Going Solo

by Cynthia Baxter

The path the two girls went down was, indeed, less traveled. In fact, it wasn’t long before it dwindled down to nothing, ending at a small stream.

  “Great.” Tiffany was scowling. “What is this, the end of the world or something?”

  “Wait a minute. You’re the one who chose this route, remember? I wanted to take the other path.”

  “All right, all right. So you have excellent judgment, and mine stinks. What’s the big deal? Let’s just retrace our steps and take the other path.’’

  The girls were silent as they turned around and headed back. They walked and walked, expecting to find the fork in the trail that they had come across earlier. But even though both of them had their eyes glued to the ground, looking for something familiar, they couldn’t find that same spot.

  “Things sure look different this time, don’t they?” Megan said, starting to sound a bit nervous.

  “What are you talking about? Everything looks the same around here. It’s just trees and rocks, that’s all. Hey, look at that big tree stump. I don’t remember passing that before, do you?”

  “Uh, no, I don’t.” Megan stopped walking. “Tiffany,” she said, her voice trembling, “I think we’re lost.”

  “We’re not lost,” Tiffany snapped. “And don’t you go all weepy on me, Megan Davis. The last thing I need right now is to have a crybaby on my hands.”

  She took another step, determined to go on, then let out a yelp as her foot hit a sharp rock.

  “What happened? Are you all right?”

  “Oh, it’s just my darned sandal. It broke again. And the buckle... oh, dear, it’s fallen off completely. Now I’ll never get it back on.” She reached down and took off the sandal. “Terrific,” she said. “We’re lost, and I can’t even walk anymore.”

  “First of all, you were right before. We’re not lost,” Megan insisted. “We’re simply ... disoriented. It’s just going to take us a few minutes longer to find our parents than we expected, that’s all.”

  “And how am I supposed to get around?” Tiffany demanded. “All I need is a scorpion bite on my foot.”

  Megan was horrified. “Scorpions? There are scorpions around here?”

  “I was joking. Look, there’s only one thing to do in a situation like this, one where we’re, uh, disoriented.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Yell our heads off.”

  With that, Tiffany started screaming, “Daddy! Daddy!” as loud as she could.

  Megan hesitated only a moment before joining in. “Mother! Mr. Forrester! Help! We need help!”

  The only sound they heard in return, however, was the echo of their own voices.

  “We’d better stop,” Tiffany finally said. “We don’t want to attract any bears.”

  “Oh, you’re just kidding again ... right?”

  Tiffany didn’t even answer. She was too busy wondering the same thing herself.

  “Well, we have two choices,” she finally said. “Either we can sit here and wait for some forest ranger to find us, or we can keep walking, hoping we find civilization. Which would you rather do?”

  “I think we should keep walking,” Megan said.

  “Okay.” Tiffany took a step forward, then stopped. “Oh, great. I forgot. My sandal. It’s broken, remember?”

  “Here,” said Megan. “Take my shoe. I’ll walk barefoot for a while. Then, when I get tired, you can take a turn, okay?”

  Tiffany just looked at her for a few seconds. “You would do that... for me? Walk barefoot in the woods?’’

  “Well, sure,” Megan replied, a little uncomfortable over having been challenged about a charitable act.

  “You could just leave me here, you know. You could try to find help and then send somebody back to find me.”

  “I would never leave you out here all alone, Tiffany,” Megan protested.

  “Why, because you’d be safer with another person?”

  “No, that’s not it at all. I wouldn’t leave you here because I know you’d be afraid.’’

  Tiffany just stared at her. “My, my. You do have a good heart, don’t you? Or are you trying to earn good-neighbor points for a Girl Scout badge?”

  “Oh, Tiffany, don’t you get it yet?” Megan asked, exasperated. “We’re friends, you and me. We’ve spent weeks living together in the same dorm room. I even kind of like you. I don’t want to argue with you all the time. I want us to get along. Is that so hard to accept?”

