Page 20 (1/2)
1
The red sun balances on the highest raht, the foothills appear to be ablaze A cool breeze blon out of the sun and fans through the tall dry grass, which strea the slopes toward the rich and shadowed valley
In the knee-high grass, he stands with his hands in the pockets of his deni the vineyards below The vines were pruned during the winter The neing season has just begun The colorful wildthe colder months has been chopped back and the stubble plowed under The earth is dark and fertile
The vineyards encircle a barn, outbuildings, and a bungalow for the caretaker Except for the barn, the largest structure is the owners’ Victorian house with its gables, dormers, decorative millwork under the eaves, and carved pediment over the front porch steps
Paul and Sarah Tehter, Laura, visits occasionally from San Francisco, where she attends university She is supposed to be in residence throughout this weekend
He dreae of Laura’s face, as detailed as a photograph Curiously, the girl’s perfect features engender thoughts of succulent, sugar-laden bunches of pinot noir and grenache with translucent purple skin He can actually taste the phanto between his teeth
As it slowly sinks behind the ht so war land appears to be ith it and dyed forever The grass grows red as well, no longer like a fireless burning but, instead, a red tide washing around his knees
He turns his back on the house and the vineyards Savoring the steadily intensifying taste of grapes, he walks ard into the shadows cast by the high forested ridges
He can s in their burrows He hears the whisper of feathers carving the wind as a hunting hawk circles hundreds of feet overhead, and he feels the cold glimmer of stars that are not yet visible
In the strange sea of shi trees flickered shark-swift across the windshield
On the winding two-lane blacktop, Laura Te with an expertise that Chyna admired, but she drove too fast
“You’ve got a heavy foot,” Chyna said
Laura grinned, “Better than a big butt”
“You’ll get us killed”
“Mo late for dinner”
“Being late is better than being dead for dinner”
“You’ve never met my mom She’s hell on rules”
“So is the highway patrol”
Laura laughed, “Sometimes you sound just like her”
“Who?”
“My mom”
Bracing herself as Laura took a curve too fast, Chyna said, “Well, one of us has to be a responsible adult”
“Sometimes I can’t believe you’re only three years older than me,” Laura said affectionately “Twenty-six, huh? You sure you’re not a hundred and twenty-six?”
“I’m ancient,” Chyna said
They had left San Francisco under a hard blue sky, taking a four-day break from classes at the University of California, where, in the spring, they would earn y Laura hadn’t been delayed in her education by the need to earn her tuition and living expenses, but Chyna had spent the past ten years attending classes part ti full time as a waitress, first in a Denny’s, then in a unit of the Olive Garden chain, and most recently in an upscale restaurant hite tablecloths and cloth napkins and fresh flowers on the tables and customers — bless them — who routinely tipped fifteen or twenty percent This visit to the Te to a vacation that she’d had in a decade
Froh Berkeley and across the eastern end of San Pablo Bay Blue heron had stalked the shallows and leaped gracefully into flight: enorainst the cloudless heavens
Now, in the gold-and-crimson sunset, scattered clouds burned in the sky, and the Napa Valley unrolled like a radiant tapestry Laura had departed the main road in favor of a scenic route; however, she drove so fast that Chyna was seldohway to enjoy the scenery
“Man, I love speed,” Laura said
“I hate it”
“I like to azelle in a previous life You think?”
Chyna looked at the speedoazelle — or a madwoman locked away in Bedlam”
“Or a cheetah Cheetahs are really fast”
“Yeah, a cheetah, and one day you were chasing your prey and ran straight off the edge of a cliff at full tilt You were the Wile E Coyote of cheetahs”
“I’ood driver, Chyna”
“I know”
“Then relax”
“I can’t”
Laura sighed with fake exasperation “Ever?”
“When I sleep,” Chyna said, and she nearly ja took a wide curve at high speed
Beyond the narrow graveled shoulder of the two-lane, the land sloped down through wildbra buds Beyond the alders lay vineyards drenched with fierce red light, and Chyna was convinced that the car would slide off the blacktop, roll down the embankment, and crash into the trees, and that her blood would fertilize the nearest of the vines
Instead, Laura effortlessly held the Mustang to the pave incline
Laura said, “I bet you even worry in your sleep”
“Well, sooner or later, in every dreaot to be on the lookout for him”
“I have lots of dreaeymen,” Laura said “I have wonderful dreams”
“Getting shot out of a cannon?”
“That would be fun No, but someti or swooping along fifty feet above the ground, over telephone lines, across fields of bright flowers, over treetops So free People look up and shted to see that I can fly, so happy for uy, lean and reen eyes that look all the way throughup there, and I’ through sunshine with flowers below and birds swooping overhead, birds with these gorgeous iridescent-blue wings and singing the s you ever heard, and I feel as if I’ht, and like I’y, explode and form a whole new universe and be the universe and live forever You ever have a dream like that?”
Chyna had finally taken her eyes off the onrushing blacktop She stared in blank-faced astonishment at Laura Finally she said, “No”
Glancing away from the two-lane, Laura said, “Really? You never had a dream like that?”
“Never”
“I have lots of dreams like that”
“Could you keep your eyes on the road, kiddo?”
Laura looked at the highway and said, “Don’t you ever dream about sex?”
“Sometimes”
“And?”
“What?”
“And?”