Page 26

Palm Springs

December 9, 2022

Hiking quickly changed Grant. Gone was the man who made wry remarks about Jeanie and Gene’s all-day grocery-shopping adventures (“My God, they hit every store in the Coachella Valley to find the cheapest yogurt”). Gone was the man who rolled his eyes at the guy practicing his golf swing while waiting in line for his prescription. The new Grant was a lot less critical of everyone else around him, and a lot more focused on getting into shape as quickly as possible for a previously sedentary fifty-nine-year-old.

He wore a weighted backpack everywhere he went. He tried to clap his hands while on the high point of a push-up. He even got a membership at a gym! I couldn’t stand the idea of being inside a packed, smelly building when the whole reason we were in Palm Springs was to be outdoors. I went with him once, and that was enough for me. Almost every machine was taken, and, again, I was one of only a few women; it was like the daytime version of Streetbar.

Now, he couldn’t brush his teeth without doing calf raises. Basil’s condo smelled like a steak house from Grant’s every-three-hour need for calories. I was awoken at five in the morning by the Vitamix tearing into ice, bananas, protein powder, and raw eggs. This man who hardly ever cooked now made his own power bars. Grant was exhausted and exhilarated, grunting and groaning about his stiff hips and sore back. He left ice packs on every surface and slept like a baby. Hardly a day went by when he wasn’t on a hike with Hobie, or with strangers he’d met in a hiking club, and, lately, by himself. When he came home, he brought along a Ziploc bag filled with dirty toilet paper.

“Grant, no,” I said.

He smiled, amused by my disgust. “LNT. My new religion: ‘leave no trace.’”

Hiking seemed like such a simple subject, yet Grant researched it with even more passion and intensity than he’d studied philosophy. He learned about the right-of-way rules between uphill and downhill climbers, horses, mountain bikers, dogs, solo hikers, and large groups. He bought and made sure he packed his (new, expensive) bag with the “ten essentials,” including sunscreen, socks, first aid, and extra food. He stressed the importance of finding your rhythm, keeping a pace, and taking breaks at planned intervals instead of waiting until you need them.

He had goals.

He wanted to go farther, longer, higher, taking it to the “next level,” as he called it, which meant going into the backcountry. He followed YouTubers who explored the gold mines that Hobie had told him about. Some, like the Cerro Grodo Mine in Death Valley, still have bodies in them. With almost seven hundred abandoned mines in Riverside County alone, there was a lot to explore.

As far as he was concerned, the fewer people he saw on the trail, the better.

Was I worried? Never. I’d gone on my share of hikes through state parks. The way I saw it, hiking was just walking with a gradient. And from where I sat in Palm Springs, there were people everywhere and everything seemed safe.

Honestly, I was relieved that Grant had his own thing; that was how we operated. I needed a break from so much intense time together after years of being apart. Even during the pandemic Grant had his own place to go part of the time. My petty complaints could add up, from the sound of his spoon clicking against the bowl, the strings of dental floss that never quite made it into the trash can, the cadence of his feet on the tile floors. He hummed without realizing it. He left crumbs everywhere. I’m certain I bothered him, too.

Then again, we started to fall into activities together. We planned meals and cooked, eating by candlelight at Basil’s table and catching up on our days. We finally had time to take care of things we’d been putting off, like moving some money around in our IRAs and redrafting our wills. I had Christmas cards made with a photo of the two of us sitting by the pool, and for the first time ever, Grant wrote the little notes on the back and helped address the envelopes. He did the grocery shopping and ran to the hardware store for hummingbird nectar and descaler for the coffee machine. We invited Gene and Jeanie over for dinner; after, we played some of Basil’s albums on his elaborate stereo system while the four of us slow danced in front of the fireplace to Nat King Cole.

We watched the same television shows and went to movies together. We had new things to talk about with each other—for a long time, our conversations had revolved almost exclusively around the girls. Now, I told him about my adventures with Melody to the Parker for cocktails and to the polo grounds. Grant told me about hikers and explorers like himself who’d drowned in the mines or had breathed toxic gases. He showed me photos on his camera of stuff he’d found: broken china, spoons, metal detectors, and old chunks of jade. Instead of Socrates and Aristotle, his heroes became the old miners who’d slept perched on the edge of a mountain and endured tremendous hardship.

“Look—” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a rattlesnake skin, and set it in my hand.

“Show-and-tell is over. Let’s throw that away.” I handed it back to him.

“You won’t believe this. We were up in the Chocolate Mountains and this guy in army fatigues comes out, and he’s got a crossbow, and he—”

“A crossbow ?”

Grant was more animated than I’d seen him in a while; this was what made him such a great teacher. He spoke with the energy of a kid relating an exciting dream he had the night before. “It was no big deal. I think he was just trying to scare us.”

I couldn’t tell if what made this new Grant appealing was that he was different from the man I knew, or if he was more like his old self, happier and more focused. I, too, felt happier—with Grant, with myself, with life.

“I learned how to shoot a gun.”

“I feel much better!”

“There are guys up there with AR-15s. You can shoot anywhere you want. One of them let me try. I’ve never even held a gun. Did you know a bullet can travel for miles?”

“Grant, that’s—”

He ripped off his shirt. He was starting to have actual abs.

“Bet you’ve never made love to a man who’s shot a gun.”

“No, and I’ve never wanted to.”

I didn’t need to sleep with Hobie or Trent to find out what it was like to be with someone else. This was a new Grant, no longer the man who screamed underwater. For someone who was basically retired, the outdoors had provided him with an enviable sense of purpose. A spark, a mission. I began to wonder if his new love for solo hiking would make him so independent that he wouldn’t need me anymore.

But then, one afternoon, I found my own spark. I sat in a lounge chair chatting with a couple from Minnesota who’d just arrived and had rented unit seven for a few months. They were making plans to see a Liberace impersonator at the Purple Room, where the Rat Pack formed, and where Frank Sinatra famously pushed the piano into the swimming pool behind the club.

Already I felt like an expert on Palm Springs. I was telling the couple about all the things to do here when Grant returned from a hike covered in a film of dirt, as confident as an action-movie hero as he walked through the tall gate. He wore his new ultralightweight sunglasses with side shields. Hobie had given Grant one of his skullcaps. He took it off and his bangs were drenched. His beard was full. He was more mountain man than barista. The Terminator. He carried his water bottle like a weapon.

I took his photo and instinctively sent it to Octavia and the girls.

Dort texted back, Holy shit! Dad looks like he just returned from a special ops mission.

Never thought I’d say this, but Grant looks kinda hot, Octavia replied. Rambo.

March wrot e , Beast mode.

Dort said, GRAMBO.

Octavia said, You’re never coming back, I know it.