Free Empty Mile by Matthew Stokoe

than those of his own home. He led me through an open foyer of bare wood and hanging Indian blankets that gave directly onto a large open living area. The décor here was Rustic Frontier—rough-woven rugs on the floor, two long couches in earthy, natural fabric facing each other over a chunky coffee table.
    Gareth raised his eyebrows and whispered, “Not bad, huh?
    I’ll tell you a secret, Johnny. I’m in love with this woman.”
    I looked at him, thinking he had to be joking, but his expression was perfectly serious. A woman with a glass of white wine in her hand entered from a door at the far end of the room. She folded herself onto one of the couches.
    “Vivian, this is my friend Johnny.”
    We said hi and Gareth got me a drink and then sat next to Vivian. I sat across from them on the other couch.
    Vivian was about ten years older than Gareth. She had sharp features and dark blonde hair. Her gaze was direct and her voice had the harsh edges of a German accent. She spoke before I was properly settled in my seat.
    “Gareth tells me you stole his girlfriend.”
    “That was a long time ago.”
    “But things hurt just the same, no?”
    “I suppose so.”
    “Something always remains, some piece of emotional grit that you can never quite get rid of, I think.”
    Gareth gave an embarrassed laugh. “Viv, give him a break.”
    She took his hand and kissed it. “If you wish, my broken one.”
    If Gareth really was in love with this woman then it looked to me like it was a one-sided relationship. She seemed fond of him, but it was pretty obvious she knew he wasn’t what she needed.
    In an effort to prevent the conversation from revisiting my part in Gareth’s past I asked her about herself. “What’s an Environmental Friend? Some sort of Greenpeace organization?”
    Vivian changed gears abruptly. Her eyes lit up like she had a fever and I realized I was almost certainly going to regret the question.
    “An organization? Bah! I am not one for organizations. It is a state of mind. An approach to life. It is one of the things I am.”
    “Cool.”
    “Yes, it is very cool. After university I left Germany. I vowed I would never go back and I have kept that vow. You cannot imagine the claustrophobia of Europe, the catastrophic rate at which the so-called cultured countries are covering themselves with concrete.”
    “I lived in London for a long time.”
    “Ach, what a pigsty. You know what I mean, then. I met my ex-husband in San Francisco and we lived there for a long time. You cannot live in that city without becoming passionate about the environment. No European can, at least. The harbor, the fog, the hills, the coast. So much beauty, so big and so wild. But what did I see? The same destruction I had witnessed in Europe. So I made a commitment to myself that I would not accept it like everyone else. And that is why I call myself an Environmental Friend. Because I am not blind to environmental concerns.”
    “Do you work in the community, that sort of thing?”
    “I have done.” She waved dismissively. “But that was in another life. After I divorced my husband I moved here, and in Oakridge there is less to fight against. I struggle now in smaller ways, in the philosophy of what I consume, in the letters I write to the town council.”
    “You don’t like the council?”
    “They are not wholly bad, they can be persuaded in certain things—the glass recycling bins you see around town are my doing. But they are like every other commercial entity. They believe that to survive you must keep getting bigger, that you must expand and expand. It does not dawn on them to put their energies into devising a sustainable status quo.”
    Gareth, who had grown a little uncomfortable during Vivian’s speech, stretched and asked no one in particular what time it was.
    Vivian looked at him with disapproval. “Gareth, I think, does not see the world in terms of its beauty. For instance, he would support the council if they were