6. Court
CHAPTER 6
COURT
Day 2—Costa Rica
I ’m in hell.
Brown-haired, green-eyed, five-foot-five hell.
Do you know how hard it is to remain outwardly unaffected when Hartley Billings is sitting on your lap in a cramped backseat? Or when she changes into a sleep shirt and shorts that are neither sexy nor revealing, but your brain runs a slideshow of what’s underneath? Or when you wake up with morning wood that rivals the sequoias out in California?
Exactly.
So yes, I hogged the bathroom this morning. I had to. It was the only place I could escape to without breaking the proximity rule. The added challenge came when she asked what I’d been doing in there that took so long. After our interview yesterday where she’d thrown the lies I’d told in college back in my face, I made a promise to myself to be truthful for the duration of the race. Of course, I haven’t told her about that because she’s made it abundantly clear that she trusts me about as far as she can throw me. (Side note: the death doodle she drew this morning of her throwing me out our seventh-floor window was my favorite.)
Anyway, the fact remains that I’d made a promise, so when she mentioned bodily functions, I ran with it. I mean, jacking off is technically a bodily function, right? But before you judge me for being a creep, let me ask you which is worse: tending to my physical needs in the privacy of the shower, or having a visible boner in my gym shorts on national TV?
That’s what I thought.
Thankfully, today’s sound guy is about six inches shorter and forty pounds lighter than yesterday’s, so that should reduce the overcrowding if we end up in a taxi. For now, I’m enjoying some extra space in our minibus as we make our way toward La Fortuna.
We were the ninth team to make it to Juan Santamaria Park last night. When we got there, we learned we’d take a shuttle to our first challenge today. Each shuttle holds two teams, and rides departed the hotel in twenty-minute increments. That means we’re an hour and twenty minutes behind the first group and twenty minutes ahead of the last group. Not ideal, but not terrible.
There’s a thirty-ish-year age gap between Padma and Bobby, the other team on our shuttle. He graduated from Stephen R. DePriest College in the mid-nineties and the ink on her diploma is still drying, making them the oldest and youngest competitors this season. Bobby joked that they should be Team Niles, as in “senile” and “juvenile,” and the name stuck.
According to the clue we got this morning—which is “safely stored” in Hartley’s dumb fanny pack—we’re looking for the four-hundred-year-old tree when we get to Arenal Volcano National Park.
That’s it. Go to the park and find the tree. It’s on us to figure out where it is and how to get there once we’re dropped off. But according to our driver, Eduardo, the park has a map and decent signage so I’m not worried.
“How’d it go last night? Was it weird rooming together?” Padma asks Hartley.
“Aside from Courtney snoring and monopolizing the bathroom, it was fine. I’m just glad we had two beds.”
That was something I hadn’t thought about until we checked into our hotel. Every team will either share a room if there are two beds or have separate rooms if there’s only one bed. I think the only thing Hartley and I can agree on right now is the hope for single occupancy tonight.
Also, she’s lying.
“I don’t snore.”
She rolls her eyes. “It must’ve been the other annoying ex-boyfriend in our room.”
“You should get that surgery,” Bobby says, gesturing to the length of his nose. “Best thing I’ve ever done. My wife says she finally gets a full night’s sleep. ”
“I don’t think he has a deviated septum. His problem is how far his head is shoved up his ass. His butt cheeks interfere with the oxygen flow.” Hartley demonstrates her point by smooshing her palms to her own cheeks (on her face, not her butt), drawing laughs from everyone but me on the shuttle.
I tune them out in favor of something far more important—gawking at the volcano coming into view out my window. When we boarded the shuttle this morning, Eduardo said the region was enjoying a veranillo , which translates to “little summer,” and that we should have a full view of Arenal.
He was right.
Majestically, gloriously, holy-shit-I’m-looking-at-an-actual-volcano right.
Hartley catches on and peers out her window. “Hey, Eduardo. You said this is an active volcano?”
“Si, se?orita.”
“You afraid of an eruption while we’re up there?” Bobby asks her, shifting slightly in his seat.
