“Did you see the paper, the Cooper Point Journal?” Eric asks.
“What about it?”
“That story about the student who was raped?”
“Shit, where?”
“On campus, last Sunday. She was hitchhiking out on Mud Bay Road and this guy picked her up, took her to some place in the woods near school.”
“That’s horrible,” Sally says.
“The campus police caught the guy in the ASH parking lot later that night.”
“Maybe we should reconsider hitchhiking so much.”
“Well, don’t hitch alone,” Walt says. “That goes without saying.”
“Are you saying it’s her fault?” Sally says.
“No, of course not. I was just . . . I was responding to what you said about us not hitchhiking. I think it’s OK as long as you’re with someone.”
The four of us are walking up to campus for the Sunday night square dance after our usual potluck dinner at Walt and Maura’s. As we enter the dark, tangled woods between the dorms and the Rec Center, the thought of a rape occurring nearby stifles conversation.
I spent spring break in Seattle, sleeping at Walt’s parents’ house and exploring the city and playing music with Walt and Sally—making forays to the University District, Green Lake, Gasworks Park, Pioneer Square, Ballard, and even Vashon Island—and we got around by bus or by hitchhiking, but never alone. After my escapade on the way to the Dylan concert—and an uncomfortable ride from downtown Olympia to Evergreen in March, in which the driver, a middle-aged bachelor with an ochre tan, flowery silk cravat, and wispy blond hair, tried to get me to go home with him (for a glass of white wine?)—I’ve sworn off hitchhiking by myself.
The last day of break, the Sunday before classes began, we hitchhiked from the Vashon Island ferry dock in West Seattle back to Evergreen. We spent the previous night on Vashon with a couple of old-time musicians, Louie and Sylvia, playing tunes until dawn, and by the time we were up and out the door, with a breakfast stop at a diner near the ferry, we realized we would have trouble making the Greyhound back to Olympia, so we tried hitchhiking the whole way. A ride from one of the cars leaving the ferry (solicited with a primitively scribbled “Olympia” on one of the diner’s paper placemats) took us all the way to the Westside. From there, we just had to find a ride out to school. That took a while. After an unsuccessful half-hour wait outside the Westside Lanes, we decided to walk up Division, and it took a long time before we got a ride. Fortunately, the sun was out, we were in good spirits—a bit loopy from sleep deprivation—and dinner was waiting for us when we got to Walt’s place, courtesy of Maura, who had stayed in Olympia during the break.
I left my guitar in Olympia for the week—Walt borrowed one from his brother for me to use while I was in Seattle—and I spent much of the break playing the fiddle. Sally’s attraction to a banjo-uke Walt picked up in a Seattle pawn shop at Christmas had encouraged me to play fiddle at most of our Sunday afternoon sessions, which have become informal rehearsals. Walt, Sally, Eric, and I are now a band in all but name. After the Sea Slugs naming debacle, we’ve delayed the selection of a band moniker as long as possible.
I’ve become obsessed with learning new fiddle tunes and my repertoire has surpassed Sally’s, at least in number. Walt’s collection of old-time fiddle records is better than the Evergreen Library’s or Mr. Emerson’s, and in the last few weeks I’ve learned at least a tune a day from my favorites of his: Down to the Cider Mill by Tommy Jarrell, Oscar Jenkins, and Fred Cockerham; an eponymous platter by Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers; Texas Farewell, a compilation of 1920s recordings of Texas fiddlers; and a recent recording by West Virginia fiddler Clark Kessinger. My Panasonic cassette recorder has also become a constant companion. I coerced Liam into sitting down one night after the square dance and recording all the tunes he could think of that I didn’t already know, and it came in handy at the fiddle show Walt and Sally and I went to on our way to Seattle.
