Wild Mountain

by Nancy Kilgore

  The first time she’d been allowed to spend the night away from home had been here at Roz’ house. She must have been eight or nine, and the season was spring—early spring, like today—with a sharpness in the air as her dad drove her up the driveway in his ’65 Chevy pickup. There had been no llamas then, but the apple trees were blooming, and the house seemed like an oasis, so different from hers, and Mr. and Mrs. Allingworth the ideal parents.

  Mr. Allingworth, with his beagle face and gentle eyes, had asked them what they wanted to read. Or maybe he had just taken Gulliver’s Travels out of the bookcase and sat down. It was a ceremony, this book-reading: a ceremony lit by warm lamps and the fire in the fireplace, the whole family gathered around him, and that night Mona had been included in the magic circle.

  Gulliver’s Travels had been a revelation. To think of a land where the people were so tiny, and magical things happened, a place that pulled her in, that scared her and excited her, that left her breathless and excited. She remembered the illustration, that curious drawing of Gulliver tied down to little stakes all around his body, tied down by the little people. And as Mona recalled the book, it somehow seemed to characterize this room. A room where she could come away from the drudgery, become an explorer, and find some new dimension in life.

  Frank stood in front of the fire, chatting with Bea, and Mona moved closer, pretending to study the books in the bookcase.

  “The swallows,” Bea said, “what will they do now, without the covered bridge? Every year they come, they roost in the rafters, and then the babies venture forth, wobbling and squeaking through the air as they learn to swoop.”

  Mona sniffled. So, she wasn’t the only one who mourned the bridge. The swallows, Bea. . . . She moved away, and Frank said something she couldn’t hear that made Bea laugh with glee as he threw back his head and let out an uproarious chuckle. Mona felt a sudden warmth filling her body. Frank was kind. He was actually a kind person—such a foreign concept to her in a man. And he was curious, interested in lots of different people: like Gulliver, an explorer. Could Frank stay here in Wild Mountain, or would he feel tied down by the little people? He jabbed at the fire with the poker as Bea talked and gestured. And what about me? Mona thought. Am I an explorer, an adventurer, or one of the little people?

  She went to the kitchen for coffee cups and passed Frank, who had moved to the table and was munching corn chips. His plaid shirt was adorned with thick tufts of blond wool, making him look like a sheep farmer. He must have been petting the llamas on his way up the drive.

  The door sprang open, and Iris Gold, Cappy’s wife, bounded into the room. A thin woman with short gray hair wearing her signature black cycling tights and spandex tunic, Iris went to the table and placed two dishes on it. She whipped off their coverings and started arranging fruit and whipped cream around an enormous meringue. A Pavlova. Typical Iris, Mona thought, bringing something spectacular.

  Behind her, Cappy, steady and inconspicuous in contrast, glanced around the room, saw Mona, and inclined his head in acknowledgment. Then Frank’s daughter, Erica, and Jake Perez, the reporter, came in with a group that included, unexpectedly, the teenaged Sierra and her friend Grace of the multiple piercings, rings, and jewels. Sierra took off her jacket and threw it on the love-seat. Her boobs were almost falling out of a low-cut shirt covered with sequins, and the men watched her as she flounced over to the table, threw down a bag of potato chips, and picked up a carrot stick.

  Heather came out of the kitchen with plates and flatware, juices and wine, and people drifted over to the table and began circling around it to fill their plates.

  Everyone found seats in the living room, a space more than big enough to hold the twenty or so people there. Bea went back to the straight-backed chair nearest the fire, and the teenagers, Sierra and Grace, flopped into a deep sofa that faced the fire, but was almost too far away to be included in the grouping of chairs around it. Eli appeared from somewhere and sat with the girls on the sofa, and the three kids watched as Roz stood up in front of the fireplace.

  Roz was wearing a bright pink pashmina shawl, and she seemed to expand out into the room as she took a deep breath. “We have some important items on the agenda tonight,” she said, “but first, I want to thank you for coming and for offering your support for the Freedom to Marry bill, and also for my tenure on the select board.”

  “Yay, Roz!” Heather called out, and everyone joined her in the applause.

