First Love

by Patterson, James

  “I totally understand the whole Druid thing now,” Robinson whispered.

  “I think the Druids actually worshipped oak trees,” I noted. “They didn’t have redwoods in ancient Ireland.”

  “Smarty-pants,” Robinson said, poking me.

  I put my hand on a rough, cool trunk. “Majestic tranquillity,” I said softly, seeing how the words felt in my mouth. A little too pretentious: I wouldn’t be writing that down in my journal. But there were real writers who’d seen redwoods like these, and I could steal from them, couldn’t I? “ ‘They are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time,’ ” I said.

  “Huh?” said Robinson.

  “John Steinbeck wrote that in Travels with Charley.”

  He sighed. “Another one of the books you gave me—”

  “That you didn’t read.”

  Robinson used to pretend he felt guilty about ignoring the stacks of books I passed to him, but eventually he stopped bothering. “I thought I was supposed to read East of Eden first,” he said.

  “Let me know when you get to it,” I said. “I won’t hold my breath.”

  “Well, you can let me know when you listen to that Will Oldham CD I got you.”

  “I put it on my iPod but, as you know, it’s broken,” I pointed out. “Your eyeballs work just fine.”

  We found our campsite then, a small clearing surrounded by a ring of redwoods, with a picnic bench, a fire pit, and a spigot for cold, clear water. I unhooked my tent from the backpack. It was an army-green miracle of engineering: big enough to contain two people and their sleeping bags, it weighed less than a pound and, folded up, fit into a bag the size of a loaf of Wonder Bread. Robinson eyed it, impressed.

  “Watch how I set this up,” I directed. “Because tomorrow night it’s your job.”

  “I thought it was the woman’s job to keep house and the man’s job to hunt for food,” he said, grinning slyly.

  I snorted. “Are you planning to kill an elk with your screwdriver? Good luck.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of a squirrel,” he said, but even that was ridiculous, because Robinson would never hurt anything. I mean, the guy had to grit his teeth to kill a mosquito.

  I unpacked the veggies I’d bought, plus a hunk of aged Gouda and a bag of lavash, the thin flatbread I love and couldn’t get in Klamath Falls because apparently it was too exotic.

  “Well, well, well,” Robinson said as he watched me skewer mushrooms and peppers on sticks I’d stripped of their bark. “I guess you’d do all right on Survivor.”

  I rolled my eyes at him. “I paid for this stuff, Robinson. I didn’t forage for wild green peppers and cheese. Now, are you going to gather some sticks for the fire or what?”

  “You couldn’t buy firewood, too?” he asked, but he ambled good-naturedly into the brush to find things to burn.

  Soon we had a nice fire going, and we roasted our kebabs over the flickering flames. I stuck slices of cheese between pieces of lavash, wrapped them in foil, and set them near the fire until the cheese melted. When everything was ready, we leaned against a fallen log that was covered with springy green moss, which made a surprisingly comfortable backrest. We didn’t have plates, and the vegetables were a bit burned in places, but it was the best dinner I’d ever had. It tasted like freedom.

  Robinson complimented my cooking, but within the hour he was raiding my backpack for junk food, claiming to be suffering from vitamin overdose.

  “What else do you have in here?” he demanded. “I know you’re keeping Fritos or Oreos or something terrible and delicious from me.” I watched as he pulled out the map, two feather-light rain ponchos, my Dr. Bronner’s, my toothbrush, and my journal.

  “Open that on pain of death,” I warned.

  Finally Robinson held up a chocolate bar, triumphant.

  “Half for you, half for me,” he said.

  “A quarter for you and a quarter for me,” I corrected. “I’m rationing.”

  Robinson laughed. “You’re a planner, I know. You always have everything figured out. But do you really think there’s a shortage of chocolate bars on the West Coast?” He reached out and handed me a small piece of chocolate. When our fingertips touched, I twitched as if I’d been shocked. It surprised both of us.

  “You’re jittery all of a sudden,” he said. “We’re safe here, Axi. No one’s going to find us.” He walked over to the bike and lovingly patted its seat. “Or the hot Harley.”

