by Elaria Ride
Someone else walks in.
3
Autumn
“HEY-O!”
Nick’s booming voice thunders through the lobby — and in that instant, whatever the hell Asher and I shared shatters. We immediately jump apart like we’ve been electrocuted, avoiding each other’s eyes as we try to find nonchalant positions.
Perhaps it’s only because sound is amplified by the lobby’s high ceiling, but this morning, my sleazy co-worker seems especially loud.
And annoying.
Nick stomps into view the instant Asher and I step back from each other, but I’m not sure how much he’s seen; I’m the type of person who is unlucky enough to be caught the one time something might have worked out.
I clear my throat and casually lean on the wooden desk, trying my hardest to play it off like Nick hasn’t interrupted anything.
Which he hasn’t. Right?
I sneak a glimpse at Asher from the corner of my eye… but oh God! I almost laugh before I catch myself.
If I thought I lacked subtlety in hiding what we’ve been up to, it’s absolutely nothing compared to him: Asher looks like a kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar. His hands are stuffed in his pockets, he’s idly swinging one of his feet, and he’s providing a very deep, contemplative stare… to the stuffed raccoon display.
Good Lord.
I shake my head and make a mental note that (apparently) Asher can’t do deception. Normally I’d consider that an adorable trait — but right now I kinda just wanna give him a hard shove.
Naturally, Nick picks up on this. Realization washes over his reptilian features the second he catches sight of Asher’s face. He pauses in his tracks, a smug grin dangling from his lips. Ugh. I try very hard to suppress an eye-roll. There goes any hope of playing this off as a purely professional interaction.
“Well, well, well,” Nick drawls, crossing his arms over his chest. “What do we have here? Some early morning uh... tent-pitching?”
He breaks off with a snicker, and I finally allow myself the proper face-palm I’ve been denied so long.
Of course it was Nick (of all people) who found me and Asher... almost-but-not-making-out? I bite my lip and glimpse over at the man in question, who still looks like a kid with his hand in the cookie jar. I’m still not sure exactly what that… thing… was, but it’s not something I have a lot of time to think about now.
Nick has given me weird, greasy vibes from the beginning, which makes this interruption even more uncomfortable. Even if the dude didn’t have a certain Grinch-like smile and beady little eyes, something about this guy puts me on edge. He reminds me of that brown-noser suck-up from Leave it to Beaver who’s always smarming his way through human interactions. Gross.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Asher says stiffly, his posture unchanged. “Ranger Walker and I were just here to... um...”
He gestures to me — an open invitation to fill in the blanks if I’ve ever seen one. But then, for some inexplicable reason, Asher decides to say: “Discuss trail excavations” at the exact second I respond with, “Arrange a demonstration.”
Fuck.
I slam my eyes shut.
Still, I can’t find it within myself to be too annoyed. I’m pretty sure this isn’t in Automatic Asher’s programming.
“Mmhmm,” Nick gloats through his growing evil grin. I can tell he’s positively brimming with malicious excitement as we shuffle and shift under his gaze. I don’t know how long the three of us stand there in awkward silence until I finally decide that doing my job is more important than being embarrassed.
I clear my throat and fold my hands in front of me. “Well… I, for one, need to work. Did you need something, Nick?”
Nick snorts, that smug grin still plastered on his face. “I heard about the blizzard on the scanner. Wanted to see if you guys… were prepared.” He waggles his eyebrows. I’m overcome with an urge to hurl the rack of kayak brochures.
Luckily, Asher finds his voice before I do. “No, we’re fine.” Then he pauses for a second, glancing over at me. “Actually,” he amends, “if you really want to help, Ranger Walker will need a spare uniform. Would you mind checking the—”
“—No!” I rush to cut him off. I have no desire to announce that the generic spare uniform in the storage closet won’t come close to fitting me.
Nick and Asher both look confused at my hasty dismissal, but fortunately, this Girl Scout has a backup plan.
“I have an extra outfit in my car,” I explain. “It’s not regulation, but it’s the best I can do until Mandy’s opens.”
