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sixteen

MOLLIE

Strangely, I’m not that nervous about the axe-throwing tournament. Maybe it’s a false sense of confidence from all my practicing? False because even in practice, I’m not very good.

Hunter is sure that, if I keep at it, everything will click into place. “You’re wearing a new groove,” he says. Maybe if I trust the process hard enough, he’ll start to believe the same thing about us, too. We just need to click in place.

Maybe today is the day everything starts working.

So I’m hopeful, walking into the alley wearing my lucky red shoes. I’m dressed in one of the many “date” outfits I brought on this trip and have not needed because we’ve mostly done athletic activities. I think I look cuter than I normally do when Hunter sees me, and I’m excited to get his reaction.

Instead of looking shocked—underneath all that dirt is a pretty girl?—he smiles at me normally and gives my hand a little squeeze. “You OK?” he asks.

My nod is probably too quick for someone in the middle of a life transition. I think he’s talking about Nora and Sophie and last night, and that’s all fine. Other than being blocked from having more great sex, or the conversation Hunter and I really needed to have.

My friends won’t stop bugging me about how I’ve “gone local” or whatever, like this town and Hunter have sucked me into some kind of parallel universe without my own volition. I can handle my friends’ concerns. We’ll soon be separated by time and geography and they will forget to worry about me.

Most of the other people from the tour are here, even the younger guys I’ve tried to avoid on every outing. They’re mostly keeping to themselves tonight, so maybe they finally got the message I’m not interested. Tyler and Zoe came to the tournament, along with Tom. There’s no Scott. I’m worried about the way Hunter is holding my dumb decision against his friend. He shuts me out when I bring it up, and there’s no way to ask about it privately in front of all the people readying for the tournament.

For now, I’m annoyed that Nora and Sophie are somehow better at axe-throwing than me. Me, the person who’s invested actual time in learning!

Well, Nora used to play baseball and Sophie grew up playing soccer, so those things might have helped them build the muscle memory Hunter’s always talking about.

I try to comfort myself with logic as I watch them throw and hit the target every time.

We’re playing a round robin bracket, so even when I’m terrible, I don’t get knocked out. It was Hunter’s idea and I wonder if it was for my sake.

By the second round of matches, it’s obvious that I’m in last place. By a lot.

“You don’t have to keep throwing,” Sophie tells me. “We’d all understand.” Her sympathy makes me want to prove that I can do this. If I keep trying , surely I’ll get a different result.

“No, want to,” I insist. I’ve had more beer than I intended due to self-pity and I’m a little woozy when I stand to take my turn. I grab the table.

“Seriously, Mollie,” Nora says. “Why don’t you sit this one out.”

I glare at her. “I can do it. I’ve been practicing.”

“You’re only doing it for him ,” Nora hisses, like everyone’s not standing right there, close enough to hear even a low comment.

I’m afraid to look, but out of the corner of my eye, I sense Hunter jerk away. Like he doesn’t want to be involved in this at all.

“That’s not true,” I say, my eyes prickling. Oh no . I can’t drunk cry right now. Not because nothing is going the way I want, despite my best efforts. Not because Hunter thinks I only do things because other people want me to. It’s not true. It can’t be.

“You’d never even thought of axe throwing before and now you’re like a groupie,” Nora replies. She glances around at everyone looking and looks a little regretful. “Sorry, it’s true. This isn’t you. It’s him.”

Hunter walks away. He leaves the group, grabs his jacket, and exits the venue.

“Nora!” I grit out. “You’re the one who wanted me to find my thing this week. And now you’re angry I’m doing something you wouldn’t do?”

“I wanted you to find yourself, not find a bandwagon to hop onto,” Nora says stubbornly.

Sophie puts her hand on our friend’s shoulder. “Nora…”

The rest of the group is dispersing, finding this heated argument more awkward than expected. Someone grabs the empty beer pitchers and walks away with them. A few people go back to axe-throwing. I hope someone went after Hunter.

Nora isn’t done. “Do you even like him or are you just unhappy?”

Glaring at her so hard a twinge of a headache starts behind my eyes, I bite my tongue. Because I know she’s wrong, and I can’t articulate why. Sure, Hunter prompted my self-reflection. And he’s on my list of things I want. But there’s a lot more on it. Things that connect, that form a vague outline of the life I want. I can’t see it clearly yet. I’m trying. I’m trying so hard and I’m worried no matter how much effort I put in, it will be like axe-throwing and I’ll never get what I want.

