On the Divinity of Second Chances (30 page)

Forrest on Jade’s Birthday
(August 22)

It’s my favorite day of the year—Jade’s birthday. It’s the only day of the year I take a break from oats, grouse, and rice, and indulge in chocolate cake. And this year, Taj Mahal is playing at the outdoor concert. Chocolate cake and Taj Mahal. Life is good. Below, Jade approaches with a backpack and Nisa-Josh. “Hey!” she calls out. “I brought Josh!”

I throw down the harness. She helps him into it and clips him to the rope. He looks scared. I see her point to places up the tree. I toss the other end of the rope already through the figure eight safety down to her so she can belay and help pull him up. He looks thick and awkward to me, like he would be a terrible climber, but he does pretty well. He’s a strong climber. He pulls himself up onto the deck of the tree house, laughs nervously, and exhales.

“Watch this,” I tell him, as I throw the harness and rope back down to Jade. She clips in and scrambles up the tree like it’s nothing. “All that massage makes her a wicked climber.” Josh doesn’t dare look down.

“Ya, Petah Lemonjello, it is da birthday girl, Helga,” she says in a fake accent and begins to sing, “Hort fer das leben, hort fer das leben, ich meinen kochen.” Very loosely translated: Happy day, happy day, eat my cake. She couldn’t remember the happy birthday song from high school German class, so one day she just made one up.

I greet her by putting a crown of Indian paintbush, lupine, and balsam on her head. “Helga, what a happy day it is. I am now ready for my four-hour butt massage,” I say in my Peter Lemonjello voice. She slaps my butt instead with a newspaper.

“Look at this, hero,” she says, holding the newspaper. The first headline says “Fire Crew Makes Narrow Escape.” Good. The first crew to respond managed to run around the fire to the south. The second headline says “Man Saves Ranger.” It’s an interview with Lightning Bob talking me up. Oh, come on, Lightning Bob, I didn’t do anything anyone else wouldn’t have done.

I scan the article and reach the part where investigators have no suspects, but offer a thousand-dollar reward for information leading to an arrest. I hope Matt likes Mexico. I hold it for Jade, point to that sentence, and say, “I saw this. It was Bear Bait.” I don’t want Josh to pick up on what we’re talking about. I know Jade can keep a secret. Her eyes get really wide. “I’m only sharing that in case you want to let the perfect one know.” She looks unenthusiastic about that. “I know. Tough call.”

At the end of the article is a plea for me to contact Lightning Bob at the Forest Service office. Hm. Okay. I study the map of where the fire burned. Yes, that includes the location of my main house all right. I had no doubt it would burn. I nod my head and put down the paper like it’s no big deal.

“That was a pretty amazing story,” Josh says to me.

I nod.

“So is this your sign?” Jade asks.

“Yeah,” I say, amazed. “Hasn’t quite sunk in yet.”

“Hey, he’s starting!” she announces as Taj Mahal comes onstage. Jade and I dangle our legs over the edge of my tree house while Josh nestles back by the trunk of the tree. “Are you okay?” she turns back to ask Josh.

“I’m great,” he answers and scoots forward a little more. She puts her hand on his ankle to reassure him.

“I have a surprise for you,” I tell her. “I know how you like to feel the Earth under your feet, and I know there are times when you have to wear shoes whether you want to or not. I made these for you.” I reach into a paper bag and pull out the moccasins I made for her.

She gasps with delight.

“Oh, Forrest!” she exclaims as she tries them on.

They go all the way up to her knee for when the snow is deep. At the top, I made fringe. She loves fringe.

“Look at this!” she marvels and touches the quills I beaded on. “Oh, so beautiful!” She stands up and hops around to admire how the fringe moves. This makes her smile. She turns to Josh and explains, “He made these!”

Josh doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who can appreciate a good pair of moccasins, but he tries.

She sits back down next to me and puts her arm around me. She rests her head on my shoulder and says, “This is the best gift ever.”

Josh creeps a little closer to the edge.

“Cake?” I ask them.

