The Weight of Gravity (16 page)

             
“You can have it.  I’m not much for desserts, either.”

             
He watched her peel bark near where she sat – the sinews of her forearms tensed, then relaxed.  She had strong hands.  Mel closed her eyes and turned her face into the sun. 
There’s that smile again
.  She was bathing in the light and breathing deeply. 
This country girl is gorgeous.
  Everything she’d done, from the way she handled her work crew -- and him -- suggested an intelligent, self-confident person.  Maybe she hid her femininity.  Or, better yet, her femininity was in everything she did, unique and individual to the ways of most women, unnoticed and unappreciated by most men.  Max wasn’t missing anything she did.

             
“You like it here,” Max said.

             
“Very much,” she said, her face still to the sun, her eyes closed.

             
“Come here often?”

             
“Used to.  Not so much anymore.  Too busy.”

             
“Why today?”

             
“Damn, you’re nosy.”

             
“It’s an occupational hazard.  I stare and ask questions,” he told her.

             
“No wonder you don’t have friends,” she said, turning to look at him.  “You tell me, Max.  Why did I suggest we come up here?”

             
“Could be a lot of reasons.”

             
“Like what?”

             
“You needed to get away from the heavy workload for a while.”

             
“You can do better than that.  Hell, you’re a writer.  Your a master at reading people.”

             
“Okay, maybe you wanted to impress me by taking me somewhere special.”

             
“There you go again, insinuating way too much.  Problem now is that you imposed your enormous ego on a pathetic understanding of my motivations.  Does it always have to be about you, Max?”

             
“All right, I give up.”  Max stood and walked to one of the pools.  He leaned against the well and stared into the water.  It was so clear the surface was nearly invisible.

             
“You look like a child who just had his feelings hurt.  Is this the way you get people to do things for you in the city?”

             
She was right.  He was pouting.  And, yes, she was right, he did act this way too often when he wanted people around him to notice.  His only defense would be a good offense.                “Okay, Lady, tell me why you brought me here.”

             
“It’s not important,” she said and went back to sunbathing.

             
Shit, she’s good at this game. 
“If the subject isn’t important, then why would an intelligent woman like you bring it up? You strike me as someone who doesn’t waste time with minutia.”

             
“Minutia,” she repeated.  “What kind of word is
minutia
?”

             
“Don’t change the subject.”

             
“And don’t try to get me to answer the question for you, Mr. Intellectual!”

             
She’d done it again.  This homegrown, provincial-ville, Big-Gulp slurping truck driver had matched intellects with him.  Hopefully, he thought, she’d stay away from New York City, where she’d manhandle anyone in a battle of wits. 

             
“I give up.”

             
“That’s a very unattractive thing to do.”

             
“Why would I care if I’m not attractive to you?”

             
“There you go again ... making it all about you, Max.  You shouldn’t care about what I think, but you shouldn’t give up so easily either.”

             
He’d try again.  “You brought me here for a reason.”

             
“Good start, keep going,” she encouraged.

             
“You’re the type of person who doesn’t spend time worrying about what others think.  And you like to show off your ass.”

             
“Okay, partly true.  I’m not an exhibitionist.”

             
“You’re the type of person who does what she feels like doing, for no particular reason.”

             
“True,” she said.  “But I already admitted I brought you here for a reason.”

             
“You’re the type of person who’d do something for someone else ... even a stranger ... for no particular reason...”

             
“Other than ...”

             
“Other than to help someone out,” he finished.

             
“You aren’t as dumb as I thought, Max.”  She smiled.  “I already admitted that to you.”

             
“You brought me here because you thought it would be good for me.”  She didn’t say anything, but Max knew he’d hit the mark.  “So, it
is
about me, after all?”  She smiled, but kept her eyes closed for a moment longer.  Finally, she stood and walked past him to the opposite side of the pool.

             
“Why are you in Cottonwood, Max?” she asked, patting the surface of the water with the palm of her hand.

             
“I don’t really know.”

             
“Yes, you do.  Think,” she urged.

             
“I guess I came back here to find something ... something I lost.”

             
“It’s easier to lose things in a bigger pond, Max.”

             
“That’s one way to look at it, I guess.”

             
“You have to ask yourself what you lost out there in that ocean beyond Cottonwood that made you come back here, searching.”

             
Okay, he thought, I’m close to understanding ... what? 
Why I’m unhappy all the time?  Why I can’t write anymore?  Something ... something’s missing, yes.  Something that’s important to me ... yes ... but what?

             
“What inspired you to become a writer?”

             
He said the first thing that came to mind.  “Erika Morgan ... Hightower?”

             
“Yeah, I heard about you and Erika from my brother ... and others; one of the great legends of Cottonwood High ... Max and Erika.  You honestly think you became a writer because of Erika?  You’re telling me that you weren’t a writer when you met her?”

             
“Sure I was.”

             
“Then Erika might have been inspiration, but she didn’t make you want to become a writer, right?” Mel asked.

