by Jeff Giles
Dallas’s face took on a meditative expression.
“True dat,” he said.
“And, look, maybe the cops will deal with it,” Zoe said, “and I won’t have to.”
“But you’re not just bluffing, are you?” said Dallas.
“No,” she said.
“That cave’s a beast,” said Dallas. “Obviously.”
“Yeah,” said Zoe.
“Black Teardrop’s only a couple hundred yards from Silver Teardrop, which is less of a ballbuster,” he said. “We could do a training run there, and see how you do.” He paused. “This new boyfriend you like more than me—is he a caver?” he said.
The question surprised Zoe.
“Sort of?” she said. “But I’m asking you. Will you help me?”
“Well, I’m not gonna let you go alone,” said Dallas. “But we’re going to have to do it fast because when the snow starts to melt, those caves are going to be like waterslides. Also, if we spend too long training, you’re gonna get all attracted to me, and then that’s gonna be a whole big thing.”
She laughed.
“True dat,” she said.
Dallas stood and slipped back into character, like a Method actor about to hit the stage. He put on his Hun hat. Then, with a loud cry, he ripped off his V-neck T-shirt with both hands. (The tear at the base of the V made it easy to shred and, Zoe suspected, had been put there for that very purpose.) An older woman sitting nearby hooted happily at the sight of Dallas’s biceps. He tossed the shirt to her, then leaned down to Zoe and whispered proudly, “They give us the T-shirts for free.”
Zoe sat alone awhile, pushing around noodles. She was nervous about the plan—she’d be an idiot not to be—but she was doing it for Jonah, and she wasn’t going to let him down.
There was a commotion on the other side of the restaurant. Zoe looked up and saw that Val, having finished her frozen yogurt, was outside the window. She was bored and doing jumping jacks to get her attention.
A strange thought struck Zoe as she headed for the door: she was going into the earth for her dad, while X was trying to get out of it for her.
thirteen
Zoe and Dallas planned the Silver Teardrop trip like it was a military operation. In the gleaming, high-ceilinged halls at school, they passed each other notes about rebelays, cowstails, and carabiners, and about whether they should use 11-millimeter rope, which was the safest, or 9 millimeter, which was lighter to carry. Dallas was the treasurer of a caving club with the unfortunate name of the Grotto of Guys. His enthusiasm reminded Zoe so much of her father that sometimes when Dallas was waving his hands around and babbling excitedly about the trip, she felt her eyes prick with tears.
It was a Friday night now, close to midnight. They were going caving in the morning. Zoe lay on the couch in the living room, a list of supplies and a map of Silver Teardrop in her hands. Her body felt jangly. She couldn’t get her mind to sit still. The moon, bright and big, was blaring through the window next to her. A larch scratched at the window with its skeletal hands.
Silver Teardrop was just a practice run. It was less daunting than Black Teardrop, where her father had died—but still, she had never gone caving in winter. She’d never dealt with snow and ice. She’d never gone without her dad at all.
Her father had treated caves like they were holy ground. Zoe thought some of the graffiti on the walls of the caves was cool, especially the ancient-looking stuff. But it used to make her dad mental. He’d shine his headlamp at a wall where somebody had carved Phineas in the rock, and he’d shake his head: “Even in the 1800s, some people were assholes.” Her dad had shown her caves with amazing domed ceilings, caves with lakes so blue they seemed phosphorescent, caves with enormous, glassy stalagmites that looked like a pipe organ.
“Here’s the deal, Zoe,” he’d tell her. “There are still a million unexplored places on earth—places where no human being has ever set foot. How cool is that? How freakin’ cool is that?! It’s just that they’re all underground.”
Zoe’s father had always been a few feet in front of her, testing the tunnels and drops and underground rivers. He’d always been right there, smiling goofily and shouting over his shoulder, “You’re freakin’ awesome! You can do this! You’re my girl!”
But not anymore. Not ever again.
She took her phone from the coffee table and texted Dallas to psych herself up.
Tomorrow Tomorrow TOMORROW!!!! she wrote.
