My One and Only(15)
Unexpectedly, my throat tightened as I saw the sign for Glacier National Park. I’d watched parts of the Ken Burns special on PBS, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the beauty around me…the craggy, sharp mountains, the fields of multicolored flowers, and that air, the sweet, pure air. God bless Teddy Roosevelt. I stopped at the entrance gate, and a park ranger opened her window. “Welcome to Glacier National Park, ma’am,” she said, adding “Hey there, cutie” when she saw Coco. I paid and thanked her, nodded dutifully at her warnings to watch out for wash-outs, as the last rainstorm had been fierce, and drove into the park.
The road wove through the forest, then came out into a more open space. My breath caught. To the left, the earth dropped steeply away into a field of long, golden grass twined with blue, red and pink wildflowers. It was breathtaking. After a while, I turned onto Going to the Sun Road…what a beautiful name! A vast, oblong glacier capped the bare and jagged ridge across the way.
Suddenly, my tires caught the edge of the road, and I jerked the wheel a little, adrenaline spurting. The rented Honda veered back onto the road. Coco’s tiny feet scrabbled on my lap. “Sorry, baby,” I muttered once we were straightened out. “Got a little caught up in the scenery.” Den slept on, undisturbed. I glanced at the dashboard clock…heck. Four o’clock already. I’d thought we’d be there by now. Stepping on the gas, I almost immediately caught up to a car in front of me.
A slow car, despite the fact that it was a classic red Mustang, built for speed and midlife crises. Or octogenarian females, I guessed, from the dedicated way the car stayed precisely on its own side of the road, never straying above thirty miles an hour. No more, no less. Great. Why buy a ’Stang if you were going to do the speed limit? Didn’t that defeat the purpose of the pointless effort to recapture one’s youth and laugh at the specter of death? I couldn’t see the driver, as the sun glared off the back window, but judging by the way we were inching along, Eeyore here was one hundred and three years old, blind in both eyes and had already cheated death. Many times.
Glancing at the clock again, I sighed. Everyone else should already be at the hotel…the lodge, I corrected silently. Lake McDonald Lodge, it was called, where Christopher used to work in his youth. Despite the last-minute nature of the nuptials, the happy couple was expecting a fair number of friends. According to BeverLee, Chris was still close to some of the staff at the lodge, strings had been pulled, rates were low as the tourist season was officially over. Willa, who collected people the way a black wool sweater collects lint, expected around thirty guests.
After three phone calls, it had dawned on my sister that perhaps I had some feelings about seeing my ex-husband again. “You’re okay with the Nick situation, right?” she said. “I mean, I know you guys were…intense.”
“Oh, I’m fine,” I said blithely. “That was eons ago. No, Wills, it’s just…honey, I just wonder why you’re rushing. You know, I see so many unhappy—”
But my sister was prepared. Sure, I knew her well…but she knew me, too. “Harper, I know you think you’re looking out for me. But maybe this time I’m right, did that ever occur to you? Have some faith in me. I’m not an idiot.”
And that was the argument that had me grinding my teeth in frustration. Willa wasn’t an idiot. Except…in a way…she was a dope. A sweet dope, but a dope. If I tried to remind her of the facts of her past marriages or drop statistics, she’d counter that she’d grown up since then. What could I say to that? No, you haven’t, you’re still as naive as a baby bunny?
“So you’re okay with Nick being there? Because he’s Chris’s best man, of course.”
Of course. “I’m fine.” So you’ve seen him? What does he look like? Did he ask about me? Is he still mad? How did he seem? Is he married? Any kids? Does he still live in the city? Still an architect? Is he fat? Bald? Please?
And by the way…how the hell did Willa meet Christopher, anyway? Was Nick involved? Willa said she’d “run into” Christopher in a city of eight million people and recognized him after twelve years.
Please. I wasn’t born yesterday.
Dennis grunted in his sleep, which Coco interpreted as an invitation. She jumped onto his lap, then licked his hand, and he smiled without opening his eyes and petted her. I smiled, too, almost reluctantly. Exhibit A, Your Honor. Not only is Dennis physically appealing, he’s kind to animals. I turned my attention back to the road. Crap!
I slammed on the brakes to avoid rear-ending the red car in front of me. “Jesus!” I blurted, leaning on the horn. The Mustang driver had stopped, right in the middle of the road.
“Everything okay?” Dennis asked blearily.
“Yes. Sorry, hon. Some idiot who shouldn’t be driving.” The woman had just stopped. Yes, the ranger had warned about wildlife on the road, but there was no elk, no moose, nothing to explain the delay.
Dennis sat up, rubbing his eyes. Coco licked him on the chin, then poked her little nose out the window, snuffling. She whined and wagged. “You like it here, honey?” I asked my pet.
“It’s pretty,” Dennis said.
The red Mustang had not moved an inch. We were on a sharp curve, too, so passing would definitely be inadvisable, not that I’d seen many other cars. Should I try it? I tapped the horn again. Nothing. No grizzly bear, no elk, no goat, no response. “Come on,” I groaned. The sooner this weekend started, the sooner I could get back to normal. The driver didn’t move. Stroke? Heart attack? Flashback to the Civil War? I leaned on the horn again—alas, it was a rather friendly-sounding horn, as the rental was a Honda. Give me a good old-fashioned Detroit-made blare any day.