“I hope you know that I was thrilled when your dad told me you were considering Pepperdine. We would love to have you. And, oh, before you go. I told Coach Hazeltine you were coming. He didn’t know anything about your visit, but he’d love the opportunity to tell you about his program. Can you fit him in?”
“I’ll try. Have fun in Brussels.”
“I will. Enjoy your hike.”
“It should be fun.”
“Go Waves!”
“Go Waves.”
She pockets her phone. Takes three deep breaths, refocuses on the mom at the register handing the bear to her daughter, who obviously wanted the beaver. Ellie walks outside, wondering how she’ll ever listen to Vivaldi again without feeling sick.
Grahame is worried the Cherokee will be towed, so he parks it in a far corner of the lot under a tree next to a Dumpster. Ceo says it’s okay to leave it here through the weekend, but Grahame doesn’t trust him or the guidebook. According to that same guidebook, this is where we pick up the Curry Village shuttle bus that takes us to the Mirror Lake Trail, and a mile past that, the Snow Creek Trail, where we start heading up out of the smoke via the 108 switchbacks from hell.
We talked in the car about picking up some snacks at the Village Store, but Ceo is obsessed with getting on the trail, and he and Grahame can’t stop talking about their LMS race. We haul our packs out of the Cherokee and do the final adjustments. Ellie, Grahame, and I have old-school external packs with our sleeping bags strapped underneath or on top. The pack I’m using belongs to Ceo’s sister and is a little small for my six-one frame. I wind up leaving a hoodie sweatshirt and an extra pair of warm-up pants behind because they just won’t fit. That doesn’t hurt as much as the discovery that I forgot my foam sleeping pad. Ceo offers to buy one, but I know that will take time that we can’t afford. I say I can sleep on pine needles for two nights.
Ceo has a Mountain Hardwear pack with no visible frame. It’s ultralight, ninja black with red straps and looks like something out of Climbing magazine. It matches his Mountain Hardwear pants and fleece hat and the down jacket I saw him stuffing into a nylon sack about the size of a Pop-Tart. He’s wearing some kind of stretchy black shirt that conforms to his torso and highlights each individual muscle of his abs. Ellie scans him up and down, calls him Captain Hardwear, and asks if a cape comes with that outfit. Ceo explains that he didn’t buy this stuff. He was in Montana on a catalog shoot for K2 Snowboards, and the booking agency gave Mountain Hardwear clothes to the models to keep them warm. Grahame and I know all about his trip to Montana last winter thanks to one especially long poker night when Ceo drank beers instead of Mountain Dews and won too much money. Usually he doesn’t share intimate details, but on that particular night he went on and on. As soon as Ceo brought up Montana I knew Grahame would jump all over it—and he did.
“Tell her what else you did to stay warm,” Grahame says with an edge to his voice. He’s been trying to fasten the ax to the outside of his pack with bungee cords, and they keep coming unhooked whenever he stretches them.
“Yes,” Ellie says. “I would very much like to hear what you poor models did to stay warm in Montana.”
“Let’s get to the top of this thing,” Ceo says with a wink, “and maybe I’ll show you.”
“Shit!” Grahame says. One of the bungees popped loose and hit him in the face. There’s an angry red welt on his cheek. An inch higher and we’d be looking at an empty socket.
Ceo says, “The bungees aren’t happening, dude.”
“They will.”
“The ax is too heavy. Even if you get them to stay, it’ll still flop around. Just leave it.”
Grahame shakes his head. His face is tight, lips a thin hard line. I know this look. It’s the same thing his opponents see across the net when he digs in and simply refuses to lose. And he never does. The only person that beats him at anything is Ceo, and when that happens, you’d think the world had stopped spinning and gravity was canceled. For whatever crazy reason, this ax is a line in the sand, and Ceo knows it.
Ceo says, “All right. If you won’t leave it, then let’s do this.” He walks to the side of the parking lot, picks up a rock, tests the weight, drops it, picks up a bigger one. It takes two hands to lift it. He approaches Grahame, saying, “My pack has straps that will hold your ax. Since we’re racing and I’ll be hauling your extra weight, then you have to carry this to make it fair.”
