the while studying Erik’s face over the rim of her glass. There was something brazenly suggestive about that look. “At raising funds, I mean,” she added innocently as yet another blush erupted from the top of Erik’s now too-tight collar.
“Oh, yes,” President Moore agreed, giving Erik’s shoulder a hearty whack. “The best. That’s the only kind we hire.”
Someone came up behind President Moore, tapped him on the shoulder, and led him off to another group of attendees, leaving a still-blushing Erik uncomfortably close to Gayle Stryker.
“So how old are you, then?” she asked. “I don’t believe in beating around the bush.”
“Thirty,” he admitted reluctantly. “I started out working for the alumni association while I was still an undergraduate—”
“Studying what?” she interjected.
“Poli-sci,” Erik answered. “By the time I graduated, I had lost all interest in politics. I was thinking about going to law school, but the alumni association gave me a job while I was trying to figure out what else I wanted to be when I grew up. I’ve been there ever since.”
Gayle handed him her drink. Then she reached into a tiny jeweled purse and pulled out a business card, which she handed to him.
“If you’re tired of raising money for the university,” she said, “you might want to come see me. Maybe you’d enjoy taking a crack at saving the world. I’ll be in the office all week. I might make you an offer you won’t be able to refuse.”
She had sauntered away then, leaving Erik holding both the card and a lipstick-marred glass containing a virtually untouched margarita. The card said “Gayle Stryker, CFO, Medicos for Mexico.” Erik slipped the card into the pocket of his tux. Then, because he didn’t know what else to do with the margarita, he lifted it to his lips and polished it off in a single gulp.
That was the beginning, Erik LaGrange thought to himself as he sat on the rock-bound ledge of the mountain. And five years later, this is the end.
***
At two o’clock in the morning a bleary-eyed Dolores Lanita Walker sat before her computer screen and longed for sleep, but sleep proved elusive this long Friday night, just as it had for days now. She knew she should be studying. Finals were coming. She didn’t really need to sweat them. She’d already been accepted into the medical school at the University of Arizona back home in Tucson. But what she really wanted was to be there right now, to be home where Lani knew she was needed.
Four years earlier, her parents had tried to convince her that it would be far simpler for her to do her undergraduate work in Tucson. Her father had been especially adamant on that score. One way or another, Brandon Walker had lost two of his three sons. He didn’t want to lose her, too, but Lani had stuck to her guns. Rather than stay home, she had come to Grand Forks, North Dakota, and enrolled in a program called INMED—Indians into Medicine at the University of North Dakota’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
As an orphaned Tohono O’odham child who had been raised in an Anglo household and attended predominantly Anglo schools, Lani had wanted to go somewhere else to school, to a place where it would be possible for her to meet and interact with other Native American kids—kids from tribes all over the country, who would know what it was like to live in that uncertain no-man’s-land between Anglo and Indian cultures. She wanted to spend time with people who, like her, negotiated those treacherous minefields every day of their lives.
Lani hadn’t been wrong. Her three roommates in this poorly insulated rental house were proof enough of that. Margie was a Paiute from Nevada, Darlene a Rosebud Sioux, and Laura a Black-foot from Montana. Laura, an accomplished skier, had taught them all to ski, while Darlene had helped Lani learn how to ice-skate. The four girls shared many of the same values and laughed at the same jokes. And they all
“Oh, yes,” President Moore agreed, giving Erik’s shoulder a hearty whack. “The best. That’s the only kind we hire.”
Someone came up behind President Moore, tapped him on the shoulder, and led him off to another group of attendees, leaving a still-blushing Erik uncomfortably close to Gayle Stryker.
“So how old are you, then?” she asked. “I don’t believe in beating around the bush.”
“Thirty,” he admitted reluctantly. “I started out working for the alumni association while I was still an undergraduate—”
“Studying what?” she interjected.
“Poli-sci,” Erik answered. “By the time I graduated, I had lost all interest in politics. I was thinking about going to law school, but the alumni association gave me a job while I was trying to figure out what else I wanted to be when I grew up. I’ve been there ever since.”
Gayle handed him her drink. Then she reached into a tiny jeweled purse and pulled out a business card, which she handed to him.
“If you’re tired of raising money for the university,” she said, “you might want to come see me. Maybe you’d enjoy taking a crack at saving the world. I’ll be in the office all week. I might make you an offer you won’t be able to refuse.”
She had sauntered away then, leaving Erik holding both the card and a lipstick-marred glass containing a virtually untouched margarita. The card said “Gayle Stryker, CFO, Medicos for Mexico.” Erik slipped the card into the pocket of his tux. Then, because he didn’t know what else to do with the margarita, he lifted it to his lips and polished it off in a single gulp.
That was the beginning, Erik LaGrange thought to himself as he sat on the rock-bound ledge of the mountain. And five years later, this is the end.
***
At two o’clock in the morning a bleary-eyed Dolores Lanita Walker sat before her computer screen and longed for sleep, but sleep proved elusive this long Friday night, just as it had for days now. She knew she should be studying. Finals were coming. She didn’t really need to sweat them. She’d already been accepted into the medical school at the University of Arizona back home in Tucson. But what she really wanted was to be there right now, to be home where Lani knew she was needed.
Four years earlier, her parents had tried to convince her that it would be far simpler for her to do her undergraduate work in Tucson. Her father had been especially adamant on that score. One way or another, Brandon Walker had lost two of his three sons. He didn’t want to lose her, too, but Lani had stuck to her guns. Rather than stay home, she had come to Grand Forks, North Dakota, and enrolled in a program called INMED—Indians into Medicine at the University of North Dakota’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences.
As an orphaned Tohono O’odham child who had been raised in an Anglo household and attended predominantly Anglo schools, Lani had wanted to go somewhere else to school, to a place where it would be possible for her to meet and interact with other Native American kids—kids from tribes all over the country, who would know what it was like to live in that uncertain no-man’s-land between Anglo and Indian cultures. She wanted to spend time with people who, like her, negotiated those treacherous minefields every day of their lives.
Lani hadn’t been wrong. Her three roommates in this poorly insulated rental house were proof enough of that. Margie was a Paiute from Nevada, Darlene a Rosebud Sioux, and Laura a Black-foot from Montana. Laura, an accomplished skier, had taught them all to ski, while Darlene had helped Lani learn how to ice-skate. The four girls shared many of the same values and laughed at the same jokes. And they all
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