Chapter 3
Zoe
At 7:00 a.m. the next Saturday morning, I’m waiting outside my building, my backpack at my feet and a bag of breakfast goodies in one hand, purchased from the same Starbucks where I dished out early-morning abuse as a snippy, work-obsessed caffeine hound. I’m still getting the side-eye from the regular morning barista, a college kid I now know is named Joseph, but ever since I showed up a few days ago, waited patiently in line, and apologized for giving everyone so much hell, it seems like a thaw is in the offing. I don’t even worry that someone’s spitting in my espresso as vengeance.
Now if only I could stop worrying about what I’m waiting out here for. I’ve dressed in what I have determined is camp-appropriate clothing, though I imagine that somewhere in my combination of hiking boots, jeans, and long-sleeved knit top, I’ve managed to get something wrong. No doubt the first of many things I’ll screw up on this initial outing, but judging by Aiden’s brief email—Go ahead and be yourself. Let’s not make this harder—he wouldn’t expect anything else.
My phone pings with a text from Greer, sent to both Kit and me, part of a long strand of a group text we keep constantly going to check in with each other. Are you nervous? she asks. I think about sending a bunch of those emoji faces with the clenched teeth, because I am nervous, but good thing I don’t, because Kit’s reply comes before mine, all caps: YOU SHOULD CALL THIS OFF. When I’d finally worked up the courage to tell them about this, the Sunday after I’d gone to see Aiden, Kit had nearly exploded with shock. “You can’t go out into the wilderness with some guy who basically hates you,” she’d said, her voice rising with each word. “This is a ridiculous idea! This isn’t adventure, Zoe. It’s self-immolation.”
“Kit,” I’d said, calmly, trying to keep the volume down. “You are really ratcheting up the drama.”
“I think she means,” Greer had said, “that we thought you might do something a little more—of your own choosing?”
“I do a lot of things of my own choosing,” I’d said. “Maybe that’s the problem.”
I hadn’t told my friends about my late-night guilt jar making, hadn’t told them that my lottery-night wish for adventure wasn’t really my heart’s desire. But everyone knows you can’t buy forgiveness. Everyone knows you have to work for it, and this thing I’m doing with Aiden? This is working for it.
All this week, I’ve been preparing. I got a camping wardrobe, sure, but I’d mostly been mentally preparing. Aiden may have told me to be myself, but I think the trick is I need to be a better version of myself. Friendlier. More flexible. Warm and polite. I almost tailed Greer to her classes to see how she manages it, but I figured that’d be crossing a line. The bag o’ breakfast stuff is a good start, a peace offering for Aiden, but I also need to remember to smile more, to lay off the snark. Also it would be good if I stay upright this time around.
I close my eyes, thinking again of that awful attempted apology, the moment I’d fainted, and the unfamiliar, shuddery feeling I got when he looked right at me. I think of him walking to my car, after we’d settled the details, the way he’d watched every step I took, and the way he’d scanned my face before I drove off. He made me feel like I was transparent, like he could see straight through every one of my finely polished pretenses. At least this first weekend is a short one, Saturday morning to Sunday noon; after this we’ll be heading to Stanton Valley on Fridays.
My phone pings again, Kit a second time. Why aren’t you answering?! I smile down at the phone, appreciating her concern, however neurotic. I’m fine, I type out. Remember, he checked out. You have all the contact numbers. Once I’d gotten Aiden’s number, and the numbers associated with the camp, I’d given them all to both Greer and Kit. And it was true that Aiden had checked out, though that was probably an understatement—my investigator turned up a squeaky clean record, but he’d also been two grades ahead of Aiden in school, and knew him and the family, had said everyone knew Aiden O’Leary as a stand-up guy, one of the best. There’d only been a few short pages to the report, showing that Aiden had been a licensed paramedic for eight years, that he had one speeding ticket, that he’d lived in Wisconsin, and then Colorado, before moving back here a little over six months ago.
