Chapter Nineteen #2
A young family crosses our path, twin preschoolers running ahead, bleary-eyed parents bringing up the rear, each with an identically dressed infant in a backpack.
I stop to wait for Petra, who’s examining some days-old bear scat at the side of the trail, her shiny dark braid falling over one shoulder.
Now’s my chance to get to know her, maybe. “Hey, Petra.” She doesn’t respond—distracted, maybe, by the shouts echoing through the trees. “Petra! You okay?”
Her head comes up, a strange look on her face. Almost… guilty? “Oh, yes, that’s me! Sorry, I zoned out for a second.”
“How are you feeling? Am I walking too fast?”
“I’m good, thanks. Whatever pace you want is fine.”
“Great. Let me know if you need a break.”
“Will do.” She sends me a sideways glance like she doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about. She didn’t come for a briefing before we set out, like I offered. Did Trevor not tell her about his chat with me?
“You and I haven’t had a chance to really talk. I’d love to hear how it’s going with Trevor. Everyone’s rooting for your friends-to-lovers story.”
That gets a small secret smile out of her.
“Me and Trevor are… good, actually.” She ducks her head shyly, tucking a stray lock of dark hair under her red bucket hat.
“We have some stuff to figure out, like our work situation. But it’s so much more than what I expected with him. It’s kind of wild, actually.”
“I’m so happy for you. I hope the Love Boat’s giving you what you came for.”
Petra’s smile flattens for a second, then curves up with determined brightness. “Yes. It is.”
Aggressive huffing on the trail turns out to be Brent. He power walks up to us, looking over his shoulder. “Come on, Mitch! We can pass these guys. I want to catch Willow and Sloane.”
“Would you look at that. Another rock in my shoe.” Mitch makes a big deal of looking around for a log to sit on, then meticulously unlaces her hiking boot. Nothing falls out when she takes it off.
“Where are all these rocks coming from?” Brent kicks at the forest floor, which is 70 percent sticks and leaves, 20 percent moss, 10 percent fungi, and 0 percent rocks.
“I have diabetes,” Mitch lectures him. “I take my feet seriously.”
I cough into my sleeve to hide my smile. We leave them arguing over phantom rocks and head for the coordinates.
A few minutes later we spot Lori and Trevor standing in the middle of the trail.
He points at his phone; she shakes her head.
“I’ve done this dozens of times. I know what I’m doing,” she says.
“Put the map back on your phone, and I’ll show you where we have to turn north.
I mean west. I mean… you know what I mean.
” Her pale blond hair frizzes out of the elastic on one side, where she keeps distractedly threading her fingers through it.
A handprint-shaped smear of dirt and leaves decorates the front of her shirt, like she fell and wiped off her hand there.
Her socks are wet past the ankle, no doubt from misjudging one of the deeper puddles.
“You two okay?” I put a steadying hand on Lori’s arm. “I have extra socks if you need some.”
“It’s fine,” Lori says, her voice wavering. “I just don’t seem to know quite where we are. His phone is never showing the map.”
A touch of impatience breaks through Trevor’s good humor.
“But I know where we are. The map app uses a lot of batteries. I’d rather turn it off once in a while.
Hey,” he says, looking between me and Petra.
“You know what we could use? A tiebreaker vote. Petra, would you feel better if you joined us?” He throws me a meaningful look.
It could be a good idea to put Petra and Trevor together, especially if she feels like she can’t share her anxiety with me. I’d rather not have another disaster like the one at the Rolling Stones, before I knew about Sloane’s hip.
And god knows Lyle would endorse an enthusiastic threesome.
The new group sets off together, and I turn back toward the trailhead. Maybe I can mediate the situation with Brent and Mitch, which should be going critical right about now.
On my own, the forest feels different. I place my feet carefully on the way downhill, aware of the slippery leaves and wet unstable earth.
Slick bare mud gives beneath my right boot, shooting my foot out in front of me.
I catch myself before my butt hits the ground, but down on my hands and heels, I see what I wouldn’t have otherwise: an arrow made of branches, pointing off the trail.
Probably one of the other geocaching destinations—there are half a dozen waypoints hidden along the trail system.
Curiosity pulls me in the direction of the arrow. At a huge hollow cedar stump, another stick arrow points toward a break in the ancient wood big enough to step through.
Inside, the small dirt floor is level and swept. White letters tacked to the walls of the makeshift room read CACHE #4: WELCOME TO THE DANCE FLOOR .
Maybe it’s the secret beauty of this place, or maybe it’s me being neck-deep in sentimentality lately, but my chest tightens.
