* * * * *
I try to sit up, but I’m too exhausted. I just keep staring at the living room ceiling, wondering what I‘ve been wondering all day. Why is Jack here? Does he think we’re having an affair? Are we? I have no idea. Sure, he thinks I’m average, but some guys’ll have sex anything, I guess. But it’s one matter to stop by hoping for a quick bonk, and entirely another to spend the day painting. Who on earth would want to have sex that badly? And let’s face it, Jack Hawkins could have sex with just about anybody he wanted. So, why is he here? Is my house so pathetic that he felt he just had to help? Does he feel responsible for me?
“Well,” Mia says, “I’m outta here.”
“Where ya goin’?” I ask, rousing myself to pay attention.
“Dinner with the folks,” she yawns.
“Dinner?” I squawk, sitting up. “We just polished off two pizzas!”
“You and Jack ate most of ‘em,” she points out.
“Did not,” Jack mutters, from across the room where he’s stretched out on the floor.
I get up and walk her to the front door.
Jack gets up and follows us. “Nice meeting you,” he tells Mia.
“Right back atcha. See ya both.” She turns and jogs down the steps.
Jack and I stand in my doorway and watch her cross the street. The night air smells like rain, feels like fall back home.
“I’m going, too,” Jack says, sliding across the threshold. He stands facing me in the dim glow of the front porch light. “Can you test tomorrow?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Be at my house at seven.”
Wait. Jack’s leaving? Without telling me what he was doing here all day?
When he gets to the bottom of the steps, he turns back to look at me. “Wear a bathing suit,” he says. “And a T-shirt,” he adds. “The tighter the better.”
“Why?”
He stands with one foot on the bottom step, one hand on the porch railing. “We’re going hiking, with waterfalls. Canyoneering. I’ve designed a special wetsuit for it. The T-shirt is for when you get hot hiking and want to peel off the top of the suit. The bathing suit is just basically underwear, to help prevent chafing or whatever.”
“But…”
“Don’t worry. Getting cold isn’t really a concern like it is in the ocean. You’ll dry off quickly with all the hiking. See you tomorrow.”
Chafing? Did he actually say chafing? On my bikini parts? I’m still trying to process this when I hear his truck door shut. I look up and he’s already pulling away from the curb.
Chafing? We are clearly not having an affair.
* * * * *
“Lisa! Are you even listening to me?”
Swaapft!
“Jack.” I swat away the branch he let zing back into my face. “I know what I’m doing. If I didn’t, why did you ever let me off that stupid practice rock in the first place?”
“This last waterfall is different. The highest one you’ve jumped down so far was only about twenty feet.”
Only? “What about the one I had to slide down?” I counter. “That rock chute or whatever was way longer than twenty feet.”
“True,” Jack says, “but not much higher. And you weren’t on the rope.”
“But you’ll make sure I don’t fall with that bagel thing, right? So what do I have to worry about?” I push past him and head up the trail like I have better things to do.
“Lisa—” Jack runs ahead of me and turns to face me. “I just want you to be ready, that’s all. And it’s a belay, not a bagel, dumbass.” This time he’s the one who pushes ahead, leaving me in his wake.
As I watch him stalk off, my eyes gravitate to his butt.
“Hey!” I can’t believe I didn’t notice it before. “Your butt’s not padded! You’re not even wearing a wetsuit. You get running pants!”
Jack doesn’t even turn around. “My butt’s not padded because I’m not a beginner and I don’t need padding on my butt.”
“What? Your butt’s, like, invincible?”
He ignores me. “And I’m not wearing a wetsuit because I hardly ever wear a wetsuit canyoneering. I don’t mind getting wet or hiking while my pants dry. Most beginners don’t want their clothes to get wet, no matter how quickly the wicking dries.”
“Why can’t I wear wicking?” Notice how I say this as if I know what ‘wicking’ is.
“I just told you,” Jack says. “You’re testing beginner gear.”
