The River Valley Series

by Tess Thompson

  He smiled. “Sounds a little woo-woo, huh?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “This morning I sat on my deck and listened to the sound of the river, which I’ve come to think of as alive because it’s ever changing, like us. This time of year the water’s still pretty high and, if you listen carefully, you can hear the current moving towards the ocean, the sound almost imperceptible because it’s so quiet—a low steady drone punctuated with burbles over rocks and the gush of the mild rapids just down from my swimming hole. The sun was warm on my back and I sipped an espresso I made for myself with a smidge of half-and-half, just the way I like it. I felt abundant and at peace and grateful—this surge of wholeness that I know is God.”

  She sighed and looked toward the river. “I used to feel that as a child, but it’s been a long time since I felt that kind of peace. Or hope.” The sun on the water sparkled in little bits of light. She had the sudden desire to strip off her clothes and dive in deep, to feel it ripple next to her skin and run through her hair. She turned to him and smiled with a slight tremor in her voice. “Something about this place,” she said, indicating outside the window, “something about you, makes me less guarded. I find myself revealing things lately that I usually keep to myself. And I don’t know why. I don’t know why it’s you. Or this place.”

  He got up from the couch and stood next to her at the window. “Whatever the reason, I’m pleased.” He tilted her face and they stood for a moment, their breath intermingled, her lips slightly parted, his gently closed, until she shifted towards him, almost like a fall. And he caught her mouth with his, moving in a soft capture of her top lip and then inside to the warm flesh of her mouth. His lips were soft, not hard as she’d imagined. He tasted faintly of chocolate. Everything disappeared but the feel of the kiss, of him. Finally he pulled away, tracing her jaw with his fingertips, and she watched the pulse at his neck that seemed to beat with her own hammering heart. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said.

  “You’re letting me kiss you.” He kissed her again, harder this time, and she let her body melt into him, feeling the muscles of his legs press into her own.

  She put her face into his collarbone, breathed in his scent, felt the heat through his t-shirt. “This can’t go anywhere,” she said. “It’s too soon, and I’m not staying in town.”

  “Alright.”

  “I still feel married.”

  He nodded and felt the tender spots on her neck, looking into her eyes. “I can understand that. It’s too soon. I’m rushing you.”

  She smiled and plucked at the collar of his shirt. “That’s what I just said.”

  “I learned that technique in therapy. It’s called mirroring.”

  She laughed. “It’s very disarming.”

  “Let me take you to dinner. Dinner’s harmless enough.”

  She moved away, placing her fingertips on the glass window, suddenly cringing, thinking of Dan’s eyes the last time she saw him. She changed the subject. “Why are the chairs on the other side of the river?”

  “Because the sand’s soft and fine over there. Keeps you from making excuses about jumping in the water if you have to swim to the chairs.”

  “What about a book? How do you get that to the other side?”

  “I have a raft. Good for books and beer.”

  “What if you can’t swim?”

  “You can’t swim?”

  “No.”

  “Want me to teach you?”

  “I’m too old to learn to swim.”

  “Nonsense. The feel of that sand between your toes—it’ll be worth it.”

  * * *

  They were quiet as they drove south in Tommy’s truck until they crossed the Oregon border into California. Lee felt shriveled and strange in the seat next to a man, on a date when only months before she’d been married. Her vow to act with bravery diminished.

  “You’re sorry you agreed to come.” He said it as a statement.

  She was apologetic. “It’s not you. Just that…I don’t know. It feels like homesickness almost. That kind of strange.”

  “You want to turn back?”

  “No.” The road began to curve along the highway above the Smith River. They traveled at a slow pace along the two-lane highway carved out of the side of the mountain. There were blind curves where you couldn’t be sure what awaited, as in another car, a logging truck, or even a deer. She watched Tommy to discern if he was a skilled driver.

  “You can relax, I’ve driven this road many times in the last couple of years,” he said.