“Care to dance?”
I spin around to find Lyle leaning against one softened, aged edge of the doorway, arms crossed over his WEST COAST BEST COAST T-shirt. Inside the tree, the wood matches his hair—dark where it’s wet, pale where the rain has missed it, like the sun-lightened golden red atop Lyle’s crown.
Last night hovers between us, delicate as breath. I remember his face softly smiling above me, below me, beside me, between my legs.
The intimacy of these deeply gnarled ancient walls hits me like the ocean at the bottom of a cliff jump. We could stream something old-fashioned and sweet. Billie Holiday or Glenn Miller. The notes would blend with the wind in the trees, and we’d listen for the beat of our hearts to drop.
“We shouldn’t get distracted from the guests.” We have a week between courses; we could come back here on a nice day. Maybe eat lunch in Pendleton afterward. We could lie in the tent and dream up all kinds of things to do with the next batch of clients. We could bring them here, even.
Maybe this would be our special spot.
I haven’t imagined a future like this in so long. There was only a desperate self-replicating present, day after identical day of fury to cover up the fear. The future was about things : money, safety, power, choices.
But my future could be about people. About courage.
I could dance.
He pushes off the doorway with his shoulder and strides toward me unrushed, eyes crinkled like he’s never been so happy to see anyone, even though he saw me not half an hour ago.
We’ve barely touched when the shrill of a safety whistle rips through our reverie.
“Ours,” I breathe. “That sounds like one of ours.”
His shocked, guilty gaze meets mine. “We shouldn’t have both been here,” he whispers, already turning to run.
We scramble back up the trail, my runner’s legs putting me in the lead, my heart galloping even faster than my feet.
Kneeling in a patch of low brush to the side of the path is Lori, face streaked with tears and snot, blowing and blowing her whistle. “Mitch,” she sobs between blasts, “Mitch, where are you?”
“Lori,” I shout, my hands blocking my ears. Christ, that thing is loud enough to rupture both tympanic membranes. And where are Trevor and Petra?
My mind jumps straight to the worst-case scenario: two clients missing, another hurt. “Lori, stop. Stop! What happened?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” she sobs. She’s covered in leaves, the elbow of her shirt bloodied and torn. Her skinned knuckles leave streaks of red across her cheeks.
McHuge pulls up, too out of breath to talk, but we don’t need words. Whatever I need, he’ll make it happen.
“I’m going to take good care of you, Lori. Give me some deep breaths now.” I take her wrist, fingers on her pulse, my heart exploding with fear. “Focus on my finger. Now follow it as it moves. Good. Tell me your full name?”
Running footsteps catch up to where Lori, Lyle, and I crouch in the damp leaf litter. “We only left her for a minute,” Trevor pants. “My sunglasses fell out of my pocket. Petra figured we’d be able to backtrack faster on our own.”
“Oh, I figured that?” Petra snaps.
“Why are you mad at me ? You left her, too.”
“Now’s not the time, you two. Go find Mitch.
” The sounds of their argument move away, and I turn back to Lori.
Her skin is warm and pink. She’s awake and talking.
Her heart rate is fast but steady. No signs of a bump to the head, no broken bones, and she’s moving all four limbs.
She knows her name and birth date, but once I wipe her face and give her a tissue to blow her nose, she starts dodging my questions.
“What’s my name, Lori?”
She flaps the tissue at me. “Don’t be silly. I know who you are.”
“Humor me.” If I were in the emergency room, I’d be getting an EKG, considering an MRI of her brain, testing her urine and blood. Out here, without even a stethoscope, I’m not particularly useful.
We have to call 911.
“Lori!” Mitch rounds the corner, no sign of a rock in her shoe now. Brent follows her, gawking. I tilt my head at Lyle, who immediately moves to block his view.
“Mitch!” Lori’s lower lip trembles, fresh tears pooling in her usually laughing brown eyes. “I’m having a bad day. I want to go home. Can we go home?”
Mitch doesn’t look surprised to find Lori confused and bleeding on a mountain trail. She falls to her knees beside her wife, taking Lori in her arms. “Yes, baby. We can go home now. Don’t cry, love.”
I look over at Lyle, reading the understanding in his eyes. He’s an expert on the human mind; he’s figured it out, too.
Everything’s about to get much more complicated.
Both Lori and Mitch decline the option to call 911, so the three of us take a rideshare to the hospital for a checkup. Everyone else piles into the Mystery Machine and heads back to camp. It’s barely afternoon, but all of us are done for the day.