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When he picked Pamela up that morning she was in a good mood, and as they headed east on the freeway she talked happily. She talked happily about the mountains that they were heading toward. They were the same mountains that he had crossed when he had entered from Tucson. Gradually the freeway narrowed and traffic faltered and dropped, until at a point in East county the freeway turned into a highway; the freeway became a four-lane highway that dwindled into two lanes, and this highway started to climb and to curve as pine trees approached and heightened. As these trees grew taller and older Dwight downshifted and slowed. Finally He turned north off the highway onto vague and unmarked roads. Thin gold stabs of sunlight kept on flaring through the windshield, and Dwight took one road to the next as each road became fainter; finally the last paved road wavered and turned into dirt, and from then on the dirt roads were so little-used that tufts of grass grew in their centers. Dwight was startled to discover that nothing had changed. There was the same wide dirt clearing and the same small pond. Logging had been outlawed in this area many years ago, but in the days when logging had been legal large sections of earth had been cleared; this portion was ten acres wide and it had been cleared of all stumps, apparently by someone who had purchased the land for a purpose. But that purpose had been abandoned and the land remained cleared. Decades of rain had carved deep groves and channels into the earth. The air smelled of the amber resins that oozed from some pine trunks, and of needles that were gathered into dense clusters of blue-green fans; there was not the slightest breeze and the sun burned down, thin and gold and separated as it passed through the pine trees. “Time,” Pamela said as she climbed from the Porsche, “hasn’t changed, has it?” She looked awed as she stared toward the trees.
“Not much.”
She stared up. After a minute she looked down and they unpacked their things. Dwight knelt and he cleared a space of mottled brown and green pine cones, and he spread a large white towel and she set a day pack on the towel; he set down a picnic basket as she sat and worked off her shoes, and he looked toward the gleams of blue light out upon the surface of the pond. “I’ve always wondered,” she told him, “who owns this land here. Whoever it is must be an idiot.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s sitting here. Someone should be using it.”
“Someone rich must have bought it. Someone rich enough to forget about it.” He rubbed on some sun block. She undid her brown hip pack and she prepared to smoke some marijuana. “Did you sleep last night?” she asked him as she lighted her cigarette. “You look like you got some rest.”
“Maybe an hour or so. I haven’t really slept since I left from Tucson.”
“Want a hit?”
He hesitated. Then he decided to accept her offer and he took the cigarette. “I keep thinking,” she went on, “how it felt yesterday. To be sitting in my Cessna.”
“And?”
“It felt so good. It felt like I was meant to be there.”
“Maybe you were.”
“But I wasn’t. I was ready to pre-flight it, like you said when you stopped me. It was the strangest sort of feeling.” He gave her the cigarette. She inhaled some more blue smoke and she released it slowly. “I wanted to fly it,” she told Dwight, “one last time, you know? But I can’t. I’d just throw up.” Blue jays cried in the trees. They had sharp and metallic voices as they darted about. “That would be dying with dignity,” she told Dwight at last. “But there’s no possible way to do it.”
“I’m sorry.”
Five minutes passed. Gradually the tranquility of the location settled down through them. Dwight took out a bottle of water and Pamela drank from it, and after another long pause Dwight ate a peanut butter sandwich; Pamela decided to eat an orange and she took her time peeling it, not as he would in one long strip but in many small chips. “Remember how you taught me here?” she asked him in a while. “How to drive in your old car?”
“That was fun.”
“What was it? It was ugly and gold, I remember.”
“It was a 1982 Toyota. You learned pretty fast, I remember.”
“You’ve sure climbed in the world. Driving a car that costs as much as a house.”
“Do you want to drive it?”
“Where?”
“Out here. You’ve got plenty of room out here.”
“That sounds like fun,” she decided. “You’re right. There’s not much for me to destroy.” They lapsed back into silence. Ten minutes later they got up and they walked to his Porsche. He helped her in behind the steering wheel and he climbed in beside her, and he showed her how to handle the controls and she started the engine; as she released the clutch the Porsche lurched but that was momentary, and as she started to drive in a circle Dwight complimented her. The grooves and the channels in the earth caused the Porsche to shake. The sun stabbed in at different angles but she abruptly stopped. “I’m going to puke,” she whispered as she lowered her head. “It’s the tumor in my brain.”