  While Robinson fondled his new toy, I tried to calm down, breathing in that “sweeter, rarer, healthier air,” as old Walt Whitman would say. Night was coming, bringing darkness and deeper silence. It seemed like in all the world, there were only the two of us.

  I’d always told Robinson pretty much everything I thought about, but I couldn’t tell him this: I wasn’t nervous about being discovered. I was suddenly nervous about something else.

  Sleeping arrangements.

  8

  INSIDE THE TENT, I UNROLLED OUR SLEEPING bags. There wasn’t an inch to spare. We were going to be thisclose to each other, Robinson and me.

  He was still outside the tent, throwing leaves into the fire and watching them curl and blacken. “Do we need to string up the packs? You know, to protect them from bears?” he called.

  “There aren’t any bears around here,” I assured him, smoothing out my bag. It was pink camo. Hideously ugly, but it’d been on sale. “Only elk. Spotted owls. That sort of thing.”

  Robinson poked his head inside the tent. “Do you know that for real?” he asked. “Or are you just saying it to make yourself feel better?” He looked me right in the eyes. He knew me too well.

  “I’m, like, sixty percent positive,” I admitted. “Or less.”

  Robinson was unsurprised. “I’m stringing up the packs, then.”

  He ducked back out and I heard him rustling around. He took a long time, whether because he was new to the demands of camping or because he was sneaking more of the chocolate bar… well, that could be his secret.

  When he popped his head in again, he was grinning. There was a tiny spot of melted chocolate in the corner of his mouth. “Cozy in here, isn’t it?”

  Then he slipped off his boots and climbed all the way inside, and cozy became something of an understatement. I felt weirdly shy. Like suddenly my body was bigger and more awkward—and more female—than it had ever been before. I wondered if I smelled like motor oil and BO. I noticed that Robinson smelled like campfire, like soap, like boy.

  Robinson could have had his pick of girls from our high school. Even after he dropped out (which for everyone else who’d done it was the social kiss of death), all the cheerleaders and the student council girls still wanted to take him to prom. Sometimes I pictured them hanging off his arms, like those little game pieces in Barrel of Monkeys, brightly colored and plastic.

  “I’m not interested in them,” he’d say. Eventually, I’d gotten up the nerve to ask: who—or what—was he interested in? He’d laughed and slung his arm around my shoulders the way he did sometimes.

  “I’m interested in you, GG,” he’d said lightly. As if that settled it.

  But what did that mean, really? Because as far as I could tell, he wasn’t interested in me in that way. We’d held hands a few times, like when we were in the movie theater watching Cabin in the Woods or Paranormal Activity. And once when I’d drunk three-quarters of a beer, I had kissed him, sloppily, good night.

  But that was all, folks.

  Now we lay side by side, staring at the tent ceiling only three feet above our heads. I listened to the wind in the tops of the trees and the sound of Robinson’s breathing, and for the first time considered what traveling together would mean in practical terms. Where was I supposed to change? What if I wanted to sleep in my underwear? What would Robinson think when he saw me in the morning, mussed and sleepy, with tousled hair and flushed cheeks and breath that could kill a small animal?

  Not that that was the problem.
No, the problem—or, at the very least, the Thing That Mattered—was that we would be sleeping right next to each other. Alone. Not even a stuffed teddy bear between us.

  Robinson shifted, trying to make himself comfortable. No doubt he was realizing the same thing I was. I cleared my throat.

  “Before you say anything,” Robinson said, “here’s the deal.”

  I could almost hear my heart doing a tiny shuffling dance.

  “Stealing is—well, it’s not a good thing, Axi, but it’s not necessarily that bad, either. I mean, we’re taking good care of the bike. And this guy’s going to get it back.”

  That dancing ticker of mine slowed. I’d thought we were going to talk about us. Honestly, I was already over the stealing. Regret is a waste of time, my mom used to say. She’d served up that platitude a lot before she split town. Maybe it made her feel better about leaving.

  “And if for some reason he doesn’t get it back,” Robinson went on, “his insurance covers the loss and he gets a brand-new one.”

