Range of Light (25 page)

“Your dignity!” I squinted into the sun toward her.

“You're the one with dignity, with class. Who am I in comparison?”

“Spare me, Miss Big Pride. Miss Always in Control.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about.”

I watched her resolve wearing down. I walked five yards. “See, over here, we'll be shaded from human curiosity.” I pulled off one shoe and sock, then stuck my foot in the water.

“Good way to break your neck,” Kath called. Never a diver, she slipped into the water carefully, as if opening bedsheets. Soon she surfaced, her hair sleeked back. “Brisk.” The short word almost concealed her chattering teeth.

“You get used to it,” I bluffed.

Kath ducked under the water, a river otter cruising the shoals. Suddenly she had my arm and was pulling, pulling me beneath the surface. We faced each other in the cool, gray underworld for a couple of seconds before popping up for air.

Then I caught hold of her ankle. She almost got away before I drew her, whoosh, under the water. We came up again at the same time, laughing, sputtering.

“Oh, that felt good.” I sighed, doing an elementary backstroke to keep afloat. “I think I'm going to sunbathe for a while.”

“See you in a minute. I hate to say it, but this actually feels good on my shoulders and neck.”

Sitting forward, I watched Kath's strong, determined strokes, the solid brown shoulders, the certain, precise pivot of her arms. Kath had always had a lean, elegant body, and today she moved with effortless grace, alternating her laps with different strokes: crawl, breast, side. Only one day left and we still hadn't acknowledged any sexual feelings. Kath had felt something, I was sure. Was her silence—and mine—from wisdom or repression? Were we two stodgy matrons who had lost their candor? No, that wasn't it. We were understandably cautious about our fragile, renewed friendship. For my part, I didn't know how much of this strange, sensual connection was simply rediscovered pleasure in our close friendship. And Kath? One thing the last week—the last twenty years—had taught me is that I couldn't read her mind. I lay back, soaking up the hot, four o'clock sun. Ohhhh. I imagined a life where people lived in this glory all the time, where when you wanted to bathe, you slipped into cool, clean mountain water.

When I awoke,
Kath was
studying my face. Somewhere in the background: the strange sound of bells. Yesterday, there was something, yesterday. Her gaze was intense, worried?

“What is it?” I asked, alarmed, running a hand over my forehead.

“Nothing.” Kath turned away and closed her eyes in embarrassment.

“Is something wrong?”

“No,” Kath said, “nothing's wrong. I, well, I was just remembering what you said about changing. How are you different?”

I sat up. “A minute ago, I was inspecting my thighs; they've grown more lavish with the years.”

Kath shook her head. “You've always had a beautiful body. You've always torn yourself up.”

I blushed and noticed Kath's face was also red. “Well, it's a body that seems pretty comfortable in California.”

Kath lowered her head against the rock, eyes closed, waiting. A ribbon of sunlight was draped across her body, then suddenly it was lifted away by a passing cloud.

I fell silent, damning my impetuousness, then became distracted by a small juniper bush growing out of a chunk of granite.

Kath persisted. “Comfortable in California. So that means you're glad you made the trip?”

I took in her worried countenance and the thumping of a pileated woodpecker in a tall sequoia.

I nodded. “Very glad.”

Kath's shoulders relaxed against the warm rock. A breeze carried the scent of river water and her familiar sweat.

“And”—I was sitting up now—“and it means I'm coming back.”

I didn't dare look in her face as my voice careened ahead. “I can always experiment for a year, get a leave from Wellesley. Lou and I can try commuting. He can look for something here. We can see what living apart feels like.”

I listened to the air going in and out of my nostrils. I concentrated on the benign afternoon. On the smooth and pitted surface of the boulders. The faint aroma of lemongrass in the air. I was coming back home to the West. The world was bold and fragrant with August yellow-green.

“Of course I couldn't come home this year. I'm already booked for courses, and the boys are set up in their school. But next year, yes, I'm sure they'll jump at the adventure. I want Taylor and Simon to see my country: the California tulip trees, the almond blossoms, the hibiscus.”

Kath looked at me, looked down. Then she uttered something inaudible.

