Chapter One #2
He turns around before he could possibly have heard my foot-steps over the rush of water.
Still using his psychic powers for evil, I see.
I stagger awkwardly across thirty feet of loose sand while the two of us don’t speak to each other, as usual.
An olive-green T-shirt with a gooftastic cartoon of a bear portaging a canoe—carrying the boat over his head, in canoe-speak—stretches across his generous pecs, barely hugging the little bit of softness at his stomach.
“Stellar.”
“McHuge.”
This is our first conversation in a year, so obviously I war-gamed it on the drive here. I plan to give back exactly what he gives me. One-name greeting? Check.
“Thanks for coming out. Kind of an unconventional spot for a job interview, but I like it.” He scrunches his bare toes into the riverbed. “Join me?”
Argh. He walked into the water; now I have to, too. He defeated my give-what-I-get strategy on his second move . Forget canoes; McHuge should take up chess.
“Love to.” I roll up my pants as far as I can. Creases are better than splashes or mud.
The water’s ankle deep, pale aqua, and freezing.
In the tender late-afternoon light, his eyes are the color of a sunbeam hitting the waters of the North Pacific, every hue of green touched with drops of gold identical to the freckles dusted over his cheeks, arms, and knees, perfectly clear until suddenly a trick of the light hides what’s underneath.
His ginger hair flames extravagantly next to the darker shade of his beard.
I don’t like his face. I especially resent the one deep auburn lock that’s escaped the elastic to curl across his temple, ugh. And I hate how my body softens when I step closer, as if he’s not the most dangerous mistake I could make. Or re make, technically.
Busy disliking everything about him, I forget to watch my step. My left heel hits a flat, slippery rock and shoots out in front of me. I pitch sideways toward McHuge and a million gallons of pure, clean, icy meltwater.
I’m closing my eyes against the cold that’s about to shock my face when my suspenders tighten against my chest. Gravity ceases to exist.
After a careful breath, I open one eye. McHuge does indeed have the back straps of my suspenders and a generous handful of my shirt gripped in one gigantic fist, like I’m a toddler intent on running into the street.
“You good?” he asks evenly, setting me on my feet.
“I’m fine.” I consider throwing myself into the river. “Thanks for the lift. You may want to move that rock at some point.” I turn away to tug my shirt into place, closing the string of gaps that popped into existence between the buttons. I’m starting to think this was a bad idea.
“You sure? Your aura is very dark right now.” He bobbles his head side to side. “Darker than usual, anyway.”
“I look good in black,” I say flatly, turning to face the opposite bank. We can talk without staring into each other’s eyes.
He nods. “Did Liz explain what we’re looking for, or do you want me to go over it?”
“She showed me the article.” It was a long-form think piece in Beeswax , a major online magazine, arguing the dangers of the “pop psychology gold rush”—the scramble to stake out a niche in the rapidly growing self-help industry, consumer safety be damned.
“The Love Boat,” the article claimed, “is one such example.”
Lyle McHugh developed a legitimate piece of psychology scholarship—which was published as last year’s trendiest do-it-yourself marriage counseling manual, The Second Chances Handbook , under the guidance of Dr. Alan Fisher, his PhD supervisor and coauthor.
Now McHugh, a never-married proponent of “free love,” hopes to capitalize on his success by launching an unproven relationship therapy program based in a remote wilderness camp without access to medical care for miles around.
It’s based on tandem whitewater canoeing—a sport so difficult it’s unofficially known as “divorce boat.”
Dr. Fisher chose his words carefully when approached for comment.
“I do wish Mr. McHugh had persisted with his PhD studies for an extra year or two, instead of leaving against my recommendations. His radical ideas need tempering and underpinning with rigorous methodology, for safety reasons. Of course, I wish him every success.”
“What did you think?” McHuge shifts his feet; a school of tiny brown fish dart into deeper water. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was talking to them before I got here.
I purse my lips. “It’s a hit piece. The never-married thing is a total straw man.
