Thea made a face. “Gross.” She shook her head, and the porch steps creaked under her boots. “Why do you think he did all that with you and seeing the judge? He knows it’s good for his career for me to seem unstable. If he can get me in trouble, he can keep me out of a job. If he can get you in trouble, he can keep me out of a job.”
“Is that what y’all do all summer? Just bust people having a good time?” Rilla asked.
Thea shook her head. “They do these once or twice in the early summer, to weed out the employees who are going to be a problem all summer.”
“What’s going to happen to them?” Rilla asked.
“The ones who were arrested? They’re going home.”
“I want to go home,” Rilla said. She didn’t really, but she did at the same time. It was both things at once. She didn’t want to feel this small. She didn’t want to wait for her sister to get fed up and send her home. She wanted time to belong in this vast landscape. But she only said, “I don’t like it here.”
“You don’t even know where here is,” Thea said, rolling her eyes. “Baby girl, you’re so West Virginia it’s ridiculous. Look at you.” Thea swept her hand up and down.
Rilla frowned and looked down at her boots and cut-offs, the gauze top, thin and drab from a long night. “What?”
Thea snorted. “Nothing. Just . . . and your accent. God, sometimes it’s hard to believe I ever talked like that. Ever looked like that.”
“You didn’t look like this. I’m prettier,” Rilla shot back. What did everyone see that Rilla couldn’t? What was she supposed to be ashamed of?
Thea laughed.
“Not all of us hate where we come from, Thea,” Rilla said.
“I don’t hate West Virginia. I just never want to go back.”
“Well, I do want to go back. I have friends there. I have a family there.” Family who hadn’t left her.
Thea’s eyes widened and she nodded slowly like Rilla was too young and dumb to understand. “Okay, sure. That’s a word you can use. But hey, guess what, girl? You’re not going home.” Thea whipped the door open, before continuing. “Don’t party. Don’t get into trouble. Don’t do stupid-ass things that are going to get me fired. The Valley is a small world. You can’t get away with anything.”
Rilla’s stomach sank.
Thea sighed. “If anything, do it for yourself. You’re in Yosemite for the summer. This is a chance not many people get.” She’d already opened the door. “Come on before I let a squirrel in.”
The falls above continued to crash and roar in Rilla’s ears, as she followed Thea inside.
Thea stepped into the galley kitchen just inside the door, and Rilla ignored the sleepy looks from the other rangers sitting in the living room, eating breakfast, and working on a laptop in a recliner. Rilla’s body tightened with exhaustion and unshed tears. She kicked off her boots, adding them to the pile by the door.
The house was small—only one bathroom, two bedrooms with bunks where Thea and the other rangers slept, a little galley kitchen, and the living room filled with shoes, coats, laundry, piles of books, and outdoor gear. The lopsided squares of commercial carpet askew in the center of the main space looked suspiciously like leftovers from the carpet in the dining hall at Half Dome Village.
“How’s it going?” one of the rangers asked.
Rilla straightened and swallowed. “Fine,” she choked over her swollen throat, chin high as she stepped over a saddle someone had dumped right in the entrance to the hallway.
“You’ll feel better if you eat,” Thea called from the kitchen.
But Rilla couldn’t be around anyone. She made it to the end of the hall, up the ladder leading to the attic Thea had shoved her into, before the tears came.
Throwing herself belly down on the cot, Rilla sobbed into the wool blanket until her eyes were exhausted of tears and her face itched from the wet wool. Turning her chin to the side, she stared at the light through the cracks in the floor and listened as, one by one, the women below left. Until all that remained was her puffy, itchy face and the dull roar of the waterfall outside.
•
Rilla woke a few hours later, from dreams bright and sickening, her sweaty cheek smashed into the edge of the cot mattress. She blinked at the slatted underbelly of the roof, straining her neck to look out the only window. Still in California. Thea hadn’t kicked her out.