Asher nods in understanding, and even Nick looks more sympathetic. Per NNS regulations, we must send our uniforms for professional cleaning. Mandy’s, the only dry cleaner in a 20-mile radius, is only open on Mondays and Tuesdays. Most of us only have four or five uniforms total — partially because the canvas fabric is durable, and partially because (yet again!) we’re public servants who are paid in sunsets.
Over the past six months, I’ve coined the term ‘Bumming Friday.’ Bumming Friday is the grungiest day of the week. If you’re lucky, Bumming Friday means you’re on your last clean uniform — and if you’re broke (like me), it means you’re reusing a uniform you’ve already worn. Of course, I had to take Bumming Friday to a whole new level by not only wearing a pre-worn uniform, but by covering it in coffee.
“Yeah, that should be fine,” Asher confirms, the unaffected automaticity returning to his voice. “Wear whatever you have.”
I reply with a curt nod. I can only hope that this is the last I’ll hear of this.
“Great,” Nick drawls, arching an eyebrow. “Since we’ve figured out what we’re wearing to Fashion Week, I actually need to get behind the desk. So.”
He shooes me out of the way. I comply, but I’m not happy about it. It’s beyond me why you’d be an asshole when you could be polite.
“What could you possibly need from behind the desk, Nick?” Asher asks, his voice taking on an edge. “We aren’t scheduled to work for another two hours.”
Nick shrugs and saunters behind the desk. “Like I said, I heard about the blizzard.” He pulls the closet key from the drawer; I try to convince myself I’m imagining the maniacal glint in his eye as he does. “Wanted to make sure we had enough de-icer in the storage shed.”
Asher still looks perturbed. “That won’t be necessary,” he replies slowly. “I’ll take care of things over the weekend, should the need arise.”
Nick pauses, his half halfway into the drawer, and peers at Asher from behind the desk.
The two of them share a significant look. I don’t know what that look means — but as Asher holds out his palm and Nick grudgingly hands him the key, I settle on it being a dominance ritual. Or a modern-day attempt to uphold the bro code. I should have figured as much. Nick wants power so badly I can almost taste it; this is just his latest attempt at playing King of the Mountain.
As soon as Asher pockets the key, though, any trace of animosity vanishes — at least on his part. Nick bows his head in submission, but thinly veiled contempt still fills his face.
I’m immediately reminded of a nature documentary where a lion asserts his control over a wayward cub. I can almost hear the British narrator explaining the scene: “Here, we have the victorious alpha male. Observe how he preens in the sun, his coat lustrous and bright; this lion is head of the pride. All others bow before him, especially the little shit lion—”
“—C‘mon, Nick!” Asher booms, interrupting my reverie.I clear my throat and return to my station behind the desk. Nope. Nothing to see here…
Asher throws an arm over Nick’s shoulder, even as a pout puckers the younger man’s lips. Little shit lion, indeed!
“Deputy Ricci, why don’t we get breakfast?” Asher claps Nick on the back, his eyes still focused on mine. I nod in understanding, and Asher’s lips curl into the tiniest fragment of a smile.
“I’m sure Ranger Walker,” Asher adds, now c
lutching Nick’s shoulder in a vice-like grip, “can hold down the fort until we’re scheduled to work. Right?”
And for an uncomfortable amount of time, the two men stand in front of the desk, still engaging in some weird lion shit. With a shit-eating grin on his face, Asher’s enormous palm wraps so tightly around Nick’s shoulder that his fingers turn white — but Nick just glowers, glaring at the carpet.
Uh yeah. If this is how men are in the wild, I’m definitely better off being single. I’m also better off ending this right now — because who knows how long they’ll keep this up.
So I clear my throat and nod at Asher once more. “Absolutely,” I confirm. “I’m totally ready to do my job today.”
If my boss catches my sarcasm, he doesn’t acknowledge it.
“Great!” Asher says, letting go of Nick’s shoulder. He sounds just a tad too enthusiastic to be discussing breakfast plans, but I figure this is just another part of the male dominance ritual.