“That rock?”
Ceo nods.
“Why don’t you give me some of your other weight? Like the tent and the stove?”
“Nah. It’s this rock, or you carry that ax in your hand.”
“You’re serious?”
“Like zits on prom night.”
“It’s not a rock. It’s a freaking boulder.”
“When we get to the top, you can take it out. I’ll still carry the ax.”
“For the rest of the trip?”
“Right down to this spot.”
I consider all the likely outcomes, and none of them are good for Grahame. Ceo set the hook at the visitor center. Now he’s reeling him in. I say, “Leave it, Grahame. We’ll be fine without it.”
Grahame looks at Ellie. The welt below his eye is starting to leak red.
He says, “What about you, goalie girl?”
“I’m sorry. Were you talking to me?”
“Do you have an opinion to share?”
“I do. But you don’t want to hear it.”
Ceo holds out the rock. “Make the call, dude. My forearms are screaming.”
Grahame slips on his sunglasses. Says, “Sure. Why not. I’ll still beat your ass, and you know it.” He takes the rock from Ceo, wedges it into the top of his pack. It bulges up and out like a big gray tumor. Ceo straps the ax to the side of his pack. We shoulder our loads; Grahame struggles a little putting his on. Then he locks up the Cherokee and we head for the Mirror Lake bus that is pulling up to the curb.
On the way Ellie asks me, “Are they always like this, or is it because I’m here?”
“Yes,” I say. “And yes.”
Grahame outmaneuvers Ceo and Colin to claim the seat next to Ellie. She wonders how this will play out as he struggles to wedge his pack between his huge legs, then gives a snooze you lose wave to his friends. They make their way to the remaining unoccupied seats, which are five rows back and across the aisle. As the bus pulls away and accelerates, Grahame says, “You think he played me.”
“Like a drum.”
“That’s not the way I see it.”
“What’s your version?”
“I only carry that rock to the top. He’ll be hauling the ax around for three days. Pound per mile, I have the better deal.”
Until Ceo finds a way to get you to carry it. “But,” she says, “what if this rock costs you your idiotic race and you have to be a DB or BB or whatever for two weeks.”
“It’s a BB, and I won’t.”
“Why not just leave the ax in the car?”
“It’s…”—he glances back at Ceo and Colin—“personal.”
“As in a comfort object? What’s wrong with a stuffed bunny?”
He frowns. Takes a beat. “I’ll tell you, but you can’t laugh.”
“I won’t. Even if it’s funny.”
“First you have to put your hand on the sacred rock and make a solemn vow.”
She puts her left hand on top of Grahame’s pack.
Before she can react, his hand is on top of hers. It’s big and rough, and it smothers hers like a hot blanket. Ellie’s first instinct is to pull away. He presses down. Leans in very close and whispers warm in her ear, “Swear that you won’t tell Ceo.”
“I do so swear.” Now let me go.
He regards her with those dark lenses. The cut from the bungee has stopped oozing. The drip of blood looks like a red tear. She tugs. He presses again.
“Uh, my hand…” she says. “It can’t breathe.”
He smiles and slides his off, like a sated thin
g. But not without a final reminder press. She tucks her hand under her right arm, resists the urge to wipe it off on her jeans.
What the hell was that about?
Grahame quietly says, “I’m afraid of bears.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“No. I totally am. When I was a kid, I read a story in Outside magazine about a guy that was dragged out of his tent and mauled to death in front of his family. There was nothing they could do except listen to him scream. I had nightmares about it for months. Ever since then I’ve been afraid of bears. I won’t see polar bears at the zoo. When my family took a road trip to Yellowstone and some bears were crossing the road, I hid on the floor behind the backseat and cried. Lions, snakes, great white sharks. None of them scare me. But bears…” He stares at his pack, fiddles with a strap. “I can’t even look at their pictures in books.”
