Mother Nature

by Sarah Andrews

  * * *

  LIKE MYSELF, JANET favored one hundred percent cotton clothing, so it was fortunate that the woman at the front desk had an ironing board to lend. She emerged from her residence, bringing a tiny baby to the desk in the cradle of one arm. The baby lay utterly relaxed, eyes closed in slumber. The woman maneuvered expertly, bringing me first the iron and then the ironing board with her free arm.

  “Beautiful baby,” I said.

  “Thank you. You have children?”

  I hesitated, embarrassed by the question, then shook my head. Motherhood was an alien thought to me. I felt like a child next to her obvious womanhood, a noninitiate, a girl until I became a mother myself, if that ever happened.

  “Sisters and brothers?” she asked sympathetically.

  I opened my mouth and closed it again.

  “None?” She was amazed.

  “I had a brother once,” I said. “He died when I was very young.”

  She shook her head sympathetically.

  “I hardly remember him,” I said hurriedly, and started out the door.

  “Wait,” she called after me. “Don’t you want your message?”

  Message? Oh, the flashing red light on my phone. Surely she had misdirected the call. “Wasn’t that call for someone else?” I suggested politely.

  “It wasn’t a call.”

  That stopped me. I waited, half in and half out the front door, iron and ironing board growing heavy in my arms. “Someone came by?”

  “Yes. The message is, ‘Say hello to the girl in Room 132.’ It’s from a man.” She laughed duskily, rolled her dark eyes. “Or should I say boy.”

  Who in the hell? “He leave a name?”

  The woman raised one shoulder coyly and gave me bedroom eyes. “Duke,” she replied, pitching her voice low and sticking out her chest, baby and all. Then she threw back her head and indulged in a full belly laugh. “Qué macho!” The baby’s eyes fluttered open; he smiled and fell back to sleep.

  Another day, in another life, I would have shared her laughter. I should have been complimented that she presumed I wouldn’t be interested in anyone as ridiculous as Bicycle Boy Duke, fresh-plucked road chicken and self-styled boulevardier. But in my gathering paranoia, it didn’t seem funny at all that I’d been that easy to spot. My mind raced. It must have been a fortuitous sighting; he’d been out driving around—had to be driving, because he couldn’t have kept up with me on his bicycle, and who would ride a bike down this part of town?—and had seen me, had followed me. Why? Surely not to continue his flirtation. No, he had known Janet, had been more than a small bit hostile toward me, once he thought I was messing in her affairs. Hadn’t he? Then what was this, harassment? Or was he crazy? I forced a smile. “He leave a number?”

  The motel manager shook her head. “No, ‘Say hello’ was all.”

  * * *

  BY THE TIME I was steering the little truck back toward HRC Environmental, I had Duke stuck back into his proper pigeonhole, safe and unthreatening. He had probably just happened by on Highway 101 as I was unpacking the truck and decided to play an I-know-where-you-are prank. That would amuse his pea brain. That had to be it. I can handle this, I told myself.

  But as I marched up the cement walkway to the reflective glass front door of HRC, I knew I was not, in fact, handling it. I was disconcerted by my own reflection. The harsh daylight that bounced off the pale walkway caught every line in my face, exaggerating the weight of fatigue and pain that had accumulated in the months since the layoffs and my father’s death. I looked old and haggard. My mouse-brown hair was in need of cutting, and just as I reached the door, a puff of wind blew it all askew, and I noticed a bad suitcase crease I hadn’t gotten ironed out of Janet’s blue skirt. Smoothing the crease, I put my shoulder to the door and walked through it.

  The door opened into a small outer office. Just inside, I encountered a girl with a haircut worse than mine who was seated behind a small Formica-topped desk with a computer screen and keyboard on it. I recognized her as the young thing who had bounced up the sidewalk earlier in the morning. She took two bovine chews at her gum and scratched an eyebrow with one long, pink fingernail before asking if she could help me.

  “Um, yes,” I replied. “I’m Em Hansen. I’m here about the geologist position.”

  Chewy stopped cold and squinted at me, her gears taking a moment to mesh. “You got an appointment?”