Put on by the Washington Old-Time Fiddlers Association in Kent, Washington, a small, working-class town southeast of Seattle, the show was similar to a fiddle contest, according to Sally, except that there was no judging or prizes. For the evening concert, fiddlers took turns playing a tune onstage, delivering their renditions with the same stony demeanor they would have exhibited during a contest. Aside from a few flashy vintage western outfits and an occasional pun-laced “aw, shucks” introduction, there was nothing showy about it, no attempt at entertainment, which I appreciated. During the afternoon, in addition to informal jams in the classrooms surrounding the community college auditorium that hosted the concert, Texas fiddler Benny Thomasson gave a workshop. His smooth style is precise and complex, and while I taped his hour-long workshop, his tunes are beyond my current technical ability, though I added a few to a mental list of music to aspire to. At one of the jams, I met a friend of Walt’s, Mike Breedlove, a fiddler from Bellingham, Washington, who has spent time in North Carolina and Virginia, even visiting Tommy Jarrell, the fiddler on Down to the Cider Mill. Mike played a lot of tunes I didn’t know, and I got him to play some of them into my recorder before we left that night.
“Maybe one of us should get a car,” Eric says.
“Like any of us could afford one,” I say.
“What if we all chip in and buy one together?” he says.
“So, who would get to keep it for the summer?” Walt asks him. “You’ll be in Portland, I assume, and Sally and I will be in Seattle. Kind of hard to trade off when we’re three hours apart.”
“And Lucas will be in LA,” Sally says, looking back at me as we enter the lighted plaza next to the CAB. I must have a puzzled expression on my face because she continues, “I assume you’re going home for the summer?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Until now, I’ve been able to avoid thinking seriously about summer. The end of spring quarter is still two months away, and I’m hoping that something will compel me to stay in Olympia. But I never considered that my friends might not be here, that they’ll be going home to their parents for the summer, as mine undoubtedly expect me to do. I haven’t even asked Jenny if she’s planning on staying at Willowberry or will be going to her mother’s house in Moscow.
“If you’re thinking of staying here, we could try to get some gigs around Seattle,” Sally says. “The Skunk Farm String Band sometimes needs subs for their weekly square dance at the Inside Passage. I heard that half the band was out of town last summer. Mike said he filled in for their fiddler a few times. We could tell the Skunks we’d be available if they need someone.”
“As a band?” Eric asks, sounding irritated. “I’d have to come up from Portland.”
“It’s only a three- or four-hour bus ride,” Walt says. “If we got a gig, you could come up for the day. Or we could find another guitar player if it’s just a dance.”
“I’d like to stay in Olympia,” I say. “But I’d have to find a job. My parents wouldn’t pay for me to just hang out all summer.”
“You should apply for the Evergreen grounds crew,” Sally says. “I did it last year.”
“What’s that?”
“You know, they take care of the campus: mowing the football field, weeding, making sure the paths don’t get overgrown, getting rid of downed trees, that kind of thing. It’s fun and you’re outdoors all summer. It’s hard work, and of course it rains a lot, but I liked it. They always hire a few extra students for the summer.”
“You’re not going to do it again?”
“No. I want to spend the summer in Seattle with my family. And I think I have a line on a waitressing job in the U District. But I could tell you who to talk to about the grounds-crew gig. One of the old regulars took a shine to me. They might hire you just on my recommendation.”
“That’d be great, but if an old lech has the hots for you, I’d be a big disappointment.”
“He’s harmless, a sweet old guy. Not everyone’s a creep, you know.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“If you get the job, you could maybe find a room in a house on the Westside,” Walt says. “There will probably be a few group houses with vacancies after graduation. I can ask around.”
“Thanks, but I have to find a job first, and make sure my parents won’t freak out. They wouldn’t have to pay for plane flights, though, which should make them happy. I refuse to take the bus again.”
When I see Jenny sitting at the bottom of the central staircase in the Library lobby, reading a book, a mix of elation and anxiety whirls up and around my ribcage. She looks up, alerted by our gabble echoing off the cavernous chamber’s concrete walls, and bounds over to me.