Dallas texted back instantaneously, as if he’d just been waiting to hit Send.
Pumped! he wrote. Just gotta get out of work. Huns are being HUGE a-holes. Stand by.
WTFF? Zoe texted back. Don’t you dare blow me off!
Never! I’m PUMPED!!! G2G—I’m shaving. (Not my face.)
EWWWW. Tell the Huns if they don’t let you go, I will kick them in the MRGH and shove a spear up their FURG.
Ha!
Too much?
Hells no! LMNO!
N?
Nuts, Zoe. NUTS!
She set her phone on the coffee table and stared at the map of the cave. In the top right corner, there was an inscription:
Silver Teardrop. Bottomed March 2, 2005. Team leaders: Bodenhamer & Balensky. Water temp: 32°–33°.
The map, which had been drawn by hand, looked like an illustration of a digestive tract, like they used to give out in ninth-grade Bio. The entrance to the cave (the mouth) was a narrow crawlway. It was going to be claustrophobic, and they’d have to be roped and harnessed as they crawled, because after 50 feet the passage arrived at a steep, 175-foot drop (the esophagus). Water ran down one of the walls year-round. How much water there would be—a trickle or a waterfall—was the only question mark that nagged at Zoe and Dallas. They hoped the snow outside the cave hadn’t started to melt and flood underground.
Zoe’s eyes drifted down the map. At the bottom of the drop, there was a big, bell-shaped chamber (the stomach), where the waterfall splashed against a giant rock and spilled onto the floor. She and Dallas would be touching down in a freezing lake. They’d have to wear wet suits under their clothes.
The chamber was what the cavers came for. It must have some spectacular ice formations hanging from the ceiling: it was called the Chandelier Room.
Zoe let the map drop to the floor and rubbed her eyes.
She could hear her mother upstairs, pacing around. They hadn’t spoken in days. Zoe still felt angry and hurt, but she missed her mom. She felt disconnected from the world, like she was floating in space without a tether. The fact that X was gone made it worse. Zoe listened as the ceiling creaked under her mother’s step. Every sound made her feel lonelier.
Zoe was going caving because Jonah needed her to—why couldn’t her mom understand that? Did she think she was only doing it to cause trouble? Or because she needed a distraction while she waited for X? Jonah was still in too much pain to step outside the house. He was waiting for Zoe or the police to make it to the bottom of Black Teardrop. He’d become pale and weepy. He gnawed endlessly at his fingers. Every weekday morning, Rufus rumbled up in the truck with the waving bear, but even he—with his vast repertoire of silliness—couldn’t cheer the kid up. When Rufus and Jonah played hide-and-seek, Jonah hid in the old freezer in the basement like he used to with their dad, but even that seemed to upset him. Rufus refused to take any money for caring for him. At first, Zoe assumed this was all part of his one-mile-per-hour courtship of her mother. Then, one afternoon, she saw Rufus holding her brother’s hand and delicately clipping his tiny fingernails—and she realized that he actually just cared about Jonah. That was the day Zoe decided the guy was a saint.
Tonight, before Jonah went to bed, Zoe had dictated some extra supplies she’d need, and—in a rare burst of energy—he’d written it as best he could in a spiral notebook.
Zoe went over the list one more time:
H2O
Proteen bars, 3?
Hair ties for tYing hair
Raisens
; Flashlights, 2
Swis ArmY Knife
Battories
Wool socks reallY thick ones
Dish-washing gloves (WIERD!)
Knee pads for knees
Garbig bag for poncho, just in case!
Everything was stuffed into packs now. Zoe let the paper float to the floor. There was nothing left to do but somehow make it to morning.
She was still awake at 2 a.m. She forced herself off the couch. She went to the front hall closet—why hadn’t she thought of it before?—and took out X’s blue overcoat. It shimmered even in the muted light of the hallway. The metal hangers made a tingling sound when they touched.
Zoe pressed her face to the coat. It smelled of wood smoke, pine, and the faint tang of sweat. The memory of colliding with X on the lake, of feeling his body collapse beneath her, of breathing him in for the first time, flooded over her. She squeezed the coat hard, as if he were in it. Dallas was cute. He had a sweet, lopsided grin, but X … X was kind of astounding. Zoe rubbed one of the buttons on the coat. It was made of stone. It warmed in her hand.