  Erica twirled the end of the ribbon on her necklace, and tried to suppress a yawn. It was good that she had come, because she wanted to be part of the fight for gay marriage. She was proud of Jake, but Roz was just going on and on, a typical politician who liked to hear herself talk. Though she had to admit, Roz was making some good points. Of course, she and her girlfriend should be allowed to get married like everyone else. Why did it have to take so long for people to get it?

  She slipped her hand under Jake’s thigh, and he grinned at her. This room was so typical of Dad and his friends in the eighties. It was grand, with an enormous stone fireplace and deep window wells, like in an Irish country house, but its dusty charm was obscured by all the clutter. Shelves on every wall lined with books and piled with baskets, pottery, papers, magazines, hats, scarves, faded photographs of kids on skis, jars of preserves and cookie tins, all jumbled together as if no one had put anything away for twenty years. You’d have thought they would clear off the table for the potluck, but it, too, had a pile of papers and folders and a laptop pushed over to one end. The walls were covered with paintings, some of them very fine, along with more photographs and faded, peeling posters from political events, like the Käthe Kollwitz etching of a woman with raised fist entitled Women Arise and the World Will Follow. Next to it hung a black-and-white photo of a younger Roz, proud beside a younger Patrick Leahy, Vermont’s famous senator. So maybe Roz was a slob, Erica thought—but a very cool slob, with her courage and principles and fighting for equal rights. She herself could speak up more for gay rights.

  “We should start a counter-petition,” someone shouted. “No, a rally,” someone else interrupted, and soon, everyone was shouting at once. Jake was taking notes—nodding, frowning, and shaking his head as the group tried to decide how to deal with the petition to oust Roz. After their hike up the mountain yesterday, she and Jake had gone into town for dinner, and then stayed up late making love again. Erica smiled and scrunched closer to him. Sex for breakfast, sex for lunch, and sex for dinner, too. Wasn’t there a song like that? If not, maybe she’d write one.

  While the discussion raged, the two teenaged girls sitting on the sofa were texting on their cell phones, showing each other the texts and giggling. They started wrestling, and one of them teased the other by pretending to pull down her top, a garish sequined affair that was already pretty low-cut. Erica sighed. Some of these kids in Vermont were so much younger than kids of the same age in Boston.

  Jake kept glancing back at the girls, and other people gave them dirty looks, but the giggling turned into shrieking, and then, sure enough, the top came down, and out popped one enormous breast.

  Roz stopped speaking, and the crowd became silent. The girl resumed her texting, pretending that she hadn’t noticed her exposed breast until a severe-looking woman in cycling clothes cleared her throat and barked, “Sierra!”

  “Oh.” Sierra looked down at her chest and pretended to be surprised, then quickly pulled up her top. Erica turned to Jake and rolled her eyes.

  Jake chewed on his pen and looked perplexed, as if he was trying to figure out whether or how to include this in his article. Dad was suppressing a laugh and looking at Mona, the store-owner, who shrugged and flipped her braid over her shoulder. Mona’s sweater, royal blue flecked with silver thread, reflected the shine in her eyes as she smiled back at Dad. Jake, who had noticed this exchange, lifted an eyebrow at Erica. For Chrissake, was she, Erica, going to have to put up with another of Dad’s girlfriends? She glared at Mona, giving her the dirtiest lo
ok she could muster, willing her out of Dad’s life.

  “So, that,” continued Roz, as if nothing had interrupted her, “is what we need to tell the commission at the hearing. And we need to keep up a steady stream of lobbying, because this will come to both the House and the Senate.”

  Frank was doing pretty well at the meeting tonight, in his opinion. He was wearing the mustard-colored shirt that Erica had said was way cool, and he’d talked with just about everyone in the room. Admittedly, Roz was in charge, but he found himself developing a complementary style, filling in on the human relations angle.

  He leaned over toward the center of the room and raised his voice slightly. “Do you agree, then,” he asked the wild-haired old woman, Bea, who seemed to have a lot of influence, “that we should canvas the people who signed the petition?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “I’m not convinced. It might be wise to have a special town meeting, bring in an expert, and break up into small groups to discuss it.”