Nick rubs his bruised appendage before shooting me a cold look, but he turns to leave when Asher does.
“Oh, and Ranger Walker?”
“Mmm?”
“We got an alert about poachers. I figure it’s business as usual, but we—”
“—still need to follow protocol,” I interrupt, mimicking Asher’s robotic tone.
Then he cracks a rare smile, his lips parting to say something…
“YO! Can we go? Please?”
Nick’s voice pierces through the lobby, carried in from the parking lot. And just like that, the smile slips from Asher’s face as he turns and leaves without another word.
Great.
I heave a sigh as I walk behind the desk and settle myself in front of the computer. I can fantasize all I want — but a relationship with Asher is out of the question.
Besides, I have work to do. I click open my email and try my best to put the events of the past few minutes out of my mind. Just as Asher said, the NNS emailed an alert about two possible issues. The first is a blizzard alert, which I take fairly seriously. But the second is a warning about Pacific red cedar poaching, which I don’t.
Now, if you’re someone who hasn’t spent a lot of time in a forest, you might not know that plant poaching is even a thing. I know I didn’t until I got my degree, so here’s the long and short of it: The Pacific red cedar is an enormous tree, one that reaches up to 200 feet. It doesn’t look much different from the standard tree you might see in a forest — but to a poacher, red cedars are very, very special.
Because (as if turns out), red cedar bark is worth an absolute butt-load. Like… poach-at-25-and-retire-happy type butt-load. They don’t call these trees the "ivory of the Northwest” for nothing. The birds that inhabit the trees are also profitable on the black market; they’re almost always endangered.
All of that sounds threatening and scary, but Biggal Mountain has never seen a single incident of poaching. I like to think most malfeasance in the park comes from your garden-variety moron as opposed to a criminal mastermind. We’re rural and isolated compared to other parks in the state, so these near-constant warnings are starting to seem like Boy Who Cried Bear.
Blizzards, though, are a big deal. Visitors rarely understand how to handle them, and unless we really prepare, there will be accidents. In that regard, Nick has a point. We need to get the parking lot salted, just in case things take a turn before we can all get out of here tonight.
But really, did Nick have to be so damn creepy about it?
I begrudgingly rise from the chair and to get some salt from the storage closet, just as Nick mentioned. I need to get a new outfit from my car, anyway; might as well head outside in one trip.
Just like every other experience with Nick, I try not to let him bother me. I swear that dude’s had it in for me since I started. I prefer not to assume that fatphobia has anything to do with it, but I can’t deny that his petulant, childish attitude is similar to my mother’s.
I wince as I stoop down to pick up the regulation EnviroBucket from the floor of the closet — the one that contains the salt for the parking lot. Maybe the reason Nick grates on me is that he whines, just like my mother… and my mother is a sensitive topic. I’m the type who tries to see the best in people; maybe I’m exaggerating Nick’s comments and leers.
Sadly, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve let my mother’s influence spread beyond her physical location. I was raised in the sprawling suburbs of Atlanta, and in my Southern family, I’ve always been the odd man out — and not just because I’m the youngest. I’m also the fattest.
And the most ethnic-looking.
You see, my mother’s birth name was Inez Flores Piona, but for my entire life, she’s been Nancy Walker. She was born in Mexico City to Mexican parents, but I think if you informed her she’s Hispanic, she’d combust, right on the spot. Since moving to America as a teen, she’s embraced every female stereotype she thinks signifies success. She’s got bleach blonde hair, a fit body, blindingly white teeth, and the faintest trace of a Spanish accent that only comes out when she’s had a few too many margs at block parties.
According to my mother, she’d only had one ambition as a child: To be a model in America. At age seventeen, she finally achieved this goal; without so much as a backwards glance, she left Mexico for a vague job offer in Georgia. And never came back.
Fortunately, luck (and beauty) were on her side. A year later, she met Dale Walker — a blond, blue-eyed architecture grad student from a prominent Southern family. They’d married when she was eighteen and he was twenty-three… and to say my mother merely accepted her role as Southern housewife would be like comparing a drizzle to a downpour.
