[3] A Monumental Finding

They departed for Moab in the RV the week after school let out for summer. Arriving to find the temperatures warmer than home, Teri and Zoe had immediately taken advantage of the weather, visiting Canyonlands National Park, Arches National Park and the Nature Conservancy's Matheson Wetlands Preserve the week after they arrived. The RV resort was positioned to offer astonishing views of the unique rock formations set alongside the Colorado River and was a perfect spot for a surprising variety of outdoor activities.

Since their arrival at the RV resort for the summer, the tourist traffic into the city had increased steadily, particularly on weekends. Visitors funneled in, drawn by opportunities to visit the local national parks, or participate in another of the myriad activities in eastern Utah’s scenic Grand County.

This week in advance of the Memorial Day holiday, the influx of travelers and vehicles had multiplied five-fold, adventurous summer tourists lured to the city by the surrounding cliffs, canyons and fascinating rock formations, a siren song to their love of the outdoors.

Since today the plan was to stay in town to explore, Teri allowed a slow start to the morning, and headed out for a run with the dog. She slowed her pace approaching the stop sign at Highway 191, eyeing the busy two-lane highway. Glancing at the running watch on her wrist, she angled south on the wide unpaved shoulder of the narrow highway as it became Main Street.

Though the speed limit through town was only thirty miles per hour, there’d be no crossing the morning traffic. Teri frowned, disappointed she’d be unable to use the path on the opposite side of the highway. Evie divined their direction from her body language, picking up the pace again until she was at the length of the waist lead in front of Teri, staying obediently to the verge at the farthest edge of the shoulder.

She needs grooming, Teri’s mind wandered, her feet pounding a brisk tempo on the warming asphalt beneath. I should have done it before we left home. She watched Evie’s fluffy tail and feathers, making mental note to check for nearby locations she and Zoe might wash the dog themselves. With the impending start of her summer contract, if a bath didn’t happen soon, she’d be forced to use the tiny bath in their RV, an idea she didn’t relish.

Behind them, a horn double beeped, followed by a man’s voice yelling through the vehicle’s open window, “Hey, baby!”

Teri ignored the attention, knowing the direction of her gaze was hidden by the visor of her cap and her sunglasses. Though the speed limit was low, relatively speaking, it was still faster than she was traveling and there was enough vehicle traffic the driver couldn’t make a bigger nuisance of himself. “What an ass,” she breathed aloud as he passed. The plates on the large pickup, its bed strapped with two motocross bikes, were from out-of-state. At least he wasn’t likely to be staying long.

Ahead, Evie slowed marginally, glancing behind at her mistress’ voice. Teri smiled in return, cooing, “Good girl! Humans are so rude sometimes.” Reassured, the dog resumed her pace, keen eyes watching the area before them.

When the volume of vehicles past Teri diminished suddenly, she glanced behind first, then at oncoming traffic, debating crossing to the trails on the opposite side of Main again. As she did, her eyes connected with the driver in a white Jeep heading the opposite direction before each continued their course. Her heart skipped a beat that was added in and her breath came in shallow pants as her subconscious recognized him. At the same time, the shrieking brakes and squealing tires struck her, as first one vehicle attempted to stop, then another, horn blaring momentarily before the sound of engines indicated restored acceleration.

Without looking back, Teri hurriedly scanned her surroundings. Ahead, she knew from previous runs that the bicycle rental would be open already, but by the time she reached it on foot, the driver might turn around and easily track her there.

She needed something closer. “Evie!” The Sheltie looked back at her immediately.

Patting her chest with both hands, Teri urged, “Up!” and the small dog leapt, bounding into her arms as Teri ducked between two benches and inside a real estate office because its door was convenient and slightly ajar to let in the crisp, morning air.

A woman in her mid-fifties wearing bright red lipstick, smartly dressed and with salt-and-pepper hair styled in a cute bob sat at a desk inside. She startled at Teri’s abrupt appearance, her excited dog wriggling in her arms and licking at her face they leapt through the door.