Jade reaches into her pack for forks. “Yahoo!” she answers. “Maybe we should skip birthday candles this year.”

I dish her up a piece onto a napkin. While below Taj Mahal sings “Blues Ain’t Nothin’,” I join in the tune, replacing the lyrics with those of “Happy Birthday.” Josh joins in.

“You still get to make a wish,” I tell her. She looks at Josh, winks, turns back to me, and says, “Done.”

When the concert is over, they prepare to rappel down.

Jade says, “Let me know what happens at the Forest Service office.”

I assure her I will. I belay as Jade rappels down first. I pull the harness back up and toss the other end of the rope down to her so she can belay Josh. I give him some instruction, assure him Jade won’t let him fall, and watch him go reluctantly over the edge. He really hates this. He must really love Jade.

Jade on Root Beer Floats
(August 22)

“You know what the world needs,” I say as Josh and I wander the aisles of the grocery store after the concert, “more ice cream.”

“Root beer floats,” Josh specifies.

“I love root beer floats! In fact, I think I’d like to take a bath in one.”

“And you could just drink and drink and never run out.”

“Out of Crazy Straws. I love Crazy Straws.” It’s nice to almost feel like myself again. Josh has been an incredible friend, just as amazing as Nisa ever was. I love him.

“That sounds like a birthday wish,” Josh says. He goes back to the front of the store to get a cart and then returns to the ice cream aisle. He puts seven boxes of vanilla ice cream into the cart. I smile. If he’s doing what I think he’s doing, he truly is the man of my dreams.

 

Back at the condos, he stops in front of his door before we get to mine. “I got you something,” he explains. With his arms full of ice cream, he manages to unlock his door.

“Well done,” I say, and we step in. I follow him back to his bathroom, where he puts his ice cream boxes on the counters and then takes the remaining boxes out of my arms. He smiles at me mischievously and then walks out. I follow him back to the living room, where he hands me a gift bag. I dig through the tissue paper until I find an African soapstone sculpture of a man and a woman embracing. “Josh, it’s beautiful,” I say.

“Yeah?” He pauses a second to see if I really like it.

“It’s perfect,” I assure him.

“It reminded me of us,” he explains.

“I know,” I reply, and take a moment to just look at him and take in all his warmth.

 

“It’s nice to see you smile again,” he says softly near my ear. I love his voice. The sound of his voice makes my cheekbones tickle.

A Hefty bag containing the unfolded ice cream boxes and empty two-liter pop bottles sits on the floor. Cubes of ice cream float in the bathtub. Two cases of root beer don’t go nearly as far as you’d think. The actual float is not very deep, but the foam threatens to spill out over the top.

Josh and I laugh hysterically as he hands me one of two Crazy Straws. It’s our first time naked together. It’s a little awkward. We hold hands and step into the root-beer-float bath.

“It’s cold,” he says, still laughing.

“Really cold!”

“I missed your laughter.” He melts me.

I never thought anyone would melt me. In his presence, I’m just like this puddle of woman. I give him a hug. “You’re my best friend,” I tell him. While I hug him, I indulge in a moment of really taking in his body. I’ve seen a lot of bodies. I have massaged between two and three thousand bodies. I’ve never seen one like this. “And a fine, fine hunk of eye candy,” I add and explode into laughter. I wish I could be serious and sexy, but come on, we’re standing in a giant root beer float. I go to break away, but he doesn’t let go.

“What did you just say?” he asks, and laughs in disbelief. “Did you just say ‘eye candy’?”

“Maybe,” I say self-consciously, still giggling, but feeling my cheeks heat up. Shit, I know they’ve got to be fuchsia by now. If I had beautiful dark skin like his, no one would ever know when I was blushing. Man, that would be nice.

“I love you,” he says with a smile that will keep me a puddle for the next year.

I place my hand with the Crazy Straw behind his neck, and my other on his cheek, then kiss him. “I never thought I’d feel this way about anyone,” I tell him. “I love you so much.”

He kisses me again and gets that look. You know the look. That’s when I know I am in trouble, but don’t mind. “Let’s get in,” he whispers mischievously.

