Chapter Twelve
The sun had dipped behind the rim by the time they reached the beach where Big Pete said they’d make camp that evening. There
were no tents. No bathrooms. Just a wide expanse of sand and prickly cholla, their brushlike needles glowing in the fading
light.
Mandy stumbled out of the raft and looked back across the river. The canyon walls, baked brown at midday by the sun’s glare,
now held crystalline veins of deep red and purple. Small signs of life popped out at her: the pink, hooked spines of a barrel
cactus, the white throat of a duck, a butterfly flitting serenely across the water, as if it wasn’t in the raging center of
a mile-deep gorge.
“Beautiful,” Mandy said.
“I was going to say terrifying,” Liv said.
Mandy ignored her. She was still annoyed by how Liv had shut her down earlier in the raft. It had been a brilliant opportunity
for Liv to find out what had happened to Babette, and her sister hadn’t entertained it, not even for a second.
Where was the CEO? Didn’t Liv want to know?
Mandy let her eyes drift up the side canyon behind the beach, where the sand gave way to a field of broken shale, like the aftermath of a giant’s tantrum.
Three thousand feet of rock towered above them.
How was it possible they could run into anyone down here?
They were tiny human crumbs in a pocket of the earth.
The canyon could close in—just a small pinch of the earth’s crust—and swallow them whole.
But that was part of what made it captivating.
“We need to talk about what happened on the boat,” Liv said.
Mandy wasn’t ready for a sisterly lecture. Not here in this glorious place. She could feel the buzz of the long day ripple
through her—the soreness of her calves, the damp mineral scent of river water in her hair, the sun still kissing her forearms.
“Later,” she said.
“Promise?”
Mandy nodded absentmindedly. She turned away from Liv’s sharp voice to smile at the others, holding out a hand to help Lucinda
step onto the sand.
“Thank you, dear. I can’t wait to take off these wet shoes.”
“I am so ready for an adaptogen spritz,” Imogen said.
“A chitin mask would be killer,” PK said.
“We should face scrape before applying anything,” Fiona said. “The microzoa in this river can wreak havoc on your—”
Big Pete let out a long, sharp whistle. “The microzoa can wait. First, everyone helps set up camp. Two assembly lines from
the supply boat up to the beach.” He unfurled a blue tarp and spread it over the sand. “Gear goes here; kitchen equipment
over there, to Thor. Everything must be unloaded before you grab your personal stuff.”
“But it’s medicinal—” PK protested.
Big Pete raised his voice. “The faster we unload, the sooner you can do your thing. Whatever that thing is.”
“What if we have to use the bathroom?” Imogen asked.
“You can pee in the river,” Big Pete said. “Just stay near the bank. For everything else, Katy will set up the groover.” Down
by the water, the young guide pulled a bucket and a battered metal box from the supply boat. “She’ll put it over that knoll,
behind those rocks, to give you some privacy.”
“We are literally going to shit in a bucket?” Imogen asked.
“Yup,” Big Pete said cheerfully. “There’s chemical powder in the box you can throw on after for the smell.”
“I’ll hold it,” the teenager responded.
“Suit yourself.” Big Pete turned back to the rest of the group. “Half of you to the kitchen line, half of you to the gear
line. Once all the dry bags are unloaded, you can open them up and find your luggage. Then you can pick out a campsite and
get situated.”
Mandy followed Thor to the top of the kitchen line. Hand over hand, she passed up two folding tables, a propane stove, and
a mountain of food. There were frozen slabs of meat, sacks of rice, jugs of olive oil. Even a box full of fresh pineapples.
She could feel hunger rising in her stomach, exhaustion falling on her shoulders. She’d been up and moving since three thirty
that morning. Finally, she hefted a massive cast-iron Dutch oven, handed it over, and let herself collapse dramatically onto
the beach.
“Can we talk now?” Liv’s voice fell down on her from above.
