Seventh Wonder (11 page)

“You made it,” he said, wiping his hands on his trousers as he stood. “How do you feel?”

“Inadequate.” She planted her hands on her hips. “You made that look so easy.”

He shook his head, laughing. “Come here a few more times, and you’ll be a pro at it, too. You just have to learn where the toeholds are.” He held out his hand for her. “Come on, this way.”

Meg followed him, squeezing his hand to keep herself centered as they clambered over the various sized rocks at the edge of the escarpment. Sometime later they reached a gently sloping stone bluff shaded by a single, multipronged Joshua tree. John strode up to the lip, completely unfazed by the sheer drop before him.

“This is one of the highest points in the entire canyon,” he said, peering casually over the edge. “We’re at well over eighty-five hundred feet. Even the birds nest lower than this.” He looked back at her with a smile - a smile that quickly faded when he noticed her seeming inability to budge from the spot where he’d left her.

“Come on out here,” he said. His voice had assumed the soft, soothing timbre of a lullaby. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Again he extended a hand, and again Meg placed her trust in his outstretched palm. She placed one foot carefully in front of the other, never daring to glance up as she teetered closer to the bluff’s pinnacle.

John folded her against him, wrapping a strong arm around her waist. He used his free hand to tilt her chin, urging her eyes up, up, up until they met his. “Look at me. You’re OK. I swear I won’t let go.”

She pressed her lips together, nodded. “OK,” she breathed. Slowly she turned her head.

They were on top of the entire world, suspended miles and miles above the earth’s molten core: more vulnerable than ever to the stalwart force of gravity. Far beneath them, birds soared, the river roared, and flame-tipped Indian paintbrush quivered in the illusory breeze. The monoliths and buttes, arroyos and alluvial fans blurred into a patchwork of indistinct two-dimensional shapes. Up here the canyon lost some of its depth; it was flattened, compressed into a shallow diorama of miniature cliffs and mesas.

John’s chest slid against Meg’s back as he stepped behind her, never loosening his hold on her waist. He bent to whisper against the shell of her ear: “
I have spread my dreams under your feet
...”

* * *

“Have you had many girlfriends?”

It was a question he’d expected, yet was still hesitant to answer. He looked at Meg, leaning with her back against the trunk of the tree, her brilliant emerald eyes shaded from the sun. She’d grown more courageous in the hour they’d been here, until finally she insisted she was capable of staving off panic in the event he let her go.

He shook his head slowly at first, then seeing her uncertainty, with more vehemence. “Not many, no.”

“You’ve been in love, though.” She stated it as fact.

“I suppose so, yes,” he replied evenly. “A long time ago.”

For a long moment she said nothing, only gazed into the distance, squinting against the harsh light that broke across the stratosphere. John leaned his shoulder against the tree beside her and buried his hands in his pockets as he stared down at the ridge’s pebbled surface.

“Did you ever think of asking her to marry you?”

He cleared this throat, nodded again. “Yes, I did.”

She looked at him then, realization dawning. “Wait -
did
you ask her to marry you?”

Returning her glance: “Yes.” His voice was soft, barely above a whisper. He could feel the beginnings of a knot, entrenched at the base of his throat. His concern was with her reaction to what was to come, though probably she assumed it was related more to some secreted longing for the woman he’d lost.

“And she said yes...didn’t she?”

He nodded, more or less resigned. “Yes, she did.”

Meg wrenched her gaze away from him. “How long were you married?” she asked. He could hear the faint warble in her voice, a wavering she attempted to mask by speaking louder.

He blew out a silent breath. “Two and a half years.”

“And you divorced?” she guessed.

“No.” He wanted to touch her but resisted. “She died.”

Her head snapped in his peripheral vision, her eyes zeroing back in on his face. He’d surprised her, just as he assumed he would.

“How? I mean...what happened to her?”

“Cancer. Cervical,” John said vaguely, his mouth twitching in a weak smile.

Meg’s hand found his and held it, curling in a tight show of solidarity. “I’m so sorry.”

John returned a faint squeeze. “Like I said, it was long ago - almost eight years.” He wanted to tell her it was all right, to take away some of her pain and prevent her from feeling sorry for him. Instead, he waited.

