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thirteen

HUNTER

Mollie told me Tom saw her that morning in the house, but he doesn’t act any more grumpy than usual when I meet him in the office to go over the books.

Tom hates this part of the business. Yet he won’t turn it over to me, saying between the two of us non-math-majors we should be able to catch each other’s errors. Which is fair, I guess. I don’t have any more training in running a business than Tom does.

Still, I’m pretty sure there’s something wrong with the numbers and Tom’s business might not last for long if it keeps going like this.

I’ve tried to talk to Tom about it before and gotten a non-answer, and I try again that morning. Being with Mollie makes me think I should try harder. If I can do more than lead expeditions, I should at least give it a shot.

“Don’t you worry about things you don’t control, Hunter,” Tom says. “You have enough going on in your life.”

That’s a new one. And proves that Tom seeing Mollie this morning did make an impact. “I’m not distracted,” I say, uncertain whether this is Tom’s critique. “I can still do my job.”

“But this isn’t your job, is it?” Tom, sitting behind the desk, peers at me. He’s wearing reading glasses. He hasn’t mentioned them, or that they were my idea. I can tell they’ve made it easier for him to concentrate on his screen. I guess knowing I did some good is enough for me, even though I’d like some credit for helping.

Instead, I flinch away from the hardness of his tone. He’s right; I’m the one sitting with a stack of papers in my lap because I don’t have a desk in this office. Maybe he is grumpy about Mollie.

“Maybe we ought to think about that,” Tom goes on. “What I’m paying you for, exactly.”

A cold knot swells in my gut. Is Tom threatening to fire me? Is this because I’m sleeping with a paying client? Scott does that all the time. What makes me different?

Because I’m the responsible one.

“I’m, uh…” My mind goes blank as I try to come up with a good self-defense. “I’m a good guide.” Stellar . I wince at my poor defense.

“I know you are,” Tom replies, sorting through papers as though I’m not freaking out across from him. “You’re one of the best. But you seem to have your eye on something else.”

“No!” I protest, thinking he’s talking about Mollie. “I mean, I can care about more than one thing at a time.”

“Hm,” Tom replies. Brow creased, Tom’s gaze moves to his computer screen.

“Are you, is there something you’re not happy about?”

“Our numbers this year…” Tom waves at the mess of papers on his desk. My heart sinks. If we’re not doing well, Tom’s not going to be able to keep me or Scott on full-time. “They’re a little overwhelming. The new packages you came up with are selling well. I can barely keep track.”

That’s news Tom hasn’t shared with me before now. I release a breath. Another of my ideas that’s working. “You need a new system. I can help with that…”

Tom cuts me off with a wave. “I said , I don’t pay you for that, Hunter. Keep your eyes on your actual job.”

The back of my throat hurts. I swallow back the frustration and nod. You can’t guide an unwilling tour, and you definitely can’t teach a stubborn boss. Even if I’m pretty sure I could help.

I stand instead, saying I need to get ready for an outing, and leave Tom there to sort through his own mess. He’s right on one count, anyway: I’ve got messes of my own to deal with.

Mollie and the others went white water rafting with Scott and Tyler while I led the group that went hiking that afternoon. Their group has already been back and put away all the gear by the time I return with my group.

Back in the house alone, I spend some time wondering where they all went before I remember the hike Scott loves to take girls he’s dating on. It’s near town and goes to a cave few people know about, but the route to get there is sketchy as hell. We don’t take paying groups that way. Tom’s insurance wouldn’t cover it.

There’s a bad feeling in my gut about it. I put my hiking boots back on and head back outside.

The hike runs parallel to town for most of the way, so I walk through town planning to take a short cut. I run into Zoe, coming out of the dispensary. She asks if I’m “on a mission.”

“I am,” I reply. “Have you seen Mollie or her friends?”

“No,” she says. “No offense; we’re not exactly buddies.”

Sure, Zoe is not going to be hanging out with out-of-towners any time soon. She runs a rental property that has probably taught her a lot about boundaries with tourists.

“Mollie seems nice, though,” she adds, notably leaving out her friends. Nora and Sophie aren’t terrible. They are very focused on themselves.

“We’re just…hanging out,” I say with a sigh.

“That’s how Tyler and I started, too,” Zoe replies with a smile. “Now look at us. Still…hanging out.” She smiles a little, the smile of a woman who isn’t saying what she really wants.

We could probably have a heart-to-heart in the street and talk about our respective heartaches, but I tell Zoe I need to vaguely go check on something and she nods and waves me off.

There’s an exposed water pipe that is the most direct route to the cave from town. Scott is an idiot who walked it like a tightrope once and now tries to convince anyone gullible to try it, too.

