Seventh Wonder

by Renae Kelleigh

  Whoa, boy, he told himself. Slow it down.

  He couldn’t afford to ruminate on such long-range notions. What if he accidentally let slip some half-formed thought about a future they might (plausibly or implausibly) share? He couldn’t risk driving her away by making some cavalier reference to times ahead, no matter the frightening extent to which such ideas hijacked his thoughts.

  On the bright side, her friends wouldn’t be back until tomorrow, which meant that today he would have her all to himself. The thought sent a pulse of pleasant warmth shooting from his chest to his extremities. It felt strange, this unexpected possessiveness of her time. He wanted to be selfish with her, to secrete her away where he could enjoy her freely and without interruption.

  It took an extraordinary amount of willpower to continue lying here when all he wanted was to go to her. They’d agreed upon nine o’clock. He would fetch her from her cabin, and they would walk to the lodge for breakfast.

  It would be their first time in public together, just the two of them. There was something a bit off-putting in that - not because he was ashamed (indeed, he was far from it), but because the privacy they’d shared till now had propagated a sense of intimacy he enjoyed. He wondered if she felt the same.

  Quarter after eight, he decided, was long enough to wait. He rose before making his bed, an old habit engrained in him from the time he was a boy, when his mother had strictly enforced it. He showered and pushed his wet hands back through his hair, then shaved his neck. Remembering how Meg had seemed to enjoy the grizzle on his face, he left the stubble on his chin and cheeks.

  By the time he dressed and laced his boots, he was convinced he could wait no longer. The time was only twenty to nine - he’d be early. He smiled a little to himself, thinking perhaps he could catch her while she was still getting ready. The idea of it was oddly attractive to him: fresh faced, although sleepy-eyed, not quite ready to meet the day. And God, to see her dressed in his shirt again... He could only speculate about the effect that sight might have on him.

  The morning air was brisk but invigorating. John walked along the edge of the canyon to while away some of his excess time.

  He loved this: all of it, the whole canyon. He couldn’t have pinpointed which part was his favorite - the mesas arising like a pack of harried animals from a giant abyss of fog, the particolored monoliths, the coiled strength of the river, the sandstone bristled with pine like unshaven cheeks. The north rim, in particular, had always held a certain mystique for him. It was weathered and harsh, yet intriguingly reserved, never revealing all its charms at once. An ever-shifting, sylvan enigma he discovered anew each and every time he ventured around or into it.

  He tread between the trees, turning his back on the canyon to approach Meg’s cabin. He opened the screen and rapped his first knuckle against the front door, then listened to the soft sound of her footfalls on the other side of it. When the door swung open, he was so taken with the sight of her face (even better than he’d remembered it), he almost forgot to be disappointed she was no longer wearing his shirt. She was dressed instead in a pair of knee-length shorts and a sleeveless shirt that stopped short of the soft, feminine angles of her shoulders.

  He removed his sunglasses, and the brightness of her eyes slid into harsh relief, no longer obscured by his dark lenses. “Miss Lowry.” He greeted her with a slight dip of his head.

  “You’re early,” she said, the corners of her mouth edging into an understated grin. “Luckily for you, I’m nearly ready. Would you like to come in?”

  She stepped back, and John matched her, taking a step over the threshold. He blinked, willing his eyes to adapt to the darkness of the inner hallway while violet and indigo X-ray images seared his vision.

  “Am I dressed all right?” she asked, receding down the hallway toward a dimly lit bathroom. “I wasn’t sure where we would go today. I can change if I need to.”

  “You look fine. Better than fine.” She peered out of the bathroom door at him, and he gazed at her in earnest. “You’re beautiful.” He smiled a little then to diminish some of the intensity.

  Her face disappeared as she leaned back toward what he assumed must be a mirror over the sink, but her voice found him where he stood in the hall. “It might be best if you didn’t say it quite so often. The flattery might go to my head, and then where will we be?”

  He laughed, surprised. “I wouldn’t worry. I get the distinct impression we’re still several light years away from that becoming a possibility. Though I’ll certainly try my best.” When she arched her spine to peer out at him again, one eyebrow raised, he added, “My sense is, a little hubris might look good on you.”

  She cleared her throat but didn’t respond. A moment later she emerged with her voluminous hair quasi-tamed and her lips glossed pink. She flipped the bathroom light off and came toward him out of the darkness. The light from the front door filtered through the hall, illuminating each of her features in gradual succession. By the time she stood before him, she’d shed her manteau of theatrical shadows and was bathed in a gentle radiance that made her appear softer, almost otherworldly. He could hardly stand to look away from her.

