Falling for June: A Novel (17 page)

He ran into what would become a repeated problem the very first night. The roadside
refugios
and
albergues
were meant for pilgrims traveling the Way of St. James, and they asked for a
credencial
,
which David understood to be a sort of passport that was stamped at each township or village along the route. The trouble was he didn’t possess a passport, not having departed from a traditional starting place, and because he was walking in reverse it likely would not have mattered if he had. It took many pesetas, much pleading, and lots of awkward translating from his pocket dictionary, but they would usually find space for him after waiting for the last of the pilgrims to arrive.

Surprisingly, he was little fazed by the hard cots and close quarters, having become accustomed to the sounds and smells of other sweaty bodies sleeping nearby during his weeks at stunt school. Since he was the last to be given a bed each night, before turning in he crept through the rooms peeking at each sleeping face with a flashlight cupped in his hands. This led to a few uncomfortable encounters but no sign of June.

The farther he traveled along the path, the sparser the pilgrims he encountered, and he found himself walking for long stretches of time with nothing to do but question his having come. What if June didn’t want to see him? he wondered. What if she wanted to face things alone? Wasn’t that her right? Who was he to come all this way just to interrupt her journey?

But Sebastian had seemed worried enough to beg David to go. He said she would welcome his company. And even though she had initially rejected it, he thought she’d also accept his having paid off the mortgage at Echo Glen as a bit of welcome good news. So David had agreed, but he had not told Sebastian his other reason for wanting to come and find her. You see, with paying off Echo Glen out of the way, there was something else David wanted to propose.

24

Y
OU WENT ALL
the way over there to find her and propose marriage, didn’t you?”

He looked at me from his chair with a twinkle in his eye. “I may have,” he replied. “But you seem awfully interested for someone who doesn’t believe in love.”

“Oh, come on. That’s not fair. What I said was I didn’t believe in it for me. But I’m curious why June left to walk the Camino to begin with. I mean, why was Sebastian so worried about her? Was something wrong? You have to tell me.”

I wasn’t trying to cut him short, but his storytelling had been punctuated with coughing fits, and I feared he would wear himself out before he got to the end.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “You add some wood to the stove there, then give me a hand up out of this chair before I fall asleep, and I’ll show you.”

I looked out the window. It was fully dark now.

“Maybe going on another field trip isn’t such a good idea.”

He laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I think I can make it down the hallway where we’re going without falling.”

After I had stoked the stove back to life, I helped him from his chair. It was clear his energy was waning, as he could no longer rise by himself, even with the aid of his cane. I wondered
what he would have done had I not been around. Slept right there in his robe, I guess. Once on his feet, however, he shuffled quite quickly down the hall on his slippers.

He led me to a door and opened it. When he snapped the light on, I saw it was a small corner bedroom with a window overlooking the creek. It had been converted into a kind of studio, and it was immediately clear that the studio had belonged to June. The walls were hung with more watercolors, and an easel with an unfinished canvas stood near the window. But it wasn’t the easel that drew my attention—it was the wheelchair sitting next to it. It was a power chair with leg and chest straps, and it was parked beside the easel with its seat raised to an almost standing height, as if waiting for June to return any moment to her brushes and paint.

“You asked about the watercolor of Echo Glen in the kitchen earlier,” David said. “That was one of June’s first. She claimed she took it up because in her condition no one would dare tell her she wasn’t any good, even if it were true. But she was quite the artist, getting better even as things deteriorated.”

I had been wondering about the wheelchair ramp covering the steps ever since I had arrived that morning, and now I understood. But I was more curious than ever about how she had come to be in the wheelchair. I couldn’t help but think that June had gone off to Spain to do something dangerous and that that was why Sebastian had wanted David to go after her. My curiosity finally got the better of me.

“Why did Sebastian want you to go after June so badly?”

“
The Gypsy Moths
,” he said. “Among other things.”

“The Gypsy what?”

He led me over to a closet and opened it, pointing to a blue-nylon suit hanging from a hook. It appeared to be one of those flying-squirrel-looking suits that daredevils use.

