Chapter 5
Hunter
With the teams out on crab boats competing for the largest catch, I have a three-hour break. But once the boats come back and the crabs are weighed, I’m back on the clock, assigned to helping arriving teams at the lumberjack detour challenge.
For this detour, our contestants have a choice between carving or chopping. They can either go to a local native village and learn how to carve a miniature totem pole, or they can go to the arena for the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show and take on three traditional lumberjack challenges, including log chopping.
The local village is fifteen minutes out of town each way, but if you are artistically inclined, carving can be a cinch, and you can finish quickly. On the other hand, the Lumberjack Show also serves as the location for the pit stop, but you’ll need raw strength to complete the series of three challenges; after fishing all morning, some of the teams will be on fumes.
I know which challenge I’d choose—lumberjack, for sure. But I’ve been throwing axes and chopping wood since I was born.
I decide to make the most of my break by doing some laundry at the local laundromat. As I’m switching the loads from the washer to the dryer, my phone rings.
Harper.
“Hey, Harp,” I say, exiting the building and sitting outside on a bench in the sunshine.
“Hey, big bro. How’s it going?”
“I’m fine. How’re you? How’s my niece?”
“Wren is asleep, thank God. I thought we finally got her on a sleep schedule, but I guess not. Last night was rough.”
“She’s a troublemaker, huh?”
“You could say that. At least I could get a nap this morning after she finally fell asleep. Poor Joe had to be at work bright and early.”
“Poor Joe,” I scoff. “Knowing him, he’s loving every minute.”
Harper’s voice is soft with love when she agrees with me. “You’re right. He is.”
Here’s a fact: I’m a year older than Harper and ready to be exactly where she and Joe are. Married with my own home and a baby? I want that so bad, it almost hurts to hear the happiness in my sister’s voice, especially because I have zero prospects on the horizon. But I won’t let my envy drive a wedge between us, so I shake off my self-pity.
“I’m happy for you,” I tell her.
“So! How’re things going with Isabella?”
“Wow,” I say, laughing aloud. “You’re just gonna to go there, huh, Harp?”
“What’s the point of dancing around it? You obviously had some real feelings for her last summer. That’s why you signed on for this whole reality show business, right? To be near her again?”
“I also appreciate the business aspects of—”
“Shut up, Hunter,” says my sister. “You can tell yourself that, like, to save face or something, but it’s not the real reason you’re in Ketchikan. You needed to figure out what happened last summer, and if there was still a chance for you two. I know you.”
Damn it, but she does. And she’s right. I wanted answers, yes. And deep down, I probably wanted to see if there was any hope for us. But last night’s conversation closed that door and locked it.
“It’s not gonna happen,” I tell her.
“Why not?”
“We have really different life philosophies.”
“What does that mean?”
I take a deep breath and sigh. “Well, first of all, she doesn’t do long-distance relationships. But aside from that, she doesn’t believe in soulmates or true love. She literally told me that there are millions of ‘suitable partners’ for her in Seattle, and when the time is right, she’ll find someone and settle down.”
“Okay. Fair enough. She’s not a romantic.”
“That’s an understatement. She basically said that last summer was just about attraction—we had chemistry, we hooked up, we said goodbye. A relationship was never in the cards.” I clear my throat. “She sounds authentic when she says it all, but I don’t know…”
“About what?”
“I don’t know if I believe it.”
“Why? You said she sounded authentic.”
“She did, but…”
“Is it because that kind of behavior is atypical for a woman?”
“What do you mean?”
“Come on, Hunter. If a guy told you the same thing—that he met a cute girl from out of town and hooked up with her, but it ended when she went home—would you even think twice?”
I raise my eyes to the harbor, watching the seagulls diving for food, and turn my sister’s words over in my mind.
“Probably not.”
“You’d slap him on the back and ask him if he wanted to go out for a burger. But when a woman says the same thing, you can barely believe her. No offense, but it’s kinda sexist.”
“I’m not trying to be sexist.”
“Trying or not, you’re nailing it.”
“Hey, now. Be nice.”
“No, really. Why are guys allowed to hook up and walk away, but women can’t?”
“They can! I didn’t say they can’t.”
“I think the disconnect here is that you liked her and wanted something more with her, and she isn’t interested in anything serious. It’s a little bit of a role reversal for you.”
