Valley Girls

by Sarah Nicole Lemon

  The picture was gorgeous. Purple light, silver granite, endless mountains, and wide smiles of everyone in the photo. The kind of thing that made you want to be that cool. That ecstatic. Her body ached and her feet wept, and still she handed the phone back, half wishing they would invite her along. She’d say no, obviously. But to be asked . . .

  “Looks really cool,” Rilla said, trying not to sound wistful. “Does everything involve hiking?”

  Hico laughed. “You could spend your whole life in the Valley and never run out of things to climb. I hate hiking, but I’ll do just about anything for something beautiful.” Hico stood. “The office opens at eleven, so we better go get in line. See ya.”

  Gage waved.

  The boys left, Hico’s rainbow socks turning brilliant in the sun before the door closed behind him.

  The couch slowly expanded to adopt its original shape. The fan hummed above her. Someone near the unlit fireplace snored.

  Rilla picked up her phone and stared at the still-blank screen, at the loneliness facing her.

  She found Curtis’s Instagram again. He had posted a picture of a Solo cup on his truck two days ago. Hey, how are you? she messaged him, feeling reckless and desperate. In the quiet, her heart thumped hard as she watched the message send and sit there.

  Rilla picked up The Scarlett Letter and tried to read.

  Fifty pages later, there still had been no reply, and Rilla hobbled over to the grill to order lunch, a sick feeling stirring in the pit of her stomach every time she thought of the unanswered message. She huddled in a corner of the deck, under the eaves to keep out of the crisp wind, waiting for her order number to be called, when Ranger Dick Face came up the steps.

  She took a step sideways to escape. Dick Face was the last person she wanted to see right now.

  But he was already in front of her, smiling. “Hey Rilla. How is everything going?” he asked, with only a wisp of tightness in his jaw.

  She pasted a smile on her face. “Great.”

  “Yeah? You been staying out of trouble? Catching up on your schoolwork? Can’t have Thea’s baby sister being a dropout.” He laughed and scratched the bridge of his nose, gaze scanning the mostly empty deck around her.

  God, did Thea tell everyone her business? Even the guy she was competing with? Rilla inwardly groaned. “Um. I’m not—”

  “You know. Most of your friends from the other night aren’t here anymore.”

  A few people from HUFF had been fired after that first night, including the French boy she’d made out with. “I didn’t really—”

  “When I have a problem with people in the Valley, it’s usually solved one of two ways.”

  Titus called her order from behind the screen.

  Rilla lifted her receipt. “My—”

  “Either they’re leaving in a few days, on their best behavior,” Dick Face continued. “Or they’re leaving in cuffs and banned from the park.”

  Rilla’s neck and face burned.

  “The question I want you to ponder is, which way would you like to leave? I don’t like people here who take unnecessary risks with the park, like your stupid move with the cigarette. I also don’t like people who break the law. It’s my job to protect the park from those kinds of people.”

  “Obviously.” She bit her lips tight and clenched her fists, trying to keep everything locked inside.

  “It’s a good thing you and Thea will be leaving after the summer season anyway.”

  He said it with such confidence, Rilla almost lit on fire. How dare he assume he would beat Thea. “You have no idea,” she seethed.

  He shrugged. “Well, we’ll see, won’t we? And uh . . .” He grabbed her burger from Titus’s surprised hands, and handed it to her. “Here you go. I recommend the veggie burger next time. Meat isn’t great for your arteries, or for our environment.” Turning, he walked away.

  “What a dick,” Titus said from behind the screen.

  “Yeah.” Rilla clutched the paper-wrapped burger and glowered. He really was a dick. It hadn’t just been his face. Rilla needed to be extra careful not to get into trouble, or else he’d make her and Thea pay for it.

  The wind died and a shiver ran up her body in the sudden quiet. She should just go home now and save Thea the trouble. Except no one wanted her there either. Unwrapping the burger and taking a bite, she shuffled inside the outdoor store to get out of the chill.

  Rilla scanned the racks of brightly colored jackets and technical shirts, slowly chewing. All she could taste was Ranger Dick Face’s words. The bit of pride warming her chest—from sore feet, sore back, and the hazy memory of helping someone—turned cold.

