people from many different backgrounds in my dorm, and that made me feel less alone. Still, whenever I opened my mouth, I singled myself out as a country bumpkin. Once, in freshman comp, I answered a question about architectural design by talking about the “bow arts.” Beaux Arts, my professor corrected with an amused laugh, the x is pronounced z, and the t and the s are silent. It seemed to me I would never wash off the trace of the countryside from my speech, my clothes, myself. But eventually I adjusted, and even learned to enjoy everything the city had to offer. “I’d dreamed about it for so long,” I said, “that it was bound not to be the way I imagined it.”
From a cluster of shrubs in the distance came the rat-a-tat of a cactus wren. I glanced over Jeremy’s shoulder in the direction of the sound and when it stopped I saw that his eyes were fixed on me. A flicker of desire in them. Without knowing why, I wanted to blow it out. Snuff it before it had a chance to start kindling. “Have you ever heard of Max Bloemhof?”
“No. Who’s he?”
“He wrote a great book about apartheid in South Africa, called Before Night Comes. Some people think of it as a modern classic. He also wrote We Ourselves, about Northern Ireland. Not as good, but it was a huge bestseller.”
“Wait, I think I know who you’re talking about. I saw him on The Daily Show once.”
“That’s him. I met him at an artists’ colony in upstate New York. I didn’t know anyone there, but he sat next to me one night and talked to me and made me feel at ease. He asked what I was working on, and then when he heard the chamber piece I’d just finished, he said I was the most talented musician he’d ever heard at the residency. I guess I was flattered by his attention. And later, he said I was the love of his life, that he couldn’t live without me.” I wrapped my arms around my knees and rested my chin on them. My throat felt dry.
“But…” Jeremy prompted.
“He was married. He said he was already separated, it was a matter of time before he divorced, he had to be careful because of his kids. But he never broke it off. Three weeks ago, I told him he had to choose. And I guess he did choose, because I haven’t heard from him since.”
There, it was done. Now he would let go of the past, stop thinking of me as the girl at the ice-cream parlor, or the girl at the concert hall, or whatever other fiction he had spun about me. I stood up and rubbed my hands, dislodging specks of dirt from my palms. When I had climbed up the boulder, I hadn’t expected to be talking about Max, and now I suddenly wished I hadn’t. Something about Jeremy had made me want to open up—if only to push him away. Eager to put the moment behind me, I began to make my way down.
“Nora, wait.”
The sound of his voice made me turn, and I slid down the boulder, scraping my arm in all its length and landing on my knees in the dirt. He called my name again as he climbed down toward me. Holding my arm to the moonlight, he looked at the scrape. “We should go back,” he said.
“We’re more than halfway through.”
He ran his fingers along the scrape, but they came out dry.
“See,” I said, trying not to wince. I had come to do this hike and now I wanted to finish it. “Let’s just go.” Twenty minutes later, we came to the final bend in the loop. A desiccated tree with bone-colored branches sat in a cluster of chuparosa bushes. Instantly I was flooded with memories. “My dad used to bring my sister and me here when we were kids. We’d race to see who could make it to the highest branch.” The tree was just as tall as it had been when I was a child, but the desert had stripped its boughs of their moisture and color. “I don’t think I’ve