“You’re right. I liked her. We had an intense physical connection, and I really enjoyed the time I spent with her. She’s crazy smart and funny and—”
“I get it. I get it. You had a…a good time…” Her voice trails off. For all that Harper can talk about almost anything, she gets squeamish talking about her siblings having sex. “So…I’m not totally sure what the problem is.”
The problem is that I want what Harper has, and Isabella appears to have no interest in anything beyond some above-average, casual fucking.
“We want different things.”
“Sure, in the long-term. But what about now?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, ‘Get out of your own way!’” Harper cries. “You two are trapped together for three weeks, right? You have fun together and great chemistry, right? Why don’t you just…lean into that. Enjoy your time together. And then, when the show’s over, say goodbye to Isabella, and go your separate ways. You can start the search for Mrs. Hunter Stewart when you get home—after the race is over. But you may as well have fun while you can.”
“What if I want Isabella as more than just a fuck buddy?”
“That’s not an option,” says Harper firmly. “She’s not down for more. If you can’t accept that, stay away from her. But if you can be okay with that…”
Her voice trails off again, and I don’t need my imagination to picture how the next few weeks with Isabella could look. I have my memories. And they’re amazing.
“I’ll think about it. Now, can we please talk about something else?”
“Yes!” she says. “In fact, the reason I called was to let you know that Joe and I have set a date!”
“Hey! Alright! That’s good news, Harp! When’s the big day?”
“The second Saturday in September. Evening wedding. After the cruise ships have left port.”
“I love it.”
“And we want you to be a groomsman, of course. Will you walk Gran down the aisle? I’ve got dibs on Paw-Paw.”
“Whatever you need, sis.”
“Thanks, Hunter.” I hear a cry in the background. Harper sighs. “Time’s up. Someone’s hungry.”
“You go,” I tell her. “I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Think about what I said,” she tells me. “About Isabella.”
“Go feed your baby, Harp.”
“Love you.”
“Love you back,” I say, hanging up the phone.
I sit back on the bench, face the sun and close my eyes.
I’ve been angry at Isabella for so long, wanting answers as to why she ended things so abruptly, and wishing that she hadn’t. But after last night’s conversation, I’m accepting the fact that maybe she really isn’t looking for something serious. It surprises me that coming to terms with that reality is going a long way in staunching my bitterness. Sure, I wish things could’ve been different between us. But accepting that it simply isn’t going to happen—and knowing that her reasons for breaking things off had very little to do with me—is more mollifying than I could have guessed.
Is it possible that I could change my mindset where she’s concerned? Just for the short-term? If she was game, could I engage in something fun and casual with no strings attached, no expectations, and no hope for something more serious? Because if I could, and if she was interested, we could have a mind-blowing fling before we parted ways in three weeks.
I mull this over as I fold my laundry, reminding myself that I’ve been advised against “fraternization of an intimate nature between crew and contestants.” But fuck that. We’re legal adults. If we keep things quiet, no one will ever find out.
As I walk back to the ship with my clean laundry slung over my back, I’m astounded by how quickly I’ve been able to change gears. But between my talk with Isabella last night and Harper this morning, I have so much more clarity.
I also decide that Harper is right about something else: I was behaving like a sexist jerk. I can’t count the number of casual romps I’ve had with summer workers, cruise personnel, and tourists. Why can’t I believe that I was that sort of a casual romp for Isabella? Just because I’m at a point in my life when I’m starting to yearn for something more serious doesn’t mean she’s on the same page. Hell, I’m thirty-one, and she’s twenty-six. It could be years until she meets her “perfectly suitable partner.” It could be forever.
By the time I get back to the ship, I only have thirty minutes left until I need to report to the large, open-air theater that hosts the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show, but I’m feeling lighter and better about my love life than I’ve felt in months. Isabella didn’t dump me because she didn’t like me; she broke things off because we want different things, and that truth takes all of the sting out of the burn.
But in the short term, during which long-distance isn’t an issue, we could let the chemistry we shared—the blistering heat we both acknowledged—burn as brightly as ever.
If she’s game? Well, hell…I think I am, too.
***
Isabella
What. A. Fucking. Disaster.
What have I gotten myself into?
