Hydraulic Level Five (1) (34 page)

“I already know what I want to ask.”

“Oh! Fire away, then.” I nervously crumbled the rest of my waffle cone, bracing myself for the New York question. I sorted out all of the ways I could tell him what happened that night without crying in public. But he didn’t ask.

“Other than the fact that you’ve been wonderfully successful and enjoy taking ridiculous risks—” he smiled when I bristled, teasing me “—I know very little about what you’ve been up to for almost seven years. And I want to know, very badly. So my first question is, why extreme sports?”

I blinked. “Seriously? That’s it?” Hmmm, that was easy. “Okay…what do you want to know about them?”

“Anything. Everything. Why don’t you start by telling me how you became a certified skydiver?”

Skydiving. That was a safe place to begin. I explained how the Paddler boys wanted to become certified as part of their adventure guide careers, and I tagged along. I talked about whitewater rafting, expounding on the difference between a hydraulic and a wave. We talked about TrilbyJones and some of my crazier client requests like the ski shop who wanted to unload merchandise and simultaneously promote the Green movement—buy a thousand dollars’ worth of ski equipment, get a free goat to replace your lawn mower. He listened while I spilled my story, my hands waving enthusiastically over things like ice rappelling or backcountry skiing in Vail. He cringed as I flung my dangerous stunts in his face, but he wisely didn’t comment until I finished.

“Why do you do the ice rappelling, the backcountry skiing, the rafting, all of these risky things?”

“Didn’t I just answer that?”

“No, you told me what you like about them. Not
why
you do them. There’s a difference.”

“Oh. Well, I live in Colorado, so they’re in my backyard.”

“What else?”

“I guess I do them because they’re thrilling. I’m addicted to the adrenaline rush.”

“And?”

I shrugged. “What other reason would there be?”

“So you like risking your life simply because you get a temporary adrenaline rush.”

“Look, you asked and I answered. If you believe there’s more to it, then why don’t you come right out and tell me what it is?”

“That’s not the way this works, Kaye. I can’t ask a question and then answer it for you.”

“Well obviously you know the answer better than I do. But that’s nothing new, is it?”

Samuel ground his jaw, and I thought for a moment he would argue with me and demand that I tell him what I really meant by that. He didn’t. Instead, he offered me a contrite smile.

“I’m sorry. You know your own mind and I shouldn’t argue otherwise.”

The playful charm of the evening had all but deflated. The sun sank below the row of brick storefronts and would soon be gone, leaving us in a world of violet. Throwing away our trash from the ice cream, we left the green space and wandered up Pearl Street, gazes bouncing over the mountains that shadowed the city.

Soon, Boulder would be decorated in its red, white, and blue regalia for its Independence Day celebration. Our group of friends usually made an evening of it, listened to live music and hung around until ten o’clock for fireworks. Colored fire would fill the sky and drift down as Sousa marches pounded from loud speakers. For a fleeting moment, I thought about inviting Sam—he’d enjoy the music and the company.

“I miss this in New York—how everything catches on fire before sunset. The mountains, particularly.” He gestured over his shoulder to the starless mounds blackened by the extinguished sun.

I studied the faint circles under his eyes. “You look tired, Samuel.”

“It’s been a long weekend.”

We watched a thin, haggard man shuffle past us, his hair gray and skin weathered and rough like canyon crags. A black garbage bag was slung over his shoulder and clanked with bottles and cans. I leaned my head against Samuel’s warm shoulder. His arm came around me.

“Sometimes it’s strange to me, seeing homeless people wandering around Boulder, not like it is in Denver. And I bet it’s an everyday occurrence for you in New York.”

Samuel shifted so he could see my face. “It depends on the part of the city. But yes, most people get used to it. I don’t, though.”

“I wonder what happens in a person’s life to drive them to the streets? How does someone go from having a family and a home, and a school, to picking up cans for a living and sleeping in a doorway?”

“I suppose a number of different factors. Addictions. Mental illness. Physical disabilities. Criminal record. Natural disasters. Maybe all of the above. Most of the time, only a single twist of events separates their lives from ours, you know? Seeing them reminds me that if it weren’t for certain people, I could have been one of them.”

His arm tightened around my shoulders as he became lost in thought. I let him have his silence while my mind drifted to his troubles in New York. I’d have to ask him about it, soon, but it would be on my terms. Already, a million questions formed. By the time Samuel’s grip on my shoulder loosened and he pulled me from the bench, I’d decided what I would ask him next time we talked.

At last, the sun was gone. Stretching our limbs, we made our way back to TrilbyJones, past the colorfully-lit boutique displays packed with sporting gear and artwork. We moved quickly this time, stopping occasionally to peer at something in the windows.

“So, I’ve been curious but never wanted to ask. Why aren’t you Angel’s best man? At first I thought it was because you never see each other, but rumor has it you still keep in touch. He’s closer to you than he is to Santiago or Hector.”

“Angel and I talk to each other once a month. Don’t worry, we never discuss you,” he rushed on. “Usually Danita hands the phone over to him after she chews me out for not coming home more often.”

“You deserve it, after the coercing Sofia has to do to get you to come back to Lyons, even for holidays. But you didn’t answer my question.”

“Angel did ask me to be his best man. I declined.”

I halted. “Why on earth did you do that?”

Samuel rubbed the back of his neck. “In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have. But when he asked me, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to manage the requirements.”

“You mean planning the bachelor party and renting a tux? Wow, those are
hard
.”

Samuel began walking again. “You know what I mean, Kaye.”

I sighed. “Yeah, I know. Jaunting down the aisle together in the church where we got married. Talk about déjà vu. I have to admit, I stressed about it, too. But, Samuel, I think you should have told him yes. It would have meant a lot to him, and you’d have managed just fine. Me, however…you know what a nostalgic sap I can be.”

