“I’m not shushing you.”
“You just did.”
“It’s just . . . your voice, it’s kind of loud right now.”
“My voice is loud?”
“Not in a bad way,” I said quickly.
“Uh-huh.” She took a step back from me. Put her hands on her narrow hips. “Well, you need to tell me where you’ve been. Tomás said he saw you pull in over half an hour ago, but I haven’t seen you anywhere. You didn’t even text me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t ask if you were sorry.”
“Walt and I were just hanging out.”
“Walt?”
“Nunez.”
“Oh.” Rose made a sound of impatience. She clearly didn’t care what I’d been doing. “Well, come on. They’re waiting.”
“Who’s waiting?”
“Just come on!”
She laughed and pulled my arm, harder than I liked, and I didn’t have time to do more than shout a harried “Bye!” to Walt before turning and racing with Rose back up the drive. Despite the inside of the house being off-limits, she pushed through the crowd and dragged me up the porch steps and marched straight into the kitchen. The lights were on and the place was a mess, food was everywhere, bottles, too, but the room was empty.
Rose stormed around the kitchen. “Goddamn it.”
“What?”
“They’re all gone!”
“Who’s gone?”
“Everyone!”
“Hey, assholes, I’m still here.” I glanced over the bar into the adjoining family room and spied Archie DuPraw slouched in an oversize recliner. He was a mess. It looked like he’d been up for days: Solo cup in hand, stubbled chin to chest. His hooded eyes were bleary, and his greasy hair fell past his shoulders. Not to mention, there were unflattering food stains—or worse—dotting the front of his T-shirt. He was also looking right at Rose. At her tits, really, from what I could tell—she had on this little tank-top thing—giving me the urge to strangle him.
Rose made a face. “Forget it, let’s go.”
“Who were you looking for?” I asked.
“Doesn’t matter. Let’s get a drink.”
“All right,” I said, eager to be alone with her or at least out of that brightly lit room. We turned to leave.
“So it’s going to be like that?” Archie called after us.
Neither of us answered.
“You’re a bitch, Rose Augustine,” he called out louder. “You know that? Una puta. A stuck-up Spanish bitch.”
I tensed. Froze mid-step at his words. “You want me to say something to him?”
Rose rolled her eyes before kicking open the door and pushing me through it, back into the night. “God, no. That’s the last thing I want.”
Then we were outside on the porch, and despite her bravado, she looked small suddenly, fragile, just standing there, with her bony shoulders shivering, while duskywing moths dove and danced against the carriage light above us.
I reached to touch her, protect her. “You sure you don’t want me to talk to Archie? He shouldn’t have said that to you.”
Rose shoved my hand away. Smacked it really. “What did I just fucking tell you?”
I recoiled. “I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
Her eyes flashed. “Why the hell are you sorry?”
“I don’t know.” I stared at my feet and wondered what was wrong with me. My head felt fuzzy. Miserably so.
But then Rose was in my arms again, returning to me with her own winged dance, cooing and stroking and kissing me everywhere. “Shit. Shit. I’m the one who’s sorry, Ben. All right? Forget it. I was just being a bitch. I love you. Okay? I love you and I don’t deserve you and I hope you know how goddamn good you are.”
—
Rose never told me what she’d been doing in the kitchen that night or who she’d been doing it with, but I also never thought to ask. My takeaway was that Archie thought Rose was a stuck-up bitch, and that was fine by me. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
But now, being up on that mountain with both of them, drunk and jealous, my ego wounded, my heart brimming with guilt, the events of that night began to jitter around inside my mind. Over and over.
Because something had happened between them. It also seemed more had happened since. And I, who was indeed never without my Rose, had no idea what it was.
23.
NOTHING GOOD CAME of my moping. Nothing good ever did. But I was saved from saying anything stupid or drinking myself into a coma when Shelby shook my shoulder and told me to get up.
“Leave me alone,” I mumbled.
“You really don’t want me to do that.”
“Why would I say it if I didn’t want you to do it?”
“Are you joking right now? Rose, is he joking?”
“Move your shit, Ben,” Rose said lightly. “You can thank us later.”
Thank who? I opened my eyes and saw what the rest of them had already seen: the bobbing lights in the distance indicating stargazing had ended and that Mr. Howe and the rest of the group were minutes away from returning to camp.
Shit. I scrambled to my feet. The four of us flew into action. Shelby sprayed everyone’s mouth with Binaca while Archie jammed the Jim Beam into his backpack so fast he managed to kick over the camping lantern we’d been using. It rolled away from us, straight down a small incline before coming to rest in a patch of yellow grass.
“Glad that runs on batteries,” Rose noted wryly as I scrambled after it. Shelby gave a sharp bleat of laughter, and that’s how that song about the Chicago fire started running through my head. The line about the cow kicking the lantern over seriously gave me the urge to hoof Archie DuPraw in the face.
