Buddha Baby (33 page)

"Is everything still all blurry?"

Dustin squinted. "Yeah, so I need you to hold on to me as we walk. Incidentally, now I can also see through your clothes."

She smiled and took his arm as they headed down the sidewalk.

As they ambled along, she quickly deduced that Dustin was one of those guys who instinctively knew how to turn on the charm when he suspected a girl's interest was waning. Like a lingering perfume spiraling through the air, his flirtatious behavior pulled her along until they walked for so many blocks that they finally ended up in Golden Gate Park. They meandered toward Sharon Meadow. The smell of leaves, dust, and nectar from a million bursting buds, from the rhododendron dell to the Shakespeare Garden, beckoned to them.

Darkness fell and a hot wind blew through San Francisco like someone had uncorked a vintage bottle of summer and let it rise through the air like liquid dandelions, its syrup pooling in the city's corners. Lindsey and Dustin walked along, their shoes making a soft, crunching noise.

Looking up at the creamy magnolia blossoms glowing in the last dim light of dusk, Lindsey wondered just what, exactly, she was doing. Kicking through a pile of leaves with her arm linked to the crook of Dustin's elbow, she knew she was acting at once daft, cheeky, and maggoty, while Michael was far away enduring hairy hippies and vegan Moonies.

She was sure of Michael's trust and faith in her even as she avoided admitting to herself that she was the one who had instigated this evening tryst with Dustin. The awareness of this deception rested like a ripped shred of paper tucked inside the mini-pocket of her slit skirt.

Amidst the billowing scents of the surrounding greenery and blossoms, like an animal, Lindsey caught a whiff of danger in the air. As she and Dustin strolled, she suddenly detected the smell everywhere—in the grass, behind the bushes, across a fallen eucalyptus log, and scattered between the limestone ruins from Hearst's disassembled Spanish temple, which lay in rubble behind the Arboretum's duckweed pond. She could smell it near the gazebo by the succulent garden, and be-hind a pillar at Portals of the Past. It was a summer scent, that of seasonal heat and animals mating and bodies thrown together everywhere across the city, the primal odor rising through the air and blowing hot and violent down to the Pacific where it tumbled in the waves and churned to the bottom of the salty ocean.

Every tree, plant, and flower seemed to be in bloom. As she and Dustin wandered the paths, pollen and tiny petals from the cherry trees fluttered through the air. Sharp scents from rosemary spears and manzanita bark swirled around them like cool currents. Rising hints of cedar and pine washed with calm confidence from the nearby Japanese Tea Garden.

Too bad Lindsey didn't have any Post-its with her. If she did, she would have written:

NOTE TO SELF: Do not take non-boyfriend to most romantic place on earth.

They walked through an underground tunnel where man-made stalactites "dripped" from the ceiling, a leftover bit of make-believe from a hundred-year-old city fair, when a miniature train had once chugged through the dark passage.

As they strolled along, Lindsey was keenly aware that Dustin was giving her The Look. It was that watery, doe-eyed, Bugs-Bunny-pleading-with-Witch-Hazel-Please-don't-kill-me kinda look. The Puss-in-Boots-pity-me look. The Let's-make-out kinda look. The look Richard Gere gave an actress before devouring her face. Lindsey told herself to stare straight ahead. She knew that any glance Dustin's way would ignite a certain recklessness on her part, the kind that might lead to Very Bad Acts.

While the evening heat amplified the traffic sounds on Crossover Drive, she wondered why she had led herself to this place in the park as the rest of the city went about its life. She imagined that somewhere, someone could see the Milky Way, and elsewhere, a person could hear the trickling sound of an underground stream. She took a deep breath and inhaled the fragrance of backyard lilacs mingling in the ocean air along with Nineteenth-Avenue gasoline. She caught the pleasant, charred smell of briquet embers, perhaps from a rickety balcony or porch nearby. Making a half wish, she suddenly imagined herself far away from Dustin, perhaps on a friend's back stair, somewhere safe and alone, not tempting fate and fidelity, but guiltlessly taking in a dazzling and streaky view of twilight heat waves smudging the glowing lights across the bay.

But she wasn't there. She was here, walking beside Dustin.

And where was Michael? In Santa Barbara, trusting her. She thought of Michael and felt him in her heart even as she contemplated what it would be like to let Dustin kiss her.

By now she was actually holding hands with him, not quite sure of how her fingers so effortlessly became entwined with his. They walked, seemingly without a destination, and without even looking at him or talking, she began to feel a buzzing sensation on her skin. It was like a bee hovering over her heart, thinking about stinging. A tiny, buzzing honeybee of her own imagining was asking her, "How could you take Dustin to Golden Gate Park of
all places
?"