“I am unhappy,” I say, and start to cry. “Why are you trying to take some happiness away from me?”

“Oh…” Nora and Sophie both surround me, hugging me tightly in a friend sandwich.

“We don’t want you to make decisions while you’re unhappy that mess up the rest of your life,” Sophie says softly.

“I’m trying to make the rest of my life better,” I sniffle. “It’s not about him . It’s about me.”

“OK, boo,” Nora says, resting her chin on the top of my much shorter head. “I’m sorry. I should have listened more instead of going off like that.”

They let me sniffle softly for a few more minutes, and then Nora—being Nora—can’t help herself. She makes her point.

“You should still break up with him and come home,” she adds. “I’m not wrong about that. You need some distance.”

I wipe my nose on her shirt in response.

“Give her a minute, Nora,” Sophie hisses.

“I’m going to listen to my own voice, you guys,” I say quietly. “The two of you can’t decide things for me.”

Clearing my throat, I straighten my shoulders. That voice is still quiet, but I’m starting to be able to hear it better. And I’m determined to let it get loud.

Dorothy knows me now when I come into the coffee shop. It’s one of my proudest accomplishments on this trip. I had no idea how satisfying it was to be known by the people around me, not just be another face in the crowd or woman catcalled on the street.

Taking my order to the table by the front window, I sit down and wait. I was early, but Hunter arrives not long after me. Long and lanky, he slides into the chair across from me, then hops back up to order a muffin.

I’m nervous. I know what I need to say, and I’m also worried emotions will get in the way. So I dive in before asking him how he is or what he’s thinking. “So, I’ve decided to move,” I squeak out.

He raises his eyebrows. “Where?”

“Here.” I clear my throat when he blinks back at me. “I am going to work with Mr. Smith.”

“Mr. Rogers?”

“What? No, Roger Smith.”

“Sorry. Right. People in town call him Mr. Rogers because of the sweaters. Never mind.” Hunter seems nervous, too. Not in the happy, excited way I’d hoped for. “Don’t you have a job?”

That’s a bad sign. Does he want me to leave? “I have a job I hate. In a city I hate. I like it here.”

He licks his lips. “This isn’t because…” His brow bunches. He runs a hand through his hair and strands of it come loose from his bun. “Because of me?”

I know what he wants me to say. “No!” But it’s also true. The way this town has welcomed me—from the blueberry and lemon curd muffins Dorothy now always has ready for me to the lawyers who open their doors for no reason—means as much to me as Hunter calling me sweet and spicy . I can be the me I want to be here.

“It doesn’t have to be a thing,” I insist. “We can just be people who, you know, say hello in the coffee shop.” That wasn’t what I intended to say when I arrived at this coffee shop, after practicing my “what if we try?” speech. With the worried expression on Hunter’s face, how can I not reassure him?

“OK…” He frowns and looks out the window at the people passing on the street. “Are you sure about this? I mean, it’s not always the easiest place to live. The winters are long and it’s expensive.”

Even though I told myself I didn’t expect his reaction to be “now we can be together, yey,” I’m still gutted by his lack of enthusiasm. Doesn’t he want me here, at least a little bit?

The lump of tears goes down hard when I swallow. “Yes, I mean. I want to try it.” Then I can’t think of anything else to say after that.

“Well, you are the best at trying things,” he says, with a little smile that I try to take as encouragement. We both look at the table for an excruciating beat of silence. I force myself to take a drink of my latte.

“Right. So. I wanted you to know,” I say finally.

“I hope you’ll keep up your axe-throwing and mountain biking while you’re here.”

“That’s the hope!” My voice is overly perky, but I can’t help it. This conversation is like drowning. I’m so excited about my new plans, and they suddenly feel so lonely without even the assurance of one friend in this town.

“Well, I’ll be around. If you need to practice.” He nods to himself and eats the last of his muffin. I know what he thinks. He thinks I’m latching onto him like a stalker. That’s more or less the impression Nora and Sophie gave him. And I can’t let him think that. I can’t let that be the reality.

OK, I need to let him go. Hunter doesn’t owe me anything. He expected this to be a one-week fling. Now he has to be nice and tip his hat to me when he sees me around town. “That’d be great, but no pressure,” I offer. I’ll die a little inside every time I see you and can’t touch you. Every time my mental map of your body fades a little bit more.