“Pardon?”

She spoke more boldly, “I have a double-ruffled hibiscus in my backyard.”

“Double-ruffled!” I laughed. “I'll have to see that.”

“Yes.” Kath nodded. “And a wall of bougainvillea.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Kath

Tuesday Evening / Tuolumne Meadows

DINNER AT TUOLUMNE LODGE
was always substantial and usually late. I waited by the cold woodstove, saving a canvas chair for Adele as she ordered us each a glass of wine. While most people joined community-style at large, round tables, we had asked for a smaller table by ourselves off to the side. There was a lot to talk about. I felt agitated about her decision. Two miracles were enough: Adele rescued and our friendship restored. I'd ask for nothing more. Still, I could hope. Tentatively I touched the sunburn on my back.

Adele held the two glasses out in front of her, maneuvering around the stands of books and candies, squeezing past a young couple selecting perfect postcards. The complicated tensions of the last few days were beginning to register. I was shaky and exhausted.

My heart clenched as I saw the tall figure with a camera around his neck push open the screen door. Sleeves rolled up, a clean headband around his curly hair, Sandy was a handsome man. I considered disappearing out the kitchen door. After all, I'd witnessed this same scene too many times. He was greeting Adele now, giving her a chaste peck on the cheek, taking one of the drinks from her. I fantasized grabbing both glasses and pouring them over him. Even as my mind romped, I composed a mature greeting.

“Oh, Kath.” Adele stood in front of me, grinning, delivering him as if he were a bouquet of flowers. “Sandy found us through that odd woman at the infirmary. He said he got back from searching too late to make the trip down here last night.”

“Lucky we're still around,” I said neutrally. I hated my stinginess. He
had
been a big help.

“Yeah.” His voice seemed to fill the room. “I assumed it was hopeless, that you'd take off at the crack of dawn for the conference.”

“What am I thinking about?” Adele said. “Here, Sandy, you take my wine and I'll get another.”

“No, no thanks,” Sandy said. “I don't drink. You go right ahead. It's great to see you looking so well.” He beamed. “I mean, I don't want to be gruesome; yeah, I'll spare you my morbid worries.”

Adele shifted. “I'm sorry I scared you—both of you—it must have been dreadful.”

I sat watching the two of them, feeling twelve years old—timid, pouting, confused. I should have stood. It would have been more polite, but I felt weighted to the chair.

“Thanks for leaving the message on my backpack.” Sandy turned to me. “I was so damned relieved to get it.”

He smiled at Adele.

She blushed.

“Sure,” I said, and experiencing genuine remorse, “sorry I couldn't wait for you.”

“Oh, no.” His face lit up at my friendliness. “You were right to go ahead. I stayed out searching till after dark.”

I gulped, kicking myself for creating another platform for his heroism. Jesus, how could I be so petty?

“And I was overjoyed when I got back to camp, to your note.” He grinned.

“You were a real help,” I said, pleasantly surprised by my generosity. “A big support.”

Adele looked from one of us to the other, smiling. “Well, here we all are.” Then, maybe miscalculating my new appreciation for Sandy, she said, “Why don't you join us for supper?” She was sipping the wine. “I'm sure we'd both like that.”

She turned to me.

Silence.

“Don't worry”—he intervened—“you've already made your reservations. They're hard to change here.”

Adele stared at me. I looked down.

Eyes glued to my mud-streaked boots, I tried to lift my head, tried to sound cordial, but all I could manage was a grudging, “Sure” addressed to our collective shoelaces.

Sandy glanced at the floor, then at his watch. “No, better not. Should get back to the city tonight. “But, hey.” He reached in his pocket and handed a card to Adele. “I put my home address on the other side. In case you get back to California. In case you take up that Berkeley offer or whatever.”

“Yes,” Adele answered warmly. “And here's my home phone. Unlisted.” She scribbled the number on the wine receipt. “In case you get to Cambridge.”

“May do.” He snapped his headband in a wacky salute that even I found charming. “Take care. Both of you.”

I stood to shake his hand but instead found myself drawn into the same kind of awkward hug he gave Adele.

