“Whatever,” she said.
“Do I scare you?” Howard said.
Frances braked as traffic on the two-lane road slowed ahead of them. “Do you scare me?” she said. “Are you supposedly threatening or something?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I really can’t think of a way right at this moment that you scare me.” They were already entering the village of South Rim, Arizona, which seemed to be an entirely separate town. A thousand citizens living on the edge of the Grand Canyon—going to the grocery, the dentist, watching TV, car-pooling … all here! Maybe it would seem like Connecticut after a month, but she couldn’t see how.
“Do you think you could ever be married to me?” Howard glanced at her strangely.
“I don’t think so.” She was inching forward, watching traffic. “It’s about the fact that I’m already married. And you’re already married. And we’re married to other people.”
“So it’s just barb-less fucking. Fuck-and-release.” He wasn’t paying attention, just blabbing. Bored.
“Like Etch-a-Sketch. You know?” She stared at the license plate of the Explorer ahead of them. Maine. A Natural Treasure. What was there?
“And so, do you feel guilty about it?”
“I feel …” She stopped. Whatever she was about to say could definitely jeopardize her first look at the Grand Canyon, simply because of whatever brainless thing he would then say back. And precious little happened for the first time anymore, so she didn’t intend to fuck this one up with a lot of idiot blabbing. Why wasn’t Meredith, her roommate who’d died of brain cancer, here now, instead of this guy? Meredith would’ve enjoyed this. “Communications are suspended for a period, okay?” She smiled over at him inhospitably. “I want to, you know, look at the Grand Canyon. No mas preguntas este mañana.”
“That’ll work. Whatever,” Howard said, reaching down where he’d removed his shoe to pick at his raised, big toenail as if he was thinking of pulling it off.
She might even be harming herself by associating with this man. Possibly he posed a threat, staring at his huge toenail. What could he be thinking? Something sinister. She’d excuse herself to use the rest room the minute they were out of the car, then get away from him. Call the police and say he was stalking her. Let him find his pitiful way back to Phoenix alone. She thought of his wife’s pained expression, seen like a wraith out in the night sky of Phoenix two nights ago. She could have him back.
“Do you like things complicated or simple?” Howard said, still worrying his toenail.
“Simple,” she said.
“Hm. I guessed so,” he said idly. “Me, too.”
“I’ve realized that.”
“Yeah,” he said, straightening up to stare at the traffic. “Right.”
Entering South Rim Village was also entering the National Park. Cars were required to follow designated paved roads you couldn’t deviate from and that wound one-way-only through pretty pine groves where traffic quickly piled up. All the drivers were patient, though, and didn’t honk or try to turn around. This was the only answer to the numbers problem: orderly flow, ingress/egress, organized parking, stay in your vehicle. Otherwise people would drive straight to the rim, get out and leave their vehicles for hours, just like at the mall. When she’d imagined it, there’d been no traffic, and she’d ridden up on a palomino, stopped at the rim and stared for hours, alone with her thoughts.
“Everything’s just about moving people through,” Howard said. He’d run his seat forward, pushed his knees up and was watching the traffic, engrossed. “What you or I see or do is beside the point. People have to be moved or the system breaks down.” He scratched his hand over the top of his bristly hair, then pulled at his ear. “Real estate’s exactly the same thing. People move somewhere, and we find ’em a place. Then they move someplace else, and we find them another place. It doesn’t matter where they finally are— which is not what we were taught to understand in school, of course. We’re supposed to think where we are does matter. But it’s like a shark’s life. Dedicated to constant moving.” He nodded at this conception.
“I think they come here for very good reasons,” Frances said. The campers and land yachts took up too much space was what she was thinking. The problem was cramped space, not movement. The Grand Canyon was open space. “People don’t just move to be moving. I wasn’t dying to drive and somebody dreamed up a Grand Canyon for me. That’s stupid.”