“No, I’m just wondering if they’ll let me throw Courtney in.”
We see three teams leaving the park when Eduardo deposits us at the reception station. Big Mike from Stone Ridge College slows his jog long enough to say, “There’s a shortcut to the tree. Don’t take the first right, take the second.”
His teammate, DeAngelo, quickly whacks him in the arm and whisper-shouts, “Why’d you tell them that?” as they continue to...somewhere. I guess we’ll figure that out soon.
“What do you think?” Padma asks as she connects the chest clip of her backpack. “Do we listen to him?”
“No,” I reply at the same time Hartley says,
“Yes.”
She narrows her eyes. “Why not?”
“I have my reasons.” None of which I want to discuss in front of another team , I add through a long blink and a pointed look.
“Whatever.” She flings her arms out and lets them slap against her legs. “Let’s go.”
She starts walking, but I take up a jog and quickly pass her. “Come on. We’ve got time to make up.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Padma says.
Hartley begrudgingly follows, and Bobby does his best to keep up with us. A few minutes later, we stop at the entrance to Sendero Las Coladas—the Las Coladas trail—to study a giant wooden map of the park. I can’t help my smug smile when Hartley realizes Big Mike’s “shortcut” to Sendero El Ceibo adds at least another kilometer to our route.
“Did he think we wouldn’t see the huge tree on the huge map?”
“He was probably hoping we wouldn’t stop to look at it since we already had his directions,” Padma says, frowning.
I agree, because while Hartley chatted up other teams at the airport and on our flight, I quietly observed them and came away with a few notes.
First, Big Mike is an ass. About thirty minutes before we started boarding, an elderly couple arrived at the gate. Seating was limited, and rather than offer up the two seats he and his backpack were occupying, Mike slouched down and stretched his legs out to claim as much space as possible. Thankfully a flight attendant saw the whole thing and brought wheelchairs over to them. DeAngelo was facing the other direction, talking to Marcail and Stephanie from Southeast Alaska University and didn’t see the couple walk up. I haven’t completely made up my mind on him but so far, he seems like the nicer half of Team Wise Guys.
As for Team Alaska, Stephanie’s family runs a charter fishing company near Juneau and Marcail is a bush pilot, so they’ll be strong competitors in any challenge involving hiking, boats, or planes.
Team High Tech, comprised of Homer and Ji-ho from Wisconsin Tech, is another one to watch. I overheard Ji-ho talking about teaching land navigation to his son’s Boy Scouts troop, so he’ll have an advantage in wayfinding. Homer told anyone who would listen about his undefeated college record for home runs (an impressive ninety-two, hence the nickname). After college, he opened a microbrewery called Big Tater Brewing—apparently potatoes have a different meaning in baseball?—and has won a handful of awards for his craft beers. Translation: he thrives on competition.
It's even more of a reason to pick up the pace as we start down Las Coladas. The trail is lined with towering green grass that soon gives way to a dense rainforest and the most beautiful symphony of wildlife I’ve ever heard. How was I sitting at a worn wooden desk ordering soap and spray wax three days ago? And how in the hell am I supposed to return to that life after the show’s over?
Although after three weeks with Hartley, maybe I’ll be begging to go back.
A few hundred meters in, we cross paths with Janessa and Oscar, who raises his arms and says, “I feel like I’m back home! They have birds in here that sound like car alarms!” Except it comes out like cah alahms , which makes Hartley and Padma laugh. Unfortunately, Bobby’s doing more heavy breathing than laughing, and soon he and Padma fall back while Hartley and I continue running toward the tree.
When we reach Sendero El Ceibo, howler monkeys on either side of the trail launch into a lively conversation. Hartley waits a few seconds, then shoots a disingenuous smile at me and says, “Hey Courtney, what are they talking about?”
“How good looking I am,” I reply without missing a beat.
“Huh. I didn’t know howler monkeys needed glasses.”
I roll my eyes in the camera, which the camera guy is holding backward while he runs in front of us like he’s taking a casual stroll through the park. It’s no wonder that the crew members look like they could eat a triathlon for breakfast. As I make a mental note never to complain about the weight of my ten-pound backpack, we round a bend on the trail and catch our first glimpse of the soaring four-hundred-year-old ceiba tree.
