Unearthly u-1

by Cynthia Hand

  I look at the river again, which seems impossibly high and fast.

  “I think maybe you’re trying to get me killed on my birthday,” I say teasingly, hoping he doesn’t see the flash of fear in my eyes. Angel-bloods can drown. We need oxygen as much as regular humans, although we can probably hold our breath longer.

  His dimple appears.

  “Why don’t I go first?” Without another word he’s climbing the tree, his hands and feet finding the places they’re supposed to go like he’s done this a thousand times before, which is mildly reassuring. When he reaches the higher branches I can hardly see him anymore, just a flash of his tanned legs now and then or a glimpse of his hair against the leaves and the sun. Then I can’t see him at all, but suddenly the rope jerks.

  “Come on up here,” he directs. “There’s room for two.”

  I start awkwardly up the tree. I manage to skin my knee in the process and get a deep sliver in the palm of my hand, but I don’t complain. The last thing I want is for Tucker Avery to think I’m a baby. Tucker’s hand appears in front of my face and I grab it and he hauls me up to the highest branches.

  We can see a long way down the river. I look for a place where it flattens out or slows, but there isn’t any. Beside me, Tucker grasps the rope, which looks stretchy like a bungee cord. He turns his face up toward the sun and closes his eyes for a minute.

  “They call this the Solarium,” he says.

  “This, like where we’re standing? The top of the tree?”

  “Yeah.” He opens his eyes. I’m close enough that I see his pupils contract in the light. “Kids from school have been coming here for generations,” he says.

  “Hence the private property sign,” I say, turning away to look toward the road.

  “I think the owner lives in California,” says Tucker wryly.

  “Yay for us. I won’t actually get shot on my seventeenth birthday.”

  “Nope.” Tucker readjusts his hold of the rope. His knees bend. “You’ll just get wet,”

  he says, and leaps out of the tree.

  The rope swoops over the water at an angle. Tucker lets go and hollers as he drops straight into the water. The rope springs back and I reach out and catch it, staring down at where Tucker’s head bobs in the water. He turns toward me and waves as he’s swept downriver.

  “Come on!” he yells. “You’ll love it.”

  I take a deep breath, grip the rope more firmly between my hands, and jump.

  Amazing, the difference between falling and flying, and I’ve experienced a lot of both.

  The rope lurches out over the river and stretches under my weight. I grit my teeth to keep my wings back, the desire to fly is so strong. Then I scream and let go, because I know if I don’t let go the rope will bring me crashing back into the tree.

  The water’s so cold all my breath leaves me in a rush. I pop up to the surface, coughing. For a minute I don’t know what to do. I’m a competent swimmer, but not a great one. Most of my swimming has taken place in swimming pools and along the beaches of the Pacific Ocean. Nothing could have prepared me for the way the river grabs me and pulls me along. I get another mouthful of river water. It tastes like dirt and ice and something else I can’t identify, something mineral. I come up sputtering, then start to swim for the side in earnest before I’m swept completely down the river, never to be seen again. I can’t see Tucker. Panic rises in my throat. I can just see the news report now, Mom’s sorry face, Angela’s, Wendy’s when she realizes that this whole thing is her fault.

  An arm snakes around my waist. I turn and almost knock heads with Tucker. He tightens his hold on me and pushes hard toward the shore. He’s a strong swimmer.

  All that beefy arm muscle definitely helps. I can do little better than hang on to his shoulders and kick with my legs in the right direction. In no time we’re gasping on the sandy riverbank. I flop onto my back and watch a fluffy white cloud pass over.

  “Well,” says Tucker simply. “You’re brave.”

  I glare at him. Water drips off his hair, down his neck, and then I jerk my gaze up to his eyes again, which are impossibly blue and filled with laughter. I want to punch him.

  “That was dumb. We both could have drowned.”

  “Nah,” he says. “The river’s not so fast right now. I’ve seen it worse.”

  I sit up and look upriver toward the tree, which looks like it’s a good half mile away now.

  “I guess the next step is to hike back to the tree.”

  Tucker chuckles at the irritation in my voice. “Yep.”

  “Barefoot.”

  “It’s pretty sandy, not too bad. Are you cold?” he asks, and I see in a flash that if I am he’ll gladly put his arms around me. But I’m not really cold, not now that the sun is out and the water has mostly evaporated from my skin. Just a little damp and chilly. I try not to think of Tucker so close with his bare chest, heat pouring off him, and me in this itsy-bitsy two-piece with goose bumps rising across my belly.

  I scramble to my feet and start walking up the bank. Tucker jumps up to walk alongside me.

  “Sorry,” he says. “Maybe I should have warned you about how fast the river is.”

  “Maybe,” I agree, but I’m sick of being mad at Tucker, when, after all, he did come to my rescue at prom. I haven’t forgotten that. And he’s here now. “It’s okay.”

  “Want to try it again?” he asks, his dimple showing as he smiles at me. “It’s lots easier the second time.”

