Here So Far Away(8)

Sputtering smoke, I saw the man was close now, approaching the lighthouse through the waves of grass. He was almost severe-looking, dark and angular, but an overgrown haircut and beard softened the edges, as did the rosy sunburn across his nose. Slightly taller than I was, midtwenties, I guessed, with an expression that was somewhere between concerned and amused.

He was not from the valley—that I could tell at a glance. A flare shot through my chest. It felt like fear, but it wasn’t fear.

“Light,” I said. By which I meant Lighthouse is open, if you happen to be interested in touring this lovingly restored local landmark, but light was all I managed to croak out.

“Life?” he said.

“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “I am choking on life.”

“Sounds like a line from my high school diary.”

The cute response would have been Best thing I ever read, but I was reminded of something Sid said when he heard I used to fantasize about being the fourth Pointer Sister: “Sometimes you don’t meet a person a minute too soon.” I stubbed out my cigarette. “Sorry.”

“Sadly, that is true,” he said mildly. “Do you work here?”

“Did you want a tour of this lovingly restored local landmark?”

“Actually . . . I was wondering if you’d seen a pig.”

“Ever?”

Don’t ask me why; just my smart-ass reflex.

“More like, in the last twenty minutes. I’m after one that’s gone AWOL.”

His voice was a little raspy, like the feeling of running your hand along a plane of unfinished wood.

“Ah. No, sorry.”

“Man, I don’t want to sound paranoid, but I think he’s hiding,” he said, scanning the fields. “I usually have to sneak up on him.”

I resisted the urge to ask how often he lost this pig, and instead offered to take him to the top of the lighthouse to see if we could spot it from the lantern room.

The lighthouse had a narrow, three-story wooden tower attached to an octagonal-shaped building that housed the old diaphone fog signal. From a distance, it reminded me of a lady in a bright white dress with an extravagant bustle. The heritage society had restored the interior to its original condition and then some: hand-woven rugs, wrought-iron banister, grandfather clock, an adorable potbellied stove in the keeper’s quarters.

“This is impressive,” he said as we climbed the curved metal stairs, our footsteps echoing through the tower, and it was, especially up in the lantern room, where the sun blazed in as it set between the mountains.

“Behold—the hay,” I said, tapping one of the diamond-shaped windowpanes. “Very dangerous at night. Not to mention the potatoes. The apples. Over yonder, the corn.”

I was aiming for witty and had landed somewhere closer to Lisa’s father after a couple of wine coolers. So I was grateful when he said: “Have you ever lost a vessel?”

“I crash them into the corn all the time.”

“I think I’ve heard your siren song. That’s home, the farmhouse on the ridge.”

“And you live there with this pig?” I asked.

“Why do you sound surprised? Don’t I look like a local?”

“Uh . . . yup.”

“Damn, I thought I was pulling it off. How did you know? Is it the threads?” He was wearing a checked shirt with the sleeves rolled up, jeans, Converse, and the leather-brimmed lighthouse keeper’s hat that he’d plucked from its hook downstairs.

“I dunno, you can just tell. You don’t have an accent.”

“Neither do you.”

“I live in town.” Like our village was so much more sophisticated than the surrounds. “We have a traffic light,” I added in the poshest voice I could muster.

“I think you’re saying I couldn’t even pass for a townie. Out of curiosity, where would you guess I’m from?”

I pretended to give him the once-over, but really, what did I know? I’d never been anywhere. “Hard to say.”

“If you had to guess—”

“Away.”

“I come from away?”

“My nan would say you’re a Come From Away. But then, she also thought Catholicism was a cult.”

He leaned in. “Isn’t it?”

Yes, I liked him. I liked how he played along with my late grandmother’s casual bigotry, how talking to him was like a good tennis rally, how he purred with energy that made it seem like he was moving even when he was not moving. He was cool yet curiously eager to blend into a place where bean sprouts were still considered ethnic food, and his absurdly blue eyes were as round and bright as a toddler’s. And so when I spotted the pig trotting from one cluster of trees to another, I did not say anything quite as helpful as There’s the pig. I said: “Where are you from?”

“Out west originally, but I’ve lived all over. And now I’m here.”

He didn’t offer a reason why. Did people like him just decide one day to become people like us? The only Come From Aways I knew were the parents of Doug O’Donnell, former first-grade flasher, present senior-class stoner.

“That was a trick question,” I said, “if you’re not from anywhere.”

“Afraid so. Tell me, Captain—”