Skydiving, Skinny-Dipping

by Sarah Zolton Arthur

  “Thanks,” I said, instead of correcting him. What good would it do?

  Len lifted the box from my hands to carry out to his truck.

  “I had an idea,” he said, stopping to open my door.

  “Okay?”

  “You up for it?”

  “I guess,” I found myself answering, and surprisingly, I was.

  He placed my box on the floor of the backseat and drove out headed east.

  Nothing existed out this way. Well, only that ‘wilderness experience’ park. But no, he wouldn’t take me to a wilderness experience.

  Except he would.

  The proof of that statement slapped me in the face when he turned down the long, could-be-used-as-the-setting-for-a-horror-flick drive. The long, long, seemingly never-ending could-be-used-as-the-setting-for-a-horror-flick drive. “Your idea wasn’t to take me out here to kill me so you could dispose of my body, was it?”

  “How’d you guess? Now my nefarious plan is ruined.” He made his voice high and whiny, like a pouting little girl.

  The truck hit a crater, which jerked my head and sent it cracking hard against the window glass. “Ouch,” I cried out, rubbing the side of my face where I’d hit it.

  And the jerkface laughed at my pain, even as he tried to pretend he wasn’t by faking his concern. “Oh, baby…” He laughed. “You alright?”

  “No,” I shouted, then punched him in the arm, which only made him laugh harder.

  Though his laughing had the added effect of making me laugh. Because whether I want to admit it or not, if the situation were flipped and Len had hit his head, I’d be doing the exact same thing.

  “Let me see.” He took hold of my chin to turn my face, checking it over where I’d hit it. “No bruise. Just red.”

  He bent in to kiss the red spot. Then he went back to driving, fiddling with the radio station to get a good song. Or what he thought of as a good song because in my opinion, he’d passed several.

  Then the first lyrics of Bon Jovi’s iconic son “Living on a Prayer” flowed through the speakers.

  “Kami likes her drinks on the rocks…With taxes and tip, she’s down to one buck it’s true, so true…” Len took over for the singer.

  “I don’t think those are the lyrics,” I corrected him. “But you be you, Len.”

  “What can I say? I like to make up my own.”

  “Well, those were interesting.”

  “No—Kam, let’s play truth or dare.” Len cut himself off to sing a ridiculous chorus that did not go to the song.

  And aw, heck, I couldn’t stop myself. “No Len, I’d rather wash my hair,” I joined in.

  Fist pumps and devil horns in the air, Len and I banged our heads to the beat of the music until he hit the parking lot at the end of the drive and turned into a spot, throwing the truck into park.

  We opened the doors to both him and me screeching way off-key, “I’d rather wash my hair…”

  Yeah, we weren’t alone in that parking lot. Several sets of eyes turned to us. Several brows furrowed. Len cut the engine, effectively ending the disruption. Though I was guessing not before we scared off several of the woodland creatures that made their homes nearby.

  He climbed out. I climbed out. We both shut our doors and I met him around the front. The glares didn’t stop.

  “What?” Len asked the crowd. “It’s Bon Jovi,” he finished, grabbing my hand to pull me faster.

  I bit my lip to keep from cracking up.

  Why couldn’t he be a real boyfriend? My screaming crush just got screaming-er. Never. Never had I ever had so much fun with a guy before. Or a girl for that matter. Most people, their hang-ups kept them from enjoying life. Not Len, the man had no hang-ups.

  When we reached the glass door, he nudged my side with an elbow. We put on straight faces and walked in calmly.

  The inside looked every bit what one would imagine a wilderness experience lobby to look like, i.e., log cabin walls, fake trees, and stuffed animals hanging from said trees. Available for sale, of course. There was a cooler to purchase soft drinks and water. Cookbooks, which I found odd. I wasn’t eating woodchuck stew or whatever they had going on between the pages. Snacks. Chips, nuts, granola. Plus artisan fudge and caramels. Then they even had consignments such as handmade soaps and patchwork fabric bags.

