We watch them shuffle by, the buffalo of Sentinel Meadows, so close that either Evelyn or I could reach out with our free hand and run our fingers through their shaggy wind-swept coats of fur. I look at Evelyn, and she’s smiling as if all this has been staged just for her and for me.
Over the loud brittle crunching sound of hooves, Evelyn says, “I’ve never seen anything like this. Never. It’s amazing, don’t you think?”
It occurs to me just now, looking into Evelyn’s dark delighted eyes, that this Evelyn, the geobiochemist Evelyn, bears little resemblance to that girl I was with all those years ago on that wisp of beach south of San Francisco, or the murky, shadowy one back in that Chicago hotel room. There’s little resemblance, almost none at all, except, of course, in the eyes, and in the line and curvature of the jaw, cheekbones, and fine delicate forehead.
But it also occurs to me that maybe that’s enough. Maybe that’s all there needs to be or ever is after so many years of working your way through those things you do in life to become who you need to become. And if that is the case, then it would seem that looking back, as I have been almost to an obsession for some time now, is about as bad an idea as there is.
Things are different now, but so what? It’s a new direction without even having to leave home. A new direction with new sounds and new rhythms all its own.
I’m thinking now that instead of driving up to Bozeman at the end of the week and drinking wine at the Best Western, we catch an early flight out of West Yellowstone and take in a performance at Davies Hall in San Francisco. Three master pianists, Philip Glass included, are slated to play Glass’ trademark 20 Études over the course of a three-hour show. The performance, I’m sure, will prove to be transcendent; I had plans early on to attend and write a review for The Examiner, but I let go of the idea to come to Yellowstone.
“Hey, Evelyn,” I say as the buffalo clatter by. “Instead of Bozeman, how about Davies Hall? Philip Glass is there, and they’re doing his etudes, all twenty of them. We could make a night of it, dinner and everything.”
“But what about Bozeman?” Evelyn says, looking disappointed. “I was thinking about that and then maybe a week—hell, maybe two weeks—up in Glacier. We could stay at the big lodge like we used to, like, what? A hundred years ago?”
“At least,” I say, keeping an eye on the buffalo, but the Bazooka and Evelyn, too.
“Two weeks at the lodge!” she says. “The rooms, the views, and no field work. I promise.”
I hesitate, but only for about five seconds; the idea of two weeks with Evelyn all to myself—two full weeks at Glacier National Park’s magnificent lodge—is as enticing as any performance, night club, four-star restaurant the Bay Area has to offer. “Count me in,” I say. “Two weeks, six weeks? I’m in.”
“Okay,” Evelyn says and smiles genuinely for the first time since we set foot in Montana, her happy-crescent eyes locking with mine for the briefest of moments that have to be the most seductive I’ve experienced in my lifetime.
I’m beside myself, I’m ecstatic, as I think Evelyn is, too, the buffalo moving along quickly now, ignoring us completely.
Lawrence Cady‘s short stories have appeared in Other Voices, The Literary Review, Natural Bridge, Portland Review, Cream City Review, Red Rock Review, Fiction Southeast, among others. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin – Madison and Portland State University, Lawrence currently serves as managing editor for the peer-reviewed science journal Astrobiology (Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., New Rochelle, NY).