Chapter Nine
“It was so gross,” Xavier tells his father loud enough for the rest of the group to hear. “She puked all the way there.”
I did not puke all the way there, but considering the poor kid was stuck in the air with me, I’ll grant him the hyperbole.
When we landed in one piece, I had half a mind to fall to my knees and kiss the tarmac. But the week is young, and my humiliation
is off to a roaring start. No point inflaming it yet. Instead, I follow the group and climb into a new van that is more of
an old van than the one that picked us up in Anchorage—the shocks are nonexistent, and the smell of years of dirt and sweat
in the upholstered seats does nothing to ease my suffering.
I’m sure the scenery through McCarthy to our lodgings is beautiful, but I will not be partaking. I stare at my feet as Lily
rubs my back. Brick and Jace have cottoned on to what’s happening with me. Brick narrates the journey, trying to assure me
we are almost there.
“Only a few more miles to go,” he says in a practiced voice. “Hang in there, Bridget. Everyone else, this out your window
is basically downtown McCarthy.”
“Keep your head down,” says a voice behind me. “It’s all charming; a lodge, a café, some shops. You’ll see it all when you
are feeling better.” Luna pats my shoulder.
“On your left,” continues Brick, “you’ll see our local, Heidaway—part saloon, part meetinghouse, part dance hall. We’ll bring you all there for a real taste of Alaskan life.”
I sense the van turning right and hear gravel crunch under the tires.
“Is it called Hideaway because it’s so remote out here in the middle of nowhere?” asks Ian. I hear Xavier groan.
“Ha, no. But Heidi, the owner, would get a kick out of that one. No, it’s Heidi’s way, as in her way or the highway. She runs
a tight ship. Keeps the locals in line. And some of the tourists too.”
“Forewarned is forearmed.” Ian laughs. “We’ll behave ourselves. Right, Zave?” Zave groans again. It’s going to be a long week
for that kid.
The home of Grizzly Tracks Adventures is a large barn in need of painting and six cabins nestled in a semicircle among a stand
of tall birch trees with papery white bark.
“This will be home base for the first half of the trip.”
“The airline will find us here, right?” I need out of these clothes. I need a shower. I don’t even have deodorant, or any
makeup to touch up what’s left on my face. “And what about the second half of the trip? Who’s going to tell them where we’re
going?”
“Your luggage will be here before that, Bridget,” Brick says as Jace hops out of the van and starts unloading. In addition
to our bags, there are wooden milk crates of groceries, a toolbox, and a canoe paddle. It’s like Mary Poppins’s valise. I
wonder if a canoe is coming out next. “Later we’ll head up near Denali, but for now you’re in my hometown. We’ve got the greatest
backyard in the world. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park is bigger than seventy different countries. We never run out of adventures.
Still, you can’t come to Alaska and not see ‘The Great One.’ And don’t worry, Bridget. We’ve got some bits and pieces in the
lost and found that you can borrow until your luggage gets here.”
“Ewww,” says Lily too loudly.
We wait to be told where to go. Are there room assignments? Dane, Ian, and Xavier pick up their backpacks and head to side-by-side
cabins. I see the boys club is forming. As we stand on the dirt path that branches off in six directions, Mimi and Luna join
us.
“I want you to have these,” says Mimi in her small voice. She offers up two knit wristbands with a white plastic bead on each.
I have the same ones. At home, on my bedside table, where they were left behind because I didn’t write motion sickness bands on my do-not-forget list.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t.” She brought them, she must need them.
“Please.” She pushes them into my hands. “I’m fine. And here, take a few of these.” Mimi pulls a prescription bottle out of
her backpack and shakes out a few white pills. “In case the nausea comes back.”
“You are so kind, Mimi. Thank you.” I’m grateful to have a kindred spirit, someone who knows what it’s like to struggle with
an overactive inner ear and a rebellious stomach. Mimi’s motion sickness must be pretty bad to warrant prescription anti-nausea
meds. I tuck the pills in my pocket like magic beans. Maybe they will help me get through this trip and I won’t have to ask
Brick to charter a flight out of here. Then I can still protect Lily from the bears and the lumberjacks.
Brick sees us loitering. “Ladies, any cabin you like.”
We take the two at the opposite end from the men. It’s like sleepaway camp—will we be playing capture the flag next, girls
versus boys? Luna and Mimi disappear into Number Five, and Brick follows us to Number Six. We stop at the threshold, not sure
what to do next.
He steps in ahead of us, and as he opens the door with a little shove, Lily lands an elbow to my ribs, nodding at two frying pans on the ground outside under the window.