Simply put, the woman overcompensates; after five minutes on the phone with her, even I’m convinced she’d witnessed the Yankees marching through Tara. She knows everything about Georgia and obsesses over football and focuses on appearances and aesthetics.
This mindset was a-ok through the birth of my siblings — the first three Walker children. They’re all slim and light-skinned, like my father. My older brothers, Colin and Corbin, are only 15 months apart, but my mother has always emphasized that this was intentional.
What wasn’t intentional, though, was their last baby becoming two babies. My fraternal twin sister Courtney and I are five minutes apart — and as I frequently remind Courtney, the five minutes she spent without me were the last moments of peace she had. Court was also a whopping 1.8 pounds lighter; almost 30 years later, my mother continues to cite this statistic as if it matters at all.
Alas, my mother’s deliberate attempts to deny her heritage bit her in the ass, as these attempts to subvert nature often do: her last child (me!) was born not only chubbier… but noticeably more Hispanic-looking than her other offspring. My mother also likes to mention that she spent a lot of time explaining (through hushed whispers) that “I didn’t come from the milkman.”
Which is guess if hilarious. If you’re her.
Despite Mom’s best efforts, I soon grew from a chubby baby to a chubby kid to a chubby teen. Courtney, Colin, and Corbin have always been effortlessly thin, just like my parents... but unlike my parents, my siblings have never made me feel worthless because of my weight. When I was only 7, Mom started pushing me into gym memberships and diet plans and harassing me about getting a boyfriend. It’s unfathomable to me that any parent would tell a first grader that she needs to impress a boy, but that was my life.
Throughout elementary school, my parents ignored my good grades and my active, outdoorsy interests (camping, Girl Scouts, hiking). I earned straight As, but the number on the scale was always far more important. It took me until middle school to rebel against this nonsense, and even then, these “rebellions” were very mild. I did (relatively boring) stuff like dyeing my hair, wearing “unflattering” clothing or — worst of all! — being unashamed of what my body looked like.
Around this time, my siblings started having more legitimate problems, but my mom (by now the PTA presi
dent/soccer mom extraordinaire) always cared more about me. In 8th grade she started making rude comments (both at home and in public) about “putting down the fork” and “listening to my hunger cues.”
These days, I’d know enough to respond with data and facts... but at the time, I’d been pretty devastated. Every time my mother expressed disappointment in me, I’d comfort myself with food, which only continued the cycle.
Today, I just look back at my mother’s ridiculous antics and laugh. Courtney spent her high school years engaging in risky sexual behaviors; she’d cared so much about her social life that she’d barely graduated. By the time we left high school, I estimated that Courtney had spent more time in front of the mirror preparing for a date than she’d ever spent on an actual date — which is saying quite a lot, since she’d had many dates.
My brothers hadn’t been much better off, but they’d looked good on paper, which is all my mother had really cared about. They were both stereotypical jocks whose thoughts had never strayed from girls, partying, and maintaining the bare minimum GPA to play sports.
But who had my mother harped on? It wasn’t Courtney who’d required treatment for several STIs. It wasn’t Colin, who’d gotten a girl pregnant at age 16. It wasn’t Corbin, who continues to battle addiction.
No... my mother’s energies had been focused on her fat child — the one who was objectively more successful, more mentally healthy, and more well-adjusted than anyone else in the family. I’d never had a boyfriend in high school, though; if you’re Nancy Walker, I guess all of that shakes out the same.
Of course, I’m not ignorant enough to assume my mother’s attitude reflects Southern culture in general: It’s simply reflective of my mother. She wasn’t raised in the area, but she’s decided that Southern women — with their svelte, beautiful kids — are the pinnacle of success, and that any deviation from this pattern is failure.
Luckily I don’t dwell much on the bullshit my mother spewed at me during my childhood — but one thing has remained painfully embedded in my mind. Whenever I’d experience failure in romantic pursuits under her roof (or whenever I didn’t have a date for a dance), she’d start with the snide, nasty refrain of “He won’t want you with the lights on.”