The Mountain Story (9 page)

“Maybe I’ll come see you and Frankie when I go back to visit my father in late August,” she said, seemingly unaware of her wardrobe gaffe.

“Cool,” I said, looking away when the button on her sundress threatened to bust open at her chest.

“So it’s a date,” she said, leaning closer.

I was sweating profusely. I looked at my baseball cards in the pile she’d made with her toes. Detroit catcher John Wockenfuss was on top. I distracted myself thinking of Wockenfuss and his unusual batting stance, how he’d turn his back on the pitcher and twist his head all the way over his shoulder.
John Wockenfuss
.

“Wolf,” Miss Kittle said, drawing even closer.

Peering out of the corner of my eye I saw that not only had Miss Kittle’s ill-fitting dress slid up even higher on her
thigh, but the button
had
busted open at her chest and one of her pink nipples was exposed now too.
Wockenfuss. Wockenfuss. Wockenfuss
.

“Wolf?”

The door opened, and my father appeared. Miss Kittle fixed her dress. I bolted for my room and hid my head beneath my pillow, grateful when some time later I heard the front door slam, which meant Frankie and his
Kitten
had gone out to get drunk instead of staying in to get drunk. Small mercies.

It wasn’t until some days later it hit me that Miss Kittle’s revealing situation had been an invitation, not a mishap. It took me even longer to realize that Frankie had orchestrated the whole thing. When I confronted him about it later, he said, “Some fathers throw bar mitzvahs for their sons when they’re thirteen.”

“I asked for a bike.”

Soon Miss Kittle stopped coming by. I never heard the details of their break-up. Maybe he cheated on her, maybe he stole from her, or maybe he lied to her. Sadly, she banned us—well, me—from the Mercury library. The bonus was that Frankie had more free time, even if we did spend most of it packing up the blue house.

My father said I should keep the library books about Palm Springs and the mountain, and the stack of overdue novels. I did, even though I knew I shouldn’t. I still have them.

On the drive to California I looked through the book about the desert hot springs, mildly interested in the thought that millennia earlier prehistoric animals had set foot in the same
agua caliente
that still burbled up from the middle of the earth. Didn’t even open the book about the history of golf in the area.
I was undereducated in the matter of celebrities current or past so the books about the Hollywood history of Palm Springs didn’t interest me much either. But I pored over the one about rattlesnakes, memorized their detailed markings, and lingered over pornographic close-ups of milky dripping fangs.

The Mountain in the Desert
was the book I spent the most time reading though, acquainting myself with the mountain’s changing life zones, from desert scrub to alpine forest. The chapters about the Native Americans who lived in the foothills and believed the mountain held the cure for every ailment, physical or spiritual, intrigued me. What if they were right? There were a number of quotations in the book, from naturalists and hikers, who claimed to have seen God on the mountain. When I read the quotes to Frankie he laughed. “Must be the thin air.”

The final chapters were about the Swiss-designed tram. I’d never been to a theme park but I couldn’t imagine any roller coaster being more thrilling than that tram ride. To be lifted that high, that fast, catapulted from one climate to another—that sounded like the closest thing you could get to time travel.

I couldn’t read once it got dark though. It was hard to imagine cool mountain breezes when I was stuck with Frankie in that crappy Gremlin. I remember looking out the window and not knowing which state we were driving through, Frankie humming along with the radio the whole way, a cigarette burning in the ashtray, day after dismal day.

That first night on the mountain with the three women, shivering together in the dark, we were not lost, but stranded, with the long night before us. You’d think we would have gone around the circle and told a little bit about ourselves. You’d think we might have taken a minute or two to discuss what just happened and what we should do next. You’d think that one of us would have cried or freaked out or laid blame. We did none of those things. At least not at first. We were quiet for a long time.

“How’s your hand?” I asked, finally, because I could see Nola, in her red poncho, grimacing in the moonlight.

“A little swollen is all.” With her good hand she reached into her knapsack for the yellow canteen. “We should drink.”

Bridget reached out to take the canteen. “Here, let me do the cap.” She opened it and gulped the water, and then passed the canteen back to Nola, who drank modestly before placing it in the hands of Vonn, who took only a very small sip. Our fingers touched when Vonn passed the canteen to me. Hers were surprisingly warm.

The feel of the yellow canteen brought back the memory of the worst night of my life—and that’s saying something—one year to the day earlier. I could not bring myself to put my lips on the spout. “I drank a lot at the fountain before,” I managed to say. It was somewhat true. I handed the canteen back.

“This really is an adventure, isn’t it? I mean it really is,” Nola said. “I could never have imagined that today would end like this.”

“We don’t have much water,” Bridget said. “Just the one canteen.”

“In the morning we’ll find the bag,” I said.

“And my binoculars.”

“And your binoculars.”

“I’m freezing,” Bridget said.

“We’re all freezing,” Vonn said.

There was a long pause. I didn’t need to see their collective expressions.

“Maybe some people have a lower tolerance for the cold,” Bridget said.

“The cap, Bridget,” Nola said.

Bridget reached across and took the yellow canteen back from Nola, saying, “Let me do it, Mother.”

Mother? Did she say
Mother
?