             
“I guess not ... no.  I wrote to escape my shitty reality, I think.  I hated my childhood.  Writing made me feel good.”

             
“And, you’ve had a pretty successful career since leaving here.  Your writing made you feel good about what?” Mel asked.

             
Good question, he thought.  “About myself, mostly.”  He walked halfway around the tank toward her.

             
“Do you feel good about yourself now, Max?  Because if you don’t, then it’s no wonder you can’t write, or eat, or sleep.”

             
“You’ve been talking to Doris.”

             
“She cares about you ... I care about you.”

             
He took a step closer.  “Why?”

             
“I’ve always been a sucker for wounded animals.”  He watched as she closed the distance between them, circling the wall of the water tank until she stood close.  “Tell me what you think you’ve lost, Max.”

             
Here it was, the moment of truth.  If he could answer this question, then maybe he’d solve the mystery and discover the true reason he’d returned to Cottonwood.  “I think I lost my confidence ... in myself.”

             
“Very good.  Keep going,” she said.  “I think you’re on the right track.”

             
“Maybe when my confidence began to go, I built a facade ... as a defense mechanism.”

             
“V-e-r-y g-o-o-d.  I’m proud of you.  Now, tell me why I brought you up here.”

             
“You brought me to the holy waters to see the truth?”  He dipped his fingers into the spring.

             
“No, I brought you up here to relax and, maybe, gain some perspective on your life. Perspective has a way of sneaking up on you, spinning you around, forcing you to see and hear things you didn’t think were there.  You’re chasing something.  That much is obvious.  And you think you’re close to finding it, but I think you’re too close to see it clearly, and you’re going in the wrong direction.”

             
“What’s the right direction?”

             
“That’s for you to answer.  I just know you have to stop trying so hard and it will come to you.  Then you’ll discover what’s missing in your life.”

             
Why was she doing this?  Was Max her ‘wounded animal’ of the week, he wondered?  He wanted to know what motivated Mel to take an interest in him and his problems.  She was making sense, too, and it pissed him off that he’d spent tens of thousands of dollars in therapy at home and then a total stranger who was born and raised in the backwoods of the American Southwest seemed to be doing a better job getting at the roots of his dilemma. 

Mel wasn’t finished.  “Are you sure renewing a relationship with Erika Hightower is what you’re looking for?  Is that going to fix things in your life?  Is all of this ... your coming back here ... pursuing Erika ... is that what you’re really looking for, Max?”

Where did that come from?
 
How close is Mel to Doris?
  How much was his stepmother involved in all of this?  Now, he was getting angry.  “I didn’t know you and Doris were such good friends.  I assume your information comes from her.” 

“Big deal, Max.  It doesn’t matter how I know.”

She was touching another nerve.  Her in-your-face attitude was intimidating.  Then again, why was he letting her get away with it?  There was a low, distant rumble of thunder toward the east.  “Are you and Doris in some conspiracy?”

“It’s not like that.”

Max turned, walked back to the tree stump and sat.  “Really?  You and Doris figured it out ... you know what’s best for me ... you two know better than I do why I’m here ... why, I can’t eat or sleep ... why I’m having the worse case of writers block I have ever had?  You two know all that?  Damn, you’re good.”

The thunder was closer now, and loud enough that both of them looked up into the treetops.
The bright sunlight slowly gave way to gray shadows and cool breezes.  The rain that Max predicted earlier in the day was approaching fast. 

“Max?”

“No, it’s okay.  I came here looking for answers, all screwed up.  I should have just had a conference call with you and Doris.  I could have saved all that time and money flying ... first class ... from New York to LA, then all that gas driving here from Huntington Beach.  One phone call, one fucking phone call and I could have been sitting at the Carnegie Deli wolfing down a pastrami on rye, then back to my place for a few hours of work on the new bestseller before turning in for a good nights sleep.”

A crack of thunder reverberated through the forest surrounding them.
              “Don’t be a schmuck, Max.  Doris cares about you.  She wants to help.  She knows you’re struggling.  Everyone who cares about you wants to help.”

“Not to sound ungrateful, Mel, but I’ve struggled with this crappy depression for two years, and it pisses me off to think that you and Doris are able to c
ut through the crap in two days and pin- point what’s wrong with my life.”

She walked over to him. 
“It’s not like that.”

“Do you know what it’s like, Mel?  Let me tell you.  You’
re down in the bottom of a well and the walls are covered in slime and mud.  You claw your way up a couple feet only to slide back into the hole.  Have you had that feeling?”

“Maybe.”

He stood and faced her.  “No 'maybe' about it!  You’d know.  Then there’re the panic attacks.  You’re sitting in a nice restaurant having a glass of wine with a friend, and suddenly you feel like screaming ... for no reason.  There’s a storm raging inside your chest, tearing your guts up, and your brain feels like it’s going to explode.  You break out in a sweat, your breathing is labored, and you get dizzy.  Ever feel one of those?  Don’t say ‘maybe.’”