We explored for hours and barely felt the passage of time. When my sweatshirt grew too hot I shoved it into my backpack and only when I saw my food did I realize I was hungry again. I picked a lonely, wild spot, high up atop one of the fallen boulders and called Charlotte and Phillip to join me. As we ate we finally talked, found room for the words expanding inside us.
“How did I not know this was here?” I demanded of Phillip, as if he were to blame.
He tore into his sandwich and spoke around his bite. “It’s not well known. It’s great though, right?”
“It’s amazing,” Charlotte agreed. Even though I had braided her bangs out of her face the rest of her hair was getting in her way. I could tell by the way she kept shoving it aside like a reflex. I pulled out an extra rubber band and twisted her hair into a bun like mine. After my food was finished I laid back, stretched myself against the warm rock and stared into the blue dome of the sky.
“Let’s sleep here tonight,” I suggested. There was a sigh of contentment building in me, a feeling so free of worry I thought I would float away from the sudden weightlessness. I closed my eyes. “Charlotte, your dad would have loved this. I think he’s really happy we’re here right now.” Before I blinked my eyes open the shame slammed into me, pinned me back to the earth. How dare I pretend to know anything about her father?
She looked down at the plain of tumbled stones. “Do you think people last?” she asked quietly. “Do you think he still exists?”
“Do you?” Phillip punted the question but shifted closer to her side.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “Couldn’t we at least know that? Would it be too much for us just to know if someone exists? If we’re really real?”
I thought of the Sundays at church, the still lights of the chapel at evening services, the bent knees and bowed heads. I thought of the old women with plain faces and closed eyes. “I think we know,” I told her. “I think we last.”
“You believe that?” Charlotte asked, tilting her face toward Phillip.
He looked away, uncomfortable with our gazes. “I hope it.”
“So you think my dad can see us?” Charlotte directed her question to me.
“I hope so, because this weekend is pretty incredible and I hope he knows what a great list he made,” I said.
Phillip patted my knee and smiled while I pulled off one tennis shoe and slid down my sock to inspect a piece of my skin that felt sore and raw. A red blister shone on my smooth arch. I flinched when I saw it because looking at it made it hurt more.
“I can help with that,” Phillip said and pulled out his first aid kit. He had a soft piece of moleskin covering the wound in two minutes. “We should probably get over to the Shut-Ins now.” Charlotte and I both complained about leaving, begged for more time to explore the rocks. Phillip didn’t take pity. He only granted us thirty more minutes and promised we would like the next spot just as much.
“Not possible,” I said as I scrambled down to make the most of my remaining minutes with the stone giants.
CHAPTER 23
He promised we would get to Johnson Shut-Ins in fifteen minutes. It only took twelve. We pulled into an almost identical parking lot, with an almost identical bathroom and wooden plaques picturing local wildlife. The woods were exactly like the ones on Tom Sauk Mountain, tangled and thick, with the smell of the afternoon sun radiating off the foliage.
I raised my eyebrows. “Did we really have to leave Elephant Rocks? This looks just like our campground.”
“You will eat your words, my ignorant friend.” Phillip started down the paved walkway, past the information lodge and restrooms. We followed through the trees and over a wooden bridge, the path wound upward the entire way. It only took a few minutes before we reached the destination. I don’t know if I heard or smelled the river first, but this time there was awareness of water before I saw it. The trail curved us to the edge of a cliff where the woods stopped abruptly and fell away to a steep hillside before tumbling into the current. But this was not a placid, lazy river. Somehow it plowed straight through a tiny, worn mountain range. Below us stood a jungle of smooth gray boulders and pouring around them, through them, over them, were chutes of harried water, gushing in intricate patterns before emptying into a smooth pool and finally continuing the path of the river.
