by Amy Briant
Chapter Seventeen
The East Bay
I was grateful for the sunshine helping to dry us out, grateful for the daylight that would allow us to find a place to camp before night fell and grateful for our full water bottles. The loss of Mr. Giovanni’s pack was a blow, but even that had a silver lining—less weight to carry meant we could travel a little more quickly.
So it was with a relatively light heart and a bit of a spring in my step that I headed east once again. As we left the kiosks behind, I stole one final glance over my shoulder. For a split second, I thought I saw a figure standing on the far side of the gap in the bridge. I blinked and it was gone. I shaded my eyes and stared intently, scanning for any activity, but saw nothing untoward. Matteo? A figment of my imagination? Maybe I’d seen a bird’s movement and my hypervigilant brain had filled in the rest.
“Come on, Dupont,” said East who obviously hadn’t seen anything. She’d done another of her mercurial changes in mood. “Who’s lagging now?” she said in a teasing, semi-flirty tone I remembered her using on the guys in the Settlement—both our age and the adults.
I was uneasy about the distant figure, real or imagined, but shrugged it off. If it was anyone at all, it was probably Matteo and he was history. There was no point in scaring East with futile speculation, so I kept it to myself.
I was also uneasy at being on the receiving end of her not inconsiderable flirting skills. I wondered what had brought out that side of her. I flicked her a glance but decided to ignore the tone.
Another half a mile and we were finally off the bridge and on a highway bisecting the eastern shore of the mighty bay. The shoreline wasn’t a nice sandy beach. The bay first dwindled into a swampy marsh, then stretches of salt flats, then some nasty chemical flats in strange and vivid colors near the ruins of large industrial buildings.
This had been a well-populated area Before. The many buildings, large and small, demolished or still semi-standing, were evidence of that. Nature had reclaimed the region for the most part. The warm afternoon air was heavily scented with the fragrances of plants as well as the bay itself.
We were headed inland, which made me a bit jumpy. I was completely unfamiliar with this part of the world. I knew from Gabriel’s dirt map that yet another highway ran north and south, paralleling the bay. We needed to find that highway—the old Interstate 80—and follow it north.
But not that night. A safe place to camp was our current top priority, with food a close second and sleep in third. I could feel my body starting to crash after all the exertion and excitement of the day. I couldn’t believe we had awakened beside the creek that morning.
The chemical flats on both sides of us were starting to peter out into just plain dirt and bushes. I felt reluctant to leave the Bay behind since it was potentially a good source of food. If we headed directly north, we’d still be going in the right direction and we could keep close to the Bay for a little bit longer. We could cut further inland the next day and hook up with the interstate then.
A narrow dirt path, an animal trail, beckoned off to the left. It looked like a good jumping-off point for us. I wanted to sleep where I could hear the water, for one more night at least. I was trying and mostly succeeding at not worrying too much about someone following us. If I had seen Matteo, I couldn’t imagine that he would follow us all the way into the East Bay. He didn’t seem built for long-range pursuit, either mentally or physically. Not to mention, I was pretty sure I’d broken at least one bone in his foot when I stomped him. In any event, taking a random path off the side of the highway seemed like a good way to thwart anyone trying to track us down.
“Think what they’d expect you to do,” Gabriel had told me when I complained to her about bullies chasing me after school whenever she wasn’t accompanying me. “Then, do something totally different. And kick their asses, if you can manage it.”
I’d followed her advice as always. The next time those dipshits chased me in the forest—Hunter Cohen leading the way—I circled back behind them, found a good hiding place and pegged two of them in the head with well-thrown pinecones. Gave one of them a bloody nose. They lost interest in the let’s-chase-Kell-into-the-woods game after that.
East hadn’t mentioned Hunter’s name in a while. Me neither.
I was tired. My feet were dragging. My stomach was growling. Our dirt path was taking us alongside yet another marsh. Sea birds were having a hoedown there, which seemed to be a prime feeding area for them. Scores of white and gray birds of varying sizes and species wheeled and shrieked in the sky, dove into the water or bobbed placidly on top of it, according to their preferences. I guessed they were feeding on insects. East and I weren’t that desperate yet. Give it another day or two, I thought.
