Modified Raptures

Modified-Raptures-(Spencer)-3

two pulsing heads of hair–one a gold shimmer; the other, pulsing ear-lobe-length auburn. Shell darted her eyes over to her new partner. She matched her coach’s strides and introduced herself. Even a crush wouldn’t leave Ashella Jaspar too shy to hold back.

“Hey, Astrid. Hi. Shell.” The woman nodded but kept her gaze fixed on the horizon. “Thought first week back would be hurdles.”

“Ten days off. Try stay in shape.” Astrid ignored grammatical niceties.

Shelley was determined to impress, even if she had to do all the talking. “I’m pacing,” she gasped. “See?”

Astrid gave a brief smile. “Brava! See you there…” and she shot ahead like a golden arrow. Shell, now nearly winded, toiled helplessly in her wake.

In those brief seconds of close eye contact, though, she’d devoured Astrid’s dark iris and hazel flecks. Charmed all over again. A whiff of blueberries tingled her nostrils. She felt a thin gush—maybe some of the quantum foam that, physicists insist, passes seamlessly through all matter and all minds.

* * * * *

The whiff, no surprise by now, ignited a flashback. It was was another sliver of her past rising, drawn into view by Astrid’s gravity. But with this one she was familiar. She often recollected it. A float trip with her father and his then fiancée, Averill. Her mind’s fuzzy eye saw that sun, a friendly orange giant, peeking over a range of emerald hills, set to gild some rustling poplars. Their top branches formed a green cascade that lapped at the blue, whispering stream. Her toes felt again a thousand tiny but sweet nibbles.

She was already up, sitting cross-legged on a spit of soft sand mingled with gritty gravel. Her hands probed a deep, fire-blackened, metal pot. A calm smile lit her face as she got the bolt to accept the loose nut so she could affix the handle to the pot. (Shaking the pot which she’d filled with lentils the night before had loosened it.)

A musical sigh carried her to her next labor. (She had already stirred the embers of last night’s fire. “Don’t need dad. I can manage it.”) The flames were starting to lap at the bottom of the tin coffee pot. As her hand hovered where the fire licked at the metal, she felt the sensations, and wondered—during the usual split second of attention she accorded most of her dizzy array of notions–what it would be like to be the coffee pot, to hold and dispense warming liquid for everyone. (“Silly; that’s not real. People aren’t pots.”) She had already lined up the metal canisters like obedient soldiers: of coffee for them, and for her, cocoa, her invariable favorite. Well, hmm, maybe she’d try some of the coffee in her cocoa. “Dad seems to like the coffee I fix him. Should I?” The water had no bubbles yet, so she turned to other things of the random moment.

Oh, right. Those blueberries. She had assigned herself the night before the dawn task of hunting down a quart or so of the plump fruits the recent June rains were hastening to perfection. Now she plunged into the four or five laden bushes she had identified. Her dextrous hands were soon weaving into and out of the soft twigs in a blur: the rapidly filling metal bowl gave ample evidence of her success. Her dextrous hands saw to it that not one round blue atom plopped to the ground; a few even swooned in, stem attached, unbidden.

Next, the more tedious task of picking those few stems from their berries: “Ten minutes. Then I can call them.” She edged the rolling liquid toward the back of the grill, and the roil soon calmed to a gentle simmer. She turned to the batter she’d made and covered the night before. Into it the blueberries. Next she dug again with her willow wand into the coals, stirring them. Then, unplanned as usual, she grew meditative. Her mind drifted from the bright azure overhead to … what? a ceiling slamming shut. She shuddered and banished the image.

That’s when the side of her mouth felt a sudden hot jolt. “Ouch.” She’d let that hot wand snuggle up to her mouth, hot ashes clinging, not the warm soup of pancake batter she thought she’d been stirring. She scuttled down to the end of the spit and splashed some water on the half-inch-long burn. Around her feet, as she scooped the cool liquid into her hand, boiled a miraculous sight–a concerned squadron of fish churning the liquid surface, nibbling at her toes,.

Shell took the magical moment in stride. “Relax, fishies. I’m okay. Come back later. Pancakes for you. Blueberries too!

A road trip home

Three days later, after the close of Friday’s practice, she saw Astrid flying around the track, her hair the usual honey-blond stream. Even then, she was the object of perhaps six pairs of male eyes. A line of docile ants, en route to their lockers, they were being distracted into a series of dilatory epicycles. The “l. d. relay brotherhood” was taking its sweet male time and giving those many eyes a full regale.

Shelley also employed a strategic dawdle (extra sit-ups on the infield, white towel around her neck) long enough to see Astrid come in from that day’s laps.

As she sat up at each “crunch,” Shelley could catch (like a stop-action camera) the steady gyrations of Astrid’s hips and that remarkable muscling at play in her thighs as she drew ever nearer. Her golden hair streamed against the shimmering green of the April hills as she completed a final circuit. She then went on to her personal finale–attacking a line of hurdles, all with her usual liquid grace of motion. Nearly. As she lifted off for the last one, stretching like a gazelle, her extended leg grazed the wooden crossbar. It wobbled precariously, and she completed a jiggled arc back to earth. A twinge creased her eyelids. Delicate crows-feet surfaced, then dissolved. She slowed to a limping adagio not ten feet away from Shell, completing her twentieth crunch. She jumped to her feet and hastened to her coach’s side.

