Silver Basilisk - Zoe Chant Page 0,46
was. Usually I fantasized about whatever I saw in the latest show at the Odeon.”
“I remember the Odeon. That was our only escape from the Texas heat.” He stopped, wincing. Would the reminder of their time together cause her to clam up?
She chuckled. “Oh, the miracle of air conditioning! Anyway, to avoid nosy questions I used to invent new pasts for myself anytime someone asked. One of my roommates had heard at least three different stories from me. She was pretty cool, actually. Never called me on my crap. She gave me a Solstice present once, a notebook and a fountain pen, and said I should write my stories down. I tried, but I didn’t know how to spell half the words in English, so I’d write in Spanglish, but then nobody could read it. I found it was less fun, just writing for myself. I already knew what had happened. I wanted an audience, and people seemed to like hearing my stories. So I took a remedial English class that was held in People’s Park.”
“I had to do the same,” he said. “Night school, for me. So you started your mysteries then?”
“Nah, that was later. Well, I was writing all along. Even joined a kind of writer’s group, though it was really more of a mutual hoorah group. Criticism not allowed, only praise. That was nice, except when people fought yawns when I read, but then gave me a lot of canned compliments about how great I was, before hustling on to their own reading.”
“Human nature,” he said.
“Yup. Also fake, the way you tell someone who just got a terrible haircut that they are so awesome for trying new things. I couldn’t fool myself I was any good when the same compliments were handed to everybody else. So I took a creative writing class from a guy who was an actual paid teacher, but he liked donating time at the community center. He told me to be a writer I had to be a reader. And handed me a bunch of paperbacks people had left behind. Am I boring yet?”
“No,” he said, trying to restrain his delight now that she seemed to be opening the door into Godiva a crack.
“Any case, there isn’t much more to tell. I loved mysteries, especially the funny ones. Discovered I was really good at figuring out whodunnit before the people in the book. Thought I’d try writing my own, and had so much fun, yadda yadda. Listening to writers blab about writing is about as exciting as watching them write, which is the equivalent of watching paint dry. Though, for the writer, it might feel at times like you’re climbing Mount Everest, your butt has never actually left the chair. And here I am, yapping on about it. Wow, this is a lot like driving in California, flat road, flat, rocky land with little growing on it, lines of mountains in the distance. Except for these funky-looking touristy places.”
“Farther on there are some architectural monstrosities from the forties, fifties, and sixties,” he said, fighting against disappointment that she’d shut the door once again.
Had he done something? No, she was looking avidly out the window, soaking in the scenery.
So he bit back the questions, and for a time silence reigned as they passed old adobe houses left to wind and weather. But just as the landscape began to change to patches of shrubbery on ridges and hills, with the occasional tree, Godiva said in a reminiscent voice, “I also loved travel books. Describing places I knew I’d never get to. Oh, look, are those deer?”
There were indeed deer peacefully cropping under the branches of some beautiful blue spruce.
Godiva had her phone out, and snapped pictures of the deer as they drove toward the signs pointing the way toward the Grand Canyon. After that she was far too busy looking around for wildlife for conversation. Rigo smiled to himself, finding her eagerness was exactly the same as it had been when he first met her sneaking time to visit the horses.
They reached the entrance at last. The traffic was sparse, so parking was easy. “It’ll be maybe an hour walk from here,” he said. “But trust me, the rim is worth it.” He wanted to see her face when she first looked out over that vast area.
“I could really use some exercise,” she said as she clapped a sun hat on her head, and pulled her cane out of the trunk. “This looks like a