When he says it, I feel like an idiot. “Like a stocked fish pond.”
“Exactly.”
I try to picture it. “So, you live between crawfish ponds and a river. Is your tiny house on stilts?”
“Yeah.” He grins, but behind it is a little grimace. “You know what June 1st was?”
I frown. “The Monday before last?”
One side of his mouth climbs higher. “Yep, the Monday before last, and also the beginning of hurricane season.”
“How long does that last?” My guess is through summer.
“Now until the end of November.”
My eyes bug. “Half the year?”
Beau nods. “That’s one of the reasons my house is on stilts. If the river rises much above flood stage during a storm, we get swamped.”
“We?” I zero in on that very unexpected pronoun. Who is thiswe?If Beau shared his tiny house with a girlfriend, he’d have mentioned that.
Right?
“It’s not just me between the ponds and the river. I have a neighbor with about thirty acres and cattle.”
“Thirty acres? You were serious when you said country,” I say. “Sounds like you’re pretty much all by yourself.”
He nods, pushing aside a low-hanging frond from our path. “It’s quiet.”
I step through the opening he’s provided. “The way you like it,” I venture.
“I’m not complaining.” His grin turns wry. “I’ve got nothing against society, but I prefer it in small doses.”
I smile, unable to help myself. “Thoreau said, ‘I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.’”
He blinks like I’ve startled him. I’ll bet he never expected me to quote Thoreau, but it’s just the thing to read on a thru-hike.
Beau shakes his head, laughing. “I only have one chair in my house—but there’s a rocker on my tiny front porch. That makes a total of two,” he adds quickly. “So, according to Thoreau, enough for friendship.”
We latch eyes. Is that an invitation in his? For the second time today, I feel a glowing warmth at the thought of his friendship.
“What about you?” he asks, throwing me.
“Oh, I have no idea how many chairs I have.”
His laughter echoes through the forest. “No, I meant your house.” He points a thumb over his shoulder. “The house you’re renting in town. Is it anything like where you live in L.A.?”
“No-o-o,” I say, making the word three syllables. “I wish. I mean, I have a condo, and it’s nice—very modern, clean lines, natural light. I have a great view of a CitiBank.” I wrinkle my nose. “But it’s not very homey.”
He tilts his head to study me. “So why’d you pick it if you didn’t love it.”
I consider his question. When I first moved in, I did love it. I loved it like you love a lifeboat. Any port in a storm and all that.
“I wouldn’t say I didn’t love it. It was exactly what I needed when I moved in.” Truer words were never spoken. But I think about the house Ramon, Sally, Mica, and I share on Cherry Street. The creaky wood floors. The way the glass in the French doors makes prisms dance on the walls. The L-shaped kitchen counter that seems to wrap you in a hug.
I shrug. “It was what I needed,” I say again. “But maybe now I can focus more on what I want.”
We come to a massive fallen oak that sprawls across the trail. Its trunk, covered with shelf fungus, is so wide it reaches my thigh. I let Mica off the leash, and he leaps over the tree with almost no encouragement. Then, with graceful athleticism, Beau plants a hand on its bark and hurdles the thing. I’m glad I didn’t blink. The sight of his powerful legs launching his body into the air is one I plan to revisit. A few times.
