attorney, Garrison Dilworth.
“Getting married? That’s wonderful!” Garrison said, pumping Travis’s hand. He
kissed Nora on the cheek. He seemed genuinely delighted. “I’ve asked around
about you, Travis.”
Surprised, Travis said, “You have?”
“For Nora’s sake.”
The attorney’s statement made Nora blush and protest, but Travis was pleased
that Garrison had been concerned about her welfare.
Fixing Travis with a measured stare, the silver-haired attorney said, “I gather
you did quite well in real estate before you sold your business.”
“I did all right,” Travis confirmed modestly, feeling as if he were speaking
with Nora’s father, trying to make the right impression.
‘Very well,” Garrison said. “And I also hear you’ve invested the profits rather
well.”
“I’m not broke,” Travis admitted.
Smiling, Garrison said, “I also hear you’re a good, reliable man with more than
your share of kindness.”
It was Travis’s turn to blush. He shrugged.
To Nora, Garrison said, “Dear, I’m delighted for you, happier than I can say.”
“Thank you.” Nora favored Travis with a loving, radiant look that made him want
to knock on wood for the first time all day.
Because they intended to take a honeymoon of at least a week or ten days
following the wedding, Nora did not want to have to rush back to Santa Barbara
in the event her real-estate agent found a taker for Violet Devon’s house. She
asked Garrison Dilworth to draw up a power of attorney, giving him authority to
handle all aspects of such a sale in her name during her absence. This was done
in less than half an hour, signed and witnessed. After another round of
congratulations and best wishes, they were on their way to buy a travel trailer.
They intended to take Einstein with them not only to the wedding in Vegas but on
the honeymoon. Finding good, clean motels that would accept a dog
might not always be easy where they were going, so it was prudent to take a
motel-on-wheels with them. Furthermore, neither Travis nor Nora could have made
love with the retriever in the same room. “It’d be like having another person
there,” Nora said, blushing as bright as a well-polished apple. Staying in
motels, they would have to rent two rooms—one for them and one for
Einstein—which seemed too awkward.
By four o’clock, they found what they were looking for: a middle-size, silvery,
Quonset-shaped Airstream with a kitchenette, a dining nook, a living room, one
bedroom, and one bath. When they retired for the night, they could leave
Einstein in the front of the trailer and close the bedroom door after
themselves. Because Travis’s pickup was already equipped with a good trailer
hitch, they were able to hook the Airstream to the rear bumper and haul it with
them as soon as the sale was concluded.
Einstein, riding in the pickup between Travis and Nora, kept craning his head
around to look out the back window at the gleaming, semicylindrical trailer as
if amazed at the ingenuity of humankind.
They shopped for trailer curtains, plastic dishes and drinking glasses, food
with which to stock the kitchenette cabinets, and a host of other items they
needed before they hit the road. By the time they returned to Nora’s house and
cooked omelets for a late dinner, they were dragging. For once there was nothing
smartass about Einstein’s yawns; he was just tired.
That night, at home in his own bed, Travis slept the deep, deep sleep of ancient
petrified trees and dinosaur fossils. The dreams of the previous two nights were
not repeated.
Saturday morning, they set Out on their journey to Vegas and to matrimony.
Seeking to travel mostly on wide divided highways on which they would be
comfortable with the trailer, they took Route 101 south and then east until it
became Route 134, which they followed until it became Interstate 210, with the
city of Los Angeles and its suburbs to the south of them and the great Angeles
National Forest to the north. Later, on the vast Mojave Desert, Nora was
thrilled by the barren yet hauntingly beautiful panoramas of sand, stone,
tumbleweed, mesquite, Joshua trees, and other cacti. The world, she said,
suddenly seemed much bigger than she had ever realized, and Travis took pleasure