by Connie Cook
Chapter 5
Summer was longer than usual in Arrowhead that year, but when fall arrived, it set the valley ablaze. The vibrancy of the changing colours was set off by the dull constancy of the evergreens and the fresher green of the resting alfalfa fields. Gold was the colour of the season, and all the poplars and birches wore it. The maples defied fashion and flaunted their flame-tipped foliage proudly.
On the mountainsides, the larches made patches of rust, like Scottish heather, against the deep, mountain blue. The mixture of sun and cloud from the changing weather revealed previously-unseen contours and features and colours in the mountains. In fall, a certain interplay of light and shadow brings out in stark relief the ridges, the mountain valleys, and even the trees on the mountains.
It was fall as fall should be.
Since leaving Arrowhead, Ruth hadn't felt fall. Since coming back, it was as though she was arousing from a kind of sleep to all the dimly-remembered-but-certainly-not-forgotten childhood feelings of fall-ness that found her in unsuspecting moments – splitting kindling in the cool of the evening with the smell of woodsmoke in the air, polishing an apple picked from the tree by the house, mixing up a batch of pumpkin for pies on the old cook stove, watching the wild geese cutting a noisy, southbound V across the white sky as she took in the washing. Life felt like it was supposed to again. Or like it was supposed to though it never had before.
There was the other element in her life now that heightened her sensibilities. Even the old joys were new, and the new joys were birthed every minute, freshly-minted, as though no one had ever heard of them before, much less laid eyes on them or held them in trembling hands. They could only have been made just for her.
* * *
Graham asked her to his church's fall hay ride. It was the church his parents attended. Graham attended nominally if not usually in fact.
Ruth had never been asked by Graham to anything that might qualify as a family or church function. This was definitely a church function though anyone was welcome.
Ruth knew Graham's parents wouldn't be coming to the hay ride. She suspected it was the reason this was the first church event Graham had asked her to.
She recognized most of the faces on the hay wagon. People smiled at her pleasantly enough and a few greeted her by name. The people here were being nicer than they generally were when she met them elsewhere, she thought, and she decided it was because they were "at church," even though it was just a hay ride. Not that any of them were ever nasty to her. Just usually a little more negligent. Not quite so much going out of the way to be extra-friendly.
The night held the magic only fall nights hold. It was chilly with just a sliver of a moon, garlanded in wisps of clouds.
The hay wagon passengers sang songs Ruth didn't know. One man had brought a guitar and could play it reasonably well. Kids and teenagers took turns pushing or pulling each other off the back of the wagon to land in the scratchy, still-green alfalfa in the field below. Then they had to run, laughing and shouting, to catch up to the horse-drawn wagon.
Ruth and Graham sat close, barely touching, just enough to feel the warmth from each other. The warmth was welcome. Ruth should have worn a heavier jacket for the fall night air.
One of the younger boys Ruth didn't know caught Graham unaware and pushed him off. Graham ran to catch the wagon, and Ruth extended her hand to him, laughing at his failing efforts to get one foot onto the edge of the moving wagon.
"Laugh, will ya?" he said, and gave her hand a quick jerk with his weight behind it. As she tumbled, he dropped with her, shielding her from the ground with his body.
They rolled twice, and Ruth looked up into Graham's face in the semi-darkness, as close as it had ever been to hers. There didn't seem to be any great rush to catch the hay wagon on his part. She knew there wasn't on hers.
He touched her face and hair.
"You're beautiful," he told her.
The words went to her head like wine.
"It's the moonlight," she told him.
"What moonlight?"
"Well then, it's the moonshine."
He laughed. "I haven't touched a drop tonight. It's just you. That's all."
"You're beautiful," he repeated. Then he kissed her. Just gently.
Afterward, he pulled her to her feet and, taking her hand, ran with her toward the wagon. But by that time, the wagon was too far away to catch.
They slowed to a walk.
