Ana of California (20 page)

Birds chattered in the branches above as Ana crunched her feet down the winding path. The late afternoon light dimmed, and the sound of flowing water in the distance echoed off the tree trunks. Walls of green surrounded her on all sides as if the forest were swallowing her, she thought. She took deep breaths, stopping every now and then to crane her neck up to the towering redwoods, barely able to see their tops, let alone the sky. The forest was dark and alive, slices of white sunlight crisscrossing along the path. “There's nothing more beautiful than this,” Ana thought, imagining unseen fairies floating in the dust that hung in the patches of light.

Dolly sniffed everything around them, so Ana stopped to let her explore the base of a tree that was covered in clinging moss. She bent down to take a closer look at what she thought were tiny white flowers sprouting along the visible roots but realized they were mushrooms. She pulled Dolly away as they continued along the trail. “Why Abbie and Emmett don't spend more time back here is both a mystery and a travesty,” Ana said to Dolly. They came to a fallen tree in the pathway. Dolly scrambled right up, but Ana took a few tries before digging her sneakers in and hoisting herself up and over. On the other side, they found themselves at the edge of a gurgling creek. “A good place to stop,” Ana said, leaning up against the fallen tree, listening to the flowing water mingle with other unknown sounds hidden deeper in the neighboring thicket.

Dolly sniffed the ground and looked up at Ana, her enormous tongue rolling out of her mouth. “Here you go, girl,” Ana said, giving Dolly a treat from her pack. She walked them over to a large rock on one side of the creek and sat down in the middle of it while Dolly rested at her feet. She pulled out her sketchbook and pencil and began to shade the water onto the page, trying to mimic the way the water rolled over the rocks into a deeper pool where dragonflies danced on the surface.

Ana had never experienced this kind of solitude. “You can hear the silence,” she thought as she drew in Dolly's silhouette, the dog's ears held up by minuscule fairies. She took out the bottle of Coke but realized she didn't have a bottle opener. She took deep gulps of air instead, letting the air out slowly through her nose, still not fully believing where she was. She likened it to the densest parts of downtown L.A., the trees standing in for buildings, the creek its traffic, the sun blighted by the congested atmosphere. She could almost hear the rush of vehicles, the snarl of an angry driver, until she realized that was exactly what she was hearing.

There was a blur of blue and green camouflaged by the forest foliage until the dirt bike, tipped in silver and red, leaped out of the path on the other side of the creek. It zigzagged up and down making its way to the water, filling the silence with a tremendous motorized roar. Ana remained still, grabbing Dolly's leash and standing up. The bike jumped from the path and into the water, skidding to a halt and spraying water as it passed them, before falling over along the embankment.

“Are you okay?” Ana yelled from across the water.

The rider pushed the bike up and then himself, ripping off his helmet. He sat in the dirt running his gloved hands
over his head before staring up at her. She stared back. Dolly barked and barked.

“Are you hurt?” she asked again.

“Don't think so. What are you doing here?” Cole answered.

“Was about to ask you the same.”

“I'm riding. This is our land.”

“I'm sketching. This is
our
land.”

“Whose?”

“Abbie and Emmett's—Dolly's,” she said, rubbing the dog's head to get her to stop barking. “Guess you took that joyride seriously.”

“I'm not joyriding, I'm testing my bike and prepping for a race.” He stood up and Dolly started barking again. He checked his bike and propped it up before turning toward her, arms crossed.

“What?” she said.

“Can I come over there for a minute?”

“Stay on your side of the creek, please,” she said, letting Dolly stand in front of her. “That is your side, isn't it?”

“Yep. That side's yours,” he said with a smirk. “I want to apologize.”

“For what?”

“For my lame friends. I've known them most of my life, and they've always been that way. I guess I'm just used to it.”

“Doesn't excuse their behavior.”

“No, it doesn't. If it makes you feel any better, I told them off.”

