Sycamore

Jess knew nothing about botany or horticulture; it was as if he’d suggested she become an astronaut. She stuck her thumb inside the metal end of the hose. “Maybe. I’ll have to look into it. Definitely.” She’d hit the encyclopedias when she got home.

“The Syc has a good reputation for agricultural science, actually. Because we’re so rural. But you probably don’t want to stay here.”

“No,” she said. She thought of Dani’s map and pushpins, still unsure where she wanted to sink her own. “I don’t know yet where.”

“Don’t rush it. That’s the beauty of being young. You have time.” He laughed but looked away, staring at the trees in the orchard. “We tell Dani all the time she should look farther afield, even though she’d get a tuition break here. We want her to see the world. I don’t want her stuck.” He shook his head. “Not that people here see themselves as stuck. They’re not. They have all kinds of reasons for staying. A lot of people love it here.”

“Don’t you?”

“No.” He smiled. “Sometimes I do. I’ve made peace with it, I guess. It’s not easy, to be the spouse of an academic. I showed up here with no role to play. I had to let go of ideas of what my life would be. It’s stable here. Safe. Good for Dani. We’ve made it work. Of course, now she’ll be leaving.” He blinked behind his square glasses and then checked his watch. “Sorry. That was more than you needed to know. Are you done now? Do you need a ride home?”

“I’m good,” she said. “I have my bike.”

“It’s no trouble,” Mr. Newell said. “We can put it in the trunk again and drop you off before I scoot over to pick up Dani. We have time.”

“Oh. Okay, sure.” She put the hose away in the shed, said good-bye to Iris, and wheeled her bike to the car.

Once he loaded it in the hatchback, he held out the keys to her. “Want to drive?”

She grinned. “Really?”

“Sure. Do you know how to drive a stick?”

She nodded. “My mom taught me on hers.”

She slid in behind the wheel, and from the passenger seat he pointed out the gear lever and told her to be careful with the brakes—he had tweaked them for Dani but hadn’t gotten them quite right. He leaned close and turned the key in the ignition, and the engine rumbled to life under her hands and feet. Up close, she could see dark circles under his eyes, a patch of gray hair behind his left ear. The pencil slid out of his shirt pocket and rolled onto the seat.

“It’s a good little car. I just drove it up to Colorado this past week to get more of my mother’s things.”

“I’m sorry. About your mother, I mean,” Jess said.

“Thank you.” He stared down and rubbed the vinyl seat with his thumb. “It was a beautiful drive. That part of the country.” He shook his head and looked up. He said, “Dani’s funny. She doesn’t like to drive. I thought if she had a different car, kind of unusual, she might like it better.”

“I know,” Jess said. “I’d kill for a car like this.”

He laughed. “It’s been a lot of work. Do you know what you want?”

“Not really. I’m saving right now. Whatever costs a thousand dollars and won’t die on me. My dad was going to help, but.” She shrugged. “My mom said she’d cover insurance.”

Frowning, he buckled his seat belt. “That’s hard. I’m sure it’s been hard for you. I’d be happy to help you look for one when the time comes. If you want help.”

“Thanks,” she said. She pressed her foot hard on the brake.

He nodded at the windscreen. “All right, ready when you are.” He loosened his tie and rested his arm on the open window.

She shifted into first and let out the clutch. The car lurched once, but she adjusted, coasting down the orchard’s gravel driveway. “Good, you got it!” he said. When she hit the main road and picked up speed, the wind knocked her hat off and swept tangled strands of hair across her face. She held the wheel tight, and he picked up her hat from where it landed at his feet. Dirt crusted her knuckles and streaked her forearms, and her muscles, strained from digging, gave off a faint feverish ache. The bright summer sky had softened to a whisper of itself, burnished and dusky, and the air smelled of smoke, perhaps from a nearby brush fire. Her beehive mind started buzzing with questions—Smoke: Was something burning down out there? Was it someone’s house? What was botany? Would Mom have a good date tonight? Would Dad find out she was dating?—but her physical exhaustion and a sense of gratification beat the thoughts back. She sank against the seat and relaxed her arms. She felt the tremble of the engine in her thighs, a flush in her cheek. She felt—happy. She started laughing.

“What’s funny?” Mr. Newell said.

She shook her head. She raised her voice over the engine and the wind. “Nothing.”

His smile faded as he turned away and stared out the open window, holding her hat in his lap.



In late June, when the monsoon began to lumber in, Jess’s mom took her and Dani on a camping trip to San Felipe, Mexico—their old vacation spot, the first time without her father. The trip was a first for Dani, too—her first time tent-camping and her first time in Mexico, a new pushpin for her travel map. Jess’s mom bought a second tent for the girls and hunted up coolers and snorkels and rafts from the storage shed, wedging it all in the trunk for the eight-hour drive. They drove through Phoenix and Gila Bend and Yuma, past the thrumming cars at the Calexico-Mexicali border and into Baja, speeding across a desert dotted with creosote and salt bush and ocotillo until there: the glimmering Sea of Cortez. On a secluded beach at the cheap campground, the girls slathered themselves in coconut-scented suntan lotion and body-surfed and snorkeled and watched the grunions spawn at sunset. They wore cutoffs over their suits, plastic flip-flops on their feet. In the afternoons and evenings, Jess’s mom, her hair knotted atop her head, sat on the beach under an umbrella with a fat paperback and a cold beer. “All I want to do is read and watch the tides,” she said. They walked into town, bought carne asada tacos from a roadside stand and groceries and supplies at a small mercado, pleased when their Spanish was good enough to be understood. They stopped at a beach bar and ordered pi?a coladas with nutmeg on top, growing tipsy and giggly a few sips in. They didn’t shower for four days, their hair stiff with salt, sand in their seams and waistbands and in between their toes.

In the tent, its screened vent open to a patch of starry night, they learned to talk to each other. They talked about Paul and other boys and stupid things like their tan lines, yes, but then shifted to what they didn’t know yet: where would they go to college—of course they would apply to the same places, or at least schools near each other—about their futures, their careers. And they talked about what they didn’t know how to know: divorce, and family, and God, and love, and fear, and what it meant to be alive.

Their last night, Dani rolled over on her stomach. “Trace me,” she said.

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