  On her way out the door, she caught sight of a blown-up and framed photo hanging on the wall above the racks—it pictured a woman rock climbing.

  The woman’s blond hair blew in the wind, and her limbs were tanned and toned, but she wasn’t pictured in the way Rilla was used to seeing women do things in pictures. She crouched and stretched low, angled toward something beyond the camera. Her body was coiled not in a pose, but with purpose. Toward something above her that made her forehead crinkle and her eyes narrow against the California sun. Behind her swept dramatic peach-and-gray granite reaching dotted trees, thick and lush like moss at granite’s base.

  With a sudden thrill, Rilla forgot about Ranger Dick Face and Curtis. She didn’t know who this woman was, but she knew that yesterday, this woman had been her.

  Rilla’s raw fingertips tightened on the half-eaten burger, remembering the feel of unyielding granite. Remembering the feel of the wind and the sun. If someone had taken a photo, it would have shown her body coiled and intense, her eyes squinting against the sun, into the future, and her long brown hair snapping in the wind. A hunger hit her mouth that had nothing to do with food. It was like lust, but instead of for another, it was for herself. For her future. She wanted be that woman in the photo. In every way. Never mind she’d really only tasted it. Never mind the agony she still felt in her body. Never mind it was ridiculous to think Rilla Skidmore, seventeen, high school dropout, from Rainelle, West Virginia, could be anything like that. Or even if she could, Thea might at any minute send her home. That woman, immortalized in that moment, was someone Rilla wanted to be, in every line of her forehead and every stretch of a limb.

  With a thrill of purpose that made her feet hurt less, she went to the counter.

  The man, to his credit, didn’t blink at her socks, lobster boxers, and too-small hoodie. “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m just curious. What climb is that picture?” She pointed to the wall.

  He didn’t answer right away. A smile twitched on his mouth and he studied the photo. “That’s Lynn Hill on the Nose of El Capitan.” He pointed to the map under the plastic counter. “It’s the first big thing you see when you come down into the Valley. You can’t miss it.”

  She remembered staring out the window of Petra’s car, mouth open in awe. At the way Petra had reverently said its name. El Capitan. She hadn’t even realized people could climb something that huge. Half Dome was already in the mountains—it’s base already high. It felt different—somehow more attainable. But El Capitan started in the Valley and rose clean and unhidden. It felt untouchable.

  Petra’s wide arms and excited shouting, “This is your backyard” rang in her ears.

  Staring at the place the man pointed on the map, a surge of longing ran through her. She could do this. Or at least, she could try. And if she could stay busy climbing and doing schoolwork all summer, she’d be less likely to cross paths with Ranger Dick Face. She’d become a person Thea would be proud of, and make everyone at home regret the way they’d treated her. She’d become a person she wanted to be. She’d find a home . . . in California.

  Rilla smiled. “Thank you kindly.” Her mind whirred dizzily around a plan.

  First, she’d need her own gear. She made a beeline for the back corner where the climbing gear hung on the wall, ticking off a mental list of wh
at she’d seen in Petra’s and Adeena’s packs. Harnesses. Ropes. The pieces of pro that had anchored them to the wall. Carabiners. Quickdraws. Webbing. Shoes. She should start with a harness. Picking one at random, she looked at the price.

  $156.99

  Her fingers froze, and her throat tightened.

  Slowly she let it drop, scanning the rest of the gear on the wall. A harness was incredibly important and probably cost more. One of the little doo-dads couldn’t cost more than that.

  She picked a piece of pro like she’d cleaned out of the wall the day before and looked at the tag, praying it wasn’t as bad.

  $64.95

  Instantly, her brain tried to add up Petra’s sling full of pieces, clinking together like the ring of a cash register. Plus the pile still in her pack.

  Dropping the cam, Rilla turned and rushed for the door without looking at anything but her feet. Her burger was clutched, smashed, and cold in her hand. She’d forgotten about it. This had been a silly mistake. She should have known better. She threw it in the trash and walked as fast as she could. Away.