“My hero,” Ana said, shushing Dolly again.

“Why do you dislike me so much?” Cole said. “You don't even know me.”

“Why do you keep trying to get to know me?”

He shook his head, took off his gloves, and splashed
across the creek. Dolly pulled at the leash, barking louder than ever, and when Cole got close, he knelt down and let her sniff the front of his hand. “Hey, girl,” he said. Dolly licked his hand, so he rubbed the top of her head and behind her ears, and then continued crossing the creek.

“You're trespassing,” Ana said.

“I'll suffer the consequences.”

Cole leaned up on the edge of the rock, continuing to rub Dolly, who wanted nothing else to do with Ana. “I'm really sorry if you weren't welcome at school today. It's a small town.”

“So I keep hearing.”

“I've been away most of the summer and it's like I came back from another dimension. People at our school can be rather limited in their thinking, but that's mainly because they live in a bubble. I'm just putting in my time before I can get out again.”

“You sound like Rye.”

He smiled what seemed to Ana a sad smile.

“That your Coke?”

“I couldn't open it.”

He glanced down at the ground and picked up a flat rock. “May I?” Cole said, to which she nodded her head. He wedged the rock under the bottle cap and popped the cap open before handing the bottle back over. “So, what about you? I heard you're from L.A., and I know you live with the Garbers . . .”

“Hold on,” she said, taking a sip of the Coke before chugging half of it. “I thought you were gone forever,” she said to the bottle. “Want some?”

“No, thanks. So, what, are you a Garber relative or something?”

“Not exactly,” Ana said, finishing the bottle and putting it back in her bag, realizing then she was now full of bubbles. “I'm an intern, I guess, working on the farm, going to school, that kind of thing.”

“Your family's still in L.A.?”

“I don't have any family,” Ana said, having said it so many times before.

“So the Garbers are—”

“My foster guardians at the moment.”

“Oh,” he said with a quizzical look.

“What?”

“Nothing, it's just you don't come across like a—”

“Like an orphan? It's okay, we do exist in this post–
Oliver Twist
world.”

They both stared at the creek.

“So, the Hex,” Cole said, changing the subject, though for his benefit or hers she couldn't be sure. “They're way better than I gave them credit for.”

“Of course they are, Bad Brains.”

“How did you know I was into Bad Brains?”

Ana rolled her eyes. “Please.”

“No one around here is into what I'm into,” Cole said, crossing his mud-covered arms. “Well, hardly anyone. For a while I did what was easiest and just went along with the flow, being one person at school, another person after school. I've been riding bikes all my life, with my dad mostly, so I've grown up going out of town for races almost every weekend, living a double life. I've never been as close to people at school as they are with one another.”

“Looked like you fit in just fine.”

“That's because I know everyone.”

He wanted to tell her that it was more that everyone
knew him, or thought they did. “It's always easy coming back to the places where people know your name, until you realize it isn't,” he continued. “People make judgments, even if they're wrong, and it sucks when those opinions stick. It's like you can't escape your own situation sometimes, you know? Even if you're trying to move on from it.”

Ana's stomach sank thinking about having to go back to L.A. at the end of the semester. She wondered which group home she'd be sent to for the holidays, which fake tree they'd force her to sit around. “I know what you mean. Sometimes it's about duality,” she said. “I'm living two lives too, especially here. Where'd you go away to?”

“Back down near San Francisco, where we're from originally.”

“You mean you weren't born in Hadley like everyone else?” she said with a look of horror.

“Nope.” He smiled. “You and me are the city folk around here. Anyway, I was grounded for the entire summer. I spent the first part of it in Yosemite. It wasn't really my choice. My parents sent me away on one of those forced camping retreats.”

“Why?”

Cole hesitated. She didn't need to know all the details, he thought, not that she'd care. “I kind of maybe started a bonfire on our front lawn that may or may not have spread. Luckily it didn't do any damage, unless you call obliterating my relationship with my parents damage. Not that they aren't capable of doing the same.”