  “My grandparents were killed on a road like this.”

  He put his hand on her knee for an instant. “I’ll take good care of you, don’t worry.”

  After a few miles she decided he must be good at all things physical, including maneuvering this dangerous but beautiful span of highway. He adjusted the car’s speed at the curves and accelerated just beyond their crests. At one point they fell behind a slow truck but instead of trying to pass he seemed in no hurry, so she settled into her seat and soaked up the view.

  They drove south, next to the mountainside. On the other side of the highway was the Smith River. Every mile or so, she saw the green water playing and sparkling in and around the gray river stones. She waved her hand around to indicate the terrain. “Since I’ve been back here, I’m struck by how dramatic the beauty is. Everything’s so big.”

  “Vivid.” Tommy smiled at her, taking his eyes from the road for an instant. “For a person who doesn’t want to stay here, you sound like you’re falling in love again with a childhood sweetheart.”

  She laughed and brushed her hair behind her ear. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “We’ll see about that,” he laughed in return.

  Along the way, Tommy answered her questions and offered information about his life, surprising her with his candor. She listened, resting her head on the back of the car’s seat, eyes shifting between his moving lips and the river in the canyon below, absorbing his story, absorbing Tommy.

  He was forty-two years old and it astonished him to be middle-aged because he felt the same about things as when he was young. The possibility of everything still ran through him and he began most days with excited anticipation in his stomach, like he remembered from Christmas Day as a child. His life felt good to him, like he was where he belonged. He was thankful to have the freedom to play music and write songs. He looked forward to his shifts at the firehouse and playing with the band in the evenings. He loved the feel of the air in this corner of the world because it was dry and unspoiled by smog or anything man-made. It was the arid heat of the summers that he loved the most, the way the sun dried and warmed your skin after a swim in the river water.

  He believed life held endless possibility, even after two marriages and a somewhat inconsistent musical career. He attributed it to his early childhood, when they were migrant workers, recent immigrants from Mexico. His parents talked about what a blessing it was to be in this country. “Nothing but possibility in America,” his father said at family dinners.

  “Do you wish you were a rich and famous singer?” Lee asked him, hoping the question wouldn’t offend.

  “I can’t remember if I ever dreamt that large.” He remembered the bands that played the county fair when he was a kid and that he was overwhelmed with the beauty of live performance. He thought it was glorious, how the music floated out from the stage and touched him where he sat in the bleachers with his brother. “I guess I wanted to be like them but now I get a thrill from expressing my unique point of view in a song I’ve composed. I love it when the crowd—small as they may be some nights—enjoys my performance.”

  His mother said he sang before he talked. It started with an old guitar his father had around and he strummed on it, trying to figure out how to make it sound like the records on their old phonograph. When he was ten his mother found him a guitar instruction manual at a used bookstore and little by little he taught hi
mself how to play and read music.

  His freshman year in high school he had an English teacher named Ms. Cooper. She made them all try to write a poem. He saw they were songs without music. He stayed up until 2:00 a.m. the day their poem was due, working on it, trying to find the particular words that would articulate his thoughts. When Ms. Cooper passed back the poems days later, there was a sticky note attached to his paper. It said, “This work is impressive. Try putting it to music and you might have magic.”

  It was the little things that inspired him. The pudgy fingers of his baby niece or the way a tulip bent in a vase like a bowing ballerina. The words just kind of stacked together in conjunction with the notes until it became a song.

  He spent over fifteen years in Nashville, trying to break into the business. One day he thought, this is no kind of life. It occurred to him that his songs caught more attention as demos to bands and singers that already had recording contracts. The songs made him unique. That year he got an agent who peddled his songs to the major talents and since then he’d sold at least one a year. It was a decent living and allowed him to live his life next to the river. “I can never walk away from the music. It’s cost me some things too, along the way. But it’s all about measurement—how much can you give up for something you love.”

  Lee nodded, thinking of the baby growing inside her.