Sleep hadn’t calmed the pitch of her feelings, and she hated that she didn’t understand what she wanted. One second she found herself consumed with homesickness, and the next all she wanted was to belong here. Like Thea did.
A clammy feeling crawled over her, but she dragged herself out of the cot and slid to the floor. She needed water. Her dreams—hazy and unformed—still lingered on her skin, and her stomach churned with the lingering sensation of a narrow escape.
Shuddering, she eased downstairs to the shower.
The house was silent and cold. She rushed in the shower and crawled back up the ladder to her warm attic. Sitting on the floor, she steadily combed out the snarls in her hair until she felt like she might be able to stand up. She pulled on a sweatshirt, sunglasses, and hat, and shoved a cold Gatorade under her arm on her way out the door.
She didn’t know what to do next. It was the day before all over again. Except, somehow, she had to do something different.
Unscrewing the Gatorade cap, she carefully took a sip, and sank into a chair on the porch. The same Valley sat awash in sun. The same loneliness aching all around her.
The cool dry wind gusted, lifting the heavy ends of her wet hair and stirring the oaks overhead. She closed her eyes, feeling it over every inch of her skin. The white lines of all the roads that had led her there, on that porch, ran through her mind and left her stomach churning again. She wanted to go home. She wanted to see Curtis. It was all she truly had. She had nothing here.
“Thea around?” A voice shattered the stillness.
Her eyes struggled to open.
Walker stood below. One leg up on the steps. He wore sunglasses, with a leather cord tucked behind his ears and around the back of his neck, and dust-smudged red track pants with blue stripes running down the sides. No shirt.
She shook her head. It hurt. The sweat from her bottle dripped over her fingers, onto her thighs. The wind flattened her hair against the rusty metal of the chair.
“Know where she is?”
Rilla unscrewed the cap and took another sip before answering. “I sure don’t.”
“You all right?”
“I’m fine,” Rilla said. “Do you want to leave a message?”
“I guess she’s working a lot these days?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I just got here,” Rilla said, eyebrow raised until she remembered she was wearing a hat and glasses and it was a wasted effort. “What do you need?”
“Just tell her I was looking for someone to climb with.” He hooked his thumbs under the straps of his pack and looked away. There was a long pause.
Rilla squeezed the bottle between her fingers and frowned.
He pulled off the step. “Later.” The grass swished as he walked past the house.
Squinting against the sun, she watched him go, long muscled arms swinging at his sides.
Homesickness washed over her with a lurch of her stomach, and the Valley all around seemed to reverberate with emptiness. All she wanted was to not be alone.
“Hey,” she croaked.
Walker kept going.
Rilla pushed out of the chair and called over the railing. Louder. With certainty. “Walker.”
He turned.
She gripped the edge. “Can I come? Climbing?”
Four
Home—Rainelle—was nestled in the mountains along Sam Black Church Road, surrounded by woods and wild. But despite her surroundings growing up, Rilla had never hiked anything farther than a trail to a party or a tree-stand, and she’d only ever climbed to get something she couldn’t reach otherwise. Sitting on a ro
ck, where Walker had told her to stay while he disappeared up a steep gully, a sudden wave of anger washed over her.
This was stupid. What did she think she could do . . . move to California and suddenly become one of these tourists with hiking poles and SPF clothing? Like, let’s go die in the wilderness, Bob. Yuk, yuk, yuk. Pointless and avoidable death for the win!
Rilla stared at the gray granite wall in front of her, her jaw clenched tight. The gentle asphalt path that circled the Valley and promised a quick return to Thea’s place sat just out of the corner of her eye. But if she went back, it would only be to an empty house. She didn’t know what she was doing. Here, with climbing. Or in life. Her eyes stung, but she took another careful drink of her warm Gatorade. She wouldn’t cry. No more crying.
“West Virginia,” Walker said from behind her.
Rilla jumped. “How did you?” she sputtered. “Where—”
Walker adjusted the sunglasses atop his short, dark-blond hair. “I rapped down.”
