[4] Provenance

Though just past noon, the bright sun in the clear blue sky getting baking hot as they reversed their earlier path, waiting in the limited shade in the bakery’s parking lot until their online order was ready. Teri dashed inside to collect their food, then drove them home, grateful for the RV’s air conditioned interior and the tall cottonwoods that shaded their pad by mid-afternoon and into the evening.

Beneath the kitchen table, Evie slept at their feet as mother and daughter ate and talked over lunch. Teri’s first day of work was rapidly approaching. Zoe had yet to choose a day camp for that week but was inclined towards one of the programs offered at the dinosaur museum, which was part of the impetus for their forthcoming visit.

She’s growing so fast, Teri thought, listening to her daughter easily read the detailed descriptions of several week-long camps at the dinosaur museum as she cleaned up the RV’s tiny kitchen, wrapping and putting their lunch leftovers away.

Spurred by the knowledge she was running out of time and might not get her first choice, Zoe selected a camp, then jumped up to tuck their purchases from the pet bakery away, the Sheltie magnet adhering to the refrigerator with a metallic snap. She cheered, rubbing the still dozing Evie delightedly.

“You’ll need to take her out,” Teri reminded gently. “Then I suggest we go to the people museum today, since it closes at five. If we need more time, we can go back tomorrow, after we go to the dinosaur museum.”

“Ok. C’mon, Evie,” Zoe chirped, patting her leg in summons and waiting at the RV’s door. The dog rose slowly, trotting across the small space, waiting obediently as the girl clipped a lead to her collar and tucked a waste baggie into her shorts pocket just in case. “I won’t pull,” she assured Teri, who insisted the collar was only for identification, then opened the door and stepped out with the dog.

Teri watched her daughter as the two wandered the landscaping at the periphery of their concrete pad, poking into the unused firepit and grill with a long crooked stick she’d found. Outside, Zoe was talking to Evie, trailing along at the end of the dangling leash in the Sheltie’s wake. The girl suddenly smiled, amused at her own ramblings.

Inside the RV, her mother cringed, unable to stop herself and grateful for her unobserved position. The dimpled smile on her daughter’s face was clearly inherited from Teri. The shape of Zoe’s face was different though, her cheekbones less prominent, her brows less arching. Teri knew Zoe’s features would change some as she matured, but maturity wouldn’t change the indelible signs of DNA.

Teri met Zoe at the door as she returned with Evie. Unclipping the leash from the dog’s collar, she set it on the kitchen counter and shooed the dragging Sheltie inside the RV’s cool interior. “Be good, Evie. We’ll be back soon.”

Loading up in the Meep, they were soon headed south on Main, this time taking a left at the light at East Center street. They passed the city’s information center, its tree-lined sidewalks set with benches full of resting visitors taking advantage of the shade. A bit further along Center, they passed a barbershop and sushi bar, and Teri struggled to explain the point of sushi to her disgusted daughter.

They left the Meep in a parking space just past the museum near a hair salon and walked back to the museum’s multi-paned glass doors. Once inside, they lost themselves in the collections of ancient petroglyphs and pottery, pioneer life, mining, geology and archaeology. They wandered together through the museum’s two floors most of the time, but occasionally separated when Teri took too long marveling at the natural and human development of the area.

Though Teri could have spent the day studying the collections and exhibits in the small museum, by late afternoon, Zoe had seen her fill and was ready to leave. As they returned to the first floor, she darted into the museum restroom and Teri took the opportunity to revisit a display she’d glossed over on their first pass.

There was a rush of warm air as the front door opened but Teri continued her meandering without thinking much about it. A moment later, she heard laughter from the back of the museum, a man and a woman talking louder than the voices of the museum’s visitors. She perked up at snippets, mostly from the woman whose voice carried better, realizing the pair were enjoying a laugh at the poor maligned Meep’s expense.

Teri sighed, unsurprised by the mentality in a place known for its Easter 4x4 challenges, then returned to the lobby near the restrooms to check for Zoe, but her daughter was still indisposed.