“No beginner is going to want a padded butt, I can tell you that right now. You told me corporate retreats go canyoneering. Well, there’s no way Judy in accounting is going to want Harold in sales to see her with a form-fitting padded butt.”
Jack stops and turns to face me. “I’ll keep that in mind. How does your butt feel?”
“How does my butt feel?” I echo.
“Lisa, does it hurt? Any bruises or scrapes?”
“Oh.” I put my hands on my caboose and pat myself down. “I think I’m okay. It feels, you know, average.”
“Okay.” Jack nods and turns. After a few steps, he stops to anchor a rope on a tree.
“Okay, what?”
“We’re here, at the last fall.” He uses his shoulder to point to the top of the falls. “Put on your belt.”
I realize that I hear the roar of the falls, and have been hearing it for the past few minutes. I give my mind and body silent kudos for being so good at denial up until now.
I turn to look out over the falls and I see….
I see….
I see….
Nothing.
NOTHING.
This can’t be real. Every other fall today, when I looked over, I could see, well, the bottom. I rush toward the edge of the fall, stopping about five feet from NOTHING. The ground just ends. I get down on my hands and knees and crawl closer toward the edge. I still can’t see anything below. “HOW HIGH IS THIS WATERFALL?”
“Lisa.” Jack walks slowly toward me, sounding all compassionate.
“Don’t come near me!” I shout. “You’ll make me fall! Stay!”
“I’ll stay,” he says, stopping.
I crawl a little further until I’m almost at the edge, and I still can’t see the bottom of the fall.
“Jack.” I’m suddenly panting, “What’s going on? It’s like the end of the world.”
“The fall is concave,” he says. “The rock juts inward right when you go over the edge, so for the first ten feet or so, you won’t have any foothold.”
“You mean I’ll just be hanging there? In space? With water pouring down on me?”
“Yes.”
“With nothing to secure me but that little rope?”
“And the belay. I’ll be able to slow you down and stop you if you lose control and fall.”
“How far?”
“How far what?” Jack acts like he just joined the damn conversation.
“How far can I fall?”
“You’re not going to fall.”
“HOW HIGH IS THE FALL?”
Silence.
Silence.
Silence.
“Jack!”
“One hundred and ten feet.”
One hundred and ten feet. Oh. With just a little rope? And no foothold? Just lowering myself, all my weight, supported by just that little rope? I can’t even climb a ladder because I’m so afraid of supporting my own weight. In G.I. Jane, Viggo Mortensen leaves Demi Moore and her whole crew stranded in the middle of the ocean because even she couldn’t support her own body weight enough to pull herself out of the water. And she was totally MUSCULAR.
“Lisa?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you okay?”
“Um,” I say, “how do we get back to the car if, ah, I don’t jump down this waterfall?”
“We hike back out the way we hiked in.”
“How do we get back up all those waterfalls I already jumped down?”
“We climb.”
“I don’t know h
ow to climb.”
“I’d teach you.”
“But it’s almost dark.”
“We’d camp out, tackle the hike back tomorrow.”
“But it’s cold. And it’s gonna rain. And my pets.”
“Your animals will survive for a night,” he tells me.
But how does he know?
“And I’ve got two compact Gore-Tex sleeping bags in my pack,” he adds.
I scrunch around like an inchworm to look up at him. “So you prepared for this?”
“I try to prepare for everything.”
“But you prepared for my chickening out.”
“It’s a big waterfall.”
I stand up. “Big fall, my ass. You’re not going to let anything happen to me, are you?”
“No.”
“Then let’s go,” I say, ripping off my pack to get my gear. It’s when I’m rummaging around that I notice I’m crying.
“You’ll need to put everything in the dry pack,” Jack says quietly.
“I know!”
Other than that, he lets me cry as I get ready. And why shouldn’t he? I mean, this is SCARY. I’ll be controlling the descent of my own body weight one hundred and ten feet above the bottom.