“Is that why you keep trying to talk to me? You've got no one left.”

He laughed at her sad eyes and look of despair.

“That and because I think we're into the same music.”

“You mean you're not mesmerized by my
curls
?”

He turned and looked right at her like he did in the bookstore. She looked back.

“I'm way more into the attitude, but yeah the curls work too. Are you going to keep giving me a hard time about that?”

“No. Maybe. Who knows? I better go,” Ana said, putting her sketchbook into her backpack and calling to Dolly, who was sprawled at Cole's feet.

“Guess you're set on going ‘in the opposite direction in this too-big world,'” he said.

“No, I just have to get back,” she said.

“It's a Kerouac quote, lame, I know.”

“What is it about guys and Kerouac?”

“
On the Road
is a great book, you said so yourself in class.”

“I stand by what I said, but let's not get into some deep conversation about it because it's the only book I've finished of his other than
Tristessa
, which is a whole other conversation. His lead characters are self-centered and always himself. And don't even get me started on his possible homophobia and ‘little Mexican girl' fetish. But I get that you're into it. It's written all over you.”

“Wow, you have me so figured out,” Cole said with a smirk that Ana felt wasn't entirely out of line. “
Tristessa
has its moments, sure, but it's poetic and sad. I think that's the point. He loves her but can't tell her, wants to help but knows it's doomed . . .”

“But what's he in love with?” Ana asked, reminding herself to take a breath. “Tristessa's a beautiful junkie who nods off all the time and won't give him what he wants.”

“He's just as messed up as she is, in a different way. The
tragedy is neither one of them knowing how to hold on to the other. It's like he says, ‘The beauty of things must be that they end.'”

Ana didn't know what to say. She remembered reading
Tristessa
after finding an old copy of it at the library and being intrigued by the description. She'd read it in one sitting, resisting the urge to throw it across the room at the end.

“I really have to go,” she said.

“Do you?”

She was so surprised she paused. It wasn't that she didn't want to continue the conversation, as enthralling as it was talking to a guy her age about something she found interesting. The only other person Ana had discussed her feelings about
Tristessa
with was Ronnie back at the library, who had lived the tale himself. But she paused for another reason too; ashamed as she was to admit it, she liked the way Cole was looking at her.

“I'm not supposed to be back here,” she said.

“Neither am I.”

“Gasp! Rebels.”

“Can I walk you back?” he said, making a move to follow her.

“I think I should go on my own, but thanks for the offer . . . and for the conversation.”

“What about my bottle-opening expertise?”

“On point, Brannan. Just stay away from lighters.”

 • • • 

I
t was a quicker walk back to the farm than she'd imagined. To her surprise, neither Abbie nor Emmett was pacing up and down the back porch waiting for her to emerge from where she wasn't supposed to be. She let Dolly off her leash and watched the bouncing yellow dog bark all the way back
to the barn, its door opening to let her in and then promptly shutting behind her again. Ana walked through the garden, still lush and flowering in the cooler evening temperatures, and hopped up the back steps into the kitchen where Abbie was busy reheating a stew.

“Did you enjoy your walk?” Abbie asked, not looking up. “Emmett said you took Dolly.”

“I did, into the woods. I hope that's okay.”

“I'd prefer it if you let me know next time so I can show you which land is off limits,” Abbie said, focusing on the stove top.

“Got it. How did it go? With the delivery.”

“Made it just on time. She's a difficult client but one I can't say no to at the moment.”

“Who was it?”

Abbie sighed and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “Nadine Brannan.”

“Any relation . . .”

“She's Cole's mother, yes, and not someone used to hearing the word ‘no.' Her husband owns most of the dairies around here, some of the smaller farms too—they own half this town, including the land. I don't want to get into it now, but please do your best not to bring her name up around Emmett. I'm handling her orders on my own.”