Chapter Five
Jet lag always hit Liv hardest the second day after an international flight. She woke up groggy, and by the time she reached
the trailhead, everyone but Mandy and Thor had hiked out, taking the good granola bars with them. At least her sister had
gotten her coffee. Liv clutched the hot thermos like a security blanket, letting the caffeine drive her shuffling feet down
the Bright Angel Trail.
At first, Liv fixated on every pebble in the path. She’d read the statistics: They were more likely to die walking in the
canyon than rafting down the river. And these ten miles formed the steepest, longest hike of their trip. Mandy kept pointing
at the looming cliffs and sighing deeply, as if she wanted to inhale the dizzying orange and red towers. But when Liv looked
up, all she could see were the dark vertical cracks running down the spires, wide enough to swallow a person whole.
It was so early that even the birds were quiet, though Mandy did break the silence every twenty minutes to proclaim she’d seen a bald eagle, which turned out, every time, to be a rock.
Liv focused on the people down the trail ahead of them.
Their group formed a spindly line of singles and pairs, occasionally intersecting to share a word.
Again, Liv got the feeling there was some connection among the seven other guests that she hadn’t yet pinpointed.
They were from different places—Charlie, Devon, and PK from Vegas, Fiona from LA, Stefan from Amsterdam, and Imogen and her grandmother Lucinda from Montreal.
Plus Liv, who lived out of her suitcase, and Mandy, who’d been in Austin since college.
And Charlie and Devon’s missing sister. Liv wondered if she’d made it to the hike.
“Meet anyone interesting at the trailhead this morning?” Liv asked.
“A mule tried to inhale my hair scrunchie. And that guide Thor, the hot one? Turns out he’s funny too.”
Liv turned and peered into the thin light. The long-haired guide was two switchbacks above them, having stayed behind to break
down the coffee setup before hiking to the river. He was taking his time, ambling along in minimalist leather sandals that
seemed better suited to a Greek island than a treacherous canyon trail.
“Looks like a goatherd to me,” Liv said.
Mandy grinned. “I like a little yodel now and then.”
“I don’t know, Mand. Pretty sure he’s ex-military.” Liv could see it in the way he cinched down his pack. “I’d guess Afghanistan.
He got discharged, came out here to lose himself in nature, go commando, and forget. I’d steer clear.”
Mandy let out an exasperated sigh. “Can you not?”
“Not what?”
“Not do the whole profiler thing.”
Liv didn’t know what to say. She was a special investigator. It was her job. Her calling.
“I didn’t mean—” Liv wavered. “He could be great. I don’t know.”
She did know. No ex-soldier named Thor was a high-caliber draft pick.
“Whatever,” Mandy said.
They fell into silent trudging until they hit a small oasis halfway down. After five miles of bare rock and sky, here was
a green breath of trees, a trickling creek, and simple wooden benches that called to Liv’s aching back.
“I have to take a break,” Liv said.
Mandy smiled at her indulgently. No huff, no sweat—as if this were just a morning stroll to the coffee shop.
Liv didn’t get it. She hit the embassy gym three times a week, and she still couldn’t keep up with her little sister.
Maybe the difference between thirty-one and thirty-four was bigger than she’d thought.
“Do you want me to take your pack?” Mandy asked.
“No!” It came out sharper than Liv intended. “I just need some water.”
Tired hikers were dotted around the rest area, squeezed into pockets of shade cast by a ribbon of cottonwood trees. Fiona,
the doctor from LA, executed an intricate self-misting ritual with a spray bottle. Imogen played with her phone while her
grandmother Lucinda fanned herself with her giant sun hat. The family resemblance was clear: Both women were wiry and birdlike,
but in different ways. Imogen was a fuzzy, twitchy girl, her pale skin vibrating under a halo of long red hair. Lucinda, on
the other hand, was tanned and sinewy, a wild turkey of a woman. Cute little chick. Tough old bird. Liv wondered who had mapped
the milestones of human female development to an avian set of axes. Some man, she figured.
The two Canadian women weren’t the only ones with a connection. Between the individual pantomimes of self-care, Liv watched
the other guests steal glances at each other. No one approached. No one talked. But they were all looking. Waiting. For what,
Liv couldn’t guess.
“Mandy?” Liv tried to keep her voice as casual as possible. “I don’t think you ever told me exactly how you got us on this
trip.”
Mandy didn’t look up from the raven’s feather she was braiding into her hair. “Pretty sure I did.”
“Remind me.”
“Well . . . maybe you noticed some folks have wristbands with a B on them.”
“Uh-huh.”
“The B’s for Babette.”
“Who’s Babette?”
“You really do live under a rock, don’t you?”
“If by rock you mean a series of foreign government installations of critical importance to our nation’s geopolitical standing—”
“Babette Botanique is a natural skin care line. It’s named after a woman. An amazing woman. Babette Sauvage.”
Mandy pronounced the name proudly, as if simply saying it was a kind of triumph.