  Tiffany didn’t know if it was her fear over being lost, frustration over being out in the woods with no shoe, or a sincere reaction to what Megan was saying, but suddenly she burst into tears.

  “Oh, Megan!” she cried. “Why is it always so hard for me to let people be nice to me? And why is it always so hard for me to be nice back?’’

  “Maybe it’s because you’re afraid people won’t like you for what you are,” Megan said gently. “I know that whenever I’m feeling shy—which is most of the time, it turns out— if I step back and think about what’s going on with me, I usually find that I’m just feeling insecure. You know, sometimes people think I’m a snob and ...”

  “You?” Tiffany could hardly believe her ears. “Who could ever think that of you? You’re the least snobby person I’ve ever met in my life!’’

  “It’s because sometimes when I’m in a new situation I don’t say very much. It’s because I’m scared, but people often think I’m quiet because I think I’m better than everybody else.

  “You see, Tiffany, everybody is afraid of what other people are going to think of them. And everybody deals with it in a different way. I tend to retreat. And, you, I think, tend to attack. It’s just two different ways of coping with the exact same basic insecurity.”

  Tiffany sighed. “I’m sorry I’ve been nasty to you all summer, Megan. It’s partly because I didn’t want to come up here in the first place. I’ve been taking it out on you and Allegra and everybody else. Did you know that coming up here to Wildwood this summer cost me my boyfriend? As soon as I left, he went out and found somebody else.”

  “Then he couldn’t have been much of a boyfriend,” Megan said gently.

  Tiffany was silent for a few seconds. “I never thought of it that way. I guess maybe you’re right.”

  A worried expression crossed Megan’s face. “Look, Tiffany, I’m really glad you and I are having a chance to talk and clear the air a little. But we can’t lose sight of the fact that we have to get ourselves out of here. Don’t forget, I have a concert to give tonight.”

  “Oh, we’ll be out of here long before that,” Tiffany said with a wave of her hand. And then, in a quiet voice, she added, “Won’t we?”

  The two girls trudged on and on, still looking for something familiar, some sign, some trace of civilization. All they found was a candy wrapper, tucked into the bushes. They weren’t talking anymore. At one point, Tiffany stumbled and got a big bruise on her arm. She also tore her dress. Megan, meanwhile, was being chewed up by mosquitoes. There was a big swelling on her forehead.

  “You’re going to look great on that stage tonight,” Tiffany teased. “You look like you got smacked with a baseball.”

  “That is, if I make it to the stage,” Megan said ruefully. “The later it gets, the less convinced I am that I’ll be performing my concerto tonight.”

  Tiffany didn’t reply.

  Finally, after the girls had been walking for over an hour, Tiffany sank to the ground.

  “I’m exhausted!” she cried. “I can’t go on anymore!” She took off Megan’s shoe and found a big blister on her heel. “This shoe is too tight, and I’m thirsty and I’m hot and ... and I want to get out of here! I want to go home!’’

  Megan sat down beside her. Her bare foot was also bruised.

  “I’m tired, too, Tiffany,” she said gently. “But I don’t think we should stop. There’s still a chance....”

  “We’re never going to get out of here! Never!” Tiffany wailed. “It’s going to get dark, and we’re going to get
eaten by bugs.... And maybe even the bears will get us!” She started to cry.

  “Oh, Tiffany, don’t give up!” Megan insisted, reaching over and hugging her tight. “Someone will find us! I know they’ll find us! There are probably helicopters out looking for us right now! Do you think our parents will just leave us here? They’ve figured out that we’re lost, and I’m sure they’ve got the forest rangers out in droves trying to track us down.’’

  Wanting to give Tiffany hope, she went on. “Look, can’t you just picture your father demanding to see the head forest ranger? Why, he’s probably got a call in to Washington, D.C. He’s probably got the president on the phone! You know how he is.”

  Tiffany laughed, despite herself. “You’re right. My father is definitely not the type to stand by and wait. He probably rented a helicopter of his own and is out yelling at some pilot, making him look for us under every single tree in this place!’’

