The River at Night(26)

Not so that morning. Photoshop emergency at the magazine? Sorry, can’t possibly get to it. I’m three hundred miles away in the wilderness of northern Maine . . . let the magazine go bust and my job blow away, there’s not a damned thing I can do about it.

Looking back, I equate this stage of enjoying the wilderness with the second glass of wine. Everything is lighter; you can see the funny side of disaster. But things rarely improve with the third, they get dangerous with the fourth, and you better pray to God someone is around to scoop you off the floor after that. It was our second day in the woods, and we were days away from home.

I stood on the bank of the river and watched it move. Near our camp it rushed clear over tumbled-smooth stones, turning a deep blue in mysterious places downriver. Behind me mountains rose up black, still in shadow. I made my way across wobbly river rocks to a sun-warmed slab of granite and sat, splashing my face with water so cold I wanted to laugh or scream, couldn’t tell which.

Rachel charged out of the trees by the bank. She glanced around, steaming with impatience. I waved at her, shelving my lovely isolation for the moment. Sandra appeared behind her, looking bedraggled.

Rachel kicked off her sandals and splashed over to me, Sandra in her wake.

“What are you doing out here?” Rachel said brusquely.

I swatted at a legion of blackflies, mean little biters who stuck to me as if I were viscous.

“Hi,” I said, suddenly weary as I made room for my friends to join me on my oasis.

“Did you sleep okay?” Sandra said. We looked at each other, acknowledging the smiles invading both our faces before we burst out laughing.

Rachel did not laugh. She sat with her knees tight to her chest, stabbing at our island of rock with a stick she’d found. A crazy, knotted curtain of hair fell across her face. She flung the stick in the river, jerked her head back, and wiped her tearstained face with her hands.

“I just want to know one thing. Why are we all out here?”

We were silent.

“Somebody please tell me.”

My head began to ache behind my eyes. Needed coffee. “Look, Rachel, it’s not the end of the world—”

Rachel jabbed at the air with her finger. “You know, Win, that does not answer my question. Sandra, come on, help me out here.”

Sandra gazed at the rising sun, squinted. “To be together. To be kind to each other. To catch up with—”

“Okay, so how is fucking the guide going to help that goal along, d’ya think?”

Sandra and I burped out little laughs, which we quickly contained. Rachel cast a dagger-filled glance at Sandra.

I said, “Sorry, Rache, sorry. I agree. It doesn’t help the cause. But you have Sandra and me, don’t forget.”

Rachel shook her head, muttering something I didn’t catch. As I’d uttered my consolation, I pictured how the loss of Pia really would go down for the rest of the weekend. The three of us gelled and could be mellow together, but Pia was our glue, that martini we shouldn’t have, our say-anything girl, our life of the party. Somehow she sparked all of us to be our least reasonable, our best, most adventurous selves.

“Think about it, you guys,” Rachel continued. “Will the rest of this trip be spent listening to those two get it on every night?”

“I think we should let it go,” Sandra said, dipping her fingers in the water. “Pia is Pia, I mean—”

Suddenly there she was, picking her way along the bank, her reddish brown, fiery mess of hair glinting like a halo around her head, a baggy sweatshirt hanging down almost to the bottom of her frayed shorts. Barefoot, she stepped gingerly into the river facing away from us and toward the low sun. She stopped and stretched elaborately before she dropped her arms, turned, and saw us.

Her face lit up. Waving and smiling as if she hadn’t seen us in weeks, she splashed over to where we sat, the sun outlining her form in gold.

“Hey, guys, what’s up? I got up and you were all gone, it was kind of weird!”

I scooched over to make room for her on the rock, but it was already pretty crowded, so she stood a few yards away with the water flowing all around her calves, looking gorgeous and young, which is what great sex does for everyone on the planet.

“What a day, huh? I can’t wait to get on this river,” she continued to our dull, exhausted, angry faces.

“You know, Pia,” Rachel said, “I am not going to fuck around with you. We’re super pissed off.”

I shifted on my rock, suddenly sore-assed. Sandra stared at the current washing over brown river rocks, as it had for millennia.

Pia’s smile stayed but her eyes got sad. The years returned; as much as a decade, maybe more. Her shoulders sagged. “Lighten up, you guys, I just—”

“So did you think you were alone with your little friend last night, in some dreamy five-star hotel? Is that what you thought?” Rachel hammered away.

“I—”

“Because we were right there with you guys, Pia. We didn’t miss a fucking thing, thank you very much.”

A darkness passed over Pia’s face as she looked at us, one by one. I felt strangely muted, as if Rachel had this one by the eyeteeth and to jump in would bloody us all even more. Sandra wrapped her arms around her knees and buried her face there.

Finally Pia shrugged, held up the palms of her hands. “Look, guys, it happened. I’m sorry. It’s over.”