Samuel kindly pulled me around to face him. “Having a sensitive heart does not make you a sap, Kaye. Please don’t degrade it. You have such a bent for caring about people and you don’t even realize it.”

“Oh yes. Downtrodden guinea pigs are singing my praises across all of Los Angeles. Kaye Trilby: friend of furry rodents.”

“Well, undeserving as I am, I’m grateful to call you my friend again.” He lightly touched a finger to my cheek.

“Me too.”

Samuel walked me to my front door. He leaned against the frame, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Can I see you tomorrow, Trilby? Don’t forget—you have to ask me a question.”

“Ugh, tomorrow’s crazy.” I flew through everything I had to do to get ready for the wedding. “And I have to help my dad’s girlfriend and Molly put together eighty welcome baskets for out-of-town wedding guests at The Garden Market, then distribute them to hotels. You may not have a lot of extended family, but the Valdez’s—flippin’ stapler, that family is huge!”

“Most of ’em are Roman Catholic.” Samuel grinned. “I have a feeling the Valdez family’s descent upon Lyons will be the biggest party the town’s ever seen. Anyway, I can help with the bags. Let me drive you around—we can talk, then.”

“How can I possibly refuse extra help?”

He pulled me in for his customary hug and head kiss. “Goodnight, Kaye.”

“Don’t forget Cassady’s floppy hat.”

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I considered finishing the last few chapters of
The Last Other
, but that would probably cause my brain to floor the gas pedal and peel out. Instead, I made myself a mug of hot chocolate, put on The Twiggies, and relaxed in my comfy leather chair. The music smoothed the rough edges from my thoughts until I could fall into the pile and not be cut.

Something bothered me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I flipped on the television, losing myself in an old black and white movie in which an heiress, Claudette Colbert, ran away with secret reporter Clark Gable after escaping her father’s yacht to find her rich flyboy. In the end, of course, she fell for the scoundrel reporter and ditched her flyboy. I had to smile at the innocence of it—splitting a room with a curtain to avoid impropriety. It was probably considered risqué in the day. After another mug of hot chocolate while the credits rolled, I pinned what nagged me. Samuel had intimated I hadn’t answered his question about extreme sports. Why
had
I chosen extreme sports? I’d never pondered it before.

I’d told Samuel it was the adrenaline rush. And I had to admit, I could see a few parallels between the high he got from his drugs and the high I got from jumping out of a plane. Our habits were kind of alike, although
mine
was a lot less likely to royally screw up my life and my family. And it was legal.

I wrestled with the question for a good hour until I had my answer.

I called Samuel. When he didn’t answer, I nearly hung up.

“
Hey, this is Sam. Leave a message…”

I kept up my courage through his voicemail.

“Hey, Samuel. I thought about your question—why extreme sports? And you were right, there is more to it.”
Come on, Kaye, you can do this
. “Yes, I love the adrenaline rush. But I started doing the dangerous stuff because it was the only way I could feel sure of myself. When you left me behind, you also left me numbed, my confidence shattered, and I wanted to
feel
again, prove I was still breathing, still strong. The extreme sports helped.”

I exhaled, feeling the pressure on my chest lift.

“Also, I suppose it was a passive aggressive way to get even with you. I thought maybe Angel or Danita would rat me out, and you’d be irked because I’d found something you were so wholly uninvolved in. Even if you’d never found out, I believed I was spiting you, somehow. But the adventure trips are more than that now, and I’m not going to quit just because you think they’re dangerous.

“That’s all I wanted to say. Talking to your voicemail’s actually therapeutic. Maybe we should do all of our weekly discussions like this.” I cringed, feeling stupid. “That was a joke. Um…sleep well. Goodnight.”

I hung up before I could say anything else completely embarrassing.

Chapter 16: High Water

The higher the river flow, the faster the current.

P
ETULANT
M
OUTH
. Sad, sagging eyebrows. Avoidant eyes. Yup, guilt. Whether thirteen or thirty, that expression hadn’t changed. If he was ninety, I’d still know guilt in his beautiful face.

Summer heat hit Lyons full force two days before Danita and Angel’s wedding. Rainless days and high winds only notched up the heat and baked the east Rockies beneath a gigantic hair dryer.

Samuel glanced at me again, and this time I caught him. Three hours and still no mention of the phone message I’d left. Granted, we were in the presence of my dad’s girlfriend and Molly—not the best time to bring it up. But I knew, without a doubt, he’d received it. I poked him beneath his ribs to lighten his funk. He gave me a little smile, the guilt only deepening in the creases around his eyes.

Three hundred bud vases were washed and ready for pink gerbera daisies. Stacks of programs were folded, sealed with wax, and boxed. And eighty gussied-up baskets packed with apples, trail mix, bottled water, and Spanish-language greeting cards covered every spare inch of space in the back room of Audrey Wexler’s organic grocery store. We were tackling the last of the gift baskets and stacking them in crates to carry out to my Jeep. Our fingers stalled over the ribbons, reluctant to abandon the air-conditioned room for the parched air outside.

I paused over my basket and watched Samuel smooth another pink ribbon between his fingertips.

“Unbelievable.” I pushed up the strap of my brown tank top for the umpteenth time. Of course he could tie a perfect bow. His nimble, elegant guitar fingers had no trouble weaving two ribbon ends together into perfect loops. I’d seen those hands fly across strings and pluck out the fiery rhythms of Albeniz, or sweep pristine sentences across letterhead. Samuel was also the only man I’d ever known who could tie an immaculately straight necktie.

I, however, could not tie a pretty little bow to save my life.