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down here, to this same spot, every once in a while to give
thanks. Stop looking at me as if I've lost my mind. It's
perfectly harmless and I'm perfectly sane." Then she smiled
and said, "I've got a lot of shit in my life right now."
Luis smiled. He wasn't so sure about her sanity, but he
understood the part about having a lot of shit in her life. His
highly vocal political friends back in New York thought she
was a loon. Some even thought she was the anti-Christ. And
they'd never even seen her with moose antlers on her head,
grunting and groaning up at the sky.
"I promise," she said, "I'm not as bad as they say I am. I
don't judge people as individuals. And I'm no saint myself."
Luis shrugged his shoulders and took a few more steps
forward. There was a small fire burning just dried leaves,
small twigs, and a few pine cones that made crackling
sounds. "It seems I took a wrong step and fell down the
ravine back there."
"Are you okay, honey?" she asked, looking him up and
down with furrowed eyebrows.
"Oh, I'm fine," he said. "I just have to start getting back
now so they won't worry. I'll let you get back to whatever it
was you were doing here."
But as he turned to leave she handed him a long stick with
feathers fastened to the end. She told him it was good luck to
dance around the fire and wave the stick, offering thanks to
the universe. She said it was cleansing and it rejuvenated the
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spirit. Before he even knew what was happening, they were
both dancing around the fire, waving their sticks, grunting
and howling up at the sky.
Luis had always been the type who didn't go looking for
unusual situations, but they always seemed to find him
anyway. If there were fifty normal people sitting in a doctor's
waiting room and one peculiar person, the normal people
would ignore Luis and the peculiar person would sit next to
him and start talking. He tended to be a magnet for people
with problems and unusual circumstances. They flocked to his
side and told him their life stories. Once, in a dentist's office,
a good-looking young guy wearing two diamond studs spent
two hours telling Luis about his addiction to sex while Luis
just sat there smiling and nodding.
Although Luis knew this woman was politically
conservative and against legalized same-sex marriage, she
treated him as if he was her new best friend. Halfway through
their dance around the fire, she even tapped his back and
said, "I had a feeling I was going to like you when I saw you
at the party. You're okay in my book, fella."
Luis just smiled and thanked her, then lifted his stick and
waved it in circles. At least she didn't call him boy. If Ben and
Percy saw him right now, they'd never speak to him again. In
the past few years, Luis had witnessed lifelong friends stop
talking to each other over politics, which always left him
shrugging his shoulders in disbelief.
They were standing in front of the fire, laughing and rolling
their hips in circles, when Jase tapped him on the shoulder
and said, "There you are. I've been looking all over for you."
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Luis was really into the dance by then. He'd left his
inhibitions behind and he'd lost track of time. But he stopped
and looked over his shoulder. He felt his face flush and he
forced a smile. "I was just on my way back," he said. "I sort
of lost track of time."
Jase nodded and smiled at the woman. He referred to her
by a nickname Luis had never heard mentioned before in
public, and then he smiled at Luis and said, "We have to go
into town. Your phone is in and I want to pick up a few
things."
Luis turned to the woman and said, "Thanks, sweetie, I
had fun. I hope it works, too." He was talking about the dance
he'd just done to give thanks. It was supposed to bring good
luck.
"Thank you so much," she said, "for not getting all political
on me. I was worried there for a moment. Believe it or not, I
like to take a break from politics and just be normal,
whatever that is."
Jase laughed. "Don't worry about Luis being too political.
He thinks the next Democratic Convention should be held in
Paris."
Though Luis still didn't get why they thought this was so
funny, Jase and the woman laughed so hard she doubled over
and slapped her knees. And on the way back to the house,
Jase couldn't stop laughing about finding Luis in the woods,
with the most conservative female politician on the planet,
dancing around in circles and waving. "You certainly do wind
up in the most unusual predicaments, don't you? If any one
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of our friends in New York saw you even speaking with her,
they'd stone you in Washington Square."
Luis smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "She seems nice
enough. So we don't agree on politics. Big deal. People are
still people and politics isn't everything, you know. Besides, I
had fun. How often does a person get a chance to go to
Alaska and do a spiritual dance of thanks that is supposed to
bring good luck?" Luis didn't mention this aloud, but he
thought some of these overly political, ranting types were
slightly unstable. Oddly enough, most of them never actually
became involved in anything productive. They didn't donate
their time, their money, or their talents to actually help the
causes that seemed to fire them up. All they did was open
their big mouths and shout about how everything was so
wrong.
Jase put his arm around his shoulders and hugged him.
"You don't even know her name, do you?"
Luis grinned. "Not freaking a clue."
After Luis took a fast shower and changed his clothes, they
went down to the docks and climbed into a smaller boat. This
one was more like those pointy-nosed speed boats that
competed in races he'd seen in TV.
"Why aren't we taking the bigger boat?" Luis asked. He'd
just gotten used to riding in the bigger boat. He wasn't sure
about this one. Though it had a flashy appeal, there was
something rinky-dink and lacking about it.
"My mother and grandmother need it to go into town,"
Jase said. "I didn't want to go with them because I thought it
would be easier."
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"Is this thing safe?" It wasn't much larger than their
sunken tub in Trump Tower.
Jase tossed him a life jacket and said, "Just get in. You'll
be fine."
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