“Hey,” I said, “I’ve seen those wingsuits on YouTube.”

“Well, this was 1986, so YouTube hadn’t been invented yet,” he replied. “And neither had wingsuits. June worked on a film in the late sixties that involved experimental ideas for flying, and this was a prototype that she had continued to improve on. She took it with her to Spain, along with her parachute. That, combined with the bad news, was why Sebastian was so worried and insisted that I go after her. He would have gone himself, but he had promised to care for the animals.”

“So, she had planned to jump there?”

“Yes. At Montserrat, after she had walked the Camino.”

Then I noticed the matador costume in the closet. The one I had seen in the old photo that Mr. Hadley carried in his pocket—the one he told me she had worn on their wedding day.

“But you found her, didn’t you? You got married. That’s the matador costume from the photo.”

He nodded. “I did find her. And lucky for me, we did get married.”

“And you still let her jump in that crazy bat suit? After you were married and everything?”

“It wasn’t up to me to let her do anything,” he said. “Married or not, June was her own woman and made her own choices. Thankfully, she chose not to test that crazy suit.”

“So, she never used it?”

He shook his head. “It’s just a nostalgic movie prop.”

I turned around and looked at the wheelchair again, now thoroughly confused. “So, what happened to her?” I asked. “I mean, if she didn’t jump, why bring me back here and show me the wheelchair?”

“Because you asked me why she went to Spain.”

“Why did she go to Spain?”

There was a pause before he answered, during which I saw him looking at the empty wheelchair. When he did answer, his voice contained no emotion that I could detect.

“Parkinson’s,” he said simply, with an air of acceptance.

“And that’s why she went to walk the trail,” I muttered, finally understanding. Then something dawned on me. “So, that must have been the bad news she had just found out when she took you up to Echo Glen, wasn’t it?”

David sighed. “All the help she gave everyone else and she couldn’t bear the thought of ever needing a little help herself. She was just fifty-three. That’s young for Parkinson’s, but she was already experiencing tremors and other symptoms. It terrified her. She couldn’t imagine a life without flying, without all the athletic things she loved to do.”

He turned to look back into the closet at the suit again, speaking now almost to himself.

“I sometimes wonder if she would have flown that suit if I hadn’t shown up begging her to marry me. I never asked, but I doubt it. It would have been a suicide mission for anyone, let alone someone in her condition.” He shook his head. “And she didn’t want to die. She was more alive than anyone I had ever met.”

“So, she never jumped again?” I asked.

“Just one time. The day before our wedding, wearing this.”

He laid his hand on the matador costume.

“She jumped wearing that?” I asked. “Okay, now you need to finish this story for real or else I’m going to start calling you Hitchcock instead of Hadley.”

“What’s a young man like you know about Hitchcock?”

“I know he’s the master of suspense. Or at least he
was
until you came along and kicked him off his throne.”

He laughed, shutting the closet door.

“Okay. Let’s go back and see if we can’t wrap up this little tale of ours. Sleep seems about all I do well anymore, and with it getting near my bedtime I’d hate to pass out on you.”

I didn’t bother mentioning that he had already fallen asleep
on me twice. Instead, I glanced once more at the empty wheelchair and followed him from the room. On our way back to the living room, I noticed a framed picture on the hallway wall and stopped for a better look.

“Is that June?” I asked, recognizing her from the photo.

“That’s my June. And that’s me beside her, smiling.”

“That’s you?” I asked, leaning closer. “You look different.”

He laughed. “That’s what age does.” Then he pointed to a handsome Spanish man, holding up a shiny plaque. “That’s Sebastian. This was taken at his induction into the Stuntmen’s Hall of Fame. June never could get them to change that silly, chauvinist name.”

“So, he made it in after all. That makes me happy. And who’s this woman holding his hand?”

“That’s his wife.”

“I guess he went back for her then.”

David nodded. “He asked me to be his best man. He said we were comrades in courage, and that my running off to Spain to marry June had given him the push he needed.”

“Whatever happened to him?”

“What happens to all of us eventually. He died. Always a man of action, he saved a girl from drowning during Hurricane Katrina. She begged him to go back for her dog and he did. He was a brave man. He really was. Let’s get back to the story.”

