by C D Cain
“Yeah. Rayne Amber Storm. That was her name.”
Gentry sat back on her heels. She looked up at the sky. “Rayne? Seriously? As if I’m not already listening.” She shook her head and lit the match.
“I know. It’s a funny name, isn’t it? I think her name was the first thing that attracted me to her. It was full of character…just like her.”
“It is a name, alright.” Gentry fanned the fire until the flame caught the kindling underneath. “We should have a fire any minute now. The weather was glorious today. If the night is anything like it, I may just sleep right here.” She patted the dirt next to her. “I may drag my sleeping bag out here and sleep under the stars. Granted if it doesn’t get as cold as predicted, but it’s the mountains so who knows.”
Sam’s legs had begun to feel tight and sore after their hike. They had arrived in New Hampshire earlier than scheduled so they decided to hike Arethusa Falls, as it was only a short drive from their campsite in Crawford Notch State Park. Sam thought of their five-mile hike. She pictured Gentry scaling up the at least fifty percent grade climb as if it was nothing more than a Sunday stroll in the park. Not a day had passed since meeting her that Gentry hadn’t surprised her. She would say she reminded her of how she felt with Rayne. Yet even though the feelings of intrigue were there, the women themselves were very different. Rayne was strong in her own way, but Gentry gave new meaning to the description. She had a strength that seemed to be unwavering against any threat—emotional, physical, or personal. It didn’t seem to matter.
“It was a glorious day,” she said. She smiled, thinking of Gentry’s backpack clanging about as they hiked. “You were like this little tiny spider monkey climbing up those inclines.” It had been a wonderful day. One that Sam wasn’t ready to end.
Gentry took a small twig from the ground and threw it at Sam. “Spider monkey, huh?”
Sam dodged the stick and laughed. “Oh yeah. Total spider monkey.”
“There’s that laugh again. You should keep it around.”
“I think I might.” Sam felt shy with the eye contact so she looked away from Gentry. She rubbed her thighs. “I’m starting to feel sore.”
“Come sit down then. I have two chairs right there.” She motioned for Sam to sit.
“Aren’t you sore?”
Gentry shook her head. “Nah. I’m a spider monkey, remember? We don’t get sore.”
Sam laughed. She watched the single flames dance toward one another as they tried to catch into a full fire.
Gentry looked in her peripheral vision to eye Sam’s long legs. Sam wasn’t one she would describe as being out of shape. In fact, Gentry had noticed her body when she first came into the diner. It was tone with just the right amount of muscle definition evident with the bend or straighten of her arm. However, being toned did not necessarily mean she was able to scale up rocky inclines. On more than one occasion, Gentry had to lend a hand to help pull Sam up. She had even seen Sam’s footing slip more than once. “I don’t know about a spider monkey.” She followed her legs up until she reached her torso. “You were more of a cute and clumsy type climber.”
“Cute and clumsy? Seriously?” Sam chuckled.
Gentry continued her gaze up Sam’s body. “Actually…yes.” Briefly, she made eye contact but then turned to stoke the fire. She found Sam to be cute as a whole which unnerved her. She needed to reinforce her resolve where Sam was concerned. She would hurt Sam and that thought scared her. Most of the time when Gentry met someone new, she would study them to figure out how, when, and why they would hurt her. That’s just what people do. They hurt. With Sam’s demeanor and what she read about her personality, it would be Gentry who did the hurting. She knew it to be fact. She rolled her shoulders, determined to find her resolve where Sam was concerned.
“You don’t have to stay in the tent just because I’m staying with you tonight.” Sam maneuvered between the two chairs by the fire ring to place the bag of Chinese food down between them. “I would offer to be the one to stay in the tent.” She looked around the woods. “But, yeah ummm, I’m really not that kind of woman.”
Gentry stood from the fire and brushed her hands clean on the back of her jeans. The smoke circled her until she brushed it from her face. She reached over to pluck the chopstick packs from Sam’s hand. “Stick with me, kid, and you’ll become one. Next time, you’ll be the one setting up the tent.”
