As twilight turned to night they ate beets and the remainder of their jerky in silence, the fire glowing orange between them, popping and hissing in that way that still delighted Frida, even after these two-plus years. She was relieved that she and Cal had been smart enough to travel during a gibbous moon so that it wouldn’t be inky dark once the flames were extinguished.
Frida remembered how undark it had always been in L.A., the sky the green-gray color of something miasmic until well after midnight. She wanted badly to know what that sky was like now, if there was enough electricity to ensure that the city would remain bright and wasteful. Sometimes she pictured Hilda and Dada venturing out into the night together; in her mind they held hands.
After dinner, Cal tied the remainder of their food to a tree branch and then wiggled into the sleeping bag. He didn’t ask her to join him; he had stopped requesting things of her since he’d suggested the stupid bulletproof vest. He probably wanted her to feel she was acting of her own volition, making her own choices, sharing in the difficult decisions of life. How thoughtful.
Frida didn’t even pretend to have other plans: she got into the sleeping bag with him. He was her only shelter, and she wanted to be near him. The sleeping bag reminded her of their days in the shed; its slippery fabric smelled like mildew and dirt. If she let herself relax against him, she could enjoy this, the outdoors, the open space. The moon above them was the white button of a sweater, tucked halfway closed.
“I can grab the flashlight,” Cal said. “If you want it.”
She shook her head. “I’m okay.”
“What do you think will happen tomorrow?”
“I have no idea.” She didn’t tell him that one moment she imagined pilgrim settlements and the next a high-tech world hidden in the brush: computer labs and electric toothbrushes, drivers texting from their hovercrafts. It was all so ridiculous, but in their Murphy bed in Hollywood she would have described each possibility to him in detail. She would have told him her biggest fear: that Bo had been fucking with him, that miles away there was nothing but more miles.
“They might kill us,” Cal said.
“If you really think that, why agree to the trip?”
“Because you’d hate me otherwise.”
His voice had turned hoarse, and Frida understood he was laying himself bare, making up for lost time, for past lies.
“I just want you to be prepared,” he said.
“What? Prepared to die?”
He grabbed her leg under the covers. “No. But you need to remember that not everyone loves you immediately.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“They don’t want us there, Frida.”
“I need to be told that to my face.”
“I know,” he said. And then, after a moment: “Remember when we would go walking in your parents’ neighborhood?”
Frida nodded. Cal knew she’d been ruminating on their courtship, on their young love. Either he could read her mind, or she was hopelessly predictable. Or both.
“Of course I remember,” she said. They would go there to walk, because their own neighborhood was unsafe and ugly.
“I miss that,” he said.
Frida nodded. They had only just moved into their apartment, and she’d missed her parents’ house, her parents. It was her first time away from them, as pathetic as that was. It had been Cal who initially suggested they head there for a stroll. They’d ride their bikes over so as not to waste gas and walk along the old familiar streets. “It’ll make you feel better,” Cal had told her, as if he didn’t mind how dramatic she was being; they lived only twenty minutes away from the neighborhood she’d grown up in, and she was acting like they’d moved to the moon.
“Hard to believe those walks happened,” Frida said to Cal now. “And here we are.”
“It doesn’t seem all that different.”
Frida didn’t answer because this was the root of the problem. Cal didn’t feel any different—about her, about life—as he had all those years ago. For him, L.A. was the same as here. He’d been away from home since he was eighteen, and so everything was foreign, everything took some getting used to. She understood. Almost.
Frida was about to say good night, even though she was far from tired, when she felt Cal move closer to her.
They kissed, and he pushed himself against her, undoing the button of her jeans. She could feel by how desperately his tongue sought her own that he was afraid. Not of the night nor of the wildlife that probably surrounded them, eyes glowing yellow in the darkness beyond. It was tomorrow that frightened him. If these strange people welcomed them into their world, their lives would change. Again. Cal was trying to hold on to something. He was trying to hold on to her.
*