  Tommy glanced at her, taking his eyes off the road for a split second. “You look sleepy. Am I boring you?”

  “No, it’s your voice. It relaxes me.”

  “Is that a good thing?”

  She yawned and nestled further into the seat. “Can’t be bad. Nothing else seems to work. Keep talking so we can test the theory.”

  He was the second in a line of six children, the oldest now his brother was gone. His parents were married for fifty years and died within months of each other three years ago. His four siblings were all girls and he loved growing up surrounded by all those women. When the girls talked, which they did constantly, he learned a lot of useful information. Their house was bilingual and you never heard such a racket as four girls talking, bickering, and laughing, two languages intermixed into a sort of music.

  He missed his mother. Before her death he talked to her twice a week over the telephone. Sometimes he still picked up the receiver to call her before remembering. The loss was fresh each time, like an empty spot in his heart. “After she died I realized no one will ever know me, understand me, or love me as much. She was interested in every small and large accomplishment, the details of what I ate for breakfast, even the process of every song I wrote.”

  “You were lucky.”

  He looked over at her and she dismissed her comment with a wave of her hand. “Never mind, we’re talking about you, not me.”

  He went on to tell her about a time when he was five years old and was up on top of a ladder picking apples. There was a kind of seat on one of the branches, so he straddled it and watched a cloud that looked like an elephant drift by until his eyes got sleepy. The next thing he knew, he jerked awake as he fell out of the tree, hitting the ground hard but unhurt. His mother screamed from where she was across the orchard. She ran to him and felt his legs. Then she smacked him with a stick twice on his bottom hard enough that it stung. “I said to her, ‘Why are you beating me?’ and she said, ‘Because you scared me.’” He glanced at Lee and laughed. “I made sure never to fall asleep in a tree again.

  “My sisters are like my papi, cerebral, mathematical,” he continued, keeping his eyes on the highway. “They’re practical about life instead of thinking in emotion and metaphor like I do. I’m like my mother, emotional and artistic. After my brother’s death, we fell into the pain. The girls analyzed it to try and make sense of it. Grief catches up with you eventually and when it does it’s more painful, like an earthquake that shakes with more and more ferocity. Anyway, life isn’t understandable. Only God understands and we have to wait until the end, where I imagine I’ll see my questions answered, spread out across the heavens in waves of clarity.”

  The highway forked, one way to the California Redwoods, the other to Brookings, the first coastal town in Oregon when traveling north on Highway 101. “We’re heading up to Brookings,” he said. “My friends own a Mexican restaurant north of town.”

  She was sleepy, murmured a response, and closed her eyes. She felt his hand touch the side of her face. And then she was asleep.

  She awakened when Tommy braked for a red light, and she sat up in the seat, looking out the window at the gray, soggy town. “Sorry, I fell asleep.”

  “No problem. I have that effect on women.” He grinned and braked for another light.

  “I’m just so tired lately.”

  “My sisters say the first trimester’s like that.”

  She wiped the side of her mouth, hoping she hadn’t drooled in her sleep, and reached for her purse at her feet. She ran a comb through her hair and swiped her nose and forehead with a powder compact. She coated her lips with a smear of peachy lipstick. “Do you know a lot about women because of your sisters?”

  “Not as much as I need to.” He laughed.

  It was cloudy and sixty-two degrees according to Tommy’s temperature gauge when they pulled into the parking lot of a run-down strip mall and parked in front of a Mexican restaurant. “This is where we’re eating?” she said. She looked up and saw a neon twirling sign, reading Los Gatos.

  Tommy laughed as he pulled the parking brake. “Don’t be such a snob. Best Mexican food in Oregon.” He reached across her, brushing her leg, and pulled a bottle of wine from underneath her seat. “Terrible wine though, so I always bring my own.”

  “No ocean view?”

  He put his arm on the back of her seat and kissed her neck, sending a shiver up her spine. “Wouldn’t that be kind of predictable?” he asked, his eyes on her mouth.