I take a deep breath, send another text. I’ll be okay. Not nervous. I add a thumbs-up emoji, which is probably suspicious; I don’t think I’ve ever used a thumbs-up emoji, but oh well.
Right then, an older-model, dark green SUV pulls up alongside the curb. I tuck my phone into my back pocket and reach down for my bag, hearing a door slam. Here goes, I think, and arrange what I hope is a smile on my face when I look up at him. He is…not returning the gesture, instead wearing that same forbidding, stern expression he had before. “Why don’t you let me take that,” he says, gesturing to my bag, not really a question, and I’ve got to remind myself: Try to get along. Six weekends will be six thousand times worse if this guy quietly hates you the whole time.
“Sure, thanks,” I say, handing it over.
Once we’re both strapped in, pulling away from the curb, it becomes painfully clear that we’ve not managed to say any additional words to each other. Aiden is staring straight ahead, way too much focus given the fact that there are very few cars out and about, and as for me—well, I’m pressed so far against the passenger door that I sort of feel like I should offer to buy it dinner. I inhale quietly, gathering courage, and shift so that I’m less awkwardly arranged, then reach down to where I put the white paper bag.
“I brought a couple of donuts,” I say, my voice sounding unnaturally loud in the quiet car. “But I didn’t know if you’d like those, so I brought a muffin, too. And a bagel.”
“I already ate.”
Warm and polite, I think, like a mantra. “Well, maybe you’ll want some later,” I say. “Take it from me, right? You don’t want to get woozy on the road.”
No response.
I set the bag down by my feet, ridiculously disappointed. Both because I wanted that to work, and also I sort of wanted a donut. My stomach, traitorously, growls.
“You can eat,” he says.
“Maybe in a bit.”
I think he might—I don’t know what. Grunt? This drive is going to take forever.
“So,” I venture again, “your email mentioned that I should—you know. Be myself?” I hate the way I’ve done that, the way I’ve hitched my voice up into a question. I used to counsel first years at my firm about that—Be declarative. It projects confidence. I clear my throat, make another attempt. “But it may be easier if myself—well, if myself knows yourself a little better. For the purposes of this thing we’re doing.”
If myself knows yourself? Less a projection of confidence than of complete idiocy.
“You had your background check done?” he asks.
“Yes, but—”
“Then you know the basics.”
Well!
“But if this is going to be convincing, we should know some things that couples know. Favorite foods, TV shows, that kind of thing.”
He adjusts his hand on the steering wheel, grips it a little tighter before loosening his fingers again. “I don’t think we’ll get around to talking about stuff like that. We’ll be busy.”
“Okay, but if we show up and it’s this awkward—”
“Fine. You can tell me your basics. Where you’re from, that kind of thing. You know more about me than I know about you.”
That’s a painful truth between us—I not only know what I know from the background check, but I also know too much about what has to be the worst tragedy of his life.
“I’m originally from Pasadena,” I say, trying to keep my voice light. “My mother still lives there.” Stick to the basics, I remind myself. “I went to USC for undergrad. UVA for law school, and moved here right after. I worked at Willis-Hanawalt until—well, you know. But probably you don’t want to mention anything about where I worked. You can say—I guess you can just say I’m a lawyer, if it comes up.”
“But you’re not a lawyer now.”
“I’m still a lawyer. I’m just not practicing,” I say, surprisingly defensive. Aside from a little informal work I’ve done for Greer over the past few months, I haven’t really thought of myself as a lawyer, not since I quit the firm. But once, being a lawyer was so much of my identity that I had hardly any room for anything else.
“What do you do all day, anyway?”
There it is again, the most incisive question he could have asked. I entirely ignore it.
“The two most important people in my life are my best friends, Kit and Greer. I met them when I first moved here and they’re like my family. They both have your number. Kit’s a research scientist, and Greer’s recently gone back to college. I’m missing six of our weekly Sunday brunches for this,” I add, uselessly. It’s not because I’m trying to complain, though I realize now that’s how it sounds. It’s struck me, suddenly—I miss them already. They’re my anchors, more so now than before the jackpot, and I feel more than a little at sea driving away from them.