  The two girls were heartened by the picture they had conjured up, laughing together as they imagined all the effort that was going into their discovery. They sat side by side on a clump of moss, their arms around each other, giggling hysterically as they took advantage of an opportunity to release some of the tension that was pent up in them both.

  And then Tiffany said, “You know, Megan, you’ve really turned out to be a good friend. I know this sounds kind of corny, but I want to thank you for getting me through this. You’re right; sooner or later, somebody will find us. We just have to wait it out. But do you know what? Maybe it’ll even turn out that you and me getting lost in the woods like this wasn’t such a bad thing, after all. Because you know what? It’s helped convince me that I’d actually be lucky to have you for a sister.”

  “Tiffany,’’ Megan replied in a hoarse voice, “that doesn’t sound corny at all. In fact, it sounds very, very nice.”

  * * * *

  It wasn’t long after that that Megan and Tiffany heard the sound of a low-flying helicopter. They looked up, not quite able to believe their ears. Sure enough, there it was, hovering not too far overhead. They stood up on rocks and waved their arms and yelled. Within minutes they were lifted up into the sky, into safety and out of the Mount Arden Nature Preserve.

  They were exhausted—but at the same time they were exhilarated. After thanking the forest rangers over and over again, the girls and their parents drove back to the Clayton College campus. Tiffany and Megan never stopped talking, excitedly filling the greatly relieved Arthur and Joanna in on the details of their adventure.

  “You should have seen her!” Tiffany said. “Megan is a real trooper. She never lost heart, not for a moment!”

  “Well, what about you?” Megan countered. “You didn’t even complain once about the fact that my shoe was too tight for you. And wow! Look at the size of that blister! It’s amazing you could walk at all!”

  And neither Tiffany’s father nor Megan’s mother commented on the fact that during the entire drive back, the girls never stopped holding each other’s hands.

  When they arrived on campus, Megan and Tiffany were treated like celebrities. Word that they were missing had filtered through when Mr. Forrester called the dorm earlier to see if, somehow, they had managed to get back there on their own.

  After being hugged a lot in the lobby of Ellis Hall by the unofficial welcoming committee that had gathered there to await their return, the girls headed upstairs. Megan went right to her room, wanting to rest up before that night’s concert. Tiffany, however, made a beeline for another dorm room, one she had never visited before.

  “Mark? Are you in here?” she asked, knocking softly on his door.

  He opened it, looking as pleased to see her as he was surprised.

  “Tiffany! You made it back! I was worried sick! When I heard you and Megan were missing, I—I...” He laughed sheepishly. “And they say big boys don’t cry.”

  “Well, I’m here now,” she said. “Is it okay if I come in?”

  “Sure! Of course! I, uh, the place is kind of a mess, but ...”

  “That’s all right. I came to talk to you, not lecture you on housekeeping.”

  She came in and sat down on the chair he had quickly cleared of music, socks, and records.

  “So what happened up there in the mountains?’’ he asked, looking concerned as he sat down on the floor.

  “Oh, a lot of things, actually.”

  “You mean like wild animals and stuff?” His expression was one of concern.

  Tiffany laughed. “No, nothing that exciting, I’m afraid. Although it’s easy to say that now, but at the time, I would have died if I’d seen anything bigger than a chipmunk! No, actually things were pretty quiet. I mean, we were scared.... Petrified, in fact. But we made it through without anything really terrible happening.

  “But in a way, it was important, because being stuck out there in the middle of no place with Megan, not knowing what was going to happen or even if we were ever going to get out of there, made me realize a lot of things.”

  “What kind of things?”

  Tiffany thought for a few seconds. “Oh, like the fact that maybe Megan isn’t so bad, after all.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Mark said. “Especially since I hear that her mom and your dad are pretty tight these days.”

