Ride the Rainbow Home (6 page)

"Pinks, huh? I don't suppose I have to ask who they're from?"

Meg hesitated. Was it possible that Allen...? No, that was all she'd need to increase the guilt she already felt over not being able to return his affection. She took a deep breath and fumbled for the card. It read, "Have dinner with me Friday? I'll call this evening. Jim." She sighed in relief. "They're from Jim," she said, carrying the roses into the front room. "He asked me to dinner tomorrow."

"You're going, of course."

"Of course!" Meg answered, jubilant, “Uh, assuming you’re okay without me, that is.”

“Frank will be home then and we’ll be fine. You’re going,” Sally declared.

When the house phone rang a few minutes later, Meg leaped at it, but it took three more calls before she got the one she wanted.

"Hi. How about Friday?" Jim's voice, a deep, rich baritone, didn't sound at all like Little Jimmy.

"I'd love dinner. How formal are you planning? I mean, what shall I wear?"

"Anything you like," Jim answered. "You know we're pretty informal here. Just be comfortable."

"Comfortable," she said. "That I can do."

They settled on six-thirty and Meg hung up the phone, feeling both nervous and exhilarated.

Friday was a rerun of Thursday—more lovely, cool weather, more laundry and cleaning, more story-reading with Tommy in her lap. The one big difference was the eager churning in her middle that shifted into high gear whenever she thought of the evening ahead. As she did a thorough, hands-and-knees scrub of the kitchen floor, she felt like Cinderella preparing for the prince's ball.

The ball. The prom? Meg paused in her scrubbing and rocked back on her heels as mingled memories and plans washed over her. Had there been a cartoon angel on one shoulder and a corresponding imp on the other, she couldn't have felt more torn. And who is it you're going out with tonight, Meg? she asked herself critically. The beautiful golden man from the hillside, or the boy who helped Danny Sherwood make a fool of you—twice? The angel would have dragged her through broken glass for the chance to spend time with the man. The imp kept reminding her that the boy had set her up for a most unheavenly fall.

"Wool gathering?" Sally came in, an infant in each arm.

Meg sighed and leaned forward again, finishing off the last corner of the kitchen floor. “No, just arguing with myself."

Sally plopped down on a kitchen stool and hefted the babies in front of her. "Oh? Who's winning?"

Meg paused meaningfully before she answered. “I just don't know about Jim and me. I mean, there was the business about the prom and everything's so up in the air between us. I know it's been ten years—"

"Exactly."

"Huh?"

"It's been ten years, Meg. Whatever happened then, it was between two people who are long gone now. Give Jim a chance. Give yourself a chance. You'd be surprised what might develop."

"Then that's the other question. What if something should develop? He's here and I'm going back to Walnut Creek. I have a past here, but my future is there."

Sally smiled indulgently. "Why not just see what happens? If necessary, you can burn that bridge when you come to it."

Meg grinned. "You're right, of course," she said, and started down the hall to sort through her scanty travel wardrobe. "What do you think I should wear this evening?"

"Something comfortable!" Sally called after her.

* * * *

"Magnificent!" Meg pronounced her approval of their first course, a delicious soup of chicken strips, slivered bamboo shoots, cilantro and other herbs, cooked in coconut milk and delicately flavored with lime. It was listed on their menu as
tom kha gai
. When Jim had suggested they eat Thai, she hadn't expected anything like this—not here, anyway.

"It is good, isn't it?" Jim was smiling wisely, as if to say he'd told her so, and Meg, who'd memorized the names and locations of every Thai restaurant in the East Bay, heartily agreed.

"What's food like this doing in Rainbow Rock?" she asked as she dished up a second serving.

"It came with the Khamphouvongs," Jim answered. "They moved here about four years ago—two brothers and their families."

"With food this fine, they could have settled anywhere," she said, savoring the mix of unusual flavors.

"And you're wondering why here?"

It was exactly what she'd been wondering. Meg nodded.

"They liked the verdant pastures," Jim said dryly.

"Jim, I'm serious. What makes a person choose one place to call home?"

Her somber searching changed his mood. "I can't tell you, Meg," he said, taking her hand. "You have to find it for yourself. Some people never do and others, when they've found it, will give up anything to keep it."

"But how do you know if it's home?" She was instantly reminded of another question she'd asked years before on her first visit to Rainbow Rock. She had turned to her mother's sister and said, "Aunt Grace, how do you know if it's love?" It had been the occasion of her mother's fourth wedding, the one to Lon Ramsdell that had made her the principal's stepdaughter at age thirteen.

Jim stroked her hand; he spoke patiently, just as Aunt Grace had done. "There's no magic formula for knowing, Meg. When it's right, it's right. You feel it."

"I'd like to know what that's like," Meg said, her voice low.

Jim took her hand. "Don't you have a home in California?"

Meg thought of her sparse, expensive condo in Walnut Creek. Would she call that home? "No, not really, but I hope to someday, somewhere."

He looked at her for a long moment before answering. "I hope you have the chance."

They enjoyed a delightful meal of exotic Thai dishes with yellow curry and honey-barbecued pork, probably from Jim’s own family farm. Throughout their dinner, Jim kept the conversation light, focused mostly on people they'd both known in high school and what had become of them. When they finally left the restaurant, Meg felt sated and happy, hoping the evening wouldn't end for a while. She was disappointed when Jim drove her back to Sally's house and walked her to the door.

"Would you like to come in and see Sally?" she asked brightly.

"Not this evening. I'm traveling on the reservation tomorrow and Sunday. I'll have to get an early start in the morning." He didn't seem in a hurry to leave.

"Well, in that case..." She waited, hoping he'd at least want to kiss her.

