Ash, Barley, and Trillium are already with Zephyr in her cabin drinking beer by the time Moss and I get there. Zephyr has little candles burning everywhere, dripping wax onto wood, their flames flickering in the gentle cross-breeze of the open windows. It’s like we’re about to hold a séance.
We crack open some beers and immediately begin to gossip about the only thing there is to gossip about in our little community right now: the newly hired staff. Pretty Lotus ran off with a man from Kokadjo who’s easily twice her age almost two weeks ago now, so they had to find a new cleaner. And one of the cooks broke his femur in a four-wheeling accident and also had to be replaced. We’re all really hoping Mantis will come hang tonight and give us the full lowdown. Mantis has become our man on the inside for all things staff drama and camp gossip. When Mantis isn’t around, Moss refers to his stories as the Townie Chronicles, which usually gets a snicker out of the group. But it makes me uncomfortable. Like the locals are some sort of soap opera built for our own amusement, and that feels wrong. But Mantis seems to like the attention and gravitas it gives him. In this, he’s the expert, and we’re his students, and you can tell he relishes it. He explains the politics between Gus and the senior staff or the past sexual histories that entwine the winter snowplow guy with a string of lovers from sessions gone by, and we all are rapt. And he is in his glory.
So after we’ve exhausted our sans Mantis capacity for projecting about the newbies, our focus turns to—what else—ourselves. Our work.
Zephyr shows us a few examples of her latest, which are meticulously complex abstract paintings done on 4” by 4” white bathroom tiles. She’s unsure if they will ultimately make up some larger mosaic or if they will each be individual pieces unto themselves.
“I keep needing to buy new tiles.” Zephyr laughs. “I come stomping in here in my tennis shoes after one of our classes and forget I have them all over the floor. Crack, crack, crack.” Her smile is broad, sparkling white. She shakes her head, her skin deep and smooth, an onyx goddess. I feel a flutter in my chest when she turns her brown eyes on me, full of warmth. “Clumsy girl.”
I smile back, unable to do anything else under her gaze.
About an hour in, Moss is regaling the group with one of his grand tales, arms flourishing, pushing his hair back again and again in his soliloquy, drawing all eyes on him, when Mantis shows up with a six-pack. The crowd cheers as he enters.
“This is the last cabin I checked, of course,” he grumbles.
“Glad you were able to make it. We missed you last time,” I tell him as he settles in next to me. I pat him on the back then crack one open for Mantis and I to share, seeing as how the six-pack won’t cover all of us without a little selflessness. Moss has turned notably quiet. His story forgotten.
“Yeah, we really did!” Trillium chimes in, cracking her own beer open.
“Just the one,” Mantis tells her, and seventeen-year-old Trillium nods sheepishly.
“You have to tell us about this new cook. And the four-wheeler crash. We want details,” Barley says now. Mantis smiles, feeling the power balance shift his way. Us, rapt. He takes his turn with our shared beer and holds court.
* * *
Hours later, after our group’s social séance has disbanded, Moss and I stumble our way back to Focus. It’s almost three in the morning, my flashlight guiding us along in our bouncing two-person parade, laughing too loudly, whispering like we have real secrets to keep.
When we get inside his cabin, he lights his oil lantern, and I tell him how impressed I am with Zephyr’s tile pieces and how funny it is that she keeps accidentally breaking them. He offers me a nightcap—absinthe in a tin cup—before I have the chance to take my leave. I take it in my hands and start sipping, still talking, laughing, half-pained for the poor broken-legged cook Mantis told us about.
Moss gathers a mass of sketch paper from the bed and dumps it on his desk. He seems to be looking for something under all the mess but eventually gives up, giving me boring answers in return to my questions about Zephyr’s tiles, Zephyr’s cabin décor, Zephyr’s warmth and kindness.
His place is a wreck, per usual. Covered in canvases, sketch pads, crumpled pieces of paper, food scraps, empty wine bottles.
I pad around the small space as he takes a seat on his bed, looking at the explosion of stuff. I find and look at some of his work. I see multiple iterations of the Ledge in daybreak colors, from different vantage points, in different palettes, on different-size canvases and pieces of sketch paper. Then another series, the Ledge with a man—probably Moss—conflated into equal, magnificent sizes. Interesting primary color juxtapositions.
“Lots of Ledge,” I say as I thumb through some more, lift corners of sketch paper on the floor, my tin cup in the other hand. The paintings are just okay.
“I think it’s out of me now,” he says, throwing his oversize canvas jacket and leather moccasins in a corner.
“Something new moving in?”
“Oh, yeah.” He grins, setting down his notebook, pencil, and multi-tool on the desk. “Someone.” We catch each other’s eyes, a sudden panic stirring in me. He smiles, and at first there’s a note of cruelty in it. Then it softens. “Not Zephyr, I promise. I know you love her or what-the-fuck-ever.” I throw a crumpled piece of paper at his head, which he ducks. He laughs hard and loud, like a bully on a playground.