“Civilization,” Howard said dully, paying no attention, “coming up here, working up here, living up here—all these thousands of people. It’s like an airport, not a real place. If we ever get to see the fucking Grand Canyon, if it’s not just a myth, it’ll be like being in an airport. Looking at it will be like looking at a runway where the planes are all lined up. That’s why I’d rather stay home instead of getting herded here and herded there.” He sniffed through his wide nostrils.
And now he was beginning to ruin things, just the way she’d feared but had promised herself not to let him. She looked at him and felt herself actually grimace. She needed to get away from this man. She felt willing to push him right out the door onto the road, using her foot. Though that would be hysterical, and scare him to death. She would have to try to ignore him a little longer, until they were out of the car. She produced a displeasing mental picture of Howard whamming away on her in the grubby, awful little teepee with beetles all over the floor and no TV. What had that been about? All those thoughts she’d thought. What was her brain doing? How desperate was she?
“There’s that Indian from the motel.” Howard pointed at a young man with a long black ponytail, wearing jeans and a green T-shirt. He was walking across the sunny parking lot into which a park ranger in a pointed hat, and standing beside a little hut, was flagging traffic. The Indian was in with the tourists hiking out of the lot up a paved path Frances knew had to lead to the canyon rim. This would be fine, she thought. It was too late to ruin it now. “Maybe he’s one of the ancient spirit people.” Howard smirked. “Maybe he’s our spiritual guide to the Grand Canyon.”
“Shut up,” Frances said, swerving into a slot among other parked cars and campers. Families were leaving vehicles and legging it in the direction the Indian had gone. Some were hurrying as if they couldn’t wait another minute. She felt that way. “Maybe you can go buy us a sandwich. I’ll come find you in a while.” She was looping her camera around her neck, eager to get out.
“I guess not.” Howard pushed open his door with his sneaker and began unfolding his long legs. “I couldn’t miss this. Haven’t you ever stood beside a construction site and looked in the hole. That’s what this’ll be. It’ll be a blast.”
She looked at him coldly. A chill, pine-freshened breeze passed softly through the opened car doors. There were plenty of other people come to admire the great vista, the spiritual grandeur and the natural splendor. It was with them that she would experience the canyon. Not this loser. When it was all over, he could decide it was his idea. But in an hour he’d be history, and she could enjoy the ride back to Phoenix alone. None of this would take long.
Down the hill from the parking lot and through the pine trees, set away from where the tourists went, Howard could see what looked like barracks buildings with long screened windows, painted beige to blend with the landscape. These were dormitories. Like going to basketball camp in the Catskills. A boy and a girl—teenagers—were toting a mattress from one barracks building to another, and giggling. You got used to it, he imagined. Days went by probably, and you never even saw the Grand Canyon or thought a thing about it. It was exactly like working in an airport.
Frances was hurrying up the path, paying no attention to him. There had to be Weiboldt people up here, he thought, folks who’d recognize them and get the whole picture in a heartbeat. They stood out like Mutt and Jeff. No way to get away with anything. His father always said it didn’t matter who knew what you did, only what you did. And what they’d been doing was fucking and
riding around in a rental car on company time—which was probably a federal crime anymore. Plus, Frances seemed not to like him much now, though he didn’t see how he’d done anything particularly wrong, except go to sleep too fast in the motel. He was perfectly happy to be up here with her, happy to take part if they didn’t stay all day. He realized he was hungry.
Coming up the path, you couldn’t actually tell that there was something to see up ahead, just a low rock wall where people had stopped, and a lot of blue sky behind it. An airplane, a little single-engine, puttered along through that sky.
And then, all at once, just very suddenly, he was there; at the Grand Canyon, beside Frances who had her camera up to her face. And there was no way really not to be surprised by it—the whole Grand Canyon just all right there at once, opened out and down and wide in front of you, enormous and bottomless, with a great invisible silence inhabiting it and a column of cool air pushing up out of it like a giant well. It was a shock.
“I don’t want you to say one single thing,” Frances said. She wasn’t looking through her camera now, but had begun to stare right into the canyon itself, like she was inhaling it. Sunlight was on her face. She seemed blissed.