“Shh. I’m making sand angels.” Mandy opened her eyes and looked up at the endless sky. The faraway ridgeline of the South
Rim nudged a violet silhouette against the blue. It felt as if they’d tapped into the main artery of the canyon, where color
was born.
Liv leaned over her, blocking the view. “You’re not the god of this place. You don’t get to decide who we are out here.”
Mandy sat up. “I was making a joke, Liv. Pumping you up. You’re going to be a big special agent someday. I was just saluting
that future.”
“I don’t need your salute.”
“Don’t you ever get tired of being the same person?” Mandy asked. “Isn’t this the perfect place to dream? Just a little bit?”
“I don’t feel the need to impress a group of strangers by pretending I’m something I’m not.”
“We’ll never see these people again,” Mandy insisted. “Why not have a little fun?”
“Lying isn’t fun. It’s dangerous.”
Their first night on the river, and they were already caught in the sister vortex.
It always happened this way. They’d be doing something perfectly normal—or something epically amazing—and then there’d be a wobble, and the universe would dump them back into one of their old traps.
There was nothing Mandy could do to catapult them out of it.
There was only time, and hoping it wouldn’t happen again.
But it always did.
Finally, Liv spoke. “You get our stuff. I’ll find a camping spot.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
At the luggage tarp, PK was holding court in a sea of Babette-branded duffels, the dinged-up yellow dry bags piled discreetly
off to the side. He held a small device that looked like a cross between a light meter and a sci-fi tricorder, waving it in
front of Imogen’s face. The young woman tipped her chin up and closed her eyes in a pantomime of rapture, her phone held high
in the air.
“For you, PureImogen, a 5.8 pH toning diffuser and an oxygenated meta-hydrology mask.” PK reached into one of the duffels
at his feet and came up with an assortment of white vials. “And this is for the backs of your hands. So you don’t get . . .
you know.”
He tipped his head in the direction of Imogen’s grandmother.
“Wrinkles aren’t contagious,” Lucinda sniffed. “Or dangerous. They’re a sign of wisdom.”
“In our business, madam, they’re a sign of death.”
Lucinda shook her head and stalked away.
“What is that?” Mandy said, pointing at PK’s device.
“A nanoclimatizer. Proprietary.” PK pulled it back to himself protectively. “It analyzes the precise temperature, humidity,
UV index, and air particulates in a ten-foot radius and delivers the ideal skin care regimen for your environment. Babette
invented it herself.”
Stefan snorted. “If only she had invented an alarm clock so she would be here on time.”
“She’ll be here,” PK said.
Imogen opened one of the vials and took a cautious sniff.
“Bergamot. Smells like an old lady tea party.” She spritzed herself while waving her phone in the air.
“Gotta love a mist that burns a little, though. I can practically feel my pores tightening. And when you find yourself in a desert miles away from a humidifier, diffusers can’t be choosers. ”
She clicked off the recorder and turned back to PK. “This footage is mid. A tease. I need access to the real stuff. To CareFree.”
PK smiled thinly. “I’d prefer to wait until Babette gets here. Perhaps for now you could focus on capturing carefree moments
on the trip.”
“Like, strip naked and cannonball into the river? I don’t think so.”
It sounded pretty great to Mandy.
“Whatever the essence of CareFree is to you,” PK said. “That’s Babette’s vision.”
“Her vision, but someone else’s money,” Stefan said. “My boss and I expect great results from CareFree.”
“You’ll get them,” Charlie said. “The numbers don’t lie.”
“The numbers depend on your sister sprinkling her fairy dust all over this launch.”
Imogen scooped fine sand into her palm and blew it into the air. “How’s this?” she called to PK. “Carefree enough?”
PK started coughing and backing away from the redhead while trying to shield the nanoclimatizer from the mini dust storm.
“Cut! No!”
“Hey, don’t deny my essence. I’m trying to make the best of this pile of rocks and . . .”
Mandy headed down to the river, letting the hum of the water drown out their bickering.
Lucinda was sitting cross-legged on the bank, binoculars trained on the far canyon walls. She put them down and looked up
at Mandy. “What do you think?”