  He made it sound so simple. And maybe it was. In some ways it was simpler than talking about us.

  Robinson rolled over so he was facing me. His nose, I noticed, was sunburned. His chin was covered in faint dark stubble. I watched his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed. Our eyes met, but I quickly looked away.

  He reached out and brushed a piece of hair from my forehead. I held my breath.

  Suddenly I understood that running away was all the thrill I could stand today. If Robinson touched any other part of me, I might explode into a million pieces.

  But he didn’t touch me again. He smiled. “Sweet dreams, Axi Moore,” he said softly. Then he rolled back over.

  Inside I ached a little, but I wasn’t sure what for.

  9

  I STARED INTO THE DARKNESS FOR A long time, feeling the contrast between the cold, hard ground beneath me and the soft warmth of Robinson beside me. Thoughts raced through my mind endlessly: What if Robinson and I get caught? Or if we chicken out and go back home? Or if we keep on and each night lie side by side, chaste as children? If we kiss? If we whisper the word love, or if it remains unsaid forever?

  It would probably only matter to me. I didn’t know if it would matter to Robinson. I tentatively put my head on his shoulder, but he didn’t move a muscle.

  When I finally slept, I dreamed we were on the edge of a cliff, peering down. Dream-Robinson was holding my hand. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It only looks like a cliff. It’s actually a mountain, and the way is up, not down.”

  Even in dreams, he was an optimist.

  By the time Robinson stumbled out of the tent the next morning, looking rumpled and adorable, I’d packed our bags and plotted our route to Bolinas, a tiny town nestled between the California hills and the Pacific Ocean. I wanted to see it mostly because the town is supposed to be a secret. The people who live there are always tearing down the road signs that point to it. But that wasn’t going to stop me from discovering what the big deal was about this place.

  “Maybe,” Robinson said teasingly as he mounted the bike, “buried deep inside the Good Girl, there’s the heart of a rebel.”

  “Haven’t I already proven that to you by suggesting this crazy trip?” I climbed up behind him and commanded, “Now, drive.”

  Naturally, we missed our turn the first time, but when we finally got there, we were a little mystified.

  “This is what they want to keep to themselves?” Robinson asked.

  The downtown consisted of two intersecting streets. There was a restaurant called the Coast Café—which, FYI, did not overlook the coast—and an old-fashioned-looking bar. I had to agree: Bolinas didn’t seem particularly inspiring.

  But the adjacent beach was beautiful. We kicked our shoes off and sat down in the sand, staring at the blue water and feeling the sun on our shoulders. Tanned, half-wild children ran around us, throwing rocks at seagulls. Robinson started digging his toes in the sand, and more than once I caught him looking at me, an unreadable expression on his face.

  “So… what are you thinking about?” I finally asked. I hoped he didn’t detect the slight edge of apprehension in my question.

  “Corn dogs,” Robinson answered without missing a beat.

  Sometimes I could just kill him.

  He could have been thinking about me, about us, but instead his mind had settled on wieners encased in corn batter.

  We ducked into Smiley’s Schooner Saloon, and Robinson walked up to the bar like it was the counter at Ernie’s. “Good afternoon, sir,” he said. “Two Rainiers, please, and a corn dog.”

  I swear, if Robinson ever had to pick a last meal, it’d be corn dogs, French fries, and a deep-fried Twinkie.

  “ID?” the bartender said.

  Robinson fished out his wallet. The bartender’s eyes darted from Robinson’s fake license to Robinson’s face and back again. “Okay… Ned Dixon.” Then he turned to me.

  I shrugged. “I wasn’t driving, see, so I left my license back—”

  The bartender crossed his meaty arms. “Listen, kids, how about you head across the street and get yourself a nice ice-cream cone at the café.”

  “Actually, I’m lactose intol—” Robinson began, but I interrupted him.

  “Oh, I get it!” My voice came out surprisingly fierce. “We can fight in Afghanistan, but we can’t have a beer and watch the sunset?” My hands gripped the edge of the bar and I leaned forward, hostility coming off me in waves. I had no idea where this was coming from, but it actually felt kind of good to be angry with someone. Someone who didn’t matter, someone I would never see again.