“What a shame,” he deadpans. “Missing brunch.”
I fold my hands tightly in my lap, clamp my mouth shut and feel my molars grind together. I can’t imagine the next two hours like this, let alone the next six weeks.
After a while, I get up the courage not to initiate conversation but at least to manage the crushing silence. “Should we put on some music?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says, and just because he is being so recalcitrant, so sullen and walled off when that is entirely counterproductive to our mission, I feel a streak of belligerence. I feel the opposite of warm and friendly. I lean over and turn the knob, tune to the most irritating station I know, the one with the guffawing morning show hosts and the same ten pop songs in constant rotation.
“Oh, listen to this,” I say, dramatically, when the electronic beat fills the car. “This is a song, I believe, about a young man who doesn’t mind a woman with small breasts, so long as she has a larger than average posterior. What a delight! Already I feel so encouraged by this song, which is obviously a femin—”
He leans over and shuts it off.
I pause, letting the moment stretch. “Is it because you do not share a fondness for a large—”
“Zoe,” he says, and I clamp my mouth shut. That is definitely the first time he has said my name. It sounds like a different name the way he says it—a gruff exhalation. “Is this you being yourself?” For a flash, nothing more than a second or two, he slides his eyes my way, then snaps them back to the road. “Because I remember you being a little more—reserved.”
I shrug, reaching over to turn on the radio again, though not quite as loud this time. “I’m a woman of many contradictions, Aiden,” I say, trying for levity. “Much like our friend the pop star here.”
He doesn’t even blink in reaction.
It’s going to be a long six weeks.
* * * *
For the rest of the drive, we’re mostly quiet. I offer something from the goody bag again when I finally give in and go for a donut, and Aiden takes the other. This alone feels like an Olympic-size victory, like maybe it’ll crack open some reservoir of conversation, but nope. The next time Aiden speaks, it’s to point out to me that we’re in a small town called Coleville, only about fifteen minutes outside Stanton Valley.
“There’s a drugstore and a small grocery,” he says. “You need to stop for anything before we head on?”
I do kind of want to stop—Coleville looks lovely, a half-mile main street dotted with small, quaint shops, the sidewalk liberally dotted with elaborate planters full of blooming chrysanthemums and trailing ivy. It’d be a nice place to stroll around, get some small town flavor. But since my companion doesn’t much seem like a stroller, I pass.
And then it’s straight on to Stanton Valley, the road becoming more wooded, more narrow as we approach. When we’re about two miles away, I notice the signs—old, painted wood with Stanton Valley Campground carved into them, arrows pointing the way. When we reach a tall, wide wooden arch, Welcome Home carved across the top, I brace myself, thinking we’ll pull in and be there, but it’s another mile of bumpy terrain, dust and gravel kicking up all around us. Aiden, if it’s possible, seems even more tense than before, the kind of tense that you can feel radiating off a person. I sneak a look over at him, notice the clench of his jaw, the corded muscle of his forearm as he again tightens then loosens his grip on the wheel.
We pull into a dusty lot where there’s only two other cars, both pickup trucks. Through the windshield, I can see a large, two-story lodge, paneled with rounded, honey-colored wood, like the whole thing has been built with perfectly halved tree trunks. There’s a porch running the length of it, the railings bulky and rustic, including those that line the big stone stairway rising up to the lodge’s front door.
“This is really—” I begin, ducking a little for a better look, but I’m startled by Aiden’s arm reaching over to pop open the glove box in front of me. I shift, so there’s more room between my knees and the panel, and he grumbles out an apology before reaching in and grabbing something he encloses in his fist, popping the door closed again with the side of it.
He clears his throat and sets his hand down on the bench seat between us. When he lifts it, there’s a small box there, old, faded blue velvet.
A ring box.
Oh, no, I think, my stomach turning over. This is too much. There is not one single thing that would make me want to bolt more than this moment.