I didn’t see much of her over spring break. She went home to Moscow at first and returned to Seattle to hang out with Alma for the last few days of break. Walt’s parents’ house is in north Seattle and is more than a half-hour drive from Alma’s—much longer by bus—and I didn’t feel comfortable staying with Jenny at Alma’s. But I met her at a square dance Thursday night at the Inside Passage Tavern in downtown Seattle, and went back to Alma’s with her on the bus, sleeping again in the basement, but without a surreptitious nighttime visit this time. Ezra, it turned out, is the son of an old family friend and Alma’s mother was under the impression that he and Jenny were still together. Jenny and I spent the next morning and afternoon together, but she was out of sorts, often uncommunicative and sullen, and after a late breakfast we went thrifting with Alma in West Seattle, not my favorite activity, although I picked up a dog-eared Thomas Hardy paperback, The Return of the Native, for a quarter. Jenny apologized for her mood later, but didn’t explain her dampened spirits, and when I left on the bus to meet Walt and Sally at a Seattle Folklore Society concert in the University District, she declined to join me. I invited her to come with us to Vashon the next day, which would have been convenient for her—the ferry dock is just down the hill from Alma’s house—but she begged off. I was disappointed, but it was probably for the best. She has no real interest in old-time music or bluegrass, other than square dancing, and the trip to Vashon would have bored her.
“I wondered if you’d be here,” I say, as we walk up the stairs arm in arm.
“I borrowed Ezra’s truck. Do you want to come home with me after?”
I’m elated that these are among the first words out of her mouth, but a bit surprised. She often comes to the dances, but I haven’t gone home with her afterward because my book seminar is at nine on Monday morning, and I can’t count on catching a ride back to school in time.
“You remember I have to be at book group at nine tomorrow?”
“Yeah, but I can run you up to campus in the morning. Alma and I are going to sing with Angelica at noon in one of the practice rooms, and I can hang out in the Library till then.”
“Just the three of you?”
“Yeah, we want to work on some new songs.”
“For Angelica’s band?”
“I don’t know yet. Angelica said we should each bring a song. I want to try Nina Simone’s version of ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.’”
“Who’s Nina Simone?”
“Oh, you’d love her. I’ll play the album for you sometime.”
We’re running a little late and when we get to the fourth floor, the square dancers are ready to go. Liam and Bruce usually arrive early, and the two of them can get the dance started by themselves, if necessary, Bruce calling while backing up Liam’s fiddling on guitar or banjo until other musicians arrive. But as we walk over to the makeshift stage area, Bruce tells us that Liam is sick and implores us to get going as soon as possible, as he has already taught the first dance. Sally stopped at the restroom on the way, so Walt and Eric and I scramble to get our instruments out. When Sally arrives halfway through the first dance, she picks up the banjo-uke and joins us on “Old Molly Hare,” and this configuration remains in place for most of the first set. Sally switches to fiddle only for a contra dance that requires a particular Irish tune I don’t know well enough to lead by myself, but for most of the rest of the night, I’m the main fiddler, and it feels great.
“You guys were killing it tonight,” Bruce says afterward. “And I could tell the dancers dug it.”
Bruce’s judgement is confirmed by a few dancers who compliment us on the way out. Approval from them is a rarity and surprising whenever it’s offered. Most of the dancers are regulars and have come to take the music for granted, but one of them, a hirsute, overall-clad townie, says, “Y’all cats were far out. It was like a whole new vibe tonight.”
Outside, a few stars flicker between the clouds and Jenny takes my arm as we walk across the square toward the parking lot.
“How’s Angelica?” I ask. “She cancelled her last two guitar lessons, and I’ve hardly seen her since break.”
“I don’t know, but she was still pretty messed up when she was at Willowberry on Wednesday.”
“Has there been any word about Dawn?”
“No, nothing.”
“Jesus. I can’t imagine what she’s going through. She was pretty quiet at last week’s book group, and we barely said anything to each other. I wonder if she’s still mad at me for skipping out on that big campus search party on the 23rd. I should have been there, but Walt and Sally wanted to go to this fiddle show in Kent.”
“There were plenty of people there. Over a hundred, I think. One more wouldn’t have made a difference. And I don’t think they found anything.”