Zephyr. A forty-something abstract impressionist with buzzed pink hair. Breaker of tiles. And sure—I think I might be in love with her.
“No, no, it’s good.” He smiles his real dickish smile. “Glad to see you’re ready to love again.” I roll my eyes at him and down the rest of my absinthe, which immediately makes me nauseous. I toss the tin cup on his bed.
“Goodnight, M,” I say, annoyed.
“J, come on. I’m just playing. I’m honestly a little offended you don’t think I could have my own girl. That I’d be brought so low as to have to fight you over the same one.” He plops down on the edge of his bed.
“Trillium?” I ask him.
“Not Trillium,” he says thoughtfully. “But not not Trillium. I mean, maybe. She’s incredibly beautiful.” He says this last part as if it’s only just occurred to him. “Maybe her.”
“That easy, huh?”
He waves me off. “Trillium isn’t who’s captured my attention at any rate. No, I’ve found someone a bit more…inspired. And if it means anything at all to you, I think she’s into you, too. Zephyr, I mean.” I look over at him, unsure if he’s fucking with me. His face is earnest.
“She’s my student,” I say. Moss shrugs.
“She’s like ten years older than you. It balances it out.”
I want her. I do. She’s all I’ve been thinking about lately. I scratch my head, unsure. I think of my chances. I think of the ethics. I think through repercussions if I make a move and find out I’ve read it all wrong.
He knows before I do that I won’t do it.
“You coward.” He flops back on his bed and laughs, turns over on his side so his back is to me. “Go on, torture yourself.” He yawns. “For now. But you’ll come around.” I watch his ribs expand and deflate, expand and deflate in the yellow light of the lantern. Watching it is soothing, steadying.
“Moss?” I whisper. Only deep, rhythmic breathing comes from him. I watch his ribs some more. I sigh and go over to his desk, blow out the oil lantern. I leave his cabin, closing the door behind me. The commons are empty and lit by stars and a weak middle-of-the-night central bonfire. I go over to it, stoke it, throw another piece or two of wood in from the pile nearby, knowing Old Gus’s nocturnal amblings will probably bring him by at some point. I look past the flames into the distance, where Zephyr’s cabin is hidden by darkness. I want nothing more than to go to her. To be unafraid.
But Moss is ultimately right, which annoys me to no end. I’m a coward. Because when I leave the bonfire, I go to my cabin for the night. Not hers.
Her Dark Things by Audra Colfax
Piece #3: Alive With Creation
Oil and mixed media on canvas. 36″ x 48″.
[Image of a chickadee’s head expanded to be overlarge, the color blocking transforming into a gaping hallway, white and narrowing, with towering black walls on the sides. The eye, a hidden glitter, peers out from the blackness. Found objects incorporated throughout by layering.]
Note in tiny handwriting on Holiday Inn notepad paper found in Cindy Dunn sketchbook #2 in the basement of the Dunn residence.
I went back with Brady as a way to apologize
for how I have been
that slip slip slip
for lying about applying to school
for stopping the meds and
skipping therapy
I am trying to make things RIGHT
—June88. CD.
Note on torn, half-width graph paper found tucked in Cindy Dunn sketchbook #1 in the sewing room of the Dunn residence.
little IMPS with red blotchy cheeks
like a good-time devil has just been there
the devil’s LIPS have been there
and they look so alive
the artists at Lupine Valley
alive with creation
and with each other’s bodies
and they say hello
do you want to come in?
I see it
I see ALL of it
their red BLOOD splotchy cheeks after emerging
from cabins with potbel y fires from
cabins with too many bodies pressed inside
hidden away nooks
their limbs entwined like the
TWISTED old birches
little DEVILS they are
running between the cabins
aflame
I look at them and feel perfectly alive
I want a devil to kiss me
I want this King City devil to redden me
to KISS me too
—June88.CD.
Note on folded watercolor paper found in one of the toolboxes in the shed on the Dunn property.
the devil in King City is just
a man and a man
men
beautiful
One like a PARENTHESIS mark
(M)
made of platinum
a tensile WISP
or claw
Then like a craggy MOUNTAIN
(M)
made of blue granite
unyielding earth
or leviathan
he brings his COLOR to
so many of them
there in
King City
I have SEEN it myself and he and he
has seen me
seeing
—June88. CD.
Note on yellow legal paper found folded inside a birdhouse on the Dunn property.
I did some sketching in Brady’s room
I showed
BRADY a new drawing of a
chickadee he said it was
good he said he wants to FRAME it and put it UP at
his
place he wants me to sign it before it goes under GLASS
he is so proud of how well I am doing
I made love to BRADY
and did everything he has ever wanted
as a way
to say sorry
for going off the meds but now I’m back on but on my own terms
trying to stay on
and be happy
with myself with my art
and I’m sorry for
lying I keep lying to him I don’t know why
he doesn’t know that I want to leave him for school or
what
I have done and want to do
in King City
Note on Lisa Frank stationery found in the living room wall of the Dunn residence.
M says I will call
you C
—June88. CD.