“Um. No dogs—dogs aren’t allowed in here,” she stuttered in surprise.

Breathing heavily, Teri removed her sunglasses, setting them on top of her cap’s visor. Slamming her back against the wall between one front window and the door, her head angled so she could see the traffic outside from the corner of her eye, she watched as the white Jeep pulled onto the shoulder, waiting for traffic behind to pass before initiating a U-turn.

She cursed. He’d seen her!

Teri squeezed her eyes shut in dread, opening them again to plead to the woman. “Please. I’m being followed. I just need a few minutes for him to give up, then we’ll leave. I promise I won’t put her down.”

“Followed?” The woman’s expression shifted from startled to concerned as Teri flattened her back closer to the wall, hugging her dog tight to her chest.

Coming around the desk, the older woman craned her neck to look at the traffic both directions. “By who?” she asked unnecessarily, as a white Jeep with a Rough Country logo along the back window crept by in shoulder parking, its male driver clearly scanning the streets and buildings, looking for something.

Or someone.

“Never mind, I see him.” She reached behind her, taking a coffee mug off the desk, its rim smudged with red lipstick and took a sip. “I know he’s making a nuisance of himself, but wow.”

Jim Erikson had that effect on women, Teri thought begrudgingly. Always had.

Blessed with boyish good looks and vivid glacial blue eyes, he’d packed the stands at college swim meets more than a decade ago with co-eds eager for the eye candy. The well-defined muscles of his shoulders, back and abdomen, narrow waist and muscular thighs glistening with water and easily visible in his obscenely small swimsuit, made Jim the topic of yearning conversation and schoolgirl fantasy in Teri’s classes long before her sorority sisters dragged her to a meet. Her indifferent commentary about his showboating hang-ten to the swooning crowd as he set for each race had been lost in the mindless shrieks of gawking girls.

But where most would never get more than their unfulfilled fantasies, Teri had dated Jim, knew him personally—intimately—including how wonderful he once had been.

Unable to help herself, Teri leaned forward to see his face too.

“Looks like that, he’s got plenty of women running after him. Doubt he needs to be chasing one running away. You wait here.” Walking outside, the woman patted Teri’s shoulder as she passed. “I’ll watch and let you know when he’s gone. Straight back and to the right is a breakroom. You two can wait there out of sight and get some water.”

“Thank you,” Teri breathed gratefully before the woman closed the door behind her. The back of the woman’s head became visible when she took a seat on one of the shaded benches beneath the windows, sipping her coffee and watching for the white Jeep. Feeling more secure, Teri carried Evie down the short hall and into the breakroom.

A round table abutted one wall of the brightly lit room, four mismatched chairs tucked around it. Opposite the table was a refrigerator and a narrow kitchen counter with a sink, microwave and a coffee machine, the glass pot half-full of the hot dark aromatic liquid. Unwilling to break her promise, Teri continued to hold Evie, leaning against the wall near the door to keep as far away from either surface as she could.

The muscles in her legs were burning from exercise cut abruptly short and she grimaced, alternating toe lifts with shallow squats to try to ease the pain. Across from her, a cheap, battery-powered clock with a mock Vienna Regulator face loudly ticked the minutes away as she waited for her rescuer to return, alerting her that she was safe.

It seemed an interminable wait and Teri’s anxiety over the encounter wouldn’t subside, despite her attempts to focus on her breathing and her aching muscles.

More than twenty minutes passed before she heard the office door open and her kindly deliverer enter.

“Well, he’s sure persistent.” Her heels clicked as she came down the hall, entering the breakroom. Seeing no one, she gasped. “Where’d she go?” When Teri shuffled a bit, the older woman startled, then laughed. “I walked right past you in this tiny room!”

Teri smiled. “I promised not to set her down.” She nodded towards the dog in her arms, and the woman reached out a hand to stroke Evie’s velvety muzzle, cooing incoherently to her. “If you’re certain he’s gone, I’ll be on my way like I said.”

