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“Where we headed?” Zach asked as he led her to his bike and handed her her helmet.
She wanted it to be a secret as long as she could keep it one. “I’ll give you directions as we go. First, though, I need to swing by the house and get something out of the back of my car.”
His look was bemused as he fastened his chin strap, but he said, “You lead, I follow.”
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~oOo~
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“It’s a rock,” Zachsaid. “You brought me to a rock.”
Lyra kicked the back of his knee. “Myrock. And look around, dork.”
The view was most spectacular at night, but it wasn’t too shabby in the daytime, either. Especially on a fall day like today. No brightly colored leaves, of course, but lots of puffy clouds and a deeper golden tone to the sun.
While Zach looked around, Lyra put her pack down in the shade of her big rock and opened the largest compartment. From it, she pulled two sketchbooks—the one she’d almost filled, and the new one she’d had at the ready. From a smaller compartment, she took her graphite and colored pencils and a grey hunk of art eraser.
“Hey, fella,” Zach said in his gentle voice for animals and children. “How’s your day goin’?”
Lyra looked over and saw a jackrabbit at rest in the shadow of another, smaller rock. Maybe not at rest—he was eyeing Zach warily—but not in motion, except for his twitchy bunny nose. Then a hawk screeched overhead, and his nose went still, too.
Everybody stayed perfectly still—the rabbit afraid of the hawk and Lyra and Zach afraid of startling him and making him run out of cover—until the hawk dived to the desert floor about fifty feet away and soared back up with some poor creature in its talons. Maybe a kangaroo mouse. Aw, Lyra loved those cute little guys.
As soon as the coast was clear, the jackrabbit bounded away.
“I fuckin’ love jackrabbits,” Zach said. “They’re sofast.”
“So draw him,” Lyra said and handed Zach the new sketchbook.
He took the book, stared down at it, turned to her, stared at her. “Huh?”
“You used to draw all the time, you said.”
“Yeah, but ... I’m not an artist. Just a doodler.”
“Stop that. You’re an artist if you make art. Anyway, you said you won a prize once.”
“In eighth grade, Ly. I don’t think that counts.”
“Anything that gives you joy counts. I’ve never won a prize of any kind, and you tell me I’m an artist all the time.”
“Because you are. You’re talented as fuck.”
She climbed up on the rock and patted the sun-warmed sandstone. “This is my rock because I come out here to lie on it and look at the sky, or the desert. Michelle and I come out and lie side by side and talk about stuff. Sometimes I just come out here to think, because there’s no cell reception and nobody can bother me. A lot of those times, I draw, too. It’s almost like journaling, maybe. Getting my feelings out and putting them in a shape I can understand them better. I was thinking we could draw together sometimes. Like today.”
Still standing on the desert floor, still holding the sketchbook like it was something fragile, like blown glass—or maybe something lethal, like a rattlesnake—Zach only stared at her. She couldn’t interpret his expression.
“Maybe it was a bad idea. Sorry.”
“No, no. I’m just ... this is your thing, where you go to get away from everybody. You want me here?”
“I want you everywhere, Zach.”
He didn’t respond; instead, he continued standing in place and staring at her.
Then, finally, he grinned. “Jesus Christ, babe.”