“It’s not a diamond or anything,” he says. “But you should have a ring for this.”
“Right,” I say, perfectly calm. I wipe my hands on my jeans, steadying them, before reaching one over to pick up the box. He cannot know how awful a moment like this would be for me, and he never will, so I keep my face as placid as I can as I open it.
It’s a thin, yellow gold band, a plain setting for a small, ivory pearl. It’s beautifully simple, nothing fussy about it. I want to ask him where he got it, why he didn’t spring for some cheap CZ at the department store. This looks like an heirloom, far too personal for what we’re doing here. “Thank you,” is all I manage, and he waits quietly while I take it out and slide it onto my finger, an almost perfect fit. I feel as if I’ve been collared. Brought to heel.
His head snaps up when he hears voices, and he takes the box from my lap, his fingertips briefly touching my thigh, before shoving it under the seat between us. “You’re ready?” he asks, looking out to where an older couple approaches us, waving and smiling broadly.
“Absolutely,” I say, because it seems like offering the exact opposite answer from how I feel is the right way to go here. Warm and polite, I tell myself, again, as I get out of the car. Aiden comes around to my side, and there’s a tense moment where I wonder if he’s going to do something weird, like put an arm around me or try to hold my hand, but he only comes to stand by me, surely closer than he would otherwise, but definitely not in a Hi, old friends, this is my fiancée type way. “These are the Dillards,” he says, low into my ear, so I guess he’s warning me that it’s really showtime.
“Oh, it’s you! It’s you!” says the woman, clasping her hands together as she approaches. She’s short, compact, her dark, curly hair cropped close to her scalp, her boots and khakis and green thermal all about function. Beside her, in an almost identical outfit, is a tall, lanky man, his pale skin a contrast to hers, his eyes kind behind wire-rimmed glasses.
The woman stretches out her arms for a hug, first from Aiden, and then, surprisingly, from me. “I can’t believe he waited so long to tell us he’d be bringing you,” she says, pulling back and holding me at arm’s length, smiling widely.
“Lorraine,” the man says, setting a hand on her back. “Let’s give her a minute to get introduced.”
Beside me, Aiden shifts, maybe moves a fraction closer. “Paul, Lorraine—this is Zoe. Zoe, this is Paul and Lorraine Dillard, who—uh. Who I’ve told you about.”
Barely, I think, but I keep my smile pasted on, reaching out a hand to Paul, and then to Lorraine, who merely gives me another hug. “Can you believe he left us a message saying he’d gotten engaged?”
“Oh. Um, sure. I can believe that,” I say. “Sort of a—strong and silent type, this one.”
She laughs, steps back to pat his arm. “You sure are right!” I like the drawl in her voice, more pronounced than what I usually hear in the city. “He’s always been a little like that. Wait until I show you the pictures I have of him, from every year he came. You’ll love that—”
“Did you have a cabin picked out for us?” Aiden says, interrupting her, and I stiffen with the awkwardness of it, with the taken-aback expression on Lorraine’s face. He’s being rude to this woman who is so obviously happy to see him, and who is one-half of the couple he needs to impress to buy his precious campground.
“Oh, goodness,” I say, playfully slapping his arm, a gesture I hope I pull off. “That’s my fault, Mrs. Dillard. The whole way up here all I could talk about was seeing one of these cabins! I’ve never been to a camp like this—I’m so excited!” That right there is more exclamations than I’ve ever used in polite company.
She smiles, points a finger at me. “No Mrs. Dillard stuff. I’m Lorraine to everyone who comes here, even the kids, and I’ll be Lorraine to you too.”
“Yes, of course,” I say, happy that I seem to have defused the situation. Paul tells us we must be tired from the trip up, that most of the other guests won’t be here for another hour or so, and so we might as well go on up to our cabin, settle in a bit before lunch at 12:30.