25

H
E SAW HER
first from a long ways off. He knew it was June by her gait. She had a way of walking with her body leaned slightly forward, as if always marching against a gentle wind. He had noticed it before while watching her at Echo Glen.

David had been in Spain searching for her now for eight days, and he had spent many a lonely mile daydreaming about what he might do if he actually found her. He had always imagined himself running to take her in his arms, declaring his undying love for her by saying something profoundly poetic, and then sealing their shared fate with a kiss. But to his surprise, as soon as he saw her he sat down on a low stone wall beside the path. Maybe because he was tired, or maybe because even after all of his daydreaming he still had no idea what it was he wanted to say. In the end, he needed to say nothing.

The wall he was sitting on crested a low hill and he watched as she strode up the path toward him. Her pack was enormous for her petite size, and it stuck up at least a full foot above her head, giving her the appearance of a child carrying an adult on her back. Her eyes were downcast, looking at her feet, and it occurred to David that between his disheveled hair and a week’s worth of beard she likely wouldn’t recognize him even if she were to look up and spot him beside the path. But when she was
still a good ten paces away, she seemed to sense his presence, coming to a sudden stop. Then she lifted her head and let her eyes settle on him where he sat.

“My oh my,” she said, showing no sign at all of surprise. “It could be all this walking in the sun, but you sure remind me of a man I once slept with.”

“Is that so?” David said. “This man you speak of must have been very handsome to attract such a gorgeous woman.”

“Very much so,” she replied.

“Was he any good in the hay?”

Her eyes broke into a smile. “A lady never tells.”

“Oh, don’t be coy with me now. I must know.”

“He had some moves,” she said. “Although I’d imagine with a little practice he might even improve.”

“Is that an offer?”

She shrugged off her pack and carried it over and leaned it against the low rock wall he was sitting on. Then she sat beside him and sighed, looking down at her boots. When she finally spoke again, her voice was quiet.

“I suppose I should have made Sebastian promise not to send someone as his proxy too. He told you, didn’t he?”

David nodded. “But he didn’t send me as a proxy. I came on my own, June. I wanted to see you.”

“It’s a long way to travel just to see someone.”

“Not really. Not when that someone is you.”

“Oh, David . . .”

She looked up at him but her smile was gone, replaced by a look of sad concern. David couldn’t tell if it was concern for herself or for him. He feared the latter and began to think he had made a terrible mistake by coming. Perhaps she had really wanted to be alone.

“How long have you been searching for me?” she asked.

“A week or so. I set out from Santiago de Compostela.”

June nodded. “Walking it backwards, eh? Very contrarian of you, darling. I like it.”

“How about you?” he asked.

She looked back down the path up which she had come. “Seems like forever,” she said, but David could not tell if she was talking about the Camino de Santiago or something else.

They sat quiet for a while. A breeze came up and stirred the tall grass beside the trail. A bird called.

“June, do you want to talk about—?”

“Why don’t we ditch this trail,” she said, cutting him off. “I’m afraid it’s a bit more touristy than I thought.”

“But don’t you get a certificate when you complete it?”

“That’s what I mean,” she said. “Plus, we have completed it, darling. We did it together. You walked the part I didn’t.”

He hated the idea of not getting to spend some time alone with her after having come all this way.

“I took a full three weeks off from work,” he said, “despite my boss’s threatening to fire me. If we ditch the trail, what would we do instead?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. We could set out to tickle every horse in Spain. Maybe find a rainstorm and wait for a rainbow to slide down. We could walk into the night and climb the stars to swim in the Milky Way.”

“That’s quite a list,” he mused, looking at her beside him and asking, “but are horses really ticklish?”

“Oh yes,” she replied. “Isn’t everyone?”

She leaned over and buried her fingers in David’s side, tickling him. He laughed, pretending to fight her away.

“And where would we go to do all this?” he asked once he had regained his composure.

She reached into her pack and removed a map, spreading it out on her lap. “I think Sebastian has family in Aranda de Duero. We could walk there.”