  Trying to get to the woods before she burst into tears in front of someone, she reeled off the path toward the river. It was impossible not to notice Walker, in a fluorescent shirt, and a beautiful girl with long blond hair tucked under his arm. Like they were there just to drive the point home—there was an uncharted valley between her and the things she wanted. It wasn’t really about climbing. Or about something as stupid as a boy she barely knew. It was that she’d, for one second, let go of what she’d left and reached for something ahead—and had her hand slapped in consequence.

  With tears streaming down her face, she crossed into the dark shelter of the pines, feeling stupider the more she cried, and crying harder the stupider she felt.

  Fourteen

  Rilla found Jonah drinking water in the shade outside the service entrance to the big cafeteria. His gaze swept over her—a bemused smile flickering across his face as he leaned against the brown slats of the building and looked at her. “You’re looking more like Yosemite today.”

  “Lobsters are so California, I know.” She tugged at her shorts, pretending to curtsey.

  He smirked.

  “You working right now?” she asked.

  “I need to finish putting the trash in the dumpster.” He gestured with his middle finger to the pile of slick black trash bags. Flies circled overhead.

  The sound of clinking metal echoed in her head and she blurted out, “Give me five bucks and I’ll do it for you.”

  He laughed. “Five dollars? That’s a little steep.”

  “A dollar a bag? That’s five.”

  He took another drink of his water and seemed to think. “You’re just going to give it back to me for weed.”

  “I mean . . . I keep trying to stop.” She crossed her arms. “Can I go running with you sometime? Is there, like, a secret formula for being good at sports? I just want to get like . . . not as much as a lazy toad. I don’t want to run ultramarathons or even a marathon. Or even a half. Or quarter. Or—”

  “All right. Fine. Take my money. Just stop talking.” He rolled his eyes. “You have a deal.”

  Rilla grinned. “Deal.” Trying to avoid stepping in the puddles leaking from the garbage, she grabbed one off the top and lugged it over to the Dumpster. A trail oozed behind.

  “What do you need five dollars for?” Jonah asked.

  Rilla hauled a bag over her head, sore muscles screaming and her stomach rolling from the curdled smell. It fell over the edge of the Dumpster and dropped inside. She made a face at her sticky hands. “I don’t know. I don’t have a job.”

  “You could get a job here.”

  “Don’t you have to be eighteen?” she asked, grabbing two bags this time.

  “Oh. Right. Yeah. You’re right.”

  “Are you here just to run?” she asked, before realizing it sounded sort of harsh. “I mean, what made you want to work in Yosemite?”

  He shrugged, smoking. “I wanted to travel, but didn’t have money just to travel. So, I’ll work here. See what I can do next. I can run anywhere, but not everywhere is this beautiful.”

  The last bag didn’t quite make it over and Rilla squealed and jumped out of the way. It plopped on the asphalt. Thankfully, intact.

  “I think I made out on this deal,” Jonah said.

  She heaved the bag over in a second effort. This time it made it in. “I need to go wash my hands,” she said.

  “I’m going to go clock out. I’ll meet you outside the bathroom.” He kicked up and went inside.

  Holding her hands far from her body, she trudged up the hill to the bathrooms and washed her hands, face, and arms until she couldn’t smell trash on herself anymore.

  Jonah waited outside with a fountain soda in his hand. “My treat.” He handed it over and then dug in his pocket. “And your five dollars.”

  She smiled and stuffed it into the top of her sock. “Thanks.”

  “Want to see something?” he asked.

  “Sure. As long as it doesn’t involve a lot of hiking.”

  “Oh, were you hiking?” He snorted.

  “Don’t make fun of me,” she said, sipping the icy root beer and following him toward the woods. “I was actually climbing and hiking. Sixteen miles.”

  He looked back, a mixture of impressed and genuine surprise on his face. “Priscilla Skidmore!”

  Rilla couldn’t help but glow. “See?” She grinned over the straw. “I’m not always a stoner.”

  “You did Half Dome?”

  “Sure fucking did.” She skipped ahead, gleefully forgetting all about her aching feet. Her blood sang sharp and bright and if only—if only—everyone in her life could look at her the way Jonah had in that split second.