  I could’ve stayed looking for a while longer, but Len had other ideas. He led me to the desk.

  “Welcome,” the woman behind the counter said. “Have you been here before?”

  “No,” Len replied.

  I shook my head.

  “Well, let me explain some of our features and you can decide which attractions you’d like to participate in.”

  “No need.” Len pointed up to the board behind the woman. “We’ll take two of the extreme package.”

  “That’s pretty lofty if you’ve nev—”

  He cut her off. “We can handle it.”

  “Okay, then…” She punched numbers into the cash register. “Your total comes to eighty-two seventy-three.”

  I kind of, sort of reached for my wallet. And he not kind of swatted my hand away. But that was a lot of money to spend on a fake girlfriend and I felt bad.

  “Reach for that wallet again and see what you get,” he warned.

  I put my hands up in front of me, the universal okay, I’ll stop. Though since I knew he’d never physically hurt me, part of me wanted to reach for my wallet again just to see what he’d do.

  After stuffing his credit card back in his wallet, he dropped his arm around my waist to usher me through the revolving door that led outside. Several trails branched off from the spot where we stood. The extreme package came with four attractions. We needed to present our tickets at each attraction of our choosing, and the attendant would use a hole-punch to prove we’d participated.

  Len apparently knew which attraction he wanted first because he spent all of five seconds looking at the map before grabbing hold of my hand and dragging me towards one of the trails. As tends to happen, the temperature dropped the farther in the forest we walked. Crickets and my guess, toads, chirped. Birds sang. It smelled fresh and damp. The tip of my nose went numb from the chill.

  Finally, we reached a clearing and our first challenge on this adventure. A—I used my finger to count—four-story rock wall.

  “Len, I can’t do that. It’s too high.”

  “You can do it,” he assured me. Well, tried to assure me.

  “I can—”

  “She’s first.” He was big on cutting people off today. Then before I could back out, he handed my ticket over to the attendant.

  The attendant punched a hole in the top left corner of the thick paper, handed it back to Len and told him, “You have to wait here.”

  Next thing I knew I was being trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey in a harness hooked to a bungee cord, which they’d attached to the top of the rock wall. And a helmet secured to my head.

  “Try to find the biggest hand and footholds. It’ll take the strain off your arm muscles,” the attendant said.

  Then he swatted my behind to get me moving like he were a coach and I was one of his players.

  Len started shouting his encouragements to me right away, though I had to ignore him to concentrate.

  I stood in front of the behemoth, contemplating each move before ever grabbing the first hold. It was slow-going. I had to stop to rest every second advance. Here I always thought I was in shape, but I supposed there was a big difference between “in shape” and “rock-climbing in shape.”

  About halfway up, Len’s encouragements sounded as if they came from beside me instead of below me. I kept plugging away. Up two, rest. Up two, rest. Up two, rest.

  Until—what the heck was going on? It sounded like Len’s encouragements came from above me now. I looked up and sure enough, a harnessed, helmeted Len waited at the top of the rock wall.

  “Come on, fearless,” he said. “You got this.”

  What could I do besides m
ake a final great push for the top? I didn’t want to disappoint Len… or myself if being honest. I took the last four advances without stopping. When I got to the top, he wrapped one arm around my waist to pull me close and planted a big, wet kiss to my forehead.

  “You did it, baby,” he whispered right before letting loose an ear-piercing, “Woo!”

  I shifted in his arms, holding on to the top of the wall with one hand, just as he did, to stare out at the vastness of the forest. The trees. The sky. What a rush. In that moment, I felt like my brother was looking down on me, smiling. Tears, happy yet tears nonetheless, filled my eyes.

  “This is incredible,” I whispered.

  “I got it all,” the attendant called up to us.

  When I looked down, he had Len’s phone in hand.

  “Did he video us?” I asked Len.