When the museum doors opened again as an older couple entered, two teenage sons in tow, Teri smiled, nodding politely as they passed, and stepped back down the aisle of exhibits, oblivious that the conversation in the museum office had stopped abruptly.

At the end of one aisle, she knelt to get a better view of a marvelous collection of Anasazi pottery, locked in a low glass cabinet.

**

In the museum office, Carla stared in opened-mouth wonder at her coworker.

It had been strange enough that Jim had arrived late that morning in a state of near despondency. Even after spending almost a half hour combing the streets and businesses and finding neither hide nor hair, he was still convinced he’d seen the college sweetheart he secretly pined for. But this—this was something she’d never seen from him, even in his most excited moments.

Just returned from lunch, Jim froze mid-sentence and sat still in his chair, breathing deeply, his nostrils flaring. It was as though he’d suddenly fallen asleep with his eyes open.

“Jim? Are you alright?”

“Do you smell that?” His voice was low, reverent, as he inhaled again, his broad chest expanding to its maximum capacity, sucking air into it.

Sniffing tentatively at first, then more deeply at the faint fragrance, Carla shrugged. “Smells nice. Like… lilac. Must be somebody’s perfume. Why?” Her brows drew together in a frown.

At the mention of lilac, Jim was on his feet smoothly and striding down the hall towards the front of the museum, eyes glancing rapidly among the exhibits, searching for the hidden source of the delicate fragrance he remembered well, without considering the shelter provided by the endcap displays.

Impossible. There was no one there! What is this? Am I losing my mind?

Rounding at the doors, his long legs carried him quickly to the back of the museum again, where the scent had been strongest. Jim scanned the mixed handful of meandering visitors drifting among the exhibits there, recognizing no one. With the fragrance fast fading, he returned to the office in frustration.

“I know that scent.” Disappointed, he flopped into his chair as the observant Carla studied him.

“Soooo, first this morning on your drive out to the airfield, which you didn’t do because you were too busy searching the streets for someone you haven’t seen in years. And, now, you think you’ve picked up the scent of her perfume here—where you work. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

“I’m not hallucinating, Carla,” Jim insisted, his tone flat but firm.

Through the wall beside her, Teri could hear the faint but distinctive sound of a toilet flushing. Zoe must finally be done, she thought, standing upright and lifting her gaze across the museum. Her heart leapt into her throat.

Trapped in her slim neck, it felt like it stopped, as she watched the unmistakable retreating figure of Jim Erickson, the man in the white Jeep.

She blanched, frozen in place, swallowing hard in absolute terror as he disappeared into an office at the back of the museum. When her heart dropped sickeningly into her chest, it began to pound furiously.

You idiot! she cursed, horrified at her stupidity. You should have known better! For pity’s sake, he was studying anthropology in graduate school!

With Jim vanished at the back of the museum, Teri darted quickly and quietly around the corner near the restroom door, out of the direct line of sight. Inhaling deeply, she released her breath slowly, trying to compose herself before the restroom door opened and Zoe started asking questions she had no desire to answer.

There were sporatic bursts of conversation from the back of the museum again, but tucked behind the wall of the entry, Teri could no longer make out the words. As she strained to hear, the restroom door opened. Behind it, Zoe startled at her mother’s proximity, then chirped excitedly, “Mama, they even have exhibits in the bathroom! You should come see!”

“Shhh! I can hear you, kiddo.” Teri urged her daughter towards the museum door with a trembling hand on Zoe's back. “Maybe another time. I think I’m ready to go too.”

Oblivious to her mother's discomfiture, Zoe skipped towards the exit, and Teri cast a furtive glance toward the back of the museum. Jim was nowhere to be seen. Desperate to escape, she followed her daughter, making for the door as Zoe pushed it open and politely held it for her.

The whoosh of warm, outdoor air went past her, forced by convection into the museum’s cool interior. Teri felt the dizzying giddiness of a narrow escape rising in her, then the cold slap of dread as Zoe paused, stepping aside to allow an older couple approaching them to exit, their three teenaged children, ranging in age from middle to high school, following behind sullenly and all too slowly.

