It's a crown of trees on the crest of the hill, trunks and fallen snags slow-dancing around the granite outcrops, a hundred-acre wood, but Pooh doesn't live there and I'm not Christopher Robin. I wouldn't even want to be. I liked being a girl and I like being a woman.
Under the trees, the air is cool and dark and rich with the wet smell of old damp wood, of ferns and mushrooms and the moss that cushions my footfalls. Not far from where the edge of the meadow and the forest blurs, a natural spring bubbles up from a leak in the granite and trickles pell-mell through the leaf mold and around the stones. The water hurries with a jigging and reeling rush that's long since cut a narrow cleft through the dark red earth as it ribbons its way down the slope. All the trees seem to lean down to listen to it as it goes by.
What kind of trees? I don't know. I never had a name for them. They're big, some of them. Bigger than redwoods. But gnarled like old oaks or elms. And kind. I can't really explain. There's a kindness about them. They always welcome me. I know they're older than the stars, thick with mystery and wind-music rustlings and shadow. Written on their bark are the histories of ancient times, long lost, and a thousand forgotten stories that they must remember, but they always have time for me. Child, girl, woman. I only ever felt kindness in that hundred-acre wood.
Nim called them the forever trees.
4
So Joe's redefined their relationship, but Tasha doesn't know. She comes over that evening to watch a video with him and feels something different in the air. Innocent in a white T-shirt and snug jeans that make her seem anything but, she looks around his apartment to see what's changed. The bookcase still stands on one wall, its shelves stuffed with paperbacks, magazines and found objects like a tattered slipper or a chipped coffee mug that have been there so long they've acquired squatters' rights and would look out of place anywhere else. The sofa still faces the old cedar chest that holds Joe's TV set and stereo. The same posters are on the wall, along with the small reproduction of a Hockney print in its narrow metal frame. The same worn Oriental carpet underfoot. The two beers Joe brings from the kitchen are given temporary refuge on the same apple crate that usually serves as his coffee table.
Nothing's different, but everything has changed. Joe seems— not edgy, but he can't stop moving. His usual stillness has dissolved, leaving behind the bare bones of nervous energy that makes his fingers twitch, his toes tap. Tasha tucks a loose lock of red hair back behind her ears and sits down on the sofa. She leans back, draws her knees up to her chin, smiles over them at Joe, who's hovering about in the middle of the carpet until finally he sits down as well.
The video he's picked is Enchanted April. They've seen it before, but tonight the holidaying women don't absorb him. He's constantly stealing glances at her until Tasha begins to wonder if she's got a bit of her dinner stuck to her chin or lodged in between her teeth. A scrap of egg noodle. An errant morsel of snow pea. She explores the spaces between her teeth with her tongue, surreptitiously gives her chin a wipe with the back of her hand.
When she puts her feet down for a moment to reach for her beer, Joe is suddenly right beside her. She turns to look at him, confused, their faces only inches apart. He leans closer. As their lips touch, all the clues Tasha hadn't realized were clues go tumbling through her mind, rearranged in their proper order, the mystery solved, the confusion now embracing what had brought this change to their relationship— and how could she have missed it? But then she lets the confusion go away and enjoys the moment, because Joe's a better kisser than she had ever imagined, and she finds she likes the feel of his back and shoulders as she returns his embrace, likes the press of his chest against her, especially likes the touch of his lips and the tingling that wakes in her belly as the tips of their tongues explore each other.
"This is nice," she murmurs when they finally come up for air.
Nice hangs behind her eyes, all chicory blue, like when the sun first pulls the petals awake, and speckled like a trout. The movie plays on, forgotten except for the flickering glow it throws upon their faces.
"It's weird," Joe tells her. "I just haven't been able to stop thinking about you." The parade of his words kaleidoscopes through her. "It's like we've been friends for what— eight, nine years?— and all of a sudden I'm seeing you for the first time, and I can't believe that I've ever been the least bit interested in another woman."
It takes Tasha a moment to separate the meaning of what he's saying from the colors.
"Are you saying you love me?" she asks, not sure how she wants him to answer, for all that she's been thoroughly enjoying the intimacy of the past ten minutes.
Joe gives her an odd look, as though he hadn't thought things through quite that far. But then he smiles.
"I guess I am," he says.
The words wake a warm flood of color in Tasha's mind, a mingling of rose and pale violet like a coneflower's bloom in the twilight.
"How do you feel?" he asks.
"I'm not sure," she says softly. "It's all so sudden. It's..." She can't find the color to tell him what she feels because she's not sure herself; she puts a hand behind his head and draws his lips back toward hers. "Kiss me again," she murmurs just before their lips meet.
The words float in their colors through her mind but Joe doesn't need the invitation.
5
I guess I have to explain everything, don't I? Nim lives in the hundred-acre wood. At least I think she does, because that's the only place I've ever seen her. Actually, I'm not even sure she's a she. I just always think of her as female, but as I try to describe her I realize she's asexual, androgynous. No breasts, but no body hair or Adam's apple either. Her long curly hair is always filled with seeds and twigs and burrs, but it's still soft as duck down. Skinny, she's so skinny you'd think she was made of sticks, but her limbs are pliant. She's the first person I've ever met who's as double-jointed as me. Maybe more. And she hears colors, too.
"But not sounds," she said when we're talking about it one time. "Just words."
Like me.
6
Joe knows he's screwed up big time. Tasha stays the night and they sleep together. They don't make out, they just sleep together, but somehow that makes everything seem more intimate instead of less. He wakes up to find her lying there beside him, still asleep. He traces the contour of her cheek with his gaze, and he sees a friend, not a lover; all the little fireworks have packed up and gone. He still thinks she's beautiful, ethereal and earthy, all mixed up in one red-topped bundle, but desire has fled. Making love to her would be like making love to a relative.
She opens her eyes and smiles at him, her warmth washing over him in a gentle pulsing tide until the guilt he's feeling registers, the smile droops, worry flits across her eyes.
"What's wrong?" she asks.
"This is a mistake," he tells her. "This is a serious mistake."
"But you said—"
"I know. I..."
He can't face her. He's feeling bad enough as it is. The hurt that's growing in her eyes is going to devastate him. He gets out of bed and starts dressing, fast, doesn't even look to see what he's putting on.
"I've got to get to work," he says, for all that it's a Saturday morning. He combs his hair with his hands, give her an apologetic look. "We'll talk about it," he adds, knowing how lame it sounds, but he can't seem to do any better. "Later."