The honeybee knew that this was
their
park—Michael and Lindsey's. They had picnicked, skipped stones, discovered night herons amongst the reeds, boated, canoed, chased, and kissed. They had fallen in love here. But where, exactly? Perhaps near the crumbling sphinxes that marked a long-forgotten, grand path, or by the carved panthers by the Eighth-Avenue gate. Maybe it was beneath the waterfall or beneath Stow Lake's turquoise-tiled Chinese pavilion, or behind the statue of Buddha in the Japanese Tea Garden. Maybe all these locations combined to make a perfume of places, an elixir of air and space and time. Their ghosts were everywhere in that park, and even as Michael and Lindsey went to work or shopped or ventured to other points in the city, a part of their spirits remained ever-present within the greenery there. Like ducklings or a single, snowy white swan, something of their love stayed in the park always, silently paddling in the mossy waters or wafting through the breeze between Saturday roller skaters. Love lingered, and theirs inhabited many places at once.

So what the hell was she doing here with Dustin? She shook her hand free from his and wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly chilled in the balmy wind. She looked across the path to the shadows in the underbrush, and at that moment, the park struck her for the first time as overwhelmingly spooky.

Why was she sharing her favorite location with someone who used to pretend he was Mork from Ork? Golden Gate Park was her most sacred place, she realized, and even birds in heat knew better than to shit where they slept.

This revelation caught her just in time. She and Dustin stopped walking and found themselves standing beneath the statue of the Spartan soldier. According to urban legend, the statue moved at midnight, and she cowered slightly at the sight of it. With his sword drawn, he appeared ready to pierce a heart or slay Medusa, she wasn't sure which.

The stars glimmered above, and she could see the twisting light from a homeless man's campfire on the concourse below. A gust of warm wind blew through the nearby eucalyptus, and she could almost hear the nostalgic melodies from a hundred Beach Boys' songs breezing through her tangled hair. It was a perfect summer moment, except that she was with the wrong guy.

Dustin grabbed her around the waist and pulled her closer.

"Have you ever made love in the park?" he said.

To the tops of the swaying trees, through the spray of the nearby fountain, to the tip of the statue's sword, Lindsey felt the warm air all around. She recalled the shade-dappled strolls, the skipping of rocks across silty ponds, and the chases across the meadows she had shared with Michael. She thought of Michael and the way his face lit up when he saw squirrels. She loved that light in his eyes, that pure, innocent spark that showed that his amazement for living had not been squelched.

Despite the heat, her skin grew cold, and although it wasn't midnight, she could almost see the statue move. Did it dip its chin toward her and give her a solemn gaze?

Dustin pulled her even closer and whispered in her ear again, "Have you ever made love in the park?"

She pulled slightly away from him and stared into his eyes, all moist and adoring in a way most girls would have fallen for.

Lindsey caught the silhouette of an elegant heron floating overhead. She recognized the slow flap of its wings and its unmistakably long legs that peeked beneath the outline of the tailfeathers—details that Michael had shown her how to identify. Remembering him, her thoughts flashed to the sensation of holding a bird, cupping its fluttering heartbeat in her palm. She was suddenly, keenly aware that with a single, stray kiss, she could crush Michael's heart, as delicate as the bones of a parakeet. Just then she realized she didn't need to break Michael's heart to know she held it in her hand.

She wasn't interested in making a terrible, irreversible mistake. For years, more than anything she had wanted to feel another creature against her, one who would never flee her side, but stay. She wanted someone of whom she could be certain. And she was certain of Michael. The idea that she was untrustworthy was suddenly unbearable. She wasn't going to blow it. "Thanks for the walk," she said. "But now I've got to go."

After weeks of sun, the fog finally rolled in and settled over the city, ominous clouds hovering over the bay. Lindsey took one look out the window and decided to sleep in, but around nine she awoke to the sensation of being squashed. Michael was lying on top of her.

"Hi Babykins," he said, touching her hair.

"Hi, Mister. What are you doing here?"

He traced the satin neckline of her nightgown with his finger. "I'm squishing you. Did you miss me?"

"Mmm-hmm," she said, grabbing his forearm and pulling it under her neck.

Michael kissed her tenderly on the head and rested his cheek against hers. He said, "So… who's this guy you've been hanging around?"

She scooted out from beneath him and rolled over.

"No one important."

Michael pulled the blanket over them both and pulled her toward him.

"Are you sure? See, if I have to break someone's legs I'd like to do it early, before it starts to rain and my shoes get wet while I'm kicking his ass."

She looked up at Michael, not quite sure if she should make a joke or spill her guts and explain how tempted she had been, how close she had come to screwing up everything. She remembered that loose lips sink ships. She decided to say nothing. She kissed him instead.

They rolled around in bed for a while until Michael suggested they go for a walk by the ocean. She agreed, and soon they were dressed and headed outside. Holding hands, they traipsed along the sidewalks, and she was glad to finally be together again.

After a mile or so, Lindsey wondered if Michael could tell that instead of moping around alone in his absence, she had been enjoying the company of another rooster who had been circling the henhouse. Michael kept looking at her sideways, playfully at first, but then with an expression she couldn't quite read. She wondered if he sensed a fraction of her affection gone astray or the accompanying guilt that covered her like greasy sunscreen.