She carried the coat to the couch and huddled under it. X was five or six inches taller than Zoe, so the coat engulfed her, cascaded over her, made her feel certain and safe. She imagined X finally returning. She imagined him walking up the steps. He would be too nervous to look at her at first. She would say … What would she say?
She would say, You forgot your coat.
At 3 a.m., she decided to write X a letter, even though she had no way to deliver it and he didn’t know how to read. The pen with the beaded chain that Jonah had taken from the bank lay on the coffee table. She picked it up. She took the supply list off the floor, turned it over, and pressed it against her knee. She didn’t care that X would never see the letter. She just wanted, just needed, to capture some of the thoughts flying in circles in her head.
She wrote without pausing until she’d filled the page. At 3:15, she folded the letter and slipped it into a pocket of X’s coat as if it were some kind of supernatural mail slot. She fell asleep within seconds. The stolen pen was still in her hand. The coat flowed over her like warm water.
At 8:58, Zoe woke to the sound of Dallas blasting his horn. He was two minutes early and, since she had last been in his car, he’d apparently customized the horn to play the first five notes of The Simpsons theme song. Zoe stumbled to the kitchen window. She made a slashing motion across her throat (Stop honking!), spread the fingers on her right hand (I need five minutes!), and then repeated the slashing gesture (Seriously, honk again and you die!). She was exhausted. Her neck ached from sleeping on the couch. She was in no condition to go caving. Adrenaline was going to have to get her through the day.
Upstairs, she pulled on her wet suit and, over that, as many layers as she could handle without walking like a mummy. She did a quick check of her backpack and the duffel bag that held her gear. All good. On the way down the hall, she peeked into Jonah’s room, hoping he’d be awake so she could hug his toasty little body before she left. He was deeply asleep, though—flushed pink and 20,000 leagues under the sea.
Downstairs, her mother hovered like a ghost in the kitchen. She was at the counter, stirring tea.
“I’m going,” said Zoe.
Her mother didn’t answer. Didn’t even turn.
Zoe didn’t want to leave like this.
She could hear Dallas outside, blasting a Kendrick Lamar rap in his 4Runner.
“I’ll be careful,” she said.
She meant it as a kind of peace offering, but her mother wheeled around angrily.
“If you wanted to be careful—if you wanted to respect my wishes—you wouldn’t go at all,” she said.
“Mom, listen—”
“No, Zoe, I’m not listening. Just go, if you’re going.”
Her mother refused to say another word. She picked up the orange box of tea and began reading the back, as if it were interesting.
Zoe was a wreck when she got in the 4Runner. Dallas stumbled around for something to say. Zoe felt bad about it. Dallas was so PUMPED! PUMPED! PUMPED! for the expedition, and here she was like some pathetic chick getting all messy with her feels. She was not this person.
In a surprising flurry of thoughtfulness, Dallas had brought Zoe a cappuccino from Coffee Traders and switched the radio to a country station she liked. Fiddles and acoustic guitars filled the car. Zoe could tell Dallas hated it, but he didn’t say a word. She put a star next to his name in her head.
“The Huns let you come after all,” she said finally. “That’s cool.”
“The Huns suck,” said Dallas, relieved to be talking. “Don’t get me going on how hard they suck.”
He pulled up to a red light.
“Check this out,” he said. “My boss, right? We’re supposed to call him King Rugila, which is stupid and hard to pronounce—his name’s actually Sandy. Anyway, King R gives me a massive, nut-busting guilt trip about the sacred code of the Huns and how they didn’t just abandon their brothers for some chick.” He paused. “You are the chick, by the way.”
“I got that,” said Zoe.
“So I go on Wikipedia, right? I never actually read about the Huns before because I kinda wanted to create my own character. But check this out: the Huns had no code! That was the point—they just attacked stuff!”
The light bloomed green. Dallas let a string of cars turn in front of him before pulling forward. He was a weirdly polite driver.