“Still, it would have been a good show of support, especially after that miserable gig.”
Angelica’s noon concert had been a disaster. It was like we were determined to disprove the maxim that a bad last rehearsal guarantees a great gig. The set had been even worse than the rehearsal, if that’s possible. I had just as much trouble locking in with the band, and Angelica seemed to disappear at times, missing cues and chord changes, forgetting lyrics. Her voice, which I’d thought unassailable, broke more than once on “La-La Means I Love You,” presumably from the trauma of Dawn’s disappearance. In that light, her performance was unsurprising and forgivable, but it left her thinking the set had been a fiasco: sloppy, embarrassing, and pointless. I don’t know if, as she intimated afterward, my subpar playing had distracted her, or she had been overcome by the emotion of “La-La Means I Love You”—the line “If I ever saw a girl that I needed in this world, you are the one for me” had become heartbreaking since Dawn had gone missing. I apologized profusely for my performance afterward, but Angelica didn’t want to hear it, disappearing into a protective cluster of sympathetic friends after handing me her guitar, as if to say I might as well be her roadie if I couldn’t cut it as her guitarist.
“I’m sorry, can we . . . ? I just want you to hold me. I need to know that you want to hold me.”
Our attempt to have sex has again resulted in tears. I tried to take it slowly, and Jenny seemed to enjoy my oral attention, moaning and writhing with pleasure, but when I moved up on top of her and slid between her legs, she erupted in loud, tortured sobs. I immediately rolled off her, as if stung, and now we’re lying side by side, sweaty and starting to shiver, blankets still heaped at the foot of the bed.
“Is it something I’m doing? If I’ve done something wrong, I wish you’d tell me what it is. I know I’m new at this, but I’m happy to try whatever you want.”
“It’s not you. I mean, it’s me and you, but . . . Oh, I don’t know. Maybe . . . I keep thinking of my mom. She said some really awful things to me the last night I was home. She got pissed drunk and . . . I don’t know, I think she ran into my stepdad in town that day.”
“What did she say? I mean, you don’t have to tell me, if . . .”
“She thinks I’m cheating on Ezra with you. I told her about you. I didn’t say we were sleeping together, but I think she could tell. Ezra’s mom is her best friend. They came to visit us a few times when I was a teenager. I guess his mom told my mom something about the thing that happened with Tracy. I can’t believe Ezra would tell her, but . . . Anyway, my mom likes Ezra a lot, and she’d like you, too, if she didn’t think you were luring me away from Ezra.”
“That’s understandable, I guess, if she likes Ezra, I . . .”
“She called me a ‘slut’ and a ‘manipulative little cunt.’”
“Holy shit, I’m so sorry.”
“And then the next morning she acts like nothing happened. I don’t know whether she blacks out and doesn’t remember what she says, or whether she just thinks she can get away with pretending shit like that didn’t happen.”
“Did you confront her about it?”
“Are you kidding?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to . . . Here, darlin’, don’t get mad. That was a stupid thing to say.” She starts crying again, quietly, turning away from me, then reaches down to pull the quilt up to her chin.
“I don’t know why this is so hard for me. Maybe when Ezra gets back from Mexico, he can explain to them what’s going on.”
I’m not sure what she means by “what’s going on” but I ask, “When will that be? Do you know?”
“He said he’d be back the first week in May. I got a letter from him last week. He sounds bored. He’s been there almost three months now and he’s sick of playing for tourists. We have a gig at the DeLuxe next month that he promised to be home for.”
“The Fruit Stand Band?”
“Yeah.”
“Will that be awkward?”
“Why?”
“You know, playing in a band with him when you and I are . . .”
It occurs to me that when Ezra returns he’ll most likely be living here, at Willowberry. His truck is here, along with his musical instruments and gear, and likely most of the belongings he didn’t take to Mexico. But will he move back into his old room? With Jenny? Or will she move somewhere else? I wonder if some of the books I’ve glanced at on the bookshelf in this room are his (Steal This Book, Catch-22, Goodbye Columbus, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Dune, a book by Philip K. Dick called Ubik), and if the guitar in the corner is as well. I’ve never seen Jenny play it.