Her excitement at the unexpected close encounter up-ended the many thoughts she longed to convey. She grabbed the handiest. “Coach, I need help on my mile. Pacing? Timing?”

“Sure.” Astrid’s pants were musical but they were still gasps. “A moment.”

“Oh, hey I’m sorry: you okay?” She saw Astrid’s left hand stretching down to trace a red welt rising behind her knee. “ Is it bleeding?”

“Nope, nope. No blood. Binding.”

As Shelley’s hand reached out and palpated the bruise, those toes began to itch. It was as if a huge, unbidden shelf of her mind were rising softly to the surface, absorbing and ordering the mingled world of green and blonde and skin and hurdles that danced and bunched before her eyes.

“Wow, those hands of yours. Magical.”

“Glad I was near by. But I’m pretty sure you need a cold compress.”

“Say, yeah. Well, one good thing: it’s a chance to put my new ice-maker to use. Oh, fuck.”

“f**k?”

“Damn.”

“Okay, then. ‘Damn.’ Why ‘damn’?”

“I’m carless: a friend said he’d come get me, but he emailed me mid-morning. Called to Chicago.”

Shell was touched by her candor and let an idea stir. But womanly curiosity took precedence.

“Friend? Tall guy, stunning hair? And,” she pretended to dab at some drool sliding down her chin, “dreamy green eyes?”

“Yes,” Astrid laughed. “Tall, green-eyed Mark. It’s Ashella, right?”

“Just on my driver’s license.” She stood taller. “Shell.”

“Shell, then. Good. Well, sharp eyes and good memory Shell.”

She patted the back of Astrid’s hand. “Lucky you.”

Shell was standing so close, her eyes could feast for a split second on Astrid’s broad shoulders, and absorb the bronze triangle below them, where steamy rivulets glistened. Then back to those hazel eyes. Were those flecks emerald? God.

She unwound the wet towel from her neck and offered it.

“Thanks.” Astrid bowed her head, then began dabbing at her neck and chest, eyes closed.

“Yeah, lucky me to have Mark. But he goes and picks the day I had my sweet Mini’s brakes fixed.” She gave a sigh and did an extreme pout: “Poor me.”

Shelley found her lips enchanting. That idea acquired new life, but she prefaced it with a question. “So. You really are stranded?”

“Pitiful tale, huh? Lame. Stranded.” She laughed at her melodrama and drew her lips into pout. “But no problem. Dad can fetch me, long as I reach him by six.”

“No. Wait.” Shell set loose the idea she’d been percolating. “I have a car. One idea. And, second, these hands.” She wiggled her ten digits in Astrid’s face. “My steps would tell you I’m good at massages. And, say. Number three: I have a secret recipe–a healing ointment for that bruise. True. So what say?”

She retrieved Astrid’s towel to swab the rivulets that still gathered on the woman’s collarbone.

Astrid found the smile enchanting, the offer irresistible. “Well, I don’t know why you’d need to massage steps or how they can talk to you, but yes: I will take the ride. With thanks.”

“And ...” while she quietly exulted, “Hey. You can teach me some more running tips. Earn those coach shekels.”

“Tough bargain.” She looked straight into Shelley’s eyes. Shell used the towel again, this time to hold aside a curling tendril from Astrid’s face. “But, well, I’m in your hands.”

“Glad you agree, but I should thank you. My parents took my ‘steps’ (those are my step-sisters) to the Ozarks, long week-end. I’m abandoned. Me, their track star. Without you, I’d o’ been going home to a deserted house.”

“Hmm, my pain, your gain?”

As they walked toward the gym, Shell knew one thing for sure. This memory would stick. And she was right. It will recur two years later in Forest Park. (That’s when Scott, as Gavin’s co-host and the fiesta’s chief chef, will first meet her, will grasp her firm hand in his floury one. And it’s blossoming yet again as she views him (back to her future, our present) from her hearth perch. Each time, it all rushes back—the feel, the night, the aromas. Some memories are keepers; and they will bounce off and ignite so many others.

By the time they’d reached the gym door–Shelley slowing to match the older girl’s limp–they were becoming fast friends.

“So, up top? Ten minutes?”

“Ten it is.” Astrid formed her bronzed hand into a mock-fist and gave her novice chauffeur’s shoulder a pretend pound. Then she stumped down the hall to the coaches’ locker room; her glowing hair was soon eclipsed by the closing door.

Shelley shadow-boxed her fists with delight (“Yes!”) and saluted Astrid’s departing figure. She walked on, jabbing her arms and nodding her head to some new tune she’d heard that morning. Its beat had stuck with her all day, her fingers pulsing taps on the nearest desk, her feet making rhythmic shuffles on the handiest floor.

* * * * *

Shell showered and changed in an unprecedented five minutes. Then she paused, took stock of the changing area. She never quite got it when her teachers would crack puns. But now suddenly she realized: “Changing room! Yeah. That’s what it is. I’m changing. Have been. She’s making it happen!” She then chanced a further ten seconds to survey her hair, whose slow-motion cascade, since spring-break, had by now edged a good inch and a half below her earlobe. “Coming along nicely, hair. Keep at it.”

* * * * *

Two minutes later, Astrid was leaning for support on the opened car door. She gave her hefty, laden back-pack a flip over the seat, then carefully eased her now professionally dressed form onto the passenger seat. Brake off, first gear, ignition. (Shell had inherited Ben’s aging stick-shift.)