Page 4

three

HUNTER

My boss, Tom, is juggling a box of pastries and a folder of waivers for the tour. I’m not sure why he thought the two of us could handle pick-up alone. As usual, I volunteered before I thought twice. I’m Tom’s go-to guy and I want it to stay that way. One of these days, maybe he’ll notice and…what? Pat me on the back and offer me more money plus benefits? Any of that would be nice.

Tom’s attitude, I guess, has something to do with the overly macho attitude of most of the guys I work with. Never ask one of these dudes “can you do it?” The answer is always yes. Even when it isn’t.

“Can you hold these?” Tom passes over the folder. I smooth it out.

“Roger added some tiny line in there, I don’t even know what, but said they looked good. Ironclad.”

Roger Smith, the only lawyer in town, is over 70 and started practicing law in Telluride after retiring from some firm in Denver. I doubt how on top of things he remains, but I don’t say anything. Both because he’s sitting in the corner of this coffee shop and I don’t particularly want to drive upstate to some expensive lawyer who might produce the same thing. If people get hurt on our trips, we’ve got bigger problems.

“You two got all that?” Even Dorothy, the coffee shop owner, looks skeptical. She’s passing over the coffee thermos box and a bag of cups, sugar packets, and stirring sticks.

“We’ve got it, right, Hunter?” says my boss, who will never ask for help. I nod in loyal agreement, but give Dorothy a doubtful look.

“Do you want me to carry something? I’m going that way, anyway.”

We turn and there’s Mollie, the woman who struggled the most with axe throwing last night. We deliberately set up this morning’s activities to start late because we knew most people would be out late celebrating the start of their tour-slash-vacation, but Mollie looks awake and clear-eyed. She’s wearing some kind of lip gloss that shines under the coffee shop lights.

When I meet her eyes, her cheeks fill with color and she looks away.

“Don’t worry about us!” Tom says cheerfully, as he balances a paper bag on top of a pastry box and the folder of important papers. He nods at me to get the two thermos boxes of coffee. “We’re actually bringing this to the group. Figured everyone would need a little wake ‘em up before we get started today.”

“Do you want something to drink, dear?” Dorothy asks Mollie. There’s a line out the door, but Dorothy will never let a customer leave thirsty.

“Oh, I’ll just have some of what they’re bringing to the group,” Mollie demurs.

“Well, take one of these at least!” Dorothy pulls a mini muffin out of the case and hands it to Mollie in a napkin. Mollie reaches for her purse. Dorothy waves her off. “You’ll come back after you try that, I’m not worried!”

Mollie turns to walk with us. “That was so nice,” she says when we get out to the sidewalk, looking stunned. She lifts the muffin to her mouth and I watch her take a bite. She’s like a magnet for my eyes.

“Dorothy’s a savvy lady,” Tom says. “First bite’s free, then you’ll be hooked for life!”

“This is really good,” Molly agrees, covering her mouth with one hand as she chews. We start down the side of the street in the direction of the adventure center.

“That’ll have you ready for action!” Tom says cheerfully. Tom is a man who speaks in exclamation points, a very real stereotype of an outdoorsy man who’s used to working with his hands and shouting over great distances. Every time he catches me reading in the main room at the house where we all live—we’re his renters as well as his employees—he gives me a look like I’m masturbating in public. Maybe that’s because, the last time I showed him an interesting line in a book I was reading, he protested that it was all blurry. I’ve been trying to convince him to get reading glasses ever since. I guess they’re not manly enough for him.

“The agenda said today is a prep day?” Mollie looks worried.

“That’s right,” Tom agrees. “Rather than have everybody buy their own gear, we’re loaning you used stuff. That means everyone needs to get fitted. And then…well, I’ll let Hunter tell you about it. This whole tour is his idea.”

“Really?” Mollie turns her focus on me. Her eyes tell me she’s tuned in to my answer, not the distractions of blue sky and fresh air or all the people we’re passing as we walk down the street toward the adventure center on the edge of town.

Since she actually looks interested, I give her a real answer. “I read a book about the subscription model that included a lot about packaging products together. I thought, why wouldn’t that work for experiences, too?”

“He’s on me to launch a membership model, too,” Tom adds, chuckling. To his credit, Tom listens to my ideas—sure, he laughs at them, calling them “modern,” then eventually tries them and they work.

This morning, I’d suggested upgrading our bookkeeping method to a program that tracks all the accounts in one place. He’d shuddered dramatically and said he didn’t want any outside company to have all his information. Last year, I’d convinced Tom to move from paper to a computer spreadsheet, so I figured it was time to make another recommendation. Baby steps.

“I think that’s really smart,” Mollie says softly. She has a voice that makes me lean in to hear her, like she’s not used to people listening.

“So what brought you to the adventure tour?” I ask.

She laughs softly, almost under her breath. “I wanted to be more adventurous, I guess.”

The people who visit our town specifically to “have adventures” tend to be looking for adrenaline. They want to ride that high that comes from speed and a little danger. I don’t get that vibe from Mollie.

