Read Online The Beginners by Rebecca Wolff - Free Book Online Page A

pioneers, luring each other on with the nugget of that last frontier. We wanted something new, and what could be newer than the huge landscape in front of us, so unsettled to our crowded New England eyes? We passed through farm towns, dairy towns, mountain towns, cowboy towns, ranch towns, tourist towns, and in all of them I could see a place for us. I had no trouble visualizing our niche and just how we might come to occupy it. I would have babies, Theo could read. We both could have jobs at the local toothbrush factory, or teaching at the high school. God knows young minds always need forming.” Raquel smiled, comfortable as she was in her monopoly on our attentions.
    “By the time we got to Glacier National Park, in Montana, we were completely fatigued, not to mention malnourished from subsisting on peanut butter and soft white bread. So we decided to stay there for a while. We rented a spot in a campsite. It was late May and still quite cold. You could see snow up on the peaks. Even down where we were at night it might drop to thirty-five degrees, and in the morning we would wake up in the back of the car all cramped and stiff from sleeping clenched together.
    “I can’t remember a more idyllic time. Every morning we got up and had instant coffee and bread and apples, then we’d go hiking. The park is infested with bison. You find their huge spiral droppings all over the place, on every trail, in every meadow. They look just exactly like a massive cinnamon roll made of shit.” At this we giggled, ceremoniously.
    “But I was reluctant to go on any of the more difficult trails. Reluctance characterizes my attitude toward this brief sojourn in the wild. I know exactly what relationship I am supposed to be enjoying with the environment—it’s meant to be one of sublime, transcendent communion. An understanding, if you will, is meant to spring up between me and the leaves on the trees, me and the meadows and the wildflowers growing wildly on those meadows, between me and the warm rain that fell on our heads and shoulders one day when we were caught in an early summer storm.” Cherry coughed lightly, and when I glanced her way she caught my eyes purposefully, but I did not want to be distracted. I returned to Raquel my full attention.
    “But no acorn can be my friend, when I know what sort of growth will come out of the bond. The wet grass drives me mad with discomfort. The wood elves shun my tread. My gosh, girls, look at the time! Am I boring you?”
    I did look at the clock on the bedside table; it was two-thirty. Cherry stretched beside me, and yawned a little. “I guess we do have to get going soon,” she said, her voice thick from long silence. But I figured I could stay for another twenty minutes and still make it to the Top Hat on time for my shift.
    “Well, where was I . . . oh, yes. So. We left the park finally, and set off again, on little back roads, and made our way through town after town, all rife with possibility, until we reached the Pacific coast, in the state of Washington. We stayed in a motel in a logging town, took showers and stretched out between stiff, bleach-saturated sheets for several days. That was where Theo was struck with the desire to call home—‘just to let them know that we’re all right,’ he said.” Raquel paused here, sighed. I regarded her solemnly, aware that some great plot-twist was approaching.
    “We never made it to the promised land. Sadly, it turned out that everything was not all right at home. Theo’s mother had found a new lump in her remaining breast, after years in remission. They had started her on chemotherapy immediately, and she was very ill, throwing up all the time, weak, dizzy. Ted Senior said that he needed Theo’s help. Could we please come home?
    “We got hitched at a stop on our speedy, no-frills return journey, at Details National Park. A justice of the peace performed the ceremony at our campsite. I have snapshots—do you want to see