Her grip loosened then, and she took an intrepid step forward, away from the tree. John tried not to lose his nerve as he watched her edge closer to the rim. She stopped a foot short of falling, her body tense with coiled fear.

“How long were you together?” she asked quietly as she turned back around. “In total.”

“Not even three years. We were together only a short time before we married - just shy of three months.” He kneaded his forehead with rigid fingers. “God, we were so young.”

He shook his head, disentangling himself from the niggling barbs of remembrance. Meg’s eyes were full of a sympathy he didn’t want. “Let’s talk about something else,” he said, giving her an easy smile.

She clasped her hands behind her back and rocked forward on her toes. “What would you like to talk about?”

“Recite another poem for me.”

She cleared her throat, chuckling a little. “All right. What’s your fancy? Sonnet? Limerick? Free verse?”

“Doesn’t matter. Something light.”

She looked down and chewed on her lip while she contemplated his request. “How about some Ogden Nash?” she said. She turned her toes out and drew her spine up straight, then lifted her voice.

“There is something about a Martini,

A tingle remarkably pleasant;

A yellow, a mellow Martini;

I wish I had one at present.

There is something about a Martini,

Ere the dining and dancing begin,

And to tell you the truth,

It is not the vermouth—

I think that perhaps it’s the gin.”

At the end she dipped her head in a curtsy. The way she did it reminded John of a humble, unknowingly brilliant street performer.

He chuckled rich and deep - it would’ve echoed for miles, had there been anything solid around them to return the sound. “Remarkably pleasant, indeed.” His eyes held the vestiges of his laughter even as the sound of it faded. “Although I’m not much for gin.”

Meg smiled, clearly pleased. She was calm as she looked away. Relaxed.

Oblivious to the inches long scorpion scuttling toward her.

John sucked in a breath when he noticed it, knowing he couldn’t afford to frighten her, close as she stood to the rim.

“Hold still, OK?” he said softly.

He took a step toward her. He could see the shift in her eyes the moment she grasped the reason for his cautious approach. She couldn’t see the scorpion, but she knew there was something. Every muscle tensed as she froze in place, like someone trapped in an excruciating spell of tetany.

The scorpion was large and colored like the earth. Its tail was lifted, curled in an ugly hook, and its pincers were curved like vises. John, recognizing its defensive posture, moved quickly now, determined to stop it before it came within striking distance of Meg’s bared ankle.

What happened next unfolded in a blur, multiple events occurring in quick succession within a span of seconds. John drew back his foot to kick the scorpion over the rock’s edge - Meg glanced down just in time to see the toe of his boot connect with its thorax - she opened her mouth in a soundless scream and took a juddering step backward - the rock ledge loosened, raining dust and gravel as it ground out from beneath her foot - John’s hand shot out and gripped her arm, securing her in place.

“You don’t want to go too far that way, either,” he said. The coolness in his voice belied the racing of his heart as he whipped her against him, reeling her in from the peril of the edge.

Meg clung to him, breathing heavily, her skin roughed with goose bumps. It took her several long moments to regain the power of speech.

“What. Was. That?” Her eyes flicked to the spot where she’d seen the scorpion. She kept her arms circled around John’s waist.

“Bark scorpion,” he replied, smoothing her hair away from her eyes.

Her tongue darted out to wet her lips. “Are they poisonous?”

He nodded, his eyes bouncing between Meg’s dilated pupils. He kissed her forehead, then pulled her head back into his chest.

“What would’ve happened?” she asked, tilting her chin to look back up at him a moment later. “If it’d stung me...”

“I can’t say for sure, because I’ve never been stung. I’ve heard, though, that their venom can cause racking pain - sometimes for days.” He cupped her cheek. “They’re rarely fatal, though.”

She gulped, then turned her face to look at the other spot: the place where she’d almost fallen. “Oh God,” she whispered. “And then I—”

She didn’t try to complete that thought. Her eyes moved back to John’s. “You just saved my life. Twice.”

He chuckled, shook his head. “It was nothing, Meg. Anyone would’ve done the same. That’s what happens when instinct kicks in. Adrenaline gives people super powers they never knew they had.”

