A Scatter of Light, page 13
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Steph suggested we go to the In-N-Out by the freeway. She led me to a blue Toyota truck that looked like it was from the 1980s, parked in the employee lot beyond the pallets of rocks. On the doors I saw the faded outlines of letters that had been peeled off; they spelled NICHOLS LANDSCAPING.
Steph got in and reached across the cab to push up the passenger side lock. I climbed in, and the hot vinyl seat burned against my thighs. “Ow,” I said, and scooted to the edge.
“Here, you can sit on this,” Steph said. She pulled out a spare Greenbrae Garden Center apron from behind her seat.
“Thanks,” I said, and tucked it beneath my legs.
She started the engine, and I looked for the button to roll down the window, only to realize the truck was old enough to have a hand crank. I turned it, squeaking, to let in the still, hot air.
“The sign that used to be on the car door—Nichols Landscaping,” I said. “Does your family have a landscaping business? Is that how you got into . . .” I gestured at the garden center as she drove us out of the employee parking lot.
“Sort of. This was my dad’s truck. He had a landscaping business, but he died when I was twelve.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said quickly.
She shook her head. “You didn’t know. My aunt Christy tried to keep the business running for a while but it didn’t work out. She gave me the truck when I turned sixteen. It was already old then, but it still runs.” She rapped her knuckles on the tan plastic dashboard. “Hopefully for a while longer, anyway.” She turned left onto Sir Francis Drake and nodded toward the shopping center. “So were you really across the street before you came in?”
She sounded as if she thought I was lying—that I’d made that up as an excuse to see her. And she’d asked me to lunch anyway. “Yes, I was really across the street,” I said, pretending to sound indignant. “I went to buy some brushes at the art supply store.” I now remembered my iced chai, probably totally melted in Joan’s car.
“For your grandma?”
“No, for me.”
“I didn’t know you painted.”
“I don’t. Not like Joan anyway. I painted with her when I was a kid, but I haven’t really painted anything in a long time.”
“What made you want to paint now?”
I didn’t know how to explain it to myself, much less to Steph. It was more like an instinct than any conscious desire. “I guess . . . why not try something new?” I was looking at her and she glanced sideways at me for a second, and when our eyes met, I wondered if what I’d said sounded suggestive.
She smiled slightly. “Why not?” she echoed.
“What makes you want to write a song?” I asked.
She turned onto a side road so we could go under the highway overpass. In-N-Out was on the other side, just outside a shopping center that contained a Trader Joe’s. Dad and I had gone to it before.
“It depends,” she answered. “For the song I sang at the open mic, I was going for a different sound—acoustic, Americana-type stuff.” She glanced at me as she said, “I wanted to try something new.”
“Did you write all the Madchen songs?”
“No. Roxy wrote a couple and I wrote a couple. But the whole band worked on the music together.” She turned into the In-N-Out drive-through lane. There were four cars ahead of us. “I thought we’d get it to go to save time,” she said. “There’s a nice place to park down the road where you can see the bay. I go there for lunch sometimes.”
“Sounds good.”
We were quiet for a while as the line inched forward. A young couple came out of the restaurant with a tray of food and sat down at one of the tables near the drive-through. The girl was blond with glossy pink lips, wearing short jean shorts and a pink tank top. I could see the blue straps of her bra. The guy, dressed in a 49ers jersey and baggy shorts, quickly stuffed a bunch of fries in his mouth.
Steph saw me watching them and said, “So, do you have a boyfriend? You never told me.” She added with a smile, “Or a girlfriend?”
The second part of her question made my whole body go hot. “Not right now,” I answered, trying to sound nonchalant.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the girl at the table unwrapping her burger, lifting it to her pink lips. I looked down and noticed that the twin cup holder wasn’t built into the dashboard; it had been velcroed beneath the ancient tape deck. Steph shifted in her seat, and I wondered if she was going to ask me something more. I wanted her to, but I was also afraid she would.
But then she said, “I think I’m going to do the concert.”
I looked at her in surprise. “You are?”
She was gazing at the Prius in front of us, one hand resting on the steering wheel, the other on the gear shift. She pulled us ahead. “Yeah. It’s just one day, and Roxy and I wanted to do it last year, but we didn’t get in. I didn’t realize she tried again.”
“Are you excited?”
She made a face that was sort of a grimace. “I don’t know. I mean, I want to do it. I like playing with the band. But if I do it, will I want to do it again? I’ve done a couple open mics and they’re just not the same. I don’t think I like performing solo.”
“I know you said there were reasons you couldn’t be in the band, but it seems like if you like it that much, and the band wants you back . . .”
I saw her grip on the steering wheel tense, and then she deliberately let it go. “It’s not that simple. I have to think about whether it’s good for me and Lisa.”
“Shouldn’t she want you to do what makes you happy?”
Steph’s jaw clenched.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t be butting in.”
“She gets jealous,” Steph said unexpectedly.
“Of the band? Or Roxy?”
Steph pulled the truck forward to the menu, and through the speaker a slightly scratchy voice said, “Welcome to In-N-Out. Can I take your order?”