We plodded onward. At the edge of the marsh, dozens of snowy white birds whose name I did not know had built nests. They stared beadily at us, opening and closing their bills with a clack, spreading their wings to look bigger, but not making any other sounds. They were clearly not happy with our intrusion into their nesting grounds. To me, though, nests meant only one thing—eggs.
I stopped and took off the backpack, donned my sweatshirt, then pulled up the hood over my baseball cap and drew the strings tightly around my face. I pulled a worn pair of old suede work gloves from my pack.
“Put that on,” I told East, nodding toward my backpack. I pulled a mesh stuff sack from the pack’s side pocket. The camper’s best friend. “Wait here. And get ready to run.”
“What…?”
As soon as I stepped off the path into the marsh—with a big squish—I wished I had hip waders. Well, sometimes you have to get dirty to get dinner.
The birds freaked as soon as I set foot into their swamp. Their nests were built on little hillocks of grass amongst the muck and shallow standing water. My best bet was to get in and out as quickly as possible and then run for it. The shrieking and squawking and general clamor was earsplitting. Much flapping of wings and hissing too. They were mean little suckers, those sea birds. Of course I was stealing their unborn children. Sorry, birdies, I said to them in my head, and meant it. Gabriel and I had been brought up to respect and honor nature—we’d been taught to apologize to an animal before we killed it and to thank its spirit before eating it. Maybe it was silly, but it seemed important to keep that Dupont family tradition alive.
I felt bad for the birds, but a lot worse for me and East. I splashed my way from nest to nest, collecting eggs somewhat smaller than what our chickens had produced and stowed them carefully in the mesh bag. The flock was incensed, with some of the bolder members dive-bombing me and pecking at my hoodie, which was alarming but did no real damage. They crapped on me too, whether by design or out of sheer frustration I did not know. That strategy eventually proved effective in driving me away from their nesting ground, but not before I gathered close to a dozen eggs. I couldn’t really run, at first because I was in a swamp and then because I didn’t want to break the eggs, but I’ve never walked faster in my life.
East was waiting for me down the path.
“You’re covered in bird shit,” she laughed.
“You might want to be nicer to the person who’s got your dinner,” I told her, running a hand through my hair. My head felt nibbled on, but no blood had been drawn.
We found a place to camp for the night a few minutes later. The path took us through tall pine trees, all of which leaned eastward, blown that way by the wind off the bay. The water was out of sight, but I sensed it was not far away. All was quiet and serene as we hiked through the forest-like setting, years of pine needles soft and slippery beneath our feet. We topped a small rise where the path led between two gnarled and ancient trees to find a beach spread out below us. A real beach with white sand and the mild surf of the bay rolling up on its shore. Remnants of a pier or breakwater could be seen jutting up through the waves. Trees and shrubs formed a border to the east. The beach wasn’t very wide, but it was long. It ran northward as far as my eyes
could see.
“Oh, let’s stay here!” East said, a look of delight upon her face.
“Sounds good to me.”
We pitched the tent in the trees where it wasn’t so obvious and then camouflaged it with some leafy branches. We weren’t exactly hiding. We weren’t exactly not hiding. Didn’t hurt to be cautious when we had that luxury.
After setting up camp—which was easier now that we had fewer possessions—we built a fire in a sheltered spot behind a sand dune. This provided some protection from the wind, but it also kept the fire from being a blazing beacon on the open shoreline. As the sun set, East took charge of cooking the eggs while I rinsed my befouled hoodie in the surf. I thought about looking for more food, like crabs or clams, but was too dog-tired to do anything more than think about it. Tomorrow, I thought. Maybe we could fish as well. Scrambled eggs that only tasted a little weird and a handful of walnuts from East’s pockets was our menu for that evening.