Sam laughed. “That would be a whole lotta sticking. Seriously, I can drive in to Lincoln. I’m sure there’s a room I could get tonight. You don’t have to sleep outside.”
“Hush, woman. I told you. I want to. I would be sleeping out here even if you weren’t with me. Anyway, you’re feeding me. That should at least buy you a room at the inn for the night. So, enough jabbing and let’s eat. I’m starving. What did you bring us?”
“First and foremost,” Sam said as she pulled out a six-pack of beer. “A craft thirst quencher.”
“I’ll stick with water but thanks.” Gentry pulled her chopsticks apart. “Maybe I’ll take a sip of yours to try it.”
Sam sat down in the chair and popped open a can of beer.
“Hey, Sam, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Do you drink every night?”
Sam looked down at her lap. She turned the can in her hand and thought about what Gentry was asking. “I don’t think I drink every night,” she said softly.
“You have since I’ve met you.” Gentry’s tone was the same.
“Is it a problem for you that I drink because you don’t drink?” Sam hurriedly began to pull out to-go containers of Chinese food. “I’ve learned that about you.”
Gentry sat down next to her. “Try again.”
“What? You do? But every time I bring some, you don’t want it.”
Gentry wiped her hands again across the top of her jeans when Sam handed her a container of mixed vegetables. “Which doesn’t mean I don’t drink alcohol. Period.” She hesitated to take the conversation further with the way Sam seemed to be responding but she liked her. She wanted to know more. She ducked her head toward Sam. “I drink on occasion for the taste but not for the need.”
Sam took a swallow of beer and thought about her statement. She shrugged. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is a need.” Maybe it was. For now, this was one need she was going to allow herself to have.
Gentry didn’t mean at all to bring sadness back in Sam’s voice. She regretted her statement. “Sam, look at me.”
Sam’s head was drawn downward as she continued to study the can of beer.
“Please.”
Sam bit the side of her bottom lip as she brought her head up to look at Gentry. She felt embarrassed. She felt the brokenness.
“I’m sorry, okay? I wish I hadn’t said that. You’re healing. Do what you need to heal. It was stupid of me to say anything. I promised you I wouldn’t judge you, yet here I said something that sounded a heck of a lot like judgment. I’m asking for forgiveness. I feel awkward in all of this.” She motioned between them. “I’ve not wanted to get to know someone in a very, very long time.”
Sam’s phone vibrated in her back pocket. She pulled it out to see the caller’s name flashing on the screen. She ran her thumb over the top of Rayne’s name. She didn’t answer. She held her phone tightly as she watched the smoke from the fire rise into the sky which had transformed completely into night. A few stars twinkled. Somewhere, Rayne was under the same sky thinking of her. Thinking so much of her she tried again to call her. Sam hadn’t answered any of her calls. She hadn’t even listened to the voicemails she used to leave. Why would she? What could possibly be said? As far as Sam was concerned, they now officially lived in two separate worlds. Sam was literally a thousand miles away. She looked at Gentry who was watching her intently. “It’s okay. It’s not you. You’ve done nothing to make me feel badly,�
� she said flatly.
“Was that her?”
Sam inhaled and exhaled deeply. “Yeah.”
“You didn’t want to answer?”
“No.”
“May I ask why?”
Sam tucked her phone back into her pocket. “What could be said at this point? She’s getting married. Period. There’s nothing else to say. It’s not like we can be friends or anything stupid like that.”
“How do you know if you don’t give her the chance?”
“Because I know.” Sam rubbed her eyes, determined like hell not to start crying. “I don’t want to hurt anymore, Gentry. She broke my heart. Destroyed everything I knew about myself. She’s not capable of being anything more than she is.”
Gentry opened her box and mixed its contents with her chopsticks. “I don’t think we know what someone else is or is not capable of. Sometimes even we don’t know what we are capable of. You never have those answers until you’re forced with the questions.”
