Eye of the Beholder Read online

  She narrowed her eyes and blew a stream of smoke at him. “Where did you live in Hollywood?”

  “The Hills. It was okay, but I like it better here.” She snorted again, so he repeated his shrug and added, “Sorry.”

  “Here,” she spit angrily, “the middle of fucking nowhere.”

  “It’s only thirty minutes from where I used to live,” Joshua said.

  “You got a car?” Joy looked at him with a hungry, greedy interest that lasted until he gave his answer.

  “Nope.” He wished that he did; he would have liked to impress her. “I’ve got a motorcycle . . . well, a dirt bike, really.”

  “Can you drive that down?” She was watching him sideways as they walked.

  “I could try, but it would probably burst into flames after a mile or two on the highway; it’s only a Yamaha two-fifty. Mostly I just ride it around the neighborhood, and sometimes to school. If I keep my grades up, I’ll get a car next year.”

  Joy stopped and threw away her cigarette. “That’s so fucked! Adults love to do that shit—hold something over your head that you really have to have, like it’s this terrific prize, and make you jump through fucking hoops for it.”

  Joshua looked at the cigarette. It was still smoking and lying in a leaf-littered dirt road in the middle of a national forest. He walked toward it as he spoke. “I don’t know about that,” he said as he crushed out the miniature torch with the toe of his hiking boot. “I think it’s a good thing to earn something in life. I like that feeling.” He leaned down and picked up the butt of her cigarette. Without comment he put it into a pocket in his backpack.

  She watched him as if he were insane. “What the fuck are you doing?”

  He looked steadily back at her. “Picking up trash. You like that word, fuck,” he said easily.

  Shaking her head to show that she was filled with disdain for him, she said, “It works on a lot of levels, you know?”

  “Yeah,” he agreed, “I know. But when people use it as much as you, it kind of makes me wonder.” He started to walk quickly away down the road, and she followed.

  When she came level with him, she asked, “Wonder what?” in a voice that clearly proclaimed that she was pretending not to really care, but did.

  “Oh,” Joshua said, as though he didn’t care one way or the other either. “It makes me wonder if they know any other words. And the reason I picked up the cigarette butt is because . . . I don’t know, it’s litter, and they don’t decompose for over two hundred years, and the birds gather them and use them when they build their nests.”

  Being reprimanded was so expected and resented by Joy that she snapped, “So I’m providing a fucking service for the birds. Free construction materials.”

  “I don’t know about free,” Joshua said. “There are so many abrasive chemicals in the filters that when the baby birds hatch and sit against them in the nest, the chemicals actually burn through their bare skin and kill them.”

  “How the fuck do you know that?”

  “My dad. He used to be a scientist; he studied wildlife and forest ecosystems.”

  She snorted derisively. “So your dad’s a fucking forest ranger.”

  “No,” Joshua corrected, “ecological scientist. He was.”

  “What does he do now?”

  “Well,” said Joshua thoughtfully, “that depends on your philosophical point of view. Maybe nothing; maybe he’s a young goatherd in India; maybe he plays the harp in the Holy Philharmonic.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Oh.” Joy nodded and mumbled, “Sorry,” but she didn’t look at him when she said it.

  They had reached the clearing where both their houses sat, and, feeling both uncomfortable and stupid again, Joy lashed out at Joshua one more time. “So I’m supposed to care about some baby birds that do nothing but grow up to fly around and eat and shit all day?”

  Joshua stopped and turned to her. “You mean eat and shit all day like, say, humans?” He raised his eyebrows and his face cracked into a playful expression. “And as for caring . . . the fact is, you didn’t know.” He hoped he didn’t show it, but he was hoping desperately that she would like him, that he could get to know her. He could use a friend, and she was obviously in need of one. And then with a widening grin he winked and walked toward his house. “See you later!” he called over his shoulder.

  “Don’t count on it,” Joy said sourly, expressing her self-inflicted sense of isolation.

  Joshua stopped and turned back. “Oh, I think I can. You’re coming to dinner tonight,” he informed her, and then without waiting for any more bitter attempts to alienate him—which would fail—he went up the steps to the wide wooden porch and through his front door.

