called the
ring trick. ‘Hey, that's a pretty ring,' he'd say, fondling some
poor girl's finger, ‘Did your boyfriend give it to you?'”

“It worked. On occasion,” Ford says.

“Did it work on you?” Ember asks me.

“No way, I knew his angle.”

“Ford, tell us something about Jane,” Ember says.

“Oh no,” I say.

“Jane, shush,” she says.

“We don't have to play this game, do we?” Ralf asks
meekly.

Ember ruffles his hair.

“She liked a swimmer dude on my hall,” Ford says.
“She was aloof. In her flowy skirts and ankle bracelets.
Didn't give me the time of day.”

“I was thinking more about when you two got hot
and heavy,” Ember says.

Ford hovers between his loyalties, torn between our
history, Ember's dare, and Ralf 's sensitivity. Ember casts
her expectant eyes toward Ford, and Ralf attempts a laugh
to overcome his discomfort.

“It took some time,” Ford says. I search out his eyes in
the distorting blur above the fire.

“Before you could get in her pants,” Ember cuts in.

I glance over to Ralf who has turned a fierce shade of
crimson.

“No,” Ford says. “It took a while before we became
friends. Before it stuck.” He is quiet in his sincerity.

I try to smile. I don't ask him if his opinion has
changed over the years. I don't ask him if he has ever been
disappointed.

“You guys are no fun,” Ember says.

Ralf, relieved, snaps back to life and flips the steaks,
moving the still-raw ones toward the middle. We pass a
bottle. Within minutes, a light dusty snow begins to fall.
Ember kisses Ford but it has a sad, loaded quality that
makes me feel like a voyeur.

“Hey, Jane, let's take a look at the lake,” Ralf says.
“While lunch cooks.”

We put on our shoes and he holds out his hand to
help me up.

Up on a small embankment above the frozen lake, I
pull Ralf close with an arm around his middle.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi.”

Heavy quiet fills the space between us.

“In 1833, God gave a law of health to Joseph Smith.
The Word of Wisdom. Physical and spiritual health by
abstaining from tobacco, alcohol, coffee, tea, and illegal
drugs. If it turns out to be true, we're all pretty much
doomed,” he says.

There is another long pause.

“I need to tell you something,” I say.

Ralf looks at me.

“I started escorting.”

“Oh,” he says.

He looks back over his shoulder at the lovebirds then
back out at the lake.

“I'm not just on the phone anymore. I go out—”
“I get it. I don't want to know the details.”

He eases out of my grip and reaches for a rock, which
he proceeds to chuck as far as he can out onto the lake,
sending it skidding across the ice.

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you before,” I say.

“Hey, it's cool,” he says. “It's cool.”

I don't know what to say. I feel like burrowing into the
nearest foxhole.

“Is it the money?” he asks, turning to me. “Is that it?”

I let out a breath.

“Yeah, partly,” I say. “I don't know, Ralf.”

His face is mottled and his eyes shift darker. It's as if
his whole face is being pulled down as I watch. His eyes
droop, his mouth sags. I turn away and look down at
small, oblong rabbit tracks that crisscross the top of the
snow and head off under the sheltering pines.

“Huh,” he says.

“Are you mad?” I ask.

“Mad? That's a weird thing to ask.”

I squat and reach for my own rock to throw. The first
big snowflakes have begun to fall.

“We're still friends, right?” I ask him lamely. I throw
the rock but it gets stuck in a pine branch.

“Of course we are,” he says. “I'm fine, Jane. Really. It's
no problem.”

But I can see from his retreating eyes that he is
crushed. Ralf laces his fingers and rests them on his head,
then lets his arms fall.

“Tell me something Mormon,” I say quietly.

His smile looks bitter now, one side tugging upward
without the strength to pull up the other side.

“How about we try to crack the ice with this one?”
Ralf kicks a large chunk of granite submerged in snow
and frozen earth. “What do you say? Do you think I can
do it?”

I smile and Ralf crouches down to wrench it free. He
pulls up on the rock, discarding his gloves for a better
grip, his knuckles white from strain. Like a weight lifter,
he cleans-and-jerks it first to shoulder level, then above
his head. With a few steps, he hurls it out onto the icedover lake, where it lands with a deadened thwack. I hear a
long, chills-inducing squeak and pop before I see the
crack shoot toward us from where the boulder hit. It
tracks us all the way to the shore.