“This is only half of it,” Phillip told us. “In the spring the water is twice as high, twice as fast.” He pointed to our right where the cliff rose even steeper. “That’s where people jump off the cliffs. My entire troop did it. But now it’s illegal if they catch you.” I took an involuntary step back. The cliffs rose to dizzying heights above the still green water.
Charlotte raced down the hill, Phillip close behind, yelling that the water was faster than it looked. I marched slower, picking my steps with care. Phillip’s shirt was dark with sweat and I felt a dampness under my bra strap where the sun beat down on my back. This time I took off my shoes without being asked. Despite the heat of the air, the water was still half frozen.
“Why is it so cold?” I asked, pulling my foot back out and dipping in my fingers instead.
“It’s all spring-fed. It doesn’t have time to warm up when it comes straight from the ground.” Phillip followed Charlotte into the river, his hand extended protectively toward her. Like a big brother, I said to myself.
She gripped a boulder as she inched along and reached out for another before letting go of the first. Shuffling from rock to rock for balance against the current she grappled her way to the middle of the river. When she looked at us her face altered with suppressed need. “I want to go in.”
“You are in,” I said. The water pushed against her shins, bending her in its rush.
“I want to go down.” She stared at a chute of water running over an impossibly smooth slide of rock.
“How can this be natural?” I asked, staring from slide to slide. A water park would kill for an attraction like that.
“Do it,” Phil said, his smile curious, daring.
“Don’t,” I yelped. “You don’t have more clothes. You’ll be soaked and we’ll have to leave.”
She studied her t-shirt and the sweat pants she had shoved up high on her thighs. She gave the horizon a wide sweep, saw that a couple at the bottom of the rapids was walking away from us. “Not if I don’t get my clothes wet. Close your eyes.” Not waiting, she grabbed the bottom of her shirt and yanked up.
To his everlasting credit, Phillip spun around, laughing as he went. “Holy crap,” he said in a tone of undeniable admiration.
I, however, didn’t function as quickly and got a full view of her standing in her black sports bra. “Charlotte! People could come at any minute.” I grabbed a rock and pushed my way closer to her against the fast current.
“How is this different than a bikini?” she asked. “It covers more than a bikini.”
“You can get arrested for this and not a bikini,” I hissed.
“Then arrest me.” She pulled off her pants, revealing a pair of purple boy shorts underwear. I said a speedy prayer of thanks that she wasn’t a thong girl.
“See—more than a bikini,” she said pointing to her underwear.
“I’m not kidding. Did you have a crib with lead paint? Stop it.” I whipped my head backward to see if Phillip was still resisting temptation. He turned his head just enough to see me, but not Charlotte, and argued, “It really is like a bikini.”
“No, it’s not,” I yelled. “Turn around. Charlotte, this is crazy.”
“Isn’t that sort of the point of a bucket list—crazy?” She tossed me her balled up clothes, which I narrowly managed to catch without slipping. I couldn’t use my hands to grab her without losing them over the side of a waterfall. Knowing I was helpless to stop her and Phil wasn’t allowed to turn around, she sat down in the water, screamed as the cold water pummeled her spine, and pushed herself between the rocks. In a flash of underwear and hair and water, she was gone.
“Phillip!” I s
creamed. “She did it!” I shuffled as fast as I could back to him and threw her clothes on the bank. “Charlotte, are you okay?” The water pounded over my voice and I knew she’d never hear me.
Phillip finally turned around, still laughing. “She is all kinds of crazy. I love it.” He peeled off his shirt, turning to me at the last moment. “Does it upset you if I’m topless?” He skipped out of the way before I could hit him and started climbing down the nearest water slide. It was impossible to follow. The best I could do was crawl up a boulder for a better vantage point. Their separate paths had taken them in opposite directions. Charlotte was far to my left, playing in a pool where the water spilled in a thick fountain and Phillip was searching for her, a wall of boulders blocking his view.
