tristan2

     "Name's Devlyn. Devlyn Keith." At that point, one of the managers decided to go look for Devlyn and see what had happened to him. He smiled as he walked away. "Talk to you later then."

      "Sure, bye." Lucy figured that she'd only ever see him at work and maybe occasionally in the hallway. She'd be surprised if he'd even say "hello" if they met in the hallways.

     Devlyn called after she got home from work. After that, the calls came frequently. During their talks, she was surprised to find that someone as popular and good-looking as him could also suffer from depression. They had several interests in common, including exercise and hiking. The next Friday was Memorial Day. Lucy's mother was working an extended shift that day and Devlyn finally managed to convince her into going on a "Date."

     Friday morning, Lucy looked out the window to meet with gray skies and drizzling rain. The water-heavy leaves drooped toward the ground, threatening to pull the branches along with them. It had rained all night and Lucy had hoped that the day would be beautiful. Lucy told her brother, Bruce, that she would be spending the day with her friend Sara, who lived down their street.

     Devlyn showed up at ten, in his old beat up 1980 Chevy truck. He got out of the truck and gave her a big hug. He opened the door for her and helped her into the truck.   Lucy had forgotten how difficult it could be to get into a truck. It'd been years since she'd ridden in one. The truck had black vinyl bucket seats between which was a new box speaker. Lucy looked for the seatbelt as she waited for Devlyn to get into the driver's seat. She was almost horrified to find that there were no seatbelts in the truck.

     They talked as they drove, about strange personal philosophies and how much Lucy hated sports, especially football. Lucy figured it was better to be honest about it. He talked about his second job, construction. Lucy had always wondered what it would be like to work in construction. She was surprised by the fact that the company had a soda machine with nothing but beer in it. Lucy voiced her concerns over the dehydrating effects of alcohol and strenuous exercise. The combination didn't sound good to her at all. He just laughed.

      Devlyn had gotten on the highway, going in the opposite direction of Devil's Fork State Park. A huge traffic jam prevented movement of more than a few inches at a time. They got off at the next exit, after two hours of stop and go, mostly stop. Lucy wondered where he was taking her, he'd told her that he knew where Devil's Fork was located.

      "Where are we going?" Lucy asked, beginning to wonder just what she'd gotten herself into.

     "I want to show you something." He turned onto a curving road that Lucy knew.

     "OK."

     "Let me think, where is that turn off? Oh, OK, now I remember!" He drove a few more miles and turned down a treelined and unmarked road.

     "Bio Station One? What the heck is out here?" Sara asked as she read the rest of the sign. They passed another sign for a Bio Station 4. Devlyn kept driving.

     "Here we are." Devlyn said as he pulled over to a small section of shoulder. He got out of his car and helped Lucy out. He led her down a wooded hillside, the leaves and mulch of decomposing plant and animal life was very slick in the dampness. The rain barely made it through the leaf covering, but occasional droplets fell on Lucy's head and shoulders. She knew her hair was getting frizzy and beginning to curl into loose ringlets. Devlyn stopped a few feet from a steep dropoff and pointed to one of the most beautiful waterfalls that Lucy had ever seen.

     "It's beautiful. Thank you for bringing me here." She could barely talk after that as she tried to imprint the image and feelings into her brain. Devlyn put an arm around her shoulders as they stood there, watching the misty water cascade down the rocks.   Even though the day was overcast and drizzling, the mist created a small rainbow effect. The moment was almost surreal and Lucy didn't ever want to leave this moment, standing on the hillside with Devlyn's arms wrapped around her waist. Still, being the girl that she was, she insisted they leave and get to the park before their time was up.

     "You still want to go hiking in this rain? You're crazy!" Devlyn said, smiling.

     "Of course I do! We're already wet. It's just water!" Lucy smiled back, knowing that he probably did think she was crazy.

     "OK, let's go." Devlyn guided her back up the slippery slope. Lucy was surprised that they didn't slide all the way down the hill onto the rocks below. Still, she was having the best time she'd ever had in her life. They got back into the truck and drove 20 minutes back to Devil's Fork State Park.

     Lucy had only been to the park a few times before and had only taken the Lakeside Trail from the parking lot to the beach area on a couple occasions. She guided Devlyn to the trail entrance, a slightly darkened path shrouded by ancient trees. She looked forward to seeing more of the trail since the section she'd walked had beautiful views of the lake. They walked in silence to the beach area. As they cleared the trees, Devlyn took off running toward the sandy area. He ran across the sand and returned. Lucy was a bit surprised at his display of energy.

     Devlin was slightly winded. "They say running in sand strengthens the ankles." A couple breaths later he resumed. "Probably be doing a lot of that in basic training." He had considered not bringing up the subject, but just let it slip. "Guess you should know, I enlisted for the Marine Corps."

     Lucy became an unreadable statue, face draining to a whiter shade of pale. "Marine Corps? When do you leave?"

     "About two months." He chose not to give an exact date. Lucy noticed the vagueness and wondered why he didn't.   Lucy nodded, ideas beginning to swarm about her head.

     "Guess we'll just have to make the most out of the time we have." Lucy said as she began to wonder if anything further would happen between them. She wasn't seeing any more dates in the future. They walked across the sand to the next trail entrance, Lucy taking aggravated notice of each and every grain of sand that invaded her shoe.