The words circle around and around in my head as I sit—huddled, wet and shivering—on a slick fiberglass bench while the woman next to me—one of the Barbies—vomits again and again into a plastic bag. As she raises her head from the depths of her puke, another blast of Arctic-cold sea water blasts us in the face. The Barbie beside her gasps from the sharp cold, trying to push stringy blonde strands of hair from her face, back under the soaked hood of her raincoat. Next to her, half of Team Mom and Pop, an older lady who’d been bragging about her fishing skills, looks green around the gills. On a bench adjacent to ours, Team Newlywed huddles together in a state of similar misery, and down below, Team Brady, consisting of a brother-sister pairing named Marcia and Greg, have been vomiting since the challenge ended an hour ago.
Meanwhile, Beto and Pop, the only contestants who seem to be enjoying themselves, stand like salty dogs at the front railing of the little ship, cheering with glee every time a massive wave rolls over the crabbing boat, clobbering them both.
The crabs we caught have been tagged with our team names and placed in onboard holding tanks. They’ll be weighed when we reach the harbor, and a winner from each boat will be declared. Immediately following that, we’ll open envelopes holding the details of our detour challenge and be off again. Only after we complete the detour and check in at the pit stop can we go back to the cruise ship for a rest. Except, I feel like I could sleep for hours right now. I’m wet, cold, achy, and exhausted. I’d give anything for a hot shower and a soft bed.
Another wall of icy water breaks over my face.
Suck it up, Isabella, I tell myself, gasping from the cold.
“Oh m-my g-god, I h-h-hate th-this.” The Barbie beside me shivers, a string of mucus-y vomit hanging from the corner of her mouth.
A cameraman wearing a bright orange rain suit with his camera covered in plastic, zooms in on her. “Barbie, how do you think you did on the challenge?”
She looks up at him, horror taking over her expression as she realizes that her humiliation is being filmed. “Um…uh…”
None of us are accustomed to the cameras yet, and this challenge is a brutal baptism by fire.
“I don’t think she’s feeling well,” I tell him sharply. “Be decent, huh? Give her some space.”
“Okay. Fine.” He turns the camera to me. “How do you think you did, Prima Izzy?”“My cousin Beto worked on crabbing boats last summer,” I say, aware that I probably look just as rough as Barbie, but at least I’m not sick. I reach up and try to tuck my unruly curls back under my sopping rain hat. “He threw our first four catches back in the water and held out for a big one. I think we’ll do okay. I hope so.”
“So, Team Primos has an advantage! What do you think of that, Team Newlyweds?” he asks the couple sitting kitty-corner to me.
“Huh?” The young wife blinks at the cameraman, like she’s surprised to suddenly find herself on camera.
I feel you, sister.
“How do you think you two did on the challenge?” he asks her.
As the cameraman interviews the shivering young couple, the boat turns slightly, and I catch sight of Ketchikan’s harbor in the not-so-far distance. Thank God we’re almost there.
Beto comes running to the back of the boat and squats down in front of me.
“Hola,” he says.
“Hola,” I answer.
In very rapid Spanish, he tells me that he overheard one cameraman telling another that the detour choices were either carving a totem pole outside of town, or doing three physical challenges in town near the pit stop. He raises his eyebrows at me, his expression asking which challenge I’d prefer.
“I’m so tired,” I tell him in Spanish. “Like, almost no gas left in the tank. Maybe we should do the carving.”
“But that crab I got? It’s going to win, prima. If we can be first at the detour and get through it quickly? We’ll have a huge lead on the other teams.”
“Beto, I’m drenched and exhausted. I can barely feel my fingers!” I hold them up in front of him and scrunch both hands into painful fists.
But I look around, noticing that the waves appear to be getting smaller as we get closer to land. They’ve stopped rolling over the sides of the boat. It’s just spray now, which is needle sharp on exposed skin, but doesn’t drench you with every swell.
“Come on, Isabella. You knew what you were signing up for. We have a chance to get in front. Look at her,” he says, sliding his eyes to Barbie as she retches into her bag one final time. “You’re so much stronger than most of the girls in this race. You can do it!”
His words stroke my ego, and I find myself nodding at him. “Fine. We’ll do the physical challenge close to the pit stop.”
“Perfecto!” he exclaims. “I’ll do the heavy lifting. I promise!”