  “That’s right, they are. And who knows? Maybe I’ll even end up with a stepsister. I could think of worse things. But there’s something else I realized, too.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “While Megan and I were walking—and we sure did a lot of that today!—I was thinking the whole time about what was really important. I mean, being stuck out there with no water and no food and not even a shoe, for heaven’s sake, got me wondering about what kinds of things really matter in a person’s life. And I remembered what you said to me once. It was right after that dinner party I went to with Jason Diamond. Well, I sort of went with Jason. Anyway, when you drove me home, you said something about how you believed that one day I’d come to see what the really important things in life were.

  “Well, thinking about that was partly how I came to change my mind about Megan. You should have seen how nice she was to me while we were out in the woods together. I realized that she really cared about me, you know? And I hadn’t even had to do anything great to deserve it.

  “Anyway, seeing Megan in a different light also got me thinking about some other people I know.’’

  “Oh, yeah?” Mark’s voice suddenly sounded funny, as if perhaps he had an idea of where all this was leading. “Some other people—like maybe some people who are in this room right now?”

  Tiffany laughed. Then she got up from the chair and sat down on the floor.

  “Yes, Mark. Like maybe some people who are in this room right now. Maybe you’ve been right all along. Maybe I have been concentrating on the wrong things—and missing out on too many of the right things.’’

  With that, she leaned over and kissed him.

  When she pulled back a few seconds later, Mark looked dazed, as if he couldn’t quite believe what had just happened.

  “Wow. Am I dreaming or something?”

  “No, Mark, you’re not dreaming. This is real.”

  And then his face softened into a smile. “Gosh, Tiff, I don’t know what happened up there in the woods, but I wish I’d sent you up there a long time ago. I mean, our summer up here at Wildwood is almost over!”

  “That’s okay,’’ she said gently. “You live on Long Island, and I live in Scarsdale. They’re not that far away from each other, and there are trains between the two places. So it looks as if you and I have got all the time in the world.”

  And she leaned forward and kissed him again.

  Chapter Twenty

  “So, Allegra, This is where you and your two roommates have been living all summer,” said Paolo Ferrante, wandering around his daughter’s large, airy room in Ellis Hall. “It is very nice. Is this also where you’ve been practicing?”

  “We’d love to se
e where the student orchestra has been rehearsing, too,” Catherine Lafarge added. She was standing over by the window, gazing out at the grounds of the campus. “Is that the auditorium, over there? Oh, Allegra, this is such a lovely place. It must have been very inspiring for you musically, spending the summer in such beautiful surroundings.”

  “It seems to have suited her,” Allegra’s father said with a nod. “After all, she is the one who won the concerto contest. Our daughter is the one who will be performing the Mendelssohn in just two short hours.” He stood up a little taller, a little straighter, obviously quite proud of his daughter’s achievement.

  Allegra, meanwhile, was miserable. She hadn’t realized it was going to be so difficult, lying to her parents. Or if not actually lying to them, then at least withholding information. It had been hard enough when they had been hundreds of miles away, and she had been carrying out her deceit over the telephone. Now that they were here on the Clayton College campus, right in her room, she felt as if everything were closing in on her.

  But it was too late. She had already made her decision, weeks earlier. And she knew in her heart that it was the right decision for her.

  Now if only I can continue to stand up for myself! she thought, nervous and distressed and wondering, for the first time, whether or not she would really be able to carry this off.

  “What do you think of all this, Pierre?” she asked then, turning to her brother for moral support. After all, having him there, on her side, had always been helpful in the past.

  And when she saw his knowing grin, she did feel a little bit better.

  “I think ... I think being in this place all summer has really made you blossom,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I’ve never seen you looking happier.”

  He knew, of course. She had told him over the phone. Allegra had discussed her strategy with him, wanting a second opinion and also wanting someone to help her carry out her plan. One aspect of that plan had been keeping her parents away from everyone else at Wildwood. After all, anyone they spoke to was bound to mention the fact that the winner of the student concerto competition had surprised everyone by backing down halfway through the summer, suddenly insisting that she didn’t really want to perform after all.