We both asked for the same thing: cheeseburgers animal style, with fries and Diet Cokes. I pulled my wallet from my purse and extracted a twenty-dollar bill, holding it out to her. After a second of hesitation, she took my money. I was faintly disappointed.
“I’ll get change,” she said, and pulled the truck forward again. We weren’t quite at the pickup window yet. “I understand why she’s jealous,” she continued. “It’s a little weird to be in a band—and it’s not like Madchen was well-known. We were barely anything, but people come to shows and look at you, and they have ideas about you, and they want things from you. It probably sucks to see that and be on the outside.”
I thought about my mother and that Boston Globe article my dad had kept. I had been too young to witness the way he reacted when he saw her onstage, but he never struck me as the jealous type. Had he felt like he was on the outside? I wondered if that was part of why they’d divorced.
Steph looked at me. “I didn’t mean to unload that on you.”
“No, I get it. I can see how it would be hard to deal with.”
Finally, we were at the pickup window, and Steph passed me the food to hold while she paid. The smell of french fries made my stomach growl. Then she handed me fifteen dollars in change and drove out of the drive-through lane.
“It’s just down here a little ways,” Steph said as she turned onto the street. We passed the road that led back under the overpass; we passed the entrance to a trailer park; and then suddenly on the left, water appeared, dotted with small grassy islands.
“What is this place?” I asked. “I’ve never been here.”
“I don’t know. I think it’s some kind of marshland. It connects to the bay. You can’t see it from here but over to the left is the ferry terminal at Larkspur.”
The 101 freeway was directly to our right, but it was elevated above the road, so as long as we weren’t looking at it, we could be on a remote stretch of the coast. Steph pulled into a little parking area facing the water and turned off the engine. The low roar of the freeway sounded almost like the ocean.
I handed over her lunch and opened my own, and for a while we were busy with the food. The burgers and fries came in paper trays, into which I squeezed my packets of ketchup. I had a sudden memory of dipping fries into a paper ketchup cup, sitting at a hard red-and-white plastic booth inside In-N-Out. Dad had been the one who taught me to order my burger animal style, and now as I picked mine up, I remembered the taste just before I bit in: the tangy pickles mixed with minced grilled onions, the toasted bun, the slice of tomato that always wanted to slide out and escape. This was the second burger I’d eaten with Steph this summer.
“I always forget how good this is,” I said between bites. “I wish there was an In-N-Out where I live.”
“There is, for this summer.” She took a sip of her drink.
“I guess we’ll have to come back.” I said we without thinking, and I saw her eyes brighten when she heard it. I felt a warmth in me that had nothing to do with the summer heat.
It was a surprisingly intimate experience to be sitting beside her, the ancient vinyl seats creaking whenever we moved. We didn’t say much because we were eating, and I was excruciatingly aware of the movements of my mouth. The crispy-soft texture of the meat as I bit into it, the creamy-vinegary taste of the sauce, the saliva in my mouth, the flavor on my lips. I saw her right hand reaching for her drink, lifting it from the cup holder, her fingers shiny with french fry oil. I didn’t intend to finish my fries but of course I did, and afterward I licked the salt from my fingers.
We stuffed the cheeseburger wrappers into the paper sacks, crumpling up the trays and fitting them inside, too. “Here, I’ll take it,” Steph said, gesturing to the trash can at the edge of the tiny parking lot.
I handed my bag to her, and she opened the door and walked over to the trash. Beyond her the water tossed off light like diamonds. She came back to the truck and got in, and we sat there in silence. It felt like a good silence. I could say something, but I didn’t have to. She leaned her head against the headrest. Her eyelashes were dark and thick.
After a while she turned to look at me and said, “I have to get back to work.”
“I know.”
She smiled that tiny smile again and reached forward to turn the key in the ignition. Her right hand seemed to move toward me—I could see it coming to rest on my knee, her fingers sliding over the soft skin of my inner thigh—but her hand only came to rest on the gear shift between us.
All the way back I could feel her phantom hand on my leg, even though she had never touched me.
On Tuesday I wanted to drive back to the garden center, to linger in the flower aisles until I saw Steph. I imagined her pulling her brown apron off, folding it, catching my eye as if she expected to see me there. We would get into her truck and she would drive us somewhere—it didn’t really matter where—but I imagined redwoods rolling past the windows, which meant we were heading west past Woodacre and toward Point Reyes. I would look over at her and we’d be laughing, the windows open and wind whipping my hair back as if we were in a movie, and she would reach out and put her right hand on my thigh.
I wanted to text her, but every message I started turned into a fantasy.
The flowers you planted are dying, you need to save them. She’d show up and we’d go to the shed, and instead of taking down the spade or the watering can she’d run her fingers through my hair to extract another errant leaf, and then her hand would cup my face. I could feel her palm on my cheek.
Do you want to go out for another burger I’m so hungry. We’d go to the Fairfax Grille again, just the two of us, and after we ate our dripping Marin burgers we’d go out to her truck, and she’d lean across the gear shift and her lips would taste like salt.
Once I hovered my finger over the send button for a good long minute, wondering what she would do if she got a message from me that said I have to see you, please come over.