“You better,” I say, grateful to see that the stormy weather out on the sea is giving way to some pockets of sunshine over Ketchikan.
When we arrive at the marina, we discover that the other crabbing boat returned thirty minutes before ours, so Teams Soul Sisters, Hot Docs, Nerds, Outlaws and Sofa Kings have already had their crabs weighed and had a chance to freshen up and change in the marina bathroom. They’re lying on benches and patches of grass, relaxing in the sun, when we stagger off our boat.
Nat Keegan, dressed in pressed khakis and a cheerful royal blue polo shirt, welcomes us back to dry land as several cameramen record our arrival.
“Hello, crab boat number two! Looks like you encountered some rough seas out there! Ha ha ha! You have a few minutes to freshen up while we get your crabs off the boat and onto the scale. There’s a washroom in the marina if you need it, and your backpacks are in the van over there.”
I trudge past Nat and make a beeline for the van, grabbing my backpack, and heading into the marina ladies’ room, where I find two stalls, two sinks, and a hand dryer. I use the stall to change into dry clothes, then slick back my wet hair into a neat bun. My face is pink from the cold, and I feel crusty from salt drying in crevasses I didn’t know I had, but at least I’m dry and warm.
As Beto predicted, our crab is the largest and heaviest from our boat, but comes in second to that of Team Outlaws. My cousin gives me a look, reconfirming our decision to do the more physical, but closer, challenge. I nod at him, ripping open our envelope when we receive it, but barely looking at the instructions before following Beto’s sprint from the marina to the road, where we have a mile-long jog to the arena of the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show.
We arrive breathless and sweaty, and are greeted by…
Fuck. Me.
Hunter Stewart.
To be clear, I’m not a vain woman. Yes, I care about the way I look, and I generally try to look my best, but I’m not a glamour-puss, and I know I can’t look perfect all the time. That said, rarely have I looked worse. Sweaty and disheveled with slicked-back hair, no makeup, and ruddy cheeks, he’s got to be wondering what he ever saw in me.
I slow down to a walk as we approach, hands on my hips as I try to catch my breath. I only lift my eyes to his at the very last minute.
And what I see there surprises me to my core.
He’s on camera, yes, so maybe he’s working really hard to look positive and enthusiastic, but I don’t sense his smile is for the show. I think his expression is genuine. He doesn’t recoil or grimace. He doesn’t look horrified by my appearance. He looks me straight in the eyes and grins like he’s delighted to see me. Delighted. And after months of feeling his scorn? Tears prick my eyes. Fucking tears. I never cry. Almost never. But in that moment, I’m so weary and yet, so grateful for his kindness, manufactured or genuine, I could bawl my eyes out.
“Team Primos!” he cries, clapping his hands. “You’re the first to arrive! Way to go!”
“Hey, man!” says Beto, shaking Hunter’s extended hand. “Tell us what to do.”
“You doing okay, Bella?” he asks me, the nickname a sweet flashback to our time together last summer.
“Yeah.” I nod. “I’m fine.”
“Okay. So, go inside. You’ll find five stations set up. Choose three and get started. You can choose between: Speed Chopping, Axe Throwing—don’t worry, you only have to hit the target, no bullseye required—Speed Sawing with handsaws, Logrolling, and Speed Climbing.”
I stare at him, dumbfounded. I only know what one or two of those activities are.
As though reading my mind, he leans forward, close to my ear, and whispers to me, “Do Speed Chopping, Axe Throwing, and Speed Sawing. You’re strong. You’ve got this.”
I lean away, staring up at him with wide eyes and feeling that rush of attraction that had first compelled me to fall into his arms last July.
“Thanks.”
I’m dying to ask him why he’s helping us, but Beto takes my hand and drags me into the arena. As we rush to the axe throwing area, the reason for his kindness occurs to me. He feels sorry for you, Isabella. He said as much last night.
As a lumberjack-dressed employee hands me an axe and explains how to throw it, I reject Hunter’s pity in my mind. I don’t need his sympathy. I don’t want him feeling sorry for me. Screw that. Just because I’m practical about romance and relationships doesn’t mean I’m broken.
Looking over my shoulder as Beto steps up to throw his axe, I notice that our biggest competition, Team Outlaws, has arrived, and Hunter’s giving them his spiel at the entrance to the arena.
