My notebook sits next to me. I touch the cover, but before I can pick it up, I hear a snap behind me. I jump to my feet and look up the sheer wall. The first thing I think is – Bear! Do I run? No. They eat you if you run because you look like prey. I’m supposed to yell, right? How do you yell when the fear in your throat is as thick as sand?
‘Who’s there?’ I call out. I hear movement and back away from the wall so I can see over the crest of it. ‘Come out!’
‘OK,’ I hear behind me.
I whirl around, a scream halfway up my throat, and there he is.
Wildboy.
No mud this time, so I can see his face. He’s fair with closely cropped blond hair. He’s not magazine beautiful, but he has nice features and a strong chin. His teeth are a little crooked. He’s muscular and tall, but he’s not puffed up and sculpted like Taylor, Liam, and Rob. He doesn’t have a gym-rat body. He has a functional body – limber and lean. If I were to pass him on the street in New York, I’d think he was definitely above average, but not light-your-panties-on-fire sexy. At least, my former friends wouldn’t think he was. So why am I hot all over?
‘Were you watching me?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ he says, looking down. He’s blushing. ?
?You came back.’
‘I’ve been coming back,’ I admit.
‘I know.’
‘Wait. How long have you been watching me?’
He smiles but doesn’t answer. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Lena.’ It just pops out. But that’s what I want him to call me. ‘What’s yours?’
‘Bo.’
The sound of the river fills the silence. I still can’t believe he’s here. He’s real.
‘Did you catch that deer?’ I ask at the same time Bo asks, ‘Did you finish Walden?’
We both laugh. I say, ‘No,’ the same moment he says, ‘Yes.’
‘You know, if we both keep talking at the same time, our conversations will take half as long,’ I remark.
He thinks for a moment. ‘I don’t want our conversations to take half as long,’ he replies. ‘Maybe instead we can both say twice as much.’
I smile at him because while that might have sounded like a pick-up line from a different guy, from him it’s genuine. Because he’s genuine, I realize. He’s a real person. I wonder how long it’s been since I’ve met one of those. Another long silence. I could stay like this with him all day, comfortably quiet as I watch the filtered light morph across his face, but he looks anxious. Embarrassed, even, so I say the first thing that pops into my head.
‘Why do you hate Thoreau?’
He smiles slowly. ‘I’ll get you started on some John Stuart Mill. We’ll go from there.’
‘Really?’ I say, laughing. ‘That sounds serious. What are you? Some sort of wildboy philosopher?’ It sounds silly coming out of my mouth, but that’s how I picture him.
He shakes his head. ‘My mom is the philosopher. Or she was a professor of philosophy. I just read what she tells me to read.’
‘She was?’ I ask, emphasizing the past tense as delicately as I can.
‘Oh, she’s alive,’ he replies. ‘She just doesn’t teach any more, although sometimes she still writes for some political journals. She loves to write.’ He looks down at my notebook. ‘Like you.’
‘No,’ I say, waving a dismissive hand at my long-neglected notebook. Why do I even carry that thing around any more? ‘I’m not a writer.’
He gives me a searching look. ‘Then why do you spend so much time out here alone?’
‘I’m not alone, am I?’ I say, gesturing to him. He laughs with me. He’s got a great laugh.