Adele watched him stride across the room. He resembled those WASP male monologuists Spalding Gray and Garrison Keillor, who always made me wonder how people with such mundane lives had so much to say about themselves.

“That wasn't very nice,” Adele said once the screen door had wheezed shut behind him.

“Pardon?”

“Not including him in dinner.” She sipped her wine.

“What are you talking about?” I retorted in the grip of my old belligerence. “I said ‘sure.' ” Why did we have to keep interrupting our trip? What did I owe him? I didn't know if I should be proud of getting rid of him or contrite.

“ ‘Sure!' What kind of invitation is that?”

“I thought this dinner was supposed to be your welcome-back evening. We asked for a table for two. I didn't know we were adding people off the street.” I collapsed in the chair.

She perched beside me. “Kath, be fair. He's hardly a person off the street.”

“Off the trail, then.”

“He's more than that and you know it.”

“Well, I'm sure you can catch him. Go ahead. Maybe you'd rather eat with him than with me.”

“I didn't say that.”

“So what
is
he to you? How much of coming back to California is seeing Sandy again?”

“Kath.” She glared at me. “Be serious. I hardly know the guy.”

“Then why did you ask him to join us?”

Adele was also clearly pissed off. “How about he just spent the day wandering the wilderness looking for me?”

This anger gave me pleasure as we faced each other with nothing between us.

“Peterson, party of two.” An aproned young man called from the dining room door.

We walked forward.

“And Dyson, party of six. All eight people at the far table.”

I explained, “No, there must be some mistake. We had requested a table to ourselves when—”

“It's OK,” Adele interrupted. “We'll join the others.”

The harried waiter shrugged. “You can have a deuce in half an hour, but this is all we've got now.”

Adele turned to me. “If we're going to call Nancy before it gets late, we better eat.”

How could she use Nancy to manipulate me? I glowered. But of course she was right about the call. “OK.” I recovered my indifferent tone.

Adele smiled cordially at Mr. and Mrs. Dyson, Grandma Dyson and the three little Dysons.

She sat
at the opposite
side of the round table from me, eagerly engaging our dinner companions in High Country conversation. The Dyson family was from San Francisco and had been coming to Tuolumne Meadows for three generations. Today all six of them had hiked to Cathedral Lake and back. I found Margie, the matriarch, particularly interesting as she described the mountains in the 1930s, when the roads were rougher and the trails less crowded. The children were tired and squirmy, but pretty good sports about eating with strangers. Adele started an academic conversation with the couple, who taught at San Francisco State.

“The road from Cathedral Creek to Tioga Pass wasn't paved until the fall of '37,” Margie was explaining to me.

My attention had drifted across the table.

“So that's quite a choice,” I heard him saying. Roger, I seemed to remember his name was Roger. “Berkeley or Wellesley.”

“But commuting sounds tough,” Jean Dyson declared. “Particularly with kids.”

I held my breath and nodded distractedly as Margie recalled riding a mule to Tenaya Lake. Hadn't Adele already made her decision? Was she going back on it now?

“We'll be OK for a year,” she said. “It will probably be good for us. For all of us.”

“What draws you to California?” The man approved of this move more than the woman.

“The question is—what draws me back?” Adele intended me to hear and met my gaze. “This is home, I was born here, in Oakland.”

The woman nodded.

“In fact, Kath and I first came to Tuolumne twenty-five years ago.”

“Oh, so this is some kind of reunion.”

“Yes.” Adele smiled at her, at me.

“There's nothing like California geography,” said Margie. “I was a nurse in Europe during the War and in Asia afterwards. As far as I've traveled, there's nothing like these mountains.”

It was 8:00 P.M. by the time the Dysons said good night.

On the way out, I began to tell Adele my strange dream. “There was this bear. And you were in it—”

“Really? I had a bear dream. I hope it was a dream.”

“You're kidding.”

“Well, I never did find our water bottle again,” she said vaguely. “Anyway, this bear was terrifying, but comforting, too, in an odd—”

Seeing the phone booths, I remembered Nancy. “God, we almost forgot again.” I pointed to the phone. “Let's call her now.”