  “You really are trying to get me killed.” I shake my head at him incredulously. “You’re crazy.”

  “I work for the Crazy River Rafting Company during the summers. I’m in the river five days a week, sometimes more.”

  So he was pretty confident that he’d be able to pull me out, no matter how crappy a swimmer I was. But what if I’d gone straight to the bottom?

  “Tucker!” someone yells from upriver. “How’s the water?”

  At the tree there are at least four or five people watching us make our way toward them up the shore. Tucker waves.

  “It’s good!” Tucker calls back. “Nice and smooth.”

  By the time we reach the tree, two other people have climbed up and jumped into the river. Neither of them seems to have the least bit of trouble getting to shore. Seeing that is what has me up in the tree again. This time I make an effort to whoop as I fall, the way Tucker did, and strike out for the shore as soon as I’m in the water. By the fourth time I jump, I’m not scared anymore. I feel invincible. And that, I now understood, is the draw of places like this.

  “You’re Clara Gardner, right?” asks a girl waiting to climb the tree. I nod. She introduces herself as Ava Peters, even though we’re in chemistry together. She’s the girl I saw with Tucker that one day at the ski lodge.

  “There’s a party Saturday at my house if you want to come,” she tells me. Like I’ve suddenly been allowed in her club.

  “Oh,” I say, stunned. “I will. Thanks.”

  I flash a grateful smile at Tucker, who nods like he’s tipping his hat. For the first time it feels like we might, just maybe, be friends.

  * * *

  Tucker takes me to dinner at Bubba’s that night. Even in that casual barbecue joint, it feels enough like a real date that I’m a bit antsy. But after the food arrives it’s so delicious that I relax and wolf it down. I haven’t eaten since my bowl of Cheerios this morning, and I don’t remember ever being so hungry. Tucker watches me as I gnaw on a barbecued chicken wing like it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted. The sauce is insanely good. After I’ve cleared a quarter of a chicken, barbecued beans, and a big helping of potato salad off my plate, I dare to look up at him. I half expect him to say something snide about the way I pigged out. I’m already formulating a comeback, something to call attention to the fact that I need some extra meat on my bones.

  “Get the vanilla custard pie,” he says without a trace of judgment. He’s even looking at me with a hint of admiration in his ey
es. “They bring it with a slice of lemon and when you eat a piece and then bite the lemon it tastes exactly like lemon meringue.”

  “Why not just get the lemon meringue?”

  “Trust me,” he says, and I find that I do trust him.

  “Okay.” I wave at the waiter to order the vanilla custard pie. Which is divine, and I ought to know.

  “Wow, I am so full,” I say. “You’re going to have to roll me home.”

  For a minute neither of us says anything, the words hanging in the air between us.

  “Thank you for today,” I say finally, finding it hard to meet his eyes.

  “A good birthday?”

  “Yes. Thank you, also, for not blabbing to the restaurant so they would come over here and sing to me.”

  “Wendy said you would hate that.”

  I wonder how much of this day was orchestrated by Wendy.

  “What are you doing tomorrow?” he asks.

  “Huh?”

  “I have tomorrow off, and if you want I could take you to Yellowstone, show you around.”

  “I’ve never been to Yellowstone.”

  “I know.”

  He’s just the gift that keeps on giving. Yellowstone sounds loads better than sitting at home channel surfing, worrying about Jeffrey, and trying to lug a big Christian-sized duffel bag into the air.

  “I’d love to see Old Faithful,” I admit.

  “Okay.” He looks suspiciously pleased with himself. “We’ll start there.”

  Chapter 15

  Tucker Me Out

  Our trip to Yellowstone is marred only by me accidentally speaking Korean to a tourist who’d lost track of her five-year-old son. I help her talk to the ranger, and they locate the kid. Happy story, right? Except for the part where Tucker stares at me like I’m a mutant until I lamely explain that I have a Korean friend back in California and I’m good with languages. I don’t expect to see him after that, assuming that my birthday gift from Wendy is all used up. But Saturday there’s a knock on my door and there he is again, and an hour later I find myself in a large, inflated raft with a group of out-ofstate tourists, feeling enormous and bloated in the bright orange life jacket we all have to wear. Tucker perches on the end of the boat and rows in the direction of the rapids, while the other guide sits at the front and shouts orders. I watch Tucker’s strong, brown arms flex as he tugs the oars through the water. We hit the first set of rapids. The boat lurches, water sprays everywhere, and the people in the raft scream like we’re on a roller coaster. Tucker grins at me. I grin back.