  Joy stared after him, wondering what fucking planet he had dropped from, so clean-cut and fucking nice. Definitely not her type. Still, he was good-looking, but she hated people who thought they were better than her, and that was pretty much everybody. She started toward her own house, kicking at the sparse gravel.

  Upstairs in the large open great room, Greer heard the door slam and was grateful her son was home, but she didn’t let it break her concentration.

  She was kneeling on a large, flat purple cushion. In front of her was a small brazier with a single round charcoal burning inside of it. Three candles burned in silver holders, placed around her on the floor to make a large triangle. On the ground in front of the smoking charcoal were several objects laid out on a bright orange cloth.

  An unsheathed knife lay perpendicular to the other objects, as though underlining them. It had a simple wooden handle, but in the glinting sunlight through the large windows the blade shone gold. A small pile of dried herbs was there also, as well as a vial of oil and three strips of colored cording, green, gold, and black.

  Reaching out, Greer took a pinch of the herbs and sprinkled it on the charcoal, where it began to smoke. She followed that with three drops of oil from the vial, and a strong, sweet, earthy aroma filled the room, a rich, wet, humid smell, like a river swollen with rain and silt. Next she took the knife in her left hand and, separating out three of her own longest hairs with her right hand, cut them off with the gold blade. Then, taking up the cords with the hairs, she knotted the six strands together at one end.

  Using one hair with each of the colors, Greer began to braid the cords, and while she worked she chanted softly:I call upon the powers that be.

  Bind her to me, let me see.

  Help me keep her safe from harm.

  Make it stronger, three by three.

  Put your life into this charm.

  Three times she repeated the chant, and when she had finished braiding the three strands, she picked up the last item on the orange silk, a shining, faceted green stone with a hole drilled through it. It sparkled as she strung both ends of the braid through it and fashioned a knot. To test her handiwork, she pulled it on and slid the stone up to fix the bracelet firmly on her wrist. Then, taking it off again, she held the pretty trinket loosely between her fingers out over the smoking brazier until it was saturated with the smoke scent and energy of the herbs. Finally, taking a few deep breaths, she closed her eyes and held the talisman between her palms to her heart in a prayer position.

  A few moments later Greer opened her eyes and seemed to remember herself. She put the bracelet in her pocket, blew out the candles, and left the room.

  The small stream of smoke from the brazier continued to rise through a diagonal shaft of late-afternoon sunlight. It curled and flickered and shone in glimmering white shapes that, had anyone been there to see it, looked very much like two small graceful forms dancing and flitting first apart and then back together to merge again into one flowing, living stream.

  Chapter 8

  It was all Joy couldn’t do to pretend that she couldn’t care less about the bracelet. She sullenly let Greer slip it onto her left wrist, tighten the green stone firmly, and fix it in place w
ith a knot. Then she pretended that it annoyed her. But Greer watched her sneak looks at it throughout dinner, and the young woman wasn’t skillful enough to hide the delight in her eyes.

  Luke turned out to be a large, handsome Native American man with long, dark hair graying elegantly at the temples, an easy manner, and a quick wit. Greer and Joshua both liked him right away. He brought them a housewarming gift: a painting of a Native American on a running horse decorated for the hunt, holding a bow and arrow. There were several fluffy animals running in front of the horse. The style was basic, like a colorful line drawing.

  “Wow,” Joshua said, smiling. “What are these?” he asked, pointing to the small four-legged animals at which the Indian was shooting his arrows.

  “The title of that one is, When Poodles Roamed Free in Beverly Hills,” Luke said, nodding seriously. Both Greer and Joshua laughed. “I like to be as authentic as possible,” Luke told them, winking.

  “I love it.” Greer thanked him. “And it’s perfect for our new home.”