“What about the Chicago Bears?”
“Not a fan.”
“Koala bears?”
“Have you seen their claws?”
“Gummy bears?”
“Worst candy name ever.”
“So you brought the ax for bear protection?”
“Correct.”
“They have bear spray, you know. It comes in a can. Much lighter than an ax.”
“I’m a tennis player. I need something to swing.”
The bus pulls into a parking lot. A silence settles between them as passengers get off and on. She hopes that the seats across from her empty so Ceo and Colin can move up. They stay occupied. The bus starts moving and the driver announces the next stop is the Mirror Lake Trail. She glances back. Ceo is staring at them, his face a blank mask. Colin is looking up and out the window.
Grahame says, “You’re not like his other girls.”
“I’m not his girl. This is not an owner-slave relationship.”
“See. That’s one of my favorite things about you. You have actual thoughts.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment, and not a slam against my gender.” Thinking one of his favorite things? Does that mean there are more? And that story about the bears. He said the words, acted the part. But he’s too big and too strong. In a fight between Grahame and a bear, she’s not so sure the bear would win.
The bus turns into another parking lot. It looks like the end of the line. The remaining passengers gather their stuff. She wants off this bus like it’s on fire. Grahame sits there like he has all day.
He says, “I’ve been watching, you know.”
“Watching what?”
“The way he looks at you.”
“Is it good?”
“Yeah.” A beat. “If you like train wrecks.”
“Ceo’s a big boy. He can handle himself.”
Grahame lets out a laugh. It’s deep and full and echoes through the emptying bus. “What’s so funny?” she asks, forcing a smile as Ceo and Colin walk by.
He stands at last, unwedges his pack.
“Oooh, da goalie girl tinks I be talkin’ about da Ceo.”
Ceo rips two pages containing a small map and trail description from the guidebook, tosses what’s left of a twenty-five-dollar investment in the trash. He gives the pages to me with instructions to follow that trail past the lake, then a little ways after that cross a footbridge, then watch for a sign on the left pointing to the trail that goes up to Snow Creek Falls.
I ask, “Is this the only map you have?”
“I have a topo, but it’s of Lower Merced Pass Lake. That’s worthless now. Not to worry, though. The GPS is right here.” He taps the front Velcro pocket on his pants. “We won’t do anything tricky.”
I think the tricky part has already started. Ellie is about twenty yards down the trail. She’s snapping pictures of us, the trees in their autumn suits, and Half Dome, which is pretty much in our face.
Grahame says, “You ready to run, chief?”
“You know it.”
“Have any final words for goalie girl?”
Ceo calls out, “Hey, Els! You want to count us down?”
She lowers her camera. “That would make me an accessory to murder.”
“Then I’ll see you in a couple hours.”
“Good luck, Captain Hardwear.”
Ceo and Grahame line up side by side with me between them facing down the trail, which at this point is paved and looks more like a road than a wilderness path leading to paradise. There are people ahead, taking their time, walking dogs, enjoying the scenery. They have no clue of the storm that’s about to be unleashed behind them.
Grahame checks his watch. “One forty-eight. I’ll be at the top by three fifteen.”
Ceo says, “I’ll have dinner ready when you get there.”
They both give me a nod: Grahame with his knees flexed, torso bent forward at the hip, all tense and twitching like a greyhound on a leash; Ceo standing straight, arms hanging loose at his sides. They look like this every time we run bleachers. The big difference here are the refrigerators strapped to their backs.
I say, “You sure about this, guys? I mean, all the smoke. It could damage your lungs.”
Grim silence is their answer.
I say, “And the tribe has spoken. On your mark. One…two…”
Grahame takes off like a fireball from a catapult.
Ceo shakes his head, says, “Why did I know he’d do that?”
He waves to me and Ellie, then leaves at an easy jog.
She watches Ceo disappear around the bend, then decides it’s time to stop putting off the inevitable. Colin waits while Ellie reads her texts.
JANICE BOYER
Dr. H called. You father is so disappointed.