Sam sighed. “Maybe. But right now, I need to heal. I can’t do that if I’m wondering what her answers are.”
“I get that.”
“Can we just eat?”
“Okay.” Gentry relented to the quiet of the crackling fire. She picked a bamboo shoot from the box and silently chewed. She hated to see Sam’s face drop in the way that it did with the call. One minute there’s a glow starting to spread in her eyes, the next minute, they’re as dark as the sky.
The nightlife of the forest began to strengthen and grow louder. Sam stabbed her chopsticks into the container and set it beside her chair. She lifted the beer to drink it empty. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I didn’t think I would hear them here. I’m a thousand miles away but I still hear them. Before her, I never noticed them, but now it’s all I hear.”
“Hear what?”
“Listen.” Sam tilted her head in the air. “There. Hear it?”
“What, the cicadas?”
“That’s them. They were so loud the first night we kissed.” Sam opened another beer and chugged at least half of it. Drinking for affect. Check. “We were sitting on the dock with our feet dangling off into the cool water. She loved being out there on the bayou. It was like she was this different person when she was there. She was at peace. As if I hadn’t already fallen in love with her. As if I needed another reason to fall so deeply in love with her. When we kissed, it was like I was in this fog of nothing but her…and the sound of those damn cicadas. Now, every time I hear them,” Sam reached up to touch her lips, “I swear I still feel her here.”
“Was she your first love?”
“Yes, one and only,” Sam whispered. She wiped a tear from her eye. Epic fail on the no crying. “Have you ever been in love?”
“No.”
She wiped the tear onto the top of her jeans. “I didn’t expect you to answer.”
Gentry grabbed another bite in between her chopsticks. “I’m weak from hunger.” She watched as Sam stared into the flames of the fire. The tears on Sam’s cheek glistened in the light of it.
Sam pulled the collar of her T-shirt up to wipe her face. “Sometimes I wish I could answer the same. I never saw me falling in love until it was too late.”
“Have you changed from the experience?”
“Have I changed?” Sam leaned back in her chair to think about Gentry’s question. “So much so that I don’t even recognize myself in the mirror.” She brushed her bangs from her eyes and grunted. “Like this. I’ve not had a good haircut in I don’t know how long.”
Gentry laughed. “Nice deflection. Here I thought I was the queen in that department.”
Sam tipped her beer to her. “Takes one to know one.”
“What were you like before her?”
“Someone who probably wouldn’t have been sitting out here with you. The only time I was ever out in the woods after dark was for parking. But to sit out here in front of a fire? No, I wouldn’t have done that. I liked city life too much for that. The bigger the better. Restaurants. Nightclubs. Events. You name it. I was there.”
“And other girlfriends?”
“Didn’t have them. Not one I would’ve called my girlfriend. I dated around a lot. Some I enjoyed enough to see on a more regular basis but not monogamously.”
“Until her?”
“Until her.” Sam took a long drink of her beer.
“Tell me about her. What was it about her that made you want to change?” Gentry stood up to poke the fire.
Sam watched as the freshly stirred embers rose into the air. “She would’ve loved a night like this. Listening to the creatures, sitting by a fire, talking. She would’ve been more comfortable here than a fancy restaurant or event. She lived in Birmingham only for school but was going back to Louisiana the minute she graduated. She didn’t want any part of city life. Her career goals were nothing like mine. She wanted to go back home and start a practice to care for the town. I was on the fast track to a career in obstetrics that would’ve found me speaking at conferences around the globe. I never wanted the simple life. So, maybe she was unlike everything about me. A complete polar opposite. Honestly, I really don’t know.”
“Did she have other girlfriends?”
“Nope. She had a boyfriend. Thus the marriage.”
“Ah.” Gentry sat back down in the chair and picked up her nearly empty food container to finish what was left. She noticed the untouched box at Sam’s feet. “So, she had a boyfriend when you two met. Yep, y’all were very different.”