She blinked a long, slow beat.
“Um. Right,” he said. “Rappelled. I set up a top-rope, a rope at the top, and rappelled down the rope. You haven’t ever been climbing before?”
She shook her head.
“Okay, no biggie. We got this.” He tilted his head. “Come on.”
Forcing herself up, Rilla followed him farther along the base where two stretches of a bright green rope ran down the cliff and coiled at the bottom like a thin, vivid serpent.
“What do you do here? Are you a ranger?” Rilla asked. She was pretty sure he lived in the park, and now she understood there was a reason.
“I’m on the Yosemite Search and Rescue Team. We get to stay in the park for free, in exchange for our search and rescue skills.”
Rilla’s spine straightened. Well, hello. “Oh. How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
“Hi, Walker!” a bright voice called.
He turned and lifted his hand in reply to a girl with long red hair, walking with her friends.
“Climbers?” Rilla asked.
“Hikers,” Walker said, digging through his pack. “Hang on. I swear I had one . . .” He dug through the top. After another moment, he started pulling things out and setting them in the dirt. A balled-up sweatshirt. Some clinking metal bits that looked totally foreign. A big black notebook. Another book with a photo of a climber, mid-pose on the cover.
“Shit,” he muttered to himself. He shook the bag.
The wind stirred, sending dust spinning into the books. Without thinking, Rilla bent to retrieve them. One was a guide book full of photos. But it was the black notebook, which had fallen open to a detailed ink illustration of a mountain, that caught her eye.
The sketch included notes and lines showing a path to the top. It was beautifully drawn, and also made no sense. Rilla flipped to the next page. A half-finished charcoal of some people—mid-laugh around a fire—was on the next page, and the opposite page dated entries. “The weather fucking sucks,” began one. Too late, she realized Walker had drawn them. This was his notebook. His journal.
“Hey,” Walker snapped. “What are—”
She slammed the book shut, trying not to look guilty. “I didn’t realize . . .”
“That’s mine.” He snatched the book back. Two spots of red rising on his cheeks. Anger? Embarrassment? She couldn’t tell.
“I didn’t realize it was personal,” she said, handing back the guide book as well. “They fell out of the bag, and I didn’t want them to get dusty.”
He glowered, taking the guide book and dumping both back into the pack. “Let’s just stick to climbing.” He pulled a long stretch of rope out of the coil, the muscles in his side flickering lightly under little folds of skin as he bent. “A figure-eight knot is the basic knot in rock climbing. It is essential to learn, as this is the main point of contact between you and anything that keeps you alive.”
The lack of a shirt hadn’t seemed unnerving when Walker had showed up at Thea’s doorstep—it hadn’t read as nakedness. But now that Rilla stood within touching distance and felt less like death, it was hard to ignore the grace of his movements and the substance to his body. That intensity seemed to simmer under his skin, and it was hard not to watch for it like the sun behind clouds, wanting to feel it directed at her.
“Got it?” Walker asked, shaking a finished, intricate knot in front of her.
Shit. She’d been staring at him, not the rope. “Can I see it again?”
He started over.
At first, it was a relief to focus on the knot and the way his body was a welcome distraction from the rest of her feelings. But as he started through a second time, for no reason, the charm turned sour.
He shifted his weight in her direction to show the double overhand knot he said was her backup, and her heart raced at his closeness. But it felt like she had bitten into something sweet, and made her head throb. She tried to focus on his hands, but kept chasing after the origins of the sickening feeling.
Suddenly it hit her. He was humoring her. He was trying to be nice because he felt bad for her.
Her cheeks burned and mouth watered. Stepping back, she focused on his hands, on the slide of the rope—flexing her fingers as he went. She’d show him. She’d show them all. Starting with this dumb fucking knot.
After another moment, he held out the rope for her to try.