And then they were back, the whole group, flooding over us in a discordant wave of laughter and warmth and stargazing camaraderie—they’d all just glimpsed the heavens. Avery flopped down in the spot where I’d been sitting and picked up my cards. Dunc followed right behind, while Tomás and Clay went to sit side by side on the edge of the meadow, both leaning back on their elbows to continue their gazing and leaving me with little doubt as to who Rose’s brother was fucking. Mr. Howe called to me from where he was standing near the tents. I jogged over to him and hoped to God the Binaca didn’t fail me.
“How was the hike?” I asked, because that seemed like a totally normal not-underage-and-trashed-out-of-my-mind type of inquiry.
“Fine. It was fine.” Mr. Howe rubbed at his forehead the way I sometimes did when I felt unwell. “We saw Venus out there. Jupiter, too.”
“With the telescope?” I nodded at the case he’d set by his feet.
“Yes. But they’re visible without. You can see them, too, if you want. Just head around that bluff far enough so the peak’s not in the way.” He yawned, covering his mouth with his hand. I made myself stare at the sky, to act like I was interested in what was out there, but tilting my head back set the universe spinning. A sickening loop of stars and galaxies and the vast unknown. I straightened up and focused on Mr. Howe’s bearded face instead.
“You look tired,” I said.
He smiled. “It’s been a long day.”
“Yeah, it has.”
“How’s your head?”
“It’s okay.”
Mr. Howe pulled his phone from his side pack and turned it on. “By the way, I wanted to show you this.”
I stared at the glow in confusion. “I thought that didn’t work out here.”
“The phone doesn’t. But there’s a barometric sensor built in that does. I used it to check the weather after what you said about a storm.”
That got me to lean closer. All I saw on the screen was something that looked like a car speedometer, with a needle swaying between an illustration of the sun and a g
loomy rain cloud. “What’s it say?”
“Looks like the atmospheric pressure’s dropping.”
“Does that mean a storm’s coming?”
“It means we’ll probably get some cloud cover tomorrow. Maybe a touch of moisture. We can check again in the morning. It’s a pattern over time that really tells you something.”
I nodded. We were both silent for a moment. Until anxiety wrestled away my better judgment.
“Can I ask you a question, Mr. Howe?”
“Sure.”
“How’d you meet Lucy?”
He slid his phone away before answering. “We met in college. At Berkeley. We ended up in the same co-op our sophomore year. Although we didn’t start dating until after we’d graduated.”
“Why not?”
“Well, we were both with other people at the time, and we were really good as friends. I guess we didn’t want to change that.”
“But you had to know at some point, right? That you wanted to be together? And that you made each other happy?”
He beamed. “Absolutely. I still know it. Every day I have with her is a joy.”
“That’s cool,” I said, although I wanted to ask if their life together was such a joy, why’d they spend so much of it apart? Her in DC, trying to change the world. Him on top of mountains, trying to conquer it.
Mr. Howe glanced over at me. “Where are these questions coming from? Is something going on with you and Rose?”
“Sort of. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?”
“I guess I don’t always know if she likes me.”
“You don’t know if she likes you?”
“No.”
“How many years have you been dating?”
“Two.”
“And that’s not long enough for you to figure that out?”
I rolled my shoulders and shuffled my feet, but liquor inspires honesty if nothing else. “Not really.”
“I see.” Mr. Howe did his beard-tugging thing. “Then can I give you a piece of advice? Something you might not want to hear?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Well, look, first of all, I know your mom. I’ve known Jana a long time, okay? We grew up together.”
“Okay.”
“I also know her life hasn’t been easy. With her mom dying the way she did, and her dad—well, none of that changes the fact that she probably doesn’t make your life too easy, either.” He paused. “But now you’re with Rose, Ben, and she’s different from your mom. That’s a good thing. It’s really good. But different can be tough to figure out sometimes. Just like it’s tough to grow up being told that when someone doesn’t want you it means they need you. Or that if something hurts it means you’re meant to do it again. It’s also tough to find out that with other people the opposite can be true.”
I was confused. “But Rose doesn’t hurt me.”
“Maybe that’s because you won’t let her.”
I frowned. I didn’t know what to say.
Mr. Howe put a hand on my shoulder. “Do you want me to explain what I mean?”
“No,” I said, more abruptly than I intended.
“Are you sure?” He drooped at my response, making me feel like an asshole and also embarrassed for him, because he seemed pretty eager to share whatever advice he had in mind. But I wasn’t in the mood for a father-son pep talk, despite knowing how deeply he longed to be someone’s father. More proof, I suppose, at how terrible I was at being a son.
“I’m sure.” The world beneath me was spinning again. I wanted the conversation to be over.
“All right, then,” Mr. Howe said. “I think it’s time for me to turn in. Make sure you get some sleep soon. Tomorrow’ll be another long day.”
“I will.”
“Those guys, too.” He nodded at the card game, which was growing rowdier by the minute.
“I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will.” Mr. Howe stretched and stifled another yawn with the back of his hand. “You’re a good kid, Ben. You really are. We make a good team, you and I. I hope you know that.” Then he smiled and gave me a quick wave good night, and I nodded and waved back and watched as he shuffled off with his telescope toward his small one-person tent.
Those were the last words he ever spoke to me.