  “Sure.” I pulled my head back in staged indignation.

  Chewy scrunched her shoulders up in a pose that might have aroused some sympathy in me if I’d been a male yak. “Sorry. I’m new here. Still learning.”

  I smiled magnanimously. “No problem.”

  “I’ll let Mr. Rauch know you’re here. Your name again?”

  “Hansen. Emily Hansen.”

  She pulled open a drawer in her desk and riffled through a file. “I don’t see your resume here. You got another copy?”

  I stiffened.

  Chewy grinned conspiratorially, one of those pig-face numbers where you get to see the inside of the grinner’s nose. “No problem, I bet he’s got it right on his desk.” She struck a few keys on her computer to stabilize some task and started for the inside door.

  Before she was even out of the room, the street door opened again and a sunburnt fellow five years or more my junior lurched in, mouth agape and eyes bugging with fear. He wore black lace-up shoes with brown socks, corduroy slacks, and a suit jacket that clearly belonged to someone else. He moved as if he had a rod duct-taped to his spine.

  Chewy stopped short of the door and stared gape-mouthed at him, uncertain whether to continue her task or tend to this second intruder. “Yeah?” she blurted.

  His voice was a bit high and squealy: “Hi, I’m George Benson. I’m here for an interview about the geologist position.”

  Chewy stood frozen like a fawn in the headlights of life, her mouth sagging open, her little gears clearly jammed.

  I shrugged my shoulders to catch Chewy’s attention and looked sideways at George Benson, as if to say, “Who’s he?” then tipped my head encouragingly toward the inner door.

  Chewy’s jaws started working her gum again. Finally fate, or perhaps a minor earthquake, tipped her toward the inner door, and she hurried away into the bowels of the building. I followed close on her heels. When she saw that I was behind her, her chubby little hands whizzed around in confused gestures, one of which sort of pointed me into a room with a big table and some cheaply upholstered chairs on casters. “Can I getcha some coffee or something?” she gasped. “Mr. Rauch is kinda, ah—running late today.”

  “Sure. Black.” I let myself into the conference room quickly, before George Benson could catch on and outrun me. Suddenly it was of deep importance to get this job, a real job, a geologist job, and I wasn’t going to let any young punk in a borrowed suit jacket swipe it out from under me.

  I could hear Chewy’s voice somewhere down the hallway, a sibilant whisper, cajoling this Mr. Rauch to come out of his office. A harsh baritone growl issued an unintelligible answer. The ensuing debate went on for a while, giving me time to size up the framed credentials that were arrayed around the conference room walls. Rauch, Frederick William, was a Certified Hydrogeologist who had been educated at one of California’s state universities, one I didn’t know. He headlined the display between Theodore R. Hollingsworth (B.S., civil engineering, same school), and J. Thomas Carter (B.S., engineering, same again). My attention was next drawn to a company brochure that was ostentatiously displayed on the table. It included a statement-of-qualifications section that listed resumes of each member of the professional staff. Janet’s had not yet been removed. I filed away the information that HRC had been Janet’s first job after graduating from Sonoma State University, where she’d taken a double major in geology and environmental studies, which meant that Janet had been an environmentalist as much as she had been a geologist.

  At this point Chewy reappeared with the cup of coffee. A thin-lipped m
an followed close on her heels, the hot-tempered Beemer-driver I’d scoped out from my breakfast perch. Chewy gave me a worried smile and chirped, “Mr. Rauch, this is, ah—”

  “Em Hansen,” I said, presenting my hand to be shaken. “I’m pleased to meet you.”

  Rauch did not shake my hand (reminding me a little too much of Senator Pinchon), but instead eased himself into a chair, making a point of leaving me standing.

  From close range he was strongly athletic, in a tight-assed sort of way, and I was struck by the way he had moved. His joints all swung smoothly with each stride and shift of posture, greasing the air with arrogance and a kind of self-satisfied glory in his physical self. “Hansen? I don’t have her resume, Cynthia,” he barked, nailing the receptionist with a look of contempt so acidic it could burn through steel. “That’s because you haven’t given it to me yet, isn’t it?”

