7
Brianne
After a silent lunch where I wonder, again, what the hell I’m getting myself into, we pack our bags into Astrid’s truck and hit the road. We make two stops, to pick up food and a few first aid supplies because I didn’t think her kit was sufficient enough.
That had amused her. I’m quite sure she thinks she can stitch cuts back together with grass and twigs or some shit like that.
I like butterfly bandages and sterile water, personally.
As soon as we leave the city, though, my unease falls away. Ahead of us are mountains, and they are beautiful. Different from Colorado, but a similar kind of promise. Sore legs, happy lungs, bright sunshine on my face.
“You like the outdoors, obviously,” Astrid says from the driver’s seat.
I smile as I gaze out the window. “Obviously.”
“How long did you work for the Park Service?”
“Three summers, and then I got hired on a full-time contract in January.”
She doesn’t say anything, and I try to ignore the silence. She’s said she prefers it, and that’s okay. Weird, but fine. I like noise. I like talking. I’ll talk just to make chatter, just to fill a void, and actively not doing that is hard.
But this silence is different. She’s saying something by not saying anything at all.
I twist around to look at her. “It was worth it.”
She makes a slight face, like she’s not sure she believes me.
I’m not sure I believe me, either. “I think, anyway. I want it to be have been worth it. At the time…” I shake my head. Immediately after the election, federal employees had been muzzled. I’d been outraged, and like other rogue agents around the country, I took to Twitter and made an unofficial protest account.
How was I to know it would take off like that?
Would you have done it if you’d known it wouldn’t remain safe and anonymous? That’s the million-dollar question.
“You were angry and outraged,” she says softly. “Sometimes we don’t think clearly.”
I frown. “I knew it was a risk. Wait, you weren’t outraged?”
“I was.” She sighs. “I am. But I wasn’t shocked. That’s the difference between us, Brianne. I saw this coming a long time ago. I've been outraged for twenty-five years. You need to learn how to pace yourself.”
I fight back the urge to snap back. This time it’s different, this time more is on the line. Twenty-five years? I look at her again and try to figure out what I’m missing.
She sighs and rolls her head to one side, then the other. “I’m gay, Brianne. Growing up, I knew—before I even had the words for why I loved other girls, and not boys—that the future other people had offered to them was not available to me. I have lived my entire life angry and frustrated and pissed-off, and that doesn’t leave a lot of room for joy. Trust me when I say you need to pick your battles.”
Heat spikes inside me, embarrassed and ashamed. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m fine. I have found my joy, and I do what I can while not burning myself out. It’s a balance.”
What do you do? How do you find that balance? I want to ask a million questions, but I can’t.
For the first time since I arrived, I’m truly speechless.
But instead of sinking into the silence, Astrid keeps talking as the road twists and winds us closer to the mountains. Maybe they change her just as much as they change me.
“That’s why I’m here. I moved to Vancouver in 2003. As soon as Canada had legal gay marriage, I knew this was the place for me. And my wealth allowed me to immigrate here, which is a blessing I will always be grateful for.”
“Are you…” I trail off, thinking of her house, too big for one person.
“I thought there was someone who might follow me here,” she says. “I was wrong. But it didn’t change my decision. It reinforced that this was the right place for me, but also that not everyone has that option. Most people don’t.”
“We have gay marriage now,” I whisper.
“Yes. We worked hard for that.”
We?
“Not all advocacy is on Twitter,” she says more gently than I deserve. “What I’m saying is, actions speak louder than words.”
And I ran away after chirping behind an anonymous shield for months. “My actions say I’m a big scaredy-cat, then,” I mumble, and she laughs.
Astrid Dane has a lovely, incredible laugh. It’s rich and ringing, and it pushes right into my chest, scrubbing away the embarrassment that had lodged itself around my heart. “Are you looking to be punished for that?”
“I…” I sigh. “I think the whole thing has revealed me to be a little lost.”
“You’re what, twenty-two? Being lost is the name of the game.”
“Twenty-three.”
That makes her laugh again. “And the year makes all the difference.”
“I’m not a stupid kid,” I protest.
“Nobody said you were stupid,” she murmurs, her lips curling up at the ends. She doesn’t look my way, so I don’t get to glare at her about calling me a kid.
I look out the window instead. “Are we almost there?”
That makes her laugh again, which makes me smile, and it’s worth the fact that we’ve both now conceded I’m a child in the grand scheme of political protest compared to the all-knowing, all-seeing Astrid Dane.
She’s successful and beautiful and wealthy.
I’m a funny kid.
But I’m a funny kid who can climb like a billy goat, so as soon as we get up onto the mountain, I will be useful to her. And then we’ll see who’s laughing.
8
Astrid
That was the wrong thing to poke at, and I know it. But her youth is just so…tangible. So bright and effervescent and dewy.
Brianne the Kid.
Fantasy Girl.
Maybe I need to stop thinking of her as the sum of a nickname. My stomach twists. Brianne the Kid, the Fantasy Girl, the Rebel With a Cause. How many other layers does she have?
And how many of those layers will turn me on and make me ache?