  He fastened his hands around her waist and took another step toward her, rubbing out the inches of separation so that she was pressed up against him. He could feel her breaths coming harder, but he was sure it wasn’t because his grip was too strong. If nothing else, he could at least feel assured of his faithfulness to being gentle with her. She was too fine a thing to manhandle.

  Meg skated her hands up his biceps to his shoulders and looked up at him from beneath half lowered eyelids. This is new, thought John. This sultriness, the daring. Was she trying to appear sexy? If so, it was most definitely working. He’d been right: confidence lent her already striking features a sensuality that made her all the more compelling to look at.

  He bent forward to kiss her. He slid one hand up her spine to cradle the back of her head, and she clung to him, her arms twining around his neck. When they broke apart, the way they looked at each other was somehow even more intimate than the kissing.

  John trailed his hands down her back and around her waist before reluctantly letting go. He clasped her hand and wove their fingers together, then nodded toward the door, an unspoken question.

  They remained linked as they walked up to the lodge. John chanced an occasional glance at Meg, wondering at her reaction. If she was unsettled by their public display, she didn’t let on: her grip was unwavering, her head held erect.

  They sat across from each other at a small table next to the window. The fog had lifted, but the lingering smear of vapor muted the canyon’s vibrant colors from scarlet to pink and from brown to bone, while in the distance, many miles away, the blue sky faded to milky gray.

  “Good morning, Mr. Stovall,” greeted the waiter. He stepped back and allowed John to usurp one of his duties by pulling out Meg’s chair for her.

  “Good morning,” he replied. He hadn’t yet grown used to being known. In truth, he missed the anonymity he’d borne so comfortably for the greater part of his life.

  He observed Meg as she spread her napkin in her lap and asked for grapefruit juice, continued to look at her as he ordered coffee, black for himself. He watched her eyes flicker from side to side, skimming the menu. Her eyelashes were long, nearly touching her eyebrows. Her hair fell forward, slipping from her shoulder to dangle in thick sheets around her face, and her full lips were parted, moving so slightly as to be easily missed as she read soundlessly to herself. He suspected he would never grow tired of studying her like this, appreciating her the way a scholar might Venus de Milo. (Or perhaps that wasn’t quite the right analogy, he thought. He doubted a scholar felt the same urge to touch the way he did when viewing the woman in front of him.)

  She glanced up, and he felt as if he’d been caught at something. Her apple cheeks flushed. “Shouldn’t you be looking at the menu rather than me?” she asked.

  “I already know what I want
.”

  He was pleased to see his double meaning wasn’t lost on her.

  The waiter returned then, and they relayed their orders. John noticed with detached amusement the young man’s attentiveness to Meg. He was much closer to her age, and handsome enough in John’s own estimation - and yet she was entirely oblivious to his loitering gaze and the way his fingertips intentionally brushed hers when he took the menu from her hand. Something deep and buried throbbed within him, believing her response to his own touch would be far from blasé. He fought the temptation to test that theory.

  Meg sighed as she turned to look out the window. Even this he found fascinating: the way she twisted her entire torso and her eyes widened, as if she were seeing the canyon for the first time instead of the dozenth or the hundredth. Others became quickly anesthetized to its beauty.

  “Are other parks this beautiful?” she asked without looking at him. “I’ve never been.”

  “Some, in their own way,” he replied. “The Tetons are impressive. So is Yosemite.”

  “Why did you choose this one? Why here?” She turned back to face him, her eyes filled with a child’s spellbound curiosity.

  He leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table. “My parents brought us here when we were children. It was my brother’s tenth birthday, so that would’ve made me seven and my sister five.

  “I wish I could remember what it felt like to see it for the first time. Memories fade. I’m left with this general sense of how in love I must have been, but I can’t remember the specifics.

  “What I do remember is our next to last morning here. My father and I were hiking at Roosevelt Point. There was another man there, and I can remember my father stopping to talk to him. I have this perfect image of my dad with his hands shoved in his pockets and his shirtsleeves pushed up above his elbows, talking with another middle-aged guy from Kansas. I remember it was Kansas, because my best friend was from Topeka. At that time, it might’ve been the only place in the world I was really aware of outside Connecticut.

