Torch

by Roxie Noir

  “Good,” he says, and shovels a spoonful of cereal and milk into his mouth. “You’ve got a door to fix down at the Methodist church.”

  I clench my jaw and open the fridge too forcefully, getting out the milk. I don’t respond to Porter just yet, because if being in the Marines taught me one thing, it was how to fucking bite my tongue when I needed to.

  “You hear me?” he asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, pouring myself a cup of coffee and adding the milk. Coffee’s a rare luxury for me during the summers — anything not strictly necessary doesn’t usually make it into a fire camp — and Ryan goddamn Porter is ruining it.

  It’s not even that he wants me to fix the door. Obviously I need to fix the door that I kicked in. It’s the asshole way he says it, like I’m a child who needs to be kept in line. I like my job, but I’m not sure how much longer I can deal with having him as a boss, because sooner or later, I’m going to stop being able to keep my mouth shut.

  “You gonna fix that door?” he goes on.

  I take a long, long gulp of coffee and look out the kitchen window, forcing myself not to say anything until I’m good and ready.

  It takes a little while.

  “I’m heading over there right after breakfast,” I finally say, the words clipped and brusque, not that I give a shit whether Porter knows I’m annoyed.

  “Good,” he says, scooping another spoon into his mouth. “Try not to kick in any more doors to get to the pussy behind it, all right, Casanova?”

  I put my coffee mug down too hard and it slams onto the counter, the coffee sloshing out and over my hand. My anger flares, hot and bright, at someone calling Clementine the pussy.

  “I thought she was choking,” I say, my voice tight and short. “I misread the situation. I made the wrong call. I’ll fix it.”

  Porter just levels his gaze at me, chewing his cereal.

  “Casden, don’t go thinking I don’t know what motivates you,” he says mildly. “I don’t care who or what you stick your dick in as long as it doesn’t reflect poorly on Canyon Country. And broken doors reflect pretty goddamn poorly.”

  I pour more coffee but skip the milk this time, because I need to leave this kitchen before I make the situation worse.

  “Understood,” I say, then leave the room before Porter can respond.

  Back in the dorm room I’m sharing with three other guys, I consider not fixing the door at all, just to prove to Porter that he can’t force me to do anything. When I was twenty, I’d probably have done just that.

  It’s a wonder I made it out of the military with an honorable discharge.

  I pull on clothes, gulping down my coffee. No matter what Porter thinks, I am actually mature enough to know what needs to be done, and I’m grown enough to fucking do it without being told.

  I leave the house through the side door so I don’t have to see his face again.

  Forty-five minutes later, I’m standing in front of the busted door frame with Phil. He’s balding, double-chinned, and might be the slowest talker I’ve ever met.

  I grew up on a ranch. I’ve known some slow, serious talkers, but none of them ever managed to annoy me like this guy does, standing there with his hands on his hips, his unsmiling face looking at the door.

  “Well,” he says, for at least the fourth time. “You sure did do quite the number on this here frame.”

  “Sorry about that,” I say, doing my best to sound sincere and not irritated.

  “Cracked the wood right off there,” he says.

  Then he pauses.

  “Yup. Clean off.”

  I take a deep breath.

  “I’ll probably need to replace the whole jamb,” I say, running one hand up the inside of the door. “I could glue it back together, but that wouldn’t—”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t glue it if I were you,” Phil says, interrupting me.

  I just fucking said that, I think.

  “I don’t think that would be very sturdy at all,” he goes on. “Not. At. All.”

  “No. That’s why I’d prefer to replace to whole jamb,” I say, starting to feel like I’m talking in circles.

  He nods.

  “You ought to replace the whole door jamb,” he says, like he thought of it himself.

  I don’t answer, because clearly, it’s pointless.

  “There’s a hardware store a little ways down Fishfawn Road,” he says. “A little closer to the interstate, but before you get to Goldfield Crossroads. It’s right across from the McDonald’s where that little bar-bee-cue joint used to be...”

  He gives me long directions to the hardware store, based mostly on landmarks that used to be there. Slowly, he shows me to a closet that’s got some tools in it, also in the basement of the Methodist church. He reiterates his opinion that I should replace the whole doorjamb, instead of gluing it back together. He gives me more directions.

  By the end, I’m beginning to worry that Phil has brain damage or something. At last, he walks off to go talk slowly at someone else, and I take a deep breath of relief.

  Then I go borrow a truck and head to the hardware store. The one across from where the barbecue joint used to be.

  The good thing about listening to Phil’s endless slow talk was that it kept me from thinking about Clem. But now, driving this borrowed truck down the winding, two-lane road, there’s not a lot else to think about.

  Here’s the thing: I’ve thought about what would happen if I saw her again. I’ve thought about it a lot; I still live part-time in the town where we grew up, where I think her parents still live. I went to our high school reunion three years ago, because it happened to be between tours of Afghanistan.

  I keep thinking I’m going to see her, but I don’t. I kept looking for her, out of curiosity if nothing else, but she’s not even on Facebook.

  And then she showed up in a little town, presenting a plaque, and it was nothing like I thought it’d be. I’d imagined it being strange and awkward. I imagined her being engaged or married.