Oddly, it doesn’t look that big at first. It’s not until we’re right up on it that I grasp the actual scale of this thing. For starters, the roots (which look more like walls than standard roots) are three times my height, and I’m six-two. The vines spiraling around the trunk are as thick as my body and—holy shit. Is that a toucan?
“I think I see a toucan.”
Hartley ignores my pointed finger and instead aims hers at the clue box ten feet ahead. “Focus, Courtney.”
“But it’s a toucan . The only other time I’ve seen one is on a box of cereal.”
She tosses a thumb over her shoulder and says, “Weren’t you the one who was all, ‘We have to make up time’ a few minutes ago?”
“Okay, one, I don’t sound like a douchey gym bro. And two, I highly doubt taking five seconds to admire an exotic bird is going to make or break our current standing.”
“Fine,” she huffs. “Take your precious five seconds.”
I make a show of crossing my arms and gazing up at the branch I pointed to...which is now empty, but I keep pretending all the same. After a slow count of five Mississippis, I unfold my arms and pull in a deep breath of hot, damp rainforest air.
“Are you done now?”
“I am. Thank you for asking.”
“Good. Because the damn bird is over there now.” Hartley gestures to an adjacent tree and plucks a clue from the box.
I stand over her shoulder while she reads it aloud .
Go to Mirador Coladas and answer a question to receive your next clue.
“I saw that on the map,” she says, adding the clue envelope to her fanny pack. “It should be easy. We just keep going on this path and make a right.”
We arrive at the volcano lookout point out of breath and dripping with sweat. Turns out the “easy” route involved another two kilometers of trails, a couple of steep stairways, and rocky lava flows from the explosion in the early nineties. The only thing working in our favor is the lack of rain. How many ankles have succumbed to Mirador Coladas?
“You have a question for us?” Hartley asks between deep gulps of air.
A man holding a small stack of Xtreme Quest clue envelopes nods. “What does ceiba mean in English?”
Shit. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to recall the sign posted next to our clue box, but all that comes to mind are the numbers. “It’s four hundred years old and thirty meters tall. That’s all I remember.”
Hartley chews on her bottom lip. “It started with a k . Kapua, maybe?”
When I shrug, she repeats her guess to the man, who shakes his head.
“ Dammit .”
I hate that I’m about to say this, but, “We have to go back.”
“I’m aware of that,” she snaps, pushing past me. “Maybe if you hadn’t been staring at an invisible bird, you would’ve been paying better attention to the sign.”
“How is this my fault? You were there too, and you don’t remember either.”
“Because I was too busy trying to keep you on task and read the clue!”
“I’m sorry for trying to briefly admire the country we’re in.”
She makes a weird growling noise before muttering, “I hate you so much.”
“Feeling’s mutual.”
Neither of us speaks again until we see Bobby and Padma approaching.
“Don’t tell them why we’re running back. With any luck, they won’t know either and they’ll have to do the same thing,” I say .
“Or we could ask them if they know, and if they do, we can run back with them and keep some of our lead on the other two teams.”
“If we’re going to make an alliance, it should be with a strong team. I don’t see the Niles lasting more than a few legs.”
“I was talking about sharing information, not forming an alliance.”
“You realize that’s literally the point of an alliance, right?”
“Don’t talk to me like I’m stu?—”
I interrupt her with a hearty, “Woo!” as we get within hearing distance of Padma and Bobby. “Raise your hand if you already need a shower.” I wave both arms in the air like an idiot, but I don’t mind because it works. Bobby’s too out of breath to say anything and Padma’s too busy chuckling and raising her own arm to ask questions about what Hartley and I are up to.
After they pass, Hartley whacks me across the chest.
“Ow! What was that for?”
“Stop. Making. Decisions. For. Me,” she seethes.
“I wasn’t making a decision for you. I was taking the lead on choosing the most logical option for this situation.”
“Whatever you say, Captain Caveman.”