The temperature dropped rapidly when the sun set. As we ate dinner by the fire, exhaustion settled upon me like a thick dark cloud. By the time we finished, I could hardly stand up or walk straight. East grabbed my elbow and guided me to the tent. It wasn’t that late, but we were both pretty wiped. I’m sure I meant to have some kind of meaningful conversation with her about how we were going to handle two campers and one sleeping bag, but in the end, I simply collapsed on top of the bag and was out like a light before my head hit the pillow.
I awoke to the pale pink light of dawn. I had slept so deeply, it took me a minute to figure out where I was and what was what. Cold crisp air streamed in through the fine mesh window panel in the door of the tent. The door itself was zipped shut.
Tickling my nose was East’s hair. My cheek was pressed into the crook of her shoulder. I could feel her deep, rhythmic breathing as she slumbered.
I felt sore, but good—relaxed and peaceful. The meal and the sleep had greatly refreshed me. I stretched, but only a little. I didn’t want to wake up East. My astonishment at waking up in her arms was total. She was so beautiful and I was so…me. I didn’t want to think. I just wanted to hold on to the moment for a long, long time. I closed my eyes and breathed her in. I touched my lips to her neck, very gently so as not to rouse her. Not even a kiss, just the lightest brush of lips on skin.
She made a small sound in her throat, somewhere between a sigh and an mmmmm. I froze. She moved her body against mine, finding a more comfortable position in the sleeping bag. She slept on. After a while, I fell asleep again too.
Chapter Eighteen
A Day At The Beach
My intention was to rest for just a few more minutes, but the next time I opened my eyes, I was alone in the tent and there was full sunlight outside.
Damn it, I thought. That meant we had lost hours of daylight—hours that could have put us closer to Segundo and my sister. I jumped to my feet—well, I tried. No one in a sleeping bag has ever successfully jumped to his or her feet, but after fighting my way out of the bag, I quickly pulled on my pants and boots.
Then I stopped. When exactly had I taken off my pants? East must have pulled them off before she put me to bed. Which would have been quite an accomplishment in and of itself—cramming an inert form, even one that barely cracked a hundred pounds, into a sleeping bag. She’d probably put the bag around me, instead of me in the bag. I shook off the thoughts of East undoing my belt, then gently pulling my pants off since I had no idea what to do with that information.
I hopped out the door of the tent, still struggling with a recalcitrant boot. It was another absolutely picture-perfect day in the Bay Area. Brilliant blue skies, no clouds, beautiful bay breaking onto the beach in front of me, the incredible panorama of the peninsula across the water, with the bridge we’d come across the day before to the south. Looked like about eleven o’clock in the morning based on the sun’s position. East was sitting by the fire pit we’d built the night before. She’d been working—a large stack of driftwood was piled up next to her. Which we couldn’t carry if we got going like we needed to.
“Hey, Kell!” She waved me over.
I bent down to tie my boot and noticed my fly was open. Smooth. I turned away in a fit of modesty and zipped up, hoping my blush would subside by the time I tromped through the sand to her. The opposite seemed to be happening, though. My face felt aflame as I sat down next to her. Maybe she wouldn’t notice.
“Wow, you really got sunburned yesterday,” she said.
Having no answer to that, I shrugged. I felt tongue-tied and self-conscious. Nothing even happened, you bonehead, I told myself. Therefore, there was nothing to be embarrassed about.
“I think I got a little sun too,” she said, turning around and pulling down the neck of her T-shirt a few inches to show me. With her other hand, she held her hair off her neck. Her lovely, lovely neck. “Can you see? It feels kind of hot.”
I nodded wordlessly.
“I kept the fire going,” East went on, proud of her diligence. “And look—we’ll have plenty of firewood for tonight too.”
I said something intelligent like “hmmph” and poked at the fire with a stick. She squinted at me, confused by my lack of response. But my tongue would not unstick. I needed to tell her we weren’t staying there that night. I needed to tell her it was time to get moving. I needed to tell her…
“Why’d you take my pants off?” I suddenly blurted out. My face was on fire.
