Allegra Goodman - The Cookbook Collector

He couldn’t resist asking, “Did you start volunteering because you remembered me?”

“Not only shy, but vain!”

The swing hung between them, but he grasped the ropes above her head.

“I was interested in halting systematic deforestation of the planet and petitioning for the ballot proposal to ban clear-cutting in Northern California,” she said, “… and I did remember you.”

“Oh, you did.”

“Well, vaguely.”

“Only vaguely?”

“Very, very vaguely. Just that you were busy, and you never even looked at me. When I got to Save the Trees you stayed true to type.”

“Now I’m a type.”

“Well …”

They were standing so close their noses almost touched. She looked up at him and wondered how his eyes were so blue and his skin so dark, and how he could be shy and also confident, and most of all, what he was thinking, but she didn’t dare ask. And he saw her wondering, and he gazed at her delicate upturned face and felt a sudden tenderness for her, a little pang of responsibility. I’ll never never hurt you , he promised silently, even as he imagined taking her into the office and locking the door. He spoke with a cautious sincerity he didn’t feel. “I know you’re dating Noah and I won’t interfere with that.”

“Dating is a relative term.”

“Relative to what?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Really?” His lips brushed hers.

“I didn’t take offense that you ignored me,” she explained, “because what interests me is what you do.”

“That’s good to know.”

“I meant your work.” Her mouth grazed his. “I wasn’t talking about … right now.”

At first they kissed so lightly, there was no decision. They kissed the way they might trail their fingers in the water. I’m not really standing here with him, Jess thought, and she kissed him more deeply, just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. She touched the corner of his mouth with the tip of her tongue; she sucked his lower lip and tasted wine, and he was surprised, and also charmed, because he saw that she’d surprised herself. She was so curious. She trembled with curiosity.

They flew apart as two wailing fire engines careened down the street. Flashing lights illuminated the yard.

“That must have been the smoke alarm.” Leon stood for a moment, watching as the firemen approached in full regalia—boots, jackets, hats. “Wait here,” he told Jess. “Stay by the tree, and I’ll send someone to take you home.”

“Shouldn’t I …?”

“No, I don’t want you to come in. Stay here.”

Already partiers were streaming out, gathering in the front yard and on the sidewalk. There were hundreds, more than Jess would have thought possible, even in that rambling house. Two police cars pulled up. The hordes spilled onto the sidewalk. Jess stayed in shadow, sheltered by the oak.

Two officers entered and instantly a hush fell over the assembled. Jess could actually hear a pall fall over the blazing Bacchanalian house. It took her a second to realize that what she heard was the plug pulled on the sound system. The cops had stopped the music.

One officer stood on the landing, talking to Leon. “We’ve got noise ordinances, and we’ve got more than one complaint.” She couldn’t hear Leon’s reply, but she saw that he was perfectly calm and quiet. “Generally speaking, if we have a smoke alarm on top of a noise situation …,” the officer continued loudly and laboriously. “When alcohol is served …” She couldn’t catch all the words, but did hear inebriation mentioned and underage .

Leon interrupted here, objecting.

“Let’s put it this way: There are students on and off campus; there have been incidents on and off campus. You think you’ve got a friendly gathering…. In the morning you may find yourself with a situation. By situation, I mean someone dead. This has happened in the past. I don’t like to spell it out for you, but that’s my job—to spell it out for you.”

Through the lit windows of the house, Jess glimpsed the firemen tramping through the rooms. What would they find there? She didn’t see Noah in the crowd.

“Okay, let’s go,” someone ordered Jess. Her breath caught. Irrationally, she thought, They’ve come looking for me too. Then she recognized Daisy, small, fierce, humorless. “I’m taking you home. You have everything you need?”

Jess fumbled in her jacket pocket for her wallet and her keys. She felt like a child as she followed Daisy out the back gate. Did Leon think she was a child?

Chafing at the errand, Daisy didn’t speak as they walked to the car, nor did she move the stacks of leaflets from the passenger seat. Jess heaved the bundles into the backseat. “Does this happen a lot?” she ventured.

Daisy glanced at her for a moment, and for a moment she looked amused. “Yes,” she said, “this happens all the time.”

Jess did not tell Emily that she spent the next day playing with Leon instead of packing, wandering in Muir Woods instead of catching up on laundry. Nor could she say exactly why she almost missed the early-morning flight to Boston. That she had stayed up all night talking to Leon at the Tree House, that they had sat on the window seat, looking out at the garden and talking trees and politics, redwoods at risk and those protected, and some in secret groves, unknown to all but a few climbers and scientists. Trees like living castles in the mist. Leon told Jess, “When you see them you …”

“You what?” Jess asked him.

“You feel blessed.”

They talked about actions against Pacific Lumber Company. Tree sitting, roadblocking, human chains, using webcams and blogs and Listservs for publicity. “Old technology destroyed the environment,” said Leon. “Wouldn’t it be cool if new technology restored it?”

And Jess leaned against him, imagining a wireless world, a place without telephone poles, those poor denuded trees turned into sticks, a world where you could see the loggers make their kills online, and click to donate and do something about it. A world of webs and nets instead of boxes, logs, and … no, she couldn’t quite give up on books.

“I don’t think I could stop using paper,” she told Leon.

He rubbed her shoulders and his hands slipped underneath her shirt. “People gave up on clay tablets,” he pointed out. “They gave up typesetting, and eventually, they’ll give up paper too.”

“I like to turn the pages,” she said.

He laughed softly. “It’s all I can do not to turn you.”

“All you can do? Really?” She turned to face him, and all at once she saw his delight and his surprise and the sun rising through the window. “Oh, God, I have to get to the airport!”

Leon rushed her home to the apartment for her suitcase, and they sped to the airport in his imported hybrid car, so that she dashed to the gate with just minutes to spare.

“I was worried about you!” Emily exclaimed as they boarded their plane. “I couldn’t reach you! I thought something had happened to you! You’re getting a cell phone.”

“Okay, okay.” Jess sank into her window seat. “You could have boarded without me.”

Her sister had been struggling with just this possibility, torn between concern for Jess and her longing to see Jonathan. “What kept you so long? Do you really hate seeing Dad that much?” Emily stowed shopping bags of gifts in the overhead compartment and pushed her briefcase neatly under the seat in front of her. “Is that what this is about?”

“No! No, of course not.”

“I think it is.”

“I promise you,” said Jess, “Dad could not have been farther from my mind.” She took Hume from her backpack to read in self-defense. The plane began taxiing to the runway, and Jess read the same sentences again and again. There are mysteries which mere natural and unassisted reason is very unfit to handle…. Happy if she be thence sensible of her temerity … and … return, with suitable modesty, to her true and proper province, the examination of common life …. What did this mean? Hume seemed to spell the end of philosophy and the beginning of … what? Jess sneezed.