“Stay still.”
The car hummed. Dwight switched off the ignition switch and she looked less pale. “I’ll be all right,” she told him after a long time. “I need to get back under those trees.”
“Come on.”
They returned. He left the Porsche where it was and they sat on the white towel. Due to the thousands of pine needles that fanned in layers above them, the sunlight that reached their bodies was a smokish haze; the needles on the lowest boughs fanned from pencil-thick branches, ones that swayed elliptically when a light breeze rose through them. “Why isn’t there proof,” she asked him presently, “that there is a God? That would make it so much easier.”
He nodded down.
“I mean really. It scares the shit out of me to think of rotting underground. People don’t talk about that part of it.”
“I know.” He took her hand. Soon they talked about other matters and at last she fell asleep. She fell asleep with her head atop his jeans and her face looked cleansed, as if the torture that she was undergoing had been washed out of her; when she awoke it was Two P.M. and they talked some more, and when it felt appropriate for them to leave she made a startling request. “Could we stop at Sacred Heart church?” she asked him quietly. “Before you drop me off at home?”
“Sure.”
They prepared to leave. Once he had wound back onto the highway she put her hand on his hand. They traveled west toward the promise of a magnificent sunset, and the beauty of what lay ahead of them temporarily lulled him; golden puffs of cumulus cloud towered from one another, and streaks and strands of yellow mist had pink undertones to them. As the highway turned into a freeway traffic thickened and widened. Dwight had to change lanes regularly but he maintained his speed. He veered left onto Sunset Cliffs Boulevard and he drove to Saratoga Street, where he turned left, circled around, and parked close to Sacred Heart church; he helped Pamela out of the Porsche and they crossed the street, and they entered the church through a transept door and they stopped and looked around. Votive candles in a rack were dark red and dark blue. The air smelled of marble, wax, and of varnished oak pews. “Do you mind if I kneel and pray?” Pamela asked him. Her voice was hushed as she stood beside him.
“Not at all.”
She led him. She pulled down a kneeler in a front pew and Dwight knelt beside her. After ten or fifteen minutes an old priest appeared, crossing in front of the marble alter and the gold tabernacle; as he neared the tabernacle he genuflected briefly, and after that he turned abruptly and he looked toward Pamela. What caused the priest to turn toward Pamela made no sense to Dwight. Pamela had not said a word or made a sound and Dwight would dwell on this later. “Monsignor Rhatigan?” Pamela asked and she cleared her throat. “I used to go to grade school here.”
“Yes?
“Could I talk to you? It’s about something that’s happening to me.”
“Certainly.”
She pushed up. She approached the tall old priest and Dwight watched
the two of them. After ten or twenty seconds the priest recognized her, if not by her name than by that of her devout grandmother; he indicated that they should move to the north and they sat in a pew, and Dwight felt mildly jealous so he looked up toward the crucifix. The crucifix was mounted above the tabernacle and it was a yard tall. The Christ that was nailed to the crucifix had been cast out of plaster. Although he had no religious beliefs Dwight felt compelled to stay knelt, but his body was too large for the pew and he began to shift restlessly; he shifted his feet irritably and he refolded his hands, and when he looked to the left of him he felt more jealous. Pamela and the priest had stood and as Dwight watched they left the main part of the church. They walked through an open space to the left of the altar. Dwight grunted and pushed upright and he stalked outside, and he waited on the sidewalk for ten minutes as he stared toward nothing; “Thank you,” Pamela told him as she came out, “for waiting for me. It was great to talk to him.”
“You look so different,” he admitted. “You look so—content, somehow.”
“He heard my confession. He anointed me for the sick, too.”
“That’s good.”
“Could we go to the beach? You know, to sit and watch the sun set?”
“Sure.”