The Pepperdine coach wants your cell number. Is that ok? ☺
PJ HAZELTINE
I’d love to chat. Call me when u get a min. Or see me after practice at 5.
Then her heart skips three beats.
CARL K BOYER
Mark said there is no record of your visit to Pepperdine!!!!!
JANICE BOYER
Where are you? Call me.
She sees a voice mail but chooses not to play it. Colin is six feet away, his eyes steady and focused on her. She thinks about calling her mother, but what would she say? That I’m about to walk into the wilderness with three guys and not to worry because one of them brought an ax? She would probably know Ceo because everyone knows his father. That wouldn’t help at this stage, not with all the objects she set in motion. And then there’s Colin, who at the moment is balancing a stick in the palm of his hand. Ellie decides her momentum is greater than the outside forces acting on it. She sets her phone on vibrate, buries it under her jacket in the top of her pack, and swings up the load.
Colin asks while she adjusts her shoulder straps, “Is something wrong?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You look like Ceo at a John Cusack film festival.”
Ellie laughs despite the knot in her stomach. “I got a text from my mother. She’s worried that I didn’t have lunch.”
“Lunch is a very important meal. Without lunch there would be no need to make sandwiches.”
“Peanut butter would never have met jelly.”
“Deals would go undone.”
“Who wants to live in that kind of world?” she asks.
“Exactly. It’s our duty to save the world. I hear there’s a lake up ahead that looks like a mirror. We can mock our companions who are probably dead by now, while consuming dried strips of teriyaki-flavored cow muscle.”
“My mother would be pleased.”
They start walking side by side into the shadows of trees.
Ellie snaps a few pictures of Mirror Lake, although it looks more like a pond to me. The trail description says it’s been gradually shrinking over the years and isn’t what it was back in the pre-drought days of John Muir and Ansel Adams. It isn’t much of a mirror, either, with a cool wind picking up, rippling the surface and blurring the surrounding trees into an orange-yellow ring around the shore and turnin
g the gray face of Half Dome silver. It’s still breathtaking in a primordial-swamp kind of way. I feel the patient hand of nature filling in this body of water one fallen leaf at a time.
We shrug off our packs, open the jerky bag, and start chewing between sips of water. Our conversation up to this point has been Ellie telling me about her previous trips to Yosemite, twice with her family but they didn’t camp out, once with four female soccer players from Germany that were staying at her home. I wonder how I can work in a question about her and Ceo and how that all started, but she preempts me by asking, “Why do they call you Q?”
I was hoping that subject wouldn’t come up, but it invariably does. I’m thankful that she didn’t ask it in front of Grahame, who goes into every possible detail and gets most of them wrong.
She says, “I’m sorry. If this is some man thing—”
“No, it’s all right. The more I tell the story, the easier it gets.”
“Ooh. There’s a story?”
“Oh yes. And it deals with matters of personal hygiene and a virus, so if it gets too intense or you are easily offended…”
“I’ll let you know if you cross any boundaries.”
I say, “The story begins with me in my dorm room. Grahame has already left for class. I’m showered, teeth brushed, almost ready for school. I have a bio test in ten minutes and it’s a seven-minute dash across campus. The problem is ever since I was a little kid I’ve had issues with waxy buildup in my ears.”
“Waxy buildup? That sounds like a boundary issue to me.”
“I know. But it’s critical to the plot, so hang in there. Since the inside of my ears are still wet from the shower, I take a precious minute to clean them. At that exact moment I get a call on my cell.”
“Is this where it gets interesting? Because so far I’m unimpressed.”
“Coming right up. Fast-forward to just before the exam. I’m sitting in class, sweating from my cross-campus sprint and about to take a test that will have a forty percent impact on my final grade for the semester and possibly kill my scholarship at CGA.” I pause, waiting to see if she’s into this or not.
She says, “I’m all ears. Go on.”
“That’s when I get the famous Ceo text.”
“You’re lucky you got a text from him at all. But that’s a different story. Tell me about this text.”
Bad Call Page 7