She eyed him dubiously but didn’t argue. Instead: “I think I’m ready to go.”

John rubbed her cheek with his knuckles. He nodded. “OK.”

He bent to kiss her lips. When he pulled back, his mouth was tugged up on one side in a cockeyed grin. “We need to do that more often.”

Meg raised her eyebrows. “Which part? The tempting fate, or the flirting with death?”

“The kissing. That part.”

“Oh.” She returned his smile. “Yes.”

John sealed his mouth over hers again. Lightly sucked on her lower lip. Then suddenly he was scooping her up in his arms, curving his strong arms around her back and beneath her knees.

“Homeward bound?” he asked.

Meg laughed, then agreed. “Homeward bound.”

* * *

He’d been married.

He was a widower.

Now that Meg had had time to recover from her binate close call, she was able to fixate on other things apart from the painful reminder of her own mortality.

She wished she’d thought to ask him her name. She wasn’t sure why she wanted to know - only that she’d pictured a million iterations of this bygone woman, and perhaps she wished for a name to attach to the face she’d imagined for her.

It was a lovely face, in Meg’s mind. It had a bow mouth and a high forehead, framed in smooth waves of honey hair; unmarred skin stretched over chiseled cheekbones; eyes the color of rain.

She’d imagined a whole set of character traits for her, as well. She would’ve been tender and kind, Meg decided. Soft-spoken with a generous laugh. Confident, but not conceited. Clearly she was a well-traveled woman, which would’ve lent her a cosmopolitan flair. Probably she was cognizant of global politics and could articulate the nuts and bolts of foreign policy with facility and intellect. Her social savvy and self-effacing wit would’ve set strangers at ease. Inevitably, she possessed the type of demure charm a woman of Meg’s ilk could only aspire to.

John seemed to have taken note of her preoccupation. Their return hike had been perceptibly quieter, with multiple attempts at banter on his part, and multiple laconic replies on Meg’s.

When they reached the Jeep, he surprised her by circling her waist with his hands and lifting her clear off the ground and into her seat. He looked at her for a long moment, his gaze searching and perhaps a bit wounded. Meg felt sure he would ask her then what was bothering her, but he kissed her instead. He pressed into her with a subtle desperation, held on to her like a cherished object he was on the verge of losing. After a moment of shocked reticence, her fingers wove through his hair, and she angled her face, pushing against him with analogous force. John groaned quietly into her mouth and tightened his hold on her waist, pulling her into his chest.

When they broke apart, his unrelenting grip bespoke his reluctance to let her go.

“I’m not going anywhere, John,” Meg said quietly.

He didn’t smile. “Promise?”

She used her teeth to pin down her bottom lip, preventing its upward curl as she bobbed her head.

The harsh noise from the engine precluded any conversation during their trip back toward the lodge. John drove straight to his cottage, without so much as a backward glance at Meg’s cabin.

A waxing gibbous moon gleamed like a freshly minted nickel, pulled aloft by the sinking sun. They sat a moment in the Jeep, the keys still dangling from the ignition. Meg watched the sun drowning in a puddle of diffuse purple light, but she could feel John’s eyes on her.

They shifted at the same time. Meg hopped down from the vehicle’s lifted frame as John did the same. She followed him to the door, though her feet dragged. Meanwhile, she worked on an excuse in her head - something she could offer up as a viable reason to part ways. She felt like a method actor who’d finally grown weary of her lengthy masquerade as someone other than herself.

When she sauntered past John into the dark cottage, the door shut with more force than she’d expected. She started, her heart pounding like a fist as she whirled around to face him.

He stood with his back pressed up against the door, staring at her with hooded disquiet. Meg watched curiously as he tipped his head back, resting it against the sturdy wood.

“You’re not still thinking about the scorpion, are you.” A statement, not a question.

She shook her head slowly.

“And you’re not thinking about falling either.”

Again she shook her head.

John let out the breath that had him pinned like a tense, squirming insect against the door. His shoulders slumped forward, and he closed his eyes with a subtle nod, as if she’d just validated his deepest fear.