DAY THREE
24.
I WOKE TO the sound of voices. Whispering. Laughter.
Followed by furtive shushing.
My eyes opened. I let them stay that way, despite a pounding headache. I was reluctant to slip back into dreaming. There was too much darkness sloshing around inside of me. Booze, too. Struggling to sit up, I realized I was still extremely drunk. And none the better for it.
The light inside the tent was grainy. We’d left the fly off, which meant I could see to the sky, those dappled bursts of the Milky Way, a swirling mix of stardust and memories. I turned my head to the side and looked for Rose. She wasn’t in her sleeping bag. In fact, she wasn’t in the tent at all. That was strange. She’d been in there earlier. I remembered that clearly. She’d put me to bed—giving me water and patting my back, imploring me not to puke in my sleep and die. I’d promised I wouldn’t. After that, I’d assumed she’d stayed with me.
Clearly not.
More whispering. It sounded farther away now and I was intrigued. I also had to piss, so I slipped on a pair of track pants and my hiking shoes with no socks and squeezed my way into the night.
“Shit!” I inhaled with a hiss as soon as I was on my feet, darting across the meadow like a rodent. I had no clue what time it was—it had to be after midnight—but the temperature had dropped significantly. My teeth chattered and bumps rose on my arms. I hurried to find a tree and a shadow, which was all the cover I needed. Pissing by moonlight wasn’t meant to be complicated, and that, I thought, was a wonderful thing.
When I was done with all that wondering, I searched for the voices I’d heard. The campsite itself was dark and still, but not far beyond the line of tents, at a point where the ground sloped toward the water, I spied a light. Or what I thought was a light. I stared at it for a few moments, my brain working slowly, unsure if I could trust what I was seeing. Finally, I staggered forward. Slowly at first, then faster.
There was nothing stealth in my approach. But the roar of the waterfall hid my footsteps and my chattering teeth until I came upon the source of the light and the whispers. Lights, plural, to be more precise. Because every single one of the six figures huddled together by the waterfall was holding a flashlight.
They didn’t notice me, just kept up with their talking or whatever it was they were doing. The sight of them out here in the middle of the night more than confused me. I was mystified. Because I recognized them all, even in my drunken haze: Archie, Dunc, Shelby, Tomás, Clay, and yes, Rose. My Rose.
I stood gaping at them. They were dressed in dark clothes, their voices low, urgent. And despite the moonlit cloud of pot smoke hovering in the air, it was clear this was not a party or a raucous game of cards or even a late-night round of drunken shit talking. No, this was a conversation.
A serious-sounding one.
My immediate inclination was to turn and leave. Because, like whatever it was Archie and Rose got up to when I wasn’t around, this clearly wasn’t meant to be my business.
But my cowardice became a moot point when Dunc turned and saw me. That goofy smile broke across his face.
“Hey, Ben,” he said easily. “Whatcha doing?”
“Who the fuck are you talking to?” That had to be Archie. He swung his flashlight into my eyes so that I couldn’t see.
“Ben?” someone else said.
Now there were more flashlights pointed at me. All of them. Hand over my eyes, I stumbled back, my foot landing in a hole and turning my ankle.
S
omeone grabbed my arm from behind. Steadied me. “Are you okay?”
Shelby. It was Shelby gripping me. I stared at her. Those wide blue eyes. That alluring mane of white-blond hair.
“Am I dreaming?” I asked.
She laughed, a high, tinkling sound. “I’ve heard that when you can’t sleep it means you’re awake in someone else’s dream. So maybe you are dreaming, just somewhere else.”
“Huh?”
“What’s he want?” Archie called. “What the hell’s he doing here?”
“I don’t know,” Shelby called back, but then she leaned close, her soft lips grazing my ear. “Maybe you should go back to bed. I don’t think you want to be here. Not for this.”
“Bring him over,” Archie shouted. “It’s okay. We need him.”
“What’s he saying?” I asked Shelby. I didn’t understand what was happening.
She shrugged, then motioned for me to follow her, which I did. Shelby loped ahead of my drunken stumbling with all the grace of a prancing horse before gesturing in a dramatic flourish as she delivered me to Archie. I stood before him as he lowered his flashlight, allowing me to see the wide Cheshire grin stretched across his face.
“What’d you need me for?” I asked.
“What else?” he said smoothly. “Your navigational skills.”
—
“Wait.” I stared at the others and felt lost. The constant rush of the waterfall was sucking sound and reason from the air. An aquatic event horizon. “What are you talking about? What are you guys doing?”
“Ben, Ben, Ben.” Shelby continued her bouncing, skipping around the circle like something out of a fairy tale, wild hair flowing behind her. The rest of them just stood like statues, watching me, the expressions on their faces unreadable.
I went to Rose.
“Hi,” she said.
“You left me.”
“You were passed out.”
“I was asleep.”
She shrugged. “I couldn’t wake you.”
Had she tried? Archie swooped in before I could ask, slinging his arm over my shoulder like we were the very best of friends. I felt ready to vomit. He reeked of whiskey and worse.
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