All Teri’s proprioceptors flared, extending their invisible reach around her, trembling with stimuli that only alarmed her more, most notably, a sudden, shocked gasp and fast, heavy footfalls from the back of the museum.

Frantic, she pushed the other door open and Zoe skipped out, headed toward the Meep. Teri trotted alongside her daughter, not daring to look back at the museum until they were safely inside the car. The couple and their teenaged children ambled away on the sidewalk the opposite direction, but otherwise, mercifully, she saw no one.

Inside, Jim combed each exhibit aisle in search of the perfume’s source. At the museum’s glass entry, he stopped, rotating in place to scan the room. Before he'd completed his pivot, the SmartCar he’d been joking with Carla about scant moments before passed in his periphery, visible through the museum’s glass front.

There was no mistaking Teri at the wheel, a child in the passenger seat beside her.

“That’s her. Driving the SmartCar that was out front,” Jim said unnecessarily, his icy blue eyes fixed on the retreating vehicle as Carla came up beside him, crossing her arms over her chest. "I told you she was here. I couldn't imagine it."

Carla stared at a length of shiny chestnut hair around the woman’s pretty profile until the car was out of her line of sight. Envy flooded into her. This Teri woman was the reason an intimate relationship between she and Jim couldn’t work, despite their compatibility. The jealous feeling lingered a moment, then abruptly evaporated, replaced with a dawning comprehension.

Relationships were two people. Quite simply, that mean it was Jim’s carrying the torch for Teri that had ruined Carla’s chances with him, not the woman. 

Besides, she thought, I have someone new in my life, and begrudging Jim any genuine  happiness he might find in favor of regretting my imagined slight is both ridiculously pointless and rather narcissistic. As his friend, she owed him better.

“That car’s all electric.” She marched toward the office. “Limited range. She’s either moved here, or she’s camping. Told you it was a small place.”

“And in the land of the Jeep Safari, it won’t be hard to find.” A delighted, goofy grin spread over Jim’s face as he considered Carla’s words, trailing behind her.

At the office door, Carla paused before muttering a warning. “I hope she’s worth it, Jim.”

**

In the car, Zoe babbled excitedly about the museum—her favorite exhibits, how many they had, similarities to other museums they’d been to—did you notice, Mama?—the entire, mercifully brief drive back to the RV park. For the first time in her life, Teri found herself wishing for her daughter’s silence so she could sort her own jumbled and wildly erratic thoughts.

Inside, Teri’s heart was sealed. Though always polite, she avoided personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, convincing herself somewhere deep in her isolated soul that love like that couldn’t last. She’d done just fine living at a comfortable distance, only allowing love for Zoe and now Evie. Nothing else was worth the risk.

Which meant there was no defining, let alone sorting, the complex cocktail of emotions she’d felt locking eyes with Jim while running.

And now? After the museum, an internal insurrection was underway—a monstrous tsunami of suppressed feelings hammering at her heart’s barred gates, howling ferociously for their due.

Acknowledging Zoe’s incessant talk in monosyllables, Teri fretted. Sooner or later over the summer, since he lives here, the odds were good she would unintentionally run into Jim.

Only now he’d be looking for her, just like he had abandoned his immediate plans to comb the busy streets for her that morning.

When that inevitable encounter occurred, what could she say? She disliked lying and felt ashamed for the lies of desperation she’d already told. There had to be some way to put him off though!

Perhaps it was as simple as ‘just passing through’. That was reasonable enough, her logical mind agreed. Plus, she could hide, cowardly and embarrassing as that might be.

The RV resort was equipped with decent Wi-Fi and cable for the guests who desired it. There was a general store and laundry. A swimming pool and play area for kids. Grassy open spaces, trails into the surrounding national parks and a dog park for Evie. Water, electric and sewer hook-ups on their pad for the RV. If needs be, Teri could minimize her trips out, and once she initiated the security upgrades for the hospital, she’d setup VPN access and could keep to the resort even more.