We smile at each other politely for a few more moments before Hunter stands. I watch him throw his wrapper and napkin away, unable to move from the table. Then he says, “I’ll see you around, Mollie. Let me know if you need anything.” And he leaves.

I’m staring blankly at my empty latte mug when Dorothy comes up to the table and sets down a croissant. “On the house, honey,” she says. “You look like you could use something sweet.”

“Thanks,” I whisper.

“Of course.” She places her palm on my shoulder and squeezes. “You’re one of us and we take care of our own, here. Welcome home.”

Nora and Sophie called my mother. Now they’re packing to leave while my mom is on her way here, and they’re satisfied they “did the right thing” and aren’t leaving me “to my own devices.”

They still think I’m only doing this for Hunter. I tried to explain that Hunter and I aren’t going to last past the week, and Sophie shook her head. “That’s what you say, but it’s not what you think .”

She’s wrong. I saw how differently Hunter looked at me after the incident on the water pipe. Scott did too, and apologized to me last night for “putting you in danger and messing up your thing with Hunter.”

Of course I forgave him. He wasn’t the only person involved. I think Hunter maybe left open the possibility of a future before that, and now he doesn’t, and it’s my fault. I confused daring with a bad decision. And now he probably thinks that’s what I’m doing by moving.

We all went out for most people’s last night in Telluride. Almost everyone came to the bar except Hunter. I kept watching the door for him, hoping he would show up for at least a few minutes, and he never did. Tom said something about him being home with his head between a book’s cover.

I have goals beyond Hunter. I practice listing them in my head the day between Sophie and Nora’s departure and my mom’s arrival. My mom will blow in like a hurricane, with force. Before she gets here, I spend the day walking the streets of my new home and looking at apartments. Everything is expensive —worse than Denver. The niggling doubts I’ve successfully hidden so far start to sound louder.

Maybe this is foolish. Uprooting my life for a man is one thing, but uprooting it for the sense of peace I find in a certain place? Maybe I can find or create that somehow back where I currently live—even though so far I’ve been unable. Maybe I need to try harder.

Still, Hunter proves that trying doesn’t always win.

When Mom gets there, she doesn’t address the reason she came flying across the country right away. Instead, she sits across from me at Dorothy’s cafe and critiques the town newspaper. “Look at this,” she says, her finger darting between headlines. “All of these headlines are from wire services. This one doesn’t even have anything to do with Telluride. This could be better.” She fans through the pages, saying “hm” every once in a while.

“This is cute,” she adds, showing me a column with a woman’s face in a box on top. “Paula. A local perspective. Apparently short term housing is a big issue here.” She keeps paging through the issue.

“It isn’t bad, in the end,” she finally says. “So few towns even have local news anymore. Clearly ad-supported; look at the pages and pages of them. They must have enough money to fix some of these problems. Hm. Interesting. There are only two people on the masthead as staff.”

Watching her puzzle through the business model, I smiled a little to myself. My mom, who had me later in life, has been talking about retirement for a few years now. She’s so immersed in her industry and her career that I worry she’ll die at her desk. But analyzing this newspaper has brought her to life in a way I haven’t seen in awhile.

“So,” she says, putting the paper down and focusing that analysis on me. “Your friends tell me you’ve gone crazy.”

“I’m not crazy ,” I protest. “Just because I want to move here.”

“Nothing wrong with going a little crazy once in a while. It’s how most people get big things done.” My mom takes a sip of her latte and then gives it a second look. “Mm. The question is whether this is a big thing or you running away.”

Unfortunately, I’m not sure of the answer myself. I stare back at my mother. “Let me show you around town,” I suggest. “Maybe you’ll understand why I like it.”

She nods slowly, and I can tell she has more questions. “And the boy?” She raises an eyebrow at me. “What’s going on with that?”

“That’s…not going anywhere. We were a vacation fling. Moving here doesn't change that.”

“In a town this size, you’ll see him constantly. How are you going to handle that?”