  He looked at Bea again. She must have been over ninety. How did someone that age know about breaking into small groups, a concept that had begun in the seventies? Quickly recovering his cool, he said, “That makes sense. What about you, Heather?” He was steering the discussion, bringing in all opinions. He winked at Mona, who blushed and turned her head away. She’d been rather shy around him tonight, but he was on a roll, and pretty sure he could roll her around in his direction.

  “I agree,” said Heather. “And don’t forget that Alice Spinelli is on our side.”

  Alice Spinelli was the wife of the police chief, Luke Spinelli, and she was also the minister of the Unitarian Church. Frank had sung with the choir last Sunday and admired Alice’s sermon, even though she herself seemed a bit extreme and controlling. Not unlike his ex, Patsy, now that he thought of it.

  The Unitarian Church was one of those picturesque New England churches steeped in history and tradition, its sanctuary simple and white. Just being in it had given him a feeling of openness and peace. But at the fellowship hour after the service, when he’d seized the moment to talk up the bridge restoration, applying his usual charisma, he’d gotten some odd reactions. A small woman in a dark blue dress literally turned up her nose and walked away, while another woman hissed at him, “Just leave it. Leave it alone, if you know what’s good for you.” He’d been taken aback. Was that a threat?

  Suddenly, the room became quiet. Frank looked up. The mountain man, as he’d begun to think of Gus, had slipped into the room and was standing at the table, quietly eating from a plate arranged with Swedish meatballs, pirogues, and potato chips in some bizarre order. His long hair and beard were clean and brushed, flowing over his shoulders down to his waist, over a faded orange sweatshirt and the canvas pants he seemed to always wear. The teenage girl, Sierra, who’d flashed her breast, got up from the sofa where she’d been sitting with Eli and her girlfriend with all the rings and piercings, and bounced over to Gus. She was the one who’d been staring at Gus at town meeting.

  “Hi, Mr. Throckmorton,” she said, and smiled shyly. Mr. Throckmorton? She must have known Gus from somewhere else, but where?

  “Sierra.” Gus acknowledged her and continued to eat, carefully chewing as he gazed up and over Sierra’s head.

  Sierra, gobbling chips and dip, followed Gus around the table as he scooped more food onto his plate. She seemed to be asking or entreating him about something, and he seemed to be eluding her.

  Frank cleared his throat. “So, Heather,” he said, in his clearest, most ringing voice, “what say you? Would you be willing to ‘come out,’ so to speak, at another town meeting?”

  “Yes, Heather,” Iris Gold piped in. “Everyone knows Roz’s opinion on gay marriage, but some people might tune her out.” Cappy, beside her, tugged on his rhinestone stud earring and winced. “Well, let’s face it,” Iris said, glancing at Cappy and then at Roz, “I’m not trying to offend anyone, but people do tune out Roz.”

  “Are you saying Roz has lost her credibility in this town?” asked Jake Perez (as he stroked Erica’s knee, the cad).

  “Eeek!” a piercing shriek arose from the table area. Sierra’s half-naked chest and cleavage were dripping with cream of asparagus soup. “I can’t believe it!” she screamed, pointing at Gus, who trembled and rocked back and forth on his heels and toes, his eyes directed at the ceiling.

  Again, the room was silent, with everyone watching these two. Sierra stood frozen, then broke into tears; sobbing and whimpering, she ran out of the room.

  Frank was almost ready to lose his cool with all these damned interruptions.

  A low rumble erupted from Gus, and Mona stood up and went over to him. “Hey, Gus,” she murmured. If only that sweet voice had been directed at him, Frank thought, it wouldn’t be wasted, as it was on this weirdo.

  “She’s perturbed, she’s nonplussed, she’s not happy,” pronounced Gus in that sonorous bass voice that made him sound like the headmaster of a prep school—if only what he was saying were rational.

  “Sierra will be all right,” Mona said soothingly. “Not her,” Gus said with a laugh at the ceiling. “Anu.”

  Oh, God. Frank cleared his throat. “I’d like to hear,” he said, raising his voice, “what Heather has to say about town meeting.” No one paid any attention. Everyone was talking at once. Iris’s shrill voice rose above the fray. “Who is this Nanu person?”