  “Anyway, he and Dad said their goodbyes, and we moved on to check out the view from the overlook. Dad came to stand behind me with his hands on my shoulders, and a minute or so later we heard skidding. I turned around and saw the man attempting to leap from a promontory out to one of the other outcrops. At first it looked like he’d made it - it wasn’t such a long way to jump, at least from where I stood. I can remember smiling, admiring his bravery.

  “But then the wind picked up, and he overshot. He fell.”

  Meg’s hands flew up to cover her mouth; she appeared to be holding her breath. “He fell?” she said. “How... How far?”

  John swallowed. “At least six hundred feet.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, and John questioned the wisdom of telling her such a grisly tale. “He died, didn’t he?” she asked in a whisper.

  He nodded slowly. “Yes. He did.”

  Silence. The waiter had delivered their food, but both platters went untouched.

  “John, that’s horrid.” She leaned forward tentatively and covered his hand with her own, comforting him, though this wound had healed long ago. “I’m not sure I could ever look at this place the same way, after seeing something like that.”

  He turned over his hand and interlaced their fingers. “That’s what my parents thought, too.” He gazed down at their joined hands, pleased with the aesthetic, the way they looked bound together liked this. “They expected me to be traumatized by it. I guess I was, but not really in the way you’d think. I’m not sure what that says about me, but there it is.” Glancing back up at her: “I was terrified, sure, but I was also...I don’t know, mystified by it. It shook me. The way something so exquisite, so seemingly peaceful, could take a life.” He shook his head, remembering. “That experience, more than any other single thing in my life, shaped my sense of respect for nature as self-sufficient, this entity that could stand there and thrive all on its own. It may be beautiful, but it has the capacity to defend itself - using fatal force if necessary.”

  John watched Meg shiver, whether due to residual fear or appreciation of his statement he couldn’t be sure.

  “Where did your family vacation when you were younger?” he asked, steering the conversation back toward what he hoped was a less intensive subject. He cut a bite of his omelet. “You mentioned you’d never been to a national park until now?”

  Meg bit her lip as she shook her head, clearly still blinded in some measure by John’s macabre story. “Big Sur mostly. Pismo Beach a couple of times. You’d be shocked to learn how little I’ve experienced outside of California.”

  “Where would you like to go?” asked John. “If you could pick one place, anywhere in the world, and go there tomorrow - where would that place be?”

  She smiled coyly as she chewed on her lower lip and sliced a banana into her bowl of corn flakes. After a moment she replied, “Iguazu Falls.”

  He arched his eyebrows, unable to contain his surprise. “In Brazil?”

  Her smile widened. “You know about it.”

  “Sure, I know it. Never been, though. How do you know about it?”

  “I saw a spread in National Geographic a few years back, when I was in high school. I always imagined it sort of like this” - she nodded out the window - “but with water pouring over it. Like a submerged desert. A flooded canyon.”

  He grinned.

  “What are you thinking about?” she asked after a moment.

  “I’m imagining you, seeing it for the first time. I’d give just about anything to be there for that.”

  Her smile was a private one, not meant to be shared with anyone, save for the person who put it there.

  * * *

  “Now reach out with your left hand - just a little bit farther.” John cupped his hands around his mouth, calling up to her. “Now down a bit. There you go, you’ve got it.”

  Meg’s body shook with the effort of clinging to the vertical rock face. It wasn’t particularly tall compared with the other boulders in the vicinity, but it was still terrifying, being suspended beyond John’s reach. They were some distance from the rim, but she needn’t look far over her shoulder to see clear to the bottom of the canyon.

  Now she could see the top of the boulder, the spot she was striving to reach. John’s gentle coaching drifted on the breeze, urging her onward. At last she found the final foothold and scrambled the rest of the way up. The moment her feet hit solid ground, her lungs heaved the stale breath she’d held in for what seemed like hours.

  She crouched down before peering back over the edge at John; standing gave the illusion of spinning, a sensation she doubted her stomach could handle.

  “You did great,” he hollered. “You didn’t even look scared.”

  She barked a laugh. “You couldn’t see my face.”

  He chuckled as he leaned forward to lay his own hands against the russet sandstone. “I’m coming up, all right?”

  Meg nodded. She watched the way his corded forearms flexed and rippled as he pulled himself up. His movements were graceful and bold, full of an animal’s lean strength. He showed no trace of the fear that had plagued her, pumping through her veins like zings of corrosive electricity. He reached the top of the boulder in a fraction of the time it had taken her.

  “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.