3. Angela
3
ANGELA
“Welcome to Isle North,” the captain announces as the boat’s engine shudders off.
“Remind me of why we’re doing this?” I grumble under my breath.
The ride over to the small island this morning was choppy and I spent most of it huddled in the boat’s single, tiny office. Everyone else was out on the deck getting sprayed by sea foam and battered by the wind—and they looked happy to be doing it.
“I heard that, Ange,” Cat says, elbowing me in the side lightly. “We’re doing it because even though we decided to stay in Maine, we still wanted to do something new on this trip.”
“We have beaches, hiking, and ice cream shops on Mount Desert Island,” I say.
“But we don’t have only sixty year round residents!” she says cheerfully.
Honestly, living in a town with that few people would suit me fine. Maybe she has a point.
“And hiking is fun,” she continues.
“Since when have you ever thought that, Cat?” I ask.
“Since forever! You know my parents love hiking, especially with your moms, so I’ve been on a fair few trips. And I’ve always enjoyed the like, vibes of it. If not the physical activity part.”
I snort. My moms do love to pack up their Subaru, drive to the nearest trail, and spend the entire day in the woods. I hardly ever came with them as a kid, though. After the first time when I shrieked at the sight of a spider in the woods, they realized that their daughter was not going to be an outdoors-woman.
It’s funny because I’m betting if anyone else on this boat saw blood literally spurt out of a person’s wound, they’d shriek. That’s the norm for me at work, and it doesn’t faze me.
“You’ll enjoy yourself, I promise,” Cat says.
And then she starts heading off of the boat. I realize that I’m the last one left and I hurry behind her to the pier. Carter, Jamie, and Hunter are standing in a circle talking in hushed tones about something very serious—probably something to do with the wedding. Though Carter looks pissed as hell, whatever it is. Jacqueline and some of the other book club ladies are staring out at the water, and Drew and his girlfriend are (predictably) making out on a bench. Bleh. PDA is not my thing.
Cat claps her hands like she’s a kindergarten teacher and the group turns to face her.
“Alright, so here’s the plan: we’re going to walk through the village, head to the trails, and then hike around the island. It’s only about five miles but it, uh, goes up some hills or whatever,” she falters and shifts her feet in her new hiking boots that definitely do not have the worn, I-love-hiking look about them. “The important thing is that we’ve chartered the boat to leave at 4:00 p.m. sharp. So we all have to be back here by that time, though there is a bit of flexibility.”
Jamie steps over to her and puts an arm around her. My chest twists at seeing their easy affection with one another, and I can’t help but wonder what it would be like to have that with someone.
“To make things more interesting, we’ve made a scavenger hunt and you’ll work in pairs to complete it,” Jamie says.
“Boooo,” Hunter calls out, though he’s grinning.
“Hey, what’s a bachelor-bachelorette party without some dumb games?” Jamie says, shrugging, though the look on his face is devious.
He starts passing out sheets of paper. When I get mine, I notice two things. One, the instructions are hand written on the hotel notebook paper, meaning that they hastily put this together last night. And two, they’ve paired me with Carter.
I march over to Cat. “I do not appreciate you meddling,” I hiss, hoping no one else hears.
Cat got this crazy idea in her head last year that Carter and I are meant to be together or something. She just wants me to find someone like she found Jamie, which is sweet, but misplaced.
“I’m not meddling,” she says innocently. “And I’m the bride, you have to do what I say.”
“Why can’t he be paired with Hunter,” I grind out.
“Hunter is with Jamie,” she says. “And I’m with Jacqueline. You and Carter will make a great team. I’m sure you’ll win.” She’s clearly trying to appeal to my competitive side, but it’s not going to work.
“Fine. But I am not going to enjoy this, and we should probably have a conversation about how much of a bridezilla you’ve become.” I can’t help but smile when I say the last part, because bridezilla is so not Cat. She and Jamie are having a low-key wedding in town, and Cat is probably going to wear something she finds at a thrift store.
“Yes,” she says. “Definitely. I’ve been feeling myself transform slowly over the last few weeks and I just can’t stop it.”