  Once I had a dream where she was pregnant, and I was unsettled all day.

  I thought we’d fight. We sure as hell fought the last time I talked to her, and the time before that, and the time before that. I can still remember her, the video connection between Missoula and Afghanistan crackling apart, shouting I don’t fucking care if you come home.

  Not that I was a saint either. I said some shit I sure regretted later.

  But it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t awkward, and it was only weird that it wasn’t weird. It felt like we’d talked last week, like we’d stayed in touch all these years. Like all that time didn’t matter.

  It feels like it used to, and I have no fucking idea what to think about that.

  I turn a corner in the truck and suddenly there’s a river on one side of the road, beautiful and blue, rushing through a stone canyon. That’s why I love Montana, why I’m not sure I could ever really leave: this is just here. For me to find when I come around a bend in the road. The whole place is so beautiful that this is nothing special.

  At last, I find Goodman’s Hardware. It’s across from a Wendy’s, not a McDonald’s, and I have no idea what it used to be. The guys who work there are pleasant enough, and I’m out of there with what I need in no time at all.

  I spend the drive back thinking about Clementine again, no matter how much I try not to.

  Phil looks over my handiwork like he’s appraising a diamond ring, not checking over a doorframe in a church basement that was shitty to begin with. Once I had the supplies, it didn’t take too long, and he seems vaguely surprised that I knew what I was doing.

  Not that it kept him from checking on me every five minutes.

  He lets me go at last with a handshake, a clap on the shoulder, and an offer to call me if they have any other things that need fixing around the church. I laugh and thank him, even though I have no intention whatsoever of actually taking him up on that.

  When I get back to the bunk house, I fall onto an
ancient armchair in the living room and just stare at the wall in front of me. For the past ten days at least, I haven’t had a moment of quiet between being in the fire camp, working eighteen-hour days, and then coming back here and being treated to a circus of a spaghetti dinner right away.

  That’s not even counting Clementine.

  I don’t know where the other guys on my squad are, but they’re not here, so I take the silence as a gift.

  I’m not there for three minutes when there’s a thump on the door, like someone’s trying to open it with their hands full. Before I can even sit up, there’s another thump, then another.

  I’ve just gotten on my feet when the door creaks open and a yellow-and-white snout pokes through, followed by the rest of a very furry dog.

  I guess that door doesn’t latch too well, I think, then walk to the door and pull it open.

  There’s no one there. The dog walks into the living room and looks around expectantly, like it owns the place, and I raise my eyebrows.

  “Okay, c’mere,” I say, and it turns around obediently, bumping its head into my hands. I scratch it behind the ears, and the dog starts wagging its tail and pushing its body against my legs, tongue lolling.

  God, I miss dogs.

  Before I know it I’m on the floor, play-wrestling and letting it lick my face, scratching that spot right above the tail that makes it hop a little in the air, it’s so excited. I think it’s a female dog, though I haven’t gotten quite well enough acquainted to check.

  Finally, I grab the collar and look at the nametag: TROUT.

  “You’re Trout?” I ask.

  Trout licks my face.

  “Atta girl,” I say.

  She licks me again, and I laugh.

  “Trout, where are your people?” I ask, but she just pants in my face.

  I flip the tag over to find a phone number. Scratching under her chin, I pull out my phone and dial it.

  “Someone’s probably worried about you,” I say, and Trout lays on the floor and rolls over, requesting a belly rub.

  As I sink my hand into her shaggy fur, I hear something I haven’t heard since cell phones became common: a busy signal. I look at my phone in confusion for a moment, then shrug and put it back.

  “Guess you’re mine now,” I say to Trout.

  5

  Clementine

  When I get home at four, I can already hear the partying next door. It sounds like they’re playing horseshoes or something, and — by the sounds of it — having at least a couple of beers.

  I try to see into their backyard, but there’s a big wooden fence around it, so I don’t have any luck.

  Go over later and introduce yourself, I think, even though the thought of just showing up to a party makes my heart beat a little faster.

  Show them some Lodgepole, Montana hospitality. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.

  Oh, hell, I don’t even believe myself. Hunter’s over there, having a grand old time with a bunch of dudes and probably some girls, and I want to see him again.

  Which is fine and normal and okay. We’re old friends. Old friends hang out when they run into each other, and it definitely doesn’t mean that anything is getting rekindled in either party.

  I’ve gotta go back to work tonight, because I’m giving a stargazing talk for kids, but I’ve got a couple hours before it gets dark, so I toss my stuff into my room and rummage through the fridge. I’ve just barely grabbed cheese, jam, and crackers when the phone rings.

  I know who it is without even looking at the caller ID. My mom’s the only one who calls our land line, because she claims that the static on cell phones gives her a headache. I love her, but she can be a little dramatic sometimes.

  No one else is home, and I don’t answer the phone, because I’m not sure I can handle my mom right now. Besides, she’s called me nearly every day for the past six months, ever since my dad suddenly asked her for a divorce, and I feel a little like I’m starting to crack under the pressure.