“She’s that way,” I yelled down to him, pointing in the direction, unsure if I should be directing him toward or away from the undressed girl. I scrambled down into the knee deep water, surprised by the force of the current and the slickness of the river bottom. I slowed down, braced myself, and pulled my way from boulder to boulder until I reached the opposite bank closer to Charlotte. She made her way to the bottom of the slides where the water empties into a deep, calm pool.
“Are you coming in?” she asked when I finally managed to reach her after navigating a forest of wet boulders. The water rippled around her exposed head.
“No.” At least the water hid her body. “You really want to live the rest of your life knowing that Phillip saw you in your underwear?”
She interrupted her stroke to shrug. “It’s a sports bra. Girls exercise in them all the time in public. And he didn’t even look.” She was swimming toward the spot where Phillip said people wentcliff diving. Several red signs warned of $500 fines for jumping. The water was shadowed and dark green there, ominous in its stillness, and overpowered by the wall of rock rising above it.
“Charlotte, please come back. The water is deep over there.”
“I can swim,” was the reply she threw over her shoulder as she floated away.
“Phillip,” I called in desperation. He was still scouring around the falls. When he saw us below he made his way, but not in the panicked hurry I hoped for. “She’s swimming to the cliffs!”
“You make it sound like there’s sharks over there.” He grinned.
“Don’t follow me,” Charlotte yelled back. She paddled to the edge of the cliffs, just her head rising above the water and dwarfed by the wall of sheer rock that loomed over her.
“What are you doing now?” I cried when she paused in the water, turning in a slow circle.
Phillip reached me on the bank, craned his head to see where she was just as I realized what she was doing. “Turn around, Phillip,” I commanded him in a weak voice.
“Again?” he asked, obeying anyway as Charlotte’s hand reached out of the water holding something purple.
“I’m skinny dipping,” Charlotte yelled, answering our question from forty feet away.
I groaned, my legs buckled under me and I sat down hard on the ground.
Phillip whooped in celebration and dutifully kept his back turned while he did a dance. “Go, Charlotte!” he cheered.
She screamed and my heart careened up to my throat where it got stuck, cutting off my breath. “What happened?” I yelled, realizing I would have to be the one to jump in and rescue her.
“It just feels weird. I’m naked!” she shrieked. “I feel like a fish is going to bite me or something.”
“Be quiet,” I cried, scanning for witnesses. I tried to summon God under my breath but I wasn’t sure he did skinny-dipping duty. I imagined a thousand things in the water with her: snapping turtles, massive catfish, snakes, and despite every intelligent cell in my brain, thanks to Phil, sharks gliding under her bare toes. “Please get out now.” My voice had weakened to a whimper. “And don’t lose your underwear.”
Phillip shook his head, unable to wipe the smirk from his face. “She did it,” he announced in pride.
Charlotte paddled frantically in tiny, nervous strokes. I kept my eyes on her, alert for trouble or danger. Her wet hair had fallen down in dark ropes around her face. I gave a small gasp and wanted to say out loud that she looked like a mermaid, but I knew Phillip would want to turn around, so I kept quiet.
“I did it!” she shouted. One foot poked up in front of her as she contorted in the water to put her underwear back on. “I did it. This is so scary.”
As soon as she had managed to ‘dress’ she disappeared under the water, shooting back toward us and emerging where the pool grew shallow.
“Don’t get out yet.” I motioned toward her. “Just meet us back at the top. Stay close to the rocks for cover.” I could see hikers standing on the trail, watching now. I grabbed Phillip’s arm, prayed her underwear passed as a swimsuit from a distance, and tugged him back to our packs and dry clothes.
“That was awesome,” he said as we climbed over the wet rocks. “You should have done it, Megan.”
“I’m good, thanks.” We made it to our clothes, my jeans almost as soaked as Phillip’s. “I hate wet jeans more than anything in the world,” I complained.
“You can take them off,” he teased.
“I think you’ve seen plenty enough.”
