Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
buildings have bathrooms. Maybe she thought I was checking her out as I scanned her fore
and aft for a roll discreetly tucked.
Never mind. Many girls wanted to go for a motorcycle ride. Not all of them could, but Ri-
anne could. We roamed the countryside looking for the right road to the hillside yonder and
finally cruised along the base. The building turned out to be an abandoned church sitting near
the hilltop that was otherwise plush green with grass billowing in the breeze. After exploring
the old church she said, “This is nice” her first words since arriving. Then she found a place in
the soft undulation to lie down with a sigh, arms and legs spread in an attitude of release with
no inhibition. Rianne was so beautiful I couldn't speak, and hailing from Oregon, which is
right on top of California, she was cool. She knew about cool things and places. What could a
Hoosier possibly say to a cool beauty? Corn looks good this year? How 'bout them soybeans?
Nah. She didn't care about Midwestern stuff. So I played it cool, saying nothing, trying not to
stare and failing, wondering if I would ever find the elusive, mysterious key to understanding
females.
She unbuttoned her shirt to take in more rays. I watched,
chewing on a piece of grass in the
sun . . . shine
. I pondered the move but realized her shrewd defense—saw it clearly to my own
disadvantage. The only move was to crawl over on all fours, and a guy couldn't very well do
that, I thought; it would be so . . . so obvious and deliberate and . . . and . . . And it didn't make
much sense to talk about current events or music or school or anything.
When she sat up to peel her blouse for even better rays, I gave up on trying not to stare. I
knew that direct confrontation with the holy countenance would trigger regrettable behavior,
and I was stuck, never having spoken to a woman with bare breasts on a grassy hill in day-
light. I hadn't spoken to that many bare breasts at all.
With decades of hindsight, all fours or a belly crawl would have done to a T. Or a whistle
or a blink. Or a how-do-you-do or a cock-a-doodle-do or a pulse, any pulse. Talk about noth-
ing to lose. Maybe she'd have had nothing to say. Or maybe she was the one, as in one and
only, which seems doubtful, but a boy feared rejection and accusation in the presence of a wo-
man. Fuck, man, what were you thinking? What if she wound up with a round house right to
the chin and knocked your fucking lights out? So what? How many hundreds of regrets could
have been avoided on that lovely punch? But a young man didn't want to step over the line,
even then with love all around us.
After a long while I said it was time to go. Actually, I had to go. She said yeah, maybe it
is, sitting up and turning away more discreetly to put her blouse back on, behaving like the
young deb I'd required her to be. I'd blown it. We stopped on the way back at a gas station with
a bathroom. What a relief and my only consolation.
That night Rianne howled from the back of Jane's van as Chas pumped the jam for old
Oregon.