“We can catch up then, and you can account for being so out of touch, young man.” Lorraine pats Aiden’s arm again. She takes a lanyard from around her neck and disentangles a key, passing it to him. “Now I set you up in your old cabin, and I hope that’s all right. I realize it might be a little strange for you, but you’ll have lovely Zoe here to keep you company. And we’ve prayed on this, Aiden, Paul and me, and we think it’s right for you to stay in that cabin.”
I look up to catch Aiden’s throat move with a tense swallow as he takes the key, offering a brief nod. “It’ll be all right,” he says quietly. A fiancée, I think, would know what that pained look in his eyes is. A fiancée would reach out, take his hand, or maybe lean into him in comfort.
I do neither. Next to him, I am so acutely aware of the stance I’ve taken, all business: back straight, shoulders square, my hands clasped loosely in front of me. I’m blowing it, I think, even as Lorraine turns to me, smiling widely.
“If you’ve never been to a camp like this one, I should warn you that the accommodations are spartan. But that’s as it should be. Keeps our campers in the great outdoors as much as possible. And I think you’ll find you’ve got everything you need, though it can take a bit to get used to at first.”
Lorraine is so welcoming, such a contrast to the last two hours in the truck that I kind of want to ask her if she’ll take me in, let me stay in that nice lodge with her and Paul. But Aiden and this spartan cabin are part of my penance, I guess, so I return her smile and say, “I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’m pretty mentally tough.”
Beside me, Aiden makes an unfamiliar noise.
I think it might’ve been a laugh.
* * * *
It was cool when we’d set off this morning, but as we make our way to our cabin—a not-insignificant hike through narrow, wooded trails, it heats up quick—the sun peeks through the cracks in the trees, starting to turn for the autumn season. By the time we reach a clearing, my back is damp with sweat where my pack has pressed against it, my shoulders are sore from its weight. No surprise that before last week I’d never owned a backpack of this size, and I suspect the woman at the outdoor sports store was trolling me when she sold me this one.
“Right up ahead,” Aiden says as we trudge on, and a small cul-de-sac of four cabins comes into view, a wooden sign announcing them as the Good News 1 cabins.
“Good News?” I ask, trying to make my stride look natural as I rush to keep up with him. I’m tall, but Aiden’s legs eat up this ground like tractor wheels.
“Gospels. There’s four cabin sites like this, each with four cabins.”
“You’re sure it’s okay with Lorraine and Paul that we’re staying together in here? With us not being married and all?”
He shrugs. “They don’t tend to fuss over things that don’t matter.” I pause a half step, thinking of that. Things that don’t matter? Maybe I was way off base and unfair, but Aiden’s talk of the Dillards being “traditional”—not to mention cabins named after Gospels—had me expecting something a lot different here, something a little less…flexible? I want to ask him about that, but he’s forged ahead, head down, making his way up to the second cabin on our right.
When I catch up, he’s paused in front of the door, his body still. Then he turns back toward me, snags a water from the side pocket of his bag, and holds it out. “You look hot,” he says, pushing the bottle at my hand. There’s no kindness in the gesture; it’s like I’ve insulted him by being too warm.
“Mr. O’Leary, how you flatter me,” I snipe back, taking the bottle and twisting the cap off with a satisfying crack. He watches as I take a few sips, and I lower the bottle. “Are we going to stand here all day, or…?”
If I weren’t watching him so closely, I’d miss the way his shoulders raise slightly from the deep breath he’s taking in through his nose. He turns his back to me again, fumbles the key in the door, a quick flick of his wrist to open it.
As soon as I cross the threshold, I drop my pack on the floor, taking another long drink of water to keep myself from letting out the groan of relief I feel at having it off. I’d like to sit down right where I stand, start unlacing the boots that feel too new, too tight, but I’m too curious to check out the cabin and see what manner of domestic lunacy I’m supposed to endure while I’m here.
And it is, in fact, domestic lunacy. I’m standing in a long room, cheap tile floors underneath my feet, two sinks bolted to the wall on my left. Past them, two putty-colored stalls, same as you’d find in a public restroom. And past that? A pale blue, very thin curtain hanging from a square of steel rods, a utilitarian showerhead visible above.