  Len didn’t answer, but snared me in a killer—and by killer, I mean glorious—lip lock, right before he tightened his grip around my waist and pushed off the wall. We floated down and were greeted by the attendant at the bottom, who handed off Len’s phone so he could unhook us.

  “That was amazing,” I shouted to everyone in earshot.

  “We still have three more to go.” Len urged us away from the rock wall, taking us down another trail.

  A ten-minute walk from the wall later had us climbing to the top of a—again I used my finger to count—this time six-story tower after getting the second hole-punch and once again being harnessed.

  My thighs burned by the time we rounded the platform to the sixth story. That had to be the most wooden steps I’d stepped in my life for a single climbing adventure. And there was only one way down from here. Len expected me to zipline down, across a large pond or small lake, until I reached ground on the other side.

  I covered my eyes with both hands. “I don’t think I can do this,” I said, somewhat panicked.

  “You’re my fearless girl. Yes, you can.”

  But I wasn’t his. I was fake his. And although fake his could probably do it, real me started to become dizzy. “No, Len. I don’t think I can.”

  “Look at me, Kam.”

  I turned to stare deep into those gorgeous blues.

  “Kam… time to do that dare,” he sang to me.

  “No, Len. I’d rather wash my hair,” I tried to sing the lyrics I’d made up in the car, though they sounded weak, squeaky and flat. “Did you hear that? Flat. Which is how I’ll end up if I fall. Do you really want that on your consonance? For me to die.”

  “You’d hardly be any good to me dead, fearless. But I’ll concede, maybe it was the wrong song choice. Let me think.” He paused for a second. “Right. I got it.” Then he started singing, “That girl she bold, she fearless don’t you know…” The next words came unintelligible because I didn’t think he knew them. But then he hit the chorus, “She a badarse mutha f—”

  I covered his mouth with my hand. He sang “arse” for me, but what did one replace the F-word with?

  “Okay, okay…” I laughed. “I never heard that one.”

  “And you wouldn’t. I made it up.”

  “Wow, I’m impressed.”

  “Good, now move your cute butt.” He spun me around and shoved me off the ledge.

  He shoved me off the ledge.

  “Ohmygosh,” I screamed as I zipped down the line. The wind whipped at my face. I choked and coughed when a bug flew down my throat because I was stupid enough to scream while ziplining.

  Still, nothing I’d done so far compared to the exhilaration of speeding toward the hard, packed earth while my fake boyfriend cheered behind me. There were hoots and yelps from the ground, people watching or waiting their turns.

  And so caught up in the rush, I almost forgot to lift my legs at the bottom so I didn’t hit them against the wooden ramp and end up with two broken legs or possibly a broken back. Last minute, I remembered and lifted, jarring to a stop when the attendant waiting to receive me grabbed my harness.

  All smiles, I jumped up and down and hugged the attendant.

  “That was amazing,” I called to Len, who didn’t have to be shoved, but leapt from the platform to begin his zip.

  It felt like seconds slowed to millennia while I was up there, but watching him, the seconds sped up to milliseconds. Faster than fast, he touched down, much more gracefully than me. But the man jumped from airplanes for a living, so I wouldn’t expect anything less.

  The Jump

  Seven:

  The man just kept upping his game. Rock walls and ziplines should have been the pinnacle, but no. Not with Lennon as my guide. From the zipline, we took the trail to the right. I smelled the heat before I felt it.

  And boy, did I feel it coming off a long pit carved out in a flat area of grass and dirt. Len got our tickets punched and a pretty blonde woman led us up to said pit. A pit full of burning charcoal. Some red-hot and some whiter-hotter.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

  “Nope,” he replied.

  “Uh, yeah…” I pointed to the pit. “That’s not happening.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Take your shoes off and roll up your pant legs,” this new attendant ordered.

  It felt like an out-of-body experience as Len walked me over to the cement bench and held my hand while I sat. He pulled off my shoes and socks, then rolled up my pant legs. Sitting next to me, he did the same for himself. We stood and then before I could throw my impending hissy fit, he had me at the base of the pit while the blonde explained the rules.