Forget Hunter Stewart, I tell myself. You’ve got a race to win!
Beto hits the target easily, but it takes me five or six throws, which are increasingly harder as I get more and more tired. When we finally clear the challenge, Teams Brady, Hot Docs, and Newlyweds have arrived, and are making their own ways around the lumberjack circuit.
Spying an opening at Speed Chopping, Beto pulls me over to the station, and we’re given a quick tutorial on how to chop a log. We’re also warned that while one team member can do the majority of the chopping, the other must swing the axe at least five times. As tired as I am, Beto instructs me to go first to get my five swings out of the way.
While finishing the final swing, with my hands aching from the effort, I hear Team Outlaws cheering for themselves. I look over as they race out of the arena to the royal blue mat outside where Nat Keegan is waiting to check them in as Team Number One!
How did they finish so quickly? What the hell?
I narrow my eyes. Instead of giving up, I double-down on whatever energy I have left, cheering on Beto as he rips into the log I’ve barely chipped at with my weak swings. Whack. Whack. Whack. He finishes it quickly, his face slick with sweat as we race over to our last challenge, Speed Sawing.
Jenny, from Team Newlyweds, stands on one side of a giant, two-person saw, crying and hiccuping as her husband, Roy, holding the other end of the saw, encourages her to keep going.
“We’ve got this, Jen! Second place is still up for grabs!”
“I c-can’t!” she wails, showing him the blisters on her hands. “I’m t-too t-t-tired!”
Beto turns to me. “Ugh. They’re going to take forever. But look! Logrolling is open. Let’s go.”
The thought of falling off the log, into the water and getting soaking wet all over again has zero appeal, but the sooner we finish, the sooner that hot shower back at the ship is mine.
“Okay,” I say, taking off my shoes and socks as we run over to the logs floating in a small pool.
“Tell us what to do!” says Beto.
“Think of it like dancing,” says the lumberjack standing by the water. “Dance on the logs. Get them rolling. Then sustain the roll for five full seconds. That’s all you need to do.”
“And not fall in,” I say under my breath.
“Even if you do,” says the lumberjack, “it’s only about a foot deep. Just jump back on the log and get it rolling again.”
“Dancing, huh?” I ask my cousin. “Think we can handle that?”
In Mexico, and therefore in most Mexican American families, dancing is something we learn in our mother’s bellies, in their arms, in the cradle. We hold on to our father’s legs and dance before we walk. We dance at birthday parties and weddings and BBQs. We dance when nobody’s looking. We dance because it’s part of who we are. We love dancing.
“Vamos a bailer,” says Beto, winking at me. “Ready to salsa, prima?”
That’s when I notice that the cameraman to our left is eating this up. I don’t know where my sudden burst of positivity comes from, but I nod at my cousin with a wide smile.
“Sí! Let’s dance, primo!”
In bare feet, and a little reminiscent of the scene with Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing minus the sexual tension, Beto takes my hand and carefully side-steps onto the log. We bend at the waist, staying loose, staying low, and listening to the instructions from the lumberjack.
“When you’re ready,” he says, “stand side by side and start walking backward. It may take a minute for you to get the rhythm, but—”
Just then, the speakers in the arena start playing a salsa. The jaunty, rhythmic music of Marco Antonio Mu?iz’s “Un Caminante,” surrounds us as my cousin and I trade bemused, then gleeful, looks. The cameraman who’s filming us must have shared our conversation with someone in the sound booth, and they’ve come up with a soundtrack for us.
This is how a team becomes a favorite, I tell myself, winking at Beto.
“Listo?” he asks me.
“I’m ready,” I say.
We move slowly at first—far slower than the beat playing overhead. But as we get more comfortable with what we’re doing, the log rolls faster and faster beneath us, until we’re moving at the same pace as the song.
“That’s four seconds…five…six! Oh my god! Ten seconds!” yells the lumberjack. “Never seen anyone catch on that quick!”
I look at Beto, and he looks at me. Still holding hands, we jump together into the shallow water, then high five each other before climbing out of the pool and rushing, without our shoes and socks, to the bright blue mat just outside of the arena.
“Congratulations, primos!” crows Nat Keegan, giving us his trademark Colgate smile. “You’re team number two!”
?órale!