“Jose Antonio. He came to meet me in Santiago.”

“Look at you,” she said. “Here I’ve known Sebastian all these years and I finally get to Spain and you’ve gone and beat me to meeting his family. What’s he like?”

“Sebastian.”

“No, Jose. What’s he like?”

“He’s like Sebastian. You can hardly tell the two apart.”

“Well, I understand he works in a winery, and to tell you the truth, I could use a little Spanish vino. So it’s settled then.” She stood and took up her pack. “We’ll cut away from the trail southeast, and we should be there in a few days.”

There was a lot left unsaid, but David figured it could wait for now. He was just happy to have found her and to be walking by her side, regardless of where they were headed. And after eight days’ hard trudging, the idea of a soft bed and some Spanish wine sounded damn good to him. He shouldered his pack and followed her down the hill.

The rainstorm caught them out in the open, on a country road at the edge of a field. One moment they were walking beneath the hot Mediterranean sun, the next they were being pelted with huge raindrops as wave after wave bounced like sheets off the road ahead of them. Streaks of lightning split the sky to the north, and the rumble of thunder reverberated above the hiss of falling rain.

“There!” June said, pointing to a barn at the far edge of the field. “Let’s wait it out.”

They climbed the wooden fence and ran like Olympic sprinters for the barn. David felt the sense of excitement that comes only from running for a reason, and he felt the wet grass giving way beneath his feet and the cool rain hitting his face. It felt good. In fact, he hadn’t felt so good in possibly all of his adult life. June had a fair lead and she disappeared into the shadowy barn ahead of him. David joined her just as a peal of
thunder echoed across the valley followed by a deluge of rain the likes of which he had never before seen. They were both panting to catch their breath through broad, dripping smiles.

“I haven’t run like that since I got chased by the police for stealing a calendar.”

“Why would you steal a lousy calendar?” June asked.

“It was on a dare,” he said. “And not just any calendar. A calendar with Marilyn Monroe in the nude.”

“Oh, I didn’t know you liked them buxom.”

“I was seventeen,” he replied. “I liked them naked. There’s one I’ve got my eye on now, though, and I’d call her petite.”

June laughed. “I’ve been called a string bean by my mother, and tiny enough to fit into a car’s glove box on movie sets, but never petite. I rather like it. Makes me think of petite sirah.”

“That’s twice now you’ve mentioned wine,” David said. “You’re making me wish we had some.”

June grinned, shrugging off her wet pack. “You didn’t think I’d come unprepared, did you?”

The rain was pounding down on the old tin barn roof and David removed his pack and changed into a dry shirt. His pants were soaked through as well, but he was too shy to change them in front of June. They hung their wet things up on old nails to dry, carried their packs to a dry corner of the barn, and sat down to drink and eat and watch the rain.

“Sorry, no wineglasses,” June said, passing him the bottle.

“This is better,” David replied. “There’s something very romantic about sitting out a rainstorm and sharing warm wine straight from the bottle. Don’t you think so?”

“Romantic, eh? Hmm. Now you’re starting to sound a lot like that man I told you I used to sleep with.”

“Used to
sleep
with? I thought you said
slept
with before, as in once.”

“Well, maybe I just imagined the other times,” she replied,
reaching for the bottle and letting her hand linger just a moment on his.

They sat quiet for a while, eating trail mix and sipping their wine while watching the rain pour off the roof in sheets.

“I love the sound of rain,” June said. “It makes me feel like there’s nowhere to be and nothing to do. As if the entire world has agreed to take a break when it rains. As if time stops. As if everything is okay and always will be. I wish it would rain forever.”

David thought he heard a hint of sadness in her voice when she said she wished the rain would last forever, and he suspected she was really talking about her fear of what lay ahead. He reached his arm around her and pulled her to him. She let him, leaning her head against his shoulder.

“Nothing lasts forever, does it?” she said.

“No,” he answered, “nothing does. But maybe that’s what makes some experiences special. I know I’ll always remember sitting out a rainstorm in Spain with you. Plus, there are other wonderful things to experience yet.”

“There are?” she asked, looking up at him.