  The phone stops ringing. I chew cheese, cracker, and jam, and hold my breath. Sure enough, it starts again.

  If she calls back a third time, I’ll answer, I think.

  It stops. I cross my fingers.

  Silence.

  Come on, don’t ring, I think.

  It rings. I sigh. Then I walk over, take a deep breath, and answer.

  “Oh, Clem, I thought you weren’t going to answer,” she says, already sounding upset with me.

  I ball one hand into a fist.

  “Sorry, I was in the bathroom,” I say.

  Not staring at the phone from the kitchen, hoping you’d stop calling.

  “The neighbor,” she says dramatically.

  I sit on the couch.

  “The neighbor?”

  Neighbor is a generous term for the people that live closest to my parents, since they’re each about a half-mile away.

  “You know those new neighbors that moved in last October, the man who wore all those bolo ties and that blond woman with the ostrich skin cowboy boots?” she asks.

  I think I met them once and they were perfectly nice. My mom just didn’t approve, probably because they clearly had more money than my parents.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Clem,” my mother says, then pauses for effect. I stay quiet. “I think it was her.”

  I stand up and start pacing. I wish I’d let the phone ring a thousand more times, because I don’t want to have this conversation with my mom right now.

  “Okay,” I say. “What does that change?”

  There’s silence on the other end of the line.

  “Don’t you think the timing works out?” she says, sounding taken aback. She doesn’t answer my question, because the correct answer is that it doesn’t change anything.

  “They moved here in October, he demanded a divorce in February, and I haven’t seen them once since April!”

  “Maybe they’re summering somewhere else,” I say. “That’s their second home, isn’t it?”

  “I know I’m right,” she says. “An affair with the neighbor. Right under my nose, Clem, how could he?”

  I walk up to a wall and lean my forehead against it without answering her. Ever since my dad presented her with the request, she’s been bound and determined that he’s been having an affair. Sometimes, in her mind, it’s a torrid one-night stand, sometimes it’s been going on for decades, but she’s got a different suspect every single time.

  Then she calls me and tells me the awful things that my dad is doing, the women she sees him with, how he’s demanding half of their assets after he did this to her.

  I hate it.

  She’s trying to turn me against my dad. I know what she’s doing, and even though I feel terrible for her — after twenty-five years of marriage, a divorce? — I don’t want to hear any of this.

  I’m almost certain he didn’t have an affair. He says he didn’t, and there’s no evidence otherwise. Besides, for most of my life, they’ve alternated between fighting constantly and almost never speaking, so it’s not like they had a great relationship to ruin.

  I’m almost relieved that they’re divorcing, to be honest. They both deserve to be happy, and they sure weren’t when they were together.

  I just wish they could do it without putting me in the middle.

  I open my eyes, staring into the blank white wall, and realize my mom is talking.

  “—And he wants the quilt, Clem, after I birthed and raised his children, he wants the quilt we slept under—”

  “His mother made that quilt,” I say, then immediately bite my lip, because I know better than to let myself get sucked into an argument. It’s completely pointless, because she’s not really upset about the quilt, she’s upset about everything.

  And I get it. I’d be upset. But there’s a limit to how much of this I can take, for my own sanity, no matter how terrible I feel for my parents.

  “But we slept under it,” she says, sounding taken aback.


  “Mom, I gotta go,” I say.

  “What are you doing?”

  Nothing, actually.

  “I’ve gotta go to a thing. I’ll talk to you later, okay?” I say.

  “Clem, I just don’t know why you—”

  “See you this weekend,” I say, and hang up the phone, even though I know she’s still talking.

  It’s unkind of me, and I know that. But I also know that I need my sanity, and frankly, I need my sanity more than I need to be nice right now.

  Almost immediately, the phone starts ringing again. I ball my hand into a fist again and answer.

  “Mom, I really don’t want to talk about this right now, okay?” I say, sounding more pissy than I mean to.

  There’s a pause on the other end.

  “Clem?” Hunter’s voice says.

  I take the phone away from my face and look at the caller ID. Nope, not my mom. I clear my throat.

  “Hey, what’s up?” I ask, sounding as casual as I possibly can.

  “You know anyone named Trout?” he asks.

  I narrow my eyes and look toward the window.

  “You have Trout?”

  “Yup. I’ll keep her if you don’t want her anymore,” he says, and I think he’s laughing.

  “She’s a terror,” I say. “I’ll be over in a second.”

  The guys wave me into the backyard instead of the house, and sure enough, there’s Trout, basking in the attention from half a dozen firemen.

  Shirtless firemen. Trout’s a lucky girl.

  “Hey, I’m sorry about her,” I call.

  “Aww, she’s no problem,” says her current human. “You’re not a problem, are you girl?”

  Trout blinks at me, tongue lolling, like she agrees that she’s not a problem.

  The fireman tosses a stick across the yard and she bolts after it.

  “I’m Silas,” he says, and holds out one hand. I shake it.

  “Clementine,” I say.

  Yes, he’s hot. Not quite as hot as Hunter, but I’d take it.

  “You presented the plaque the other night,” he says, smiling. “I remember.”