     The drizzling rain continued and seemed to get heavier, but it was difficult to tell from beneath the canopy of leaves. They continued walking in silence. Devlyn suddenly stopped, laughing. He commented on the sudden change in Lucy's walk. Stress often effected her physically, tensing various muscle groups. This time it seemed to have concentrated on her shoulders and back.

     "Look, you're not even moving your arms!" Devlyn attempted to imitate her new stride, back and shoulders rigid, arms held straight by his sides. Lucy was becoming annoyed, but had to admit it probably did look funny. She really wasn't moving her arms much. Devlyn appeared to be having difficulty keeping his arms stuck to his sides.

     "God, that's difficult." He said as he stopped trying. "You really gotta loosen up!" He grabbed her around the waist and hugged her, hard. By that time, both were pretty well soaked. They decided to at least go to the other side of the lake and check out the campground area and see if they could find the entrance to the third section of the trail. Then, they would head back and get Lucy home before her mother returned.

      As they walked around the camping area, they ran across a boat launch. They walked down to the water's frothy edge and stood holding hands as they watched the whitecaps rise and fall. A family of ducks was making quite a noise with their quacking chorus. Devlyn turned to look at the ducks. He suddenly began to run after them, chasing them to the waters edge, where the ducks got in and swam away. He'd lost his footing slightly and half fell into the water. Both of his shoes were now completely saturated with lake water. He grunted in frustration and walked back to Lucy.

     "What were you thinking? What would you've done if you caught one?" Lucy asked, barely containing her laughter.

     "I don't know, just thought it'd be cool to touch one."

     "You know they bite, don't you?"

     "Didn't think about that." He decided it was time to return, his feet squishing each time he took a step. The return walk seemed to fly by and Lucy was once again becoming sad. She didn't want the day to end, it was the best in all of her seventeen years. Devlyn once again helped her into his truck. They drove back to her housing development, and he parked about a block from her house. They both got out of the truck and he walked over to hug her. It almost seemed that he didn't want to let go.

     "Let's elope." Devlyn said. "We could drive out to Vegas this weekend." He appeared to be waiting for a response.

     "Love to, but I'm working this weekend." Lucy replied in her subtle sarcastic voice. He couldn't have been serious, but he said it with such a straight face. Lucy could see this wasn't the answer he wanted.

      "Oh, come on. Let's do it."

      "I really don't think that'd be a good idea. My mom would kill me." She looked up at Devlyn's beautiful blue eyes. It upset her to see sadness there. He couldn't have really been serious. Strange thing was, she really wanted to say yes. Just hop in the truck and drive more than halfway across the country and elope with him. Escape from the years of bad memories and the strict rules. He seemed so unlike other guys she knew. He was intense, impulsive and daring.

     Lucy put on a false smile to disguise her racing emotions as she walked slowly down her street, looking back occasionally to see his statuesque frame leaning against the beat up Ford. She reached her driveway and made her way to the basement door. She unlocked the door and entered the dark coolness of the basement's laundry room. She always loved the basement, so much privacy. The basement was divided into two sections by a carpeted stairwell. The laundry room was accessible from outside and through the garage, and the former entertainment room that was now her bedroom was across the stairs. She walked into her wood paneled, orange and brown carpeted bedroom, thinking how very seventies the decorating was. She hung up her drenched coat and changed into some warmer dry clothing. She'd never felt so alive, so happy. Lucy knew that she'd never feel the same way about a rainy day.

     She slowly walked up the stairs to check on Bruce and Dusty, their gray kitten. Bruce was five years younger than Lucy. He was generally a pretty cool kid, but he did have a proclivity toward spying, nosiness and being a tattletale. He always listened in on her phone conversations, later making fun of her for something the caller had said to her. He was sitting on the brown striped loveseat, watching television. Looked like he was watching some PBS nature show. Bruce looked up as she closed the stairway door. Their kitten, Dusty, ran up to Lucy and rubbed lightly against her leg. Lucy picked him up and walked over to the armchair.

     "What'd you do today?" She asked Bruce.

     "Watched TV. Sketched. Ate lunch." He was quite the artist, exceptionally good for his age.

     "Nothing better on?" Lucy motioned toward the television while Dusty began to fall asleep on her lap.

     "Nope, just sports." Since neither was a sports fan, they left it on PBS. "So, did you have fun at Sarah's? What'd you do?"

     "You know, girl stuff. Talked about boys..." Lucy watched in amusement as Bruce's face contorted into his most disgusted look. He almost looked genuinely offended. Bruce held a large sketchpad on his lap. His hand half covered what he'd been working on.

     "So, what were you drawing?" Lucy asked, changing the subject.

     "Nothing." He looked rather embarrassed and hoped that she wouldn't ask to see it.

     "Come on, if you weren't working on anything, your sketchpad wouldn't be in your lap." She craned her head slightly to see what he was covering.

     "OK, fine. It's supposed to be a lion." He held the pad up so she could see it. Lucy tried to prevent wild giggling from bubbling to the surface. It didn't look anything like a lion. Bruce usually drew so much better than this. The so-called lion looked more like a cross between a pig and a porcupine.

     "I know, this looks nothing like a lion." He frowned as he scribbled fiercely over his deformed lion. Lucy wondered what was bugging him.