  “Wow. That’s really incredible. You don’t need my help to run. If you can walk sixteen miles, you can go for a jog.”

  “Well, it hurt a lot,” Rilla admitted. “I kinda swore I would never do it again.”

  He laughed, leading her up a thin footpath. They wound through house-sized boulders that had sloughed off the cliff and crushed part of the camp, reclaiming tents and cabins to the crawl of the forest. It was quiet and cool. The sounds of the busy Valley fell away as if they were an hour into the wilderness. Her feet were sore, but the walking wasn’t nearly as painful as when she first started that morning, even when they reached the bottom of the wall under Glacier Point, and Jonah started up the scree at the base.

  Still, her breath was heavy by the time Jonah stopped on a wide ledge.

  “Oh,” she said with a smile, looking around her. They were level with the tops of the trees, and the deep blue sky was perfect and boundless. All the tourists, cars, and signs of life had been swallowed by the trees. She couldn’t even see the roads from this angle. There was nothing but the proud cliffs standing watch over the sweep of the Valley in each direction.

  “Like the couch?” Jonah pulled a Baggies out of his shorts and began stuffing a bit of weed into the pipe on his lap, curled over to protect it from the wind.

  “It’s a nice spot.” She sat beside him, pulling her legs up in the wallow of granite curved out of the wall. Resting her shoulders back, she stared at the stretch of the magnificent view.

  At least Ranger Dick Face wouldn’t catch her up here.

  She took the pipe and lighter from Jonah, and held the smoke so long in her lungs Jonah made a joke about whether she was still alive. But when she exhaled, everything loosened and unwound in her spine, and she wiggled her toes as the wretched feelings of failure and frustration slipped off her skin like oil on water.

  A solitary cloud sailed across the sky—it’s shadow slowly sliding over the wall across the Valley. The granite swirled and arched, and her gaze lazily followed their lines in the sunshine. Thin shouts echoed from somewhere, whipped and distorted by the wind, and it was hard not to wonder where Adeena and Petra were today. Maybe they were climbing again, feeling relieved they didn’t
have to haul her around.

  Hey-o. Give me some slack, the wind cried.

  She checked her Instagram, heart dropping when she saw Curtis had replied to her DM. Thanks for apologizing. I forgive you. How’s California?

  “What’s wrong with your face?” Jonah asked.

  “Huh?” Then she felt the glower etched into her expression and shook her head, tucking the phone away. Her face burned with shame to think if Thea or Mom or anyone knew she’d messaged him in the first place. She didn’t even love Curtis or anything, it was just—it was that he loved her.

  Got it, the wind said.

  She blinked. “Did you hear something?”

  “No? You seem distracted. I mean. Even more than usual.”

  She frowned, scanning the cliff around them, beside them, below them. “I’m just . . . I thought I heard a friend. A climber friend.”

  “Climbers are all assholes.”

  “Really? All of them?” She raised an eyebrow.

  He shrugged.

  “Screw you. I want to be a climber,” she admitted, hoping he wouldn’t laugh.

  “Well, you won’t get a better chance than this,” he said matter-of-factly, leaning against the rock.

  “It’s expensive,” she argued.

  “You seem like an enterprising young woman.” He raised a meaningful eyebrow. “Who recently relieved me of five dollars.”

  She laughed, leaning forward on her hands. “It’s dangerous.”

  “Would you like it if it wasn’t?”

  She snorted. “It’s not something I’m good at.”

  “I guess that’s why they call it learning to do something.” He folded his arms against his chest. “It seems like you’re trying to talk yourself out of even trying. Why do that? This is your chance to try something you seem interested in. You can’t expect to wake up a good climber, when you haven’t put in the work and effort toward becoming one.”

  She winced. He was talking about climbing, but somehow, she felt the truth of it in the deepest parts of herself. It was true. That was what she’d been expecting—to change the minute she determined she should. Terrified when she was not immediately the things she envisioned. Panicked she never would be. Maybe . . . maybe, it wasn’t that she couldn’t change, but that she was afraid to try all the things required to change. Maybe it was like he said, she kept expecting to change without putting any of the work and effort into changing.