  “We suggest walking fast, but try to keep your feet flat. It disperses the heat better so you don’t end up charring your skin. When you get to the other side, cool your feet off in the pool. Got it?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “Great. Remember, pressure points are bad. Now go.”

  And because I was apparently good at taking orders but bad at self-preservation now, I stepped onto the coals but didn’t linger.

  No pressure points.

  Walk fast.

  The heat radiated up through my feet, but oddly enough by following her directions, it didn’t burn like I thought it would. More uncomfortable than outright pain. Then yeah, I did it. My feet. Hot coals. Easy-peasy. I stepped onto the grass at the opposite end of the pit, where I was ushered by a second attendant into the small in-ground wading pool to cool my toesies thoroughly.

  Black coal dust drifted from my feet and dissolved from the chemicals—I smelled vinegar—in the water. The attendant let me stay standing in the pool while we watched Len walk across the pit.

  He barely bent his knees and his toes were spread out wide, arms out to his side for balance, which made him look like a fast-walking Frankenstein’s monster.

  Did I look like that?

  I doubled over laughing. So much the attendant had to move me so Len could soak his feet too.

  “Never done that one before,” he admitted.

  My laughter died on my tongue abruptly. “What?”

  “Yeah, that was a first.” He shrugged. “And I knew they did it here, so…”

  “What’d you think?”

  “I’m probably not going to be a professional coal walker. But I’m glad I did it.”

  Hearing him say that, I admitted my truth. “Me, too.”

  Since there weren’t any more customers yet, they let Len and me sit soaking our feet in the water a while longer. He wrapped an arm around my waist and drew me to him. I rested my head against his shoulder.

  “Today was fun,” I admitted.

  “It ain’t over, fearless. We got one more to go.”

  Like with all the other challenges, the attendant videoed this latest escapade for us. Messages popped up by the tens and twenties of all the people who’d seen us climb the rock wall and then zipline down on my social media accounts.

  One in particular caught my eye.

  Brian: Proud of you, Kams. You look gr8.

  Hmm… I looked great, huh? Well, I wondered how New Zea
land Kiki would feel about his comment. What did it matter? I had Len sitting next to me. His arm around me. My head on his shoulder. I’d never have done any of this without him. Brian could take his proud-of-you and shove it where the sun don’t shine.

  He never tried to help me past my issues. He’d simply replaced me well before I’d known I was being replaced.

  Gah. This was bad. Mayday. Mayday. My resistance ship was going down. We’d moved past screaming crush two challenges ago. I was falling for Lennon.

  I was falling for him and he was bound to break my heart. At some point someone as great as Len was bound to meet a girl he wanted for a real girlfriend. And any girl with functioning brain cells in her head would want him back.

  “Ready?” he asked, placing a kiss to my temple.

  “Mmm… yeah.”

  The final challenge I didn’t understand. It started out like all the others, mainly us taking the walking trail to our destination. But our destination brought us back to the front building. Though instead of going back into the lobby, Len veered us right to a different door. Inside was a reptile house. Reptiles never scared me. Every species lived behind glass with heating lamps to keep them warm. We stopped at each of the habitats. Snakes and lizards. One handler was mid-drop with a freeze-dried mouse into a rattler’s terrarium. We stayed long enough to watch it shake his namesake rattle and launch, fangs bared, at the dead rodent, swallowing it down in two gulps. The way the muscles rippled forcing the furry meal down the snake’s throat fascinated me.

  In the middle of the room, they’d set up a small stadium-style bench seating area. Shallow steps moved down toward a heavy-duty stone and cement table, and what looked like a coat tree for handler hooks.

  Len led me down to the front, where we took the center spots. Although we were the first, it didn’t take long for other people to file in and fill the seats. One main handler walked out and welcomed us. He began explaining about the hooks. The food they fed the snakes and lizards. And other interesting facts about reptiles.