  That night he takes me to the party at Ava Peters’s house and stays by me through the entire thing, introducing me to people who don’t know me past my name. I’m amazed at how being with him changes everything for me, socially speaking. When I walked the halls of Jackson Hole High, the other students looked at me with careful disinterest, not entirely hostile, but definitely like I was an intruder on their turf. Even Christian’s attention in those final weeks hadn’t made much of a difference in getting people to talk to me instead of about me. Now with Tucker by my side the other students actually converse with me. Their smiles are suddenly real. It’s easy to see that they all, regardless of what clique they belong to or how much money their parents rake in, genuinely like Tucker. The boys yell, “Fry!” and bump fists with him or do their shoulder bump thing. The girls hug him and murmur their hellos and look me over with curious but friendly expressions.

  While Tucker goes to the kitchen to get me a drink, Ava Peters grabs my arm.

  “How long have you and Tucker been together?” she asks with a sly smile.

  “We’re just friends,” I stammer.

  “Oh.” She frowns slightly. “Sorry, I thought. ”

  “You thought what?” asks Tucker, suddenly standing beside me with a red plastic cup in each hand.

  “I thought you two were an item,” says Ava.

  “We’re just friends,” he says. He meets my eyes briefly, then hands me one of the cups.

  “What is this?”

  “Rum and Coke. I hope you like coconut rum.”

  I’ve never had rum. Or tequila or vodka or whiskey or anything but the tiniest bit of wine at a fancy dinner now and then. My mom lived during Prohibition. But right now she’s a thousand miles away probably sound asleep in her hotel room in Mountain View, completely unaware that her daughter is at an unsupervised teen party about to guzzle down her first hard liquor.

  What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her. Cheers.

  I take a sip of the drink. I don’t detect even the slightest hint of coconut, or alcohol. It tastes exactly like regular old Coca-Cola.

  “It’s good, thank you,” I say.

  “Nice party, Ava,” Tucker says. “You really pulled out all the stops.”

  “Thanks,” she says serenely. “I’m glad you made it. You, too, Clara. Good to finally get to know you.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s good to be known.”

  * * *

  Tucker’s so different from Christian, I muse on the way home from the party. He’s popular in a completely different way, not because he’s rich (which he’s definitely not, in spite of his many jobs — he doesn’t even have a cell phone) or because he’s good-looking (which he definitely is, although his appeal is this kind of sexy-rugged whereas Christian’s is sexy-broody). Christian’s popular because, like Wendy always says, he’s kind of like a god. Beautiful and perfect and a little removed. Made to be worshipped. Tucker’s popular because he has this way of putting people at ease.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asks because I haven’t said anything in a while.

  “You’re different than I thought you were.”

  He keeps his eyes on the road but the dimple appears in his lean cheek. “What did you think I was?”

  “A rude hick.”

  “Geez, blunt much?” he says, laughing.

  “It’s not like you didn’t know. You wanted me to think that.”

  He doesn’t reply. I wonder if I’ve said too much. I can never seem to hold my tongue around him.

  “You’re different than I thought you were too,” he says.

  “You thought I was this spoiled California chick.”

  “I still think you’re a spoiled California chick.” I punch him hard on the shoulder. “Ow.

  See?”

  “How am I different?” I ask, trying to mask my nervousness. It’s amazing how much I suddenly care about what he thinks of me. I look out the window, dangling my arm out as we drive through the trees toward my house. The summer night air is warm and silky on my face. The full moon overhead spills a dreamy silver light onto the forest. Crickets chirp. A cool, pine-scented breeze rustles the leaves. A perfect night.

  “Come on, how am I different?” I ask Tucker again.

  “It’s hard to explain.” He rubs the back of his neck. “There’s just so much to you that’s under the surface.”

  “Hmm. How mysterious,” I say, trying hard to keep my voice light.

  “Yep, you’re like an iceberg.”

  “Gee, thanks. I think the problem is that you always underestimate me.”

  We pull up to my house, which seems dark and empty, and I want to stay in the truck. I’m not ready for the night to be over.

  “Nope,” he says. He puts the truck in park and turns to look at me with somber eyes.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if you could fly to the moon.”

  I suck in a breath.

  “You want to pick huckleberries with me tomorrow?” he asks.

  “Huckleberries?”

  “They sell in town for fifty bucks a gallon. I know this spot where there are like a hundred bushes. I go out there a few times a summer. It’s early in the season, but there should be some berries because it’s been so hot lately. It’s good money.”

  “Okay,” I say, surprising myself. “I’ll go.”

  He jumps out and circles around to open the door for me. He holds out his hand and helps m
e climb down from the truck.

  “Thanks,” I murmur.

  “Night, Carrots.”

  “Night, Tuck.”

  He leans against the truck and waits as I go inside. I flip on the porch light and observe him from a corner of the living room window until the back of the rusty truck disappears in the trees. Then I run upstairs to my bedroom and watch the taillights as they move smoothly down our long driveway to the main road.

  I look at myself in the full-length mirror on my closet door. The girl who stares back was tossed around by a wild river and her tangerine-colored hair dried in loose waves all around her face. She’s starting to tan, even though angel-bloods don’t burn or tan easily. And tomorrow she’ll be on the side of some mountain, hunting for huckleberries with a real-live rodeo cowboy.