We make the rounds of the crafts booths together. Lucy treats every booth, no matter how heinous, as if it deserves her full attention and respect. She touches the crafts, oohs and ahhs over them, and asks their creators to talk about methods.
And Rush Creek’s craftspeople and artists are more than happy to talk. She learns about some art techniques, scumbling and alla prima, from Tricia Spooner, wet collodion process from a photographer I don’t recognize, and Scandinavian flat-plane wood carving from Bob Woe. But she spends the most time with Kiona from Five Rivers Arts & Crafts, listening to her talk about how she achieved her weaving techniques—and about the importance of buying Native designs only from Native artists.
I half listen while I stand in front of a woven wall hanging. It’s a geometric design, a series of strips of individual patterns, pale greens and mustard yellows and cream, and for some reason I can’t stop looking at it.
I want it.
I put my hand on my back pocket, touch my wallet.
And then I remember that the last time anyone hung anything on the walls in my house, it was Cecilia, and I get a small shock of pain.
I don’t think about Cecilia very often, because when I do, I still feel all the same hurt and loss. And anger, at myself, for deluding myself into thinking that even though her words told me she was leaving, she might stay.
I will never make that mistake again.
Lucy has pulled out a credit card to buy a small basket from Kiona. She says she’s going to put it in her new office, when she starts her own business. She says it will remind her about the importance of integrity and being true to herself and her clients.
Kiona, who is normally reserved, comes out from behind the table and hugs Lucy.
“I love Lucy,” she tells me.
Everyone loves Lucy, I think, but I don’t say it out loud. Instead, I make a note to myself to ask Lucy later about this new business of hers. This is the first I’ve heard of it.
Then I drag her off to the music-and-wine bop.
The bop is a tour of the town’s restaurants—really, the whole Five Rivers region’s restaurants—but we’re on foot and doing the Rush Creek thing right now. So we go from Royal Pizza to Casa del Oro to Jane’s, a bistro-style fine-dining restaurant. At each location, there’s a different Oregon wine and a different local band.
Everywhere we go, the food smells are mouth-watering—peppery grilled meats and garlicky wood-fired crust pizza, fresh-fried crisp corn tortillas, burnt sugar.
We drink a lot of wine, and somewhere around the third glass, Lucy wants to dance.
So we dance.
We dance to a talented bluegrass trio, and then to a not-so-talented blues band, and then to a really, really bad classic rock five-piece. Lucy is a great dancer. She kicks off her heels and lights it up. She is flushed, her hair still up from the trashion show, but bits and pieces curling around her face like the first time she came to shower at my house. Like she’s coming undone bit by bit. Like Rush Creek is softening her up and having its way with her.
We end up at Oscar’s with pretty much everyone else I know. Amanda and her husband, Heath, are there, so I’m guessing the kids are with my mom. Hanna’s there, throwing darts with Kane and Easton. Clark’s there, drinking by himself at the bar. The only one I don’t see is Brody.
I’m suddenly conscious of how much I’ve had to drink. How much Lucy’s drunk. I still want to pull her into my arms and dance with her. There’s a good roots group playing, and I know she likes the music because she’s swaying to it as we stand near Amanda and Heath and work our ways through yet another glass of wine. But if we dance again now, my siblings and everyone will make something of it.
And it’s not something.
It can’t be.
So we chat with Amanda and Heath, play a few rounds of darts with Hanna, Kane, and Easton—spoiler alert, Lucy sucks at darts—and join Clark for a few minutes, although he barely acknowledges our existences.
And then just like that, it’s last call.
“Do you have a ride home?” I ask her.
She nods.
I almost say, Do you want to stay at my place tonight?
It should be no big deal.
But for some reason, it feels like it would be, so I keep quiet and watch her head to Amanda’s car, wishing like hell I’d let the words out of my mouth so I could mess up her hair the rest of the way.