In the moon glow I saw what I hadn’t noticed before; the shape of their jaws, the slope of their noses. Mother and daughter. Bridget’s cosmetic alterations had thrown me off. She’d removed the dent between her brows, which would have deepened in time, like Nola’s, and her lips were plump and pouting where Nola’s were thinner but shaped prettily. It was clear that even denatured, Bridget was her mother’s daughter.

“How did you get us so lost, Wolf?” Bridget asked plaintively, tipping the yellow canteen for another gulp of water.

“We should ration the water, Bridget,” Vonn said.

Bridget pounced. “I thought you weren’t speaking to me, Vonn? What happened to that? I liked it better when you were doing your silent thing.”

Another puzzle piece. Bridget knew Vonn. They were not friends.

“You’re so stubborn!” Bridget hissed. “I can’t believe you. Even with all this!”

“Studied with the master,” Vonn returned.

“Didn’t your therapist tell you to
disengage
, Vonn? Can we please just go back to that?”

Nola tsked. “Let her be silent if she needs to be silent, Bridget. Let her talk if she needs to talk.”

Sisters?
I wondered.

“Retreat into silence,” Bridget said mockingly. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Retreat into silence?”

“One of us has to be the adult here. I have the most experience,” Vonn said.

“You’re eighteen, Vonn,” Bridget said. “What do you know about being an adult? You think you’re grown up because you’re running around Tin Town?”

Tin Town?

“Not
now
, Bridget,” Nola said.

“Because you’ve been hanging out with some biker in Tin Town.”

“What biker? Who said anything about Tin Town?” Vonn said, turning to Nola for translation.

“I heard you talking about him on the phone,” Bridget said.

“You’re insane,” Vonn said.

Vonn didn’t look like a Tin Town type to me. But then she didn’t look like a Santa Sophia type, either. I wasn’t so sure about Bridget.

“You were coming to the desert to help Mim,” Bridget said. “Remember? You came to keep her company.”

“I
am
here to help Mim.”

“Vonn’s been good company,” Nola protested.

“Running around Tin Town?”

“Who’s running around Tin Town?” Vonn asked. “What is she talking about?”

“I know bikers are trouble,” Bridget said.

“What are you all talking about?” Vonn was genuinely bewildered. “Whatever you think you heard—you’re wrong.”

“Not every person that rides a motorcycle is a criminal, Bridget,” Nola said.

Some of my favourite people rode motorcycles. Byrd’s uncle Harley, ironically, had a Honda, and his cool uncle Dantay had a Harley, an entire collection of Harleys, actually. His cousin Juan Carlos had a dirt bike. My cousin Yago rode a Shovelhead Classic, but then again he
was
a criminal.

“You came together,” I said. “It didn’t seem like that.”

“We’re the
Devines
!” Nola said it as if I should have known. “Vonn is my granddaughter. Bridget is her mother.”

It hit me then that Vonn hadn’t been staring at
me
earlier on the tram. She’d been watching Bridget with her big blond clip-on ponytail, probably wondering what her mother was telling the tragic boy-man in the Detroit Tigers cap.

“Bridget has a home in Golden Hills. Do you know it?” Nola asked.

“No.”

“Oh, it’s lovely.”

“Near the coast,” Bridget said.

“Really just as close to the valley as the ocean,” Vonn said.

“Sure.”

“Vonn’s been staying with me at my condo in Rancho Mirage,” Nola said.

“Are you a local?” Bridget asked.

“I’m from Michigan,” I said.

“Michigan? But how are you a mountain guide here?” Bridget asked.

I realized I was digging a deep hole with my sins of omission.
“I have a friend here. That I visit. I come here a lot. Hiking.”

“That’s a long way away.”

“It is.”

After that came a long stretch of silence, which Nola broke by whispering, “I keep reaching for him. Isn’t it funny that I’d still be doing that?”

Bridget and Vonn sighed in sympathy.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. I said it because it was the thing people say but I meant it too. I could feel the vibration from their collective grief.

“It gets cold in Michigan,” Nola said. “Ohio, too. I grew up in Ohio.”

“Even Malibu’s too cold for me,” Bridget said.

“Once, when I was a kid, it went to twenty below in Macomb County,” I said. “Six people died of exposure in one night.”

“Why are you telling us that?” Vonn asked.

“I’m saying it won’t get that cold here,” I said, covering. “I’ve spent dozens of nights on the mountain. Nights way colder than this. We’ll be fine. Just stay close together.”

The women seemed relieved, which had been the purpose of my lie. The truth is I’d spent only one night on the mountain. One disastrous night.

Byrd popped into my head. He was never really far from my thoughts—especially on the mountain.

The Gremlin’s tank was still more than three-quarters full when we passed the Welcome to Santa Sophia sign in the dark morning hours.

Frankie was humming softly along with the Beatles while I stared out the window, the mountain looming somewhere in the night. Instead of driving straight to his sister Kriket’s house after eight days on the road Frankie found the Santa Sophia Gas station/convenience store.

“Remember we’re going up the mountain tomorrow. Right? We’re going to climb to the peak. First day there,” I said.

Frankie started coughing. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to.

A rusty cowbell clanged when we entered the store, which appeared to be empty, the cash register unattended. “ ’lo?” Frankie called.

Figuring the clerk was in the restroom I took a cold grape pop from the fridge and drank it in three loud gulps, then guzzled two more cans, belching thunderously, while Frankie discovered a surprisingly extensive magazine selection on the rear wall. I tossed the pop cans in the trash.