“Excuse me?”
“All that hoopla.” Lucinda waved dismissively at the chaotic scene behind them. “Against all this glory.” She stretched her arms out wide, embracing the majesty of the river.
“It does seem a little absurd,” Mandy admitted.
She glanced back at the blue luggage tarp. She should get their gear and find Liv. Mandy knew that. Instead, she joined Lucinda
and looked out across the river. The entire canyon was in shadow now, the water inky, cliffs bruised a deep purple in the
twilight.
“Do you chaperone Imogen on all her sponsor trips?” Mandy asked.
“No, never. But this opportunity was special. Imogen’s mom, my daughter, is a lawyer. She couldn’t possibly take this much
time off work. And her father”—now Lucinda’s warm voice turned cold—“seems to have an allergy to spending time with his only
child.”
“That’s terrible.” Whatever faults Mandy’s dad had, he’d always been there for her.
“That’s family.” Lucinda shrugged and pointed up, to where an osprey was circling the narrow aperture of twilight between
the canyon walls. “This trip is a gift. An opportunity to share something I love with my granddaughter.”
“Rafting?”
“The Grand Canyon.”
“You’ve been here before?” Mandy asked.
“Twice.” A canyon wren warbled from the other side of the river, its plaintive whistle falling from the sky. “The first time,
on my honeymoon. Then three years ago, after my husband passed.”
“Is it like you remembered?”
“Yes and no. Everything gets muted in my memories—heights, colors, the roar of the water. The way the air smells sharp, like
a knife held under your nose. The extremes here . . . they’re hard to hold on to after you leave.”
“Like living inside a dream. You can’t quite grab it when you wake up.”
“Yes. Quite.” Lucinda’s eyes were somehow both dark and bright at the same time. “What brings you on this trip?”
“My sister and I—” Mandy looked back to the tarp.
Liv had given up on her and was now extracting their bags herself.
She’d have to tell her sister the truth.
She’d have to tell everyone. She couldn’t keep making up stories about winning a raffle or meeting Babette on a yacht and bonding over a shared case of ceviche-borne food poisoning.
“I have an interest in CareFree,” she said. “And Babette.”
“An investor? Like Stefan?” Lucinda gave her an assessing look. “For what it’s worth, I’d wager our missing guest decided
she didn’t want to rough it.”
A spike of indignation shot through Mandy’s body. “Babette loves the outdoors. Hasn’t your granddaughter showed you any of
her videos?”
Lucinda held her ground. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Imogen, it’s that you can’t trust anything you see on social
media. It’s all a performance. Even her radical honesty is manufactured. Just like Babette’s so-called clean beauty business.
They promise purity, but plant-based products can be just as dangerous as chemicals. Once it’s in a bottle, everything’s synthetic.”
“Babette would never put out anything dangerous. She cares about her customers. And keeping things real.”
“Your insistence proves my point. Babette Sauvage sells a performance of authenticity. Fierce. CareFree. Be natural, but enhanced.
Be yourself, but better. Her products are the physical equivalent of Imogen’s videos, packaging empowerment as a purchasable
good. Maybe she believes it. Maybe she doesn’t.”
Mandy frowned. “I thought you didn’t know or care who Babette was.”
“I don’t,” Lucinda said simply. “But I know this: In any industry, the best salespeople are wholly committed to their performance.
It’s all blinding surface, with questionable substance underneath.”
“Babette has depth,” Mandy grumbled.
“I don’t doubt it, dear. Anyone who’s built a business of this scale must have something beneath the razzle-dazzle. But I
wonder if you—or anyone here—knows what lurks down there.”
The osprey plunged into the river in a sudden spray, and Mandy startled.
A moment later, the bird burst back up with a silver fish in its talons, beating its enormous mottled wings as it ferried its quarry to a perch high on the other side of the canyon, beyond her field of view.
The canyon went silent again, as if the violence had never happened.
The sun winked out on the water, taking the last of its warmth with it.