Page 127 of Intermission

“You’re ready to go, aren’t you, girl?”

One more moment of artificial coolness... and I open the door.

As soon as the car’s protective seal is breached, a thick wave of heat sucks the breath from my lungs. Not patient enough to wait for me to open the rear door, Janey ambles over the console, jumps out the driver’s door, and immediately heads for the grass, curved tail in motion.

I chug the rest of my half-full bottle of water and then retrieve my backpack from the floor of the passenger side, stuffing the extra water bottles and Janey’s portable water dish in the backpack. After securing my keys in the outside zippered pocket, I shoulder the pack and slide my phone in the back pocket of my shorts. I don’t bother turning up the ringer volume. Mom had my number changed the same week Noah left for London. He’s not going to call, and I don’t want to know if anyone else does.

I shoot a glance back up the road.

“Do you think he’s close?” I retrieve my just-put-away phone and check the time.

Wow. I’ve made it to a quarter to six now. A full eight minutes since I last checked the time. “It’s still early. He’s probably miles and miles away.”

My abdominal muscles tighten. A sour twinge seeps into the joints of my jaw. I recognize the sensation, but I can’t reconcile it with the current geography.

Stage fright? Here?

It makes sense, I guess. But this isn’t just another performance, on just another stage. This is mylife. Tonight, my past, my hope, and my future will collide.

Eight, nine. Eight-seventeen.

The refrain reverberates in my head with determined, desperate hope.

Inhaling through my nose, I pull the breath deep into my diaphragm. The well-exercised muscle expands. As Mr. Barron taught me, I picture the tissues stretching thinner and thinner, giving me permission to exert both volume and control. Choosing “ah” as my sound, the G above middle C as my note, I crescendo the breath over fifteen seconds and then repeat, taking the note up a step, to an A.

Even though I have no need to warm up my vocal chords, theexercise usually calms my coiled nerves.

And it does help, some. Still, I have to rub my arms as phantom gooseflesh prickles against the heat.

After all this time, this long intermission is almost over. The Entré Act music is swelling. At 8:17 p.m., the curtain will rise for Act II and reveal its players.

Earlier, if Noah stays true to pattern.

If Noah stays true.

I close my eyes, aiming a heavily weighted whisper toward the sky, and then head for the gate.

“Ready, girl? Let’s go.”

Janey races ahead, moving with pup-like excitement through the stacked logs that serve as the entrance gate. I follow, smiling at my dog’s exuberance to be leash-free in an old, familiar place.

Nose to the ground and curved tail in constant, happy motion, Janey ventures ahead, doubling back now and then to make sure I haven’t strayed off the path. The trail cuts through heavily timbered hills, down into washed out gullies, and back up again. It’s kind of a mess. As I negotiate overgrown weeds, ruts, and natural debris along the trail, I start to wonder if my memory has failed me.

I don’t remember the path to the creek as being this long, even from the entrance gate. Did I take a wrong turn somewhere?

Just when I’m about to whistle for Janey and turn around to make my way back to the entrance and start over, the trail curves around an old oak tree.

I know this tree.

My gaze roves slowly up the trunk and back down. At its base, deep orange fungi with ruffled edges ring the tree, each wider than a dinner plate. They’re beautiful, like some sort of other-planetary, science-fiction flowers, and they make the tree seem as if it’s been professionally landscaped by God.

I suppose it was.

I inhale, closing my eyes and opening my mouth. Yes, there it is. The loamy mushroom aroma I remember.

Janey nudges my palm with her nose. She knows this isn’t our destination.

At the bottom of the next hill, I veer off the trail and toward thecreek, hidden beyond the brambles. We walk along the bank, searching for the best place to go down, into the creek bed.