The Evolution of Jane Read Free

her in just that immediate, intuitive way. I almost expected her to fly off, like a bird, leaving only an impression. Again.
    She held a sign that said "Natural History Now." Every group must have a naturalist guide from the Ecuadorian Parks Department. She was our guide.
    She was also the girl who had grown up next door to me, my best friend, the one who didn't die, the one for whom I received absolutely no sympathy.
    Martha Barlow, my cousin and childhood friend, still my cousin, no longer a child, no longer a friend, standing in the little airport of Isla Baltra, Galapagos, Ecuador, waiting for the group from Natural History Now.
    She stared at me.
    "You look just like someone I used to know," she said.
    "Who?"
    "Jane? Is that really you?"
    Martha smiled, a pure, involuntary smile that welled up from years and years of friendship. I smiled back. For one moment the simple surprise and fact of recognition hit both of us directly. Then I thought, This is not what I had in mind.
    An anonymous vacation with knowledgeable, mildly entertaining, and occasionally enraging strangers was what I'd had in mind. But here was this person who knew me, whom I had once known. Her presence was suddenly not only surprising, but ominous.
    "I didn't know you were here," I said.
    "I've been down here for a year. I work here. Well, I live here, too. It's so amazing to see you. So weird. Are you actually on this tour? You're in my group! The past rises up and walks upon the earth!"
    The friend is dead! Long live the friend!
    Martha gave my hand a squeeze. I must admit I was filled with what I can only call joy. Martha, my best friend, among all the strangers and the ashes. But the joy lasted a mere moment. For she was not my best friend, I reminded myself. She had thrown me over, dumped, ditched, cut, cold-shouldered, discarded, shelved, jettisoned, and retired me. I considered asking her right then and there why she'd been so awful so many years ago, so awful that I was reduced to mentally sputtering mixed metaphors. Or not precisely awful, as she had never done anything overtly unkind. She had just stopped being my friend. Stopped, like a clock.
    But of course I didn't say, "Hey, you over there, the disloyal, fickle one holding the sign, what the fuck happened anyway?" as I wanted to. For one thing, I didn't have a chance. Martha, the group leader, the guide, was quickly surrounded by her charges. There was a young, heavily equipped couple who introduced themselves as Craig and Cindy Gerrard. Then two women—surely they were at least seventy-five years old—greeted her. One was tall and imposing with a brisk and Tyrolean manner, though she spoke in a thick Queens accent. The other woman sported an alarming amount of aged but still coquettish cleavage. I wondered if Martha worried that these elderly ladies would not be up to the trip. I decided that they both, each in her own way, exhibited quite sufficient vigor. Another aged traveler approached Martha, also a septuagenarian, well groomed, well preserved, small and dapper. He kissed her hand and said, "And a little child shall lead them!"
    Martha greeted the rest—the family I'd seen on the plane, a middle-aged couple, and a woman wearing a United Nations of ethnic garments and carrying an umbrella—and turned back to me now and then to say, "What a coincidence! I can't believe it!" I had no idea how Martha had come to be a ranger for the Ecuadorian Parks Department. The last I heard was that she was premed in college.
    I said, "I thought you were going to medical school."
    "I'm a botanist, actually."
    "So I guess you never went to medical school."
    "Me? No. Did you?"
    "
Me?
No. You were supposed to go."
    "Well, I didn't."
    "Well,
I
certainly didn't," I said.
    We smiled at each other, both recognizing the comforting, irritable rhythm of a friendship set in its ways. But this intimacy, too, lasted only a moment.
    Martha said, "Well!" and resumed her role as guide.
    I had successively mourned,