Finally, I’m set. I wipe my eyes. We step into the water at the top of the falls. The rope is taut, keeping me from going over. I put my hand on the hook at my waist so I can control my descent. I back toward the edge. I back up. I back up. I stop.
Jack, who stands in the water facing me, doesn’t say anything.
“Jack,” I say. “Maybe you should go first. I can belay you.”
“I can self-belay,” he says calmly. “One more step and you’re over the edge.”
Over the edge.
“Come on,” he coaxes. “One more step.”
I try to laugh. “This isn’t exactly the moon landing, you know.”
Jack looks straight into my eyes. “Lisa, I know it’s scary. The first step into nothingness is terrifying. It’s okay. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
I’m not going to let anything happen to you.
For a second, I can breathe. I think I want to marry Jack, and just stay lost in those safe blue eyes forever.
“Let’s face it,” he laughs when I still don’t move, “if I let anything happen to you, your parents’d probably sue me for everything I’m worth. They’d destroy Into the Wild, and probably even go after Hawkins United.”
“My PARENTS? How could you bring them up at a time like this?”
“Lisa,” Jack says, spearing me with a look. “Your parents don’t think you can do this. In fact, they would laugh their hea—”
I jump. Without a word, I go backwards over the cliff.
As I leap into nothing, I swing into the rushing water, but no matter how I kick out in front of me, there’s nothing there to brace myself on. Nothing, nothing, nothing! NOTHING! AND I’M JUST, I’M JUST, JUST, JUST—
I’m just swinging back and forth, gasping for breath as the cold water pelts me. I look down at my waist. Every few seconds as I swing out of the rush of water, I see the hook at my waist. When I jumped back, I must have automatically locked in that hook, stopping my descent after a few feet.
Oh, my God. I’m swinging like a big, fat, padded pendulum. Nothing holding me but the skinny rope. Nothing under me but—
NO.
Above me. Above me. I’ll think about above me. I’ll even look above me.
I look up, and through the gush of water in my face, every few seconds I think I see Jack a few feet above me, giving me a thumbs up.
“All right!” I think he shouts and laughs. “Way to go, Lisa!”
That makes me laugh. Then I let out a whoop of joy. I did it! I went over the edge! I finger the hook at my waist, then release the catch.“Wooooo-hooooooooooo!”
I go down and down and down, splashing in and out of the fall as I go go go.
“Wooooooo!”
I pull up, and just look all around. The mountains unfold before me, spreading out green-grey in the mist. I feel like an intruder in a secret primeval forest. It’s so raw and vital, this cold forest, hidden away from everyone except the most intrepid. Into the wild. Maybe I understand, a little bit, what makes Jack do what he does.
I’m about half way down to the pool at the bottom, and I know I’ve done something amazing. From here on down, my descent will be nothing short of paradise. But I cannot give this up yet. I dangle, my mouth open and my heart hurting with all the beauty.
After what seems like an eternity, I slowly lower myself into the bath at the bottom. I signal up to Jack that it’s his turn, then I get out of the way so he doesn’t land on me.
My stomach seizes up when I watch Jack go over the falls, but he’s okay. As he starts to rappel his way down, my heart jumps into my throat. I know he’s Jack Hawkins, and all, but he’s up so high. On that skinny rope.
I can’t watch, so I swim around the pool until Jack is closer to the bottom. I hope he doesn’t take as long as I did gaping at all the nature. I mean, Jack sees stuff like this all the time.
Finally, Jack is lowering himself into the pool and I can breathe. But I don’t go near him, feeling suddenly ridiculous for having been so worried. I hover in the shallows near the wall of rock as Jack unhooks himself.
Jack swims toward me and raises a brow. “Well?” I think I see him say, but it’s hard to hear at the bottom of a waterfall.
I can’t keep my face from breaking into the hugest smile ever. “I really did it!” I shout above the splash of water. “Just like you.”