I deleted the message. I didn’t even leave Joan’s house for fear that I’d be compelled to case out Steph’s neighborhood on the off chance she wasn’t working and might be sitting outside, waiting for me.
I was possessed by thoughts of her that made me want to do stupid, embarrassing things. I wasn’t myself.
I took the paintbrushes I’d bought into the studio, but now that I had them, I didn’t know what to do. They stayed in their plastic wrappers on the counter next to the paints. I turned the camping chair away from the TV in the corner and toward the view out the windows. I sat down in the chair and opened up The Dream of a Common Language.
On the title page was an inscription: To Steph—Don’t give up on your dreams. I couldn’t read the signature, but it looked like a J followed by a squiggle.
I reached for my phone and texted her: Who gave you the book of Rich poems? Just curious.
As soon as I sent it—part of me pleased that I’d come up with a legitimate reason to text her—I felt stupid and wished I hadn’t.
She didn’t respond immediately. I opened the book again and began to read. “Twenty-One Love Poems” weren’t twenty-one separate poems, but a connected narrative, a story about two women who meet in New York City and fall in love. Their relationship seemed to end ambiguously; I wasn’t entirely sure what happened. One poem was unnumbered and titled “The Floating Poem,” and this was the only one that fit my idea of what a love poem was supposed to be: centered on physical desire. I ran the words around in my mouth as if I were tasting something new. They were lush and round, like berries. If I were to paint them, they would be ripe orange and pomegranate red.
My phone dinged, making my heart race.
Steph wrote: Ms. Silva, my high school English teacher. She gave it to me when I graduated.
I stared at her message for some time before I responded. I’m reading the 21 love poems. Is your song inspired by number 15? The lyrics sound like some of those lines.
Several minutes passed before she replied: Not exactly, but sort of. It’s hard to explain by text. I get off work in an hour. Want to meet up?
A burst of excitement went through me. I forced myself to wait for a minute. While I was counting off seconds, I remembered Joan had gone out for the afternoon, taking her car, and I had promised to walk Analemma. A flash of disappointment was followed by a sudden new idea.
Do you want to come here? Joan’s out and I told her I’d take Analemma on a hike. You could come with us.
I waited, barely breathing, for what felt like the longest thirty seconds of my life. Her response was brief: OK.
* * *
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By the time Steph arrived, I’d put on sneakers and changed my clothes twice. When Analemma started barking, I grabbed her leash and my sunglasses, and we went out to meet Steph.
She was coming up the path and bent down to pet Analemma, who bounded up to her. “You look ready to go,” she said, and Analemma barked. Steph laughed. “Wow, all right,” she said, and then she looked up at me from beneath the brim of her baseball cap, smiling. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I replied. Analemma dashed down to the bottom of the path to wait by the closed gate, her tail whipping back and forth excitedly.
“After you,” Steph said, and she stepped aside so that I could brush past her and put Analemma on her leash.
“I thought we’d take the short loop up to the fire road,” I said. “It’s just a couple of miles. Have you ever hiked up there?”
“No. Sounds good to me.”
As we walked, Analemma ranged ahead on the leash, sniffing at plants and patches of the ground. Not far from Joan’s house, I turned onto a single-lane road. We passed the gates to other houses built up into the hillside, but except for us the road was deserted.
“Can I ask you that question again?” I said. We weren’t looking at each other as we walked, and maybe that made it easier to talk.
“About the song?”
“Yeah. I wondered if it was inspired by a specific poem.”
“Not just one poem, more like the whole group of them. I wrote it last year when I was about to turn twenty-one, so that’s why it’s called ‘Twenty-One.’ And I guess I was thinking a lot about relationships, and how much work they are, and ‘Twenty-One Love Poems’ is about how Adrienne Rich’s relationship with another woman is a lot of work. You have to choose to be in the relationship, because the rest of the world doesn’t make it easy.”
“Do you believe that?”
“The world is definitely not set up for queer relationships.”
“True, but I mean do you believe that relationships are a lot of work? I always thought that if you’re in a relationship with someone, it should work on its own. You shouldn’t have to force it.”
“I don’t think forcing anything is a good idea, but yeah, you have to work at it.”
I wanted to ask if her relationship with Lisa was a lot of work, but instead I said, “Some things can’t be forced, anyway. Like chemistry. You either have it with someone or you don’t.”
“You think so?”
We arrived at the trailhead, and Analemma led the way through the metal gate onto the trail.
“Of course, don’t you?” I said. “Isn’t it obvious when you’re attracted to someone?” I looked at her through my sunglasses, which made it feel safer to ask this question, but she only smiled slightly and didn’t meet my eyes.
“Sometimes it’s obvious, yeah,” she said.
I felt like I was too close to saying something I shouldn’t. Analemma was sniffing at the little yellow flowers growing along the side of the path, and I used it as an excuse to bend down and look at them.
“Joan told me these are named something kind of funny,” I said. “I can’t remember.”
“Monkey flowers. They grow all over around here.” Steph bent down and plucked one of the blossoms; it was about the size of the tip of her thumb. “Supposedly they’re called monkey flowers because they look like monkey faces, but I don’t see it.” She offered me the little bloom. “Do you see it?”