Zoe would still want to attend her camps though, she agonized, and she and Evie would be restless without their morning run at least a few times each week. Perhaps she could take alternate routes, avoid Main street. If worse came to worst, they could run the short path around the RV resort’s grassy park.

The surrounding cliffs were shadowy and gray, dark clouds massing overhead as they pulled up to their RV. Just what I need, a gloomy night too. She locked the Meep and unlocked the RV, a bouncing, wagging Evie bounding out. Now rested after her bathing trauma, the dog was raring to go.

“Toss me her harness. I’ll take her out.” Glumly, Teri tucked a couple doggie clean-up bags in her pocket.

“Cool!” Zoe complied quickly, happily relieved of her occasional chore. “Can I play my game while you’re gone?”

Teri stood from fastening the dog’s harness. “I’d prefer you read.”

Zoe seemed taken aback. “I’m all out of books, Mama. I just told you in the car. Didn’t you hear me?”

Now a trip to the library. Teri sighed. “That’s right. Sorry. I’m distracted after the museum. You can play while we’re out. When I get back, you’ll need to draw or color or something.”

“What about swimming?”

Glancing up at the threatening sky as crooked branches of forked lightning scuttled along the base of the menacing clouds, Teri shook her chestnut head. “Not if the weather’s bad. Maybe tomorrow.”

Zoe gave a disappointed groan, then ducked inside, pulling the door closed behind her.

Teri and Evie wandered the perimeter of the resort, looking for back ways and trails. Though they turned back in a jog as the first fat cold raindrops fell, by the time Teri banged on the door of the RV, they were caught in the storm's sudden downpour and soaked through.

Inside, she wrapped the dog in a towel to dry and changed her clothes, hanging the wet ones over the tub to drip dry. Using Evie as a model, Zoe drew pictures while Teri fixed dinner and the thunderstorm grew worse, both outdoors and inside her.

Eating dinner by candlelight and the flashes of lightning when the power cut out, Zoe talked about the museum and her plans for the next day, while the evening waned and Teri brooded. Just before Zoe’s bedtime, the storm blew itself out and the power was restored.

“Awww!” Zoe frowned, disappointed.

Teri offered a consoling smile. “It was fun while it lasted. Now time for bed.”

Though there were bunkbeds near the back by Teri’sn queen-sized bed, Zoe preferred the wider, over-cab bunk, its retractable curtain providing a small semblance of privacy. At her mother’s reminder, the girl changed into her jammies and climbed into it.

Kissing her daughter on the forehead, Teri turned out all but the light over the stove Zoe liked as a nightlight. In the overcab bunk, her daughter was out cold before the task was finished.

Pulling a rain slicker over her clothes, Teri tucked her phone into her shorts' pocket and harnessed Evie. A few brave stars were peeking through widening breaks in the clouds as they left the RV, headed towards the resort’s park. The rain left the air fresh, the night crisp and silent, and they wandered the wet grass alone, the only ones out so late. Teri unclipped the leash, allowing Evie to investigate nearby unsupervised.

A solitary cricket began its song as Teri neared a covered picnic bench on the periphery of the darkened park. Though the overhead cover had protected the tabletop from the wind-blown rain, the bench seats on both sides were beaded with shimmering drops like oil in the darkness. Reluctantly, she eased herself onto the table to sit, hoping the top was marginally clean and watching Evie wander the grass, a light breeze ruffling the Sheltie’s coat.

At least I know a couple areas of the city to avoid, she thought, reclining onto the table to stare mindlessly at the aluminum cover overhead.

Maybe I should do an online search for Jim.

The unbidden thought made her cringe in revulsion. Internet reconnaissance was always a painful education in TMI, and she hated the voyeuristic way it made her feel. She knew some places to avoid, she reminded herself, her anxiety at seeing Jim twice today numbing to a dull dread.