“I’m certain he’s not driving up and down in front of this office anymore.” The woman pulled two chairs away from the table, gesturing for Teri to sit down. “I don’t know that he’s gone though. He knows you’re on foot, sweetie. Is there someone you can call to pick you up?”

Taking the offered chair, Teri shuffled Evie onto her lap, sighing and shaking her head. She reached into the protected pocket at the small of her back in her running tights, retrieving her phone. She leaned around Evie to open an app. “It’s only me and my daughter, and she doesn’t drive. Maybe I can get a ride service to take me back to the resort. It’s not far.”

“You’re not from here?”

Teri shook her head again, meeting the woman’s eyes over the phone. “No. I do contract work. We’re RVing here for the summer.”

The older woman’s red lips pulled down at the corners. “The plates on his car were local. You didn’t know he was here?”

“No. We haven’t seen each other since college.” Teri’s tone was flat. She been gone longer than she preferred to leave Zoe alone and had nothing else to offer even a kindly stranger, so she returned to the ride service app, entering her destination, then selecting a ride. Two minutes until arrival, she noted with relieved satisfaction, then tucked the phone back in her pocket.

“You’re not all that old, but I don’t think you’re fresh out of college either.” Taking a sip from her coffee mug, the older woman peered at Teri’s face, studying her. “I got his plate number. Maybe you should file a report with the police. I’d hate to see a lovely young woman and her daughter having trouble because an old flame doesn’t know when it’s out.”

Teri’s eyes snapped up, wide with surprise. She wrapped her arms around Evie protectively.

The older woman smiled knowingly, nodding. “He looked about as desperate to find you as you are to avoid him. That’s the only circumstance I know makes a man look that way.”

Scooping the compliant Evie against her chest, Teri licked her full lips uncomfortably. Rising, she gestured towards the door. “My ride should be here shortly so we can get out of your office. Thank you so much for your help.”

“Any time, sweetie.” The woman rose, leading the way to the door. At the desk, she stopped, her salt-and-pepper head bent as she jotted the plate number and the make and model of the vehicle down on a note pad, tearing it off to press in Teri’s hand. At the door, she made Teri wait inside while she checked up and down Main street for the white Jeep. After verifying the ride service driver’s identity, she hurried the younger woman into the car. “Stay safe.”

Teri waved and mouthed an earnest ‘thank you’ from the back seat as the car pulled into traffic, heading towards the RV park at the north end of town.

By car, the ride took scant minutes. Teri thanked the driver as she exited at the RV park office. Darting down the road with Evie in the lead, she arrived at her RV in less than a minute. She banged on the locked door, calling, “It’s Mom!” then bent to remove Evie’s halter.

The screen door swung outward as Teri removed the lead from her waist, and Zoe, still dressed in her jammies, held it, watching as Evie bounded up the steps and headed straight for the water bowl.

“You must have gone a long way. You were gone a while.”

Grabbing the door, Teri stepped inside the RV around her daughter. “I got a bit turned around and had to get some directions.” She was unwilling to discuss the event or explain why she didn’t want to see someone she knew who lived here. Zoe’s Switch was on the kitchen table, the video game she’d been playing still running. “I hope you set a timer,” she deflected.

Rolling her eyes, Zoe sighed dramatically, pushing Teri into the RV and pulling the door closed behind her mother. “Yes. You’re wasting my time taking so long getting in the door.”

“I’m going to get cleaned up, then we’ll have some breakfast.” Teri faced the opposite direction of her daughter, who headed towards the table and her game. She opened the door to the small bathroom. “Did you decide what you wanted to do today?”

Zoe slid onto the bench seat and Evie leapt up beside her, flopping in a heap with the girl absently stroking her head. Her daughter’s face brightened when she looked up. “Yes! The museum!”

“Which one?”

“First the people one. Then the dinosaur one.”

Teri nodded, ducking around the corner to her bedroom to grab fresh clothes. “Ok, but it might be one today and one tomorrow because Evie needs a bath.”

Zoe squealed with delight, rubbing her face against the dog’s. “I love giving her a bath!”

Evie didn’t appear to share the sentiment.

