“Do you really want to do The Nose?” Petra asked Rilla. “We all know you’ve been asking everyone about it. Time to woman up and tell us if you’re serious.”
Rilla gulped her beer down and looked at everyone—terror freezing her tongue. She wanted to say yes. But what if everyone was laughing behind her back?
“We’ll do it with you. Me and Adeena.” Petra rolled her eyes. “Caroline doesn’t want in. She’s doing it on her own.”
“Oh, right.” Rilla said. She’d forgotten—from that day when she dropped the rope, Caroline was climbing it free.
Adeena nodded. “I’m in. It’s The Nose.” She shrugged, as if that said everything.
“Yes,” Rilla said.
“Yes, what? Come on. Yell it,” Petra said. “Yes, what?”
“Yes, I want to climb The Nose,” Rilla said.
Hico put his hand to his ear. “I didn’t hear you.”
“Yes, I want to climb The Nose!” Rilla roared from her gut, shaking the foundations of the redwoods with her desire.
Everyone laughed and lifted their bottles. “To The Nose.”
Thirty
Petra gave Rilla and Walker a ride back to the Valley, spending the whole time talking with Walker in the front seat about some trip they’d done together. They laughed and reminisced and Rilla found herself slinking farther into the dark backseat like a forgotten child. Finally, Petra dropped them off in the Camp 4 parking lot.
Rilla waved goodbye as Petra pulled off.
Walker pulled out a smoke. “Want to go look at El Cap?” he asked.
Her pulse jumped. “Sure. I’m not dressed for it though.” Her arms were chilly in the cool night air and she was still wearing shorts and sandals. At least her underwear was dry, thanks to the dryer at the Grove.
“You can borrow a sweatshirt. I just did laundry.”
“Oh, what, I won’t get the pheromones of greatness?”
He laughed. “I don’t need no pheromones.”
They turned off the path for his tent and he put his finger to his mouth.
Rilla took the smoke, waiting as Walker disappeared up the slope into his tent.
It was late—the entire camp was asleep, and fires were put out or burned down to embers. But she wasn’t a bit tired. Adrenaline hummed; and when she closed her eyes she saw his long, lean body stretching out in the sunshine.
He was back in only a minute and handed her a worn hoodie. She slipped it over her head and it came down over her thighs and off her hands, warm and soft and smelling like clean laundry soap and dusty canvas.
“I brought you a headlamp, if you need it,” he said, tucking something into her front pocket. “How’s training?”
“Training for what?” She asked.
“The Nose. I mean, tonight wasn’t the moment you realized you wanted to climb it, right?”
She laughed and slipped her hands into the pocket of his hoodie. “I didn’t realize it was obvious.”
He laughed. “Rilla, if you looked at a man with half as much lust in your eyes as you looked at that granite, you’d put him to his knees.”
She frowned. “That makes me sound—”
“No,” he interrupted. “I mean you want it. You can tell.”
“Well, that’s awkward.” She laughed. But if he could tell what she wanted, how come he couldn’t tell she wanted him? She followed him off the asphalt and into the darkened trees. They lost the moon in the wood, and she blindly reached for him and found his back.
“Can you see all right?” he asked.
“Not really.”
“You can turn on the headlamp if you need to.”
“If I just follow you, I’ll be fine.” She stumbled over a root and crashed into him. “I think.”
He reached behind and took her by the hand, this time letting his warm fingers twine with hers.
“I never realized how big your hands are,” she said. “How do you get these paws into those little cracks?”
He laughed. “Only in climbing is wow, big hands, not a good thing.”
“I’m just saying . . . those tiny crimps.” She ran her thumb across the top of his fingertips, smiling at the way his pulse fluttered in his wrist. “And your drawings. They’re so intricate.” She hadn’t seen them since the time she’d accidentally picked up his journal, but she wondered about it. She wondered what he drew and what he wrote. But it felt too personal to ask.