All of them.
Damn it. I hate that that’s true.
We don’t talk as we drive through the village of Whistler and then up, higher, until the houses thin out and the trees take over again.
My cabin is nothing like my house in the city. That was…I don’t know what that was. A splurge, a protest, a declaration that I’m fine.
This little two-bedroom retreat, though…this is who I really am. As I turn into the lane, I wonder what Brianne will think.
She doesn’t let on. Her face, which has been nothing but expressive to date, is now shuttered tight.
Well, yeah, you called her a child.
Only a twenty-three-year-old wouldn’t take that as a compliment. I would love to be called a kid again.
Except no, I wouldn’t. Fuck.
That’s the kind of knee-jerk reaction I was just chiding her for, isn’t it?
“I’m sorry,” I say as I turn off the truck. I twist sideways and give her my full attention. “You aren’t a kid, either. You are a smart, capable, grown woman who is still figuring some shit out, like we all are. I have no doubt you will be an able assistant on this shoot.”
Her eyes go wide and her sweet, soft mouth falls open. “Thank you,” she says softly. “And thank you for the perspective, too. I’m…it’s easy to howl right now.”
“Oh, I’m familiar. I may not be on Twitter, but I watch the late-night comedians and read the newspaper on the weekend and make my weekly phone calls.”
“I bet your phone calls get heard, though.”
She’s not wrong. I don’t need to call a senator’s constituency office. “How about I show you inside, and then you can tell me more about your last eight months on Twitter?”
She waves her hand at the same time as she averts her gaze, turning her head to look at the cabin. “I’d rather prep for tomorrow.”
I can’t blame her.
I’ve hardly made myself out as the safest confidant. “All right. Let’s get unloaded.”
The cabin is small, so unlike at my home in North Van, I hear her constantly as we unpack and get re-packed for the morning.
The plan is to make the same ascent four times, each time starting a bit earlier. We have a back-up fifth day, just in case we can’t get up there in time for sunrise, or if I decide we need to go up in the afternoon and camp in order to get the sunrise.
“What time should I set my alarm for?” Brianne asks as she emerges from the second bedroom.
“I want to be in the truck at five-thirty, so it depends on how much time you need in the morning to shake off the fog of sleep.”
“I’m a morning person,” she says brightly, now back in her element of planning for a day in the great outdoors.
I fully recognize the irony here, because I’m the one who’s dragging us out of bed at the ass crack of dawn, but…of course she is. I am very much not. “I’ll be up at four-thirty,” I say as I prep the coffee maker. “And not really functional until five. Work around that.”
“Will do.”
I’m tempted to offer that we can drive into the village for dinner, but I don’t want to. I’m not up for waiting for food to arrive at our table, and dancing around conversation that isn’t about how cute and young and smart and fearless she is, because no good can come from that conversation. We had enough of that while trapped in the truck, and I’m sure it’ll come up again on the mountain tomorrow. And the day after that. And the—
“Honestly, we’re going to spend a lot of time together over the next few days,” I announce, cutting off my train of thought. “I’m going to head out and grab us some takeout for dinner. Do you need anything while I’m out?”
She gives me a cautious look. “No. I’ll just hang here. I’ve got a book or two.”
Good. Great. I nod and grab my keys. “Any requests?”
“Whatever you want is fine,” she says softly, leaning against the door of her bedroom.
No, it’s really, really not. “I’ll get Italian. We can use the carb-loading.”
Plus pasta makes me sleep like the dead, and I’d rather not dream of pixie haircuts again.
I stomp out to the truck and leap into the driver’s seat.
What the hell is wrong with me? I’m rapidly developing a full-on crush for someone, and all I can do is snap at her, like it’s somehow her fault I find her compelling. That’s not how it works, Astrid.
I know that.
I do. I just… I turn the key as my heart bounces around in my chest.
Nope, I don’t want to finish that thought. I just nothing.
I just need to climb a mountain and take four hundred pictures. That’s all.
Nothing more.
9
Brianne
As warned, Astrid is not a morning person. She leans against the kitchen counter with her back to the still-dark window and carefully drinks her first cup of coffee while she’s still in her PJs—soft waffle-knit pants and an even softer looking long t-shirt.
I’m always hot at night, so I got dressed before I came out of my room. I move around her quietly, getting myself a cup of coffee and a dense raisin oatmeal muffin, before I retreat to the other side of the small main space. I already know the answers to everything I’d ask her, and she doesn’t seem to like it when I ask again just to be sure.
I’m just following her today, anyway. Being used for my strong back, which I don’t mind in the least.
Her phone beeps quietly, and she takes two slow, steadying breaths before downing the rest of her second coffee. “Right. Give me five minutes to get dressed, then we’ll be off.”
Normal people say good morning.
Normal people also look you in the eye.
She does sometimes. She did in the truck yesterday before disappearing to get dinner. So I just need to reveal myself as incompetent and too young to be taken seriously for her to look at me.
I busy myself with the packs until she’s ready, then we step out into the cool, damp pre-dawn darkness.