He smiled at her. “Yes, there are.”

“Like what?”

“Well, let’s see: how about the whinny of a happy foal? That’s got to be a close second to this.”

“Oh, I miss my horses,” she said. “I wish I could save them all. And dogs and cats and cows too. I never met a cow that didn’t seem gentle, have you?”

“You can’t save everyone and everything, June. You’ve got to let yourself have a life too. Besides, who will save you?”

There was a moment of quiet, and David wondered if she was ready to talk about why she had fled to Spain.

“Give me something else,” she said. “Another sound that can compete with the sound of rain.”

“Okay,” David said, “what about a newborn baby’s first cry?”

“That’s a lovely sound.”

“Or water running over smooth stones. Or how about carolers on a cold December night? Or I know, how about the sound of your lover’s step on the stair after being apart?”

“Oh, those are good ones,” she said. “How about smells?”

David took a moment to think, looking out the open barn door at the rain. “Let’s see, smells are harder. Okay, how about the way grass smells after it’s been cut in the spring? Or pine trees in January. I can smell them now. Or a warm bakery on a winter’s morning. Who doesn’t love that smell?”

“I love them all,” June said. Then she snuggled into his shoulder and pulled his arm tighter around her. “What about tastes though? The bakery has my mouth watering.”

“Hmm . . . you want tastes, huh? Lemon ice cream on a hot summer evening comes to mind. Or honey straight from the comb. Have you ever had that? You have. How about salted butter and blackberry jam on fresh sourdough.”

“You’re killing me,” she said, laughing. “That trail mix was manna a moment ago. Now it might as well be sand.”

“I can stop if you want me to.”

“No, no, go on. But give me touch now.”

“Touch?”

“Yes, like the way silk feels on naked skin.”

“Well, I couldn’t speak to that one,” David said. “But I like the thought of your naked skin. Let’s see. Touch. Okay, how about the sun on your cheeks on a cool fall day and a warm hand to hold. A hot tub near the ocean. A down comforter on the couch when you’re not feeling well.”

June closed her eyes, drinking in his descriptions.

“Give me sight now,” she said. “What’s the best thing in the world you’ve ever seen?”

“Okay. The best thing I’ve seen. The look of streetlights in
the fog, especially in San Francisco. Mount Rainier on a clear Seattle day. A desert sunset. Sunrise over a misty lake. The allure of a lonely canoe paddling toward you.”

“Those are all so great,” she said. “You’re a pro at this and I feel so much better already. What else? Give me more.”

“I’ll tell you what the best sight in the world is, if you really want to know. Do you?”

“Yes, I do. Tell me.”

“Your face in the morning, the way I saw it in the barn at Echo Glen, after we made love.”

“Oh, come on,” she said. “My old mug.”

“I swear it’s the best sight in the world. Your face in the morning. Every morning. Forever.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

She turned her head to look up at him. Her eyes weren’t smiling this time, but they weren’t sad either. They had a guarded vulnerability in them, a kind of innocence perhaps. It was something altogether new, and it made David want to hold her tight and never let go, no matter what the world might put them through. He realized then that he had loved her all along, maybe before they had even met. He would always love her, he just knew. His eyes welled up, although he was not sad at all.

“Marry me, June.”

“What?” She seemed to have not heard him, or maybe she’d heard him and couldn’t believe what he had said.

“Marry me.”

“Oh, David . . .”

He thought he saw a flicker of fear in her eyes. Then she looked away. He could have sworn she’d glanced down at the ring on her finger. She sat still with her head against his shoulder, just looking out the barn door and watching the rain. The thunder had passed but the sky was growing darker.

David began to feel silly for having brought up marriage at all. He hadn’t planned to do it, at least not right then. He hadn’t even told her yet that he’d used his house sale proceeds to pay off Echo Glen, and now he couldn’t tell her. He didn’t dare risk the chance of having her feel like he was trying to buy her love. He wasn’t, of course. He would pay it off again a thousand times, even if she said
no
, or
hell no
, or
no way am I marrying a babbling buffoon of an accountant like you
.

“June, I’m sorry.”