Realizing sometime later she’d let time get away from her, Teri sat up, scanning the park for Evie. Eyes following the dog’s barely visible trail through the wet grass to a copse of cottonwood trees and ornamental shrubs looming in the dark, Teri clicked her tongue softly.

A second later the dog reappeared, obediently trotting towards her. The Sheltie waited while Teri eased herself slowly off the table, wagging happily when the woman bent and for a long moment stroked along her sides. She stood then, letting Evie lead the way back to the RV. “Let’s go home.”

**

Behind her, Jim tracked Teri’s retreating figure from the shadows in the landscaping where the dog had found him. There were only a few campgrounds in Moab and only two this far north. Once here, it had been easy enough to find her unusual car.

In the dark and rain, he’d watched from his Jeep as she’d moved about her RV, talking with the young girl he’d seen as they left the museum and lighting candles when the power had failed.

When the thunderstorm let up and Jim realized Teri meant to take her dog out, he’d followed silently, admiring her slim legs and arms, delicately tapered to fine ankles and wrists, and exposed by her denim shorts and the light slicker she wore over her t-shirt. Impossible as it seemed, every line and curve of her profile and figure was a perfect match to those he held etched permanently in his memory.

Though concealed by the manicured shrubbery, he angled to see her face clearly when she perched on the picnic table. Still achingly lovely were the arching brows above wide eyes, high cheekbones and the full mouth he yearned to kiss.

Always.

Right then.

Hard.

No ring, he thought when she lay back on the table, her shapely legs dangling over the edge at the knee. She ran a hand over her face in consternation, and Jim’s expression turned wry. It was a sentiment he shared without knowing what so confounded her.

Her dog had found him then, serenely, curiously, sniffed his muddied hiking boots and extended hand when he stooped before allowing him a pet. In the reflected light of a dim security lamp, her nametag identified her as Evie, owner T. Munro.

Jim gratefully memorized the phone number just in time. An instant later, at the woman’s gentle summons, the well-behaved Evie scurried away.

Staying to the shadows, Jim returned to his Jeep. He added Teri’s number to his phone contacts, wondering about her surname.

Still Munro? She had a child, close to middle school age if he was any guess. Had she divorced and had her family name restored? He couldn’t imagine that sitting well with her devout Catholic family.

There was a story here the anthropologist in him itched to uncover for more reasons than one.

Lingering in his vehicle, Jim watched as Teri drew the blinds in the RV’s bedroom, her seductive silhouette against them a succubus’ envy. When the last lights in the RV were extinguished, he started his Jeep, only turning on the headlights when he reached the highway.

As he drove home, he recalled a long-forgotten story from Plato.

In Greek mythology, humans originally had four arms, four legs and a head with two faces. Jealous of their happiness and petty in the way Greek gods were, Zeus split them into two distinct parts, and condemned them to spend their lives lonely, in search of their missing other halves.

The mythology supported the modern and popular romantic notion that love was additive, each person a bereft half, wounded and incomplete, searching for the partner that would make him or her whole. In practice, however, like others around him, Jim’s naive pairings for such completeness had consistently failed.

It was a fallacy his long-ago relationship with Teri had amended. Real love, she’d explained, was multiplication, not addition. “One half times one half equals one fourth.”

In that instant, he’d understood. Two emotionally unhealthy halves put together multiplied destructive expectations in relationships. Trying to force-fill gaps to complete each other left both as less together than they were apart. Each partner had work to do on themselves before a relationship between them could hope to succeed.

But emotionally self-sufficient, healthy people were already whole, intact whether apart or together. “One times one is still one.”

Teri had been right, he’d seen the irrefutable evidence himself. These were the supercouples, elegant and captivating pairs fascinating and delighting the friends who flocked around them. Together, that's what she and Jim and been.

As further evidence to her point, with Teri love was relaxed. Secure. Utterly lacking the desperate grasping and manipulative forces that inevitably appeared in his relationships with individuals – well, not like her. With Teri, love was a choice. Calm, kind, deliberate action taken by two able individuals.

With her, love was unlike any connection he’d made before.

Or since.