Page 105 of Small Town Hunter

He rubs his freshly-shaven jaw and I try to imagine what he’s thinking. This is the first time we’ve been alone together in a week. The last time I saw Crash he fixed the lock on my door, the latch on my window, the leak in my sink. I didn’t want to distract him while he worked so I just baked cookies, which he said were the best he ever tasted and he would be sure to share them with the other handyman at the library who was supposed to help him fix the fuse box. Then he fled, promising to come get me on the weekend. It was almost like he didn’t want to be alone with me.

Yes, by the way, Crash the bounty hunter is an electrician by trade.

Blue collar, Mama would have sneered.

Our hands reach for the radio at the same time.

“You first,” we say together. I laugh nervously; he takes his hand away, smiling.“Play whatever you want.”

I turn it to the country station. “Have you heard of this girl Harmony?” I ask him as my new favorite singer fills the car with sweet sweet tones. “I read she’s from Virginia.” She’s also one of the first black women to get an award at the CMAs.

“Good vocals,” acknowledges Crash, but I see his eyebrow lift. “Not very traditional, though. And kind of girly.”

“Sometimes we need a new tradition. And you said I could play what I wanted.”

“I did,” he admits. “How are you liking Florin? Second week impressions?”

“It’s very beautiful here.”

Understatement of the year. Virginia in the fall is somethingelse.I don’t want the drive to end. Outside the vibrant colors ofturning leaves are on display from trees of unimaginable size, their crowns of red and yellow and orange weaving over the top of the road like threads in an endless carpet.

Even the roads are incredible. Those curving, steep mountain tracks which drop down into great canyons of fir, cedar, maple and pine. I haven’t seen a flat piece of land anywhere. Everything twists and bends like the dark little stream running past my apartment. I never knew a place could be so beautiful. It’s more surreal than anywhere I’ve ever seen, even Mamie’s lush neighborhood in California with the palm trees and cactus gardens.

I can’t believe Crash grew up here in this wilderness. But I guess it makes sense a place like this would breed a man like him. For all its beauty, it’s also untamed and free. There’s nothing artificial about the buildings or the people; nature provides, and they live with it instead of struggling against it.

We sweep past homesteads and old farmhouses, hills of grazing Black Angus, and even a herd of wild horses. Leaves float down from above like golden rain.

“You can see why people don’t leave this place,” Crash says quietly.

I do see. I feel almost breathless. “Do you get used to this?”

“Never.”

“Is every season pretty like this?”

“Come back and find out,” he says, then gets quiet again.

I can’t come back.I’m going back to California in a week to interview at Loyola Marymount. Mamie has given me a whole suite of her house to myself and a plot in her garden. I just got my driver’s license set up to her address, and there’s a job waiting for me at her friend’s gallery.

I’m grateful to be taken care of. Spoiled. In her city there are so many people who have nothing and nobody.

But I can’t shake the discomfort about my life being set up for me there while my heart stays here. With Crash. One day this man will be just a memory. For some reason I can’t accept that. But I have to accept it. This visit is just delaying the inevitable. As much as it hurts, it’s the truth.

I focus on the road, blinking quickly. “How is Ruby?”

“You asked me that already.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She’s good.” He pauses. “Zacky’s family got in touch. They want to visit with her.”

“And…how do you feel about that?”

“I don’t want Ruby to get hurt. They have a right to know her, but I don’t trust them.”

“I believe you’ll do the right thing by Ruby.”

“Thank you,” he says. He switches gears and we make a left to a different side of town. “Here we are, Trina.”

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