We squat down awkwardly, still kissing. “Who’s going to be on the bottom?” I ask, starting to laugh again.

“You are!” And before I know it, I am.

I laugh and shriek. “Wicked cold!”

“Okay . . .” He rolls us over. “Oh, yeah,” he agrees, laughing, “that is definitely not okay.”

We go back to squatting. “Foam feels kind of good,” I say. I scoop up a handful and lick it.

“Really? You like it?”

Now I feel embarrassed again. I look down and reach up to kind of cover my face with my hand, not thinking, until I become aware there is root beer float clinging to my forehead.

“Oh, let me get that for you,” Josh says. He kisses and licks the root beer float off my face. It felt nice. It felt very nice.

I scoop up more root beer float, dribble some on my neck, and then dribble some on his shoulder. “Oh, no,” I say. “Look what I’ve done.”

Forrest on Probation
(August 23)

“Hi,” I say to the Forest Service secretary. “I’m looking for Lightning Bob.”

“Forrest? Is that you?” I hear his voice call out from another room, and then watch him hobble in on crutches. “Good to see you! Good to see you! Look at you! You got rid of your hair! Hey, everybody! This is Forrest!”

“Hi, Forrest!” everyone calls out. I want to run out of there.

“Let’s go outside,” Lightning Bob suggests to my relief. I’m still not particularly comfortable indoors. We sit on a bench by a juniper bush. Lightning Bob rests his crutches against the bench next to him. “I have something I want you to consider. I’ve been looking for a new tower to work in since mine burned down. There are not many of these positions. But there are two rangers retiring this year. One in western Montana and the other in the Idaho panhandle. You’re good at observing. You’re good at predicting fire. You keep your cool in emergencies. You’re a good poet. I think you would make an excellent fire lookout ranger. New people generally have to walk on water to get one of these positions, but you’ve essentially done that already. I don’t know much about your life, but I think I know enough to suggest this might be a really good thing for you to consider. I already talked to the district rangers in both places about this. You could take your pick, and I’ll go where you don’t. The towers are within a day-and-a-half drive of each other. We could still get together for a game of cribbage now and then. You’d have to get your GED before next summer.”

Hm. A lookout tower would be a great halfway house for a person like me on probation. A lookout tower would be a great way to maintain my lifestyle, but still integrate back into society a little. “I’d like that,” I tell him.

“Super! Super!” he exclaims. “The ranger in the Idaho tower actually wants to leave in two weeks, so that position opens up sooner. My ankle won’t be healed up by then. There are ways we can work around this, but if you wanted to start as early as two weeks from now, it’s waiting for you.”

I nod that yes, I’d like that. I’d like a place to go. I’d like a helpful job.

“Super! Super! Let’s go inside, and I can walk you through some paperwork and call the district ranger up there. Oh, hey, before I forget, I wrote a poem about you.” Of course he did. I smile.

After Lightning Bob helps me with paperwork, I head off to find Jade.

I knock, but no one answers. I let myself in to write her a note telling her that I’m going to be a lookout ranger. It’s funny, I feel proud. It’s a new feeling for me—this happiness. Wow, I can’t remember the last time I felt like this. I think about my future with happiness now, not mere acceptance. Wild. “Dearest Helga,” I start to write, but then the door opens.

“Peter Lemonjello?
Qué pasa, hermano
?” she says with a big smile.

“I got a job,” I say, trying to contain my excitement.

“Yeah?” she asks with a big smile and waits.

“I’m going to man a lookout tower near Bonner’s Ferry,” I say, proudly.

“That’s great,” she says.

“Before I go, I want to try to make amends with the parents,” I say. “None of this has been fair to them, and I don’t know how to begin to make things right. I mean, this isn’t something you can just say sorry for. This isn’t something they’ll ever understand.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” she offers.

“No, I can’t do that to you or to Mom. Can you imagine if she ever put it together that all this time you knew where I was? She’d never forgive you. No. Thanks, though.” I pause for a moment to try to gather my thoughts and formulate a plan. “Do you have any advice?”