“I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”
Her answer is strange. It’s hard to believe that she hasn’t thought about the potential problems posed by Ezra’s return. Maybe she’s not ready to talk to me about it. I look around the room, searching for evidence of Ezra. A pair of beat-up hiking boots on the closet floor look too big to be Jenny’s, and the three side-by-side piles of blue jeans on a shelf above them seem like more than one person would own. I notice, not for the first time, a small box on the dresser that contains a roach clip, an opened packet of Zig-Zag rolling papers, and the remains of a doobie. But I’ve never seen Jenny smoke pot, or even mention it.
I feel her gaze on me as I scan the room, but she says nothing.
“I have to pee,” I say, feeling a sudden need to be somewhere else, anywhere, to keep the unasked questions filling my brain from escaping into the room.
“Do you want a glass of water or anything?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
I pull on jeans and a t-shirt, but no socks, which I soon regret. The floor is cold and damp, and the wood on the stairs is rough and splintery. I use the downstairs bathroom and then fill two glasses of water from the kitchen sink. On my way through the living room, I stop at a bookshelf in the corner and, after scanning the titles, most of which are science fiction, I grab a book called Vermillion Sands, a collection of short stories by someone named J.G. Ballard, and tuck it under my arm.
When I get back upstairs, Jenny is reading A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. LeGuin.
“I see we both like science fiction,” I say, handing her a glass of water and showing her Vermillion Sands.
“I guess so,” she says. “Ezra and Sid are both sci-fi nuts, but there aren’t many books written by women, so I thought I’d try this. It’s more of a children’s book, fantasy, but I like it.”
“I found this downstairs. I don’t know anything about it, but I like the title.”
After trading my jeans for underwear, I slide under the covers, as close as I can get to Jenny without bumping her elbow, as I don’t want to disturb her reading. She has only looked up at me once since I returned, her eyes fixed on the paperback she holds with one hand, the pages splayed, a thumb and two fingers pinching the bottom of the spine.
The first story in Vermillion Sands, “Prima Belladonna,” is a futuristic, bachelor-pad tale about singing flowers. It’s beautifully written, the language a little eccentric, and I wonder if some of the obscure references (“yarning”? “turning the beer”?) are part of the world the author has created or are things I would know if I were English, as Ballard is. The idea of singing plants (“choro-flora”) and the main character’s apparent ability to “tune them” is intriguing, but I have trouble concentrating on the text.
My mind keeps returning to the question of where Ezra will live when he gets back from Mexico. I want to ask Jenny, but I’m nervous about the answer, and this seems like information she should volunteer. As far as I know, Willowberry currently has four residents: Jenny, Alma, Sid, and Charlie. When I first met them, I thought that Alma and Sid were a couple, but if they are, they’re one of the least romantic couples I’ve ever seen. I’ve counted four bedrooms, all on the second floor. So if Alma and Sid share a room, that would leave one for Ezra. If they don’t? Perhaps there’s another room downstairs I haven’t noticed. Or one in the barn. But if there’s an extra room, wouldn’t Jenny have taken that one when she moved in?
Jenny closes her book, leans over to kiss me, and turns back to her side of the bed, taking a sip of water from the glass on her nightstand.
“Oh, sorry,” she says, after pulling the chain hanging from the small table lamp. “Do you want to read some more?”
“No, that’s OK. I’m tired, too.” I’m not, but I’ve lost the thread of “Prima Belladonna,” and I can just as easily stew in my paranoia and self-doubt in the dark.
“I’ll make oatmeal and coffee tomorrow morning,” she says. “You can shower while I make breakfast. I set the alarm for eight.”
She turns off the light and rolls back toward me, laying her head on my shoulder, pressing her bare breasts against my side. She slides her hand under my shirt, and as it moves in slow circles down my chest, then slips beneath my underwear, the question of Ezra’s future living quarters evaporates into the cold, heedless air.