Every time Liv came back stateside, there was a new craze that took her by surprise. One year it was pickleball. Another time
it was boba tea. Now, apparently, it was a skin care company that offered river trips on the side.
But that didn’t make sense. “Why is this amazing Babette in the business of subsidizing us to come to the Grand Canyon?”
Mandy paused. “It was a gift. Like the wristbands.”
“A gift? Are you one of their sales reps?”
Mandy shook her head.
“Is it an MLM?”
“No. It’s a wellness brand.”
“And?” Liv waited, holding her judgment on a tight leash.
“Babette paid for our spots. I’m one of her followers.”
“So it’s a cult.”
“No!”
“Remember that time Dad told us we were going on vacation in Big Bear and then that bald lady stuck us in a room with one
VHS tape and a mountain of homemade fig bars?”
“It’s not a cult. Why can’t you just accept good things when they show up in your life?”
Because Mandy’s explanation didn’t hold up. Multithousand-dollar rafting trips did not just drop from the air. Or, at least,
not for Liv. From an early age, Mandy had adopted their father’s attitude that “if it’s free, it’s for me,” whereas Liv tended
to look way down the gullet of any gift horse that seemed too good to be true.
“So they gave us this trip, for free, for no reason?”
Mandy nodded vigorously. “I’m a Babette superfan, okay?
I mean, I can’t afford most of their products, but I watch all the videos and—I know you think it’s stupid—but I started DMing her, and then Babette’s assistant, that guy PK, sent me this email invitation, and here we are, with the inner circle! ”
The story was a bold one, even for Mandy. Did she really expect Liv to believe Mandy had somehow leapt the corporate ladder
from random internet fan to swapping emails with an executive? Then again, here they were, halfway down the ten-mile trail
to the canyon’s core. It didn’t make sense, but that was true of so many of Mandy’s—and their father’s—schemes. Liv knew expressing
her skepticism would result in nothing but a wider gulf between them. If she pressed too hard, Mandy would say she was a killjoy.
Ruining the adventure. That wasn’t how she wanted to start this sister trip. And she had to acknowledge that sometimes Mandy
and Guy found loopholes that actually paid off.
“Okay,” Liv said.
“Okay?”
“Thanks for making this happen.”
Mandy let out a big breath. “I can’t believe we’re going to meet her!”
“Babette?”
“She’s, like, a goddess.”
“A lotion goddess?”
“Her story is amazing. She got her start as an activist exposing cosmetics companies that were lying about their use of animal
testing and harmful chemicals. But when Babette didn’t see change fast enough, she and her brother, Charlie, started their
own all-natural line that took over the industry. Her whole message is about empowerment, women claiming agency to change
the world.”
“We’re going to change the world with her products? How? By having shinier skin?”
“No. It’s bigger than that.” Mandy unzipped her backpack and started rooting through it. She emerged with a glossy paperback
with a giant title in italicized silver letters: Unleashed by Babette Sauvage.
“Listen to this,” Mandy said, flipping to a heavily highlighted page. “‘Inside every woman lives a wild animal. Our company
exists to free her.’ Powerful, right?”
“You’ve been hiking this entire time with that brick in your backpack?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
Liv didn’t. Her sister was a teacher and a talented artist. Their mom had been a commercial pilot. Liv worked for the State
Department. And Mandy’s hero sold expensive face goop to feed women’s insecurities? It didn’t make sense.
But it didn’t have to. This was one of the maddening beauties of sisterhood, knowing each other so well there was room even
for contradictions.
“Have you laid eyes on your lotion goddess yet?” Liv asked. “Did she spritz you with magic hiking toner?”
Mandy stuck out her tongue. “PK told me she’s arriving later today.”
“How? Is there a service elevator you didn’t tell me about?”
“You mean you didn’t read appendix B in the itinerary regarding alternative modes of transportation?”
“I read the entire—” Liv said. “Oh. You’re joking.”
“Want a piggyback ride?”
“I’ll survive.”
“Of course you will,” Mandy said. “Come on. Soon we’ll be at the river. Then all you have to do is float.”
Liv hefted her day pack, and they started moving again. The heat fell heavy in the last five miles down to the Colorado, the
straps of her pack grating against her shoulders as they marched down the winding trail in silence. Or rather, Liv was silent.
Every few minutes, Mandy would burst out singing, or whistle, or say something like “did you know lizards smell with their
tongues?” It was like hiking with a possessed CB radio that kept turning itself on.
But Mandy said no more about how she won this trip or about the amazing Babette Sauvage.
Liv kept thinking about the dog-eared book in Mandy’s pack, her sister’s rapacious appetite for reinvention and transformation.
The big adventure. The quick fix. Maybe that was the draw to Babette, the idea that you could rub a cream into your skin and become someone else.
Liv had been trained to separate surface from depth, lies from reality.
She looked down the trail to the other guests tromping to the river.
Did they all have a connection to Babette Sauvage?
What shiny stories had they smeared across their faces, and what blemishes—what scars—might be hiding underneath?