She stared at me, cocking her head to one side. “Are you blushing?”
“No,” I said belligerently, sounding completely unbelievable.
“Well, the pockets of your cargo pants were so full of stuff you were clanking. I didn’t want your jackknife or whatever poking me in the back while we were sleeping. And honestly, I thought you’d be more comfortable too. Did you sleep all right?”
She sounded sincere. She sounded kind. She could have teased me, but she simply answered my question. I felt something slip a little inside me when she did that. Like the tiniest crack in my heretofore impenetrable defenses.
Oh, no, I thought. No, no, no. I cannot be having these feelings for Elinor Eastman, of all people. I’m like a…bug or something to her. A pet, at best. But insignificant. Inferior. For chrissake, she barely knows my name.
“Kell?” she said, awaiting my answer.
“Yeah, I slept okay,” I grudgingly admitted. Then, as an afterthought: “Did you?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said with a smile, stretching her arms above her head luxuriously. “I slept just fine.”
“You didn’t think it was…” I lost my nerve as the end of the sentence arrived.
“What?” she prompted.
“Weird?”
“No. It was too cold to sleep outside the sleeping bag, and I didn’t want either one of us to freeze. So…common sense, right?”
She shrugged. I could not fault her logic. Still…
“It doesn’t freak you out?” I asked her. I was embarrassed, but I needed to know.
“No. I told you—I like girls, remember?”
I remembered all right.
“Especially to sleep with. Girls are nice to cuddle with. Soft—not all awkward and bony like boys. Right?”
“Right,” I said weakly. Like I knew.
“So,” she said, rising to her feet and dusting her hands off on her thighs. “What’s for lunch?”
We were done? That was it? Apparently so. And come to think of it, I was starving. As usual. Which was not good, since we had zero food and only a little water. I kicked myself for failing to follow Gabriel’s teachings. One of these days, that might just kill me.
East said, “I was thinking, maybe we could spend the day here, find some food and rest, you know? Just for a day.” She hurried to add that last bit when she saw my face.
I opened my mouth to argue, but she beat me to it.
“Please, Kell. After all that…yesterday…I just need a day. Please?”
Fine. I caved. Probably not for the last time.
Damn her hot girl superpowers.
But if you’re going to wake up starving, the beach is not a bad place to be. I went back and raided the birds’ nests again, royally pissing them off.
“Now what?” East looked at me expectantly, holding the mesh stuff sack with just six eggs in the bottom. Not a major haul, but my head was still sore from the previous day’s pecking. She had appointed herself Official Food Carrier, which was fine with me. I didn’t want to leave the eggs unattended and have some other predator steal them away after all the shit—literally—I’d gone through to get them.
“That way,” I said, pointing north. “We’ll check out the shoreline on our way up and the bushes on the way back. And bring your water bottle.”
I grabbed my own canteen, my suede work gloves, the drawstring sack for the sleeping bag and the cooking pot with its lid. Not exactly ideal hunting and gathering equipment, but I’d been trained to make do with what I had. And then improvise.
Just up the beach, there was a jumble of large boulders right at the water line, extending into the surf. We walked toward it at a leisurely pace, taking it easy on her still gimpy knee. I was looking for food and water, but as always, I kept an eye out for anything dangerous like people or animals. It seemed we were alone on the beach, though. Our footprints were the only ones to be seen other than those made by birds. There were plenty of shells and sand dollars, along with intermittent piles of kelp, but nothing edible. East exclaimed over a brilliant blue piece of beach glass which might have been the neck of a wine bottle long ago. When she bent to pull it from the sand however, it was just the lip and about an inch and a half of neck. Where the rest of the bottle might be—and perhaps the message it had carried?—there was no telling. She held it up for my inspection.
“Pretty, eh?”
“Matches your eyes,” I said without thinking. Which was true, but came out sounding like I was sucking up. Which I wasn’t. East smiled humorlessly to herself without comment, fingering the smooth glass, careful to avoid the jagged edge. After a moment, she turned and threw the chunk of glass as far as she could into the water.