  Chewy struck her soon-to-be-dead deer pose again.

  “Find it, Cynthia. Now!”

  Chewy vanished.

  Rauch turned his gaze on me. His complexion had become florid and splotchy, and his jaws bunched around lips now bent in a travesty of a smile.

  Recalling some of the power moves I’d learned in the oil business, I grasped the back of another chair, moved it three inches to the right—thereby establishing it as my territory—and sat in it, spreading my elbows out on the arms so that I’d look as large as possible. The chair lurched off kilter as a caster let go.

  Rauch’s unfriendly smile widened.

  Before he could speak again, I said, “Mr. Rauch, I’ll just run down the high points of my resume.” I stretched my right foot out casually to counterbalance the leaning chair, trying to make it look like I preferred, even enjoyed, teetering two inches to the left. And found that in fact I was enjoying myself. I was forming a new persona on the spot, getting to know it at the same time Rauch did. “I’m a geologist with six years’ experience…” I began. What had Jack Ryan said? Hide the oil-patch experience?

  Rauch continued to stare, his self-satisfied smile souring into a disgruntled pout.

  Don’t like losing, huh? I held up a hand with its back to him, cheerfully imagining that each finger meant what the middle one did, and began to enumerate my professional prowess, drawling it out. “… in field mapping…” (I stiffened my thumb)” … and project work…” Yeah, that’s vague enough! (I stiffened my index finger) “… which means I’m no stranger to hard work.” I salute you, you sheep tick on the livestock of life (I stiffened my middle finger). “My education—”

  Here Rauch cut me off, his smile spreading wide enough to crease his cheeks for the first time. “The position doesn’t call for an oil geologist.”

  My mouth fell open. “How—”

  “I can spot you people a mile off.” Rauch stood up, his smile spreading into a predatory grin. “Nice meeting you,” he hissed, and headed out of the room.

  “No, hear me out,” I informed his back.

  He turned halfway back, clearly enjoying himself.

  “Mr. Rauch, you’re going to hire me, because it will save you money.” I suddenly had his full attention. It was something in his eyes. They got duller, like he was looking inward at that sensuous little place in his narcissistic soul that felt really, really good. I continued, gaining momentum. “I’m going to work for you for a week free of charge. That way you get to check me out at no risk and see what I can do. Then, when you’ve realized you can’t get on without me, we’ll discuss my salary.”

  Rauch looked like a snake that had just had autoerotic sex, all slithery and sloe-eyed. As his mouth opened, I wondered if a narrow forked tongue might whip out. “All right, Jensen, leave your phone number with Cynthia.”

  “That’s Hansen.”

  “If she calls you, report in the morning,” he said, already turning again and heading into the hallway. “Seven A.M. Wear field clothes. You’ll assist Adam Horowitz; maybe it’ll speed that bastard up. Cynthia!” he shouted. “Get a phone number from this person. Then send in the next Christian.”

  As his muscular frame receded down the hallway, I measured him with my eyes, computing how much concrete it would take to hold him underwater long enough to effect drowning. And as I made a mental note of the time he’d said to report, I was already composing my letter of resignation, which was going to be written entirely in words four letters long.

  7

  By the time I got back to my motel, there was a message for me to phone Cynthia. I was in.

  That meant that the next thing I had to do was get a set of field clothes together so I could go out on the job. If geologists have a uniform, it’s a pair of blue jeans, a khaki shirt, boots, some kind of sturdy jacket if there’s weather, and a mapping vest.

  I had brought my own boots and jeans, a good pair of ropers, low-heeled and well broken in. Unfortunately they were red, and they lacked the steel toe that I supposed OSHA required. I considered hitting a Sears for a khaki work shirt, but I wasn’t sure the Senator would agree it was a business expense. Instead, I raided Janet’s wardrobe again and found everything I needed: shirt, down jacket, steel-toed boots, and mapping vest. A Filson vest is a specialty item made of canvas. It’s all pockets, sort of like a fishing vest, except the pockets are larger and specially shaped for the kind of gear and notebooks a geologist carries. The back is one great big pocket designed to hold a mapping clipboard. Thus garbed, a geologist can move about any kind of landscape or work site in durable comfort, ready to carry specimens home for documentation, paperweights, or general office decor.