They crossed to his car. When they neared her grandmother’s house Dwight slowed and braked as he stared. Two-by-fours, exterior plywood, and shingles were stacked on both sides of the driveway, amid concrete blocks, rolls of tarpaper, five-gallon drums, and nail boxes; for the first time since his arrival Pamela started to laugh, and her laughter sounded so wonderful to him that Dwight forgot to feel jealous. “She’s so crazy,” Pamela managed, “in her own loveable way. She’ll live to be one hundred years old, too.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
He drove on. He drove to the parking lot that lay to the north of the pier. As he parked in front of the sea wall he noticed many things, such as the way that the cumulus clouds looked and some lovers looked; lovers who had their hands clasped loosely walked back and forth around the Porsche, heading either up to the pier or to the beach or back from it. He climbed out and he locked the Porsche, and he took Pamela by the arm. They walked to the steps in the sea wall and down to the beach. They put their arms around each other and they walked to the water, where they stood for a minute or two before they turned to walk north; they walked aside the undulations of foam on the sand, undulations that kept changing and overlapping each second. On the sand where the tide was breaking an orange light was mirrored. Against it the dartings of terns were sharp silhouettes. Dwight and Pamela walked in silence toward the length of the jetty, and they turned twenty yards from the jetty and they looked south while the foam kept bubbling; “It felt good,” she said at last, “to give him my confession. I don’t know why it felt so good.”
“He seemed kind.”
“He gave me a hug. He said that he wants to see me again.” Dwight nodded at this. The murmurings of the tide cast a spell that made their silence appropriate. She let her whole weight press against him and he held her there, and presently they turned simultaneously and walked up to some softer sand; they kept their bodies close together and they watched the sun, an orange sun that was beginning to paint the towers and striations of clouds. “What are your plans,” she asked him at last, “say for the next ten years? What do you think that you’ll be doing then?”
“I’ll be our manager at Synitron. It’s more or less expected of me.”
“Do you want that?”
“Yes, I think so. I’ve decided that I like my work.”
“Do you remember how you helped me? Figuring out the steps to my goal?”
“Yes.”
“That helped me so much. When I could see the different segments, it helped me, you know? It didn’t seem so overwhelming.”
“I was happy to do it. Planning is what I like to do.”
“That’s your gift.”
The sun settled. The entire sea was a mirror that was orange and coruscating. “It’s so perfect out,” Pamela told him after a long time. I want it to stay like this forever.”
“We can stay.”
But it changed. The orange sea became dark orange and the clouds darkened as well. Dwight and Pamela stayed until the ocean was gray and purple, and without discussing it they stood and walked south; “Monsignor Rhatigan,” she told him, “says that God accepts everything. There’s nothing that God doesn’t accept.”
Dwight nodded.
They stopped walking. They stood and they watched the sea and at last they crossed to his car. “Why don’t you stop by,” she asked him, “say at eight tomorrow morning? We can think of something to do then.”
“All right.” He drove to her house. He pulled up into her driveway and he switched off the engine. “Thanks,” she told him after a minute, “for a wonderful day. It was exactly what I wanted.”
“I enjoyed it, too. It was great to be there with you.”
“Thanks.” She took his hand. They sat in a purple twilight and they looked toward her house. “Did you ever wonder,” she asked him, “how it would have turned out? If we’d tried to make it work together?”
“Yes, a lot of times. You know how I felt about you.”
“Did we blow it, then? Was it all a huge mistake?”
“I don’t know,” he told her. “We did what we thought was the right thing.” He hesitated for a moment. Pamela gazed up silently toward his troubled profile. “What are you thinking about?” she asked him after a moment. Her voice was quieter and gentler.
“That it hasn’t changed. I love you as much as I ever did.” She sniffed as he told her this. Then they kissed as they had six years ago and as if time had not passed. Let me be the one, he thought, that has it and dies. Take it from her. I can take it. She pressed back from him. In the twilight her blue eyes were purple and maroon and light gray. “I love you,” she told him fiercely, “and I’ll see you tomorrow. Bright and early. Okay?”
“Okay.”
She pushed out from her side. Before he could offer her assistance she was inside of her house.