And out here, a doctor can’t do much more than someone with industrial first aid training.
You’re not that far from the urgent care clinic in Pendleton, or even Grey Tusk General.
” I swallow the taste of my former workplace out of my mouth, then add, “Plus, your prof called you ‘Mister,’ like you didn’t finish your PhD. And the writer didn’t correct him.”
The arcane traditions of medicine used to be one of my favorite things.
I loved it when my doctor friends called me “Doctor” to convey anything from “I’m happy to see you” to “you just said something astonishingly smart.” I flinched at panel discussions when one speaker unleashed an icy “I disagree, Doctor ,” before publicly scoring devastating points on the archrival seated next to them.
But if another doctor calls you “Mister,” it means they want you dead . I caught a stinging “good luck in your future endeavors, Ms. Byrd,” as I was escorted out of Grey Tusk General, and I knew my department chief wanted me to understand he’d scooped out the best part of me.
“The writer was misinformed,” McHuge says mildly. “Brent and I connected. We cleared up a few misconceptions.”
“Brent’s article made one of your employees quit a week before launch. You don’t have to be friends with everyone, Lyle.”
At the sound of his given name, our heads do a move that feels choreographed, like a pop and lock—turning to face each other, holding for a tense moment, then turning away.
I know how he likes being called by that name, which is why I had planned never to use it.
But it flew out of my mouth like it was waiting for him.
He clears his throat. “I generally find it’s better to be kind than right.”
Touché . He was the kind one after I sneaked out of his bed in the middle of the night.
He sent me exactly three texts: I didn’t hear you go!
Everything all good? progressing to Stellar J ? I would be very open to seeing where this goes if that’s the vibe you’re feeling , and ending with I think you want me to back off, and I’m doing it with peace in my heart. Take care.
He was kind. But I was right. And the two of us couldn’t be more wrong for each other.
“The problem is,” McHuge goes on, “Renee Garner is considering a partnership with us, and she feels we need to address the criticisms wherever possible. She’s at a vulnerable moment, reputation-wise.”
Everybody’s heard of Renee Garner. Even me, who swore off wellness culture after realizing “resilience” is code for how toxic a workplace can get before employers have to deal with it.
Renee’s research on bad bosses led her to the speaking circuit, then to a media career with an Oprahesque stable of bright young collaborators.
She must still be stinging over having to fire an addiction specialist whose degree came from the University of Photoshop.
“Which is where I come in,” I say.
“Which is where you come in. We need a medical professional with whitewater experience.”
“I haven’t guided whitewater since medical school.” It was good money, but the culture could be shitty and sexist at times. Tour operators prefer younger guides, who are less likely to have unhealthy adrenaline-rush habits or chronic injuries. Fun people, who can make the tourists laugh.
“I’d do the instruction. As long as your whitewater rescue certification is still good and you’re strong enough to do a solo rescue, that’s all we need.”
“Oh, I’m strong enough,” I snap back. I run. I lift. Granted, it’s with a set of flaking free weights I scrounged from the free bin at the Pendleton triathlon club’s annual gear swap, but my arm definition doesn’t lie.
“I don’t doubt it,” he says evenly. “You’d be doing site prep from now until next Monday’s launch.
The sessions are ten days on, four days off, with an extra week between the first and second sessions to make changes if Renee asks for them.
Payday every Friday.” He names a weekly salary triple what I pull down as a delivery driver.
“That’s… competitive,” I choke out. Jesus. With summer earnings like that, I could take time off in the fall, figure out what to do with my life. Take a course in real estate or something else I could tolerate but never love. “What about the medical thing? The, um, clinic?”
A clinic. Calm, I am calm, I am —fuck, I’m flashing back.
It was a few months after I got Ms. Byrd -ed at Grey Tusk General, not long after the doomed hookup with McHuge.
I was alone in my tiny office in Brittle Rock, seeing a fit-in first thing in the morning.
There was the patient, tall and burly, his florid face turning purple from yelling, like my dad’s had the night he told my mom to get in the car, then reamed me out on the sidewalk for being a selfish little shit who only thought of myself.
