The Big Kahuna (Fox and O'Hare #6)(45)

“It’s nice that the park is so quiet,” I said.

“That’s why I prefer summers here. No tourists, just locals.”

“Like me?” I asked with a chuckle.

“Like you.”

For a while, we walked in silence, the only sound the crunching of the dirt underneath our shoes. The rhythm of it was calming, and I took a deep breath. The air smelled faintly of sage.

Half a mile down the trail, Jeremy pointed to a boulder formation. “There’s a good view from up there.”

“Let’s see it, then.”

He went first, calling out any slippery spots when he came to them, but I matched his pace easily. Somehow my body had retained the memory of scaling these rocks dozens of times as a child. At the top we sat down, our legs stretched before us, and watched the valley beneath. The moonlight silvered the landscape, softening its features in places and in others casting them in harsh angles. It was peaceful, but beneath the silence, I knew, life still pulsed in all its beauty and violence. Bats fed, owls hunted, lizards crawled out of their holes. I wondered whether there would ever be a time when I would be at peace, when my heart would not feel as though lead had been cast inside it. In the past, I had found in music a refuge from my sorrows and disappointments, but now I wasn’t sure it could be, not when it could be reduced by a panel of judges to a few dismissive words. “Do you still play music?” I asked.

“No, not since high school. I don’t even know where my guitar is. Probably somewhere in my dad’s garage.”

“Remember when we went on a field trip to see the L.A. Phil?”

“Of course. Senior year.”

“It was the first time I’d seen a Frank Gehry building. First time I’d been in a concert hall, even. I sat next to a woman in a satin gown and gloves who kept pointing out to her husband all the people she knew in the audience. She said she was excited to hear Massenet. That the Philharmonic played him too rarely. But afterward she said she didn’t like the performance because the conducting had been rebarbative. Rebarbative! It was a word I’d only ever seen in books. I’d never heard anyone say it. I thought everyone in big cities talked like that. I couldn’t wait to go to college.”

“I remember that day,” he said softly. “We ate lunch together.”

“We did?” From the way he looked at me, it seemed the moment held some significance, but I couldn’t tell what it was. How strange the work of memory, I thought. What some people remembered and others forgot.

After a moment, he asked, “Was Stanford like you thought it would be?”

“Yes and no,” I said. Only the buildings were exactly as advertised in the brochure; everything else about the place was different, beginning with the people. I was the only Arab in my high school, but now there were people from many different backgrounds in my dorm, and that made me feel less alone. Still, whenever I opened my mouth, I singled myself out as a country bumpkin. Once, in freshman comp, I answered a question about architectural design by talking about the “bow arts.” Beaux Arts, my professor corrected with an amused laugh, the x is pronounced z, and the t and the s are silent. It seemed to me I would never wash off the trace of the countryside from my speech, my clothes, myself. But eventually I adjusted, and even learned to enjoy everything the city had to offer. “I’d dreamed about it for so long,” I said, “that it was bound not to be the way I imagined it.”

From a cluster of shrubs in the distance came the rat-a-tat of a cactus wren. I glanced over Jeremy’s shoulder in the direction of the sound and when it stopped I saw that his eyes were fixed on me. A flicker of desire in them. Without knowing why, I wanted to blow it out. Snuff it before it had a chance to start kindling. “Have you ever heard of Max Bloemhof?”

“No. Who’s he?”

“He wrote a great book about apartheid in South Africa, called Before Night Comes. Some people think of it as a modern classic. He also wrote We Ourselves, about Northern Ireland. Not as good, but it was a huge bestseller.”

“Wait, I think I know who you’re talking about. I saw him on The Daily Show once.”

“That’s him. I met him at an artists’ colony in upstate New York. I didn’t know anyone there, but he sat next to me one night and talked to me and made me feel at ease. He asked what I was working on, and then when he heard the chamber piece I’d just finished, he said I was the most talented musician he’d ever heard at the residency. I guess I was flattered by his attention. And later, he said I was the love of his life, that he couldn’t live without me.” I wrapped my arms around my knees and rested my chin on them. My throat felt dry.

“But…” Jeremy prompted.

“He was married. He said he was already separated, it was a matter of time before he divorced, he had to be careful because of his kids. But he never broke it off. Three weeks ago, I told him he had to choose. And I guess he did choose, because I haven’t heard from him since.”

There, it was done. Now he would let go of the past, stop thinking of me as the girl at the ice-cream parlor, or the girl at the concert hall, or whatever other fiction he had spun about me. I stood up and rubbed my hands, dislodging specks of dirt from my palms. When I had climbed up the boulder, I hadn’t expected to be talking about Max, and now I suddenly wished I hadn’t. Something about Jeremy had made me want to open up—if only to push him away. Eager to put the moment behind me, I began to make my way down.