The Whole Truth - Short Stories

Pines

Pines

by

Cassandra Dunn

The air around us was still, the very earth holding its breath. A buzz of an insect, then silence. The creak of a massive pine swaying in a breeze, the sound falling on us from forty feet up, then nothing. Mike’s nervous hand brushed mine, nails dirty from helping his father, skin tan from hours spent working outdoors, and ended up back on his lap.

“We could take a walk,” he said, his deep voice, new this summer, too loud for the hush surrounding us. I shrugged, stood, brushed off my shorts.

We’d cleared the meadow and found the silty dirt road before he took my hand, his callouses scratching my palm.

The bite of pine was sharp in the air, muted by the dust we kicked up. The sun reflected off the granite slopes around us, pyrite glittering like fairy dust.

Mike kissed me, my first, under the back deck of his parents’ cabin, while the other kids poked the bonfire with sticks, drank smuggled beer, sang popular songs, and made big plans for futures that never materialized. Mike had no such plans. He was a rancher’s son, his destiny already laid out before him. I had visions of nursing school, art degrees, maybe journalism. College was my destiny, that much I knew.

Our relationship was neatly contained within the Sierra camp where both of our families had cabins. At 6000 feet, at the end of the long dirt road that nobody maintained, the cabins were only accessible during the snow-free days of summer, just a brief window to reconnect with old friends and make new ones. Kids from far-off cities and nearby small towns gathered around nightly games of kick the can and Jeep rides through the forest, before returning to our friends and lives at home. By fall we’d all lost touch again. My romance with Mike lasted just two weeks. Then he returned to his work on the ranch, and I headed off to cheerleading camp.

By the next summer, we were strangers. Mike had grown into a lanky, serious man-in-training. I’d quit cheerleading to focus on Amnesty International, volunteering at the local animal shelter, organizing community food drives. We sat across the bonfire from each other, our eyes never meeting, and listened to the other kids brag about driver’s licenses, sexual encounters, forays into drug use. Mike drank too much and got into an argument with his best friend over their upcoming football season. I left early, disappeared into the darkness, unnoticed, found my way back to my family’s cabin by feel and memory, blind along the moonless path.

The following summer I brought up my friend Kristi, a flirtatious blonde, one of the popular girls from school who I’d wanted to impress, but who complained of boredom, dirt, bugs, hot days, and cold nights the entire week in the mountains. While I laid out on the hot granite slab that cupped the swimming hole, she hugged her knees, swatting at every insect in a three-foot radius.

“They’re everywhere!” she squealed.

“They won’t hurt you.”

“Why aren’t they bothering you?”

“Because I don’t smell like coconut. I told you not to use that stuff.”

Kristi laid out next to me, sighed. “This rock is hard.”

Her steady stream of whining was interrupted by the sound of male voices, a cannonball splash, obnoxious cheering. I shaded my eyes to see, but refused to sit up. Mike and two other boys from camp were wrestling in the sandy shallows, shirtless, their jean cut-offs sliding off slim hips, revealing boxer shorts beneath.

“Who are they?” Kristi asked.

“Local boys.”

She sat up, fluffed her hair, showed off her long legs. Within moments they were on us, bumming snacks, inviting their wet bodies to share our towels. Mike’s two friends competed for Kristi’s attention, so he and I ended up together on my towel, the castoffs.