I snort out a laugh and my annoyance towards her fizzles out. I know that this scavenger hunt is just her and Jamie’s way of trying to get Carter and me together, and I even understand why they think it might be a good idea. There’s no denying we have chemistry, even if it’s just of the enemies-to-lovers type. But whatever Cat thinks I feel for Carter isn’t there—I’m not harboring any secret lust or love for him. I kicked that feeling to the curb long ago.
All that’s left is deep resentment.
So I’ll survive this day by doing what I always do: ignoring him.
As we walk from the pier towards the town I stay towards the front of the group with Cat, Jacqueline, Teresa, and Ann. The boys take the back. I hear Carter call out my name and ask me if I want to get strategizing, but I just pretend I can’t hear him over the wind.
Isle North is quaint, like something out of a vintage postcard. White washed houses dot the shore, nestled in between tall pine trees, their paint well-worn from being buffeted by sea winds. There’s a small white and red lighthouse perched on a large rock jutting out into the ocean and a walkway that leads from it to a small house. As we approach the town, a cluster of colorful buildings comes into view, red and green and yellow with tin roofs. A perfect subject for a painting, I think. Not that I have the time to do that anymore.
There’s a post office, a general store, and a seafood shop and restaurant called Shaky Jane’s. I see a house that has a doctor’s office sign out front, and I’m sure the doctor living there looks after everyone on the island.
We pass a few people on our way through and they all nod or wave at Captain Jones, who is accompanying us to the trailhead just to make sure we find it.
A woman with short brown hair walking a dog stops to ask us, “Heading out for a hike?”
“Yep,” Cat says. “Looking forward to it.”
“It might storm later,” the woman responds, directing her comment at Captain Jones. “But more likely to be tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I’ll keep an eye on the weather forecast and call them if we need to leave early,” he says.
Great, just what this day needs: rain. I imagine for a moment trying to complete this asinine scavenger hunt with Carter while being pelted with rain. Just the thought makes me wince.
“We dressed with rain in mind!” Cat says cheerfully, pointing towards her hiking boots.
It’s late April so the weather in Maine is a bit unpredictable, and muddy, so most of the group wore long sleeves and boots. I’m wearing workout clothes and sneakers, because I packed after a shift at the hospital and just threw things into my suitcase. At least my shirt has long sleeves so I won’t be cold.
“The trails aren’t too muddy,” the woman says, and then she heads off.
We continue our way through the town, and I make sure to stay far ahead of Carter so as to keep the interaction minimal. I’m the first one to reach the trailhead after Captain Jones and I’m already sweating and my face is getting red.
Everyone else arrives and Jamie orders us into our pairs, and tells us to make sure we take photos of everything we find for evidence. He explains that we’ll all start in the same place, but that there are a few trails that connect, and it will make sense for us to branch out.
As we get started up the trail, I feel Carter fall into step beside me.
“So,” he says, “we have this in the bag, easily. I already know where we can find half of these things.”
“How?” I ask, unable to resist. Because the scavenger hunt is full of things like “find a small white pine” and “find the ruins of an old lighthouse.”
“I’ve been here before, remember?”
“What?”
“On the boat, I was telling everyone about the times I’ve been here for field research,” he says slowly, and then continues when I don’t respond. “Isle North has puffin colonies that nest on the eastern side of the island. Their numbers have been increasing for the last few years, and I’ve probably tagged over a hundred of them myself.”
I swear I hear a note of hurt enter his voice, so I say, “I was seasick for the whole ride, Carter. That’s why I stayed inside the cabin.”
In truth, I was less seasick and more nauseous at the thought of talking to him, but I don’t want him to realize that I was purposefully avoiding listening to him. It’s the end of his PhD and he doesn’t need my negativity. He might have hurt me years ago, but I’m not heartless.
“Right, of course,” he says, and then returns to looking at the scavenger hunt list. “Wow, they really made this with me in mind—it literally says to find a puffin.”
“Are they even nesting here yet?” I ask. “Isn’t it early in the season?”