  “I guess,” she began to answer but he covered her mouth with his in a gentle kiss that made her heart pound.

  He grinned, pulling back and grazing his finger along her bottom lip. “Sorry, I had to do that before we went in or I wouldn’t have been able to focus on my dinner. Stay where you are. I’ll get your door.”

  The air smelled of salt, seaweed, and fish. As was her habit now in any public place, she scanned the parking lot for Von. It was empty except for several teenagers clothed in black, smoking cigarettes. He escorted her inside with his hand on her back. The restaurant was small, with an orange and yellow patterned linoleum floor, grease stains on the dingy walls, and cheap prints of Mexican art on the walls.

  A round, gray-haired Mexican woman with a heavy accent greeted them. “Tomas, so good to see you.” They embraced, lingering for a moment, her soft short frame next to his tall, lean one. Maria turned to Lee. She enfolded Lee’s chilled fingers into her plump warm hands. “I’m Maria. Welcome.” She tweaked underneath Lee’s chin. “So beautiful. Come sit.” Mexican music played overhead. Laughter and voices in Spanish came from the kitchen.

  They slid into a booth with shiny green plastic, cracked in places, the stuffing exposed. Maria set two menus and two glasses of ice water in red plastic cups on the table. They were the only people in the dining area except for a middle-aged couple in a back booth. She wagged her finger at Tommy. “Nothing too spicy for the señorita.” She turned to Lee. “He order everything fire hot.”

  “Whatever Lee wants.” He handed Maria the bottle of wine, which she tucked under her arm.

  Maria put a hand on the top of Tommy’s head. “He so fancy after he come back from Nashville has to bring his own wine.” She fluffed his hair. “I remember him so little, picking apples from a ladder.” She took her hand off his head and pulled out a small pad from the front of her apron. “He sing all the time so we always knew where he was. Up in trees, singing and singing.”

  “Now don’t tell all my secrets.” He winked at Lee. “I knew I shouldn’t bring you here.”

  Maria left with the wine, promising chips and salsa when she returned
. Tommy pointed to the kitchen. “Maria and her husband were friends of my parents, before we moved to Bellingham. We all picked fruit back then.”

  Maria dropped off their chips, the bottle of wine, and took their dinner order. Tommy poured Lee a half glass of wine and a generous one for himself.

  She pushed the glass away from her. “I don’t drink.”

  “All the time or because of the baby?”

  “All the time.”

  He looked like he might ask a question but thought better of it and moved the glass closer to him. “Sorry, I should’ve asked before I poured.” He watched her. She could see the clicking of his thoughts as he figured and wondered about her.

  “You drink a lot?” She tried to sound light but even to herself she sounded anxious for the answer to be no.

  “Not enough to be a problem. Ed, from the band, we’re always on the lookout for a good ten dollar bottle of wine. We enjoy it, but for fun, not survival.” He thumped on the table with his fingers and scooped salsa on a chip. “To that end, I have a little something to celebrate tonight.” He popped the whole chip in his mouth and chewed.

  She looked around the place and lowered her voice, teasing him. “I’d hate to see where you’d take me if it was just a regular night.”

  He put his hand on his heart and laughed. “That hurts.” He scooped more salsa onto a chip and waved it in the air as he talked. “Actually, I sold a song to a fairly major recording artist in Nashville. Just found out this morning.”

  He ate another chip, wiped a stray diced tomato off the side of his mouth, and pulled a thin paper napkin out of the dispenser next to the salt and cleaned his finger. “The weird thing is, I never thought of myself as a country songwriter, but there you go. I mean, whoever heard of a Mexican country singer?” He smiled and looked to the ceiling. “But who am I to question God?”

  Her voice was teasing but even she heard the bitterness at the edges of her tone. “I’d like to ask God a few questions.”

  He looked amused and swirled his wine. “What would you ask him, or her?”