"Never mind," he said. "There's a bonfire after and hot chocolate and marshmallows. We'll walk back to the house and be there for the bonfire before anyone else gets there. We'll cut across the field and beat them back."
"Won't people wonder where we went?" Ruth asked.
"Let 'em," Graham said.
They walked in silence, hand in hand, heading for the lights from the windows of the farm house and the spot of wavering light that was the bonfire.
When the rest had joined them around the bonfire, in spite of the mug of hot chocolate Ruth cupped in her hands, she couldn't stop shivering. When her teeth began to chatter, Graham noticed and slid an arm around her shoulders. No one seemed to be observing them.
"You're freezing," he said. "Take my coat."
"No, I'm not cold. Honestly!"
"Oh yeah! You're not c-c-c-cold! That's not very believable."
"It's not the cold," Ruth confessed.
"Oh!" Graham said, getting it. But he put his coat around her shoulders anyway.
* * *
A complaint we women hear constantly from men is that they can't understand us. Implicit in the complaint lies the belief that women (not a woman, but women, taken as a mass) should be understandable – that there is surely a formula if only there were some Einstein who could unlock it.
The hope of a formula is a forlorn one. There are few constants in deciphering the woman question, but there are a few. The first one to learn and commit to memory is that there is no formula.
The inherent problem lies in the fact that women are all different. Not only are women different from men (obviously!), but every woman is different from every other woman. And every woman is different from herself ... just as a river may be the same river for thousands of years but the water flowing over the same rock is never the same water from one moment to the next.
We women find the men just as hard to understand. It's the fact of the patterns themselves, the fact of the Man-formulas, that baffles us. Humans and formulas, by their very natures, seem as incompatible to women as rivers and formulas.
There is one predictability to be counted on in women, however. I've never met an exception. This predictability is a commonality that unites the human race. This is a rock over which all our rivers flow.
We all have a craving for beauty.
Yet those cravings take different forms. Men crave to have what is beautiful. Women crave to be what is beautiful.
And that fact may be the closest thing to the Woman-formula that any Einstein will ever discover.
* * *
The lighter-than-air feeling stayed with Ruth for days afterward.
Pulling her hair up for work, she couldn't help examining her face a little closer in the rust-spotted mirror of her bathroom's medicine chest the morning after the hay ride. What had Graham seen to call beautiful?
Oh, stop thinking about it. It's just the kind of thing a fellow says when he wants to kiss a girl because she happens to be there and he thinks he should, she told herself, but she couldn't get her thoughts to behave. She kept on with her examination, turning this way and that, trying to see herself from all angles. What did Graham see when he looked at her?
There was an ugly kind of beauty, or perhaps a beautiful kind of ugliness, to her face. She saw it for the first time. It was a face full of angles and bones and character, but perhaps there was something in the height of the cheekbones and the molding of the skin around them when seen from the right angle. Maybe something in the lift of the head. Maybe something in the darknes
s of the eyes.
The way she usually wore her hair, up and pulled back away from her face, did nothing to soften its angles, she knew. Mother always told her with hair like hers she shouldn't bob it. With its kinks, if it was short, it would never lie flat against her head. It would turn into a mushroom of frizz. Not flattering.
She stopped putting her hair up and let it fall where it lay, nearly to her waist. Maybe with a different style, like the ones in the movie magazines ... They had permanents now that could take out natural curl with its wilfulness and put the curls right where they were supposed to be. What would she look like with one of those hair styles? Now she had to know.
After work, she stopped into Goldilocks' Salon on the off-chance they might be able to fit her in right then. Marigold Simpson, the owner, had an opening and got her into the cutting chair. Mari had been eyeing Ruth's hair for months, itching for a chance to do something with it that would flatter Ruth's features. It would be a challenge she'd enjoy.
"Are you nervous, Ruth?"
"A little."
"Well, don't be. You'll look great. But don't do this if you're not sure. It will be a big change. It's a lot of hair to go all at once."