Biting my lip, I consider this. It’s a fair question, and one that’s been haunting me. Zoe mentioned that the dating pool here is pretty small, too. “Well…I don’t want to have one of those situations that drags on or is on-and-off-again because we’re bored and in the same place. Either we’re together or we’re not. And we’re not. So I can be friendly but that doesn’t mean I’m going to pine for him.” I think of Zoe and Tyler as I say this, even though I’m not sure that’s their relationship. They rarely hold hands or show affection in public. Yet they seem to date exclusively despite their casual attitudes.

Mom gives a decisive nod. “There’s no need for pining. You can get on with your life without a man holding you back.” That’s what she’s always done, so I guess I have a good example. “But—that’s not why you want to move?”

“It’s not!” I insist. “I love it here. You’ll see. It’s so much better than the city, where you don’t know anyone and you have to parallel park all the time.”

She snorts. “Where there’s museums and theatre and shopping malls?”

“Mother. When is the last time you went to the theatre.” I say the word with drama, like I have an accent.

She smiles, like she knows something I don’t. “I went on a date the other week to the theatre, you little whippersnapper.”

“You were on a date ?”

“I’m 65, not dead.”

Setting aside that startling news—the idea I could gain a step-father at this point in my life had never occurred to me—I go back to convincing my mother Telluride is a great place to live.

She meets Dorothy, and the two of them discuss the recipe for Victorian sponge cake. Apparently my mother is guilty of overbeating every time she bakes. Dorothy gets to the heart of the matter immediately: “Do you have too much stress in your life?”

My mom gives me a look when I can’t help a snort. “Some would say that,” she admits.

Then we walk down the street to the bridge over the creek and look up at the mountains. It’s hot, with a cool breeze blowing down on us. “Well, I don’t think you could pick a prettier place,” Mom acknowledges.

We look at a few apartments, all of them in shared houses charging high rent. She’s not impressed. “Do you really want to live with strangers?” she asks.

“Well, no,” I admit. “But I want to live here and it’s been hard to find something reasonable.”

When we walk back through town, we come across Tyler and Zoe and she startles. I don’t watch football and I never looked Tyler up, but Nora and Sophie told me he used to be a big deal. “Is that…”

“Don’t make a big deal out of it,” I murmur, cutting off my mom before she brow-beats Tyler into a spontaneous interview for her paper. “He hates that.”

Her journalism spidey-senses are clearly pinging, although she doesn’t say anything when I introduce the couple by their first names. “Zoe writes for the paper you were looking at,” I add, to distract her. “My mom runs a newspaper back in the city,” I explain.

“I’m sure it’s a bigger production than this one,” Zoe says with a smile. “Although the actual production of this newspaper is a pretty big deal. Mark has to drive over an hour to get print copies.”

My mom starts grilling Zoe on what she covers, so I step to the side with Tyler. I want to ask him if he’s seen Hunter, but that would be silly. Hunter isn’t going to confide in Tyler, even —or especially—if he had something to confide such as, “I miss Mollie.”

So I ask him where in town he thinks I should take my mom for dinner, instead.

Later, still wandering around town as the sun sets and we have to put on jackets, we even run into Mr. Rogers—Roger Smith, that is, my soon-to-be-boss—wearing a signature button-up sweater.

“It’s too much work for me,” he admits to my mom, when she bluntly asks why he wants to hire me. “I’m supposed to be retired! And here I am, notarizing documents and filing all my own busywork.”

“Are you? Retired?” My mom looks keenly interested. I wonder if she’s actually thinking about this for herself, or if she’s formulating a story about life after retirement for the newspaper.

“Well, I retired from my practice in the city, moved here, and got bored! I didn’t want to sit around on my porch all day, not using my brain anymore,” he says. “Turns out, there’s plenty of work to be had here. Administrative stuff, you know. I still make people drive to Montrose or Grand Junction for the big things and specialty work. It’s a slower pace than my heyday, but that’s about right for me now.”

Over dinner, we sit at the bar and my mom talks to the people next to us about ski season here. She loves to ski but the drive from Denver to the mountains on winter weekends has become prohibitive.

By this point, my mom has talked to almost more people in Telluride than I have. She must be formulating an essay on the town in her mind. It will be complete with pros and cons, I have no doubt.

When we get back to our hotel room—the same one Nora and Sophie vacated the other day—my mom surprises me. She turns to me and says, “I like it here. I think I should move here myself.” Her eyes twinkling, she unlocks the door and walks in.

Blinking in her wake, I wonder if my mom is unhappy too. Or if I’m not quite as crazy as I’ve been led to believe.