**

“It’s been a long time since we rode in the Meep car, Mom.”

“Yep.” Teri smiled at Zoe.

The silver gray SmartCar they towed when they traveled in the RV derived its name from the sound of its horn. The Meep car had more than earned its keep over the years. Outside its odd appearance, its light weight, small size and cheap recharging made it perfect for their travels. They’d enjoyed many trips in different places with it and both thought of it fondly.

“Since last summer. Maybe we should drive it all the time.”

Dressed and fed, Zoe buckled herself before patting her lap. Evie huddled in the opened door, anxiously wiggling in a sit, waiting for that exact signal. The Sheltie leapt lightly into the girl’s lap, facing forward in the seat. Zoe clipped the dog’s car harness to her lap belt, then closed the door. There was plenty of room for the small dog to sit in the vehicle’s hatchback, but she loved the opportunity to look out the front windows.

“No. That’d ruin its specialness, Mama.”

Teri laughed, buckling herself and closing her door. She turned the ignition and immediately Zoe lowered the passenger window so Evie could stick her nose out. “She’s going to be mad at you when she gets her bath.”

“You said it’s a dog bakery. We’ll have to buy her a cookie to apologize.”

As they turned onto Main, headed into town, Zoe’s gaze, like Evie’s, flicked about her. She missed nothing except Teri’s knuckles going white on the steering wheel as they passed the spot where a couple hours before she’d seen Jim Erikson staring back at her from a white Jeep.

“Oh! Bakery and bistro!” Zoe chirped excitedly when they reached the intersection at West 400 North and Main, distracting her mother.

“It’s bee-stro.” Teri gently corrected her daughter’s mispronunciation.

“So?” Zoe ignored her, head swiveled to look out the window at the restaurant now behind them. “The sign said: lunch to go. Can we get lunch?”

Glancing in the rearview mirror, Teri noted few cars in the parking lot and along the road in front of the bakery, none of them white Jeeps. Inhaling deeply as she took the next right, she sighed. “I suppose. You’ll need to make good choices.”

“Yay!” Zoe cheered, rubbing Evie’s sides. “We both get bakery treats!”

There were few cars in the parking lot as they reached the pet bakery, immediately to their right as they crossed North 100 West.

Inside, the store was packed with gourmet foods and treats, kennels, beds, toys, leashes and collars, and anything a dog lover might want for their dog. Zoe found a display of dog breed magnets, quickly locating the one of Sheltie. Taking it to the counter, she insisted they needed it for the RV’s undecorated refrigerator.

Selecting a small bottle of shampoo and conditioner that smelled vaguely like her own, and a box of premium organic treats, Teri paid for their items and a self-service dog wash. “This cost more than the shampoo we use,” she grumbled as they prepared for the dog bath.

Evie tolerated the process with her usual composure, standing compliantly but periodically issuing pitiful howls of protest as an apron-clad Zoe lathered and rinsed her. With Teri’s help, Zoe applied the conditioner, working it through the Sheltie’s thick coat, then rinsed the dog again. After toweling dry, they used the air drier, combing out the worst of the dog’s summer shed with brushes and combs the store supplied.

When they emerged from the bath area, Evie looked half her size prancing about, happily shaking her shining coat.

**

Jim Erikson pulled his Jeep behind the strip mall off East Center street, leaving the street parking for visitors to the museum or the nearby sheriff’s office. Carla’s black sedan was there, as he knew it would be, despite the fact that the museum didn’t open until noon.

Over his Jeep's hood, he waved to Dana, the self-proclaimed avant-garde hair stylist who ran the salon two doors down from the museum, who stood in the salon’s rear door, smoking.

Exhaling a narrow plume of blue-gray smoke, Dana flicked the ash from her cigarette. “Morning, Jimmy. You’re looking sharp today.” She laughed, a hacking, hoarse sound, gesturing to his body-hugging biking attire. “When you gonna let me cut your hair?”

Jim grimaced at thehorrifying thought, unconsciously running his hand over his neat, cesear crop.