“What’s something adventurous you’ve done in the last year?” I ask her, softly enough that Tom, who is greeting people we pass, might not hear.

She looks at me like I’ve asked her what color her underwear is.

“Anything,” I prompt gently. “The first thing that comes to mind.”

“I drove down to visit a hot spring in New Mexico by myself last month,” she says, after a long moment in which I’m not sure she’ll answer me. “I’m scouting out locations for Sophie’s bridal shower.”

Mollie clicks into place for me. She does things for others, not herself. Like this tour. She’s clearly here for her friends.

“Anything you’re looking forward to on this tour?” I ask.

“This prep day,” she admits, looking down at the coffee and not at me. “I’m really glad we’re going to learn more about what we’re doing before we do it.”

“I’m glad you feel that way, because I think a lot of people are going to skip it. At least I’ll have one eager student.”

“Skip it?” She looks bewildered. “But why?”

Before I can explain about the lack of adrenaline, Tom is hurrying us along as if we were the ones pausing to talk to everyone we passed.

In the lobby of the adventure center, less than a dozen people are slouched on our collection of pre-loved furniture sourced from garage sales and donations. They include the family I taught last night, three 20-something men I’d quickly labeled the Trouble Trio, the skinny teenage boy from another family—apparently here on his own—and Mollie. Two other guides have shown up, as required, but Scott is nowhere to be seen. Scott is Tom’s real favorite, so he can get away with this.

We pass around coffee, Mollie helping with the organization by setting out cups for me to pour.

I stay close to her, wanting to ensure she has a good experience. She’s curvy, and it’s important that she be fitted for a bag that sits at her hips, not where it will chafe and make her uncomfortable. My hope is always that people will walk away from these trips with a newfound hobby that they keep doing. Pain is a deterrent to that goal.

Plus, there’s something about Mollie that tells me she needs a fun experience—and doesn’t expect it. She’s gritting her teeth through this tour. But I designed it to speak to people’s souls and I know it can do that for her, too.

She listens intently to my spiel about safety, staying on trails, and speaking up about raw skin, which can form blisters that become difficult to deal with on the trail. We’ve only scheduled a one-night backpacking trip for this tour—all activities were planned with beginners in mind—but I don’t want a night ruined dealing with first aid that could have been prevented.

I sidle up to her after, when a few people are getting that second cup of coffee, and let her in on the secret: “I’ll be repeating all that later, probably more than once, for the benefit of people who weren’t here or forgot everything.”

“Oh, of course,” she says, tucking away the phone I saw her clearly using to take notes.

“Are you nervous?”

“No! Well, yes. But this isn’t as scary as…” She catches herself. “Some things.”

Now I’m concerned. Mollie is already struggling; if this isn’t the worst of it, I’d better find out what is. “What part of the trip are you most nervous about?”

She shakes her head and bites her lip, one plump bit of flesh turning white. I want to lecture her about raw skin again, watching this. I manage to hold it in.

“If you tell me, I may be able to help,” I shamelessly wheedle.

She smiles a little and I can tell I’ve got her. Mollie is the kind of person who hates to disappoint you, and I feel a little bad for taking advantage of that.

“The mountain biking,” she admits. “After we signed up, I started getting all these videos of crashes on my social feed.”

“Ah.” I nod. I’m not on social media, but I’ve seen some pretty gnarly real-life crashes in my time. Scott nearly broke his arm last week on a rock feature. “I won’t make you do anything technical. Or anything you don’t want to try. I’m here to help make trying something new safe for you.”

One of the 20-something dudes standing nearby decides to intervene for no reason. “That’s the whole point of these guys, to keep us idiots from doing something idiotic.”

Nodding along, I step back to let our circle grow. I immediately miss speaking one-to-one with Mollie. Still, half the point of these tours is to foster friendship. Among the participants, not between them and the tour guides. We’re here to smooth the way, not be part of the adventure. Despite Scott’s best efforts.

It’s never been this difficult to remind myself of that reality.

The other two guys from the Trouble Trio overtake the circle a bit, nudging me to the outside as they home in on Mollie. I watch her, looking overwhelmed but nice about it.

“These tour guides know more about the outdoors than anything else,” one of them says, like I’m not standing right there.

Mollie meets my eyes. “I guess I should be listening to them, then,” she says, a mild rebuke the others ignore.

My first instinct is to save her, but I’m projecting. I want her to need my protection. Maybe she likes the attention. I raise my eyebrows at her and she smiles back, so I step away.

I get this a lot from tourists. They trust me to keep them safe on the trails, and still assume I can’t read or write or do arithmetic. I have a college degree. Sure, it’s an associate that I got in two years commuting to Montrose—long days of sitting in the car, one of my least favorite things. That’s not nothing. In reality, I could have done something else, but if it involves sitting in an office for eight hours at a time, no thanks.

I’d rather put up with a few ignorant assholes who think I’m limited to being “trail smart” and nothing more.