He did, however, expect to say something. It was just natural to want to put some words of your own to the whole thing. Except he instantly had the feeling, standing beside Frances, that he was already doing something wrong, had somehow approached this wrong, or was standing wrong, even looking at the goddamned canyon wrong. And there was something about how you couldn’t see it at all, and then you completely did see it, something that seemed to suggest you could actually miss it. Miss the whole Grand Canyon!
Of course, the right way would be to look at it all at once, taking in the full effect, just the way Frances seemed to be doing. Except it was much too big to get everything into focus. Too big and too complicated. He felt like he wanted to turn around, go back to the car and come up again. Get re-prepared.
Though it was exactly, he thought, staring mutely out at the flat brown plateau and the sheer drop straight off the other side—how far away, you couldn’t tell, since perspective was screwed up—it was exactly what he’d expected from the pictures in high school. It was a tourist attraction. A thing to see. It was plenty big. But twenty jillion people had already seen it, so that it felt sort of useless. A negative. Nothing like the ocean, which had a use. Nobody needed the Grand Canyon for anything. At its most important, he guessed, it would be a terrific impediment to somebody wanting to get to the other side. Which would not be a good comment to make to Frances, who was probably having a religious experience. She’d blow her top on that. The best comment, he thought, should be that it was really quiet. He’d never experienced anything this quiet. And it was nothing like an airport. Though flying in that little plane was probably the best way to see it.
The people they’d followed up the paved path were now moving on in the direction of telescopes situated in some little rocky outcrops built into the wall. They were all ooo-ing and ahh-ing, and most everybody had video equipment for taping the empty space. Farther along, he assumed, there would be a big rustic hotel and some gift shops, an art gallery and an IMAX that showed you what you could see for yourself just by standing here.
He hadn’t spoken yet, but he wanted to say something, so Frances would know he thought this was worthwhile. He just didn’t want to make her mad again. It was a big deal for her. They’d gone to all this trouble and time. She should be able to enjoy it, even if he didn’t particularly care. There was probably no way to get her interest in him back now; though he’d thought, while they were driving up, that they ought to at least try to keep this going back home, turn it into something more permanent, get the logistics smoothed out. That would be good. Only now it seemed like they might not even be talking on the ride back. So why bother?
Down the scenic walkway, where the other tourists were wandering toward the telescopes and restaurants, he saw the Indian boy from the motel again. He was talking into a cell phone and nodding as he walked along with the others. He was a paid guide, Howard decided, not a spiritual guide. Somebody hawking beads or trinkets to corn pones.
“What do you think about it now?” Frances finally said in a husky, reverent voice, as though she was in the grip of a religious experience. Her back was to him. She was still just staring out into the great silent space of the canyon. They were alone. The last three tourists were drifting away, chatting. “I thought I’d cry, but I can’t cry.”
“It’s sort of the opposite of real estate, isn’t it?” Howard said, which seemed an interesting observation. “It’s big, but it’s empty.”
Frances turned toward him, frowning, her eyes narrowed and annoyed. “Is that what you think? Big but empty? You think it’s empty? You look at the Grand Canyon and you think empty?” She looked back at the open canyon, as if it could understand her. “You’d be disappointed in heaven, too, I guess.”
This was clearly not an interesting observation, he realized. He stepped up to the stone wall, so his bare knees touched the stones and he was doing what he guessed she wanted. He could now see a little fuzz of white river far, far below, at the bottom of the canyon. And then he could see tiny people walking down the canyon’s sides on trails. Quite a few of them, once you made out one—small light-colored shirts, moving like insects. Which was for the birds. You wouldn’t see anything down there you couldn’t better see from up here. There would be nothing down there but poisonous snakes and a killer walk back, unless somebody sent a helicopter for you. “What river is that?” he said.
“Who cares what goddamn river it is,” Frances snapped. “It’s the Ganges. It’s not about the river. But okay, I understand. You think it’s empty. To me it’s full. You and I are just different.”
“What’s it full of?” Howard said. The small buzzing plane appeared again, inching out over the canyon. It was probably the police patrol, he thought. Though what could you do wrong out here?