"No, I'm sure. I trust you. Oh, and Mari? You'll have time for the permanent today, too? I don't want it cut but not permed. You know what kind of a permanent I'm looking for, right?"
"We'll give you the works today. You'll leave her looking like a new woman. You want to look like the picture of Carole Lombard over there, except not blonde. Got it. I think that's a style that should work well for your hair and face. And it won't be so short as to be shocking to you."
"Don't worry about shocking me. I'm looking for a little shock."
When it was all over, Ruth couldn't stop looking. All the way down the street, the shop windows enticed her eyes, not for the goods they sold, but for the reflection of the person in them she barely recognized. But what would Graham say?
When he saw her that evening, he said, "What'd you do?"
"It's a cut and a permanent. Do you like it?"
"I don't know. It takes some getting used to. I liked your long hair. It made you stand out."
"Well, get used to it," she snapped, more disappointed than she liked to admit. After all, the new style wasn't for Graham.
"I like my new hair," she informed him with more emphasis and volume than was necessary.
* * *
From the time of the hay ride on, though going steady was still not discussed between them, Graham no longer dated anyone else. They had a tacit understanding. It was turning serious.
In those gorgeous fall days, they did a lot of driving, watching the progression of the colours, watching the leaves fall, watching the branches bare, watching autumn make way for winter, watching things change. At least Ruth watched. Graham mostly drove or gave her instructions as she was driving, though she barely needed them any longer. Sometimes they took his pickup; sometimes her new, used car. The drives were ostensibly for her to practice her fledgling, car-handling skills, but the driving sessions usually ended in kissing sessions. With the change in their relationship, it was all Graham seemed to want to do when he had Ruth alone.
It wasn't that Ruth didn't want to kiss him. It was just that she missed doing other things.
"Not right now!" she told him firmly one day, putting up one hand and backing him away. "Let's talk instead."
"Talk?" Graham said as though the idea was foreign and outlandish. "About what?"
"About ... anything. About whatever occurs to us to talk about."
Graham slumped back in his seat.
"You can't just tell a fellow to talk and expect him to, just like that. Talk just has to happen."
"Well, that's how I feel about kissing. It should just happen. You can't just tell a girl to kiss you and expect her to, just like that. Don't you find it's getting a little old by now?"
Graham looked put-out for a moment, but then he laughed, in spite of himself.
"You're not quite like anyone else, are you?"
"I hope not."
"Well, you're not. You're not like any girl I've ever known, that's for sure."
Graham still believed in a formula. He thought Ruth was the exception to the formula. He didn't know enough women – really know them, that is – to understand that the formula is a myth.
* * *
"Graham, aren't you seeing an awful lot of that girl?"
His mother had waited up for him. As Graham walked soft-footed into the house, she was waiting at the kitchen table in her housecoat and curlers.
"What are you doing up, Mom? It's late."
"I know it's late. That's why I'm up. You're father and I have been worried about you. I never see you anymore. I couldn't go to sleep until we'd talked, and it seems the only chance I'd have to catch you was if I waited up for you."
"We'll talk tomorrow, okay? I'm dead beat. I'm sure you must be."
"I know you're over nineteen. I know you're a grown man. I don't want to interfere in your life, but as long as you're under our roof, we can't help feeling responsible for you. We don't want you throwing your life away."
"I have no intention of throwing my life away. What're you getting at? It's too late at night for this discussion, anyways."
"I mean that girl. The Chavinski girl. The one you've been seeing so much of."
"You mean Ruth? What about her?"
"Well ... just that ... she's not quite like the other girls, is she?" (Mrs. MacKellum should have known better than to believe in a formula. She didn't really, but it was something to say. She meant that Ruth was not like one other girl in particular.)
"And hooray for that! Who'd want her to be like the other girls?"
"What's wrong with the other girls? There are plenty of nice girls around. You seemed very fond of Lily Turnbull at one time. I don't know what happened between the two of you, but your father and I have often wondered. I don't know how Ruth could catch your fancy after Lily. They're very different people."