“Some things are harder. But then I can reach things you can’t. Your awkward off-width is my perfect hand jam. Your perfect hand jam is my finger crack. Everything is equal on the wall. And it’s not like my hands are freakish and can’t hold a pencil.”
“It’s not equal,” she said. “But I get what you mean.”
He squeezed her hand and pulled her on a bend in the path. “Mountains do not care who you are, they will kill you all the same. That’s what I meant.”
“At home the mountains always felt personal,” she said. “Here it feels like they don’t even notice you. They feel young and brazen and new. Not old and full of secrets and shadows. It’s beautiful. Like, beyond beautiful. Every day feels like a dream drenched in sunshine. I love being here. But sometimes I miss that old feeling of . . . brutality, or something. Where everything is terrible and great all at once. It feels strange to live without it. I didn’t even know I would miss something like that. I wonder sometimes if I am that, and that’s what I like about climbing.”
“Stop,” he groaned. “Ugh. Why you gotta be like this?” He pulled her under his arm, tight to his chest.
It was too easy to roll into his hug, to slip around in his arms and push up on her toes with her face tilted toward him in a patch of moonlight pouring through the silver leafed oaks.
They still held hands, twisted behind her back. He pushed her fist into the small of her back, driving her closer.
The breeze rustled the leaves above them.
She felt his breath pull and ease. His chest expanded and relaxed. The rhythm. A cadence. His gaze flickered over her face and came back to her eyes, his long body hard and alive against hers. She closed her eyes and her lips parted in a smile.
“There it is,” he whispered. “Open your eyes.”
But she couldn’t. She tightened her mouth, trying to bite down on the smile.
“Open,” he whispered, softly kissing between her eyes. A flush of heat drove down to the base of her spine.
She laughed. “No.” But she parted her eyes just enough to reach for his neck in the moonlight and pull his mouth to hers.
He kissed her slowly.
She pushed back with urgency.
He pulled away, his laugh tinged with a growl and he cinched her fist tighter into her back, against him. This time he kissed her with that intensity that she’d seen rippling under his skin since the bus stop in Merced. An intensity that made her stagger, even as he held her pinned.
It felt like a thing she expected to know, suddenly bigger and wider and taller, the world expanding inside her own chest.
It was almost too much. She needed to breathe. She pulled away.
He held her there as she caught her breath. His thumb circled lazily on her neck.
“You okay?” he whispered. “Am I okay?”
The oaks rustled a papery sound.
“Yeah,” she breathed. “More.”
The sky turned pink and found them still kissing in the shadows of the black oaks.
Thirty One
Forget climbing El Capitan, surviving a day in the service industry was what was going to do her in. Especially since she’d been up all night, making out with Walker. Rilla’s stomach rolled with excitement at the fresh memory of his hands on her.
“Do your hair,” Allie said, her messy top-knot bobbing.
They stood in the warm laundry room—the machines all quiet. The sun had not yet risen. Rilla buttoned the skirt of the uniform and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. I know how tips work.”
She stood on her tiptoes
to use her reflection in the small, dark window to do her best old-people makeup—a nice pink lipstick, mascara, and blush. Her concealer didn’t work anymore because of her tan, and her hair had gotten so long she had to ask Allie for scissors to cut off six inches of straggly ends, but finally she turned from the window, slipped on the borrowed flat dress shoes, and waited for Allie to approve.
Allie shrugged. “It’ll do. I’m going back to bed.” She handed over her badge. “Don’t get me fired.”
Rilla threw on a sweatshirt and headed across the Valley, her bare legs pricking with the chill. She’d never been inside the big hotel, and her heart beat a little faster as she crossed through the meadows and headed up the paved and landscaped drive.
In the lightening purple dark, the sleep-hazed faces of Braeden and Christian stood by the entrance’s stone columns—still fixing their uniforms. She’d hung out with them often around HUFF, but had never seen them at work.
“What you doing here so early and so dressed?” Braeden asked as Rilla came up.
“Taking over for Allie today.” She smoothed her skirt.
“Ugh. Allie is smart. Can you get us coffee?”