  I probably would have yelled more, but Robinson dragged me outside. Then he bent over, practically choking with laughter. “Fight in Afghanistan?” he wheezed. “Us?”

  “It just came out,” I said, still not sure what had just happened. I started to giggle a little, too.

  Robinson wiped his eyes. “You don’t even like beer.”

  “It was a matter of principle. A lot of people die in Afghanistan before they’re allowed to buy a six-pack.”

  “A lot of people die every day, Axi. They don’t go off on bartenders in secret towns about the unfairness of the drinking laws. I can’t wait to see what you come up with next,” he said, still laughing at my outburst as he strode ahead of me.

  His flip tone made me stop short in the middle of the sidewalk. Yeah, people do die every day. Some people, like Carole Ann, die before they even learn to tie their shoes. Others die before they graduate from high school.

  Hell, either one of us could die on this crazy trip.

  There were so many more important things to do than buy a beer before that happened. I hurried to catch up with Robinson, who was turning the corner to where we’d parked the motorcycle in an empty lot behind the saloon. But now there was a man in a leather jacket and chaps standing right beside it, giving it a long—and much-too-close-for-my-comfort—look.

  “Nice bike,” the guy said. “Got a cousin in Oregon who has one exactly like it.”

  My lungs felt like bellows that someone had just squeezed shut. I took a step backward. Should we just run?

  But Robinson didn’t flinch. “Your cousin has good taste,” he said. He glanced at the bike behind Chaps. “You riding a Fat Boy these days? I love those, but my girl here likes a bigger bike.” His voice had taken on an easy drawl, like he and Chaps were two dudes who’d see eye to eye over a Harley.

  Chaps was still sizing Robinson up: Robinson was taller but about a hundred pounds lighter. Me, I was still thinking about running—and about how Robinson had called me his girl. That sounded… interesting. But did he mean it, or was it just part of his act?

  “Happy hour’s almost over, y’know,” Robinson said.

  Chaps gave him one long, last look, then shook his head and went inside.

  I was already reaching for paper and pen.

  Thanks so much for letting us ride your motorcycle, I wrote. We took really good care o
f it. We named it Charley.

  Robinson read over my shoulder. “We did?”

  “Just now,” I said. “Charley the Harley.”

  I’m sorry we didn’t ask you if we could borrow it, but rest assured that your bike was used only for the forces of good. Sincerely, GG & the Scalawag

  I tucked the note into the handlebars. “Come on. Time to find another ride,” I said, like I’d been stealing cars my whole life. In all of downtown Bolinas there were only about five cars, though.

  “That one,” I said, pointing to a silver Pontiac.

  Robinson nodded. “Dead boring,” he said. “But sensible.”

  I could feel the tingling beginning in my limbs. Robinson took a quick look around and then got in. I ducked into the passenger side, mentally thanking the owner for leaving the doors unlocked.

  From his backpack Robinson removed a small cordless drill and aimed it at the keyhole. I watched as glittering flecks of metal fell onto the seat.

  He packed a drill? I thought.

  A grizzled surfer was looking right at us. I smiled and waved.

  “Hurry up,” I hissed at Robinson.

  He produced his screwdriver and inserted it into the mangled keyhole. “One more minute.”

  The adrenaline tingle was growing more intense. Painful, even.

  “I had to break the lock pins,” Robinson explained.

  As if I cared! I just wanted the engine to turn on. I sucked in a deep breath. Any moment we were going to be racing out of town, and everything would return to normal—my new normal, that is.

  That was when two people came out of the Coast Café—and began heading toward their silver Pontiac. I met the woman’s eyes, saw her jaw drop open. The man started running. “Hey,” he shouted. “Hey!”

  His arms flew forward, and he was just inches from us when the engine suddenly roared to life. Robinson slammed the car into reverse and we shot backward into the street. A moment later we were blazing out of town, going fifty in a twenty-five zone.