He dug into this backpack, drew the item out, and handed it to her.
She held the carved wooden object, examining it. “It’s… the Eiffel Tower? You’re… you want to go to France?”
“No.” He shook his head, frustrated. “I mean, maybe. I would. But it’s an oil rig.”
“Oh.” She studied it again. “I thought they were shaped like hammers. You know, going up and down into the ground.”
“You’re talking about the walking beam and horse head. This is the rig. The thing that drills the well.”
She nodded. “So…”
“It’s what I used to work on.”
“Oh.”
“In Oklahoma. It’s part of where I got the scars.”
Her eyes widened. She held the carved wooden object with more care. “Thank you, Des. I love it. It’s perfect.”
“It’s not all.”
Her face lit up.
“The second part wouldn’t fit in a box.”
They loaded up in his truck, which she had gradually become less scared of, and drove up the 101 to 92 and over to Half Moon Bay.
They could see the roaring bonfire before they reached the beach. Desmond wrapped his coat around her, took a bundle from the back seat, and led her in silence toward the blaze. He laid the thick blanket out on the sand and unscrewed the cap on the cheap wine, and they sat together, the fire warming them, her in front of him, facing it, tipping the bottle up every few minutes. Desmond estimated there were only about fifty people there, mostly around their age, couples and some groups, talking, drinking, and laughing.
“You going to have some?” she asked.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“A promise I made.”
“To whom?”
“Myself.”
She leaned against him, and they both stared at the fire and the water beyond. It was unseasonably warm for December, but there was still a chill in the air. Desmond wrapped the blanket around them, just in case she was cold.
“You cheated,” Peyton said.
“How?”
“Ten dollars was the limit.”
“Then I’m under.”
She turned, looked at him.
“The tree was free. So was the labor to carve it. The wine was $6.68. I figure three dollars in gas round trip is more than enough.”
“You should have been an accountant.”
The crowd thinned out, but the fire burned on. A few couples and stragglers remained, as well as the two park workers managing the event.
The bottle was half empty, and Desmond could tell she was nursing it, wouldn’t finish it. She twisted around, kissed him on the mouth, a hungry, deep kiss that tasted of wine.
He stood, pulled her up, and led her away, past the dunes and the tall grass where the sand ended, to a depression where the moonlight was dim. He spread the blanket out again and lowered her onto it.
When he kissed her, she closed her eyes and let him lead.
On the way home, she asked, “What did it mean?”
“What?”
“The fire. Each gift had to reveal something about its bearer.”
The image of the heart, and her words—I love you—flashed in his mind.
“The fire is how my family died. In Australia.”
He told her how it had happened then, the words spilling like water over a broken levee. He told her about Charlotte, how he had come to America, about living with Orville, Agnes’s death, even Orville’s passing and what happened after, when Dale Epply showed up at the house.
He never could have imagined the release it brought. Telling someone, telling the person he trusted most in the world, having no more secrets with her, it was like a weight was lifted, a weight he hadn’t even known he was carrying. He felt freer and safer than he ever had before.
At her apartment, they made love again, slower this time.
They lay in bed after that, staring at the ceiling, listening to an mp3 playlist on her laptop with songs by Green Day, Weezer, Stone Temple Pilots, Smashing Pumpkins, REM, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.
“I’m so sorry, Des. I had no idea.”
“It got me here. That’s all that matters.”
“Come with me tomorrow.”
His first meeting with her family had been enough for a lifetime, but a part of him wanted to go.
Despite that, he told her he couldn’t, that he wanted to be alone. It was a lie. He desperately wanted to be with her. He and Orville had never celebrated Christmas or birthdays.
He tried to imagine himself at her mother’s house, sitting at the dinner table or by the fire, with her at his side. He couldn’t. It wasn’t just because he was nervous about the prospect; it was because of something else. A problem far larger than he imagined.
He spent Christmas in the Airstream trailer, alone, a can of beans heating on the stove, an electric heater warming the tiny bedroom. He read library books and traded emails with Peyton. The tone in his replies never matched the warmth of her notes. That bothered him. He wrote and rewrote each message, like they were Egyptian hieroglyphics he couldn’t seem to arrange just right.
Email wasn’t his only problem. Money was still tight. His meals consisted of beans and canned meat, just like the early days when he’d gone to live with Orville. He couldn’t help thinking about the grocer who had helped him ration his limited funds and made sure he had enough to eat. Knowing now that Orville had stashed a veritable mountain of cash in the safe inside the old truck out back actually brought a smile to Desmond’s face. The old roughneck was miserly and mean as a snake, but in the end, he’d had a sort of logic to him. Desmond actually missed the man. He also worried that he had squandered every bit of money Orville had so carefully saved all those years.
After Christmas, four more of the companies he owned options in folded. They hadn’t wanted to ruin their employees’ holiday, but they also didn’t want to start the year wasting any more investor money.