  Outside, the guttural throbbing of an illegally altered motorcycle coming from the highway interrupted the stillness of the evening. In the natural chamber created by the steep canyon walls, the sound carried from far off, reverberated, and bounced back again, magnified. Joshua watched Joy straighten up from her slump, and she leaned back in her chair to watch out the window. His mother caught his frown. When the motorcycle passed the house, the sound was so loud that conversation was impossible until it had passed a good way up the dirt road.

  “You know,” Luke said when it was possible to say anything, “I just don’t get that.”

  Greer’s gaze shifted to Joy, who seemed to bristle at the sarcastic comment. She said, “You’re, like, the only people in the universe who don’t get it.”

  Joshua tried to back her up and keep the peace at the same time by adding, “It is loud. I mean, you have to admit. But I’d like to have a Harley. I think it’s cool.” He was rewarded by a look from Joy, who seemed to be regarding him in a slightly different light.

  “I thought you liked Mike,” Whitney said almost accusingly to her husband, ignoring the teenager’s comments. “You lost money to him. Five bucks. Mmhmm, didn’t think I knew about that, did you?”

  “Oh, like I don’t know you have a drawer filled with losing lottery tickets. Mike found me a part for my truck at cost and helped me put it in. He’s a good guy, even if he did goad me into betting on the Steelers. I just don’t understand thinking it’s cool to be deliberately obnoxious,” Luke said, his dark, wide face cracking pleasantly as he unveiled his white teeth. “I don’t much care if people want to make a lot of noise; I’d just prefer it if they all got together in a closed room at the same time and made a lot of noise until their ears bled, and left the rest of us in peace and quiet.” He looked pleasantly around. “Mike’s okay. Loud, but he’ll always help you out if you need something.”

  They ate salmon cooked on the grill and wild rice, then settled in for tea and lemon icebox pie that Whitney had made. Joy participated in the conversation only when she was called upon, and then with the utmost of disdain. After a while, Joshua couldn’t bear any more of her discomfort and asked her if she wanted to go sit outside. She muttered that she was dying for a smoke. Her father called after her, “It’d better be a cigarette.”

  When the screen door had swung shut with a creak behind them, Luke turned to the two ladies with his wise grin and said, “You know you’re in bad shape when you’re glad your fifteen-year-old is smoking cigarettes.”

  Greer nodded. “You’re right; I guess it could be pot.”

  “Or crack,” Luke said, both dismissing the suggestion as humorous and condemning it as contemptible with his easy delivery.

  When they got to the big boulder at the foot of the canyon wall and Joy had lit up a smoke, Joshua said, “Your dad seems pretty cool to me.”

  “Oh, please!” Joy spit. “You heard them; somebody rides by on a motorcycle and they act like it’s a federal offense.”

  Joshua shrugged. “I guess they don’t like the noise.”

  “They think they’re better than everyone else, especially me,” she muttered angrily.

  “They don’t seem that bad.”

  “No? You try living with the spiritually perfect.”

  Joshua laughed. “Aren’t we all? I thought that was one of the main themes of the new spirituality: ‘Each moment is as it should be.’ ”

  In the semidarkness Joshua could just make out Joy’s face. The tip of her cigarette glowed as she inhaled, her breath fanning the tiny ember; she was smiling. “That’s good. I think I can use that.” The smoke curled out around the bow of her upper lip as she spoke, and Joshua envied it.

  “Go for it.” Joshua waved a hand as though he were strewing largesse to the masses. “The next time they try to get on your case for breaking curfew you can just say, ‘It’s all part of the great web.’ ”

  She laughed and choked a little on the smoke. “Good one—you think that up by yourself?”

  “No, that was this other guy. Marcus Aurelius, I think.” Joshua considered. “He goes on to say that all of our suffering is preordained and we can take comfort in that.”

  “Oh, he does, huh? Well, you can tell him for me that he’s a fucking ass.”

  Joshua laughed too. “Next time I see him,” he reassured her, “I will.”

  She finished her cigarette and stubbed it out on the rock. Then, turning away from Joshua to partially conceal the movement, she awkwardly stuck the butt into her pocket. He said nothing.

  “You got any liquor?” Joy asked him.

  “No. And I wouldn’t give it to you if I did.” He was feeling proud of how he’d affected her behavior, and it made him cocky. “That’s the last thing you need.”