But both booths were occupied. Three men stood waiting to make calls. While Adele held our place in line, I ran across the campground to the lavatory.

Floating through the starry night, I felt satisfied with what Adele had told the Dysons. Yes, she'd be coming back—for a time—I'd stop worrying. And she was right, a year apart from Lou would be healthy for them. I hoped the boys
would
come with her. I was good with my friends' kids. And I had a huge curiosity about Adele's children. Did they look like her? How much had they inherited from each parent? We'd have fun bringing the boys up to the mountains.

The lavatory was busy with females of assorted ages brushing, washing, creaming, spraying, conducting the pink-colored and peach-scented women's rituals that still made me uneasy. I was overcome with that sensation of strangeness I often felt when I walked into the high school bathroom and found the popular girls smoking and gossiping. Adele and I complained about these celebrity cheerleaders, but secretly we savored our marginality. For most of my life, I had an image of myself as a sideline person, but in recent years, I'd had to admit all people picture themselves on the sidelines. And, actually, most of us were located in some center. There were lots of centers. Even Adele and I were at one center in school—the hip girl brains. Our gang may not have been the richest or the best dressed, but we had a good time together cultivating our eccentricities.

The night had grown colder. My friend looked pale in the artificial light of the phone booth. I was surprised that she'd gotten the telephone so quickly. Maybe the men had been hanging out, not waiting in line at all. Adele was leaning forward into the receiver as if she had a bad connection. I stared at her firm, strong shoulders, remembering the concentrated gentleness of her walk.

I waved. Showing no sign of recognition, she rested back against the door and bent lower to the telephone. Worried, I quickened my pace. When I rapped on the glass, Adele turned away, hunching into the corner of the booth.

The Dysons ambled by, joking, laughing.

“Kath,” Jean Dyson called, holding Roger's hand.

“Hi, there,” I called back.

“Drive safely tomorrow.”

“Yes.” I waved. “You have a good hike to Young Lakes.”

I turned back to the phone booth. Adele was collapsed against the corner; she had hung up the phone and seemed to be examining the thickness of the glass booth.

I rapped again. She didn't move.

Cautiously, I opened the door and touched her shoulder. It was smaller than I anticipated, and tight.

Slowly, Adele turned, her face streaked with tears. I gathered her in my arms.

“Tell me,” I whispered. “Tell me.”

Adele heaved great sobs, her body moving up and down like a riveter's, the wails rising from deep inside her.

“She's dead, Kath.”

I couldn't breathe.

“When they operated, they found it'd spread. She died Wednesday. Right on the operating table. All that chemo and radiation and still it spread. She just died. Like that.”

I buried my face in Adele's neck and cried with her.

She held me close, weeping, shaking her head.

Tears boiled up. Tears of grief. Anger. Guilt. Of course Nancy had told me not to call until after the surgery. Still, I felt if I'd reached out earlier, I could have done something. At least I could have said goodbye.

Eventually I stepped back. “Well, I suppose we better get out of here.”

She tried to compose herself. “We're making quite a spectacle in this lighted phone booth.”

“Yes.” I nodded numbly.

“Performance art comes to Tuolumne.” Adele sniffed, forcing irony into her voice. “Somehow, I think Nancy would approve.”

We went to the Meadows
because it was Nancy's favorite place. I spread out an old tartan blanket, and the two of us sat talking about the night of the iridescent nail polish. The afternoon we all cut school to see
Waiting for Godot
(what pitifully wholesome girls we were, even in rebellion). The slumber party where Nancy phoned our chemistry teacher, disguising her voice and informing him he had won a lifetime subscription to
Man and Molecule.
Crying and holding on to one another, we asked why Nancy's life had been so tough.

“It wasn't what she expected.” I lay back on the blanket. “Remember the plans for New York and Paris? The fashion magazines? The singing career?”

“But she had her kids,” Adele argued, “and laughs. A great sense of humor. That night at the reunion, she laughed more than anyone.” Her voice trembled.

I sat up and held my friend. “Yes. And she was stronger than either of us.”