“I have to clock in first,” Rilla said. “Where’s the coffee?”
“Go to the kitchen and ask Darien to make it,” Christian said. “Please.”
She nodded and headed inside.
“You’re the best,” Braeden called as the door swung shut behind her.
Inside was a whole new Yosemite. Freshly polished wood floors stretched under her feet, and the weak light of new dawn filtered in the southwestern patterned stained glass windows that stretched from floor to ceiling. Leather couches were arranged around solid tables in the lobby. Giant copper pots held succulents and ferns. Above it all, the coffered ceiling was trimmed in southwestern painted designs and from the beams, lights made to look like candles on circular wooden chandeliers hung, giving the whole room a warm, cozy glow.
It was the nicest building she’d ever been in, except for a field trip to a museum once.
Rilla tried not to look out of place, practically tiptoeing down the quiet corridor to find the employee room and the kitchen.
At the end of a hall, past the bathrooms, she found it—using Allie’s card to open the locked door. Inside, she breathed with relief. The hotel lost its veneer, going back to linoleum and dingy painted drywall. An old-fashioned punch clock sat on the wall, with a hanging file of cards. Rilla found Allie’s and punched it in.
The timestamp read 5:59 A.M. Just in time.
She relaxed and stuck the card back in. A notice on the bulletin board beside it caught her eye and she looked closer.
Shit.
REWARD: $1,000 FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE ARREST AND RECOVERY OF STOLEN HISTORIC AWAHNEE HOTEL PLAQUE.
Pictured was the plaque she stole with Caroline and Petra.
Her stomach dropped. Ranger Dick Face. At least he couldn’t possibly know it was her. Right? She rushed away from the bulletin board, feeling like her guilt was written all over her. Unless someone talked to a ranger, they probably wouldn’t find out. It was fine. She’d just make sure to tell Caroline and Petra.
It was a good thing Adeena hadn’t come with them after all.
Back in the hotel, she found her way to the kitchen through the massive dining room, already bustling for breakfast and the few early risers sitting at tables. After delivering coffee, and getting one for herself, she found Allie’s supervisor—Tammy—and began.
Tammy was also a temporary employee and liked Rilla, so she’d been fine with her switching out with Allie. With minimal instructions she sent Rilla wheeling a room service cart and taking the stairs to deliver whatever the guests kept calling down to the desk for. In between calls, she restocked housekeeping carts, watered plants, swept the lobby, and dusted off the tops of doors.
Allie would keep her day’s wages, but Rilla kept the tips.
She shoved fives and ones into her pockets and ran back down the stairs for the next call, trying not to think about the stupid stolen plaque.
After Allie’s shift ended, the sun was low in the sky. Rilla changed in the employee locker room, took the uniform back to Allie, and immediately went to the outdoor store and pushed over all her tips and collected wages from the last week, in exchange for a shiny cam.
It was fuchsia and silver, and glinted in the evening sun, glimmering without a scratch. She couldn’t wait to get it dirty.
Running back to the house, she burst in to find Thea sitting at the table, filling out paperwork.
“What’s that?” Thea asked, staring at the shiny cam.
Rilla looked down. “Um.” Rilla hadn’t talked to Thea about climbing, and even now she was afraid if Thea found out how much time she’d been spending on the rock, she’d be forbidden from it. The last thing Rilla wanted to do was start that fight. Casually, she moved the cam behind her back and changed the subject. “I want to take a GED test.”
“You want to drop out of high school?” Thea said.
“Not drop out. Just . . . finish differently.”
Thea frowned, looking between Rilla and where the cam had been. “Where did you get the cam?”
“I bought it.”
“With what money?”
Rilla bit her lips. “I’ve been working.”
“You have a job?”
“No. I . . . I do odd jobs for other people,” Rilla said.
Thea’s eyes narrowed. “Like what?”
“Like, today I worked at the hotel.”
“In that?” Thea took in her ratty shorts and tank top.
“Uh. No.” Rilla looked down, her cheeks warming. “I had to return the uniform.”