“Calm down. I didn’t see one tiny thing. At least not with my eyes. Pretty good image in my brain.”
“I hate you.”
I pulled out my dry sweatshirt and waited for Charlotte to reappear. When she did, I turned Phillip away and offered it to her for a towel. She dried off with the outside, her hands shaking so hard she could barely hold onto it. I listened to her teeth chatter as the autumn breeze passed over her bare skin. When she finished she pulled my sweatshirt on, stretching it over the top of her bent knees that she pressed against her chest.
Phillip pulled out his fleece zip-up he’d worn that morning and offered it to her. She sat down on it, pulling the sleeves over her feet. Her lips trembled with cold as I squeezed out her hair, tilting her head back so the dripping water wouldn’t hit her shoulders. When it was as dry as I could manage I started combing it with my fingers, running through the snarls until it was smooth enough to braid. It was a good thing the sun was hot and persistent that day. It only took fifteen minutes for her skin to dry.
“That water is cold,” she spat out when she could get her mouth to form words. “Did you see what I did? I went skinny dipping! Those fish will be talking for years. Wait, do fish live for years?”
“Even if you get all dry you’ll have wet underwear for hours. Serves you right,” I pulled too hard on her hair, making her yelp. “If a park ranger comes right now I’ll have to explain why you are sitting here without pants on. What exactly do you want me to say?” I should have known better to give her an opening.
“Tell her my dead dad must have had a thing for fish,” she mumbled. Then she made an odd sound, a snicker. A laugh tumbled from her lips, caught the stirring wind and scattered around us. Inside of us. Phillip joined her first. I tried to resist. I bit my lips together, locked them under my stern teeth, but in the end it ran up and down my throat until I had to let it slide out. And I will never know why as I sat laughing beside the rolling river I had to hide my face in my hand and wipe warm tears from my eyes. It was a wonderful ache.
“You may be my kind of girl,” Phillip announced, his eyes locked on Charlotte’s wet face, splotched red with cold and sleeplessness.
“What? One with a pulse?” she snapped.
“Yes,” he agreed, ignoring her narrow eyes. “You’re completely alive.”
I flinched, lowered my hand from my eyes. I cannot say why his compliment to her felt more like an insult to me. What I heard, what snuck into my ears under his bright syllables was, “Megan is half dead. Always has been, always will be.”
Charlotte didn’t reply, just shimmied into her pants and picked up her backpack. “After we sleep in our hammocks tonight that will be four down.”
“That only leaves whitewater rafting a
nd walking you down the aisle,” Phillip said as she tugged on her shoes. “We are kicking this list’s butt.”
Charlotte looked up from tying her laces, her face cold and unreadable. “We only have the start of the list,” she reminded us, “He never finished it. He never finished anything.” She jerked to her feet without warning and walked away while we pulled on our shoes and called for her to stop. We didn’t find her until we got to the parking lot, seated on a fallen tree, peeling the leaves from a slim weed.
She didn’t give us any explanation and only five words. “Let’s get out of here.”
Phillip found a diner where we could stop for dinner, a dimly lit place, crowded with burgundy vinyl booths and cluttered with dusty artifacts from farms. I tore into my fried chicken, letting Phillip take over the conversation since Charlotte had barely spoken since we’d found her.
“It’s six thirty. It will be dark before we get back to our camp. That’s why I bought that bundle of wood at the gas station.”
“Your car smells weird,” Charlotte finally contributed as she flattened her mashed potatoes with her fork.
“It’s from all the dead bodies,” Phillip quipped back. “I’ll get the fire started, we can roast marshmallows and tell ghost stories. That’s what girls do, right? Or should we braid our hair some more?”
I glared. “I will happily cut your hair. Are you trying to go European or something? You’ll look like a girl in two more inches.” I fingered one of his dark curls that was growing brassy at the ends where it had been left in the sun all summer. “And I don’t believe in ghosts.”
The Truth About Fragile Things Page 14