  Mona packed her Tupperware bowl into her bag and hightailed it out the door before Frank could waylay her. Sierra, my God, had practically sabotaged the whole meeting, with her boob popping out and spilling the soup, then blaming Gus. But Frank had been impressive, with his knowledge of group dynamics and non-violent communication. Maybe he really could help solve some of the problems of Wild Mountain. So why was she feeling so timid and vulnerable, all of a sudden? Mona shook her head and stomped her feet in the cool night air. An answering stomp came from her left, and the limpid eyes of Karma the llama stared at her in the moonlight. “Hello, girl,” Mona cooed, and moved closer to pet the spot between Karma’s eyes. Karma continued to chew.

  “Pretty cute guy, isn’t he?” came a familiar voice behind her, a sweet tenor that thrilled her to the core. She let her hand drop and half-turned toward Frank. “It’s a female,” she said, and was rescued from any more one-on-one by the appearance of Erica and Jake rushing up behind him.

  “So, how do you think the meeting went?” Jake asked Frank in such a respectful tone that Mona almost expected him to add “sir.”

  “I think we accomplished something,” Frank said, stroking his beard.

  “Accomplished something?” Erica raised her voice, exasperated. “It all went up in smoke! That idiot girl ruined the whole thing.”

  “Well, she may have been a plant.”

  “A plant?”

  “It’s an old tactic. The CIA used it in the sixties and seventies to sabotage the anti-war movement. Send in your secret weapon: ditzy teenage girl to disrupt the meeting.”

  Erica and Jake were silent. Jake spoke first. “So, who—”

  Frank’s face was a deadpan, but his eyes were twinkling, and Mona broke into a loud chortle.

  After Jake and Erica left, Mona moved over to the fence again and petted Karma. Frank stood beside her, waiting for her to speak.

  “Really, I think you were right,” she said. “We did accomplish something in there, and you helped a lot.”

  He smiled. “Come out for a drink?”

  How easy it would be to jump into bed with this guy. Too easy, she thought. He was too attractive, and she was falling too fast. Something was bound to go wrong.

  “Not tonight,” she said, and turned to go, but not before she saw the hurt look in his eyes. She walked slowly back to her car in the moonlight. Should she have gone with him? Had she made a mistake?

  20

  MONA OPENED THE DOOR. The sky was a dark mass—no stars visible tonight, and the rain that had drizzled all day had settled into fog, a wet cloud surrounding her.
Over the door, the porch light glowed with a gentle brilliance, and all was silent except for the murmuring of the river, a flowing rhythm that had become part of her body, her consciousness. She stepped onto the gravel of the driveway. Something was different. The ground was softer and the humid air warmer, as though the whole of the earth and the atmosphere around her had relaxed. Boris, padding along at her feet, was quiet, sniffing the air of early spring. After the cold of winter, an opening and a softening.

  At the store today, Charlie Perry, stooped and bitter in his coveralls and long white beard, had been ranting about freedom and democracy and family values, and harassing everyone who came in to sign his petition to fire Roz from the select board. “Let’s get rid of that bossy dyke,” he’d proclaimed, smug and self-righteous, glancing at Mona occasionally with no trace of shame that he was maligning her childhood friend.

  When Frank had come in, beaming with good humor, he’d quickly grasped the situation and taken up the opposition beside the dairy cooler. Charming and diplomatic, he had debated with flair, but Frank was at a disadvantage as a flatlander, because unlike Charlie, the self-styled “real Vermonter,” he didn’t know everyone.

  Mona and Boris crossed the road and stepped onto the path. They tramped through the high grass and knotweed on the bank, and stopped at the river’s edge. The dark water passed in front of them, almost as still as a lake, and pieces of the broken bridge lined the banks like a shipwreck. She stared into the water, into the blackness that deepened and drew her, and felt a sudden impulse to dive, to be swallowed up in the silent deep. She heaved a sigh. All of this controversy, everybody fighting. Her bridge destroyed, and they didn’t want to restore it; her oldest friend attacked because she was gay; and her store, the place she’d created to be the warm, cozy center of the community, had become a viper’s nest.