So I’m not completely shocked to see Mollie standing on it when I get close enough to see what’s going on. She’s frozen, her arms spread wide for balance, her feet at criss-crossed angles on the pipe. She’s only a few steps out from the ground—far enough my heart skips a beat.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Scott, standing at the far end of the pipe, can’t hear me. Nora and Sophie, who are at the safe end near me, do.

“He made it look so easy,” Nora says.

Sophie’s face is drawn. “And now it looks so high.”

The pipe is, indeed, at least 10 feet in the air. It extends over rugged terrain that would not be easy to land on in the event of a fall.

My ears hurt from how hard my heart is pounding as I stare hard at Mollie, standing over that chasm. She looks vulnerable and alone on that pipe, her hair blowing in a light breeze and her hands wobbling as she keeps them out for balance.

“You’re OK!” Scott calls back to Mollie. “You can turn around and go back if you want to!”

“I can’t…move…” Mollie whispers, barely loud enough to float back to us. I can see her legs are shaking. Abandoned out on that pipe, she’s stuck between committing to the plan and reversing course.

Dropping my camelbak backpack on the ground beside Mollie’s friends, I walk out onto the pipe. I’ve never walked this before—I’m not stupid —and the pipe itself could be slippery, but I trust the grippy soles on my boots. Mollie’s boots are new and relatively untested, aside from our hike the other day, and I don’t know how sticky they are.

It doesn’t take long before I am close enough to her to say, “I’m going to touch you now and help you turn around.”

“OK,” she says, her voice trembling.

“Don’t lock your knees.”

“OK,” she repeats, her breath short and wheezy. “I’m not good at balance,” she reminds me in a small voice.

“I remember, but I’ll guide you through this. We got this,” I say. Putting my hands on her waist, I gently pressure her to turn to the right, shuffling her feet as she goes, until she’s facing me.

We look at each other and her eyes are steady. They’re filled with fear, but she’s not melting down. She’s waiting for instructions. She trusts me to lead her. That’s good.

“Now I’m going to turn around. You’re going to keep one hand on my waist, only not for balance. Don’t hold tight, OK? Let me turn without trying to hold onto me.”

“OK,” she says, her voice still faint. She loosens her fingers on my shirt, though, so I’m not worried that when I move, I’m going to unbalance her and she’ll take me down with her.

Continuing to speak to her in an even tone, I turn around. “Now we’re going to walk back toward Nora and Sophie. One foot in front of the other, got it? Small steps.”

“Got it,” she repeats. I can feel her hand on my waist, and I don’t look down. She’s holding onto me loosely. I step forward, and she follows.

Moving quickly, yet not so fast I lose her, I move us back toward stable ground. I keep my eyes on the other two women, urging us on. They’re waving and cheering, like encouragement can save us from this situation. The closer we get to safety, the angrier I am that we’re doing this in the first place.

Mollie’s hand on my waist is a steady pressure. We’re going to be OK.

Once we both have two feet on firm ground, Nora and Sophie hug Mollie. “Oh my god! You could have died!”

I’m not sure either of us would have died had we fallen, but it would have hurt. A lot. Something definitely would have broken.

I glare back at Scott, on the other side. It’s hard to tell at this distance, but I think he looks abashed. “You could have gotten us sued and them killed!” I yell at him, unable to keep biting my tongue.

He spreads his arms, like “what can I do about it now?” And I turn away, unable to keep looking at him.

Mollie is looking back at me now, her eyes filled with tears. Her friends both have a hand on her, like they’re making sure she’s real. “I know that was stupid,” she says.

“It was,” I reply stiffly. It’s not kind, but I’m not particularly kind right now. “You don’t have to try everything .”

“I know,” she whispers. Her friends glare at me.

“Town is that way.” I point them in the right direction before I stomp off, leaving them there. My stomach feels like it needs to empty and my head is pounding. I’ve even got a tremble in my legs.

Once I’m alone, I end up pacing in my room, unable to sit because of the buzzing beneath my skin. Tom has warned me before about judging the tourists—“sizing them up too quickly and deciding they fall into one category means they can surprise you, for good or bad,” he’ll say.

And I know that I can be judgmental. I’m critical of people for the very quality I see in myself: we’re too fast to plan and too slow to change our opinion.

It’s not that I haven’t had to rescue people before. It’s that this time it was Mollie. And I thought she knew better than to follow someone mindlessly.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe she’s not that different from her friends, who are encouraging her to use this week of adventure to be someone else. And maybe I’m no different than her attempt at that pipe—another “adventure” for her to share at her Sunday brunches.