“It’s full of healing energy,” Frances said. “It extinguishes all bad thoughts. It makes me not feel fed up.” She was staring straight out into the cool empty air, speaking as if she was speaking to the canyon, not to him. “It makes me feel like I felt when I was a little girl,” she said softly. “I can’t say it right. It has its own language.”
“Great,” Howard said, and for some reason, he thought of the two of them together in bed last night, and how she’d fixed her eyes on his face when she took him in. He wondered if she was looking at the canyon the same way now. He hoped so.
“I’ve just got to do what you’re not allowed to,” Frances said, and took a quick, reconnoitering look to where the other visitors were occupied with their video cameras and with crowding around the brass telescopes far down the walk. “I need to get you to take my picture with just the canyon behind me. I don’t want this wall in it. I want just me and the canyon. Will you do that?” She was handing him her camera and already crawling up onto the flat-topped stone retaining wall and looking around behind at the wide ledge of rubbly, rocky ground just below. “You probably can’t even see the canyon from where you are, can you? You’re tall but you’re still too low.”
He stood holding the camera, watching up at her, waiting for her to find the right place to pose.
There were plenty of hand-carved wooden signs with crisp white lettering that said, PLEASE DO NOT CLIMB ON OR GO BEYOND THE WALL. IT’s DANGEROUS. ACCIDENTS OCCUR FREQUENTLY. She could see these signs. She could read, he thought. He didn’t want to start another argument.
“I’ll have to break some more rules,” Frances said from up on the wall, and she began to scoot down on the outside of the wall until her pink shoes touched the dirt. He looked over at her. Little pine shrubs were growing out of the arid ground, their roots broken through the dirt. Other footprints were visible. Plenty of people had walked around where she was. A small yellow film box lay half-buried in the dirt. A red-and-white cigarette package was wadded up and tossed.
“I just want to go a step or two farther out here,” Frances said, looking up at him, widening her eyes and smiling. She was happy, though she’d gotten her white shorts dirty and her pink shoes, too.
He looped the camera cord around his neck so he wouldn’t drop it.
“I want just me and the canyon in the picture. Nothing else. Look through it now. See what you see when you see me.” She was beaming, backing up through the little scrub pines, squinting into the morning sun. “Is it okay?”
“Be careful,” Howard said, fitting the little rubber eye-cushion to his face, the camera warm against his nose.
“Okay?” she said. He hadn’t found her yet. “This’ll be great. This canyon’s really young, it just looks old. Oh my.”
He put the little black lens brackets on her, or at least on the place he thought she would be just below him—where she’d been. But where she wasn’t now. Through the lens he looked left and then right, then up, then down. He lowered the camera to find where she’d moved to. “Where’d you go?” he said. He was smiling. But she was gone. The space he’d had fixed with the viewfinder was there, recognizable by a taller, jutting piece of piney scrub—piñons, he remembered that name from somewhere. But Frances was not occupying the space. He saw only sunny open air and, far away, the sheer brown and red and purple face of the canyon’s opposite wall and the flat earth’s surface atop it. A great distance. An impossible distance.
“Frances?” he said and then waited, the camera weightless in his hands. He’d hardly ever said her name, in all the times, all the hours. What had he called her? He couldn’t remember. Maybe they’d never used names. “Oh my.” He’d heard those words. They were in memory. He wasn’t certain, though, if he hadn’t said them himself. What had they meant?
He stood still and peered straight down into the space Frances Bilandic had occupied, behind which was much more vacant space. She would appear. She would spring up. “Frances?” he said again, without completely expecting to speak, but expecting to hear her voice. He heard the far-off buzzing of the patrol plane. He looked up but couldn’t see it. His knees and thighs were pressed against the rock wall. All seemed perfectly pleasant. He looked to the left and down to where he’d seen the small white-shirted humans inching along the canyon walls. One or some of them, he thought, should be looking up here. For an instant, he expected to see Frances down where they were. But she wasn’t, and no one was looking up. No one there had any idea of anyone here.