Thea sighed and rubbed her temples. “Rilla . . .”
Rilla didn’t move.
“You can’t do that.” Thea put her head in her hands and groaned.
“Why not?”
“You’re not trained. You’re a liability. It’s illegal.”
“It is not illegal,” Rilla said. “You’re a cop, not a lawyer.”
“I’m not a cop,” Thea yelled.
Rilla rolled her eyes.
“You want to take the GED, huh?” Thea said. “Let me ask you this. How’s your schoolwork?”
Rilla gulped. “It’s fine. But why do it, if I can just take a test?”
“It’s not just taking a test,” Thea said. “You can’t use this as a Get Out of Jail Free card just because you’re behind on your schoolwork. You need to spend less time playing and on the work you’re actually supposed to be doing.”
“Pretty sure it is just a test,” Rilla said.
“And you still haven’t answered about the cam,” Thea said. “I don’t want to hear you’ve been spending all the time I’m at work playing instead of doing your work, and now that’s why you think you can take a test and make it all go away.”
Rilla stilled, her face burning. “I’m . . . I’m . . .”
“I’m what? And who taught you to use that? That’s for experienced climbers. You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“I am experienced,” Rilla shot back.
Thea rolled her eyes. “A month of playing hooky to climb does not make an experienced climber.”
She was right. She was . . . Rilla gulped and looked down at her hand. What was she doing? Thea was right.
“You are not allowed to climb. Not until you are caught up and enrolled in school. You can’t afford to risk your future for a little fun. And you aren’t responsible enough to be climbing with stuff like that.”
Any argument got choked in Rilla’s throat. No climbing? She stared at the cam, tears burning her eyes.
Thea straightened. “I’m done.” Grabbing her hat, she stormed down the hall and slammed her bedroom door.
Done?
Rilla glared at the door. Done done? “Of course you are,” she yelled, before stomping outside. She kicked the dirt all the way through the meadow. Hating the gear and all it represente
d—not her hard work anymore, but the things she’d never be able to climb beyond. Thea was unfair—but she was right. A month of climbing wasn’t anything. She’d give it all over just to have her sister not think she was a useless annoyance. To have her not be done. And what was she going to do about climbing now? The Nose?
The Nose!
If Thea found out about The Nose, she’d send her back to West Virginia for sure.
The grass was dry and dead at the edges of Camp 4, and on her first walk through the camp, no one was there. She sat at the picnic table at Tam’s empty campsite, waiting for someone to show up. The afternoon light shifted through the trees and Rilla put her head in her arms and sank into the heaviness in her chest.
Someday she was going to go so far away no one would know who she was or where she came from, and she could start over with no memory of her mistakes.
Rilla kept expecting someone to show up. But no one did. She glanced at the SAR site, but no one was there either. It was sunset now, the tourists had all lit fires and climbers and hikers she didn’t know were beginning to come back to camp. She pushed off the table to go find Jonah, still carrying the cam with her.
On her way across the Valley, she caught sight of the old man at the SAR site who’d fed her the morning she’d climbed with Caroline—hustling somewhere in his fluorescent T-shirt. She wanted to ask where everyone had gone, but his face was set in a grim line, and he seemed not to notice anyone or anything except the place he was trying to be. Her chest tightened and she picked up her pace. Something felt wrong. She felt wrong. Her stomach churned, hating that she’d made Thea mad, hating that Thea was right, and hating Thea for being unfair. The temptation to message Curtis hit her in the gut, and then she only hated herself for having to fight so hard against it. Rilla couldn’t go back—not when she kept screwing things up like this.
Rilla found Jonah in the cafeteria. “Do you know what’s going on?” she asked.
He looked confused. “I haven’t heard anything,” he said with a shrug. “You okay?”
She nodded.
“Run later?”
“Yeah, sure.” Thanking him, she left the building and wandered back outside. The crowds seemed on edge too—people talked with each other in urgent, curious tones. She wanted to stop and ask everyone what was going on, but didn’t know how to intrude. Maybe it was all in her head.
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