At his first sight of the town, Gordon had begun grinning widely, the excitement showing in his face. He pulled off to the side of the road, getting out of the car and grabbing his Canon. He snapped several shots of the unbelievable view, finishing off the roll, and took a deep breath of air, inhaling the intertwined fragrance of living forest and burning firewood. He stared down at the panorama below him. "This is it," he said. "This is our town."
Marina coughed loudly from inside the car: a melodramatic stage "ahem."
She looked out at him. "Don't you think you should ask my opinion before making blanket pronouncements about 'our' town?"
He swung around in surprise. "You don't like it?"
She got out of the car and walked to the edge of the cliff, looking around her at the scenery. She pretended to think for a moment.
"It's ... all right," she said finally in her most affected voice. She looked toward him, eyebrows raised.
Then the smile broke through.
Marina had interviewed for the teaching position the next week and had been accepted. They'd bought the place two months later, after several weekend house-hunting trips to the area. Gordon had originally wanted to buy a converted farmhouse--he had dreams of living a cinematic small town existence, complete with a cow for milk and a couple chickens for eggs--but the only farmhouses for sale were way out of their price range. Even with the bank loan and money borrowed from both their parents they were only able to afford someplace small. Still, their new home was by itself, outside the town limits, backed up against untouched National Forest land. An old one-story wood-framed structure, it was set in the middle of a half-acre of thickly wooded property. The previous owners had built a small animal pen next to the tool shed out back and had cleared a large area on the side of the house for gardening. Gordon was delighted. The old owners had also added several large picture windows to the house, allowing for unobstructed views of both the Rim and the surrounding woods.
That first year, they too had made a lot of changes: converting the breakfast nook in the kitchen to a small solarium, furnishing the house with Marina's antiques, painting the peeling walls white, adding on to the storage shed so they would have a place to store firewood. Yes, the winter had been colder than Gordon had expected, and the summer hotter. And the entire cycle had repeated itself the following year.
But he really did love living here. It was everything he'd hoped for.
He loved the house, loved the forest, and loved Randall. Hell, he even liked his menial job.
Marina emerged from the bathroom dressed and ready to go. She walked into the bedroom and stopped just inside the door, staring at him, her eyes moving visibly upward from his grubby sneakers to his torn cutoffs before finally settling on his obnoxious Hawaiian shirt. "You're not planning on going like that?" she asked.
"This is all I've got."
"What about that new light-blue short-sleeve shirt I bought you?"
"It's dirty."
She shook her head. "If we see anyone, I'm pretending like I don't know you."
He grinned. "Want me to walk ten paces behind you? Just in case?"
"You think I'm joking?"
He grabbed his wallet and keys from the dresser and was about to start out the door.
"Wait," she said, as if remembering something. "Maybe you'd better change after all. I forgot I have to stop in and see Dr. Water ston."
"What for?"
"Oh, nothing."
"He's open on Saturday?"
Marina nodded.
He scanned her face, looking for telltale signs of sickness. "What's wrong?"
"I told you. Nothing. I'm just going in for a checkup."
"Why didn't I hear about this checkup before?"
"Because it's not important. Just get dressed so we can go." Annoyance had entered her voice, and she walked over to the closet, pulling out a pair of Levi's and throwing them on the bed. "Wear these," she said.
He put on the pants as she rummaged through the closet for a shirt.
She finally picked out a plain, light green, cotton dress shirt.
"Here. Just roll up the sleeves."
He bowed down before her. "Yes, master. Will there be anything else?"
She laughed. "No. You can keep your shoes."
He put on his clothes.
Gordon sat in the small air-conditioned waiting room for what seemed like an eternity, glancing periodically at thestulted wall clock that hung above the door. The clock's oversized hands moved in a cruelly slow parody of time, ticking off minutes that registered as seconds, hours that clocked in as minutes. He already knew by heart the minute brush strokes that made up the three watercolor prints on the waiting room walls, and now he simply stared into space. Every so often he would pick up one of the magazines on the low glass coffee table in front of him--Flying, Computer Science, or perhaps Modern Medicine--and scan the glossy pages for some item of interest. He had exhausted the magazines and was just about to start on The Children's Living Bible when he heard Marina's muffled voice through the thick clouded glass partition that separated the receptionist's desk from the waiting room.
He put the book down and looked up. There was a blur of colored movement behind the frosted glass.
Marina's face was an embarrassed mixture of conflicting emotions as she came bustling through the waiting room door shoving a folded slip of prescription paper into her purse. Fear and joy, anxiety and excitement all vied for time on her features. She looked around the empty room for a second, as if not seeing him, then fixed him with an unsure smile. Her face was red. "I'm pregnant," she said.
Gordon blinked in startled incomprehension, not sure he had heard her right. "What?" he said.
"I'm pregnant."
He shook his head, still not believing what he heard. What was this?
What the hell was going on here? She had just gone in for a routine checkup. Dr. Waterston had just wanted to look her over, make sure everything was functioning properly. How the hell had he found out that she was pregnant?
How could she be pregnant?
She tried to smile, an attempt that only partially succeeded. She was opening and closing the snap clasp of her purse nervously. "We have to talk," she said.
He nodded dumbly, still stunned, still unable or unwilling to believe her news.
She walked over to him and took his hand, glancing around the empty waiting room. "I--"
"Out in the car," he said. "I don't want to talk about it here."
Outside, the afternoon storm clouds had appeared over the Rim, their blackness blocking the entire northern half of the sky. The two tall pine trees next to the doctor's office stood out against the dark background, their upper branches still illuminated by the afternoon sun, creating a strangely artificial highlighting effect. Across the street, the sawmill's black metal stack was also still in sunlight.
They walked across the empty gravel to the Jeep, parked next to the Sears Catalog store. Gordon unlocked Marina's door. "Why didn't you tell me about this earlier?"