West With Giraffes(25)
Boy began chewing his cud again and Girl gave up her onion hunt to do the same, leaving drool all over my new duds. Wiping at the slobber, I said to Red, “You sure know a lot about giraffes.”
When I looked back, Red was gazing at the giraffes the same way the Old Man did. “They’re so full of everything I’ve never done or seen except in books that they might as well have floated down to earth from that hole in the sky—blown to earth by a hurricane to land in front of me. When I saw them, I knew exactly what I had to do.” With that, she reached to touch both giraffes one last time, then jumped down to the ground before I had a chance to help her.
When I dropped down in front of her, she seemed out of breath, her hand pressed over her heart, but she was smiling all glory at me. “That was—wonderful,” she gasped. “Oh, Stretch, I—” Suddenly she was bear-hugging me so hard my broke rib was pinching my suffering spine. Then she stepped back just as quick, like the hug even surprised her. “Sorry . . . but you have no idea what that meant to me. Thank you so much,” she said, working to get back to herself.
I wasn’t in any hurry to get back to myself, though, still feeling the warm ache of her body pressed to mine and being so very glad the Old Man had made me hose off.
Taking a deep breath as we headed toward the campfire, she sighed one last time. Back to business, she pushed the curls out of her face, pulled the notepad from her shirt pocket, and said, “Does Mr. Jones know I’m following you?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Don’t tell him yet. I want a chance to impress him first. Maybe you can introduce me then, OK?”
“Sure, but how’d you know his name?”
“He’s in the newspaper stories. The giraffes made all the papers.” Red pulled a newspaper clipping from the pad and handed it to me. In the flickering light coming from the campfire, I saw it was the same clipping I’d seen in the notepad back at quarantine: MIRACLE GIRAFFES RIDE HURRICANE AT SEA, written by Lionel Abraham Lowe, “Mr. Big Reporter”—and there was the Old Man’s name, Riley Jones.
“Keep it.” She grinned. “It’s in the papers, so it’s part of history. You’ll be part of history, too.”
As I slipped it in my new shirt pocket, Red was so pepped up, she was bouncing on her heels enough to make her freckles jiggle. But she was movie-star gorgeous to my seventeen-year-old eyes. Feeling my cheeks about to flush again, I looked away, sure not even the shadows could hide the blasted blush this time. Shifting my weight from one boot to the other, I silently cussed myself cool.
“Stretch, tell me your story,” I heard her say.
Pretending to study the campfire, I mumbled, “I’ve got no story.”
“Sure you do. Everybody’s got one.”
At that, I looked around at her. “What’s yours?”
Her face went south. So did her happy bounce as she smiled a tight-lipped smile I didn’t understand at all. “Nobody likes a sad story,” she said. “You’re the one that’s got a good one, I can tell. That face of yours seems right out of a Dust Bowl photo—are you an Okie? Tell me how you got here and it’ll be in Life magazine.”
Even farmboys had seen copies of Life magazine, which was the closest thing to having a TV you could get, being packed as it was with pictures of the world, especially beautiful women, on every slick full-color page. “You work for Life magazine!”
“I’m doing a photo-essay,” she said, making a frame with her hands. “‘As the country teeters between a depression and Europe’s looming war, a pair of giraffes, survivors of a hurricane at sea, left a wake of much-needed cheer while driven cross-country to the San Diego Zoo, where lady zoo director Mrs. Belle Benchley awaited.’” Then she clicked the frame like she was snapping a photo. “But it’s the pictures that’ll make it. You don’t have the shots, it can be the Second Coming of Christ and it wouldn’t make it in Life. I plan to do a photo-essay on Belle Benchley, too, when we get there. I’m going to be the next Margaret Bourke-White.”
“Who?”
“The first female photographer for Life,” she said. “If you’ve read Life, you’ve seen her pictures. She’s got to be the greatest photographer on earth.”
I felt my ignorance of the world like a load of horse crap around my neck in the presence of a sea of rosewater. Catching a glimpse of the Packard in the shadows, I proceeded to make it worse. Back then, a woman didn’t drive by herself on the highway. Definitely no lady. Ever. And I heard myself blurt, “Aren’t you scared on the road all alone?”
She paused, studying my face. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, you’re a girl,” I went right ahead and said.
Something flamed up behind her eyes as she flashed me a look so exasperated it seemed to take on a life of its own, as if to say, Ah, Stretch, not you, too.
I should have been apologizing. Instead, melting at the way those hazel eyes of hers looked all fiery, I felt my cheeks starting to flush yet again. Fighting like hell to hide it, I mumbled, “I’m just saying it’s not safe out here alone.”
I was a goner and she knew it. I watched the flame behind her eyes cool down, until, with a glance back at the rig, she smiled at me ever so slightly. “Well, I’m not really alone anymore, am I?” Back to smooth city girl, she then raised her chin and said, “How about a business proposition? I’d appreciate your help getting this story, and in return I’ll pay you back any way you say.” She put out her hand. “Deal?” She wanted to shake, so I did, and she shook it as hard as any man.