“How about that,” he says.

“Hi Mom.”

“Hi honey. Sorry I haven't called you back. I'm
making a coffee cake for brunch tomorrow at the Walters.
But I can't seem to find—oh there it is.”

“Pecan or blueberry?”

“Blueberry. Karen claims to be allergic to nuts.”

A dish clatters.

“I have some bad news,” I say.

“Is everything okay? What's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong, don't worry. But I don't think I can
make it home for Christmas.”

“What? Oh no, Jane, really? Why not? Your sister's
arriving tomorrow. The tree's already up.”

“I know, I'm sorry. It's just a crazy season at work. I
thought I'd be able to swing it but it's not looking too
promising.”

Frost has taken up on the corners of the windows,
glittering in the light from streetlamp.

“I just don't understand a job that won't let you go
home for Christmas.”

“I think it will slow down in the new year. I'm sorry,
Mom.”

She sighs. “It's the first Christmas we won't all be
together.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “I know.”

“I'd let you say hello to your father but he's already
asleep,” she says.

I hear her open a cupboard door.

“Janie, are you okay? You're so quiet.”

“Yeah. I'm fine.”

“Well, all right, if you say so. Oh shoot, I knew I
should have gotten more butter. Do you think I can substitute olive oil for some of it?”

Nikyla, fresh from her manager shift at the mall, is in a
suit and her black hair is pulled neatly in a low ponytail.
Despite my ten-year age advantage, I feel younger than
she is as I settle next to her on the couch.

“How long has it been for you here?” I ask.

“Eight and a half months. Three and a half months to
go,” she says.

“So exact.”

“That's the plan.”

“Do you ever think about the girls that quit? Like do
you wonder what happens to them, or think you pass
them in the street? They just seem to drop off the radar
when they leave.”

“I like to think they went on to do what they wanted.
In a play on Broadway, maybe, or living in Paris, or married with two kids.” She smiles. “And if they can do it, so
can I.”

Mohammed wanders in from the back, working out
the Christmas schedule on the side of an envelope.

“Remember the one that started right after Thanksgiving. Pamela?” I ask. “I wonder about her. I wonder if
her boyfriend came back or if she moved to Kansas or if
she got a job in a doctor's office. Who knows? She could
be sailing around the world.”

“She's working over at Baby Dolls,” Nikyla says.

“No way,” I say.

“It is the truth,” Mohammed chimes in.

“She was so devastated that first time she went out.
She said she couldn't do it anymore,” I say.

“You give these girls too much credit,” he says.

“Watch it. I'm one of ‘these girls,'” I say.

Nikyla smiles.

“So you are.” Mohammed rubs his chin.

“She looks better,” Nikyla says. “Pamela. Or whatever
her real name is. I ran into her at the mall a couple weeks
ago. She didn't know I worked there.”

Mohammed looks down at the empty holiday
schedule.

“I can work Christmas Eve and Christmas,” I say.

“You are volunteering?” he asks. “This is very peculiar.” He walks out of the office shaking his head.

Nikyla pats my knee.

“I have to go. One-year anniversary tonight. When
Jezebel gets here will you tell her to call me on my cell?”

A half hour later Jezebel comes in before going downtown to the Hyatt to meet her date, a semi-regular who
comes into town every couple months and only wants
blonds. It's the first I've seen her since her arrest. She's in
a tame getup for her—black pants and tank top—beneath
her puffy white coat.

“Where's Albee?” I ask.

“My mom's got him. I waited until she was drunk so
I knew she'd say yes,” she says, slumping down into the
couch. “You didn't tell Mohammed, did you?” she asks.

“Course not,” I say.

Jezebel dangles her shoe on her sloppily painted pink
toe and scowls.

“What's wrong?”

“I was sort of dating this guy, hooking up, whatever.
Jared. Really cute. But he hasn't called in, like, four days.”

“What happened?” I ask.

She lowers her head and looks up at me.

“What do you think?”

“You told him?” I ask.

“I didn't think it would be a big deal. He was talking
about how he dated a stripper once and he thought it was
hot, so I told him.”

Sunk in between the couch cushions and buried within
the down fluff of her jacket, she looks swallowed up.

“You're just a kid, you know,” I say. “One day this will
all just be some crazy thing you did when you were young.
A shocking little story you'll like to tell.”