Chapter 1 #2
But I can’t help it. The thought of saying two sentences in front of this many adults panics me like nothing else. At least Mrs. Flughorn, across the table from me, is telling someone else where they’re going wrong in disciplining their two-year-old and she’s stopped looking at me.
I don’t eat the rest of my meatballs. After a few minutes, the mayor of Lodgepole, Barry Vashton, steps up to the microphone and starts in with his small-town, folksy act, introducing the sixteen-year-old who’s won an essay contest and is going to read a few pages on “What Service to My Country Means to Me.”
The sixteen-year-old looks considerably less nervous than I feel.
He does fine, then walks away from the microphone to polite applause.
Barry comes back. There’s a kid reading her poem, a high school student singing a song he wrote himself, a group of little kids presenting their drawings to the firefighters.
It’s all your standard, small-town, thanks-for-saving-our-asses stuff. I’m at the back of the room, so I can’t see the firefighters’ faces, but I imagine they see this sort of thing a lot. Hopefully they still find it charming, at least.
Finally, Barry announces the Twinkle Toes. I feel as if someone’s kneading my stomach like bread dough, but I take a deep breath and rehearse what I’m going to say.
On behalf of the Copper Creek Ranger Division, I’d like to present this plaque...
Does that sound dumb? That definitely sounds dumb.
I hereby present this plaque of thanks to the Canyon Country Hotshot Crew...
Oh my God, that’s worse. The Twinkle Toes are tapping away at the front of the room, seven or eight elementary school kids with enormous smiles plastered on their faces, almost in sync.
I take deep breaths and try to concentrate on just watching them, telling myself that the right words will just magically come to mind when it’s time for me to get up there.
The song wraps up. Sweat trickles down the back of my neck, and I force myself to clap along with everyone else in the room, even though I’m trying to keep my hands from shaking. Barry walks back to the microphone.
“Weren’t they wonderful, folks?” he says, grinning widely. “Let’s hear it again for the Twinkle Toes!”
We clap again.
Maybe he’ll misread the program, forget the plaque, and I won’t have to present it, I think.
Maybe the earth will open, swallow me whole, and I won’t have to do this.
“Next, I’d like to give the floor to the senior ranger from the Copper Creek Division, Jennifer Tetson. Jennifer?”
Oh God, he doesn’t even know that she’s not here. Now I have to say that, too, along with some variation on, “Here’s a plaque, thanks for keeping things from burning down.”
I’ve got the plaque in a death grip, but I stand. I swear I can feel a hundred and fifty or two hundred eyes on me, and I somehow navigate stepping away from the table and walking toward the microphone in my high heels.
You can do this, McKinnon, I think. The stakes are never gonna be lower.
My heels click across the tile floor. I hear the soft sounds of people whispering to each other, the scrape of plastic forks against paper plates, napkins rustling. Then I’m at the microphone, I’m clearing my throat, my hand is reaching out to adjust it in the stand.
“Thanks, Barry,” I hear myself saying. My voice is higher pitched than normal, but it’s not even shaking.
It’s a fucking miracle.
“Unfortunately, Jennifer was called away at the last minute,” I say, and pause.
Do I tell them another raccoon got into her house and she has to trap it? I think wildly. Do they need to know that?
I laugh nervously into the microphone and decide to cut it as short as possible.
“But, on her behalf, and on the behalf of everyone — of the whole Copper Creek Ranger Division, which I’m part of, actually, I’m also a forest ranger —”
This is going off the rails. Fuck. I take a deep breath.
Suddenly, a piece of public speaking advice comes back to me: Pick one person in the crowd and pretend that you’re talking just to them. I glance over the tables in front of me, but they’re all firefighters I don’t know, and their faces just make me more nervous.
“In thanks for your hard work fighting the Elkhorn fire, which I’m sure everyone here knows is one hundred percent contained and actually almost out since we’ve had those big rainstorms rolling through...”
I stop.
I’ve landed on a pair of deep blue eyes. They’re the color of a glacial melt lake in the spring. The color of a snowy hillside in deep shadow.
I didn’t make that up just now. I once waxed poetic for two whole pages in my diary about these eyes, and even though I don’t remember half the ridiculous things I wrote back then, I sure as hell recognize them.
Hunter Casden is staring right back at me.
I didn’t even know he was here, in this church basement, let alone in the town of Lodgepole.
I wasn’t even sure he was in Montana, honestly.
“Uh,” I say.
My brain’s frozen. I think I’d be less surprised if JFK or Elvis were sitting there. At least, I’d be less gobsmacked.
I didn’t lose my virginity to Elvis. When I was eighteen, I wasn’t completely certain I was going to marry JFK.
I swallow and manage to close my mouth. My brain is going a million miles a second, thinking a stream of nonsense like holy shit is that Hunter yes that’s him wait are you sure what if it’s just — no, I’m really really sure that is him sitting right there, yes, oh my god, how long has it even been does he recognize me?
Then, the worst thing happens.
Hunter smiles at me, and suddenly, I’m not here in front of practically everyone I know. I’m in the front seat of his truck after school, just the two of us, and he’s looking at me like that.
I force myself to look away. I pick a spot on the wall and stare at it, even though I don’t have the slightest clue where I was in my little speech.
“On behalf of the Forest Service and the Copper Creek Ranger Division, I’d like to present the Canyon Country Hotshot crew with this commemorative plaque of thanks, from us to you!” I say, the words tumbling over each other, like they can’t wait to be out of my mouth.
A second later, I hold the plaque up in front of myself. I look everywhere but at Hunter.
People applaud politely. A middle-aged man stands from a table, walks up to me, and holds out one hand. I shake it. I hand over the plaque as a few flashes go off, and then he gestures at the microphone.
I’m more than happy to step back.
“I’d like to say a warm thanks to the people of Lodgepole for this beautiful plaque, and for opening your hearts and your homes to us like you have...”
He goes on for a few more sentences, but I’m not listening, because Hunter Casden is sitting fifteen feet away and I didn’t know we were in the same state.
The man holds up the plaque. He looks at me. People applaud again. I smile mechanically, because this seems like the sort of occasion where people smile, even though I feel like every nerve in my body is vibrating so fast I might catch fire.
Barry comes back. The guy I gave the plaque to heads to his seat, and I walk back to mine, heels clicking on the floor, beads of sweat sliding behind my ears.
I don’t look at Hunter again, but after I’m back at my seat, I stare at the back of his head and don’t hear a single word anyone else says for the rest of the night.
My mind is swirling. I used to think about this moment all the time, about what I’d say to him if I ever saw him again. I’d imagined that I’d be happily married, hot husband on my arm, glamorous and confident, not stumbling my way through a simple speech in a church basement.
I didn’t think I’d feel this deep, weird stab of familiarity. I didn’t think I’d still recognize the look on his face. I didn’t think it would feel like I’d just seen him yesterday, not eight years ago.
And I didn’t think my brain would insist on repeating the last thing he ever said to me: I never loved you anyway.