In the Heart of the Canyon - By Elisabeth Hyde Page 0,78
poison ivy here, do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
They went twenty, thirty steps in silence.
“I wonder what’s for dinner,” Peter said. “Do you know what’s for dinner?”
Amy shuddered. “I have like no appetite.”
“You’re really a world-class whiner, you know? Have you always been this much of a whiner?”
“It’s the heat,” said Amy. “I’d rather just drink beer. How many beers do you have left?”
“Five.”
“Five each or five total?”
“Each.”
“Good.”
“I hope you’re planning on reimbursing me, when we get back to civilization.”
“My mother will,” said Amy. “She’s so happy I’m drinking beer with you, she’ll pay you double.”
“She didn’t look too happy the last time I checked.”
“When was that?”
“When Sam jumped.”
“Oh, you mean how she looked like this?” Amy turned around and pursed her lips fiercely. “Probably she thought Sam shouldn’t jump. My mother can be very critical of other mothers’ decisions.”
Peter was so hungry he was beginning to feel a little light-headed. He peered among the giant grape leaves for real live grapes.
“My mother would have loved for me to jump,” he said. The leaves were as big as dinner plates, and neon green. There were no grapes, though. “She probably would have pushed me.”
“Shut up.”
“She would. My mothers mean.”
“She’s lonely, from what you tell me.”
“And that’s my fault?”
“Just water her flowers,” sighed Amy. “Sit with her. Drink a glass of lemonade. That’s probably all she wants.”
“Like you’re going to be so nice to your mother when she’s old. I’m going to come and chew your ass off then,” said Peter, “and remind you of how judgmental you were of me, once upon a time.”
“You won’t even remember me two weeks after this trip.”
“I’ll remember you. You think I’m Lloyd?”
“Lloyd’s so sweet,” said Amy. “We should save our money and do this trip next year, with Ruth and Lloyd. Without my mother, of course.”
“Or Mitchell.”
“Especially not Mitchell.”
They climbed out onto a ledge that overlooked the mouth of Havasu. Down in the fjordlike inlet, plump rubber rafts jostled against one another. Just outside the mouth, the candy-colored waters of Havasu melted into the brackish Colorado.
“Speak of the devil,” said Amy—for down in JT’s boat, there was Mitchell, fumbling with his shorts. Amy took out her camera and snapped a picture just as Mitchell arced back slightly.
“Mitchell’s not going to want to go anywhere, not after he sees our pictures posted all over the net,” Peter said.
“Can he sue?”
“For what?”
“Invasion of privacy?”
“You he could sue,” said Peter. “Not me.”
JT couldn’t help but notice the new alliances that night. Mitchell and Lena were eating dinner with Susan and Evelyn. Mark and Jill sat comfortably braced, back to back; and it didn’t escape JT’s notice that for much of the time their hands were interlaced. He was amused, later, when they snuck off during Poetry Hour. He just hoped they knew to watch out for snakes, because there was a big mean one that lived around here, fat from mice.
He made sure they were back before everyone broke up to go to bed.
Two more nights, he told himself as he prepared for sleep. He lay back on his mat, letting the wisp of a breeze cool the bare skin of his belly and the undersides of his arms. He dropped his hand down to the dog below and fingered the rubbery flesh of his ear.
“I suppose you’re too spoiled to sleep in one of those crates,” he murmured. “Probably have to sleep in a man’s bed, don’t you? Whether he’s got a girlfriend or not. Yeah,” he said, “well, we’ll see about that.”
July 13, Day Ten
I would love, I would just love if they all could have seen me at Havasu today. If they could tear themselves away from Victoria’s Secret and look up from Facebook and the three hundred photos from last nights party, and see me with everyone else wading out into the pool, and JT telling us we had to just trust him and hold our breath and dive down, and not open our eyes, but feel along the sharp edges of this rock and keep your hand on your head because if you’re a little off you can hit your head as you come up. And there we are, surfacing in this underwater cave, like being in an agate, water trickling, no other sound until JT tells us it’s time to leave, and we have to dive down again and feel our way along that rock, and now when we come up the air is warm and yellow—