“Sorry to get all riled,” he said. “King R just makes me insane.”
“I don’t want you to get in trouble because of me,” said Zoe. “You’re not going to get fired, are you?”
“No, I’m definitely not going to get fired,” said Dallas. “Because I quit.”
“Dallas!” said Zoe. “Because of me?!”
“Yeah because of you,” he said shyly. “Shut up.”
She’d embarrassed him. Who knew Dallas could even get embarrassed?
“They’ll be begging me to come back by Monday,” he added. “All those hot moms don’t come in for the food—which I bet isn’t even all that authentically Hunnic. I’m not saying I’m the biggest stud they’ve got. That would be conceited. But I’m definitely in the top three. King R’s got, like, back hair.”
Zoe laughed, grateful that Dallas was so deeply, defiantly … Dallas.
They streamed past Columbia Falls and turned north toward Polebridge. Civilization quickly petered out. All cell and Internet service evaporated, and the last of the stores and restaurants gave way to empty, rutted roads that curved through the woods. Signs saying Private Property and Be Bear Aware were nailed to firs along the roadside. Every so often a log cabin sent up a fat plume of smoke. Otherwise, the world was empty. Zoe felt it in her stomach. The closer they got to Silver Teardrop, the more anxious she felt about going caving again. Dallas must have sensed it.
“You nervous?” he said.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Seriously?” said Dallas. “Because we’re going to crush this cave. We’re both total ballers. Repeat after me: crush, crush, crush!”
“Crush, crush, crush?” said Zoe.
“That was feeble,” said Dallas. “Nothing was ever crushed by anybody who said ‘crush’ like that.”
“It’s not just the cave,” said Zoe.
Dallas frowned.
“Do you want to—do you want to talk about your feelings, or whatever?”
Zoe just stared at him. She couldn’t help it. It was the last thing that the Dallas she’d gone out with would ever have asked.
“Have you been practicing how to talk to girls, dawg?” she said.
“Maybe,” said Dallas. “Maybe with my mom—who’s a therapist. I’m saying maybe.”
“Well, it’s sweet of you to ask,” said Zoe. “But I know you don’t actually want to hear about my feelings.”
They came to a narrow curve in the road. Another car was approaching. Dallas slowed down and drove onto the shoulder so it could p
ass.
“Here’s the thing that girls don’t understand,” he said.
“Oh my god,” said Zoe. “Please tell me what girls don’t understand—because I’ve always wondered.”
Either Dallas didn’t hear the sarcasm, or decided to ignore it.
“What girls don’t understand,” he began earnestly, “is that guys actually do want to hear about their feelings—they just don’t want to hear about all of their feelings. They want to hear about some of them.”
“How much are we talking?” said Zoe. “Do you want to hear, like, thirty percent of our feelings?”
Dallas mulled this over.
“Maybe fifty percent?” he said. “Depending? We just want there to be time left at the end to talk about something else. But with you guys—with you girls—everything is always connected to everything else, so you start talking about one feeling and that leads to another feeling, which leads to another feeling.” He looked at her with his dimpled, wide-open face. He was absolutely sincere. “You know? There’s never any time left.”
They were just outside Polebridge now. Dallas turned onto the road to town. Polebridge was a tiny, pony express sort of place in the middle of nowhere. There were maybe a dozen buildings—a café, a general store, a cluster of cabins, a red outhouse with a crescent moon on the door. Except for the satellite dishes, it might have been 1912. There was a rail for tying up your horse.
Dallas parked in front of the store, shut off the engine, and turned to Zoe, apparently still waiting for the lowdown on her feelings.
What the heck, she thought.
“Okay, here are the highlights,” she said. “My mom’s pissed at me for going caving. Jonah won’t leave the house. He’s like a crazy person in a play. I haven’t seen X—my boyfriend—I haven’t seen him in days. I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to hear about him. What else? I miss my dad. I’ve never gone caving without him. I don’t even know how to go caving without him.” She made herself stop talking. “So those are my feelings. Which fifty percent do you want to hear more about?”