The trail head is a ten-minute drive away from town, and when we park, we’re the only vehicle in the small lot. Astrid carries her camera pack, and I carry our day pack. Water, food, first aid kit, GPS transponder, and cell phones which may or may not work depending on the mobile phone gods.
Since this is my first time hiking this trail, I’m following her, but on subsequent days, I’m going to climb ahead of her with both packs, so she can travel light and take more pictures on the ascent.
We start to climb as the sky begins to lighten, and the first hour is a pretty straightforward walk uphill. The path is well maintained and wide, so for much of it we hike side by side.
Astrid points out how much of the tree growth is young. “A hundred years ago, trees couldn’t become established this far upslope. It’s not as obvious as the glacial erosion, but it’s concerning.”
I bet. “It would impact on the wildlife, for sure. When I was an undergraduate, I did a research term with a scientist looking at ground cover changes in the Colorado plains.”
She chuckles. “You say that like it was so long ago.”
“Three years.”
That gets a sharp, surprised look.
I shrug. “I started university when I was seventeen.”
“I don’t even remember seventeen.”
“Of course you do.”
She laughs. “You’re right. I was still staring at another six months of high school ahead of me and hating it.”
“Cutting class and smoking behind the gym?”
“I am not that cliched.” She stretches out the pause until I realize I’m right, and we both start laughing again. “Yeah. Something like that. More, uh, casual body modification than smoking, although I did some of that, too.”
I swallow my shocked response to that, because I’m not sure I want to know.
It takes almost three hours to reach the lookout where she’ll take the picture, the one that matches the others she’s taken so far.
Soon after we unpack, she pronounces that today is probably not the day, because the clouds aren’t cooperating. But she sets up and takes pictures over an hour, just in case. It’s amazing to watch her work. It’s a lot like field observation. Careful focus, tuning everything else out. I’m quite certain she’s not aware of me in the least.
I stay close in case she needs something, but turn my attention to the mountain we are on and the trail we’ve just climbed. The vegetation is totally different from the Rockies. It’s lush, like a rainforest, and the view that has captivated Astrid shows exactly why—because this mountain range is volcanic, with lots of hidden lakes. Not the stark, rocky outcroppings I’m used to.
I see why she loves it.
And she’s not alone. We are no longer alone. As the day progresses, the path gets busier. At first I think she’s successfully tuning the passersby out, but she twitches disapprovingly when two tourists stop to talk right next to her.
Was I supposed to intervene? Is ‘billy goat’ code for photography bouncer?
I move closer as they leave, and she sighs.
“Do you want me to growl at the next people who stop here?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. I’m done. Come on, I want to show you the rest of what we’ll climb at full speed tomorrow.”
She has it all planned out, and we’ve gone over the details. Seeing the path, though, changes my approach to her plan in minute ways.
I don’t know that I need to move on ahead of her when she’s documenting the ascent. The last hour, which we do in ninety minutes today, taking our today, is rougher underfoot. Lots of loose surface, and a steeper angle to climb.
But as advertised, I can climb anything. I can scale vertical rock face. With all due respect to the Coast Mountains, this isn’t that hard. And if I stay close to her, she can carry just the camera, and be even more nimble.
I’ll wait until tomorrow
to suggest that, though. We need to get back down the mountain first.
And before that, we need to check out the very top of it.
“I know it’s not what you’re used to,” Astrid says as we near the final lookout for most people, fifty feet before the peak. “But the view is…” She waves her hand.
She’s right. There are no words for this view. Lush and stunning and unique in many ways. “You capture the best of it,” I say as I turn back to her.
She’s got her camera in her hand, and it’s pointed at me. I laugh and twist my head away.
“Is this okay?”
“Yeah.” I look back at the camera that shields her from my view. “Sure. I thought you were a landscape photographer.”
“It’s a rare landscape that doesn’t have people in it.” She swipes a strand of her hair off her cheek. That’s what I can see. Her hair, the top of her head, the curve of her cheek. The wind is picking up, and my hair is blowing all around, too.
“Should I tie my hair back?”
“It’s fine.” She snaps a few more pictures, then lowers her camera, her brow furrowed. “Okay, we’re done up here. Let’s eat and head back.”
Halfway down the mountain, I’m glad I didn’t cockily tell her the climb tomorrow would be no big deal. The descent is slower than I expected, the lush growth that creeps onto the path here and there obscuring more on the way down than it did on the way up. So the footing is more uneven, and by the time we get to the truck, my legs have been burning for more than an hour. I swear my blisters have blisters, and I can’t wait to get my hiking boots off.
Astrid asks for her phone, which I dig out, and as she steers the truck and our tired bodies back toward the cabin, she puts a call in for dinner to be delivered to us.
And it’s not barbecue or pizza, the two delivery options back home. Fancy.
I’ve just stepped out of the shower when I hear dinner being delivered. I quickly dress and join Astrid in the living room, where she’s laying out lots of little takeout packages. Tapas at the cabin. I can’t imagine anything more perfect.
I fall on dinner without any shame. We both do, passing the containers of meat and cheese and vegetables back and forth.
Rogue Affair Page 7