Jack gets his feet under him as the water becomes shallower. “Yeah,” he says, still heading toward me. “You did.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Thank—”
But Jack doesn’t hold up as he gets closer. I take a step back. “Ja—”
He sweeps into me with a kiss that takes hold of my entire body. The instant he’s on me, I kiss him back. He’s cold and wet and so feral I want more. More and more of Jack Jack Jack.
He unzips my wetsuit, peeling it off as he goes down on his knees. Before I know it, his face is at my—
And he’s taking off my—
And his mouth is on my— “Jack!” I dig my fingers into his shoulders, wishing I could—
He stands up, pushing down his—
Oh, YES! I love this part.
CHAPTER 15
What am I supposed to do?
The doorbell rings again. I can’t just get off the ladder and abandon the trim. The wooden strip has only one nail holding it so far, and if I let go now, it’ll shift and scratch the new paint.
The doorbell rings a third time. I don’t have to answer my door if I don’t want to.
Finally, all the ringing and barking stops. But I hear something else. A muffled voice. “She has to be in here somewhere.” Heels tapping across the floor. “Lisa!” she calls. “It’s Dolly.” And she’s got someone with her.
I focus on the trim.
“Oh,” Dolly says from the doorway. “Here you are.”
I don’t look over my shoulder to where she stands. “Hey, Dolly.” I bang in another nail.
“Lisa!”
The grating voice hits me like a shot, jerking me nearly off the ladder.
“Lisa, what are you doing?” she brays.
I right myself and turn to see Mags standing with her hands jammed onto her hips. Mags. Mags is in my house. Mags is in my house.
I take a few short, measured breaths. “Dolly?” I say, turning from Mags.
“I saw this pretty young thing on the porch,” Dolly explains. “I knew you must be in here working, and when she told me she was your sister! Well, I have to get to brunch now. Love ya!” Blowing me a kiss, she scoots off, leaving Mags in my house.
“Jesus, Lisa, how long have you lived here? And you still don’t have any furniture?”
* * * * *
A little while later, I slide a freshly brewed cup of coffee across the counter
to Mags. I’m unclear about how much time has passed since Dolly left because I cannot recall how I got from the bedroom to the kitchen with Mags in tow. All I remember is seeing the world through a dotty, darkening haze as I muttered, “Redrum, redrum, redrum” over and over.
I take a seat on a kitchen stool and with a gesture, invite Mags to sit on the other one. These stools are the only pieces of furniture I’ve brought back in the house since painting, for the sole purpose of providing me and Mia with somewhere to sit when we stop working long enough to eat.
I feel like a traitor letting Mags sit there.
She cups her hands around her mug and looks around. “All those millions and this is where you live? In a crappy house in the Valley?” She sighs and shakes her head.
I sit there looking at her, wondering what to do. Should I simply play it cool until she leaves? After all, she can’t possibly stay for long in such a déclassé house that doesn’t even have the gumption to be retro. Or should I grab her by the collar and physically throw her out?
Suddenly, I wish Jack had given me at least one bouncer adventure. Jack. I would so rather be parachuting into tar pits with him than sitting here with Mags. But I haven’t heard from him for days. It’s as if he needs serious detox time after the sex under the waterfall.
“How did you find this house?” I am woefully unable to keep the edge out of my voice.
“Like it was hard,” she snorts. “Please, Lisa. You’re old news. You don’t have to hide from the Media anymore, because nobody is looking.”
“You obviously are.”
“That’s different. I’m your sister.”
“Whatever that means.”
“It means,” she drones, “that I’m not after a story.” She yips out a little bark of laughter. “Ha! There is no story anymore. Not since you woke up.”
“Then what are you after?” You already have your cut of the ten million bucks.
She curves her lips into a sweet smile as she crinkles her eyes a la Alicia Silverstone. “I’m here to help you.”
Uh-oh. Mags is pretending she’s a Nice Person.
“It’s about your wedding present,” she says, nudging at me with the conversation, trying to get me to pick it up. Seriously, she’s like a dog trying to get me to play fetch, but not at all as lovable.
Miss Adventure Page 15