“Nope,” I say, and turn back toward the door.
I hear Aiden’s derisive snort behind me. “This is that mental toughness you mentioned?”
I stop, turn back to face him. He’s leaning in the doorway that leads to the part of the cabin I haven’t yet seen, his arms crossed over his chest, his gaze assessing. But there’s this quirk at the edge of his mouth, not a smile, but the beginnings of one. I’d like to make him smile for real, I think, surprising myself. It’s the way he holds it back, that’s the thing. It makes me want to chase a smile right onto his face.
I take a deep breath, look again at the sinks, the stalls, the shower. “Here’s the deal. You leave this cabin when I have to—when I use the facilities, or shower. You can wait outside on the front stoop, and I’ll knock when I’m done.”
“Fine.”
“Fine,” I repeat back, brushing past him to see the rest of the cabin.
It’s clear that everything here is designed for functionality, for summers of kids and teenagers. Commercial-grade carpet, a seen-better-days pine dresser with a drawer missing, and two sets of bunk beds, the kind of plastic mattresses I had in my college dorm room, each with a set of sheets and a thick navy blanket folded on top. There’s a desk pushed underneath the cabin’s one window, a compact wood chair to match, and no way is Aiden ever going to be able to sit in that thing, let alone get his legs underneath the desk. Come to think of it, he’s not going to fit easily in one of the bunk beds, either, so at least I’m not the only one who doesn’t quite belong here.
“Top or bottom?” he says, hefting my pack from where I dropped it and bringing it over to me.
“Uh. Bottom?” I say, pointing to the bunk that’s closest to the far wall. He sets his own pack on the bottom bunk that sits a few feet away, and I don’t like this, the thought of us sleeping next to each other, even with a few feet of floor between us. “Top,” I correct.
“Harder to make the bed up there.”
“That’s okay. I’ve never slept in a bunk bed. Might as well get the full experience.”
“Suit yourself.”
For a while we unpack in silence, Aiden making up his bed first, me pulling out my few items of clothing and placing them in a single drawer. It’s a strange sort of quiet, none of the faint mechanical noise I’m used to hearing in my condo—the HVAC kicking on or shutting off, the hum of my appliances, the tinny noise of the television even when it’s switched off. On the drive, at least we had the noise from the car engine, and, when the music had given way to static, the sonorous tones of the NPR station Aiden had found to get us through the rest of the way. So maybe it’s this particular quiet that makes me extra aware of the way he moves, sharp and forceful as he tucks the sheets, as he arranges his bag at the foot of his bed. When even those noises have faded, I turn toward him, and find him standing there beside his pack, one hand clenched around the metal bed frame, his eyes focused on the top bunk.
“I need to go out,” he says suddenly, releasing the bed and heading for the entryway.
“Wait—what?”
He takes a quick look at his watch. “I’ll be back in an hour so we can walk over to the lodge for lunch.”
“Wait—” I repeat, more forcefully this time, but he talks right over me.
“I’ll be on the west trail,” he says, which means absolutely nothing to me. I have no idea why he’d even say it.
“Aiden.” He pauses, turning his profile toward me. He really is handsome, carved planes for cheekbones, his nose bold—on a smaller man, it would be prominent, the first thing you’d notice. But on Aiden it’s perfectly fitted. “You can’t leave me here.”
But he can leave me here. He’s got no reason not to. There are no witnesses to this; there’s no one here to fake it for. I’m not an idiot—based on what Lorraine said down at the lodge, and based on that hollow look in Aiden’s eyes, this cabin is full of painful memories for him. If we were friends—if he were even willing to try to be friends, I could ask him, maybe, if he’s okay. If he’d like to go for a walk. Or, hell, help me make my top bunk, which I can see now is clearly going to be complicated. At the very least that ought to give him the pleasure of mocking me further.
“One hour,” he says, and then he’s gone.