The River at Night(8)

“We almost there?” I mumbled, mouth sticky.

Pia laughed. “Not exactly. Two hours down, seven to go, not counting pee stops.” She glanced at Rachel and Sandra, fast asleep in the backseat. “So, you’ve been swimming?”

I made a dismissive sound and slid back in my seat, suddenly aware of my girth. Pia worked out like a demon, CrossFitting and triathlete-ing her way through her weekends. I’d never heard of her embarking on a bike ride less than twenty miles long, or taking it easy in any way, and she dieted herself down to a slapping slimness, like she could slip into the stingiest size 8 but could also lift a Volkswagen off a small child if necessary, because she would know how to use her back and legs in such cases, and she’d be able to commandeer the proper help—I pictured stunned passersby doing her bidding—on the fly.

“I do my laps a couple times a week. For whatever good it does me. Look, Pia, I’ll never be you—”

Her jaw tightened. “Just getting older stresses out your body. You need to be ready for that, get a jump on it. Besides, I want to be ready for when the shit hits the fan in this crazy-ass world.”

“So you can what, outrun global warming?”

“So I can outrun what global warming will do to so-called civilization.”

I pictured Pia sprinting gazellelike from tsunamis and rising ocean tides, from famine and disease. “So you’re going to be one of those survivor types who lives in the woods and shoots at whatever happens by?” Don’t know why I was being such a priss. Maybe part of me thought she might actually try it, and it scared me. “Live off the land?” I teased a little more gently.

“Something like that.” She downshifted as roadwork narrowed the two-lane highway to one. An actor-handsome cop waved us by, his eyes resting an extra moment on Pia’s face. She didn’t seem to notice. “Don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not, Pia, I just don’t really get what you’re planning here.”

She looked at me with such intensity. “It’s like this, Win. I’m sick of everything, you know? I’m sick of dragging my ass around the world to fucking sneaker expos, hanging around with hip-hop”—finger quotes—“?‘stars’ and hawking the latest line of bullshit miracle insoles guaranteed to make you run faster or lose weight, some lie like that. I’m dying of boredom tweeting about ankle support and bubble soles and how the right sneaker can make your life worth living.”

“I spend my day making photos of flank steak look juicy.”

“So you know, then, what we’re up against.”

I thought I knew, but watching her face, I wasn’t sure.

“That’s why I go on these trips,” she said with a shrug, “because what I do is meaningless.”

I gave her a look. Impatience, I guess; a touch of Pia--exhaustion, already.

“Don’t you get it? The world we know is dwarfed by the worlds we don’t. Why not explore them all? Being out there in the wilderness, you have no idea what’ll happen, really. It could be just you and this gorgeous night sky, or maybe you’re surfing and some big-ass wave comes at you, and if you don’t ride that sucker, it’ll pull you under and have you for lunch, or you might turn a corner on a hike and there’s some beautiful deer and her little fawn—now that has meaning, all of those things, and I need more of that and less of trying to make money so I can pay bills to live in a way I just don’t care about anymore.”

“But money lets you go on all these trips.”

“I get it, yeah, still—I don’t need half the crap I have. I don’t need my fancy-ass condo. I’m never home anyway. I’ve saved a little money. I could quit my job tomorrow and live out somewhere on my own for a couple years”—she gestured at the passing trees, rolling farmland—“and just make it on my own. I feel good out there, by myself, not having to count on anyone or anything.”

The “anyone” comment cut me. How could she think she didn’t need people, didn’t need her friends? The “anything” bit struck me as bullshit as well. I studied her as she drove, planning some sweet life under the moon and stars where she was magically fed, kept warm, clothed, and entertained.

“God, I want a cigarette.”

I laughed and loved her again. “When did you quit last?”

“Two weeks ago.” She shook her head in disgust. “Ever been in a room with thousands of high-tops? It’s hell. Sneakers reek, you know. The rubber. The chemicals.”

“Just quit the stupid job.” I held up her fancy phone.

She finally laughed. “Let me get through this trip. Then I’ll give notice. Dump the condo. Disappear. Get off the grid.”

“Do you even know what that means, Pia?”

She gave me an odd look. “Of course I do, Wini.” She shrugged. “You’ll see.”

? ? ?

Minutes later we pulled over at a rest stop and tourist-information area. Bored middle-aged and older women in green vests milled around with too much information to give and not enough travelers to give it to, so they loaded us down with all manner of maps and brochures. Sandra and I couldn’t tear ourselves away from a floor-to-ceiling map of Maine on one wall that showed all the collisions with moose over the past year. Each red dot a crash. There were so many on our route—straight up into the Allagash—it looked as if someone had splashed blood from Portland to Canada.