A muscle worked in his jaw, but he reached for the door instead of for her. "Good night, Meggie," he said, and swung it open.

Meg had the uncomfortable feeling she was being dismissed. "Good night, Jim," she answered, and turned to go inside.

"Meg?"

She turned back. "Yes?"

"There are things—" He paused, cleared his throat, and started again. "—things about our past that seem to keep getting in the way when we're together. We haven't been as comfortable together as we used to be."

The allusion may have been vague, but she had no doubt he was thinking of their prom. "Yes, I've felt that too."

"It's been ten years. We're different people now."

"Yes."

"I'd like to get to know the Meg Taylor of today, what you think about, what you like, who you are. Do you think we can just move forward? Let the past go?"

It wasn't an apology, but then, maybe it was all the apology that was appropriate ten years after the fact, and she had been awfully hard on Jimmy at the time. Maybe she could afford to be magnanimous now. "I'd like that." She hoped the warmth she was feeling showed in her eyes.

"I'd like it too." He took her hands in his. "I'll call you next week, okay?"

"I'll look forward to it."

An awkward moment passed while Jim looked at her with an expression she could only call hungry. Then he leaned forward and softly kissed her cheek. "Good night, Meg," he said, then he turned and was gone.

Later, as she lay curled in Isabel's bed, Meg played the evening over in her mind. There had been moments when Little Jimmy had surfaced for an instant, like the awkward moment at the door and the shy, chaste kiss. But there had been none of the cruelty of the last time she'd seen Little Jimmy. Now that she thought about it, Jimmy's cruelty had been uncharacteristic even then. The primary adjective Meg had used to describe Jimmy to herself all through high school had been nice. Little Jimmy was nice to her, nice to Sally, nice to everyone. Maybe the bad spot in their history had been the one aberration in his otherwise kind life. Maybe there was nothing to reconcile. She thought of the way he had looked at her on the porch a few minutes ago, just before he'd kissed her cheek. The grown-up Jim was a very nice man indeed.

* * * *

The weekend with Frank at home gave Meg some freedom. She took leave of the Garcias, stuffed lunch into her fanny pack, grabbed a canteen, and headed for the hills, promising herself to keep looking back. If she never lost sight of the valley below, she'd never lose her way among the look-alike dunes.

A few minutes into her walk, she spotted a discarded snakeskin, shuddered, and drew away, then kept her eyes open for the skin's former occupant. She remembered something she'd heard about a common Navajo belief, how if you crossed a snake's path it would follow you home. She shivered with dread and moved forward gingerly. Half an hour later, she spotted a flat sandstone ledge with a wide view of the valley and a shady overhang. Making a quick check to assure herself that no snake was sunning there, she wriggled into the shade, bracing her back against the sheer rock wall.

Time to ponder was a luxury she'd sacrificed to climb the ladder at Montgomery Adams Seminars. Now that she had time, she considered the issues she would have to confront when she returned to California. For some time she'd been telling herself she was just tired, and a break was all she needed. Now, after two weeks away from the job, she still felt sick with dread at the prospect of returning. It was the same kind of dread she felt at the prospect of encountering the former occupant of that snakeskin. The thought awed her. How had the job she'd worked and longed and struggled for become a source of near-phobic terror?

Over her years in management training, analysis had become one of Meg's better skills. Now she analyzed, trying to sort out the problems. She knew Monty's backwardness was a major concern. His methods had been the newest when he had begun his program forty years before, and he had made changes to fit with the times, but Meg knew the changes were superficial. Monty's real orientation to business-as-usual was the same good-ol'-boy, authoritarian approach that had worked in the early ‘70s. She wanted to introduce extra team training—hardly a new concept, but Monty had said no. She planned a session on employee empowerment; Monty said "stick with what works." She crusaded to address issues of sexual harassment and diversity awareness; Monty insisted she leave "fads" to other vendors. She planned to put training seminars on video; Monty assured her the personal touch was what counted, and then encouraged her to wear skirts that "showed a little leg," a touch that seemed a bit too personal to her.

But her discontent went deeper than Monty's sexist pig-headedness, deeper even than the job. Her conversations with Jim were bringing to the surface a concern she'd have thought herself immune to: she wanted a home—a real, loving home of her own.

The idea had been haunting her since she'd begun the drive to Rainbow Rock, or possibly even before. Years earlier, when her mother's fourth marriage had ended, Meg had decided that the women in her family had no talent for relationships. She had planned never to marry, but to dedicate her life to a career instead and never look back. Now she wondered if it was merely the ticking of her biological clock that she heard, or if it was something more, a longing for belonging that she just couldn't satiate at work.

As she pondered, a red-tailed hawk swooped overhead and soared into the valley, followed closely by its mate. Meg lifted her head and watched in wonder as the raptors darted and danced, swooped and soared, perfectly paired in their flight. Sadness knifed through her as she realized these birds had something she might never have. A tear trickled down her cheek.

* * * *

The time of day that the Hopi call white dawn had arrived, and the sky was barely light as Jim drove his pickup truck off the road and into the barren desert. He parked on a wide, empty expanse of dun-yellow sandstone and set the parking brake. "We're here," he said.

"And just where is here?" Meg asked, looking around at the miles and miles of miles.

Jim smiled. "A few miles north of Woodruff. Come on. Let's get started."

Meg shrugged. Since Jim had called at mid-week to invite her on this Saturday hike and picnic, she'd felt mingled eagerness and apprehension. Despite five years in Rainbow Rock, she knew little of the desert that surrounded it. Jim shouldered a light backpack and helped Meg slip a couple of full canteens onto her climbing belt, then said, "We're going that way," and started off. The rising sun painted the world in pastels as it came up over his shoulder.