I shrug. I hope making breakfast for the gang isn’t an assignment.
This is the Alaskan wilderness, who knows if chores are required of paying guests.
Inside our cabin, which turns out to be nothing more than one rectangular room, there are two twin beds with thin mattresses
and faded plaid comforters. Large, bleached moose antlers hang on the wall over a beaten-up dresser. I scan the space and
see the only other decorative addition—a sign that says, the mountains are calling and i must go ~ john muir. Whoever this John guy is, we are not on the same page.
“Now, if that said, The Mall Is Calling and I Must Go, you’d have me,” I say too loudly. Lily snorts. Brick patiently ignores me.
“There’s extra blankets in the bottom drawer,” he says, pointing to the dresser. “Oh, and the sun doesn’t actually set this
time of year. We call it ‘constant twilight.’ So, if you need it dark to sleep, close those curtains.”
Lily runs her hands across the rustic wood plank walls as if she’s in an escape room. “Um, where’s the bathroom?”
“About forty yards away. You’ll see the sign. Just follow the trail. Toilets and showers.”
“Communal bathroom?”
“Don’t panic,” he says. “There’s running water, the hot generally lasts, and the pressure’s okay. Make sure you bring the
pans with you.”
“The pans?” We ask in unison.
“Yeah, every cabin has ’em. To scare off the bears. They tend to wander into camp, especially after dinner. If you see or
hear one clang the pans together. It usually does the trick. We’ll talk about bear safety later this evening, but the camp
bears are more like Labradors. Not like the ones out there.” He points up to the ceiling. “No worries, though. You’ll all
have bear spray, and I’ll be carrying, in the event of a situation gone too far. Although it rarely comes to that.”
Lily looks like she’s going to cry. My pulse thumps in my ears.
This straw has broken the back. Nope. I can’t do this.
Lily can have her little adventure. I’ll talk to Brick privately.
There must be a flight out. Now that I have the wristbands and Mimi’s pills and an end goal, I’m willing, no, happy to fly back over the Chitina River and Kennicott ghost town and find a way back to Anchorage.
“I’ll leave you to it, ladies. Dinner’s in half an hour.”
After he closes the door, I put my hands on my hips. “You said this was one step away from a cruise. There’s no bathroom,
Lily. It’s not even down the hall. It’s down a dirt path.”
“You knew you weren’t going to be at the Four Seasons, Big. We’re in the wilderness. Be a little wild.” Lily throws her cashmere
pashmina over her shoulder with aplomb.
“Tell me you are totally fine with sharing a bathroom with strangers and Yogi Bear out there.”
“Whatever. I didn’t come here to be some uptight crank.”
When the knock comes, I realize how much our voices are raised. We are kids again, fighting over blow-dryer time or who took
the last Ding Dong. We call a silent truce, and I open the door to Luna and Mimi.
“What’s going on in here?” asks Luna. “We can hear you in our cabin.”
My face is hot with embarrassment. Bickering sisters, what a cliché. What no one can discover, according to Lily, is that
my sister is out of her mind with stress and fear and grief. She’s working so hard at hiding it from everyone that it comes
shooting out at me like a missile, and I’m so nauseated and jet-lagged and overwhelmed by this whole situation that I can’t
rise above and keep it together when she goads. What a pair. Honestly, it’s another reason to head home. Lily can redirect
her emotions into something useful and productive instead of at her favorite target.
“I’m sorry. We’re just tired,” I say. “Don’t mind us.”
Luna raises an eyebrow. “I know why you two are here.”
Lily freezes. She has been working hard at this. “We’re on vacation. See the world and all that. Don’t want to be one of those
geocentric Americans.”
“We’re in America, Lily,” I say. I can’t help myself even knowing it could set her off again and we’d have another battle royale in
front of our new friends.
“Oh, you know what I meant.” She flaps her ringless hand at them. “Just here to see what it’s all about. The mountains are
calling and we must go,” she says, paraphrasing the wall art in our room.
“No,” says Luna. “Your purpose is higher than that. I can feel it.”
“Luna feels things,” whispers Mimi. “Important things.”
Luna wraps an arm around her wife and gives her a quick squeeze. For a moment they both seem terribly sad, but Luna breaks
whatever spell is cast over them. “Dinner? Who else is starving besides me?”
Lily, who wants to stop the conversation about higher purposes, shouts, “I am!” Then she links arms with me, in a weird show
of solidarity or to prove the point that Luna doesn’t need to feel any important things about us, and we all head to the barn
where Brick had said dinner would be served.
After the monastery-like cabins and the communal bathrooms down the bear trail, I don’t expect much from dinner in a weather-beaten