She took it—her brain suddenly unable to recall what he’d done, let alone connect it to her hands. The limp green coils twined in her fingers. She moved her hands, but the rope went the wrong way. The seconds ticked past. The wind waved the tops of the pines. All she wanted to do was one thing right. One thing. He’d just shown her. Her throat swelled with the threat of tears.
Walker pointed to the rope. “Around this way.” Taking her whole fist into the palm of his hand, he pulled her through the motions.
It didn’t help—his hands were warm and rough and utterly distracting. She wanted to do this on her own. She wanted to show herself she could. It was silly, but it mattered.
Walker let go, pointing out the places for her to push the rope back through. “Great job!” He congratulated her in the same overly cheery, supportive tone as she finished. Like a dog who’d finally shit outside.
Ripping the knot apart, she flexed her fingers and began again.
The third time, Rilla did it perfectly. Neat and elegant. Sweat beaded on her back and her head spun, but she pulled it apart and did it again. And again. And again. And—
“Okay.” Walker took the finished knot away. “I think you got it.” His tone had softened.
Which only made it worse. He could see her cracks.
She cleared her throat and put her hands on her hips. “What’s next?”
He pulled out a snarl of thick nylon webbing and hard plastic loops. “This is a harness. Waist. Leg loops. Gear clips to these, but you won’t need to worry about that.” He pointed out the pieces, but they didn’t look like anything but a snarl. “You tie in through these front parts and clip in to belay from this big front loop.” He hooked a big finger through the sturdy nylon loop in the front of the harness and swung it to her. “Put it on. Like pants.”
She fumbled, managing to catch it and step through the leg loops after he pointed where to step. How did she keep this on? Clutching the waist belt to her, she glanced at Walker.
He gripped the webbing on either side and pulled it up farther. “Your waist. Not your hips.”
Her breath caught. That intensity—right under his skin—close to her. It was a one-sided charge. Reacting. It didn’t make sense—he wasn’t that attractive. But her heart thumped in the back of her throat, and it felt like he could lift her off the ground if he tugged too hard. She leaned back, trying to get distance. This wasn’t how she wanted to feel.
“Pull the leg loops up as high as they’ll go,” he said, backing away.
“It’s supposed to assault you?” she asked, yanking the leg loops into her inner thighs as
instructed.
His mouth twitched, like he might have a real smile somewhere instead of that tacked-on, handsome shit he put out. “Yes.” Offering her the end of the rope with the figure-eight follow-through half started, he tucked the tail into the top of her waistband. “Double back, then follow-through.”
Rilla hated how he kept using words that made no sense. She hated how her head felt light from the push and pull of blood reacting to him. She hated everything. “You don’t take new people climbing much, do you?”
He frowned.
She did as he said, rope cinching the top and bottom webbing together as she finished the knot with only a little hesitation.
Walker pulled the other end of the rope to his harness, opening a metal contraption he took off one of his gear loops. “This is called a Grigri.”
“Gree-gree?”
He nodded. It was about the size of his palm, and he stuffed a bend of the rope into it before replacing the cover and clipping the whole thing to the belay loop.
“This goes to your climber.” He yanked on the rope running up the wall.
The tug pulled up on her harness, cinching it tighter between her legs and around her hips.
God, why was he so compelling? It was like her hormones were the only thing not completely trashed.
“And this is your brake,” he said, pulling on the rope that spit out the other end. “This stops the climber from falling. A Grigri has assisted braking, but it’s just an aid. Don’t ever take your hand off this part of the rope. Ever. Never.”
Yeah. Okay. When were they going to start climbing? “Can I try?” Rilla asked.
Walker unclipped the Grigri from his harness and re-clipped it to her belay loop—his hands close to the space between her hipbones.
She bit her lip and then hastily pushed it back out in case he caught her looking like a moony-eyed middle-schooler.
Walker backed away, pulling the rope with him. “If your climber says slack, it means they need more rope. When the climber says take, you want to bring the rope back in.”
Carefully, she practiced feeding the rope back and forth through the Grigri, and locking it off in case of a fall.
Valley Girls Page 3