  Joy snorted in the darkness and asked him how the fuck he knew what she needed.

  He responded casually, “I mean, no offense, and call me crazy, but anger and liquor sound like a bad Happy Meal combo. I mean, what’s the toy surprise? A hangover?” He tried to keep his voice conversational and joking, but he knew it was an iffy thing to say.

  The response was immediate and far more vicious than he had anticipated.

  Her body went rigid and she practically spit at him. “Fuck off. What do you know, you goody-goody little mama’s boy?” She turned and shot for her house.

  “C’mon, Joy,” Joshua called after her, his heart sinking. “I shouldn’t have said that; I’m sorry.”

  But the only response other than the crunch of her heavy black boots on the gravel was the silhouette of a solitary middle finger raised on a fist in defiance as she stormed away. He cursed himself for being so stupid, realizing that he should have known that because something was so obvious made it all the more taboo to say it out loud.

  Because of the light on the porch beyond her, Joshua could make out her shape quite clearly as she stalked away, haloed in the saffron glow from the yellow bug bulbs. For a fraction of a moment it seemed to Joshua, as he watched her, that the light and darkness played a trick on his eyes. In the rim of light around her he thought he saw the figure of a person above and to her right. It was hazy, blackish, and seemed almost to flutter in and out, but the figure appeared to be extending one arm toward Joy and the other toward Joshua.

  It lasted only a second but it unnerved him; Joshua shook his head and rubbed his eyes. He headed back to his house quickly, trying to escape the jittery anxiety that had gripped him. Halfway to the porch something swooped by his face, a black, fluttering shape, and he reeled back before realizing it was a bat. That must have been what he’d seen crossing between him and the light. Though the conclusion didn’t satisfy the feeling the image had left, he was able to dismiss it as a flying mammal by the time he reached the steps, turning instead to feelings of disappointment about Joy and scowling to himself. Great, Joshua, he thought bitterly. That was stupid. Good thing I didn’t sound too much like an insufferable know-it-all. He stopped and kicked
the first stone stair; as he did so a light went on in an upstairs window of Luke and Whitney’s house.

  Joy moved into the middle of her room, and then sat down hard on the edge of the bed. Through the window Joshua could see her, slumped motionless in a posture of total depression.

  And then she rose, went to a drawer, and pulled something out. It looked like a cell phone, but instead of holding it to her ear she held it to her mouth and spoke into it.

  He watched, wondering what it could be, until she suddenly stopped and tossed whatever it was onto the bed and came to the window. She seemed to have spotted him watching her. He turned away quickly, but he heard the window slide open and she called out to him.

  “Hey, fucking neighbor!”

  “That would be me,” he answered, and turned to look up at her through the sparse pine branches.

  “Tell my dad I’m going to bed.”

  “Sure.” He waited, but she said nothing, so he asked, “Anything else?”

  “No, just that.” There was the noisy silence of a forest at night while they both waited, but neither spoke.

  “I’m sorry,” he said at last, “if I upset you. I didn’t mean to. Sometimes stupid shit comes into my head and leaks out through my mouth.”

  He couldn’t see her very well—she wasn’t close and the light was behind her—but her body seemed to relax a little.

  “Don’t sweat it,” she said. “But if you want to be friends, you gotta mind your own business. Got it?”

  Joshua hesitated only a moment before the need to be liked overwhelmed him. “Got it,” he said firmly.

  “I’ll hold you to that. Bye.” The window closed.

  Much later that night, Joshua was startled awake by a scrabbling noise. He went to his window, expecting to see a raccoon, but it was an altogether different animal that was climbing down the tree next to Whitney’s house.

  Joy pretty much fell the last few feet onto the soft pine straw underneath, and through his cracked-open window Joshua heard her utilize her favorite word to express pain. He started to open the window and ask if she needed help, but she was up on her feet in a second, and with a nervous glance up at her own house she disappeared around the front of it, and then reappeared briefly on the dirt road that led to the highway before disappearing behind the trees.