“Yes,” Carter says, slowly again. “But how did you know that? Been reading my papers?”
“I’ve lived in Maine for most of my life, Carter, I know things,” I say. I’m not going to admit to having Googled him on multiple occasions and read up on his research. It’s helpful for me to know when he might be away on field work.
Fuck, I sound like a stalker. Or an anti-stalker. Whatever the pathological version of trying to avoid someone at all costs is.
“Sure you do, Ange,” he says, flashing me that annoying know-it-all smirk of his. I’d like the chance to dig around in his head for once. He’d hate it.
I don’t respond because I know it’s useless—once Carter has you read, he won’t back down. The frustrating thing is he’s usually right and I have no interest in digging myself into this hole any deeper.
Instead, I march on ahead, pulling closer to Cat and Jacqueline, and Jamie and Hunter, in front. Carter, to my annoyance, hurries along after me, until we’re both ahead of everyone else.
“It’s better to be spaced out,” I say. “And this way we’ll get to things first.”
“Mhm,” Carter says. “But why don’t we pause and look around for a minute.”
“No,” I say, and press onwards, stumbling a bit over a rock jetting out of the ground. “Fuck,” I mutter.
“Ange, come on,” he says, and reaches out to steady me.
The warmth of his hands, making contact with my bare forearm jolts me. I have to stop myself from jumping back. He’s only trying to keep me from falling on my face. He’s just being nice .
But I can’t—I can’t remember the last time Carter Steel touched me.
No. That’s a lie. I remember it perfectly, it was just years and years ago.
“You haven’t stopped to look at where we actually are,” he says, spreading his arms.
Most of the others have all now pushed past us, with just Drew and his annoying girlfriend still behind, making out against a tree.
“I don’t like the outdoors.”
“That’s not true,” he says.
“Well, I spend most of my time indoors, in the hospital. So it’s been a while since I was in nature,” I say defensively.
“You loved being outside as a kid, though,” Carter says, almost too quietly for me to hear. I ignore the comment, because nothing good comes from us discussing when we were kids.
Back then, I didn’t hate him. Back then, we were friends. Not best friends, like Jamie and Cat, but we liked each other’s company. We had honors classes together, and Carter always sat next to me in English class.
I don’t respond to him. I just stand there silently. And I start to look at what’s around us. It’s beautiful—similar to the landscape I’m familiar with in Harborview but quieter. More peaceful. Almost untouched.
We’re surrounded by pine trees of various types, some tall and arching towards the sky, and some still saplings poking through the earth. The ground is covered in a soft bed of dry needles, with gray stones here and there and knotted tree roots crossing the path. The air smells like the ocean, and I swear I can even hear it if I strain my ears.
I may never be an outdoors-woman despite what Carter thinks, but I know beauty when I see it. I don’t say this to Carter though, I just turn on my heel and march up the path towards the others.
He follows behind me, sighing audibly, and I relent and say, “How about this, I’ll do the first half of the scavenger hunt, and you work on the second half. That way we’ll complete it in less time and win.”
I’m competitive and I do like winning, but I mostly just want to get away from him.
“No,” he says. “You’ll need my help. I know where all of this stuff is. And the first half includes puffin droppings. No matter how many things you know, you don’t know that, Ange.”
He has a point. I have no clue what puffin shit looks like, nor am I interested in finding out.
“Fine,” I say, not looking back at him. “You can just do all of it then, and I’ll take a nice hike.”
“Angela, please,” he says, reaching out and grabbing my arm gently, stopping me in my tracks. His voice has a note of pleading in it, one I’m not used to hearing.
“No, Carter,” I say, pulling out of his grip. “I don’t know what puffin shit looks like so what help could I possibly be?” I feel myself being an asshole to him, but I can’t get myself to stop. It’s a reflex at this point, one I’ve cultivated for years. The guilt I’m feeling, though, is new.
I shake it off and chalk it up to the fact that I’m not used to interacting with him this much. I pull my headphones out of my pocket, put them in my ears and head off down the trail, Carter’s calls for me to wait up drowned out by Mozart.