Back of Beyond полностью

“A year ago,” D’Amato said in a singsong, bluesy cadence, “I was looking out over the Sea of Cortez from my air-conditioned bungalow in Baja. Now here I am in the freezing mountains, sittin’ on a log. Whittlin’.”

“You a whittlin’ man,” Russell sang along.

“I’m a whittlin’ man,” D’Amato sang back. “Whittlin’ ’til I ain’t got no stick left.”

“You a whittlin’ man…”

“Think I’ll whittle me a boat and float on out of here back to Baja.…”

“He a whittlin’ man who ain’t a-scared of no snakes!” Russell laughed, and the two of them collapsed in on each other. Luckily, they held their knives out to the side.

“You guys are embarrassing me,” James Knox said from the cooking station.

Gracie found herself staring at them with more than a little awe. Knox caught her, smiled, and said, “Do you find us strange?”

Embarrassed, she said, “I’ve never met any New Yorkers before. I’ve heard about you and read about you and you’re on all the television shows, but…”

D’Amato laughed. “But you’ve never met any of us in real life. You make me feel like a zoo animal or something.”

“Sorry,” she said, and looked down. It was just that they were exactly how they were portrayed, and she’d always thought they couldn’t possibly really be like that: fast-talking, ethnic, animated. Like they were playing the roles of New Yorkers according to the script. Just like TV. But she didn’t say it.

* * *

To the right, Gracie’s dad was perched on a large rock next to Rachel Mina, who sat in the grass with her plate in her lap, finishing her dinner. Gracie had noted how Rachel had waited patiently for everyone else to be served steaks before getting her dinner-panfried fish and the last of the beans and corn. She admired the fact that Rachel hadn’t made a fuss but simply waited for her nonmeat meal. Too many of Gracie’s vegetarian friends went on and on about their preferences in the lunchroom, she thought. On and on about what they could eat and what they wouldn’t. They could learn something from Rachel Mina. The clicking of her utensils on the tin plate was rhythmic and delicate and Gracie hoped that someday she could be as graceful and feminine when she ate.

Then, obviously thinking no one was paying attention, her dad reached down and snatched a small piece of fish off Rachel’s plate and popped it in his mouth. She looked back but rather than object, she smiled at him. Her dad raised his eyebrows in an It’s actually good gesture. Rachel turned back around and finished her plate.

It had happened quickly, and without a sound. But Gracie sat transfixed as if a thunderbolt had hit her in the chest.

They knew each other, she thought. The scene had a kind of sweet intimacy about it, like it had happened often before and had become a shared joke.

They knew each other. Really well.

She felt bushwhacked. Her eyes misted and she looked away.

When she opened them she saw Wilson, who’d suddenly appeared from the direction of the tents. Standing there, staring at her, his face lit orange with firelight.

“What do you want?” she asked, too loudly.

The others around the campfire stopped talking or doing what they were doing. Jed and Dakota peered over the top of the cooking station, washcloths poised and still.

“Goodness, little girl,” Wilson said. “What is your problem?” He looked at the others with his palms open and held up. “All I did was walk up here to get warm. I didn’t do anything.”

No one said a word. A beat passed, and she was glad no one could see her face flush red. She wiped angrily at the tears in her eyes with the back of her sleeve.

From the right, her dad said, “Gracie, are you okay?”

She stood up and refused to look at him. “I’m going to bed,” she said, and started for the tents.

She was gone before her eyes could adjust from the fire to the total darkness, and she tripped over a root or rock and she sprawled forward. She landed spread-eagle, grass in her mouth.

Somebody-D’Amato or Russell or Jed-barked a laugh. Someone else said, “Cool it, that’s rude.”

“Sorry.”

She scrambled to her feet spitting grass and dried weed buds and stomped toward the tents. D’Amato called out to her, “Sorry, darlin’, I didn’t mean to laugh at you. Come on back and join us.”

And her dad followed her, saying, “Gracie, what’s going on? Are you all right, Gracie?”

She kept going until she approached the collection of tents. She wasn’t sure at first which was hers-they all looked alike. Nine lightweight dome tents, looking in the soft moonlight like plump pillows.

“Gracie,” her dad said, finally grasping her hand.

She pulled away. The third one, she thought. Her stuff was in the third one from the top.

He grabbed her again, said, “Honey…”

She wheeled on him. “When were you going to tell us?” she asked, her voice catching like ratchets on sobs. “Is this why you brought us with you? So you could be with your secret girlfriend?”