There was a hint of a knife's edge in Graham's short laugh.
"Maybe that's why Ruth 'caught my fancy' as you put it."
"Well, that's what I'm afraid of."
"I don't know what that's supposed to mean. What're you afraid of? I don't know what you have against Ruth, Mom."
"I don't have anything against her, personally. I'm sure she's a nice enough girl. It just seems like you took up with her awfully quick after you and Lily had your falling out. I'm afraid, well, I'm afraid of you hurting Ruth, for one thing. She's more serious than the other girls are, I think. I wouldn't mind so much if she was the kind of girl just out for a good time who could look after herself. I'm afraid you're still smarting from whatever happened with Lily, and Ruth is a distraction. But does she know that? Are you being fair to her?"
"Why are you so worried about Ruth all of a sudden?"
"I'm worried about you, Graham. I'm worried that you're heading somewhere you don't realize you're heading. Girls have their ways of hanging onto young men. There's been more than one young fellow to find himself trapped into a situation he never planned for."
"Mother! I really hope you're not implying what I think you're implying! Let me tell you something about Ruth. She is, as you say, 'a nice enough girl.' She's not only nice. She's good. She's ... I dunno. She's different. There's something good and, well, straight about her. You're right, she's not like the other girls, and I think that's what it is that's 'caught my fancy.' I like her. A lot. I have no intention of hurting her, if that's what you're worried about. I don't think she's all that wrapped up in me, anyways. And if you're worried about me getting into a marriage I'm not ready for, don't worry about that, either. I doubt the thought's even crossed Ruth's mind, and I'm not planning on marrying anyone for a long time yet, but when I do, I'll be ready for it, and it will be my choice. As for what happened between me and Lily Turnbull, she dumped me, if you must know. But since I've got to know Ruth, I'm glad of it. And Ruth w
as part of helping me see that, so you should be grateful to her. Do you have anything else to say to me because I'm about talked out?"
"No, Graham. I've said my piece. I just want you to be careful, that's all."
"Okay, well, I am. I will be. I'm going to bed now. Good night, Mother."
"Graham. Why don't you ever bring her to meet us? You could bring her for supper one night?"
"I'll think about that."
"Why don't you want her to meet us?"
"It's not that. I just had the feeling you didn't want to meet her. That you'd look down on her for some reason."
"For what reason?"
"Oh, her family background. Or the residential school. Or her living alone on that farm. I don't know. Any number of reasons. I've just heard the comments around town."
"You're not going with this girl just because of those things, are you?"
"Wha'd'you mean?"
"I mean, oh, I don't know. Because of her mixed race. To prove that you're not like the people who would make comments about her? That you're bigger than that? Or to spite me or your father? Some form of teenage rebellion? One hears about young people doing things like that for no other reason than to get back at their parents for some wrong they imagine their parents have done them."
"Y'see? It's because I knew you'd think things like that that I didn't want to bring her to meet you. You'd be all sugar to her face, but secretly you'd be thinking that she's not good enough for a MacKellum and wondering what her game was and comparing her in your mind to Lily Turnbull and all that, and she'd sense it and bolt, and I'd never see her again. She can tell things like that. And she's proud as all get out."
"Oh, I see. The reason you don't want us to meet this girl is not because you're ashamed of her; it's because you're ashamed of us, your parents."
"I wouldn't like to put it that way, but all right! Maybe that's a little closer to the truth. I'm ashamed of the way you see Ruth. Can you honestly tell me that her race isn't an issue for you?"
"I know a little more of the ways of the world than you do, Graham. I have nothing against the girl personally. I have nothing against her people, whoever they may be, but if you start to get serious about her, I just know that two people from different backgrounds have additional hardships to face. Especially if they're not from the same race, if they have children, their children might be looked down upon. These are just the facts of life, Graham, and you have to face them."