“You can say that again.”
“Has she changed from it?”
“Yes. She got engaged.” Sam felt the venom in her voice.
Gentry heard it too. “Sam, see the experience for what it was. An experience. Some are life-changing like it appears your time with her was. So ask yourself why. Why did it happen? Why did she come into my life? What was I supposed to see with knowing her? Some people come into our lives for a brief period of time in order to show us something and then they leave. It’s okay to let them go because they served their purpose.”
“Some?”
“Well, yes, some are meant to stay. Your job now is to find the reason why she was sent to you.”
“How exactly do I do that?”
“You follow the signs.” Gentry stood up again, leaned down to pick up Sam’s remaining six-pack, and extended a hand to Sam. “Which now say it’s time for a tour.”
“I am still utterly amazed you did all of this,” Sam said as they walked into the bus. “It looks big on the inside and with so much room.”
Gentry leaned against the kitchen counter that was to the right as you walked in. The lower part of the bus was a wainscoting made of distressed, painted wood. Its color matched the sea blue outside of the bus. The rest was painted white, which gave it a more open, expansive feeling. “Thank you,” she said as she ran her hand over the top of the butcher block countertop. “It’s a thirty-one foot, 1989 Chevy. It’s been the answer to my life’s dream. To have freedom to go anywhere I wanted. To have the sustainability to literally live anywhere. Piece by piece, I put her together.” She pointed to the white refrigerator across from her. “Help yourself to anything in there.”
“What is that for?” Sam pointed to the oval tank at the end of the kitchen space. It was stainless steel like the dual kitchen sink.
Gentry laughed. “It’s my bathtub. Cool, huh? I used a one-hundred-gallon stock tank I got from a feed and seed store. I painted the inside with a white bathtub paint.” Gentry walked to it and lifted a metal mesh basket hanging over the side. It was filled with shampoo, conditioner, bubble bath, soap, and a loofa. “Hooked up at a campsite like we are now, I can fill her up as much as I want. But if I’m dry camping, I have to conserve water because my fresh water tank only holds sixty gallons, which is all the water I have until I hook
up somewhere and refill the tanks.”
“Dry camping?”
“Yes. I can stay anywhere and am not dependent to be plugged in at a campsite where I have running water, electricity, and a place to dump my tanks.”
“So, you don’t have to have all of that?”
Gentry reached up and pushed the button to turn the light on above the tub. It was shaped like a lantern and matched the theme of her outdoor living nicely. “Nope, I don’t. I got a steal of a deal on a Cummings Onan 8000 generator. When I’m hooked up like this, I run everything off of the electric I have plugged into the bus. But if I’m not at a campsite, that generator will run everything I need as if I were plugged in. I really only use lights at night. With all of the windows, there’s plenty of sunlight streaming in most days.”
“This wood grain is really pretty.” Sam felt the smoothness of the wood.
“Thanks. Stained it myself. It functions as a table big enough for two or even a food prep area.”
“I like the stools you have underneath it. Very eclectic.”
Gentry’s eyes widened. “Got those at a junk sale. Totally stoked to have found them. All they needed was a little bit of dusting off. Didn’t have to do anything else to them.” She pointed to the stovetop. “I didn’t want the weight or wire it to pull the juice for an oven so I don’t have one of those. Most everything I like to eat can be made on this or in the convection oven.”
Sam walked across the pecan wood flooring to sit on the sofa. “This is soft,” she said in surprise. When she had seen the sofa cushions nestled on top of what looked like a wooden base, she figured it would be hard and uncomfortable. Yet this was as soft as any expensive sofa she had purchased in the past. “Why the cut out?” Under both cushions was a cut out with material that matched the curtains hanging from it.
“That’s storage. Everything you see was added. With a bus, you can’t have any slides or additional space so I had to build storage into every nook and cranny I could find. The bed back there is the same. I built it raised up on wooden support like the couch. I’ve got a ton of storage underneath it.”