  The Filson vest slid on comfortably. Going through its pockets, I found the usual handful of trinkets geologists carry, including a hand lens strung on a braided nylon ribbon and a credit-card-sized plastic card called a grain-size chart, both used in describing rock and soil samples so that the descriptions are more uniform from geologist to geologist.

  A geologist’s hand lens is very special, a shaman’s eye into the microscopic mysteries of the profession. I peered through Janet’s lens at the chart, admiring the shapes of the printed grains of sand. The lens was a ten-power Hastings Triplet, and well used. It flipped open easily, and the black paint on the outside of the cover was worn through to the brass where Janet’s fingers had habitually grasped it. My fingertips warmed the brass just as Janet’s had. With reverence, I slipped its ribbon around my neck and let go. It fell to just the right level on my chest, resting against my heart, low enough to stay inside the shirt when I leaned forward, but easily grasped and drawn out when I needed it.

  I tried the boots on last. They fit perfectly, almost down to the way my toes and arches rested inside the hills and shallows her feet had worn into the soles. I was beginning to know Janet, to feel her presence. I knew her taste, how big she was, her habits with her hand lens, even how she stood within the soles of her boots, and as I walked up and down the worn carpeting, I felt for just a moment that I was both myself and Janet. Coming to a stop in front of the full-length mirror on the closet door, I found myself looking into the glass to see if I could see her.

  I found that I truly liked this person-who-was-no-longer-here. It was a gentle, tender feeling that eased my loneliness. As I looked into the glass in search of her fleeting visage, I thought, One more time into the field, friend, one more time.

  * * *

  NEXT STOP, THE bank. The teller politely informed me that she couldn’t help me with my problem, citing security requirements. I begrudgingly thanked her for saving me from stealing from myself and dialed my bank in Colorado. A woman at the Colorado bank crisply informed me that she’d truly love to help me, but wasn’t I aware that my account was overdrawn?

  No, I was not aware of that. Would she please read back my last ten debits?

  She did. I’d forgotten to write down a check. Three hundred dollars worth of overdue health insurance payments. “Don’t I have overdraft protection?” I whined.

  “Yes, with your credit card, but that’s currently at its maximum. We�
��re so sorry we can’t help you.”

  Figuring I’d better save those last few dollars for lunch the next day on the job, I dug that half-eaten burrito out from under the seat of the little blue truck and tried to believe the night’s rest had improved it. It did at least serve the function of temporarily killing my appetite.

  * * *

  I SPENT THE rest of the day digging through public records of Janet’s murder, which means I went to the Sonoma County Library and read the local newspapers.

  The reference librarian seemed almost joyous to be able to help me in any way. I made a mental note of her, in case I ever needed anything else from the wilds of the public library: slender in a middle-aged sort of way, shoulder-length brown hair with a squiggly permanent wave, an ingratiating smile, and sparkling, yet slightly sleepy blue eyes that alluded to a much less sedate youth.

  The librarian was pleased to inform me that the daily newspaper published in Santa Rosa was called the Press Democrat (or more affectionately, the PD), and pointed out where to find recent issues within the wide sweep of the modernish building. The PD was several sections long, with Sunday supplements and lots of four-color advertising inserts.

  I sat down and searched through the issues immediately following Janet’s murder. Her passing was apparently not sufficiently noteworthy to warrant much mention, just a short recitation in Section B, identity withheld pending notification of family. The next day’s paper followed up with a minimal presentation of facts: name, occupation, lack of leads, and brief statement of loss from roommate Suzanne Cousins. I was beginning to get incensed on Janet’s behalf for this overwhelming lack of interest when my friendly reference librarian showed me a map atlas called the Thomas Brothers Guide to Sonoma County. It showed that the ditch site was much closer to a town called Sebastopol than it was to Santa Rosa. She suggested the event might therefore have drawn more notice in the Sebastopol paper.