And me, writing prescription after prescription to de-escalate the situation, praying for the clinic nurse to arrive early and help me, heart galloping so fast I couldn’t breathe.
When it was over, I knew I couldn’t give any more if this was what I got in return. A year later I’m still so angry I can’t catch my breath, tucking my fingers into my armpits to hide their trembling.
“You’d cover emergencies only,” McHuge says. “Maybe treat minor cuts and scrapes. If that works for you?” He strokes one hand over his beard, scanning my posture like he can read every tightened angle.
“Sounds doable.” I unclench my teeth, not wanting my secrets to be legible. My dentist will be pleased.
“And there’s one more thing.” His tone pulls from its usual slack Owen Wilson drawl into something with a firm pencil point.
“Distraction can be dangerous out here. To keep my focus on the clients, I need strong, low-maintenance relationships with my employees. It goes without saying that nothing beyond a collegial friendship could happen between us.”
I slap a hand over my mouth. “Jesus, McHuge.”
His hands splay open in a welp gesture. “I can’t make a hiring decision without talking about our history, Stellar.
It’s one thing for you to make sure I’m on the other side of the room before you walk under the mistletoe at Liz and Tobin’s holiday party.
It’s something else entirely to expect the clients to not pick up on the two of us avoiding each other when we’re together twenty-four seven for ten days. ”
Excuse me. The two of us avoiding each other ?
My cheeks burn hot. Sure, I sometimes look at his texts when I feel lonely.
Maybe I wanted to believe I had to stay away for his sake, not just mine.
But I guess I’ve been making an ass of myself at every barbecue since last summer, keeping a backyard’s worth of people between us like he was a deadly allergen.
The vast wilderness feels too small now that I’m standing in it with this version of McHuge—the one who actually isn’t friends with everyone, because he clearly doesn’t want to be friends with me.
It’s for the best, but I’m furious with myself for not being smarter. If I weren’t wearing my good clothes, I’d run this feeling away: crank up the pace until my brain went silent and there was nothing but the sawing of breath in and out of my chest.
His fingers twitch. If he’s considering reaching out to me, he thinks better of it.
“If you can move past that, I don’t need to look for another candidate.
You’re bright, you work hard, and you’re one of the most loyal people I’ve ever met, if your friendship with Liz is anything to go by. You’re the right person for the job.”
I can hear him holding back the words “on paper.” I’m not the person I was when I pushed his front door shut and tugged on his belt loop that fateful night, thinking I could handle myself.
And I’m not the person he thinks I am now.
He’s still wrong for me, and I’m wrong for everybody. And we both know it.
“When do you need to know by?”
“As soon as possible. Extra hands would be great to have this week, before launch. And Tobin wants to start his paternity leave at least a week before Liz’s due date.”
So, two weeks. He has time to find somebody else.
“I’ll think about it,” I say, pivoting toward shore.
“Do that,” he says, but he can read my thoughts, and he knows I turned him down.
I intend not to look back, but the deep, effortful sound he makes pulls my head around in time to see him pry the slippery rock from under the water and shot-put it a ridiculous distance into the river.
It’s sizable, maybe twenty pounds, and it doesn’t take long before the waves from its impact are tugging the sand from beneath my feet, unbalancing me like the aftershocks from the night of the festival.
I practically run out of the water, clean clothes be damned. The closer the two of us are, the stronger this ripple effect gets, undermining us both. The only solution is to stay far, far away, where the waves he makes can’t reach me.
Halfway down the dirt road, my phone dings with missed notifications. I pull over by a fallen tree to catch up. It’s Liz.
Are you at the Love Boat?
Contractions 6 minutes apart. 37 weeks isn’t premature right? Googling
We’re going in! Baby tonight (I hope)
Shit. I’m half an hour away and Liz needs me. I push my speed as high as Honey’s chassis can take on this rocky road and hope I haven’t missed the biggest moment of her life.