Michelle had no idea what Mrs. Souder had told him and didn’t know quite what to do. She could tell by the flat tone of his voice that he was making fun of her, that he probably thought she was insane. She searched the blizzard for a light, tried to force her eyes past the fusion of snow and darkness—nothing. It was like trying to read a newspaper through a sweater. She heard the sliding door open behind her and turned to find Darcy in the doorway.
“What are you doing, Michelle? Who’s that with you?”
Pink turned to look at Darcy then looked back at Michelle shaking his head, muttering something about squirrels. How could she explain who Pink was? “It’s nobody,” Michelle said. “Go back to bed.”
“That’s right, ma’am,” Pink said, speaking to Darcy. “I’m nobody. Just one of those figments of your imagination. Like the tooth fairy.”
“Darcy . . . this is Pink Souder,” Michelle said. “Everything’s going to be all right. Can you just go back to bed? Please? Just trust me.”
Darcy started to protest. “Michelle, what the hell is going on . . . ?”
“That’s a good idea,” Pink said, turning to leave. “Let’s all sleep on it tonight, and we’ll all go to Shoney’s in the morning for a big biscuits-and-gravy breakfast. My treat.”
“Pink, no. Please don’t leave,” Michelle said, grabbing his arm.
“This is Pink?” Darcy said. “The real estate agent?”
“I see my reputation precedes me,” Pink said. “Do you need a card?”
“Darcy,” Michelle said. “Please, just go back inside.”
“Michelle, what’s going on?” Darcy said. “Can you just come in and tell me what’s happening here? Alone, please?”
“Okay. I just need to speak with Pink for a minute then I’ll be in. Why don’t you put on some coffee? Maybe decaf? I’ll tell you everything.”
After sliding the door shut, Darcy disappeared into the darkness of the cabin. Michelle could tell her sister was disgusted with her, but none of that would matter. Not if this worked. If it worked? Michelle examined the words her mind had used, the little battles waged on a regular basis between fantasy and logic, denial, and acceptance. Then a new thought came, a tricky one. What would Darcy do in the morning when Michelle was gone? Michelle recalled the photos of missing children on boards in Post Offices and grocery stores, remembered stories she’d read about people who disappeared and were never heard from again. To Darcy, Michelle would be just that, a person gone missing. The notion distressed her.
“Let’s go,” Michelle said, trying to push away her discomfort.
“Where?” Pink asked, stopping at the head of the steps.
“Down there.”
Pink swiveled his head toward the slope then back at her, his eyes sleepy and disinterested. “Thought there was supposed to be some kind of light or something?”
“We don’t need it,” she said, unsure if that was true, but it felt right. She was going on a feeling. A crazed and absurd leap into the unknown. There was no denying the tensile urgency in her chest, the sense of something waiting down the mountain, a searing gravity in every cell of muscle and bone.
“This is the most damn fool thing I ever done,” Pink said, sweeping his head from side to side. He zipped up his coat and flipped up the collar to cover his ears, tucking his head down into the opening. “After you,” he said, bowing, sweeping his hand away in a mock princely gesture.
*****
Trekking down through the woods, Michelle no longer saw the snow as a sparkling new surface on the world but more a disguise for the ice, loose leaves, and shifting soil that lay beneath it. The farther they traveled from the cabin, the more treacherous the footing became. Without warning, the ground would sweep out from under her feet and drop her in the snow. Each time Pink landed on his butt, he cursed, rolled over, and tried pushing himself back up, getting to both knees first, then one knee, sometimes falling again when he tried to stand. Snow powdered his clothes. Michelle brushed herself off each time she fell. Pink came up behind her once and slapped snow from her coat, proceeding down her backside until Michelle pulled away and said she’d be fine.
“Don’t want you to catch pneumonia,” he said.
“Yeah, thanks.” she said.
After they’d gone a little farther, Michelle spun back to look toward the cabin, upset she’d forgotten to turn on the porch light. She couldn’t see anything. Snow came so hard the air was like fog, and so cold it felt like the night could break apart.
“So how much farther?” Pink asked. “Seems like we’re lost.”
His comment was flippant and laced with ridicule. He’d probably never been lost in his life, she figured, especially in these woods. Michelle pictured him hunting every square inch of this mountain, knowing every clump of dirt, every stone, branch, fern, and snake hole.
“Should have brought us a quart of Lyman’s lightning for our little rendezvous,” Pink said. “Something to kill the chill.”
In spite of his sarcasm and prurient innuendos, there was an allure about Pink, one that was oddly endearing and made Michelle feel safe and calm in his presence. Maybe it was his confidence and compassion, his cheery cynicism, or adolescent guile, or some unwavering concoction of all these traits. He wasn’t a handsome man in the slick Hollywood sense, but under all his wayward cherubness was a rugged, undeniable charm.
Michelle was surprised to find herself thinking of Pink in this way, thinking of him at all. Faced with the cold and darkness, her mind had unknowingly swerved toward human contact, the unlikely attraction she felt toward this peculiar man. It wasn’t sexual, but more like a sibling camaraderie, or the first flowering of a blissfully troubling friendship. If nothing else, Michelle admired his devotion. Even as he cheated on his wife, lied to his mother, and deceived everyone around him, it seemed there was nothing he wouldn’t do for someone he cared about. Maybe, in some strange way, he reminded her of Cliff, the Cliff she’d fallen in love with over twenty years ago, the Cliff who drove by her house every day for a month holding a red rose out the window when she’d gotten grounded for staying out all night. Where had that Cliff gone?
“Why we stopping?” Pink asked, walking up beside Michelle.
She was lost, but didn’t want to admit it. And cold. And scared. What was she doing on the side of a mountain in the middle of a snowstorm? “We probably should go back,” she said. She looked up the slope, then down, to the side, blizzard in every direction.
“Sure you don’t want to go on?” Pink said.
Michelle wanted to know what Pink’s mother had told him, how she’d persuaded him to come with her.