This week, Dana’s hair was colored hot pink, styled in a spiky, wild cloud about her head, but you never knew from one day to the next what you'd find with Dana.

“One of these days I’ll get a few free minutes and drop by. Have a good one, Dana.” He unlocked the museum’s back entrance and ducked inside before the conversation could continue. A keyboard clicking greeted him in the museum’s cool, dim interior as he bolted the door from the inside.

Carla’s blonde head leaned out their shared office door. “What are you doing here so early, boss?” When Jim started towards her, she returned to her desk, anxious not to lose her mental flow in the funding grant she was preparing.

Jim smiled at the title she’d given him. In the small museum, they were essentially equal. Carla tended to the indoor unpleasantries, like exhibit displays and funding grants, while with funding she secured, Jim managed the outdoor ones, excavating sites he located from the air flying his Grumann. They made a good team.

Nine years Jim’s junior, Carla hired on for the summer after her first year in college studying anthropology at the state university in Moab. Shortly after, she’d developed a crush and pursued Jim until he’d agreed against his better judgment to try dating. Though they’d both enjoyed themselves, by her second summer at the museum, they’d individually reached the same conclusion— they were better as friends.

Now Carla was dating someone she’d known in college, a fresh-faced, blue-eyed blond she’d met at Dana’s salon. Things seemed to be getting serious and Jim was happy for her.

He stopped in the door frame watching fondly as Carla worked, her fingers clacking efficiently across the keyboard. He marveled at how quickly and effortlessly Carla had become one of his dearest friends and confidantes, then spilled what was on his mind. “I was on my way up to Slickrock and I saw her,” he replied in answer to her earlier question.

Staring at the words spreading across the screen in front of her, Carla nodded absently. “That’s nice.” Her fingers stilled. “Wait. What?” She spun her rolling chair towards him, lacing her fingers in her lap, planting her feet and shaking her head now. “Her who?”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Jim let his gaze wander, looking everywhere but Carla’s face. “Remember a couple years ago, when we were taking photos of that meteor shower out at Arches?”

“Yes,” Carla drawled, remembering. The night sky had been so spectacularly clear and dark, the colors of the Milky Way were visible to the naked eye, the meteors blazing so white across it they were nearly as hard to look at as the sun. They’d had a lot to drink, taken hundreds of photos between the two of them and talked until the meteor shower had ended in the wee hours.

Suddenly, then and now connected, and she sat up straighter in her chair. “Wait. The woman you’ve been pining for all these years? You saw her here?”

“I haven’t been pining for her.” He exhaled in disgust but was unable to meet Carla’s eyes. He entered the office, spinning his chair to face him before flopping his long, lean frame into it. “And yes, here. Towards the north end of town. She was jogging toward me along Main with a cute little fluffy dog.”

Carla turned her chair to face him, her eyes wide in disbelief. “Oh my gosh! What the hell are you doing here?” She popped him on one lean muscular thigh with the back of her fingers. “Why didn’t you stop and talk to her?”

“I tried.” His voice rose slightly in pitch. “I drove up and down Main between West 400 North and the rock shop for more than twenty minutes looking for her. She disappeared again.” The room went silent for several pregnant seconds before he added, “And before you ask, yes, I’m certain it was her. She was wearing glasses and a hat, but I’d know her build and that dimpled smile anywhere.”

“Ooh.” Carla’s chin dropped as she eyed him speculatively. “She smiled at you?”

Slumping in the chair so his head could rest on its back, he stared at the ceiling, then stretched long legs out in front of him, well-defined muscles clearly visible in the biking shorts he wore.  “No. She was smiling about something else. There was something familiar about her, so I’d been watching as we’d approached each other. As we drew close, she looked behind her.  When we came abreast of each other, she looked forward again and right at me with that smile.”

“Jim,” Carla said gently. “What are you doing here then? There’s only five thousand people in Moab and you must know half of them.”

“Right now the population’s doubled with tourists,” Jim huffed. “Three quarters of the people here are strangers.”

“No,” Carla corrected, and he tipped his head to look at her. “Three quarters minus one.”